I do 32/9 at level 33 now, I have points in Weapons Master, so anything that buff it works for me :P
This pretty much exemplifies why a change to weapon master would be best if it coincided with a nerf to strength-heavy builds (and their wpf). You can't have your cake and eat it, too. If you want the best of both kinds of benefits, you roll a balanced build.
TL:DR make WM mean more by overhauling the math on WPF. make it seriously painful to play with less than 3WM and make sure having 10+ WM doesnt get retarded.
I don't think it should be painful to play, just statistically penalizing. I mean, there are slow weapons that work, why wouldn't a slow-swinging build work?
One thing that seems inconsistent is how much you lose out on for not having power strike. It would make sense to make weapon master similarly requisite as a statistic. If that were the case, since they both serve a similar function, you could viably take one or the other and do just as well or nearly as well, if in a slightly different fashion. It would certainly even things out between strength and agility somewhat. Although this would be bad because...
Finally the biggest problem would be balanced builds, especially level 32+, wearing full plate and using pierce weapons.
...balanced builds would probably get too much of a benefit by finding a median between the two viable damage skills and end up even further ahead, in many facets, than they already are, unless the changes were very carefully implemented.
While I think it's somewhat unrealistic to talk about and compare 36/3 builds to 3/36 builds as if they're really what people are generally doing, it does paint a vivid picture of just how big a disparity there is between the viability of the only two attribute points.
Its a good, logical trade of offense (wpf) to defense (armor), with light armor having the mobility advantage to not be swarmed by plate my old friends or get the edge in duels.
I certainly do not think heavy armor needs faster swing speeds, its a buff to armor crutching and I think would disrupt some of the established balance that works good out of the melee characters.
With the current meta-balance between attributes and the way they interact with armor, agility just completely loses out. The suggestion san gave would help lower the gap between attributes and I don't think it goes far enough, but maybe it's not the right way to approach it. As it stands, though, the increased hit points high strength builds get just have too much synergy with higher armor values, while high agility builds not only don't get that synergy, they also get stiff penalties to their primary benefit (runspeed) by wearing the heavier armor.
honestly... fuck people who have less than 3WM... they deserve to have awful swing speed in exchange for their 36/3 nonsense.
I agree with matey that 0 WM builds need to be punished more, it honestly allows people to make retarded builds (especially over level 31), something I love about Rhaelys is that he posts his build in every discussion on this and talks about how broken it is. I think it's 30/12 with max IF, 0 WM, and 2 shield at level 33? Banded armor + great long bardiche. And watch him play and tell me how gimped you think his footwork or swingspeeds are lmao. Reducing the innate WPF gain with leveling and increasing the WPF per level of weapon master is definitely a good start, or something similar.
Retarded builds like my 7 power strike 9 athletics thing with only 2 WM. Let's put into perspective how shitty it is currently to not do ridiculous specs like mine or the one Rhaelys has: If I were to go 18/27 instead of 21/27 and put those seven skill points I freed up in weapon master I would be doing less damage and would be less survivable. On top of which, I'd be limiting my options in combat by having to specify further which weapons the damage bonuses I do have will go to. I've used 1handers with no points or few points of proficiency in them for a long time (typically as a sidearm for the 3-slot polearms), and by taking weapon master instead of more strength and putting those points into my chosen spec of polearms*, I'd be doing less damage with 1handers on top of lower hit points and lower polearm damage (and 2hand/fist damage, I guess). A nearly imperceptible increase in weapon speed for polearm weapons? No thanks. I'm used to using slower weapons anyway.
*if I split the points and put some into 1hand, however, I could become a hybrid instead and get reasonable bonuses with both types of weapon at about the same cost in efficiency.
I agree that something should be done about stats because of things like this, but it does cost us more options for optimal builds. I think it's fair to say "nerf low WM builds", but it's unfair to say it unless you also want to make it worthwhile to take weapon master (hint: making WM normalize to current levels of efficacy with more points invested does not make it worthwhile).
I definitely don't want to see both an increased to how WPF scales up with higher levels of weapon master, and faster weapons in general when the devs rebalance combat speed. I know a lot of people think the game is generally way too slow, but personally I have a lot of trouble reacting sometimes to weapons that are 100+ speed, and doubly so with the one hand animations in a close distance. Italian swords, scimitars, picks, etc.
...
Maybe I'm just bad, but I think a lot of people, probably the majority of players who aren't VISCERAL 2FASt2FURIOUS INSTAKILL REALISM DUEL pr0s, would be turned off by even more people running around with extremely fast and spammy weapons, blowing through animations to hit before some people can react. So don't just "buff wm" and weapon speeds to a silly level imo.
I think a lot of this reasoning (that the game should be faster paced) is related to the belief that the game should be less forgiving of mistakes (not just that it's easier to make them, i.e. through faster weapon speeds, though that's probably a big part of it). Right now, that is, some people believe it's too easy for moderately skilled players to become capable of surviving multiple mistakes in the same fight. This is on top of the likeliness that seemingly endless block cycles can happen so regularly with how the game is in general. Fights between two people can take so long sometimes because certain builds/gear setups cater so well to making mistakes, and they have so few downsides for doing so.
One thing I notice when playing native on higher combat speeds is that it doesn't just make the learning curve steeper, it makes things a lot more variable. There are more ways for you to mess up, but that applies to your opponent, as well. It even seems random, sometimes, when something happens that tips the fight in one side's favor. I don't necessarily prefer what happens there, but I can see why someone would, especially now that we're getting so many of our melee combat options taken away.
As for simply increased speed...
I remember when retirement gave a carryover wpf bonus. This was back when the level range was higher and heirlooming could give more than 1 speed as a bonus. What was the katana back then, 105 at masterwork? That coupled with over 300 wpf meant you literally did not see the weapon syncing up with the hitbox sometimes, and it made for a horrible, bad game.