[Trexmaster]

The point is it should require more than a 3m investment to inflict a status that will net you Weak! procs so consistently. So either docking it to be a 30% weakness or requiring multiple hits to do so balancing it out.

If it's to stay as being able to inflict Weak! procs easily, the stacking buff seems the best way to go, or consuming the buff entirely the first instance of water damage taken. I don't think having it dock 1 duration off of 4 would fix the problem at all, they'd just need to hit once every round for the same effect as before, as opposed to once for the entire fight. If nothing else I'd take that, though.

Water damage as plenty of 'counterplay' in being able to swap on the appropriate resist items, or just play a GS with the correct installs to totally negate or even absorb it if your unfortunate water-using victim didn't pre-empt that and pack a Nihilist. This doesn't mean River Sword should be able to slap on a weakness on anyone who didn't meta its existence or always runs around with 16%+ water res for 3m.

As to Dev's concern ,most people don't even use the stats River Sword scales on aside from VIT for water scaling (30% of 100% of the weapon's total scaling, the other 70 being STR) , so very often it's seen doing pitiful damage as its main boon is the status it inflicts. If someone's trying to kill you with water damage, odds are their river sword isn't going to kill you in four hits. So I don't think it'd be too far-fetched to have it be a stacking effect, and it'd require more momentum investment for the same return, putting it more on par with other methods to reduce resistances into negatives for Weak! procs ala Intensify Cold and Mercalan Mist.