A thorough look on Melee 3.0's combos - Mainly a look on the flow, mobility and special effects

Azamagon · November 3, 2019

So I'm gonna go through stance by stance, mostly to look at how they flow and how practical they feel.

GENERAL

I'm gonna be looking a LOT at forward mobility (mostly related to Forward Combo and Forward+BlockCombo). Many combos completely lock your movement (sometimes immediately, sometimes midcombo), and it feels utterly TERRIBLE. So prepare for a lot of whining about this. My general "solution" for these is; Keep the animations how they are, but let me move how I want. I doni't care if my character looks "floaty" because of this, just DON'T KEEP ME IN PLACE!
Another aspect I'll pay attention to is the speed or flow of the combo.
The only particular procs I'll pay heavy attention to are knockdown, knockback and Liftup effects (and if I notice consistency in it - Impact-procs, aka the long staggers). I'll sometimes also note if I notice the lack of the the "melee ministaggers" - as those are amazing for stunlocks and thus also survivability. The reason I pay attention to all these in particular is because they have a HUGE impact in the practicality of the fighting (Like, enemies knocked back can't be followed up with more melee attacks for most melee weapons, enemies knocked down might not be able to be hit by a particular attack due to hitbox issues etc).
- Sidenote: Lifted status, while useful at times, is gonna have some complaints here and there; Mostly due to it not really anchoring the enemy particularly well (like if this issue needed to be spread beyond Titania...). Some combos actually makes this status worse than normal, while some work more cleanly, for some reason.
Some feedback will also be on animations. A bit more subjective, but some are objectively understandable to gripe about - such as really bad animationloops and such.
I'm not looking so much at the numerical aspect, that's not the point here.

SINGLE SWORD

Heavy attack 1: Causes lifting status in a harmless way. Nice wide swing. No problems here
Heavy attack 2: Causes knockdown with a vertical swipe. No problems here.
Stance - Iron Phoenix
- Neutral combo: Nice and simple "swipe swipe stab". Second attack causes knockdown, which can at times cause issues (the stab misses if you repeat the combo), but is otherwise a good focus target combo. Stab needs a much bigger vertical hitbox so it doesn't miss laying targets:
- Forward combo: Simple and FULLY MOBILE double swiping. No complaints.
- Block combo: N/A
- Forward block combo: A middistance leap attack (good), follow by a an immobile (urgh) slamattack which lifts enemies (nice). Bit slow, but it has potential as a gapclosing CC-attack. So, first, mobility needs to be added for the second attack. Secondly, if you repeat this combo twice on an enemy, the lifted enemies will be LAUNCHED. This needs fixing, they really shouldn't be moved that much (a general Liftup status issue).
Stance - Crimson Dervish
- Neutral combo: Two quick strikes, followed by a multihit which causes knockdown (no issue with missing followup combo, the hitboxes are nice and big). A bit slow recovery after the final combo, but is otherwise a good focus target combo.
- Forward combo: Three wide slashes. Sadly, with basicly ZERO mobility allowed. Allow mobility, and it's good.
- Block combo: N/A
- Forward block combo: A multihit attack with knockdown. Sadly, it neither allows mobility, nor has ANY gapclosing "dashing" to it. Either make this a neutral block combo, or add some much need mobility and/or gapclosing.
Stance - Vengeful Revenant
- Neutral combo: A rather lengthy combo, which ends with a knockdown strike. It's generally fine, but it has very limitted mobility, which particularly tends to make the last attack with its knockdown effect to MISS. Could need some slight more forward movement to it, then I think it'd be fine.
- Forward combo: A decent lengthy combo, which sadly stops your mobility midway. Make it fully mobile, please.
- Block combo: Slow combo consisting of a wide swipe, a Lifting stab (which also sometimes kinda launches the enemy BEHIND you, which is highly disruptive), and a downward stab with a VERY inconsistent knockdown and knockBACK slam (need to hit with the blade, but the attack has almost no forward movement, so it often kinda misses-ish), which also immediately removes the Liftup and/or pushes the enemy away from you. It's best to interrupt this combo after the Liftup for best use. Imo, fix the weirdness with the Liftup pull-in on the second strike, and remove the knockBACK on the third strike, at least.
- Forward block combo: A "dash-attack" (nice!) followed by multiple strikes that doesn't allow you to move (aww), with the final strike causing knockdown Just make the followup attacks mobile, and it'd be ok.
Stance - Swooping Falcon
- Neutral combo: A good focus target combo with some mild forward movement, and a knockdown on the end. Good hitboxes make for consistent comboing too.
- Forward combo: Some wide swipes, which halts movement forward, but has some "minidashing" to it. Can feel a little janky because of that. I'd rather the minidashes were removed, and just let it use our own controlled movement instead.
- Block combo: Starts with two quick swipes, then has two more very slow attacks, with the final one causing knockdown and knockback. I honestly feel this combo is fine, because you have a lot of control with the slowness to interrupt it with any other combo. I'd honestly leave it as is (or just remove the knockBACK, if anything).
- Forward block combo: Three stabby attacks, all with minidashing (moreso on the first). Not so far-reaching as a gapcloser, but it feels nice to use and works well with the melee autotargetting system, which makes it easy to use - and also gives it decent "single target focus" without a knockdown on it (in case you wanna stay more mobile). I wouldn't change it, honestly, because in this particular case, I don't mind it missing manual control (the minidashes and autotargetting makes it very useful, basicly).

DUAL SWORDS

Heavy attack 1: Wide swipe with knockdown. No complaints.
Heavy attack 2: Another wide swipe with knockdown. No complaints here either.
Stance - Crossing Snakes
- Neutral combo: A nice, fast and simple combo. Perfect for target focus damage. No complaints.
- Forward combo: A nice widehitting combo, but which sadly restricts movement. Let us move during it, and this combo is excellent.
- Block combo: Liftupattack, followed by a multhit attack with its last strike causing knockdown (and sometimes has minor issues hitting Lifted enemies). Knockdown on Lifted targets can sometimes cause them to fly far away, but it's inconsistent and related to the Liftup status itself. Fix Liftup interactions, and this combo is a good lockdown combo. Also, knockdown immediately cancels Liftup, so if you wanna avoid that, you need to roll out of the combo (or not attack twice), which can feel a little odd. I'd maybe suggest to remove the knockdown from this combo, then it'd be better, I bet.
- Forward block combo: A cool-looking, but rather hard to land leapattack with its long leap, followed by a mobility-restricted attack with knockdown. If the leap attack had some target lockon from afar if you have autotargetting on, that'd be awesome. Also, mobility on the second attack please.
- General comment: Despite its issues, it's a WAAAAAY better stance than it was in Melee 2.0. Keep that in mind. You might like it regardless of its flaws!
Stance - Swirling Tiger
- Neutral combo: Supermultihitting strike, followed by two attacks, with the last one being VERY slow and causing knockdown. It's a good combo (at least that first multihit, it's crazy good), but it feels weird; The first strike is too good (making you NOT wanna continue the combo), and the last strike is MUCH too slow. I'd either shift the attacks around (basicly making it in the order of 2 3 1, with better speed and no knockdown on "3"), or make the first strike have a weaker multiplier + the last hit being much faster.
- Forward combo: Fast combo with the third (of four) strike having a Liftup effect. Sadly, has little allowance for manual mobility on the 2nd and 3rd strikes though. Fix that, and it's golden.
- Block combo: N/A
- Forward block combo: A dashattack which attacks up front (rather than at the end, which is... different), followed by two more combos that kills all mobility. Let it be mobile, and it'd work just fine.
Stance - Carving Mantis
- Neutral combo: A long combo with a Liftup midway, and a knockdown at the end. Has some melee targetting / movement issues, which could need some fixing, but is otherwise a powerful focus target combo.
- Forward combo: A good widehitting, long combo, but which sadly stops movement midway. Just loosen its mobility restriction, and it'd be great.
- Block combo: Starts with an awesome boomerang throw, followed by two more strikes with the latter having a very disruptive knockBACK (and knockdown). Remove the knockback, and it'd be fine (although I can see the boomerang throw missing knockdowned enemies, which would need to be considered too).
- Forward block combo: A forwarddashing attack with, imo, TOO much dashing - especially since it's very fast to spam this whole combo and it has ZERO autotargetting when used from afar. It's followed by another knockdowning strike that kills all movement to boot, so it's VERY janky and requires a lot of getting used to. I'm not superfond of this combo (make it autotarget from a distance a bit better if you have that activated, and I guess it'd be fine).

SWORD AND SHIELD:

Heavy attack 1: A wide strike with knockdown. No issues.
Heavy attack 2: A diagonal-ish attack with knockdown a minor dash. Can actually be annoying to land, due to the dash (which has zero autotargetting). Either make it autotarget, or skip the dash, imo.
Stance - Eleventh Storm
- Neutral combo: A kinda lengthy combo and ending with a Liftup attack, immediately followed by a knockdown attack. In general, the combo looks really cool, but has some targetting issues, particularly disrupted by the Liftup+knockdown finale. If knockdowns didn't push Lifted up enemies so far away, I bet it'd be great (autotargetting issues also needs fixing, ofc).
- Forward combo: Simple swipey combo with the final strike stopping movement a bit. Not the worst, but could have its movement freed up.
- Block combo: Multihitting shieldboomerang attack, followed by a strike that knocks enemies down and far away, making it a very disruptive followup. If the second attack didn't knock enemies down and far away (like, just make it force an Impact-proc instead perhaps?), it'd be a MUCH less disruptive combo.
- Forward block combo: A bulletjump-esque multihit attack, followed by a knockdown smash, which has no mobility allowed. The first attack could have some better autotargetting when used at a distance (if that option is on), and the last attack could need its mobility, and it'd be fine.
Stance - Final Harbinger
- Neutral combo: Same issues as Eleventh Storm's basic combo, but arguably worse; Autotargetting is dreadful, and has the Liftup-followed-by-knockdown as well. Needs similar fixing.
- Forward combo: A nicelooking, yet simple swipey (and kinda lengthy) combo, with the last strike having two quick hits. Very well done... if it weren't for the usual movement-stopping issue, which really needs to be fixed.
- Block combo: "Breakdance" combo, followed by a shieldbash that knocks enemies down (good) and FAR away (bad). Just remove the pushback effect, and it's a good combo.
- Forward block combo: A nice spinning leap attack (mild autotargetting issues aside) with a knockdown, followed by a shield-toss/roll-on-the-ground which heavily restricts movement (but has range at least), followed by a very wide multihit spinattack which allows some movement. Imo, it'd actually flow much better if that shield-toss attack was removed (but I bet people would riot), so I'd just suggest to make the shield-toss allow movement, and maybe have some better autotargetting on the leap attack when used from afar.
- General thought: Also, how about swapping the descriptions of these two stances? Eleventh Storm has more "oomphy" attack, while Final Harbinger has fast, wild and energetic attacks.

MACHETE:

Heavy attack 1: A multihitting spinattack that allows full movement (GASP!). Very good, no complaints.
Heavy attack 2: A single vertical strike with knockdown, which restricts movement. Needs movement freed, and could use Sundering Weave's Block attack as its animation instead (wide horizontal strike)
Ground finisher: I still can't over the fact that the animation is downwards stab. Why can't it be a quick and wide groundsweep, similar to staves? That'd be more fitting for this weaponclass, by far, considering the weapons generally don't have pointy ends to stab with.
Stance - Sundering Weave
- Neutral combo: A triple combo that moves you a bit forward, with the final strike causing a knockdown. Good, simple and practical, no complaints
- Forward combo: Simple, swipey combo which... LET'S YOU MOVE? Fantastic! No complaints!
- Block combo: A single strike which knocks enemies down and away. Not great, honestly, due to the massive knockback. Since I suggested to have this attack-animation be Machete's Heavy attack #2, maybe change this attack to be a more vertically upwards attack, which could Liftup enemies instead?
- Forward block combo: Multihit spin-attack, followed by a knockdown strike. Movement is first halted, then forced forward on the first attack. Make it not halted at first, and that'd be great. On the second attack, movement completely stops, which could be freed up as well. However, due to the Neutral Forward combo being completely free of movement, this is not as critical as it would be on other stances (but still oughta be done, imo).
Stance - Cyclone Kraken
- Neutral combo: A semi-lengthy combo which ends with a knockdown. No complaints.
- Forward combo: Swipey combos, with the last attack briefly halting movement. Not the worst of movement disruptions, but it still could be allowed full freedom.
- Block combo: Starts with a SUPER-SHORT-DISTANCE liftup kick, followed by a bunch of attacks, with the last one having heavy knockback and knockdown. Same issues just keep repeating... Liftup kick needs way more range, and the last strike ought to have it pushback removed (and Liftup needs knockdown interaction fixed, in general).
- Forward block combo: Starts with a dash-esque doublestrike (good for gapclosing), followed by a triple strike which knocks enemies down on the last attack. While the last combo doesn't allow manual movement, it has some minidashing, making it workable as it is. No need to change anything, imo, it works as a gapcloser-esque + followup attack quite nicely.

NIKANA:

Heavy attack 1: Quick dashy strike with knockdown. Mildly off-aim slash (not well centered, it aims a bit more to the left than most melee attacks), so it can be a bit hard to hit. Make it a bit more "horizontal", or orient it better to the middle, and it'd be nice.
Heavy attack 2: Another quick dashy strike with knockdown. Again, mildly off-aim slash (not well centered, it aims a bit to the left), so it can be a bit hard to hit. Make it a bit more "horizontal", or orient it better to the middle, and it'd be nice.
Stance - Decisive Judgment
- Neutral combo: A nicely flowing combo which has a Liftup on second last attack and a knockdown on the last attack. HOWEVER, these work very cleanly, and never seem to cause weird pushback shenanigans, unlike other Liftup+knockdown combos, which makes this combo actually function incredibly smoothly. No complaints!
- Forward combo: Simple swipey combo, but which sadly restricts movement. If it had free movement, it'd be just fine.
- Block combo: Swipe, followed by a knockdown and knockback attack. However, the knockback is very minor, and thus don't cause any major disruptions. I'd maybe remove the knockback entirely for cleaner attacking, but it works surprisingly fine as is though.
- Forward block combo: A nice gapclosing attack, followed by two immobile attacks. Just free that immobility up, and it'd be great.
Stance - Tranquil Cleave
- Neutral combo: Semilengthy combo, ending with a knockdown strike. Is rather immobile, so kinda needs autotargetting to function well. Other than that, works fine.
- Forward combo: Basic swiping attacks, but sadly with restricted movement again. Just free them up, and it'd be a fine combo.
- Block combo: A single wide swipe which knocks down and far back. Remove that pushback, and it'd be a good and quick knockdown tool.
- Forward block combo: Leapattack (with a surprisingly good hitbox), followed by two more swipes, both immobile, and the last one causing a knockdown. Ditch the immobility and it'd be a good gapclosing combo.
Stance -Blind Justice
- Neutral combo: Fast multihit combo, which ends with a knockdown stab. No complaints here.
- Forward combo: A weird combo: First hit is normal, second hit is a swipe that makes you sidestep to the right (?!), third combo ends with a Liftup strike, and then there's a final additional fourth strike. First and last hit are fully mobile, the other two are not. Free its movement, ditch that sidestep, and it'd be ok. Honestly, I'd also rather the Liftup strike was removed (and added to the block combo)
- Block combo: Fast multihit combo, with the last hit knocking enemies down and away, which is really disruptie. I'd rather the last attack was a Liftup combo, I feel it'd fit way better here than on the Forward combo.
- Forward block combo: A longdistance "slashdash", followed by a kick (with mobility!), and ending with a microdashing knockdowning slam attack that restricts movement. It's generally fine, but I'd prefer if the last attack didn't disrupt movement.

TWOHANDED NIKANA

Heavy attack 1: Huge swipe which greatly halts your movement and lifts up enemies. Is ok, aside from halting your movement as much as it does.
Heavy attack 2: A double swip which knocks enemies down on the second hit. Not as disruptive for movement as attack #1, and thus hears no real complaints from me.
Stance - Wise Razor
- Neutral combo: Starts off as a highly immobile combo, with its final attack being a minidashing multiattack with knockdown, which then ends with a needlessly lengthy "wind down" animation (just fluff that adds nothing of value). Make it slightly more mobile, and make that wind down animation complete interruptible with continued attacking.
- Forward combo: A mobile first cut, then two additional strike which are immobile (and the last attack being a bit slow to happen, honestly). Ditch the anchor, speed up the last attack a bit.
- Block combo: N/A
- Forward block combo: Stab with a tiny dash, wide slash and a slamattack which does a knockdown and is immediately followed by a Liftup attack (surprisingly undisruptive). Fits better as a neutral block combo (as it doesn't do much for mobility, and is a generally immobile), but since there is no plain block combo, I guess it is fine as is?

RAPIER

Heavy attack 1: Dashing thrust. No real complaints.
Heavy attack 2: Similar dashing thrust. No real complaints here either.
Stance - Vulpine Mask
- Neutral combo: Multiple stabs, with a final knockdown strike. Is very immobile, but has good reach, so I don't feel it needs changing.
- Forward combo: Stabs and slashes, with the 4th and 5th halting movement. Ditch that restrictions, and it'd be nice. Funnily enough, with the mobile strikes, it seems to make the attacks more aimed to the right (Most melee attacks are slightly to the left of the crosshair, but while moving and attacking here, it makes them attack inside the crosshair). Why do animations often get wonky and "right-turned" when you move? Is it that hard to fix their attack-location?
- Block combo: Liftup attack (with a rather large hitbox), followed by a knockdown and knockback attack. Sigh. Just ditch knockbacks entirely, please, and just leave that as a kill-animation thing?
- Forward block combo: Dashattack with nice reach, followed by rather immobile attacks. Mobility added on the latter attacks, please?

BLADEWHIP

Heavy attack 1: Long range whip attack which drags in enemies. No complaints.
Heavy attack 2: Another long range whip attack which drags in enemies, but with some brief Liftup status, which works very well, actually. No complaints.
Stance - Defiled Snapdragon
- Neutral combo: Starts with a liftup attack, some slashes/whip attacks, with the second last attack being a drag-in hook attack, which works quite nicely with the Liftup effect.
- Forward combo: Multihitting varied attacks, which ends with some rather immobile attacks. Some mobility freedom there would be nice.
- Block combo: Stationary swipe with knockdown and knockback attack. In this very specific case, I don't mind the knockback, as you can pull enemies in with various whipattacks.
- Forward block combo: Longrange whipattack, followed by a multithrust dash attack, ending with a large AoE whip multiswipe. While rather immbile, I feel its long range (and dash attack in the middle) kind of makes up for it. Dunno if I'd vouch for mobility here, if anything, just on the last attack.

GUNBLADE

General thoughts: I'd love to be able to use the gunshot immediately by holding E (like before - which would actually be nice to have on ANY melee, actually), as it feels rather clunky to have to attack first to equip it.
Heavy attack 1: Gunshot, nothing much to say here.
Heavy attack 2: Another gunshot, no complaints.
Stance - High Noon
- Neutral combo: Double shot, leap, another shot. Nothing much to say here, really, it's ok.
- Forward combo: Mobile slashes, ending with a movementstopping slash and gunfire. Would like for this whole combo to be mobile, actually, to make it distinct.
- Block combo: Some various sweeping attacks, but all but the first attack has some VERY small hitboxes. Could need some hitbox buffs.
- Forward block combo: Double shot, followed by a very mediocre leap attack, followed by two RIDICULOUSLY slow and immobile slashes, the last one having a liftup effect. Please make the leap cover more ground, and the last two slashes more mobile and a LOT faster. Also, the 2nd last hit's hitbox is so tiny / close to the Warframe, it will basicly never hit, so it needs serious fixing too.
Stance - Bullet Dance
- Neutral combo: Quick gunshot, then another gunshot which have you moving a tiny bit to the left followed by a right backwards roll and gunshot, then a left backwards roll and gunshot. Janking left and right are very disruptive, and would like the movement to just go straight backwards, please?
- Forward combo: A few swipes (which eventually makes you immobile), followed by a very slow gunshot, but which has guaranteed knockdown. Speed that shot up, please? Maybe also let us move through the entire combo?
- Block combo: Boomerang toss of the weapon, followed by 4 slightly faster gunshots. No real complaints here.
- Forward block combo: Tiny forward roll and gunshot, followed by a jump up and two gunshots, then a leaping slash. The roll and leap could both cover MUCH more ground, honestly.

WARFAN

Heavy attack 1: Crossslash with knockdown. No complaints here.
Heavy attack 2: A rather lame and weak-looking attack with knockdown. Other than looking super weak, no real practical complaints.
Stance - Slicing Feathers
- Neutral combo: Various slashes with ends with a knockdown (from a silly-looking slap-attack, urgh). No practical complaints though.
- Forward combo: Fully mobile slashing combo! Some mild "slapping" ugliness, but it's a fully functional mobile combo.
- Block combo: Slash and an acrobatic kick which knocks enemies down... and away. Would've been fine purely as a knockdown, imo.
- Forward block combo: Various slashes (and slaps, urgh) and a kick woven in there, ending with a Liftup attack. Rather immobile, so freed mobility would be nice.

SINGLE DAGGER

Heavy attack 1: Slash and stab. No complaints, but would be nice if the stab had a knockdown (like the second attack on Heavy Attack #2 does)
Heavy attack 2: Two wide slashes with the second slash having knockdown. No complaints here either.
Stance - Homing Fang
- Neutral combo: Some slashes followed by a multihitting attack which knocks enemies down, ending with a slow downwards stab. Works well enough as a target focus combo, but the final stab slows it down a bit too much, imo, and could've been skipped, or done as a wide and quick slash or something instead
- Forward combo: Stab, slash and a multihit swipe, all fully mobile! Sadly, autotargetting doesn't work with it whatsoever, so it is a liitle hard to use to keep track of specifc enemies.
- Block combo: N/A
- Forward block combo: A dashing stab, followed by an immobilizing multihit spin attack which has Liftup with its final attack (a worse version though, which pushes enemies away a little by itself - something which I feel shouldn't be there). Personally, I think this combo could've been split up; The multihit attack and its liftup would've been great as a Neutral Block combo, while the Forward Block could've consisted of the dashing stab, followed by a coupe of minidashing stabs. As it is, however, I'd simply suggest to make it entirely mobile (but that also makes it similar looking/feeling to the regular Forward Combo, which is why I would've preferred my first suggestion a lot more).
Stance - Pointed Wind
- Neutral combo: Simple wide swipes, with the last one causing knockdown. Animation-wise, these would fit better as the Forward combo (if skipping the knockdown), but is otherwise fine.
- Forward combo: Stabs and slashes with no special traits, and is mildly movementstopping. The movementstopping just needs to go, honestly. The last strike would've been a good fit for a Liftup attack too (and made into the Basic combo instead), which would fit the stance's description of having "lifting attacks".
- Block combo: N/A
- Forward block combo: N/A
- General thoughts: Desperately needs at least a new combo. And swapping the animations of the two existing ones (along with swapping the knockdown to Liftup) would, again, fit better imo.
Stance - Stinging Thorn
- Neutral combo: Lots of stabs going on (with a knockdown in the end), with extremely little mobility often happening from the autotargetting. Desperately needs a little forward movement to it (even just TINY steps forward), as it often misses its followup attacks.
- Forward combo: Various wide stabs, with the last doublehit stopping movement
- Block combo: Swipe-and-doublekick which lifts enemies (rather "unclean" lift too, sadly), followed by two slashes, with the last one causing knockdown and knockback. Same issue as usual with the knockback and Liftup mechanics, not much I got to add here.
- Forward block combo: A lengthy dashattack, followed by that ridiculously ugly knife-on-the-foot spin attack (which is also highly immobile), followed by an immobile slamattack with knockdown. Personally, I'd love to just scrap that knife-foot attack in the bin and make the slamattack mobile, but I guess the knife-foot attack needs to stay, so at least just make it mobile please?

DUAL DAGGERS

Heavy attack 1: Cross-stab with knockdown. No issues here.
Heavy attack 2: Cross-stab with knockdown. No issues here.
Stance - Gnashing Payara
- Neutral combo: A slow and unwieldy combo (and honestly, looks rather clunky/ugly). Stabs into the target, followed by a ripout upwards which causes Liftup in an extremely unclean fashion, often launching enemies far backwards and MOVES YOU BACKWARDS. Followed by another two attacks, of which the first one has knockdown and almost always misses after the Liftup. Extremely bad and clunky combo.
- Forward combo: Wide, stabby combo which now has lost its "melee ministaggers", making it very dangerous to use (enemies will counterattack you constantly). It REALLY needs those melee ministaggers!
- Block combo: N/A
- Forward block combo: Dashing stab attack with good distance, followed by a semi-mobility-restricting spiral stab. With some mobility enabled on the second attack, it'd be great.
Stance - Sinking Talon
- Neutral combo: N/A (forward combo is basicly the Neutral combo)
- Forward combo: Spammy multitude of stabs with full mobility (!), which sadly completely lacks autotargetting. This combo (just like Gnashing Payara's Forward combo) also lack the "melee ministaggers", so you'll be counterattacked like no tomorrow. This combo needs autotargetting to work on it and needs melee ministagger too.
- Block combo: N/A
- Forward block combo: Leaping stab attack, followed by an INCREDIBLY immobile uppercut slash with Liftup (often doesn't connect), followed by a couple of attacks, the last one causing knockdown (which causes some issues with Liftup, as per ususal).
- General thoughts: Desperately needs more combos (and to have "melee ministaggers" on its Forward combo).
Stance - Spinning Needle
- Neutral combo: Quick and simple combo which causes a knockdown on its final attack (The non-knockdown attacks have melee ministaggers, gladly). No complaints.
- Forward combo: Wide slashes with the final attack having a Liftup effect. Only the first two attacks have full mobility, the latter two stops you. In addition, all but the last attack (which has Liftup) lack melee ministaggering here as well, making it reliant on the Liftup to not be counterattacked. Imo, give the whole combo full mobility, and give melee ministaggers to all the attacks, along with ditching the Liftup on the last attack (it feels very tacked on, as the attack looks rather swift and non-special).
- Block combo: A single combo, consisting of three kicks; A Liftup kick at first, followed by two knockdown and knockback kicks. You can imagine the chaos it creates, haha. Imo, just ditch the knockbacks (and fix Liftups interaction with knockdowns), maybe even ditch the knockdowns, and make this mainly just be a Liftup attack in its entirety.
- Forward block combo: A long dashattack, followed by some immobile attacks with the last one having knockdown. Just make it mobile, and it's golden.

FISTS

Heavy attack 1: A somewhat lame "power" punch, with knockdown. Could be much flashier and wider.
Heavy attack 2: Another lame "power" punch, also with knockdown. Again, could be flashier and wider.
Stance - Fracturing Wind
- Neutral combo: Jab, jab, uppercut, with the uppercut causing Liftup. Has major targetting issues, and repeating the same combo often launches the target far away on the 2nd uppercut (inherent flaw with the Liftup mechanic). Needs some fixing in those regards, but is otherwise good.
- Forward combo: A multitude of punches, with the 3rd one sadly stopping your mobility. Make it mobile, and it's good.
- Block combo: Rising punch followed by a downwards slam. The slam's direct hit has knockdown, but needs to connect. Which is almost IMPOSSIBLE. If the slam's entire AoE effect caused knockdown, it'd be a good CC attack. Right now though, it's quite garbage.
- Forward block combo: A fast flurry attack and dash, followed by a two heavier punches with knockdown on the last hit. Is sadly immobile on those last two hits, fix that and it's a great combo.
Stance - Seismic Palm
- Neutral combo: A triple punch combo, ending with a knockdown punch (only on a direct hit) which also has its "wind" blast (with no particular effect). It's fine.
- Forward combo: A four hit combo with nothing special to it, except an immobilizing last attack. Free it up, and it's a good mobile combo.
- Block combo: Uppercut with Liftup and a downwards punch, followed by a slam attack with knockdown. So, the usual issues that happens with that combination...
- Forward block combo: A leaping attack, followed by a backhand, and then a "windblast clap". The leap attack is jarringly fast, to the point of being disorienting, so that could need some toning down. The latter two attack just needs mobility.
Stance - Gaia's Tragedy
- Neutral combo: One-two punch, with another one-two punch with Liftup on the second hit, followed by a straight, and then a knockdown double punch. Also has massive autotargetting issues. So, a bunch of stuff to fix there.
- Forward combo: A flurry of punches, with no special effects. Disrupts movement though, which could need alleviating.
- Block combo: Multiple rapid uppercuts (last one has Liftup), followed by two slow attacks, the last one having knockdown (only on direct contact though, so it's superhard to connect). Sigh. This is tiring...
- Forward block combo: Leaping smash, followed by a more immobile smash, then a simple straight that has knockdown. The leap is jarringly fast, so that could be toned down. The last punch could also look with some more "oomph", imo.

SPARRING

Heavy attack 1: Sumostomp, which causes Liftup. No complaints here.
Heavy attack 2: Three simple straight punches which... causes Liftup. Well, only complaint is the visual. Could've been a (triple?) kick which makes sense to cause the Liftup or something, it just looks really underwhelming at the moment.
Stance - Grim Fury
- Neutral combo: One-two punch, one-two punch, and then a knockdown kick. Good and simple combo for focused damage.
- Forward combo: One-two punch, hook, one-two punch, and finally a kick. No special effects, so it's a good and simple combo. Lacks mobility though, which could need fixing.
- Block combo: N/A
- Forward block combo: Leaping kick which is easy to aim and seemingly always procs Impact, followed by an immobile kick. Simple combo, but the second attack needs mobility, imo.
Stance - Brutal Tide
- Neutral combo: N/A
- Forward combo: One-two punch, hook, wide punch and a wide kick, good and simple. Just needs mobility, and it's golden.
- Block combo: N/A
- Forward block combo: Doublefisted dash attack which is easy to aim, followed by two breakdance attacks and a low punch, then followed by two hard punches, the last one knocking targets down. Sadly, beyond the first dash attack, it is an incredibly immobile attack. Considering the stance is missing combos, I'd suggest to split it up: Forward Block could be the current dash-attack, followed by a wide and mobile kick. Neutral Block could then be the breakdance moves and hard punches, with its niche being close range knockdown (although the breakdance moves and hard punches could need some slight forward movement, as it'd likely be hard to hit with them otherwise).
- Genreal thoughts: Needs more combos, which shouldn't be all too hard to do, as explained on the Forward block combo.

CLAWS

General throughts: A huge gripe I have with Claws (and Polearms), is how the weapon's held angle versus the stances' strikes aren't well aligned (largely, likely an issue due to the Ripkas). In general, you're "supposed" to use Ripkas with Four Riders to make the attacks look fitting, and all other claws with the other stances. If you use the Venka with Four Riders, you're gonna do a whole lot of slapping, rather than slashing (well, animation-wise). If the Ripkas was held with the blades angled 90 degrees (so it could use the other stances), and the Four Riders stance had its swpiing animations of its attacks angled in accordance to the other claws (and the now re-angled Ripkas), you'd be able to mix and match everything without animation issues!
Heavy attack 1: Somewhat lame straight stab, with knockdown. Is ok, I guess?
Heavy attack 2: Another somewhat lame slash, with knockdown. Also ok, I guess?
Stance - Four Riders
- Neutral combo: Five rather wide attacks, with the last one being an uppercut which causes knockdown. That last attack has hilariously bad at hitconnection with autotargetting due to the poor movement and range, which is really all that needs fixing. Also, that final uppercut would've been a perfect contender for a Liftup status, rather than knockdown (with knockdown more fitting for the Block combo).
- Forward combo: Good and simple swipey combos, but lacks in mobility, which oughta be fixed.
- Block combo: Stab, stab, downwards "slash" and a double downwards "slash" which has knockdown and a very strong knockback. If it was purely knockdown, it'd be a great combo, but the knockback currently really ruins it.
- Forward block combo: Doublefisted forward dash-stab, followed by a one-two combo, an uppercut with Liftup, then a slamming punch with knockdown (but only on direct contact, which is superhard to connect). All attacks except the dash are immobile, which I'd fix. The Liftup is disruptive here so I'd remove that effect, and the knockdown ought to be from the entire AoE of the final attack.
Stance - Malicious Raptor
- Neutral combo: Starts with a weird-looking "grab and stab" animation (which could be repurposed to a Frontal Finisher, imo), followed by a flurry of wild slashes, then a triple uppercut with Liftup. Continue the combo, and that first weird "grab and stab" animation will basicly always miss. Imo; Just ditch that first attack and make it the new frontal finisher
- Forward combo: Slash, slash and double slash. Is ok, but the last hit stops mobility, which could need fixing.
- Block combo: A minidash stab attack, followed by a one-two stab-in attack, then a knockdown headbutt. Has major targetting issues (due to short range / bad movement) and, honestly, looks rather bad.
- Forward block combo: Werid-uppercut-into-a-straight with dash, followed by a rising uppercut and downwards slash, followed by a downwards slam attack. I'd ditch the very first uppercut (it's just in the way of the dash), and make the latter two combo strings fully mobile
Stance - Vermillion Storm
- Neutral combo: Slash, followed by a Liftup uppercut, followed by many slashes, a kick-and-slash and a knockdown straight. Has targetting issues (really poor mobility) and the Liftup is rather unclean (pushes forward). Needs a bunch of cleanup. I personally also feel the final "knockdown straight" looks really out of place, and could simple be removed.
- Forward combo: Large, swipey attacks with full mobility (!). Only complaints are animation based; On first use, it does a lefthanded slash, a righthanded slash, then a spinattack. If you use it right afterwards again, it becomes a really ugly "one-two" slashing with only the right hand, followed bye the normal spinattack.
- Block combo: Wide slash, then a one-two slash, followed by a rising double uppercut and downwards smash with all the uppercuts and the smash causing knockdown. No complaints here.
- Forward block combo: An acrobatic leap slash, followed by a whirlwind attack, and then another lifting whirlwind attack which ends with a (stiff-looking) downwards slash, with the last attack(s?) of the second whirlwind causing knockdown. The leap is a tad stiff in mobility, but is ok. The first whirlwind lets you move freely, but the second one halts you, which needs to be fixed.

POLEARM

General thoughts: Similar to Claws, Polearms have a lot of "weapon's held angle versus the stances' strikes" issues that vary from weapon to weapon and from combo to combo, which means that they aren't well aligned - sometimes it looks like you are slashing enemies with your attacks, sometimes you slap them with the flat of the blade. Looks really bad, and needs some thorough cleanup.
Heavy attack 1: Wide swipe with knockdown. No real complaints.
Heavy attack 2: Overhead strike with knockdown. No real complaints (other than being a bit narrow to hit, compared to Heavy attack #1)
Stance - Shimmering Blight
- Neutral combo: A simple one-two combo that has FULL mobility (!). No complaints (aside from being repetitive, due to the lack of combos in the stance).
- Forward combo: N/A
- Block combo: N/A
- Forward block combo: Helicopter attack, followed by a Liftup attack (which is very clean), followed by a knockdown attack. Only really lacks in mobility for the latter two combos, but is otherwise good.
- General thoughts: Needs more combos, badly!
Stance - Bleeding Willow
- Neutral combo: N/A
- Forward combo: The same simple one-two combo as Shimmering Blight's neutral combo, with FULL mobility and all.
- Block combo: N/A
- Forward block combo: An acrobatic leap attack, followed by two immobile wide attacks, finishing with another acrobatic attack which includes a knockdown. Aside from mobility issues on the last three attacks, it's cool.
- General thoughts: Also really needs more combos.
Stance - Twirling Spire
- Neutral combo: Two thrusts, followed by a Liftup combo (a rather unclean one, sadly), and then a knockdown strike. Along with the unclean Liftup, it aims somewhat wildly, and has rather narrow hitboxes for its attacks, which could be improved a bit, so it's easier to utilize.
- Forward combo: Three very wide attacks, but only the first one is mobile. If it was fully mobile, it'd be an amazing combo.
- Block combo: A long, singular combo, consisting of a multhitting spinning attack, finishing with a knockdown thrust. Decent combo.
- Forward block combo: A leaping smash attack with a large AoE impact-proc, followed by a wide (but immobile) knockdown strike. If the second attack had mobility, then no issues here.

STAFF

Heavy attack 1: Same as Polearm Heavy Attack #1
Heavy attack 2: Same as Polearm Heavy Attack #2
Stance - Flailing Branch
- Neutral combo: Kick and smash, followed by a slow and very low hitting (read, VERY EASY TO MISS) smash which causes knockdown. Speed that second attack up, and please increase its vertical hitbox (and/or angle that attack higher up). And I feel that the first attack sequence could actually fit with a Liftup attack, considering its animations.
- Forward combo: A nice looking swipey combo, with the last hit causing knockdown, but with lots of issues: First; huge lack in mobility (first hit allows movement, but stops sprinting, the other two stops you almost entirely). Second, its final attack has some seriously messed up hitbox, as it often misses, even POINT BLANK. You often need to stand to the side of the enemies to make it hit. Lastly, I feel the knockdown is not really needed, considering the other combos's effect.
- Block combo: N/A
- Forward block combo: A leaping smash attack, followed by two more violent smashes, with the second one causing knockdown. The leap is a bit hard to aim, and the last two attacks are completely immobile, which ought to be changed imo.
Stance - Clashing Forest
- Neutral combo: A spinning attack with Liftup (which is HIGHLY disruptive and pushes enemies forward), a thrust attack (often missing due to the Liftup), and then a wide double swipe. If it had no Liftup (or it was cleaned up + the second thrust attack had a higher hitbox), it'd be ok.
- Forward combo: A swipe (which removes your sprinting, for some reason) followed by a double spin attack with almost NO forward mobility (when before, it had amazing forward movement, to the point of almost being too much). Can this attack just become fully and freely mobile, like the Bleeding Willow / Shimmering Blight neutral/forward combos? Or, at least, let the first attack be fully free, with the second attack having some "dashiness" to it like it used to have (but maybe not as much as before, for a better middleground).
- Block combo: N/A
- Forward block combo: A staff-leaping doublekick (great mobility and easy to hit), followed by a staff-assisted superkick which sends enemies flying with probably the strongest knockback of all melee combos in the entire game! While it's hilarious, it's also hugely disruptive. To be honest, I'd prefer the second attack to be a wide (and mobile) staff smash, which only causes knockdown, rather than that super-knockback.

SCYTHE

Heavy attack 1: A wide slash with knockdown. No complaints.
Heavy attack 2: Another wide slash with knockdown. No complaints.
Ground finisher: Similar to Machetes, I really don't like this downwards stab. A quick and wide groundsweep, similar to staves, would fit much better. That'd be more fitting for this weaponclass, by far, considering the weapons generally don't have pointy ends to stab with.
Stance - Reaping Spiral
- Neutral combo: Lots of vertical strikes, with the first one having a Liftup effect, and the last has a knockdown effect. Generally smooth, but sometimes launches the enemies backwards. Some cleanup, and it's a great combo for focused damage.
- Forward combo: Three wide swipes, with only the last one briefly halting your movement. Aside from freeing the movement, the animations are broken (only swinging the weapon with one arm - Compare it with the unstanced combo when standing still, that's how it's supposed to look. Unstanced and moving+attacking also similarly has broken animation).
- Block combo: N/A
- Forward block combo: Leaping attack, followed by a boomerang-esque multihit attack, with its last hit causing knockdown. Is moderately immobile, but feels good to use as it is. Unsure wether I'd loosen its mobility or not.
Stance - Stalking Fan
- Neutral combo: Slow doublehit with some foward mobility, and another even slower doublehit with less forward mobility, followed by a RIDICULOUSLY slow wind-up animation into a knockdown swipe and almost no forward mobility. Needs a huge increased in speed (and that twirly wind-up for the last hit just needs to go - just make the attack a 360 powerswipe for a smoother animation transition), and the forward mobility on the latter two combos needs a slight increase.
- Forward combo: Two wide slashes with limitted mobility. Free the mobility, and it's great.
- Block combo: N/A
- Forward block combo: Leaping attack with a huge and wide slash, followed by a mobile whirlwind attack with its final strike causing knockdown. No complaints, it's great!

HEAVY BLADE

Heavy attack 1: Wide slash with Liftup. No real complaints here.
Heavy attack 2: Quite wide slash with knockdown. No complaints.
Stance -Cleaving Whirlwind
- Neutral combo: Wide slash, another wide slash with Liftup, and a downward strike with knockdown. Works well enough.
- Forward combo: Five double whirlwind slashes with full mobility, with the last one causing knockdown. Stumbles the player if trying a 6th time. I'd propably just make this a singular combo without knockdown, and without the player stumble.
- Block combo: Downwards slash, followed by and upwards slash with knockdown and some knockback. Aside from the knockback, it's ok, I guess?
- Forward block combo: Leaping vertical slash, followed by two more vertical slashes, and then an upwards slash with Liftup. Works well enough, but is immobile after the initial leap (which I guess is fine for a Heavy Blades stance?).
- General thoughts: The Block combo and Forward block combo feels like they belong more in the Rending Crane stance, imo.
Stance - Rending Crane
- Neutral combo: Just two vertical strikes, with the second causing knockdown. Practically, it's decent, albeit kinda slow and boring. But the animation loop is rather off.
- Forward combo: A dashy bladeattack, followed by two whirlwind slashes. Is ok, albeit a bit "jerky", and with moderate mobility. Imo, the combo also feels too "special" for a regular Forward combo, but I dunno how I'd rearrange it to look more "simple".
- Block combo: A singular powerful strike, knocking enemies down and knocking them back quite some distance. Dunno how to tackle this one, as it fits the animation (pure knockdown would look a little... off? But would at least be less disruptive).
- Forward block combo: A dashy onehanded swipe, followed by a crashing down smash attack (which surprisingly doesn't cause knockdown). I'd like that second attack to cause knockdown, and the lack of mobility on the second strike still feels ok, considering it's a Heavy Blade stance.
- General thoughts: I just feel that this stance is kinda... rushed? Could need some general rethinking, so each combo is a bit more distinct and more "vertical". Also, the Forward combo feels quite like a Cleaving Whirlwind combo to me.
  If I would rearrange this stance and Cleaving Whirlwind, I'd probably do like this:
  - Cleaving Whirlwind - Neutral - Unchanged, keeping its single target damage/CC focus.
  - Cleaving Whirlwind - Forward - A singular whirlwind, repeatable. Remains the mobile swipey combo.
  - Cleaving Whirlwind - Block - Uses Rending Crane's Block attack (no effect on it though), followed by Rending Crane's Forward block's second attack (the crashing down slam attack), with this second attack causing AoE knockdown. Makes it a closerange AoE CC combo.
  - Cleaving Whirlwind - Forward Block - Uses Rending Crane's Forward combo, with more dashiness to the first attack. Keeps the bursty mobility niche, but with more fitting animations for the stance.
  - Rending Crane - Neutral - Unchanged, but maybe a bit faster. Maybe a better animation loop would be nice too (maybe the old 4 vertical strikes, with the 2nd and 4th strikes having knockdown). Retains its niche as single target damage/CC focus.
  - Rending Crane - Forward - Uses the first strike from its Forward block combo instead, without the dash, then follows up with two or three different twohand-gripped diagonal attacks with varying "horizontality" (exists among the old scrapped animations), no special effects, but should have decent mobility. Still has the nice as a more mobile, wider hitting attack, but with more fitting animations for the stance.
  - Rending Crane - Block - Uses the Block combo of Cleaving Whirlwind, now causing Liftup on the first hit and knockdown AoE on the second. The niche remains as close range CC, but with more fitting animations.
  - Rending Crane - Forward Block - Uses Cleaving Whirlwind's Forward block combo. Retains the niche of burst mobility (with a bonus Liftup bonus effect), but with more fitting animations for the stance.
Stance - Tempo Royale
- Neutral combo: Lots of wide multihits, with the last one causing knockdown. Good combo.
- Forward combo: An array of wide swings, with the 2nd and 5th attacks causing Liftup. Feels too "Liftup"-y to me (I'd rather it had zero special effects), and could have better mobility.
- Block combo: A slow and powerful downwards smash, causing knockdown on direct hit. Is fine, I guess, but would fit better with knockdown on the entire AoE (since it's so slow).
- Forward block combo: Dashing upwards strike with Liftup, followed by a wide slash, and then a knockdown downwards slash, which causes some issues with the previous Liftup. While the latter two strikes are quite immobile, I guess it's otherwise fine, considering this is a Heavy Blade.stance.

HAMMER

Heavy attack 1: Exactly the same as Heavy Blades Heavy Attack #1
Heavy attack 2: Exactly the same as Heavy Blades Heavy Attack #2
Stance - Shattering Storm
- Neutral combo: A five combo sequence of vertical smashes. Second last attack knocks the target down, the last attack knocks down enemies in an AoE - with some knockback. Aside from the knockback, it's good.
- Forward combo: Three wide smashes, followed with a fourth one that causes Liftup - which in this case makes followup combos kinda hard to make. Liftup status REALLY need to not make enemies so "light", it's really annoying. I'd argue to remove the Liftup effect from here, it's not really needed.
- Block combo: Two vertical upwards smashes, with the second causing Liftup, followed by a downwards smash (with way too long recovery time) which causes an AoE knockdown. If you hit the Liftup and the knockdown smash, the enemy will be launched reaaaally far away, which is just awefully disruptive. Again, fix Liftup mechanics (and speed up the recovery time of this combo's last attack), and this would be a decent CC combo. Personally, I'd make the first two attacks non-special, and then the slam could cause AoE Liftup instead (the animation is fitting enough for that).
- Forward block combo: Slightly dashing thrust-bash, two whirlwind smashes, and upwards smash with knockdown, followed by an AoE knockdown smash. I feel that the first attack could need more dashing distance, the second combo have better mobility, and the latter two could arguably remain as is.
Stance - Crushing Ruin
- Neutral combo: Downwards smash with decent forward mobility, followed by two wide hits, finishing with a knockdown smash. Could need a tad more forward mobility on the second and third combo, but is otherwise good.
- Forward combo: Wide smashes (with only the first one having full mobility), with the third one (of four combos) causing Liftup. Liftup here seems to mostly just cause chaos, so I'd argue to remove it. I'd like some more mobility in this combo too.
- Block combo: A singular combo, with a whirlwind smash ending with a downwards AoE knockdown smash. Is good for CC, but the recovery time is excessively lengthy, imo.
- Forward block combo: Two rather mobile multihitting whirlwind smashes, followed by a singular whirlwind smash (not mobile) and a downwards smash with AoE knockdown. With some more mobility on the last two hits, it'd be a wonderful combo. Also, the last AoE knockdown attack kinda of makes the rest of the combos feel a tad obsolete, so maybe reduce it to an AoE stagger?

GLAIVE

General thoughts: I'd love to be able to throw the glaive immediately by holding E (like before - which would actually be nice to have for ANY melee, actually), as it feels rather clunky to have to attack first to equip it. Furthermore, I feel some more serious QoL could be done for Glaives: Bounces (after the first hit) could have some autotargetting, so it's more viable to hit multiple enemies. And/or, while charging up the throw, how about giving it the "Bladestorm marking" treatment, allowing us to tag X enemies (affected by number of "bounces" it has left) for it to travel between? The throw just feels rather... impractical.
Heavy attack rethinking idea: What if holding E was the throw for Glaives (and the gunshot for Gunblades and hammerthrow for Wolf Sledge), while the Heavy Attack is a more melee-esque attack? Like, an orbitting boomerang attack with a lot of oomph to it? That way, the Throw is uncoupled from the Heavy Attack system, and is more of a unique special mechanic for Glaives. Just a thought.
Heavy attack 1: Glaivethrow.
Heavy attack 2: N/A
Stance - Gleaming Talon
- Neutral combo: Three moderate range boomerange tosses, with the last one moving you a bunch forward (but still is the one most prone to missing, funnily enough), followed by two shorter range slashes with some forward movement, the last one causing Liftup. While it may seem like a weird flow, it works decently well (the third and the last hit sometimes misses, but both could be fixed with more foward movement to them)
- Forward combo: Three circular attacks, first attack being melee range, and the other two being wider boomerang attacks. Full mobility! No complaints here.
- Block combo: N/A
- Forward block combo: Moderate range thrown boomerang attack with a huge AoE and ends with a Liftup effect, followed by another big boomerang AoE, then finally a... useless melee swipe. Just ditch the melee attack.
Stance - Astral Twilight
- Neutral combo: Three combos consisting of a multitude of quick forward boomerang throws, with the last one making you move forward, ending with an orbitting whirlwind attack, causing knockdown on the last hit. The last combo has some connecting issues, since it's shorter range than the first three combos, so it could either need more range, or more forward movement, and/or the third combo could move you more forward
- Forward combo: Short throw, mediumlength throw, melee attack and another melee attack with Liftup. Has obvious connection issues with its last two attacks. Also, lacks mobility on the 2nd and 4th combos. Imo, would work better with the sequence being 3 4 1 2, ditching the Liftup effect and allow full movement.
- Block combo: "Sawblade" combo with Liftup effect, another "sawblade" combo (without any effects), and a third powerthrow causing knockdown and knockback (sigh). Obviously has some issues with the last attack.
- Forward block combo: A "gapcloser" leap attack, another "gapcloser" attack, and an orbital whirlwind attack. No special effects (which is fine), and lacks TREMENDOUSLY much in the mobility department. Make this fully mobile and make the first two attack (moreso on the first attack) have greater leaping distance, so this combo has the gapcloser niche.

TONFA

Heavy attack 1: Wide slashattack with knockdown and a small dash. No complaints.
Heavy attack 2: A more vertical attack with knockdown, so it's a bit tought to hit. Could be less vertical, but is generally ok otherwise.
Stance - Gemini Cross
- Neutral combo: Five multihit combos with some forward mobility and a knockdown on the last attack. Works well enough imo.
- Forward combo: Three quick and wide slashes without special effects (which is nice), with the last one sadly stopping movement. Free it up, and it'd be a great free mobility combo.
- Block combo: Two boomerang throws, a forwardmoving "leaping" downwards attack ending with a slam attack, which has huge staggering radius and a knockdown on a direct melee hit. It's pretty decent.
- Forward block combo: A whirlwindy dashattack which abrupts your movement a bit first, followed by three simple wide slashes without mobility. If the abruption was removed from the start, and the three followup attacks had free movement, it'd be better. I could also see the last attack having more oomph, along with either a Liftup or a knockdown, to make it a bit more special.
Stance - Sovereign Outcast
- Neutral combo: Boomerang attack, a leap attack, a wide swipe and a final stab with knockdown. Is quite nice.
- Forward combo: A wide swipe with full movement, another wide swipe with limitted movement, followed by a final spinning whirlwind attack which sadly stops movement. Free it up, and it's great!
- Block combo: A small leap attack, followed by a wide slash with knockdown and massive knockback (siiiiigh). Purely a knockdown would've been fine.
- Forward block combo: Double boomerang throw with decent range (but zero mobility), followed by a smallrange tackle-dash, a wide swipe, and ends with a slamattack with direct-target knockdown and huge AoE stagger. If mobility was allowed with all attacks (and the second attack's dashrange was a teensy bit longer), it'd be an interesting range/gapclosing combo (Regular Forward combo attacks much faster, so they'd have different functions).

WHIP

Heavy attack 1: Shortrange (looks bugged, honestly) wide-ish slash, with knockdown. Fix the range, otherwise it seems good.
Heavy attack 2: Shortrange (looks bugged, honestly) more vertical slash, with knockdown. Fix the range, and maybe make it more horizontal, and I think it'd be good too.
Stance - Burning Wasp
- Neutral combo: Straight lash, followed by a wide knockdown slash with nice forward mobility. Very good combo.
- Forward combo: Two wide diagonal slashes, followed by a wide double whirlwind strike with a Liftup combo. Powerful, but the last hit stops your movement.
- Block combo: N/A
- Forward block combo: A far-dashing forward lash, followed by a far-dashing horizontal slash. Covers a lot of ground quickly, so it's great for bursty mobility, but can be a little hard to aim before getting used to it.
Stance - Coiling Viper
- Neutral combo: N/A
- Forward combo: Quick slash, followed by a one-two slash with the second slash having Liftup, and then a final more downwards slash. Works well (no big Liftup-issues), and is fast and far-reaching, but has mobility-issues. If new combos were added, it'd work well regardless as either a Neutral combo or a Forward combo, imo.
- Block combo: N/A
- Forward block combo: Leaping slash with good control, followed by a slightly mobility-hampering groundslash with knockdown. If the second attack had free movement, it'd be great.
- General thoughts: Needs more combos!

NUNCHAKU

Heavy attack 1: Wide smash with knockdown. Lacks a bit of visual oomph, but is very practical.
Heavy attack 2: Another wide smash with knockdown. Also, lacks a bit of visual oomph, but is again also very practical.
Stance - Atlantis Vulcan
- Neutral combo: Very immobile wide multihit smashes, with a knockdown on the final strike. Could need some more forward movement, but is otherwise nice.
- Forward combo: Multistriking wide hits with full mobility (!). No complaints.
- Block combo: Many whirlwind hits with some slight forward movement, ending with final strike causing knockdown and knockback. Meh.
- Forward block combo: A leaping attack with too much downtime after its attack (or rather, it has an attack afterwards which does its attacks BACKWARDS, while keeping you still), followed by a mildly forwarddashing multihit attack with even worse downtime after its attack. If the downtimes were removed, I think it'd be a great mobility combo.

EXALTED WEAPONS

Stance - Exalted Blade
- Heavy attack 1: Exactly the same as Single Sword Heavy Attack #1 (Horizontal swipe, Liftup - even missing the bladewave or something more "effectful", sadly)
- Heavy attack 2: Exactly the same as Single Sword Heavy Attack #2 (Vertical swipe, knockdown - even missing the bladewave or something more "effectful", sadly)
- Neutral combo: Simple combo with knockdown (if in melee range). It's good.
- Forward combo: Fast and spammy combo with no special effects, but has full mobility. It's good.
- Block combo: Simple, bit slower combo, also with knockdown, but which works with the bladewave too. It's good.
- Forward block combo: Starts with a gapclosing attack, but then continues with mobility-restricted attacks. Considering the bladewaves, I guess this is fine?
Stance - Hysteria
- Heavy attack 1: Exactly the same as Sparring Heavy Attack #1 (Sumo stomp, Liftup)
- Heavy attack 2: Exactly the same as Sparring Heavy Attack #2 (Triple punch, Liftup)
- Neutral combo: Various claw attacks and kicks with some forward movement. No special effects. It's good enough.
- Forward combo: Two freely mobile claw attacks, followed by two kicks which disrupts movement. No special effects. Should have free movement, and it'd be ok.
- Block combo: Wide slash, wide kick, triple punch, and then a double swiping kick with knockdown. It's good enough.
- Forward block combo: A bunch of slashes and kicks, ending with the same double swiping kick and knockdown as the regular Block combo. Lacks mobility, and doesn't feel particularly... original? Could need something else (maybe a Liftup combo?)
Stance - Primal Fury
- Heavy attack 1: Exactly the same as Staff Heavy Attack #1 (Horizontal swipe, Knockdown)
- Heavy attack 2: Exactly the same as Staff Heavy Attack #2 (Vertical smash, Knockdown)
- Neutral combo: Two vertical smashes, ending with a huge horizontal boomerang-esque attack with knockdown, but with a weird recovery time after (with Wukong crawling on the floor to "pick up" the staff... looks too silly), which could simply be removed.
- Forward combo: Two wide smashes, followed by a double whirlwind smash, and then a knockdown slam which has a bit too much of a lifting/pushback effect (especially when used close to an enemy). Make it a regular knockdown, and it'd be nice.
- Block combo: Three stomping slams with staggering AoEs, followed by a stronger fourth one which has knockdown on direct melee contact, and a Liftup effect on its final AoE. Very good AoE CC attack, no complaints.
- Forward block combo: Dashing thrust with impact-proc, followed by a leaping kick with knockdown. The kick can have some contact issues if autotargetting takes place, but other than that it's a decent gapcloser.
Stance - Serene Storm
- Heavy attack 1: Similar to Sparring's #1 - a sumo stomp, but which only "lifts" enemies (no Liftup status).
- Heavy attack 2: Similart to Sparring's #2 - triple punch, but is purely damaging and massively ragdolling (no Liftup status).
- Neutral combo: Powerful punches and kick, all with massive pushback. Dunno if I should consider that ok in Baruuk's case or not?
- Forward combo: Powerful punches, all with massive pushback. Dunno if I should consider that ok in Baruuk's case or not?
- Block combo: Kicks and punching combo, which pulls enemies in, which makes for a different (and more useful?) effect on this combo.
- Forward block combo: Punch combo, which lifts enemies up (not Liftup status though)

So yeah, that took the whole day to test out and write up xD

Hope this is good feedback both for players to maybe get a discussion going (and maybe to give you some help to make you find a stance you like these days), and for DE to see maybe where some combos could need some improvements (some subjective thoughts, some objective).

Edited November 6, 2019 by Azamagon

fgiveme · November 6, 2019

Is there any stance that forces a lot of slash procs like old Vulpine Mask?

Dragazer · November 6, 2019

Knockback/ragdoll needs to be changed to a knockdown or removed. Send your enemies flying across the room is counter productive as I now have to waste time moving back into melee range.

Azamagon · November 6, 2019

Reserved for a future edit. This one will be about:

Finishers - Their animations, their CC (or rather, occassional lack thereof), and if they feel quick enough. (Includes all three types: Ground, frontal and stealth)
Slide attack animations, their discrepancies, and their intended role (Like; AoE attack? Single target focus? Another distancecloser?). Some attacks are very wide, some are incredibly narrow - some are smoother to use, some feel clunky. While there's obviously some room/need for variety here, considering that Melee 3.0 was a kind of a "streamlining" update for melee, I wanted to have a look at this thoroughly as well.
Potentially also a look at the aerial combos (so far, they seem to be ok)
Aerial slam attacks (non-heavy ones) - Moreso a discussion about their angle-requirement, command inputs and such.
Wall attacks and their... general uselessness.

You know, for a more COMPLETE look at most of the melee combat!

Edited November 6, 2019 by Azamagon

Azamagon · November 6, 2019

4 hours ago, fgiveme said:

Is there any stance that forces a lot of slash procs like old Vulpine Mask?

Sorry, didn't really pay much attention to that, like I said, was mostly looking at flow/mobility and the knockdown/knockdown/Liftup effects.

However, I think I noticed that the heavy attacks on Nikanas and Dual Daggers consistently forces slash though, if that's useful in any way for you.

1 hour ago, Dragazer said:

Knockback/ragdoll needs to be changed to a knockdown or removed. Send your enemies flying across the room is counter productive as I now have to waste time moving back into melee range.

Agreed. And Liftup needs to make enemies more staticly "tether-lifted". Seriously, some of the Liftup + Knockdown combos (Shattering Storm's Block combo, in particular) have some (albeit hilarious) catapulting going on. Like I mentioned multiple times at least once in the main post; Keep those ragdolls in the death animations. Ragdolls are definitely fun, but not when they ruin the practicality of the weapon.

If ragdolling only happened when killing an enemy, you get to keep the fun effects without being disruptive to combat practicality - in fact, it'd actually add practicality that way as well:

You know which enemies are only CC'd (knocked down enemies)
You know which enemies are dead (enemies flying away in a ragdolled state)
You clear the field from visually obstructive enemies, by removing them from your vincinity.

Win-win-win!

Edited November 6, 2019 by Azamagon

DoomFruit · November 6, 2019

My conclusions are mostly different to yours. I define mobility as the attack animations having zero effect on my character's movement, meaning that I move exactly the same throughout the entire animation as if I weren't attacking at all. This means that if I'm not touching the movement keys, I stay still; and if I'm holding S and D (for instance), I'm moving backwards and to the right at my normal pace.

With that in mind, there are exactly 5 situations in which I retain mobility.

-Polearms with shimmering blight or bleeding willow.

-Dual daggers with sinking talon.

-Machetes with no stance.

-Rapiers with no stance.

-Nunchucks with no stance.

All the other stances and/or weapons actively get in my way while attacking normally (either forward or "neutral" - which will happen if I'm trying to strafe around an enemy). Dual swords are a wonderful example, whereby if you try to reverse and strafe to the side, you get rocketed forwards instead.

I haven't even tried to look at any special effects, because they're useless when I'm dead. Not being able to evade enemy fire or put something else in its place while attacking results in death. Likewise, being launched off the edge into the abyss and losing my buffs also results in death.

See here:

Edited November 6, 2019 by DoomFruit

Azamagon · November 6, 2019

3 minutes ago, DoomFruit said:

My conclusions are mostly different to yours. I define mobility as the attack animations having zero effect on my character's movement, meaning that I move exactly the same throughout the entire animation as if I weren't attacking at all. This means that if I'm not touching the movement keys, I stay still; and if I'm holding S and D (for instance), I'm moving backwards and to the right at my normal pace.

With that in mind, there are exactly 5 situations in which I retain mobility.

-Polearms with shimmering blight or bleeding willow.

-Dual daggers with sinking talon.

-Machetes with no stance.

-Rapiers with no stance.

-Nunchucks with no stance.

All the other stances and/or weapons actively get in my way while attacking normally (either forward or "neutral" - which will happen if I'm trying to strafe around an enemy). Dual swords are a wonderful example, whereby if you try to reverse and strafe to the side, you get rocketed forwards instead.

I haven't even tried to look at any special effects, because they're useless when I'm dead. Not being able to evade enemy fire or put something else in its place while attacking results in death. Likewise, being launched off the edge into the abyss and losing my buffs also results in death.

See here:

I understand what you mean, but there's an inherent flaw with that request at the moment, due to how the inputs are setup:

Neutral vs Forward combos compete with one another.

If a Neutral combo has NO forward movement, you're gonna be VERY prone to miss in many, many situations - especially due to Impact-procs and melee ministaggers.

Forward combo should not necessitate any "dashing", they should just be fully free movement, agreed on that.

The reason Shimmering Blight, Bleeding Willow and Sinking Talon work for your mindset is simply because the Neutral and Forward combo is the same for them. So, what that means is that at the moment, the Neutral combos NEED some forward ministeps to function properly.

Personally, I'd love for melee to uncouple the forward command as an input modifier, as long as that input was simple to use too. Then Neutral vs Forward wouldn't be a thing, and hopefully we'd be able to move however we want, for whichever combo we want (well, aside from intentional "gapclosing" combos like many of the Forward+Block combos currently are - those are fine by me). Sadly, other than maybe the sprint button (?), I can't really see any good replacement for the forward command.

Hayzemet · November 6, 2019

The exalted blade block forward combo has a horrible hitbox tho, it sucks. And I do not see any gapclosing in Decisive judgement at all, just a flip.

Ein0r · November 6, 2019

Regarding Baruuk:

His neutral and forward combo may have been switched. I believe they were the opposite before the patch.

His Neutral Combo is probably the best, it has a steady forward movement.

His Forward Combo is cool, it also has a forward movement but is a bit more abrupt. Maybe it hits a slightly larger area? I can't really confirm that.

His Block Combo is the same as before the patch, it alraedy had that pull effect. It is definitely useful when fighting beefy guys like a Nox. You can attack a lot without moving forward.

His Forward Block Combo is really neat but seems to be useless. The lift effect is really nice, but with the damage you dish out, you might want to prefer the other combos. It can be nice when playing with a team, to lift up my exemplary Nox, so the others can shoot it. But this combo also has quite a bit of forward movement, which is not helpful when you want to keep something lifted for a long time, without constantly readjusting your own position. Just not convenient.

Heavy Attack #1, (the stomp) is underwhelming because you have an incredibly hard time to build up combo points. It is nearly impossible. Only melee builds combo points, his wind attacks don't. . The damage is ok it should be on par with his other combos, given the windup it needs. For comparison: I tested on lvl 150 Corrupted Heavy Gunners, The Heavy Attack#1 did 42k dmg, his other combos 7,8k dmg. His Slide Attack ~23k damage and that one also has a short lift status.

Heavy Attack #2: I don't know how to execute that heavy attack.

Xzorn · November 6, 2019

6 hours ago, fgiveme said:

Is there any stance that forces a lot of slash procs like old Vulpine Mask?

Many forced procs were removed from stance attacks. Particularly the ones at the start of combos it seems.

Vulpine Mask still has 2 forced Slash procs though I forget which combo it is. There's one other with a heavy thrust that procs.

They left about half the forced procs on all melee weapons if I were to guess and they did the same thing with damage modifiers. Some of it makes sense due to the combos being shorter but some of it looks like they just wanted to nerf certain combos. Ground Finisher forced procs seem untouched.

schilds · November 6, 2019

It seems to me that DE are trying to more clearly differentiate the feel of different weapons/stances. If you want to maintain mobility, use Polearms, for example. I don't think that's an accident or something they overlooked, I think that's an intended characteristic of polearms (or maybe certain stances). Others have lift on slide attacks, or lift on combos, or lots of ground slams, etc.

Edited November 6, 2019 by schilds

ExcaliburUmbra · November 6, 2019

I really appreciate this write-up and the effort it took to create it! This will make a great reference for me when I want to see what to expect from various stances I’m interested in trying after the changes.

Also:

On 2019-11-02 at 5:34 PM, Azamagon said:

Stance - Exalted Blade

Heavy attack 1: Exactly the same as Single Sword Heavy Attack #1 (Horizontal swipe, Liftup - even missing the bladewave or something more "effectful", sadly)

Heavy attack 2: Exactly the same as Single Sword Heavy Attack #2 (Vertical swipe, knockdown - even missing the bladewave or something more "effectful", sadly)

Yup, would love for Exalted Blade’s heavy attacks to shoot waves, Maybe even much larger ones to compensate for the charge time.

Andele3025 · November 7, 2019

On 2019-11-03 at 1:34 AM, Azamagon said:

Stance - Tempo Royale
Neutral combo: Lots of wide multihits, with the last one causing knockdown. Good combo.

Forward combo: An array of wide swings, with the 2nd and 5th attacks causing Liftup. Feels too "Liftup"-y to me (I'd rather it had zero special effects), and could have better mobility.

Block combo: A slow and powerful downwards smash, causing knockdown on direct hit. Is fine, I guess, but would fit better with knockdown on the entire AoE (since it's so slow).

Forward block combo: Dashing upwards strike with Liftup, followed by a wide slash, and then a knockdown downwards slash, which causes some issues with the previous Liftup. While the latter two strikes are quite immobile, I guess it's otherwise fine, considering this is a Heavy Blade.stance.

1.) neutral combos should never move you/they should be free strafe.

2.) For TR specifically (because it got the biggest nerf in terms of stance fluidity)

Majestic Abandon/static combo should have stayed the 2 diagonal swipes+1 almost horizontal that do the small forward steps, maybe 4 if you add the old augur mesto leg kick with a sweep at the end (which would then be the source of the current knockdown), not a combo thats faster at moving forward than the forward combo while also being much better damage. However if the forward steps are used, make it stay static if holding back/keep taking inputs for back to stay in place AND allow strafing.

Resplendent Calma/Forward comboshould be just the double spin AND MAYBE, JUST MAYBE the 3rd attack of Resplendent Calma/its current 4th attack BUT WITHOUT THE ANIMATION LOCK. The first double spin is not just the signature base attack because every combo on TR started with it and it used to be you modified quick attack, its also the only move that didnt have animation locks and survived without them.

August Mesto/Block forward combo should be returned to old augur mesto triple vertical strike at its old speed and then keep the current slam attack/be 4 vertical "soft slams". The pause combo slide slowed down with the now nerfed hitbox is unusable for anything but moving but its worse than just a bullet jump aimglide dodgeroll, while going from one pack of enemies to another is better done with the neutral combo (because even if its a bit slower, it has solid damage and knockdown).

And yus, Bold Reprise/static block combo causing aoe knockdown would be amazing (because it used to before), tho its main use really should be high damage modifier on a direct hit of the blade during the slam (aka Bold Reprise was used for/the way TR competed with Cleaving Whirlwinds Broken Bull when it mattered).

9 hours ago, Azamagon said:

I understand what you mean, but there's an inherent flaw with that request at the moment, due to how the inputs are setup:

Neutral vs Forward combos compete with one another.

If a Neutral combo has NO forward movement, you're gonna be VERY prone to miss in many, many situations - especially due to Impact-procs and melee ministaggers.

Forward combo should not necessitate any "dashing", they should just be fully free movement, agreed on that.

The reason Shimmering Blight, Bleeding Willow and Sinking Talon work for your mindset is simply because the Neutral and Forward combo is the same for them. So, what that means is that at the moment, the Neutral combos NEED some forward ministeps to function properly.

3.) But only enough to keep up with the half a meter max movement staggers can cause, as such small forward step (like on the 3rd static/neutral sweep on stalking fan after the obnoxious 8 hour windup spin or tempo royale static block/bold reprise slam) are enough. Especially if they dont block strafing mobility or ends its animation lock before the animation finishes as some unshredded stances still have (e.g. Sovereign outcast has a very short static block first attack where you start moving again/get out of the tiny forced forward hop the moment the tonfa leaves the ground instead of the moment you are out of the recovery frames of the attack)

10 hours ago, Azamagon said:

Is there any stance that forces a lot of slash procs like old Vulpine Mask?

BIG YES, however if i may add my bias to this, they shouldnt fly away further than 15~18 meters for the sake of corpse effects/nekros and doge.

13 hours ago, fgiveme said:

Is there any stance that forces a lot of slash procs like old Vulpine Mask?

All but the iron phoneix forward combos on swords cause 1 slash proc and can be executed decently fast. Iron Phoenix block thrust also causes a forced slash proc in around a 3m wide forward box based on modded range which you can spam.
Tho if you just want slash galore: Tonfa, Scythe, Nikana and Claw heavy attacks with killing blow+corrupt charge+life strike (DD, normal daggers and whips also cause forced slash iirc but their heavies are horse apples).

Also OP, excellent breakdown.

Edited November 7, 2019 by Andele3025

DoomFruit · November 7, 2019

17 hours ago, Azamagon said:

I understand what you mean, but there's an inherent flaw with that request at the moment, due to how the inputs are setup:

Neutral vs Forward combos compete with one another.

If a Neutral combo has NO forward movement, you're gonna be VERY prone to miss in many, many situations - especially due to Impact-procs and melee ministaggers.

Forward combo should not necessitate any "dashing", they should just be fully free movement, agreed on that.

The reason Shimmering Blight, Bleeding Willow and Sinking Talon work for your mindset is simply because the Neutral and Forward combo is the same for them. So, what that means is that at the moment, the Neutral combos NEED some forward ministeps to function properly.

The thing is that if the enemy gets an impact proc and staggers back, I'm quite capable of seeing that and moving myself around to reposition... if I want to. 2 examples for when I don't want to do this: imagine fighting some Grineer by the lakeside in the Plains of Eidolon at night. You stab them a few times, they fall back into the magnet water. You do not want to follow them and lose all your energy. Secondly is if you're slashing at some Infested and a fartsprey leaves a huge green cloud behind what you're attacking. I don't want to be forced forward into it.

The forward and the neutral combos being identical for the polearm stances is a crucial feature for me. Not only does it give me free movement at all times, it means that my attack pattern remains exactly the same no matter how I'm moving - which means that I don't need to start trying to predict how my attack animations would change if I started going in some other direction. This makes it massively easier to hit things while on the move.

Kontrollo · November 8, 2019

Bump, because I feel this is well-researched and too valuable to disappear into obscurity.

I haven't tried a lot of stances, yet. So I can't contribute more at the moment. 😅

(PSN)InSaiyanOne · November 27, 2019

I'll probably edit this a few times to add comments:

1. In real life, some moves in martial arts (or anything) require you to stay in a certain stance/position to perform them correctly/appropriately. With a two-handed sword you're not going to get an appropriate downward cut (most of the time) without at some point stopping to set yourself. I'd imagine this applies to multiple other melee weapons...only ever interacted with a two-handed in real life to know. *I said SOME MOVES! smh*

Edited November 27, 2019 by (PS4)InSaiyanOne

Andele3025 · November 27, 2019

18 minutes ago, (PS4)InSaiyanOne said:

I'll probably edit this a few times to add comments:

1. In real life, some moves in martial arts (or anything) require you to stay in a certain stance/position to perform them correctly/appropriately. With a two-handed sword you're not going to get an appropriate downward cut (most of the time) without at some point stopping to set yourself. I'd imagine this applies to multiple other melee weapons...only ever interacted with a two-handed in real life to know.

Dude, you can do running poleaxe chops and keep charging using the downward swings momentum for a further thrust. If humans can do that, a massive cyber parasite zombie ninja that can ignore the vacuum of outer space certainly shouldnt stop for anything.
And that is completely aside the game design point of ANIMATION LOCKS ON MOVEMENT ATTACKS BEING BAD AND DROPPED FROM SPECTACLE FIGHTERS WHEN THEY EVOLVED ABOVE FIGHTING GAMES.

(PSN)InSaiyanOne · November 27, 2019

2 minutes ago, Andele3025 said:

Dude, you can do running poleaxe chops and keep charging using the downward swings momentum for a further thrust. If humans can do that, a massive cyber parasite zombie ninja that can ignore the vacuum of outer space certainly shouldnt stop for anything.
And that is completely aside the game design point of ANIMATION LOCKS ON MOVEMENT ATTACKS BEING BAD AND DROPPED FROM SPECTACLE FIGHTERS WHEN THEY EVOLVED ABOVE FIGHTING GAMES.

I said some moves, and you can't ignore physics some times and then use them other times. If you decide to perform a certain move, you need to at some point place your foot in a manner to proceed to strike with the force you want. If you want to scratch your enemy's armor you can run around fine. If you wish to simply split the body down the middle, through all types of materials and hardness that have different requirements in pressure and strength to break, you may need to stop for a second. The main thing for this point is that you can't use certain stances or strokes/slashes without stopping momentum/standing still/in a stance.

Andele3025 · November 27, 2019

6 minutes ago, (PS4)InSaiyanOne said:

I said some moves, and you can't ignore physics some times and then use them other times. If you decide to perform a certain move, you need to at some point place your foot in a manner to proceed to strike with the force you want. The main thing for this point is that you can't use certain stances or strokes/slashes without stopping momentum/standing still/in a stance.

Its you who is ignoring newtons laws here and no you dont, humans do certain full body motions and hard steps to create 1) better reach control 2) a stronger pivot point/so that we dont hamper the force behind a attack with our own anatomy and gravity OR to defend ourselves depeneding on weapon type. Warframes, unlike us, can bloody puch a solid half a meter thick metal door into bits. The strength of their swings is entirely the technocyte with centrifugal and centripetal forces along with inertia playing a role at best on distant 4th place.

6 minutes ago, (PS4)InSaiyanOne said:

If you want to scratch your enemy's armor you can run around fine. If you wish to simply split the body down the middle, through all types of materials and hardness that have different requirements in pressure and strength to break, you may need to stop for a second.

Its BLOODY PLYING orokin cancer flesh metal with technocyte and uranium space aids or acid based plastic explosives, literally noone cares if it makes sense or not on that front and most of all its not even relevant to the topic.

(PSN)InSaiyanOne · November 27, 2019

Just now, Andele3025 said:

Its you who is ignoring newtons laws here and no you dont, humans do certain full body motions and hard steps to create 1) better reach control 2) a stronger pivot point/so that we dont hamper the force behind a attack with our own anatomy and gravity OR to defend ourselves depeneding on weapon type. Warframes, unlike us, can bloody puch a solid half a meter thick metal door into bits. The strength of their swings is entirely the technocyte with centrifugal and centripetal forces along with inertia playing a role at best on distant 4th place.

Its BLOODY PLYING orokin cancer flesh metal with technocyte and uranium space aids or acid based plastic explosives, literally noone cares if it makes sense or not on that front and most of all its not even relevant to the topic.

whatever...again some physical laws can't only be used sometimes, you base that whole world around at least some sort of physical rules. I shouldn't have to explain the relevancy of what I said about the armor...it's common sense.

Noralen · November 27, 2019

I have a serious question that's going to sound like a S#&$ post but it's not.

What is the point of developing such a complex and interesting melee system if most missions boil down to running around and one shotting everything in the room with the meta frames?

Don't get me wrong I love the combat system, all the changes, the blocking, the way you change combo chains by changing motion and function, I really do like it and it's much more fun to play, but I can't see a single incentive to actually use other than in missions where you don't have any choice but to use only melee. And even then, Just nuke S#&$ with your warframe powers because easy mode.

Andele3025 · November 27, 2019

7 minutes ago, (PS4)InSaiyanOne said:

whatever...again some physical laws can't only be used sometimes,

You are the one who is trying to ignore physics, 2nd newtons second law. Except for maybe the case of that one revenant skin using the fragor, the acceleration of our frame cannot and will not be influenced by the inertia of a weapon their arm would swing unless they actively follow it with the motion of their body due to work much like how a human rotating a toothpick with their wrist wont ever result with the toothpicks inertia influence the human

7 minutes ago, (PS4)InSaiyanOne said:

you base that whole world around at least some sort of physical rules. I shouldn't have to explain the relevancy of what I said about the armor...it's common sense.

As said in the first comment, even ignoring that you are trying to argue based on physics you yourself didnt get a grasp of, the point of ALL the threads on the stances and tech is GAME DESIGN.

(PSN)InSaiyanOne · November 27, 2019

2 minutes ago, Noralen said:

I have a serious question that's going to sound like a S#&$ post but it's not.

What is the point of developing such a complex and interesting melee system if most missions boil down to running around and one shotting everything in the room with the meta frames?

Don't get me wrong I love the combat system, all the changes, the blocking, the way you change combo chains by changing motion and function, I really do like it and it's much more fun to play, but I can't see a single incentive to actually use other than in missions where you don't have any choice but to use only melee. And even then, Just nuke S#&$ with your warframe powers because easy mode.

I can hear you on that. The idea is that you do want to scale the enemies you are fighting in the content/missions you're working on. A lot of the game focuses on the mechanics of missions and of course the hordes of unlimited enemies from the faction(s) you're fighting along with the abilities they have. At some point you should need/hopefully-want to go into the harder content and though the weapons are almost where they need to be as a whole I think, I have to say the work is still needed to balance frames to make all of them usable maybe in some way in all missions types (of course some are more necessary/recommended in certain missions). I think we're in the midst (so rarely get to use that word) of what is coming next with harder enemies overall. If Alad V is selling his tech along with sentients rising from their sleep and appearing from whatever plane they're from, players looking for answers like you should hope that all things happen as they seem to be. I'm still waiting on the Orokin to come out of whatever hole they've been watching us from and try their hands at culling our numbers again.

(PSN)InSaiyanOne · November 27, 2019

2 minutes ago, Andele3025 said:

As said in the first comment, even ignoring that you are trying to argue based on physics you yourself didnt get a grasp of, the point of ALL the threads on the stances and tech is GAME DESIGN.

You do realize that these stances are actual things that people came up with? Not out of thin air, there's history behind martial arts and the reasons why you step, move, and strike a certain way. It's not like we're doing anything we want, all of our melee moves adhere to fixed stances. You could resolve your issue by creating new stances that have no history or are a compilation of the strokes you wish to use that do not require you to step/plant/stop so you can perform your next move appropriately.

Also as strong as we are to perform the said attack you have to be strong enough to control it if you need to adjust. So if our frames are strong enough to ignore the materials that our enemies are constantly upgrading to defend our (and each others) attacks, then make original stance-mods that do not have any stopping in them at all. Maybe make them Prime Stance Mods due to the nature you require them for, however I would expect that there should be stronger attack-moves in the current mods if that were to happen. It would definitely make melee even more interesting as some people still don't realize there are chains of combinations you can perform compared to just button mashing. That is changing a bit now that we're paying more attention to status procs when certain moves are performed.

Tiltskillet · November 27, 2019

Just now, (PS4)InSaiyanOne said:

I'll probably edit this a few times to add comments:

1. In real life, some moves in martial arts (or anything) require you to stay in a certain stance/position to perform them correctly/appropriately. With a two-handed sword you're not going to get an appropriate downward cut (most of the time) without at some point stopping to set yourself. I'd imagine this applies to multiple other melee weapons...only ever interacted with a two-handed in real life to know. *I said SOME MOVES! smh*

I think there's something to be said for plausibility and suspension of disbelief even in an over-the-top fantasy game. But this brings up two questions right away for me:

- Does the way combos are split up between open movement, forced movement, and static make sense from this standpoint?

- Does the detriment of restricted movement come with any benefit in return, like we might expect in RL, and would definitely expect in a game? For example, do they affect a larger area or cause more damage?

Just to be clear, I don't know the answers and I'm genuinely curious what you think.

A thorough look on Melee 3.0's combos - Mainly a look on the flow, mobility and special effects

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