Was just thinking that there are so little options for the current fighting styles, especially synergy-wise. Currently the only two fighting styles that apply a unique effect is sailor fist and thermo fist. Iron leg can make use of the limited iron synergies, but that’s it. On top of this, cannon fist and boxing are unviable in comparison. There’s so little to choose from that basic combat is a very common fighting style to see people using, so I decided to make this post with some suggestions on possible fighting styles.
First, I’d like to suggest possible ways to make the current fighting styles more unique, starting with cannon fist. I’ve seen this idea floating around where throwing cannonballs is reflected in the moves, where the slam attack would throw a cannonball downwards instead of you actually going down. If possible, this should be implemented because the only people who run cannon fist are looking to destroy boats.
Next would be boxing. Just give it wind synergies to make it more viable.
Onto my personal ideas. I’ve read this post, and he has some pretty good ideas I’d like to build upon.
Starting with the idea of a poison fighting style called Serpent Style, this fighting style would cause the user to naturally produce venom that can be applied to their attacks, causing the poisoned status effect. This would be in the form of a bar that passively charges and gets depleted when the user activates skills. Just like thermo and sailor, the poison effect would only occur when the bar is above a certain threshold. This would discourage a spammy playstyle and instead cause people to be more selective with their moves, just like how a snake is very cautious when presented with danger.
Next up is Desert Fist. The creator of the post I linked briefly mentioned the possibility, and I think it’s a really good idea. This fighting style could emit very large and vision-obscuring sand particles from all it’s moves, on top of applying the sandy effect. I think this fighting style shouldn’t have a resource management bar, however, because it probably wouldn’t be too good on it’s own and focus more on the vision-obscuring aspect. Also having every unique fighting style use a bar would be a little redundant and annoying, since some people don’t like having to manage a resource.
Lastly I’d like to point out the two fighting style ideas the creator of the post I linked mentioned: “Acid Reflux” and “Rock Stomach”. Personally I think the names could be adapted to suit typical fighting style naming conventions, but they are very good ideas. The acid fighting style charges it’s bar by eating food, and the earth fighting style charges by destroying terrain. However, I think the earth meter should just increase the size of the skills as you get more instead of only having the synergies apply above a certain threshold. This way the user wouldn’t have to maintain a specific threshold of their meter.
I think the earth fighting style is an extremely good idea because it incorporates existing mechanics into combat, and would naturally cause the user to be more destructive as they play. If any of these should get added, it’s the earth fighting style. All of these mentioned fighting styles could have synergies from their respective element, causing a huge surge in variety of fighting style/magic combos.
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