Melee combat, Yeah, Again.

[Woot]

Melee falls far far behind UA, this has always been so, At least against armored foes, A great irony considering a sword would be more effective against armor than a fist. as is, hybrid is the only way to bring a sword or axe into the fight at all. and this has been a problem for a long long time, I made my first thread here: viewtopic.php?f=5&t=19163
And now I revisit it, with more ideas, some of the same ideas, and a few ideas brought up in that thread, Let's all make suggestions to further the melee combat in haven and hearth, or at least compile some ideas for possible use in Hafen!

Suggestions
-Remove penetration damage from UA, and put it on melee instead, I believe 15% of damage breaks through regardless of armor on an unarmed punch, I would see the reverse, and let that be the method of putting melee where it belongs.
-Add Additional shields, Gaining addition armor and deflection, at the cost of agi, much like regular armors, Using the exact stats of the helmets in the game.
Leather buckler 2 sheets of leather, 120 hp 5/30
Round Shield 2 wrought iron, 1 leather 225hp 30/10 -1 Agility
Bronze Shield 2 bronze 1 leather 275hp 40/40 -3 Agility
Kite Shield 2 steel 1 leather 425hp 50/25 -3 agi
Dragon Shield 300hp 60/30 +6str +5 melee
Bar of Steel x2, Gold Nugget x3, Silver Nugget x3, Bronze Nugget x4


Maneuvers

Parry: A basic defense on par with dodge, Requires Weapon in hand, 1.00 weight, the shield stance would still net you 1.25, so there is advantage to both, Parry would be for b-12s and people who like to keep a trav sack and shield

Feint: A death or glory knock off, But for melee fighters, Weight is .75 so you temporarily reduce your defense, but net yourself delta IP, A great boon for the IP hungry melee fighters, But woe unto you who get's hit while using it, Much like bloodlust.

Press: Weight 1.00 gain delta times .2 advantage, and lose 5% defense, A good way to sneak the advantage in your favor, but overuse it, and find yourself dangerously open to attack.


Moves
Shove: Cost 4 IP, Intensity +2 +.5 advantage Enemy attack recuced by half, semi-long cooldown

Attacks
Slash: Sword attack 1.00 weight, half damage, A good alternative to sting. as it has no IP cost
Cleave: Axe attack 5IP 1.00 weight 1.5 dmg A good alternative to Vstrike, for the finisher.
Shield Bash: 4IP shield attack, .75 weight Deals no damage, if defense is broken, forces a debuff called concussed! Locks user in walk speed, reduces agi by 15% for 30seconds x delta
Hamstring 6IP .5 melee weight, no direct damage, Locks enemy in crawl maneuver if hit, 20secs xdelta, also causes damage on par with thorn in foot.




Will add more as I go.

[loic71]

So first of all, if melee sucks, why does everyone wear B12 or Soldier's swords?

Slash : Sword attack 1.00 weight, half damage, A good alternative to sting. as it has no IP cost

Slash : No IP cost, 200 base damage with a soldier's sword.
Punch : No IP cost, 37.5 base damage.

And remove armor penetration of UC, give it to MC...

Seems legit.

[Woot]

120 ish soldiers sword, seems to be about the norm to high for what is running around.
However, bear/troll skin leather CTCs and ranger boots and such cap out much much higher for what you can hope to achieve, Even palibasher levels of str are having a hard time breaching the armor of their counterparts, So arguing on the basis of soldier swords massive damage doesn't net you much credit for knowing how stuff works in the trenches.

B12 however, you make an excellent point. Perhaps armor penetration is not the way, or perhaps it should be 10% for melee, 15% for UA.

Also, base damage for a soldiers sword is 300 this world is it not? wiki says both, how silly.
http://ringofbrodgar.com/wiki/Soldier%27s_Sword

Edit: Also, melee is being used in hybrid, because you cannot maneuver dance as pure melee, thus limiting you significantly when you attempt to build bars for an attack, or defense, If you had 1000 melee and 1 UA, and you swapped from shield to oak stance, you would have 1 defense, and not only that, while in that maneuver, you would have -2 delta vs your opponent, allowing them to very very very rapidly rebuild bars during that time.
So you are stuck with moves only if you wanted to go pure melee, A much less effective fighting type for multiple reasons.
As is, the best way to fight is to punch down bars, and prepare for a Vstrike with your b12, Finishing up, with roughly 1/3 melee to UA.

[NOOBY93]

This is stupid, nobody kills people with only punches. You kill someone with a b12 that's fow it works. Melee is a bit OP with val strike as well.

[Arcanist]

I think perhaps 5% penetration for meelee would be good, and 5% for archery too, just so that it's actually useful in combat.
The extra stances and moves? No, val strike is already way too OP, as are high quality b12s

But hey, the ones who actually use the combat system should have a better idea of what would work better.

[loic71]

Archery is smoked yet; aim, ctrl+left click is broken.

I hope they won't boost this skill without first repairing it.

[Arcanist]

Ctrl + left click works for me...

Or do you mean that we shouldn't have ctrl+left click?

[loic71]

Ctrl + left click works for me...

Or do you mean that we shouldn't have ctrl+left click?

Exactly, because this is broken.

Example, there are some creatures inside land.
Aim one, ctrl+left click to your boat, shoot, they will come to you, thus you can snipe them safely from your boat.

And for a PvP exemple : You cross someone's path, you keep a straight direction as if you didn't see him, when you almost don't see him anymore aim him, ctrl+left click away continuing your move, he will feel safe, you know when he is moving or not, and can shoot him whenever you want...

This is plain broken (specially if he's foolishly using the basic game client).

That's not a so bad thing that it's not that imba against late game full steel stuffed abusators...

Edit : I would even add chances to bounce on armor.

Edit 2 - Yes I'm insterested : I think the best would actually be to disallow shooting at someone we don't see, add odds to bounce and odds to penetrate.
And also find a way so animals flee when being shot and they can't reach the target (breaking traps if there are any) examples :
- Killing bears with 10 MM from a boat.
- Trapping self near a big stone and killing a whole herd of mouflons / aurochs...

Oh, and I didn't mentionned an abused technique which consists in aggro-ing a boar from a boat (with a punch unfinished), so the boar come next to the river, hit it hard with a ranged weapon, so it flees, and then go after it, and finish it with a punch (passing all armors in the process) - Or how to kill a boar with 10 mm and 20 strength...

[Woot]

This is stupid, nobody kills people with only punches. You kill someone with a b12 that's fow it works. Melee is a bit OP with val strike as well.

It's not stupid, And yeah, Finishing is done with a vstrike with a b12, I said that as well, My problem is that you must rely on hybrid to get anything done with a sword or axe, because of all the maneuvers being strictly UA. also, Sting has lost almost all meaning, except against unarmored nooblets.
I want my sword back!

UA by itself is mediocre
Hybrid is ideal
And Melee by itself is completely unusable.

[loic71]

All the combat system is fucked for every type.
That's what makes it quite balanced finally, weirdly.

But if you think UC is imbalanced, then please go UC, you won't even have to craft any weapon if not Knuckles.