Two-hander Discussion

Addama

Aepas said:

Right now it looks like you can apply salves and elixers as the same time.

What would we think of not allowing salve+elixer to happen? This would give a bit more reason to speed up the prepping with a warhammer.

Since realistically, a single limb is only going to take up five seconds of salve time, you're only going to be getting a max of 3 fractures in at any given location, or a 1/2 split if you break one leg.

breaking two arms is pretty unrealistic, you'll still be hitting shield. or having the player run, but you will still have a bit of time to recover your lost balance before they start curing all your fractures, even if they shield/flee.

Where it might be a bit stronger would be a leg/arm/arm kind of prep that with venoms, could keep them applying other salves for a bit while you continue to hack at them since you have not expended your actual fractures on anything, you could only be adding fractures and only possibly losing them from tree or passive.

That would add a bit of worth into trying to quick prep some limbs with a warhammer and actually getting the full use out of the skillset. Besides prepping limbs faster like this, I actually don't see a reason in using a hammer really.

I like this idea a lot.  I was talking to somebody last night about how I was hoping Two Hander and/or Dual Blunt would be more like how I was playing Dual Cutting before the knight changes came through, where everything was about mending stacks.  Epseth, epteth, nairat, L2 breaks.  It offered parry mitigation and hindering.  Kind of like threading a needle and sort of a bitch to set up, but with it working, you got all the things you needed to reliably prep toward a disembowel.

Right now Hammers have the theoretical advantage of adding fractures and prepping limbs faster, which means you can Devastate a single limb for purposes of parry mitigation very quickly (relatively, I mean - it still takes you longer to prep one limb than it takes Dual Blunt to prep two).  However they lack damage pressure so in reality people are going to be healing the fractures instead of sipping. 

E: Thanks @Makarios, I'll test this in a bit.

Addama

Skull fractures now reduce health apply balance as well as sip balance.  Not sure if they were supposed to do that before and just weren't.

You can Speed up three fractures, then hit with Precision to make their balance 9.5s.  Then getting up to seven fractures is pretty easy, then you start prepping whatever.

The hard counter to this is parrying head.  The hard-hard counter is a BM augmented parry on head.

Kenway

It's not a hard counter when you can bypass their parry every few hits with warhammer+upset.

Atalkez

Hard counter: Just leave the room until server stops curing shit. Still no idea how fractures work =/ 

Mizik

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Some further tweaks to the two-handed knight specialisation:

* Battlefury PERCIEVE now requires battlefury balance but does not consume it.

* Battlefury PERCEIVE now shows what limb the target is parrying

* Battlefury FOCUS has had its balance time reduced

* CARVE/SPLINTER will knock the target off balance when it successfully breaks a shield defence.

Arador

Problem: I can only test this tomorrow. So if I fall asleep now, tomorrow comes sooner to my mind. But can't fall asleep cause too excited about testing tomorrow. 

Exelethril

Just wondering, should 2h accuracy be increased to compensate for how easy it is to hinder the spec with xentio?

Jarrod

I don't understand why Dreadblade has +22 damage and +15 to-hit over Warhammer when it only has +11 speed (re: level 3 weapons).

Arador

I guess blunt weapons are balanced a bit differently because of the massive increase in limb damage. 

Antonius

To-hit should be the same on both, there's no good reason for one to be lower than the other. That 11 speed might work out to be worth a lot more in terms of fractures than the 22 damage is in terms of health pressure, I'm not sure. Also have to factor in the limb damage bonus on warhammer due to being a blunt weapon and much more frequent breaks (however useful they end up being for two-handed in any given fight).

Kinilan

Recent changes are nice. It puts an end to active turtling and the changes with PERCEIVE  and FOCUS are great in terms of their untility and useability.

The deeper issue of fractur/tendons curing is still there though. Just not quite enough health pressure to make someone choose  to sip over applying and if you do manage to build past 3 stacks the change in the rate of cure values puts you right back down. It's litterally one step forward two steps back.

Addama

Sparred a bit, what a difference this change has made.

First, the hindering is not bad.  If you're stacking cures (i.e. hitting legs and envenoming for nausea) you can count on a pretty good chance that lethargy/clumsiness/weariness/addiction will stick.  Lethargy is particularly nasty as it brings classes that rely on balance down to your level.

It's unromantic to kill people with raw damage, but that's what this spec does.  In effect, the victim is forced to parry head because if they don't, that's where they run into the damage problem.  That leaves the legs open for the prep/devastate.  Once you do this, unless your victim has a torc or something that can hinder you while they're prone, you can just cleave them.  Again, unromantic, but that's what this is all about.

If they DO have torc or some similar skill, just wail on head while they're prone.  A BM with a torc is immune to everything except disembowels at this point.  So that's a 50/50 thing if they don't Evade out every time you get 4 tendons.  Which they will.

Fighting Evade classes is still impractical, but that goes for most classes anyway, so I'm not too bent out of shape about it anymore.

E: The one other thing that needs to be changed: Continuation balance.  It's unusable.  It means I can't track fractures or stack them for 15 seconds, which is an eternity.  I'd love for it to be something more like Dedication where I spend health/mana to attack through it (not to cure it).

Kinilan

Everything I said previously about fractur stacking is wrong because I'm an idiot with bad macros.

Evade classes, people with high dex/dodge, anyone with an Soa are a problem.

Continuation is very much a lock breaker, not something to be used otherwise.

Focus speed appears to only be worth it for maybe carve/splinter and bashing.

Warhammers are pointless and the weapon runes do nothing for them. Or rather nothing that matters.

Beyond that it's ok. If I had to rank the spec I'd say it was third before dual-cutting and behind dual-blunt.

Addama

Kinilan said:

Focus speed appears to only be worth it for maybe carve/splinter and bashing.

The value of focus speed is in damage pressure.  You're going to get fewer fractures per second, true, but you're going to also be applying a lot more damage, which stresses their ability to cure fractures in the first place.  The only point at which I'd use Precision is against somebody who is nearly oblivious to damage pressure and is only curing fractures (i.e. dragons, Jhui).

Kinilan

Addama said:

Kinilan said:

Focus speed appears to only be worth it for maybe carve/splinter and bashing.

The value of focus speed is in damage pressure.  You're going to get fewer fractures per second, true, but you're going to also be applying a lot more damage, which stresses their ability to cure fractures in the first place.  The only point at which I'd use Precision is against somebody who is nearly oblivious to damage pressure and is only curing fractures (i.e. dragons, Jhui).

If they can tank your damage so much that you need the stacks to lead into a dsb, or just keep sensi up from torso chances are they can deal with the better dps at the cost of not being able to stack.

I.ve been testing with Nemu and Jhui all day. Nemu's optimized curing is just frustrating. Real hard to stack woth a damn with precision with him just standing there, impossible when he just starts to attack back. A speed focus is just as bad.

But yes tank people (Jhui) can be brought down, with non-optimized curing, if he stands there and doesn't fight back.

2h needs a liiiiitttttle bit more love to account for what happens when you're fighting someone that is actually fighting back.

Addama

I curb-stomped Vicious just hitting a leg.  Meanwhile he was doing everything to buy himself more time (paralysis, clumsiness, leg break/impale, running, falcon slay).  I gave him pretty much every benefit. 

I feel like Nemutaur and Jhui aren't realistic opponents; they're so heavily artied and optimized (and good at knowing what to do and when to do it) that I don't think "I can't kill them with them just standing there" necessarily counts as a strong argument against Two Handed.  I couldn't kill them with any of the other specs, I know that for damn sure (maybe Dual Blunt, but that's got its own drawbacks).

A little tweak here or there might make it stupid strong, which I don't necessarily want because that will warrant a nerf down the road when I've already made my spec choice. 

Cooper

In order to complain about not being able to kill the most artefacted, best curing people in the game, you have to have the most perfect, artefacted offense. If you can't kill them after that, then it's time to discuss buffs/nerfs/etc. I don't think anyone is perfect at any Knight offense yet, not even close. It took years before people realized what classes like Jester/Shaman/Sentinel/etc could do offensively (I don't think it will be that long for the new knight specs, but it won't happen in less than a week).

Kinilan

Not quite what I said. Jhui, with all his tankability could be taken down.
Nemu with his fewere arties (more in line with what I have) and his optinal fracture/tendon curing. could not be taken down. Even if he just stood there.

Atalkez

Yes but like 3 people cure optimally right now.

Even in 6 months I'd be willing to bet 75% of the player base won't be curing properly still.

Arador

Curing optimally against it is really not that hard. 

Kendrick

Well, against people with higher health totals it's just harder to stick fractures. I'll be honest with you - no matter who it is, smashing their head in with Precision attacks is going to make their life worse unless they parry. A precision Overhand, if hit with a cure immediately, puts them on a 6.5s sip balance - Follow that up with another, or a few speed head strikes to get ahead, and you can make the sip balance longer, meaning their curing takes longer, and you can use the momentum to get stacks on, giving you time to prep other limbs.

Krux

After testing out the changes to day, I have to say my only remaining complaint is Continuation being useless. It is not a lock breaker because like I said in an earlier post it is stopped by Weariness, which means that if they have you closed to lock with no weariness, queue fitness, keep on trucking in 2 seconds. Or use Continuation (with the benifit of being able to use it off balance) and have your offense die for 15 seconds. Not to mention the fact that if you can't run (cause you're off balance.) They can just hit you with paralysis again. Honestly, you'd be better off running away for a second, drop cures come back in and go back to work.

On a side note @Makarios‌ - Do you think Recover Footing could be made to work with Slaughter?

Aepas

Krux said:

After testing out the changes to day, I have to say my only remaining complaint is Continuation being useless. It is not a lock breaker because like I said in an earlier post it is stopped by Weariness, which means that if they have you closed to lock with no weariness, queue fitness, keep on trucking in 2 seconds. Or use Continuation (with the benifit of being able to use it off balance) and have your offense die for 15 seconds. Not to mention the fact that if you can't run (cause you're off balance.) They can just hit you with paralysis again. Honestly, you'd be better off running away for a second, drop cures come back in and go back to work.

On a side note @Makarios‌ - Do you think Recover Footing could be made to work with Slaughter?

Continuation is still a decent lock breaker, mostly because the issue with fitness is that it requires balance, continuation does not. With the 3.6-4 seconds it takes you to recover from an attack, you'll be taking from 2-3 attacks from a locking class. most other specializations will take 1-2, the 2 if the opponent is lucky. Since a typical full lock is going to take anorexia/slickness/asthma/impatience/paralysis/weariness, that's 3 attacks minimum, plus 1 extra attack (stab from apostate, snap from serpents.) Where this fell off before was the opponent being able to get the last 2-3 afflictions on you during your off balance period. Since this off balance period lasts much longer for the 2h, you're going to just have to be more cautious as to when you use continuation. If you're becoming overwhelmed by afflictions, it's most likely best not to be using your battlefury.

Upon using continuation, you get an instant tree. With luck you break anorexia/slickness/asthma, because clearing one of those instantly clears all of them for the most part. And if you're lucky enough to get asthma, you'll be able to eat goldenseal, which means with a proper and lucky continuation, you're clearing 5 afflictions in less than a second.

This does leave the serpents or apostates having to be much more careful as to when they do apply weariness and how to stick it. Other locking classes usually have a few more tricks up their sleeves rather than blunt afflictions. I personally see it as being fine where it is. You still have the ability to tree when you need it, before you'd need continuation, and fitness as always.

Recover footing working with slaughter is not a huge deal. My slaughters are typically aroaund 3-3.2 seconds right now, which puts them on par with non-nimble druids in hydra form, or non reflexed mauls (mostly).

Mizik

I'm hating prone Battlecry loops with passive sensitivity keeping me permanently undeaf.

Cooldown plz.

Addama

Right after I submitted this bug I found on the forum where it said this was intentional, but I kept the bug up just to see what they said. 

Sent By: Achaea on 1/06/8:05

Your bug report (detail: Applying health elixir to a leg cures one tendon UNLESS the victim has three or more torn tendons, in which case it cures two. As far as I'm aware, this is unintentional.) - has been removed because it is not a bug (usually meaning that this is the way things are intended to be). Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience or misunderstanding that may be involved. The following notes were included: It was intended to make it easier to build fractures initially but reduce the curve as they got higher. It might be getting removed though, seems its over complicating things somewhat.

Krux

Mizik said:

I'm hating prone Battlecry loops with passive sensitivity keeping me permanently undeaf.

Cooldown plz.

No. This is like the only Raid Utility Two-Hander Has. Other than hitting people in the head and hoping they don't sip (which it took Xer all of like 2 minutes to figure out how to avoid when I mentioned it.) Sensitivity stacking is all two-hander can do in raids yo. And really, I was nearly perma battlecrying even before this...

Aepas said:

Krux said:

After testing out the changes to day, I have to say my only remaining complaint is Continuation being useless. It is not a lock breaker because like I said in an earlier post it is stopped by Weariness, which means that if they have you closed to lock with no weariness, queue fitness, keep on trucking in 2 seconds. Or use Continuation (with the benifit of being able to use it off balance) and have your offense die for 15 seconds. Not to mention the fact that if you can't run (cause you're off balance.) They can just hit you with paralysis again. Honestly, you'd be better off running away for a second, drop cures come back in and go back to work.

On a side note @Makarios‌ - Do you think Recover Footing could be made to work with Slaughter?

Continuation is still a decent lock breaker, mostly because the issue with fitness is that it requires balance, continuation does not. With the 3.6-4 seconds it takes you to recover from an attack, you'll be taking from 2-3 attacks from a locking class. most other specializations will take 1-2, the 2 if the opponent is lucky. Since a typical full lock is going to take anorexia/slickness/asthma/impatience/paralysis/weariness, that's 3 attacks minimum, plus 1 extra attack (stab from apostate, snap from serpents.) Where this fell off before was the opponent being able to get the last 2-3 afflictions on you during your off balance period. Since this off balance period lasts much longer for the 2h, you're going to just have to be more cautious as to when you use continuation. If you're becoming overwhelmed by afflictions, it's most likely best not to be using your battlefury.

Upon using continuation, you get an instant tree. With luck you break anorexia/slickness/asthma, because clearing one of those instantly clears all of them for the most part. And if you're lucky enough to get asthma, you'll be able to eat goldenseal, which means with a proper and lucky continuation, you're clearing 5 afflictions in less than a second.

This does leave the serpents or apostates having to be much more careful as to when they do apply weariness and how to stick it. Other locking classes usually have a few more tricks up their sleeves rather than blunt afflictions. I personally see it as being fine where it is. You still have the ability to tree when you need it, before you'd need continuation, and fitness as always.

Recover footing working with slaughter is not a huge deal. My slaughters are typically aroaund 3-3.2 seconds right now, which puts them on par with non-nimble druids in hydra form, or non reflexed mauls (mostly).

About Continuation. I might be just too noob for this yet. The problem I have with this is if you're being overwhelmed by afflictions, you'd be better of just focusing speed and working on some lethargy stacks. Your balance is gonna drop to 2.5-2.8 (depending on your weapon) and you're gonna be increasing their balance by like 20% I think? You slow them down, you can now use fitness just like any other class and IT DOES NOT KILL YOUR OFFENSE FOR 15+ Seconds against someone who Obviously has a badass offense. This seems like a much better option then trying to break a lock in the tiny ass window you describe. I for one deal with some pretty badass latency sometimes and I find it unlikely (unless you code that shit to be completely automatic) that anyone (-@Jhui/Nemu/etc) are going to be pulling this off.

My problem with Paralysis spam is that there is nothing we can do about it. Shamans have a 0.9 second balance. I was fighting Amranu and everytime I'd come off balance I'd be paralyzed unless tree was up so they can just sit there and build fashions while LOLing at you trying to attack. My offense isn't that great yet, still figuring things out but it just seems lame if all anyone has to do is paralysis/xxx every attack and watch you just stand there. I mean this is like trying to play a serpent without shrug and giving serpents a 3.5 second balance. Everyone would rage quit.

 
I mostly wanted RECOVER FOOTING for hunting, LOL. It doesn't really serve a purpose since even if a Mhun Keeper/Vertani prones me they aren't going to BBT/Gorilla Smoosh me but it would be cool to see myself standing.

Kenway

I really don't think we needed the "if fracs > 3 then health apply cures 2" nerf.
Tree and restore already cure two fractures each. If health applies end up curing 2 then the dps of hew/pulverize should really be brought up. It's too low now to realistically get someone sipping without 3+ head or torso fractures.
It finally was feeling like this spec was in a good place and now it's back to feeling pretty meh.

Antonius

Those mechanics have been in place since before the last round of two handed updates (the huge reduction in battlefury focus balance and the change to battlefury perceive). I'm confused/curious about when exactly it felt like it was in a good place, and why this would have nerfed it.

Kenway

Antonius said:

Those mechanics have been in place since before the last round of two handed updates (the huge reduction in battlefury focus balance and the change to battlefury perceive). I'm confused/curious about when exactly it felt like it was in a good place, and why this would have nerfed it.

If those were in then something was bugged 'cause in my testing there was a period where people were curing for two no matter what and there was a period where people were curing for one no matter what. I never ran across a 3+ difference. That could be personal error but I tested on multiple people.

Antonius

That's how it was working at the weekend when I did a bit of testing on two-handed, but it's possible that other people have been seeing different things.