Melee After The Removal Of Stamina

[NiborDeathridge]

How would you feel about bringing back "that green bar" and using it for PURELY for blocking, calling it a concentration meter, or something to that effect. As it would no longer be effecting as many other aspects of the game, it would be much easier to manipulate with mods withouth flubbing up peoples builds. Another idea is that the meter could have a delay before refilling if it was emptied compleately, simulating having to take a moment to recompose yourself after being pushed past your limit. Drain on the bar would be based on the weapon type used to block instead of damage that would have delt to allow it to scale with enemy level, with smaller and single weapons taking more per bullet than larger or twin weapons, I.E. sword takes less meter per bullet to block than a dagger, twin daggers take less than single daggers, with highest efficiency being given to weapons that have a shield. I don't really have any kind of idea for channel blocking, as I feel that the reflect mod was actually one of the more successful gimmick mods, and with the insane amount of bullets shot at us, 5 energy per bullet is going to drain your energy reserve but FAST with the kinds of bullet hail Tenno face.

[Valar.Morghulis]

Blocking should just stay infinite 100% damage reduction. It's not like it makes you invulnerable, a hit from the side or back while you're fighting high level enemies and you're still toast. Frontal 100% block is in no way OP.

 

If they still intend on limiting it, the timer as you suggested would work.

 

I didn't use block that much, but it was handy to block enemy hooks or eximus firewaves when you were meleeing. Blocking a firewave now still does a lot of damage up to the point where rolling through it gives you a better damage reduction.

 

 

100% would be to much, I think that 75% reduction would be better. Blocking was never suppose to be something you could do ALL the time it was a decision, Now you can block 100% of the time when your not attacking to get a damage reduction with no penalty. Should you choose you can block with channeling to get 100% damage reduction and damage reflection.

 

The idea of making it 100% block with an ICD (Internal Cool Down) would be worse because quite often when you enter a room you get hit by 3-4 enemies at once. The ICD would only block 1 pellet of a point blank shotgun blast at Level 30+ can be lethal for many low armor frames.

 

Overall this made melee at higher level more viable for lower skilled players, I think we should wait to see what the higher skilled players do with it.

[ShogunGunshow]

Should you choose you can block with channeling to get 100% damage reduction and damage reflection.

 

Chanblocking drains way too much energy, and isn't affected by efficiency mods at all. Moreover, higher level/damage enemies cost more energy to block.

 

Also, damage reflection is garbage. Enemy EHP scales up much faster than enemy damage, ensuring reflection falls off after level 10 and is a laughable waste 30+.

 

The current state of Chanblocking is such that it become impossible to maintain at the exact levels that you need to start using it. I wish people would stop bringing it up; until the numbers get tweaked and efficiency mods do something for it, it's a trap mechanic.

[Emeraudes]

100% would be to much, I think that 75% reduction would be better. Blocking was never suppose to be something you could do ALL the time it was a decision, Now you can block 100% of the time when your not attacking to get a damage reduction with no penalty. Should you choose you can block with channeling to get 100% damage reduction and damage reflection.

 

The idea of making it 100% block with an ICD (Internal Cool Down) would be worse because quite often when you enter a room you get hit by 3-4 enemies at once. The ICD would only block 1 pellet of a point blank shotgun blast at Level 30+ can be lethal for many low armor frames.

 

Overall this made melee at higher level more viable for lower skilled players, I think we should wait to see what the higher skilled players do with it.

 

Higher skilled melee only players adapted to using purely mobility to reduce damage instead of a mix of both blocking and moving around. Granted that this was made possible because it is now next to impossible for enemies to hit you when you're maneuvering.

 

The point of this is for me to say, blocking is now useless at a point any defensive ability needs to matter. Do not use it if you want to play high level content.

[Storchenbein]

100% would be to much, I think that 75% reduction would be better. Blocking was never suppose to be something you could do ALL the time it was a decision, Now you can block 100% of the time when your not attacking to get a damage reduction with no penalty. Should you choose you can block with channeling to get 100% damage reduction and damage reflection.

 

The idea of making it 100% block with an ICD (Internal Cool Down) would be worse because quite often when you enter a room you get hit by 3-4 enemies at once. The ICD would only block 1 pellet of a point blank shotgun blast at Level 30+ can be lethal for many low armor frames.

 

Overall this made melee at higher level more viable for lower skilled players, I think we should wait to see what the higher skilled players do with it.

 

75% is utterly pointless. In sustained melee combat you will get widdled down while blocking and against higher levels you will get absolutely obliterated. The point still stands that you will get roasted from the side or your back if you're not careful with blocking even if it's permanent 100% frontal block.

 

Spamming roll is a better way to close the distance between you and enemies now and that should not be the case.

 

Also the timer obviously wouldn't work like stamina did. It would grant you 100% block for X seconds. Whether a level 10 lancer shoots at you or an entire battalion of shotgunners and bombards on level 75 doesn't matter.

[kleerr2]

Shields make you almost completely invulnerable.

you're not just invulnerable with any Weapon because then there's no reason to ever have a Shield. if a Shield isn't defensively better than something else, they're literally pointless.

previously, Shields used almost no Stamina to block Damage. now, you're almost invulnerable with them.

You are making a good point, however the current dmg reduction system is the worst possible way to make shields viable.

So...

 

 

I would rather have damage limit while blocking. I.e. blocked bullet cannot deal more than some fixed damage number. For example, we set maximum damage number as 20 per shot — then, if a bullet normally deals 6 damage, it would be decreased by 50% and would deal 3 damage, but if a bullet deals 60 damage it would deal only 20 damage instead of 30.

Also, if some mod would increase percentage of blocked damage, it should also decrease maximum damage number.

This idea is probably the best solution!Great idea Alien!For example with a shield you can take a maximum of 5 dmg, with a lighter weapons a maximum of 10 dmg and with heavy weapons a maximum of 20 dmg per hit.It will work out well as enemy scaling will be irrelevent as there is a set amount of dmg you can take per shot and it cannot exceed the limit.It will also make shields more meaningful.

[MJ12]

Block invulnerability isn't really a problem because:

 

1. You're almost never going to be in a situation where a frontal cone of blocking will provide total protection. Since enemies tend to swarm from all sides, you're still taking damage, just more slowly, unless you're using the room and the map to your advantage.

 

2. Shield Lancers basically get to do it against non-punchthrough weapons, so why shouldn't we?

 

The only concern is that there might be tiny edge cases of farmathons where some guy is basically blocking forever-but sometimes making 95+% of the game more fun is more important than fixing some tiny edge cases.

 

Think of blocking like having the ability to give up shooting in exchange for having frontal cover-plenty of shooters let you do it and have relatively minor problems with it.

 

The only issue might be in PvP-but PvP is an entirely different balance game...

Edited August 4, 2015 by MJ12

[Aekhon]

2. Shield Lancers basically get to do it against non-punchthrough weapons, so why shouldn't we?

 

Shield Lancers have a giant rectangle that covers nearly their entire body.  We don't.  Still, this question did get me thinking - instead of a constant damage reduction that falls short, what about a percent chance to 100% block each shot?  So, with every shot that comes in within whatever cone we can block, the game rolls a dice and decides (with a percent chance based on the size and speed of the weapon) whether or not we block it.  If we do, it's 100% blocked and we take no damage and receive no status effects (it's always bugged me that I can still proc bleeding when I blocked the shot that caused it - that makes no sense whatsoever, DE).  If we don't, full damage and effects.  Even as magical space ninjas, I don't think it's reasonable to expect that we can block all of the hundreds of bullets coming at us simultaneously.

[kleerr2]

If you make blocking dependable by chance it will be unpredictable and unreliable and will make blocking absolutely obsolete.

Edited August 4, 2015 by kleerr2

[Aekhon]

If you make blocking dependable by chance it will be unpredictable and unreliable and will make blocking absolutely obsolete.

Blocking is already unreliable/obsolete.

[taiiat]

however the current dmg reduction system is the worst possible way to make shields viable.

humor me, what all other possible ideas would apparently be better than this worst possible method in the entire Universe?

i'd prefer if you didn't use Hyperbole.

since there's no Stamina for it (and only for Wall Latching and one or two other things which have in universe telegraphs), what else would you do? there's not many choices. RNG blocking makes Blocking useless, giving Blocking a 'set up' stage where Shields are the fastest makes Blocking with other Melee's feel unresponsive, Et Cetera.

another idea below, Damage Reduction plus a Chance to ignore a Damage Instance, makes Melee's other than Shields feel like they can't make very good use of Blocking, as Shields would be durable but everything else would have relatively poor Chances comparatively, leaving the same potential issue of higher Level Enemies making Blocking not viable.

what we have now is relatively fair to all Melee's in context of each other, but as a whole ofcourse, Blocking will become extremely difficult to use effectively without constant Heals even before you leave the Solar Map.

but, atleast it's fair to the Melee Weapons in context of each other at the moment. lesser of two Evils, i suppose.

[Emeraudes]

what we have now is relatively fair to all Melee's in context of each other, but as a whole ofcourse, Blocking will become extremely difficult to use effectively without constant Heals even before you leave the Solar Map.

but, atleast it's fair to the Melee Weapons in context of each other at the moment. lesser of two Evils, i suppose.

 

Relative within the context of melee, but unfortunately, our weapons loadouts involve much more than simple melee. On a side note, I'd like to point out that melee 2.0 was to close the gap in power between guns and melee =/

 

I don't think this is absolutely the worst, but it IS pretty bad in terms of not having properly considered the sheer amount of damage a player takes while standing still in front of several enemies if they initiate a block.

 

Maybe what DE should clarify is, what do they intend blocking to be. Is it meant to enhance a particular envisioned playstyle or is it meant to enable a playstyle of our own design if we so choose to create one?

 

Prior to U17, I developed a build that would allow me to run a particular playstyle that required some dodging, lots of blocking and mostly melee. Now that playstyle is not available to me. Against groups of high level enemies I find that, without any access to warframe powers, my melee has become 1-2 strikes before having to run away.

[taiiat]

our weapons loadouts involve much more than just melee.

the sheer amount of damage a player takes while standing still in front of several enemies if they initiate a block.

what do they intend blocking to be.

Prior to U17, I developed a build that would allow me to run a particular playstyle that required some dodging, lots of blocking and mostly melee. Now that playstyle is not available to me. Against groups of high level enemies I find that, without any access to warframe powers, my melee has become 1-2 strikes before having to run away.

yes, however Blocking alone isn't going to make Melee and Guns be equal. IMO i see bigger problem with the "Combo's" that are mostly a downgrade to use in Combat. making those better is critical to Melee... being able to perform against all types of Enemies. (Bosses would be nice, but generally this isn't possible)

Melee needs the Utility that some strikes in Combo's can give, but without the bloat that makes it basically unusable.

that's a good question. i have a hunch that the answer is 'idunno'.

yes, i'm sure many had a Reflex Guard Melee Loadout and such. i don't think that was a good solution though, as Reflex Guard was unmetered Blocking. we have enough things that are unmetered(that should be) as it is, we don't need more.

the only end can be finding something that's fair to Melee Weapons in context of each other, and useful in context of the game as a whole. and is still metered.

but it's only part of the whole answer in the long run.

[(XBOX)SkinnyANOINTED1]

The best idea I've heard so far is invulnerability while blocking with the warframe affecting the cone. So, each warframe has a different cone range for melee blocking, but they are all 100% blocking.

I don't think the cone should be affected by weapon choice because: 1.) warframes are space ninjas with proficiency in their weapon of choice, and 2.) cone areas affected by weapons ties melee fighters to specific weapons.

Edited August 4, 2015 by (XB1)SkinnyANOINTED1

[Aekhon]

yes, however Blocking alone isn't going to make Melee and Guns be equal. IMO i see bigger problem with the "Combo's" that are mostly a downgrade to use in Combat. making those better is critical to Melee... being able to perform against all types of Enemies. (Bosses would be nice, but generally this isn't possible)

Melee needs the Utility that some strikes in Combo's can give, but without the bloat that makes it basically unusable.

Combos are always going to be pretty worthless other than for looking pretty.  Very, very seldomly do large groups of mobs congregate in the open within melee range.  Most of the time, they spread out and find cover and start firing - as they should.  So, melee combos are really only ever going to be effective against one or two enemies.  On top of that, with how speed focused the game is (i.e. the  faster you go, the fewer hits you take), if I have to take the time to slow down to do a combo, I'm leaving myself wide open to damage from all sides.  I'd rather set up my build to do as much damage per swing as possible, and swing as quickly as possible, so that I can (hopefully) get a quick one hit kill and move on to the next enemy.

 

Blocking should be a way to minimize damage from some of the other baddies while you're on your way to the next one, or when you need to take a second to figure out where the next one is.  This current model doesn't do that, nor is it fair across all melee weapons - take the Kronen, for example, which are as long as (and wider than) any longsword, yet according to my tests, block a low percentage like they're daggers (when the blocking system actually decides it wants to work - most of the time, for me, nothing gets blocked when I block).

 

It used to be that you could take use blocking to take a few seconds while out in the open to find your next target and not suffer too much damage.  That's not true anymore.  Every second you spend standing still, you're taking damage whether you're blocking or not (unless you're on Earth where the Grineer can't aim for sh*t - not that I'm complaining, of course).  Furthermore, there are enemies and damage types that bypass shields (such as bleeding from slash damage and toxic gunk from infected ospreys), or enemies that are geared towards shredding shields (like the Shield Lancers) so you can't always count on your shields to protect you either.

Edited August 4, 2015 by Tantalus010

[taiiat]

-snip-

but then you tie Players to using specific Warframes to use Melee.

that's not really any better.

Blocking isn't fair because Tonfas don't have high Damage Reduction

Tonfas deal a lot of Damage (Range issues aside, since Melee's in general have that problem), therefore are effective Weapons at Killing. so Blocking is less effective.

the only outlier i've seen so far (haven't tested all Archetypes yet) is that Dual Swords have above average Damage Reduction. Dual Swords is far from a bad Class of Melee Weapons, though. seems odd it'd be that high.

if we based it off of visual size, many Weapons that are:

- highly effective in Combat

- are not very practical to block with

would be effective at Blocking. while Weapons that aren't Effective in Combat, would have useless Blocking.

i don't expect a pair of Daggers to be competitive for Blocking - but basing off of just size is extremely unfair to Melee Weapons. because visual size doesn't determine Combat effectiveness, nor whether strong Blocking is needed.

[(XBOX)SkinnyANOINTED1]

You can make an argument already that melee is tied to specific characters. However, with blocking invulnerability all frames will have some level of melee effectiveness. Frames that have large energy pools, arguably, wouldn't need a larger cone. There is already a discrepancy between frames in terms of what play style is more viable. 

[(PSN)StillbornKumquat]

First credit where credit is due. I want to thank the devs for there awesome work on update 17.

 

Now on to the topic, melee, or more specifically, blocking after the removal of stamina. Now this isn't a *BAD* Change. No stamina means a lot more melee freedom like KOTRing (Killing on the run). Blocking has taken a hit though with the percentage blocking. With enemies under level 22 this isn't really a big deal, but to be frank getting hit by level 22- bullets was never big deal anyway. Anything above a level 22 will really start to hurt while blocking. Blocking was meant as a way of getting close to enemies so you can melee, now not so much.

 

 

One could argue that now parkour 2.0 is the way to avoid bullets, and you could use that to get close. I would agree if we had aerial melee combos, or different downward strikes, or even a way to glide from enemy to enemy, but we don't. Grounds slam don't particularly work because each melee weapon has a different slam radius, and the slam has a small recovery time. The new parkour just doesn't have the flow with melee that running and blocking does.

 

 

You cant block in something like a T4 or T3 survival. You'll get ripped apart. From my own experience, it seems like melee only blocks 50-60% of the damage, and now you can be proced through melee. This is rough for melee people. I don't really understand how you take damage if you block a bullet, but what evs.

 

 

One might also argue that you could use channeling to block bullets. However, I tried this, and it is VERY inefficient. Those bullets eat your energy faster than a desecrate Nekros without Fleeting Expertise. Reflecting damage back isn't as useful as some people might think. Remember that enemy armor/shields scale along with their damage, so no matter where you go, or how high level the enemies are, you'll always just dink them.

 

 

I understand that this was all done to keep you from infinite blocking. A really cool fix for all this would be to let blocking share the timer with the Wall Latch/Glide timer. Then it scales no matter where you go, and its not OP because you cant just sit in a corner and block. It makes more sense that blocking bullets can get tiring, rather than blocking bullets, and still taking damage.

 

Please discuss civilly ^_^

 

TL:DR ..l.

Awwww man. More I read about this update the more mixed feelings I'm getting. No stamina is awesome but what you just mentioned about blocking I could not agree more. It's just way more efficient to run and block when closing distance and foregoing any kind of primary and secondary weapon. Makes me glad I'm really getting back into playing Excalibur I guess. Can always just slash dash to close range or r-blind and close if I want to stay purely melee themed. But not having a reliable block when I run out of energy is saddening.

[Aekhon]

Tonfas deal a lot of Damage (Range issues aside, since Melee's in general have that problem), therefore are effective Weapons at Killing. so Blocking is less effective.

the only outlier i've seen so far (haven't tested all Archetypes yet) is that Dual Swords have above average Damage Reduction. Dual Swords is far from a bad Class of Melee Weapons, though. seems odd it'd be that high.

if we based it off of visual size, many Weapons that are:

- highly effective in Combat

- are not very practical to block with

would be effective at Blocking. while Weapons that aren't Effective in Combat, would have useless Blocking.

i don't expect a pair of Daggers to be competitive for Blocking - but basing off of just size is extremely unfair to Melee Weapons. because visual size doesn't determine Combat effectiveness, nor whether strong Blocking is needed.

See, that's where this (being the blocking system) is wrong from a logic standpoint.  Apparently, DE has decided (according to another poster's tests...I haven't completed my own yet) that weapon size is the determiner for how much a weapon blocks, and the bigger the weapon, the better.  That can make a certain amount of sense in that a larger weapon has more surface area like a shield and so you'd hold it up and it'd block damage, but if you watch the blocking animation, we're blocking bullets with speedy movements.  Thus, I would expect a pair of daggers to be good at blocking bullets because they can be moved into position more quickly than a heavy Galantine could.  On the other hand, the Galantine doesn't have to move as far or need to be in as precise a position.  This is where I would lean towards making all weapons equally effective at blocking, as they were before.

 

I used the Kronen as an example since they're one of my favorite weapons.  If DE is using size as the determiner for what is effective at blocking (I don't know that they are yet - so far, everything's only blocking 1/3 for me), they've made some exceptions to the rule.