I get that the backstab is to be rewarded for stealth and knowing enemy attacks but the issue here is it oneshots nearly even if your weapon is heavily underleveled. The big scary knight guys are oneshot by base weapons, even daggers which don’t have a special multiplier as far as I can tell are completely killed by it. We’re as slow as the enemies sure but we can learn their attack patterns and they can’t learn ours so they’re left vulnerable for too long.
I think they should either take less damage or swivel faster so you can’t just run around them to their back after an attack,
Yes im noticing this now. A lot of heavy and shield enemies lock themselves in a direction for far too long after an attack pattern and you can easily just run behind and backstab.
Currently even using a Heavy Load build and im able to backstab nearly all the Tanth enemies extremely easily just by sprint around them after their attack sequence.
On my overall speed increased light rogue character, its insanely easy on every enemy.
.I think a good balance solution would be reduce base damage on backstabs in “In Combat” backstabs" but allow the increased backstab damage enchantments to remain at full damage. This would mean that a backstab build could still be useful in combat, and their out of combat backstabs would virtually be lethal every time.
I think also a balance pass that kind of highlights certain traditional backstab weapons like daggers as high output backstab weapons, will tamping down on other less intuitive backstab damage types (hammers etc)
i am a huge fan of this! this should be a thing. using different tactics than just unga bunga should be rewarded with a crit dmg multiplier.
i would even go so far to request the same for parries, parrying should matter, not only by following with a rune attack u can use anytime anyways. you should get a riposte, similar to the backstab now, that gives u crit dmg.
and the same for poise breaks. if u manage to fill the enemy poise bar and stun them, you should get a crit multiplier too.
those are all combat tactics that make combat different, if rewarded appropriately. otherwise all feels the same.
Yeah i think there should be a non rune alternative to a parry advantage. The way parry staggers work right now is, they actually have their own stagger state that is seperate from the stagger bar. You cant apply more stagger status while they are in this downed state, so it can be sort of a detriment to parry an enemy that is 90% staggered, if you didnt need the runic.
You can run behind for a free backstab, but it feels a little less obvious to do so. If the animation team want to make a new frontal finisher animation for staggered enemies, im all for it, but a weapon critical could be a cheaper solution.
Riposte would probably need animators to do a bit more work every every weapon, as you would need to blend the parry into an attack that looks fluid with each weapon type. It think initially the devs have imagined runes to be the riposte, but given how some weapons have only buff runes, this is a slight oversight.
The Fetid Club Unique 2 handed Great Club which you can get off the Echo Knight has the effect “Damage increased by 40% against Staggered Enemies” Which is entired unique to this weapon. I think this could be something interesting added to the random enchantment pool of weapons.