Vorpals and other power fives

[Souless]

The power five: Vorpal, Banishing, Disruption, Smiting, Paralyzers are a shadow of their former selves.....

With all of the Bytching about power creep and lack of weapon options I have to wonder why these weapons were moved from the rarely used, to collecting dust in the bank?

U could also consider w/p in this grp or any other stat damaging weapon and call this the power six.....

In any case, the problem with the nerfing of these weapons was brought about by the live events and easily acquired epic gear. Endless wraps and the swashbuckler's scimitar were a sure sign of the end of the usefulness of yet more random loot.

I don't know about the rest of u, but crunching ingreds into an alter is NOT what I want MY game experience to be. And with the ability to craft +5 holyburst of greater banes...what is the point of dungeon-crawling at all. U will be able to craft better weapons than u could pull....but i digress

The point of this Bytch-fest was the nerfing of power fives....I don't even use them anymore cause the only thing that matters is DPS. And that means ESOS is king. I do have a sugestion that is sort of a compromise, and it make make the random +5 vorpal a viable option again....

For evrything but paralyzers, have the proc damage increased to 500..and still have the kill/whatever at 1000 or less hp's. Or add the stun effect to the proc if u dont wanna increase the damage..have the mob get stunned when the vorpal/banisher..whatever fires...

For paralyzers u could revert back to the days of auto-crit for ur example....para's could act as auto stunning of the mob as long as the r held...

for stat damagers..at least for w/p u could have 0 con mobs be killed again..

In anycase I believe that this will INCREASE the viable weapon choices for EVERYONE and that could only make the game better.


Souless/Spectyr/Tazzor/Xbow/Xindao/Vampir/Valice/Richgirl

[ProdigalGuru]

nty

[DoctorWhofan]

/not signed

THat much damage will cause yet another shift in the mobs strengths/immunities/hp/resistances. Dangerous ground here. THe power five still is decent at the lower levels, and in PuGs where new players don't have the gear. They are fine. I haven't dropped my acid of disruption, nor the rest of them. I still find them useful on trash mobs and some orange named.

[DrNuegebauer]

Smiting >> Greater Construct Bane.

Banishing >> Greater Outsider Bane

Disruption >> Greater Undead Bane

Vorpal still works pretty well - it probably took the biggest hit of the lot.

Paralyzed mobs can't hit back.


I don't think there's a problem here, if anything, weapons with a low crit range benefit from the changes.

[Gkar]

The power five: Vorpal, Banishing, Disruption, Smiting, Paralyzers are a shadow of their former selves.....

I disagree.

I no longer carry GCB, smiting does the job and more.

I no longer carry GUB, disruption does the job and more.

Banishing replaces many Greater banes and is selectively very useful and does far more than it used to.

Paralyzers I'll give you, they haven't worked well enought to use since...um...mod 6, so half the game's life. Certainly they won't make them autocrit when even hold isn't autocrit anymore.

Vorpals are somewhat less powerful, but they were too powerful before... I'm split on them. A Vorpal of PG is someone useful now.

[Doomcrew]

Remember when pulling a banishing rapier was a cause to celebrate.

Just saying.

[Gkar]

Remember when pulling a banishing rapier was a cause to celebrate.

Just saying.

When was the last time pulling ANY random loot was cause to celebrate? People don't even get excited about +2 tomes anymore a lot of the time.

The new crafting system made sure that random loot will always be seen as "meh" except for little things like metal and guild slots. It's all just material to crunch.

Now if they had let you mix and match parts of what you found on weapons that +2 disruptor of bone breaking would still be good instead of being crush material.

[Doomcrew]

When was the last time pulling ANY random loot was cause to celebrate? People don't even get excited about +2 tomes anymore a lot of the time.

The new crafting system made sure that random loot will always be seen as "meh" except for little things like metal and guild slots. It's all just material to crunch.

Now if they had let you mix and match parts of what you found on weapons that +2 disruptor of bone breaking would still be good instead of being crush material.

True, but they were good memories .........

[Dispel]

I don't like how there are Smiting Bows but not Vorpal Bows.

600 damage due to Bane + Slayer Arrows. You won't see a fleshy complaining about it, though.

[twix]

Am i the only one who hasn't used and has no interest to use a power five weapon for more then three years now?
Dps has been king for years .. the only people who used power fives were the str dumped non dps toons to begin with..the smart players realized dps is much funner then instakill plus you kill things just as fast..

I think the recent changes made these power fives viable for people who didnt already have nice twink greater banes and such..and more buffs to these weapons would be over kill.. /not signed

[Souless]

Well I'll stand corrected on this issue...seems as if I may be wrong...

but I haven't taken my power fives out of the bank in over 2 years...

And DPS wasn't always king...There was a day when TACTICS was king.....(and how smart r u really when u just max str and move on?) I remember when a w/p rapier traded for as much as a ESOS scroll or marilith chain scroll would trade for today.

Guess u can't go back....I'm just surprised that none of the ppl calling for the ESOS nerf didn't chime in and agree..Either u want more options or ur content with the way things r...looks like it's good enough as is.

Til they make some serious changes though, all that (once) beutiful loot is just gonna collect dust.

The Bytcher~

Souless/Spectyr/Tazzor/Xbow/Xindao/Vampir/Valice/Richgirl

[Gkar]

True, but they were good memories .........

I agree. But I think random loot died in the Vale.

At that point most of the weapons were already at "max" at L12-14 so the L16 weapons in the vale all added something that added more to cost than usefulness. And of course there was greensteele that obsoluted so many previous requirements - no longer did you need a golf bag of greater banes, suddenly you could do ALMOST as well with a Min II or a Lit II. And GS equipment choices made non raid equipment look like a joke.

Yeah, it was something when at Level cap 10 I pulled a +1 vorpal kama that NO ONE was proficient with and people were trying to give me their entire twink bank to buy it.

*sigh* Can't go back...the loot gods went nuts in this game.

[Doganpc]

Me and my Banishing repeater <3 Coalescence Chamber
Me and my Smiting repeater <3 Portals & Crystals

Still need a disruption repeater, close to crafting a wounding of puncturing. Vorpal is dead it should be kill on confirmed natural 20 none of this 100dmg if the mob is too powerful ****. If they can do it to us then we sure as heck should be able to do it to them.

Dogan
Granted I don't think they vorpal us, but rumored rampant DMG insta kills close enough.

[Rodasch]

Just make the "damage" on a vorpal strike from those weapons into 1000dmg flat. It's really not that overpowered. You achieve the same "kill if under 1k hp" effect while making it an effective alternative again on monsters with over 1k hp.

1000/20 = 50 dmg per swing average from vorpal/disrupt/smite/banish. Also deathblock/death ward should NOT block any of these four effects, nor should it block assassinate or assassin vorpal ability.

Fortification should work on vorpal, assassinate, and assassin vorpal ability.

Smiting and Disruption should not be blockable by anything, and banish should only be blocked by being on native plane or anchoring.

There's your easy fix for melee balance with casters.

[Rakian_Knight]

Am i the only one who hasn't used and has no interest to use a power five weapon for more then three years now?
Dps has been king for years .. the only people who used power fives were the str dumped non dps toons to begin with..the smart players realized dps is much funner then instakill plus you kill things just as fast..

I think the recent changes made these power fives viable for people who didnt already have nice twink greater banes and such..and more buffs to these weapons would be over kill.. /not signed

Personally I prefer smarter game play over pure strength and that is why I play more caster type characters because they can do that more.

Anyways, I'm kind of sad that the days where people who played smart where better then the people who just maxed strength and ran ahead swinging at everything that moves. This is the same thing that has been changing and encouraging changes on "hard quest" like Tear and Sleeping Dust because they aren't smash everything that move types of quest.

As far as the weapons, I was personally kind of sad at most of these changes. Effects like Smiting vs Construct bane use to be a choice between do I want to wait for that critical or do I want to do the extra damage, but now their isn't any choice there anymore because they both do the extra damage but smiting also does not have the chance of instant killing your enemy. The problem was that they were too common not that they were over-powered. Eliminate Vorpal from the random loot list and only allow it on named items and it would of been balanced with things because not everyone would of had a Vorpal weapon.

In short.
Vorpal - needs to become rare again if we want it back to the way it was.
Banishing, smiting, disruption - need to go back to instant kill on crit but deal no damage.
Paralyser - should make flat-footed making them vulnerable to extra sneak attack and possibly extra damage from normal attacks.

Just my thoughts
~Rakian_Knight

[Krago]

Am i the only one who hasn't used and has no interest to use a power five weapon for more then three years now?
Dps has been king for years ..

No, the WoPs had a long glorious rain over DPS, unless you consider CON stat damage as DPS since is does diminish hp.

The dual wielding crit barbs of yore. . .

[elraido]

Just make the "damage" on a vorpal strike from those weapons into 1000dmg flat. It's really not that overpowered. You achieve the same "kill if under 1k hp" effect while making it an effective alternative again on monsters with over 1k hp.

1000/20 = 50 dmg per swing average from vorpal/disrupt/smite/banish. Also deathblock/death ward should NOT block any of these four effects, nor should it block assassinate or assassin vorpal ability.

Fortification should work on vorpal, assassinate, and assassin vorpal ability.

Smiting and Disruption should not be blockable by anything, and banish should only be blocked by being on native plane or anchoring.

There's your easy fix for melee balance with casters.

No one would ever use a lighting strike again.

1000 damage 5% of the time vs 600 2% of the time.

[Chai]

Vorpals:

With the easiness of acquisition of loot gen vorpals, do we really want all trash fights to be vorp fests? I certainly do not. BTW, when something NEVER works one day, and only works on mobs with less than 1k current HP thats not a nerf - do for epics it was a minor boost.

Banishers:

20 no save + 4d6 damage per swing -vs- very low DC where the mob needs to roll a 1 to fail post vale on a crit. Todays banisher hits for 4d6 moar DPS = not a nerf. Next.

Smiters:

Dominated the lower end game but similar to banishers in the high end game. 5% smite sucess + 4d6 moar damage per hit -vs- crit + low roll for smite. Not a nerf in many situations. Makes awesome portal beaters.

Paralyze. How did this get nerfed again? It didnt. Its the same old "smack the mob until it rolls a 1 and its paralyzed" - heh.

Disruption:

4d6 on every hit moar damage + 5% chance to kill outright on a 20 -vs- 5% chance to kill if the mob rolls a 1 but no extra DPS = not a nerf.

People still calling this a nerf?

Hardly. Not to mention these weapon sets are readily available to everyone to the point where if they just killed everything they are built to kill, the only thing we would need actual DPS for would be boss fights. No need to even build for str - build for fast attack rate.

No to WoP returning to its old self due to the same reason - no need to build for str at that point, just build for attack rate.

[Maxallu]

The game changes, it has changed in the past, it will change again. I am not a fan of the changes that you suggested.

[QuantumFX]

OP: I absolutely cannot agree with you when it comes to the changes to Banishing, Disruption, Greater Disruption and Smiting.

• Banishers are now worthwhile in epics. (Especially if they have a decent weapon suffix to play with.)
• Enduring Conviction is now a decent piece of Raid loot.
• Every non-rapier banisher is now on par with the banishing rapier.
• The named Mace of Smiting is now as nice at level 6 as the **** Sunblade.
• We now have a wider variety of portal beaters.
• Positive III is now a worthwhile greensteel weapon. (And should be as it costs 3 large devil scales to make!)

However, I would be down for a serious damage boost to vorpal on a natural 20. It needs to have it’s own balance against Banishing/Disruption/Smiting. 300-400 points of untyped damage rather than the current 100 would be sufficent though.

Also, Paralyzing should be balanced against Stunning +10. If anything, give it a 33 will save on vorpal and bring back the helplessness effect.