Thoughts on the new weapon skills?

[Aquillion]

Now that every weapon skill has been redone, what are people's thoughts on them?

My thinking...

Short blades are still best overall in terms of raw power, mostly because their most powerful abilities (Jab, Shank, Rejoinder) are persistent buffs rather than activated stuff. Their activated abilities are weaker, but this doesn't hurt them much.

Long blades feel like a good support option, and have more versatility. If anything, sword-and-dagger is even stronger now, since you can get +2/+3 DV which you can turn into a PV bonus when you need more damage, plus some extra activated abilities. And the DV boost makes long blades an obvious choice for anyone who isn't otherwise good at melee, especially if they have decent intelligence and no str / agi (since when they want to melee weaker enemies to avoid wasting ammo or mutations or whatever, they can use the accuracy boost to hit and one of the several swords that doesn't rely on strength to do damage.) Also, long blades can now disarm reliably, which makes them good against anything weapon-dependent or if you want to make an enemy drop something that would otherwise be lost. Long blades also feel like a good choice for an Ego-focused character that uses Ego Projection to fight, since you can shift your stance based on what stats you use Ego Projection to boost and can shift to Defense when Ego Projection isn't up so your skill points aren't wasted. I was playing an Ego Projection character before and found that I often wanted to project Toughness, since the Ceremonial Vibrokhopesh combined with Duelist Stance would cover my offense well enough as long as I boosted my HP to the point where I could trade a few blows.

Axes are a bit more dangerous than they used to be, but do roughly what they did before. The ability to cut off limbs faster and more reliably feels like it would make them a good choice for enemies with particularly nasty attacks.

The cudgel update is the most recent, and while I've only had a bit of time to fiddle with it, I'm dubious. I didn't play them a huge amount before, but they feel weaker - they lost the reliable, persistent damage boosts they used to have in favor of stuff that feels a bit more situational, since you can't stunlock enemies well enough to keep them from getting in hits. Smacking enemies through walls is conceptually cool, and the ability to potentially break walls with ridiculous AV if you're highly strength-focused is interesting, but as a weapon they don't feel as powerful as the other options. I did have some fun smacking an enemy into a wall, then charging after them (especially with shield bash, so a lengthy stun is guaranteed.) But the long cooldown on Slam is a bit of a problem.

[My name can't be thirtytwo chara]

I'm currently running off of a Freezing Hands/Cryokinesis Cudgel build, and it's going... Alright...

As of yet I've only got an amber staff, and I've just done Golgoltha after clearing a few lairs (which I've found /way/ more than I've had in the past, which is /super/ cool), but I'm feeling weak. I'm relying on freezing not just for actually hitting enemies, but also for damage, and I couldn't kill, say, Slog, without resorting to either healing or my special abilities, which I have been able to do with other builds quite easily.

I'm runnin with Bludgeon, Conk, Backswing and Slam, and whilst Bludegeon activates alot, and I get lots of stunning, enemies can still get in a few hits. If I slow them with Time Dilation and freezing though, I can stunlock enemies. Conk seems nigh worthless, as it's basically just Bludgeon's effect, and Backswing, when you do the math really doesn't make much difference, because the second hit still needs to pass another DV check.

Slam is useful, but weak. Enemies take ~8 damage for going through 3 walls, the max, and I see no way that it scales (it's not weapons, nor PV, nor even wall type). The knockback is quite nice, and can be used to then get attack at range, like with Freezing Hands, but the damage itself is weak. However, I will note, going through walls is great. I was tunneling all about Golgoltha, and that lets me position myself in a corridor whenever I want.

Although I haven't got it yet, Demolish seems interesting. There won't be good single target damage, because knockbacks nature is that you can't hit an enemy twice in a row. However, in areas with lots of enemies, I think it could be useful.

TL;DR Cudgels are interesting, and show some alright ideas, but the damage is wholly lacking. I think that some sort of version of the previous effect would be good.

I haven't played with Axes, but Longswords are much stronger, and it's final ability is way better, as you can do epic juggling of stances.

EDIT: I should note, because it's not obvious in the description, Slam has no cooldown on walls, so there becomes something of a dilemma as to whether or not you want to put a 50 turn cooldown onto your digging ability to hurt an enemy.

[Spacepeople]

yeah, my impression is that this is a cudgel nerf

[CodeRen]

maybe he needs to add more to cudgel but i agree we need more weapon skills. 2 more per class :P

[Aquillion]

Short Blades are fine (they also have synergy with other weapons, since they're good in your off-hand.)

Swords and Axes are all right, although a few more skills couldn't hurt them.

Cudgels are the only one that I feel really needs a buff (granted that I haven't had much time to play with them.) They're too focused on a few specific things, and the things they do aren't universal enough or powerful enough.

[MHC]

Axes seem more powerful to me after not having played the game for a year. Loaded it up on a whim this evening and made a generic regenerating marauder axe-dude and have been kicking significantly more ass than I did before with similar characters. Not sure if it's due to the axe rework or if they've made the game a smidge easier than it was, but it seems pretty noticable.

[awc]

New axe stuff is still my favorite but I've tried out longblades and cudgels so far.

Thoughts: Axes are amazing for more than just brute strength now with even more dismembering. Mobility and bleeding the enemy out tactics are now very valid. Makes the wheel caste axe and shortblade combo work well. Or there's the strength stacking cleave build.. or mix both. I really really like axes. They are what I will play with strength based characters forever.

Longblades: Got an Ibul Praetorian up to level 31 using sword & board. Even with a sharp serrated two-handed metametal longsword I felt swords fall completely flat against extremely armored enemies, which makes the vibrokopesh still the go to weapon against anything but Rhinoxi (Rhinoxes? Rhinoxo?) when delving deep. Dual wielding vibroweapons with a good buckler ended up being what was used most.

On the bright side I found Long blades versatility with all the stances and how they effect lunge and sweep to really shine in certain situations. En-guarde + aggressive stance sweeps mows through ickslugs, earthworms, and other small swarms. Using charge and another artifact that lets you charge extreme distances I was able to get right up to Leering Stalkers and then disarm their blast cannons with duelist stance lunge. Defensive stance is a solid in its ways, especially if you are making an agility heavy character.

Cudgels: I leveraged cudgels as a nomad, maxing out strength and endurance. Pretty much all I ever did was try to limit myself to hallyway or doorway battles, 1v1s, where I would stunlock the enemy and take a couple days to kill it (like killing Cragmensch when level 16). Very bad idea to get surrounded, but the awesome part about cudgels is what was mentioned further up. No cool-down on slam and having eXtreme strength means you can slam through a couple walls and have a good chokepoint in a couple actions. This doesn't work too well in flower plains or jungle forests though.

Cudgels don't seem to be meant for crushing heavily armored foes anymore. Especially since axes have cleave. If anything the tree seems more suited to crowd control for an esper.

[sidd]

Lets not forget all the extra food the axe builds get from all the dismembering.

[awc]

Originally posted by sidd:

Lets not forget all the extra food the axe builds get from all the dismembering.

Ah, the satisfaction of wearing faces.

[sidd]

the +2 ego from slumberling face I have on is pretty amazing.

[Aquillion]

Originally posted by awc:

Cudgels don't seem to be meant for crushing heavily armored foes anymore. Especially since axes have cleave. If anything the tree seems more suited to crowd control for an esper.

Not many Espers invest in strength, though. I feel the best tree for an Esper is long blades, since you get Defensive Stance without any stat requirements, and can get Duelist Stance with just Intelligence.

[awc]

Originally posted by Aquillion:

Originally posted by awc:

Cudgels don't seem to be meant for crushing heavily armored foes anymore. Especially since axes have cleave. If anything the tree seems more suited to crowd control for an esper.

Not many Espers invest in strength, though. I feel the best tree for an Esper is long blades, since you get Defensive Stance without any stat requirements, and can get Duelist Stance with just Intelligence.

I won't disagree. strength heavy cudgel nomad got to see a remarkable increase in offensive power once I found cudgels that had higher pierce values (two-handed fullerite maul) so I'm going to see if I can get him up towards level 30 with an ape-god fist or femur if I can find one, rhinox-skull if I can't, to see how those stack up vs magma crabs, leering stalkers, etc.

Also trying a build based off what was mentioned earlier in this thread. I don't know how accurate I am towards how it was built, but I am doing;

Greybeard, double muscled, freezing hands, cyrokenesis, ego projection, hemophilia. After everything is picked I'm looking at 24 ego, 20 strength, 18 toughness, 10 agil, 10 int, and 15 wisdom. Double muscled should help offset the fact all my points will go into ego, both freezy skills should work well with the stunlocking cudgel tree, and ego projection will ensure during combat that strength stays up to snuff.

[My name can't be thirtytwo chara]

Close to what I had, but I only took my EGO to 16 and leveled Cryokinesis manually. I took better AGI and INT and no WIS. Plus I got myself Time Distortion and Teleport Other for combat tricks. Your build sounds cool too though, but I worry that you'd suffer from low stats.

BTW, I don't think that Greybeards make great Cudgel Tree builds, as the lowered strength will have you struggling with skill points, and the cudgel expertise is only 50 SP.

[awc]

Honestly I just wanted to play a buff grandpa who can go hulk mode (ego projection).

[NovaGen]

Backswing does seem pretty insignificant. If my understanding is correct, the most it can EVER do is add 6.25% to your overall chance to hit per attack, and that's assuming your chance to hit was already no more or no less than 50%.

Conk does essentially do the same thing as bludgeon, but more consistently (100% on hit instead of 50%) and with potentially greater effect (if you can KO enemies) at the cost of being an activation skill. They really aren't the same nor does one invalidate the other.

It is, however, not worth the cost. They could probably be rolled into a single skill, that grants both the passive buff and activation.