The game is MORE offense based than Eternal.

[N00B]

If you actually look at the equivalent tools between both games, despite TDA being described as "stand and fight", I feel that I've always played Eternal more defensively and am now playing TDA more offensively.
I'm playing on maxed out difficulty, so heads up.

Dash vs Sprint:
The dash is a short maneuvre that can be performed in every direction, as well as in the air. It works best as a way to avoid attacks rather than moving around the arena since the short burst of speed allows you to juke incoming projectiles more easily than the consistent movement of a run or sprint.
The sprint on the other hand is worse at avoiding damage, as its locked to moving forward and as such can't be used to strafe around incoming projectiles, or away from approaching melee enemies. In exchange, the sprint overall covers ground faster than the dash and the addition of the superjump and ground pound reward you for moving towards the enemy rather than around or away from them.

The dash allows you to evade the enemy, while the sprint forces you to run at them.


Glory kills vs Melee:
The glory kills can be framed as Doomguy weakening the enemy before entering melee combat. you're making sure tehy can't fight back before delivering the final blow personally and as a reward, you get more health allowing you to stay in the fight longer. You need to be patient and take the enemy out at range first, then you can beat them in melee. The blood punch still plays by this rule as it not only requires glory kills to acquire, but itself functions as a tactical option that either destroys multiple smaller enemies in an AoE, giving you some personal space, or as a way to quickly damage and cripple larger enemies.
The Dark Ages melee on the other hand doesn't have that kind of patience. While its still better to wait for an opening, melee doesn't need you to weaken the enemy but instead doubles as a way to weaken said enemy. Taking into account that its partially cooldown based, if you want to get the most out of them, you need to use them as often as you can to maximise output.

Glory kills require patience and reward you with sustain. Melee attacks reward you for taking every opportunity as soon as it occurs.


Equipment vs Shield:
The frag grenade, ice bomb and flamebelch are tools designed to slow down the enemy and/or prolong your own longevity. The frag grenade can temporarily falter multiple enemies, interrupting their attacks and slowing them down while they're pursuing you. The ice bomb shuts them down for even longer and grants you extra health when you kill them. And the flamebelch both adds some DoT to help you deal damage as you focus on staying alive while also rewarding your offence by granting you shield pickups.
The actual shield on the other hand almost punishes the player for trying to defend themselves. The parry needs you to move into and weave through the large barrage of attacks in order to hit the hell surge attack hidden in between. The shield throw allows you to stun singular enemies and prioritise them as a target. And the shield bash allows you to zip through the arena and instantly reach your desired victim. The regular guard however is a weak defence that has finite health and upon breaking punishes you by taking away the 3 aforementioned tools.

Effectively the equipment in Eternal allows to stand your ground, while the shield in Dark Ages forces you to move forward and towards the enemy.


Overall, it feels more like Eternal allowed me to stand my ground better, while Dark Ages instead gave me the keys to a monster truck and told me: "keep your foot on the gas or die." I honestly kinda like that.