Parrying with ranged characters is broken AF!
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Video example #1: https://youtu.be/W76gAWOCh_A
As people start getting better with parries the imbalance is really starting to show. Had several matches yesterday where experienced Maeve/Gizmo/Zero/Kulevs were parrying most attacks against Buttercup/Makutu/Miko. It's impossible to pressure effectively when they don't have to run and can casually parry tank while you get shot, and you're forced to rely mainly on long cooldown abilities. Meanwhile, as a ranged character, you can just hold the fire button down to get free uninterrupted, unparryable ranged damage. There's not even an animation for successful parries, so they bounce off you while you have 100% of your DPS.
I went into practice mode and withing 5 minutes realized how easy it is parry Makutu/Buttercup/Miko on reaction, since they don't have dash/stealth engages, and have to run up to hit you with readable attacks. Makutu/Buttercup especially, have huge windups on their swings, with simple and predictable 3 hit combos. All three also have the lowest damage per hit, so it's incredibly safe to parry them. Even if you miss the first parry, you get a free second and third attempt -- and it's safe because they barely do damage and you can choose to dodge the knockdown. If they whiff the first hit because you're kiting, you can easily parry punish the second.
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Why can ranged characters even parry at all? Shouldn't parry be reserved only for melee specialists? It makes sense for Daemon/Bastardo/Miko/Nidd to have it, since they spend a lot of time in face to face scrums, but why do kiters with plenty of escape tools get it? Moreover, parry doesn't even require stamina, so if you drain their two stamina bars, they get parry attempts for free. If parry is kept for ranged characters, then it should drain a stamina bar, and shouldn't work while out of stamina.
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Why doesn't parry do anything against ranged attacks? If parry works against melee, shouldn't it work against ranged attacks as well? Ie. a melee character parrying a ranged attack should reflect a single shot, or recover stamina.
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So, guilty as charged, I started parrying people a lot as Kulev. It's basically impossible when you're getting double teamed though. But if ranged characters can't parry at all it starts to be a bit difficult. If we're taking Parry away from them, it should be replaced with something they can use because right now without it you're basically helpless against melee. If I could at least stagger them once every 5s it would be pretty doable.
Alternatively having an anti-ranged attack mechanic is something I've considered and would be pretty interesting to do. If you could consume stamina to deflect projectiles or just reflect projectiles without using stamina briefly that would be pretty cool.
I'm mostly just hoping the team is able to put out some updates in a few days. They've had a few things in the works since the beta, and the known issues they're working on need to be fixed up enough that they can start working on this other stuff. Their team needs to be larger - they're going to need more and more people as time goes on if they want this game to be successful.
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I spent an hour in practice mode and can parry every hit of Buttercup and Bastardo's attacks every time now. They're extremely slow and readable.
The others have slightly trickier animations, but my parry percentage is going way up as I get used to the parry windows.
Easiest parries tierlist:
Buttercup
Bastardo
Makutu
Daemon
Miko
NiddhogrIn actual matches, Daemon, Nidd and Bastardo have better engages than the others (and Miko does so little damage that it's ok if you miss parrying her first attack), but pretty soon I'm expecting experienced players to start parrying everything mid-combo.
@Evade-This5965 said in Parrying with ranged characters is broken AF!:
So, guilty as charged, I started parrying people a lot as Kulev. It's basically impossible when you're getting double teamed though.
I agree, but anyone is in trouble if they're hit by multiple players at the same time, whether if it's from ranged, or melee. Most of the time you're not taking multiple melee hits concurrently, so mixing in parrying with kiting is the way to go. Kulev specifically uses super armor/tanky healing, from what I've seen, mixing in parry leads to an endless supply of i-frame dodges, since it returns a full stam bar.
But if ranged characters can't parry at all it starts to be a bit difficult. If we're taking Parry away from them, it should be replaced with something they can use because right now without it you're basically helpless against melee. If I could at least stagger them once every 5s it would be pretty doable.
As a Maeve main, I haven't used parry at all on her, before now. There's already dodges, invisibility/invincibilty, and ranged immobilize. Is there a Tier above S? Because with parries she's practically untouchable. Parry removes the necessity of tanks/peelers, since you become a tank yourself.
Zerocool gets a superjump/wall/speed buff on evades mod. Parry tanking with ranged is downright abusive, with a Gizmo you can just stand in range of 3 turrets, while shooting interrupted, since the parry animation can be completely cancelled (already had a few matches like that). If they're backed by a healer, it completely nullifies and melts any melee character, tanks included.
As for Kulev, his strong passive heal/totem and super armor are keeping him up, meanwhile you're being melted by poison/totem damage without being able to counter in turn. If parry did something against ranged, that'd be another thing, but I'm expecting a ranged heavy meta (not like Maeve with Kulev/Zero aren't already in all the meta comps) in a couple weeks to a month, as more people start going into practice mode.
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ranged characters have super low health yea. they can escape but usually you want to push them 2 v1 i guess
"but why do kiters with plenty of escape tools get it"
kulev has 0 escape tools.
i also have a problem with miko parrying. she basically becomes impossible to 1v1 when she uses parry
"Why doesn't parry do anything against ranged attacks? If parry works against melee, shouldn't it work against ranged attacks as well? Ie. a melee character parrying a ranged attack should reflect a single shot, or recover stamina."
this sounds silly to me. but maybe this is needed for balance.
overall i dont know how i feel about this.
ACTUALLY I KNOW WHAT I THINK
I THINK most mele characters should have a charge attack that ignores parry. this works with ballance cause it counters parry, but they have time to evade it. however they cannot evade infinately can they. unless they parry. but you cant parry the heavy. i feel like this would work.
although for characters who already do have charge attacks like makutu. buttercup and niddhoggr, maybe the damage should be increased. i mean nobody really uses them. exept makutus his is fine. makutu is fine for his damage, but nids damage on the charge, and buttercups damage on the charge doesnt seem good enough. so i think. also they gotta make it so you cant be combod while doing a heavy (this will only apply to nid rn cause buttercup and makutu cant be already. only abilities would be able to cancel a heavy
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I don't really have a problem with Maeve. Lets take the evades and ranged/melee out of the equation for a sec because I believe it's a separate discussion if melee vs ranged is a balanced setup with ranged having 2 bars vs the 3 on melee. Personally I love how they handled it.
So Maeve has Vanish, Siphon Life, and Cage...
Vanish isn't so bad to deal with. Most characters have an escape, and the nuances make them fairly balanced with one another. The problem I see is most players haven't trained themselves to watch for stealthed characters yet. If I'm chasing down a Maeve and she vanishes, I just follow her until she reappears. They do need to streamline Stealth mechanics though so that the counters for that are more obvious. Like if you're Daemon, make sure to use Death Mark right before she Vanishes so that you can see where she goes more easily. If they make some adjustments to stealth, it'll be even better, but you can look for my post about that for more details. Upsides of fighting Maeve are she has no easy access to high ground and Vanish prevents her from being useful as well. She's just intended to be a hard to catch fighter, but compared to Daemon and Cass she can actually be much easier to catch actually - if you're willing to leave the objective and team fight to deal with her that is, which may not always be necessary. Pushing someone off the objective is often a good enough victory.
Siphon Life is how she does damage, and it's GOOD damage. Her basic attack isn't good at all, so if you can block Siphon then it's a-ok. Think of it like Yank, it's an ability you can't ignore, and you should watch out for your teammates as well. If you're Miko, you don't have to go kill the Maeve, just Stasis her or use Kinetic Shield to end the siphon. If you're Daemon, save stealth so you an instantly de-target off of it. Someone on your team should be saving CC or effects for themselves or others to deal with high damage effects. And if none of that is available, just make some distance as fast as you can to get out of range or hide behind a wall to block the beam. Once it's on cooldown, you're good to go. But...
Cage obviously synergizes super well with siphon and if you get Caged you're still gonna take some damage before you can do much about it. This is where you need allies to help out some. Cage CAN be evaded, but I'm of the opinion that it appears to be slightly inconsistent atm. Unlike any other ability in the game, if the Cage is used while I'm already evading, I get hit. That's some crap. And I've dodged the moment the telegraph happens before and still get hit by it sometimes. I think it needs some tweaking, and then people will feel like it can be dodged so they should be dodging it. It's kind of like Nidhoggr - all of his abilities are pretty strong, especially Boomitar, but if you get hit by Boomitar that's your own fault seriously. You should see it coming. Evade-less tanks are easier to hit, obviously, but that's a tradeoff they have to take. They have the option to get mods to decrease CC duration as well, if it bothers them that much.
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Oh and I forgot to mention something really important. There are a couple ways to counter parrying in this game, but the best way is to combo cancel well. Usually a parry will land on the 2nd or 3rd attack, mostly because it's hard to tell if the first attack is going to hit sometimes with the depth perception of things so you either parry a whiff or miss the timing. So combo cancelling regularly will help a lot.
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@Evade-This5965 said in Parrying with ranged characters is broken AF!:
Oh and I forgot to mention something really important. There are a couple ways to counter parrying in this game, but the best way is to combo cancel well. Usually a parry will land on the 2nd or 3rd attack, mostly because it's hard to tell if the first attack is going to hit sometimes with the depth perception of things so you either parry a whiff or miss the timing.
Buttercup/Bastardo/Makutu are easy to first hit parry, they have huge startups (getting it almost every time while fighting). The good players I've seen land tons of first hit parries, too. Will prob make a video sometime when I can tear myself away from playing.
Let's say you're combo cancelling with Buttercup, into Whiplash. It has a 6 second cooldown and channeled cast, which means they're not being staggered from combo attacks/launched, and messing up you/your team. Oil slick/hook are a massive waste to combo cancel with, for the express purpose of bypassing parry.
Combo cancelling mainly applies to extending Daemon's shuriken combos, Nidd's good at not relying solely on basic combo chains, so is Bastardo. Miko has freeze, but it's on a long CD, and again, a waste in sweaty matches where you need it to interrupt Ults/drain/channeled abilites. She loses all her pressure/staff heals if the other team knows how to parry.
Lets take the evades and ranged/melee out of the equation for a sec because I believe it's a separate discussion if melee vs ranged is a balanced setup with ranged having 2 bars vs the 3 on melee.
But if we add parry into the equation, the number of bars becomes largely irrelevant, since you're constantly getting stam bars back against melee characters. Melee characters against ranged, on the other hand, bottom out and can't regain stamina the same way. I've played a few matches where a close-quarters Gizmo would out-tank the tanks, and there's nothing you can do to pressure her if she's good with parries. You can kill the turrets and hope your own ranged eventually get the time to deal with her, but then you're not doing your job as a tank disrupting/preventing damage, are you?
ranged characters have super low health yea.
Do they really though? Compared to Buttercup/Makutu, everyone has low health -- but all the range characters (except Cass, who's a hybrid) have more health than Daemon and Miko, who are melee. Gizmo's pretty tanky for a ranged character, Nidhogg only has 75 more hp than her.
kulev has 0 escape tools
Right, he gets super armor/massive passive healing instead, which make him amazing for parry/dodge tanking.
I THINK most mele characters should have a charge attack that ignores parry. this works with ballance cause it counters parry, but they have time to evade it.
Sure, that could work too. They have charged attacks that bypass blocks in Dark Souls 3, Eternal Crusade, and every fighting game under the sun. Hold down the button on the first attack to extend its range/power, and make it unparryable. Though I'm still not sure why Maeve can just hold her hand up to bounce off a buzzsaw that's as large as she is, in the first place.
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Buttercups best combo cancel is actually Oil Slick. Its also the best way to ensure you land the damage on the Oil Slick because if you Yank->Oil Slick you'll miss it while they're airborne. I wouldn't say whip lash is a combo cancel, but channeled abilities is a reliable way to avoid getting parries even if it means you cant flinch them. But yeah no using Oil Slick to combo cancel isn't a waste because you're using it for exactly what you need it to do by damaging and slowing them.
Makutu can just randomize the timing of his slaps with some mixed in holds.
So Bastardo can use Empower
Really everything has one good close ranged avility ideal for it besides Cass, but she can combo cancel with her charge jump which feels like a glitch Tbh.
I do think your point stands though, the ability to continuously parry means the person in question is relying on it too much instead of properly positioning, using specials, or relying on allies. Parry isn't quite right.
So I had a though, why can you parry when flinching? Get it on the first attack of the combo or not at all. You can evade out of combos, but why be able to parry during them?
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@Evade-This5965 i got into a situation where i played buttercup and tried to 1v1 a miko who knew how to parry. it didnt matter how many times i combo cancelled. she would parry every hit. i tried everything. it was a LONG fight. as i was a tank and she was someone who can just re heal all the damage i do. plus she could only hit me inbetween parries and her freeze ability. on someone like miko it doesnt matter cause she will just outheal the damage cause at that point the damage is being done way to slow.
however i think you still should be able to parry while flinching. i just think they need a heavy attack/ parry breaker or a parry limmit.
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I mean, using oil slick for the express purpose of bypassing parry: How does that even help at all? Oil slick is great at as a combo extender, but that's against players who don't parry yet. Moreover it has a 12 sec CD -- so say you manage to sneak in a single hit, so what, the damage is so low. Vanish bypasses the snare, or the puddle can be dodged out of -- but that's besides the point, it's not like a good Maeve needs to, because Buttercup's startup frames are so high. Oil slick also has an uncancellable cast animation that roots you in place, it doesn't even provide any frame advantage if you want to use it to bait out a parry. If they're consistently parrying your first hit, whip lash is the only real damage option, but that loses out badly in damage trades.
Makutu has easier time than Buttercup getting the initial hit in, since the startup is faster. But not by much. If they're spacing properly, and using the stamina gained from parries and combining it with evades, they only ever have to do deal with the first hit, as it's his only approach.
Empower's definitely a good combo extender, but the CD is 14s. That's an eternity to be able to sneak one hit through. But Bastardo for sure feels better against parry practicers, because even though he has high-startup on every swing, he's less reliant on using his basic attack to engage (with leap), and because he's spinning half the time.
So I had a though, why can you parry when flinching? Get it on the first attack of the combo or not at all. You can evade out of combos, but why be able to parry during them?
That'd be a start. But I don't think parry adds anything good to the game as it is, especially on classes that aren't melee specialists. It seems like they put it in as something cool and rewarding to master, but fighting against people who parry, and people who don't, completely changes how the game works -- and not for the better, as it takes away from the need for teamwork/spacing. Against parry, half the classes get neutered and suddenly you don't need peelers anymore.
What if parry was less rewarding for classes who aren't melee-DPS? You're already stopping their attacks in their tracks and applying a short stun while they take damage -- if it's someone in your backlines, being frozen in place is a big deal. But why does it also give back a free stamina bar? The dodge/parry loops on ranged/supports are just silly.
i got into a situation where i played buttercup and tried to 1v1 a miko who knew how to parry. it didnt matter how many times i combo cancelled. she would parry every hit. i tried everything. it was a LONG fight. as i was a tank and she was someone who can just re heal all the damage i do. plus she could only hit me inbetween parries and her freeze ability. on someone like miko it doesnt matter cause she will just outheal the damage cause at that point the damage is being done way to slow.
Yea I'm coming across more and more of the same matches. Especially VS Miko/Kulev. It's taking far longer to kill them than it would take to kill an actual Tank. Even against some Gizmos/Maeves who were out-tanking the Tanks at close-range combat, and only getting healed infrequently. There were a few games where I spent the entire match trying different things to land a single combo, but they'd parry any time their CD's were down.
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Updated with a video highlighting how parry looks on ranged specialists:
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Thanks for the detailed post and game play discussion.
We read everything you guys send us and we love to hear your ideas on new and different ways people can play Bleeding Edge.
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With the inherent latency in every game and unpredictable play-styles, it’s virtually impossible to duplicate consistent parries in-game. It’s easy to parry in dojo, when the AI performs predictably with little-to-no latency. Dojo isn’t even close to how actual games play out.
Personally, I’m with the group wanting to buff the parry. I think the parry frames should be extended, and the melee character should be staggered 0.5 -1.0 second longer than the ranged character.
As it stands, ranged characters are at a disadvantage when compared to melee. Ranged characters barely have any range to stay out of melee range. It’s very easy for experienced melee characters to close gaps and stun-lock experienced ranged characters.
