Dual Blunt Discussion

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  • I was testing with Szanthax and unless I specifically allow him to gain the momentum needed to perform a pulp, he can't do it, and at 4.1k health unless I don't parry a single hit or shield he wasn't damaging me out. Mangling a single arm doesn't prevent parry or restrict almost any class from attacking (I'm sure because of how prevalent double epteth rapiers would have been), and it doesn't prevent parrying. Szanthax was using level 3 flails. 1200 damage a DWL on a fully armored + algiz runewarden, so the damage is definitely worthy at 3 seconds at DWL, but that's just not a reliable thing. Szanthax was actually entirely unable to even pull off an assault with me attacking back, and that's as a class/spec that has identical hindrance options, even with a double break on my legs. By the time he gained the momentum to assault I had stood, with the proficiency given to you for free for taking th spec. The only way I've noted to circumvent this is to break the head on the leg break. The way I've been killing pretty much anyone with low enough health is survive to a double leg break expend, and as Gerwulf was doing, break the leg that isn't being cured (Usually the right leg) into a triple mangle, allowing me to beat on a broken limb for added damage freely for about 4 attacks (flails), or 14 seconds.

    Yes the break potential is enormous with dual blunt but the ability to capitalize on breaks is minimal, we don't have impale/disembowel, we don't have lunge, and we don't have any afflictions/hindrance. The stun provided to us is 1 second and costs HALF our momentum, which takes 4 attacks (potentially a minimum of 7 seconds - forged flails) to create. That's if there's no parry or misses. So to create about 3 hits with morningstars worth of parry free space, which is absolutely necessary, you have to spend 5-7 seconds making the momentum, and then pray that on the expend the left arm isn't parried, otherwise during the delay of the failed attack you will lose enough momentum to force you to attack another unparried limb, to expend on something else. Sure it leaves the legs open, but if someone tracks their limb damage and intelligently parries the leg on the attack that's supposed to break both limbs, they in essence reset the kill combo of dual blunt. As it is, assault is too difficult to perform, almost impossible on a single leg break unless you've had unimpeded momentum build, and even with a double leg break (difficult enough to pull off) the time required to build the momentum back (essentially you have to spend all 8 momentum to perform a double leg break on a decent opponent - 4 for the parry break, and another 4 for the leg expend, requiring you to build back to full momentum, a minimum of 10 seconds with forged morningstars and a minimum of 14 seconds with forged flails) leaves you without options. By the time you get to pull off an assault, if you are lucky enough to get there (Rebounding didn't proc, no tumble), you get the assault off and they stand and apply to head, leaving you literally back at square one, after however many minutes of fighting at this point. Against other classes that are based on momentum you have absolutely no chance, Shaman/Jester/Alchemist scale in hindrance and kill potential far better than a Runewarden dual blunt. I understand that with some of the skills available in necromancy and devotion dual blunt will take some very specific tweaks ot make it fair for all, but as it is Runewarden dual blunt isn't even viable in high tier combat, as Szanthax showed me today. Even spending the money to have level 3 flails he couldn't maintain the momentum to pull off a pulp, leaving the only other option damaging an opponent out, which against another heavily artied dragon, would be nearly impossible outside of a raid.

    I hope that the classleads lead to some significant changes. I desperately don't want dual blunt to become a joke spec.
  • edited January 2015
    I didn't use flails for the entire fight, and the only reason flails were relevant to the previous post were the 3000 credits that Szanthax has spent on arti weapons, to have weapons that can't be used in PvP, and the only reason he has them is because arti morningstars weren't available at the outset.

    I think picking out one tiny part of the whole post to rag on is a little like de-railing the topic. The real problem is momentum and useless expends, regardless of what you're using. I suppose I didn't clarify but all my counter-testing with Szanthax was done with morningstars, and I still couldn't pull off a pulp because on a head break he prioritizes head. Yes, this does give me a few extra seconds with him prone, but it's not enough to capitalize with damage on morningstars, or even switching to flails and attacking as at most you've gained 3.5 seconds, the equivalent to one attack, and definitely not enough time to get enough momentum to pull off a second assault.

    If damage is actually supposed to be viable with this spec, which I'm assuming it is, Assault needs to be performable. Period.

    I mean if Assault damage scaled like DSB - and it's arguably more difficult to pull off - then we'd atleast have that option, but with level 3 arti flails its 2.5k, and only gets slightly higher when performed on broken limbs, making assault torso literally useless. There are some options other than pulp that can be made available. Forged Morningstars do 1.2k on a pulp.

    As well, my complaint about flails is ENTIRELY valid, as unlike dual-cutting (They don't get forced to use battleaxes, that's an option), we are FORCED into taking the flail proficiency, which means if you don't have the lessons to get the new prof (A lot of players that haven't purchased large sums of credits), you now have a proficiency that's useless for anything but hunting.
  • Is it not possible to mangle the right leg if they prioritise head?
  • edited January 2015
    You are going to have to mangle the right leg to even get the momentum/time to pull off the first assault

    at 8 momentum you use 4 to drop both legs, focus on one leg with two hits for the mangle, bringing you back to 8 momentum, then you assault, but at that point they've almost cured through the leg mangle, if they cure head, you at most gained yourself 3.5 extra seconds.

    You can also prep the head so when you drop on the legs you pop head once, then hit something else for assault momentum, but again if you pop the head and they cure, your assault will land during the curing and essentially just be the damage. It's impossible to chain assaults right now, whomever you're fighting would have to be god awful at curing, meaning not using a system/serverside, and assault is fairly easy to get around as long as you can survive the damage. People above 5k hp seem to have no issues tanking flail damage, and easily tank morningstar damage. If everything goes perfectly you'll at most have someone prone for just over 10 seconds, and use all your momentum doing so. I mean, it's entirely probable that you'll have to build to 8 momentum during your prep (Difficult with people running to decay momentum or hindering abilities such as paralysis and clumsiness), then expend 4 of that on the left arm to negate parrying, then expend with another 4 (If one hasn't decayed during that time), to drop the legs, leaving you with NO momentum to work up towards assault. You literally won't have the time to get an assault off, ever.
  • @Khorus‌  I've been away from and haven't really been able to reply however. You're only going after pulp which admittedly isn't really that easy to pull off, yet is still possible to do just requires extra hits but your prep time with level 3 flails is absurdly quick. Does it lack able to actually hinder someone? Yes. Do you do insane amount of Damage per hit? Oh hell yeah. When using flails it's not always the best bet to go for just pulp as there are other avenues to take when using them. 

    While I do agree the momentum is an issue currently but even with level three morningstars you have virtually no issue pulling off pulp off. If they heal their head first make them pay for it by performing an assault on their torso and focus on hitting a limb for the extra damage and go the damage out route which is completely viable using both level three flails and morningstars. When I was a runie DB I had no issues really with building up momentum or prepping limbs with classes with a lot of hindering. The damage pressure and limb pressure that the class posses greatly exceeds a lot of classes out there.

    As for the issue with people running it sounds like you're not making full use of your runes with the Isaz change, or you're using it but lacking in engaging them to slow/prevent them from running away from your damage.

    So fact of the matter is open up your avenues to different ways to attacks someone, keep engage up on them with an Isaz rune down to prevent running. Also you don't need to always expend on a left arm, prep a leg, expend on the break and prep whatever limb is parried saving you 4 momentum. Or use the 4 momentum to expend the left arm, for a 15s of hitting a limb( 5 hits with a level 3 flail and 7 with level 3 morninstars) which is more than plenty of time to prep a parried limb. Personally after using both morningstars and flails as a DB runie the class is fine with just a couple of fine adjustments, but it is extremely linear on how the combat for it is pulled off.
  • KelloniusKellonius Cape Girardeau, Missouri
    Antonius said:
    I sort of feel like complaining that you can't pull time dependent things off with flails as dual blunt is like complaining that you can't stack afflictions using battleaxes as dual cutting. Just look at the stats and it should be pretty obvious they're not the go to weapon for the spec.

    Are there issues with dual blunt? Probably. But you're not helping yourself by using flails for the entire fight.
    I agree with the sentiment that pulling off a pulp with flails should be near impossible. As it stands right now, however, I couldn't pull off a pulp on Micaelis with L3 morningstars reliably. Maybe 10% of the time I would get lucky and beat rebounding to assualt, after securing five broken limbs, chasing rebounding on every break.
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  • KelloniusKellonius Cape Girardeau, Missouri
    Not going to bother quoting everyone else because there was so much said on damage and flails, but here are my two cents:

    I'm fairly certain that like the other new weaponmastery specs, you're supposed to use both flails and morningstars to capitalize on breaks. There is a boost to limb and health damage when attacking a broken limb, and also attacking a prone opponent. I think the general idea, when going for damage kills anyway, is to prep/break with morningstars and then switch to flails for much more damaging attacks. I'm pretty sure Makarios never intended for someone to buy L3 flails and just wail on someone for a few seconds and then the fight is over.
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  • edited January 2015
    @Aedin First, Isaz only -VERY- recently started working with DB Runeblades - I had to bug it for it to get fixed. Beside's the fact that tumble can be performed with one broken leg, so 3.5 seconds after you start your mangle set up, they just start tumble. Engage doesn't prevent tumble, even with Isaz.

    I'd also -LOVE- to see someone try and outdps for example Darkender, who without Dform has like 8k hp, and is running a class that can both hinder and dps you out. Hell, they can even lock. Even a high level monk spamming kai heal will survive any and all dps you can give, even with hugalaz.

    Also, assaulting torso with morningstars does 1.2k and eats up 5 of your momentum, it's literally one of the silliest suggestions I've seen for recovering from the enemy curing head first, especially since as I've already mentioned, if you were lucky enough to get enough momentum to get that second assault off you're already in a favorable position.

    You clearly haven't done much testing, but as many people actually using DB can testify, even with level 3 morningstars pulp isn't that easy to get to against someone with intelligent rebounding usage and/or tumble.

    @Kellonius What other weaponmastery specs currently have to swap weapons for maximum effectiveness? I've yet to see a 2-handed use anything but a bastard sword, longswords on SnB, and scimitars for dual-cutting. At this point DB is the only spec left that still MIGHT have to swap weapons, which on a class that relies entirely on breaks, makes tracking limb damage much more difficult and unreliable. I understand that at the outset the new weapon specs were intended to have to use both of their proficiencies, but so far it hasn't had to happen, and I don't see why the weaponmastery spec with literally the fewest skills has to also juggle multiple weapons and weapon damage. Not to mention that even if you switch to flails for the mangle/after the mangle, you're risking momentum loss which considering you need max momentum to even pull off the assault - literally your best friend with flails - you are already putting yourself in a less than favorable position against anyone with high health.

  • AerekAerek East Tennessee, USA
    DSL switches to a single axe for RSLs with higher DPS than their regular DSLs, at no balance difference. (RSL doesn't respect weapon speed) They switch to 2 axes for one-hit damage bursts, such as after a disembowel that leaves an opponent on the brink, or during damage spikes like Thurisaz stacks, because scimitar damage isn't worth beans.

    S&B can accomplish most of what it needs with longsword buckler, but I keep a broadsword/tower on hand for the same reason as DSL's axes, after an unsuccessful DSB or any other damage spike, a Rend/Smash with a broadsword/tower is a solid chunk of damage. I can also see the attraction of switching to a broadsword for higher limb damage on single Rends through parry, as long as one could keep an accurate tally, though I have not yet attempted to do this.

    2H obviously uses the bastard sword for venom stacking and impale/disembowel, but the limb breaking potential of the hammer was nuts. I broke most of the world every 3-4 hits. Free switches ended before I got anywhere close to good with 2H, so I couldn't say for sure if using a hammer is worth it, offensively, but breaking limbs every 8 seconds is pretty great if you're trying to keep someone on the defensive.

    So, yes, the other specs have a lot to gain by keeping both weapons on-hand and not limiting themselves to just one or the other.
    -- Grounded in but one perspective, what we perceive is an exaggeration of the truth.
  • @aerek Everything you've said is correct, but has no respect for the necessity of momentum for DB. We can't pull off finishers or perform our expends without momentum, meaning we can't actually prone you without isaz proccing, if we have no momentum from exceptional hindrance, or from having to use other expends (parry, namely) frequently.

    Right now forged morningstar speed is approximately 2.4 seconds an attack, whereas forged rapiers were 2.1 seconds an attack. Forged morningstars do approximately 600 damage on an armored opponent, whereas rapiers did 900. I understand the break potential for the spec is extraordinary but rapiers were able to attack faster, for higher damage, AND deliver venoms, all while having a decent break threshold for anyone but dragons. All while not having to maintain something like momentum.

    Sure there's lots of criticism to be thrown my way but the fact remains that every other spec scales hindrance and breaks together much better than just breaks, mainly because of a momentum issue. If the cap was even raised to 12, a huge part of the issue could be avoided, because performing double assaults would be plausible if someone cured head, and pulps even more plausible if someone didn't. There's not much utility to the spec, just damage and breaking shit, and at this point we're having a hard time making anything out of it.

    As well, I know that scimitar damage is garbage, does not scale as well as rapier, as I'm sure I'm going to get guff about that, but leg breaks still come fast enough and venoms are always a bitch when delivered overtop of your herb balance.

    2handed have recurring afflictions and sip speed reduction, without intelligent parrying they are going to shit all over you at this point. They can pull off double disembowels with relative easy, and have some of the best passive hindrance afflictions recurring all the time, not to mention can deliver them.

    SnB have an off-balance attack that altough requires ferocity, have the added benefit of being well... off balance. If my expends could be performed off balance, well I'd probably have a lot less to complain about.

  • AerekAerek East Tennessee, USA
    I think you're wearing some tinted glasses. All Knight classes require momentum to be effective. DSL requires affliction momentum to be any kind of effective, and needs damage momentum for its Disembowel to kill. (until a certain artefact threshold, at least) S&B needs affliction momentum and Ferocity if it wants to take advantage of its more complex tactics. 2H is an entirely momentum-based class that doesn't even revolve around prepped limbs, it requires keeping pace on fractures through rebounding, through shield, through running, and through hindering. DWB requires much less momentum than 2H, and while it requires more than DSL or S&B, that's part of the design. If it didn't, its ability to slow-prep in fewer hits than any other Knight would be outrageous.

    I do feel that you're underselling some of DWB's strengths a bit. DWB has the fastest prep time of any Knight. It is the only Knight class that hit two different limbs at once, and thus the only one that can double-break on-demand. (2H can double break with Devastate, but if you think your momentum requirement is bad...) Pulp is a powerful prep-based instant kill that forces people to cure sub-optimally to avoid it, much like Vivisect, which gives you ample opportunities to damage them out with your prone/damaged-limb bonuses. For reference, It's much harder for a DSL or S&B Knight to punish you for avoiding a Disembowel than it is for you punish them for avoiding a Pulp.

    That's not to say I think DWB is fine. It doesn't have great offensive hindering, it has only damage-based approaches aside from Pulp, and it does require considerable momentum to work. These issues seemed obvious to me from the start, and that's why DWB is the one Knight spec I never touched. It's discount Monk without all the things that make Monk scary. But while I feel you are touching on some valid issues that DWB faces, I don't think you appreciate the advantages you have, and those advantages make it difficult to give DWB the things you want. Remove the momentum requirement, and DWB gets the single easiest slow-prep setup available. Add afflictions or other consistent hindering, and it ends up dealing more damage than DSL or S&B with the same hindering ability. Make it too easy to damage people out while they dodge Pulp, and suddenly DWB is an unavoidable death. (Infernal DWB kinda was for a short while)

    So yes, there are some kinks to work out, but there's a fine line that needs to be walked to keep DWB from getting ridiculous. Of all the Knights, DWB should never hinder as well as the affliction-based Knights, and should always require more momentum than the Knights with longer prep times, and should never deal so much damage that you can easily spike out everyone who knows how to avoid Pulp. Those are just realities you have to accept.
    -- Grounded in but one perspective, what we perceive is an exaggeration of the truth.
  • I'm not even saying that for the most part it's a great spec, that's why it's so frustrating to see it come so close but be so far. I don't want it to be considered "discount monk without all the things that make monk scary". I'm not even complaining that people can avoid pulp, I've complained that if they do we don't actually have the damage available (which would easily be provided via assault) to spike someone out. Once a single leg is cured tumble is available, and rebounding + momentum decay can easily destroy what would have been an assault. I understand these are things that need to be available to balance out the spec, but with the difficulty of keeping up momentum (And when I say momentum, I don't mean the generic application of momentum, I mean the game mechanic, momentum, just to clarify as you went on a tangent that was a little abstract from what I meant @aerek), damage almost isn't viable against someone with high health.

    Momentum Momentum Momentum. It's the dominant issue, next in line would be 3/5 expends being useless (Literally, expending torso just causes most people to resmoke immediately after the hit, not even as much time lost as the stun would give, the stun is just over 1 second and costs 4 momentum. Being used on balance and costing it, it's nothing like the shieldstrike of similar nature. The cancellation of tattoos is only useful in the event of shield spam, which honestly rarely happens, and it doesn't last very long.

    But the momentum decay rate is very high and the momentum cap is extremely low. I think if those things were changed then the cost for expend is justifiable.
  • Dual Blunt's problem is Pulp. Because it has Pulp, it needs to be worse than all the others. 

    Bad enough that I'll never use it.
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  • KelloniusKellonius Cape Girardeau, Missouri
    edited January 2015
    Khorus said:

    @Kellonius What other weaponmastery specs currently have to swap weapons for maximum effectiveness? I've yet to see a 2-handed use anything but a bastard sword, longswords on SnB, and scimitars for dual-cutting. At this point DB is the only spec left that still MIGHT have to swap weapons, which on a class that relies entirely on breaks, makes tracking limb damage much more difficult and unreliable. I understand that at the outset the new weapon specs were intended to have to use both of their proficiencies, but so far it hasn't had to happen, and I don't see why the weaponmastery spec with literally the fewest skills has to also juggle multiple weapons and weapon damage. Not to mention that even if you switch to flails for the mangle/after the mangle, you're risking momentum loss which considering you need max momentum to even pull off the assault - literally your best friend with flails - you are already putting yourself in a less than favorable position against anyone with high health.

    Aerek addressed the other points, so I'm just going to address this one. If you're manually switching everything, you're probably going to have a hard time, but if you're using the queue system that was put in place, you aren't losing anything by switching weapons. Momentum doesn't decrease fast enough that switching weapons will drop your momentum, especially if you queue up your next attack to take place immediately after.
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  • @kellonius I'm using a queue system, that's not my point. My point is that UNTIL the assault you still use morningstars, negating 2-3 hits of what could be flail + prone dmg + broken limb damage (making damage kill a thing), in favor of gaining momentum to actually PERFORM the assault.

    I'm actually more in favor of losing some break potential, or even pulp, in favor of actually having -some- hindrance capability in the prep stage. We are literally the only class/spec that has none, and the design is pretty obvious about having tried to include it, it's just not effective.
  • KelloniusKellonius Cape Girardeau, Missouri
    Khorus said:
    @kellonius I'm using a queue system, that's not my point. My point is that UNTIL the assault you still use morningstars, negating 2-3 hits of what could be flail + prone dmg + broken limb damage (making damage kill a thing), in favor of gaining momentum to actually PERFORM the assault.

    I'm actually more in favor of losing some break potential, or even pulp, in favor of actually having -some- hindrance capability in the prep stage. We are literally the only class/spec that has none, and the design is pretty obvious about having tried to include it, it's just not effective.
    Yea, I'm aware of the issues. The classleads that got approved were mine. I was just correcting the things you got wrong.
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  • I actually have a log that has me swinging at szanthax with both forged flails and morningstars against an unparried and mangled limb - torso - over and over, I never drop him below 5k health for more than a sip/potash combo. Considering people 6k+ hp are the majority of high tier combatants, this is important. Furthermore, I went through the full pulp set up, with a single leg parry. At full momentum, break parry + expend legs, and then trying to regain the 4 hits momentum necessary to pull off an assault is ACTUALLY impossible, and this was all without rebounding, and without him attacking back and potentially hindering me.

    But if you guys want to see what it is I'm talking about, I'd be happy to show you. The only thing I could have done differently was expend on the unparried leg, still leaving me three hits to 3xbreak the right leg, and not enough time to likely even perform it, as the 2.5 seconds recovering from balance to even break the right leg is most of the cure time for the left leg. As it stands you have to use your full momentum to even prone a decent player for long, and by the time you'd be ready to assault they're standing. That's without rebounding.
  • I'd love to see it.
  • @Khorus  Are you artied with level 3 weapons, level 3 strength gauntlets, using fury, jera, and a strength race with strength trait?

    Szanthax is a fully artied and dragon level character - it's expected that if you aren't artied that you aren't going to be able to kill him with straight damage.

  • Khorus said:
    I actually have a log that has me swinging at szanthax with both forged flails and morningstars against an unparried and mangled limb - torso - over and over, I never drop him below 5k health for more than a sip/potash combo.
    Was he also prone the entire time? There's no increased damage on standing opponents, regardless of what you hit.
  • edited January 2015
    If he indeed was prone, I do see a problem here. While I agree with Cooper that he should not just be able to straight damage him out considering the artefact difference, I do not think someone should be able to tank dual blunt while prone indefinitely. That is kind of the point of dual blunt and while artefacts should allow you to last a little longer, they should not allow you to keep up with the damage for ages. 

  • Sorry I've taken so long with the log, I'll post it today. Also have one with Szanthax basically letting me go through the pulp set-up, but with rebounding. Rebounding literally negates pulp's viability. Possible without it, impossible with. The fracture required to break it eliminates your window of opportunity for a pulp, and people are almost guaranteed to be about to pop rebounding after a double prone.

    Anyway, I'll make sure to post it before I leave for work for all your viewing pleasures.
  • edited January 2015
    Yeah, bonus damage is only applied when attacking broken limbs, while the person is also prone. Not one or the other.

  • KelloniusKellonius Cape Girardeau, Missouri
    edited January 2015
    nvm. I was incorrect.

    Actually, I don't think I was entirely wrong. I only tested it a little bit but I think there is bonus damage for being prone AND bonus damage for broken limbs, and its applied cumulatively.  Log here: http://pastebin.com/LfNvjPjy
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  • Log is meaningless without seeing standing damage...
  • KelloniusKellonius Cape Girardeau, Missouri
    edited January 2015
    Antonius said:
    Log is meaningless without seeing standing damage...
    Right! And I thought I posted that: http://pastebin.com/wfarcM9e.

    Worth noting though, that the bonus damage for broken limbs is only applied when both broken and prone though.
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  • That's strange. Makarios said on test server that it's only meant to increase the damage if they're both prone, and have broken limbs, when I asked him about it. My tests proved his statement correct too... Don't see anything in logs about it changing :/

  • Will Dual Blunt be made so you can Break Shield and then hit with your other flail in one combo? Or can you do this already?
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