Breaking of evade reactionaries after stun intentional?

Was the addition of a 3 second window to perform a reactionary style after an evade/block/parry intended to prevent the chaining of reactionary styles after a stun, or between swings of a slow weapon? It is no longer possible to diamondback or dragonfang stun an opponent after an evade, and follow up with hamstring chain styles. Likewise, you cannot get multiple reactionaries off between swings of a slow two handed weapon.

This is a significant nerf to dps for classes and players that rely on these reactionary styles, especially chained after a melee stun. This has been a staple technique for nightshades and infiltrators in melee since 2001. I suggest the 3 second window be removed, and we go back to the reactionary rules we've always had.

Sun 19 Aug 2018 7:05 AM by Cirath

Bump. Really? No one else has run into this? Where are all the infs and NS's at?

Sun 19 Aug 2018 8:30 AM by Mesk

Cirath wrote: ↑
Sat 18 Aug 2018 3:40 AM
I suggest the 3 second window be removed, and we go back to the reactionary rules we've always had.

This!

Sun 19 Aug 2018 9:54 AM by Cadebrennus

When was this 3 second delay added? I was just on about 12 hrs ago and didn't notice. I was doing PVE though.

Sun 19 Aug 2018 3:47 PM by phixion

Yeah I'm seeing this too.

First it seemed that when you evade, if you press the evade reactionary but get hit before it goes off, it won't go off.

Also, correct me if I'm wrong, but I seem to remember that if you had multiple mobs hitting you and one made you evade, you could get off the evade style on either of the mobs. I used to use this to my advantage so that I could get full evade chains off in CS spec.

Sun 19 Aug 2018 5:58 PM by Cirath

Cadebrennus wrote: ↑
Sun 19 Aug 2018 9:54 AM
When was this 3 second delay added? I was just on about 12 hrs ago and didn't notice. I was doing PVE though.

It was in the patch notes a few days ago. As far as i know it effects pve too. No diamondback stun into hamstring chain vs mobs either.

It isn't a delay, its a 3 second window to perform a reactionary style after an evade/block/parry. Once the 3 seconds is up, no more reactionaries. The old system allowed you to use reactionaries untill your opponent swung again. This allowed you to get multiple reactionaries off of a single evade/block/parry, and rewarded players who paid attention and were able to use all of the styles at their disposal. The new system dumbs down melee combat, and penalizes classes that use a stun to hold opponents where they can be hit by multiple reactionary styles.

Sun 19 Aug 2018 6:18 PM by Cirath

phixion wrote: ↑
Sun 19 Aug 2018 3:47 PM
Yeah I'm seeing this too.

First it seemed that when you evade, if you press the evade reactionary but get hit before it goes off, it won't go off.

Also, correct me if I'm wrong, but I seem to remember that if you had multiple mobs hitting you and one made you evade, you could get off the evade style on either of the mobs. I used to use this to my advantage so that I could get full evade chains off in CS spec.

It depends on the prereqs of the evade style, i.e. "you evade" vs "your targets last attack was evaded". Here and on Uthgard you could only diamondback a target that you had evaded. What it was like in 2001 I dont remember.

Sun 19 Aug 2018 7:52 PM by Cadebrennus

Then this penalizes you and your opponent for using a faster weapon. The whole point of fast weapons is to be able to fire off MORE reactionary styles and to make it harder for your opponent to use reactionary styles against you. This 3 second window just dumbs down the game and puts everyone into the same box of using the slowest weapons possible (which are typically best for the follow-up styles that have higher growth rates).

The same thing happened when Mythic/EA gave bonus after bonus to attack speed until it became easy to cap swing speed with 4.2 speed weapons.

If this continues we will see the same dumbing down of the game that happened on live.

Sun 19 Aug 2018 8:39 PM by Cirath

Cadebrennus wrote: ↑
Sun 19 Aug 2018 7:52 PM
Then this penalizes you and your opponent for using a faster weapon. The whole point of fast weapons is to be able to fire off MORE reactionary styles and to make it harder for your opponent to use reactionary styles against you. This 3 second window just dumbs down the game and puts everyone into the same box of using the slowest weapons possible (which are typically best for the follow-up styles that have higher growth rates).

The same thing happened when Mythic/EA gave bonus after bonus to attack speed until it became easy to cap swing speed with 4.2 speed weapons.

If this continues we will see the same dumbing down of the game that happened on live.

Yes, currently this removes one of the few benefits of using faster weapons, and removes one of the downsides of slow weapons. Which is fine if you are a 2 button masher on an assist train. However, those who rely heavily on their reactionary styles, primarily assasins and solo/smallman melees, see a significant lowering of the skill ceiling and nerf here.

Mon 20 Aug 2018 6:36 PM by Raethe13

This change negates one of the basic fundamentals of assassin gameplay and puts them at a disadvantage, while it puts players who are lazy or simply have slow reaction times ahead of the curve.

Why would we go so far outside of the traditional DAoC ruleset? The 1.65 ruleset was pretty well-balanced, which is why it is currently the gold standard for classic freeshards. I suggest we go back to the original reactionary settings, as this change is detrimental to the health of the server.

Mon 20 Aug 2018 7:40 PM by Thinal

The change was entirely unnecessary to begin with. All you have to do is set the reactionary as a backup style, and it will fire only if it's valid.

For example on the nightshade, mash the diamondback button, then the garrote button in quick succession. If you evade and are eligible for the diamondback, it will fire, otherwise, the garrote will fire.

It's possible to take this a step even further. Reactionaries can be set as backups, but other styles will simply refuse when you mash the button, and not be queued anywhere. You can take advantage of this! On each combat turn, mash diamondback, achilles' heel, and garrote in quick succession. If you evade right before your swing, you'll do a diamondback. If you don't evade and had swung garrote the previous round, you'll do the achilles' heel followup. If you hadn't swung garrote the previous round, achilles' heel would never have been queued (gotten an error message in the logs when you tried), and it will fire garrote.

Quick, easy, brainless. There was absolutely no need for this change for weapon speeds of 2.5 or 5.4, because this pattern works for all of them. It wouldn't matter if your opponent hit you 6 times between you mashing the buttons and your weapon firing, and only the last hit was evaded. You statistically won't fire your reactionary any less often than if you intensely eyeballed the fight to manually choose when to mash the reactionary style.

In fact, it still works. It just won't allow chained reactionaries anymore.

Tue 21 Aug 2018 4:42 AM by Cirath

Thinal wrote: ↑
Mon 20 Aug 2018 7:40 PM
The change was entirely unnecessary to begin with. All you have to do is set the reactionary as a backup style, and it will fire only if it's valid.

For example on the nightshade, mash the diamondback button, then the garrote button in quick succession. If you evade and are eligible for the diamondback, it will fire, otherwise, the garrote will fire.

It's possible to take this a step even further. Reactionaries can be set as backups, but other styles will simply refuse when you mash the button, and not be queued anywhere. You can take advantage of this! On each combat turn, mash diamondback, achilles' heel, and garrote in quick succession. If you evade right before your swing, you'll do a diamondback....

I also don't understand the reason for this change as style backups were already available and used by just about everyone. All it does is penalize players who were able to maximize the number of reactionary styles used in melee by putting some effort and ability into it instead of spamming anytime styles.

I am surprised no Dev has weighed in as of yet. Typically they have been pretty quick to respond.

Wed 22 Aug 2018 11:39 AM by Cirath

Bump. has there been any internal discussion on this issue Gruensschaf?

Tue 4 Sep 2018 4:39 PM by Sayuri

bump ^^

Wed 5 Sep 2018 11:24 AM by rawrex

I like things the way they are.

95% of Pierce/Thrust sneaks rely on the off evade stun to be viable in the first place.

There's almost no incentive to spec Slash outside of damage tables so Pierce/Thrust doesn't need anymore love.

Wed 5 Sep 2018 7:41 PM by Ceen

rawrex wrote: ↑
Wed 5 Sep 2018 11:24 AM
I like things the way they are.

95% of Pierce/Thrust sneaks rely on the off evade stun to be viable in the first place.

There's almost no incentive to spec Slash outside of damage tables so Pierce/Thrust doesn't need anymore love.

Its not love to bring back a live like mechanic.

Thu 6 Sep 2018 7:38 AM by

Uthred

There are no plans atm to change anything (back).

Thu 6 Sep 2018 5:55 PM by Cadebrennus

Uthred wrote: ↑
Thu 6 Sep 2018 7:38 AM
There are no plans atm to change anything (back).

That's a shame. Because if I wanted to use fast weapons on my Merc (I do) I wanted to be able to make it harder for a keyboard face-masher to get a reactionary style off on me. Will this current change in place it doesn't matter how fast I swing because the keyboard face-masher will have a 3 second window to pull off a reactionary style.

I think you guys (Devs) are doing a great job but I think you are making a big mistake here. This change is going to push everyone into a cookie cutter spec like on live where everyone is using the same weapons.

Fri 7 Sep 2018 3:21 PM by Thinal

rawrex wrote: ↑
Wed 5 Sep 2018 11:24 AM
I like things the way they are.

95% of Pierce/Thrust sneaks rely on the off evade stun to be viable in the first place.

There's almost no incentive to spec Slash outside of damage tables so Pierce/Thrust doesn't need anymore love.

It's not just pierce/thrust stuns. Shield reactionary stuns got nerfed with this too. It used to be beneficial to chain a post-block stun with a weapon's post-block chain. It still gives one time to set up a positional chain and at least a few unanswered seconds of combat, but it's definitely a massive nerf to anyone who actually uses a shield rather than macroing a swap just for slams.

Sun 9 Sep 2018 10:46 PM by Cirath

rawrex wrote: ↑
Wed 5 Sep 2018 11:24 AM
95% of Pierce/Thrust sneaks rely on the off evade stun to be viable in the first place.

There's almost no incentive to spec Slash outside of damage tables so Pierce/Thrust doesn't need anymore love.

I would say a 10-20% advantage in armor resists vs a particular opponent is incentive enough to spec slash.

There has been a lot of good arguments presented here for keeping the old reactionary mechanic, and zero presented for changing to the new one. No one was asking for this change, it wasn't an issue.

Just call it like it is. This is a big middle finger to classes that rely on reactionaries and/or fast weapons.

Mon 10 Sep 2018 5:54 PM by Cadebrennus

Going to quote myself here (classy I know) regarding advice I'm giving to another player regarding weapon speed and how this "new" change affects the gameplay negatively. Sadly you can see that it (like I mentioned before) will reduce variety in playstyles and specs, something which definitely affects this game in a negative fashion. If I wanted cookie cutter specs and gear with keyboard face-mashing play I'd go back to ESO.

Cadebrennus wrote: ↑
Mon 10 Sep 2018 5:50 PM
Lumpi wrote: ↑
Mon 10 Sep 2018 9:04 AM
Holy ****,

was looking for copper and found some gold.
Thank you very much for the detailed information about this.

I'll take a further look at this once I'm back at home.

But with the change for reactionary styles you are telling me to go for slowest weapons possible to hit as hard as possible with each hit ?
Or get a medium speed Mainhand and slowest offhand possible ?

With the new (unpopular and un-asked for) change to reactionary styles that allow for a 3 second window to pull off a reactionary style there is no reason to wield a fast MH weapon now. Any keyboard face masher can pull off a reactionary style against a more skilled player that is wielding even a fast weapon. At this point it's just best to join the keyboard face mashers and go with the slowest MH you can get for a bigger styled hit yet have a 3 second window of unskilled confidence that a reactionary style can still be pulled off. There is no longer any compromise between damage per hit and reactionary style effects.