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Yea, I'm aware of what happened back then. Giving Hammer Shield Enhancement would be nice, but then Large Shield would need to be buffed heavily. You get enough survivability with Small Shield, faster sp gain, Heavy Stander and Downward Counter. And Spin2Win, I wouldn't say is very common now, since S3 bosses hit harder and faster. You can't just face everything anymore. Her base speed is still really slow for S3 bosses. Plus, the arrival of other characters and buffs make her average now. Not OP.
During the Fiona revamp, Large Shield could skip to the 3rd normal and Iron Defense was which brought it back a bit, but as of the latest patch, Small Shield got buffed again. Hammer is fine, especially now that you can deflect Stigma, but Sword received so many buffs making it viable for both solo and sandbags along with better survivability. Slashing High is where Hammer's damage is coming from and it isn't confirmable damage on top of that. You have to be deflecting during your Butterfly swings but with low attack speed, you will only perform poorly. I just can't get over the fact that Amaranth Kick hits harder then Stigma now. Isn't Hammer suppose to be high-risk high reward, but Sword is low risk, high reward. Makes no sense at all. I main Hammer since I enjoy it more, but if I really want to go try hard for S3 and the upcoming Neamhain, I have to use Sword. Period.
Sword & Small shield has been the preferred Fiona weapon for a pretty long time and it's pretty clear as it why.
Sword Fiona is easier to play, safer and easier to solo with, and just out DPS's hammer with similar stats. Hammer is much slower and harder to play, and relies on keeping Slashing High for damage. Hammer requires a lot of investment (attack speed stacking) to even compete with Sword.
Can someone tell me why they gave Amaranth Kick a 20-25% damage boost. It makes no sense to me that a kick does more damage than Stigma hammer which is the slowest smash to execute. And they buffed Focal point, Sword's sandbag DPS option.
I'm aware of all the latest buffs, but it feels like the Dev's just want to make Sword more superior. Being able to skip to the 3rd normal after was a direct buff to both Hammer and Sword, but it also made Large Shield completely useless... Again. Small Shield is mandatory of Sword Fiona. Hammer can use either or but Small shield is better due to the greater SP gain and knockdown chance. Face tanking is definitely a bad practice also...
