The life of a Bludgeon user

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by Badassery, Nov 5, 2018.

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  1. Badassery

    Badassery Avatar

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    Hello, I've been a bludgeon user since persistence with 1300+ points invested in it and over 330 strength to back it up. It always has been weak compared to other weapons for many months now and i don't see any progress to fix this situation.

    For starters the DPS is extremely low. The dps is 1/3 of that of a polearm user who has less points or strength. For example, most dragons are impossible to kill fast enough before u run out of focus trying to heal yourself. Something blades, poles and bow users do with ease.

    The ideal scenario would be to CC something and kill it but even that is unreliable because of the DeSync of the bludgeon skills which might fail to land because of it (especially for those outside US). Even if we don't consider that, the monster might dodge or your skill misses or you need 140lvl of crushing blow for it to has 80% stun chance to be remotely reliable which translates in you being in a tough situation most of the times you can't get out of.

    In PvP, bludgeon is almost a joke. The DeSync, latency problems for those outside the US, the low DPS and unreliable skills make bludgeon user's experience a complete nightmare.

    Bludgeon users see people being able to solo content with ease when he struggles. They feel useless. They have started to have more of a supporting role for a party which might be vexing for someone who can't group or doesn't want to.

    To sum up, The Life of a Bludgeon player is.. Frustrating.

    Thanks for reading! @Chris @DarkStarr
    IGN: Berserker Bloodworm
     
  2. Antrax Artek

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    I have to agree in everything you said, i can feel your pain. Bludgeon is perhaps the most disadvantaged school in game, especially when you compare it with other weapons school.

    I love bludgeon but to not feel a crazy handicap compared to others I have to use polearm in challenging situation since it has increased range, pull, knockback skill (push), knockdown skill (legsweep), root (skewer), healing modifier, dots, ignore armor skill (puncture), can bypass shield block, damage resist bonus and bec de faucon (75% critical damage at gm).
    When you look at the difference between these two weapons, it is abysmal, and it is natural to wonder why bludgeon tree is so limited if there is another school that can do all that other weapons do and much better than these.
    I do not try to say that the polearm is op (despite it is evident) but of how much bludgeon instead is underpowered, blades should be the king of dots and dps and bludgeon should be the king of cc and big hits, to be fair polearm since it can do all these things should do it but not 10x better than weapons designated for this purpose.

    I leveld up all combat skills and usually i try to use all weapons according to the situation obviously renouncing the specialization bonuses, and i have to be honest when i use bludgeon (i tried also with specialization) I feel powerless, I can not do anything good if I do not desperately try to do some damage and then realize that if I do not change weapons, the boss and I will have a lot of time to spend together.

    I also think that the switch from weapon str damage % to flat strength on "Breaker" skill ruined the damage output of this weapon, maybe it would have worked better with a bonus % weapon damage and maybe instead to bypass damage avoidance, considering the low damage output it should bypass the DR (it also makes sense considering that an hammer/mace can damage someone even if full armored).

    Another thing that would make sense and could improve the situation instead in terms of pvp would be a slow effect (I would challenge anyone to run after having suffered a mace blow to a leg).

    I believe that the strong diversification of effects that is present in magic schools should also be applied to combat schools.
     
    Last edited: Nov 5, 2018
  3. Black FjP

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    I use bludgeon, also have 1300ish in the bludgeon tree. It maybe needs a little love, but I find it passable in both pvp and pve, I can solo the mage room with bludgeon but it's pretty slow, I am AL 104.

    I think the biggest issue with bludgeon is that you can get access to most of the same CC outside of the bludgeon tree, and it all shares the same resistance timer, so bludgeon doesn't really have its own identity outside of debuffs. That being said the debuffs are pretty good in pve now that they have increased mob resistance.

    I think berserk is pretty great for dps, but the duration and charge time make it a little akward for the fast paced group fights in this game. Compared to the other weapon skill trees, they all get some sort of additional passive bonus that doesn't take a deck slot, doesn't require time to use, and doesn't have a negative drawback.
     
  4. disorder

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    I cant speak about Polearms as I have 0 experience with them and don't play with anyone who uses them, but I have to say I am a Bludgeon fan.

    My group play as a regular party of 3 and our Bludgeon user is invaluable. He enables us to do some content that would be otherwise out of reach. He can solo content that I am not able to as the Tank with Swords/Shield (Destroyer/Ferocious Bears for example) due to the Utility that Bludgeon brings. Maybe you could do the same but better with Polearms, I do not know. I am also maybe killing some other things faster solo due to Rend. It's all Swings and Roundabouts... His debuff's increase the DPS for the entire party. They are great, I see Coup de Graces over 2k only with Handy in my party, and I love them :) Every thing has been better for us since he picked up Bludgeon, we have never been disappointed, but we also have no basis of comparison.

    Again I cannot compare it against Polearms, but I am never unhappy to see a bludgeon user join my party, I welcome them with open arms.

    Also as a group of 3, swords, bow and bludgeon, we have managed to do all content in the game, even the new Lich boss with his fancy new mechanics. So its at least working, to some extent :p
     
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  5. Daxxe Diggler

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    I haven't used bludgeon since before persistence... but based on the posts in this thread so far, I think I have a suggestion that might help.

    Bludgeon has 2 debuffs that on paper sound great... Break Armor and Break Weapon. IMO, if these 2 skills were buffed up some it would help tremendously. Especially the Break Armor one. If these effects were increased a bit and a short crit % chance (maybe 5 seconds) were added to it, perhaps bludgeon damage would increase and be more viable?
     
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  6. Anpu

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    Berserk skill.
     
  7. Kardall

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    I never got that high in bludgeoning, but even at the lower levels when I was starting my skills up, I saw that blades was just better than bludgeon for me personally. I didn't see any reason to actually use bludgeon since I felt that blades would probably end up doing more damage.

    Seeing this, I can tell my intuition was right. Although it was wrong on the Bows hah. Never have worked on that tree but it is great.
     
  8. Antrax Artek

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    I use both Berserker stance and the one from bludgeon tree, unfortunately damage are still inconsistent even adding firefly 5x.
     
  9. Lazlo

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    I think all of the melee trees should have at least one skill that is just damage and at least one damage over time skill. That still leaves plenty of room for lots of situational skills that define the tree more.

    I haven't ever used bludgeon much, but I think it should at least have something more for dealing with boss type mobs. Obviously crowd control stuff can't be allowed to work reliably on bosses, so you just get weak and inefficient damage with no upside.
     
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  10. Magnus Zarwaddim

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    As a mage staff user, Bludgeon has helped me to do a little bit more damage and some CC, and it has definitely helped with the Obsidian Golems. Sometimes I get the sense that's the only reason it's weak, because it was created with mage users in mind. Honestly, I'd cream my pants if it were a go-to weapon type.

    Edit: Bludgeon at GM, two of the passives at GM (the one that gives strength, the other that gives more damage), the other passive at 80 with intent to GM, and all four active combat skills at 80 with the intent to GM them as well. Not looking to specialize or for stances.
     
  11. Chrystoph Reis

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    From your fellow bludgeon user.

    In Ports defense, when they made the pass on Bludgeon, they made the stuns in Bludgeon 100% respected and had to roll it back less than a week later because of people vehemently complaining that they couldn't jump out of the stuns (retarded mechanic in my opinion to get out of stuns. Roots and webs, but physical stuns!?)

    So they can make the stuns respected and it would be good for both PVE and PVP, but as seen before... people are going to gripe HARD.
     
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  12. Hemswal The Descended

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    I have an alt with bludgeoning. As a US player, I still share some of the same issues. But, I imagine it isn't nearly as bad as someone with a lower ping. I've watched Alphaine Nine and Berserker Bloodworm just have the inability to even hit (green) mobs that are far below their level. (Both players having a low ping to the server).

    I know for a fact this has been worked on, but it can certainly use some more love. I'm sure Port is on it though! :)
     
  13. Purie

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    Another thing to note that spells/skills with dot components land even if the hit is parried/glancing blow/cover and so on.
    Bludgeon stuns get dodged alot and so does the CC component(on top of having chance to stun/knockdown with skills), dsync making it so that you're missing hits to monsters even tho they're right next to you on ur screen. In reality they're somewhere +2secs ahead of time or something.

    PvP on the otherhand with bludgeon is a complete joke. Every stun/knockdown can be get rid of by simply tapping space few times. This make it so that bludgeon users are fighting with crippled weapon. Polearm/Blade things that make them unique such as rend dots, -healing modifier reductions etc can't be countered simply by pressing space. On top of that they have much higher DMG output than bludgeon. EVEN if bludgeon would be buffed DPS wise to blade & polearm level. It would still suffer from these mentioned issues making it worse than those 2 other options.

    I heard @Chris saying in sotacon that he thinks bludgeon is balanced and I believe it is math wise and what it offers CC wise. Other issues non math related on the other hand completely ruin the weapon.
    I'm not sure if I would blame Atos for the state of bludgeon is in. I'm sure they've ran some low ping experiments on test server and it's WORKING AS INTENDED in there.

    Devs have known this(i've been in alphaines stream with Atos and other devs present and alphaine explaining to them what's wrong with the bludgeon) and they either don't have a solution or had more important things to sort. for example buying a real server that players connect instead of peer-to-peer(I don't know if this would solve any issues :rolleyes:). Maybe port would go bankrupt/risk going to bankrupt much faster doing such things. I'm just speculating. Maybe they had better things to do like: Make new player experience better, fishing, more addon store items for RPers that keep this game running:p
     
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  14. Purie

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    Bludgeon stun when it works makes everything trivial. A high lvl bludgeon user can PERMAMENTLY CC any LICH BOSS MAGE. On the other hand bludgeon CC does not work for every creature/boss and I don't believe it should make the whole game trivial.
    I don't also believe bludgeon should be equal to blades or polearm DMG wise. Polearm is too good on the otherhand. Has more utility than bludgeon and does better than blades in short fights(Massive crits). Blade requires time to get rends going and maintaining them. If polearm user would roll the highest number everytime it would be highest DPS weapon in the game but it has too much RNG dmg wise so blade most likely come on top during a long fight +20k HP.

    I think @Chris said in sotacon that bludgeon is BALANCED for group play. I guess this is one of the reason that it lacks the dmg compared to polearm / bow / blade for SOLO PLAY.
    BUT SOTA IS CLASSLESS SYSTEM AND YOU DON'T HAVE TO USE 1 TYPE OF WEAPON ALL THE TIME. I'M FIRE & LIFE SPEC AND YOU DON'T SEE ME HERE COMPLAINING THAT FIRE IS INEFFECTIVE VS A DRAGON.
    I pull out my blades.... I use bludgeon and spears for other stuff.
    Some people are too stubborn and complain they're not able to do every content with 1 set of skills
    If every skill is equal DPS and utility wise might aswell play homogenized WoW
     
  15. Barugon

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    Are you talking about skill levels? Not all skill levels are equal or cost the same. Also, I have over 1100 skill levels in just the ranged tree and I cannot kill a dragon by myself.
     
    Last edited: Nov 5, 2018
  16. Antrax Artek

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    And here comes the polearm, you can do everything and better than any other tree (magic or combat), i think this is the reason that a gigantic part of the population uses polearm and i'm afraid the fact that is the most used weapon (for obvious reasons) is also the reason for which is hardly the target of balancing.

    And this is why blades should be the king of dps, bludgeon the best at big hits and polearm both things but less effective.
    At the moment instead the polearm is the king of king in big hits, ignoring armor, short term dps, CCs and healing debuff plus ignore the most op defense in game (shield block), bludgeon the king of the sub par and slow hits and inconsistent CCs, and blade best dps in long long fights (Talking about pvp is not even like that since u can dispel dots easly).
     
    Last edited: Nov 5, 2018
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  17. Purie

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    Polearm is simply OP due to ARMOR PIERCING PUNCTURE vs High defense targets. Combined with stacking of CRIT DMG from every source possible. Bronze spears(20% crit dmg per weapon), Fireflies(stacking it 6x-5x makes it even more disgusting), Beuc De Faucon, Berserker stance Tactic Spec.

    End result is +300% Crit dmg and way above depending on the level of skills boosting CRIT DMG.
    Low DMG resist targets get shredded by any polearm skill. Puncture doesn't care about DMG RESIST nor shield does work vs any polearm skill making it completely OP with no counterplay other than kiting.
    Blade on the other hand gets completely countered by high dmg resist + death shield nor it can crit 2k without execute. It's pretty hard to get enough HP to not get 1 shot by polearm skills. ;)
     
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  18. Antrax Artek

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    I agree in in everything you said but i think the problem is more complicated since i do all the critical damage boosts you mentioned with bludgeon (except bec de faucon obviously but adding Berserk from bludgeon tree) and damage are not even remotely comparable.

    BTW for the sake of diversification and balance at this point:
    Polearm should ignore block (and not armor too)
    Bludgeon should ignore armor (and not avoidance/parry)
    Blade should ignore dodge
     
    Last edited: Nov 5, 2018
  19. Black FjP

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    You cant permanently cc a lich boss, they build up immunity with each CC attempt and start resisting them. Also, as Antrax has said, you do more damage with polearms from a PASSIVE, that requires NO hotkey slot, doesn't debuff your avoidance, and that you don't have to micromanage.
     
    Last edited: Nov 5, 2018
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  20. Purie

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    6x knockdown and 6x chrushing blow both last about as long as stack of 1 CC resist.So no you're completely wrong. You can take a look at alphaines stream how to hold down locked skills down till 6x and keep liches permanently CC'd
     
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