Elemental weapon damage

['tarako]

Didn't really know where else to put this,  but I've noticed what I feel are some oddities. 

There is a huge abundance of water weapons of all types, high avg as well. Same with shocking damage. Fire, ice, and air, all seem to be pretty under represented, with the best of these categories being on the low end of competitive damage values. I was curious if there was a balance reason for this. It seems that some races have a melee vuln but that vuln is purposefully difficult to hit. I can only think of 3 air weapons in game, one isnt gonna do much at pinn, another has a pretty awful dice roll, the third is in gear. Same with fire weapons. Fire weapons are poorly represented with generally lower end of the spectrum damage values. Inferno is too low to really be a competitive pinnacle weapons with its d6 damage roll, fire lance looks good, but it's die roll caps it's damage at 32 max, well below damage values for most any other competitive pvp weapon. It's super consistent, but it's about the best fire weapon in the game. One of the big draws to playing an fg is the weapon proficiency buff, but there just aren't many weapons to take advantage of. Maybe the addition of a few more archetypes of elemental damage weapons would improve people playing races that don't see much action anymore. Adding in a few more 24 and 25 avg damage weapons isn't going to break things, but it could add some diversity, and options, to what people are playing.

[Lexi]

The reason why there is tons of shocking is because it doesn't hit any vulns.

As far as I know, the solar mace and blazing bardiches are the strongest fire weapons (avg 27 vs avg 26), but both are two-handed, and the latter can only be used by berserkers. Fire lance is the go-to for fighting feral rangers. There's some options here.

Water is just overrepresented in comparison to how often dwarves and duergars are played. How long since we saw a top tier PK'er using dwarf or duergar to lay waste to the playerbase?

Cold weapons seem to exist in relative abundance - the pit weapon mace (avg 27), the icy dagger, frost pike, and zoichan's glare are all very strong options for vuln weapons.

Light has two decent choices as far as I know - the solar grasp and the lightblade, both which are twohanded. There is also the lance of imbalance, but very few classes would use a two-handed spear fighting necromancers/psis/vampires.

Air vuln is basically not a vuln except if you are fighting Nexus. Air lance and nebula axe just do not do enough against it, but maybe that's fine. Hurricane still hits avian vuln, right?

Holy damage seems to be fairly abundant as well.

There's bard weapons and a fairly low-damage flail (it's still there, right?) for mental vulns.

EDIT:
Suggestion:
Change the stormforger mace from dealing water damage to dealing air damage. A storm seems more like it'd hit avian vuln than dwarf vuln to me.

['tarako]

Well I just mean in general the amounts are lopsided. And rng generated items are so rare to come across its hard to count them. Bardiche is also 25 avg. I just mean that melee vulns exist but so many are just terribly represented with weapons. There is a 31 avg holy that almost noone can use, but there is nothing above 25 avg for fire. I just meant to say that it would be nice to see more variety

[Fool_Hardy]

31 holy for fighting creatures that do not have to sleep to regen vs 26 fire against a relatively low con race that needs sleep.

As for air weapons. While avians are difficult, additional air weapons make things harder for the lowest con race in the game.

Just thinking out loud.

['tarako]

But those vulns are there to counter their bonuses. Making those vulns very hard to capitalize on makes them mostly pointless doesn't it?

[Anume]

Avian vuln has always been harder to access than fire / ice / water, which have been slightly harder than holy. This is by design.

 It was also a reason why undead got better regen not so long ago.

[Trick]

Why are there so many water weapons? One of which casts a water spell.

There were so many water weapons and now, randomly, there's a water dagger.

 

Are dwarves/duergars viewed as being THAT strong by the Staff? I will say that dwarf cleric and paladin is damn near unkillable, but warrior and berserker is pretty below average, in my opinion. 

['tarako]

Dwarf clerics die to boredom

[Fool_Hardy]

Not being good at PK, and not being a player of the race, I do not know the statistics. But in my opinion/understanding raising the avg of Fire weapons would only benefit the Fire Giants in a horrible way. 

It was not long ago people were complaining about FG zerks. We have seen logs that show the tremendous power. Do they need a damage boost?

If fire weapons have higher than 26 damage we should make then anti fire giant. But I do not think we need them.

Everyone should not be able to destroy every race with a vuln. Else lets make silver bullets and iron bolts. There is ussually a combo to counter everything, play that combo. Just know that combo also has a counter.

[aaa]

^ found the feral player

[Fool_Hardy]

Lol. Not since Faulch. But keep on thinking that way. 😎

[Trick]

He's definitely Mordred. 

[Fool_Hardy]

3 hours ago, Trick said:

He's definitely Mordred. 

Maybe he thinks I am the kobold.

[English lad]

9 hours ago, Fool_Hardy said:

Not being good at PK, and not being a player of the race, I do not know the statistics. But in my opinion/understanding raising the avg of Fire weapons would only benefit the Fire Giants in a horrible way. 

It was not long ago people were complaining about FG zerks. We have seen logs that show the tremendous power. Do they need a damage boost?

If fire weapons have higher than 26 damage we should make then anti fire giant. But I do not think we need them.

Everyone should not be able to destroy every race with a vuln. Else lets make silver bullets and iron bolts. There is ussually a combo to counter everything, play that combo. Just know that combo also has a counter.

While you make some good points the thing to remember is that no aspect of balance exists in a vacuum.

FG Zerks were to strong because Fury Path of Zerker got a buff, and Fire Giants make the best Cleave Zerker due to their Weapon Bonus on Fire Weapons.  Fury path got toned back slightly (this is normal! Its near impossible to get a balance change 100% right on the 1st attempt, you always need to see what happens with the change and then adjust.) and thus FG Zerks were no longer out of balance.  

Now personally I don't think raising the avg of fire weapons would be a good change anyway.  The issue with High Av damage weapons is that they are very hard to balance for, because you can hit hard without needing to spec as much into Dam - which leaves slots open for saves, -ac, extra affects etc.

I'd prefer to see Average Weapon Damage more consistently applied across the board - especially around Vuln weapons.  Its not like lower Av Damage means you can't hit hard, it just means you need to build it into your gear.

[Trick]

6 hours ago, Fool_Hardy said:

Maybe he thinks I am the kobold.

I’m pretty sure that the thief is a slith.

[mya]

 

There is an avg 27 air mace thats not hard to get. Frankly i don't even think avians should have a vuln just because they get autoflight. The  recentish (10 years ago) air weapons made me stop playing them. Look at Azan, its not random he chose that particular combo which allow him to deal with his race weapon vuln.

On an avian invoker you don't get that luxury. If you give some veteran player some trouble hes going to show up with dual air axes that mana shield won't absorb.