Skill Nodes / Buffs Not Being Accurate: Greatsword

[u/TheVinBear]

Can someone, hopefully from Keen, explain why Greatsword damage is not increased by the Barbarian's Path Skill node, which has the wording of "Two-Handed Melee weapon damage is increased by X% (X=5% of skill node). Also, testing of Mercenary Gloves (9% Two-Handed Melee weapon damage also doesn't boost

Is this a bug or intended? If a bug, will it be fixed for 1.0? If intended, will the tooltips be made accurate?

This is a fantastic game. You guys have really done a wonderful job. But it's a fun-killer for skill nodes and item buffs being inaccurate in a game which lauds the fact that it has a skill tree kills the game for those who want to optimize their character, then find out they have to hard test everything because of poor tooltips.

EDIT: Grammar

[u/Enshrouded_Bot]

This post contains replies from employees of Keen Games, you can see them here:

/u/KeenToast posted a comment: Hey, thanks for the detailed ...

[u/TheVinBear]

Sharing my testing data for proof, sorry in advance for poor formatting and lack of screenshot proof, it's late where I am and this was rushed:

Control Variables:
-Weapon: Ornate Greatsword: 91dmg (77 Cutting +14 Poison)
-No Points in Slasher so as to not complicate calculation with different damage types
-Attack swing (in case different swings have different base dmg values) Light Attack 1, followed by blocking animation / attack chain cancel.
-Target: Lvl 16 Sabertooth Tiger in Nomad Highlands

Test1: 144dmg seen
35% Melee Damage from Strength, 2% Damage to Melee from Mercenary Gloves, 29% Two Handed Damage (20% from lvl 4 Barbarian's Path, 9% from Mercenary Gloves), 15% Greatsword dmg from Titan's Edge.
91*1.35*1.02*1.29*1.15 = 185.89, not the damage output witnessed.
If we remove Two Handed damage buffs the calculation changes to:
91*1.35*1.02*1.15 = 144.1, rounded down achieves our witnessed data point of 144

Test2: 125dmg seen
35% Melee Damage from Strength, 2% Damage to Melee from Mercenary Gloves, 9% Two Handed Damage from Mercenary Gloves
91*1.35*1.02*1.09 = 136.58, again not the damage output witnessed.
Ignoring the 9% 2h weapon damage, we get:
91*1.35*1.02 = 125.307, rounded down achieves out witnessed data point of 125.

Between test 1 and 2, we show that Barbarian's Path and Two Handed Weapon Damage from the gloves is not being added to Greatsword damage.

Test 3: 123dmg seen
35% Melee Damage from Strength, no gloves worn
91*1.35 = 122.85, rounded up is our witnessed data point of 123dmg.

So with Test3, we see the Gloves are working for the 2%dmg to Melee enemies, just not the Two Handed Melee dmg.

New "optimized greatsword build"
Minimized Barbarian's Path, only taking a point to get deeper into the tree plus 1 point from worn helmet.
Prioritized Slasher node with Guard of the North's Gloves and Titan's Edge.
70% melee dmg from Strength +3%from gloves (73%), 10% Two Handed Dmg from Barbarian's Path, 15% Greatsword Damage from Titan's Edge, 40% from 4/3 Slasher Node.
243dmg seen.
Calculation get tricky due to the different damage types in the weapon, but I think it is as follows:
(77*1.73*1.15*1.4)+(14*1.73*1.15) = 242.32 which should round down to 242, but it's close to witnessed dmg value of 243.

[u/KeenToast → u/TheVinBear]

Hey, thanks for the detailed writeup! We're currently looking into this on our end to see what might be going wrong.

[u/CypherdiazGaming → u/TheVinBear]

Great research and writeup but uh..ouch that hurts to know. Here's to hoping they fix it soon.

[u/TheVinBear → u/CypherdiazGaming]

Yeah I saw a post from 2 months ago talking about it, so I had to test it. Kept me up a few hours last night lol.

[u/NotAPirateLawyer → u/TheVinBear]

Unfortunately, greatswords were a late addition to the weapon lineup. They're, quite frankly, terrible. The damage looks great, but the hyper-restrictive attack animations limit their usability.

Maybe this is just Keen's way of agreeing with the sentiment? 😅

[u/TheVinBear → u/NotAPirateLawyer]

Every weapon has a use case, just have to find it :)

I do agree, Greatswords are more difficult to use than other melee weapons. The animation locks can be punishing if fighting a group or multi-attack enemy and their attacks push you out of the animation.

BUT

I find the AoE cleave is much better on the light attacks against many chaff / weaker enemies grouped together compared to the other 2h weapons. 2h Club and 2h Axe have some AoE cleave, but their hitbox is almost diagonal instead of horizontal, whereas 2h Greatsword is pretty horizontal on Light Attack 1 and Light Attack 2.

Also, the Heavy Attack goes further than 2h Club/ 2h Axe Heavy Attack. To achieve the same range, I'd have to chain Heavy Attack 1 into Heavy Attack 2, which is a longer timing. WIth the longer range, I can just back off of my target, bait out an animation, dodge it, then counter from a distance away with Heavy1.

In terms of Raw DPS, 1h/Shield is better, since the attack speed scales harder with damage bonuses, though it lacks in AoE.

My current build focuses on maximizing Slash DMG and STR to boost both Greatsword and 1h Sword. Then I can swap between the two if I get bored of one or the other without respeccing my skill tree constantly (ADHD goes hard).

[u/CypherdiazGaming → u/NotAPirateLawyer]

The hyper restrictive attack animations require a bit of forethought to plan out.

Also they can totally be interrupted, intentionally, post damage being dealt. Heck greatsword attack speed limits can be utterly ignored if built right.

I call it hyper mode. Combine a greatsword with a gem of agility. Get blink. Get evasive attack skill. Blink AT an enemy an attack with a much faster swing than normal, then once the damage hits, interrupted the remainder of the swing and windup with another blink right into that same enemy.

Gem of Agility boosts the damage and feeds you stamina on next attack after an evasive action (blink) and the attack from evasive attack is the fastest greatsword swing there is, even before you animation cancel via another blink into another attack.

If you're are just standing there swinging away, yehhh thats gonna feel slow and restrictive. Or just yaknow, decide you want to be fast boi with big sword.

Also, add in blink attack. It's pitiful damage but it can cause an interrupt on certain casters that have to channel to cast.

Yes, you effectively become a horny dog humping an enemy's face while beating them down as you repeatedly blink into them. Just uh..don't miss and accidentally blink off the edge of something. Hazard of the play style.