Addressing Mobspam vs Stamina Economy

[A Lost Seeker]

The combat overall is pretty solid from what I have seen, but the real issue is when you are getting absolutely swarmed, and are forced to take on a defensive posture, especially from droves of fast enemies that won't exactly allow you to give yourself space. Pair this with larger sized mobs that get increasingly disjointed melee ranges the larger they are, and it can get very frustrating quickly to not have your stamina economy be overloaded and get torn apart shortly after.

We need better options and mechanics to deal with hordes, as there are some mobs like Poltergeists and the boars that will cause your life expectancy to nosedive the moment you encounter three or more of them at once, due to the sheer volume of attacks enabled by their mobility and sometimes melee range.

I've been playing the Bandit class so far, and it seems to be failing to combat these sorts of things pretty harshly, since the force-stun they have is on a 13 second cooldown, which if you can't kill the mobs in a massive burst window, they'll go back to collectively bum rushing you again relentlessly.

[Wonder]

I just run around/dodge rather than tanking the hits until the herds sufficiently thinned and I can then cope with parrying the remainder.

I run a Bandit also, this rotation works pretty well for me when dealing with swarms: Pay Day -> Killing Jab -> Bomb Trap -> Spread Shot -> Basic attack/charged attack with bow to clean up anything that managed to survive that onslaught.

Mist Walk is also handy for giving yourself some breathing room, it heals you and gives you an opportunity to pick off one enemy with a katar charged attack. Devious Signet increases your max stamina for the duration of the buff as well which can be pretty handy.

There's also Agile technique for more mobility, Lvl 2 will get you Bounce which travels a pretty far distance. I mostly use it to travel around since I'm a melee bandit for the most part but it can be useful. With that said if you're also rocking the Katars I would suggest picking a ranged secondary as some enemies just aren't worth engaging up close (outside of Pay Day combos anyway) like the big mouth things that spew poison puddles or the mushrooms in the golem dungeon.

[Yellow]

I've only played warrior but I play with a group. The usual strat is that the bandit in the group will pull 1+ of the enemies, proceed to parry them, then place a bomb ontop of them. Then they'll hit them as hard as they can before their stun timer goes up, switch to a bell and then proceed to stun them to death and watch carefully for any stragglers that change colors to quickly parry again.

Don't fight in areas above your level. The 6-12 dungeon is deceptively b*llshit and will be an uphill struggle if below level 10+class advancement if you're going in solo.

[Pride Lizard Pride Lizard]

Yeah I feel that as a mage, lol. Something about having enemies in that later area that move WAY faster than you just piling on you, ough

[GHROTIC]

I was thinking about this as well. I believe the problem with the combat is that melee weapons don't have any knock back, similar to PSO, Zelda, etc. This makes it where melee is super difficult compared to ranged classes right now.

[A Lost Seeker]

Originally posted by Wonder:

I just run around/dodge rather than tanking the hits until the herds sufficiently thinned and I can then cope with parrying the remainder.

I run a Bandit also, this rotation works pretty well for me when dealing with swarms: Pay Day -> Killing Jab -> Bomb Trap -> Spread Shot -> Basic attack/charged attack with bow to clean up anything that managed to survive that onslaught.

Mist Walk is also handy for giving yourself some breathing room, it heals you and gives you an opportunity to pick off one enemy with a katar charged attack. Devious Signet increases your max stamina for the duration of the buff as well which can be pretty handy.

There's also Agile technique for more mobility, Lvl 2 will get you Bounce which travels a pretty far distance. I mostly use it to travel around since I'm a melee bandit for the most part but it can be useful. With that said if you're also rocking the Katars I would suggest picking a ranged secondary as some enemies just aren't worth engaging up close (outside of Pay Day combos anyway) like the big mouth things that spew poison puddles or the mushrooms in the golem dungeon.

I've been already trying to do all of this, and it works out for the most part, except for a few infuriating mobs that are impossible to kite due to their sheer speed and melee range. I had to have a friend who was a Mystic help me out, and I couldn't help but express envy at how they were able to essentially volley enemies to death with mass AoEs, while I have to get up close to deal sufficient AoE damage. The only fix for this is Pay Day, but the downtime on that ability can make it a pitfall in relying on it, especially when the mobs in particular will get back to outmaneuvering you as soon as the stun ends.

The issue loops back to certain enemies having way too much freedom to attack you despite your own maneuverability, them taking turns to keep trying to hammer your defenses, until your stamina runs up. It's simply a manner of attrition, and the odds will swing in their favor when being able to keep them at distance isn't an option anymore.

[Paper Red]

I just picked up the game and played for a bit, dinged level 15 Warrior last night. Was playing with a buddy who had a wand and just infinitely kited everything while I dueled anything that wasn't chasing him. After he logged off I proceeded to attempt solo play with the content that is supposed to be at-or-around my own level... yeah not happening.

>Giant purple reapers with enough phantom range and movement speed to attack from the middle of the room to any wall, little windup for attacks and aggressive attack speed? Check.
>Boars with pikes for horns that out-speed your dash and out-range your double jump and have little windup for their unstoppable rush? Check.
These are just two examples of enemy mobs in the level 15 range that straight up have me corpse running back to the encounter every time to restart the fight. My little sword & shield can't block AND attack, so I can just watch my stamina deplete first or accept death as I dash & lunge & jump-bayblade attack. I didn't realize I was supposed to be Sonic the Hedgehog, hedgehogs weren't in the character creation lol.

Just don't play melee I guess, or grind like a korean on the golems quest I guess. But reading this thread, even the infinite kiting ranged classes are feeling it too Mr Krabs. The game balance needs addressing.

[Amadora]

after hitting lvl 16 and finding this post im surprised, im a melee bandit running polearm and i just beat the everliving crap out of everything in sight, just parrying everything and soaking damage while everything mobs me. I pooled 30 points in vitality, 14 in strength and sit at 175 health, when i do get low, i just mist walk into a recovery and boom full health back to the slaughter.

[Amadora]

the perfect parry window is stupidly generous compared to most games, so im surprised by the people having issues with it.

[Luna Bell]

Originally posted by A Lost Seeker:

Originally posted by Wonder:

I just run around/dodge rather than tanking the hits until the herds sufficiently thinned and I can then cope with parrying the remainder.

I run a Bandit also, this rotation works pretty well for me when dealing with swarms: Pay Day -> Killing Jab -> Bomb Trap -> Spread Shot -> Basic attack/charged attack with bow to clean up anything that managed to survive that onslaught.

Mist Walk is also handy for giving yourself some breathing room, it heals you and gives you an opportunity to pick off one enemy with a katar charged attack. Devious Signet increases your max stamina for the duration of the buff as well which can be pretty handy.

There's also Agile technique for more mobility, Lvl 2 will get you Bounce which travels a pretty far distance. I mostly use it to travel around since I'm a melee bandit for the most part but it can be useful. With that said if you're also rocking the Katars I would suggest picking a ranged secondary as some enemies just aren't worth engaging up close (outside of Pay Day combos anyway) like the big mouth things that spew poison puddles or the mushrooms in the golem dungeon.

I've been already trying to do all of this, and it works out for the most part, except for a few infuriating mobs that are impossible to kite due to their sheer speed and melee range. I had to have a friend who was a Mystic help me out, and I couldn't help but express envy at how they were able to essentially volley enemies to death with mass AoEs, while I have to get up close to deal sufficient AoE damage. The only fix for this is Pay Day, but the downtime on that ability can make it a pitfall in relying on it, especially when the mobs in particular will get back to outmaneuvering you as soon as the stun ends.

The issue loops back to certain enemies having way too much freedom to attack you despite your own maneuverability, them taking turns to keep trying to hammer your defenses, until your stamina runs up. It's simply a manner of attrition, and the odds will swing in their favor when being able to keep them at distance isn't an option anymore.

Dont split up your skill points beyond your scaling stat and vitality. Its a trap imo. Also focus on building up 4ish skills if youre playing melee since they really shine at max rank and low level spreading them out too much does more harm in good since you eat up a lot of your stamina. You have to be rather hit and run until you get a really good shield- unless you use heavy weapons then use your throwing attack between dashes to abuse its max rank 100% evasion

[A Lost Seeker]

Originally posted by Luna Bell:

Dont split up your skill points beyond your scaling stat and vitality. Its a trap imo. Also focus on building up 4ish skills if youre playing melee since they really shine at max rank and low level spreading them out too much does more harm in good since you eat up a lot of your stamina. You have to be rather hit and run until you get a really good shield- unless you use heavy weapons then use your throwing attack between dashes to abuse its max rank 100% evasion

Surprisingly I have followed this advise stat-wise, and yeah, I tend to be able to do some heinous combos with doing a Killing Jab to Pay Day, and then follow up with additional strikes while the enemy's fragile. It's the downtime during prolonged engagements that can royally screw you over, especially when either the combo doesn't nuke the mobs down in one swoop, or the game decides to throw another wave of these mobs at you.

Some enemies like Rageboars are meant to be parried since keeping any sort of distance on them isn't an option with how they're entirely meant to bum rush constantly. Poltergeists are practically the same, as their actual melee range far exceeds how close they get before they actually start Melee-ing, making trying to dodge or evading them useless.

These particular two mobs either alone or in pairs are manageable, but as stated before by another poster before me, these mobs become utterly problematic in amounts of three or greater, since you're going to be forced to parry or block constantly (especially if the mobs start spacing out their attacks in a staggered barrage) rather than doing any real damage, unless you've got some way to reduce their attacks via sheer mitigation. Frequently these attacks will also inflict heavy knockback, which can disrupt even trying to biting the bullet and powering through it.

For these reasons, getting through content like this practically demands you to play multiplayer, so you can at least even the odds against mobs that rival the player's movements. Either that, or as the title suggests, the devs need to find a way to address the Mobspam vs Stamina Economy regarding inescapable mobs forcing players into desperately trying to parry and block til they run dry.

[GHROTIC]

Originally posted by Amadora:

the perfect parry window is stupidly generous compared to most games, so im surprised by the people having issues with it.

The problem is the swarm mobs that stack on each other and you can't see the attack animation to know when to parry. Even if you do see the attack animation and parry 2 of them, the 3rd or 4th mob hits you. Just holding block will cause a shatter in these cases.

[King of Sorrow]

Originally posted by GHROTIC:

Originally posted by Amadora:

the perfect parry window is stupidly generous compared to most games, so im surprised by the people having issues with it.

The problem is the swarm mobs that stack on each other and you can't see the attack animation to know when to parry. Even if you do see the attack animation and parry 2 of them, the 3rd or 4th mob hits you. Just holding block will cause a shatter in these cases.

This. If the mobs were like 2-3 tops, it'd be easy and fine and fun and dandy. This game however, will put 5+ mobs against you and some (looking at you, floating skulls) don't have tells and will just rush you while you're trying to deal with other threats. It's stupid. Even if that's not the case, 99% of parry threats are what, chat?

MULTI HITTING ATTACKS! That's right - the bane of barriers everywhere.

[Reiku Yin]

Originally posted by GHROTIC:

Originally posted by Amadora:

the perfect parry window is stupidly generous compared to most games, so im surprised by the people having issues with it.

The problem is the swarm mobs that stack on each other and you can't see the attack animation to know when to parry. Even if you do see the attack animation and parry 2 of them, the 3rd or 4th mob hits you. Just holding block will cause a shatter in these cases.

Gotta kite more/dash around a lot. I find for group engagements heavy weapons if you have access to them helps a lot as it will frequently stun-lock enemies.

I wade in, start swinging like save vs giest or the boors and most times the group I'm hitting almost never get a chance to retaliate. Same with using the bell on my mystic. Pushes them back and basically can just range them out. If in tighter areas where I can't just circle kite, I dash through the mob turn and repeat. When using my Bandit It's lead with the poison strike, then double back with the stun, hit them for a bit and then parry. If something goes wrong smoke out and reset.

Right now the only enemy that gives me a little trouble is the Catacomes boss cause he is so much higher then my character so when i close I can't SEE what he's doing.

And of course some skills will make some battles almost laughably trivial. (3 or so seconds of auto parry/guard when you need to heal is funny).

Feels like every enemy type is a bit of a puzzle and just gotta use what you have and prioritize certain troublesome targets.

[Paper Red]

Originally posted by Amadora:

after hitting lvl 16 and finding this post im surprised, im a melee bandit running polearm and i just beat the everliving crap out of everything in sight, just parrying everything and soaking damage while everything mobs me. I pooled 30 points in vitality, 14 in strength and sit at 175 health, when i do get low, i just mist walk into a recovery and boom full health back to the slaughter.

I just started a polearm bandit earlier today before reading this post again lol. My friend told me that the enchanter can change weapon scaling so I put a dex scaling on a bardiche I found on my warrior... turns out the scaling enchants don't do squat. After resetting my stats to dex/vit I did 6-10 damage per hit VS the str/vit that was doing 14-22 damage per hit. Originally I wanted to abuse the polearm's double hit and bandit dex/crit% to crit-fish efficiently. Still going to play it though lol. Just going to be a str bandit instead

[Amadora]

I just run str/vit, but all my points in vit, sitting at 250 health now, recovery + mist walk + sturdy is all i really need