Test Discussion GU97: Weapon Combat Update

I personally wish they would just remove Weapon Mastery altogether, but unfortunately the Developers want to hold onto it.

I'm sure it can be made to work actually. The stat curves and hybrid focus would need to be readjusted to make up for the extreme stat loss compared to maxing out just one stat. Then to prevent it from just breaking one of the other playstyles we would need ways to interact between Might and Precision - such as Proc buffs, or an artifact that buffs Precision based on Might or vice versa. Basically, payoffs for speccing into both stats equally and for using both offensive powers and shorter combos in quick succession.

But that's out of scope for this update anyway. If you wanna discuss more feel free to send me a pm though.

I don't like the idea that Mega Smash is reporting a 4% decrease for the full-time combo. That *should* be increased, period - it's the pinnacle definition of a risk/reward attack, when it hits it should hit harder than any other single weapons attack - you lead up to it with three counterable lunge-class attacks and then literally hover for over a second charging it up.

The JC boost, that's legit. It really needed a boost to the early cut-off version of itself, but not at the cost of the top end hit.

Tbh I wouldn't take that at face value necessarily. Chances are the 4% decrease is just testing variance on my side. Could be checked again though, in any case it's weird that the JC version would get a buff separate from the full version.

Because they nerfed the artifact and the strongest combos even though it's 5 or 6 powers that can keep and/or beat both on AOE, st, or both. The artifact was nerfed more than 66% at 1 million more experience while they buffed some artifacts to help out the might spec. What's worse players are testing the combos to other weapon combos instead of the strongest powersets. Precision will be used by support only, and that is sad imo

Hybrid Focus should just be renamed to Support Focus since that's what it primarily is. If and when they can figure out a formula specific to true Hybrid DPS, they could add a new focus for it.

I'm not going into full detail, but the way it is on live now is that prec only keeps up atm because of the VWD.

Without it there is no point. That is why they are doing the weapon pass now (also there were 2 clear outliners which causes alot of issues and discussions. They also give prec more options to DPS with and not rely solely on VWD to keep the dmg up, or specific weapons.

People are already panicking on that prec will be broken or not on par with might while everything is, like what one week on test? If something is not working or is being to weak, report it as in what needs to be adjusted with data to back that up simple as that. That is what they asked people to do pretty much in the first place.

I tested some quick AoE Range Weapon Mastery's.

For Artifacts, i used as Precision Focus: Venom Wrist Dispenser, Grimorium Verum, Cog of Maggedon.

To compare i tested a good Might dps Range Loadout.
Artifacts i used for Might Dps: Philosopher Stone, Grimorium Verum, Tetrahedron.

That way this is almost perfectly balanced - Artifact - Effect wise.


So my Summary with Might was an average dmg of 35k-42k dmg/sec.
My Summary with Weapon Combos:

Brawling - Shuriken Storm Mastery -> 30k - 35k dmg/sec
Staff - Mortar Mastery -> 25k - 30k dmg/sec

One Handed - Solar Flame Mastery -> 28k - 32k dmg/sec

additionally i tested one Single target Combo.

Brawling - Enhanced Shuriken Mastery -> 29k - 32k dmg/sec
With a Might - Sigle Target Loadout i hit About -> 35k dmg/sec


in Conclusion, i'd say All Aoe Combos are underperforming - some more than others.

The single target Damage seems quite good but could need a small buff aswell, since single target is the biggest reason People Play Precision and it wouldnt make sense to rip that apart (even it out with might).

Also, the reason i Chose Brawling was, because there are 2 ranged Combos. One for AoE AND one for single target.
Almost no other Weapon has that and i cant be bothered to switch weapons or even use a 2nd Armory just for 2 Weapon types.

Note: Obviously no Supercharge/trikets were used. Also worth mentioning, you can Clip the Animation of Shuriken storm mastery, wich makes it way, WAYYYYY more enjoyable to Play than "tap - hold - wait - power". I know clipping Weapon mastery Combos was removed to balance it for stats revamp, but wouldnt it be much better to reintroduce it and balace it now?

I’m with you on the removal of Weapon mastery. It’s not even hugely popular, I guarantee more people hate it then like it. It would also be so much easier to balance weapons if WM was gone. I feel with all these combos weapons will always be a mess. Also the regular weapon combos which are the fun ones to use always seem to get the shaft in the damage department cause of WM.

1. Those aren't AoE combos.
2. You used the weaker pure single target move to compare to a might ST you're not disclosing the powerset of.

i was Talking About the Weapon mastery not the initial attack, or what do you mean?

is there another single target move weapon mastery for brawling? - for AoE i was testing with Water, for Single target i was testig with Hard Light.

for Prec i was testing with water only, both times i was also using Might attacks in between, simulating a real - in Content - Loadout.
(not just Max Max Max dmg on Sparring target).

i personally liked weapon mastery, but it was definitely more fun to be able to overclip them. However i'll just go with the flow and if they'd remove it, so be it.

I believe what Crescent is trying to say regarding them not being AoE attacks Strich is this:

Staff into Mortar is the only WM attack you tested that could be classified as a AoE (if the NPC is point blank range).

1-H into Solar Flame and Brawling into Shuriken Storm are both Conal Damage. They don't do 360 degree radius of damage like AoE does. Those attacks only do damage to NPCs or Objects that are in front of your toon up to a 140-150 degree angle.

The weapon mastery aspect being different than the initial attacks/combo is a problem for damage calculation. Might based powersets as an example are 100% AoE damage moves all the times. DW or HB->Bow, or 2H->Bow are examples of full AoE prec based WM combos. To give an exaggerated case of the problem the combos you tested is to use Bow Flurry -> Magnum Round. It has like 2-3 seconds of single target damage and then an AoE weapon mastery. During those 2-3 seconds, other combos or Might based would be doing AoE attacks and getting more total damage. For comparison, while you're doing 1H hold range and hitting one target, you could be using DW hold range or 2H hold range and hitting three targets. Even outside of the weapon mastery damage difference, you would be parsing lower from the thousands of damage you'd be missing from using a single target attack compared to an AoE. Those combos are parsing less for a reason, but I will say that Mortar Mastery seems to need a slightly buff to be with the other combos that behave similarly.

There's not another single target move for brawling, and that's one of the issues with weapon mastery design as a whole. Not every weapon has good single target. Brawling hold hold is decent, but you can't clip it at all and it's slow to start because of how the neck mod takes so many hits to take effect. The VWD timing is off slightly as well. But to give an example of something in a worse situation is 2H. It has a full AoE ranged WM combo and the only one that's single target is melee because of the holds. Rifle is also in a bad spot because it can't even use its WM all the time in the way it wants to because of distance'ing affecting which combo is performed. Some weapons by design just aren't capable of doing well in certain scenarios. Brawling is strong, but for the VWD and Neck socket the Flurry from DW is better sync'd. I'd recommend a buff to brawling hold hold to compensate for that as it should be a possible combo in the future, but if you're looking for something to match HL, You'd have to be one of the top Prec Powersets like Ice/Gadgets/Water/Nature to put out similar numbers. I was messing around as Gadgets a few days ago and still managed to 32-34k with 26.4k prec with the vwd grim cog setup on test. Given I know HL doesn't parse at 35k on live server, whatever stats you're testing at might be better matched comparing HL to Flurry with one of those powersets. Brawling would normally be a tier down like how Munitions and Celestial is compared to HL.

Assuming you wanted to test those:
Ice - snow devil + weapon buff
Water - burst iconic move -> weapon buff -> riptide, wait 6s, burst iconic move -> weapon buff, wait 6s, burst iconic move -> riptide -> weapon buff
Nature - use Wolf form to get all your dots set up, come back to human form, harvest or thornburst weapon buff, 6s harvest/thorn, and repeat

Wish reporting and using data to back up claims were the protocol before prec artifact was nerfed

i thought thats why we test weapons, so that a combo like brawling - shuriken storm mastery can compete with Might AoE, since its about balance or not?

dude you just wasted breath on this...No one likes, uses or will ever use this boring slow style of WM....just shelf it already

Let's say a Pure Single Target Weapon Combo is a 1 type weapon. A Pure Area of Effect Weapon Combo is 3 type weapon. The single sparring target is where 1's are tested. The three sparring targets is where 3's are tested. Everything that isn't pure is some decimal in between. The weapon masteries you're testing are like 1.5-2.5. Holding them to the same standard as a 1 or a 3 doesn't make sense, the same way you wouldn't expect a 1 type weapon combo to perform on the three sparring targets as well as a 3 type weapon combo. You wouldn't expect Brawling hold hold, which is a 1, to do as much damage as say Munitions on 3 targets. The same goes for a 1.5 type weapon. An example of a 1.5 would be something like Bow Flurry -> Pistols Magnum Round. Heavily single target portioned, but still has the AoE WM at the end. Brawling tap hold range would be like a 2.5 probably. It's not full aoe, but it's close. But as a 2.5, it shouldn't match a 3 in a situation meant for 3's. It'd perform slightly less than 3, but way better than a 1. Buffing a 2.5 to match a 3 in damage sounds good, but because of it being a 2.5, it'd then beat the 3 in single target. So say on 3 targets:
*assuming they all had the same animation time*
Dual wield Double Throw - 9k damage (3k on each target )
Bow Explosive Shot WM - 36k damage (12k on each target)
Brawling Tap Range - 3k damage (3k on each target)
Martial Arts Shuriken WM - 42k damage (14k on each target)

Cast per cast they'd both do 45k damage total, so assuming they'd be at the same animation time as well, they'd be balanced on 3 targets. But if we do to single target:

Dual wield Double Throw - goes down to 4.5k
Bow Explosive Shot WM - goes down to 18k
Brawling Tap Range - stays at 3k because it's single target
Martial Arts Shuriken WM - goes down to 21k

Now DW WM is doing 22.5k damage, and Brawling is doing 24k. If Brawling does the same damage as DW WM on 3 targets and beats it on single target, then Brawling gets chosen everytime by the community. If the 2's to 2.9's get buffed to match 3's on three targets, they'd have to go back and be changed to split different than how they do now, otherwise 3's would be extinct. The same goes for 1.1-1.9's getting buffed up to match 1's. Not saying I'm against changing the splitting, but it's more work to be done on the dev's end as well as ours testing wise.

when looking at HB scissor kick, it was altered into a single target at some point during revamp i guess. when thinking on the effect the revamp had on Legends and LPVE, there was totally forgotten about the Legends version of the scissor kick, wich still show throwing three projectiles at the targets, yet were of course hitting a single target... thinking on legends, i hope i can test an LPVE run later, just to see how much faster the map is going to get with the updated weapon pass... because: legends have no weapon buffs, nor artifacts to get more damage from...

Ok i got your point.

But lets take your Dual wield comparison as example.

Dual wield has a pure Single target Combo and a pure AoE Combo. (for Range)
Brawling has a pure Single target Combo and a non Pure AoE Combo. (for Range)

So wouldnt be Dual wield Always be the one to go to in this case? Since its either AoE or Single target Damage (nothing inbetween)


in my opinion all Weapons that end with an AoE Weapon mastery Combo should do the same AoE Dmg, aswell as all Weapons that end with a Single target Weapon mastery combo should do the same Single target Damage.




Note: would love to hear what the Dev's actually aim for when it Comes to weapon balance