Dual Blunt Discussion

Addama

Arador said:

Yeah if only you had an ability that could break both arms in one attack so they couldn't shield and something to hinder then from just running away..... 

Yeah if only there were an ability that allows you to move into an adjacent room even with broken arms/legs in under 10 seconds.

E: More importantly, if you were to expend on the arm combo it would put you significantly behind on Momentum.  Also it would require prepping 5 limbs rather than 4.

Arador

You are proning on the second hit so they are prone so they can't parry.

Also no need to expend on arm, can't parry with two broken arms. 

Addama

Arador said:

You are proning on the second hit so they are prone so they can't parry.

Also no need to expend on arm, can't parry with two broken arms. 

Would still require 5 limb prep.  On a victim with 5k health that's 30 seconds assuming no parrying/dodging/hindering/rebounding problems.  Also assuming you don't anticipate their kill sequence and parry right arm, then shield up on the left arm break.

I like this though, I'm not complaining about it; there's ways for opponents to stop one form of the kill sequence but not another.  It's stoppable if the victim has good reflexes and knowledge of the spec.

The 3-limb Pulp setup, by contrast, was almost absolutely unstoppable.

Arador

True but pulp is not your only way to kill. You are a damage dealer of note that can prep and break quickly and your still have the threat if pulp to make them worry how they apply. 

I like the assault change. If it should turn out that the damage dealing is not enough to kill now, (damage did take an indirect nerf) then maybe make assault torso take 5 momentum, leaving assault head at 7.

But I think the damage should still be plenty, so let's test and see. 

Kellonius

nvm

Kellonius

Still doable. Takes longer, not unstoppable. Looks good. I like it.

Jhui

anyone got hard numbers on the dmg/limb dmg/speed diff between flail/morningstar?

Also, the damage modifiers for prone/already damaged limb?

the damage/speed for assault?

times for tattoo stoppage/parry/stun?

Antonius

Parry prevention shows up on DIAGNOSE, as far as I could tell by spamming that it's about 15 seconds since the last apply. Forged morningstars are about 2.5 second doublewhirl, forged flails are about 3.4.

I think Assault was about 2.6 seconds when I tested it, but that was when it was incorrectly being modified by nimble; not sure what the balance time is now. It wasn't affected by weapon speed stat, but the damage was increased by switching from morningstars to flails.

No idea on the others, I'll let somebody who is specced dual blunt test and provide that information.

Aedin

Testing done with someone at 7k Health -

Forged Morningstars - 4 combos (8 Hits) - 2.5 second rebalance
Level 3 Morningstars - 3 1/2 combos (7 hits) - 2.2 second rebalance

Forged Flails - Haven't tested yet. - 3.5 second rebalance (according to @Antonius‌ )
Level 3 Flail - 2 1/2 combos (5 hits) - 3.0 second rebalance

Level 3 Morningstars Assault rebalance - 2.5 seconds
Level 3 Flail Assault rebalance - 2.5 seconds

Level 3 Morningstar Assault Damage - 1.7k
Level 3 Flail Assault Damage 2.4k

@Antonius is correct about 15 seconds of parry bypass during an expended left arm, and as for expending right arm for shielding, it doesn't last quite as long believe around (5) seconds. The stun duration is only a second.

Addama

And a stunned opponent can still parry, so uh, I have no fucking clue what the point of stun is for DB.

Arador

Delaying salve application for a second, perhaps. 

Mizik

Noooooo

Addama

Arador said:

Delaying salve application for a second, perhaps. 

Hard to justify delaying salve application for one second when your balance is 2.5s, even harder to justify when Expending puts you so far behind on Momentum that you can't immediately Assault after it.

Aedin

Gonna have to say aint much use for it, besides perhaps as a method of stopping some instant kills quickly? I never really got the whole 1s stun either as it's just generally a expend waste.

Borran

Use expend while setting up limbs to hinder offense?

Borran

Also, does Assault go by the average damage of the two blunt weapons? Or by the damage of the weapon in the left or right hand?

Addama

Borran said:

Use expend while setting up limbs to hinder offense?

Generally speaking any attack that hinders your offense more than it hinders the enemy's isn't really hindering.

Borran

Addama said:

Borran said:

Use expend while setting up limbs to hinder offense?

Generally speaking any attack that hinders your offense more than it hinders the enemy's isn't really hindering.

Your offense isn't really hindered.  Is not hard to get back the momentum,  but a second long stun used at the right time can offset someone's  lock and allow you to get to the kill sequence faster. Niche use, but still useable. Could also be useful in group combat. 

Stun is OP.. I'd  rather have it and not need it than get into a spot I wish I had it.

Addama

Borran said:

Addama said:

Borran said:

Use expend while setting up limbs to hinder offense?

Generally speaking any attack that hinders your offense more than it hinders the enemy's isn't really hindering.

Your offense isn't really hindered.  Is not hard to get back the momentum,  but a second long stun used at the right time can offset someone's  lock and allow you to get to the kill sequence faster. Niche use, but still useable. Could also be useful in group combat. 

Stun is OP.. I'd  rather have it and not need it than get into a spot I wish I had it.

Let me illustrate the difference between DB stun and S&B stun.  I can use S&B stun any time, balance or not; I can literally trigger it to hit a couple hundredths of a second before herb/mending balance, which actually delays that balance, without affecting my own attack balance.  DB, on the other hand, requires I be on balance, which means I either have to delay my own attack to use it in such a way, or I spam it and pray that it works the way that it's intended when most likely I'll just stun them when they're already off their balances, in which case it's a waste of 4 momentum.

I'm not saying it can't possibly be useful, but its usefulness is so costly and niche that I'd rather not use it in any situation.  In group combat, I'd also rather expend on right arm (no tattoos) or a leg (prone) or torso (rebounding).  Those are useful for group combat, where a 1 second stun is in nearly all cases not.

Aedin

Since mentioning the stun on it I've been trying to really think of a honestly good way to incorporate it into but sadly haven't really got anything that it would truly be beneficial for. It's a expend burn that doesn't really promote anything positive from it. Rather use that expend for either a parry /shield migration or to prone them. All of which helps on the offensive. @Makarios‌ any chance you could enlighten us on possible purpose of the expend head stun? If it wasn't already mentioned...

Kellonius

Arador said:

Delaying salve application for a second, perhaps. 

You would think that, but ever since they changed the way assault works its not longer viable to throw a head stun in on the break, unfortunately. Before you would would break right arm, right leg, expend, then break left arm, left leg, then doublewhirl head expend, then assault, then pulp, and it gave you a much larger window. Now you just have to lean on your enter button.

Aedin

That's a very very large window you made before the assault nerf just to get pulp off

Arador

Hmm. Break head with expend. If the target does not shield in time, break legs with expend, break arms, vivisect. Possible if you lean on enter or queue.

Kellonius

Aedin said:

That's a very very large window you made before the assault nerf just to get pulp off

That was just to test. Before you could just dual break legs expend, break head, assault, pulp. I tested other options as well, because I had a pretty strong feeling a nerf was inbound.

Edit: Before, with forged morningstars, your window for pulp with just a double leg break was a little under half a second. Totally different story with artefacts though.

Leviticus

With the classlead submissions which ones do you believe are going to likely be implemented? I agree as Infernal DB, expend is a little costly

Kellonius

Hopefully assault is made to bypass rebounding or expend torso is changed to negate being able to smoke for short amount of time, rather than just stop rebounding from coming up. That combined with changing the costs of expend depending on what the effects are should put dual blunt in a decent spot. Right now expend is far too costly to use for anything expend proning and bypassing parry. And hopefully dual blunt gets some way to slow down the onslaught received during a fight, any type of hinder would be helpful. Anything at all.

Addama

There really ought to be more options for Momentum than just Expend/Assault to fulfill the need for hindrance.  Two Hander stacks afflictions with fractures, S&B gets a ton of hindrance options, DB gets parry/rebounding/tattoo mitigation that can't be used in a kill sequence or it annihilates your momentum.  

Maybe something that spends one or two Momentum for a hidden mental affliction?  I'm not feeling all that creative right now.

Kellonius

I know that the change was made to assault to mitigate Infernals getting an easy scenario where you as the target basically pick vivi or pulp depending on prios. But it sort of screwed everyone else up.

I didn't classlead this, but I also think that damnation should be removed for DWB and Paladins should be given something that they can actually use.

Khorus

As it stands I'm pretty sure I'm the only runie DB, and we have absolutely nothing but pulp to work with when it comes to killing high hp (5k+) targets. The fact that we HAVE to empower our weapons with a rune that bypasses rebounding (Honestly more of a problem than a help) doesn't help either. We do have Nairat, which gives us some very small hindrance, and one of our runes apparently causes bleeding (untested), but all in all the empowerment is extremely weak, almost detrimental. I would love to be able to use Nairat without the rebounding pass, so in the case I hit rebounding (perhaps intentionally) I'm not screwing myself over.

Expend costs way too much momentum for the current cap. 4 momentum would conceivable if A) the cap was higher and the decay rate was much slower, but as it is, tumble defeats your kill scenario if used properly, and after a tumble your momentum has likely already decayed twice by the time you can respond and move rooms to continue, also giving them time to heal a mangled limb, resetting your kill combo all over, whether through pulp or trying to maintain the prone long enough to damage out.

Expend right now only has two uses - removing parry and proning. The stun is a useless waste of precious momentum, and the tattoo prevention is too small of a window to be useful, tree and shield still seeming to be usable in the times necessary. Out of a 5 possible targets, only have 2 being used seems like an immense waste of what could be interesting options.

The change to assault removes flails from being used in PvP. It's literally impossible to maintain the momentum necessary to pull off a pulp against any other class, as every single class has access to paralysis/stupidity except for DB spec. The one time I managed to get a flail pulp off outside of the arena was against Rip - Not the most skilled combatant - And it was by a hair. Assault costs too much and one doublewhirl is the time it takes to completely heal a broken limb. Atleast for forged flails.

I think that expend should cost less, the cap moved to 10, and have the useless expends re-worked into something more valuable. At the very least the stun to head should be extended significantly, and the right arm expend should be replaced with something that is useful, like removes gripping so that arm mangles disarm an opponent - which I've seen to gain a valuable second or two when it comes to hindrance. 

Furthermore if expend could be used twice in on doublewhirl then there would actually be a small use for the stun. Just saying.

Kellonius

Actually, to be honest, I felt like a runie with flails could work with plenty of burst damage. But the guy I was testing with had level 3 flails, so it could've been that too. Doesn't change the fact that this is a terrible thing to rely on.