Introduction
Hello everyone, it is once again I, Dracula, master of suggestions that don’t entirely suck. Today I’ll be presenting some ideas for fighting style techniques of both rare and lost tier that the devs could potentially include in the game in case they’re running out of ideas. I won’t specify strength requirements as that’s hard to gauge without insider knowledge of the game’s balance. If I rip off anybody else’s idea sorry, I had no idea you posted that idea already. I’m just sitting here cooking in my head. Remember to vote on this suggestion to give it more traction if you like some of these ideas!
Rare Techniques
Coalesce
One of the earliest obtainable aura manipulation techniques and a buffing technique. The user will make whatever pose animation the user chooses and begins flaunting, their aura gathering into a single part of their body specific to the animation. The visual effects would obviously need to be unique for each fighting style. After finishing the animation, that part of the user’s body glows very bright for several seconds, the next attack technique the user uses on that same fighting style gaining a significant boost to size and destruction, and a smaller boost to damage, the strength of both determined by how much they’re charged. The tradeoff is that this technique takes up a slot that could be used to expand your move set and it uses quite a lot of energy every time. Taking significant damage while using this technique can fully cancel it, refunding only part of the energy spent on it.
This technique has one slider that controls the duration that the buff lasts, the cost of the technique increasing and the minimum time it takes for the animation to finish increasing slightly as well. By default, the duration would be rather short, only good for a follow-up attack thrown out pretty quickly afterwards, which means opponents can backpedal out of it potentially. When made into an ultimate art, the user can no longer be interrupted by damage, the charging animation is much more imposing and longer, the size and destruction buff scale much higher, and the overall duration is far greater. While useless on its own and relatively easily punished or avoided, this technique can create absolutely spectacular attacks straight out of an anime fight scene.
Quickstep
An advanced distance closing technique that takes up a skill slot in exchange for allowing the player to much more easily close the distance on any opponent. The user essentially puts every last ounce of their strength into one explosive step. When aiming at an opponent and you use this technique, you will take a single step and instantly teleport in front of them, charging the technique simply allowing you to tell if you’re close enough to teleport to a target by giving them a white outline and delaying the step animation until you release. This technique, while having a relatively short cooldown, has a fair bit of end lag and can only be used while standing on the ground, so if an opponent is paying attention they can punish you for using it.
This technique has only one slider which increases how far you can teleport, which is also increased by the user’s attack speed. Increasing this slider however increases the end lag slightly and increases the startup animation length even more. Making this technique an ultimate art, the startup animation takes slightly longer, the range increases very significantly, the user appears directly behind their opponent instead of in front, and there is almost no end lag. Aesthetically, when used it produces no sound at all, instead just leaving the briefest afterimage where you were once standing. This technique can move the player significantly further than blitz and is great for jumpscares.
Addendum: Using this technique interrupts and prevents island claiming for a short duration to prevent abuse.
Lost Techniques
Inner Peace
A powerful projectile-countering technique. The user of the attack enters an open-armed stance. From here there is a short window in which any non-hitscan projectile can be caught by the user by wrapping their aura tightly around it to contain it like a form of very short-range telekinesis. When a projectile is caught, the player can choose to either charge the attack, in which the user will spin constantly (this allows for air stalling if used midair), or can release the projectile immediately. Upon releasing, whatever projectile was caught is fired where the user is aiming, gaining a fair bit of both damage and speed proportional to how much it was charged. This technique applies even to arrows and bullets. It just must be a non-hitscan projectile, some examples of hitscan projectiles being beam or surge.
This isn’t a perfect counter to all non-hitscan projectiles however, as the greater the size and speed of a projectile the more likely it is the user will simply be hit out of the technique, playing a sound cue and very briefly stunning them. The technique has two sliders that are weighted against each other, meaning if one increases, the other decreases. These are the counter window, which increases how many frames you are able to grab projectiles, and grip strength, which improves the user’s ability to redirect larger and faster projectiles. Making this technique an ultimate art will improve both of these properties, make redirected projectiles hit even harder and faster, and enable the user to catch as many projectiles as will fit into the counter window and release them all simultaneously instead of just one projectile.
Flicker
A mobility technique used by martially inclined assassins, the user briefly disappearing by moving at extreme speeds and utilizing their opponent’s blind spots before reappearing. This imposes a massive accuracy debuff for NPCs and for other players all they would be able to see is tiny and sparse black speed lines around the user. During the use of this technique, the user gains a very large increase to movement speed and jump height at the cost of their stamina draining heavily. This style doesn’t impose critical hits like vanishing style nor does it benefit vanishing style any more than any other style. It has two sliders weighted against each other, one that controls the duration of the invisibility and the other controlling the speed bonus. Making the technique an ultimate art improves both significantly.
While invisible, the user is able to charge up other techniques, although this drastically increases the amount of particles around them, allowing the player to choose between using it for evading strong attacks and closing the distance at higher speed or charging up a strong attack while somewhat safe with a longer duration. Due to how short of a duration the technique is as well as how heavy the stamina cost is, even as an ultimate art at full duration this technique would not be too strong at running away as long as the user’s opponent can track their movement. At very high speeds, it can become extremely difficult to control and choosing to max out the duration gives it almost no speed boost unless it’s an ultimate art. This technique is effectively an upgrade to quickstep allowing you to position yourself however you want, however it has a much longer cooldown and you can still be hit in motion.
Addendum: Using this technique interrupts and prevents island claiming for a significant duration to prevent abuse.
Endless Strikes
A continuous technique like surge or ray in which the user attempts to strike as swiftly as they physically can, throwing punches and/or kicks (depending on animation set) at their opponent after a brief startup period, enabling players in PVP to get away potentially if they’re fast enough. These strikes do very little damage individually, their hitboxes are thin rectangular boxes that spawn in a wide area in front of the user, and they have a short range but hit the opponent extremely rapidly, the user’s arms or legs becoming a blur and creating afterimages. Because of just how fast and tiring this is, the technique steadily drains stamina and will stop only when the user releases the technique, is grabbed/countered, or runs out of stamina. This technique can be slowly aimed while in use just like ray.
The overall DPS and poise damage of this technique is very high but is naturally hard to hit. As usual it has two weighted sliders, one that controls the size and range of the hitboxes resulting in more strikes landing from farther away and the other controlling stamina drain reduction. Increasing either will reduce the overall damage of the technique slightly and extends the startup animation’s duration. Making this technique an ultimate art drastically increases the size of the attacks and noticeably increases damage, but has no impact on startup speed or stamina drain. Has a unique interaction where if two users of this technique start it around the same time neither will deal damage to each other unless one releases early or only one has it as an ultimate art, small flat shockwaves rapidly appearing between them.
Skydance
A very mobile and aggressive technique in which the user gathers their aura in their hands and feet and releases it rapidly, creating thrust that enables their entire body to twist and accelerate. The user will spin wildly, taking a random extremely fast path towards wherever the user aimed when initiating the attack. While in motion, the user has i-frames at random moments, making them even harder to hit. Any terrain the user collides with in flight can be destroyed, and the user can hit opponents while in motion very rapidly for small chunks of damage, the technique sometimes homing towards the nearest target a short distance away in the user’s flight path and homing heavily right at the end.
This technique has a unique startup animation that is easily recognizable and creates a loud sound cue, delivering a ton of damage at the final point of impact. However, if an opponent moves far enough away from the point that the user aimed, it simply won’t connect as the point of impact is quite small. The technique possesses, yet again, two weighted sliders. One increases the speed of the attack and the other increases the range, both decreasing damage and increasing the startup animation duration. When made into an ultimate art, instead of striking a single target point, the technique instead will home in heavily on any target in a wide radius around where the user is aiming as they fly around that space randomly, becoming much more likely to hit in flight and, as a result, gaining a much higher DPS. At the end of the ultimate art version of the attack the user is left stunned and slowed at the center. As an ultimate art, it will also possess a lot longer of a startup animation and a longer duration overall. While less effective than other methods for outright burst damage or crowd control due to its random nature, this technique can completely shred groups of enemies, do quite a bit of destruction, and serve as a great way to attack and avoid damage at the same time. The ultimate art is effectively that one attack General Argos uses but with slower movement, it can only hit an opponent when flying close to them, and it has non-consistent i-frames.
- Coalesce
- Quickstep
- Inner Peace
- Flicker
- Endless Strikes
- Skydance
- None of them.
