The shield bash and dash came out last week, if I'm not mistaken. I was wondering how you're doing with it. Are you using it? Do you find it effective? Give out your answer and opinion about it!
As for me, shield bash is my favorite shield move since you can stun enemies. Dash helped me escape a gremlin mob and helps me in combat.
I use shield bash a lot for breaking through a crowd of enemies and for gathering enemies up for optimal bombing. Bunnyhopping is pretty cool for just getting out of danger in general.
The dash is a lot of fun and useful half the time. The other half I end up jumping into traps or not being able to get through a gap that is too small, but that is my own failure. xD More practice needed. Most of the time I don't remember to use shield bash. My first instinct is to shield whenever I'm surrounded, which means my shield takes damage and I can't use bash anymore. :s Again, need more getting used to.
Yesterday I joined a T3 Arcade run with the squad to fill the "sarcastic whiner" role for our party of nitwits and the only times I ever used the dash were when I forgot I changed my space hotkey to dash (which I ended up changing back so space is weapon switching) and to move a little further which I could have done repetitively but never bothered to remember. I only used the bash while waiting for others to catch up out of boredom and one time to try and hit a couple enemies sitting on their filled diapers.
Dash and bash seem like training wheels to me. They help less skilled players do things that experienced players can do with one hand while shooting up twenty lines of red crayon on the wall nearest to them because the AI is cheaply compensated by high damage and high enemy counts. They contribute nothing to the game being retro or classic and instead make this game more "modern": too many controls with simple functions and stale gameplay. Who needs the game itself to be entertaining and enjoyable when there can be shinier piles of diarrhea on screen all the time to keep simpleton players occupied?
Mostly what Lug said, it doesn't really add much if you already know what you're doing. Although I did use Bash today to save an afk party member from getting hit by a zombie swipe when I was too far away to get to him in time otherwise.
I use Shield Bash. Not a lot of dash though. Well both of the new mechanics can be titled "Handicaps".
Yeah, I use it all the time in LD to complement my DVS - I tend to use only swords, so it helps me get close enough to go to town on people normally able to outrun me. Liking it a lot.
Edit: Otherwise, not much in the clockworks. Don't really need either of them - monsters are so dumb as they are, that it's completely unneeded.
I use the shield bash if i'm surrounded by at least 5 enemies. And the dash when i'm on the elevator.
I use sheild bash on slow monsters and turrets to stun them and then attack them from behind and on a few monsters on occasion. I use dash more diversely for
1: easily getting close to gunpuppies etc. by dodging bullets.
2: jumping past howitzer heads and grimalkins to kill them.
3: getting off trap that are about to trip.
4: distance covering faster.
And 5: Jumping past attacking monsters.
That's about it.
"Yesterday I joined a T3 Arcade run with the squad to fill the "sarcastic whiner" role for our party of nitwits" - Lugui-something
How come i never get to do a run with Lugy? I seem to always be stuck with some different speaking dude or noone at all. D: Hell, i would be happy if i can do an Arcade run with a full party of noobs. Where are my peeps?!
I like Dash alot. I get to finish levels slightly faster. Shield Bash seems useless. Stun really doesn't make a difference other than make a good getaway.
Shield bash feels like a stealth buff for Cutters. Less need to carry a backup weapon for crowds, you can just break them like a pool rack and safely flail into a stunned enemy with your combo. I can see both the Cutter and Rocket Hammer playstyles becoming very reliant on it.
The dash has some very interesting marginal uses, but overall I feel like it's not useful for what it was intended to do. It's a gamble to use from a reaction standpoint for the same reason that shielding against an attack you should have not been around for is a gamble. Unless you have an absolutely flawless ping, you'll end up getting hit regardless. You can only shield or dash from danger if you already knew the attack was coming well ahead of time, but by that point you could just have walked away.
The best use is proactive use as a method of attack or setting up attacks. You can dash through bullet spam to a turret with no issue. This is the most obvious use, but less obvious once are intentionally baiting the AI in to attack and dashing. The AI has used it's attack and won't do so again instantly. You've put yourself ahead of their attack count down, essentially. You can do this normally by just shielding till the shield takes damage(then laying in to the enemy), but this saves you some risk. Also useful for changing position when the most direct path to your position is through an enemy preparing for an attack. Normally you'd have to go around or wait for their attack to finish. Which takes more time. By then the position might not be favorable. Now you can just dash there and be safe with invincibility frames.
Sadly it does not make you faster. There is a slight pause before and after dashing that's part of the animation. Someone walking normally can keep up fine.
Bashing.. I don't know. I want to find it useful, but it's ridiculously dangerous to attempt. It has NO INTERRUPT POWER. So enemies can just eat you alive even in the brief period between when you've first hit them and when they get knocked away stunned. Currently I use other, much safer, methods of crowd breaking that aren't nearly so fiddly. Also, bashing is even slower than walking. So don't even think it's useful for getting places.
I used to like dashing off of elevators and watching them go down with no one on them. Then they patched it. RIP dashing off elevators. But seriously, dash has been very helpful for me, especially for navigating over traps. Shield bash has been fun, but I haven't used it as much.
I dash a lot and it's damn useful. I can skip a fire tick, I can trivialize the rocket puppy in FSC by dashing through his aggro sight, and I can completely ignore a Trojan/Lumber smash.
Bash requires a little bit of planning, but I generally use it if I need to push a certain group of enemies in a certain direction, like into a vortex. It's a little thing, but it makes me very happy.
Dash gets a lot of use from me, bash is left collecting dust because really: half of my shield health for some minor stun?
Dash is used when having to jump from spikes or firetraps in fsc, to avoid trojan or lumber smashes.
In PvP it's pretty effective at throwing people of guard. Jumping through an incoming striker and hitting them in the back.
Jumping into a haze cloud and comboing an unsuspecting bomber.. this kind of things.
Feyi
It's really funny when I just waltz straight through a pulsar spammer's hail of explosions and smack him in the face. They still haven't learned we can do that yet...
Even I know the dash and bash will help in battles a lot, I don't really use them as I get used to my old play style.
Also it will be better if the dash follows the curser, as dashes can go 8 directions only unless you use mouse to move.
I use the abilities dash and bash equally. They're both real useful, both as a swordsman(swords-lady?) and gunslinger. But I'd say bash is for getting the advantage as a gunslinger though.
Glacius charge a crowd, bash into them, pull yourself out with dash and gun them down. It's useful with trojans around.
As a gunslinger, I tend to save my dashes for traps and to avoid getting [cornered] by trojans.
Once the enemy healthbar and weakness showing is removed completely, me and my friends will be able to try it out
i use it sometimes but only to getaway or running faster but the think that the mobs can hit me and do damage then i bash them are annoying.
I have used them relatively little so far, as they just aren't necessary for getting through any of the current in-game content. I like both features, they just aren't necessary (yet). I have seen people starting to make effective use of dash in LD, and I have heard of people finding uses for bash against specific types of mobs--fiends and gremmies, mostly. I would find more uses for bash myself if a.) you could break blocks with it, and b.) your shield still took damage for you as you bashed. I can foresee some fun strategic gameplay if you could, for example, bash through a block to stun the mob on the other side. Oh well.
Honestly i find the dash more effective than the shield dash, being able to use it in more situations, and ofc in lock down.
You can parry enemy GF or DA combos or in PVE get out of a corner or escape when your surrounded by of group of slags who want your brains!
Then again ive been playing for a year (not that much i know) but im not yet completly used to the new features and i think new players will work it out better!
But on overall its a great new feature and i really like it! great job to OOO
They are both amazing.
However, the dash should always be in the direction you are facing, just like the bash, because it's important to be precise about where you are going to land.
I like the new features, for the most part. But, they aren't without their flaws. It's a bit of a long explanation but here it is:
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Dashing
General: I only use this on very rare occasions when my party gets ahead of me. I don't really see the use in it outside of that
Complaints: I dislike how this new mechanic works in every way possible. I tried it out in combat and I did not really enjoy it that much. I have a bad tendency to accidentally run into traps in combat all the time. Trying to use dash with this problem usually tends to spell disaster. To me the traps tend to be more of a problem than the monsters hitting me, I usually use my shield for that. Not sure if this is the same for anyone else, but that's usually my issue.
How I would improve it: Personally I would prefer to see this feature take advantage of the animation that it uses, at least how it looks to me. Instead of a dash, make it a jump. Have the ability allow you to jump over certain traps, such as floor spikes and status traps, but not the ability to avoid monster attacks unless you can jump out of the way of them. Pretty much reverse the use of it.
TL;DR: Dashing sucks, it's too much of a gamble to use anywhere near traps. Make the invulnerability for the traps, not the monsters.
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Bashing
General: In combat I have found this ability to be super useful. I only use it in certain cases, such as when a teammate is swarmed with monsters. I found it the most useful in the compounds, stunning the minis make them way easier to hit.
Complaints: The biggest complaint I have against it is how much using it propels you forward. When I first heard about this feature I thought it would work that you would stay in place and the shield bash would work on enemies standing right in front of you. I also dislike how you need a full shield in order to use it.
How I would improve it: If I were to improve it in anyway, I would like to see this ability allow to chose how much you want to put into the bash. Instead of only using the standard half health bash allow for one basic version and the ability charge the bash. A simple tap would use a quarter of the shield health, you stand in place and just hit the enemies directly in front of you with your shield. Taping and holding the bash button would allow you to charge the shield and use either a half, three quarters, or full shield health in order to bash, each with different effectiveness. As for a drawback for this, because most useful game mechanics need at least one drawback in order to make it challenging, each variation of the bash propels you forward different lengths depending on which level you bash.
TL;DR: Bashing is good. Very useful. It can be more useful if we can decide how hard we want to smack the enemies with it.
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Anyone who decided to read all that up there, feel free to have your own input on it. Anyone who just read the TL;DR sections on them go up and try to read the whole thing and let me know what you think.
As a person who's played spiral knights for quite some time now i find that dash and bash are two very unique skills that increase the overall gameplay experience. These are only two of the many new possibilities for this game (please don't make me regret saying that) the fact that three rings is going back into the game and asking the players "Hey, while we are in here want anything new?" it points towards the ends of them developing more and unique styles of playing the game. For instance players now have the capability to dodge their enemies attacks or charge through a horde of fire zombie in the firestorm citadel, no more being trapped in a corner as an office worth of devilites pelt you with suitcases. All in all its really great to see more work put into this game and im excited for future revisions to the gameplay and story.
Luguiru summed up my feelings here very effectively.
I simply forget the fact that those moves exist when in combat, until someone performs one of them. I used shield bash less than ten times when fighting, I was either cornered, cornering a lichen colony, or pushing foes between two shards. I have a feeling shard bombers can benefit greatly from this.
I used dash twice or thrice in combat, in all situations I could just walk instead and still avoid damage. Getting familiar with it may help in a few situations, such as outrunning an incoming lumber hit from half a tile away. Dash can raise your chances of survival quite a bit, but it is not vital until new enemies are introduced or current foes are buffed.
I'm a gunner so I never really find the occasion to use them. I think I've used the dash all of twice to avoid enemies that were knocked into me by a Levi charge, and have never used the bash in actual combat. I imagine the dash may be more useful down in places like Shadow Lairs where being away from enemies is less possible, but I'm still not sure I'll ever use the bash.
Overall, though, I'm not sure the game is currently difficult enough to warrant the new moves, especially since monster behavior still acts as though they don't exist. The upcoming battle sprites (june is in two days!) are also going to buff players, so I hope we see some nastier baddies come out to challenge us in the next few weeks!
Dash is quite useful for dodging enemies and last-second traps. However, shield bash's stun is not worth the loss of shield health and hang time.
/wonders why Guardians can't shield bash
Both of them are pretty much "initiating" moves for me. I didn't notice this until recently but I almost always dash to approach and enemy across the map--and shield bash to assist my partner when I come to his area of the map. I'm glad this exists, I can't wait for Tortodrones...please!
A lot of times I don't use dash or forget to use; that being said, it has been occasionally handy in getting some distance, and did save me a few pinches. I'd say that while dash does have it's uses, albeit with limitation. But that seems to suit it fine; using it as a rare escape.
As for bash, I actually seem to rather like using them whenever tactically possibly; tactially being when I see a good opportunity to knock the sense out of a bunch of enemies, or assist an ally attacking another enemy (Often these enemies are Mechas or greavers). I find it rather handy in doing stun in a pinch, or when a stun vial isn't on hand. And occasionally I'm tempted to use it to plow throw big crowds, which I rather enjoy doing.
One thing that should be noted; I do think that the bash would be more appropriately worth if it did two others functions; interrupt the enemy, and/or have some kind of frontal invulnerability. The former would probably be the best, and the reason being is that as is I'm already leaving myself vulnerable enough as is by draining half my shield and rushing haphazardly at foes. For the melee type, this probably this isn't much of an issue, but you still have your tougher enemies, like Alpha wolvers and mechas. Mechas in particular, when doing their charge attack, don't get interrupted, and considering I'm already running hazardously into the fray and draining half my shield, I think an interrupt plus the stun would make pulling off a successful bash feel more worth it. I should feel safe to some degree after having properly executed what I did.
i think it'd be better if the dash have more distance to cover and make shield bash shorter. since shield bashing actually makes stunned enemies still be able to hit you if you happen to push them all the way.
I also find that I unknowingly use dash to escape an enemy mob, or to get the better of a striker in Lockdown, but I use bash mainly to distract enemies while I go help a friend on another area of the map. I am VERY grateful for these options in battle!
Once the enemy healthbar and weakness showing is removed completely, me and my friends will be able to try it out
I think we went through the "I can't see how that's stopping you from playing" conversation before, so I'm just going to say that there is approximately a 0% chance of Three Rings getting rid of it.
/reply Title: the bash/dash doesn't change my tactics much.
The Bash is very underrated, yet incredibly useful for when you need a quick crowd control. As a gunner, it saved my skin from being cornered, put the enemies into a perfect position for driver-ricochetting, and even managed to save someone else's skin.
The only thing you need to know is to deploy your shield the moment the bash ends -although the bash sends the enemies far enough to not, say, eat a zombie swipe.
The dash... errrr...
Honestly, I haven't had many uses for it -mostly because of FSC grinding, but I can see its potential: In an open Arena with enemies that hit fast (Gremlins, Fiends), the dash can be a most definitively valuable asset as you gain ground, avoid those attacks in time and manage to find a weak spot to hit those pesky menders.
That "dash" seems more like a "jump" to me :P Maybe it should let use "jump" over obstacles? (like spikes)
I have found dash particularly useful against dreadnaughts. First you dodge, then get behind them and dash towards them while they are spearing the air, and go to town on your favorite sword.
Shield bash is great in FSC for clearing mobs. Not too bad against trojans if you are in a large group. I don't use dash much in LD just because I forget about it. Dash has saved me countless times from floorspikes, Vana clubs, trojan strikes, and other predictable attacks that are just difficult to get out of the way otherwise because of the range they cover. Most of the time I leave shield bash untouched and save dash for a backup option.
I use dash all the time. Every 10 seconds. It's extremely effective and can be used offensively. Shield bash isn't something I'm really inclined to use as often, simply because I lose dps. My only complaint about dash though is the invincibility is not instant--in other words Im too fast for the game now and it needs to register the moment I hit it :<<<<<
My dash keeps getting cancelled in crucial moments just because I was too fast with it.