Parry Knockback

[ishmaelreynauldbright]

I don't know if people have talked about this before, but currently parrying/possibly also blocking attacks tends to knock you backwards based on which direction you're facing and it stuns you a bit; this is fine when you're fighting one guy, but when you're fighting a dungeon ambush (the summons in the Geistlord fights and the Maw-heavy encounters in the Grove are especially prone to this in my experience), it feels too easy for them to knock you into a corner and stun lock you while you're trying to escape
I'm sure one of the replies to this will be "just parry better", but I'm pretty dang good at parrying, and the fact of the matter is simply that either you parry like the first hit and block the rest and eventually get fatigued and beat up, or you spam click the block button and leave openings to get hit by an attack that slips through, so it's that, take damage and possibly get stunlocked anyway trying to just dash out, or spend like 75% to 90% of a fight running around in circles trying to avoid getting caught in a corner
Idk, it doesn't feel good. I don't want the game to be super easy, but I want the difficulty to feel like a good and fair challenge, and getting dogpiled and soccerballed into the corner by 3 to 6 guys doesn't feel like that
I guess my suggestions would be either make parry knockback consistently knock you away from whatever hit you or letting a successful parry let you keep moving more quickly/smoothly

[mr.kitty]

I've beat the existing content 9+ times now and I wasn't even aware you could be stunlocked. I never let more than 4 enemies pile on me (I hit & as you said, run), usually not more than 3 even, because 3 is just low enough that I can parry everything indefinitely and get hits in-between, and dodge out if I need to. I dash way too often to feel comfortable doing anything close to a wall or corner; open areas only. Maybe PTSD from similar games idk. Maybe I spend more time avoiding getting dogpiled than fighting at first but once it's 3 enemies or less I can hard-engage...

Except against maws because I struggle to tell when they're about to attack at times and it's a pretty fast animation so I just driveby them with jump-attacks and spells instead. Those guys are definitely annoying and while I mostly like the current system I definitely understand hating it when you're trying to use melee on them (AKA the COOL weapons). Also their poison pools on the ground are just the WORST because you can't parry your way out of walking on that (well, you can technically, but that'd be silly).

I might have babbled a bit but short & clear version I can agree with your sentiments.

[Teljaxx]

Basically: Use your movement to make sure you never get surrounded. There's a reason your character is so mobile, regardless of class. You're not supposed to just stand still and face tank an entire army.

Get everything to bunch up. Then run around the edge of the group shooting at them, or launch yourself back and forth through it with aerial attacks, and slowly wear their health down. Use your big AOE attacks to hit everything whenever you can as well. Then once there are few enough enemies left, you can stand still and tank their attacks, without getting locked down.

[Raptros]

Honestly, I'm not super peeved about getting surrounded. There's a lot of movement and attack options to get out.

I had to learn how in the Crescent Grove. Those Maws and Mushrooms are crazy!

Honestly, as a high-hp fighter, the only way to get out without draining stamina is either wolfing down stamstars, or just dropping your shield, taking the hit, and getting out. The stunlock is brutal!

But yeah, positioning is important. Getting surrounded is certain death. I imagine it's rougher for non hp builds.

The better I get at combat though, the more I try to take more enemies on. Eventually, the volume of their attacks is too great and you can't physically block and retaliate without getting hit.

So, use your mobility and your movement based attacks like the spear charge or jump attack to whittle em down or separate them, then get in some pokes. Once a few are dead, you can hunker down and trade punches.

It's probably not nearly as bad in multiplayer, but I haven't had a chance to play with my friends yet, so I'm not sure if it scales or not.

[SM5T001]

As others already mentioned, the key is to constantly be on the move so you will never be surrounded and cornered in the first place.

If you are playing mystic, don't sleep on nova skill. It damages enemies around you, knocks them away interrupting their current action and has an instant cast (!) and very low cooldown — only 3,5 seconds. Only downside is that knockback doesn't work on large/heavy enemies such as golems/monoliths and bosses.

[Groversoup]

Originally posted by mr.kitty:

Except against maws because I struggle to tell when they're about to attack at times and it's a pretty fast animation so I just driveby them with jump-attacks and spells instead. Those guys are definitely annoying and while I mostly like the current system I definitely understand hating it when you're trying to use melee on them (AKA the COOL weapons). Also their poison pools on the ground are just the WORST because you can't parry your way out of walking on that (well, you can technically, but that'd be silly).

I think it's very annoying that parrying their projectiles doesn't prevent them from spawning pools. Even if you are on point with reading their tells, it's objectively better to kite in a circle and spam cyclone/jump attacks, because if you parry a spitball you just get hit anyway.

[mr.kitty]

Originally posted by Groversoup:

I think it's very annoying that parrying their projectiles doesn't prevent them from spawning pools. Even if you are on point with reading their tells, it's objectively better to kite in a circle and spam cyclone/jump attacks, because if you parry a spitball you just get hit anyway.

THIS. Exactly this. It's absolute bs.

[IkOzael]

Gotta love gettin' pinned down by Kaluuz's fidget spinner spammery for what feels like 3 whole seconds upon blocking/parrying.

[mr.kitty]

I did find Kaluuz's spinny bs annoying too, but I HAVE managed to parry every damage instance before, so that was something. More manageable than trying to parry maw poison, at least.