Combat Style needs to go

[lionSpyre]

Alright, I'll get in on some of this action!

Starting really broad, you can't change combat style or combat style advantage without fundamentally changing the game. And, as mentioned earlier, it's hard to change something that feels good. Whether you're a fighter class or not, outsmarting your opponent with a combat style swap feels good. Double grip-overhead smash feels good. Removing your shield and wielding a two-hander to cause your opponent to miss their barrage feels good. Your brain gets a dopamine rush as the tide of the battle turns briefly in your favor, and repeated anticipations like this can really get into the head of your opponent.

That said, I think the easiest way to change combat style advantage without fundamentally changing an enjoyable aspect of the game is what Dav brought up recently, which is to make combat style advantage something more defensive. We already have something like that existing in monks with block, and I think overall that ability has gone over well (no bias here ). Furthermore, it would reinforce the notion that combat skills like overhead smash, barrage, and sideswipe aim to improve offense in what is an inherently defensive maneuver (maybe less so with sideswipe). As mentioned before, this reduces burst that warriors put out, makes things feel less dependent on RNG, and gives outclassed opponents at least a sliver of a chance to keep the fight going without having to resort to instantly turning and running after two rounds going poorly.

Now, since warriors would be the most impacted by this change, how would making combat style advantage more defensive affect combat against their counter classes? In my experience, this is shaman, invoker, and berserker (when all things are equal with respect to gear and player skill). I think, in general, this would hurt their ability to fight these classes even more. A more defensive warrior can't burst down a shaman or invoker as fast, which just gives the shaman more time to heal or land debuffs, and it gives the invoker more time to shred you with spells. And berserkers get such a massive boost to hit/dam when they rage, I don't think the defensive buff that warriors would get from combat style advantage would help them much. So, in the end, this change would absolutely nerf warriors and make them easier to deal with from other classes.

Finally, as a side note, I just want to say that I like the idea of not having to weapon swap to change your combat style with commands like aggressive/defensive/balanced, mostly from a flavor standpoint. When I imagine my fighter class, I'm not imagining them quickly cycling through weapons at blazing speed to try to get an advantage over their opponent. I usually see them mastering one or two weapons at most, and sticking with their trusty 'favored' weapon over everything else. Pulling back to a system like agg/def/bal may force warriors to actually stick to their favored weapons (as I think Dav mentioned earlier as well), and forego weapon style advantage in exchange for better hit/dam. This would also promote more unconventional warriors being rolled so that people could get access to new and interesting weapons. However, moving to an a/d/b system would be one of those monumental shifts in the combat system that I mentioned earlier. Could you really say that a warrior can't shift in and out of a combat style with dirt in their eyes now that they don't have to swap weapons? Can you overhead smash if you've got a shield in your hand? How many rare slots did you just open up in each fighter's inventory, thereby granting greater access for more people to powerful weapons? I think these are things that could be addressed and balanced with time, but that would be a huge effort.

[Solmundi]

I think removing the styles would just make flee/murder much, much easier. Probably not a good thing.

This kind of feels like a "qwerty" vs numpad players debate.

[Dogran]

I definitely think, finding a solution for murder flees would be a better option than changing combat styles.

[Davairus]

actually there are existing solutions for murder/flee, starting with just sitting yourself in a no-exit (hard counter), the next thing is just fleeing from their murder and stand on the spot spamming murder <blah> so that you hit first when they walk in to try to catch up to you. the moving player is always lagged and will always get hit first. you can also dirt kick (which means they cannot murder you) although if I recall correctly we removed that being blocked by blurry vision, so we nerfed that one on request that we do. Also you can hobble them so they cant flee easily, and if they do collapse on fleeing then you can just walk in and murder. finally the easiest tool against murder/flee is to just sit at your cabal guardian or some other aggro mob. guild sit so that they have to aggro a mob. From there we start getting into classes, like for example the invoker ice shielld is basically a thorns for murder damage, meaning if you are trying to flee/murder an invoker you are going to eat a ton of damage anyway, and that isnt a flee/murder problem, that is a gear (hp, AC and damroll) problem

P.S. An easy to generate idea in light of what I already posted is to simply give players a chance to perform a retaliating strike if they are murdered while having a weapon advantage. If you can see them of course. Another way to go wih that would be that if you have combat style superiority, you can attempt an evade when you are murdered (even if you dont have dodge). Or hell, why not both?

weapon adv:
You yell 'Help I am being attacked by Bob the Warrior!'
Bob's slash MANGLES you!
Your whip MUTILATES Bob! <-- you perform the second attack instead of Bob
etc

combat style:
You yell 'Help I am being attacked by Bob the Warrior!'
Bob's slash MANGLES you!
You evade Bob's second attack.

both (better damage?):
You yell 'Help I am being attacked by Bob the Warrior!'
Bob's slash MANGLES you!
You evade Bob's second attack and strike back.
Your whip DISMEMBERS Bob!

all murder-only, unavailable with weapon ward type shit. to introduce it with less initial potency, that could also just be an update to riposte, berserker lash (needs a whip), fencing (needs a sword), and so on.