Melee Wind-up (would call it Melee Charge but that name already exists)

[snipufin]

In short, a melee-focused item that allows you to wind-up a Heavy Melee slightly longer for extra damage (and range?). This can be used to bait out parries or just a general cool punching gimmick. While charging a melee attack, you could also give resistances akin to Apollo's Flawless Advance if you feel that charging up a punch leaves you too much like a sitting duck.

The damage increase could just be a "hold charge for more damage" akin to Smash Brothers' smash attacks (with maybe a meter visible to you, fig. 1).



Alternatively, instead of having a linearly scaling meter, the charge-up could be limited to a set amount of stages similar to how the Fire Emblem characters charge up their neutral specials in Smash Brothers, or how Tekken's Jack can wind-up Gigaton Punch up to 5 times for more damage. (fig. 2)


I'm not much of a balancing man so I'm not gonna throw out random numbers to figure out how this would be balanced, but I think it would bring some nuance to melee combat and add amusing scenarios where someone could go behind a corner and charge up a punch for a few seconds.

 

[snipufin]

Realized it a little late for the editing window but the first option is also similar to Doomfist from Overwatch.

 

[iuyhcdfs]

This is a great idea, it kind of balances itself because the enemy can back away enough to a distance where they could still parry on reaction, but you get to threaten their position and close the gap even if the melee doesn't connect.

Also it seems like a funny teambuilding exercise where you hear Holliday's lasso connect and you ready up a big punch for her to deliver the enemy into.

 

[Stakhanov]

This would be a lot of fun for melee doorman and melee haze.

 

[Samuelfgui]

I really liked that idea. I suggested a similar idea about charged punches a few days ago.

 

[Fred_]

Someone on the forums had said this before but this would be quite hard to balance.
The issue would be that an item like this, while a hard buy, would also at the same time be a must buy for heroes that have really good stuns like Haze, Doorman or Seven.
I do think this would be a good item if you know how to play melee correctly but it would also be too strong on people that can fully take advantage of stuns.

 

[snipufin]

Yeah, guess the main question for design philosophy is whether the reward (damage) should scale similarly to the time spent charging the punch, and how vulnerable do you want to leave the player for counter-options. For example, in Smash Brothers Ultimate, charging a smash attack (with a usual windup ranging from 0.1 to 0.3 seconds) for an extra second increases the damage done by 40% in most cases. Meanwhile, the player is completely vulnerable and unable to cancel said move. Obviously in Deadlock, taking damage doesn't stagger you out of a punching animation, so it's not that comparable, but you are still vulnerable to taking damage while standing mostly still, as well as to the enemy running away or parrying you.

I think introducing the mechanic as an item that can be balanced with cost and stats also makes this a more manageable concept. Having to spend 3200 or even 6400 souls on it (if necessary) can make the worrisome idea of charging a punch for extra damage (as opposed to just shooting a stunned enemy) an opportunity cost that won't be too rampant or OP in niche situations. This can further be balanced around with the aforementioned rewards: would you punch further? Would you be able to move while charging, or are you just stuck in place for the charging duration? In the tiered version, would you have to wait out the next full tier animation for the windup, making it more predictable?

I also think Deadlock already handles stuns fairly well; most stuns have reasonable tells and wind-ups that allows someone to prepare for it. Seven's 3 second delay 2 second stun rarely leads to many good wind-up punch opportunities unless this charged up punch could zoom across the battlefield. In the case of Hotel Guest, Doorman already has other set-ups he can do with all of his skills (which can be empowered with spirit items), and you can also buffer a parry as you're exiting the hotel in case you're worried about a punch. Sleeps from Haze and Rem are probably the edge case here that could break the idea, but you could always balance that part out as well by either introducing a faster sleepwalk speed to walk out of charged punches, or even introduce melee resistance while sleeping

If this was a suggestion for basekit, it would already be a bit strong just as an itemless Heavy Melee Cancel, but as an item in a game filled with fun items that can be completely busted in the right hands, I think it's fine.