Blade School overshadowing other melee options.

the juxtapose spells is a combo-only spell, and it can only be leveled up by using combos. But once you have it, each school can summon 2 elementals, you can lower a targets fire resistance by alot, low strength dex and int, etc.



Theres also a great AoE agaiwsnt undead and a combo to summon a skeletal mage, which, if its in line with wild skeletal mages, would be better than the normal skeleton summon and have range

 

I get the idea that devs want to give each school some unique aspects in combat
Blade: fast attacks + crit damage bursts
Bludgeon: Stun, knock down
Polearms: combat positioning advantages.

However I think devs overlooked that at the end of the day these schools are all needing to deal sufficient damage to be good. If a School is crammed with too many combat shenanigans but not enough damage it just won't work well as a primary damage source.

Blade School is overshadowing but it is not overpowered. When I look at Blade school I see a well thought out tree with interesting skills that actually work well together. The rest of melee combat School skills not only do they look boring they also do not pack enough damage output values.

 

Sadly with the nerfs to stuns (the most recent and inevitably, those yet to come) the bludgeon tree has very little to offer. Not that it was anything special before that, really, in comparison.

Physical damage is processed too much in this game anyway.

 

Bludgeon has exactly as many knockdowns and knockbacks as polearms, with just one added single target stun.

 

The problem is, if there's no additional effect to the knockdown or knockback, it doesn't do anything to the NPC target. I've seen mobs continue to run, cast, fight right through a knockdown and knockback. It looks pretty ridiculous, but meh, it's been that way for months/years?

 

The Bludgeon knockdown works for me atm. Other than the massive "I can't hit more than 1 target with melee" bug.

 

I was GM blades last wipe and I am GM blunt right now. I think these 2 are perfectly balanced now. Blades is def PvE focused and blunt is more of a hybrid between PvE and PvP. I can farm my usual area pretty much the same with blades or blunt. Blunt might even be better since I can stun all the running archers and not chase them around the entire map using blades. Im happy with it for now, I wish I could truly test it more in PvP. But in the end, Im going for a healer build and in big groups I plan on being a healer and having the skills of Blunt / life / Earth will be used to keep myself alive more then damage.

 

I dunno, I would go bludgeon before sword, and Ive been GM or close in both. Right now I am liking polearms a lot, so its very hard to decide.

But my dex-based/light armor 2h bludgeon build from R26-28 felt overpowered. I had like 90 Armor Weak Points and had all my armor and weapons aimed for +Critical/+Critical Damage bonuses, and had very high/GM in 4 of the bludgeon glyphs, and almost GM in all the bludgeon passives. I basically crit for very high damage about 70% of the time, and I swung an axe extremely fast (cartoonishly fast, with my Flurry buff). So yeah Id say bludgeon is on par with blades in terms of crit bonuses and crit potential.

I diddnt like Berzerk, and dont like the Berserker's Stance in tactics either.

 

I don't think bludgeon is weak, but i'd say it is likely in a poor design state atm.

The passives might be a bit overtuned right now and it is propping up mostly lackluster actives.

 

Bludgeon also has the highest damage bonus from strength, armor and attack damage debuffs, a skill that increases all melee dmg by 10% and the strongest melee AoE attack.

Pole arms have the most combat manipulation and better AoE than swords, plus a defensive bonus. Plus they ingore shield blocks

 

Honestly i think swords benifit more from dexterity, bludgeons benifit more from strength, and polearms are just frikin great.

 

How do you know they ignore shield blocks?

 

Because i tested it, and chris said it was intended to be that way. I had troll hit me with one in vengeance while i went turtle mode.

As a side note, he was closer to lvl 5 and i was lvl 40ish and it was hurting pretty bad (he probably trained up a few skills)

Edit: i tested it specificaly because it was said to be intended

 

Thx very much for your answer ^^

 

*doesnt know how to react to politeness on the forum*

Ummm.... *gives you money and runs*

 

The debuffs seem pretty hindered by duration and being single target. Beserk doesn't work the way you think (its really bad). Agree on the strength and the strongest melee AoE though... Those are the 2 reasons i use.

 

Aye... played pole arms for over a year but switched to swords this release. To me the are better skills and better innates.

As far as monster clearing speed, swords also appears to me to be superior.

I agree that balancing the melee schools - soon - would be nice.

 

I agree blades are the best overall choice at the moment but rather than nerfing them I'd just like to see a similar baseline of passive buffs applied to blunt & polearms to bring them up to speed.

 

I have to ask - What are you fighting, is it more than one at a time, what levels are you when tested.

You are making a very generic, blunt statement.

In the end;

Blades = Faster DMG, and some DOT, 2 Targets.
Blugeons = Grt Dmg, DEFENSE, 3 Targets
Pole Amrs = Reach, Defense, had stuns (which needs tweaking again), 4 Targets

Thye all have their purposes and buffs. If you look at it they are actually pretty balanced, sure straight up DMG and Killing you see Blades appears better but when you break the armor and weapons, or stay further back and hit more targets it pretty much balances out.

I am sorry but you stamen needs to have a lot of data, yes data, to back it up. I.E. I clear the area in Deep Ravenswood in 10 minutes and kill 3 Obsidia Wolves 10 Elders and a few Large ones and take little to now damage, and whne do ing it I just stand in the middle of a large group. OR I clear DR in 10 minutes but I have to work my way thru systematically making sure I only have 1 or 2 at max attacking me . . . .

Blanket statements, I am sorry. I am not saying you are wrong just would like some raw data to compare.

I have worked (and so have some friends) and the end result is all very, very, similar. We have done some very indpth data dumping to check

 

@Weins201 Are you sure that 2h swords only hit 2 targets?

I'm not arguing against skepticism towards anecdotes but i could have sworn they hit 3 as well.