Rondel, agi-politicians, and other knife/dagger issues

[Admerius]

First and foremost, these insults against whores needs to stop! It should be agi-politicians not agi-whores, whores actually do something when paid!

#1
Make daggers similar to bastard sword/longsword etc.

Heavy penalties with shield...

I hope it's possible to "extract" that penalty that makes BS/LS/HBS etc. very poor in shield mode without making daggers use 2h animation.
That's my first idea about how to fix dagger/knife + shield trolling.

I've played a full gen on an alt 3/33 rondel+shield(full title: Shieldcrutching rondelspamming agi-politician, now I got a 18/24 dagger/knife man to practice chambering so I got some first hand experience.

#2

If that's not possible, why not add secondary mode for daggers with 10-20 less speed and +2 dmg, and the other mode same speed as now but -4 dmg. You need pressure to penetrate armour! Pressure=more momentum=more risk of ending up in poor position=lowering weapon speed easiest way to simulate this imo.

#3
Third and final idea: tweak athletics!

To solve rondel(dagger) issue, nerfing dmg isn't the way to go...

Two ways to nerf/rebalance athletics:

Easy(heavy handed way) make athletics similar to horse archery, 6 agi per max unlockable athletics point.

The harder way:

Raise base mobility to 9 agi/3 ath level and half the mobility bonus from agi/ath. This way 18 agi/6ath is almost untouched, while 36agi/12 ath becomes similar to what 27agi/9ath is now. This is of course a major buff(rebalance after wpf patch) to str builds... which might make it a bit too extreme...

edit1: typos correction 1

[Hirlok]

+1 for better wording. "agi politicians", hehe. Me promises not to insult dem decent whores again. 

[Osiris]

Two ways to nerf/rebalance athletics:

Easy(heavy handed way) make athletics similar to horse archery, 6 agi per max unlockable athletics point.

The harder way:

Raise base mobility to 9 agi/3 ath level and half the mobility bonus from agi/ath. This way 18 agi/6ath is almost untouched, while 36agi/12 ath becomes similar to what 27agi/9ath is now. This is of course a major buff(rebalance after wpf patch) to str builds... which might make it a bit too extreme...

nerfing daggers seems much easier then screwing over everyone else

[Phew]

I like the dagger+shield penalty idea. Dagger-only should be a high-risk/high-reward assasin playstyle, dagger+shield should be for peasants.

[Admerius]

nerfing daggers seems much easier then screwing over everyone else

You're right, had to rethink agility/athletics tweaks and came up with something a bit more elaborate and "balanced".
http://forum.melee.org/realism-discussion/remove-(almost)instant-stopping-when-running/

This Attitude of "nerfing daggers" is wrong imo, they need an overhaul, some major tweaks. They should be better... but also worse.
The balance of buffs and nerfs would be more nerfs than buffs so I'm just saying nerf daggers with more words than you it seems 

[Prpavi]

just slap can't use with a shield tag on it and call it a day, let's see how agi rondell guys in rags do then.

[Molly]

just slap can't use with a shield tag on it and call it a day, let's see how agi rondell guys in rags do then.

QFT.

Every dagger gets "Can't use with shield" and the whole business is done.

[Phew]

~100ish speed 1h weapons render a "real" animation with their thrust, so you have time to react and block. When you are talking 110-117 speed, the animation doesn't even render a frame before the thrust lands, so there is no opportunity to react.

This would be balanced if the dagger-wielder had no means to block except chambers, but when used with a shield, it can be absurdly OP.

Add "unusable with shield" tag to daggers, and revert the damage nerf.

[Pinche]

Add instabackstab kill for daggers without shield like in mercenaries mod.

[Ronin]

Add instabackstab kill for daggers without shield like in mercenaries mod.

For backstabs you mean?

[Pinche]

For backstabs you mean?

Only for backstabs.

[Silveredge]

I've been saying don't let dagger users use a shield for forever.  And yes, I am a part time assassin.  A dagger user with a shield is incredibly weaksauce.  As for the instant kill backstabs, at first glance it may seem like a good idea until you have people running around with 13+ athletics running through the enemy team 1 shotting anyone not looking at them...