I’m only going to be covering weapons I have extensive use with so the VG, FS and IG will not be covered. I currently am a heavy armor lifestaff/warhammer user for reference
The Spear:
The spear was my favorite weapon to use when I first started playing this game but after trying it in pvp I was quick to realise that it was tremendously underpowered. The amount of grit in the game made knocking people down all but obsolete from the start and the impaler tree is still underpowered after the buff.
Cyclone: The push back in this ability is not nearly far enough. The majority of weapons in the game will suction back onto you with their first basic attack before your even done with the skills animation. The animation needs to be quicker and the push back should be farther and I would suggest pushing players back that are in grit without staggering them.
Javelin/Sweep: best I can as is that you treat knockdowns as a debuff/stun in that it can knock down a player in grit and so that it is effected by bonus’ that are relevant to “debuff”
The text for Deadly Reach is more evidence that the 3 meter knock back on Cyclone is laughable.
Perforate: After talking it out with my company, of which none play spear, we all agreed that at a minimum each strike of perforate should do 100% weapon damage. The odds of hitting all 3 strikes is very low unless you are fighting a potato.
Sword/Shield:
When it comes to PVP there is one glaring disadvantage that has yet to be addressed. There is no reason for the sword and shield to have split stats and not have them applied when you also have the sword slotted. It makes perfect sense to not get the attributes for a shield if you don’t equip a sword but it’s down right unfair that other weapons can give more attributes on the character.
Round shields and kite need to do significantly more damage to make them viable over tower shields. The advantages of a tower shield far outweigh any additional damage the other shields currently have. I would encourage the devs to have a round shield hit a great deal harder than the sword itself as it requires an ability to use one and there are only two ability’s to choose from. 125% of nothing is still nothing and that’s how much damage the round shield does.
Rapier:
The numbers don’t lie, from day 1 the grace tree pros outweigh any additional damage you get from the blood tree and it seems minimal at best. Playing the blood tree is like putting a target on yourself saying “I challenge you to out dps me” and most of the time the challenge will be accepted and you will lose. Multiple Youtube videos have shown that the bleed effects are not stacking as they are written they should. The rapier should not be getting out dps’d by the great axe but it does in almost every situation.
Flurry: most players can facetank the entire combo and still out dps the rapier.
Hatchet:
Crippling strikes: the root is not always being applied when it should.
Raging torrent: It would be nice to add some forward motion in the swings in order to make it more viable for pvp
Aimed throw: at 90% damage it’s simply not enough to be viable in any situation other than perhaps stealing kills. Most ranged ability’s in general don’t do much damage unless you are hitting light armor. I might suggest adding a bit of damage and some armor penetration?
Rending throw: The damage is too low and the skill is too slow/telegraphed for it to be viable.
Infected throw : The skill is too slow/telegraphed for it to be viable. The void gauntlet makes this skill seem awful in comparison.
Critical throw: even if your opponent is not looking, hitting a throwing ax on a players head is almost impossible in pvp. The thrown ax’s are too slow to come out of the hand, too slow through the air and have too much arc.
Lifestaff:
Please make it so skills that require two button presses are not canceled by non staggering attacks.
Splash of light either needs to heal for more or its animation to be faster for it to ever be viable.
Enchanted justice: 120 second cooldown makes this agility useless. I wouldn’t take it unless it was a minimum of 45 seconds but I think it should be 30 for what it does.
General
Weapon swapping is still constantly getting canceled by basic attacks. It is often that my skills will look like my weapon has been swapped (lit up) but I will be casting ability’s with my other weapon.
Voidbent heavy armor: Many players say that this armor is great for pve but middling for end game PVP. I believe this is wrong but I think the reasoning for this statement is quite obvious, the GA/WH combo is one of the only things that counters heavy voidbent and the majority of pvp players are still using it.
Due to Void Bent heavy taking reduced critical strikes, it hard counters any dex based weapon.
Due to Void bent Heavy skewing it’s armor towards magic resist, it hard counters IG/FS/LS and soft counters VG which is only soft countered because its designed to armor shred.
My issues with the weapons are generally not that the great axe or warhammer are too strong but simply that it seems players are punish for using dex based weapons, punished for using a sword and punished for not wearing heavy armor. I will say though that it’s a bit odd that the great axe which is probably the best dps weapon in the game right now, has the best engage tool and the best disengage tool in the same skill. I might suggest that Charge only goes its max distance if you are going towards an enemy?
These are just my thoughts for the moment. When I have time I would like to discuss some of the weapon/armor perks that are simply outclassed by the others (like CDR for getting hit 5 times vs CDR for swinging 1 time.)