Wow. This is awesome. I can't wait. I'm not kidding. This will finally give recons the buff they need and open up many options, particularly for weapons which seem useless right now.

I do have a questions: Shield bash power will vary from shield to shield, right? If I shield bash with a swiftstrike in T3, it will do almost nothing at all, right? If I bash with an Ancient Plate shield, it will do much more than an Owlite shield. Am I assuming correct? Or is it too early for an answer?

I saw these as keybinding options a while back on the test server and I've been excited ever since. Hope they lead to faster and more exciting gameplay, and give Skolver clones something to worry about :D

Also gives a solution to bombers/heavy swords taking forever to break minerals. :)

Adding on to Narfle's thoughts, wouldn't it be cool to have more traps that required you to dash through them and strategically time your dashes so you don't get hurt?

So that's why the shield bars were put in, although I don't get why they messed up party member health...it was fine before.

I hate to be "that guy" but, can we get any word on sprites? I think the last time you guys said anything about them was when you were clarifying scarabs were NOT sprites.

Anyway, can't wait to see how these'll work out when added to the game.

THIS, THIS SO VERY MUCH!

It would really boost the plate series quite nicely.

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There's one thing that bothers me about these abilities (thou I think they are really darn cool!): will monsters get a tweak to compensate for these abilities? With this and the Battle Sprites, wouldnt knight become a bit too strong for the normal clockwork levels? I can see these working great for the danger missions and shadow lairs but kinda overkill for normal missions and clockwork runs.

@Burq

I agree. While this provides new mechanics, we also need a blanketed monster buff, probably AI or speed-wise, to compensate. If a noob says it's too hard after that, he is probably just forgetting to shield bash'n'dash.

Really this is great!!! Can't wait! :D

I like this idea a lot! Bonking Greavers as a Bomber will be very very nice.

Maybe certain swords and guns can get different combos if used after a Shield Bash or Dash? For example, running as you fire an Autogun shot. Heck, maybe bombs can be thrown if the charge is released during a dash...

Interesting new gameplay options! As others have said, should open up lots of interesting possibilities with weapons that seem weak right now.

Will these features appear in Lockdown? Could be hard to balance, and might just make Striker stronger.

+1 to throwing bombs. that is all.

firstly will these mechanics be allowed in lock down and secondly will the dash/shield bash allow attack interruption. if this is allowed in ld then i foresee total annihilation of newbs (including myself) by the better players. and as for the attack interruption part that was to counter the use of this in ld (if it ends up being allowed) meaning if the player is being combo-ed to death can he push the shield bash attack to interrupt it. but yeah this sounds awesome and will create some interesting game play.

My guesses, atleast in relation to LD:

Striker gets changed so instead you get 3 bursts of the dash. Each dash works like outside of LD, with the exception of using shield energy instead. The shield now recharges gradually.

Guardians get shield bash. This allows them to attack while shielding, at the cost of weakening their shield.

Recons stay the same.

That's what I hope for.

I think it sounds interesting, too. I think different shields should be more effective at Shield Bashing, though. And I think it'll help with those swarming monsters...

About this dash... it looks like a striker, basically we are going to have turbo wolvers everywhere instead of LD-only? THE HORROR. D:
At least the shield bash seems interesting.

I like how everyone immediately thinks of Lockdown before anything else. This just proves Lockdown would make more money as a standalone game.

Personally I find it hard to imagine Lockdown using these mechanics, but if it did then the metagame will change somewhat. Invincibility frames change everything, but if the dash is anything like the hammer then it can be easily telegraphed. Shield bash is nice, I don't see myself using it with what we have to play right now, maybe in the future?

If by any means it is a sign that monsters will be buffed to the way they were previously (tracking players while attacking, faster reaction times), then I am already brimming with anticipation.

We are on our way to becoming a lot more dangerous than we used to be, it's only fair if our enemies are going to.

Heres hoping that they don't remove the current shield bumping mechanics.

Tbh, I would rather they focused on other things that desperately need fixing *COUGH, BOMBER GEAR, COUGH*, as opposed to adding thing which don't need adding at all.

i just realized that. shield bash is just infinite stun vials i hope they distinguish that enough to make stun vials keep there usefulness

Sounds like fun, an update that makes me play PvE at last.

(Im also still waiting for a PvP update)

As a gamepad player, I'd like to be the first to say...I'm running out of buttons! Taking into account the Battle Sprites + these attacks(hopefully the dash is just a double tap and the shield bash is shield+double tap)...maybe I'll map the quickslots by analog direction, give the shoulder buttons a rest.

I am not usually an emotional person, but...

WOOO!! THIS IS AWESOME!!

Considering the battle sprite's skills and these dash and shield bashing and a unique key for all 4 weapons slots and vials. I foresee not enough buttons for the future. Can we trigger shield bashing with double shield and dash with double direction button?

That's an intriguing idea, but some important techniques require rapid use of the shield (including shield-canceling and switch-shooting, to name a couple). Double-direction button-pressing is useful in provoking Trojans to attack in order to create an opening; whether dashing messes with that remains to be seen.

Just to add my two cents, which I forgot to add before...

When I read "dash" I instantly thought of how gremlins jump around. Not strikers. When I said that strikers would get 3 dashes, that meant three gremlin-like jumps. It could also be something like this.

In other words, they stay speedy but at the same time become five times harder to control.

EDIT: My hopes on how these skills will be used:

• Bash: Attack while defending.
• Dash: New key bind.
• Dash (option): Double tap a direction to dash.

If it's like this, you only need one more key bind, but you wouldn't have to do this if you didn't want to.

Also, semi-invulnerability might be invulnerability to certain enemy attacks, while other ones, like Lumber smashes, and traps would still hurt you. If you stayed invulnerable to traps, I can tell you right now that a whole lot of spikes could be skipped with this!