At the last team update video developers mentioned 2 things:
Heavy loadout in PvP is pointless because mobility of light loadout gives to you much more survivability (when you kite properly) in addition to its damage bonus. In PvE heavy’s resistances are good but in PvP lack of mobility only hurt you. So developers said that they want to improve impact of wearing heavy set in PvP.
Developers see statistics that nobody except tanks with tower shields use block. Everybody use only dodge (this is evident because heavy attack of every relatively “heavy” melee weapon oneshots every block except tower shields). Developers said that they want to make blocking viable for more archetypes of characters.
To solve both of these problems I would like to suggest one decision - analog of PARRY.
How it works:
While in heavy loadout for ~0.2 second after activation of block all incoming stamina damage is additionally reduced by ~75%. Also while this 0.2-second parry timer is active all “non-shield” melee weapons (GA, WH, Spear, Rapier, Hatchet) can block ranged projectile attacks (SnS does it by default).
Preventing some of your comments: reactivation of block after previous block has pretty high delay (about 1s) so you won’t be able to spam block button to keep parry active for 100% of time. Also you will need to time your parry to get use of it. Otherwise for your mistake you will be punished by big standart stamina damage (as it is now).
Additional improvements of parry (just ideas, final decision is yours):
Counter-stagger.
Also such parry may be should apply small stagger to opponent (for about 0.2 second) after successful parry of incoming MELEE attack (parry evidently should NOT stagger ranged classes).
This will add more skill-based mechanics to melee gameplay and will move gameplay of melee classes further from stupid lmb spam.
Damage reflect.
After successful parry of melee attack may be you also should reflect back about ~20-30% of base damae of that attack (before your resistances) back to attacker (again ranged classes should not receive this reflected damage).
This also will encourage skillful gameplay and punish lmb spammers.
So basically the idea is to add “block” option, called parry to non shield melee weapons? what’s purpose of shield then? And I can not see rapier or spear or any other tight weapon on stick blocking anything more than air.
In many games parry realised as “perfect block” which requires more personal skill and gives more benefits from its use.
In New World you can use usual block whenever you want and as long as you want. This is simple and will be the less relevant defensive option for most of classes as long as it is so simple.
This idea of parry requires you to perfectly time your block (to use “perfect block” in other words). This requires more personal skill and gives more benefits because such parry will be the most relevant defensive option for character archetypes that logically supposed to do that.
It is kind a “high risk high reward” because for your mistake you will be punished by standard stamina damage (which is the less relevant defensive option relative to dodge right now because everybody now using dodges by this reason) and you will be punished by inability to block ranged attack if you tried to do it.
So the current ranking of defensive options for melee classes (except tanks with tower shields) is:
Dodge - the most effective by stamina management. And the most skillful.
Block - the worst option by stamina management. And the less skillful.
And after adding such parry it will be:
Parry - the most effective by stamina management and maybe other additional effects (but also and harder to do relative to dodge and with additional risks to get “guard break” from your opponent). And the most skillful.
Dodge - fine option but still requires more stamina than parry (and less punishing for mistakes because you still take distance from your opponent, so even if you timed dodge not perfectly you can defence your self by that distance).
Block - the worst option by stamina management. And the less skillful. But it still doesn’t mean that tanks with tower shields should never block because this class has enough blocking stability to feel fine while blocking (tanks just will have additional option to counter some mechanics by using personal skill).
Right now grit effect of 300-str attribute bonus and of some other WH and GA passives lasts not for 100% time even when bruiser with 300-str spam light or heavy attacks.
In the end of each attack before the next attack bruiser with 300-str has no grit. So actually there is window for “not-stun” control effects (like stagger or push back or knock down effects).
Parry will prock its stagger only when incoming attack was successful parry. What means that your opponent need to end his attack to make it damage you (evidently) to you should be able to parry him.
In other words your parry will stager after end of attack right in that “not-grit” window.
So it looks this way:
Start of attack (with grit or without grit, does not matter actually).
Attack animation (with grit).
End of attack with dealing damage (without grit after it). — 4. Parry at this time.
Stagger from parry in window when there is no grit.
This subsequence works and with other abilities that have grit (because evidently they don’t give grit after their end). If I’m not mistake the only exception will be hatchet’s berserk ability (berserk supposed to do berserking).
