Weapon balancing?

[Sabaithal]

Tried out a couple weapons so far. Some clearly have pros and cons that come down to situation or taste (swords are pure killing but pretty good at it and durable, spears are mainly throwing weapons and as such are not quite as useful in straight melee, and axes are decent but degrade quickly due to also being woodcutting tools) but do any of you think there are certain weapons that either need to be nerfed or buffed in some way?

Personally, I'm thinking the bronze atgeir, and am hoping that other polearms are not a reflection of it. It takes up a lot of stamina per swing, barely does any more damage than the 1-handed weapons, and costs a lot more. Its only saving grace is a sweeping arc move. It just feels like its not useful enough compared to other weapons of its tier.

[[PVP] Boss Prime]

Silver sword, hands down best weapon in the game. Most of the weapons are flat tuned. For example, daggers need to be retuned. DPS on the Silver sword + Spirit dmg is awesome.

[blankitosonic]

Hmm , i see polearms the most uneffective in all the weapons progression
Im already in end game part just rising weapon skills and im sure that im not gionma lvl up polearms
By the way in the progression between metal ages this the best u can use ( less bows , these always most be used ) :
Bronze : bronze axe or sword ( maybe mace if u have a lot of bronze ) , staggerbrraker
Iron : iron mace and only that , because u can break any mob in your way in the swamp and mountain with it , and iron sledge for great AoE , better than polearms if u have high blunt skill , still usefull against fulings
Silver : frostner silver sword and fang spear can be usefull : silver sword do a better job in the swamp and against yagluth , frostner wrecks fulings with their slow debuff ( helps u a lot when theres a group of them ) and fang spear is for destroy loxes
Blackmetal : porcupine , sword and knife , these do a lot of damage in that part of the game

And yes , polearms most be buffed to be usefull , them eat much stamina

[Gorbush Creepgood]

Here are my 5 cents..

Hands down the most OP weapon(s) in the game right now are bows, and i'm fairly certain they will receive a nerf in the forseeable future.

Spears are absolute trash and deserve a rebalance in some way. Everything a spear does, the atgeir does better. Also, throwing your weapon away in combat doesn't feel like a very viking way to handle things XD

Atgeirs imho are pretty good the way they are.
Damage is distributed between everything you hit (meaning if your weapon does 50 damage and you hit two targets at once, each will only receive 25), so the on-point damage from atgeirs is pretty neat.
The secondary attack is borderline OP tho because it is a guaranteed stagger to everything around you. Its also amazing at farming flax and barley XD

Ooze bombs are fun to use from time to time, but also mostly useless.

[ec928]

The sword and shield is one of the most powerful melee combos in Valheim.

If you do a lot of melee combat, the shield is your best defence, and they're excellent in Valheim. Another important part of melee combat is stamina management, and the sword is one of the most stamina efficient weapons only consuming 10 stamina per hit, with each hit hitting hard (unlike daggers), and (unlike spears) allowing powerful 3 hit combos. Combine that with a reasonably fast attack speed, and it has one of the highest DPS in the game.

In short: it's stamina efficient, has excellent DPS, and gives you the best defence in the game.

It's nothing special, minimal AOE, minimal enemy weaknesses to its slashing damage (unlike maces and bows etc.), and maybe a bit boring, but its high DPS and efficiency will let you rip through most enemies fast while keeping you safe.

[blankitosonic]

Originally posted by PVP RockGor the First:

Silver sword, hands down best weapon in the game. Most of the weapons are flat tuned. For example, daggers need to be retuned. DPS on the Silver sword + Spirit dmg is awesome.

Frostner is more useful in plains because his frost damage+blunt+spirit is a bit op most when rains , spirit only works on undeads so , its better blackmetal sword over silver sword , 113 slashing damage is too much over stagged enemies

Originally posted by FunnyBunny:

Here are my 5 cents..

Hands down the most OP weapon(s) in the game right now are bows, and i'm fairly certain they will receive a nerf in the forseeable future.

Spears are absolute trash and deserve a rebalance in some way. Everything a spear does, the atgeir does better. Also, throwing your weapon away in combat doesn't feel like a very viking way to handle things XD

Atgeirs imho are pretty good the way they are.
Damage is distributed between everything you hit (meaning if your weapon does 50 damage and you hit two targets at once, each will only receive 25), so the on-point damage from atgeirs is pretty neat.
The secondary attack is borderline OP tho because it is a guaranteed stagger to everything around you. Its also amazing at farming flax and barley XD

Ooze bombs are fun to use from time to time, but also mostly useless.

Man , spear are the most efficient weapon to farm loxes , them has more dps than bows , u cant use a shield with the atgeir, the trick with loxes is the spear combo when you stagg them with the shield = 400-600 damage per combo without get damage , is a very very fast way to farm them , plus ARE 3 TIMES MORE CHEAPER , for AoE is better the iron sledge so far , use less stamina than atgeir second attack and have far more range , plus u lvl up 2 weapons using it , blunt to use 1 and 2 handed , when polearms and spears most be the same but not in this game

Originally posted by Danson:

I think more important than weapon balancing is adding more resistances/weaknesses to different damage types. Right now we have Trolls weak to piercing, skeletons and Bonemass weak to blunt, and.... that's it? Nothing is weak to or strong against slashing.

Loxes and golems are very resistant to slashing

[jonnin]

Daggers need to be normalized so you can fight with them a bit better when not in stealth. Raise base damage, lower sneak damage so the end result in sneak is about the same but out of sneak it works too. Or, if stealth combat is going to be a thing, they could also supply some kind of knockdown/confuse/something that lets you get another stealth big hit in now and then, with a long cooldown maybe. Does not really seem very vikingish, though.

There is no reason for the axe to be so meh. In expeditions viking (anyone else play that one? its pretty cool!) you use them to grab and pull shields to mess up your enemy, like a hook.

all in all the weapons seem to need a pass across the board. There should be a reason to pick or not pick each one. In reality, several are just not good enough.

What I do NOT want to see is bag clutter and micromanagement. Oh, its a whatever, I need to use the axe. Arrg, now its a otherthing, I need to use the sword. Wait here comes something else, and I need spear for that one. This would be HORRIBLE given our already limited bag space and couple that with just the annoyance of micromanagement and it would be very lame.

[Ryzilynt]

Bow, mace, dagger

*edit: i'm ok with the woodcutting axe too

[blankitosonic]

Originally posted by jonnin:

Daggers need to be normalized so you can fight with them a bit better when not in stealth. Raise base damage, lower sneak damage so the end result in sneak is about the same but out of sneak it works too. Or, if stealth combat is going to be a thing, they could also supply some kind of knockdown/confuse/something that lets you get another stealth big hit in now and then, with a long cooldown maybe. Does not really seem very vikingish, though.

There is no reason for the axe to be so meh. In expeditions viking (anyone else play that one? its pretty cool!) you use them to grab and pull shields to mess up your enemy, like a hook.

all in all the weapons seem to need a pass across the board. There should be a reason to pick or not pick each one. In reality, several are just not good enough.

What I do NOT want to see is bag clutter and micromanagement. Oh, its a whatever, I need to use the axe. Arrg, now its a otherthing, I need to use the sword. Wait here comes something else, and I need spear for that one. This would be HORRIBLE given our already limited bag space and couple that with just the annoyance of micromanagement and it would be very lame.

Hmm , try using your dagger with a good shield , stagged enemies get pretty good damage from normal hit and jump hit
I one hit kill draugrs with the jump hit of the abyssal dagger if they are stagged with the shield

[Ryzilynt]

Dagger uses next to no stamina, makes it pretty attractive

[Ryzilynt]

Blunt kills everything in every biome with relative ease, Frostner/Porcupine FTW

[eclipse]

spear is best weapon in game besides porcupine if you train it up, stabbing or throwing - throw is mostly only used for sneak attacks

[FruitBat Man]

My second character's main weapon is the spear =(

I use it constantly to farm stronger enemies while keeping my distance (throw, grab, repeat) and avoiding poison damage in swamp until I farm poison resist meads. I even use it in replacement of the bow for most of the game (drakes are trivial with a bow and by extension spear). I'm a hoardy-hoarder so I don't use up arrows outside of bosses /shrug

The only weapon I see as useless is the dang daggers... why use them at all? I don't see a benefit.

[jonnin]

does shield stagger enable a backstab/ dagger special hit?
For reference if I stagger something with my sword and use the slow middle attack it does over 200 and kills most enemy with one hit that way.

[Fenris]

Best all-around weapon is frostner ; many blunt vulnerabilities + bonus damage when it's raining (swamp especially), and a bit of spirit when fighting undead (wich wont need that extra anyway), plus OP slow effect wich effectively allow you to win ANY encounter.

Next may be maces (same blunt benefits, better stagger/knockback, best against golems).

Then bows, obviously useful against everything (can backstab from great distance, plus allowing every arrow types when needed, including frost ones wich are best all-around except against drakes).

Swords are good, but not especially more useful than maces (same damage, only secondary attack gets a bit higher, but is slower than maces), and some enemies are resistant to slash (lox, golem for instance), making sword a tad less useful as main weapon.

Silver sword is only effective against Yagluth but also not needed. The cost in silver ore is far too much vs ore availability compared to blackmetal one (wich makes a far better all-around weapon).

Next are spears wich are basically one-shot weapons, and added damage from backstab is barely higher than the bow, for the potential "loss" of your weapon its far better to shoot arrows wich are plentiful and easy to make (and add damage from frost/poison too).
The inability to hit multiple enemies, plus horrible hitbox against everything but loxes, and the lack of 3-hit combo make the spear almost inferior to everything currently.
Most of the time you end up using much more stamina because failing to hit moving mobs and/or low/high ground.
Only pros are the fast attack speed and crafting cost (and "cool" factor if you are into spears) but otherwise its not worth the inventory slot...

Worst weapons could be 2-handed ones, and the knife : the loss of the block/parry is really deadly and not compensated by relatively high block power or lesser speed loss (same as holding weapon+shield), and AoE damage is not adequate for most fights, unless you like Leroy Jenkins against hordes of ennemies around you... wich is rarely a good idea for your health. :p
Knifes are absolute joke with horrible hitbox wich hit the ground most of the time, and secondary attack (only thing that CAN be useful) got not enough range to sneak on the first deer you see (while any bow can shot 2-3 deers in close vicinity).

If weapons like knifes and 2-handers can provide secondary bonuses, like getting more hide/meat when killing a gamble with the knife, or a better defensive value for 2-handers (better multiplier for parry or thing like that), then they could be useful outside of Barley harvesting... :/

[FTZ35]

Axe: required for woodcutting, also works as a weapon, deals slashing damage which works on most enemies.
Sword: it's like the axe but a bit faster and it has a secondary attack. Best weapon for generic enemies but costs a lot to make and upgrade. Not really a necessity, you can skip it if you want to focus on raising skill with other weapons isntead.
Mace: pretty much a must for the Swamp. Most enemies there(including the boss) are weak to blunt while being resistant to slash and pierce. Also mace is the only useful weapon against golems (well technically the "best" is the pickaxe but good luck hitting something with that moveset). The only enemies resistant to blunt damage are trolls and loxes so mace works for most enemies, Btw Frostner is overrated. it's not bad but you need the target to be wet for it to do good damage and it is useless in the Mountains.
Spears: would be nice if the moveset wasn't complete garbage. It has small hitbox and lower range than any weapon except knives. Sure you can throw it but then you have to go and recover it which is especially annoying when you autoloot some resin or stone in the slot you had the spear in. Plus only trolls and lox are weak to pierce.
Knives: nice sneak attacks however stealth is usually more trouble than it's worth in this game. Not recommended.
Bow: probably the most important weapon in the game. Hunting deer takes far longer without it and you pretty much need a bow for the Mountains becasue of flying enemies, including the boss. Also useful for fighting groups as it allows you pick enemies off one by one.
Atgeir: the regular attack has decent range but nothing particularly interesting and costs a lot of stamina. The secondary attack is good for hitting multiple enemies.

In short the most important weapons are bow and mace.