I understand the concern about nerfing items people invested time and resources into, and that was never the intention behind these changes. The goal was to bring overall weapon balance closer together, not invalidate anyone’s progress.
The way I’ve adjusted weapons has always followed the same general philosophy across the board. I’m not balancing strictly from damage test targets alone. Most weapons received
- +2 to +3 base damage
- +2 to +3 hit/damage bonuses
- added stats
- increased proc damage
- proc improvements depending on the weapon
Where things became problematic was proc chance scaling. Ret and Paagrio ended up receiving much larger proc chance increases than intended, mainly because I originally used Kurtz as the comparison point. That caused DK Sword and Kurtz to feel significantly weaker by comparison, even after they had already received multiple rounds of upgrades.
Because of that I shifted more power into fixed proc damage and burst potential on DK Sword and similar weapons instead of continuing to endlessly scale proc chance upward across every weapon. The goal there was to create stronger kill potential and better identity for those weapons without turning everything into a proc lottery.
It’s also important to remember we’ve been through this before. Early on during what everyone called “Bume Gate,” many players believed Bume Smache completely outclassed every other weapon in the game. At the same time, people were claiming Paagrio was stronger when it actually wasn’t. Perception can shift heavily depending on what players are currently seeing in PvP.
At this point, DK Sword, Kurtz, and KV have already been upgraded far beyond where they originally started. They are significantly stronger than their original versions and have received multiple rounds of improvements. I do not think the healthiest long-term direction is to continuously raise every underperforming weapon higher and higher while never making downward adjustments anywhere else.
