Axes for Stalkers!

[biostem]

Simple suggestion:  I really like battle axe on my melee characters, and would love to see it made available to stalkers.  It should be a simple enough conversion to make, (replace taunt/confront and whirling axe with assassin's axe and placate).  Bonus points if we could also get a scythe weapon model added as well!

[El D]

It is odd that Stalkers never got Battle Axe - or War Mace, for that matter. One of those 'proliferation backburner' things that never received attention during the Live days due to the continued stream of bigger things. It'd require animation work for Assassin's Strike, but for the most-part the conversion seems like it'd be more straight-forward than most (like hopping sets over to Sentinels, for example - not that that's any way a begrudging remark against Sents or the work the HC devs to port stuff! ^_^).

Edited May 24, 2022 by El D

[kelika2]

Id rather give up Pendulum for AS.  And slap Cleave at level 32

The lack of simple easy to use PBAoEs are a big reason I skip many stalker sets and giving up Whirling Axe is an automatic skip

 

[biostem]

1 minute ago, kelika2 said:

giving up Whirling Axe is an automatic skip

Well, they lose whirling sword for their version of broadsword, so I was just following suit...

[biostem]

5 minutes ago, El D said:

It'd require animation work for Assassin's Strike

No doubt.  I'm trying to think off the top of my head if there's an animation where you swing a weapon from over your head, where you could hold it there for a brief moment for the slow assassin strike...

[kelika2]

2 minutes ago, biostem said:

Well, they lose whirling sword for their version of broadsword, so I was just following suit...

Yeah so many of them do.  I think kin/bio and stj/shield are my most played stalkers because of that.

But AS might end up looking like someone swinging a golf club

[Luminara]

There's precedent.  There were several other axe murders in the same period, including some which were believed to be perpetrated along a rail line, indicating that someone was using the railways to travel from town to town, killing people with an axe at each stop.  That's a sneaky son of a bitch.  With an axe.

 

The evidence suggests that there was personal motivation in the Villisca case, that it wasn't random, or the act of a serial killer  But the murder was never caught, so again, sneaky son of a bitch with an axe.

[Cancrusher]

Dibbs on the character name Lizzie Borden.  😆

[Rudra]

22 minutes ago, Luminara said:

There's precedent.  There were several other axe murders in the same period, including some which were believed to be perpetrated along a rail line, indicating that someone was using the railways to travel from town to town, killing people with an axe at each stop.  That's a sneaky son of a bitch.  With an axe.

 

The evidence suggests that there was personal motivation in the Villisca case, that it wasn't random, or the act of a serial killer  But the murder was never caught, so again, sneaky son of a bitch with an axe.

Don't have to be sneaky stalker to murder someone with an axe. Even to get away with it. The problem with axes for stalkers is how do you line up a precision strike on a target's vitals and then do an over-hand or across the body chop to hit it?

 

Then again, in actual axe fighting, the axe isn't used to just swing and chop. It does have short thrusting strikes, particularly with a bearded axe after hooking an opponent's shield. Aside from a fast thrust at the opponent's face though? I'm not aware of any precision attacks with an axe. If the axe had a spike, it could work for a stalker's AS.

 

Just have to find a sensible way for the weapon to work.

[biostem]

5 minutes ago, Rudra said:

The problem with axes for stalkers is how do you line up a precision strike on a target's vitals and then do an over-hand or across the body chop to hit it?

I mean, if a stone melee stalker can do it, then I can suspend disbelief that an axe stalker could as well...

[Rudra]

Well, like I said, actual axe fighting does have some precision strikes. I'm not an expert, but I have seen an axe fighter explaining that. Though only the short thrust at the face. Typically as part of the "What is wrong with this in movies?" bit. So there probably are axe attacks that would work. A spiked axe for certain could be used. I'm just saying that a bit of research to incorporate a sensible means of accomplishing this is in order. I'm not saying "No! Don't do this!".

[Naraka]

1 hour ago, kelika2 said:

Id rather give up Pendulum for AS.  And slap Cleave at level 32

The lack of simple easy to use PBAoEs are a big reason I skip many stalker sets and giving up Whirling Axe is an automatic skip

 

I heard Whirling Axe has crappy DPA compared to other PBAoEs.

[The_Warpact]

If that's the case I want Titan Weapons too.

[Sakura Tenshi]

As long as the axe AS power is called “Assassin’s execution”. I will say stalkers with heavy weapons might seem odd but work for the archetype of being a slasher movie stalker villain .

[TheZag]

Stalkers need some axes and have the names of the powers switched around.  Beheader shouldnt be the name of the tier 1 attack.  Keep the powers in the same order but move only their names:

 

1. Chop

2. Gash

3. Swoop

4. Build Up

5. Pendulum

6. Taunt/Confront

7. Whirling Axe

8. Beheader

9. Cleave

 

Stalkers would have (current power names in parenthesis):

1. Chop (beheader)

2. Gash (chop)

3. Swoop (gash)

4. Assassin's Guillotine

5. Build up

6. Placate

7. Pendulum (swoop)

8. Beheader (cleave)

9. Cleave (pendulum)

 

Sorry,  stalkers lose whirling axe just like almost every other stalker set loses its AoE.  No good reason here to make an exception.

 

 

Edited May 26, 2022 by TheZag

[General Idiot]

Both the live devs and the homecoming devs have been making that exception with every stalker set since Street Justice. I doubt they'd stop now. More likely what stops both axe and mace being given to stalkers is the lack of a suitable animation to use for the assassin strike. The only weapon based animations that work are all from sword sets, which would look super odd done with something not meant for stabbing.

[El D]

5 minutes ago, General Idiot said:

Both the live devs and the homecoming devs have been making that exception with every stalker set since Street Justice. I doubt they'd stop now. More likely what stops both axe and mace being given to stalkers is the lack of a suitable animation to use for the assassin strike. The only weapon based animations that work are all from sword sets, which would look super odd done with something not meant for stabbing.

 

Alternately, the sword set animations would make it look like it does even more damage. Stabbing someone through the chest with a hammer?

 

Edited May 25, 2022 by El D

[biostem]

There has to be some overhand chop animation that could be used, here.  I'm not at a computer w/ CoH to check, ATM, though...

[El D]

If anything, there's that two-handed over-head smash from Crushing Blow in Titan Weapons. Given the hand positions for that animation, it might work. Briefly two-hand the Battle Axe/War Mace for the Assassin's Slash/Smash/Crush/[insert verb here].

[General Idiot]

The animation could work but the weapon would need to be repositioned in it since it's built for the much larger models of titan weapons, and it'd need to be lengthened or just a pause added at the start as the slow version of crushing blow is 2.0 seconds animation time while assassin strikes are almost universally either 3.0 or 3.67 seconds, with 2.0 of that being the interruptable bit that gets removed for the fast version. Only kinetic melee is shorter and that's still 2.67. I'm not sure it'd actually be that much less work than creating a new animation from scratch, in the end.