Parry stun needs diminishing returns if melee based hero’s are to ever become a thing in this game.

[Nightman]

Parry stun duration either needs reduced or we need diminishing returns on it. Idk how long it is currently. Im thinking like 4 seconds? This is plenty of time to 100-0 someone especially late game. If you do survive that stun, youll have maybe 1/4th of your hp bar at most.

The problem with this- there is no diminishing return. So if you melee again and get parried again you sit another 4 second stun and its forsure gg’s now.

They need to make it like this:

first parry stun - 4 seconds

second parry stun - 2 seconds

3rd parry stun - 1 second

after that youd be immune to parry stun for around 15 sec.

This is how diminishing returns work in games like world of warcraft and its specifically so mechanics that negate entire play styles cant be abused.

Ik its a shooter, but theyre clearly are leaning into the melee elements by adding loads of melee items. If melee is to just be a fun secondary thing then its fine how it is now. But if they wanna take it a step further and continue to add more melee items in the shop and more melee themed heros in the future something needs to be done about parry stun duration. As an abrams main ive had loads of fun punching, but he is falling off hard now that my mmr is much higher and players see his punches coming from a mile away. At high mmr to use a heavy melee attack is almost always a guaranteed death regardless of what hero youre playing.

 

[Sarus]

there's only three melee items in the game at the moment, when I played abrams I usually made sure to pick a real gun item to punish parries (literally 3-4 seconds of free headshots). berserker/CQ + burst fire is usually enough until late game. parries are risky enough as it is.

 

[insert31990]

melee and parry seems kind of pointless when melee becomes a guaranteed self-stun as people become more familiar with the mechanics. it really only sees use in the first 9 minutes as a way to secure souls.

the idea of feinting with melee as justification to keep the mechanic comes across as wavedashing or bunny hopping discussions in other communities: blind attachment to unintended, counter-intuitive knowledge checks that gatekeeps wider adoption.

 

[Sarus]

heavy melee is still extremely useful in chaotic teamfights late game, especially since they can strike multiple people with the same attack. in those situations even successfully parrying is extremely risky if there's a 35k haze looking to press 4 nearby. as for melee itself, it's simply a up close RPS with almost no mechanical skill barrier, so I don't find the wavedashing/bunny hop comparison sound.

 

[insert31990]

heavy melee is still extremely useful in chaotic teamfights late game, especially since they can strike multiple people with the same attack. in those situations even successfully parrying is extremely risky if there's a 35k haze looking to press 4 nearby. as for melee itself, it's simply a up close RPS with almost no mechanical skill barrier, so I don't find the wavedashing/bunny hop comparison sound.

wouldn't this mean that removing melee would increase the overall skill cap? in chaotic teamfights, the most level-headed tracker should come out on top, not the one spamming melee.

 

[Orangestar]

Heavy Melee works better in moments where it's unexpected: around corners, coming out of veils, etc. By endgame I personally have a very easy time getting a good heavy melee in and then punishing futher with gun damage, which makes people parry less, which means I can melee more often. Also, mixing up regular melee with heavy melee makes people get confused on timing.
I do broadly agree that parry might need some kind of tweaking because right now it's just a universal instant option to cancel someone else's damage source - something that's normally reserved for items - but I think anything that tweaks parry would just make other sources of damage that aren't melee objectively worse, even if only slightly.

 

[kvnggn]

Don't forget that meta varies from MMR range and not because something is meta in the higher rankings mean that it is also meta in the lower rank. I think there's just too much going on at the same time for parry to be a problem to the broader audience.

So while it might be a problem for you, it might not be for the majority of people.

 

[insert31990]

Don't forget that meta varies from MMR range and not because something is meta in the higher rankings mean that it is also meta in the lower rank. I think there's just too much going on at the same time for parry to be a problem to the broader audience.

So while it might be a problem for you, it might not be for the majority of people.

i'm fine with it, but i simply don't think the mechanic is fun to interact with, or necessary enough to justify 2 entire button inputs. with the funneling meta (double leeching) coming to light, removal of melee/parry would slow this tactic down organically and give the opponents time to punish during reloads.

 

[mrsam1804]

if parry would get DR i think abrams will kill me anyway. the only thing thet stops him from stomping me that i parry his attacks. i think they game should be more about opportunities than exhausting your options until someone dies. Maybe a solution would be an item on CD that would "eat up" one melee stun for you if you miss. There's already people who juke and bait for parry with fake melee attacks. so i think if your playstyle is purely on pressin Q, thats on you.

 

[Matty x.x]

Why should the easiest, simplest mechanic in the game being light/heavy punching be really viable regardless? It's meant to simply be a way to put some extra damage in here and there. It shouldn't be super viable and really it isn't for higher elo because people actually know how to parry and space better. Abrams is quite possibly the most braindead character in the game and people really dislike his gameplay usually because literally his only build is stacking all the melee items and being tanky, punching you down constantly since he has infinite sustain.

While Abrams a little less of an issue in high-elo, he's still cancer to deal with since he's extremely easy and reliable and guarantees melee hits for himself and it's really not fun to play against, and we don't need more of that playstyle.

 

[Lady Briar]

I just think parry shouldn't stun, and that's all. You should be able to parry at the same rate that someone punches, and it should just be a timing mechanic and nothing more. I think the way it is now its almost just... more complicated than it needs to be? Melee shouldn't be the focus in this game, given the overall style, imo... but parry just should be parry in its simplest form, a countermove. Not a counter AND a stun. Not a counter AND <insert thing here>.

Even though the parry stun benefits me personally, as someone who doesn't play any of the melee favorable characters, I just think the stun is overkill and does punish people for having good positioning and timing with their melee. Personally I'd prefer that melee stay a secondary mechanic, but also not be overly complicated. Just my thoughts.

 

[insert31990]

lots of good thoughts in here. i'd settle for keeping light melee but removing strong melee and parry.

 

[rays1712]

melee is the only thing keeping aim-less moba player.

dont change a thing, its fine as it is.

 

[MiccinGA]

Its perfect for now. Dont touch it please
Its rly interesting mechanic. Just fix some hitboxes for Heavy Meele punch

 

[insert31990]

you could remove universal melee and go full dota by separating heroes into ranged and melee primary fire.

 

[Updated my Journal]

if anything there should be a feint that consumes your parry at half CD

 

[oljimgrizzigsby]

lots of good thoughts in here. i'd settle for keeping light melee but removing strong melee and parry.

really shouldnt be removed, its alot of fun and rounds out the movement mechanics well, the game should be fun even when you have no spells, no ammo and no stamina, because those situations will occur

 

[ASX3]

I think the solution is to allow the heavy melee to be canceled, that way you can feint it and bait it out. It already has its own baked in drawback which is that you're wasting time charging up the melee attack (and especially if they don't end up parrying anyways)

 

[rays1712]

melee is fun, if you used melee viable hero tho, people will expect you to melee anyway and focus on what youre doing if you near, just instantly parry you if you do heavy melee, and this is where things getting dicey, stop using heavy melee if you see someone focusing on you(usually they shoot you while moving back, its a common denominator that they are expecting you to heavy melee and prepared to parry you), just do light melee at this point and it definitely confused them, then they will instantly panick parry after you light melee, and get punished severely by getting free shotgun to the face.

melee is fun for now, it has a little bit complexity, bluff and skill to actually pull it off.
its like gambling i would say.