I’m trying to understand what this quick stab is supposed to do. Any ideas? I probably need to test more, but I don’t see any advantages, no extra crit, headshot damage or armour piercing.
Honestly it feels like 80% of the special attacks are just completely pointless, from all of my testing only a small handful have any advantage whatsoever.
Maybe they have some kind of benefit that’s not immediately obvious, boy it sure would be nice if the game actually told you anything at all about what they do other than “melee special attack.”
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This is one of the best cases of “pun not intended” I’ve ever seen.
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Haven’t used the dueling sword so I can’t speak for it specifically, but I find that a lot of the mundane-seeming special attacks serve as enemy stunning attacks. For example, the one-handed axe’s uppercut sweep doesn’t deal much damage at all, but it breaks ragers out of their attack chains and lets you make a bit of breathing room. Same goes for the combat shovel’s poke.
Still not worth using 99% of the time considering you have other tools at your disposal which do the same thing while also dealing better damage, but I think that’s what Fatshark was going for.
… Now, the special attack I REALLY can’t find any use for is the catachan’s parry. I can not think of a single scenario in which performing a risky maneuver with the payout of a very average riposte beats simply using a dodge or block and following up with a normal attack. It’s just completely devoid of any value as a mechanic.
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The Duel Sword special is just a quick stagger, a lot of weapon specials do the same as enemies can take extra damage if hit while staggered. I’m not sure if extra stagger damage is innate or if your weapon needs to have those traits, but they’re out there.
Great for interrupting an enemy’s attack and following up with a heavy. The very quick animation means it’s also useful for when your trying to get hits off between rager’s attacks.
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many special attacks work like that
they don’t seem to do much but they are quick and have (usually) enough stagger to interrupt those annoying rager attack chains
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Catachan parry is like a shove you don’t need to use stamina to make, it just won’t execute if it doesn’t counter an attack. I would still rank it as one of the more useful weapon specials.
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the dueling sword special attack does more stagger
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Ah, that is something. Also I noticed with soft targets it can hit enemies behind your target if they are close enough. I think it should have also have extra crit chance or good armour penetration.
Still compored to force and power weapons, special attacks on “basic” style weapons are a bit underwhelming. Even if it is quite meme worthy to slap / punch heretics to death as Ogryn.
So after using the dueling sword a fair bit on my psyker i found 2 big uses for the special attack, it can be used while sprinting (great for chasing a fleeing special)
And it can be used while blocking and this is the quickest attack you can do from a block, that and the stagger from it make it a great self defence tool (less time spent not blocking compared to a push) and comboes with the blocking costs perils make blocking and poknig a great defensive tool
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