Bring back Crushing weapons

The claymore in my opinion is the best weapon in DaS, even after the greatsword swing speed nerf. Its just so versatile and easy to get high damage combos.

its still only on counter hits (ie hitting mid attack) everything else (ie mid dodge, guard break) is a X1.40 bonus that applies to everything and is not boosted by the leo ring.

Hammers are good for trades in general.  The only things you wouldn't want to trade with (and threaten poise-break --> huge damage advantage) are things like leo-boosted halberd/spear rollbacks (which are hard to trade with anyway) and very high poise buff builds (100+) that can take 2 hits from you.  Who gets better spacing will decide trades vs things like UGS, assuming you have the poise to trade (and you probably should).

Rational players will probably go for parries or pokes before they'd try to trade with 2h hammers or axes...pokes are harder to deal with by far IMO.  My greatest fear on my mace build right now are spear/halberd flippers, though that's why I have force and havel buff .

Regardless, str weapons had and still have a place, and will likely continue to do so.  I like DaS model better in that any weapon is not applicable to any stat distribution so easily.

Toggle parry.

I'd prefer strength weapons not be outclassed. Even assuming you land a leo hit and second hit before someone toggles out, you do what 700 damage? A greatscythe/gargoyal halberd/halberd will deal the same amount of damage in 2 hits, and they stunlock, and they're longer so the "stagger" is essentially meaningless because you're not close enough to do anything about it (unless you have a spear, but thats a different discussion.)

Halberds are, imo, a much better application of the str weapon policy in dks, in that they have very serious advantages to offset that stagger.

The mace will not stun in 1 hit, and its so short that even if they're just outside your range (hence you thought you could hit, this can be baited btw) then you're eating a 800 damage bs. They can also 1st hit toggle parry you if they baited the attack.

The logic here of risk/reward ratio here should mean that the mace will out damage everytihing even close to its size, but it doesn't do that either.

Toggle parry

You going to toggle before the 1st hammer stun and the hit after that?  That's extremely hard to do with any consistency.  You can probably toggle parry after that w/o too much trouble, but it can get you backstabbed and the stunlock-->BS fish combo will easily kill a lot of builds, and will kill anything but pure VIT gouge with a good buff.  Str builds running hammers or axes can make setup parries very dangerous by slightly altering timing or going for BS.

The mace will not stun in 1 hit

It does over 50 poise break, so it will stun a decent % of builds.  2 hits will stun virtually any build, and is plausible depending on your timing unless someone is truly running a "poke + roll back" approach.

The logic here of risk/reward ratio here should mean that the mace will out damage everytihing even close to its size, but it doesn't do that either.

The risk/reward is in the poise break and lower stat investment for max damage.  A 2nd hit with a mace or reinforce club virtually guarantees a 3rd hit, and the resulting stunlock will guarantee a 4th with no toggle escape (IIRC reinforced can infinite stunlock w/o toggle escapes).  If you take that toggle escapes weren't necessarily intended, these weapons are very, very dangerous by design.

That almost no build can take 2 hammer hits means that players are *strongly* biased towards either setup parries, poke n roll, or 1 for 1 trades and then evading.  As the player with the hammer, you know this and can start predicting around it, since nobody in their right mind is going to go for that 2nd kat hit after the mace user took that half a step --> attack to trade unless they're rocking full havel's.

That the player using the hammer can switch to a shield and block can make landing that perfect hit + roll without taking return damage no gimme.  Any situation resulting even in a temporary stunlock is a BIG win for hammers/axes and is a key facet to playing them.  When you start throwing on things like WoG, buffs, other weapons or spells into the mix the picture is even murkier.

"Outclassed", as in "not absolutely competitive with the top 3-4 weapons at the very highest level of play possible?  Okay fine.  However, these weapons and builds that set up their usage proper are plenty viable, and without dead angles/toggle escapes they'd be some of the more dangerous weapons out there due to the stunlocking.

I really hope they don't bring the demons souls crushing or sharp back... however I think poison weapons could be fun.. at the very least some quicker poisoning weapons.. like the baby's nail.

just like the dex weapons have the Murakumo and Flameberg the strength have the Ghostblade and Handaxe! Strength builds also have the opportunity to use bigger better shields, something I hope will come in handy in DksII pvp by making parrying slightly harder... kind of like in Demons souls.. I didn't see nearly as many parries being landed in Demons than in dark.

and will we all forget the crossbows???? The developers generous way to give strength builds some free range to show those fancy over dextrous dancers that we can fight back without frilly aiming mechanisms and quicker shooting and higher damage!

I think people just assume strength weapons are worse which is why we see so little of them... people get too caught up with the need to be so best that they ignore trying something different, something that could very well add a new element of fun and improvement to their playing

So long as they scrap lightning weapons to nerf vit/end gouging I will be happy.

Forum Pirate wrote:You can say so all you'd like but your wrong.

You being good with a weapon is not the same as the weapon being good. I can win with the cestus but it blows and we all know it.

Everything an axe can do, a great sword can do better (wait, i forgot about the speed nerf, so they cant stunlock in both hands, but they can still do so in 1 hand,) with higher damage, longer reach (excluding the cresent axe which is the weakest of the bunch) and without that rediculous stagger.

Everything an Axe can do, the hammer does better. But both the hammer and axe have a great place in PvP, it's foolish to believe otherwise. Greatswords have quite a wiff on them too, and hammers and axes don't have this wiff if you hit a rolling person, a person, a shield, or a wall.

phastings wrote:So long as they scrap lightning weapons to nerf vit/end gouging I will be happy.

 I think they already did that...

I mean, with all my pvp experience (it isn't much, but it's something i suppose) most low level pvp that occurs now usually involves boss unique or normal upgrades (maybe you see a chaos here and there, but if there is any elemental coming though it's probably from resin or buffs)

Lightning weapons are fine now imo

I actually enjoy dark souls upgrade, never really understand what demon souls had, so i couldn't put much input on the crushing weapons. But they're something about this upgrade system that gives tons of possibly into the game. Something that allows you to make each weapon somewhat different from each other, yet mostly balance engouh so you won't pick too much of one over the others.

(My explanation for dex weapons are ninja fantasy, rather then it begin op. It could also be because the nature of the weapon itself gives more rooms to mess up)

I feel that even after the patches, dumping ALL points (unless trying to reach min weapon requirements) into vit and End has such an advantage over the player who carefully allocates points into those as well as str int/faith or dex, which ultimately means far less health or stamina/equip burden than the gouger who, at the end of the day, can do relatively the same if not a little lesser damage with lightening or chaos weapons coupled with better poise and ability to trade hit for hit without stagger, resulting in a dps/hp contest. it renders careful stat building somewhat obsolete. Doesn't anyone who focuses on str/dex/magic scaling builds feel a bit cheated by this?.. This is how giantdad was borne and reigned supreme over lordran, hence the legend never dies lol

Also wanted to add in defense of crushing, quality, etc paths: THAT system allowed the most diversity since rank scaling was dependent solely on the upgrade path and not specific to the individual weapon like in DaS, which limits the selection and thus compels you to make a build around the few S or even A choices. Why feel like u made a mistake halfway thru the game because it turns out that each weapon has a locked in rank system and fewer weapons than u expected end up having the S rank to suit your build?

they only have the long recovery in 2 hands, and even then so long as they do something other than attack again they're fine.

I don't know who isn't running 50+ poise unless they're a glass cannon, but I don't meet these people. Everyone I fight has at least 53, and most have 62 (to avoid bf and msgs running r1 combos)

Even so, toggle escapes and/or parries pretty much negate the stunlock advantage of the hammers (its 1 extra hit, if that, and risks a toggle parry/roll bs) and the disadvantages in length (seriously, actual maces averaged 2-4 feet long) and mediocre damage can't make up for the fact that halberds and greatswords can do the same thing (albeit more slowly) while having a tremendous advantage in length and a good 100 extra ar, not to mention dead angles.

Doesn't anyone who focuses on str/dex/magic scaling builds feel a bit cheated by this?.. This is how giantdad was borne and reigned supreme over lordran, hence the legend never dies lol

No I don't feel that way.  The difference between 50 Vit and 99 Vit is 400 hp, worth about a single hit.  You get no stamina after 40 end, and we're talking about 1 pound of equip burden per point after that (.25 per point if maintaining fast roll).  Gouging these and going elemental leaves you far behind on dps compared to say, a buff build that puts 20 points into faith instead of using them to get around 200 hp.

I admit this kind of thing is pretty lulzy:

http://mmdks.com/33v8

But it won't outdamage buff builds and it will do pathetic damage to tanks due to the split.

I stunlocked the last giantdad zwei I faced with a mace since obviously my 2nd hit came first, then just chained the stun into a backstab.  Instant death.  Anybody who can poke and roll will beat that often too.  In fact its only real strength lies in zweis unlocked dead angles and solid range.  338/338 split hurts a lot, but it's still much less damage than lighter, faster weapons when scaled so if you don't stun first you don't win.

^good point. I've never raised my hp past 40 so I should have researched the actual diminishing return, but just from personal experience, it seems to always boil down to a poise battle for the stunlock, and my character lacks stamina as those points were spent elsewhere

Most heavy weapons are going for a stunlock or hitstun-bs. Its really all they've got, maybe a poke here or there, or a lucky leo counter, but once a heavy weapon manages to land a hit it needs to ent the fight right there if at all possible, because its probably going to be tough to land another.

For the record, against 350 physical defense, and 250 fire, a chaos zweih will deal 311 damage. A +15 will deal 420-450 (not sure of exact number there) and with cmw/dmb it will deal 700-750