I appreciate the effort being made with increasing damage to make javelins more relevant as a weapon that has historically been the worst melee weapon and the worst ranged weapon combined since it cannot be bladesmith crafted or given any weapon kit.
There is more work that would need to be done to make this a weapon that anyone but myself would use.
Current state on test for exiled lands:
Stone Javelin - 11 damage, branch an stones - level 1
Javelin - 26 damage, branch, stones and twine - level 12
Balanced iron javelin - 34 damage, branch and iron - level 24
Steel Javelin - 51 damage, branch and steel - level 36
Ancient Javelin - 61 damage, shaped wood and steel - level 48
Hardened steel javelin - 62 damage, insulted wood and hardened steel bar - level 53
Dragonbone javelin - 59 damage, branch and dragonbone - level 1 to learn, level 10 to make a blacksmith bench and craft (this knowledge stone is not hard to get to by just running past everything)
Obsidian javelin - 63 damage, shaped wood, obsidian composite and steel reinforcement - level 1 to learn, but obsidian forge is guarded by 5 highly dangerous enemies.
Black ice javelin - 59 damage, black ice, insulated wood and alchemical base - level 1 to learn and level 20 to make insulated wood but the frost forge is guarded by many highly dangerous enemies.
Serpent-man javelin - 71 damage, reptile hide, iron bar and shaped wood - level 1 to learn, level 10 to make a blacksmith bench and craft (this knowledge stone can be hard to get to, but if you know the route there is no combat needed)
Riptide - 105 damage
Below are known issues with javelins #2-#5 have pretty much been present since their introduction.
Issue #1: javelins breaking progression limits
As shown above a player can make a Dragonbone or serpent-man javelin at level 10 (or level 1 with a clan blacksmith bench) without much difficulty or end game resources. (obsidian and black ice are in far more dangerous areas for a level 10) Since requiring a weapon handle per javelin is too harsh a cost and was removed currently any level 1 with access to a blacksmith and the knowledge stone can make end game gear that is now scaled to bladesmith level damage.
Issue #2: picking up a thrown javelin or equipping a javelin to a stack while having a javelin equipped will delete the picked up javelin on next throw or unequip.
Issue #3: Javelins have a linearly increasing durability loss on picking up a javelin from the ground and then throwing the javelin again (assuming that you unequip before adding to stack so that issue 2 doesn’t delete the javelin.). This can cause a single throw to cost over 1000 durability after 7/8 throws.
Issue #4: javelin light attacks 2 and 4 do not always work correctly with target lock against humanoid enemies. Attack 2 can easily swing over the head of a target at point blank range and attack 4 will poke right next to the target. Using this weapon correctly requires literally aiming at the privates for best effect.
Issue #5: riptide is the legendary javelin, it drops rarely and 1 at the time so no player in their right mind would ever throw it, making it just a worse spear when it’s not free air underwater. There would need to be a rework to the drop rate (10 at a time like Akbitanan throwing knives) or a rework to the weapon/move set (see suggestions) to give players a reason to use this as a javelin or even use it.
My suggestions below are based on the idea that they should require the least amount of work, abandon broken systems and just use already working systems with already existing animations (as much as possible) to complete this weapon.
Suggestions:
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Javelins would no longer stack, weight is set to 5.00, epic tiers require weapon handle
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Javelins lose 1 durability per melee strike and 100 durability per throwing attack
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Javelin durability starts at 500 for stone, scales by 100 to 1000 at hardened steel. 1200 for obs/drag/serp. 3000 for riptide.
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Heavy attack is replaced by an immobilizing (player can turn in place but cannot walk) charged throw, full on Olympic form. Damage scales to 2x at max charge. It would function just as a bow, hold heavy to charge and tap light to release.
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Javelin/empty and javelin/torch special attack becomes the quick throw (the current throwing attack) which can be used while moving.
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Javelin/throwing axe special attack stays as the off hand axe throw, heavy attack will be the charged javelin throw.
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Javelin/shield heavy attack becomes a heavy melee combo that uses the below combo, however the special attack would raise the shield still leaving the user unable to throw with a shield equipped.
HA (heavy attack) combo animations-
- javelin LA (light attack) 4 with 1.2 damage
- axe/shield HA 2 with 1.5 damage
- javelin LA 2 with 1.7 damage
- Axe/shield HA 4 with 2.0 damage
Light attacks mixed with heavy attacks would restart their own combo and cannot be mixed as long as old animations are used. If a brand new heavy animation set is created then mixing would be great.
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Javelins would no longer be able to be picked up or appear in enemies inventory.
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Javelin repair costs would scale to be equal with crafting costs. (Including 1 weapon handle at any durability level for the epic javs)
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If intended javelins could be brought in line with other weapons ability to be tier 4 blacksmith enhanced and weapon kits can be used since they no longer stack. The base damage values would just need to be reduced to compensate for the new potential damage.
I feel as though my suggestions would address the issues I provided while making the javelin not the worst weapon in the game. There would only need to be one animation created for the charged throwing attack. ( which could just be the current throwing animation with a pause for charging after the javelin is above the shoulder. )
