Stances That Could Use Tweaks (List W/ Explanations)

[TheCometCE]

I'm enjoying melee 2.0 but I'm noticing there are some stances I just can't get myself to use over the other stances out there, regardless of the weapon's power. So here's a big ol' list of my suggestions to clean them up, mostly minor tweaks.

 

- Back attacks in general -

I have a big issue with back attacks overall, if you play with the camera unlocked for melee, it causes you to whiff so many attacks due to having to look away and then correct your direction mid attack, it discourages people from even using them in many cases. I don't have any specific solution for this other than to find a different input for it.

 

- Machete: Sundering Weave -

The spin combo helps out to fix the mobility and slow attack speed issues with the stance, but at the end of the day it takes far too long to reach the 5th strike in the main combo. Either speed up the strikes or give them a high stagger chance, and also consider changing the hold on the last attack to a pause to make it more reliable.

 

- Dagger: Pointed Wind -

The main issue with this stance is that it pales in comparison to the speed of Homing Fang. Adding in a damage multiplier would help this stance immensely, and switching the hold to a pause would help (unless another combo is on the way). Adding a gap closer wouldn't hurt either.

 

- Dual Swords: Swirling Tiger -

This stance is in a pretty good spot but there's one glaring issue with it: lock player movement on the new combo's gap closer! As soon as you use any movement during the most recently added combo on the weapon, it breaks the movement and animations to it, causing it to not work properly.

 

- Dual Swords: Crossing Snakes -

This suffers a bit on the damage end of things compared to Swirling Tiger, a simple damage multiplier boost would fix this stance up nicely.

 

- Scythe: Reaping Spiral -

Landing hits with the pause combo feels much harder than it should be, the hitbox on that attack needs to be wider than the weapon itself to make it easier to land, especially for no-camera-lock users.

 

- Staff: Clashing Forest -

My favorite stance in the game by far, there is one thing that bothers me: the pause combo. The window is far too small to execute it, and on top of that, there really isn't much reason to use it. Give it a little more width to the hitbox and add some utility to it, like knockdown or expose the enemy to finishers if hit.

 

- Thrown Weapons: Gleaming Talon -

There's a few big issues with this stance, the first problem is that it feels harder than it should to land hits during the combos that throw the glaive around you. Increasing the hitbox size for the glaive during these combos will help, as it feels small even with reach. The second issue is with the glaive throw. Make it just hold instead of E, Hold, and it will flow nicely with your existing combos.

As one last suggestion, the glaive could really use some kind of launcher combo that can set enemies up for a glaive throw out of the air, would give the glaive both utility and add some skill to its use.

 

- Polearms: Bleeding Willow and Shimmering Blight -

For some odd reason, these two stances feel far too similar. I prefer the pause on Bleeding Willow personally, but at the end of the day the main attack strings for these feel almost identical.

There are only 2 combos for these stances and adding new attacks will help spread them apart a bit, keep that in mind when designing new attacks for them.

 

- Claws: Malicious Raptor -

There are a few issues with this stance. Firstly, there's a little too much disadvantage when posing at the end of certain combos, these need to have an earlier point in the animation where you can cancel into another attack. Second, the animations for the weapon need to flow better while moving, it just looks...odd. Lastly, the claws could use a little bit more of a reliable gap closer, the one that is already there closes the range, but bouncing back doesn't let you set up for followup attacks that well.

[Brandr_]

Reaping  spiral is just fine, I never have trouble hitting with it

[TheErebus.]

The malicious raptor has a glaring issue with the primary attack (no combos used). It's the same as when you don't have any stance on it, and it begins to get really annoying after a while to see no change.

[TennoSimons]

"

- Staff: Clashing Forest -

My favorite stance in the game by far, there is one thing that bothers me: the pause combo. The window is far too small to execute it, and on top of that, there really isn't much reason to use it. Give it a little more width to the hitbox and add some utility to it, like knockdown or expose the enemy to finishers if hit.

 

"

 

 

I agree with most everything in this post, but especially this. First time I tried this combo, I had a max speed build and must have tried literally dozens of times to get that combo (the one with the pause after the 3rd hit) before I finally executed it successfully.... and never have again since. Granted, I think I would get better results if I removed all speed mods (and kept the corrupted mod which trades attack speed for damage), but one shouldn't have to.

 

Please increase the window to execute that failing branch combo DE! 

Edited July 16, 2014 by TennoSimons

[Beas7ie]

All stances should be able to animation cancel into parry and dodge. We need to add that in there too.