Two-Handed Weapon Tree Reworks
Posted: Mon Jan 13, 2014 11:14 am
Berserker was one of my earliest winners, and one of my most enjoyable and strong. Despite that, I found later in the game I had a distinct lack of worthy places to put talent points. Quite a few of the trees are full of one point wonders or just lacking in general. Here's a few improvements I think could be made:
Technique/Two-Handed Weapons:
Death Dance - You get a decent damage bonus from ranking up, but not massively so. In addition, DD is very expensive. Reducing the Stamina cost by 2 for each level would give some more incentive.
Deathblow - A real one point wonder, while the guaranteed critical was useful for triggering certain effects, the Stamina conversion at 4+ is as much a drawback as it is a bonus, and doesn't add a great deal of damage. Instead, make it a 25% conversion and 'deals additional Physical damage equal to x% of the target's missing health for each point of Stamina'. Slightly more unique, fits the finishing blow theme, and adds a bit more thought into figuring the best time to use it.
Technique/Two-Handed Maiming:
Sunder Armor - From what I understand of the armor calculation, few mobs have armor enough to be worth worrying about. Plus, -armor is fairly boring. Instead, have it reduce armor, resistances, saves, and shatter any damage shields on the target. The effect and duration would need to be reduced, and the cooldown possibly increased, but this would make it a substantial damage increase, reduce resistances to make your other debuffs stick better (fitting the disabling nature of 2h maiming) and add some tactical thought against casters.
Sunder Arms - A minor accuracy debuff isn't very exciting. Instead, reduce all damage done by a fairly large %, to make it a kind of reverse defensive cooldown. I'm not sure if it's possible, but an interesting idea could be a reverse of Sunder Armor, have it attempt to dispel offensive buffs like Greater Weapon Focus, Rampage and so on to allow for some interesting tactical counters. Other effects to spice it up could be crit reduction or slow.
Blood Frenzy is just... kinda bad. Drains Stamina fast, only works when you're mowing down trash, in which case you probably don't need the bonus. To go with the theme of the tree, which is massively disabling a single foe, I'd rework it like so:
Blood Frenzy - You focus on maiming you foe, giving you a x% (fairly high, maybe around 50% at level 5 with good Strength) chance on attacking to trigger a random maiming effect.
Headcrack - Physical damage, Confuses the target for 3 turns.
Eye Gouge - Physical damage, Blinds the target for 3 turns.
Deep Wound - Deals Physical damage over 5 turns and reduces healing factor.
Legbreaker - Physical damage, Pins and Slows the target by 30% for 3 turns.
Concussion - Physical damage, places 3 random talents on cooldown for 5 turns.
In addition you are more able to exploit weakened foes, increasing damage dealt by [1-5]% for each Physical negative effect on your target. The chance of triggering a maiming effect increases with Strength.
30 Stamina, 24 cooldown, lasts 10 turns, instant.
Technique/Superiority (not technically 2h, but also in dire need of help):
Juggernaut - Physical damage reduction just isn't very good, considering you already have massive armor and alot of the late game threats are casters. A simple fix would be changing it to resist all. Making it more exciting would be something like a stacking resist all each time you take damage, stacking very high and refreshing in duration each time you take damage. May overlap abit with True Grit though.
Onslaught - I honestly can't see the point of this talent currently. Maybe as an escape against melee foes, but even then it's bad. Rather than knockback, instead grant a movement speed increase and make you take x swings against random targets at reduced weapon damage each time you move?
Battle Cry - Kinda underwhelming. Grant a free melee swing against targets that are pulled into you, make your next attack guaranteed to critical to setup a big Death Dance burst, apply some other debuffs like -damage, -resistances, slow, pin etc?
Technique/Two-Handed Weapons:
Death Dance - You get a decent damage bonus from ranking up, but not massively so. In addition, DD is very expensive. Reducing the Stamina cost by 2 for each level would give some more incentive.
Deathblow - A real one point wonder, while the guaranteed critical was useful for triggering certain effects, the Stamina conversion at 4+ is as much a drawback as it is a bonus, and doesn't add a great deal of damage. Instead, make it a 25% conversion and 'deals additional Physical damage equal to x% of the target's missing health for each point of Stamina'. Slightly more unique, fits the finishing blow theme, and adds a bit more thought into figuring the best time to use it.
Technique/Two-Handed Maiming:
Sunder Armor - From what I understand of the armor calculation, few mobs have armor enough to be worth worrying about. Plus, -armor is fairly boring. Instead, have it reduce armor, resistances, saves, and shatter any damage shields on the target. The effect and duration would need to be reduced, and the cooldown possibly increased, but this would make it a substantial damage increase, reduce resistances to make your other debuffs stick better (fitting the disabling nature of 2h maiming) and add some tactical thought against casters.
Sunder Arms - A minor accuracy debuff isn't very exciting. Instead, reduce all damage done by a fairly large %, to make it a kind of reverse defensive cooldown. I'm not sure if it's possible, but an interesting idea could be a reverse of Sunder Armor, have it attempt to dispel offensive buffs like Greater Weapon Focus, Rampage and so on to allow for some interesting tactical counters. Other effects to spice it up could be crit reduction or slow.
Blood Frenzy is just... kinda bad. Drains Stamina fast, only works when you're mowing down trash, in which case you probably don't need the bonus. To go with the theme of the tree, which is massively disabling a single foe, I'd rework it like so:
Blood Frenzy - You focus on maiming you foe, giving you a x% (fairly high, maybe around 50% at level 5 with good Strength) chance on attacking to trigger a random maiming effect.
Headcrack - Physical damage, Confuses the target for 3 turns.
Eye Gouge - Physical damage, Blinds the target for 3 turns.
Deep Wound - Deals Physical damage over 5 turns and reduces healing factor.
Legbreaker - Physical damage, Pins and Slows the target by 30% for 3 turns.
Concussion - Physical damage, places 3 random talents on cooldown for 5 turns.
In addition you are more able to exploit weakened foes, increasing damage dealt by [1-5]% for each Physical negative effect on your target. The chance of triggering a maiming effect increases with Strength.
30 Stamina, 24 cooldown, lasts 10 turns, instant.
Technique/Superiority (not technically 2h, but also in dire need of help):
Juggernaut - Physical damage reduction just isn't very good, considering you already have massive armor and alot of the late game threats are casters. A simple fix would be changing it to resist all. Making it more exciting would be something like a stacking resist all each time you take damage, stacking very high and refreshing in duration each time you take damage. May overlap abit with True Grit though.
Onslaught - I honestly can't see the point of this talent currently. Maybe as an escape against melee foes, but even then it's bad. Rather than knockback, instead grant a movement speed increase and make you take x swings against random targets at reduced weapon damage each time you move?
Battle Cry - Kinda underwhelming. Grant a free melee swing against targets that are pulled into you, make your next attack guaranteed to critical to setup a big Death Dance burst, apply some other debuffs like -damage, -resistances, slow, pin etc?