Test Discussion GU97: Weapon Combat Update

I did it in another thead but I'll just put a short version here. Assuming we change the splitting formula for a vast majority of weapon combos to where combos like Bow Flurry -> Magnum and 1H Focused Blast -> Solar Flame performed at the same level as Flurry on ST and the same level of Explosive Shot on 3T, there's still this issue:
Forced into AoE situations. Say cases like Harbinger in Shattered or wanting to focus down Teekl in FoAe last boss or even Doctor Fate 1st boss, you'd have situations where AoE is possible, but pure ST is preferred. Same goes for like the current Stake Well Done feat in the alert. Even if Bow parsed the same, I'd pick DW for my vendor weapon because it still gives more control over target selection as well as the fact that interruptions hurt Dual Flurry less than they hurt Magnum Round just because it's a shorter combo, and you'd see that in every prec DPS guide online. If you go the route of making Magnum Round stronger than Flurry to compensate for it being interruptable or having dps loss from having to stop for various reasons, you're just replacing the old Flurry that everyone complained about in cases like Deathstroke and Terra, Doomsday, CoTe last boss when the tanks split up the boss from the adds, Sea Beast, and any SM setting where a boss is alone. You'd partially solve a problem, but create another in the meantime.

That issue applies to why DW would be picked as a main dps weapon over:
Bow because of how Magnum Round is
Dual Pistols because of movement issues
Martial Arts because of how Shuriken is
1H because of how Solar Flame is
2H because of how Arrow Storm is
Staff because of how Mortar is
Shield becaus of how Magnum Round/the throws are
Rifle's WM is like DP
Brawling because of how Shuriken is
HB because of how Arrow Fling and Explosive Shot are

And even if we wanted to change the cone of certain weapon masteries, say making Bow Magnum Round into Pure ST, then you end up taking away Shield's full AoE WM combo unless they code both versions of those with different cone's. It becomes a pain in the behind work wise to go through each itteration of that.

I'd rather just have them scrap the current WM system of combos and go back and standardize it. 1 Melee ST combo, 1 Ranged ST combo. 1 Ranged AoE combo. 1 Melee Aoe combo. In every weapon type. That way we have clearer comparisons between weapons and every weapon can do the exact same thing in every situation for the most part.

Tbh, we're doing ST and ranged aoe combo balance in this update but outside of 1 combo that matches Flurry at it's max potential and beats Explosive Shot on AoE somehow that I want to get handled very carefully to allow the community to have another option and have meaningful trade-off's in content, the rest of the combos are going to be balanced for no significant change in gameplay because of the earlier bit. And most people didn't know it before, but DW's Ground Pound Mastery was the next highest WM on Melee AoE behind Smokebomb because it had the same format. You could actually run DW for all 3 situations and only have to buy 1 weapon. That's an extreme luxury to a casual player. The biggest game changing aspect of this update is what's going to be replacing or competing with Smokebomb because Smokebomb is a separate armory entirely for prec dps so it doesn't need to switch with anything else like ST or AoE ranged.

wouldn't taking a step back make all this much easier and just remove weapon mastery and go back to reg weapon combos that would make balancing a baseline much easier

Technically yes, but... you know… devs are devs and ripping something out of the game - some devs worked hard on, will never happen in any game since they're too proud to admit it might've been a misstep rather than doing whats best for the best Player experience. (this is not meant in an insulting way, just what i have experienced in every game i ever played.)

There'd still be problems in variety, but it would be greatly lessened yes. Bow would turn into the new DW with having a strong ranged ST and AoE combo, but if they introduced a few changes like making Scissor Kick ST, then you'd have a few weapons like HB,Staff, MA that might do well.

It seems like I might be in the minority here, but I like WM. I like using two handed, and I like the fact that I have more options with WM as opposed to the basic combos that twohanded offers. Something I would like to see, which might be a nice compromise, is a weapon swap power. Kinda like how the Joker in legends has with the crowbar and dual pistols. I think that would solve a lot of the issues that seems to keep popping up with WM, and the weapons being generally unbalanced with ST vs AOE. That way you can just switch to a weapon on the fly that suits your needs, and maybe add a small buff to weapon dps when you do switch.

Is this supposed to be up yet? Cause I'm still getting only 1/3 damage from Bow Flurry Shot Mastery compared to Bow Flurry Shot without mastery.

Crimson Mayhem -- yes, but you did bring another problem to light. Bow Flurry (normal) was doing ~4x the damage it was supposed to. That will be fixed in the next build.

@DCAutymn
Can you take a look at Handblaster Uppercut? The non-Mastery version does significantly more damage than the Mastery version.

So does that mean Flurry Shot Mastery was already doing the intended damage? ouch

@DCAutymn
I'm noticing a significant difference in the damage for the Mastered and Non-Mastered forms of the attacks listed below. Can you review the data for these attacks?

Bow Bow Slam - x3 Tap, 1x Hold
Dual Pistols Jump Shot
Dual Pistols Magnum Round
Dual Wield Phantom Slash - 2x tap. The Mastered Version is doing over 2x the damage.
Dual Wield Double Throw
Handblasters Uppercut - Non-mastered version is doing crazy damage.
Handblasters Meteor Blast
Handblasters Solar Flare
Martial Arts Cartwheel Kick
Martial Arts Enhanced Shuriken - The Mastered Version is doing 3x the damage.
Martial Arts Knee Launch
Martial Arts Spinning Punch
One-Handed Focused Blast - Hold Range
One-Handed Flip Slash
Rifle Overhead Smash - Any variant
Shield Leaping Stab
Shield Downward Cross

For most of these, the difference between Mastery and Non-Mastery is much larger than 10%.

Feedback
@DCAutymn
The balance on some of these Cross-Weapon combos doesn't make any sense to me. Take Rifle Flurry Mastery for example. Flurry Mastery from 1xtap->2xhold does noticeably more damage than any of the longer possible inputs for Flurry Mastery. I'm looking at 4.5k per hit on the shorter combo versus 3.5k per hit from Flurry Mastery on a longer input combo sequence.

Penryn: Handblaster uppercut was definitely a problem. I fixed that this morning.
Bow Slam and Rifle Overhead Smash(es) were fixed.

Thanks again for the feedback!

@DCAutymn
I went through all of the weapon combos and updated Post #91 with the most egregious examples I could find for Mastered vs Basic.

List I found (assuming the Weapon Expert point is supposed to increase dps by 10%):
*these are dps increases for 30s parses, no crits spec'd, or artifacts*

Handblasters:
Uppercut: -108.2% (fixed already)
Fist Slam: +18.45%
Meteor Blast: +18.66%
Solar Flame: +26.783%

Bow:
Long Draw: -23.76%
Kip Up Launcher: +25.62%
Flurry Shot: -150.62% (fixed already)
Bow Slam: +16.9% (fixed already)

Brawling:
Stomp Smash: +41.9%
Launching Uppercut: +5.23%
Hammer Fist: +5.38%
Double Fist: +5.178%
Haymaker: +24.35%
Backfist: +6.77% (may be borderline from crits or supposed to be double)

Dual Pistols:
Sweep Shot: +172.96%
Lifting Strike: +6.03%
SlipShot&JumpShot back and forth: +29.398%
JumpShot: +28.387%
Loft Shot: +2.55%
JumpShot into SweepShot: +189.4%
Comments: JumpShot into Magnum Round cannot be performed after the mastery point is put in. 3tap melee is still vulnerable to block. Full Auto was doing more dps than spamming lunge, tap ranges, and 3 tap melee's.

Dual Wield:
Double Throw: +44.546%
Tap Range: +112.8%
1TapHoldMelee: +22.139%
2Tap: +19.35%
3Tap: +21.488%
4Tap: +14.6687%
5Tap: +19.15%
Comments: 2TapHold did less dps than 1TapHold on single target. 3,4, and 5TapHold seem to be in the same dps window. Can't notice a significant dps increase. Same goes for 6Tap and 7TapHold's sharing the same dps. Ultra Flurry seemed to be around the same dps as 6-8TapHold. Given it's super high vulnerability, it should be noticeably higher.

Martial Arts:
Knee Launch: +26.5%
CartWheel Kick: +16.12%
Spinning Punch: +36.06%
Enhanced Shuriken: +97.6%
Comment: Hoping after the slight CartWheel Kick correction, it becomes weaker than Elbow Drop. Rn, they're close in dps.

One Handed:
Quick Chop: +14.4%
Focused Blast: +70.2785%
Tap Melee (x4, then reset): +22.457%
Flip Slash: +20.072%

Rifle:
Grenade Launcher: +3.938%
Hold Range: +3.78%
1TapHold: +49.48% (fixed already)
2TapHold: +39.6% (fixed already)
3TapHold: +44.88% (fixed already)
4TapHold: +34% (fixed already)
FlameThrower: +5.77%
FlipBurst & Rolling Barrage back and forth: +19.434%
Comments: Rifle Slam still isn't vulnerable to block. 1-3TapHold all do around the same dps.

Shield:
Tap Range: +6.457% (borderline from crits or half of intended)
Spinning Upslash: +17.87%
Leaping Stab: +18.457%
Spinning Downward Cross: +26.375%
Heavy Sidearm Throw: -3.1%
Comments: 1TapHold does more dps than 2-4TapHold, all single target. 3TapHold has a particular strong drop of around 1/8 total dps compared to 2Tap and 4TapHold.

Staff:
Roundhouse Combo: +5.766%
Martial Flowers: +6.54% (borderline from crits or meant to be doubled)
Launching Roundhouse Combo: +5.524%
Comments: Leaping Overhead Strike Combo, Launching Roundhouse Combo, and Martial Flowers need to be reduced by roughly half in their dps.

Two Handed:
Lunging Smash: +1.485% (seems to be not affected or heavily nerfed buff)
Tap Melee (x4): +40.273%
Clobber: +26.4%
Mega Smash (regular held out): +4.879%
Comments: Jump cancel'ing Mega Smash immediately produces higher dps than holding it out. Need to rescale the damage increase for holding it all the way out.

General Comment: Tap melee's need to be reduced in damage and shifted to combo damage. Some are too close to combo damage without fear of vulnerability such as 2H, Shield, Rifle (currently taps while not vunerable to block are out dps'ing 1-4TapHold on ST), Martial Arts taps are near Spinning Punch dps on Single Target, Dual Wield taps are near Flying Spin Attack, and Brawling taps are near Lunge spam with Brawling, Hammer Fist, and Double Fist.

WishList: Not sure if this is your area or Batuba's but can we have Cog of Mageddon changed to include any weapon combo. There's a dlc's worth of prec, sometimes more inside of that Cog passive that WM combos are getting can't be attained with regular hybrid dps using basic combos. I personally wouldn't care if its the Rank 200 bonus, but I would like to see it somehow. I'd also like to see Neo-Venom Boost changed to 30s cooldown, 25% SC, with 8 seconds buffed instead of 15. Currently, might based dps's surpass prec dps's on supercharges mostly because they have lower cooldowns and faster effects. Adds inside of regular raids rarely last for the entire 15s of Neo-Venom currently which means we lose damage going 50% for 50% with might based. lowering it to 25%SC and lowering the duration would help us be able to maximize the damage we get per use.

Why isn't anyone comparing combos to the superpowers? I don't understand what's happening. Are we trying to balance weapons with weapons, or balance all dps overall? Where are the numbers? "This combo is 3x stronger than this weapon combo" don't tell us how they compare to dps overall. It just tell us 1 weapon is stronger than the other and without numbers how do we know which is strong or which is weak? Some superpowered powers are hitting 50-60k damage per second. Is that combo stronger or weaker than that. The dev's need to put down some based numbers so we know what's up vs intended

1. No might based powersets on live reach those numbers outside of maybe nature.
2. It doesn't matter if we have 1 combo that reaches those numbers. If the rest of the combos in the weapon are failures, that's not balance either. Weapon combos relatively to each other is a huge element of weapon choice as well as pvp for arenas and legends.
3. Half of the attacks/combos are bugged for weapons which means it could be significantly affecting their end game stat levels of damage after multiple %'s get added. There's no point in looking at end game yet as they're prone to major changes. Bug fixes are more important.
4. If you're just a prec fotm user, I would appreciate if you refrained from posting in this thread as those of us here care about weapon balance and not just scorecard chasing.

Please do not miss this post again, please, I beg you.

Staff-Flip Burst Mastery have 4 input for combo
1)L Tap, L Hold, R Hold
2)L Hold , L Hold , R Hold
3)L Tap, L Hold, L Hold, R Hold
4)L Hold , L Hold, L Hold, R Hold

last (R Hold) from 3 and 4 input metod produce 3 time (300 % !!!!! ) more damege that 1 and 2 input.

3 and 4 input metod produce overal about 60% to 70% more damege that 1 and 2 metod (and 40 % to 80 % more damege that any other weapon combos)

Rifle - Flurry Mastery have 4 input metods
1)L Tap, L Hold*2
2)L Tap*2, L Hold*2
3)L Tap*3, L Hold*2
4)L Tap*4, L Hold*2

1 and 2 method on last L Hold produce 17-20% more damege that 3 and 4 method.

Flip burst does more damage with the increased inputs. It's been that way since the revamp came out. I haven't tested it since this update, and it may be doing more damage than it's intended for all I know, but it's always followed that general rule.

Damage is increased by 300%, not just a little as it happens on life servers, but by as much as 300%, I write about this again not because it is a little more, but because it is absurdly more.