Anyone actually managed to pull off a combo attack with a mace?

[Denamic]

So, almost 80 hours in, using nothing but maces and warhammers... I've literally never once pulled off a combo special attack, and not for a lack of trying.

Enemies never lets themselves get hit by more than one attack before perfect blocking, evading, countering with a master stroke, or simply staggering out of range.

The only enemies that can even be hit by multiple attacks in a row are unarmored peasants that die in one or two hits anyway.

Is there some kind of trick to it that I'm simply missing?

[Darc]

No, and never felt the need to use combos anyways. After a certain point almost every enemy knows how to riposte so even trying to strike them becomes annoying real quick since they'll either Perfect Block or Riposte it. and since they're so unnagressive it becomes dull real quick.
I normally just clinch them and take the opportunity to whack them in the head once each time.

[Searry]

Mace is ridiculously overpowered, you don't need to actually do combos, just attack the head.
I know because I did combos before, it took a lot of learning on when to pull them off, you cannot just go into a combo without setting it up with some strikes. The bad thing about combos is that you can't use a shield.

[Marty Chonks]

I've done them plenty of times with maces and axes, mostly during tournament (i prefer longswords otherwise, cuz i like doing combos). But as others said, there is little point in doing them other than showing off to yourself. The 3 hit combo with mace does minimal to no damage and achieves pretty much the same as a won clinch, so there is no point doing it.

The 4 hit combos are more useful damage wise if (and that's a big if) you are not interrupted/dodged on 2nd or 3rd strike, which is very often the case. However i literally get out of my way to do these combos from time to time when in 1v1 just to spice the fighting up a bit (usually its no more than 1 successful combo per tournament duel for me before the duel is over) and it is indeed much easier just to spam attacks with feints from open sides till the enemy is out of breath and begins to take massive damage quickly or trying to knock out with a head hit.

Biggest problem is, there are not enough combos for maces + axes, since the "easy" 3 hit combo is useless and the other 2 are hard to pull off (+ you have to be at least lvl 14 with maces if you want to have both 4 hit combos...lvl 20 if you picked the 3 hit combo at begin and dont want to respec all skills), then if you try same combo over and over the enemy also anticipates your first strike and it all gets frustrating. With longswords you have a lot more opener strike variety for combos and all 3-hit combos are a lot more useful and easier to execute.

EDIT: if you want to train combos with mace/axe, go to Bernard and ask him to learn masterstrikes (not the combos), then he'll invite you to show what you can and during this fight he's not fighting properly so you can hit him a lot easier than in a normal duel (rince and repeat the masterstrike lesson till you get the hang off the combo movements of your choice).

[Marty Chonks]

Originally posted by Searry:

The bad thing about combos is that you can't use a shield.

You can get combos with shield + one handed weapon (mace, axe, shortsword): i know from experience. Only with longswords + shield there is no way to do combos.

However, it is somewhat harder to switch around if you have a shield + mace/axe/shortsword. Sometimes the game doesn't let you feint for a wide angle (like from right up to left down) if you have a shield (i don't understand the exact mechanic behind that, it's just my observation).

[Searry]

Originally posted by Marty Chonks:

Originally posted by Searry:

The bad thing about combos is that you can't use a shield.

You can get combos with shield + one handed weapon (mace, axe, shortsword): i know from experience. Only with longswords + shield there is no way to do combos.

However, it is somewhat harder to switch around if you have a shield + mace/axe/shortsword. Sometimes the game doesn't let you feint for a wide angle (like from right up to left down) if you have a shield (i don't understand the exact mechanic behind that, it's just my observation).

Wow, ok. I had no idea.

[Cypher]

meh, I can't even pull off combo's with a sword!

[Jeff]

If you use a bludgeon, there is less of a chance that they will die before pulling off the combo because it does the least damage. I use a bludgeon for much of the game to level mace skills easier.

Some enemies will not perfect block/master strike nearly as often, so you can combo them.

-feint hearted knight for example, I was able to combo him. If you choose certain speech paths he will be a repeatable encounter.
-the round one opponent in a tournament
-The enemies you fight between the two miller houses (miller Pesh. and the one up the river from him)
-The encounter between Ledetchco and Sasau will often have a low level attacker at the fork in the path

[Marty Chonks]

Originally posted by Cypher:

meh, I can't even pull off combo's with a sword!

You probably try the one with slash down left + stab + stab (maybe u even took it for the wrong sword type, like i did when i played for the first time XD): this combo seems easy but for me its kinda tricky to time right, there are days i cant do it no matter what.

If you really want to do some basic combos just for the sake of it, take a longsword and do the combo Bernard shows you during the "combos training" which you can repeat (up slash to the head + right slash + down left slash) its quite good and easy, it also goes 2 times to the head (the first and the last strike) which means double opportunity to pull a "headcracker". I trained this one so well and so often, sometimes i just spam slashes on an enemy and automatically pull it off, without even trying, only by muscle memory.

Edit: combos you pull on Bernard during training count in the stats and for the achievement, if that's your angle.

[Cypher]

Originally posted by Marty Chonks:

Originally posted by Cypher:

meh, I can't even pull off combo's with a sword!

You probably try the one with slash down left + stab + stab (maybe u even took it for the wrong sword type, like i did when i played for the first time XD): this combo seems easy but for me its kinda tricky to time right, there are days i cant do it no matter what.

If you really want to do some basic combos just for the sake of it, take a longsword and do the combo Bernard shows you during the "combos training" which you can repeat (up slash to the head + right slash + down left slash) its quite good and easy, it also goes 2 times to the head (the first and the last strike) which means double opportunity to pull a "headcracker". I trained this one so well and so often, sometimes i just spam slashes on an enemy and automatically pull it off, without even trying, only by muscle memory.

Edit: combos you pull on Bernard during training count in the stats and for the achievement, if that's your angle.

Maybe it's me old bones, but I can't seem to time it right... I go for "natural combos" - down left, down right, stab... as one would when wielding a sword (or a lightsaber!)

[jswilliams]

Originally posted by Cypher:

(or a lightsaber!)

Mmmmm, that would be sweet...a good Jedi rpg with KCD-style melee. I have immensely enjoyed restarting a playthru on Hardcore, but on both Difficulty levels I have found melee combat very enjoyable partly because of how focused/concentrating on the dynamics I have to be.

[Cypher]

Originally posted by jswilliams:

Originally posted by Cypher:

(or a lightsaber!)

Mmmmm, that would be sweet...a good Jedi rpg with KCD-style melee. I have immensely enjoyed restarting a playthru on Hardcore, but on both Difficulty levels I have found melee combat very enjoyable partly because of how focused/concentrating on the dynamics I have to be.

Yeah, the only problem is that EA have an exclusive license with Disney for the Star Wars IP... would rather wait til that runs it's course and they put a competent developer on the next Star Wars games... Hey Warhorse... fancy a stab at Star Wars in a few years when the IP is free of the Devil's grasp???