Test Discussion GU97: Weapon Combat Update

Thiss gave me flashbacks to day one full auto damage.

I compared damage of most combos between live and the current test build.

First, for the next weapon patchnotes, please note the weapon for each combo. It was a major pain in the *** to identify a lot of mastery combos. Why do so many combos still have extra "mastery" versions within the same weapon tree anyway? It's a relic. Anyway, if you're going to touch vanilla and mastery combos separately then you gotta note down the weapon for each.

Here are a few combos that were mentioned only once but changed in two or more weapon types:

Code:

2H        Arrow Storm Mastery        +24 %
Bow      Arrow Storm Mastery        +58 %
 
Brawling  Enhanced Shuriken Mastery  +14 %
MA        Enhanced Shuriken Mastery  +84 %
 
2H        Home Run Mastery          +17 %
Brawling  Home Run Mastery          +30 %
Shield    Home Run Mastery          +14 %
 
MA        Loft Shot Mastery          +22 %
DP        Loft Shot Mastery          +45 %
 
MA        Spinning Punch Mastery    +3 %
Bow      Spinning Punch Mastery    -16 %
 
DP        Sweep Shot Mastery        +209 %
MA        Sweep Shot Mastery        +27 %
 
1H        Stunning Swipe Mastery    +66 %
DW        Stunning Swipe Mastery    +5 %
 

Are these all supposed to change or just specific versions of these? Note especially "Spinning Punch Mastery" which is supposed to be "slightly increased" but I could only observe a +3% change in the MA version (which I suspect is just testing variance on my side rather than an actual change) but Bow cross-weapon Spinning Punch Mastery actually got a 16% nerf! So there's something wrong here for sure.

Then there's Mega Smash which is supposedly "slightly increased" as well:

Code:

2H  Mega Smash                  -4 %
2H  Mega Smash (jump cancelled)  +24 %

The full version of it, either hasn't changed at all or even got a small nerf. However, if you jump cancel it you get a 24% damage increase. Is this the intended behavior? I don't think anyone should have to wait it out so I'm fine with the JC'ed version to get a buff. The full combo still does about 10% more damage than the JC'd version so that's alright.

There are two more combos where I observed changes conflicting with the patchnotes:

Code:

Brawling  Ground Pound          +29 %
Staff    Downward Smash Combo  -24 %

Non-mastery Ground Pound isn't listed at all but gets a 29% buff. Downward Smash Combo is listed as a "slight increase" but gets a significant nerf instead.


Bow Flurry Shot got a ~200% increase, but with Bow Flurry Shot Mastery I'm only seeing an unlisted 9% increase. This means that a player who unlocks Bow Mastery on the promise of "Increases weapon attack damage while a bow weapon is equipped" will instead get a 2/3 damage decrease without notice.
Why does unlocking a mastery node decrease my damage? I didn't even think to test non-mastery combos separately until I realized this about Bow. Not gonna go back to test each vanilla combo without mastery again just to confirm that unlocking mastery decreases damage for more weapons. This is beyond stupid and I'm guessing there aren't any plans to throw up a UMS window informing every new player that unlocking mastery will cripple their damage instead of doing what the description says.

All in all, this weapon pass seems chaotic and convoluted due to the continued separation between mastery and non-mastery combos. There isn't a special, meta-defining mechanic attached to WM anymore - that was years ago. Why do we still have to treat these as a different thing? There should just be one layer of combos, with cross-weapon combos available as additional finishers for longer combos but not any inherently different attributes. The mastery node that I'd expect to increase my damage actually turns my weapon into unusable garbage unless I go for cross-weapon combos. None of this makes sense. Then you also got stuff like 1H Flip Slash dealing less damage than 1H Flurry even though it's literally the same combo with one additional input.

Today I tested the weapon a little, and I found another broken combination "Flip Burst Mastery" (staff) here there are 4 (in the description 2, but actually 4) combinations: (MT MH RH),(MH MH RH) and (MT MH MH RH), (MH MH MH RH), of the first 2 are not particularly distinguished, but the next 2 at the last stage of the combination do about 3 times more damage than the previous 2 variant of this combination, this makes the combination about 60% to 80 % stronger (apart from obviously broken) of any other single target combination. Yuo can just spam this combination (no buff(any, even self), no clip, no precision arteffakt, no precision mod) and still perform better that any might power.

I really appreciate the testing you've put up as well. I've been testing and posting but haven't had the ability to put the actual number out like you have, but right now that is a huge problem. Speccing into weapon mastery for a weapon significantly lowers base combo damage across the board. This weapon pass needs more work and I am hoping their deadline isn't projected to be released the same time the Dark Metals DLC.

I don't even know what this weapon pass is supposed to consist of? I think that a lot of AoE attacks need to be changed to ST for damage diversity. But it seems like all they are focused on are decreasing and increasing damage.....

Hey all -- thanks for the testing! I appreciate it. There is definitely an (unintended, I assure you) problem with some of the weapon mastery abilities vs non-weapon mastery version of the abilities. I am currently working on those.

Back to the spreadsheets!
Autymn

Being positive an honest DCAUTYMN weapon mastery is a waste....people are actually hoping you guys work on the individual damage of Weapons for HYBRID precision playstyle like how the game was and started before SUPERPOWERED and WM....cant think of no one in the last 2 years that likes or even uses WM....HYBRID PRECISION is what people want to counter MIGHT SPERPOWERED playstyle....we Hybrid players been waiting on this weapons update for years...please dont dissappoint us hybrid precision players...

The very existence of WM means that you will forever shortchange yourself by canceling combos early. It is still hybrid if you WM combo -> power -repeat instead of Buff up place dot and spam WM. Them Buffing WM means Hybrid does move damage.

WM combo -> power isn't hybrid in a regular sense because it doesn't work. Depending on the WM combo, the power cast afterward is a dps loss. Hybrid with regular combos was a powerful dps playstyle because it could add in the power cast without adding animation time due to clipping. Without weapon mastery being clippable, It's not going to be as successful at mixed prec/might builds as what regular combos will be.

Yea i get that it isn't the same but WM just being in the game creates a problem where they have to make the ender in WM the most powerful portion of a combo string. The only way to get a gameplay from the start of the game back would be to remove weapon mastery and redistribute it's damage into the "base" combos or make weapon mastery clippable since the entire reason it wasn't was because they wanted you to cast powers at the correct time to boost it's damage(that is something they could bring back as well).

I mean there's obviously a difference in playstyle between going all in on Precision and using WM combos for most of your damage, and using a balanced Might/Prec build without WM combos. Buffing WM makes Hybrid do more damage by definition but that doesn't position it any better in the meta. With the way the stats and combat system are setup any build that doesn't choose one primary stat with either Weapon Expert or Superpowered can't be viable, ever.

I did 11 parses of each combo (because I got off track on one of the DW parses). Regardless, Charged Blast does less average damage than Double Throw. Charged Blast appears to have a lower crit %: 19.2 vs Double Throw at 21.6. SF Mastery has an even lower Crit %. For both, Explosive Shot crits around 24%. The HB>ES did about 4% more damage than DW>ES In those same number of parses, DW>Explosive Shot did 10% more damage overall because it is a quicker combo. Something is broken. Since DW does parse higher than 2H>Arrow Storm I'm inclined to believe it is DW even though both HB range combos could probably use a little love.

longer combos should be a risk/reward option.
the brawling WM into homerun is NOT valuable.
the combo is interrupted like 6 times out of 10.
also note that the weapon buff lets you hit once.
when trying to hit a second time, the buff is gone.
consider this when thinking on longer combos.
the damage is not enough to be worth trying.

start with thinking on the time it takes to land, the same attack might be very different!
performing the handblasters meteor blast can NOT be compairable to the WM attack.
when you are using martial arts WM into meteor blast, not only it needs more inputs,
it is also NOT clippable and the time it takes to hit, is way higher than using handblaster...
just saying... also: the damage values tested on sparing targets are worth basicly nothing.
when thinking of the times it is getting interrupted, then it is still NOT worth to do long combos.

when the revamp happened, the gameplay stats were drasticly altered to the point WE was basicly useless.
not only did super powered receive more power and faster repleneshing, it also got even more might added.
despite of the devs saying they have something in mind, they never added more damage for WM to WE.
instead of fixing the stats and change them again, devs went the easy road of using the artifacts to do so.
especially the VWD was only making the strongest of all weapon attacks become usable in certain situations.
and here we are ^^ not saying "i told you from begin with", just hoping to help out and make it work better ^^

SUGGESTION:
take away the 10% might buff for hybrid and super powered.
give hybrid a 10% precision buff and to WE a buff for the WM's.
please: discuss it with the team and maybe tell us your decission!

So, now you want to start nerfing Might? How about we'll see how the weaponpass turns out first before we start nerfing might all together?

I get how Precision dps might take a nosedive if this update is not done properly.

But to then turn around and suggest to completely nerf might, that does not help balance either.

ok, ok, i see, ppl dont want a nerf, i admit, that was maybe to harsh, please forgive me.
lets not get crazy and say the buff should have never happened, it is here now and stays.

ALTERNATIVE SUGGESTION:
keep the super powered playstyle stat as it is.
give 10% to hybrid. add a buff to WE for WM's.
done. more damage for each style. all happy?

Wouldn’t solve anything. Keep in mind that controllers also buff precision players with 20% PREC/WDPS. I wouldn’t do anything to the current focuses. Let’s see how well the weapon pass turns out, people are losing their mind already for something that is still in testing phase.

it goes hand in hand. something that bothers me since revamp.
increased WM damage to WE has been fallen under the table...

That's the problem Hybrid can never work the way we would ideally want outside of very specific builds, support roles or pvp. I think it should just be taken out lol. The only thing i can think of is that if you don't select the mastery node, your base combos do more damage but then why would anyone waste skill points on weapon mastery?