[Gameplay Suggestion] Shield Guarding with your weapon.

[Harquinn]

While fighting Phaseman again, I found myself thinking, "It'd feel so great to be able to swing my sword at the last moment and knock these bullets away." So I gave it some more thought and came up with two separate ideas that I'd like to put out there.

One would be simply having, or unlocking the ability to Perfect Guard against ranged attacks with your blade. The Dodging Strike 1H melee skill does something sorta similar against melee attackers, but due to the charge system, you can sorta prep the counter attack and wait for the right moment and it doesn't really work against ranged attacks. It's not the super-clutch, last moment slicing of an arrow from the air, or bouncing back a laser with the flat of your blade like you're channeling Luke Skywalker.

Alternately, the idea occurred to me that using your weapon as your shield had some interesting connotations. When you're using a 1H weapon, it makes sense that the other hand is carrying your shield. Sword and Board is a classic style. But if you're carrying a big 2H weapon, which hand are you carrying that shield with? When wielding a two-hander, it'd make a lot of sense if the weapon took up both your weapon and your shield slot, and when you pressed your shield button, you blocked with the flat of that massive blade, or the sturdy handle of your trusty hammer. This form of blocking would work just like the already implemented shields do; two handed weapons would have a health stat just like a shield does, and recharge while not in use as standard. This would put another bit of nuance between 1H and 2H fighting styles. "One handers are fast, and they let you carry a powerful shield, but they don't hit as hard, and they have short reach. Two handers have reach and damage, but they're slower and focus on all out offense, deemphasizing defense."

What does the community think?

 

[GarlicJelly]

I think that swinging your sword to block ranged attacks sounds like it would make the game too easy. I could just spam attack all day and deflect all the attacks thrown at me. :/

Having a 2H weapon that breaks because you use it as a shield sounds super hard to use. Some fights/strategies would be completely horrible due to the high risk of your weapon instantly breaking from the various shield breaking attacks that are in the game which would leave you unable to attack. I can agree with that it would look cool to block attacks with the big weapon instead of pulling up the shield but I don't think it would make the game any better. Having the same mechanic on all different builds in terms of blocking will probably make the game less confusing than different blocking mechanics for different weapons.

I personally don't think there has to be any changes made to the combat so neither suggestions appeal to me as any good. But that's just my opinion.

 

[Own]

Smash is one of the few skills I think need mechanical buffs specifically for something like this, a mechanic that should be Smash-only.

The Club is already a baseball bat. I would love nothing more than to equip it in my style slot and SMASH every projectile I can back at enemies.

 

[Harquinn]

I think that swinging your sword to block ranged attacks sounds like it would make the game too easy. I could just spam attack all day and deflect all the attacks thrown at me. :/

Having a 2H weapon that breaks because you use it as a shield sounds super hard to use. Some fights/strategies would be completely horrible due to the high risk of your weapon instantly breaking from the various shield breaking attacks that are in the game which would leave you unable to attack. I can agree with that it would look cool to block attacks with the big weapon instead of pulling up the shield but I don't think it would make the game any better. Having the same mechanic on all different builds in terms of blocking will probably make the game less confusing than different blocking mechanics for different weapons.

I personally don't think there has to be any changes made to the combat so neither suggestions appeal to me as any good. But that's just my opinion.

Perhaps, if you were allowed to just spam attacks to block projectiles, it would make the fights that emphasized projectiles easier. If you got really lucky on your timing, and managed to spam in time to get those Perfect Guards time after time, I could see it possibly screwing with balance. Simply making the window of Perfect Guarding with a weapon quite small, or a cool-down on how long since your last swing it's able to block again, might make spamming ineffective... But then again, this was the suggestion I thought least likely to make it.

And as to your weapon being offline in you run out of shield health, if it sounded like I was saying that, I must apologize. That was not my intention at all. My suggestion was that if you block with your 2H weapon and run the health bar out, you can still totally use it as a weapon with no penalty, you simply can't use it to shield until it's shield health as recharged. Like with a 1H sword and shield, your shield being on cool down doesn't lock out your weapon. Blocking with the 2H weapon would just be cool, cause it's this big sturdy chunk of metal that's already in your hands, and it'd kinda make sense in my head that a two handed weapon takes two hands.

Still, your opinions are welcomed, and if nothing else, I'd love to see the first idea as a Special Effect on at least one sword over the course of the game. Something stuck in the middle that's fun for a bit, but you eventually leave behind for something with better stats would still make me quite happy.