I feel like weapon melee m1s need a nice rework. They are straight up outclassed by fighting styles in terms of damage and even ranged for cannon fist. They also do not give poise break or even poise damage. So overall, worse functionality, worse damage, worse attack speed as well in most cases.
My proposal:
Give melee weapons a unique ability that if you use a skill and m1 a bit after the endlag, you gain a stack of “Stance”. Stance can be stacked up to 5 times and stance does 3 things:
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Each stack of Stance increases your blocking power by 5%, 7.5%, 10%, 12.5% and 15% additively. ( 5 + ( 2.5% * No. of Stance stacks))
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Stance increases your jump height, be it from your high jump, or just pressing spacebar. It will also increase the duration of the glowing effect when hitting someone. Weapon skills like soaring eagle are not affected.
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Upon reaching 5 stacks of Stance, you will be buffed with “Flow”. Flow will totally stop the regeneration and consumption of both Stamina and Energy. As you reach “Flow”, any stamina damage you take like getting hit by Breathtaker or parrying fall damage will be negated. If your stamina or energy is low, damage to yourself is negated and you will also still be able to cast skills.
Stance will decrease if you do not use it within 20 seconds. And stance doesn’t care about how much dexterity or range you have. It will always be the same timing.
What this ensures:
Unique mechanic over Strength. Strength → damage and stun, Weapons → good PvP and PvE utility (niche but useful).
Compensates for the fact that weapons can only have a max of 5 skills per slot instead of 8.
Dragon Cliffs are easier to climb without having to rely on Magic or Spirit Flight.
Let me make a few comments for what it entails for PvP:
It’s not overpowered, it realistically won’t be used all that much as it is going to be a bit annoying to maintain, especially when you are busy having to constantly block against someone immediately after using a skill.
It also means you are stuck a little in mid-air when you decide to melee m1 meaning that you can be punished more easily. But if you are successful, you can benefit a bit from it.
It is balanced by the fact that, if you are at low energy, and you just got out of Flow, you still need to wait until you have enough energy to cast another skill.
For against people who run away from fights or passive people, it does slow them down, but also slows you down if you strategically need it. But it can also speed you up without too much delay.
As for PvE:
It does mean that you will have an easier time scaling up tall cliffs. It is easier to fight NPCs by stacking Stance before attacking the said NPC, though this could apply to players as well. It only lasts 20 seconds though if you don’t keep it in mind.
It allows you to block 100% of damage without energy being consumed, meaning you can straight up tank Mythical dragons by parrying them without taking damage. I find this part really funny.
It makes you look like a badass, something like parrying a nuke without taking any damage. We all know PvE players care a lot about cosmetics and roleplay. Like imagine just sheer aura farming a Mythical dragon by parrying every single blast and your teammates are like: “That guy is HIM”.