Why was polestagger removed?

[Zisa]

As if 3-4 months difference between forum register date makes you a "veteran" and me a "new player" right? lol. As for "seeking ways for the game to be made easier," surely the guy supporting features that helps him crutch-farm easy or gimmick kills is more applicable, is he not? I also like how personal your response is, are you frightened for the day these changes are implemented in NA?

Haha it's semi ironic because he was THE notorious poop and scooper pre upkeep patch. Love ya Sauce!

[Rhaelys]

Comparing the likes of mallet and great maul to the long maul is quite ridiculous. 2H mauls are by far better than the long maul, but I guess that's balanced by the fact that poleaxes are quite a lot better than 2H axes.

I don't agree with Joker's suggestion, polestagger was a joke on weapons that were fast enough to sneak in an extra hit for every successful stagger, and I'm happy to see it gone as a dedicated polearm player. However, calling German Poleaxe, English Bill and Great Long Bardiche 3 of the most OP weapons in the game, and calling Bill a broken weapon is a joke too. I think they're fine now that polestagger is gone, if anything the english bill is maybe a bit too bad now that the turning rate was limited too. Only the overhead is useful, pretty much.

The Great Long Bardiche is probably one of the best battle weapons in the game, though. Highest damage on a side-swingable melee weapon (Great Maul aside) with horse-rearing (and a length long enough to beat out couched heavy lances 9 times out of 10) and bonus against shields, and a speed fast enough to prevent double swings from just about anything. With polestagger, it was just silly (although usually not fast enough to take advantage of the extra stun by itself).

I know I rock my Mighty GLB with 30 STR/10 IF/10 PS.

[Huey Newton]

To be honest, I think polestun and spin stab should not be removed at the same time.
I havent played with the changed stab except on EU 3 with 200 ping so hard to judge it.

But in theory, spinstab or polestun shouldve been removed, not both.

After a test of say a couple days with one gone, then the devs could judge which one needs to go permanently.

Both gone in one fell swoop might've nerfed polearms too much.

I think if you removed spinstab from polearms but let them keep polestun it would be fine.

[Sir Ryden]

Polestagger didn't need to be removed nor should it be removed, I'm a Longsword Hilt-slashing bundle of sticks and yeah it's dumb but it's in the game, polestagger is polestagger, due to the terrible animations of polearms it kind of balances it out between classes. A polearm doing better than a 2 hander in battle??!?!?!?!? UNHEARD OF, IT MUST BE REMOVED BECAUSE 2 HANDER NEEDS TO BE DOMINATE. Sure maybe it didn't have a downside to it but who cares, 1handers have the left-swing hiltslash bullshit, which I think is fine because I can still do it pretty numerously, polearms had support and polestagger, and 2h had the best animations and easy hilt-slashing. Everything is fine as it is imo. Also, the only sensible change about polearms if you needed to remove polestagger, is to give all the polearms more speed. And it's the name with hiltslashing, just double block and do right footwork and you're not going to get polestagger'd. Simple as that, since polearms are already easy to block.

[Miley]

+1 Ryry#2

[Sauce]

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[Canary]

...I think if you removed spinstab from polearms but let them keep polestagger it would be fine.

Polestagger - an uncontrollable mechanic that causes a player to lose control of their character longer than normal for a melee hit, enabled on nearly every polearm with few exceptions (those without knockdown) without any thought put into how it will change the balance of those items.

Spinstab - a technique that allows certain weapons to land hits when they would otherwise glance.

Notice the word "technique" in reference to the spinstab, you actually have to do something actively to use it. Polestagger was a 50/50 chance on any melee hit with a weapon it applied to. Random mechanics tend to be hardest to balance, and ones that cause you to lose control of your character are extremely not fun for their victims. The fact that this one in particular was so widespread and used by so many items which could only be taken advantage of by one character build was patently unfair. The fact that the chance for it to trigger was so high is just absurd.

I feel the opposite way you do, Huey. I feel that spinstab should be allowed to stay (at least to an extent) because it's something you can learn which enriches your melee combat. Polestagger was a random ruination of other peoples' fun which they (or you for that matter) could have no control of.

Now, of course, spinstab still has its issues. I don't feel you should ever be able to swing twice and succeed if the other person blocked your first attack, assuming they start attacking, unless there are extreme circumstances involved (they're using a much slower weapon than you, teamplay/not 1on1, glancing on walls), but that also applies to hiltslash and I guess crushthrough. Blocking then jumping and turning into a person and landing a hit after you've just dinged against somebody's block is ridiculous. Stabbing through teammates is ridiculous. Stabbing over and around walls is usually ridiculous.

What's not ridiculous is using a spin to land a hit on someone just because they're close to you and your weapon is over 150 length (within reason). This mechanic can be stopped so easily, you just have to watch for it and block down. It's a problem when you don't block it, but I will say that it's highly exacerbated by the immediacy of the active hitbox. Spinning to decrease the time between the start of your swing and the time you can viably hit someone with it is bad, but you should not be helpless when someone is in your face just because you chose a weapon that only has two attack directions.

*Disclaimer
I haven't been on servers where the spinstab nerf was enabled. I do know that I do a lot of last minute corrections during the attack animation on every thrust I put forth, mostly to avoid teammates with them. The speed at which I can turn will greatly affect the amount of times I can viably thrust without teamhitting. So, that'd be a nerf for teamplay as well.

As for polestagger, I don't think polearms players are that bad off without it.

[Tanken]

^ Agreed, but I think Huey was saying that either could be removed, but not at the same time (which is why I upvoted him and also your post).

Pole s t u n (you can't say p o l e s t u n without this forum correcting it to polestun) itself is fairly broken, but lolspinning for those of us who used weapons with 1-direction would be the last mechanic that made them even remotely viable and I agree with you on the correcting phase of attacks with these weapons. I do a shit-load of that every round, constantly pulling and moving my camera most times to avoid hitting the wrong person.

[Zisa]

lol stab - affects all stabbing weapons...

I'd like to see how this affects melee vs cav.

[bruce]

From EU1:
Doesn't change much vs cavalry, only helicopter-stabbing in melee is gone; but you can rotate your stab 90 degrees without problems.

Pikemen are still around and are epic for support so eh. Don't see that many longspears though.

[Phew]

I say just balance around the "eye test":

1. A guy in full plate gets hit by the shaft of a spear swung by a peasant and staggers like he just got hit by a truck. This looks dumb, so it remove it.

2. A guy is running full speed and gets the head of a spear rammed into his ribcage. I can see how this might cause 0.8-1.0 seconds of disorientation.

3. A pikeman spinning his 3m long weapon around like a helicopter. Nuff said.

4. Physics says if you want to hit someone hard with a sword, they need to be at a good distance and in front of you, yet the hiltslash mechanic encourages people to sideways facehug. Make swordfights look epic, not like a barnyard hoedown.

I'm past the point of caring about balance for the sake of my performance, because more skilled players will always kill me. I just want to die in heroic fashion, not staggering like a drunken sailor from being bonked by the shaft of a spear repeatedly, or being squaredanced to death by some hiltslashing wanna-be samurai.

[dynamike]

I'd like to see how this affects melee vs cav.

That's a good point: one of the most viable tactics to counter cav is to seemingly run away from them (with a long polearm) so they think you don't see them - and then in the last second turn 180 degrees and stab to make their horses rear.

If this is being removed with this patch as well, it causes an imbalance since it buffs cav. Pretty much anyone with a long polearm facing away from you as a horseman is cannon fodder since he can't turn around fast enough to stop you.

Any insights from EU on that?

I am a cav player myself by the way.

[CrazyCracka420]

You can still turn and stab, you just can't stab and then turn 180 degrees...you can start your stab when you are 90 degrees from your target (in your turn).

[Oberyn]

Sing it back bring it back

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rtZAzh0TSAo

[SixThumbs]

The only reason I like the idea of spin-stabbing being removed is because it looks ridiculous, along with anyone else who excessively spins during a fight but that's just working with the game mechanics. The pole-stagger was only sporadically irritating, as per the mechanic, but more so when someone knew what they were doing and would stun you with a moderately damaging side swung war spear and then spin-stab you for massive damage.