Veteran power sword habit

[Alas!]

Thought: power sword creates a bad habit in veteran players - instead of shooting when they should and can, they melee because power sword is so good. Several times i, as zealot, had find myself in the situation when i melee, veteran melees next to me while ignoting bombers running not so far away, throwing bombs at us.
What do you think?

[Harukage]

It is not about Vets or Powersword, it is about some players who play them. They will do stupid things even when playing other classes. I see it all the time.
You DO NOT want to melee much on T4-T5 as a Vet. The simple fact that you get more damage while you move trying to reposition is a killer. Low health pool is not helping much either.

[Arani]

Originally posted by Harukage:

It is not about Vets or Powersword, it is about some players who play them. They will do stupid things even when playing other classes. I see it all the time.
You DO NOT want to melee much on T4-T5 as a Vet. The simple fact that you get more damage while you move trying to reposition is a killer. Low health pool is not helping much either.

And then there's the other fact that they generate almost 3x more toughness per kill, to a pool that's almost 3x larger than anyone else's. And with Power Sword that is a LOT of kills.

Not talking about you here mind you but people on these forums make a whole lot of wild assumptions about how and in what situations people play when they play the game. And chief among them is that the vet shouldn't be meleeing. Which is just flat out wrong. There's a lot of situations where the melee helps a lot more than anything else. Of course if there's ranged or specials around, the vet should be focusing on them, but that's not nearly always the case.

[luZk]

If the veteran or psyker has to melee, you have failed at giving them space to do their thing.

This is on you!

[DLCI]

Originally posted by Alas!:

Several times i, as zealot, had find myself in the situation when i melee, veteran melees next to me...
What do you think?

maybe the veteran next to you has to switch to melee because, instead of being the front-line, you are standing next to him for some reason?

follow up question

if you see a bomber running away, why do you assume that's not a problem EVERYONE needs to deal with? is your gun broken or something?

final remarks

there are no classes in this game that are supposed to do 'only 1 thing', nor are there strict division between who is supposed to do what

that's not how the game was designed. it was intended that sometimes everybody shoots stuff, and sometimes everybody hits stuff, and the correct person to kill a dangerous special is 'anyone that is able to do so'

[Black Magic]

The Power Sword itself doesn't promote bad habits—it's a culmination of <T3 missions AND the Power Sword as the transition between T3 and 4 isn't as smooth as it should be, imo (it kind of just skips a "division" when you get into T4). In T4-5 they're more likely to be punished for trying to get into melee range, which is where the Power Sword shines in its capacity for allowing the Veteran the ability to defend themselves should their positioning be compromised.

T1-3 you aren't punished nearly as hard as you are in T4 and 5. If you get caught in Gun fire trying to sprint as the Veteran, you're going to feel it, because of their defensive debuff when sprinting.

This doesn't excuse that the Power Sword is really strong for what is essentially meant to be the ranged-primary class, its intended purpose is to give the class a lifeline should an individual situation occur where they have to fend for themselves, so the weapon exists on a Knife's edge of overpowered and very strong. (Ambush Hordes happen unexpectedly, you can time the Horde intervals but you cannot time the type of Horde you will get. There's 3 types).

As a result, it has the capacity to make a number of threats and other items redundant.

For balancing,

The Power Sword should have a more stark, inverse scale to its damage based on Target Mass; both from a lore standpoint and in-game mechanic, this makes sense. Because Power Swords, while having the capacity to slice through the majority of materials in 40k, requires an amount of physical exertion to pass through solid matter (ergo depends on the limitations of the Wielder) — As it's stated there's a difference between a Standard Power Sword and a Mastercrafted blade, the blade edge itself makes an impact, not just the energy field that surrounds it. Basically saying there is a measure of resistance when trying to slice through solid matter.

It's often compared to a Lightsaber from Star Wars, but this is inaccurate because a Lightsaber feels no resistance unless it comes across specific composite-alloys or greater fields and surfaces designed specifically for dealing with the energy dispersion of it. A lightsaber WILL absolutely cut through anything and everything unless those criteria are met. A Power Sword will cut through most things, depending on who is using it.

This means that, a Power Sword In the hands of a Space Marine, is capable of cleaving through endless masses - which makes makes total sense, as they'd feel little to no resistance cutting through swathes of unarmored/singularly armored foes.

But in the hands of a former Militarum Veteran? They're no-where near the physique of an Astarte. They should at least feel enough resistance as they start cutting through the third person. So there should be more fall off on the effectiveness of it—this includes if they happen to chance themselves against a Crusher. It should starkly start to fall off against bigger targets, and even more against the Carapace-Armored Crushers.

It's not a Force Sword which is limited by the power and potential output of the Psyker's psychic ability/harnessing of Raw Warp energy; Force Swords can cut through literally anything in the hands of a powerful, accomplished Psyker. But the Power Sword is more consistent in averaging results in 40k.

tldr; the Power Sword performs far too well in the hands of a (presumably peak, but aged) Militarum Veteran.

[Licher.Rus]

Originally posted by Alas!:

Thought: power sword creates a bad habit in veteran players - instead of shooting when they should and can, they melee because power sword is so good. Several times i, as zealot, had find myself in the situation when i melee, veteran melees next to me while ignoting bombers running not so far away, throwing bombs at us.
What do you think?

This is zealots, who decided to play as vet a little

[Dr. Merkwürdiglieben]

Woooosh! Wooosh! Wooosh!
WHAT? I CAN'T HEAR YOU, OVER THE SOUND OF ME DELETING THE HORDE!
Oh, a boxburster.....

But in all seriousness.
If I have to start swinging my thing around, someone else wasn't doing their job proper.....

[Burba]

I use my power sword when my gun is empty. If I still have bullets in my pocket I will reload and shoot when I have the opportunity. If I am out of ammo let me know if you see some.

[Zerschmetterling]

I prefer my chainsword over the powersword. It deals reasonably well with hordes, but is leagues better at killing ragers, maulers and crushers. And with the bleed blessing, it also has a sort of fire and forget mechanic to it.
Also, Powersword is just boring to use.
Activate, sweep left, sweep right, sweep left, sweep right, repeat...

[Steinar]

Never had that problem with Veteran players.

What I do encounter are Psyker players who don't cast Brain Burst on Elites, like Bombers. They shoot their staff on nearby enemies that are under control.

Voidstrike players are typically the worst. Even when they do focus on an Elite, they do it by shooting their Voidstrike. They end up spending 10 seconds to kill an Elite, because 10 seconds is ok, but Brain Burst for 2.3 seconds is too long. I don't get it. When four Gunners are hiding in cover, use Brain Burst to root them out.

[Moffin Bovin]

Why shoot a bomber or a shooter and get 1 kill and score low hp damage when you can swing at a horde and get lots of kills and do much more hp damage?

Originally posted by Steinar:

Never had that problem with Veteran players.

What I do encounter are Psyker players who don't cast Brain Burst on Elites

brain burst takes even longer to do. talk about a dps loss.

[Burba]

Originally posted by Moffin Bovin:

Why shoot a bomber or a shooter and get 1 kill and score low hp damage when you can swing at a horde and get lots of kills and do much more hp damage?

Originally posted by Steinar:

Never had that problem with Veteran players.

What I do encounter are Psyker players who don't cast Brain Burst on Elites

brain burst takes even longer to do. talk about a dps loss.

Devs had their chance to put in a score board that had useful stuff on it. Now everyone uses the mod. Now it is all about DPS and kills.

[Yaltiaj]

Originally posted by Alas!:

Thought: power sword creates a bad habit in veteran players - instead of shooting when they should and can, they melee because power sword is so good. Several times i, as zealot, had find myself in the situation when i melee, veteran melees next to me while ignoting bombers running not so far away, throwing bombs at us.
What do you think?

I completely disagree with this. I use the plasma gun which is by design meant only for specials and not trash. My melee handles crowds, while my plasma gun kills off as many specials as I can down before it over heats.

Maybe some players have a bad habit of ignoring high value targets, but the fault lies with them not the weapon.

[Steinar]

Originally posted by Burba:

Devs had their chance to put in a score board that had useful stuff on it. Now everyone uses the mod. Now it is all about DPS and kills.

The scoreboard mod shows damage. An official one would show damage. Nothing would change.

Ban the mod, problem solved.

[Who trains thy hands for war?]

Originally posted by Harukage:

It is not about Vets or Powersword, it is about some players who play them. They will do stupid things even when playing other classes. I see it all the time.
You DO NOT want to melee much on T4-T5 as a Vet. The simple fact that you get more damage while you move trying to reposition is a killer. Low health pool is not helping much either.

Melee is fine on T5. Use Autopistol. Plasma is ok too but worse. Tradeoff for Ogryns

Probably Catachan Mark IV sword better; more mobile and versatile. The above two guns can deal with Ragers at close range. Power Sword still takes forever to kill Ogryns anyway