Hafted Blade - Overpowered?

[CaptainQuantum]

Well I play a melee 2h character, I am currently using 18/15 str/agi build at level 24. The first comment I know will be 2H are spammers, so to stop that I am a skilled manual blocker who never spams and I come out with a K:D ratio on siege servers of about 2 on average. This post however is not about 2H, but instead about the polearm the hafted blade. I have noticed on several occasions that the hafted blade can spam faster than recovery after a hit, meaning 1 hit on you effectively makes you useless. Also after the stun from a polearms on manual block I don't believe the speed this blade can be spammed is balanced, I have seen many time a person using this able to continue spamming through parries even on the cooldown of a heavier weapon stun.

I have seen many people use this weapon to great effectiveness just through spamming, spamming is irritating but can usually be overcome by manual blocking, this is not the case unless you are a god at it, since blocking through feint spams on top of this weapons speed is impossible to me. Anyway I ask for other people's opinions on this weapon as it could just be me not seeing the whole picture.

[CpTKiL]

I used hafted blade and I can't even beat 2h spammer

[Gurnisson]

Are you talking about the Long Hafted Blade or the regular one? I would guess it's regarding the long one, because I can't remember seeing anyone, besides myself, using the regular one. Also, I have no problems with the LHB, and if you feel you can't counter it, you're doing it wrong (except for the polearm stun which gives another free hit regardless of what you do).

[AgentQ]

go test it yourself before second guessing. Even masterwork long Hafted Blade is so slow. There is something wrong with Polearm swing animation The regular hafted blade can spam like a 2 hand, but comes with low reach and damage.


Another comment: lvl 24 is a bit low vs lvl 30+ polearm users.

[CaptainQuantum]

Well my problems with countering it are:
1. It is easily feint spammed and with it's rapid speed it's harder than a katana to discern strike direction.
2. It's speed is faster than recovery time after a hit, so one mistake means you have no chance at all.
The 2nd is not even a grey area of whether it is skill, that is just way too fast for a fair weapon. The 1st is more subject to skill, but my point here would be that it takes an enormous amount of skill to beat it, but not much skill to use it.

AgentQ I see why you say to go and test this, normally I would but I have seen many people complain about this weapons speed in game, a spam speed faster than recovery speed does not need testing on my behalf, I have seen it happen to me and others, that is evidence enough. At level 24 I have 144 WPP in two handed weapins and 6 PS, so level is not a problem here. 

[AgentQ]

Well my problems with countering it are:
1. It is easily feint spammed and with it's rapid speed it's harder than a katana to discern strike direction.
2. It's speed is faster than recovery time after a hit, so one mistake means you have no chance at all.
The 2nd is not even a grey area of whether it is skill, that is just way too fast for a fair weapon. The 1st is more subject to skill, but my point here would be that it takes an enormous amount of skill to beat it, but not much skill to use it.

Your topic is about balancing, what's the OP about HB again?

[CaptainQuantum]

Simply put: the speed. Sure if the speed was nerfed on the hafted blade then it would be a terrible weapon, I would advise an increase in damage. Just the current speed is far too high and just encourages spamming, it doesn't even give a chance to those who try to manual block do to the polearm stun. Overall I would say the weapon either needs a reduction in speed with an addition of damage, or a reduction in weight to stop the stun induced from blocking.

By the way I was not sure what you meant by your comment since it is surely inherent in the post about what I think is OP about the hafted blade.

Sidenote: I will not be checking this post for around 30 minutes, I need to finish this electromagnetism exam paper, which is more important at the moment.

[BlameMeForTheNoise]

Hmmm im using the Long Hafted Blade and its not that fast. Not when seen in regards to its damage. I would say all the people complaining about the speed just dont block fast or well enough. The range compared to twohand-thrusts is inferior, too...
And the swings compared to 2handed swords like Greatsword are pretty even...
The people complaining about the speed also get killed by fast and skilled onehanders.
Or lolstabbing twohanders.
I would even go so far as to say that 2handed-swords have an advantage in duels over them...
Im regularly on the duel-server and when i count the people that are on top of the scoreboard i see maybe 1 Polearm-User and four stabbing 2handed-user... ;)

You really should try it out, instead of raging because there is someone who plays better than you.
And keep in mind that the really good people k/d-wise who use that weapon have it in the Masterwork-Version and are pretty skilled, too.
As of now everyone skilled with a masterwork-weapon has an advantage above the average player...

If this post was about the Hafted Blade instead of the Long Hafted Blade disregard my arguments. I have no experience with the Hafted Blade. But i never found it OP when fighting against it...

[BlameMeForTheNoise]

2. It's speed is faster than recovery time after a hit, so one mistake means you have no chance at all.

That is simply put: not true. Try it out yourself...
again: you just dont block fast/good enough.
Like i said i am on the duel-server almost every day for one or two hours. I use a mw LHB on level 30 with 18/21. And i was contemplating to switch to 2handed because a skilled blocker has an advantage over you with the stab and speed of 2handed swords. But i have invested so many hours in Polearms (including to learn proper piking) i will stay with that...

Overall I would say the weapon either needs a reduction in speed with an addition of damage, or a reduction in weight to stop the stun induced from blocking.

The Glaive or The Great Bardiche are pretty much what you suggested there...
And when im duelling with a skilled Glaive-User i find myself pretty much on the same terms with him.

[Spawny]

There's a simple way to overcome polearm stun:

Block twice.

There. Fixed. The stun is only for attacks and not for blocks, so you're fine when you just block after that initial hit.

IMO, the danish/german great swords are a lot faster and deadlier.

[BlameMeForTheNoise]

IMO, the danish/german great swords are a lot faster and deadlier.

this.

[CaptainQuantum]

Ok I have finished my electromagnetism exam paper, I can start maintaining this again. Now BlameMeForTheNoise forgive me if I get the wrong tone from your post but it seems angry, I am in no way QQing so there is no reason to blame my skill for this. I believe you have misinterpreted my use of the term recovery time, my meaning of the term is the knockback/interruption you get when taking damage. When I say the recovery time is longer than the spam time I mean that I haven't actually got out of this knockback before the next block has hit me, that is not dependant on skill at all, so you cannot claim it is. That is just a game mechanic which no matter how skilled you are you can overcome if you cannot block then it (which you can't whilst in knockback) you won't be able to block the attack, this has been used with the hafted blade on me on several occasions and many others have also backed me up when I asked of this in game. Sure my part 1 of my argument is subject to skill but I explained why that could still be an issue. Of course the hafted blade has terrible damage but damage doesn't matter if the first blow will allow you to spam without problems without chance of a loss.

"The Danish/German great swords are faster". I don't see this at all, I have absolutely no problem blocking blows from those swords or any two hander other than the katana for that matter. So that seems like unsolicited information to me.

Oh and spawny I know how to stop stun blocks, I have read the entire Warband manual on the game mechanics, so that is not an issue.

[BlameMeForTheNoise]

Now BlameMeForTheNoise forgive me if I get the wrong tone from your post but it seems angry,

meh. Thats why i dont like conversations on the interwebs. No im not angry, in no way whatsoever. *smiles*

Just Block two attacks, like Spawny said. It works. (At least against me... )

[CaptainQuantum]

Well I have no problems with the block twice, I can do that fine on any other weapon. Just I don't think having the necessity to do that with how fast the weapon is, is actually fair. My main problem is that if the weapon hits you, you can't recover to block since before coming out of knockback the weapon has retriggered the knockback on the next hit again.

[AgentQ]

too bad, it's part of the game. all polearm has this feature. Just like 2hand stab.

have you seen tin cans stunned to death by 3 quarter staff?