SnS has a flawed design. PLEASE sign this petition for CHANGE. Let AGS hear us, my fellow SnS users.
AGS, I have provided a solution for each issue.
- Anyone using this weapon setup will have their secondary weapon nerfed since sns users only have half the attributes from their sns active when they switch to their secondary weapon.
SOLUTION: Remove the attributes from the shield and switch them over to the sword. Or, if you’d like to buff SnS for its lackluster damage and armor/weight ratio, provide full attribute bonuses for both and have them continue to apply when switching to the secondary weapon.
- Armor/weight for shields is suboptimal, which is peculiar, given that SnS should be tanky. This, combined with diminishing returns on armor, make sns subpar since the sword has subpar damage and the shield has subpar armor/weight, providing little incentive to go full tank as opposed to bruiser (esp in PvP)
SOLUTION: Provide high Armor Ratings on shields relative to their weight to make equipping shields feel rewarding. Shield Armor values should still apply when switching to secondary. Since they still apply weight.
- Ridiculously long cooldowns on skills and weird way to reduce them with Reverse Stab, which is a skill with a very long wind up but lackluster dmg when compared to a skill like Execute.
SOLUTION: Lower CD’s by 20-30% and remove the CD reduction on reverse stab. Reverse stab should be a burst skill, not a CD reduction skill. Defiant stance should possibly have refreshing move built into it while its active, encouraging some offensive playstyle.
- Long animation on skills like defiant stance, shield rush, and reverse stab. Long animations are not bad alone necessarily. However, the reward should be correlated to animation time. Defiant stance has about a 1 second animation lock and only lasts for 8 seconds. Berserk, which can be animation canceled with other skills, lasts for 15 seconds, heals for 30% of max hp and increases damage by 20%. There seems to be a disparity in the value of these skills. Shield Rush should be a mobility dash skill, put the long windup makes it nearly useless in pvp, with hardly any reward (shield bash is far superior due to it providing a stun with little windup animation). Reverse stab, as I mentioned earlier has a long animation but lackluster damage, esp when considering the sword’s low base damage.
SOLUTION: Remove windup animation on shield rush or provide more reward for hitting it, like an AoE root. Decrease windup for reverse stab and increase damage since it’s meant to be a burst skill. Right now, it simply tickles. Defiant stance should last longer for its long windup time and provide another bonus such as cc immunity, as its bonuses are far inferior to Berserk. Defiant stance should be the highlight of the right side of the sns skill tree, like Berserk is for hatchet.
- SnS is twice as hard to get expertise to 600, due to it having two weapons. Why is it that SnS are treated separately for expertise when they are currently the only weapons that can be paired?
SOLUTION: Expertise for SnS should be consolidated into one.
- Leaping Strike hitbox is unnecessarily narrow and slippery to hit, unlike Reap. In addition, this skill cannot leap through ice shower. Instead, we get teleported back to the ice shower.
SOLUTION: Make the hitbox larger, so we don’t slide past enemies.
- SnS skill tree perks are lackluster. The defensive bonuses are nice, but unimpressive when looking at the perks associated with IG/VG/GA, or really another other weapon. The offensive perks are laughable.
SOLUTION: create specific archetypes for each sns player (defensive bulwark or nimble scrapper). Some ideas are to increase the slow duration or instead apply it to the first light attack. Increase crit haste duration, as its currently useless. The only noteable offensive perk is the one which increases crit chance. I understand that sns players are supposed to be buffers/debuffers and play around a team dynamic. However. Playing sns should not feel like a terrible solo experience. Void Gauntlet is full of debuffs/buffs but is an incredible solo weapon as well. Same for LS.
SnS should have impactful and exciting keystone perks - the offensive tree should have a keystone which increases attack speed, to fit with the paradigm of being a swordmaster. The defensive tree could have more impactful keystone like restoring % max HP for each successful blocked attack or stam regen while blocking in addition to the current keystone, which does not feel impactful at all.
- When blocking with a tower shield, sns players are easily displaced and cc’ed. The shield should either block or mitigate cc.
SOLUTION: the tower shield should be able to withstand more attacks. I like the idea of round, kite, tower shields having different perk pools, but feel that the differences need to be accentuated, like with the armor weights. Round shield should give a 20% damage boost or attack speed boost to sword. Kite shield should provide a 10% damage boost or attack speed boost and 10% cc duration increase. Tower shield should provide a 20% cc duration increase.
- Constitution perks are very lackluster past 200. The 250 perk of 60% reduction at full hp is laughable, esp when it has a CD. The 300 perk is decent but could be made stronger. I believe the 300 str grit perk would actually fit in better here. Another option is to have the 300 con perk be a stronger version of “regenerating” that activates after not taking damage to HEALTH (not stamina) for 2 seconds. Additionally, the perks before 200 shouldn’t distinguish between elem or physical armor. They should provide bonuses based on both.
Finally, if you want to see data showing sns is lackluster overall, look at player adoption rates of sns. They are abysmal. Additionally, look at the best selling, most common, and highest priced weapons in the Trading Post. There are a disproportionate amount of IG’s/VG’s there and again, an abysmal amount of swords and shields.
Amazon, as of the current state of the game, it seems that you do not care for sns. I understand that with a tight labor market, it’s hard to hire resources, and you must prioritize across a wide set of features. However, I believe weapon balance to be a high priority feature, as pushing for a meta where certain weapons are clearly lackluster fosters a less interesting play environment.
You have yet to respond to any sns posts but I remain hopeful that one day you will, as this weapon is heavily flawed at the moment.
I am happy to talk in detail about any sns ideas.
). However, if you find yourself stuck in a shower, after one second you are able to leaping strike out. You can use this to your advantage as most mages will not realize that you can do this.
