It's time to improve Broadsword

In general, I subscribe to the notion that no Scrapper has much to complain about. Any combination probably does better than average. That said, I've been struck with how far behind Broadsword has fallen compared to the other weapons sets. Claws and Katana are faster, with sky-high DPAs (Damage per activation). Axe and Mace have better AoE with their very strong cone attacks that add mitigation.

While the structure of Katana and Broadsword are identical, Katana gets better DPA on 5 of 7 attacks and is only worse on one attack. This situation is no longer reasonable. I am not recommending homogenizing the two sets so that only their graphics are identical. What I suggest instead is to give Broadsword something it's better at than the other weapons sets. To do this I suggest changes to only two powers:

SLICE

Increase the recharge of the power to 12 sec, increase its arc to 180 degrees, Improve its damage to Scale 1.67 and add the following AT dependent effects:

Scrappers and Stalkers - Add an additional 10% chance to crit against all targets out of Hide

Brutes - Double the Fury gain per activation

Tankers (when they get it) - Add a 5% ranged, AoE defense

WHIRLING SWORD

Increase the recharge of the power to 20 sec, increase its radius to 10 feet degrees, Improve its direct damage portion to Scale 1.56 and add an additional tick (from 3 to 4) to its damage tick.



Even if these changes were made, the set would still be demonstrably worse at single target damage than Katana, but it would be a competitor (not a champion) in AoE damage.

I dunno guys...

I can think of a number of things that could stand a review before Broadsword... (Energy melee, Entire Stalker AT design, Gravity Control).

The set plays pretty damn well as it is, and Parry is the bee's knees.

BS can go with Shield Defense, while Katana can't. Does that count?

(Not that I disagree with the general premise; I think it's a bit lame that the two sets are tweaked versions of one another, and an extreme relic of pre-customization.)

I see absolutely nothing wrong with stepping up broadsword to compare with more of the other melee weapons sets. As it stands now, out of all the melee weapon sets available broadsword would be my last choice.

Of course there's a reason I always choose katana over broadsword when I want a sword wielding character, despite the simiularities between the two sets.

Not that I ever posted about it, but I always thought your analysis of Moment of Glory back in the day was pretty poor, EvilGeko. You were absolutely exaggerating its badness to lobby for a buff. However, in this case you are totally correct that broadsword is laughably inferior to katana in every situation apart from /sd, and those look like reasonable demands.

Still, is their being reasonable enough to impress the devs? Wouldn't it make more sense to come up with an improvement that not only makes the set more competitive, but also more distinct? Look at, oh, I don't know, Moment of Glory. Instead of making it a better god mode, they made it into a totally new type of power. When the devs themselves are the ones who threw the cottage rule out the window, perhaps a more ambitious request is in order.

There's probably plenty that deserves to be looked at before Broad Sword. But this IS the Scrapper forum, where we tend to discuss Scrapper issues. Broad Sword, while a minor issue at best, is an issue for Scrappers, and I see no reason to ignore it on the Scrapper forum.

I agree that Broad Sword could use a minor buff. I don't have any particular opinion on the nature of that buff, but something that slightly distinguishes it from Katana instead of making it an even more exact clone might be nice. It sounds like that's what you were after. I can see the call for something more ambitious, though. A more ambitious change would have to be done carefully, though, or next we'll be poining out how Katana sucks compared to Broad Sword. They're already pretty close.

Honestly, I don't agree with these changes primarily because I don't think they go far enough. I subscribe to the theory that every powerset should have some thing or set of things it does better than the other sets (and things it does worse): that's the primary reason to have different powersets in the first place. So I'm fine with this:

All right, here's an example. Rather than improving the damage of whirling sword and slice, perhaps a ten (or less) second -6.25% res buff for each of them. Thematically this could be attributed to the relative brutality of such an attack compared to katana's surgical equivalents. Mechanically it would give broadsword a unique advantage among melee sets - aoe -res, in reasonable proportion. At the same time, broadsword would still by itself do worse aoe damage than the other weapon sets, requiring the player to take advantage of the debuff either with their single target attacks or with teammates. More interesting, no?

The second. It would turn broadsword into the de facto melee debuff set without also making it the strongest damage set by any metric. I am thinking of sonic blast for this suggestion.

While I am looking forward to the upcoming Titanic Weapons set, I believe it's introduction means that any reasonable fix for broadsword probably isn't going to happen. Judging by the powers as they are described in the game right now, Titanic Weapons is supposed to be everything I always envisioned broadsword *should* have been: big, smashy, and angry. With it's introduction any balancing done to broadsword is going to have to simultaneously avoid stepping on both Katana and Titanic Weapon's toes. I think it's more logical to assume that broadsword will remain as some sort of 'grand fathered' option so as not to upset whatever player base enjoys the set as it is, while Titanic Weapons is meant to replace it.

I'd be delighted to be wrong, of course.

Heeeere we goooo! - Mario

To exactly quote you, from memory, "It is never a good idea to use moment of glory." That is false because the instant you use the word "never" you become wrong. As you say, you won that battle so it doesn't really matter anymore, I just thought I would comment on something that annoyed me, what, five years ago? Kudos.

BS needs looking at in relation to all three heavy weapon sets.

I touched on this here:

http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showt...91#post3895591

Axe is in need. BS is also in need, although less.

Lethal sets that also suffer redraw? They need a bit of retuning, especially since the smashing/redraw set is quite a bit out there now. Although mace totally deserved the boost.