Melee 2.0 Feedback: Megathread (With Template).

[TheBestUsername]

Weapon(s) used: Any Melee equipped

 

Faction(s) fought: Non Infested Factions

Mods equipped/Stance used: Any

Thoughts & Experiences:

Seeing as block is now only used with a melee weapon equipped, using the right mouse button.

The old block key is now open for use, and the PERFECT use for it, would be....

 *drum roll*

 

a quick shot key.  Similar to the current quick melee but in reverse.

This would make it so that when you are using a melee weapon you can hit the "quick shot" key which will quickly pull out your secondary weapon and hip shoot at a target.  Possibly with less acuracy. Possibly chained to spam down a flying enemy or shoot that boss weak spot.

 

It would fix the issues that come from having a melee weapon equipped such as not being able to shoot corpus cameras or the new grineer doors that steal all your energy.  You can kill vay hek's propaganda robots and corpus shield drones.  You can pop the cannisters down for energy during the jackel fight.

This quick shot button is something that would not take long to implement and would fit perfectly in with the new melee system.  It's the kind of thing i think DE would already have in place if melee 2.0 was here from the start.

 

TLDR: make middle mouse button a 1 off sidearm hipfire shot.

 

Approx. Time Spent: 20 hours

Supplementary info: Mouse and Keyboard, played Solo and with others, issues less prominent with others.

Edited April 15, 2014 by TheBestUsername

[ScribbleClash]

General Combo Feedback

Use brackets to prevent confusion about the execution of combos.

E.g.:

Hook and Eye's

E E Right Mouse + E E E

turns into:

E E (Right Mouse + E) E E

While it is obvious once you know how one of these works, this would simply help not getting confused.

[Argantes-svk]

additional keybind options with melee 2.0

 

 

Weapon(s) used:
any melee

 

Supplementary Info: Optional (Mouse/Keyboard? Controller? Coop/solo?)
keyboard + mouse

Thoughts & Experiences:

Please add new keybind options for new melee 2.0 system. While in the old system, your primary weapon was always a gun of some kind, thus your primary attack was (usually) on your left mouse button (LMB) and melee attack on some not so important button, mostly some side button like mouse button 4 (MB4) etc.  With the new melee system, after switching to full melee mode (stances, combos etc.), your primary attack will be attack with melee, but your melee attack is still bound to that not so handy MB4. 

 

With the new keybinds, I could bind my combo button to LMB, charge to RMB and block to that MB4 or whatever, point is, that the main combo button will be LMB and not some other awkward one.

[Casardis]

Weapon(s) used: Gram - Fragor - Jat Kittag - Reaper Prime

Faction(s) fought: All factions

Mod(s) equipped/Stance used: No stance on Gram ; Crushing Ruin on Hammers ; Reaping Spiral on Reaper Prime - varied build depending on faction fought

Thoughts & Experiences: Weapons like Fragor, Gram, Scindo and even scythes are particularly slow, regardless of stances they use, and consume a lot of stamina. The problem is that all penalties they have are NOT compensated by their strength at all. In fact, many weapons are way stronger or close to be as strong as them. Seriously, just look at the image below, at the two weapons' stats comparison, and tell me there isn't something wrong with it.

 

 

Gram and Dual Heat Swords have the exact same base damage, but DHS has way higher spin attack damage, wall attack, and even if it says 0.9 for attack speed, its attack animation type is faster than great swords/axes (therefore the 0.9 doesn't mean anything).

 

On top of that, it uses slightly less stamina, and its stances like the Tiger one allows for great multihit AoE CC attacks.

 

Whether it's equipped in melee mode or simply using quick strikes while carrying a ranged weapon, the heavy weapons are currently not very viable, especially when going in a room full of enemies and trying to chase one at the time. Heavy weapon also stops you on your sprinting momentum in every strikes, and it usually takes way too much time to execute a move that would close in distance (none of those moves if you don't have a stance either...).

 

I often use Ninja Gaiden as an example, but that's because it's always a valid comparison and DE really should take notes from that game (and Soul Calibur). You do have heavy weapons like giant hammer and giant sword in that game. Even then, they manage to make it faster than in Warframe, more effective at CC and enemy targetting, while making it feel stronger and heavier than in Warframe (making animations slow doesn't mean it's heavy!).

 

We need actual maneuvers within the movesets to change target effectively, and maneuvers outside of the melee weapon (Tenno dodge/dash moves) to allow a more fluid experience, and to help heavy melee be back on track too. For now, my Gram will have to sit on the bench.

Approximate Time Spent: 2h

Supplementary Info: None

Edited April 15, 2014 by Casardis

[NeoLeijona]

Melee 2.0 brought me back to the game.

 

The only complaint I have is that melee attacks cannot be "aimed", as in I still can't hit an Osprey 5cm above my head.

This is rather frustrating, as I'm still forced to switch to a ranged weapon even when my enemy is technically within reach.

[NightFox042]

Thoughts & Experiences:

Swap melee and channel buttons when melee equipped.  Left click = attack,  E = channel.  I would just like for mouse left click to be the attack button when I have my melee weapon out.

[---ExcaliburPrime---]

Thoughts & Experiences:

Melee is still not viable late game on frames that don't focus on melee.

Stamina is the main culprit,please get rid of it.

It serves no purpose other then hinder the player.I found my self constantly swarmed while blocking, add the fact that you have to close the gap between you and the enemy and you're left with zero stamina causing you to die several times during the mission.

It basically broke all immersion I had of being a space ninja.

Also not being able to block knock downs is stupid.

Edited April 15, 2014 by Stormo

[Casardis]

Thoughts & Experiences:

Also not being able to block knock downs is stupid.

 

You can block knockdowns. What you can't block is Blast procs.

[Thanatoasty]

Weapon(s) used:
 

Dragon Nikana

Faction(s) fought:
 

All faction

Mod(s) equipped/Stance used:
 

Tranquil Cleave;

Fury, Berserker, and the standard damage raising mods

Thoughts & Experiences:
 

From my time playing with tranquil cleave, I feel the hook and eye combo have a bug that does not allow the dash attack to properly move the tenno while a directional key is pressed, while standing still, the hook and eye combo have a dash attack that works fairly well

 

For blocking, would it be possible to allow the block animation, when triggered, to supersede the combo attack animation? It would make meleeing heavier units in the game much more viable when we can block their knockdown attack 

Approximate Time Spent:
 

~4 to 5 hours of gameplay

Supplementary Info: Optional (Mouse/Keyboard? Controller? Coop/solo?)

 

Solo and Cooperative play. Mouse and keyboard setup.

[GamingEntity]

Weapons Used: Dakra Prime, Orthos Prime, Reaper Prime, Heat Dagger, Dual Heat Swords, Dual Ichor, Nami Skyla, Fang Prime, Galatine, Scindo, Glaive, Ankyros Prime,

 

Factions Faught: All

 

Mods/Stances: Almost all melee mods, such as Pressure Point, Killing Blow, all dual mods, etc., Reaping Spiral, Fracturing Wind, Sinking Talon

 

Thoughts/Experiences: I'm loving this new melee system. It gives me the option of smacking them up close, which saves ammo in the long run.  It is hard to find every stance, especially the ones I'd like to use; swords and the single dagger one.  Glaive is awesome now! I can perform some awesome combo kills if I set my Warframe right. The single long swords swing animation is a little wonky; they don't feel like a sword rather it feels like I'm just swinging a stick around. If it had more of a wide, broad, swings I would use it more often.  The Axe and Galatine still feel pretty slow, but it's crowd control is fine.  I'm starting to love the Ankyros Prime; the fast attacks a focus hit boxes are what really stand out to me. I kinda wish most melee weapons have they same type of focus attacks (thinking about longswords here).  Dual Swords seem like they each too much stamina up. On a larger note, stamina should correlate with base damage output of each weapon.  For instance the Heat Dagger eats up less stamina than the Fang Prime yet it does more damage than the Fang Prime, which to me doesn't make sense at all.  The Heat Dagger's animation is also a little clunky.  That charging stab kinda ruins the idea of having a close range weapon.

 

Overall, you guys did a great job with Melee 2.0.

 

Approximately:

Since Melee 2.0 release > up until now.

 

​Supplementary Info:

Mouse/Keyboard set up.  I use my alt mouse button as my melee attack.

I did void runs with only melee, and ODD runs with melee only.

Edited April 15, 2014 by GamingEntity

[Hafilgar]

Weapon(s) used:  Orthos Prime, Fang Prime

Faction(s) fought:Grineer, Corpus

Mod(s) equipped/Stance used:none

Thoughts & Experiences:

I like how normal attacks are viable now but I realized channeling uses up a lot of energy even with channeling efficiency mods. Sometimes i just do melee only and run out of energy so I can't use any skills. I liked it a lot back when melee just used up stamina instead because at least it replenishes overtime. If I played solo and didn't equip energy siphon, then it would be unwise to melee through a whole mission and constantly be scavenging for energy orbs. I feel like this limits gameplay style because what If I just wanted to melee only?

Approximate Time Spent:5 hours

Supplementary Info: If melee is equipped you might as well have channeling automatically on because thats the whole point of dealing more damage rather than quick melee. So if melee wasn't equipped we should still be able to perform combos with the F button, and when we equip melee, our combo attacks should bind to Mouse 1 with channeling already on.

[GiottoXIII]

Weapon(s) used:

 

Dragon Nikana

Faction(s) fought:

 

all factions, However mostly void related factions.

Mod(s) equipped/Stance used:

 

Tranquil Cleave, Fury, Life Strike, Corrupt Charge, Killing Blow, Presure Point, Spoiled Strike, Focus Energy, Fever Strike

Thoughts & Experiences:

 

Generally a pretty good experience, I really enjoy idle nikana animations moreso than the actual stance animations. However, my expectations for a nodachi shaped and sized weapon fell absolutely flat. I understand that Tenno aren't human but swinging a nodachi wildly generally isn't good practice.

 

My regards are towards heavy comboing in terms of a nodachi which is highly impractical due to blade length and weight. Would much rather enjoy an Iaido based combo style. ( Fewer strikes per combo, more damager per each hit.) The most ideal would be to make a nikana stance entirely based on weapon drawing as an assassination style of play. Given that there's only 1 nikana stance currently it might be a path worth investigating further. (Different inputs result in different draw animations)

ex. EE+ Rmouse + E= Sword Draw cleaving all enemies in 360,  E + E HOLD = hilt attack into shoulder slash

 

if you need a Iaido handbook a good place to start would be Iai: The art of Drawing the Sword by Darrell Max Craig

 

I was also wholy underwhelmed. Having played Dynasty Warriors and dealt with impossible weapon physics, I felt that if there were to be a nikana stance with high combo strings that it should be flashier. More air time, better FX.

Approximate Time Spent: not sure I'm estimating around 12 hrs?

Supplementary Info: Mouse and Keyboard used. Black Widow Ultimate + Razer Naga 2014, both co-op and solo played. mostly co-op

Edited April 15, 2014 by AriaXIII

[Baubesis]

Weapon(s) used:

Lecta

Faction(s) fought:

Corpus as it's first test. Then tried it against all others.

Stance used:

Burning Wasp

Thoughts & Experiences:  

Before Melee 2.0, whips were utterly useless and clumsy to wield. I'm glad that this update made the whips actually a viable melee weapon. The Lecta with this stance absolutely murders large groups with the exception of the flying drones which are a bit hard to hit with this particular stance. However the 3 hit combo seems to be the exception to this problem if you can aim the last strike just right. It is very viable of a weapon especially when fighting a large group of enemies clustered together. Great crowd control possibilities. Enemies are somewhat easier to hit up close with whips now compared to before Melee 2.0

Approximate Time Spent:

About 6 hours

Supplementary Info:

Mouse/Keyboard

Edited April 15, 2014 by Baubesis

[Kogure_Kosetsu]

KAMA und DUAL KAMA should not be swords, animations looks weird, size of them seems too big. MACHETE should be a sword, no single class. 

 

Just these weapon classes: 

 

BOW, RIFLE, HANDGUN, and for meelee DAGGER, SWORD, HEAVY WEAPON, so maybe extra dual for sword and dagger, heavy: scindo and so on.... that is too complicated now 

 

Another idea: 

 

SMITHING an personal weapon, personal stile, damage and so on, and a personal name. 

KATANA.... please put one, and i mean a real one, in this game. 

CHANGEABLE PLACES for meelee weapons, sword on back or on site, dagger on back or on leg.... 

[Azamagon]

Quick little issues:

 

* Some weapons (like Ceramic Dagger) don't knockdown nor do they have any noticeable AoE on slamattacks. Having difference in radius etc, is fine. But when an attack is 100% pointless (like slams with Ceramic Dagger), it needs to change!

 

* Slideattacks - They don't stagger enemies at ALL with most weapons. An oversight I guess?

 

* Stealthattacks (and ground finishers?) - As far as I can tell, they don't scale in damage with Pressure Point / Spoiled Strike. Oversight in coding from the removal of charge-damage boosting mods?

 

* Glaive/Kestrel throw damage - Same issue as with stealthattacks. Another oversight I presume?

[_Chaser]

Weapon(s) used: all

Faction(s) fought: all

Mod(s) equipped/Stance used: not relevant

Thoughts & Experiences: animations are extremely sloppy and lack of proper lock on system makes it even worse.

 

give us proper lock on target and enlarge lock on distance. also slide attack is absolutely terrible and even

useless for actual combat due travel. i would rather get rid of zoren copters instead of charge attacks to be honest. 

would like to see a rework on combos to allow us to strike heavy attacks by price of mobility and stagger instead of mad slashind around that feels absolutely powerless.

 

Look at dark souls and learn from it.

 

also add gamepads support.

Approximate Time Spent: days

Supplementary Info: logiteck dual action gamepad with xpadder, since you folks still didn't bother to implement any controllers support.

Edited April 15, 2014 by n7snk

[Eymerich]

Weapon Used: Orthos Prime, Nami Skyla, Nikana, Glaive Prime

 

Factions Fought: All

 

Stances Used: Shimmering Blight, Swirling Tiger

 

Thoughts & Experiences: First things first, THANK YOU DE. My warframes finally feel like real ninjas now. It took me a bit to get used to the new buttons configuration, but after an hour or so I felt like I was playing like that from ages. The Parry button on the mouse is perfect, and I also liked the positioning of Melee/Channel buttons, maybe a little unintuitive but waaay better when it comes to gameplay.

I am really glad you removed Charge mechanics, they made the game very slow and very... well, un-ninja. I've always been a charged weapons hater, while this new combo mechanics fit perfectly my playing style.

I won't talk about the damage beacause I still have to finish my theorycraft homeworks, but I had no problems running survivals on Ceres even with only low level melee weapons equipped, so I guess it can't be so bad.

Parry, in addition to being extremely useful, is now fun as hell. It also grants a minimum of survivability to the squishier frames like Ember, Nekros etc, which is more than welcome.

Things I did not like: First of all, Glaive mechanics. I never manage to throw that thing when I need to, I don't have the stance yet but I guess that's not the problem. Then there's the disintegration of the foes: while it's undoubtly useful to understand whether I am Channeling or not (it happens sometimes to release the button in the heat of the battle), it gives no satisfacion, it does not quench my Tenno's righteous bloodthirst, not to mention the hatred Nekros feels when it happens. Maimed corpses scattered around the room was the main proof of a well done melee run in the good ol' days, and Channel kills should have MORE gore than normal ones, not the contrary. With sparks and stuff, maybe, but damn BLOODY.

One last, small but frustrating thing is the practical impossibility to do melee only runs. In fact, sooner or later you have to face an Osprey/Drone/Camera/Grineer Friendship Door and stuff like that. I understand i should carry a firearm anyways, but I wish I shoudn't have to equip it to shoot one single drone while in the middle of a melee fight against an army of Corrupted, for example.

To conclude, you did an amazing job with this Melee 2.0, the new features surely overcome the few flaws it has. You've done something way better than I expected, and my expectations were quite high. Thank you again, DE.

 

Approximate Time Spent: Many hours

 

Supplementary Info: Mouse + Keyboard, all kind of mission played, mostly co-op

Edited April 15, 2014 by Eymerich

[HexCaliber]

You can block knockdowns. What you can't block is Blast procs.

Sliding attacks will ignore both. EDIT, should point out you will still take damage from the attack, but it does allow you to get into melee range without getting knocked on your arse to deal with npc's that have knock-down attacks

Edited April 15, 2014 by HexCaliber

[Replacement]

Thoughts and Experiences: Switching to melee after "quick melee" feels absolutely awful.  E-E-Hold F---> Watch my character put away their melee weapon and immediately pull it right back out.

 

Between the button press time and the pointless swap animation, my combo meter is over half dead.  Would like to see holding E perform quick melee attack as well as equip melee.

 

Also, the combo meter 4 second complete wipe is too painful.  Encourages would-be melee fanatics to stay in the thick and get themselves killed.  This creates a "noob trap" where people will put the combo counter above all else.  Having it drain quickly instead of completely resetting would be a good start.

 

Final thought: I hate megathreads.  Feels like tossing my opinion in the ocean.

[Hixlysss]

Thoughts and Experiences:

 

Difficult to swap from one target to another is a glaring issue. Combine this with not being able to actually hit anything above my head or below my knee's it's...aggitating. Sometimes I get stuck on a drone, trying to melee it, unable to freaking HIT the thing because I can't angle my swipes UP, or on a crawler I can't angle my attacks DOWN.

 

My suggestion, keep the animations, but have the damage hit what ever our cursor is locked on that is within range, which is currently not what it does because I can't hit crawlers or osprey that are hovering in my face. Either that, or allow us to do our "On downed enemy" move on crawlers and add in a new move for each stance that "At Mid Air Target" and it does something to smack annoying osprey from the sky. I'm getting annoyed by being forced to bring a ranged weapon on any non infested mission.

[Neuhnee]

Thoughts & Experiences:

 

Melee 2.0 has completely removed an entire playstyle. The offhanded functionality of the melee weapons was the only thing that made them viable at all for many players. The removal of charge from quick melee has rendered melee weapons nothing but pretty box openers for those players.

 

As channeling has replaced charge, please allow us to channel in quick melee, while reserving the combos for melee...main? equipped? This would make melee weapons just as useful as they were to those of us who liked them that way, while still providing the new functionality for those who choose it.

[Tempest_Voltage]

Weapon(s) used: Fang Prime, Nami Skyla, Dual Zoren, Fang, Galatine

 

Faction(s) fought: Grineer & Corpus

 

Mod(s) equipped/Stance used: Pressure Point, Fury, Killing Blow, etc. Stances: Sinking Talon, Swirling Tiger, Crossing Snakes

 

Thoughts & Experiences: If anything, the most major benefit that came out of U13 is my new found love for Fang and Fang Prime. Without Sinking Talon has a cool animation, and with ST equipped makes it even better.

 

My problems branch out from here though.

 

I kinda feel like the secondary melee combo for every stance mod wasn't intended to be used much. If I'm surrounded by a bunch of enemies, I don't see the secondary combo (Sinking Talon: front flip and the twist in the air) as a go-to attack, but more as a decorational move.

 

The way Tenno hold the Galatine is kind of weird. It looks like they're holding up a weightless stick. Also, Galatine without a charge attack is like a pencil without lead. It doesn't work.

 

My biggest problem is Crossing Snakes. This was my first and is currently only rare Stance mod acquired, and I must say that I'm ready to trade it away. I can't stand the animation for East to West at all, as there's no type of combo connection to be had. the very ending move where your frame separates the swords in an expansive-type motion weirds me out. It especially depressed me that this mod was the polarized slot for the Nami Skylas (I love those swords so much). If this stays the way it is, I'm pretty sure I'm going to end up trading this mod away for Gnashing Payara or something.

 

Approximate Time Spent: Just about everyday since U13's release

[KainDarkfire]

Weapon(s) used: Dragon Nikana, Nami Skyla, Dual Ichor, Orthos Prime

Faction(s) fought: EVERYTHING

Mod(s) equipped/Stance used: Tranquil Cleave, Swirling Tiger, Coiling Snakes, Shimmering Blight

Thoughts & Experiences:

 

Short version;

Melee looks fancier, still does about the same amount of damage and is harder to make an effective build now for multiple reasons.

 

Longer version;

The lowered attack speed negates the slightly raised damage and channeling damage on weapons, the stun is a nice idea, but only consistently works on light units you shouldn't have an issue cutting down to begin with, and the combo system times out too soon, and doesn't work against heavies that well due to unstoppable, unblockable (that is, you don't have time to stop your combo mid attack and successfully get into block mode) knockdowns.

 

And now, with only eight mod slots and a ton of choices, it's about impossible to make a build. I don't expect to use all of these, in fact, if any one of them were good enough to compare properly to gun builds, this wouldn't be an issue at all. 

 

As it is, we have mod problems, which is a large part of why people never used them to begin with (the other part is that melee is inherently riskier than gunplay, just to do LESS damage than said guns), +60% damage for cold and electric?  +60% critical chance? +90% critical damage is about on par, at least...

 

Nikana; The attack/cleave portion is too short, and the flourish is far too long.  I have had a much better time avoiding knockdowns using daggers than this weapon so far.  In comparison dual swords/axes have a nearly 100% attack cleave time, you can just sit and spam melee attacks on a heavy gunner and they can never knock you off your feet.  Those aren't heavy weapons either.

 

Coiling Snakes; This stance is terrible right now, the motions are great, but it is -incredibly- slow, everyone prefers the uncommon dual sword stance over the rare, because Swirling Tiger doesn't take an era to put blades in the other guy's face.

 

Possible improvements?

 

Mods; long and short of it, numbers need to be recrunched across the board here, said enough about that.

 

Stealth/Unawareness mechanic; This is the only currently viable outlet for melee since the beginning, and only two frames do this reliably.  I don't mean to nerf these frames, I like that they can do this well, but I think the numbers need rebalanced here too- make it only a 200% buff so you can raise the numbers for melee weapons across the board WITHOUT sacrificing overall stealthframe power.  I think that's really the only real issue of making melee too powerful, because then this mechanic would be maddeningly game breaking.  (I say that as people run around blowing up everything with 30k+ critical Penta shots.)

 

Combos; every non-basic combo should have a knockdown, or at leas those with pauses and holds in them, give those combos some MEANING, it's not fulfilling to practice which animation you're supposed to pause or hold after to get the combo rolling correctly... just for it look flashy and not add damage or an effect or any defensive advantage.

 

Blocking cancel; Someone else already mentioned this, but I second wholeheartedly that pushing the block button should stop everything you're doing to IMMEDIATELY put you in defense mode, without this kind of mechanic, even 1280 armor isn't enough to stop you from being more than a feeble martyr at around level 40 enemies.  And not to make the mod situation any worse, but channeling could do with an armor boost mod as well, while we're at it.  Probably a FLAT amount?

Approximate Time Spent: Days

Supplementary Info: Mouse/Keyboard; Middle click is melee, left is block, right is channeling.

[Grascen]

Weapon Used: Jat Kittag

 

Factions Fought: All

 

Stance: Crushing Ruin

 

Thoughts and experiences: While this stance is super cool and fun to use, it feels like there's missed potential.

 

Examples:

-During the (EE pause EEE) combo, you'll spin your hammer twice. Before the second spin, though, there's this spinning animation that serves no real purpose. I feel like this should either be dealing lots of low damage hits and/or blocking 360 degrees.

 

-Also during the (EE pause EEE) combo, there's a spot after (EE pause E) where jumping will have you do a fast jump animation. When combined with the jump attack, it feels really satisfying to pull off. I think this should be programmed in as a second combo.

[KarateBugman]

This is going to be a catch-all for my experiences since the update dropped.

 

Weapon(s) used: Gram, Galatine, Furax, Dual Ether, Heat Dagger, Nikanas, Glaive, Hate, Dakra Prime, Kogake, Jat Kittag, Fang, Dual Zoren

Faction(s) fought: Corpus, Grineer, Corrupted

Mod(s) equipped/Stance used: Tranquil Cleave, Brutal Tide, Reaping Spiral, Iron Phoenix, Fracturing Wind.  Pressure Point, Spoiled Strike, and Focus Energy present on nearly all builds.

Thoughts & Experiences:  I'm really glad the melee system is back in business.  Going through missions on Ceres and even in the Void with my more basic equipment like Dual Ether is very satisfying.  Blocking works great, but I've yet to make a single parry that actually worked the way it was supposed to.  As some have said, stamina actually mattering in combat is a dimension the game needs.  I personally haven't had put Stamina mods on my Warframes to stay out of trouble in combat, but I have noticeably run out when I try and block too much gunfire.

 

In terms of my overall melee experiences, the Dragon Nikana is, of course, the best damage dealer in the game right now.  However, even without mods, a lot of my old favorites still feel great in the new system.  Tranquil Cleave's combos work for a variety of situations, as do the other stances I found and played with.  Some of the combos are a bit awkward to get used to, namely the situations where you must delay in pressing E to continue into the combo chain.  All that said, I really enjoy all the stances I found, except for Fracturing Wind.  Compared to some of the raw damage I got out of my Dakra Prime, Hate, and stanceless Jat Kittag, I'm finding the Furax to be very clunky and not that powerful (I think the boxing-glove like weapons need an attack pattern that makes more sense.  The spinning backfist in the animation is always awkward).  The lack of charge attack is the key culprit there, I think, but I'll come back to that.  Also, wielding the Glaive alone.  Please, please fix it so I can throw it without doing an unnecessary attack first.

 

Channeling is a new dimension that I really enjoy playing with.  The cosmetic effects are really cool, especially on frames with Immortal Skins.  However, for a player like myself, who's been with the game a while and has amassed a lot of good equipment and mods, I'm finding that channeling doesn't really have any weight behind it.  The damage you're able to deal is impressive (especially with Killing Blow), and the energy-colored dissolving looks awesome, but with channeling efficiency and no real effect other than glowing a bit and doing more damage, it seems pretty unnecessary and doesn't impact my energy pool.  You can basically just spam your channeled melee with minimal effort, and very little drain on energy (especially with Energy Siphon.  It feels like free damage).  I've only gotten one channeling mod, True Punishment, and haven't found a use for it so far.  I do like it, but I think Channeling really needs some work.

 

I hope this is the right topic for this, but I had some hopefully constructive thoughts on heavy and "charge" weapons that this update really changed.  My Galatine and Gram feel next to useless now.  They're slow, they don't do much damage, and the idle animation for them is pretty awful.  I haven't found stances for them yet, same with the Jat Kittag, which is still a very effective and fun weapon, even without stance.  Charge attacks, I realize, have been taken out because it's all too easy to spam them incessantly and win without thinking.  However, charged attacks were how I introduced variety in my own way.  Dual Ether could mix fast strikes with heavy charges, and I enjoyed it thoroughly.  Jat Kittag's charge had an awesome radial knockdown that had tons of utility, and a unique animation to boot.  Apparently that attack has made it into a hammer stance, I don't know which one.  But I think that in some capacity, charging has to come back.  My thought is to work it into the new Channeling system.  Right now it's insanely easy to just keep channeling through a combo, and make tons of high-damage hits at the cost of very little energy.  What I see working a bit better is to make channeling much higher in cost (for Energy and Stamina alike), and changing the function into dealing a decisive or controlling blow, rather than many strikes with higher damage.  It'll keep our heavy weapons alive, and add another dimensionality to this cool new system.  Power of heavy weapons needs to make a return, and it needs to come at a heavy price.

 

Also, the drop rates.  Oh my dear sweet Lotus, the drop rates for stances.  The only thing not fun about this update is the grind to make our weapons work in this new combo system, instead of spamming E mindlessly as we always have.  When you get around to it, make those things a little easier to attain!  Maybe change up drop tables for survival and defense so we can get our hands on more and more of these stances, giving us more incentive to try new weapons without getting discouraged by another 12 hours stuck grinding on Cambria.

Approximate Time Spent: 2-4 hours a day since Update 13 went live

Supplementary Info: Mouse and keyboard, mostly in Co-op