In Souls-Likes Knifes are often the worst weapon category, they have low range, low poise damage, they dont’ filch enemies, and many otre problems.
In NRFTW Knifes are ALMOST viable, They are the worst weapons at dealing with gropes of enemies but If the devs gave us AOE runes that work well with knives the problem would be solved. You can have fun with them, but they are all clearly worst then the blood-runted Sword.
They are also little underpowered in stats, I think the reason is also that they weigh little As I have already said on other occasions, I think that all weapons should be equally strong, and that therefore it would be better if they all had the same weight (even if it’s not realistic) to remove any ambiguity on the matter.
But in my opinion the thing that is holding them back are problems in the Movesets.
Key Symbols:
: Perfect/Low margins of improvement
: There are clear ways to improve the attack
: Should be improved
: Doesn’t work well/It’s terrible
: It could be problematic but I have to test more
Hunter’s Knife
The third attack, even if it has a considerably longer animation (almost double the duration), does the same damage as the other attacks (should do almost double the damage), the attack while running and the one after the roll have a recovery animation that is too long and this is a very unpleasant and problematic pause for a fast weapon like a knife.
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Basic Attack: Two horizontal slash that have little AOE but more range than you would expect followed by a forward spin + slash, this third forward spin + slash takes about twice as long as the other two attacks and should also do double the damage but instead deals about 20% more damage (but this is due to the fact that it is the third attack and not the fact that it has the longest duration) to be balanced this attack should do 100%-120% more damage than the first attack.
Charged Basic Attack: Each attack has its own charged version, this is the best way to do charged attacks but in the case of knifes the charging is too long, Different weapons have different Charged Attack Charging speeds, and in my opinion knives should have the fastest one (the same as the Scimitar or faster). -
Running Attack: (This attack is shared between all daggers) Dash forward and stab, there is a strange pause after the stab, the recovery animation is too long, if that pause was removed all the daggers would be more fun because the basic combo would start smoothly afre the Running Attack.
Charged Running Attack: None, It would be ok if after the attack the basic combo would start smoothly. -
Roll Attack: Same as Running
Charged Roll Attack: Same as Running
A Singular Purpose
Similar problems to the Hunter’s Knife, they have almost identical moves, but I have to say the small differences between these moves are nice and since they are equivalent and there is no one better than the other it’s fine.
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Basic Attack: (Similar to the Hunter’s Knife Basic Attack) Forward spin + slash followed by Two horizontal slash that have little AOE but more range than you would expect, this first forward spin + slash takes about twice as long as the other two attacks and should also do double the damage to be balanced this attack should do 80%-100% more damage.
Charged Basic Attack: Each attack has its own charged version, this is the best way to do charged attacks but in the case of knifes the charging is too long, Different weapons have different Charged Attack Charging speeds, and in my opinion knives should have the fastest one (the same as the Scimitar or faster). -
Running Attack: (This attack is shared between all daggers) Dash forward and stab, there is a strange pause after the stab, the recovery animation is too long, if that pause was removed all the daggers would be more fun because the basic combo would start smoothly afre the Running Attack.
Charged Running Attack: None, It would be ok if after the attack the basic combo would start smoothly. -
Roll Attack: (Same as the Hunter’s Knife Basic Attack) Two horizontal slash that have little AOE but more range than you would expect followed by a forward spin + slash, this third forward spin + slash takes about twice as long as the other two attacks and should also do double the damage but instead deals about 20% more damage (but this is due to the fact that it is the third attack and not the fact that it has the longest duration) to be balanced this attack should do 100%-120% more damage than the first attack.
Charged Roll Attack: Each attack has its own charged version, this is the best way to do charged attacks but in the case of knifes the charging is too long, Different weapons have different Charged Attack Charging speeds, and in my opinion knives should have the fastest one (the same as the Scimitar or faster).
Butcher’s Work
Similar problems to the Hunter’s Knife, they have almost identical moves, but I have to say the small differences between these moves are nice and since they are equivalent and there is no one better than the other it’s mostly fine, I think this weapon should have a different running attack to differentiate itself more.
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Basic Attack: (Same as the Hunter’s Knife Basic Attack) Two horizontal slash that have little AOE but more range than you would expect followed by a forward spin + slash, this third forward spin + slash takes about twice as long as the other two attacks and should also do double the damage but instead deals about 20% more damage (but this is due to the fact that it is the third attack and not the fact that it has the longest duration) to be balanced this attack should do 100%-120% more damage than the first attack.
Charged Basic Attack: Each attack has its own charged version, this is the best way to do charged attacks but in the case of knifes the charging is too long, Different weapons have different Charged Attack Charging speeds, and in my opinion knives should have the fastest one (the same as the Scimitar or faster). -
Running Attack: (This attack is shared between all daggers) Dash forward and stab, same as the otter knifes but it dose not make sanse in this weapon, because it doesn’t have a tip, i usually ignore these details of realism, but since all knives have this attack it would be nice if this one had a different attack.
Charged Running Attack: None, It would be ok if after the attack the basic combo would start smoothly. -
Roll Attack: (Same as the Hunter’s Knife Basic Attack) Two horizontal slash that have little AOE but more range than you would expect followed by a forward spin + slash, this third forward spin + slash takes about twice as long as the other two attacks and should also do double the damage but instead deals about 20% more damage (but this is due to the fact that it is the third attack and not the fact that it has the longest duration) to be balanced this attack should do 100%-120% more damage than the first attack.
Charged Roll Attack: Each attack has its own charged version, this is the best way to do charged attacks but in the case of knifes the charging is too long, Different weapons have different Charged Attack Charging speeds, and in my opinion knives should have the fastest one (the same as the Scimitar or faster).
Jackknife
I seriously consider letting the memes win and have “Stab” as only description of this weapon.
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Basic Attack: Stab, This attack is functional but the animation is too repetitive and the attacks do not connect to each other, but adding a second animation to the attack would be a good idea, just for aesthetic purposes.
Charged Basic Attack: The attack has a charged version, this is the best way to do charged attacks but in the case of knifes the charging is too long, Different weapons have different Charged Attack Charging speeds, and in my opinion knives should have the fastest one (the same as the Scimitar or faster). -
Running Attack: (This attack is shared between all daggers) Dash forward and stab, there is a strange pause after the stab, the recovery animation is too long, if that pause was removed all the daggers would be more fun because the basic combo would start smoothly afre the Running Attack.
Charged Running Attack: None, It would be ok if after the attack the basic combo would start smoothly. -
Roll Attack: A Crouched short stab, this attack is very weak and has no specific use, in my opinion it would be better to have the basic attack here.
Charged Roll Attack: None, if it is replaced with the basic attack it will simply be the same as the Charged Basic Attack.
In Conclusion
The knives have two big flaws:
- The slow forward spin + slash attack does the same damage as the fast attack even though it should do double the damage since the attack is twice as slow.
- The dash attack doesn’t connect smoothly with the basic combo, which is a serious problem for a fast weapon like knives.
Sorry for the repetitions but if the weapons have all the same attacks i can’t do anything xD, and as I already said I don’t mind it since they are nice attacks and the weapons still have small differences.