Melee is so weak compared to crossbow against Brutal Bosses

[Vakula]

Bosses hit like a truck and have tons of fast moves that chain, in addition to combos. Using melee is much more high risk for no reward. IMO melee damage needs to be buffed significantly to compensate.

[theworld]

Bro, I ain't the one complaining I can't beat the game with melee.

I also ain't the one making "Yo Momma" jokes.

[Zentun]

So what people are saying it's basically normal= too easy, brutal = too hard, last time i played just when gloomrot updated dropped, the game was challenging af and i had a blast with it, the bosses were hard but fair, now all bosses are just pushovers. Really weird design choice by the devs.

[Storm's End]

On brutal you definitely can't face tank the bosses like you're playing Sekiro, but I also don't really use a ranged weapon most of the time. I've tried it and I don't find them fast enough to be worth it

What I usually do is kind of kite and circle strafe and spam magic. Hide behind cover if I need to. I usually stick with using a melee weapon like the mace for 3 big reasons

1. You can use the Q ability to jump in the air. So useful for dodging attacks, charging, retreating, securing a kill or killing clusters of enemies
2. You can use the E ability to interupt spellcasts or annoying abilities
3. Melee is just better in general for killing adds which most bosses have

Magic does a ton of damage so I tend to rely on that for most of the damage on the boss and use my melee weapon more like a utility.

Brutal is rough. But fun.

[crazyabe111]

Originally posted by NoX:

For reference - I'm struggling at the 47 level mark. I am on par with the bosses I am trying to beat, I have gotten the highest gear I can given unlocked recipes and it's just impossible.

Skip to Maja- she was SIGNIFICANTLY nerf'd in 1.0- and honestly is just plain easier than the other bosses in that level range even on Brutal- once you've beaten her you can unlock better weapons, which will let you go back and beat the overturned 47' bosses.

[theworld]

Originally posted by Bobucles:

Probably the worst thing is getting chain comboed in melee. Many bosses have a whirlwind or some type of stun. Tanking is not a solution, blocking or shielding are not solutions. If your veil isn't ready, then you lose half your health.

Can you explain how shielding isn't the solution when it works against... literally every boss?

Against Solarus in particular Shielding on Brutal is the GOAT because it COMPLETELY absorbs ALL of his blades when you do it at point blank range.

[crazyabe111]

Originally posted by theworld:

Can you explain how shielding isn't the solution when it works against... literally every boss?

Because it doesn't work against "literally every boss"- there's no point to blocking any boss that does a spin attack because that ignores your block, there's no point to blocking any boss that does an AOE attack because that ignores your block, there's no point to blocking any boss that does a dash attack because that ignores your block.

Quincy's charge- unblockable, Tristian, Krigg, and Octavian's spins- unblockable, Frostmaw's AOE leap, Terah's Rage rock spam, and Lidia's tactical nuke- you guessed it, unblockable.

I could keep going- but there are just lot of bosses where you're left wishing you had the option of two or three dashes instead of a dash and two blocks simply because you can't block some or most of their attacks.

[Ryvaku]

I'm still using the scythe. So I dunno.

[Sifer2]

Originally posted by Bobucles:

Probably the worst thing is getting chain comboed in melee. Many bosses have a whirlwind or some type of stun. Tanking is not a solution, blocking or shielding are not solutions. If your veil isn't ready, then you lose half your health.
I think some of the flaw is that defense is almost entirely on spell slots, while very little defense exists in the weapons. Reaper and slashers are probably the most defensive melee weapons, as they can crowd control or actually dodge attacks.

You know I do wonder why we don't get a Short Sword, and Shield option with ability that deflects like mobs do.

[Ostrava of Boletaria]

I think this is only true if you try to attack in the middle of mechanics. Melee has lower animation commitment and higher dps. You also have weapon skills that can help with avoiding damage such as greatsword E.

Brutal is tough in general. If you try to melee a boss you don't know the mechanics of you tend to get dumpstered but I'd say melee is generally better than ranged when you pass that wall and understand the fight mechanics (this still varies given some fights have mechanics designed to make things harder for melees and vice versa)

[Chaos]

Wait till you unlock pistol then you will wonder why the hell melee is an option at all.

[Terotrous]

You definitely can't tank hits from bosses, but most bosses have downtime between their attacks when you can hit them with a weapon skill. Weapon skills that give burst movement (ie, Sword / Mace skill 1) are good for avoiding attacks. You can also often dodge a boss attack and hit them while they're attacking your decoy.

[Jack Sparrow]

Originally posted by NoX:

Completely agree. The whole brutal difficulty boss experience feels really poor right now. I don't mind being challenged and the game being difficult. But if I have to cheese every boss with ranged/spell attacks from the edge of the screen just to get by something is terribly wrong. It's not challenging, it's just bad.

For reference - I'm struggling at the 47 level mark. I am on par with the bosses I am trying to beat, I have gotten the highest gear I can given unlocked recipes and it's just impossible.

And as OP said, I have to approach all the bosses the same way. Which isn't just a "git gud" situation, but a design flaw situation. Sure make the game really hard, make me really work for it - but it has to challenge my approach to combat/timings, not just be stupid impossible.

And if there's only way way to approach boss battles, that's definitely bad and boring. All weapon styles should be viable. That's the whole point of having different weapons.

Kill Tristan first for the greatsword, then the Frostbringer ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ is much easier, the greatsword E kind of soft counters his moveset because you can use it to "dodge" one of his attacks and also hit him pretty hard with it, combing a dodge with a dps move really helps out.

Tristan was ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ hard though, i had to kite the ♥♥♥♥ out of him

[Jack Sparrow]

Originally posted by Sifer2:

Originally posted by Bobucles:

Probably the worst thing is getting chain comboed in melee. Many bosses have a whirlwind or some type of stun. Tanking is not a solution, blocking or shielding are not solutions. If your veil isn't ready, then you lose half your health.
I think some of the flaw is that defense is almost entirely on spell slots, while very little defense exists in the weapons. Reaper and slashers are probably the most defensive melee weapons, as they can crowd control or actually dodge attacks.

You know I do wonder why we don't get a Short Sword, and Shield option with ability that deflects like mobs do.

Doesnt chaos barrier reflect?

[theworld]

Originally posted by crazyabe111:

Because it doesn't work against "literally every boss"- there's no point to blocking any boss that does a spin attack because that ignores your block, there's no point to blocking any boss that does an AOE attack because that ignores your block, there's no point to blocking any boss that does a dash attack because that ignores your block.

You block everything that can be blocked so that when there's an attack that cannot be blocked you press Space and dodge it because it wasn't wasted by the attacks that had already been blocked by that point.

Quincy's charge- unblockable, Tristian, Krigg, and Octavian's spins- unblockable, Frostmaw's AOE leap, Terah's Rage rock spam, and Lidia's tactical nuke- you guessed it, unblockable.

Krigg, Quincey, Terah can straight up be outwalked with Creature/Rogue blood. With Lidia you press Q on Mace/Axe and that's enough. Octavian and Harpy Queen spawn projectiles, that, if timed correctly, can be caught with Blood Rite and with a +Immaterial duration Jewel they can spin through you harmlessly. Also, every spin can be stopped immediately with a Merciless Charge hit. All of these can be I-framed for either no damage or very little damage with either Slashers Q or Greatsword/Pistols E.

I could keep going- but there are just lot of bosses where you're left wishing you had the option of two or three dashes instead of a dash and two blocks simply because you can't block some or most of their attacks.

This is addressed in the last sentence above.

[Eventide]

It's funny to me how people just don't understand what balance is. It's clear from a lot of these replies that are like "No, you're wrong because if you do X, Y, and Z then it's easy." that means the game is unbalanced.. As someone else stated here:

Originally posted by Misa Velvet:

I dont want to play with scythe for example but the way you say i would feel not effective using anything but scythe against undead enemies so i will be forced to use it. I don't want weapons to be situational, i want to main my one favorite weapon whole game

This is what needs to be. Weapons shouldn't be situational but just a difference of playstyle. Same with the blood types. They shouldn't *be* the game but be a change to your playstyle. Currently we seem to have an issue with once you're in like the farmlands and farther you *need* 100% blood to get anything really done. That can be easy to find for like warrior and rogue usually but finding something like Scholar can be an extreme chore just because there's so little scholar spawns.

The point here is that the game currently is forcing people into one playstyle really and it seems to be movement speed. A vast majority of the game is cheesed if you just use like the rogue blood and a movement speed increasing set. Movement speed means you get to dodge mechanics much easier. It also means that in PvP you can keep up with people very easily. You pair it with abilities that give you movement like some weapon abilities or spells and suddenly you're basically god.

I personally don't want to play that way though. I want to play as more of a mage and/or support.. but currently shielding and healing is just ridiculously underpowered. Magic itself is pretty underpowered unless you completely spec into it. By this I mean you *need* 100% scholar, you *need* spell power increasing consumables, etc. Meanwhile most physical builds will do fine with whatever you got.

What I think happened is with 1.0 they increased player and unit HP by 25% while also increasing unit damage by 25% to make PvP time to kill longer. What they didn't really do though is adjust physical or spell power to match. Nor did they adjust skill damage %'s to match just yet. So now we have underpowered spells, healing, shielding, and leech.