katana , bastard sword becoming 1 slot weapons is definitely buff range hybrid class.
archers and xbowmans use the most powerful missile shoot and then use the best duel weapon kill remain near dead man.
there will be range hybrid everywhere in battlefield just like native or medieval counter-strike.
do you want that ?
Yes, I want to see that. I also want to see pure 2H, pole or whatever builds gone.
Most shielders already carry xbow as backup, those who don't want play melee/ranged hybrids should be allowed to make offensive/defensive melee hybrids (2hpole/hoplite or 2h/shielder). All of those builds should be balanced between themselves and that's hard thing to do. It's much easier to create balance around these cookie cutter builds, which is what they did.
Old leveling system was good because it allowed great hybrids but also pure builds were too strong. Old system with a lot of levels/points but limitations/caps on att/skills/wpf could work very well. But most players are against that, for some reason they like extreme pure builds more than hybrids.
I just want to point out that ladders weren't the problem when everyone could use ranged weapon and be decent hybrid, even at level 30. Ladders on battle map became a problem when they changed the game so that pure builds are the best builds.
Devs of this mod made so many good changes but some of them are very bad although they will never admit that. They fucked up shields with nerf to force field, for example. I don't recall ghosting through shield happening before that.
Archer hybrids weren't OP, arrow damage/speed and especially accuracy were OP. Those who cried that archers kill them in melee are noobs and because devs listened to noobs they removed archery hybrids. That led to xbow/melee hybrids which used mace which is worse than any long weapon, because it's small, black, fast, damaging and has knockdown. I would fight archers with 3 PS and poleaxe any day instead of fighting the same archer with mace. Poleaxe has negative effects on their accuracy, it's easy to see and most importantly, does slow archers a lot (because it's long). And with cut damage and 3 PS he will glance a lot.
Poll