Heavy Attacks - Some ideas to bring other weapons into viability

Stx

So it’s kind of odd and very unbalanced that for this long lightning staves (and resto staves) are the only viable weapons to use with a heavy attack build due to how they deal damage as a channel and how that damage interacts with sets that add a flat damage amount to heavy attacks such as Sergeants or Noble duelist.

Edit: and when I say viable, I mean currently when compared directly to Lightning, all other weapons deal roughly 25-33% less damage over time. I’m not talking about level of content or anything, strictly balance.

I think some changes could easily be made to bring all weapons into a space where they could be used for heavy attack builds to produce results closer to that of the Lightning staff.

1) All sets that “adds X damage to your heavy attacks” could be changed to either “your heavy attacks deal X% more damage” or “Increases the weapon and spell damage for heavy attacks by X” still keeping the ‘against monsters’ bit.

2) another option would be to adjust the current sets that add flat damage to heavy attacks to interact in a different way with channeled attacks (and also increase the amount to compensate). So that the flat damage listed on the set would apply itself over the course of the channel instead of with each tick. Basically this would buff all other weapons.

I love heavy attack builds for soloing and open world content, but I am getting tired of only using Lightning staves and regardless of me this is just common sense game balancing. Let’s make it happen!

Thank you

Necrotech_Master

a lot of the problem with most weapons heavy attacks is the lack of AOE, most light/heavy attacks are typically only single target

only 2 weapons offer aoe on their heavy attacks: lightning staff and 2h weapons

2h weapons is disadvantaged mainly because its melee only and still lacking the 2 extra ticks that lightning staff has

technically speaking there is nothing stopping you from using any other weapon for heavy attacks, but their effectiveness will be limited compared to the lightning staff

in a vacuum with only single target dmg considered, resto and lightning staff perform roughly the same for a heavy attack build (lightning slightly outperforms due to the destro passives increasing the dmg), mostly because they get the extra ticks that are buffed by HA sets

your option 1 change would actually be a huge massive nerf to heavy attack sets, adding flat values is significantly stronger than % values

your option 2 is not buffing other weapons, its nerfing specifically lightning and resto

Stx

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

your option 1 change would actually be a huge massive nerf to heavy attack sets, adding flat values is significantly stronger than % values

your option 2 is not buffing other weapons, its nerfing specifically lightning and resto

I disagree. I specifically used X as the value for my proposed changes because that value would determine if they would be a buff/nerf and proper calculations would need to be done to keep Lightning damage where it’s at with the changes.

Renato90085

i think main problem not dps it about aoe dmg and cast time
HA build is a lazy/easy play style...who will want go melee(mean need dodge dmg and your HA miss when boss move) or do st dmg , clean trash so slow(bow)

Necrotech_Master

Stx wrote: »

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

your option 1 change would actually be a huge massive nerf to heavy attack sets, adding flat values is significantly stronger than % values

your option 2 is not buffing other weapons, its nerfing specifically lightning and resto

I disagree. I specifically used X as the value for my proposed changes because that value would determine if they would be a buff/nerf and proper calculations would need to be done to keep Lightning damage where it’s at with the changes.

if thats the case its value would still end up being higher than the other weapons aside from resto if your trying to keep the dmg the same as it is now

but that would then also require having a variable amount of dmg per weapon type

adding flat or % dmg to lightning or resto is always going to be 3x higher unless they nerfed it to not include the 2 dot ticks

even if it was somehow balanced like that, lightning would still be the best slotted for HA builds because of trifocus (aoe) and being ranged dmg

almost any way you change it, lightning is still going to end up pulling far ahead, and not because of how the HA sets buff it, but because it has the largest aoe and its ranged

Taril

In order to make other weapons viable for HA, you'd need to both adjust how LS and RS gain extra damage from sets AND directly improve other weapons HA's.

Removing the extra benefit that LS/RS get from their channelled HA would allow weapon types to be more competitive damagewise.

Other weapon types need improvements to passives to help them find a place. For example;

- 2h having a larger AoE radius and uncapped target limit on HA from Forceful. Could make it an alternative to LS for AoE HA.

- DW and Bow could do additional ST damage if things like Slaughter worked to give execute scaling on HA (Like how Ruffian works on all DW attacks not just abilities) while Hawk Eye could work both ways LA/HA gives the bow ability damage buff and bow abilities grant LA/HA damage buff.

- SnB would be neat if its HA was actually a Bash. Then you'd be able to make use of HA in a Bash build.

- Inferno Staff I dunno... Is its Trifocus effect considered part of the HA and thus boosted by HA sets or nah?

Kelenan7368

If your referring to Sergeant's mail heavy attack builds lightning staff rules.
But there are other set currently and forth coming that will integrate other weapons nicely over lighting staff.

So are other weapons viable in heavy attack builds? Yes.

But not for sergeants mail.

LunaFlora

it would be awesome if all Staves had a channel heavy attack

Arcanasx

Would be nice if they'd fix dual wield heavy attacks so that they'd actually do more damage than a dual wield light attack.