Combat!!!!

[DAN-di-WARhol]

Is anybody else finding combat absolutely awful (and impossible)?

I avoided it all through the early game. Now I have to fight an army of gunmen using my fists and I have no idea how!!!!

[it's a gabe]

It's awful but not impossible. You gotta dodge and use the environment to your advantage. Remember the combat tutorial back in the beginning of the game? Yep.

Also, some enemies will be extremely vulnerable to the light attack combo while others require a combination of light and heavy attacks and even some dodging. Others will counter any light attacks and since heavy attacks can't combo as light ones do, you gotta rely on the environment to take them down. And finally, the enemies that you can't take down with a light attack combo (that's most of them) are capable of immediately countering your heavy attacks, so be careful with that.

It's annoying and some missions will force you to take on enemies before you can progress, but it's not impossible and as long as you know what you're doing, no encounter takes more than a minute or two.

I'd also recommend this mod here to avoid unnecessary encounters while free roaming:

https://www.nexusmods.com/mirrorsedgecatalyst/mods/93

The author never mentions it, but you need to launch the game from the Frosty Mod Manager for the mod to work (the game will still launch as though you were launching it throgh Steam, though, so your playtime will still be recorded). This will only avoid patrols from spawning, so you still have to be aware of cameras. They will also still spawn on those traversal missions cuz traversal attacks are the whole point of those.

Just that you don't have to deal with patrols makes the game much better, though.

[vexe00]

Long story short, stop being predictable and upgrade your combat skills, then read the upgrade description to learn weaknesses.

Don't repeat any attacks against the same enemy.
Usually, you want to use heavy attacks from wallrun/wall jump/high jump/ropes/falling.
Pulling the enemy and attacking from behind is very effective. Learn to does with the quick step.

[Simpson]

dude, you can just dash attack all the time like some magical ninja, the combat is absolutely braindead. so yeah, awful, but incredibly easy.

[Simpson]

i just beat the final "boss" with barely any combat upgrades and nothing more than side dashes, heavy attacks and drop kicks. so yeah, not even close to impossible, but hella boring.