I'm terrible at PvP melee combat

[agweber]

Now I am not sure what exactly is the problem, but if you aren't a good blocker you should probably address that first. I highly recommend following the steps below. As with anything that relies on building muscle memory, practicing very focused and very slow is key to getting it right and will in the end teach you blocking much faster than just jumping into full speed multiplayer combat. Many players develop very bad habits to supplant blocking skills and never get good. Spend some time with this and you will be able to have a much better time ingame.

If you want to learn blocking properly and quickly I recommend starting up Native and clicking the tutorial. There are bots in there of various ranks, they have varying wpf levels. Start with the novice one, and put combat speed to slowest in the options. Focus on blocking only until you can block atleast 9 out of 10. Then go to the next bot who is called regularI think, do the same again. Work your way through the bots from low to high and if you are confident on blocking them all, you turn the game speed up one notch. Start while standing still, if you get somewhat comfortable doing it stationary, start moving around while blocking as you need to be able to do both at the same time.

If you can block the highest rank bot confidently on normal game speed, then you should have servicable blocking good enough for multiplayer cRPG. Although you also might want to practice blocking and then attacking back. You can also try blocking them on the faster and even fastest settings to get really comfortable with blocking, but don't forget that blocking players with wiggles, feints and holds is gonna take practice even if you can block normal attacks at the speed of light. Try to block with as small mouse movements as possible and hold down your blocks, don't just click them. With this procedure you can most likely develop the required muscle memory for blocking in like 1-5 hours. Took me a 1000 hours of just playing before I could properly block back in the day.

I feel like I've read this from you several times, and I agree that it would be a fairly good and quick method to getting used to manual blocking.

[Daunt_Flockula]

Wibbly wobbly timey wimey dragging stabs into people for massive damage even though it looks like there's no momentum (2h, 1h), or even though it doesn't make sense for a stab to land since you're so close (polearm)

This will be off-topic, but when is this fine example of brokenness going to be fixed? Also, advising someone who is aspiring to get better to become yet another stab-dragger, lolstabber or airstabber absolutely isn't doing anybody good. Shame on you Huscarlton buddy.

[Teeth]

I feel like I've read this from you several times, and I agree that it would be a fairly good and quick method to getting used to manual blocking.

That might be because I mostly copy pasta it from my previous posts for these type of threads. Any soul that I can put on the path of careful and calculated play instead of getting a high damage weapon and randomly spamming like a twat is a win.

[AwesomeHail]

I trained on native training aswell,

isnt the fighting speed set on medium here?

[Teeth]

I am talking about the singleplayer tutorial, which allows you to adjust the game speed from slowest to fastest.

[woody]

I had exactly the same issue.

A few suggestions from an average player who was crap, just what I found. Many will say its bullshit but just based on my experience of this mod:

1. Go to nditions duel server and practice blocking versus the trainers until its as instinctive as possible.
2. I realised switching from 1h no shield to pole to 2h if you have a reasonable amount of agi dont be afraid to spam. If people complain its up to them to block, their lack of blocking is not your issue. Of course trying to spam the good guys just gets you dead but funnily enough the guys who are easiest to spam and complain the most are generally spammers themselves, ie they cant block then counter consistently.
3. If your weapon is longer than your opponents try backing away and left/right swing. As long as they dont over athletics you too much its quite effective if they chase you - ie S key spam. Same as you do to bots on DTV. Can be decent defensive tactic versus a good 1h who have heavy shield and may not have huge ath.
4. Always have 18 plus AGI with max ATH and WM. I do OK at the moment with an alt Weebo with a low AGI but you have to block alot. Like 2 to 1 at least blocks to attacks.
5. Dont hybrid. Many players are lvl 33 plus dedicated builds how the hell with the equivalent of a lvl 24 or so 2h do you expect to compete with a fully loomed dedicated lvl 33 2h whos logged 5000 hours (im not joking these guys exist). Wont happen. Some people will say being high level makes little difference, to someone like chase maybe not but to most of us it does.
6. Kicking is hard to master. Chambering is hard to master especially versus quick varied attacks or feints. Footwork, held attacks and feinting are comparatively easy to add. Dont underestimate held attacks they really add to your game, if the guy chambers well done him, most will fuck it up. Of course you need to be confident in your release timing or ability to switch to a block if necessary.
7. Vary what you do. I got killed with my slow guy by a 2h spam feinter, next two times I fought him simply stepped in and killed him while he feinted like a madman. Of course he raged about spam, luck and I only kept killing him cos I am so crap but thats his problem if hes too stupid to realise what he was doing. Of course if I didnt mix up my tactics he could counter. Dont be too predictable. Some guys always start a fight with a left swing for example.
8. Weapon choice. Either use a pierce or knockdown weapon or one of the uber weapons . Versus loomed armour blunt/pierce damage makes a difference to being able to hurt the guy, plus with a knockdown 1 hit and if he fucks up his AA/DD you get a good chance of an in effect 1 hit kill. The uber weapons. Some weapons are simply easier to play. 2h longsword, pole long axe are in my opinion easy due to extreme speed, 4 different attacks and goodish damage. Combine with 21 plus agi and you will find blocking and getting attacks through easier.
9. Sounds cowardly but be a coward. Doh! Recognise the top players. Avoid them for now. Also if clan ganks are on avoid them, unless you have clanmates with you if you run into a group of mercs/greys/drz with 6 teammates you will suddenly find you are on your own, no chance of doing anything. Sad but true.
10. Never assume teammates will help you. If they do help you consider it a bonus. If someone tries to help and hits you and you report he will likely not help you again. Acknowledge/thank when guys help, a simple held up block after fight can do wonders for getting guys to help you again. If someone does help you keep an eye out and try to return the favour. I dont mean wading into a 1 or 2 teammates versus an enemy, I mean when he is outnumbered or trying to run down an archer or defend versus a cav. Help when its hard, not when its easy.
11. Go 1h no shield for a gen or two. Does wonders for your blocking, then you will find 2h relatively easy afterwards. Can be frustrating but effective in a confined space. Plus its fast and fun.

 

[Phew]

This will be off-topic, but when is this fine example of brokenness going to be fixed? Also, advising someone who is aspiring to get better to become yet another stab-dragger, lolstabber or airstabber absolutely isn't doing anybody good. Shame on you Huscarlton buddy.

Don't expect stab wonkiness to ever be fixed; it's just the way Warband is coded. You can complain about it or embrace it; no decent player is going to let you kill them just facing them and swinging normally during your turn. Even the best players usually fall victim to at least one crazy stab-drag per fight; it's one of the more potent tools in the cRPG melee arsenal (for all 3 weapon types). Yes it looks stupid, but we have people running around with fluorescent sperm banners, so immersion is out the window regardless.

[Daunt_Flockula]

The turn rate nerf actually did fix it effectively. Yet the amount of resulting QQ was incalculably immense and the nerf had to be retrieved. After all, it is a basic human right to be able to drag an already-over-and-done attack into an enemy and get handsomely rewarded for it with huge damage output, amirite?

[Teeth]

The turn rate nerf actually did fix it effectively. Yet the amount of resulting QQ was incalculably immense and the nerf had to be retrieved. After all, it is a basic human right to be able to drag an already-over-and-done attack into an enemy and get handsomely rewarded for it with huge damage output, amirite?

What, turn rate nerf was active in its full original capacity for like 2 years. In fact, turn rate nerf made me quit 1h without shield and made me start playing Longspear, point blank stabbing all the time. The only difference with before was that you need to look up and then down, instead of just dragging sideways, which has made it a lot harder because you can't see shit while doing it. There was a lot of QQ because of the turn rate nerf, but mostly by people using short weapons. Turn rate nerf only got tweaked like a year ago, not removed, tweaked. To a level which puts long polearms still so far from the original turn rate values that you still need to stab the up down way. There has not been a single period where you could not stab up close with a Longspear. In fact due to tightening of sweetspots on polearm stab, point blank stabbing has never been more difficult than it is now. The damage output is relatively crap by the way as well, get better head armour.

[Daunt_Flockula]

Tbh, I am disturbed more by 2h and 1h swords when it comes to stab dragging, not by polearms. And I remember how outraged lolstabbers were when they were rendered incapable of manipulating the direction of a stab after releasing it. I realize that airstabbing (aka bendy stabbing) and pointblank pole stabs cannot be fully fixed, but further limited turn rate can surely deal with lolstabs, which arrive at their targets by getting dragged %90 percent of the time. And I am not even after immersion as Phew suggests. All I want to get are less frustration and players with dignity (cos most people obviously cannot display that as long as they have some bullshitty glitched mechanism to exploit in their hands).

[Phew]

All I want to get are less frustration and players with dignity (cos most people obviously cannot display that as long as they have some bullshitty glitched mechanism to exploit in their hands).

OK, but understand that if you remove all these glitchy exploits (like stab dragging/wiggling, kicks landing during leg retract, dragging overheads around on the ground, hiltslash, etc), most good players will become unkillable in 1v1. Watch any pair of top-10 duelists; they only hit each other when one of them takes advantage of some combination of these exploitable mechanics. If they just had to face each other taking turns swinging (with the occasional feint or hold), the fight would only end when someone had to go take a piss.

Even if these exploits were fixable (which they aren't without breaking gameplay in other ways), they'd had to turn up the combat speed to at least "Fast" or no one would ever kill an aware opponent.

[Thomek]

All the focus here is on blocking and melee fighting skills, and rightly so. Those skills must be down.

Also however, what is interesting to me is always the development of the battlefield, reading the battle so to speak. It's a kind of game where everyone is trying to trick everyone, but overall it's about choosing your battles. Don't put yourself in fucked up situations, but be there at the right moment when your team has advantage.

[Kaido]

Learn block->Game won

[FRANK_THE_TANK]

What is your build?

That will make the biggest difference. If you are catching up to archers it sounds to me like you've got too much agi and not enough armour to learn with.

Try

21/18 or 24/15 and jack all your points into IF and PS then ATH and Weapons master. You'll land on 139 wpf with 24/15 build which is plenty and in light and mid armour I run plenty fast enough.

But for the love everything don't retire until you hit 32. That extra time at 31 is going to be really invaluable to you. It's basically 72 hours of play time at a proper level.

Either go with pole arm and;

Long War Axe
weapon length: 123
weight: 3.2
difficulty: 14
speed rating: 95
weapon length: 123
thrust damage: 18 blunt
swing damage: 42 cut
slots: 2
Can't use on horseback
Bonus against Shield

Or 2h and;

Heavy Bastard Sword
weapon length: 105
weight: 2
difficulty: 10
speed rating: 99
weapon length: 105
thrust damage: 23 pierce
swing damage: 36 cut
slots: 2
Secondary Mode

or

Two Handed War Axe
weapon length: 92
weight: 2.5
difficulty: 12
speed rating: 96
weapon length: 92
thrust damage: 0 pierce
swing damage: 41 cut
slots: 2
Bonus against Shield

Wear at least 55 points of body armour, more is better.

Spend time in the duel server and if anyone is willing to help you get better take them up on the offer, you'll have a good time. This game can be really great when you get decent.

Thomek is also right, on the field in the battle server it's about picking your moment and position. I play with 250-300 ping but still sit in the top third of the score board most of the time because I know when to toss myself into the fight like a grenade, especially when I put on my full plate and go all spin to win on the mother fucker.

----

On some level I agree with the notion of using a shield to learn but I actually found that it held me back and once I ditched it and just went pure 1h I got way better way faster.

What I did to get better was pick an activity for each round. So I would run in and just block and that was all I would do. Then after a round or two of just blocking I'd do some fienting or kick slashing. Then one day I found about chambering and the heaves opened and I momentarily became a god... or at least I thought I was a god.

[Teeth]

Last active, 30 september, you don't know what he reads.