Active Item: Pugilist

[tsar2tsar]

Intended for use with Melee Builds, Pugilist is supposed to be a Tier 4 Relic that's price at 6.4k Souls.
When purchased:

+15% Melee Damage
-15% Melee Distance
+5% Bullet Resist


When Active:

The Relic has a 50s Cooldown
Your next Melee pierces through enemy parries, but deals -15% Less Damage.
Your next Melee makes you Unstoppable
The enemy you Melee is Disarmed for 3.5s

For Clarification, the Active is Active until you melee Once. If you happen to hit more then one person, then only one person gets Disarmed. You still get Unstoppable and you still pierce through all Parries.

The Idea for Pugilist is to be a sort of reliable end-game Melee build.
My mindset as well is this is obviously paired with Crushing Fists, and there's plenty of ways to counter a Melee build, whether it's Stuns and Roots, or just Parrying. There's plenty of items built around the Parry mechanic. I believe that an active item for Melee would be an interesting and fun way to encourage a melee build. I could see this being predominantly used on Abrams, Bebop, Ivy, Viscous, Billy, and Calico.

I'm open for discussion as well.

 

[adeptusforgeceo]

Okay, just as a question: how does this work with light melees? this obviously has synergies with heavy melee and melee charge distance, but what's to stop someone from popping it and light meleeing someone point blank for the disarm?

You already have it pierce through parries so doing a light melee is worse, but if its done on a melee-scaling ability, then half of its effects are wasted or outright detrimental. And does it make you unstoppable for the duration of the move? How would the unstoppable work with viscous puddle punch?

I already feel that piercing through parries is a bad way to handle things, melee scaling items/abilities are the way to go, but this has added downsides that I don't know if you've fully thought through. The disarm is a nice touch though, and feels both thematic & somewhat well balanced. I just feel like it'd be abused or redundant on certain heroes.

 

[tsar2tsar]

Okay, just as a question: how does this work with light melees? this obviously has synergies with heavy melee and melee charge distance, but what's to stop someone from popping it and light meleeing someone point blank for the disarm?

You already have it pierce through parries so doing a light melee is worse, but if its done on a melee-scaling ability, then half of its effects are wasted or outright detrimental. And does it make you unstoppable for the duration of the move? How would the unstoppable work with viscous puddle punch?

I already feel that piercing through parries is a bad way to handle things, melee scaling items/abilities are the way to go, but this has added downsides that I don't know if you've fully thought through. The disarm is a nice touch though, and feels both thematic & somewhat well balanced. I just feel like it'd be abused or redundant on certain heroes.

It is a very situational item, Yes.
Instead of saying "but veil walker-" or "but shadow weave"

I'll say, It would still proc / be active on light melees. Kind of like if you use a good ability unintended. It's meant to be used like Sinclair's ult, where you activate it and then focus on getting a heavy melee, or else you waste it and it's on cooldown.

On an ability that scales melee, It wouldn't be as powerful as straight up meleeing. So things like Viscous or Venator wouldn't get the benefits of Disarmed or Unstoppable if they're doing a holy-wall combo, or puddle punches. It's strictly a hold Q and get your melee item.

 

[tsar2tsar]

It is a very situational item, Yes.
Instead of saying "but veil walker-" or "but shadow weave"

I'll say, It would still proc / be active on light melees. Kind of like if you use a good ability unintended. It's meant to be used like Sinclair's ult, where you activate it and then focus on getting a heavy melee, or else you waste it and it's on cooldown.

On an ability that scales melee, It wouldn't be as powerful as straight up meleeing. So things like Viscous or Venator wouldn't get the benefits of Disarmed or Unstoppable if they're doing a holy-wall combo, or puddle punches. It's strictly a hold Q and get your melee item.

Okay, just as a question: how does this work with light melees? this obviously has synergies with heavy melee and melee charge distance, but what's to stop someone from popping it and light meleeing someone point blank for the disarm?

You already have it pierce through parries so doing a light melee is worse, but if its done on a melee-scaling ability, then half of its effects are wasted or outright detrimental. And does it make you unstoppable for the duration of the move? How would the unstoppable work with viscous puddle punch?

I already feel that piercing through parries is a bad way to handle things, melee scaling items/abilities are the way to go, but this has added downsides that I don't know if you've fully thought through. The disarm is a nice touch though, and feels both thematic & somewhat well balanced. I just feel like it'd be abused or redundant on certain heroes.

The overall intended purpose is to make Melee builds more reliable and useful, and making it so you have a situational "punishing strike" if that makes sense. Phantom Strike into a 'Pugilist' Melee with Crushing Blow would be very damning, but that also puts you into the center of everything.

Unstoppable only lasts while meleeing, and when the melee connects. Essentially making it a 1-2 second invulnerability frame.

To address the light-melee concern, That could be a valid / concerning issue. Light meleeing to get a free disarm, Perhaps it can be lowered or only trigger disarm off of heavy-melees specifically, and light meleeing only grants the pierce and unstoppable.