Unique 2 handed Sword: Masamune

The idea is to have a sword that defines what it is to be a skilled swordsman. Striking true, and not being able handle the weapon resulting in disaster.

Clear inspiration is from the Square-Soft games Chrono Trigger (hence the quote using the name of a character from that game) and Final Fantasy VII, both of which feature a different version of this sword. The idea of it taking immense skill to wield is based on Chrono Trigger, where Frog is the only character who can use it, and the idea of it being extremely long and making a wide cut (emulated with the melee splash) from the version Sephiroth wields.

The limitation of only single target skills working disables basically all spells (except Arc and a few others, I think), as well as AoE attacks like Cyclone that would be ludicrous with the huge melee range increase. It is really only needed to balance out the "hit yourself when you miss" thing.

Originally, my wording would have been "Missed attacks reflect on to you" but that would lead to many disappointments when hitting a pack of evasive monsters, so the idea was changed so it only considered hitting one target for it. But not all attacks have a "primary target" all the time, so the limitation was added that you could not use attacks that didn't.


Overall, I am pleased with my basic concept of a huge sword that rewards accuracy and skillful play (IE: Not using the same attack over and over again), but I feel I may have taken some bold and clumsy steps in executing it.

This is a very ambitious idea, and I would greatly value feedback in it.


Justifications:

Would this be a better image, then?

EDIT: My concern is that it would be too similar to Hyaon's Fury.

I like the idea & theme, though i wonder how it would feel to actually play with it. Flicker might be a great attack for a sword like this.

Picture is fine, that's close to what a masamune looks like anyway.

There are actually various legends surrounding Muramasa versus Masamune.

Masamune made swords that conquered "peacefully." In the style of winning without fighting, so to speak. Embodying Sun Tzu's highest virtue of warfare.

By contrast, Muramasa's swords, by contast made bloodthirsty and violent weapons, prone to driving its wielders to bloodthirst.

Legends like to make Muramasa out to be Masamune's student and rival, although there is no evidence they were historical contemporaries at all.

Still one such story goes that they both agreed to a contest to make the better sword.
Both submerged their respective weapons into a stream.
Muramasa's blade would cut every petal that flowed down the stream. And he declared himself the winner because the petals would simply flow past and around Masamune's blade.

I think it'd be interesting to theme two different weapons around these legends. With Masamune's weapon rewarding measured and restrained fighting and Muramasa's encouraging a savage and aggressive style.

Personally, I want a sword named "Liechtenauer."

"

DeviantLightning wrote:

There are actually various legends surrounding Muramasa versus Masamune.

Masamune made swords that conquered "peacefully." In the style of winning without fighting, so to speak. Embodying Sun Tzu's highest virtue of warfare.

By contrast, Muramasa's swords, by contast made bloodthirsty and violent weapons, prone to driving its wielders to bloodthirst.

Legends like to make Muramasa out to be Masamune's student and rival, although there is no evidence they were historical contemporaries at all.

Still one such story goes that they both agreed to a contest to make the better sword.
Both submerged their respective weapons into a stream.
Muramasa's blade would cut every petal that flowed down the stream. And he declared himself the winner because the petals would simply flow past and around Masamune's blade.

I think it'd be interesting to theme two different weapons around these legends. With Masamune's weapon rewarding measured and restrained fighting and Muramasa's encouraging a savage and aggressive style.

Personally, I want a sword named "Liechtenauer."

That's very interesting. While I do not have a historical basis for creating this weapon, inadvertently it does match the idea of the idea rewarding a 'measured and restrained fighting style,' favouring accuracy over brute strength.

There is some point of your weapon that bother me.

Overall, it's a good idea for a weapon, really good concept and synergy.
But there is 3 thing that don't work for me.

Let me explain :

. Does the % Damage per Accuracy work with Resolute Technique ?
Since it give you 100% Accuracy, will it glitch ?

. The reduced attack speed isn't a bit too high ? And for how much time it'll last. Cause for me, it's the main reason to not use this weapon, 25% less AtkSpeed is very the worse thing for a melee build nowadays.

. Last but not least, the level 35 Melee Splash. With this level, the gem give 102% Increased Melee Damage and only 15% Less Damage to other target. It, i feel, a bit too OP

"

Maematsu wrote:

Does the % Damage per Accuracy work with Resolute Technique ?
Since it give you 100% Accuracy, will it glitch ?

No. Resolute Technique increases your chance to hit to 100%, but your Accuracy Rating stays the same. Just like taking Unwavering Stance disallows evasion, but you would still gain Attack Damage per 450 Evasion rating from Dreamfeather.

"

The reduced attack speed isn't a bit too high ? And for how much time it'll last. Cause for me, it's the main reason to not use this weapon, 25% less AtkSpeed is very the worse thing for a melee build nowadays.

This was one of my concerns as well, but it's not that difficult to not mindlessly repeat the same thing. Your attacks should be strong and precise, not reckless and fast. This affix is meant to discourage the use of multistrike, because that could cause problems with having multiple "primary target"s.

The reduction would last until a different attack is used. You always have your basic attack available to you, so even if you have only one attack gem it's impossible to be stuck with no attack speed.

"

Last but not least, the level 35 Melee Splash. With this level, the gem give 102% Increased Melee Damage and only 15% Less Damage to other target. It, i feel, a bit too OP

This is intentional: I don't want the sword to deal less damage due to that affix. How about: "40% less damage to other targets" so it still deals full damage to the main target, but not as much to other targets.

But you said "Increased melee damage." Have I misunderstood this gem the whole time? I thought the melee damage scaling was a percentage of base so: 68% would mean supported attacks deal 0.68 of the normal damage. Are you saying it deal 1.68 of the normal damage? Is so: This is not intended. The splash shouldn't be providing bonus damage, and it shouldn't be reducing it, I just want it to deal normal damage, but have the splash.


Thank you for your input. Looking at the wiki I think I probably have misunderstood the gem.

EDIT: I have updated the OP to make the melee splash level 1 as I now realise that is the gem level required for what I desire.

+6 weapon range is way too op, with tree + salute you would get a +10 without even using inc area of effect gem and I doubt GGG would agree to make an item that can t use AOE skills.

Changelog: Addressing points raised in the previous post, I have made these changes:

1 -Reverted the level of Melee Splash to 35.

This means it does give 102% increased melee damage, though I previously did not intend it, making it very strong. Having had comparisons made to other items, this bonus is not too much in my view, with consideration of this weapon's heavy downsides.

2 -Reworded the attack slow affix to specify that it is reduced attack speed rather than less.

Using 'repetition' is perhaps less understandable, but it allows the wording to be clear without being overly long. I could also have used "25% reduced attack speed each time you repeat the same attack" but that has too many words in my view.