After playing around a while with heavy armor and slower two-handed weapons (after mostly playing with bow or magic), I get the feeling that way too many of the bosses attacks cause knockdown effects on the player, which punishes slow-attacking melee builds very harshly.
Firstly, melee builds meant to be slow but hit hard leaves the bosses with a lot of opportunities to attack the player mid-animation. Wearing heavy armor negates a lot of the damage these attacks do, but the actual punishment is the knockdown being able to repeatedly interrupt the players attacks while also giving the enemy easy access to followup attacks, making it incredibly hard to even make use of the damage windows I get as a player. I especially feel this while fighting the winged brood bosses.
Light or medium armor and range is comparatively a lot easier to use both to make use of damage windows, and to avoid the attacks that knock down or stagger the player.
I feel like wearing heavy armor, especially plate, should perhaps negate or reduce the chance of being knocked down, or offer much more poise defense than it already does? I really donât know what can be done, but I feel this is problematic.
Then again, maybe I am doing something wrong? I try to make use of everything I have and increase my characters speed and defenses in order to increase my chances, but I really feel like a lot of boss battles are spent heavy-rolling in between being knocked down to the ground and my attacks being to slow to get any real damage in. On top of this, some bosses are really good at keeping their distance or dodging, which only adds to making heavy melee weapons even harder to use. And when I give up after many failed attempts, I enter the realm with my mage and kill off the bosses without breaking a sweat.
Loving the game and very much looking forward to its development! If anyone has tips or strategies that would help me with this, it would be greatly appreciated.
I have only played as a 2-handed heavy plate melee so far, and have just beaten the Echo Knight. Knockdowns are indeed a massive massive massive pain, but imho not from bosses*.
My main issue is that, until I got a lot of lifesteal, I didnât have a lot of healing solutions. Once I got more lifesteal (ring + gem on weapon), surviving was a bit easier. Regainable health feels like a waste of gems tho. Plate doesnât feel that tanky (but then I havenât played other variations so I donât have more reference points).
In the end, as of now, 2-handed melee is really about opportunities and making sure you donât overextend. I think they are planning for more savage variations with classes (where you can just keep hitting and being hit), but at least today itâs really about finding the right timings. High risk and high reward. Very high risk sometimes.
The Brood for example should be a dodge-fest until you know it will land (after flying by 5 times for example). Then you should know to harrass it like crazy, and go back to running once it flies away.
The worst boss for me was the old man. The blinks made catching him soooo frustrating!
I recently did a knightly zweihÀnder-and-heavy-roll playthrough with a friend on Unspoken, shoving and slamming our way through a world of relatively stagger-resistant enemies. Here are some ideas:
boost attack speed (Willow Cap Ring, rapid/quick facets, attack speed per durability) to reduce the dangers of overcommitting
use Poise Shield and vials to boost poise (mesh gloves, pants, chest + poise shield is enough to reach the poise cap of 50)
learn the difference between guaranteed knockdowns (enemy shield bashes, charges) and hits that do poise damage
use your safe pokes (roll-pokes or run-pokes, especially on Summerâs Sting)
make movement a non-issue with Blink
use advancing or long-reaching runes (Lightning Assault, for instance, or stabs like Wallbreaker)
Generally we didnât get knocked around very much, and even found that the extreme damage resistance of mesh and plate made trading a real option in a pinch. We had more issues adjusting to stamina consumption and had to habituate ourselves to leaving a bit in the tank to escape bigger moves.
Winged Brood is a pain since the bosses stay airborne for a while, but our real test was getting away from a certain old manâs teleport-into-huge-AoE move while fatrolling with no movement speed.
Also, try out new 2-handers! I stuck with the paddle for a bit too long lol, I assumed because all weapons had the same damage they were all more-or-less the same. They are really, really not. Iâm now playing with a brutish cudgel, the gap-closing is mwah.
Your tips are really handy, and thanks for mentioning you played with a friend.
One needs to keep in mind the co-op experience is very different from a single-player experience. What feels manageable in one can feel very different in the other since you donât have a friend to keep the aggro for you.
There is another way to dodge or i should just say move away or move right/left in a heavy build but it might require you to turn off auto target and use a rune that cost stamina like âfront flip kickâ but you aim it backwards or to the side.
Itâs slightly fiddly but you can aim in arbitrary directions with auto-lock-on by keeping the right stick clicked and pulling it away from the enemy. (Nice for baiting out parries in PvP.)
Since you mention runes, I suppose there are also the 2H runes with i-frames (Eruption, Dodge Slamdown, not sure if there are others).
Thank you While your tips may come in handy, Iâm also not sure how much they are applicable to me since I donât have friends who play the game so I always play solo.
The build I have been going for is around Fetid club and full plate armor, the club has the âreliableâ facet, but I will keep a lookout to see if I can find one with the quick facet to try out, as well as perhaps try to use other weapons, movesets and runes that are more forgiving.
Regular enemies knock down attacks are not what I have a problem with, I have learned their patterns and telegraphs, my problem is more centered around how many bosses attacks have knock down effects, because almost regardless of what attack the boss will do, it will result in a knockdown or stagger if i get hit.
I do use a maxed out willow cap ring and it helps, but the attack speed is still quite slow and I often get interrupted/knocked down during both regular attacks, charged attacks and rune use. I personally donât like the enchantments that scale with durability because I consider them very unbalanced (broken even) as I also tried to bring up in this previous post:
But yes, it is completely my own fault that I choose not to use those enchantments currently.
I see! Makes sense that you wouldnât go for lighter armour then. For the Fetid Club, I tried making it work with stagger-based enchantments and granite, for which reliable is one of the best facets; but the weapon always felt risky to me. The wind-up is so slow.
Tangent on enchantments
Not your fault, but instead a very respectable choice!
I feel like everyone who enjoys the combat has their own rules for âethicalâ builds. For instance, I refuse enchantment power and only use durability-based enchantments on items that do not have a facet/enchantment to double-dip.
Durability as a system is meaningless currently except by offering enchantments that are either double-dipping or illogically stronger on heavier armour, which I consider the better choice mechanically already. The intended function of durability, which is forcing a break when repeatedly failing, is not being fulfilled.
Despite my suggestion to use it, my pet peeves are attack speed and the stamina enchantment on pants, which together completely offset the trade-offs of entire weapon classes and armour weights. On the other hand, some weapons are pointlessly slow compared to others, so Iâm always looking for the minimum attack speed to run such that a heavy weapon still feels fair and not completely risk-free.
A heavy weapon shouldnât be designed around requiring attack speed to feel decent. Some 1H axes are also rubbish without it.
And it really bothers me that some weapons have completely pointless endlag despite being fast, like most 1H daggers and some combo finishers on straight swords. Since those feel too fast with attack speed, Iâm always careful to avoid parts of their moveset and avoid finishing combos, which surely isnât the best design.
Stagger has the benefit of making safe windows for you, but I guess the club isnât optimal for safely building it up. Could also try frost since build-up scales with damage to generate safe openings. Of my previous suggestions I really recommend Blink â you can cancel some movesâ endlag with it, like the sprint-jump of the club.
If you want a quick club, they drop somewhat reliably from the Twins and their Pestilence clones, as well as that one weekly bounty with the golden giant. (I think I have one too if youâre proving unlucky.)
I agree with everything youâre saying. The wind-up on the fetid club is maybe whatâs causing me so much trouble. incidentally, I did find a Quick facet fetid club just today, going to upgrade and try it out later.
On my current club, I have the Reliable facet and a mottled granite gem slotted, and the poise damage is crazy useful, but I still find it difficult to get enough hits on bosses in fast enough succession for them to get staggered/stunned, but I love it when it gets there!
I agree that durability currently feels meaningless, and that the durability-scaling enchantments are better for heavier armor doesnât really make sense to me either. I would much rather see a souls-like exp-loss or something similar as punishment for being killed, over gear just losing durability and needing repairs.
Another pet-peeve of mine is honestly the damage potential of the heavy-hitting two-handers compared to magic, for example. I think the developers will find a good balance eventually, but currently, my mage can one-hit most mobs across the screen dealing thousands of damage per hit and defeat bosses in a matter of seconds, while my fetid club usually hits for around 500-800, but requires melee range, slow wind-ups and a much greater risk of being hit and attacks being interrupted.
But I digress. I will try the Quick facet club and getting some more armor penetration and stuff on my gear, and Iâll see how it goes.
Thank you for all your tips and input, itâs greatly appreciated!
I played heavy build from the start of the game, because it took me a while to grasp this animation based combat. But after dying a lot, i get rid of 2 handed weapons, they are just too slow or i am to slow for them, and use shield and one handed sword instead. Thanks to the shield (like good shield) you can block 1-3 attacks, depending on the boss, and after couple of tries, what attacks you should just avoid. Still the game is very hard for me, but at least itâs easier than with 2 handed. Also many bosses have very hard readable timings and in many cases strange AOE. Because some bosses are easy. Like 2-5 times, and you won. But with others i used like 20-30 tries.
Oh and i canât complete crucible, if i donât forget training caves name. Only once i managed get to that giant speaking worm.
Iâm not sure how many hours you have, but I am sure you will get to beat the crucible once you find a build that you like and that works for your playstyle
I have currently also left 2-handers behind me and swapped to a really tanky shield-and-mace build (using the âHeartâs Desireâ shield and âThe Last Wordâ mace) and even though the damage is not very high, the amount of damage I can take and both my stagger resistance and stagger damage currently is kind of insane. It doesnât get kills as fast as my mage build, but itâs a lot of fun to play!
i am doing another âclothhanderâ playthrough now, using a 2H sword and cloth armor, staying within fast equip weight.
i believe fast has as much advantage as heavy in the case of 2handers
iâm using Summerâs Sting - which i consider an S tier weapon for many reasons - i was lucky enough to drop two: quick and reliable. i mostly use the quick, but the reliable wins by a landslide for endgame usefulness for massive base dmg and stagger
reasons i think Summerâs Sting is FTW:
normal attack has a near screen wide arc
fast swings
great run-attack strike
hits like a truck
any rune attack hit like an orbital truck
that said, i got through the start of the game with Climberâs Pick and then Weeping Earth - both solid weapons - damn sight easier than my wakizashi + cloth + no shield playthrough
iâm just on the marin woods/lowland meadows questline. i have rag-tag random gear on (i managed to find rapid gloves!) and gems in weapons.
if you like i can send videos of fights VS caretaker, weeping sisters, unbreakable egg ? just to show off the weapon
While your tips may come in handy, Iâm also not sure how much they are applicable to me since I donât have friends who play the game so I always play solo.