Larian Studios Forums Divinity: Original Sin 2 Divinity - Original Sin 2 - Suggestions and Feedback Melee weapon classes diversity.

Enjoyed the game quite a lot, but I couldn't notice the lack of distinctive features between weapon classes. The weapon skills that you get ("All-in", "Flurry" and "Staff of Magus") leave the feeling of being rushed and are not even effective for its cost. Overall I think it's actually quite a flaw for such game with such combat system.

It is not my native language so I apologize in advance for any mistakes you might see in this message. Alright, let's start:

Two-handed weapons:

1. Spears.
Spears in this game are rather odd. They benefit from warfare and two-handed, but scale of finesse leaving nothing unique than range. I was really happy to see that spears are finally acknowledged for its main distinctive feature and advantage, but in this game it doesnt really offer much.
The only real practical use for spears that I've found and actually used is to barricade the passage with clutter and poke the enemy with shorter weapon from behind it. Sometimes you get the value from "Opportunist" talent, poking random chicken or feared enemy from distance you normally would't reach.
First I thought it would work for archer/rogue as secondary weapon you could swap midfight. But rogue already benefits from crits, and archer can keep shooting, with potential to get more damage holding the high ground.
Considering there are 3 out of 4 categories of two-handed melee weapons that scale off strength, spears remain rather underused for obvious reason.

Suggestion: make a specific spear weapon skill. Something like "Defensive stance" that works kinda like "Flaming tongues" - you automatically hit your enemy that comes in your melee range for 1 turn. I can already foresee the abuse of such mechanic with "Escapist" talent, so I'd like to suggest to put it on 2 turns cooldown and put undispellable self-debuff for the next turn that cuts 70-80% of your movespeed and blocks your position skills to prevent the kiting.
Additionally, it would be nice to see an additional 5-15% of crit chance passively (depending on level of weapon) added to all spears.

2. Two-handed swords.
Nothing much to add here, it's a strength scaling two-handed weapon with same weapon skill. I was thinking a lot about something specific that could be possible to add to such weapon class and I came with passive block (something around 5-20% depending of weapon level).
The reasoning behind it is simple - two-handed swords in real life are probably most flexible in terms of parrying capabilities amongst all two-handed weapons. So I think It's an appropriate reflection of that aspect in game.
As for active skill, "All-In" should have a 25% to set "Atrophy" debuff, 2H swords are good to control enemy weapon/limbs after all.

3. Two-handed axes.
Can't add much here either, currently there is nothing different from 2H sword or hammer.
I came up with the idea of changing this weapon skill to some sort of finisher move while retaining the majority of it's utility as a chance-based debuffs. So it would look like this:
3 AP, deals increased physical damage (current 125% of damage), basically current "All-In" skill. Chance (25-50% depending on weapon level) to inflict "Bleeding" and "Slow" for 2 turns. If enemy is below 25% HP this skill does increased damage (175%).

For 2H axes passive I'd like to see something like 15% more damage aganist immobile targets.

4. Two-handed hammers.
Same as 2H axes and swords, just a visual difference here.
Historically, blunt weapons were designed to deal with armor. You might be surprised, but even low-ranking soldiers and even levy peasants often had enough protection to withstand common sword slashes, atleast if they are not standing still. Here comes mace, that will deliver blunt force trauma and incapacipate your enemy in just a few hits.
So I'd like to see a unique skill for Hammers. It's the same "All-In" skill, but has a chance to daze enemy - a new debuff that decreases accuracy (not blinding the enemy though) and makes enemy spells cost 1 AP more.

As for passive, I don't think it would be gamebreaking to give hammers 5-10% more of additional damage on physical armor.

One-handed weapons.
They all scale of strength. Not wierd if you ask me. But boring. You will get "Sucker Punch" or "Shields Up"
if you use them without or with shield. And I think those skills should have an additional flavour depending of weapon.

5. 1H Swords.
Generally, swords are considered as finesse (or dexterity or speed or whatever you call it) based weapon in various RPGs. I don't think it would be bad idea to add this as well. To make 1-h swords distinctive, It would be nice to give them passive critical chance and change the skills a little.

"Shields Up" should give you 20% more armor to reflect sword's parrying capabilities.
"Sucker Punch" is neat and ties well with "Ambidextorous" talent, but otherwise you will always want to equip shield; some people consider this talent useless, and as a result, never use the skill. I think "Reflecting" and "Hasted" buff should be added for the next turn, to match the theme of quick and dexterous duelist.

6. 1H Axe.
"Shields Up" should give user 1 counter attack for next turn. Only once, only at melee range.
"Sucker Punch" should also set "Enraged" for this turn, to add to "finisher" feeling of the weapon.

Passive +10% of damage aganist immobile targets would be nice and distinctive enough.

7. 1H Hammers.
"Shields Up" should also cleanse from "Slowed", "Crippled" and "Bleeding".
"Sucker Punch" should also slow enemies for 2 turns. It's not easy to run when you are dazed from heavy blunt hits after all.

Passive armor breaking capabilities like 10% additional damage aganist armor would be logical and not really gamebreaking in my opinion.

8. Daggers.
Daggers have the thing that this post is about - it's own distinctive feature. Althrough "Sucker Punch" should also blind the enemy for 2 turns to compensate lack of damage with survivability chances increase, and "Flurry" should just have it's damage increased by a bit.
"Shields Up" with dagger?.. Who uses it?.. May be like 10% of dodge for next turn?..

Again, I might be not really good in terms of balancing or something, but I think something like that should definetly be added, atleast as a mod.

Thanks for the reading!

I really like the Idea of giving more diversity to the meele weapons. Apart from them having different skills, another interesting and easier to implement thing would be to let the different weapons of the same kinds have similar stat distribution.
For example, Hammers could have a higher damage variance than swords, or axes could in general have a higher base crit chance but a lower multiplier. This is similar to the way it's done in D&D, where all the weapons have different base stats, without some being just plainly better than others

Rather than keeping spears in the 'hybrid' section, i'd rather see spear getting more focused on one class, either finesse or strength. If it's strength, then change it to scale on strength, rather than on finesse. This'll be the easiest/simplest changes, since like you said, spears already benefits from Warfare, so it's finally on the right spot.

If it's finesse, then change it so that it can work as rogue's/assassin's weapons, making it able to backstab, benefiting (and being able to use) Scoundrel skills, and that kind of thing. It definitely wouldn't be normal, or lore friendly, seeing that spears and other two handed weapon is probably the least concealable weapon out there, but i definitely can see some synergy with the rogue/assassin role. For example, using the spear as a pole, so you can leap from one place to another place, think of it as a shorter and weaker Tactical Retreat/Cloak and Dagger, but as a trade-off, you slam your spear when you land, dealing some damage, or something like that.

But yeah, spear is definitely not the most effective weapon in the game right now, since your warrior/tank won't have that much point in Finesse, and your rogue/assassin can't use their Scoundrel skills when using spear, and can't backstab as well.