Why do we hold the Okina like daggers?

[GooMaus]

Hello devs, as always, I hope this finds you well, and hope you're enjoying your weekend and first month of the year.

 

I understand that Sai can be held like daggers.  I'll get that out of the way to begin with.  But there's multiple ways to hold sai, and it feels like wasted potential with this weapon.  I'm not saying to introduce a whole new class of weapons, but maybe just have this weapon have it's own stance.  Sai have a unique ability to pierce and do blunt damage very quickly with the reverse grip that they have, where the grip is in the palm of the hand, and the blade is running down the forearm.  This can also be used defensively.  I was excited when I got the Okina that they were sai weapons but when I saw that we swung them like daggers it didn't feel right.  Even the pose is off.  We should be holding them with the grip in the palm and fingers curled around the base of the blades/tang/whatever you want to call it.

 

Minor thing that I noticed, we hold them like plain daggers, and I think that's doing the weapon type a disservice.  Not sure how to fix it, but figured I'd bring it up.

 

Thanks for reading,

 

-- Lana

[WarmongerExtraordinare]

bothered by their animations instead of stats

[Ragingwasabi]

2 hours ago, GerberaOverture said:

bothered by their animations instead of stats

both are important. and with melee 3.0 coming, no point complaining about stats.

[Yrkul]

Treatises on sai-jutsu do not favour the reverse grip, but describes a style, where grips are changed often. This is probably the reason why we don't see it in Warframe, as the animations would be very complex and hard to implement.

Looking at it from a practical perspective, the Okinawan weapon styles and implementation is a last-ditch resort using improvised weapons. The sai started out as a farming implement, and its main modes of attack are with the normal grip, used as a baton. Contrary to popular depiction, sai were traditionally blunt. The reverse grip is mainly defensive, with the strike of the pommel being weaker due to all force being taken by the crook of your thumb, and the reach being much shorter than a normal grip. The parries in reverse grip also leave your forearms and thumbs very exposed, and the constant grip changes leaves you very vulnerable transitioning between grips. Sai, tonfa and even kama were never weapons to begin with, and the martial art using them was not developed by warriors, but by peasents using said tools first and foremost for harvesting. And for more than a century, it along with most martial art styles, have been formalized to a point, where they have become little more than gymnastics, not fit for their original purpose.

The Okina in Warframe are more akin to stilettos than sai, the only hints of any equivalence being the yoku and the name Okina(wa).

[GooMaus]

Well, I've been schooled. I think it would be neat to be able to toggle between a more defensive posture and offensive for them, with pommel strikes being defensive and as you said baton strikes being offensive. 

Thanks for the description.  I've always seen reverse grip and was taught it and it was fast for me, so I never really saw it as a problem, but you are right that it leaves your fingers exposed.  My father was a teacher in martial weapons, and that was one of them, so I was going from experience.

Thanks for setting me straight.

-- Lana

[MirageKnight]

8 hours ago, Ragingwasabi said:

and with melee 3.0 coming, no point complaining about stats.

At least until after Melee 3.0 comes out 😛

[NightmareT12]

2 hours ago, MirageKnight said:

At least until after Melee 3.0 comes out 😛

I'm already getting ready to go all "Fang Prime ain't good yet and I am sad" mode 😛

[sappinmahsentry]

16 hours ago, GerberaOverture said:

bothered by their animations instead of stats

They're pretty good with this build, tho. They're also pretty mobile. The problem with Okina is that there are melee weapons which are just broken. Melee 3.0 will make them much better I believe.

[MickThejaguar]

1 hour ago, sappinmahsentry said:

They're pretty good with this build, tho. They're also pretty mobile. The problem with Okina is that there are melee weapons which are just broken. Melee 3.0 will make them much better I believe.

Why is that Berserker there? 

[sappinmahsentry]

39 minutes ago, MickThejaguar said:

Why is that Berserker there? 

The focus is on making the weapon as fast as possible to take advantage of its stats and of the stance's 300% damage bleed proc at the end of the rmb combo, while still maintaining favorable damage. The Okina + Spinning Dagger are already stupidly fast, so they actually do proc berserker at a decent rate. Once you get max revved, you shred enemies even quicker. It's very mobile and deals immense DPS. If you don't feel like revving, you can replace it with a 90% elemental. You'll get a bit less DPS, but you won't have to worry about upkeep.

Edited January 14, 2019 by sappinmahsentry

[(PSN)LoisGordils]

 

On 2019-01-14 at 12:53 AM, sappinmahsentry said:

The focus is on making the weapon as fast as possible to take advantage of its stats and of the stance's 300% damage bleed proc at the end of the rmb combo, while still maintaining favorable damage. The Okina + Spinning Dagger are already stupidly fast, so they actually do proc berserker at a decent rate. Once you get max revved, you shred enemies even quicker. It's very mobile and deals immense DPS. If you don't feel like revving, you can replace it with a 90% elemental. You'll get a bit less DPS, but you won't have to worry about upkeep.

...on a 5% critical chance? You could have easily used Weeping Wounds

Edited January 20, 2019 by (PS4)LoisGordils

[sappinmahsentry]

53 minutes ago, (PS4)LoisGordils said:

 

...on a 5% critical chance? You could have easily used Weeping Wounds

UHhhh remember when I said " The Okina + Spinning Dagger are already stupidly fast, so they actually do proc berserker at a decent rate. Once you get max revved, you shred enemies even quicker "

And " If you don't feel like revving, you can replace it with a 90% elemental. You'll get a bit less DPS, but you won't have to worry about upkeep."

I haven't really seen weeping wounds perform any better than a 90% elemental, but you could try it. Might be better at higher melee combo multipliers.

Edited January 20, 2019 by sappinmahsentry