Fenris Claws - A Nice Idea, but Very Lackluster

[PnutButtrCrepes]

SPOILERS FOR THOSE WHO HAVE NOT MADE IT TO THE MOUNTAIN BIOME, THIS IS YOUR WARNING


Okay, I personally love the aesthetic of the Fenris Armor. It looks cool, it grants you some very useful bonuses, and it actually increases your speed. It's a welcome change of pace from the previous armor progression. Because I was so impressed with the armor, I expected great things from the accompanying weapon: the Flesh Rippers. However...

I just found the Flesh Rippers really lame, to be honest. They're just an improved fist. No special animations or visible movement differences from what I could tell from just punching. However, I could forgive all of that if they had a damn secondary attack. I was expecting some sort of pounce or lunge or anything reminiscent of an actual wolf or Fenring, but no. Given that this weapon feels different from other weapons in the game (and is the only weapon to my knowledge to use the Fist stat), I expected the play style to be more wolf-like. Does anyone else feel this disappointment?

[Chiller]

I feel the same, wasted opportunity, really.

[lorifel]

I agree with you but kicking for insane amount of damage helps me feel like king Leonidas :D

[M.Red]

to be honest i love the kick
and at least we can make use of the "fist" stat
but i agree - some more fist type weapons with maybe different attacks would be awesome
or maybe a sort of "selection for special attacks" like one might choose between a kick or a leap attack sort of thing

[John]

Originally posted by M.Red:

to be honest i love the kick
and at least we can make use of the "fist" stat
but i agree - some more fist type weapons with maybe different attacks would be awesome
or maybe a sort of "selection for special attacks" like one might choose between a kick or a leap attack sort of thing

The kick needs to be faster, it staggers enemies, but by the time you can make use of it they are no longer staggered.

[OctoberSky]

Then again, they do seem to be very deadly.

[jonnin]

I love the kick and they are nice sneak attack weapons for the short time you might use them.
Their #1 issue is they need a replacement for higher level content. The dual dagger sorta does this, but its not fist.

[Who Dat]

ya you aint using them right, all ive been using for a while now, fully upgraded the kick can stun trolls 100% of the time, it can stun fuling serkers too but somtimes it take a second kick, but once their stunned you just kick them after their stu nanimation for a nice stun lock. the second claw attack does more stun dmg than the first one.

but ye your sleeping on the kick "If they had a secondary atack" they do and it's great

*edit* low stamina cost and high parry bonus, my buddy parries a lox and i just hit it like 8 times and still not running out of stamina

[Rhapsody]

Originally posted by jonnin:

Their #1 issue is they need a replacement for higher level content. The dual dagger sorta does this, but its not fist.

In future, yes, but not in the immediate present. Even if a new variant possessed effective anti-seeker damage type, it'd still be pretty impractical to put to use against seeker soldiers, and short reach of fist weapons is not very useful against regular seekers either. So it's perfectly fine that the only available fist weapon is lagging a bit behind. If anything, there could be an earlier version of it available at some point so players can train their punching skill before accessing the rippers so they don't feel like lackluster weapon. But the flipside to that is again that there are already many perfectly viable weapons available in various stages of progress.

But yeah, rippers are actually very powerful overall. Good DPS for stamina cost, high attack speed, slashing damage works in the biome it's available in as well as the next one. Animations are recycled from regular unarmed attacks, but those animations are decent enough to begin with. Having other animations available would kinda warrant having them made for other weapons too. Just because you have claw weapons made of wolf-theme materials doesn't make you pounce around on all fours, humans don't do that. Kicking retains its decent stagger value, it's very reliable to stagger fuling with for example. Since the rippers' class is inherited from the unarmed category, they also don't slow down the character when the weapons are drawn out, meaning you'll always be ready to kick a troll in the buttocks and deal huge amount of sneak attack damage as you're dashing through the forests and swamps. With high enough block skill you can even parry the likes of abominations or deathsquitos or fulings.

[PnutButtrCrepes]

Originally posted by Who Dat:

ya you aint using them right, all ive been using for a while now, fully upgraded the kick can stun trolls 100% of the time, it can stun fuling serkers too but somtimes it take a second kick, but once their stunned you just kick them after their stu nanimation for a nice stun lock. the second claw attack does more stun dmg than the first one.

but ye your sleeping on the kick "If they had a secondary atack" they do and it's great

*edit* low stamina cost and high parry bonus, my buddy parries a lox and i just hit it like 8 times and still not running out of stamina

I admit, I kinda forgot the kick was part of the Fist stat, so yeah, I can see how the kick could complement the fast-paced play style. I am still disappointed in the aesthetics, though, and the lack of a unique secondary attack, as I should have stated.

[Who Dat]

Originally posted by PnutButtrCrepes:

Originally posted by Who Dat:

ya you aint using them right, all ive been using for a while now, fully upgraded the kick can stun trolls 100% of the time, it can stun fuling serkers too but somtimes it take a second kick, but once their stunned you just kick them after their stu nanimation for a nice stun lock. the second claw attack does more stun dmg than the first one.

but ye your sleeping on the kick "If they had a secondary atack" they do and it's great

*edit* low stamina cost and high parry bonus, my buddy parries a lox and i just hit it like 8 times and still not running out of stamina

I admit, I kinda forgot the kick was part of the Fist stat, so yeah, I can see how the kick could complement the fast-paced play style. I am still disappointed in the aesthetics, though, and the lack of a unique secondary attack, as I should have stated.

would be dope but i think that a jump like that would make for easy fall damage on uneven terrain probably why they didnt do it, i notice when the werewolves do it they fall pretty far sometimes

[madmike]

I was also bummed fists didn't get a jump attack as the daggers have but if you commit to a very aggresive playstyle it works out. Get unarmed up to a decent level, learn what staggers with the second combo hit and what needs the kick and you're golden. I find they're still viable for me in the mistlands with a full cultist armor for the speed, up untill two star seekers, fk em one kick doesn't stun at 75 unarmed and I don't intend to find out how many does it take with their crazy pierce dmg.

I would propose a slight change to the weapon/category, either a flat speed increase on the kick animation, as John mentioned it takes way too long and some enemies finish their stagger shortly after you stop kicking (you can mitigate that by kicking them into terrain so they stay within your immediate range but still), or tie kick speed to unarmed level.
As for future fist weapons maybe offer it with two options when crafting, either the standard kick for stun utility or with the dagger esque jump attack for pure damage.

[Luminous Dark]

I like the flesh rippers, but I don't use them as a primary weapon in the mistlands. I mostly have them as a backup weapon that I can equip while running around in the lower-level biomes to kill anything that pesters me without slowing myself down.

[FissionChips]

The fenris armour is fast, so you should be able to kick-sprint-jab.

I think my favourite thing when I first got fenris was just sprinting through the meadows absolutely extincting the deer population. From the start of the game when a bow is a pain to kill deer with, to sprinting twice as fast as deer and mowing them down - yes please. Took some wolves with me and they couldn't keep up.

[JumboJoe]

I don't particularly mind the lack of wolf like asthetics, but I do get your disapointment. the first time around, I barely even looked at the set and figured I was better off with my silver armor and frostner. On my second playthrough though, I figured I would challenge myself by avoiding every metal based armor, and figured I'd try the rippers out as well since I had the armor set. Turns out they're not bad! sure, its just the basic punching and kicking animation, but it feels like a completely new playstyle. Dodging and kicking for a stun to then punch enemies to death is pretty viable, and even though it's not the best stats wise, it is extremely fun. Sure, a leap not unlike the dagger would have been really cool looking, but I think it would make it less playable. In a sense, the kick is as good as your defence gets. It deals decent damage and stuns most enemies with one hit. A leap attack would allow for an easier first hit with plenty of damage, but probably wouldn't stagger as much, leaving you open for an attack, and with the relatively low armor rating of the fenris set, it wouldn't end well. what I do think needs to be reworked though is the availability of fist weapons past the mountains biom (I don't mind it being only available later on, it makes for a cooler progression in my opinion) and the recovery speed of the kick, which is so slow you can barely get one hit in by the time the mob recovers. I don't think the ckick itself needs to be faster since, when comparing with other secondary attacks, it is pretty fast, but it really is the recovery speed that gets annoying sometimes.

TLDR: Flesh rippers are great as they are, but we need more fist weapons and faster kick recovery.

[Soma]

Originally posted by Rhapsody:

Originally posted by jonnin:

If anything, there could be an earlier version of it available at some point so players can train their punching skill before accessing the rippers so they don't feel like lackluster weapon.

Brass knuckles! (well bronze knuckles)