What Could Make Riposte Good?

Warhammer: Vermintide 2 Gameplay Feedback
122

Attack speed would be beneficial to 1h axe especially.
Flense doesn’t really shine on a low cleave weapon and Deathknell mileage varies.
-There’s some Deathknell + Tag breakpoints for 1h axe-

However, piling more onto the parry reward wont matter if players can’t parry due to ally stagger.
I’d suggest a different trigger for attack speed such as pushes but keep parry crits intact.

123

Surprisingly enough, Flense is a significant dps increase vs single targets on weapons like the 1h Axe, Axe and Falchion’s single target attack chain etc. much more so than Deathknell is. The breakpoints for it with Deathknell are respectable on Legend but nearly nonexistent on Cata. I’ve often wondered if the way headshot talents scale off of innate weapon headshot modifiers is any better than just a simple damage increase on headshot, which would scale equally across weapons.

Alternatively alternatively:

  • Riposte could have a passive 7.5% attack speed increase, like how Outcast Engineer’s talent Scavenged Shot has a passive 10% melee power increase. It may have to be less than 10% because attack speed is generally worth more than power in Fatshark’s approach to talents (most power bonuses are 5% more).
  • The attack speed increase could be tied to pushing enemies while the crit remains reliant on parrying.
  • The attack speed increase could be tied to landing a melee headshot.
  • The attack speed increase could be tied to dodging like Handmaiden’s talent Willow Stance.

Riposte
Blocking just as an enemy attack is about to hit causes your next melee attack within 3 seconds to be a guaranteed critical hit. …

The ellipses would be replaced by:

  • Pushing an enemy increases attack speed by 10% for 3 seconds.
  • Scoring a melee headshot increases attack speed by 10% for 3 seconds.
  • Dodging increases attack speed by 10% for 3 seconds.
  • Or in the case of a passive 7.5% attack speed increase, it would be added to the beginning of the talent’s description.
124
What should happen to Riposte? The below would be additional effects added to the current Riposte with the exception of moving it to a different slot.
  • Your first push within 3 seconds of the parry flinches enemies.
  • Your first push within 3 seconds of the parry is 20% stronger.
  • Move to Always Prepared’s slot & add a new talent for row 2.
  • Parrying increases attack speed by 15% for 6 seconds.
  • Riposte also passively increases attack speed by 7.5%.
  • Headshots increase attack speed by 10% for 6 seconds.
  • Pushing an enemy increases attack speed by 10% for 3 seconds.
  • Dodging increases attack speed by 10% for 3 seconds.
  • Other

0 voters

This is an extension of the above poll. Choose “One of the choices in the above poll.” if you would not like the damage reduction idea.
  • One of the choices in the above poll.
  • Parrying increases damage reduction by 30% for 3 seconds.

0 voters

Should the 2 second timer given to deliver a riposte be increased to 3 seconds?
  • No.
  • Yes.

0 voters

125

@Velsix

If the goal of Riposte is to make it good in high-pressure situations where you’re likely to take damage, what about adding a short-duration DR buff? WHC is one of the only classes that doesn’t have DR. Also, the DR could be really useful in allowing you to take a hit before you go down which could allow you to get ult back and get out of said situation. I don’t really like the premise of the talent so I’m not really bothered either way, but it could achieve the goal you were originally aiming for.

1 Like
126

There’s been a lot of great mechanic suggestions for riposte but in addition to these I would like to add that a distinct audio effect should play when riposte is activated to alert the player and give a feeling of power or technique to the player.

The Dark Souls riposte sound effect is a great example of a distinct and powerful alert to the player that makes the combat feel even more rewarding but even just a slightly louder and more reverby metal impact sound could work too.

Also one suggestion I have for the mechanics side of riposte (which might have already been suggested already) is to have a well timed push (0.8 second window or so) deflect the blow and remove stamina cost from the block against any enemy as well as staggering any non-monster and greatly increasing the damage any nearby non-monster receives for 2 seconds.

The reason for using a timed push instead of a timed block is that the block animation is almost instantaneous and can be spammed to fish for timed blocks. The push on the other hand has to be timed correctly and can be punished if timed incorrectly or spammed but gives a much more powerful reward if used successfully.

Just my two cents.

1 Like
127

Damage reduction on WHC could work. The main issues with landing ripostes is the danger/risk in high intensity, elites stepping back while recoiling from being blocked and getting overtaken by the horde and ally stagger. Ally stagger can’t be solved without making into a different talent altogether, but the former two issues can be fixed. Damage reduction would make delivering a ripostes a lot safer. This would also mean that WHC would actually be able to parry a Bile Troll and then gain more health back from the crit headshot than they’d lose (depending on the amount, it could work against boss overheads to a limited extent as well, which would solve/mitigate another minor issue it has – dps against the Rat Ogre and against the Chaos Spawn when keeping it stationary). This doesn’t do much for the recoiling issue, but I think most players could look at something like:

  • Riposte
    Blocking just as an enemy attack is about to hit causes your next melee attack within 3 seconds to be a guaranteed critical hit and increases damage reduction by 30% for 3 seconds.

And easily understand the value it has when under pressure, just as they do with something like Asrai Alacrity. Additionally making a heavy attack riposte uninterruptible by a damaging attack would be neat, kind of like how riposting in Mordhau works in group fights.

However, I don’t know if damage reduction is fitting for WHC. What are everyone else’s thoughts? I’ve added this option to the poll.

Damage reduction decreases the amount of ult given back on getting hit, and WHC already gives very little on getting hit, but I can see it helping in this regard when you don’t need to take a whole lot of damage to get ult back or when you’re on low health and an attack would kill otherwise.

I believe you are the first to suggest it. Is the timing based on the enemy’s attack animation, or is it pushing within 0.8 seconds of parrying, or is it pushing within 0.8 seconds after raising block? I love the idea because it sounds like it would make Riposte more proactive while keeping it timed and skill based.

Edit: (Edits don’t bring threads back to life right? Just adding this idea in case anyone reads this at a latter date. I’ll find out after editing this anyway.) Here’s a another explanation behind the Riposte idea:

What the flinching would let you do is regain the initiative in a fight, not just against one elite but multiple (which is appropriate in a horde-centric game). This is inline with what a riposte is and is thematically fitting for the talent. Below is a refined version of the idea.

  • Riposte
    Blocking just as an enemy attack is about to hit causes your next melee attack within 2 seconds to be a guaranteed critical hit and your pushes to flinch elites out of light attacks until either the critical is used, or 2 seconds pass.

A simple stagger increase, like one of 50.0% from Opportunist, is inadequate for most stagger breakpoints (for example, Greatsword critical push + Opportunist still won’t stagger a Chaos Warrior out of any attack, even the least stagger resistant ones, nor will it stagger a Mauler out of any of its attacks. Keep in mind that the Greatsword has the highest push strength of all of Saltzpyre’s weapon, so it’s even worse for the other weapons). This fact, combined with WHC not having any unique sources of power for stagger, is why a flinch re-implementation is more appropriate. Overlap with Opportunist is minor and irrelevant as Opportunist does not work on enemies that aren’t attacking and is still beneficial for the stagger strength of attacks (its description says push strength but it actually affects all attacks).

The exact duration, and if the pushes last for multiple pushes and until the crit is used/the timer ones out or just one are all debatable, but I think for Riposte to not only be realistic under pressure, but to be an interesting talent mechanically, it needs to give some control.

128

Yeah it mainly helps by keeping you alive when you’d otherwise be dead. Kind of like how you can take an overhead on BW with soot shield and get your ult back. You don’t actually need all the damage to get your ult back, you just need to not die before you get your ult back lol.