Feint - T1 Weapon (Active) for early Melee Cancels

[RemOrRiot]

Melee is a really fun mechanic, but often feels like a great risk to low reward given how long parry now lingers, this is extremely frustrating as some times you actually successfully bait out a parry, wait out the blue glow effect, but get punished anyway. And with rebuttal being a niche, but crazy powerful counter to any melee characters aside from those with access to stuns, there should be a way to overcome this.

Melee cancelling is a mechanic, and currently its most accessible use is fleetfoot a T2 item with a long enough cooldown that in lane phase its not super viable for the melee cancel itself; I suggest adding a T1 active who's entire point IS to melee cancel, to complete the rock-paper-scissors dynamic of the melee system against T1 rebuttal.

Feint - T1 Weapon
Passive: +[10]% melee damage, +[5]% debuff resistance, debuff resistance also applies to being parried
Active (12s CD): Cancels your current heavy melee and lunges you back; If an enemy within [3] meters is parrying within the ~0.5s window of using this item, the target's parry ends, you restore 1 stamina then perform a feinted heavy melee.

Feinted Heavy Melee: No wind up, and deals +25% damage. Sets item cooldown to 5s on hit

Numbers are tweak able, but the intent here is so that you heavy melee in, and use the active to cancel the melee attack; Refunding a stamina I think is good because it only works IF the enemy chooses to parry, giving you an opportunity to chase or retreat as needed. Melee resistance reduced should be slightly less than the bonus damage given by rebuttal, otherwise it will create the same imbalance as is currently in game, only now in melee's favor. Lastly, parry specifically ignores debuff resistance, but an item that lets you overcome that would be good; theres also no T1 item that currently offers debuff resistance, so 10% feels small enough to start off with given the next lowest item is reducer at 25%. The small dash backwards lets you disengage even if the target does not parry, but otherwise simply wastes the ability.

Visually, the player should glow orange or in some way flash to indicate when feint is performed, orange/yellow makes the most sense since the melee itself is a similar color and parry is blue. I don't think it needs its own animation, but could just be the backwards dash animation with an orange glow. The icon I made a quick mockup in gimp from a random stock image but it just needs to convey the player forgoes their melee, then lunges back in for more.

An item such as this lets players engage with the melee system more openly early on, and reduce some but not all the risk in doing so, similar to rebuttal. I think the item allowing parry stuns to be reduced means some players MAY choose to keep it until late game (again, similar to rebuttal, as it fills a niche no other item does), but due to it being T1 it may not be worth a slot past the early game. Most importantly, it makes the already present melee cancelling accessible as a T1 item rather than requiring fleetfoot as the earliest item that allows you to do so.

This is my first post like this so I'm not sure if its formatted right, let me know what should be rebalanced and any other thoughts

 

[adeptusforgeceo]

You can format it however you like. I tend to prefer the graphic designer for making item concepts faster & without needing as much explanation.

I like the idea of the item. It's probably too strong as a T1 or even a T2, but is probably too weak to be a T3. The cooldown is probably far far too low, but the concept has merit I think. There's cool potential to use the item as a movement tool by flicking behind you near the end of your heavy melee & activating for extra distance if you're not fighting someone.

Making stuff unparryable is not kosher in my playbook, and this is a solid way of handling it by forcing it to end, thus giving control back to the opponent, rather than just breaking the RPS triangle. Enemies can still dodge the following heavy melee with stuff like EShift, Apollo Riposte, Cube, Pocket Briefcase, etc.

The passive worries me a little bit. Debuff resistance is really easy to get for some characters, such as with weighted bullets, several passive abilities like abrams/warden have. Potentially you could get parried and have <1 second overall stun, making this a much MUCH more attractive option on someone like Billy or the aforementioned Abrams.

Overall, great first post!

 

[RemOrRiot]

You can format it however you like. I tend to prefer the graphic designer for making item concepts faster & without needing as much explanation.

I like the idea of the item. It's probably too strong as a T1 or even a T2, but is probably too weak to be a T3. The cooldown is probably far far too low, but the concept has merit I think. There's cool potential to use the item as a movement tool by flicking behind you near the end of your heavy melee & activating for extra distance if you're not fighting someone.

Making stuff unparryable is not kosher in my playbook, and this is a solid way of handling it by forcing it to end, thus giving control back to the opponent, rather than just breaking the RPS triangle. Enemies can still dodge the following heavy melee with stuff like EShift, Apollo Riposte, Cube, Pocket Briefcase, etc.

The passive worries me a little bit. Debuff resistance is really easy to get for some characters, such as with weighted bullets, several passive abilities like abrams/warden have. Potentially you could get parried and have <1 second overall stun, making this a much MUCH more attractive option on someone like Billy or the aforementioned Abrams.

Overall, great first post!

Thank you for the feedback! And you're right, I'm viewing the item in a vacuum; Debuff reduction was really just thrown on there for another reason to take it. Maybe it could just outright set the parry stun to a flat time amount, say half the usual parry stun. Ultimately, I think it would need to be a tier 1 as its really the early game lane phase where the rock-paper-scissors dynamic is at its best. If you're running a pure melee build then sure you can keep it, but ultimately I'd like it to be a more affordable, more intuitive version of HMC (even though most melee characters would sitll take fleetfoot for its passive alone). It honestly could just remove this stat entirely, I just wanted an item similar to rebuttal but for offense instead of defense, where its niche is so specfic you might keep it to the mid/late game until you need the slot in specific situations, or may ignore it entirely as its very situational

Cooldown can be increased, but I definetly think it should be massively reduced on a successful feint; Same as how parry has no cooldown on success, but 4.5s on a whiff. Unlike rebuttal which has the -2s parry CD no matter what, I think it should be punishing to miss a feint but only in opportinity cost. Maybe 15s-20s base (since again, it does nothing on a miss anyway), and still 5s on success. My thought with the cooldown reduction on success is that its up and ready about when the player gets their parry back. Keep in mind other than the small dash backwards it doesn't do anything if the target does not parry. The window also has to be tight enough that I'm not always spamming it, since it does cancel the initial heavy melee so it just goes to waste if you don't properly read the opponent (and perhaps a longer CD would be penalty enough). It also should have a low CD overall because ultimately its purpose is a HMC to bait out parries, everything else about it is just fluff to make it more worth while; Even the +1 stamina only comes because the easiest way to bait a parry is to dash into the enemy and hope they react.

Didn't even consider movement tech of flicking backwards, I'm all for that but it was meant to be more of a visual flair thing. I don't imagine the dash is anythign significant, maybe 50% of your heavy melee distance, though I suppose the actual feint attack would on top would make it overal x1.5 times heavy melee distance if you flick after the back dash.

Anyway thanks for the feedback, kinda fun to think about. Definetly stand by that it needs to be a T1 because the problem I'm trying to solve applies primarily to early game, though its numbers and passives can be tweaked so its not too strong, it just needs more than "press button to HMC" as thats too niche to every realistically take, unless you made it upgrade into fleetfoot? Idk about that tho

Edit: Could honestly just remove the backdash altogether and have it just stop your melee momentum, and the trigger another heavy melee if the feint succeeds. Then you could still be punished, and maybe it disables melee for 1s so now youre vulnerable right next to the opponent.

 

[adeptusforgeceo]

Personally I think the little bit of forced movement is wholly necessary to the identity of the item. If you didn't have it, it'd basically just be a Fleetfoot cancel, but the opponent doesn't get punished as hard, which is exactly what you DON'T want from an item specifically intended to punish bad parry attempts.

Allowing players to use it in alternative ways, as long as they aren't obscenely broken is part of the skill expression of items. Don't walk back the design just because you didn't intend it at first, just take it into account for your future designs. As it stands, this item is great aside from some necessary tweaks.

 

[back_biter+deadlock]

Seems insanely op? It's literally a guaranteed free heavy melee against enemies every 12 seconds?
Pre Patch runic guantlets, except it needs you to press a button and costs 800 instead of being a 9999 soul street brawl only item??

 

[RemOrRiot]

Seems insanely op? It's literally a guaranteed free heavy melee against enemies every 12 seconds?
Pre Patch runic guantlets, except it needs you to press a button and costs 800 instead of being a 9999 soul street brawl only item??

How is it free? Only works if you successfully bait a parry out. If they don't parry it goes to waste and does nothing; in fact it actively cancels the melee that you presumably WOULD have hit since they didn't parry. If you press it too late, it prevents you from being parried since you hop back but it doesn't proc the free hit? I think that part should be reworded, the intent is to punish players for parrying what would have been a missed attack, with a bit more spice; its not meant to be a free disengage from a hit that would otherwise have gotten parried. Its not meant to be a risk-free melee, its meant to be a fake-out followed by a stronger hit.


I'm not saying I did a great job balance wise but the whole point is "rebuttal but for offense" so yes its for tier 1 and yes I think making it an active to cancel a melee makes sense, and yes I think a low-ish CD makes sense since its very niche item with no upgrades, and parrying is a base mechanic with a 4s CD at worst (down to 2s with rebuttal, the item its competing with). Its literally just "aha I successfully baited a parry, now you take damage", Maybe it does need a bigger punishment for a whiff tho, but again rebuttal lowers CD for missed parries essentially negating the biggest downside of missing one and getting melee'd for the next 3s with no defense.

 

[back_biter+deadlock]

How is it free? Only works if you successfully bait a parry out. If they don't parry it goes to waste and does nothing; in fact it actively cancels the melee that you presumably WOULD have hit since they didn't parry. If you press it too late, it prevents you from being parried since you hop back but it doesn't proc the free hit? I think that part should be reworded, the intent is to punish players for parrying what would have been a missed attack, with a bit more spice; its not meant to be a free disengage from a hit that would otherwise have gotten parried. Its not meant to be a risk-free melee, its meant to be a fake-out followed by a stronger hit.


I'm not saying I did a great job balance wise but the whole point is "rebuttal but for offense" so yes its for tier 1 and yes I think making it an active to cancel a melee makes sense, and yes I think a low-ish CD makes sense since its very niche item with no upgrades, and parrying is a base mechanic with a 4s CD at worst (down to 2s with rebuttal, the item its competing with). Its literally just "aha I successfully baited a parry, now you take damage", Maybe it does need a bigger punishment for a whiff tho, but again rebuttal lowers CD for missed parries essentially negating the biggest downside of missing one and getting melee'd for the next 3s with no defense.

I think the item is just poorly thought out. There is already a punishment through baiting out parries, it's called melee redirection.
Literally if they parry on your way to them, miss you melee and then wail on them, this is already a mechanic.
The person who is forced to parry is in disadvantage during the entire interaction, until they land the parry, which is why rebuttal is so overtuned for an 800 gold item.

Also just use light melees along with heavy melee, it's literally better dps untill you get melee charge and its upgrades.

 

[adeptusforgeceo]

I think the item is just poorly thought out. There is already a punishment through baiting out parries, it's called melee redirection.
Literally if they parry on your way to them, miss you melee and then wail on them, this is already a mechanic.
The person who is forced to parry is in disadvantage during the entire interaction, until they land the parry, which is why rebuttal is so overtuned for an 800 gold item.

Also just use light melees along with heavy melee, it's literally better dps untill you get melee charge and its upgrades.

I feel like this is a little reductionist. If this were the case, Heavy Melee Cancels wouldn't exist in the game. Not to mention this does fundamentally different things to both rebuttal and to pre-existing HMCs. This item can be used to force parries to deactivate on midboss, and as prior stated, acts as a unique movement option.

The idea has merit, it just isn't well balanced in its current state. That's not exactly uncommon for items suggested here.