Their most fearsome attack. Not that slow overhead that can’t track a sidestep. Not their quick AoE slash, not their knockback kick, not the shove they use to get some range.
No, that punch. The punch that is absolutely instant, has a 180 degrees of rotation and chunks you for a quarter of your HP on Legend. The punch that they’ll throw out even while being stunlocked by a blunt weapon attack chain. The punch that has no counterplay other than blocking after every other attack in case they follow it up with that punch.
Why do they need that punch? It seems to be a little bit of RNG meant solely to make melee less fun and less playable. And why the hell does it hurt so much compared to his other quick attacks?
Yeah I’ve always thought that about that specific technique…
There’s literally no way to counter it. If the Chaos Champion is going to have that kind of technique it needs to be a no damage technique.
I would be ok with it if it were a push and something that also lowered your guard briefly as then you could be hit by other things stacked up with him…
But the instant, unavoidable, uncounterable damage is… a bit much.
eh? it’s pretty predictable. if you are right next to him after he does his heavy swings, there’s a high chance of him turning around and punching you, so block or dodge away.
if he’s walking around chasing someone, his next attack will be a swinging attack, not a punch.
The fact that it has not the slightest windup what so ever makes it infuriating. He can be attacking your teammate while you chop at his back then do a 180 and punch you in the face in a split second.
Thats just uuuuuuuhhhhhhh…
The only thing you can do is anticipate it after every move he does and keep the block up.
This means you need to hold block after every attack the Chaos Warrior has used against you or anyone else, since he can turn to anyone and throw out the punch. Meaning that once he’s done attacking, instead of using that window of opportunity to throw out damage, you instead have to block because of one poorly balanced ability he has a one in four (kick, shove, punch, slash) chance of using. I’ve tried doing this and the result is that melee does nothing but block and dodge against him, leaving only ranged with openings to kill the Chaos Warriors. Which goes back to my original point that this is a needless anti melee move.
It’s not always possible to stay mobile in this game, and this style of gameplay would be terrible for fast weapons. And why are you making excuses for an instant attack with 180 degree instant rotation that does more damage than his quick slash? This attack is clearly messed up in multiple ways. At least giving him a reasonable turn speed would be good.
Which would be working were it not for enemy attacks having a permanent lock onto you (for some magical reason you can only sidestep the chaos warriors overhead swing) and their reach being more than twice their weapon length. dodging works like only 20% of the time where it should, but enemys mid attack animation just magicly slide right up to you to hit you is pure bs. If multiple enemies clip into each other you’re just fooped.
Besides that, punishing the player randomly and not for clumsy play is just bad design.
Dunno what to tell y’all. Haven’t eaten a chaos punch in like 50 hours where I was not clearly at fault. Even in those situations i screwed up it’s only happened like 3-4 times.
Note I dodge back right after i hit and play weapon range, not sidestep as someone else said. If you notice an attack tracks you well sidestepping is normally not the solution. There may be an element of timing too I just got used to.
And yes, faster weapons may have to be slightly slower and more methodical. Slow weapons don’t get full attack speed on things either.
If I were to guess, 180 degree punch shouldn’t happen if you’re hosting the game. I actually like it thematically, without that punch attack CW would be too predictable and not so scary (unless there is a bunch enemies on the screen). This way you have to play around it. And the main way to do so is to not stand close to them for more than second. So it’s not impossible to avoid it.
The only time you get punched is when you have aggro, or steal aggro between his attacks, so just wait for him to commit to an action before attacking. If you have aggro, kite and block/dodge.
If the punch worked this way, it would actually be good since that means it would have a windup.
If I was to rebalance Chaos Warrior skills, I’d stop them ice skating while they do the overhead, I’d have the kick be a full guard break, the punch be a stagger, the shove be a knockback, the slash be what they used when surrounded. That would still leave them as very dangerous enemies but without the anti-melee they don’t need to have.
I’d also stop enemies being able to hide inside them. It’s terrible when you’re fighting a CW that has even just 1 little ally who just won’t get out of the CW, so every swing is bonking on the CW’s plate and staggering him, but the dude inside just stabs out at you.
I totally agree. I made a post about the shitty boss mechanics way before release.
But who gave a s**t? Kruber could 3 shot them anyway…
Now imagine this game with dark souls level boss fights (clear animations, clear attacks and dodges, and no teleporting bosses) .
It would be the best thing ever.
If the punch had a windup then you’d simply abuse the AI to force the punch and then animation lock the chaos warrior while your DPS him for free. That’s be a large and unnecessary nerf to chaos warriors simply because you have not learned a mechanic.
CW AI randomly chooses one of 4 close combat moves if he’s already stuck in. Ever since I’ve made this thread I’ve paid very close attention to see if there is a specific situation that will trigger the punch as you say, and there isn’t. The only attack you can “force” is the overhead, which he’ll use if you aren’t exactly next to him. Otherwise I’m almost certain that he chooses to do either the shove, slash, kick or punch randomly. The punch might be his favored move if his target is completely behind him since it has the instant rotation component, but I see him use the quick slash in equal amounts when he’s got one person in front blocking and another directly behind attacking.
Honestly alot of your idea of “random” could be explained by a simple weighted aggro system. Much the same way folks seem to think bosses are random, but if you do the most damage to them you will almost always get aggro. Even a relatively simple logic for choosing attacks can appear random if you are unaware of even a single variable. Layering basic conditional logic on the punch on top of the aggro system where you have no way to see who has aggro can make an enemy SEEM unpredictable.
For me, personally, if I do alot of damage and get too close the CW tends to punch. If I keep my range at max for my weapon and weave in and out properly he does not tend to punch at me and if for some reason he does he misses.
The Chaos Punch is something that bothered me at around hour 20 of my play time. About hour 50 I started consistently doing my current methodology and I essentially never get punched anymore. 50 hours where I was punched like 4 times total and all because I stopped playing correctly.
But again, that’s not always possible. I would even say it’s rarely possible on Legend where you will commonly face 2~3 Chaos Warriors at a time without it being a patrol. Often with a Berzerker and some extra dudes. In this case, you NEED to kill some of them ASAP and getting chunked with no counterplay is terrible. My point is not that the Chaos Warriors shouldn’t have the Punch, it’s that they don’t need it as the game is now. The game and the CW aren’t improved by having an instant rotation punch for 30% of your health. The CW aren’t going to become trivially easy by their punch having a lower rotation speed, or damage. Mainly because the punch is such an uncommon thing.
This is doubly true if the patch changes go through as they are where Chaos Warriors can’t be staggered by anything other than a headshot crit.