Getting the footwork advantage with a long+strong weapon pretty much nullifies most of its weaknesses. Damage predominately lies with the weapon since 1 power strike is similar to using a weapon with +2-3 attack. That's why a damaging weapon and max athletics can be problematic. +3 is net 0 compared to the level increases. This is more important at the 15-18 difficulty level because at that point, because the benefits of PS can stack with speed bonus and other multipliers a bit better.
I don't feel too strongly about it, but it's nice to have the difficulties catch up with the new levels a bit better. If more people agree that weapon difficulty shouldn't change, then it can just be removed. It's also true that strength builds can use fast weapons to make up for some of their weaknesses, but the strength build would always have sluggish movement while the agi build can make up the low weapon speed with wpf and weapon length.
Edit: I'll X it off for now and see how many people want weapon difficulty increases instead. At the very least, a few weapons like the Long Maul and a few others need an increase, though.
Crushthrough weapons are the ones that need high difficulty, other than that i dont see any other weapons really needing difficulty for balancing. Longer weapons have higher movespeed penalties afaik. And using long and strong weapons with high athletics, i mean it all sounds good in theory but it just doesnt perform anywhere close to overpowered status when used in practice.
So far i've tested most weapons using agi heavy builds being 12str(39agi) to 15str(27agi and this was prepatch), most success with 12 is warspear. It gets the job done but each thrust is a pretty large risk of glancing unless perfomed perfectly, and if glance it very often results in death. I also did some piking, pretty good, damage is shit but you can move okayish, fun but not viable. Quarter staff hits for nothing. Hafted blade, which is insanely strong (probably one of the best polearms in the game, dont tell anyone) sucks with 12 str. Absolutely shit damage, movespeed bonus doesnt do shit without a PS base. Thats all the decent pole options for 12 str.
15 str i did feel the PS+movespeed being put to work for some damage at times compareable to balance builds. Long hafted blade, weak damage imo, had hopes of homosex weapon but it sucked. Hafted blade was pretty sweet here, not amazing damage but spam potential off the charts, i think it peaks at 18 str though, maybe 21 with higher levels and all. Warspear still good, better damage overall and thats comparing 15-27 to 12-39 builds. Long hafted spiked mace was garbage afaik, just a junk tier weapon since it got hit with nerfs oh so long ago.
Basically, every polearm available to low str agiwhores are in no way dealing significant damage, even with new patch when i can get even mooore athl damage is still meh. Increasing difficulty would just remove whatever sort-of-viable options there are. Anything agiwhore use them for can be used significantly better as balance, which wouldnt get affected by difficulty changes so...
As usual, you're not very well informed. I've seen Xanor (9/36 build I think) chop full plate dude in 4-5 hits with Katana. That was near spawn and think it was from 100%-0 HP. Sorry, but I don't think that 3 PS build using cut weapon with moderate damage should be able to kill full plated knight with over 75 armor in less than 10 good hits. That's what can openers (blunt and pierce weapons) are for.
First off, i dont think tincans should be invincible to lower damage weapons (as they once were, before armor soak changes). It sucked back then and it would now too. Secondly, Killing a tincan in 5 hits with a katana and 3 PS, while its probably very possible but theres a lot of things to factor in. Firstly, if the tincan has IF and str to actually use his armor effectively. Secondly if the tincan actually took full speedbonus hits 5 hits in a row he deserves death, thats just silly. Thirdly, the tincan probably wouldve oneshot Xanor had he not gotten shitstomped, 1 hit vs 5 hits, i mean cmon how much is movespeed actually worth.
I do think 2h benefit more from low str builds compared to polearms, but still not strong enough to be needing a nerf. Also you may have noticed me strolling around on my str plate character on eu1, ive actually played him for a month or more now i believe and the only memories i have fighting an agiwhore would be me being annoyed by him moving out of my range and then coming back and hitting me. After taking maybe 3 or so hits i can generally land a good strike and oneshot them. Annoying sure, but they only took maybe a 5th of my hp. I dont watch people, i test both parts and experience pros and cons of each build. I believe this is more informative than having seen one fight of unknown tincan build scrub player that you think was full hp vs good player agiwhore.
