I barely get hit by uppercuts because I anticipate those hits, especially when I see that a team mate is already fighting a CW. If you are not aware of what an enemy does during a fight then you’d also get surprised by a regular overhead. This doesn’t make overheads unfair per se, right? It’s a gameplay issue not a design issue. Uppercuts make sense (outside of dealing two instances of damage) and it’s nice for CWs to have such a niche mechanic as supposedly one of the toughest mobs to fight in melee. Don’t dumb that down.
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Except that the overhead has an appropriate speed for its damage… while uppercut has lightning-fast speed and it’s RNG (it should be a “key” to avoid the stunlock, while sometimes it’s executed even after a slight wobble)… not to mention that “things” can also happen outside our FoV… does nothing, everyone has their own point of view. It’s good to remember, however, that even if something (on paper) is predictable or can be controlled somehow, it doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s fair and balanced.
“RNG” 
Kuli’s video shows stagger influences his attacks and can be anticipated.
Just fixing it so it doesn’t bypass Gromril Armour, Heart of Iron and Blood Magic/Overcharge buffer would satisfy me.
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I already explaned what I meant… and that there are also other problems.
Any career which has access to shields can do this. And then there’s UC with the Flail.
RNG? Did you miss the last third of the video above? How is relatively predictable behaviour RNG?
Then you prepare for the uppercut by holding block and waiting to see what the Chaos Warrior does next. It’s not rocket science.
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Written so it seems that anyone career (who can use it) always has a shield on his back. You have to choose the shield, it brings great disadvantages, and in fact they aren’t so used weapons.
It’s also not true because, to stunlock a CW, you have to stagger the overhead as well… and there it requires a huge (not worthing) investment that only few careers (I think two) can achieve.
And anyway remains the fact that, uppercut or not, you can’t stunlock a bunch of them. And CWs are dangerous only as group.
And did you miss my last message? There is no consistency in their behavior. If it’s an “spicy” attack precisely because it’s designed as an extreme measure to get out of a stunlock… a CW can’t cast it an half second later having received the minimum stagger.
I repeat: that sometimes you can fix it (because, several other times, no) doesn’t mean it can’t be badly balanced.
For me, since I like using low stagger high damage weapons, what punishes me the most is the CW punch, if I’m not wrong, that’s unblockable and does a chunk of damage, while coming out really quickly. Kick and shove, while unblockable, deals little damage and is usually absorbed by temp hp. Talking about the uppercut, it is blockable, so one way to mitigate it is to engage while always being ready to block, and go ham only when the CW is doing an attack.
Kinda contradictory, if CWs are dangerous only in groups, but even in this state they’re individually badly balanced? So to mitigate the imbalance, you’d want to make them even less threatening when they’re alone?
I honestly don’t see a contradiction… any enemy, alone, isn’t very dangerous. Bosses included. Probably yes, without uppercuts, a single CW would be even weaker… but it’s a difference you would not even notice, because a lonely CW would die in moments anyway. At the same time, however, a fix would make fighting them as a group more honest.
And in fact I would not speak of difficulties, for me Fatshark could also buff them with more damage etc etc, but about honesty… there can be strong and correct enemies… or weak but unfair ones.
They aren’t two necessarily linked concepts (even if it often happens).
In the end, however, CWs are enemies meant to put pressure on when in a group… they were never meant to be a miniboss to fight alone… so anyway you have to balance them in their context… you can’t consider them individually.
So is the issue that they do the up sweep whenever they’re staggered even slightly if a player is close to them, instead of them only doing it when they have been staggered heavily or staggered twice in a row?
The problem is that an attack so fast, so unpredictable, that does so much damage and that you can’t stagger it, shouldn’t exist… I could justify it (actually not) if it was used as a last resort after a continuous and prolonged stunlock… but even in this case we must remember that, in order to stunlock a CW, you need an investment of resources so excessive (and achievable only with certain careers and certain kits) that it cannot be abused in any way. And we must also remember that, regardless of everything, even without the uppercut, you have no way to stunlock a bunch (even little) of them.
But it is kinda predictable. Pro tip: don’t get into CW’s face, and you’re golden.
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That’s it boys, delete the entire Dark Souls series. It shouldn’t exist
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I don’t agree… anyway, like I explained in almost ten messages, that you can agree or not, no doubts, it’s not only about predictability.
Then let me carry 20 estus flask -_-… jokes apart, I could talk a lot about this, but no thanks, I don’t think we need to introduce comparisons with totally different games.
Well, but it is predictable, though… When you get too close to CWs that get staggered one way or another (thanks for the info @kuli !) you simply got to calculate the possibility of a sweep in. Sure, if the CW sweeps while you are in the middle of a power attack or something it might feel unfair because you can’t do anything to prevent getting hit anymore, but the preventable mistake was that you opened yourself up to an attack that you should have known was possible.
Best is to wait until the CW attacks and then strike in its cooldown phase before any further attacks are possible, and put yourself in a position where you could deal with a potential sweep before it is possible for the CW to make one. Those kind of things make CWs dangerous and different from other enemies, but that’s not a bad thing. Otherwise they’d basically just be damage sponges and nothing more.
The unfairness about the sweep isn’t that there isn’t counterplay, because there sort of is. The unfairness is its bugged double-damage profile.
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Sekiro didnt have anything like this though? Sure you didnt know what the bosses were going to throw at you but they did not deliver an high speed attack that´d oneshot you right in the middle of openings.
…
I found i could tell what attack was being delivered with a great deal of reliability at least, i did get surprise oneshot from a combo i wasnt ready for one time or another but it wasnt so bad. Beat a number of the bosses on my first go.
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The “predictability speech” was another, because “we” started from a different assumption. It seemed to me that another user justified this attack saing: “It’s used only to escape from a stunlock”… and I replied: if a CW can cast it half second after an even light stun, the point is quite different, because it’s not only used against a stunlock… but against any other form of stagger and there is no delay.
Apart from that, I already said that “predictability” is only a small aspect. I don’t consider this attack fair for other reasons as well, as already written.
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Would it be fair to say that this attack punishes slower weapons (like the 2h Hammer) more so than others (like the Rapier)?
I think the problem that some people have is that it can punish literally anything out of the blue with little to no wind-up time. You don’t have control over what your team-mates are doing, so someone who maybe isn’t even in your FoV staggers him while he was focused on you, you were preparing your attack and then you just get scooped mid-swing. Both the scoop and the punch are a bit too fast in my opinion, but at least the punch doesn’t outright destroy you.
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Yes, it is very dangerous. But it’s a bit like with berserkers, or monsters. You know that if you attack those like you would attack any other enemy, you can put yourself in a situation where you can’t dodge or timely block their flurry anymore. The trick is to carefully pick your moment to attack those. CWs aren’t any different. You have to account for the possibility of a sweep when fighting them, and that’s the point. If you put yourself in a situation where you can’t deal with a sweep anymore, the mistake was alteady made a second before. The sweep isn’t completely unfair because it does have counterplay.
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That’s a bit like saying you could have counterplayed the overhead or running attack someone in your team led into your back. 