Nightfall weapon balance issues

Before I begin, a disclaimer: I am not trying to criticize Anet's decisions, I am aware this is just an early prototype of a game. Also my apologies if this was posted (I tried to search but to no avail).

I was comparing the weapon statistics on GW wiki and the Nightfall weapons look unbalanced.
The Paragon's spear is 1 damage short of being a ranger's short bow. This is preposterous as the ranger is supposed to be the primary ranged combatant. Having a support character best a ranger in archery seems illogical.
The Dervish's scythe deals 9-41 damage which is the most damage a weapon can deal. Even the hammer's maximum damage is 35 and it doesn't hit THREE targets.

Does this look strange to anyone else? How would this be justifiable?

I kinda, half-assed agree with you on the spear. Overall, it's simply better than a shortbow in damage, and defense, since you can have a shield equipped as well. However, when comparing the Scythe with the Hammer, and the Spear with the Shortbow, you need to be looking at the skills more, not the base weapon attributes.

I'd say a Hammer far exceeds a Scythe when it comes to skills (knockdown, conditions, insane overall skill damage, etc.), not to mention coupled with Strength it becomes a force to be reckoned with. Same goes for the Shortbow, with Expertise, Marksmanship, and Wilderness Survival skills that make the bow the useful swiss army knife of weapons.

There could be some tweaking that may need to be done, but I think the skills definately need to come into play when considering which weapon tops which.

I agree with the Paragon thing. It just seems to be too much better than a bow. Faster refire, near-same damage, etc...but...it's ONE HANDED. Change spears to like 10-25 or something...

With the Dervish thing, 9 as min damage mean lower average. Also, Dervish attack skills (IMO) don't do that much damage. Scythes can be kept the way they are.

I disagree on both accounts. As mentioned, it's not the weapon, it's the skills.

Since you want to put in some realism, then realistically, spears are bigger and should do more than than arrows. Also... there's nothing stopping the ranger from using spears.

Scythe damage is way too inconsistent when compared to a hammer. The range is just too big to reliably maintain damage output.

Spear probably should be shorter range than Shortbow.

I always thought the Paragon should be right behind melee attackers anyway... what's the range on "Earshot" anyway?

They both look fine to me.

Paragon rely more on the normal damage of the spear and not so much on the skills so having them do more damage makes sense to me and the spear attacks don't seem that great if you were to use them I don't see a problem.

I'm sure a Ranger who uses bow attacks will end up doing much more damage then the Paragon who use spear attacks.

Scythes are extremely random which I think balances the greater damage that they do.

Arenanet (or rather Alex/Gaile, i Forget) said on a forum one time that not counting Crit Hits or Skills, that all of the different weapon types deal the same Average dmg over a period of time. The noticable exceptions are when other factors figure in to the average dmg, like the differences between a longbow and shortbow are to balance out the range and such.

A sword is going to have mid range dmg every hit, while an axe has a higher max dmg, it will also statistically hit alot lower than a sword from time to time also - averaging it out. A hammer is similairly going to average out with the scythe, even hit alittle higher on average probably because of just HOW low the scythe's min hit is, and that would be to balance out the multi-targeting of the scythe.

These differences also allow for different weapons to go with skills differently. Like an axe having a higher max hit will benefit more from Crit hits and big spikes.

They reduced the speed of the scythe from the pvp preview :P Also a most paragon spells now have "adjustent" than nearby range (which was totaly insane previously).

"Hammer has highest DPS of any weapon in the game" (this is from Guildwiki link above).

Is this true?

Is that counting crits and skills, just crits, or just avg DPS with no crits or skills?

It's not a question of realism, it's a question of balance. Otherwise Paragons would've carried an stack of a few hundreds of spears because in real life, spears/javelins disappear from your hand once you throw them :P.

Using the logic that 'it's all about skills', why are the casters stuck with an 11-22 damage wands? I am sure my ritualist wouldn't mind a quick-firing 14-27 weapon that still would give him bonuses to his spells.

The thing about Spears is that they use alot of Adrenaline skills (bows dont use any). They also have the range of a shortbow but fire .5 seconds faster, and there one handed.....

I dont see any advantage the shortbow would have over the spear. I think I'll have my ranger use spear mastery in place of markmanship in some cases, unless I need the range of a longbow.

during the last two Nightfall events Earshot was the exact size of the "danger zone"

Neither of those statements is true, they're both 1.33 second swing, while hammer is 1.75

Axe is much more variable damage, you can hit for 28 one swing and 80+ the next. Sword is the most consistant melee damage (even Assassin has slightly more variable damage and is reliant on double strikes for additional speed)

The Scythe has the most highly variable damage in the game, coupled with the slower recharge time, also its skills are rather expensive and it lacks adrenal skills which are energy independant and are a quite useful type of Warrior weapon skill.

If all weapons were created equal then most classes would lose their appeal.

Sorry I don't want my class options to be equal. I want them to be good at the roles they perform.

this thread is funny.


Id like to add, for the record, that IW Scythe is stupid. How many mesmer go around running IW hammers?

Attacks too slow, you dont concern the 9-41 dmg with IW, you get no offhand for boosting (illusion) mesmer skills and energy.

Just an opinion, Im sure some poeple have a real good strat with it.

Yes, its close to being off topic, but I think its a good point to make (whether ppl agree or not)


Isnt scythe attack like every 2 seconds? I know its slower than hammers, if im wrong plz correct me... Ima go look at the wiki right now...


is this correct tho? thats what the wiki says... but the wikis been wrong before...

No, but hammers don't hit every single target around you, Iwep mesmers are often targeted first by warriors as they are a major threat that has weak armor. But, even in the Nightfall PBP book it mentions that the Illusionary Weaponry mesmer/warrior with a scythe and flurry will be a useful build (as long as they don't strip your enchants and stances and kill you, heh)

ok, in a hope to end this, i just spent 5 minutes in the island of the nameless with my warrior and a stopwatch. tested the hit rate of the sword, axe, and hammer, and i can now say, definetivley, that the wiki is right. 1.33 s for sword and axe. 1.75 s for hammer. dont have a scythe to test, so i cant vouch for it, and i wont. but untill i see otherwise, ill go with the reported 1.75 s for it to.

you wanna test out weapon swing speeds? here's how you do it. pop over to the Isle of the Nameless, go up to a target dummy, and start hitting it. hit it 10 times, count the time in seconds, divide that number by 10.

basically, you'll find that the attack speeds are exactly as listed.

PS: the numbers posted on wiki are obtained using fraps, not a stopwatch. it is about as accurate as it can get.

PSS: no one is insulting you. there's no need to disillusion yourself.

But here is the thing.. would balancing the weapon itself fix the issue? What about changing some of the skills to cut back on the power a spear or a scythe might have?

actually, unless there's a lot of lag, hitting and movement speeds are consistent.

like i said, the numbers are obtained using fraps, which counts the individual frames and time it that way. swords and axes use the same amount of frames per swing. hammers and scythes too.

yes reaction time is different for each person. but the numbers every other person in the gw community are getting are not seeing these variations.

its not like ppl are getting 1.25 s for the sword and 1.37 s for the axe and just rounding the numbers. in my tests alone, i got 1.35 for the sword and 1.34 for the axe. that was done over 30 swings each. i didnt just do 3 swings over 4 seconds. if my lag and reaction time were rly affecting me that much, wouldnt the there be some kind of gap?

if the lag was lengthening my times for the sword, that same lag would be lengething my times for the axe as well. it would maintain that ratio. by your reasoning, i should be getting inflated numbers for both. like 1.35 for sword and 1.64 for the axe. but the fact is, no one is getting that.

and you say that human reaction increases the time? then it would increase both times not just the swords time, again maintaining the ratio.