Great axe on release of the game was fun to play. Its attacks had good lunge to them that helped combat the non-stop kiting kits.
AGS has steadily removed and peeled away all of melee weapons tools to counter ranged/mage builds.
The one exception I can think of is the change they made a while back that makes everyone be unable to sprint after being struck by a melee attack for a short duration and reducing the dodge roll distance in that same window.
Literally every other patch since release has been non-stop nerfs to Sword (attack tree and abilities), Hatchet (left-side melee tree), Great Axe (Across the board tar & feathering that never seems to end), Hammer (see GA description of sustained kick the dog treatment because AGS thinks bruisers are too meta while fighting in Healers Sacred Ground but dont want to nerf healers so instead keep lighting bruisers on fire).
This last time they threw us in the dumpster with kerosene and a match and buffed weapons that already dominated bruiser.
AGS doesnt seem to comprehend that the vast majority of us don’t queue up with pocket healers and all builds have the same luxury to do so. Making melee only viable with a pocket healer alienates a large contingent of the player base from enjoying their experience.
Either theyre listening to the wrong feedback on how to balance or they need to change their philosophy. The changes the game makes, I would think, should be focused with the end goal in mind to promote the most enjoyment for the broadest amount of players that they can achieve.
They should not be making changes that a tiny portion of the player base advocates for (especially when it is self-interested and calls for all other builds to be diminished and their favored build boosted to reign over them). If the changes are going to make entire roles feel terrible, uncompetitive, and entirely dependent on others to function there is a core issue with nerfing roles into the dirt so that they can’t stand alone in pvp. If the only fun to be had is for pre-made organized groups with the combat balance direction AGS is just going to kill the solo player base (pvp).
Atm its ben shoved into the play mage or bow box or suffer. The style of combat was so much more fun in the first 2-4 months of the game.
What’s even worse is AGS has buffed ranged dex and mage safe sally playstyles so much the past year to dominate in pvp (besides point control) that the players that main those roles are going to be upset when AGS finally wakes up and nerfs them sensibly to establish some balance between roles. The ranged and mage roles have been on top for so long they feel entitled to lord over everyone. They arent going to accept being on an even playing field when theyve been by default dominating leaderboards in every mode relevant to damage or kills.
If you miss a melee attack, which will always happen because of iframes, you get rooted. Your opponent is free to run away, especially if they have more haste/movement speed than you.
The melee tracking is not as good as you might think it is.
Removing melee tracking, but allowing more fluid movement while meleeing would be a big improvement for melee combat.
The melee player has to start the chase phase again, and they can do no damage during this phase.
When you melee, you can hit someone once or twice in a row, then they dodge and you have to dodge or use an ability to hit them again. If they dodge this attack, you get rooted, and it all starts over again. You often have to retreat at this point or the enemy is long gone or you are dead.
true, but most melee’s have a lot of haste in their kit (GS/GA/Hatchet), gap closer, root’s. u get the point. and on high range u can easy dodge fs attacks by walking not in a straight line, hide behind an object or facetank it, while being healed.
The root at the end of charge on greataxe also ruins your chase ability its so easy to dodge it then can’t charge again for more time then it takes for them to dodge 6+ times and they are now 40m away. Even with zephyr and bloodlust you can’t keep up with the unlimited stam dex light dodges with haste. If you do catch up rapier will take them far away. Or they will pummel you while you try to get to them then while you have to waste stam dodging their attacks to then get immediately destroyed upon reaching them. This doesn’t even include the fact that you are an open target to 20 other ranged when you go to fight just 1 of them
I think this is the big issue. When I use the bow, I just rapid shot the melee attacking my teammates and it usually kills the light armor players and it might kill or force medium armor players to retreat.
They could alternatively increase the strength melee damage significantly, so strength melee is a really big threat, like killing people in 3 or 4 light attacks, so you can kill a target and get out before dying. I assume people wouldn’t like that, though, heh.
so should they balance it around wars which 5% of the game pop participates in. Or should they balance it around arenas which are ruined by healers? OPR is the only sensible pvp mode to balance the game by right now tbh.
Only certain builds in the game can deal with healers and if your not playing one or your teammates aren’t playing one a healer matchup is an instant loss. Regardless ranged players dominate in OPR (Bow/FS) and arena (IG/X). Melee is only decent in wars and even that is up for question right now. OPR we have the most data for and it seems pretty straight foward that ranged players gettign 20+ kills with 1-2 deaths in opr is bad and they can start with fixing that. Either changing the map or changing the weapons.
