Heavy Weapons Suck (here's why)

[Bees?]

Elden Ring left a lot to be desired. I'm not gonna talk about PvE, though there are some designs I dislike- I mean the PvP, and weapon balance in general.

Frankly, heavy weapons suck. Even in PvE, they fall behind severely. Let's look at stat investment.

Due to a heavy weapon's slow speed and, well, weight, you're going to need lots of Endurance, both for armor with poise, and just to hold the bloody thing. This is a large investment to make at lower levels, and makes the heavier gear obsolete until you're well into your 90's.

Heavy weapons, generally, take from Strength, which is good since it is an efficient stat. Two-handing something multiplies your strength by 1.5, so a 40 strength character *could* wield a Giant Crusher, provided they're willing to use both hands for it. This is the only upside to the entire weapon class.

When you're swinging around something so big and slow, you'd expect it to hit real, real hard. And it does. I guess? But... Not really. Not compared to lighter weapons.

Let's talk powerstance!

Powerstance is holding two of the same weapon type, one in each hand. This is very easy to do for smaller weapons- for straight swords, curved swords, katanas, spears and whips, powerstancing is practically free since weapons weigh like 3 pounds, and vastly improves damage output, essentially doubling it. So, a sword with... Idunno, 500 AR will essentially have more like 800, accounting for the damage you lose due to how defense is calculated.

That is 800 (really lowballing it there btw, spears can easily get 600+ AR) damage that you can throw out, over and over, with little stamina cost or consequence. This dominates the meta, and is the reason powerstanced Spears are not allowed in competitive PvP.

Most Great weapons get anywhere from 600-700 AR, and have awful powerstanced movesets, becoming even slower and clumsier, eating up huge chunks of stamina, in addition to the weapons themselves being incredibly heavy. Colossals are practically unusable in this way, and they also get no more than 850 ish AR at best, making them objectively worse than just holding a sword or something in each hand.

It gets worse. I've only mentioned powerstancing so far, but frankly, even without that, some weapon classes still out-damage Greats and Colossals, even without holding two.

Halberds have very high AR, with the Nightrider Glaive topping out above 700 while also being one of the longest weapons in the game. Halberds are pretty quick, somewhere between spears and great spears, and doing Pierce damage means they can trade hits and get a whoooole lot of extra damage in. A Nightrider Glaive's running light attack can trade blows with a dope swinging around a Great Hammer's heavy attack, and still totally outdamage it simply from how Pierce works.

Heavy Thrusting Swords can get around 650 ish AR, and are very strong for a similar reason. They can trade hits with Giant Crushers and still be fine as far as damage goes. Mind you, a HTS swings faster than any Great weapon in the game, and has heaps of range.

"But Bees! Heavy Weapons get hyper armor! You can trade hits!"

Sure, maybe if you're using a Colossal. But greatswords? Greataxes, greathammers, etc? Nah. You get almost no hyper armor with those, unless you have 80+ poise. A katana's running r1 will stagger you more often than not.

So in summary, using a heavy weapon of any kind- Greatsword, Curved Greatsword, Great Hammer, Greataxe, Colossal Weapon, or a Colossal Sword (ignoring that gross crouch-poke lmao) makes you weaker, slower, and have less offensive capacity than almost any other weapon in the *entire* game. You invest more stat points, more time per swing, and more weight all to have something that just isn't up to snuff.

So to speak, I think heavy weapons do an OK amount of damage. It suits the PvE experience well, and for the most part, they can chunk in PvP. The problem is that right now, EVERYTHING chunks in PvP. Pierce in general is really, really crazy in Elden Ring, and powerstancing leads to some very powerful attacks from lighter weapons that make you wonder why you would ever choose to pick up that comedically large hammer to begin with.

Rather than buff heavy weapons, I'd prefer if the damage values for lighter weapons were adjusted while powerstancing, and that all Pierce attacks have a flat damage reduction to account for the critical hits that come by so, so easily.

Having a bigger difference between the damage seen per swing from big stuff and little stuff will help encourage players to just use what they want, instead of feeling like they're possibly not playing very efficiently.

Also, Hammers and Axes are underpowered af, and I wish they were stronger. Peace.

[CourtesyFlush09]

Breh I beat the game with GS by literally only spamming the jump attack with Claw talisman. Poise breaks for dayzzzzzzzz son it wasn't even fair

[John Titor]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Mk1nykjnYA

[󠀡KingFiercer]

GS pokes are also terryfing

[mpcgannon]

I had a different experience. My first play through was pure strength with a heavy investment in endurance as well. I used a cold great mace ( ds3 throw back ) and heavy great stars. Honestly, I played like I was two handing in ds3: spacing and timing. The jump attack is good but felt punished appropriately if not timed. I had fun and didn't feel like I was being held back.

[OrangeManBad]

I couldn't read this spreadsheet


Someone give me the short version

[Bees?]

Originally posted by mpcgannon:

I had a different experience. My first play through was pure strength with a heavy investment in endurance as well. I used a cold great mace ( ds3 throw back ) and heavy great stars. Honestly, I played like I was two handing in ds3: spacing and timing. The jump attack is good but felt punished appropriately if not timed. I had fun and didn't feel like I was being held back.

Ignorance is bliss.

[mpcgannon]

Originally posted by Bees?:

Originally posted by mpcgannon:

I had a different experience. My first play through was pure strength with a heavy investment in endurance as well. I used a cold great mace ( ds3 throw back ) and heavy great stars. Honestly, I played like I was two handing in ds3: spacing and timing. The jump attack is good but felt punished appropriately if not timed. I had fun and didn't feel like I was being held back.

Ignorance is bliss.

Ya know, to your credit, I couldn't figure out colossals, to the point that I'm working on dex builds now.

[󠀡KingFiercer]

Originally posted by OrangeManBad:

I couldn't read this spreadsheet


Someone give me the short version

"So to speak, I think heavy weapons do an OK amount of damage. It suits the PvE experience well, and for the most part, they can chunk in PvP. The problem is that right now, EVERYTHING chunks in PvP. Pierce in general is really, really crazy in Elden Ring, and powerstancing leads to some very powerful attacks from lighter weapons that make you wonder why you would ever choose to pick up that comedically large hammer to begin with."

[Bees?]

Originally posted by 󠀡KingFiercer:

GS pokes are also terryfing

GS is just a spear disguised as a sword.

[Bees?]

Originally posted by mpcgannon:

Originally posted by Bees?:

Ignorance is bliss.

Ya know, to your credit, I couldn't figure out colossals, to the point that I'm working on dex builds now.

In PvE? Jump-attack spam. In PvP? Lol, good luck

[Evoxrus XV]

Poke

[LQIM]

Here's how to use heavy weapons:
1- equip bull goat's armor
2- equip bull goat's talisman, great-jar arsenal talisman, dragon-crest greatshield talisman, and claw talisman
3- put 40 levels in vig and end minimum
4- find a heavy weapon you like, get 2 of them, and upgrade them to max
5- get min stats to 1-hand so you can powerstance
6- eat 10 damage buff items before each fight
7- heavy jump attack to victory

Infinite hyperarmor, infinite poise, infinite damage, 0 stamina, 200% equip load. It just works

[Blozzy]

I love ultra greatswords, but people continously using crouch r1. Poking seems so ridiculus even for Guts, but probably its just how it doesn't look that much stylish when doing it

[Blozzy]

Originally posted by 󠀡KingFiercer:

GS pokes are also terryfing

looks ridiculous, but yeah atleast UGs users have advantage

[Drumadin]

If the weapon can't thrust it's bad. That is Elden Ring