It's hard to understand because faster attacks will alter the length of a typical duel by a ridiculously small amount. First, speed rating is largely irrelevant because the weapons that got buffed are used in a way that bypasses speed rating for the most part. Second, increasing damage would speed up combat.
Will you just stop already? Use one of these slower weapons in a duel against a very skilled player. One of two things will happen, you'll get rolled because you're bad at blocking/play too aggressively or, you'll bore each other and anyone else watching to death. The increased speed wasn't just to speed up combat though, it was also done so as to not slow down thrusts(and partially swings) too much. If you make it so that you can only deal damage later in an animation(what our sweetspot change did, mostly to thrusts, but also horizontals as well), then you have literally just slowed the game down. You have reduced everyone's
effective speed.
Both speed and damage are appropriate for making melee more deadly. In fact, they're the only things you should even consider changing (even soak/reduce changes should be off the table, as they affect ranged as well).
