February 2012 Weapon Changes/Option 2 Dev Comments

Overview
Official Thread - Thread Closed Nov 17  Comments listed below are developer responses on the Option 2 thread, some may pertain to other options. Off topic, or duplicate answers will be omitted. Please direct all questions or comments to the official forums.

Does Sneak Attack only work for Melee Weapons?
Original Post The intent is that Sneak Attack works with spells and missiles btw.  Sev~

Will lesser weapon types still do less damage and be less useful?
Original Post: Posted by andrewsibley14 However, this does not address the fact that staff and to a lesser extent, spear, mace, dagger, and axe will remain under-utilized. Response That is correct. As long as these skills cost less they will do less damage, and without the imbalanced racial skills to prop them up they may fall by the wayside. Many players asked for viable characters that used other weapon types for concept, but they cannot be buffed without making templates that use them too powerful and invalidating Sword skill. You are now seeing the topics of the meeting room and hallway discussions that led to the skill revamp.  Sev~

How will Shield skill work?
Original Post: Posted by Rhesus Yes, I can get behind and support this change. I don't care for the shield skill as I feel it will gimp lower level play and make for balance problems in the mid-100s where every toon from level 120-275 may be vying for the same types of monsters, but at least now a player can still have identity by saying, "I'm UA" or "I'm sword" rather than having the weapon they're weilding in the moment speak for them. Response I suspect that the way shield skill will work is that the base will be strength and skill, but specialized will provide a separate bonus or multiplier to the effect that will push even low amounts of the skill high enough to cover a decent range of shields.

Sev~

Under Option 2 will training dual wield and sneak attack elevate low damage weapons to be on par with Sword?
Original Post: Posted by Cuttler So Sev, IF a someone took (all speced) Dagger, Dual Wield and Sneak Attack, costing a total of 14 skill credits, would this total of credit expenditure equate to over all on par damage that a 6/6 or 4/4 weapon would do straight up (ie using a shield and not having Sneak attack)? Response You'd be doing dagger damage, you'd have a 25% chance (spec Two Weapons) to proc the dagger with each strike, and from behind you'd be doing 20% extra damage with both. You'll still be short of Sword. The issue is that the value of Sneak Attack is that it is additive; a boost on top of potential damage. It also provides burst. If it did enough damage to bring dagger up to sword it would be broken on Sword. You'd be better off upgrading your weapon to Unarmed or even Sword first before you look at taking Two Weapons and Sneak. The rule under this option is upgrade your weapon skill first, then go for damage modifiers.  Sev~

Will Two-Handed Combat receive changes?
Original Post: Posted by Televangelist By the way, what's the plan for the weapon mastery augs and 2hand? Do I have to specialize pokers/cleavers? Response No changes are planned for Two Handed.  Sev~

How will Dual Wield work?
Original Post: Posted by Paul_Muadib_HG I appreciate that you were able to respond to this so quickly, and wonder why my multiple posts about tandem (or skill synergy) between Dagger/Staff and Dual Wield has received little response.

You have made it clear that dual wield does NOT mean I can pick up 2 tachis and double my damage. My proposal is to let Dagger/Staff. For 4/4 train spec they can dual wield their existing weapons and do double the damage. No other weapon group currently has this option, and while I recognize it does come at the cost of a shield, I believe it still has a lot of incentive, especially with the addition of Sneak Attack and Deception updates. Response We haven't responded because we haven't discussed with the players how Dual Wield will work. One reason is once we get this in game we are going to have to do real game testing and tweak numbers. We also might have to take radically different design direction or abandon designs if we run into a tech problem. Just to satisfy your curiousity, our current thought is to have a Second Weapon skill that allows you to equip a weapon in your off hand. Each time you make an attack with your primary weapon you have a chance to proc and off hand attack as well. Initial designs have the chance at 15% if Second Weapon is trained, and 25% if Second Weapon is specialized. Hopefully we can change the animation system to play a different animation when the Second Weapon skill activates. This additional attack would use the lower of Second Weapon skill and the appropriate weapon skill for the equipped weapon when making the attack. Obviously there are a lot of details to work out and the design might change completely, especially if dealing with animation hooks prevents this design. Sev~

Can I have more than one Mastery augmentation?
Original Post: Posted by Paul_Muadib_HG By the way, an issue I see repeatedly is that "hybrids will get dmg upgrade to both of their skills so this is better" However, when you can only spec 1 of those for the top damage, your hybrid does more compared to its old numbers but LESS compared to new purebred temps. A missile/melee hybrid can currently use and do max damage for both categories. Under the new system, they will still weild the top weapons for both, but the required Weapon Specialization Aug will bring their comparative damage down in one of their 2 weapons.  This template is now less competative that in currently stands or stands in Option 2 Response You would be able to take both one Mastery for Melee and one mastery for Missile. Of all the templates available, the Missile / Melee hybrid makes out the best of any character. This is because we discounted top missile skills by 2/2 to account for the shield cost *and* discounted melee skills to account for the shield skill. So the missile / melee hybrid is getting double advantage there, and ending up even after buying shield with an extra 2/2 free credits.  In the end a Bow / Dagger hybrid under option #1 would pay the same costs except their Dagger would be doing lots more damage; up to the current level Unarmed does. Sev~