Blocking - Breathing Life Into A Dead Feature

[MeteorKing]

In a situation where you could kill something quickly or defend against it, it's usually easier to just eliminate the threat as opposed to mitigate it.  Fundance says it properly.

 

I try to use blocking when I can, but most of the time, when I could block, I could also be doing a dash flip and getting up into an enemy's face with a jump attack. There's usually just better things you can be doing.

 

That being said, blocking is an interesting mechanic that is rarely seen in games, and even less commonly is it implemented correctly.  I could see many uses for blocking, but they should be inherent to the mechanic and not be fulfilled by adding mods to your melee weapons.  Personally, I'd use block if it had any resistance against knockdown effects, but I don't really see how you can block an aoe ground pound with your fraggor...

[KavasMasta]

WRITE A TL;DR

[ExcaliBoiPrime]

With the new blocking m9ds for your warframe block8ng isnt useless anymore

[Paradoxbomb]

How blocking (and melee in general) should work IMO:

 

1) Add the sword to the switch weapon key (F by default IIRC) so we can hold it. When held, left click becomes attack and right click block. E can still remain a quick melee attack. This can be a personal opinion but I find melee to be much more fluent using the mouse than the keyboard, though it's a pain to have to rebind the keys for gunplay/melee every time.

 

2) Holding down block will not drain stamina unless you are actually absorbing damage. Against bullets/projectiles, instead of the current damage reduction, all weapons have a percent chance to completely mitigate the damage (an instance where RNG actually makes sense :O). Larger weapons have a greater chance to absorb damage, and this chance can be upgraded via mods. Against melee, blocking will completely block damage from the front so long as your stamina holds out.

 

3) Quick tapping the block button performs a parry, that when timed correctly, will stagger an attacking melee opponent and leave them vulnerable; your next melee attack will critical or x2 damage. The parry can't deflect bullets, but can deflect or even reflect certain non-hitscan projectiles when timed correctly (because you know you want to deflect a freakin' Bombard rocket at least once).

 

4) Offensively, I don't think melee needs an overly-intricate multi-button melee system, but melee attacks should work in "combos" or sorts. For example, as you spam the melee attack button on an enemy with a longsword, each consecutive hit will deal more and more damage than the last against that enemy for a certain number of strikes before the combo ends. Smaller weapons like daggers could have a longer combo chain/animation set and therefore build up more damage per strike. These combos could be extended via mods.

 

5) A significant damage buff is order seeing as the risk vs. reward factor of getting up close and personal to a trigger happy Space marine or businessman isn't really there considering guns can do twice the damage of most quick melee attacks in half the time. Other changes should include the removal of single target (because this serves no advantage whatsoever) adding armor-ignore to a lot more weapons (leave it on only a few weapons that are supposed to excel against the infested) and making stun/stagger a more reliable mechanic with melee weapons (at least tell us the stun chance on the weapon stats).

[Remalosofos]

+1 for all the blocking/counter-attacking etc ideas, they sound great! :D

As for the shield type melee weapon, just no - the Tenno are ninja, not knights

Unless you are a rhino or frost then you are practically a knight

[Notso]

I like this idea. I tried so hard to use blocking when it was first introduced, but I just couldn't make it useful. It wouldn't even block Grineer Sawmen reliably.

[Babalenong]

Anyone ever play E.Y.E.? No? Didn't think so. Well in that game, you can block bullets with your sword, BUT, doing so drains your stamina VERY fast. I think allowing this would not only make blocking more usable, but it would also make the stamina bar more important. It would let you block crucial attacks, like a shotgun blast from Vay Hek, or some Supra shots from a Corpus tech when you're low on health. Certain weapons could be better or worse at it, and have different stamina efficiency for it.

 

signed dunno, I thought it was hilariously fun in E.Y.E.

Zylo the Wolfbane

aw yeah E.Y.E is one of the best games i played everr

and the easiest way to make blocking very viable in combat is redirect all incoming damage to your stamina, but holding the block button down itself wont drain stamina, this will be extremely useful to counter those fire DoT from those bloody napalms and makes stamina viable for melee builds

[Notso]

holding the block button down itself wont drain stamina

 

Too easy to block then - people would just run around bosses with the block button held when they knew a powerful attack was coming.

[Babalenong]

Too easy to block then - people would just run around bosses with the block button held when they knew a powerful attack was coming.

powerful attacks may pierce through their stamina and leave them with no stamina to run away, also denying stamina regeneration while blocking is an potential alternative