Mantis Strike and Jotun Form would be fighting styles that would (if implemented) probably be obtainable in the Nimbus Sea.
Mantis Strike
Basic Info
Mantis Strike is a fighting style that can be found somewhere in the Nimbus Sea. It focuses around patience & using powerful and precise attacks to defeat opponents. It deals some increased damage with its m1s and abilities at the cost of speed and aoe. It is a regular fighting style.
Gimmick
Mantis Strike’s gimmick revolves around patiently waiting for the right opportunity and attacking. When you are using Mantis Strike and are in combat, a Bar will appear above your inventory. This bar is your Strike Bar. It passively charges and fills up every 1-3 seconds. When it is filled, a sound cue will play. If you attack in a short time frame, around 0.5-1 seconds, after that sound cue you deal 1.5x damage. If you do not, then the bar resets back to 0.
Warlord Imbuement
You have a higher cooldown between attacks, deal more damage, and have the bar from the gimmick while holding a weapon.
How to obtain
Due to the Nimbus Sea not being released, I have no idea but you would learn it from a teacher.
Intention
The Intent for Mantis Strike is to create a gameplay style in which players time their attacks in a sort of rhythm in order to maximise DPS. It would all revolve around balancing it just right to make sure that Players would be rewarded for doing it right and not punished, but also so that it wouldn’t become broken.
Jotun Form
Basic Info
Jotun Form would be a lost Fighting Style. In order to get it you’d need to upgrade (however that will be implemented) Mantis Strike. Jotun Form focuses around hitting hard with large AOE and high Knockback, in exchange for reduced speed. You would also have higher environmental damage with your attacks
Gimmick
Jotun Forms gimmick revolves around its high Knockback. When you hit someone into the wall, ceiling, floor, etc., it deals increased damage, destroys the object if it destructible or leaves a crater, and if you deal enough damage, briefly stuns them, letting you get in close again. You also get 1.5x bigger
Warlord Imbuement
The Warlord Imbuement would apply Jotun forms gimmick, maybe up the damage, increase the size of attacks, and decrease speed.
How to obtain
Jotun Form would be obtainable from either Lost Fighting Style Scrolls or upgraded from Mantis Strike Style (Not sure which one it is as the Wiki says it’s both as far as I can tell)
Intention
The original idea for this fighting style was that it would be sick to punch people through buildings in Ravenna and it just spiralled from there.
Pros
Mantis Strike would help introduce some new play styles
Jotun Form would be awesome and help add some impact and oomph to fighting (nah but just imagine yeeting enemies through walls that’d be sick)
Should be relatively simple to implement, would just involve adding extra Knockback and damage to Jotun Form while adding a timer with a bar tied to it on Mantis Strike.
Cons
Mantis Strike could be tedious to fight or play as, and might just be a horrible style due to the potentially lower DPS
Both of the Fighting Styles would drastically reduce Combo Potential
Jotun Fist may be too similar to Boxing and outcompete it (tho tbf Boxing ain’t good as is)
we barely have any info on how upgrading will work, or even if it will be implemented after all, but it feels weird to have an upgraded style be the exact opposite of its base form
The gimmick of Mantis Strike feels weird to me.
The style supposedly revolves around waiting for the right moment, but the gimmick is just “hey, every couple of seconds, if you hit something, it takes more damage!”.
My thoughts on changing the gimmick
Option 1: Make the charging take longer in general. Because that charge time, to me, seems very, very short.
Option 2: Make it so that attacking constantly reduces the rate at which the bar charges, because attacking constantly is not “waiting for the right opportunity”. If the bar fills by 30% every second, make any attack when it isn’t full drain 5-10%.
Option 3: This one is a bit mean, but making EVERY attack reset the strike bar, regardless of whether the bonus damage triggers, would greatly incentivise actually using timed attacks.
Please note, these are not mutually exclusive.
As for the Jotun Form, I don’t like that part of this suggestion. A style that supposedly evolves from another, being the opposite of it, is politely put, exactly what Waping described it as.
Also, the name. Jotun, to me, has more of an association to the “frost” part, than the “giant” part. If you want this “Jotun Form” to be associated to Mantis Strike, its’ gimmick should still require timing, and the style should not go so far in the opposite direction.
I honestly want to suggest a complete overhaul of Jotun Strike, so… here are my ideas, I guess.
The Overhaul
Possibility 1
The name I suggest for the overhauled Jotun Form, is “Pulse Strike”. To keep a connection to Mantis Strike.
It’s basically the same as Mantis Strike, but with slightly bigger numbers, and the damage increase from the timed hits is reduced. In exchange, the knockback is significantly increased, and, well, basically, the “hitting someone into a thing” bonus damage from the original idea also applies.
Possibility 2
This one focuses less on the “evolves from Mantis Strike”, and more on the name, so that stays the same.
It’s basically Ice Imbued Sailor Style in appearance. It’s got AoE, and Damage, but Speed can be an issue. The gimmick, as I imagine it, is a gauge that increases when charging. The fuller that gauge is, the larger and slower the attacks of the user are. As the user attacks, the gauge depletes somewhat slowly, reducing the AoE, and possibly damage. In exchange, they speed up somewhat proportionally. When the gauge is empty, attacks should be somewhat slower than what could be considered average, but also bigger, and more damaging, still. Also, the Ice surrounding the user melts a bit.
Mantis sounds like an alright fighting style idea. I feel like it would be too easy to parry though since your opponent can learn the timer. I think there should be multiple proc timers so it’s harder to predict, so after the first goes off then another will occur 0.5-1 second after. You could adjust the damage multipliers or the amount of extra procs for balance. Or maybe the FS need some sort of stealth mechanic alongside the strike bar, idk.
I don’t like the Jotun idea. It has little resemblance to Mantis first of all, and it sounds really boring since it’s entire gimmick is more knockback.
The difference is the same as the difference between space and time. Which might not be much of one, depending on your perspective, but still.
Also, Mantis Strike seems to directly focus on damage, whereas Knocking Fist also has a debuff infliction gimmick.
I like the suggestions for Mantis Strike, and I think going for option 3 would work best.
As for Jotunform not making sense as an uog… Yeah that’s fair. These were originally part of a group of others, and I just picked these 2 to flesh out more cuz I liked them more. But I definitely prefer option 1 for a redone Jotun Fist.
