Proposal to nerf the Half-Zatoichi

[infinitephantasm]

as it stands right now, the Half-Zatoichi has to be one of the strongest items in VSH right now. the heal 50% base HP on hit can make having to fight a demoknight using it as hale annoyingly difficult to deal with without either catching them off guard, or in the case of duo bosses (or even some regular bosses, cough cough pyrocar cough cough), nigh-impossible due to the fact they can just instantly heal back any damage you deal with them, and then immediately charge away, and is made even worse with a medic daisy-chained to them. there desperately needs to be some kind of nerf to the weapon so it isn't completely broken in more than half of cases vs. a boss. however, i don't think the healing should be outright removed or nerfed, if possible.

there's a few solutions that might potentially be helpful, however i'm sure there's more ideal ones. for now, i'll just give a few proposals:

1. add attribute 236/Blocks healing while in use simple solution to counter one of the broken bits of this weapon that gives you way too much extra healing. duo bosses basically can't contest this at all without a good rage, and in the case of seeman & seeldier, their rages can often not be good enough to counter it. you could just try to 'kill the medic', but they're usually being guarded by either the demo with the Half-Zatoichi, or just the rest of the team. i'm not sure if it'd be too much, but perhaps an extension where you can't pick up health boxes either (might conflict with the attribute that converts ammo boxes to health? i'm not certain)

2. disable critical hits on the Half-Zatoichi/change crits to mini-crits my thought process behind this is 'if they're already getting free HP, they shouldn't be basically be able to sweep the whole leaderboard or take away a large chunk of hale's HP without even trying'. i realize that taking away crits entirely is probably a bit too much, so maybe mini-crits would be a better way to go about this, if the former is a bit too extreme in terms of taking away damage.

3. add attribute 412/[x]% damage vulnerability on wearer this one i'm not entirely sure on, but it's something i'm throwing out. what would be a good value for this and what would be too much, i'm not entirely sure. maybe 20-25%? would need some testing to figure out what would stick well and what wouldn't.

4. add attribute 414/You are Marked-For-Death while active, and for short period after switching weapons again, this might be a bit too extreme in comparison to the above. i know SZF used to do this for a while before switching over to health drain, and even after that it's still not fun to use in that mode; i feel like this would instantly kill demo in most cases, too, but i'm not entirely sure.

5. reduce base health on hit (nuclear option) i'd rather not do this if any of the other options above (or anything else) would work better, but on the off-chance they wouldn't or just be too controversial, the only other option i can think of would be reducing the heal on hit to a lower amount, like 25-30%. any lower than that and i feel like it'd just make it outright useless.

that's about all i can think of. keep in mind that i'm not doing out of malice against the weapon, or against anyone that uses it, i merely just want the mode to be balanced all-around; and if just using the weapon at a semi-decent level results in anyone using it usually ending up in the top 3, if not outright first place, then i feel like something should change about it.

i'd appreciate any healthy, constructive discussion on this and other potential solutions if the ones above go a bit too far.

[Waifers]

For 3 & 4, Imo I feel making Demoman more vulnerable when he's holding the Half-Zatochi would be pretty bad and possibly just straight up kills the weapon as a viable option. As annoying as it is, I feel those two options are absolutely more nuclear than #5. As for the rest: 1: A fair nerf option, non-pocketed Demoknights aren't affected by this while murking one of the more degenerate strats. 2: Damage nerf is also fair since it makes most other melees obsolete with how strong the self-sustain is. Zatochi only having minicrits would also be fine with it firmly establishing it as the defensive melee option instead of outclassing everything. 5: Another possible option if damage wants to be kept as is. Though reducing it to 40% healing might already be plenty especially if the 1st nerf option would also be applied.

[infinitephantasm]

my intention isn't to apply all of them all at once; that'd be pretty horrible. i figured 1 might be the best solution, so i left it up first and wrote it out the most. the others were mostly there just in case that might seem a bit off. i'm leaning towards either 1 or 5; there was a suggestion over in the discord of making it so it heals 50% on first hit, and then 25% after blood, which isn't a super bad idea? would need to figure out how to set it up in configs tho

[Waifers]

my intention isn't to apply all of them all at once; that'd be pretty horrible. i figured 1 might be the best solution, so i left it up first and wrote it out the most. the others were mostly there just in case that might seem a bit off. i'm leaning towards either 1 or 5; there was a suggestion over in the discord of making it so it heals 50% on first hit, and then 25% after blood, which isn't a super bad idea? would need to figure out how to set it up in configs tho

Ah, I didn't mean to imply that I thought that all of them would be applied at once, though I do think there is some merit to applying one of two at the same time. The alternate healing nerf also seems interesting but 25% healing after blood seems too much of a nerf especially to full Demoknight loadouts.

[pokemonpasta]

tbh it does dominate the sword options and i can support most of these options but i think even with this, it and eyelander will continue to be the best picks and the other swords could do with some love. happy to have some time to see if im right tho, just wanted to bring this into the discussion

[JuicyKaiser]

I feel like the issue lies with the duo boss rather than the weapon. If you go alone against them, you're going to die. You need to cooperate with the other person to deal with Demoknights or even a Heavy-Medic combo. There is also the option to stomp with Seeman and Seeldier, which immediately deals with a Demoknight no matter their health, and two stomps are better than one.

Singular Hale outdamages the healing, considering he continuously hits you and you hit him back, so you have to back out eventually. So, it is fine in that aspect.

[Firerr]

This post is a two months old but, I'm adding on to it to avoid duplicate posts.

I feel like the issue lies with the duo boss rather than the weapon. If you go alone against them, you're going to die. You need to cooperate with the other person to deal with Demoknights or even a Heavy-Medic combo. There is also the option to stomp with Seeman and Seeldier, which immediately deals with a Demoknight no matter their health, and two stomps are better than one.

Singular Hale outdamages the healing, considering he continuously hits you and you hit him back, so you have to back out eventually. So, it is fine in that aspect.

It can also apply to singular bosses, it's the weapon thats the issue. As an example, the Administrator has no movement options such as a hale dash or double jump. When playing as her in certain situations you're forced to pop your rage and use one of your revolver shots to just get rid of 1 demoknight player. But let's imagine the same situation but with multiple half zatoichi demoknights. It's the weapon.

[Waifers]

Also it's not just Demoman's best in slot, it's also Soldier's objectively best melee option aswell. He uses banners 9/10 times and Battalions and Conch both synergize too well with Half-Zatochi with Battalions providing even more health per hit with the base health increase and silly tankiness when the buff is active while Conch enables Soldier to weave hits in similarly to Demo

[JuicyKaiser]

It can also apply to singular bosses, it's the weapon thats the issue. As an example, the Administrator has no movement options such as a hale dash or double jump. When playing as her in certain situations you're forced to pop your rage and use one of your revolver shots to just get rid of 1 demoknight player. But let's imagine the same situation but with multiple half zatoichi demoknights. It's the weapon.

You didn’t provide a strong argument for why the weapon itself is the issue. If anything, the Administrator has a backstab that can instantly kill any class, regardless of health or sustain. There’s also the option to simply hit him twice. She isn’t forced to use rage; it just makes things easier.

Additionally, the point about multiple Demoknights doesn’t really hold either, as having more Demoknights on the team increases the likelihood that they’ll hit each other rather than the boss due to how hitboxes work (Spy mains sob in the corner).

You also didn’t provide a situation where you would be forced to use rage. The same could be said about the Heavy (with the Eviction Notice), the Soldier (with the Equalizer, Battalion’s Backup, or Black Box), and other classes that are overhealed, as these options also provide the ability to survive a hit and still escape.

I feel that the Half-Zatoichi offers a high-risk, high-reward playstyle, as you’re positioning yourself right where Hale wants you to be, and you have to keep hitting him continuously to survive if the Hale is focusing you.