Kestrel, The Space transport no more. SeEnCreaTive's comprehensive feed back about the Kestral mainly, as well as other thrown melees

[SeEnCreaTive]

It seems Mirage prime has brought an under the radar change to my beloved Kestrel. Easily far and above all others, my most used weapon, and by my join date, you can imagine what that would mean.

  Originally, in the before times, the Kestrel would knock people down, but seemingly a glitch; once blast damage was added, it would send enemies to space. Thrown attack would comically knock enemies straight into the sky box in whatever direction they were hit... Unless they smacked an object in the way of course. It was probably the most entertaining thing in the game.

 

A few updates ago, they "fixed" ;) the problem. (maybe 9? or 10? I can't put my finger on it, around the time they tried to change originally to a charge based quick melee throw) But if I remember correctly it made them just stumble, it didn't even knock them down unless on the rare chance you got a Blast proc. At the time I argued the Kestrels lack of damage, was made up for the utility to send foes that can't be dealt with at this exact moment far, far, far away. So when they came back, I should now have the ability to deal with them. this allowed you to delay a damage dealer, or separate an Ancient from the pack to weaken them. (I also argued the insane time it would take to throw the thing. But different story. They have an awesome balance now... kind of anyways.)

  Shortly afterwards, it was back. Quick throw, and ragdoll launcher combined. But, toned down. It would still knock enemies flying, but now "only" about 150 meters or so, not into orbit. I felt this was an alright compromise. If simply for entertainment purposes (and the nice utility of course). Still hilarious and still my farourite thing. Up until now of course

  Now it seems it just knocks enemies down. That being said, it does more damage on throws I think. Nearly 100% crit chance regularly doing very high amounts of damage to anyone, not just Corpus. It also does a MUCH better job at hitting multiple enemies. It looks to bounce in the direction of the nearest enemy, easily chaining multiple hits until the bounce count has hit its limit and it comes back. I will say this feels much more balanced, Im not going to lie, Kestrel could be pretty op if an enemy could be knocked down. You could send them to space and insta kill them. Bosses included (story for another time... See: Alad V before they added invisible walls and respawns xD). But now I feel this is overall worse.

 

Now the meat of the post:

  I would still like to argue for utility over damage. The knock down does feel a bit too short, and more importantly, I would like to use the environment to my advantage, and strategically but temporarily knock specific enemies out of play. I believe that would add massive depth to gameplay. Which the devs know of course, I remember many streams ago they wanted to bring more of the environment into play. This was shortly before we got the overhauled sabo missions. Utilizing cliffs, lava pits and so forth to my advantage. This can be done with the Kestrel.

  Im not calling for a Ctrl-Z on the changes. Im hoping for even just a 5-10 meter knock back. Something small to add a slightly longer stun time, separate enemies, and more importantly take advantages of such hazards, and even more importantly again, to differentiate from other thrown melees like the Glaive more-so then just damage type. Esspecially if damage 3.0 is on the horizon sometime in the future. Even if that means a slight damage nerf. And perhaps as a not so great compromise, Knock down, and knock back, would be only on charge. So quick throw would only knock down, and charge would throw them. Perhaps everything in between as well. Maybe a 1m knock back on quick throw, to a 10 meter knock back on full charge. You could adjust the numbers how ever you'd like. Personally like I said, I would like at least some knock back even on a quick melee throw still, even just a few meters, But I understand balance is... well, a thing.

 

Sidenote: Anyone remember the original release Bo? Didn't do much damage, but was a heck of a lot of fun knocking everyone off their feet.

 

 

Other things on the side:

1: Forward step can be a bit annoying in some specific cases.

2: More often then not it misses your aiming reticle when thrown 

3: Size seems to be smaller then the model? I feel that Im missing WAY more then I ever used to (although it does feel a bit better in this update, perhaps theres a slight homing on throw, much like it currently aims for other enemies after a bounce)

4: Quick melee is straight up better then using it as a main Stance. Its MUCH faster, and allows you to dynamically combine throws and hits in any way you like in a very fluid, natural and fast way. I could easily take a few swings, immediately throw it at something, jump way up in the air as its coming back and ground slam after I catch it mid air. This is seriously satisfying. In the same way God of War is. No specific move chains, this allows the player to combo the moves how ever which creative way they like. (I argued this for all stances when they came out originally actually) Stances are ok, but with a thrown melee stance, the swings are slow, tedious, and when you want to throw it, difficult to initiate.  As many of the combos involve holding E at one point, you have to stop, wait for the extra time a combo specific animation takes to stop, then press and hold E allowing you to charge and release at will. (I will say the variable charge like a bow is a god send, much better then that odd charge only system I alluded to earlier, that was in only for a few weeks. You can quickly-ish throw it or charge for more damage) Ground slams are difficult to use when using it as a main as well, as it prioritizes mid air spins over ground slam unless you are looking straight down. All of this breaks flow, combined with the slow speed, and awkwardly long (although awesome) animations, makes using thrown melees with a stance really not great

5: When dual wielding with a Pistol, right click to aim, gets in the way of some combos, as some combos use right click in them. And you can't block since that is also right click. Combined with everything in number 4.... just turn dual wielding off. Quick melee is much better.

 

 

 

 

 

   

 

 

Edited December 15, 2017 by SeEnCreaTive