I played warhammer musket during the whole leveling phase because they were the two weapons most interesting to me. They also seemed to fit a theme in my head - one melee weapon, one ranged weapon. Now that I’m getting into gen and laz I’m feeling pigeonholed to choose between them since they scale off different stats.
My favorite parts of New World are the open-ended and flexible ways to play during leveling. I wish this also extended into weapon combos. I’ve been researching online, but it just seems for end game online there really is no viable hammer/musket builds (I’d love to be proven wrong btw)
But balance issues aside, why make possible weapon combos more flexible? If you want to go musket, you’re really directed towards rapier since they both scale off dex/int. You could go spear, but then you’re chosing between a dex/str build that will amp spear or a dex/int build that will amp musket.
I’m guessing the response is long range dps characters shouldn’t be strong in melee range? I still wish you could really pick any two weapons you want and make them viable, through gem slotting or some other system.