Hi,

I would like to see some changes made to how the "two handed" and "sword" skill currently work and align it more to how the axe and dual wield skill work.


Main issues I am trying to solve:

1. When axe was introduced, it affected both 2 handed axes and single handed axes. This is super confusing as the sword skill only affects 1 handed swords and not 2 handed swords.

2. The Skill “two handed” would confuse anyone into thinking it benefits all two handed weapons, when in reality it only affects 2 handed swords. This is compounded by the fact that a “dual wield skill” exists in the game.

Proposed Changes:

1. Two handed swords will instead use the sword skill

2. The two handed skill will be modified to be similar to the dual wield skill, so it will no longer be used for attack/hit rolls but instead enable other things. This effectively gives some classes the ability to raise another skill.

3. Since sword uses brav/agil/str, templars will instead start with the staff skill by default, no quest required. A “big stick” could be a level 1 staff.

4. 2 handed weapons, with the exception of the Seyan sword and staff, would require some 2handed to wield it. So for example a platinum axe might require 90 axe and 60 two handed. And a ice sword might required 90 sword and 60 two handed. The item requirement for two handed skill idealy would not be to high as to not affect early game to much which is why iam talking about level 60 instead of 90.

5) The two handed skill would enable some sort of bonus similar to surround hit or surround hit II where it is based on the skill level. This is compared to dual wield which gives you a bonus crit but it is not based on the skills level. I suggest both skills be changed to work similar to surround hit where a high enough level to hit a mob is required, which then causes the skill to hit. This may require rebalancing of dual wield skill cost/function.

Here is an example:


a. Dual wield would cause “bleeding” – change from “poison” at surround hit 2 range. it may last less time than current poison but happen more frequently
b. Two handed weapons could cause an Area of effect critical at surround hit 1 range.


The goal would be to make either dual wield or two handed cover large AOE while the other one targets a small aoe, and they should be better at their goal than the other.

What do these changes solve:

1. The two handed skill now does affect all two handed weapons like its name suggests

2. Sword skill now does affect all swords like its name suggests

3. A “new” skill for certain classes to level up which can be balanced in whatever way you want (two handed).

4. 2 handed axes/sword/staff can be made viable end game PVE weapons now that a separate skill exists to balance them with.

Steps to make this work

1. Change all player characters two handed skill over to sword and set their two handed skill to 1.

2. Change all NPC’s that have two handed skill over to equivalent sword skill

I would also like to see other changes to axe/sword to make them different from each other, but I wont bother talking about that unless i know people like the above idea first.

Definitely like the train of thought. The introduction of axes always seemed off to me because it made two handed swords obsolete and it always felt like you could have just given TH swords vicious crits and achieved the same result without having to make a bunch of new weapons and a new skill. Then of course when you introduce 1h axes and everyone uses Dual Wield you've now made all of the two handed axes obsolete as well.

As per the norm.... I 100% agree with the above.

Changing and adding stats to NPCs runs the risk of changing their ranks...

Food for thought.

Also I thought the Poison from Dual Wield changed power with the DW skill.

Poison from DW procs does get its power from DW mod.

What about changing *all* enemies to using h2h as a combat stat, and replacing enemies with weapons with a tiered h2h weapon that isn't lootable.

Keeps the rank, keeps the WV of the enemy in check, offloads to a skill that is not really used by players except in one instance, and allows for tuning of individual classes and weapon perks assoo with said weapons.

I think all weapons should have their passive benefits a la vicious critical, or aoe bleed, or aoe critical to SH targets etc.
Would add a new flavor that wouldn't change the dynamic too much in its current state.

Non lootable means less graves right? sounds nice to me. Graves blocking mobs is one of the big drawbacks of the way the game operates currently.

I mean more like the H2H weapon doesn't appear in the grave. Some enemies already have this feature (where they have equipped gear but do not necessarily drop it on death). This may be a function of having said enemy have a GC style flag, I'm not 100% sure.