How to make Broadsword not a pile of BS

[Xaeon]

Broadsword is a set that's definitely seen better days; having fallen far from its height as the staple of Broadsword/Regeneration scrapper meme builds. Now a days though, it's old, its rather visually uninteresting, its stats are mediocre to bad across the board which is made worse by its damage type being the most frequently resisted in the entire game and even worse; it directly compares to two sets which are just strictly better than it in basically every scenario: Katana which is statistically identical save for having much faster flowing animations that result in far superior DPA whose only downside is that it cannot be paired with Shield Defense and War Mace which out damages Broadsword so hard its not even funny.  Battle Axe at least is in a similarly mediocre boat but there's already been a good thread on fixing it.

 

But it doesn't have to be this way. We can rebuild Broadsword to be stronger, faster, better, we have the technology. The question though is how?  One of the most damning things about Broadsword is that its stats are identical to Katana but Katana gets much more usable animations that let you chain attacks far more quickly and thus the actual DPS of Katana completely outstrips Broadsword. Broadsword for its own part shares the majority of its animations with Battle Axe and War Mace, but War Mace massively outstrips BS' damage per attack, has built in CC, and has a better damage type. So obviously the answer can't be quite as simple as just speeding up Broadsword's animations lest it tread on Katana's toes, nor can we just tune up the damage numbers lest it start to verge into Battle Axe and War Mace's niche. 

[Rockfall]

Bump the AoE substantially (issues with stalkers...) and make it a mini-titan weapons?

[jack_nomind]

BS is excellent on Stalkers and fine on Tankers.  For Scrappers and Brutes, it's still the only Parry that works with Shield Defense, which leaves the set uniquely well-off.  If it needs a buff then giving it slightly better crit or fury would probably bring it easily to par.

 

Like you point out the thing it *truly* needs is better visuals.  I'm still hoping for a knowledgeable community member to do a brief tutorial on making and packaging CoH-friendly animations.

[kelly Rocket]

BS is excellent on Stalkers and fine on Tankers.  For Scrappers and Brutes, it's still the only Parry that works with Shield Defense, which leaves the set uniquely well-off.  If it needs a buff then giving it slightly better crit or fury would probably bring it easily to par.

 

Like you point out the thing it *truly* needs is better visuals.  I'm still hoping for a knowledgeable community member to do a brief tutorial on making and packaging CoH-friendly animations.

If we're going to improve the visuals on it, please for the love of Positron, don't go the route they went with Katana. I do not want realistic looking love taps. I want anime/comic book type over the top swings with follow through.

[Galaxy Brain]

BS is excellent on Stalkers and fine on Tankers.  For Scrappers and Brutes, it's still the only Parry that works with Shield Defense, which leaves the set uniquely well-off.  If it needs a buff then giving it slightly better crit or fury would probably bring it easily to par.

 

Like you point out the thing it *truly* needs is better visuals.  I'm still hoping for a knowledgeable community member to do a brief tutorial on making and packaging CoH-friendly animations.

 

Just saying, but I dont think "it works with shield" is a great arguement even with the synergy (thematically and mechanically) as then all the other secondary pairings are up for debate

[Herotu]

We can rebuild Broadsword to be stronger, faster, better, we have the technology.

 

Just for people who don't get the reference... it was the 1970s...