Suggested fix for shoulder ram/asm boost ram

[Gabriel Gorgutz]

Right now, the huge problem with these moves stems from the fact that 1. they cause too much time to be wasted in the "braking" animation, effectively stunning the character who performs a shoulder ram, and 2. they do not inflict a stun or sufficient damage or other effect to make them worth using on enemies.

I suggest the following changes to charge attacks:

1. The charge attack allows for instant recovery and can be used to start a melee combo IF you hit the intended target. If you miss, you still get the stumble/braking animation and the opponent who siderolled or otherwise dodged you can get some free shots in.

2. The charge attack, when it hits will cause the target to stumble/be stunned and, if used on a dev that is set up, will force de-setup the dev. This will make it useful for both ASM and Tacs who manage to flank a dug-in devastator.

3. The damage should be significant, about equal to a serrated combat knife hit. Charge attacks should be used to start combos and reward players for smart flanking and good timing.

4. The ASM boost forward/charge attack should have more range and speed moving forward than a tac rolling backward, or any SM character just backing up. This would guarantee a hit if the opponent just tries to back straight up. In order to dodge the charge attack, you must roll out of the way, that is, to the side. This would require some skill and timing on the defender's part to circle/strafe to the side, since you can't just back straight up and press the trigger.

5. The Furious Charge perk would affect both the normal shoulder ram AND the asm jetpack boost/ram, and would add a bit of damage and an aoe on impact, allowing you to stagger a group of enemies who are bunched up close enough. It would also give your charge priority over an enemy charging at you who did NOT have the furious charge perk.

This would make the shoulder ram/charge attack useful and powerful without overshadowing the melee combos, and would give tacs and ASM something to close the distance with in tight quarters and to surprise the all-powerful devs/havocs with.

[Shuma]

I have one, it's way simpler.

Make the transitioning animation that happens after you use it fucking faster, MUCH faster, right now it's worse than useless, it's suicidal.

The damage should be significant, about equal to a serrated combat knife hit.

Doesn't the serrated knife do about the same damage as the chainsword?

[Gabriel Gorgutz]

I think it does, not sure. We'd have to lab it. Getting nailed with a shoulder ram, especially with furious charge, should fuck you up good and start a combo. It would be a really good move to add to your arsenal, and it wouldn't be a pure ASM buff since tacs can use it too.

[konfeta]

Furious Charge actually works very well sometimes. I've been hit by it for more than my entire shield and couldn't do anything after long enough for the opposing ASM to start a swing chain. The only problem, I have no idea how to reliably trigger that effect.

[Shuma]

Neither do i, and more times than not trying to use the shoulder bash ends with me getting killed. KILLED DEAD.

I think the only fixing it requires is to make it so that the animation transitioning is faster, then at least it would be usable, using it as it is now amounts to sticking a "shoot me" note on your ass and jumping in front of someone, then staying there immobile for 2 seconds.

Fuck this move. And i doubt making it faster would make it "OP" after all, if you miss you'd end up in front of the enemy, and the result would be pretty much the same as above, but if you do hit then at least you'd be able to hit the other guy with your weapon at least once before he turns around or rolls away, and devastators would be screwed. Right now imo the problem is more notable against entrenched devastators, if you hit them with it, by the time you stand up they will have turned around and turned you into red paste on the wall behind you.

[Gabriel Gorgutz]

Also I should point out that the asm boost dash/charge attack is bugged, as many times even if you do hit the enemy you end up standing on top of him and can sometimes not connect with follow up attacks, meanwhile he can shoot you/melee your feet with impunity. This cannot be intentional.

Sometimes when you hold the jump dash down briefly and then hit x the asm will dash forward and down with a weapon swing. This usually does not connect (hit detection is either too small or bugged), even with the hammer. Destroyus obliterus and I just labbed it. This move is definitely broken as well.

[Akagi_Ryu]

I thought what you describe is the effect of lag...
Has it happened to you in lagless games, Gabriel?

[Shuma]

Both of the stuff you mention sounds like lag, but i don't think the "hit animation" when you land is meant to be an attack, it's just the animation of the ground pound. It can't possibly be, if it was then the killing blow perk would cause assault marines to instantly kill you if he lands on you and that'd be retarded.

[konfeta]

Given the roughly 25% chance of it working, that would be more than fair. Just had a game where it worked for a grand total of 2 out of my 14 melee hits.

[Pseudonymn]

then the killing blow perk would cause assault marines to instantly kill you if he lands on you and that'd be retarded

Hold on a second there. If someone aims and shoots you in the face and you die instantly, why no complaints? Because it makes a ton of sense, maybe? Conversely, if you've got a 1-2 ton power-armored superhuman doing a full power, jetpack-boosted, footstomp on your head; why shouldn't that fuck your shit up too? The player had to demonstrate some skill in positioning the targeting reticule on your head to pull it off, no less than the person who just shot you in the face, right?

Add to that the handicap that they first had to take off and execute an ballistic attack that does not calculate an instantaneous hit detection in the same manner that a bolter round might and I'd say that a one-shot kill on a successful headstomp is working as intended.

[Shuma]

...

Point taken. Still would be ridiculous though, as in over powered not that it would be nonsensical.

[Pseudonymn]

But that's my question though. In what way would that be OP? How often does an ASM actually land squarely on top of someone's head?

[ImmortalChaos]

If a direct landing on someones head killed them, I don't think it would be overpowered, but even if it took two perks (death from above+killing blow), just having to land beside someone to kill them would be ridiculous. It would be far too easy to just land beside people and hop away... you wold never have to commit to any attack for more than a second, and people would never even have a chance to respond. I can imagine wasting entire teams by myself if I could do that...


As for the Thread Topic, the only change I see being required is less lag time at the end of the bullrush. Let players cancel it sooner: with another attack, firing a weapon, walking, etc. This would apply to all classes.

[Pseudonymn]

I don't think anyone is seriously suggesting ASM drop should instakill if they've landed near their target. That would indeed be stupid.

[ImmortalChaos]

Shuma was saying that if killing blow was to affect the landing attack it would be crazy... I'd consider the landing attack to be the whole damage hitbox when you land, not a direct landing, so I think we had a bit of a misunderstanding there.

But we've gone rather off topic! As I said earlier, I'd the bullrush itself is the thing that needs attention. I feel it needs a buff even in single player, using it is just suicide.

[Pseudonymn]

Well on that note, in the SP campaign, I did notice that sometimes it would do damange but would not trigger a stun if I iniated the attack from too far away. Missing the attack and skidding to a halt, while annyoing, didn't feel out of place. Obviously, it didn't work so well on the bigger, tougher targets in general though. Chaos marines and Nobs shrug it off and punish the move with ease.

I don't know if it works the same way, whether the distance to target has anything to do with it in MP though as I gave up using the sholder charge.

[Gabriel Gorgutz]

Killing blow should only affect normal "X" combo hits. Sure Strike would affect Y (if stun attacks other than footstomp worked that is) then SS should increase the radius. Furious Charge would affect charge, etc. and DFA would affect dropping on someone's head.

Also as I mentioned on the other ASM thread, it seems that killing blow and furious charge are not the only perks that don't trigger reliably on hits. I was just labbign with Sov and he noticed that Swordsman's Zeal sometimes did not trigger. This seems to be a bug affecting all melee perks, which is a serious concern for those of us who want to play ASM.

The serrated combat knife, however, seems to be working (boosting damage) 100 percent of the time. So, that might give the devs a clue as to what part of the code to look at when fixing furious charge, zeal, and killing blow.

Regarding charge, you should only skid to a halt if you miss; if you hit the enemy skids/stumbles and you can instantly start to swing. That would be fair and make shoulder dash worth using. Fuck, even if you miss you shouldn't skid for as long as you currently do. It's pretty much a death sentence.

[ImmortalChaos]

Regarding charge, you should only skid to a halt if you miss

I like this idea a lot.

[konfeta]

Only with the perk. Otherwise all melee will degenerate to whoever tackles first. Plus, you don't want Tacs to be able to pull that off (I am assuming they share the code).

[Gabriel Gorgutz]

No it won't degenerate into whoever tackles first. If the tackle stunned you could just get one hit in and then they'd be rolling/shooting again. The tackle doesn't do much dmg to begin with and it SHOULD be really good if you perk Furious Charge. What you're saying right now is no different than saying that melee comes down to whoever swings first. It doesn't, there's plenty of room for evasion and so on. Killing Blow doesn't even reduce melee fights to "whoever swings first" - you can easily miss if the other raptor sees you and has the good sense to dash sideways, and then you'll get hit with follow up swings or plasma pistoled to death. Also remember that the tackle can be dodged to the side.

If you land it, the opponent should stagger, if you miss, you should do the braking animation. And it should do more damage, outpace a backward roll (so you have to roll to the SIDE to dodge it) and should add more speed than it currently does during the dash. Right now you can literally walk backwards and a charging opponent isn't fast enough to catch you in a decent amount of time, making charging in a foolish option.

[konfeta]

You can't roll out of an initiated melee chain, by the way (at least the chainsword will have the attacker do a magic slide even if you roll out of it.). And tackle isn't particularly difficult to land, it just bugs out on the proper stun.

[Shuma]

Yeah but the chainsword is magic, and the thunderhammer kills you in one hit(sometimes) and the axe... uh... Does anyone even use the axe? It seems kind of useless.

[Arcinatus]

While the shoulder charge in multiplayer may be rather suicidal to use in most cases, it's extremely satisfying when you kill somebody with it. Surprisingly it's saved my life a few times.

@Shuma: I see the axe used A LOT.

I support giving it a stun, however the shoulder charge already takes out an enemies entire armor barrier (maybe not iron halo devs, havn't tested that) so that may make it a bit "too" good. Who knows though...another thing that would need testing.

Regarding charge, you should only skid to a halt if you miss

This would also be a good change.

[Shuma]

Well i see people using the axe... But they're always ranked before unlocking the thunder hammer, i don't think i've ever seen a rank 30 something assault marine using it.

[ImmortalChaos]

I use it sometimes... I find it often doesn't make a very big difference from the chainsword. I don't think I've ever failed to ax someone to death and found myself later thinking "if only I had the chainsword..." It's usually "Aw shet, I landed too far from them," or "FFFFFfuu can't beat that thunder hammer"


Back to the shoulder charge again, I agree with Arcinatus in that the damage is fine as it is. I don't think it clears their whole armor bar without the perk, but I'd pretty much say being able to combo out of it would be more than enough of a change to make it useful.

[Gabriel Gorgutz]

Shoulder charge does NOT break armor like death from above, Destroyus and I labbed it. It just does a bit of damage.

[Arcinatus]

Hm, I suppose I was mistaken then. Could have sworn it hit hard enough to break most if not all of the armor layer.

[Misiok]

This is odd. Yesterday I got to killstreak 6-8 with ASM/Raptor on Annihilation with chainsword and shoulder ram (I think I used it with the perk) and I was surprised by how many I killed with shoulder charge after 2-3 swipes. I think we can't balance the game yet as the effectivenes of it varies depending on how kind to you are the Chaos Gods today.

[konfeta]

Well, it takes 4 swipes to kill someone, so...