Please excuse this wall of text, this may be worth your while!

So I have been trying to convince my brother to play Spiral Knights because despite some recent unpopular changes I still believe the game is inherently fun. One of the main issues he has with the game is that he believes the combat is rather limited. Although it is a hack and slash MMO he believes that there should be more ways to vary your combat style. So after a pretty heated debate he began to list some ideas that he would like to see considered. Many of these have probably already been suggested at one time or another but I thought I would post and get your guys opinions.

Also as a disclaimer, I will not be mentioning anything about in game balance with these combat mechanics as I already debated how these would have to be balanced. Also I did not want to give my opinions on how these mechanics should be balanced so I will leave that up to you to discuss.

Ability to dual wield weapons: This pertains to both swords and guns. The idea is that you could substitute a second weapon in your shield slot and use it in a combo. As you attack the weapons will alternate being used. If they have effects, then both effects have a chance of activating, while at the same time both swords are causing additive damage. The downside to this is that you are forsaking your shield thus being unable to use it. In conjunction with this you also do not receive defense bonuses or health bonuses from a shield. This type of combat would encourage players to be more cautious with and more precise with their timing. The upside is the ability to do much more damage.

Use of two-handed swords: So this is pretty straight forward, you give up your shield hand to use a two-handed sword. The attack animation would be slower so timing would be crucial. Not to mention you wouldn’t be able to block incoming attacks. Similar to dual wielding the upside is you do increased amounts of damage with each swing.

Stealth mechanic: Ability to activate some type of cloaking device to make your character stealth, this would also take up the shield slot. So after cloaking you would remain in stealth for a certain duration, or possibly indefinitely, until you attack an enemy. When you do this you receive a damage bonus or a stun from doing a sneak attack. The device would have a cooldown so you couldn’t spam it and would have to dodge around the battlefield while waiting for it to proc. We also discussed the ability to cancel enemy agro when the cloak is activated, being that it provides some safety with the absence of a shield.

Combination melee/range weapon: So this is more a weapon suggestion that would provide more combat variability. It would be a gun that can also be used as a melee weapon at close range. Sort of like a bayonet.
Another weapon suggestion in relation to the last point is a shotgun. Still has range mechanics but has potential to do more damage depending on the proximity of enemies.

Let me know what you guys think so I can pass the word on to my brother. Like I said before many of these ideas would have to be balanced so that they worked with the other weapons and combat mechanics already in the game. Also to make sure they didn’t become broken or overplayed. The ideas would need some fine tuning, but it would be nice to see some more combat variability while maintaining the basic hack and slash elements this game has.