Jansports wrote:Demon's souls had just as gouged pvp builds. Kat push locking, the absurdity of the meat cleaver, cracked ToB cursing weapons, the BBS in it's glory of one stat scaling. PvP became normalized around 120 as this was a common level to be finishing up NG+
I do not think for a moment that From was unaware of this, popular equip load outs and general trends across the Armored Core series were noted and expanded on and further balanced. So my knowledge of Fromsoft as a company leads me to believe they are not only willing of following player made trends in their works, but capable of it.
Secondly I would like to address "And if you do, you give your fast DEX weapon a damage output equal to that of a slower STR weapon, without any downside."
and what if I buff a STR weapon? What about weapons whos critical animations have more than 1 hit? If swinging fast, as buffs add their damage per hit, were all that mattered when choosing a weapon Daggers would be more popular, Claymore? Murakumo? Large Club? These slow swinging weapons when buffed are not anything short of terrifying.
DMB isn't particularly more or less powerful than other buffs, SLB hits a typically weaker resistence and CMW is capable of adding as much AR because of the Madj. difference in tailismans and catalysts. IF and this is a capitalized IF; DMB is fine for invasions where the intent is to destroy the other player for his sins why would not a guilty hallow fight as ferociously for his life with CMW? or SLB?
There are two "primary" scaling stats, STR and DEX, each having their own merits, strength weapons deal more poise damage, have higher total AR, DEX weapons swing faster and some have bleed build up or higher crits. I think it is safe to assume Stamina and Health are useful for everyone http://mugenmonkey.com/darksouls/?c=4872935857448783
40 is well known to be the crest of where diminishing returns kick in, needing 30FAI or 32INT to equip the most suitable object (talisman or catalyst) and being able to hit 40 vit 40 end and 40 of your choice of a primary stat, with even some room to spare at right around 120 doesn't seem to be too far from an accident. Even considering the Arena brackets (sl100 as you mentioned) Dropping 10 levels off that is pretty easy, STR can 2h so taking it down to 30(452h for scaling) doesn't hurt your damage output all that much.
while a dex build, the same in every way would need to drop down to 30 dex, where it cannot 2h for extra scaling, instead it's weapons swing faster (but understandably less hard) compared to the heavier str weapons.
Do you think buffed weapons do too much? getting 2-3 shot doesn't seem appropriate? There is a strong muscley man with a very sharp very covered in crystal soul energy sword sundering you atwain. I'm suprised I lasted so long.
I know I didn't harp on buffing STR weapons, but I think that it gouges damage in an unfair way as well, although it is less dangerous than the popular practice of buffing DEX weapons.
And I also agree that SLB is comparably strong to DMB.
And I don't particularly feels buffs should be nerfed or anything. I think they are a little two powerful. You can say something like, "There is a strong muscley man with a very sharp very covered in crystal soul energy sword sundering you atwain. I'm suprised I lasted so long." But despite all that this is a video game. A running attack from a buffed claymore shouldn't do 1000+ damage. . .
But mainly this thread was to point out that in a competitive dueling environment, the cost on a character to add the ability to buff adds so much extra damage that it really is unbalanced, even if some base damage or vitality was sacrificed.
Let me give an example
http://tinyurl.com/c4seehx
http://tinyurl.com/dxvlusu
Sacrificed 76 HP, and 88 dmg for a 361 damage boost giving a total AR of around 700.
With a katana.
http://tinyurl.com/brjocdf
Adding a divine weapon adds a backup weapon with comparable damage to the non-faith build's weapon, that is only weaker due to split damage.