Nudge is more of a group fight mechanic, allowing your teammate to get a hit. In 1v1, it can disrupt the flow of the fight, but not give any kind of clear advantage (except knockdown or gravity kill in specific situations). The different nudge options all present balanced risk/reward propositions.
Kick is more of a 1v1 mechanic than nudge, but overall its risk/reward proposition is not balanced; attempting a kick during your attack phase presents only the very slight risk of being chamber kicked/knocked down (probably <10% chance of getting kick chambered against a typical player). If you succeed, you have a 100% chance of a free hit, with additional chance of knockdown if your weapon has that feature. Low risk, high reward.
When I'm fighting a highly skilled player that doesn't abuse kicks, I know it's going to be a tough fight, but I can win if I don't make mistakes. When I'm fighting a kick spammer (even if their footwork/blocking isn't very good), I often feel like there's nothing I can do. If I'm close enough to land a hit, I'm close enough to be kicked.
Being a more aggressive, and agility-based player, I honestly hate any and all kick spammers. If I run at them to get a swing in, they just kick me.. and despite 8 athletics I can't sidestep or back out in time. If they go to attack me and then instead kick for the free hit, the only way to not get hit is to just be an S key hero, which is no fun for either player. If I am strafing back and forth and they kick, no matter where I am positioned relative to their foot, so long as I am somewhere in front of them, I will be kicked due to the conical area of effect. Or, on the off chance their kick misses, I strafe back in front of them only to be kicked as their foot retracts while they ready their next swing...
Kicks are really too good when used against players who move around a lot (and you know, use footwork). The only thing kicks encourage is you to go full str and just spam E whenever you face an agi build. If you move slowly, odds are you won't run into the retracting-foot kicks. If someone moves faster than you, odds are they will run into it. Then all you have to do is kick them once or twice for 2 guaranteed hits with 13 or so PS and well.. they're dead. And of course if you have got 13 IF then there is really a very low risk involved with kicking.
Not to mention that they un-nerfed kicks so that they DO stop swings in their tracks once again... and I coulda sworn that yesterday people were blocking while kicking... not like they could hold a block and kick.. but whereas before kicking left you open to a free hit if you missed, now I have seem some able to block while the kicking animation isnt even over, like when their foot is retracting they are able to block. Last I checked it would be quite difficult to stop a full speed swing from a giant axe while balanced on one foot. Should really give a knockdown effect if nothing else.
So yeah...
FUCKIN NERF KICKS ALREADY!
/rage
Am I the only one that was incredibly surprised when nudges actually got fixed within just a few weeks? That was totally amazing, in all honesty, and I applaud the devs who worked on that. Good job. But any long-standing issue with this game will apparently never be fixed... kicks, 2handers, the tendency for all throwing weps or xbows to just automatically hit you in the face, even after 180-degree spins.. all of that will probably never be fixed at this rate. I am really curious to see what will become of the new insta-1h-lolstab. Will it go the way of the nudge? Probably not. Does 98.2% of the crpg community hope it does? Yes. I really enjoy the buffed sideswing animation, but I finally tried the stab for myself on an alt yesterday, and it was just way too good.