Best Designed Stance?

[A0340D]

Since DE is working on Melee 3.0, I wanted to see everyone's opinion on the best designed stance. Not like, the most powerfull, but your personal favourite. For me it's Final Harbinger. Each combo is distinct and has its use.The standart button mash combo has light mobility, its good for fighting groups. the pause combo almost stops you in your movement but deals a much more single target damage. The hold combo is really well telegraphed (you literally throw your weapon away and start mashing button when you catch it back), it gives you tons of mobility and looks dope as hell.
Thats just me tho, what is your favorite stance to use?

[ranks21]

shimmering blight.

[(PSN)Lei-Lei_23]

Bullet Dance, since all of the combos are stylish and functional. 

My only gripe is that the standard button mash clmbo should be switch with the back combo for the sake of consistency. It’s kinda weird that the standard button mash is a dodge-back combo whereas the hold-back combo is a stationary bullet hell turret.

[(XBOX)GearsMatrix301]

2 hours ago, ranks21 said:

shimmering blight.

How? It has like 2 combos. On of which is mildly irritating to try and pull off.

[ranks21]

 

23 minutes ago, (XB1)GearsMatrix301 said:

How? It has like 2 combos. On of which is mildly irritating to try and pull off.

it's simple, fast and great at aerial attacks + the finishers are op. also spreads whatever staus you have equipped on your weapon with its slam attacks. most other stances are just slow and over complicated and misses 70% of the time trying to make contact with the enemies which will get you killed.

[Soup2504]

swooping falcon, twirling spire (I know a lot of people don't like this one but outside of the basic button mash combo, this is a really, really good stance. extremely underrated), astral twilight, four riders, and cyclone kraken (parenthesis to emphasize just HOW good this one is)

[Andele3025]

1. Tempo Royale (everything is amazing, there is even a difference reset time between quick attack for air slice vs first double hit reset while on melee to stack combo faster, back combo holding you in place with highest dps perfect for bosses to the super stylish high mobility block combo, would be perfect/the ultimate stance if only Calma/the pause combo was a forward combo)

2. 4 way tie between Stalking Fan (needs 1 more move+vastly sped up animation recoveries but lord does it feel good to copter into enemies even if it doesnt do much due to short range of scythes), Vengeful (style, cleave and mobility), Crimson (if only its animations were 2 handed) and 4 Riders (forward into block combo align to make it look like you dash into a enemy to rip open their guts, pull them around and finish it off by slamming said guts to their head)

3. Crushing Ruin & Twirling Spire, both of which are sadly held back by having the opposite issue of their per weapon superior alternatives (crushings coolest move is on the pause combo and low on slams for a hammer, while the relative lack of mobility doesnt hurt you as much if everyone is on their butt of storm while twirling is full of animation locks and lack of mobility which is the opposite of what you want on a long reach weapon/when you can whirl the stick around while sprinting and pressing e to not just look about as cool but also not slam enemies out of range while doing less hits than you could)

4. Homing Fan (honestly, its solely because the RDD leaves big energy lines and its slam attack is broken/the animation plays vertically instead of horizontally)

Edited December 22, 2018 by Andele3025

[(XBOX)GearsMatrix301]

Final harbinger.

[Critiamat]

Why no one is mentioning Carving CLEMING Mantis?

-Forced Impact/Slash procs
-Infinite combo
-Looks DAMN amazing
-It's for dual swords, automatically 20% cooler
-HUUUUGE damage multipliers
-Combos are easy to perform
-And it had momentum but some morons at DE thought that it will be funny to remove this even from heavy blades

And yeah, Tempo Royale is cool too.

_{Vermillion Storm, <COUGH>.}

Edited December 22, 2018 by Critiamat

[Sharkgoblin]

i like those a lot:

cyclone kraken big damage, big chop, fluid combos, hard to farm but worth, this stance made machetes my favorite weapon class

eventh storm chop chop feels nice to use, not many fancy animation as final harbinger but practical and nice

final harbinger, im flying away, nyx assimilate friend

cleaving whirlwhind cleave people with broken bull

crushing ruin, big spin, big ragdoll, big hammering 

crimson dervish, nice combos, block combo = guaranteed finisher

reaping spiral, big edge, pause combo fun

tranquil cleave, stabby combo fun, forced finisher

decisive judgment, chop enemies, also pause combo has forced finisher 

blind justice, big edge, cool combos

carving mantis, chop chop, condition overload best friend, try with twin basolk, dual dark split sword, dual ichor for dumb damage

swirling tiger, nice combos, multihit combo nice, ragdoll enemies

stinging thorn, fluid combos, forced finishers + cl = big damage

vulpine mask, forced slash procs, forced finisher

clashing forest feels nice to use

vermillion storm feels nice to use 

 

[GPrime96]

Tempo Royale has being my favorite. Three ways to Ground Slam, Combos smooth enough to perform between different ones, extra mobility, and perfect for Weapons like the Paracesis and Gram Prime. With higher attack speed, it can become fun. The lack of momentum do make me have a bit too much mobility though.

[AXCrusnik]

On 2018-12-21 at 5:54 PM, (XB1)GearsMatrix301 said:

How? It has like 2 combos. On of which is mildly irritating to try and pull off.

Yeah honestly any stance that has 1 command combo and 1 basic combo is inherently flawed IMO considering many others have 3 command combos and a basic But Shimmering Blight's command combo isn't hard to pull off IMO.. Then again there's only 2 combos in the game I've ever really had issues with, Wukong's exalted pause combo and Bullet Dance's pause combo because the window where your taps count as a pause are stupidly short, causing you to either do a basic combo or end the combo prematurely.

Edited December 24, 2018 by AXCrusnik

[Teliko_Freedman]

Cyclone Kraken. The machete stance.

It makes Machetes more than tolerable to use.

[GinKenshin]

Four riders, final revenant (the stalker sword stance one), nunchaku stance...these are personal favorite. They’re flour, feel good to use and have oomf to them, they rarely lock you in a spot and have momentum and certain movement that do AoE 

[(PSN)negativ21]

Bullet dance. But more conventionally tranquil cleave and gnashing payara. 

[(XBOX)ZenithLord 42]

Favorite stances in no particular order...

-Astral Twilight 

-Cyclone Kraken 

-Final Harbinger

-Brutal Tide

-Crushing Ruin 

-Stinging Thorn 

[Loza03]

Nikana stances have some things I like each (although all of them has something irritating too, usually in the animation department)

Blind Justice has great stats - innate bleed procs and knockdowns for CC. The backhand stance kind of irks me though - it's cool I guess, but I prefer something a bit more traditional.

Tranquil Cleave is pretty easy to combo with. The animations are mostly cool, although a few are a bit wonky.

Decisive Judgement has one of the smoothest gap closers in the game - I wish it had a bit of homing, but otherwise it's an extremely intuitive move. But the other two aren't as intuitive, especially the block combo that halts your movement. Also a bit annoying that the stance sheathes the sword like the other Iaijutsu inspired stances, when this one's clearly Kenjustsu inspired, which keeps the blade drawn.

 

I have been having plenty of fun with Swooping Falcon though. Plenty of crowd control and decently fast unlike Crimson Dervish, as well as flashy enough for me to feel sufficiently badass whilst using a single sword. Plus, it's got some marvellous innate slash procs, a nice combo with my viral damage and crit-focused build on my Krohkur.

[Air-mage]

best is probably grm fury

worst is unquestionably slicing feathers

[(PSN)theMycon]

Sovereign Outcast is the best designed stance. It's not particularly powerful, but there are two reasons it is what a stance should be, while most others fail.

1- it's one of (two? three?) Stances where there's any advantage to learning the moves. Most of then just have a blocky combo (hold block the whole time), a tappy combo (pause between every attack), a directional combo (hold forward or back), etc. But you actually need to know the combos to use Sovereign Outcast effectively.

 

2: All the moves are useful in a different, but common, situation. There's one that delivers six quick attacks right in front of you (for dealing with big enemies), one where you launch forward (for cleaving through a line of enemies), and one with a large AoE around your spot (for when you're surrounded). Compare this to, say, Cleaving Whirlwind, where you just use the tappy combo because it wrecks everything, or Tempo Royale where you just block because you move stupidly fast & hit flying enemies.

 

If you just want the most powerful stance... I guess Defiled Snapdragon, because its tappy combo covers an arc with a radius larger than the range of half the guns I use.

[Loza03]

Update to my thoughts- I've been greatly enjoying Final Harbinger. Whilst X-and-Shield weapons being associated so heavily with being mobile will forever be a mystery to me (Monster Hunter, Link, and even Reinhardt with his dash), the speed and large number of hits works wonders with my Sigma and Octantis setup, enabling me to shred enemies incredibly fast, great for colliding with a column of enemies and coming out the other side mostly unscathed.

[Xzorn]

Carving Mantis, Cyclone Kraken, Swooping Falcon, Atlantis Vulcan, Astral Twilight, Tempo Royal, Blind Justice, Defiled Snapdragon.

[Kainosh]

Rending Crane, Atlantis Vulcan, Blind Justice, Crushing Ruin, Seismic Palm, Tranquill Cleave, Vengeful Revenant, Stinging Thorn.

No bs "acrobatics", no unnecessary "pauses" or such.... These stances have good, simple and practical movesets.     Also, Burning Wasp (whip) is decent...but only have 2 combos.

 

 

I totally do not enjoy any of the Gunblade stances. Shooting animations are awkward... Imo, Shot should occur when blade hits the enemy, for extra damage. Not separately.

Dual swords and Tonfas are just not my type...usually packing several fast strikes per button press that are hard to distihguish.... I prefer "cleaner" movesets.

 

Edited February 17, 2019 by Kainosh

[Hyohakusha]

Tempo Royale, Defiled Snapdragon and Final Harbinger are the best. Defiled and Harbinger allow freedom of movement without locking you in place on certain steps, while Tempo covers the few lock steps it has with wide angle sweeps, and also has great movement on its combos.

Shimmering Blight is the worst stance in game next to the scythe stances. Polearm quickmelee gives you 100% freedom of movement with no lock steps, Shimmering just adds a lockstep on the basic combo.
Scythe stances meanwhile, are nothing but slow, narrow angle strikes and lock steps. I really hope DE doesn't ruin polearms with melee 3.0.

[MickThejaguar]

Cleaving Whirlwind

[(PSN)haphazardlynamed]

Quick Melee

It his instantly without having to remember a chain of buttons to get it ready.

and I'm not locked into any long un-cancelable animations.