Melee needs to change

[Witchydragon]

 

 

 

seriously, imagine what this looks like to new players as well. at least with guns normal movement like strafing and counter strafing and bunny hopping can help lower the TTK on them, but with melee it's a stunlock kill with a huge hitbox with extremely little telegraphing. every single match I have played recently has become 2-7 guys with only their melee out bum rushing each other invisible instead of using parkour and guns. RIght now it's far to easy to just get kills with melee compared to how hard it is to track a guy or tap them with any gun. 

no, it does not give new players something to use against high skill players, as they need to purchase a stance off Teshin. If this was the state of Conclave when I joined and I didn't know how to aim, I'd just not play the mode instead of throwing myself at brick walls until I get a stance and a sword/shield or nikana or hammer. it gives people who don't want to practice aiming something to use in big chaotic lobbies to get kills on unsuspecting prey.

I also know someone's going to tell me that it's the same with gun players. While yes, some weapons need augments and there are some mods which have no downsides, guns present a much greater skill gradient than melee. A gun's TTK can vary wildy and with very fine gradients due to a player's skill in aiming, whereas with melee a player either instagibs the guy or doesn't. There's no intricate melee dueling, or back and forth sparring, and it's not even used as an auxiliary tool.  

1. the damage is too much for how quick it can be now (lower it and/or remove the attack speed mods).
2. the stunlocks are annoying and nobody likes being on the receiving end of a stun. It's even worse to get stunned in this game because movement is such a huge part of what makes playing the game fun at all. Even if stuns were pointless and didn't give any players and advantages or disadvantages, it's just plain annoying.
3. melee still can't kill good gun players in the air, and with the nerf to air melee it's even less viable to go melee only against a mobile player.

4. the melee selection isn't even balanced, whips, daggers, staves, and other weapon groups are completely unused, whereas nikanas, hammers, and sword/shields have been ruling lobbies. 

I understand there is a need for "skill-effectiveness equilizers" like abilities due to the insane skill ceiling and lack of match making, but currently melee is excessive to the point where anyone who's not considered a "top player" or does not with to be one has been running melee only in lobbies.

Here are some suggestions to change melee in a place that's easy to find that I edited in just now:

Re-buff air melee. Air melee (from scythes) used to be a strong, skilled way of using melee which was also used in high level play as a supplement to guns. The single mobile strike was enough to make a meaningful dent in a player's health pool, but was telegraphed and limited enough to not feel spammy or ridiculous. Air melee on all guns should be good, with animation speed, reach, and damage being the factors used to balance weapon classes for nuanced weapon selection.

Remove staggers and knockdowns from the melee combos. Seriously, it's effectively the same as letting melee one shot, except it feels worse and could let someone else get the kill anyway. 

Reduce melee combo damage to the point of un-usability. I know this'll be really unpopular, but the grounded combos will only succeed in killing new players if they're nerfed to be "usable". Teach the player that spamming combos is not the way to go if they want to do well in the Conclave. Have Teshin show everyone how to be a badass with air melee or something in a new tutorial. 

Remove the Attack Speed mods. They just make the combos even more ridiculous to shoot at and hard to avoid without requiring the user to use any different techniques. Also, if the combos are nerfed to be unusable then no one is going to need these mods.

Bonus:

Remove Explosive Demise or give it an indicator. This has been brought up quite a few times for the same reasons. It creates moments of "wtf why did I just die?" and doesn't reward skillful play and can't be reasonably countered. 

 

Edited July 27, 2016 by Witchydragon
gifs

[Nighttide77]

Why are you trying to shoot equipped melee point blank when you have the advantage of a gun?

[SolarDwagon]

First off, that was terrible play on your part. You stopped and stayed in a predictable spot. That guy would have murdered you with a gun or melee.

HOWEVER, the damage done by his melee seems to be rather excessive. A hit that has a stun should not do ~200 damage. I'm assuming that he was channeling, a reasonable assumption, so it would normally be 100 as far as I understand, but that is still an obscene amount of damage to do on what appears to be the very first hit of a combo.

If you watch the video carefully it was a stagger, not a full on knockdown, but with that much alpha damage there's certainly a problem with that.

Edited July 27, 2016 by SolarDwagon

[Elite3141]

1 minute ago, Nighttide77 said:

Why are you trying to shoot equipped melee point blank when you have the advantage of a gun?

Because the absurd, untelegraphed mobility of melee stances forces the encounter to be point blank in many instances.

[Nighttide77]

Just now, Elite3141 said:

Because the absurd, untelegraphed mobility of melee stances forces the encounter to be point blank in many instances.

or...ya know...the moment you see them, you create some distance.

 

Pretty sure the second instance was something weird going on with connections...or maybe that player had snowballed a Martial Fury and Relentless Assault. At the same time, there isn't enough of that second gif to determine what really happened before engaging a sword and board player.

[Grimlock84]

15 minutes ago, Witchydragon said:

seriously, imagine what this looks like to new players as well. at least with guns normal movement like strafing and counter strafing and bunny hopping can help lower the TTK on them, but with melee it's a stunlock kill with a huge hitbox with extremely little telegraphing. every single match I have played recently has become 2-7 guys with only their melee out bum rushing each other invisible instead of using parkour and guns. RIght now it's far to easy to just get kills with melee compared to how hard it is to track a guy or tap them with any gun. 

1: New players will never see this because both of the melee attack speed mods are disabled for them and against them.

2: the first gif is you aim gliding a few feet off the ground perfectly still. you were dead regardless

3: you could've rolled away from either of those staggers

[Witchydragon]

3 minutes ago, Grimlock84 said:

1: New players will never see this because both of the melee attack speed mods are disabled for them and against them.

2: the first gif is you aim gliding a few feet off the ground perfectly still. you were dead regardless

3: you could've rolled away from either of those staggers

These are 2 gifs out of hours of gameplay. I understand these gifs don't illustrate all my points other than their damage and animations, but I don't exactly feel like sifting through tons of footage.

Newer players may not witness these combos moving as quickly, but they will certainly feel their damage and see how easy they are to use. Even before the melee changes, lots of newer players would default to melee for one reason or another and they'd get more lucky kills than they'd otherwise get with a gun. Dedicated melee does not allow players to develop aim, which is the most important part of playing at a high level. But I guess no one really cares about that or having varying levels of skill in the population.

Of course players can deal with how melee currently is, and of course I probably could've done something to not die to melee. That doesn't mean melee is well designed or fits in the game or has any depth. To use melee, a player will equip melee and use the combos when everyone else is distracted. To deal with melee, a player will bullet jump away and shoot at them. Or both players just run away from each other because the melee guy knows it's hopeless trying to kill someone in the air or the gun player just isn't good at aiming at the absurd movements of players using combos. 

I don't believe that melee in it's current state is any good for the game mode or it's players. 

Or maybe they really do want to just turn Conclave into a playground where players of all skill can take out a melee weapon and perform equally, until one person goes invisible and has a hammer. 

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[Nazrethim]

7 hours ago, Witchydragon said:

Here are some suggestions to change melee in a place that's easy to find that I edited in just now:

 

Re-buff air melee. Air melee (from scythes) used to be a strong, skilled way of using melee which was also used in high level play as a supplement to guns. The single mobile strike was enough to make a meaningful dent in a player's health pool, but was telegraphed and limited enough to not feel spammy or ridiculous. Air melee on all guns should be good, with animation speed, reach, and damage being the factors used to balance weapon classes for nuanced weapon selection.

Remove staggers and knockdowns from the melee combos. Seriously, it's effectively the same as letting melee one shot, except it feels worse and could let someone else get the kill anyway. 

Reduce melee combo damage to the point of un-usability. I know this'll be really unpopular, but the grounded combos will only succeed in killing new players if they're nerfed to be "usable". Teach the player that spamming combos is not the way to go if they want to do well in the Conclave. Have Teshin show everyone how to be a badass with air melee or something in a new tutorial. 

Remove the Attack Speed mods. They just make the combos even more ridiculous to shoot at and hard to avoid without requiring the user to use any different techniques. Also, if the combos are nerfed to be unusable then no one is going to need these mods.

Bonus:

Remove Explosive Demise or give it an indicator. This has been brought up quite a few times for the same reasons. It creates moments of "wtf why did I just die?" and doesn't reward skillful play and can't be reasonably countered. 

 

Better Suggestions:

-Add Aerial Combos. The Strong one-hit Aerial was nerfed because it benefited ONLY gunplayers who used and abused it to make short work of a melee player who came close. Aerial Combos while melee weapon is equiped would be better, while leaving quickmelee aerial the same sh*tty thing we have now.

-Replace Staggers & Knockdowns for a 3s Encumbering on hit locking the affected player from Bulletjump, Aimglide and Wall latch, essentially eliminating aerial escapes but allowing ground based evasive maneuvers.

-Forget about this, the combos are fine, spamming E mindlessly is what should get a melee player killed, and with the new stances that is what happens.

-I don't mind if Ralentless Assault gets removed. Most weapons REQUIRE the 20% from Martial Fury to be effective, even with the new stances, so a better solution would be to make this a built-in passive buff either in Sword Alone or the Stances (when the melee weapon is equiped, of course)

-Yeah, I've  saying ED should either give a clear warning (and deal 200 damage instead of 300) or be removed.

7 hours ago, Witchydragon said:

These are 2 gifs out of hours of gameplay. I understand these gifs don't illustrate all my points other than their damage and animations, but I don't exactly feel like sifting through tons of footage.

Newer players may not witness these combos moving as quickly, but they will certainly feel their damage and see how easy they are to use. Even before the melee changes, lots of newer players would default to melee for one reason or another and they'd get more lucky kills than they'd otherwise get with a gun. Dedicated melee does not allow players to develop aim, which is the most important part of playing at a high level. But I guess no one really cares about that or having varying levels of skill in the population.

Of course players can deal with how melee currently is, and of course I probably could've done something to not die to melee. That doesn't mean melee is well designed or fits in the game or has any depth. To use melee, a player will equip melee and use the combos when everyone else is distracted. To deal with melee, a player will bullet jump away and shoot at them. Or both players just run away from each other because the melee guy knows it's hopeless trying to kill someone in the air or the gun player just isn't good at aiming at the absurd movements of players using combos. 

I don't believe that melee in it's current state is any good for the game mode or it's players. 

Or maybe they really do want to just turn Conclave into a playground where players of all skill can take out a melee weapon and perform equally, until one person goes invisible and has a hammer. 

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

-The Stances are Rank ONE and cost the cheap price of 2k. Newer players can try to go melee almost from the get go and get murdered by gunplayers.

-Dedicated melee requires different skillset. Whereas Gunplayers rely on bulletjump-spam, aimglide, point&click and (with certain weapons) leading; Melee Players focus on evasive maneuvers, efficient combo use, gap closing, setting ambushes and luring other players inside close corridors and vents where escape is futile.

-Melee is in a good spot FOR THE FIRST FKING TIME since Conclave 2.0 started. Not obscenely overpowered like it was in the begining, nor the near-useless cr*p we had for the entirety of U18. You need to adapt to high mobility, back walking firing a gun used to be a good and viable strategy to kill an animation locked melee player and nobody gave a sh*t because "he he melee noob". Who's laughing now?

-Well, Invisibility is only good on Black energy, and that only applies to Loki, since Ivara is slow when prowling and the cloak fields are visible and Ash SS is a near-useless waste of energy.

Edited July 27, 2016 by Nazrethim

[-FireMaelstr0m-]

lol rekt

On topic, the damage does seem a bit inane. From the few games that I've played (gotta get them exilus adapters), melee has been the go-to for most players. FFAs turn into even bigger clusterfucks than they did when I stopped playing. Of course, picking melee players off from a distance/while in the air is still a complete counter to melee, even more so with the aerial attack nerfs. I feel like it was deserved for the scythes, the hitbox was quite large and the damage was insane compared to other weapon classes. Though as always, DE overnerfed it, and now it's pretty much useless for all melee weapon classes.

imo, making melee fit into WF's fast-paced, movenent-oriented playstyle seems excruciatingly difficult. In all the iterations of conclave that I've played, melee hasn't felt fair to me. I either get instagibbed, stunlocked into eternity, or the melee user has painfully low damage. There has been no in-between as far as I can remember.

 

Some of Naz's suggestions, like the encumbering instead of staggering, and aerial combos would bring melee closer to the in-between imo.

 

EDIT: de pls remove/rework Explosive Demise. As everyone else has stated, it requires absolutely no skill to use, and is impossible to counter.

Edited July 27, 2016 by -FireMaelstr0m-

[rockscl]

they need to work air melee properly, give us air melee with: 

vertical freedoom

tap E to stab

hold to swing

that is enough to release the players hands and have a melee system with dignity for pvp, the gap closers with knock downs and increased damage are an uneeded crutch, if the player could simply bullet jump and actually attack at any direction, those gap closers would be a full expression of the player, we dont need those precooked gap closers, im thankful for all the work you have out into these new stances, but the lacking part has always been air melee

Edited July 28, 2016 by rockscl

[(PSN)Xx-Ribbium-xX]

Dude I tota agree with you melee is op and needs nerfed into the ground because all it's doing is creating a toxic meta of "I'm gonna camp around corners and spam my melee weapon until a certain combo happens so I can 1 shot people" like it's disgusting and needs to stop

[Nazrethim]

2 hours ago, (PS4)Xx-Ribbium-xX said:

Dude I tota agree with you melee is op and needs nerfed into the ground because all it's doing is creating a toxic meta of "I'm gonna camp around corners and spam my melee weapon until a certain combo happens so I can 1 shot people" like it's disgusting and needs to stop

Have you tried "Not standing still" and "Keep your eyes open and be ready to evade any ambush" ?

[(PSN)Xx-Ribbium-xX]

10 hours ago, Nazrethim said:

Have you tried "Not standing still" and "Keep your eyes open and be ready to evade any ambush" ?

Holy S#&$ man no I didn't I mean all this time why haven't I tried that? Wow you really have opened my eyes now not like I have over 24k conclave kills and only 2k deaths or anything 

but seriously how can you evade something that has lock on (heart seeker) or something that has insane reach (any heavy weapon) I aim glide kill melee channelized scum all the time no problem because I know how to dodge it but new players don't so maybe they should make melee combos interuptable so you can knock don't or stagger them no matter what? I mean that would literally kill melee channeling but that's probably a good thing because it takes no effort at all to do

[SevenLetterKWord]

What I immediately dislike about these new stances, besides their oversized hitboxes, is that powerful moves come out with minimal telegraphing and carry minimal downtime.

On 7/26/2016 at 9:03 PM, SolarDwagon said:

it was a stagger, not a full on knockdown, but with that much alpha damage there's certainly a problem with that.

A knockdown might've been preferable.
Staggers lock victims in place. Knockdowns push victims away.

On 7/26/2016 at 9:19 PM, Grimlock84 said:

3: you could've rolled away from either of those staggers

In the first .gif, the stagger from the first hit (which dealt 92+90, by the way) lasted long enough for the melee player to perform aim correction and continue the combo, which likely would've landed no matter what the victim's reaction was, given those very generous hitboxes.
The second .gif had no stagger. It consisted of three sequential hits within half a second, respectively dealing 45, 90, and >(30+100) damage.
Furthermore, that spinning move is first move of a combo (second move after a basic quick slash), which means there is almost no telegraphing, and absolutely no commitment to that combo's movement pattern.

On 7/26/2016 at 9:36 PM, Witchydragon said:

Dedicated melee does not allow players to develop aim

It could, if channeled reflection were updated such that defenders had to aim back at shooters to reflect damage, instead of the automatic reflected aiming that exists presently.
The proportion of damage reflected could be significantly increased (to 80-90%) to compensate for the greater skill requirement.

On 7/27/2016 at 4:53 AM, Nazrethim said:

-Forget about this, the combos are fine, spamming E mindlessly is what should get a melee player killed, and with the new stances that is what happens.

Sure about that? I can spam Last Herald's spin-to-win combo with ease, and still maintain considerable mobility.
On top of that, Sword & Shield starts with top-of-the-line blocking power, the Silva & Aegis's blocking percentage was recently increased, and channeled blocking was made more efficient (for a negligible tradeoff in blocking angle).

On 7/27/2016 at 4:53 AM, Nazrethim said:

-The Stances are Rank ONE and cost the cheap price of 2k. Newer players can try to go melee almost from the get go and get murdered by gunplayers.

You mean they can get cheesed to death by other noobs throwing around low-telegraph, near-OHK moves, which also stun?

On 7/27/2016 at 4:53 AM, Nazrethim said:

-Well, Invisibility is only good on Black energy, and that only applies to Loki, since Ivara is slow when prowling and the cloak fields are visible and Ash SS is a near-useless waste of energy.

This is not a counterargument. You're just introducing distractions.

You have a radio. There are three main parts that need to work for the radio overall to work: the wiring, the speakers, and the buttons.
Your radio doesn't work. This because the wiring is bad.
You tell me that the speakers and the buttons are just fine.
It does not matter. Your radio is still broken.

[Nighttide77]

5 hours ago, Knaimhe said:

1) What I immediately dislike about these new stances, besides their oversized hitboxes, is that powerful moves come out with minimal telegraphing and carry minimal downtime.

2) Staggers lock victims in place. Knockdowns push victims away.

3) It could, if channeled reflection were updated such that defenders had to aim back at shooters to reflect damage, instead of the automatic reflected aiming that exists presently.

4) Sure about that? I can spam Last Herald's spin-to-win combo with ease, and still maintain considerable mobility.

I know you're gonna have a huge list of responses, so I'm gonna try to keep my statements in number form so as we go forward, we can discuss things point by point.  If we disagree on anything, I'll probably be the first to just skip the number and agree to disagree.

1) Minimal telegraph and minimal downtime are exactly what guns have.  If melee is to be a possible alternative to gunplay, it needs to be on a similar playing field. At the moment, guns still have a low TTK, aerial superiority, and range.

2) Staggers also keep a player from shooting you and allow you to perform the last required consecutive hits in a sequence.  The 3rd strikes in most of the combos for every weapon also seem to be movement stoppers.  If there is no stagger, the last hit in the combo doesn't connect because the target has moved out of range for one reason or another. The movement stoppers also discourage spamming, even though it apparently doesn't stop most players from just trying to juggernaut it.  The way I see it, the stagger and then kill is like grabbing your opponent to perform a finisher.  It's also fast enough to function enough in a fast environment where taking too long to melee finish your target will get you shot in the back.

Equipped melee requires at least being able to stay on top of one's target, as well as controlling the target so they don't riddle you with bullets while you're striking them.  If staggers were replaced by a mobility freeze and magazine sunder (like striking the gun so it loses its bullets), the result would be the same.  Personally, I would rather see equipped melee capable of moving and striking as fast  and easily as a player can be flying and shooting, along with some sort of major accuracy debuff on strike (because even in movies melee fighters strike guns in order to redirect the bullets).

3) I would love for there to be aimed reflection in Conclave, and especially in PvE, too.  I don't think there's any of such potential, yet, though...and unfortunately.

4) Naz may not be sure, but I am.  I've died spamming various combos because a target got out of range and started shooting at my ground-rooted, slow moving, attack animation locked body.  I've also killed players spamming the combos without thinking.

[Nazrethim]

10 hours ago, Knaimhe said:

What I immediately dislike about these new stances, besides their oversized hitboxes, is that powerful moves come out with minimal telegraphing and carry minimal downtime.

A knockdown might've been preferable.
Staggers lock victims in place. Knockdowns push victims away.

In the first .gif, the stagger from the first hit (which dealt 92+90, by the way) lasted long enough for the melee player to perform aim correction and continue the combo, which likely would've landed no matter what the victim's reaction was, given those very generous hitboxes.
The second .gif had no stagger. It consisted of three sequential hits within half a second, respectively dealing 45, 90, and >(30+100) damage.
Furthermore, that spinning move is first move of a combo (second move after a basic quick slash), which means there is almost no telegraphing, and absolutely no commitment to that combo's movement pattern.

It could, if channeled reflection were updated such that defenders had to aim back at shooters to reflect damage, instead of the automatic reflected aiming that exists presently.
The proportion of damage reflected could be significantly increased (to 80-90%) to compensate for the greater skill requirement.

Sure about that? I can spam Last Herald's spin-to-win combo with ease, and still maintain considerable mobility.
On top of that, Sword & Shield starts with top-of-the-line blocking power, the Silva & Aegis's blocking percentage was recently increased, and channeled blocking was made more efficient (for a negligible tradeoff in blocking angle).

You mean they can get cheesed to death by other noobs throwing around low-telegraph, near-OHK moves, which also stun?

This is not a counterargument. You're just introducing distractions.

You have a radio. There are three main parts that need to work for the radio overall to work: the wiring, the speakers, and the buttons.
Your radio doesn't work. This because the wiring is bad.
You tell me that the speakers and the buttons are just fine.
It does not matter. Your radio is still broken.

-Guns have no telegraphing, if guns don't have it, neither should melee. the melee warning is seeing the player coming to you with a melee weapon drawn.

-Ok, no stagger, better knockdown, and make guns push the target behind covers when you land shots, it would be fair.

-A Tigris would one-shot you (well, technically it's a two-shot in quick succession) and shotguns DO have range, you want melee to take a bazillion hits to kill? To keep up with guns the options are: make melee require a lot of hits and make melee player bulletproof juggernauts or keep melee player ehp the same as a gunplayer but make melee a 2-4hit affair. Choose one.

-Aim-blocking WAS  a thing, I personally developed the trick of headshoting Daikyu long range users and Snipers with their own arrows/bullets, that feature got removed for some reason, it was fun while it lasted though because the kill was listed as a kill with the melee weapon, cue the "WTF?" comments when I somehow killed them with a Nikana from 30m away.

-The only way I get killed by Last Herald is when I stay in it's way instead of dodging to the side or backing off.

-No, I mean they can learn to counter them from an early stage or get them and go the melee path themselves. Remember that the mindset for Conclave is NOT the "I always win" from PvE.

-I mentioned invisibility in response to an off-hand comment made by Witchydragon.

[Stormdragon]

The main changes I'd do to melee is, reducing channeling multiplier, change channeling to drain per second instead of drain per hit to get rid, or at least reduce channeling being an "I win" button

Give a small damage reduction while rooted in those barely moving combos, to give heavy and slow weapons the "I'm a tank" feel, while leaving the agile ones as they are 

(Both of those come thanks to "channeling okina + heartseeker +sword alone easy win combo" I've seen sometimes these days which keeps me thinking of channeling as the main reason for melee being broken) 

Bring back aimed reflection (requires lots of skills to do. Why was it removed?) 

Fix last herald living missile combo, it provides high mobility (with a small rooting time of about 1 second) by simply doing it once and then spam E mindlessly while looking for where to jump next.

And maybe some more I can't think of right now.

[Nazrethim]

3 minutes ago, -----LegioN----- said:

The main changes I'd do to melee is, reducing channeling multiplier, change channeling to drain per second instead of drain per hit to get rid, or at least reduce channeling being an "I win" button

Give a small damage reduction while rooted in those barely moving combos, to give heavy and slow weapons the "I'm a tank" feel, while leaving the agile ones as they are 

(Both of those come thanks to "channeling okina + heartseeker +sword alone easy win combo" I've seen sometimes these days which keeps me thinking of channeling as the main reason for melee being broken) 

Bring back aimed reflection (requires lots of skills to do. Why was it removed?) 

Fix last herald living missile combo, it provides high mobility (with a small rooting time of about 1 second) by simply doing it once and then spam E mindlessly while looking for where to jump next.

And maybe some more I can't think of right now.

-You forgot "Separating Channeling from Energy"

-Considering most of the new stances don't have rooting combos I don't think that would be necessary, I suggested months ago replace SwordAlone's +0.1Mobility for 150-200 Armor, but with the new agile stance that's not required anymore.

-Okina is a dual dagger, Heartseeker is for Single Dagger. I DID suggest removing Channeling and all it's problems more than once, but DE seems to like Channeling as the recent energy regen buff, adding channeling weapons (Fragor Prime, Furax Wraith) and reducing Channel Block ridiculous cost indicate.

-Yeah, this was good, no idea why it was removed.

-The never-ending pause combo with that small bulletjump attack? That's slow as sh*t most of the time and doesn't cover that much ground.

More things:

-Aerial combos when melee is equiped and stanced

-Replace Stagger with "Encumbering on hit for 3s" (locking the player from Bulletjump, Aim Glide and Wall Latch)

-Buff animation speed on Backspring and Sidespring (in general, not just for melee)

[Pythadragon]

15 minutes ago, -----LegioN----- said:

Bring back aimed reflection (requires lots of skills to do. Why was it removed?) 

Aimed reflect was never a thing.

[Nazrethim]

10 minutes ago, Pythadragon said:

Aimed reflect was never a thing.

It was, I discovered that with Eureka.Seven one day we were testing blocking vs daikyu. He took more damage when my crosshairs where on him than when I reflected from the side, even oneshoting himself when I aimed for the head. Granted, it was not accurate, but it was there. Then at some point it got removed, I can't tell when because it wasn't a trick I employed a lot.

[Stormdragon]

7 minutes ago, Nazrethim said:

Okina is a dual dagger, Heartseeker is for Single Dagger. I DID suggest removing Channeling and all it's problems more than once, but DE seems to like Channeling as the recent energy regen buff, adding channeling weapons (Fragor Prime, Furax Wraith) and reducing Channel Block ridiculous cost indicate.

My bad, so this explains why dual knives dissapeared after martial magnetism was changed, while dark dagger became the issue for a while.

2 minutes ago, Pythadragon said:

Aimed reflect was never a thing.

Thanks for correcting, I wasgoing along with this:

3 hours ago, Nazrethim said:

Aim-blocking WAS  a thing, I personally developed the trick of headshoting Daikyu long range users and Snipers with their own arrows/bullets, that feature got removed for some reason, it was fun while it lasted though because the kill was listed as a kill with the melee weapon, cue the "WTF?" comments when I somehow killed them with a Nikana from 30m away.

Anyways, seeing something like that being implemented would be amazing. I guess I'll leave the ideas thing to players who actually know about melee while giving my point of view from a ranged player's perspective.

13 minutes ago, Nazrethim said:

The never-ending pause combo with that small bulletjump attack? That's slow as sh*t most of the time and doesn't cover that much ground.

Yeah, useless as a mobility tool, but being able to use it over and over again on smal rooms or corridors helps a lot. At least it has about 1 second of rooting between jumps.

15 minutes ago, Nazrethim said:

-Replace Stagger with "Encumbering on hit for 3s" (locking the player from Bulletjump, Aim Glide and Wall Latch)

Sounds legit, this way the best chances of a gun player would be taking melee to strike back. I guess cutting enemy mobility instead of a full encumbering should do the trick, this way the melee player increases his chances without leaving the gunner practically defenseless in an environment where mobility seems to be the best defense.

 

[Nazrethim]

1 hour ago, -----LegioN----- said:

Anyways, seeing something like that being implemented would be amazing. I guess I'll leave the ideas thing to players who actually know about melee while giving my point of view from a ranged player's perspective.

Yeah, useless as a mobility tool, but being able to use it over and over again on smal rooms or corridors helps a lot. At least it has about 1 second of rooting between jumps.

Sounds legit, this way the best chances of a gun player would be taking melee to strike back. I guess cutting enemy mobility instead of a full encumbering should do the trick, this way the melee player increases his chances without leaving the gunner practically defenseless in an environment where mobility seems to be the best defense.

 

-It's very "simple" actually. When you channel-block a shot an "invisible bullet" would be fired from your melee weapon in the direction of the crosshairs dealing 50-100% of the damage absorbed. Could even be used in teamfights, say you have a Mirage and a Rhino firing on you, the Rhino has Iron Skin up, so you position yourself in a way that you will block the Rhino's bullets but you are aiming to the fragile Mirage, essentially killing her with her partner's bullets. Something along those lines. Also, the reflect could carry any effect the blocked shot had, like Opticor/Sonicor shots would stagger/knockdown when reflected

-Maybe, but honestly, anyone who decides to stay on a closed space with a melee player pretty much deserves to be killed hahaha

-The reason I choose only Bulletjump, Wall Latch and Aim Glide is because of the uses those have: Bulletjump can be used to directionally get away instantaneously, Aim Glide can be used to double jump up then Aim Glide shoot the melee player below, similar reason for Wall Latch. Such mechanic would leave ground-based evasive maneuvers (roll, backspring, sidespring) to counter-attack/avoid damage or use Wall Hop to get away (you need to aim in the direction you want to Wall Hop so you won't be able to aim your gun). So, the affected player can still counter a melee onslaught, the melee player only cuts off the easy escape and easy kill moves for a short period.

Edited July 29, 2016 by Nazrethim

[rockscl]

i remember doing those aimed blocking reflects for 1hk daikyu users so i would say it was real

[SevenLetterKWord]

On 7/29/2016 at 1:05 AM, Nighttide77 said:

1) Minimal telegraph and minimal downtime are exactly what guns have.  If melee is to be a possible alternative to gunplay, it needs to be on a similar playing field. At the moment, guns still have a low TTK, aerial superiority, and range.

Guns have a significantly greater aiming requirement.

The greatest problem with melee is that the system is inherently low-skill.
I'm not saying all melee players are low-skill, but the payoff for high-skill melee play is disproportionately small.
In attempting to balance a low-skill system for a high-skill environment, DE made melee grossly overpowered.
The best resolution I see is to introduce skillcap-raising mechanics, like the aimed reflection I mentioned earlier.
Expanding aerial melee flexibility would also help. I prefer directional aerial melee swings (such that the swing animation changes with the movement of the cursor when the attack is initiated), but short combos could also work.

On 7/29/2016 at 1:05 AM, Nighttide77 said:

2) Staggers also keep a player from shooting you and allow you to perform the last required consecutive hits in a sequence.  The 3rd strikes in most of the combos for every weapon also seem to be movement stoppers.  If there is no stagger, the last hit in the combo doesn't connect because the target has moved out of range for one reason or another. The movement stoppers also discourage spamming, even though it apparently doesn't stop most players from just trying to juggernaut it.  The way I see it, the stagger and then kill is like grabbing your opponent to perform a finisher.  It's also fast enough to function enough in a fast environment where taking too long to melee finish your target will get you shot in the back.

...

4) Naz may not be sure, but I am.  I've died spamming various combos because a target got out of range and started shooting at my ground-rooted, slow moving, attack animation locked body.  I've also killed players spamming the combos without thinking.

Last Herald's spin attack is easy to spam, safe to spam, and powerful when spammed. It's a mobile attack which projects an extremely large and damaging hitbox.
Forget about the spam-punishing third move. There's no need for that when the second move alone can easily instakill a frame.

On 7/29/2016 at 1:05 AM, Nighttide77 said:

3) I would love for there to be aimed reflection in Conclave, and especially in PvE, too.  I don't think there's any of such potential, yet, though...and unfortunately.

What idea are you trying to convey here? "I don't think there's any of such potential, yet, though...and unfortunately."
If you mean to express concerns about the implementation of an aimed reflection mechanic, allow me to assure you that the mechanic is not unprecedented.
Most recently, and most notably, the mechanic is used in Genji's Deflect in Overwatch.
Apparently, a comparable system also existed in Conclave in the past.

On 7/29/2016 at 5:31 AM, Nazrethim said:

-Guns have no telegraphing, if guns don't have it, neither should melee. the melee warning is seeing the player coming to you with a melee weapon drawn.

In that case, melee players should be required to aim exactly on the intended target in order to land hits.
See where this kind of lax logic, when we freely neglect inconvenient truths, gets us?

Let us not forget that guns have a significantly greater aiming requirement.

On 7/29/2016 at 5:31 AM, Nazrethim said:

-Ok, no stagger, better knockdown, and make guns push the target behind covers when you land shots, it would be fair.

If you want to keep applying this twisted perspective of "fairness", then guns should fire in wide cones, gunfire should inflict knockdowns, and firing shouldn't consume ammo.
Alternatively, we can stop building straw men.

On 7/29/2016 at 5:31 AM, Nazrethim said:

To keep up with guns the options are: make melee require a lot of hits and make melee player bulletproof juggernauts or keep melee player ehp the same as a gunplayer but make melee a 2-4hit affair. Choose one.

Choose "one"?
It seems to me that melee has already chosen the best of both.
Not only is melee blocking incredibly durable, melee strikes are capable of instakilling.
In my experience, this is most apparent with Last Herald and Fateful Truth.

On 7/29/2016 at 5:31 AM, Nazrethim said:

-Aim-blocking WAS  a thing

Then implementing a similar system should be no great challenge.

On 7/29/2016 at 5:31 AM, Nazrethim said:

-The only way I get killed by Last Herald is when I stay in it's way instead of dodging to the side or backing off.

Yes, yes, and "the only time I get killed by guns is when I stay in the line of fire instead of finding cover".
I tire of trading meaningless statements.

[Nazrethim]

28 minutes ago, Knaimhe said:

Last Herald's spin attack is easy to spam, safe to spam, and powerful when spammed. It's a mobile attack which projects an extremely large and damaging hitbox.
Forget about the spam-punishing third move. There's no need for that when the second move alone can easily instakill a frame.

In that case, melee players should be required to aim exactly on the intended target in order to land hits.
See where this kind of lax logic, when we freely neglect inconvenient truths, gets us?

Let us not forget that guns have a significantly greater aiming requirement.

If you want to keep applying this twisted perspective of "fairness", then guns should fire in wide cones, gunfire should inflict knockdowns, and firing shouldn't consume ammo.
Alternatively, we can stop building straw men.

Choose "one"?
It seems to me that melee has already chosen the best of both.
Not only is melee blocking incredibly durable, melee strikes are capable of instakilling.
In my experience, this is most apparent with Last Herald and Fateful Truth.

-Last Herald can't instagib a frame, or at least not a tanky one. Yes, it's spammable, and yes I also think it's too strong for an RMB combo but by no means that amerits the whole melee category to be thrown back into the garbage pile that was un U18.

-We are required to Aim with most weapons, and we have to judge the distance and positioning as well, not only where our enemies are, but where are we going to end up after the combo (something fancy guns don't have). Sword&Whip and Whip stances in fact don't have a "cone" in front of them but more like a straigh line (in exchange for generous range I might add) so you are required to aim.

-Oh yeah, because going pointblank with a Tigris requires top-sniper aiming skills.

-Guns firing on cones? shotguns. Gunfire with knockdown? Sonicor. OPticor has Stagger. I have a better idea: make guns have infinity ammo, but deal poor low damage unless you spend 5 energy per bullet/pellet!

-Blocking is a directional active defense and we can't attack while blocking. You can fire a gun and evade at the same time (unless you use a Bow, but that's a specific case and not a general rule for all guns). Melee Player isn't inherently tankier han a Gunplayer, so the choice was "same ehp, near instagib damage", but if you want melee to require 10 hits to kill  and have 500hp and shield with 300 armor I wouldn't complain. While it's true Last Herald's RMB combo is too strong the comment about Fateful Truth is false, since it requires proper ambush tactics to be effective, the heavy nikana slash can instakill squishy frames and that's ok because a shotgun would do the same, also  requires good eye to land it on a highly mobile target (don't confuse the high damage slash with the way way weaker 4m radius slam knockdown).