Yeah, weaponmaster needs some love. Right now, 9 IF / 9 PS / 4 ath is such a disgustingly powerful infantry build - a build intended on being a weapon master, one who masters his weapon.
Weaponmaster makes sense as a master of all/multiple weapon types, like a musician who can pick up and learn any instrument. However, with slots as they are (which are perfect in the sense of balance, thats not my concern) here's a huge build balance pitfall - If you want to use ranged and melee with a balanced build, your choices are:
Archery - Uses 6 skill points and relies on WPF Heavily
Throwing - Uses 6 skill points and relies on WPF Moderately
Crossbow - Uses 0 skill points and relies on WPF for repair cost more than actual aim
Crossbows are awesome tools, and shouldn't take up valuable skill points because they're invented specifically to be aimed and fired, and the completely fair balancing factor is the reload time. When slots were introduced, they really balanced out the use of ridiculous hybrid builds. As it stands now though, they not only have to pump 6 Power Draw, but they also have to pump 6 Weaponmaster. I understand being 6 points behind a pure build, but 12 is a pretty huge hit. There shouldn't be a WPF requirement on effective powerstrike either, because you can swing a weapon all god damn day, skilled or not.
Hybrid builds are fine, I'm not trying to shower them with love. Maybe I'm RPing too hard here, but shouldn't dedicated melee have an incentive for Weaponmaster as well? It took me 4 gens of being stubborn and ignorant before discovering how gross and incredible 8+ Ironflesh is. The only thing stopping me from pulling out a crossbow is the fact my weapon's unsheathable too. I think preventing pocket flamberges, pikes, and huscarls was enough of a balance on hybrids when the slot system came out, and back then there was no WPF requirement for Effective Power Draw/Throw, if I remember right. I certainly don't miss 30/9 archers with pierce damage, but right now, Weaponmaster is strictly a giant skill sink to meet ranged requirements.
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Kind of afraid of 12/27 katana builds with 220 WPF if we keep lobbying like this... hahaha. Listen to these guys - limit "innate" WPF a little bit. Maybe rework how HP is calculated / make heavier armor more attractive and useful to agi builds. People forget they can wear brigandine + light plate on an agi build, or it eliminates the point of agi entirely.