Does the combat eventually get good?

[Vintorez]

Played through every main line AC game, though obviously only Origins and Odyssey really compare, and I'm about at the point in the story where you sail for England.

With only a handful of skill points and basic gear I'm not expecting much, but every combat engagement so far has been so.. meh. Like aggressively mid, to the point that I wish it was actually worse just so it'd be more interesting. The attacks don't feel very punchy and on higher difficulties just feel pathetic (yay damage sponge difficulty) and the parrying just feels like a worse option than dodging, especially when having to awkwardly chain parry against flurry attacks and not even getting an attack opening for it. It just feels.. bad.

I like difficult games, I normally crank difficulty to max or one rank below depending on the game, soulslike games are among my favorites and so on, but every time I get stuck in a boss battle part of me wishes I had it set to story mode so I could just go and get drink while mashing RB until it was over.

Are there any skills that make it feel more worthwhile? Recommended weapons to look out for, or custom difficulty settings to try? I enjoyed Odyssey and Origins both enough to pretty much 100% them on mid-high difficulties, but Valhalla is just making my brain go into low power mode every time a health bar appears, especially bosses.

[_oBSOLEte_]

Some ideas throwed here for Aesyr/nightmare. I have not finished the game yet, only lvl 250 so take it with a grain of salt. Finished Origin and Odyssey hudless 100% in the hardest diff.

- Similar to Darksoul, upgrading gear is mandatory in higher diff to dish out sufficient damage.
- You also need to stun and lower armor by aiming at yellow spots (knees, feet, hands, elbows, shoulders, flank and back). Having the raven skill to slide and aim in slowmo was crucial in my early build. Later there's a core ability to focus aim in slowmo you'll run into following the main quest in Oxenford IIRC.
- Predator bow, still best bow for hudless playthru and good damage dealer with headshot on boss once their armor is down. Prioritize weakspots to stun for a finisher and then headshots.
- Parry is crucial to stun and reduce enemy stamina to chain finisher as well as build adrenalin. Perfect parrys are somewhat easier barehanded without the shield, because there's a delay and if you press too long it blocks instead of parrying, but the parry window is a bit shorter and less likely to stun. Dont rely on the magic rune cues for perfect parry you need to press right before the impact for best effect.
- You can cancel light attacks animations with a parry or a dodge most of the time. Heavy attacks you cant. Each weapon has some combo chain where you can substitute the first or last light attacks with a heavy one. Lots of movesets to try out.
- Bear skill to replenish health gradually during combat and wolf skills to slowmo near death and to replenish with each strike are my crutches. Both synergized pretty well with the rage ability where you throw a guy down and punch him, allows to temporize a fight and regain health.
- Skill to increase Raven gear (or bear or wolf) have really nice bonuses. Advanced assassinate and chain assassinate are great.

So far I would say combat mechanisms in theory are better than in Odyssey, where high diff was all about bursting crit damage with one or two abilities. They've integrated the bow in the melee action and enemy stamina. But combat animations, camera and controls are worse.

The main problem is relying on same old executions/finishers a lot, with an unreliable camera. You also have lots of group fights where things can be very chaotic and go awry very fast, some allied npcs canceling enemy stun before your finisher, setting you on fire or getting in the way a lot blocking weakspots. In those instances animations are janky AF it's a bit silly to watch, it's easier to take the camp alone or stay passive and let the npcs fight.

[Shy]

As you get more combat skills it becomes more fun and dynamic. I was very unimpressed at first too but it gets better.

[iaf.nga]

Nah, it's gonna be two strikes and anti-gravity roll 10 meters away*∞ or an instant death in incomprehensible Symphony and choir noise for the next 5 games.

[Dorok]

Default difficulty is quite low, consider increase it. There's difficulty options, so you can increase difficulty and then increase your damages with options, to limit HP sponge effects/

The combat system is potentially better than Odyssey but not really in practice:
- Adrenalin refill is rather slow/weird in Valhalla, the result is abilities (from books of knowledge) play a secondary role unlike in Odyssey.
- The enemies design is involved, play the Druid DLC to play a better version of combats thanks to enemies designs.

I agree that dodge is making parry a bit weak. But by cranking up difficulty and eventually increase your damages through options, it's fun to exploit including for attacks as a quick fast move. And yes it is much more adapted to face multiple enemies. In my opinion it's a more fun mechanic quite different than rolls.

For skills to make combats more interesting:
- Stomp adds another attack option.
- Dual Swap adds the option to switch 3 attacks types during combats.
- Heavy Dual Wield adds more variations of dual to experiment.
- Brush with Death is the logical complement of dodge.
- Backstab makes more worthwhile tactics allowing you attack in back.
- Counter Roll and Counter Roll mastery adds another tool to use in combat knowing that more standard usages of roll are a bit obsolete because of dodge.
- Combat Dive is an option to make roll more worthwhile.
- Sprint Attack adds an attack option.
- Intrepid Jump makes more worthwhile use jumps in combats.

I suggest at least try dual, it adds a third attack (with offhand weapon) and can improve combats fun.

Skills to complement a difficulty level boost to make combats funnier:
- Healing: Idun's Heart, Grit, Last Chance Healing.
- Damages: Adrenalin Fiend, works on damages in the skills tree.

Make too much stuff with combats will hardly be the best fun, to make assassinate phases funnier:
- Chain Assassination
- Advanced Assassination
- You can also consider use stealth bow sometimes during such phase, I skip list related bow skills.

[Dorok]

Originally posted by iaf.nga:

Nah, it's gonna be two strikes and anti-gravity roll 10 meters away*∞ or an instant death in incomprehensible Symphony and choir noise for the next 5 games.

Stop just focus on roll as you did in many previous games a bit similar, start use dodge it will be funnier, and will add more variety than one or two attack and roll.

[MF]

Originally posted by Vintorez:

Played through every main line AC game, though obviously only Origins and Odyssey really compare, and I'm about at the point in the story where you sail for England.

It gets good when you swing your weapon and hit things. Then they die. For variety put arrows into their heads. Profit.

[OptimalButthole]

I think the combat is fine and good.

[DerRitter]

The combat sucks in all three of these AssCreed games