[X] My Assistant

Yeah... I'm not reading all that.

I'll try to place my melee comparing analysis in the test thread to cut filler content later tonight/tomorrow.

Sorry about that. (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/unsure.gif)

I'll try to make it as readable as possible like the tips Scremaz showed me as well.

Yeah... I'm not reading all that.

come on, be the good mod and give the example (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/tongue.gif)

What example?

I can understand that viewpoint, as for the last major patch(which I believe was 0.82, right?), the consumable changes gave everyone a broken mechanic to use, even ruining the whole point of having trained pack rat to the max.

The fact that you had to train pack rat to the max to have a chance to finish long arenas without resorting to countless focus/defend was horribly broken already.
Melee needing to cast holy spell + drain was simply stupid.
Current system is probably a bit less punishing that what it should ideally be, but it's a game, forcing the user to fully train, cast combination of spells and use a lot of skills was not a good idea design wise.
That's why there was a patch.
You identify a problem, you fix it.
Sometime the fix is too strong, buy you don't just change everything because there is no perfect balance.
No good games do that, ask yourself why.

just looking at the low price of BoS currently compared to what they used to be in the past, with phazons going for skyrocketing prices and the current META being Mage Verse, it's true that a game changing patch can break the game instead of fixing it.

What, 110k vs 190k?
So 110 is low and 190 skyrocketing high?
I'm not really buying that.

the fact that too many changes might create new METAs and broken mechanics shouldn't be a major reason as to why these changes shouldn't take place

Yes it is, that's why it's never done and that's why new systems are extensively playtested before being released (and even that doesn't give a 100% chance of not introducing bad changes).
You have done neither.
It's not about the changes being bad or good (I didn't even read the whole post, I just tl;dr after reading a page worth of modifications), it's just the fact that they are too many, too long to read, impossible to playtest or really comment, hard to implement (that alone would actually be enough, Tenboro has better things to do in his free time).

but both weapons on base level are quite different.

So you are assuming low-level players don't IW their weapon? (because at lvl 300 or so everyone
I guess it's a fair argument, if it wasn't for the fact that low-level players won't grind mage prof while playing melee.
So instead of fixing the problem for low level players you break the game for high-level ones?

The market also easily shows that ethereal weapons are the more sought ones with their prices, with artic followed close by due to the good strike + spike shield combo, with holy and dark followed close by due to average monster resistances and schoolgirls, but all elemental prefixes still have a great price difference for melee weapons compared to ethereal.

Depends, for rapier ethereal, holy and dark get pretty much similar bids, and for sure artic is not valued even remotely similar to those three.
For DW/2H gear ethereal is valued a lot more, but well, it's obviously designed to be the best (and sacrifices EDB to do so) so I'm not really sure why do you really think it should be changed...

This is all about what a long time consuming game is all about:
-level grinding
-proficiency grinding
-getting gear upgrades
-looking for new things to do at endgame out of boredom(trying new styles, going after collectibles, speedrunning and/or trying to improve clear times)

None of the options above are forced upon the player.

People who choose to grind staff proficiencies going to a crude Item World at IWBTH or PFUDOR just want proficiency fast, as gaining them would usually be something earned naturally while playing every day doing micro managing with ether taps, but staff proficiency currently falls behind due to mages not using normal attacks in their speedruns.

Grinding magic proficiencies for melee would basically give players the option to go after them if they want some extra damage, which can just be done naturally playing little by little every day or in a matter of days with proficiency grinding.

I'm maging since 9 months.
I'm doing 3 arena daily with imperil + drain on cooldown.
I still haven't maxed the depr prof.
If you think HV needs more tedium to min-max the character I guess we are searching two different things in games.
I want to have a little fun, not subject myself to hours of tedium and boredom.
When you require players to play in a specific manner to gain some benefits it's usually because of design errors.
And no other parts of HV do this (staff prof was clearly influenced by pre-patch mages so I guess it can be excused).
The fact that you want for HV to be designed in a worse way just blows my mind.

I'm not forcing the player to be bored, I'm just adding boring parts for the sake of it
Sorry, but that's just plain stupid.

What example?

reading and commenting. (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/duck.gif)


jokes apart, i start to think that kinights may have brought up some interesting points, but somehow he/she/it lacks a bit of experience. which is neither a mockery nor anything similar, simply a matter of fact. sapo is trying to give you a quick update, and joe in his own way is telling you that walltext was quite heavy to read. see it this way.

allow me a question: you yourself said you aren't that good of a mage - me neither. how many melee styles did you play?

This post has been edited by Scremaz: Mar 22 2017, 23:52

The fact that you had to train pack rat to the max to have a chance to finish long arenas without resorting to countless focus/defend was horribly broken already.
Melee needing to cast holy spell + drain was simply stupid.
Current system is probably a bit less punishing that what it should ideally be, but it's a game, forcing the user to fully train, cast combination of spells and use a lot of skills was not a good idea design wise.
That's why there was a patch.
You identify a problem, you fix it.
Sometime the fix is too strong, buy you don't just change everything because there is no perfect balance.
No good games do that, ask yourself why.

I wasn't really a high level player during the pre 0.82 time, probably in the 200~250 levels, so I can't say anything about how hard it was for players to clear long arenas on the higher difficulties.

I used to play mostly on nightmare/hell, with non-forged gear, IW weapon around 3~5, no scripts(because I wasn't really a forum person at the time, didn't know any basics of coding and was against the idea off adding things to my browser a stranger on the internet made) and didn't even touch schoolgirl arenas.

If you consider old schoolgames, which the difficulties Nintendo and Battletoads made references to, it was clear that the game was designed to be hard and if you couldn't clear a certain arena at Nintendo for example, you could continue clearing it in Hell while leveling up until you could get some gear improvements or forging your equipment.

If players who were trying to clear arenas at IWBTH with max forged gear and high levels were suffering in the longest arenas, it could be considered a big flaw, making the game actually impossible to clear even with max level and the best equipment.

However, if it was doable(never was at that level myself, so no idea about that) and players were simply dissatisfied with the high difficulty and time taken to clear the game, getting the patch with unlimited consumables and then now, two years later, many players being away because the game is too easy, waiting for new things to do or some new difficulties to make the game harder again, then it's simply that people want to change the game to fit their personal tastes instead of letting the game be it's own thing.

What, 110k vs 190k?
So 110 is low and 190 skyrocketing high?
I'm not really buying that.

Going back to the time pre 0.82, BoS used to be around the price people want in their WTBs, around 140k+ or something, right?

I don't remember the old phazon price, but I'm quite sure it used to be lower than BoS, as I remember being quite happy whenever a monster brought me a BoS, but wishing it was a BoS when it brought a phazon, which is quite the opposite nowadays.

Other than that, the price of phazons is almost double what you can get BoS for if you are patient with WTBs.

I talked about how I didn't know if the 0.82 patch messed with the economy too much, and gave the example of the BoS and Phazon(which I believe basically flipped prices) to show how the economy changed form mostly melee based to mage based, as I was talking about how some people don't want major patches that might affect the economy and effectively make their assets lose value.

...so just the fact that too many changes might create new METAs and broken mechanics shouldn't be a major reason as to why these changes shouldn't take place, as they can be fixed reasonably fast in a ptach some months later, or even on the same day if it's something completely broken.

Yes it is, that's why it's never done and that's why new systems are extensively playtested before being released (and even that doesn't give a 100% chance of not introducing bad changes).
You have done neither.
It's not about the changes being bad or good (I didn't even read the whole post, I just tl;dr after reading a page worth of modifications), it's just the fact that they are too many, too long to read, impossible to playtest or really comment, hard to implement (that alone would actually be enough, Tenboro has better things to do in his free time).

I doubt Tenboro would ever get something like play testers before releasing patches, as the players can easily do that.

Reading 0.82 patch notes thread, people were doing arenas looking for bugs, were linking equipments, suggesting changes/fixes and giving a mountain of feedback, where Tenboro appared from time to time to give answers, but other members were already discussing and answering questions hours after the patch went live.

There was also a smaller patch on the same year to bring some changes related to the previous bigger patch, so it's not like another major patch like 0.82 will break the game and leave it unfixable in the future, as Tenboro can appear tomorrow with a patch introducing monster deprecating spells that can silence, crushing the mages META and then fix it in the same day as an Aprl Fools. (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/rolleyes.gif)

Also, I intended my post to be a huge list of suggestions for a melee overhaul, much like the list of suggestions Maximun Joe has, so it's not like I want them all in a single patch, so I apologize if I made it sound like that.

It can come in small patches, like getting rid of chain skills first and giving overcharge rate gain to DW and 2H to use their skills.

A next one can bring changes to the weapons, another changes to abilities and so on.

So you are assuming low-level players don't IW their weapon? (because at lvl 300 or so everyone
I guess it's a fair argument, if it wasn't for the fact that low-level players won't grind mage prof while playing melee.
So instead of fixing the problem for low level players you break the game for high-level ones?

As a low level player back then, I did IW my weapon myself, but only reached IW 8 iirc.

The situation might have changed nowadays, with IW services available as well, but when I found such a barrier, I bought some mage equipment from the bazaar and started holy maging, thinking I would get some extra damage on my holy shortsword(don't even ask (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/ph34r.gif) ) and then when I started being active on forums, I found the cold shocking truth that magic proficiency didn't affect the elemental damage at all.

Back on track, I didn't specify any numbers, but I was considering absolute numbers, like a void strike for 5000 damaga and an elemental for 2500 damage, so trainning magic proficiencies would bring the elemental damage right on par with void.

Of course, more realistic numbers like 4750 void and 2600 elemental might make me sound like I want ethereal to be weaker than elemental strikes, but that's my fault in wording it badly.

Other than that, even in my broken example, it wouldnt break the game for anyone, as IW weapons would have both a void strike and an elemental one. The only thing that could break is the weapon economy, but that's player driven and can break any time for any reason.

Depends, for rapier ethereal, holy and dark get pretty much similar bids, and for sure artic is not valued even remotely similar to those three.
For DW/2H gear ethereal is valued a lot more, but well, it's obviously designed to be the best (and sacrifices EDB to do so) so I'm not really sure why do you really think it should be changed...

This is related to the weapon changes I suggested.

The easiest way to undestand this is a players reaction if he got a legendary rapier:
-legendary ethereal rapier of slaughter - YES!!! WHAT ARE THE ROLLS!!?
-legendary fiery rapier of slaughter - Oh, nice! Hopefully the rolls are good.
-legendary *** rapier of the banshee - Trash...

My suggestions to weapons are to make meaningful drops meaningful regardless of the kind, so instead of having Tenboro messing around with drop rate increases, which will probably never happen, making weapons more equal is a more reasonable suggestion.

I'm maging since 9 months.
I'm doing 3 arena daily with imperil + drain on cooldown.
I still haven't maxed the depr prof.
If you think HV needs more tedium to min-max the character I guess we are searching two different things in games.
I want to have a little fun, not subject myself to hours of tedium and boredom.
When you require players to play in a specific manner to gain some benefits it's usually because of design errors.
And no other parts of HV do this (staff prof was clearly influenced by pre-patch mages so I guess it can be excused).
The fact that you want for HV to be designed in a worse way just blows my mind.

I'm not forcing the player to be bored, I'm just adding boring parts for the sake of it
Sorry, but that's just plain stupid.

Like I said, no one is forcing anyone to grind proficiencies.

If you do 3 arenas per day and use two deprecating spells, eventually one day you will max deprecating proficiency.

Maxing it isn't something that comes as fast as your attack magic proficiency, where if you level up and do 3 arenas it will probably be at max again.

Some proficiencies are basically like the 500 max level, where I'm here for a bit less than 5 years and still far from it, and you as well, a bit less than 8 years and not at level cap.

This of course falls to each person's playstyle and even available time to play in RL, where some just play to pass some time, some grind all arenas, some do PFUDORfests to grind hard and others simply browse the forums to talk with others and test one thing or other from time to time.

If you just dislike the presence of something that the game lets you do, like level up for example, but find the fact that you can't level up once per day, effectively finishing the game in less than two years, then just ignore it.

It's not uncommon for games to offer benefits to players that spend time in them, like a level 500 being able to soulfuse anything in the game for the base price against me needing 1500 Soul Fragments to souldbind a gear that will give me more benefits.

allow me a question: you yourself said you aren't that good of a mage - me neither. how many melee styles did you play?

On my early days I used heavy+2H, then changed to leather around level 200 and went away from the game.

After 0.82, I started being more active around the forums, using 1H since then, and now finally returning actively in the game since January after selling my stack of stocking stuffers and deciding to grind credits for a gold star.

I don't have actual practice in the playstyles, with all these suggestions coming from all the theory I learned while lurking on the Ask the Experts, What's the last thing you accomplished and Ponyverse threads, taking notes from player discussions and possible improvements, nerfs, additions or simple changes to make 2H and DW better.

That's why pretty much my entire suggestions are base theory, which is spread in countless threads, where I simply "indexed" them and left the changes I believe would be the most meaningful to make melee better.

I don't have actual practice in the playstyles, with all these suggestions coming from all the theory I learned while lurking on the Ask the Experts, What's the last thing you accomplished and Ponyverse threads, taking notes from player discussions and possible improvements, nerfs, additions or simple changes to make 2H and DW better.

That's why pretty much my entire suggestions are base theory, which is spread in countless threads, where I simply "indexed" them and left the changes I believe would be the most meaningful to make melee better.

thought so. i suggest you to assemble some other builds and try them out a bit - like, saying, if you already have a rapier of slaughter then go find a waki of nimble and some shade of fleet. when you have a waki, also a katana of slaughter. if you look a bit at auctions, you may not have to sink so many credits. maybe you'll confirm what you already wrote, maybe not. but at least you won't have to rely on indexed things anymore. i won't say those aren't reliable sources of infos (afterall, i post myself daily on those to make them a bit better as much as i can), but you cannot propose fixes and whatnot based on what others say.

just to give you an example, 2H is currently regarded as shit, but cmos found it to be viable with Shade armors, FRD and some other things. without actual tests it would've been only vaguely hint-able.

i won't say those aren't reliable sources of infos (afterall, i post myself daily on those to make them a bit better as much as i can), but you cannot propose fixes and whatnot based on what others say.

just to give you an example, 2H is currently regarded as shit, but cmos found it to be viable with Shade armors, FRD and some other things. without actual tests it would've been only vaguely hint-able.

From my 2H analysis:

Survivability

-no good class specific way to crowd control(only crowd control skill available is Shatter Strike, which has a real cost of 150% of overcharge to be reached, while FUS RO DAH costs only 100%, has the same cooldown and hits all enemies on the round), with only other choice being deprecating spells, using a mace hoping for mass stuns or using FUS RO DAH if available

From Final Considerations after all the filler analysis:

I apologize if I added some wrong arguments, numbers or anything to the comparison above, but I'm pretty sure on what I'll say now:

One-handed without a doubt is the most viable and effective melee fighting style currently, not lacking anything from survivability to damage, with Dual Wielding following next, only behind it pretty much because of the existence of Overwhelming Strikes and the counter-attacks from blocking and parrying.

Unfortunately Two-Handed and Niten style aren't viable fighting styles nowadays, as you might spend more time ccing monsters than hitting them, or might just be building overcharge for OFC, not even touching the available skills.

Of course there are some available niche "styles" that can include FUS RO DAH or some spells, giving these classes actual gameplay and micro management, but it becomes tiresome fast doing the same style over and over while being less effective than others if you are fighting to grind credits or for other reasons when there's much more effective fighting styles that don't require micro management at all.

The FUS RO DAH included in 2H and Niten were thanks to the post of cmos you mentioned, as it also gave me the realization that 2H is currently a style dependent on debuffs to cc monsters while attacking, or else I would just say it's trash and unplayable like most people as well, when it's just extremely slow and requires a lot of micro management, which still makes id bad compared to 1H and DW, but not unplayable at least.

I'm actually catching up on the threads since October form last year, so I read quite a bit of content, and as I didn't really want to be even more precise showing calculations and the like(as I would need to go through the entire threads again to look exactly who said what) I simply used the wiki to back most of my arguments and make my own suggestions, change previously made ones or just copy+paste what I read previously that seemed reasonable.

It's not like I took posts like "1H is too overpowered and needs a nerf already" or "just give perma spirit stance to DW and 2H and don't nerf 1H" as basis for my suggestions, as those are just things players want, and not actual suggestions to improve the styles as a whole without deep thoguht about how it could break them.

I based everything on reasonable arguments spread around with calculations, comparison between gear, people showing stats and anything else came from the wiki, which I have been relying on since my early days.

So long as someone reads my suggestions and takes them as simple suggestions, instead of thinking that I'm completely sure of whatever I'm talking about in there(which I'm not, as you proved earlier about my misconception of the Overwhelming Strikes buff) and that I'm not open to make changes and adjustments, then some changes, fixes or anything else can be discussed about what is needed instead of simply looking the other way when something you dislike is described and supporting only what is benefitial for the reader(like a 1H player liking the part about raising the number of counters with proficiency but being against everything else).

So long as someone reads my suggestions and takes them as simple suggestions, instead of thinking that I'm completely sure of whatever I'm talking about in there(which I'm not, as you proved earlier about my misconception of the Overwhelming Strikes buff) and that I'm not open to make changes and adjustments, then some changes, fixes or anything else can be discussed about what is needed instead of simply looking the other way when something you dislike is described and supporting only what is benefitial for the reader(like a 1H player liking the part about raising the number of counters with proficiency but being against everything else).

In-depth discussions like these are certainly useful. The next HV update will be of a more technical nature rather than balancing or additions, but there's some good points here that will likely be implemented at some point.

In-depth discussions like these are certainly useful. The next HV update will be of a more technical nature rather than balancing or additions, but there's some good points here that will likely be implemented at some point.

Thanks for the update on the situation of the upcoming patch.

I actually decided to make the whole lengthy suggestion list because considering the release date of previous patches, they happened in the period around May~July, so I was considering the next one would probably only come after the Easter event ends this year, so in case it was a patch related to any of my suggestions, hopefully they could help somehow.

If I can add a suggestion directly to a higher up after posting the wall texts here, I would say that allowing users to create something like Maximun Joe's suggestion list in the wiki should be interesting, as even though this thread should be enough, the many suggestions a user can make end up spread among the many pages, or end up like a giant compilation like my previous posts, so even if a mod or admin can save the post or suggestion somewhere, they might still end up lost or forgotten.

It can become something like a perk as well, where users can pay some hath to get the right to have a suggestion page or get it with a star. It should also be much cleaner and able to be edited much easier than in the forums, with an actual index allowing the reader to skip to any part of the list, like combat, technical, gallery or other specific suggestions they made.

Other than this, what I saw recently and is a good techinical feature that could come in the next patch and should be somehow easy to implement is to get a MM notification if the player won an auction. It should make many players' lives easier. (I believe it was a suggestion by decondelite. I'll try to save posts or at least names in the future to link to my changed/supported suggestions)

This post has been edited by Kinights: Mar 23 2017, 17:43

It can become something like a perk as well, where users can pay some hath to get the right to have a suggestion page or get it with a star.

The wiki is free-to-edit for everyone as long as they are members of E-H. No noteworthy benefit to changing that.

Going back to the time pre 0.82, BoS used to be around the price people want in their WTBs, around 140k+ or something, right?
I don't remember the old phazon price, but I'm quite sure it used to be lower than BoS, as I remember being quite happy whenever a monster brought me a BoS, but wishing it was a BoS when it brought a phazon, which is quite the opposite nowadays.
Other than that, the price of phazons is almost double what you can get BoS for if you are patient with WTBs.
I talked about how I didn't know if the 0.82 patch messed with the economy too much, and gave the example of the BoS and Phazon(which I believe basically flipped prices) to show how the economy changed form mostly melee based to mage based, as I was talking about how some people don't want major patches that might affect the economy and effectively make their assets lose value.

When I played before the patch (which was the first half of 2015) people were exchanging BoS for Phazons 1:1 at WTB, so they were about the same price and it continued for some time even after the patch iirc. Most high levels players were mages even before the patch. What the patch did change is the exp requirements to reach the high levels and made leveling up like several dozen times easier. Before danixxx had to grind for years while being a Catgirl with many awards and toplist bonuses to reach 500, while nowadays anyone can reach 500 if they play more or less actively for a year. The higher amount of mages is the consequence of that. It's much saner system than before and wouldn't be a bad thing if there was something to do past 500.

The FUS RO DAH included in 2H and Niten were thanks to the post of cmos you mentioned, as it also gave me the realization that 2H is currently a style dependent on debuffs to cc monsters while attacking, or else I would just say it's trash and unplayable like most people as well, when it's just extremely slow and requires a lot of micro management, which still makes id bad compared to 1H and DW, but not unplayable at least.

2h with FRD is faster and much safer than DW everywhere except for RoB and SG arenas. I haven't played enough 1h to be sure, but I think the "mindless" 1h play without OFC would be about the same or maybe even slower than 2h and if you add OFC then it becomes the same micro-management.

-no major differences with chosen weapons during low levels and lower difficulties
-best possible weapons to use on higher levels and higher difficulties being the mace to hope for mass stunned monsters or the estoc to try and kill them as fast as possible hoping they all get PA stacks or even proc it at all

That's just wrong. Mace is by far the best weapon for low levels and allows players to survive high difficulty relatively easily, while for higher levels FRD makes mace obsolete and estoc the best.

-needs to use crowd control spells relatively more than style skills to hold monsters back, only to attack every so often, sometimes even using more mana than mages to fight at a rate many times slower

Well, 1h needs to use OFC which is not a style skill either to be faster, so 2h is not alone.
You only need 1-2 FRD stuns per round, the rest are attacks, so it's not "every so often" at all.
More mana? What? You barely need draughts at all.

-attacks still get parried if the weapon item world potencies don't include overpower for counter-parry small bonus
-splash damage on adjacent mobs, causing max 500% extra damage if hitting 7 monsters, but depends on having the monsters not parry the attack

Non-issue if monsters are stunned. Seriously, FRD was made for 2h and would be quite useless otherwise for everyone.


What 2h really needs is more damage output because it's supposed to be the style dealing the highest amount of damage with the lowest defense, but right now 1h manages to have the highest defense AND the highest offense. It seems you have proposed some suggestions to improve the damage for 2h and I fully support anything that would make 2h with top shades have higher DPS than 1h with top power slaughters, permanent spirit stance and all of its other many damage boosting features.

This post has been edited by cmos: Mar 23 2017, 18:35

there's some good points here that will likely be implemented at some point.

Oh no~
Just don't touch 1h nor its permastance. Just this. I don't want to be forced to mage (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/heh.gif)

When I played before the patch (which was the first half of 2015) people were exchanging BoS for Phazons 1:1 at WTB

Err, it's not exactly correct. A lot of tryhards people still have that line in their wtbs (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/duck.gif)

The wiki is free-to-edit for everyone as long as they are members of E-H. No noteworthy benefit to changing that.

I see. I guess I just didn't look deep enough on how I could create a wiki page to house my suggestions list to make it more reader friendly.

I'll check later today when I edit my posts here as well.

When I played before the patch (which was the first half of 2015) people were exchanging BoS for Phazons 1:1 at WTB, so they were about the same price and it continued for some time even after the patch iirc. Most high levels players were mages even before the patch. What the patch did change is the exp requirements to reach the high levels and made leveling up like several dozen times easier. Before danixxx had to grind for years while being a Catgirl with many awards and toplist bonuses to reach 500, while nowadays anyone can reach 500 if they play more or less actively for a year. The higher amount of mages is the consequence of that. It's much saner system than before and wouldn't be a bad thing if there was something to do past 500.

I see, so the economy just evolved to express the amount of mages and lack of melee players then, instead of simply completely flipping because mages eventually bacame more efficient on clear times and grinding.

So in the end, it wasn't simply because of the unlimited consumable boost, but also because of easier leveling overall that caused the change.

I still wouldn't mind a major update like 0.82 though, as although it might have been somewhat balanced at the start and turned out like this 2 years later, it's mostly due to players that want efficiency sticking to the best META that suits their needs on the current time.

If DW became the new expensive META in a future patch and mages were nerfed as an example, but still decent and with cheaper gear, I would have no issues switching from 1H to play a faster style that's relatively cheap like I'm currently doing, even though there's a more efficient one for higher prices, as my playstyle is more focused on money management than actual clear speed and so on.

2h with FRD is faster and much safer than DW everywhere except for RoB and SG arenas. I haven't played enough 1h to be sure, but I think the "mindless" 1h play without OFC would be about the same or maybe even slower than 2h and if you add OFC then it becomes the same micro-management.

That's just wrong. Mace is by far the best weapon for low levels and allows players to survive high difficulty relatively easily, while for higher levels FRD makes mace obsolete and estoc the best.

Well, 1h needs to use OFC which is not a style skill either to be faster, so 2h is not alone.
You only need 1-2 FRD stuns per round, the rest are attacks, so it's not "every so often" at all.
More mana? What? You barely need draughts at all.

Non-issue if monsters are stunned. Seriously, FRD was made for 2h and would be quite useless otherwise for everyone.
What 2h really needs is more damage output because it's supposed to be the style dealing the highest amount of damage with the lowest defense, but right now 1h manages to have the highest defense AND the highest offense. It seems you have proposed some suggestions to improve the damage for 2h and I fully support anything that would make 2h with top shades have higher DPS than 1h with top power slaughters, permanent spirit stance and all of its other many damage boosting features.

I tried to be as imparcial as possible in my analysis, so I tried not thinking from a singular high or low level player while writing.

I believe I was talking about FUS RO DAH on those parts, saying that maces can be used if it isn't available, or else FUS RO DAH would be a better option for mass stuns.

Other than that, the fact that FUS RO DAH goes great along with 2H, making it a decent playstyle brings the point that Sapo84 brought up.

He disliked the suggestion of grinding magic proficiencies to get bonus damage or effects on weapons, which is similar to the requirement to unlocking the Dovahkiin title to make 2H playable.

The main difference is that the proficiency grinding stays as an option to the player wanting extra damage, where FUS RO DAH currently is a requirement, essentially forcing any player that wants to use 2H to go after the title.

On my analysis considering players that don't have the title yet, I considered maces and cc spells as what the style at it's core offers, like silencing, slowing, weakening, imperiling and stacking debuffs on mobs before attacking, with either a mace to get stun debuffs as well, or an estoc if enough spells were stacked.

Of course it isn't anywhere as efficient as the usage of FUS RO DAH, and the title is relatively easy to get nowadays if one uses 1H to go through the arena, as even legendary power armor is availavle at the bazaar every so often, but it doesn't change the fact that according to what you are saying, 2H is currently locked behind a title to be effectively playable.

Oh no~
Just don't touch 1h nor its permastance. Just this. I don't want to be forced to mage (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/heh.gif)

I believe my suggestion to change counters, not making them always stun and instead granting the max stacks on the used weapon proc(bleed, PA or stun itself), shouldn't nerf the style that much, as it will actually give meaning to using clubs and swords/wakizashis in 1H, getting passive bleeds for continuous damage or max PA while using a sword/wakizashi and rapier respectively, where shield bash can be always used not depending on the weapon to stun an enemy for sure.

For the overcharge and spirit stance matter, my suggestion to incentivize skill usage was to remove the gain of OC from the normal attacks while in spirit stance and raise the number of counters while also removing the limit of overcharge gained from them per turn, relying on the counters(or kills in the case of 2H) to get OC if the player wants to keep the +100% damage bonus on, managing their OC usage(either focusing more on one skill and not mess much with OC, use them a lot and get a turn to let OC refill or anything else possible), as it might run out if there are few enemies to counter/kill during certain times, instead of switching it on once at the start of the battle and not minding it anymore, as it will probably just remain at the cap the whole time.

I suggested this because if ways to gain overcharge were implemented to DW and 2H and my suggestion to remove the chain skill necessity(which I believe is the main game changer for meleers) were implemented, 1H would be left behind by the other melee styles, as it's skills aren't really DPS related, where DW would have the free usage of Frenzied Blows and 2H would have Great Cleave, both always with a +100% damage perma spirit stance modifier.

Personally, I believe the current state of 1H can be summed up to this. I thought about trying fighting in PFUDOR without a weapon, but gave up on the idea, as it probably would take forever, but it should show how broken stun counters at least currently are.

This post has been edited by Kinights: Mar 23 2017, 21:21

He disliked the suggestion of grinding magic proficiencies to get bonus damage or effects on weapons, which is similar to the requirement to unlocking the Dovahkiin title to make 2H playable.

Grinding magic prof as melee is plain stupid. Getting a MELEE skill that uses Overcharge and makes your life much easier is not the same at all. Comparable with OFC again.

The main difference is that the proficiency grinding stays as an option to the player wanting extra damage, where FUS RO DAH currently is a requirement, essentially forcing any player that wants to use 2H to go after the title.
On my analysis considering players that don't have the title yet, I considered maces and cc spells as what the style at it's core offers, like silencing, slowing, weakening, imperiling and stacking debuffs on mobs before attacking, with either a mace to get stun debuffs as well, or an estoc if enough spells were stacked.
Of course it isn't anywhere as efficient as the usage of FUS RO DAH, and the title is relatively easy to get nowadays if one uses 1H to go through the arena, as even legendary power armor is availavle at the bazaar every so often, but it doesn't change the fact that according to what you are saying, 2H is currently locked behind a title to be effectively playable.

I only used lots of debuffs when I was a very low level noob and didn't know how good a mace is. When I got one, life became so much easier. Doubt anything has changed since then, maybe got easier with unlimited items.
Getting the title should be an easy mode with a mace. SG arenas have few monsters per round so they will stay stunned almost always. It will just be sloooow because admittedly 2h sucks at dealing with schoolgirls. And that's fine. Inflicting huge damage to single tanky targets should be the DW's forte while 2h should shine against large mobs of average monsters. Thankfully both 2h and DW go great with the same shades so you only need to get different weapons if you want faster SG clears. And then if you ever want to try Niten, you will have the necessary prof from both styles.

Grinding magic prof as melee is plain stupid. Getting a MELEE skill that uses Overcharge and makes your life much easier is not the same at all. Comparable with OFC again.

FUS RO DAH and OFC are definetly melee restricted skills but they are simply additions that the player can go after, quite like grinding magic proficiencies to buff their damage, not being available at the core of any playstyles.

The core of melee should be the skills the style offers on the get go, not additional stuff that the player can go after, namely FUS RO DAH, OFC or magic proficiencies.

The only difference between these additions is that one takes time to get figurines as selfdrops or money to buy them, the second takes patience to go throught DwD if you don't have enough damage(or are playing 2H like in your example) and the latter takes just time, not even needing to change to mage equipment, using some attack spells here and there in the middle of battle.

If someone just hates grinding, there's simply no reason to go after the bonus damage then, but they also shouldn't be mad that people who don't mind the grind will have a bonus while they won't. That's what is plain stupid in my opinion.

I only used lots of debuffs when I was a very low level noob and didn't know how good a mace is. When I got one, life became so much easier. Doubt anything has changed since then, maybe got easier with unlimited items.
Getting the title should be an easy mode with a mace. SG arenas have few monsters per round so they will stay stunned almost always. It will just be sloooow because admittedly 2h sucks at dealing with schoolgirls. And that's fine. Inflicting huge damage to single tanky targets should be the DW's forte while 2h should shine against large mobs of average monsters. Thankfully both 2h and DW go great with the same shades so you only need to get different weapons if you want faster SG clears. And then if you ever want to try Niten, you will have the necessary prof from both styles.

Even with a mace, 2H would still suffer from the enemy parries, both on IWBTH and PFUDOR, as OP5 won't get rid of the parry of a monster with maxed DEX.

Like you said, 2H isn't a single target focused style, instead being able to hit up to 7 targets, essentialy dealing 6 times the damage in total per turn if all targets are hit.

The issue is that the current 1H, which is supposed to be focused on defense and survivability, the additional +100% damage from permastance, which already doubles the damage, and counting the 3 counters per turn, and in comparison, 2H barely deals 2~3 times the potential damage of 1H per turn, when considering that as it's the style supposed to kill mobs as fast as possible before they can kill you(essentially melee version of mages), it should be dealing around 6~7x times the total damage from 1H if there are no counters, ways to deal with enemy parry like Overwhelming Strikes or defensive measures supporting the fighting style at it's core.

That's my main reason to the suggestion to change the T2 skill to a massive cc hit that doesn't need mana to debuff mobs, have the T3 as a finisher like Merciful Blow and change Overwhelming Strikes to 2H, still leaving 1H with a new buff that is related to the fighting styles core, at least logically.

+Meaningful Edit

I went back to see how the discussion led to this, and while reading paying a bit more attention, I noticed that it started mostly with the counter-arguments on my 2H analisys.

On the topics of your arguments saying that maces are the best weapon for low levels, I believe you didn't consider the part about low difficulties as well.

A new player probably would play on lower difficulties until getting used to how the game work, and if enemis die easily with 1~3 hits while using any two-handed weapon, then a low level playing on normal doesn't really need to care about if a monster is stunned or not if it will die quickly anyways.

The situation changes on higher levels and higher difficulties, but you can't analise the playstyles thinking only about how they work on PFUDOR all the time.

This post has been edited by Kinights: Mar 23 2017, 23:11

A new player probably would play on lower difficulties until getting used to how the game work, and if enemis die easily with 1~3 hits while using any two-handed weapon, then a low level playing on normal doesn't really need to care about if a monster is stunned or not if it will die quickly anyways.

which is one of the reasons because i usually suggest to newbies to stick with a longsword. usually a Mace users accepts to trade a bit of ADB for Stun proc, but if you don't have enough turns for Stun to proc, better to stick with raw ADB at that point.

The core of melee should be the skills the style offers on the get go, not additional stuff that the player can go after, namely FUS RO DAH, OFC or magic proficiencies.

Funny how you complain about certain styles requiring a bit more micro management and then propose changes that would increase micro management for all styles by a huge amount. People don't use skills not just because they suck but because the time and attention required to use them would decrease the clear speed considerably. You may like to take it slow, but the majority of people just want to get it over with and get to the reward phase as soon as possible. Let's be honest here, HV doesn't have the most captivating gameplay out there. (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/rolleyes.gif)

Even with a mace, 2H would still suffer from the enemy parries, both on IWBTH and PFUDOR, as OP5 won't get rid of the parry of a monster with maxed DEX.

We're talking about low-mid PL monsters, they don't have anything close to max dex and very high parry.

The situation changes on higher levels and higher difficulties, but you can't analise the playstyles thinking only about how they work on PFUDOR all the time.

Even disregarding PF, Nintendo or maybe IWBTH should be doable with a mace, not so much with other 2h weapons past a certain point.