[K Peculier]

Yeah. So. The river sword.

The river sword upon any basic attack that connects gives a whopping 40% water weakness for 4 unforgiving rounds.

With the addition of two very spicy ghost spells where a sword can be utilized as a casting tool, the damage numbers on simply spamming Blood Spike and Scarlet Twister with their ever increasing giant range and aoe can be incredibly ludicrous as both these spells can be used every round.

It was already an incredibly powerful effect since the weapon was introduced back in ancient times, and I would like to summon veteran players and their input on this when they read the thread and post their thoughts since they actually do their research. (Writing things down opposed to K Peck being bullied by river sword users.)

I was actually looking for an old thread possibly made by Trexmaster or Xoveron (Pls claim credit) but could unfortunately not find it in this subforum where they had better insight and number results that I remember but was for some reason ignored by the majority.

Take the river sword and compare it with a recently added potential for the Eresh sword where you have to use a big move that has a cooldown and a good chunk of FP and it inflicts dark weakness. So you might think "Wowie zowie, sounds similar to the river sword!" - Except that the weakness only lasts 3 rounds and there is a mountain of even passive skills and far greater item variety in resisting dark opposed to a 40% water weakness.

Common misconceptions/Counterpoints:

1. "Just build water resistance!" -> Since the dawn of balance fu time, this excuse has been used for literally everything ever made ever. it's the equivalent of "Just dodge if you dont wanna die lol" in power.

If the minimum effort it takes for someone to do big numbers on you is to tickle you with a river sword versus build 65% water resistatance to proc resist on it, then you can already clearly see just how 'fair' this is.

2. "Just don't get hit by the river sword and build dodge." -> See answer above.

3. "Just get rid of the debuff using a skill." -> Where you spend at least 3M to get rid of a 4 round debuff, the river sword user can reapply it as many times as they want if they land a basic attack.

(Please, please, please do not post the above ^ We've been through this a million times before everyone come on.)

[K Peculier]

If it were up to me, I would have it so that the river sword only applies a 5% water debuff (up to 40%) for every basic attack landed and extends the duration up to or maintain at 4 rounds.

That way, if you're getting hit by giant amounts of water damage from things like Blood Spike and Scarlet twister, you at the very least have had time to think about your funeral before it becomes 40%.

[Snake]

I believe that was what was suggested before, and that Dev read it too and even agreed long time ago, but we never really saw this change going through?

And like before, I believe this is a change which is essential. That's flipping 40% free damage. Insane. If only it had some sort of build up it would justify its strength.

[Autumn]

If you're making it build stacks up until a certain point then you're ruining the synergy between it and other weapons, not to play sole victim or anything but even changing this at all would ruin one my other builds completely simply because blood spike exists, which is not exactly fair.

Why not heavily reduce the scaling on the weapon so it only remains as a synergy weapon and not a scaling one, the problem seems to be that blood spike and twister exist and the sword makes a decent casting tool for them, at least in the other method its not fully utilizing two hand or equipment setups.

Something like reducing it to 40% STR 40% GUI Scaling (or 40% STR 40% VIT), since water can sometimes be related to GUI anyways.


Or at the very very very least make it the same as Eresh's elemental resistance deduction, 30% instead of 40%, there's no need to completely chop the weapon trust me on that.

[WaifuApple]

Personally, I'm all for it requiring stacking for a number that high, so you can't just apply the highest number immediately, or a lower amount of resist reduction, since just docking the scaling of the sword would end up relegating it to just being a sword used for synergy. But, imo, blood spike and scarlet twister were just things that brought a sword that for it's ability has been pretty underrated into the limelight more - it's not specifically just how it works with those spells that I'd imagine to be the issue.

[Autumn]

Personally, I'm all for it requiring stacking for a number that high, so you can't just apply the highest number immediately, or a lower amount of resist reduction, since just docking the scaling of the sword would end up relegating it to just being a sword used for synergy. But, imo, blood spike and scarlet twister were just things that brought a sword that for it's ability has been pretty underrated into the limelight more - it's not specifically just how it works with those spells that I'd imagine to be the issue.

Yes but historically the weapon's identity HAS been that it allowed weakness procs with a hit check, and has supplemented spellblade builds in the past because of it, it still requires a hit check to be made to fully utilize the weapon's effect (Which has been getting extremely harder and harder to do as of recent) and also doesn't have phenomenal power or scaling, infact comparatively to most other weapons its actually really lackluster already.

Carrying its effect to a stacking mechanic is un-necessary and completely chops the weapon's viability and what its already known for in my opinion, at minimum with 30% weakness proc for less duration (Probably 3 rounds) you can have only a mere 6% water resistance (Which is baseline APT SAN + 1 coral item) to resist the water weakness proc, giving it much more fault room.

But if you start having it be a stacking mechanic then it just starts falling apart very quickly, no one's gonna pick up a lackluster weapon and hit someone multiple times with it just to cast later, you will literally get more momentum efficiency just using whatever the hell water damage you were trying to use in the first place without the river sword.

[Sarah54321]

I personally agree with Spoops, here. If we do what the OP suggested, the River sword would be nullified as being useful at all. Being 30% instead of 40% means it's still useful, but not crippling like it is now. I personally enjoy the whole concept of it, and I have two builds that are really fun that would just be... destroyed otherwise.

[Fern]

30% elemental weakness instead of 40% sounds fine. It's what Eresh's potential does as well.

[MakeshiftWalrus]

Its current strength is undeniable and easily abused, expecially with weapons like Atlaua's Abaniko and Ensui, who both do water damage instead of the normal pierce/slash for the dagger and sword respectably That's a 40% damage amp for no effort, which is currently the largest damage amp in the game.

There should be a condition set, so you can't just murder people with it immediately. Even without a weakness if it gets nerfed to 30%, that's still 30% more damage on a follow-up with these two weapons in particular-- as well as any other water damage, of course.

What I propose instead of a stacking mechanic, is for the first hit of the weapon to apply a new status effect called 'Damp', which on itself does nothing and reset on the start of your own next turn. If the person in question is hit by the riversword again, on the same turn, it can apply the 40% damage roid.

At that point, at least you deserve it.

[Neus]

It could only apply for one instance of Water damage, perhaps.