Weaponmastery Specs Discussion

Addama

What are you leaning toward?  From what I've gleaned from conversations/logs:

Dual cutting
+Double venom application
+Lunge
+Possibly fastest attacks
+Decent limb prep than S&B
-Boring
-Come on don't tell me you're going to choose this
-Crappy parry mitigation
-Can't double break in one attack

Dual blunt
+REBOUNDING/PARRY/SHIELD MITIGATION JESUS
+Double breaks
+Best limb prep
+Assault (non-impale/dsb kill sequence yay)
-No venoms
-Little/nothing in terms of hindrance
-Almost worthless against Bard (trueparry)
-Probably getting a heavy nerf anyway

Sword & Board
+Impale/Stun for a more reliable disembowel
+Passive paralysis curing
+Blackout and awesome hindrance
+Extra damage mitigation
+Can apply para/sensi/clumsiness/stupidity with shield
-Otherwise, single venom application
-Worst limb prep
-Crappy parry mitigation
-Poor damage

Two-handed
+Afflicts sip speed
+Best damage application
+Can strip rebounding/shield simultaneously
+Passive paralysis curing/standing off-balance
-Slowest attacks
-Poor hindrance
-Slow/no venom application
-Wield/unwield spam, abilities weapon-specific

Discuss.

Achilles

Will probably cheap out and just go two-handed unless the weapon prices are adjusted accordingly.  

Addama

Achilles said:

Will probably cheap out and just go two-handed unless the weapon prices are adjusted accordingly.  

If they are, S&B will probably be cheapest because you can have a SoA (sweet jesus).

Mizik

Dual cut might be clear best for the rapid venom applications. They'll be the high speed disembowel artists. Keep lunge, best in teams for affs, highest speed and accuracy.

Still best damage, since they're the only spec that will have permanent 33% increased damage from sensitivity.

Crappy damage mitigation is incorrect, since it'll still be the best in the entire game -SoA.

The question for us min/maxers becomes: what can you do that I can't?

Daklore

Personally, I don't care about min-maxing. I selected scimitars as my primary weapons a long time ago, I'm not going to change that any time soon. So... that means I'll be dualcutting. S'not like Daklore is known for being fun and exciting anyway

Addama

Ironically scimitars are the min-max solution for dual cutting

rekt

Daklore

I am aware of this, but since i selected them before this even happened, it's not intentional :P Who knows, I might get pissed off at scimitars, admit defeat, and goto longswords or something !_!

Trey

Daklore said:

I am aware of this, but since i selected them before this even happened, it's not intentional :P Who knows, I might get pissed off at scimitars, admit defeat, and goto longswords or something !_!

No you won't.  Dual cutting only scims or battleaxes.

Kalvin

I probably plan on taking dual scims just because I've always wanted to make it viable. All of them sound really interesting though.

Addama

For me, the big thing about S&B and Two Hander is the paralysis curing.  That's a tough one to beat.  Two Hander can also stand off balance and double raze, which makes them really hard to slow down.  Those are pretty massive buffs to Knights.

Dual blunt gets to break two legs at a time and can prevent the things that slow Knight momentum the hardest.  They are above and beyond the offensive powerhouse.  But the lack of effective hindrance kind of puts them in the same place Knights are right now, which is to say, basically incapable of forcing anybody to stay for the kill sequence.

The decision for me mostly rides on what happens to Runeblades.  I can see Nairat being really effective for Dual Blunt or Two-Handed.  But it sounds like they might completely or partially recycle the empowerments.

Aodfionn

Wish I had an RP reason to go SNB, but I don't. 2hand looks really promising, though - excited about double raze. 

Antonius

I kind of want to go SnB just so I have more reasons to wield/display my (newly) customised shield. I'm leaning towards sticking with dual cutting, though; excited to have decently fast weapons for once, and I've always enjoyed the way it's played on the whole.

I'm hoping multiclass will allow me to pick up Paladin with a different spec or that they'll introduce an artefact that allows switching of Knight specs without the constant lesson cost further on down the line though.

Makarios

Op isn't really correct. I'll leave some surprises, but the stuff from the test run is no real secret:

Dualcutting: no possibly here, definitely the fastest. Potent parry bypass given the way the specs intended to be used.

Dualblunt: there'll be a couple surprises here since the last people saw it - you'll have to wait and see!

Sword and board: one of the scarier limb specs. Also has some options not available to any other classes for their offense. Probably the main contender with dualcutting in terms of affliction potential. Decent parry mitigation for the same reasons as dualcutting. The damage is also not bad. This is the spec I suspect will need the most tuning down after we see how its played live.

Twohanded: probably the best hinder once the offense progresses to a certain point (lethargy can't really be overstated).

Addama

So basically, the classes that I stated had poor parry mitigation are getting something for parry mitigation.  Also lethargy via tendons, I guess? 

Good!

Dalran

Addama said:

For me, the big thing about S&B and Two Hander is the paralysis curing.  

(WTF QUOTE BOXES) quick clarification, it's not paralysis curing per say, it's just fighting through the paralysis affliction. You still have to cure it at some point.

Addama

Syntax:            BATTLERAGE CONTINUATION

Details:

You may use this ability to shrug off the affects of paralysis. There is

a fairly substantial delay before you may utilise this ability for a

second time.

That sounds like curing, but I might be wrong, I didn't test it.

Regardless, it's pretty neat because I can prio sensitivity/stupidity/etc while Continuation/Dedication are up.

Joiella

I wish I had been there for the Anarchaea server test. So far, two-hand and S&B sound to be the direction I want to go. Just have to take advantage of the one week test period to make sure I guess.

Dalran

Addama said:

Syntax:            BATTLERAGE CONTINUATION

Details:

You may use this ability to shrug off the affects of paralysis. There is

a fairly substantial delay before you may utilise this ability for a

second time.

That sounds like curing, but I might be wrong, I didn't test it.

Regardless, it's pretty neat because I can prio sensitivity/stupidity/etc while Continuation/Dedication are up.

I'm probably stupid, but think it was 2h does one, and snb does the other. So one might cure it, the other fights through it. That's the 2h you posted, heres the SnB;

Syntax:            DEDICATION

Details:

Your dedication to victory is so great that at the cost of your own

health, you may fight through the affects of paralysis.

Wessux

Depending on what happens with parry mitigation I'm pretty sure the best will be duel cutting . But S&B also looks excellent. I didn't get to play with all its stuff, but it looks hot. 

Jhui

Aodfionn said:

Wish I had an RP reason to go SNB, but I don't. 2hand looks really promising, though - excited about double raze. 

Ya that RP stuff is hard coded.  Wouldn't wanna hack the code to come up with a good reason to swap.

Shirszae

@Aodfionn Agreed with @Jhui. You have ample time to come up with something and begin playing it out before the changes even arrive.

Deladan

Which would be the best for a runewarden with the current artefacts. Lvl3 Bracelet, Lvl2 sip, Lvl1 str, lvl1 con, lvl 1 collar.

edit: I have 18 str before fury and 14 con

Wessux

Deladan said:

Which would be the best for a runewarden with the current artefacts. Lvl3 Bracelet, Lvl2 sip, Lvl1 str, lvl1 con, lvl 1 collar.

edit: I have 18 str before fury and 14 con

The one you like the most.

Trevize

Deladan said:

Which would be the best for a runewarden with the current artefacts. Lvl3 Bracelet, Lvl2 sip, Lvl1 str, lvl1 con, lvl 1 collar.

edit: I have 18 str before fury and 14 con

Just go blunt and whack people with totems.

This should be a thing.

Tael

I'm honestly having trouble understanding how you could develop a deep-seated RP reason to be dual-wielding such that you would need much of an "RP reason" to change to using a shield.

Knight combat is changing. A lot of knights all over the world are developing new techniques involving the use of a shield. How is that not enough justification?

Aerek

I enjoy the DSL-style of combat, so unless it simply doesn't live up to the other specs in terms of practical viability, I'll probably stick with it. It will really depend on how fast it really is and how effective the new parry bypasses turn out to be. I do have concerns about prep times; lower damage on scimitars translates to more hits to prep; dragons already took 16-18 with my 80-damage weapons, and that's just frustrating. Also haven't heard of anything buffing Disembowel to make up for our lower overall damage, but we'll see how it all plays out.

I'd consider switching to sword and board, but prepping as S&B took forever when I was playing with it. 15 hits with a longsword to prep a Dragon, at a 2.5 balance, so 40 seconds per limb if they're just standing there doing nothing to stop me, x3. S&B had awesome end-game setups that I'd love to play with, but I didn't find a lot of stuff to do while I was prepping, so I feel like I'd die of boredom trying to get there. I'll be trying it when it comes out to see if anything's been changed or added, or see if I was just being uncreative and there's lots of while-you-prep tactics S&B has available.

Never tested dual-blunt, and not privy to what's changed since the test server, but the whole concept feels like Monk without Kaido and Telepathy. Monk is pretty good at being Monk already, and Kaido and Telepathy are fantastic, so I'd probably just go Monk before DB.

Two-handed has the most interesting new mechanics in my opinion, the conundrum of whether to sip health and let fractures build up to death or apply health and die to damage is enticing, and the fracture effects (Like quickly recurring clumsiness and lethargy) were seriously scary. But, it is a momentum-based class, and I just personally don't like the momentum style of combat. It's also slow, which means it's going to have real problems with the faster, hindering opponents. Dedication is there to help with paralysis spam, but that expends your Battlerage, and if you're having to spam your Battlerage just to attack, you're not getting to use it for important things like speed or extra fractures. Dedication doesn't do anything about  clumsiness, and I also feel it will be helpless against Evade. Like the others, I plan on testing it before deciding, but I have questions about whether this spec will be viable in some common situations. I could be wrong.

Amranu

The biggest thing I'm concerned of here, as a non-knight is how one can go about locking a S&B knight when they can cure paralysis. Knights already have fitness of course, allowing them to cure asthma with balance as long as they do not have weariness.

Is there any counter-play against the ability for stopping them from getting out of a lock with this ability?

Addama

Amranu said:

The biggest thing I'm concerned of here, as a non-knight is how one can go about locking a S&B knight when they can cure paralysis. Knights already have fitness of course, allowing them to cure asthma with balance as long as they do not have weariness.

Is there any counter-play against the ability for stopping them from getting out of a lock with this ability?

The S&B version sounds like (at least according to Dalran) a non-cure, it just allows you to temporarily attack despite paralysis.  It still prevents all the regular things like movement, so it's not actually a cure.  The real implication is that you can safely downgrade the prio on paralysis and cure other things, at least so long as the effect remains.

The Two-Hander version sounds like a proper cure, but it also disables Fitness for as long as it's on balance, so there's your counter-play.

Amranu

Excellent

Kresslack

Had thought it was going to be a lot longer for this to come out, so switched from Runewarden. Guess I'll save up for when Multiclass comes out, and pick up Runie again. Will likely either go twohanded sword or sword and shield since I already have an SoA.

Dalran

Kresslack said:

Had thought it was going to be a lot longer for this to come out, so switched from Runewarden. Guess I'll save up for when Multiclass comes out, and pick up Runie again. Will likely either go twohanded sword or sword and shield since I already have an SoA.

Haha I did the same thing, left runewarden thinking changes would be several months off. Now here I am, couple weeks later, about to go back to runie.