Now, at the moment, PvP is kind of in a strange spot.
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Glass cannons are doing the damage they should be and are dying fast, that’s good.
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Ranged does really good damage, this is also good.
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Mages are… I dunno.
*Melee in general on some weapons feels powerful, on others not so much, this should probably be fixed at some point by buffing some weapons.
The newest PTR has indicated that the Great Axe is getting nerfed. The ridiculous lunge range is no more and now it’s more in line with other weapons. However, while this is a good change, there is absolutely no denying that Great Axe was one of the only weapons in the game that could counter being endlessly kited around.
So, the issue that I can see happening in the not so distant future is that being kited around a lot is going to be the new normal.
High mobility setups that favor high burst damage and slippery playstyles will outperform raw frontline melee setups simply because they can easily escape out of situations that other players can’t, and they deal so much damage, even from range, that trying to chase them down is a gamble.
Currently, there is hardly any counter to this playstyle if you aren’t using a ranged weapon.
AGS needs to realize that if left unchecked, this will ruin the PvP scene for this game. Please realize that this post isn’t defending the broken tracking on Great Axe, this is merely meant to comment on something that needs to be kept in check.
A very simple solution to this problem would be to buff chase moves and increase their tracking.
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Leaping Strike for the sword is an amazing skill to chase people down, and the added 50% slow if your opponent is hit in the back is a god send if you want to really catch the person. However, it cannot be used to punish someone who is kiting you reliably because its cooldown is on the longer side.
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Charge for the Great Axe is great and deals a lot of damage if you land if after initiating it from far away, but once again, it cannot be to reliably kill runners due to its cooldown being very long.
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Feral Frenzy for the hatchet is just god awful as it doesn’t have enough forward movement to connect after most dodges, and that’s a shame because it could be really good to chase people down with, especially with it’s root perk.
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Skewer for the spear just doesn’t go far enough. Make it go far. Like, Leaping Strike levels of far, then you have a good move.
Overall, the tools are there to catch people, it’s just that they cannot be used enough to reliably catch someone.
Like I said, this cannot be left unchecked, otherwise PvP is dominated by this passive aggressive playstyle of “keep away and damage from afar then kite them when they get close.”
Oh, you could also like, increase the tracking of all heavy attacks! ya know, to catch dodges! It wouldn’t do anything against light armor users, but it would certainly help sometimes.
TL;DR
Kiting will get worse and worse if the tools to counter it (aside from range because that’s a no brainer) aren’t good enough to do so. Buff chase Skills, and buff the tracking of certain abilities so they can be used to catch players who do nothing in PvP other than keep at a distance and kite enemies all day, otherwise, Melee classes, and even healers will be outmatched by these high burst damage, high mobility setups.