So with the announcement that stamina changes will affect two-handed weapon combos and need players to put points in Grit to be able to do a full combo, how does that affect thralls? Will thralls no longer be able to do full combos with two-handed weapons?
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A waste of attribute points? Iām looking at this like never had to spend extra points there.
But, stamina regen is supposedly faster. Weāll know tomorrow.
As far as I know, thralls donāt use stamina like the player does (I feel like I remember reading this in one of the dev articles but for the life of me I cannot find it now).
That said, Iām more concerned with the fragility of followers, and pets, with enemies now doing more damage, even if they have less HP.
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Its extrem fast, fastest speed the game can handle said the devs today.
I personally find this speed way over the top and I believe this will bring new problems to pvp. But we will have to see how the final version of this will look like.
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Thralls do not have Stamina costs, they will perform as they do according to their combo tables.
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Pretty sure that was the lag before it starts they were referring to. Regen will start immediately rather then that hesitation before starting.
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the only thing i disagree with on new stamina concept is smaller weapons use less stamina. It should also factor in how much distance an attack covers in its stamina usage. If only size, then dagger light spam will still be meta with target lock. If they added some more usage to the 1st attack because it lunges forward, then that would help balance even more.
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Do āTwo Handed Weaponsā include Daggers?
They do require both hands.
What about paired Axes and Swords?
This one would be fascinated of the AI update makes thralls capable of using daggers effectively.
Also, with the AI boost and the Stamina nerf, it looks like a 180 correction from the previous intent of making the Player Controlled Character the star and the thrall the mook.
Alternatively, it cements classes of weapons that are for thralls only.
This especially will break any corrupted builds that liked two handed weapons, even with decent Grit (a paradoxical choice of one is running corruption) will a combo be possible?
Depending upon how fast that stamina Regen is, we may see the Sword of Crom come out of the display case, but that would need to be a massive shift.
Either way, it will be interesting to see how this is implemented, then received, and if it must be corrected again later.
Of course it will. And this was confirmed on stream - if you are running full corrupted build you are pretty much obligated to invest in Grit and use one handed weapons
In light of this specific change I wonder if devs are still aware there are things in game that boost stam regen - like consumables or āEnduranceā perk in Grit. 
This is unacceptable.
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I am pretty sure they made this in response to the SAV build. What they probably did not realize is that with the Kurak pants, you will still donāt need any points in Grit, because you get enough stamina from them xD
Im also worried about the extremely slow hp regen of zombies, if they start taking a lot of damage. I dont want to waste approx 15 minutes between fights.
EDIT: Ok Im actually thinking about boss fights hereā¦ normal mobs are unlikely to be a problem
ps. With the experience of Age of Sorcery, I was actually excited about the upcoming age. Up until the point they started talking about stamina.
In my humble opinion they do but donĀ“t care at this point. They call their updates chapter of war but instead its more chapters of nerfs in the hope that servers then run better performance wise.
- Lowering Agro Range = less NpcĀ“s fighting = more performance
- Summoning purges instead of letting them spawn automatically = less purges overall, because less people will summon a purge in regularly = better performance
I personally do not like any of this changes because they nerf their own game more and more just so they can keep on selling bazar items.
Siptah overall as a map is beautiful but what I do not like about it are the vaults and summoning in npcĀ“s. And I have a feeling Funcom tries exactly to copy this behavior into Exiled Lands. And this is worrying me a lot.
The City of Sepermeru for example was meant to be an almost neutral city. As long as you stay friendly and away from the bullys they will not attack you. But once you do they come running at you.
What do you think will happen after the update? When nearby NpcĀ“s do not even recognize anymore that you are fighting in close proximity. They showed it in the stream with New Asagarth. The whole change will turn Npc camps into a joke.
I already can play on servers where npc damage is raised and its not really a challange for most once you obtained a decent weapon. But now with lowered hp and 2 instead of 8 or 10 npcĀ“s at a time fighting, npcĀ“s fights will get redic. easy.
I wonder how easy to play Funcom wants their own game to be.
First they nerf thralls to have less hp because thralls where to powerfull. Now they lower Npc health because they want them to be stronger but at the same time you fight less of them at the same time. This nerfs make absolutely no sense and I am pretty sure Funcom knows this. They simply donĀ“t care as long as money is flowing.
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Depends on which sells more. Easy or difficult.
Having started in early access I can say that official servers are vastly easier now than they used to be.
That argument became ridiculous when you got 3 op zombiesā¦ Cheap, replaceable, no training needed, no gear needed. It falsified that narrative right there and then.
The player could always have been the star. It was his choice to have the most powerful thralls tagging along. It took many steps to have one. So, it was always a moot argument. People were so unhappy with strong thralls that everyone got them. And now, due to an exploit, they are getting the arena champion. Nothing screams more āwe want weaker thrallsā like taming the AC. A very vocal minority pushed in this direction. We all payed the price. Thralls suck now, thereās no choice because not even a handful are truly viable in real conditions, and the already weak base defense became even worse. It was a bad decision and I hope they rethink it.
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If they nerf both my sorcerer character AND the thralls (at least the non-zombie ones), then Im going to put all my planned purchases on hold. This would be the worst ever update.
I didnāt hear about more thrall nerfs, @Smoketreader . Better AI would make up for the previous one. Thralls take too long to react, get stuck, use wrong moves, etc. We lose them not only because they are weak, but mainly because they are stupid. Now enemies will die faster, but theyāll kill faster too. If your thrall enters āstupid modeā, a scenario frequently in heavily populated battles or in places with difficult pathfinding, heās done, finished. Iām very curious to see how much will the AI improve. But if the change is in line with the previous attempts, the new Age bodes ill news for our thralls. To people who donāt give a shit about them, thatās fine. For those who realize thralls are a unique feature that sets this game apart from every others in its genre, those arenāt great news. So we will see what happens. Thralls were punished too hard already in a completely unnecessary way. Then pets suffered the same fate. I donāt give a f about zombies, donāt really care much about pets in games, but thralls are definitely my favorite feature in this game. The industry must be sleeping, because Iām not alone in this and so far only Conan has them. Others have fixed companions, but the lack of that sweet randomness this game has makes them worse.
Anyway, we must wait and see. I thought thralls would suffer more than they did, but it became more complex making them good. This is another thing developers need to be careful. The game is already overwhelming for many. I like complex and detailed mechanics, but thereās a point where we need to pause, especially if the result of following such processes is far from satisfactory. If I invest a lot if time and effort to deveop a weapon, be it a thrall or something else, the end result must be proportional. Thatās the problem with thralls right now. Itās a blatant issue that canāt remain unchanged. The end result doesnāt pay the effort you need to invest. Thralls are too fragile and their actions unpredictable for one to invest the time and resources it takes to craft one. From capture, tanimng, leveling, feeding gearing up to fine tuning perks, it simply doesnāt pay, not when you can make zombies en masse. This is a disappointing state of affairs and I really hope this age doesnāt make it worse.
Basically making enemies stronger is the same as nerfing thralls. They will have effectively lower health while having the same attacks. And are mostly stupid and slow as you said.
If my own corrupted character is nigh-useless in combat (stamina 77 on my lvl 60 character), I have to rely on my thralls. If the thralls die too quickly, what good am Iā¦
Im currently downloading the test client to see for myself.
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My hopes rest with the new AI improvement, @Smoketreader . I would never run your build presently. You have bigger cojones than me, mate. Or a death wish! 
For better or worse.
Yeah I didnāt like their stance they had over corrupted builds. It was just dismissive and flat out ignored the very real complaint that corrupted builds have a significant weakness and this change just amplified it with no reward to the sorcerer. A type of play literally created months ago is getting a back hand by the very people that spawned it and we were collectively told to āwalk it offā. If I didnāt know better, I would get the impression that corrupted attributes was just bling for AoS and are going to be forgotten about and eventually removed.
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