Large Swords: Cool, but Bad. Buff 'em.

Suggestion type: FGunZ In-Game (Balance)

Suggestion description: Once upon a time I was a Large sword enjoyer. And I believe they're in need of a buff. Katanas are obviously meta, Kodachis have upsides and downsides, and daggers are strong when used well. Large swords' downsides do not balance their upsides, and as a result they're by far the weakest melee weapon. Unless you ran into me or someone who installed the game 10 minutes ago, when is the last time you saw someone ACTUALLY use an L-Sword in-game? No, I don't mean the Dual L-Swords since they're strictly better than singles (besides the weight) and they STILL don't get used much.

Compared to a Katana... L-Swords:
Are heavy, slow (to slash and switch), can't block, and can't flip.
But, they deal more damage per swing and have more range.

What does this mean?
The slow swing/switch speed means you deal less DPS and have worse mobility than a Katana.
You have less defense than a Katana, since you need a weight ring and cannot block.
You have less kill confirm options, since you can't flip and can't force a recoil.
The range is good though...!

Overall, L-swords give you less offense, less defense, and slower movement compared to a Katana and come with a benefit of more range. Not worth it.

I have a few suggestions that I think will buff Large swords in a way that makes them fun to use and fill a currently non-existent niche without being stronger than the Katana's "golden standard".

1) Increase top end Large Sword damage from 36 -> 40 damage
This is a slight damage bump to keep L-Swords relevant in the damage department (TBF Katana = 84 damage, Double FS LSword = 80 damage and doesn't stun lock)

2) Blocking can be used but only while on the ground. Blocking a slash doesn't cause attacker to recoil?
BFing/DBFing/TBFing with a L-Sword would be dumb strong. But blocking while on the ground gives more defense and allows for a ground slash cancel. Note the second slash of the L-Sword ground chain is SUPER SLOW, so this is only useful for a single ground slash cancel (Katana double ground slash = 56 damage, L-Sword single ground slash = 40 damage). This may be over-tuned, so it might be better to allow for a tap block, not a held block, while on the ground that doesn't cause recoil but still gets a massive.

3) Slashing a block does not cause recoil.
Block tapping for free is strong on paper but this can already be accomplished with all of the other melee weapons pretty easily.

The goal behind these suggestions is to cover some weaknesses of L-Swords while filling a new niche of countering turtling and recoil fishing. Now, at the cost of mobility and damage per second, you gain the ability the block tap at a longer range, can actually combo from ground -> air, and are less prone to insta-dying from a recoil (which you get a lot of, thanks to the increased range).

Yes? No? Better ideas?

how do you intend to have normal katana, dagger and kodachi users fight into a large sword user when their slashes cant be recoiled and can block? one of the main strategies to locking a player using such swords in place is to recoil them then slash rush around them. If, ontop of the higher range, the capability to backpeddle with it and a ping >0 you add non-recoiling and being able to block slash rushes, large sword users would basically be unkillable if played right. not to mention, incredibly unfun to match with even if killable.

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Originally Posted by Bunny

how do you intend to have normal katana, dagger and kodachi users fight into a large sword user when their slashes cant be recoiled and can block? one of the main strategies to locking a player using such swords in place is to recoil them then slash rush around them. If, ontop of the higher range, the capability to backpeddle with it and a ping >0 you add non-recoiling and being able to block slash rushes, large sword users would basically be unkillable if played right. not to mention, incredibly unfun to match with even if killable.

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The same way you counter dead-angling and DBF spam at >0 ping. Turtle gate (which is easy against L-swords), landing a massive, repositioning. Also daggers don't block, dunno what you're getting at there.

Also

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one of the main strategies to locking a player using such swords in place is to recoil them then slash rush around them

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Yes, and that strategy is so easy to do it renders L-swords useless. It needs to be changed in some way order for L-swords to ever be viable.

Blocking slash rushes or causing recoil when you block with an L-Sword is too strong, you're right. I'll change 2) to include that blocking with a large sword doesn't cause recoil. Or you just do option 2 and only enable tap-blocking with no recoil *shrug*. Also don't forget, you can only block while on the ground. So just flip them. boom, problem solved.

Backpeddling is a fair piece of feedback, but you can do that with katanas and L-swords in their current state. Why don't you see it done right now? because it's bad and easy to work around since you're way more mobile than L-sword users.

+1 ever since they nerfed large swords. Not that single large sword was good enough back then. The dual ones used to be used in glad and even tdms. Nowadays it seems as if they are not even in the game , no one uses it.

Also if the admins don't mind, the large sword had its own block and you were able to butterfly tbf. It had its own different animations as to sword, they should enable large swords to bf in training mode only, for someone to have fun or play around with something different to sword.

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Originally Posted by Kiltro

The same way you counter dead-angling and DBF spam at >0 ping. Turtle gate (which is easy against L-swords), landing a massive, repositioning. Also daggers don't block, dunno what you're getting at there.

Also

Yes, and that strategy is so easy to do it renders L-swords useless. It needs to be changed in some way order for L-swords to ever be viable.

Blocking slash rushes or causing recoil when you block with an L-Sword is too strong, you're right. I'll change 2) to include that blocking with a large sword doesn't cause recoil. Or you just do option 2 and only enable tap-blocking with no recoil *shrug*. Also don't forget, you can only block while on the ground. So just flip them. boom, problem solved.

Backpeddling is a fair piece of feedback, but you can do that with katanas and L-swords in their current state. Why don't you see it done right now? because it's bad and easy to work around since you're way more mobile than L-sword users.

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That's fair, I wouldn't mind if admins implemented the suggestions youre making for testing to see if players like it or not. However, looking at the gladiator community specifically (meaning not integrating largeswords into gun usage, this isnt the point of my discussion), if you want gladiator players to not instantly kick someone using these swords, you need to ensure specific things;
1) Using rusty level 0 large sword as the norm in gladiator rooms where people use a rusty sword
2) Not relying on flip as a counter mechanic for someone whos blocking on the ground because flips are usually disabled
3) Backpeddling is possible with katanas and is not as good as large swords with a ping > 0 because large swords have additional range meaning that if you can still catch up to an enemy using those large swords you will not be in range to attack them for a while during a period where they can hit you. This means that strategies to counter backpeddling need to still be viable against those swords
4) Change the level 0 largesword to have a similar texture to a rusty sword, just bigger and heavier (in order to not cause confusion when people use this like there was for the fire and ice swords when they were released)

Yeah everything would need playtesting. And maybe my suggestions are too much - I just want L Swords revisited because they should be fun, not useless.

This has been done for the next update:

- All large swords have the ability to block when on the ground
- Decreased weight of all large swords (single: 20 -> 15, dual: 40 -> 30)
- Increased damage of single large swords
- Increased delay of dual large swords

We will see how it works out.

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Originally Posted by McSic

This has been done for the next update:

- All large swords have the ability to block when on the ground
- Decreased weight of all large swords (single: 20 -> 15, dual: 40 -> 30)
- Increased damage of single large swords
- Increased delay of dual large swords

We will see how it works out.

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Wild stuff, always curious how item balancing works out in GunZ, hope this will up the usage % a bit. :)

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Originally Posted by McSic

This has been done for the next update:

- All large swords have the ability to block when on the ground
- Decreased weight of all large swords (single: 20 -> 15, dual: 40 -> 30)
- Increased damage of single large swords
- Increased delay of dual large swords

We will see how it works out.

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Blocking ability will make it useful, which is good for the game for the ppl who like to try new things. Eg use it in a garden tdm. Maybe u can ground bf or w.e. it's called lol.

It's definitely critical to have the blocking only work on the ground lol I distinctly remember a long time ago some random server had greatsword block and it warped the meta, everyone was kstylin off the dang pillars with bigswords