New Weapons Underwheliming.

[Balalaika]

What is your take on this?

[HamsterPants]

Depends. If you're comparing the new sword options to mistwalker, then you might find them a little lacking. Mistwalker definitely holds its value in the Ashlands, but I suspect the new swords will outperform it in the Deep North if things resist frost there. This is probably the reason for the revamped Dyrnwyn.

No new atgeir, but that's ok because Himminafl still exists and you can now upgrade it to level 4.

Everything else is just a straight upgrade from previous tiers and mostly filling in the options that were missing from Mistlands. The berserkir axes are really fun to use. Add the lightning gem and they gain a nice little extra something to make carving through a crowd a little bit quicker. I think this is the first time axes have felt like a viable primary weapon.

The new bow with lightning or roots upgrade outperforms Spinesnap or Draugr Fang by quite a margin.

The spear is obviously just better than the boring carapace spear and nice to have enchanting options to do something a little different with it.

The mace is the same - Frostner has outlived its usefulness by this point. If you want blunt damage, this'll do it.

No new knife option though. Skoll and Hati are still pretty strong and were something of a novelty with the two-handedness thing, but there hasn't been a knife that did something other than physical damage since the silver knife.

So, rather than a couple of special magic weapons, we get a range of high-tier physical damage weapons with the option to enchant as we see fit. Now, I don't rate the bloodstone enchantments, but that's fine, I use all my bloodstones for the new magic staves anyway. The lightning enchantment is a solid choice for everything. Yes, the chain lightning is unreliable, but on something where you hit a lot (berserkir axes) it'll trigger more often. The base lightning damage is good generally as it staggers. I'm less enthused about the poison and roots enchantment, but it can be great on a ranged weapon to pin something down and thin out an approaching crowd. High bow skill gives a good rate of fire and makes this more viable maybe?

[bacon]

lighting effect is very strong. i use mace and spear as main weapons. also still using demolisher.

dyrnwyn fire sword is questionable. it has the same 10 flat elemental damage like the poison and lightning enchants, but with no special critical strike chance.

[Nerevar]

Originally posted by HamsterPants:

Depends. If you're comparing the new sword options to mistwalker, then you might find them a little lacking. Mistwalker definitely holds its value in the Ashlands, but I suspect the new swords will outperform it in the Deep North if things resist frost there. This is probably the reason for the revamped Dyrnwyn.

No new atgeir, but that's ok because Himminafl still exists and you can now upgrade it to level 4.

Everything else is just a straight upgrade from previous tiers and mostly filling in the options that were missing from Mistlands. The berserkir axes are really fun to use. Add the lightning gem and they gain a nice little extra something to make carving through a crowd a little bit quicker. I think this is the first time axes have felt like a viable primary weapon.

The new bow with lightning or roots upgrade outperforms Spinesnap or Draugr Fang by quite a margin.

The spear is obviously just better than the boring carapace spear and nice to have enchanting options to do something a little different with it.

The mace is the same - Frostner has outlived its usefulness by this point. If you want blunt damage, this'll do it.

No new knife option though. Skoll and Hati are still pretty strong and were something of a novelty with the two-handedness thing, but there hasn't been a knife that did something other than physical damage since the silver knife.

So, rather than a couple of special magic weapons, we get a range of high-tier physical damage weapons with the option to enchant as we see fit. Now, I don't rate the bloodstone enchantments, but that's fine, I use all my bloodstones for the new magic staves anyway. The lightning enchantment is a solid choice for everything. Yes, the chain lightning is unreliable, but on something where you hit a lot (berserkir axes) it'll trigger more often. The base lightning damage is good generally as it staggers. I'm less enthused about the poison and roots enchantment, but it can be great on a ranged weapon to pin something down and thin out an approaching crowd. High bow skill gives a good rate of fire and makes this more viable maybe?

yeah 10 fire dmg (less than a TORCH) is gonna be super useful in the deep north. LOL.

the new swords may aswell have not been added. they need a buff. badly.

the rng proc elements are a huge letdown. i dont wanna rely on rng to get a use out of my weapon.

the root thing can be good on the bow or crossbow. its nearly fully useless on melee weapons and all undead are immune to poisen dmg by default. plus poisen dots dont stack.

for all the melee weapons lighting is by far the only viable option so there isnt really a choice. the blood gem one is just too risky for the dmg gained in every case. fully useless on a bow 90% of the time.

sadly the lighting sword looks like the worst of the new sword options design wise. so ill stick to mistwalker for swords. i hate the dev who choose this ♥♥♥♥♥♥ non handle design for it. first time i consider modding its appearence but given they wanna clearly push the new twin axes as the meta option dmg wise i doubt it matters. as they outperform nearly all other weapons melee wise currently. aside mistwalker vs 1 target only.

bow is a straight upgrade. but its such a small tiny upgrade that is honestly pathetic.

the new weapons ARE outright questionable currently. they should get buffed. aside the axes.

ESPECIALLY dynwyrn needs a buff. no clue why that thing even exists. feels tacked on for no good reason.

[Balalaika]

Thanks for your interesting feedback. I guess I was expecting the NEXT TIER but it turned out to be more of "this is what you will need in the ice biom."

I wish older weapons would qualify for upgrading with elemental effects.

[Nerevar]

Originally posted by Balalaika:

Thanks for your interesting feedback. I guess I was expecting the NEXT TIER but it turned out to be more of "this is what you will need in the ice biom."

I wish older weapons would qualify for upgrading with elemental effects.

the elemental effects are a joke. you get 10 points elemental dmg. and there is no fire gem or frost gem option at all. only poisen/lighting and the blood gem which is just straight phys dmg boost on missing health.

so i wouldnt even call them elemental options. and i doubt thier bonuses are that useful for deep north you know an ICE biome probaly wants fire dmg the most.... and only 1 of the new melee weapons does fire dmg. and less than a torch with no special effect at all. so may aswell use anything. 10 fire dmg is a joke.

[elire01]

Underwhelming is a good way to describe the current state of Ashlands weapons.

The chance based enchantments should be entirely redone as they lack any sort of consistency that's so vital for Valheim combat. The low elemental damage values are also insanely disappointing. RNG shouldn't be the deciding factor for weapons viability.

Blood enchants are the only unique and fitting enchantments at the moment.
Berserkir Axes are the first viable axe weapon variant to be introduced into the game so that's nice to see.

I highly recommend you all go to Iron Gate's website at valheim.com/support/ and leave them some feedback regarding the topic. Hopefully we can see some good changes done before release.

[Nerevar]

given the release isnt that far off by this point in time and the devs are not working more than 3 days next week due to the national holiday next week i doubt there is many patches left before live release. as i bet itll be live the week of may 13th or even sooner.

[elire01]

I expect it to be a corny end of the month release. I sincerely hope they touch up on the system a little more in the meantime.

The entire point of PTB is to adjust and polish the update. If Iron Gate doesn't act up on player feedback then it defeats the purpose of it.

[bacon]

they arent going to overhaul the new "critical strike" system for vines and lightning. i think we are stuck with that.

[Nerevar]

Originally posted by elire01:

I expect it to be a corny end of the month release. I sincerely hope they touch up on the system a little more in the meantime.

The entire point of PTB is to adjust and polish the update. If Iron Gate doesn't act up on player feedback then it defeats the purpose of it.

end of the month is WAY TOO LONG. they cannot contain the spoilers for that long. unrealistic. a release any later than may 20th is off the table.

difficulty wise there is not much to adjust. they cannot nerf spawns. the moment they do the biome ends up like mistlands : OVERNERFED. as they balanced the enemies basic stats around thier massive numbers clearly. a morgen has only 100 health more than a solider. meanwhile a soldier has 500 health more than a lox for example. the average enemy has the same or less health than a seeker except it cannot fly and doesnt resist 50% of phys dmg. list goes on.

if they truely give in to the "feedback" of some of these players about how its "too much" the entire biomes challenge WILL go down the drain due the above fact alone. they would have to rebalance every single enemies stats to make up for that. thats... ALOT of work for em. plus would prolong the testing time massively.

weapon wise the proc system wont see an overhaul. its simply too late for that. but we can still ask for number adjustments. the procs should not be this low % chance. its way too low currently. if they dont wanna change that they DEFINITLY can reduce the weapons phys dmg by a bit and increase the elemental dmg bonus dmg by ALOT in exchange to make the weapons more distinct and overall improve them.

number fixes for itemstats are realistic to still occur atleast.

gameplay design mistakes are here to stay sadly.

they might wanna fix some of the bugs of the new world setting aswell.

but thats all i would expect.

sadly overall there is alot of very questionable design choices in this update and the weapons proc thingy i just one of them. it feels like the devs have an internal conflict of who they wanna cater the game towards to nowadays for its defaults. as some of these ideas conflict with valheims core concept designs and some are outright not well tought trough at all clearly.

will see where ashlands stands by may 8th. if its not live by then (i doubt it) i will start playing v rising 1.0 anyway myself. they had enough time then. 18 months is long enough for a biome. and by may 6th we pass that mark precisely.

and if they truely repeat the overnerf they did for mistlands for ashlands they lose the rest of thier credibility for me personally. the stone portal alone was a giant middlefinger to longterm fans of the default gameplay for no good reason already. add this on top now`? would send a clear signal that the target audience has changed internally.

[bacon]

they should have added an advanced cart for moving metal around ashlands. it would be powered, like the battering ram needing wood, and would be like a self-propelled lawn mower. you still need to drive it, but it would be manageable with more weight than the current cart, as long as you kept it fueled. the cart would be fire proof as well.

then you bring metal to the shore and boat it home in the drakkar, which, even though it is slower than longship, the storage makes it worthwhile. they undermined all that with stone portals, which you can just mule through a regular portal any time you want to move metal.

[Nerevar]

Originally posted by bacon:

they should have added an advanced cart for moving metal around ashlands. it would be powered, like the battering ram needing wood, and would be like a self-propelled lawn mower. you still need to drive it, but it would be manageable with more weight than the current cart, as long as you kept it fueled. the cart would be fire proof as well.

then you bring metal to the shore and boat it home in the drakkar, which, even though it is slower than longship, the storage makes it worthwhile. they undermined all that with stone portals, which you can just mule through a regular portal any time you want to move metal.

that cart is actually a really cool idea. sadly i doubt thats in the cards anymore now. portal got added. dmg is done like i said on that gameplay front part.

regarding the drakkar : its actually FASTER than the longship. it just takes longer to get up to speed. but just like the longship vs karve its actually faster at max speed once it gets there. it doesnt SEEM like it because the drakkar is comically oversized for no real reason. it could be 33% smaller and would still look and work the same as now. its turn speed is of course worse than longship but you dont turn ships in this game like you would turn a car in real life to begin with. too many players try that still.

if you drive backwards instead the lack of turnspeed is offset for the most part.

due to its silly size it sucks in driveing narrow paths of course.