We need an analyzis on saber styles and types

[Qaz]

REMEMBER, THIS IS ONLY with Saber offense and defense lvl 3 and jump lvl 3, NO THROW OR OTHER FORCE POWERS, pure duelist.

 

DISCLAIMER: I am not a jedi academy or dueling master, i am just an above average dueler who sometimes eighter sux or is really good. Do not try to argue any of these points if you disagree with them by going "I am god at JA" or "You have no right to talk like that, you are just an average player" *inser curse words at random*

 

Ok, here is my imput...

 

 

 

So far as i have played i found that:

 

Single (first game, second IS WAY different)

 

An average non-newb player can utilize heavy stance to get opponents easily. My last server i had my ass kicked everytime i used dual and staff with heavy stancers. Their heavy swings OUTRANGE any of my attacks and rolling stabs did quite nicely agaisnt kata's etc. Yellow and blue was and should be used only for lunge and dfa. (Using yellow or blue agaisnt staff or duals is a suicide which i will explain in second part of the post.) I never won a game at that point.

 

Analazis: The only consistent saber style Singler's should use is heavy. So far the following works very nicely:

 

Never let Dual\staff get close. They will turn you into Croutons in 5 seconds if you will. KEEP YOUR DISTANCE and utilize SIDE TO SIDE HEAVY SWINGS. This WILL outdamage and outrange D\S people.

 

To counter the special special moves of those things the following works nicely:

 

Lunge Jump with heavy stance if done at proper time, which most skillful players should be able to do, WILL pin down a butterflying\kata opponent if you will begin the actual pinning while they aren't spinning with the saber to damage. Most of the time I had did a butterfly or Spinning Kata they just finished me on the spot with that exellent attack.

 

Roll and stab. Roll around to the side of your opponents and stab them. Doesn't do damage but scares your opponents into doing a stupid mistake.

 

Light Lunge, instead of roll and stab and actually can do nice if you do this right at the end of enemy special move before they jump away but after they stop dealing damage, this is A VERY fast attack.

 

Skillful swing. Rare, suicidal, if works you are a sabering god or are very acrobatical.

 

Run and pray that they will not hit you. These moves are devastating, and if you feel that you cannot preform the upper dont even try. If you mess up with one of these chances are you get away with an enourmous glowing scar or die.

 

CONCLUSION: Primary: Use heavy swings and KEEP YOUR DISTANCE, I CANT STREACH THIS FAR ENOUGH! Secondary: Apply Light and Medium and Heavy special moves to counter special attacks of dual or staff. WARNING: Light and medium for consistent fighting won't work. Dont even bother unless they ask questions like, how do I do a kata?

 

SECOND GAME. Analyzis of Dual and Staff

 

At this point I got used to the game and stuff, etc. and went on a roll by winning 4 games in a row. Just, Like, That.

 

Staff.

 

Acrobatics is your life. Staff is PATHETIC to every stance and other sabers in the game when it commes to running around holding attack button. Exceptions are discussed below.

 

Acrobatics, what are they? These are what certain idiots call whoring special moves or newbie only stuff. STAFF RELIES ON WHORING SPECIAL MOVES or "NEWBIE ONLY STUFF". Do Butter flies, katas, twirls, and rolling stab all the time. Don't even think of fighting your opponent in button holding style, just retreat until force regenerates enough for a special move, preferably the "Move in any direciton + attack + jump". (As a very nice replyer pointed out, you can metamorph this into a roll stab for a surprise attack). While doing acrobatics calculation is A MUST. Unlike in single player, you do not have control of direction every second in the special move, but you have more then any other stance during their moves. UTILIZE THAT. ALWAYS try to get close to your enemy or force them to chase you, but the end result is this: Make sure they will get in the spinning across Y axis with staff at damage mode: scoring these hit does MASSIVE damage and you should do atleast 3 of these hits if you do it correctly.

 

THIS IS NOT WHORING SPECIAL MOVES. You cannot physicaly whore them due to the fact that all of them cost force or just never happen when you need them. THIS IS ACROBATICS, the point and the STYLE of the staff.

 

Now, the non acrobatic aspect of the staff involves its spins and ability to do medium damage at very fast pace.

 

GET CLOSE AND PERSONAL. Staff has EXELLENT parrying and KICKS light and yellow stance's arse if you get right next to hte opponent. If they do heavy swings they are messing something up because as i explained earlier heavy swings are at range. A single saber duelist WILL die if he gets a staffer or a dualer to close. Otherwise by the time their hit gets you, they are dead meat. Your only problem if you are close and personal is the Light Lunge, but most people just panick and can't lock on you and repeatedly smash their buttons which leads to their demise.

 

Preferable motion is going around them using foward+strafe keys while holding down attack motion, or even better strafing past them with spins, thus doing guranteed damage if they are to slow to move out of the way.

 

JUST ONE WARNING. Dual sabers (ill explain later) are superior in this aspect of fighting. Doing this agaisnt them will kill you. Sorry.

Also the fact that this is predicatable will let opponents a way to counter this easily with a heavy swing at your head while you spin, since they can avoid the blows if they know where they are coming from.

 

Kicks and deathblows, dont bother. Wait until the patch fixes 'em cause they never work agaisnt a non-newbie, unless there is lag.

 

CONCLUSION: Primiry Tactic: ACROBATICS Secondary: Close and personal spin-dicing. Everything else is at your preference. WARNING: Try to use a combo of staying far and using acrobatics to get close, or you will die against heavy. NO you won't live otherwise.

 

Dual Sabers.

 

Ahh, my favorite for duels.

 

Now if Single saber relies on distance, staff on mix, then this relies ON CLOSE AND PERSONAL. Acrobatics are just for escaping or getting into position for a twirl or something like that.

 

Analizing Time :

 

What is the main streangth of Dual Sabers? MASSIVE amount of attacks with low damage. Your strategy here is to inflict maximum # blows while not get hit. Don't worry that it takes to many blows to kill someone, if it took 3 - 4 blows then duals would be overpowered.

 

Now, for the Sweet Spot of this style: TOTAL RANDOMNESS. If you twich all the time when swinging like mad your attacks will change DRASTICALLY! Its almost impossible to predict where these attacks come from unless you are some sort of a superhuman. These attacks will surprise even YOU, the USER! And that makes them leathal. Quite a bit of your low damage will ALWAYS get through, adding up to the lethality of the staff or the range and pure power of Single. You want to get very close VERY fast and the jump + foward+ attack move is just MADE for that. Its fast, non-threatening (people don't dodge this to often because of its low chance to hit) and easily timed. Once you are close and personal GO DIAGNALY in circles around enemy while twiching thus your attacks will come from every direciton non-stop. They swing, they are Croutons once again. If staff user tries to do the Crouton technique on you you will own him way sooner before he does any fatal damage. Don't forget that when you swing like this your opponent's attack rarely appear due to the fact that he cannot swing since his saber is blocking all the time. Also the Saber Twirl move (crouch+ foward+ attack) has a very nice arc , over 180 degrees, and is unblockable with massive damage. Also, the fact that if you miss with your rolling stab you get a second chance to stab them with the saber that goes out of your arse (lol). If hte opponent thinks he tricked you and is behind you when you roll, dont steer off! Keep doing this and he will impale himself!

 

For the Saber Spin Shield i also find it useless, people just roll stab me the second this is over.

 

CONCLUSION: Primary Tactic: Get close VERY fast and begin the Crouton Technique. Devastating! Secondary Tactic: Use acrobatics with twirl and uniqe rolling stabs to get your opponent. Also can work nicely. WARNING: staying at range with dual sabers is a suiciade. Using Saber Shield is a very risky chances, doesn't pay off agaisnt smart opponents who will stay out of its range only to stab your arse.

 

FINAL CONCLUSION:

 

Single Saber is now gets the following score:

(3 base)

 

RANGE: 3

VERSATILITY: 2

POWER: 2.5

SURPRISE ELEMENT\STRATEGY: 2 (.5 for beeing old school favorite)

 

Staff:

 

RANGE: 2 (extra point for acrobatics)

VERSATILITY: 3 (sorry single, you aren't place there)

POWER: 3

SURPRISE ELEMENT\STRATEGY: 2 (again, extra point for acrobatics)

 

Dual:

 

RANGE: 1

VERSATILITY: 1.5 ( .5 for extra nice rolling stabb and twirl\acro. combo)

POWER: 1.5 (Lowest power of all)

SURPRISE ELEMENT\STRATEGY: 3 (Not as much strategy as SE, this thing is VERY RAPID AND RANDOM)

 

Any best? In my opinion, NO, all sabers are balanced right now, don't mind the scores sum because they are flawed due to the fact that some elements complement others REAL nice. Each one using a variety of strategys (and not accounted here, PLAYER CREATIVITY) to win, it all depends on skill now. There are no truly newbie friendly or hard to learn stances\types, because a good player can kick a so called "skill raised because of staff newbie" arse using one of those strategies.

 

THIS ISN'T THEORY, ALL TESTED ON PRACTICE AND WORKS FOR ME!

 

Other notes: If you don't really play duels, don't go here, i know perfectly well that some of these types were made for "crowd control", but that doesn't go in advantage's disadvantages for these sabers, this is NOT POWER DUEL, ITS one ON one!!!

 

There you have it! Not complete, I know, but this sums up the current no force but jump sabering quite nicely IMHO.

 

Critticism welcome, no flaming plz, don't mind the spelling, i am russian so english ain't my best!

[Qaz]

plz dont ignore me?

[Starfire13]

Nice! Thanks for taking the time to type that up for us.

[Qaz]

YAAAY!!!

 

 

*shifty eyes* can mods make this a sticky for a day or 2? I just want to become famous

[Darth Sun]

You forgot to mention the Staff Kata can be canceled into a roll (adding a roll stab if you desire) at the end of it, thus ensuring you don't get nailed from being exposed at the end of the Kata.

[Starfire13]

Originally posted by Qaz

YAAAY!!!

 

 

*shifty eyes* can mods make this a sticky for a day or 2? I just want to become famous

 

 

.....

[Torulf]

Really nice work there Qaz. Your post is a nice change to all those "RAVEN MAKE A PATCH CUZ I CAN'T KILL EVERYONE AND THEIR GRANDMOTHER WITH THE SINGLE SABER ANYMORE"-posts I've seen lately. (Ok, maybe there aren't that many posts like that, but you get my point, I hope....)

 

Yup yup, a VERY good and thorough post, I must say.

[Qaz]

Thanks darth, added.

[MasterSidious]

I get about an average of a thousand on Dark Sides(mostly ) on JK2 and I think that was a great post Qaz.

 

P.S. Especially because I don't have JK3 right now and I'm a noob at JK3 and I still understood how the sabers work in JK3 .

NICE JOB

[AxVegetA]

Very good work qaz.

 

I actually disagree with your thoughts about single saber.

Red stance, close to the enemy is very very deadly. The right side slash for example hits twice, when your saber is behind you and when is infront, if you manage to do that you will let the enemy close to dead, then you have the 2 other hits of the combo which will kill him instantly.

 

Then about blue and yellow against staff and duals. I use yellow a lot when the enemy is close to death. The blue lunge is very lethal, and the normal blue slashes can be used to finish an enemy (any).

Yellow dfa is absolutely useless, every time i try it i fail.

I have only hited with it twice, one was an instant kill (100/100), and the other took 100 shields. And both were against an standing player.

I am sure it has it goods, maybe against saber barrier or some kata but i duno.

 

About staff and duals i cant really tell cause i havent used them not even once.

But i know saber barrier is incredibly strong, when using it in close close combat, using yawspeed, it worths the sacrifice to let them hit you afterwards.

Thats all.

[Qaz]

Yes, but there is a problem with red swing. When blocking with heavy stance, you get the least then out of any other stance. Meaning while your saber is knocked back you are getting CREAMED if a dual or a staff is close enough. Your strategy DOES work agaisnt staff as i told you because staff is predictable and slower then crazy duals. Also, I do not disagree that a skillfuly done heavy swing will be efficient anywhere, but agaisnt duals? BE REALISTIC.

 

On my second official test game every one of my opponents but one used heavy swings at 1 point of the dual. They used exactly what you said, a red chain that went like this quite fast \ --> / a couple of times, but it DID not help them

 

By the time they were making the swing they were doing it quite in some other direction because they tried get away from the blocking lock i was inflictic on them with exessive dual random swings, then i did another one of my twitches and that is the end of them. Your strategy agaisnt duals will work if your opponent doesnt use the randomness of duals to his advantage, thus repeating exactly the same thing all the time, while on the other hand a smart dual guy will easily mess up your needed aiming for this swing and shall "Crouton" you to death.

 

using yavin is a script, which is not normal dueling, its about the same cheese (only less powerful) when people just scripted blue lounge to murder poor players with touch of a button. NOt to mention any idiot who will stand in the way of the Saber SHield deserves to die without any scripts whatsoever... (altough if you trap your opponent into an inescapable situation, saber shield is deadlier then twirl sometimes because of range and AoE.)

 

Your strategies on using yellow DFA, well, you got unlucky sorry. You just can't get the right moment unlike other players can, so you have to adapt differently. For me that move ROCKS, you can't imagine how pleasant it feels to Decapitate ( on dismemberment upon death servers) a Butterfly staffer.

 

And lastly, your light stance can work on "hit and run" style attacks, but if some goes for Crouton, light stance will be overwhelmed with immense # of attacks, (if it wasn't, duals would be useless agaisnt light, , so balancing issues make my method of Crouton possible)

 

Also, you are proving my point that everyone also has their own small tricks up their sleeves which works the best for them. I am just pointing out THE most effective strategies agaisnt players who aren't super-reflexed and aren't the true lamers (scripters to do moves for them, not scripters who do fun and enjoyable stuff for everyone). Once again, am just above average player, so I am not trying to convince everyone that my small analyzis brings the BEST solution.

[gaara]

I dont agree with you on staves being useless.

 

When i vs a red stance with my staff i almost never kata, butterfly because that would just lead to hp dmg for myself.

 

What i do is slash and keep slashing keeping my distance, then getting small hits when thier open.

 

After 10 mins of duel i have high hp and red user is now dead.

 

Sometime during that 10 mins, most people get impatient and go deep (around the time they are low health) for a hit and thats when i use Butterfly.

 

Its boring, long, pisses the red user off, but it works.

 

If i get behind a red user, i move around them 360 degree spinning my saber.

 

Against other styles? If im playing serious i do the same;

Chipping life till they die.

 

 

I also disagree on red stance "creaming" double when close.

If your close to the double he can duck and start his quick speed swinging around the leg.

 

Its all the matter of skill, patience, and timing.

 

I dont think anything truly sucks, they all have its uses.

 

Blue, Yellow, Red all have moves that are useful.

[Qaz]

Who said that staves where useless?

 

Read posts more carefuly

 

 

Second, I DID NOT say that red creams duals or staves up close, i said the opposite...

 

 

All the time i point out that heavy is a long range and should be used long range, because duals and staves are (especialy duels, its their primary job, while this is secondary for staves) perfect for cutting stuff up close.

[Kurgan]

Btw, with sabertracesaberfirst 0 and Saberdamagescale 2 I find most swings to be deadly if landed on the non-blocking areas of an unshielded foe.

 

People who say a move is "useless" usually just haven't gotten the timing down. Ditto for "Unstoppable" moves, which usually have more than one counter.

 

 

It just takes time and patience to learn the differences between this game and JK2 (whatever version you played). That's to be expected since this is a sequel...

 

And I'm NOT dissing your post in any way, it was well done, I just wanted to throw my opinion in here. ; )

[Qaz]

Kurgan, what you are saying is right most of the time, but let me show you it this way:

 

Kick is useless because... I land a succesful kick: my enemy falls down exactly the same way as a stormtrooper does from lvl 1 push. Now look at the second part of the problem:

 

Groundstab Deathblow: there is NO delay before you can roll or jump out of lying on the ground. Groundstabs hits mentally ill or laggers.

 

Sabershield: as I have been playing, i so far found that it is not useless when enemy can't roll or jump away. But we are talking duels here, meaning not a single area is a corridor unless a dueler wishes to die.

 

 

I am calling these moves useless because i have never seen ANYONE use them effectivly, not because i cant use them

[phoenix2072]

Well, there is a very nice trick to use with kick.

 

Kick your opponent, and if he drops (this is random) immediately do the staff spinning kata. Usually they can't get out of the way before you hit them. Had this done to me and I died instantly. It's also fun to do on other people.

 

But the deathblow really is useless.

[Qaz]

You sure? Might work, but shouldn't you just jump over the body?

 

Ill try that...

[Shakey Mac]

very nice post.

 

on the staff: one of my favorite moves is to come at them with a forward+right attack then switch to a strafe right. against single sabers this tends to knock the saber away and then i get a slice or three on them with the spin of the saber. staffers are affected pretty much the same way. duals can sometimes block it, but most ive found will just try to attack you as you meet them and get their sabers knocked aside.

 

if i knock my opponents saber aside, i usually follow up with a strafe left for another quick two hits and then a back+left or back+right to retreat as most people get pretty pissed and follow me.

 

if i dont knock their saber aside i either back off if it looks like theyll recover or i kick em just to piss em off.

 

just my thoughts. great post.

[young Obi-Wan]

really not the worst thing I've ever read , infact: very nice... I'd have liked to do sumthin like this too, but was a bit lazy... -.-

cool, reminds me of the great Duelling Tutorial for JK2 (written by Marker0077)

btw my favorite move is the one which in jk2 was the so-called fan-swing (or the left-right-maneuver), especially with saber staff it rocks. very good to keep attacking while avoiding the other's attack. (needs some feeling to get the timing tho). you can also do the more offensive version: diagonal right, diagonal left, diag ... ...

^^

[Kurgan]

You may be right about the ground stab, it is rare to get it to hit. However the value of knocking a person down should not be underestimated, as others have pointed out, you can start a kata or other move on on their body that they won't be able to kick/flip out of (they could still try to roll I guess).

 

Also kicking a person off a cliff works.

[young Obi-Wan]

i'd like to have the two-sabers roll-stab weakened. One hit can kill someone with 100/100 hp. with other sabers, this attack is way weaker. and maybe butterfly should require more force points (or anything else that would stop noobs from doing nothing but butterflies, expecially in duels)...

but I guess this is not the right place to talk about *what young Obi-Wan wants to have in the update patch*.

[Kurgan]

Just about all the issues people have raised about unequal moves damage can be easily resolved with one simple command:

 

g_saberdamagescale 2 (or higher if you want).

 

To stop people from "spamming" simply raise the Force Mana Regen rate (default is 200.. higher and it takes longer for your mana to recharge... lower and it recharges faster).

[MasterSidious]

umm in the patch they should make the kick do like 15 hp damage, I think they balanced everything against kick way too well

[Kurgan]

Well the fact is, a well timed kick knock down can mean an instant kill (if you pull off a quick move or knock them into a pit), so perhaps that's why they chose to make kicks only do 2 hp worth of damage.

 

I hear in the patch that kicks are improved (other than just the sound effects), I haven't really messed with them much to know if that's really true myself though...

[Chuahtemoc]

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they also mde kicks take only 2 hp b/c they foresaw ppl doing a force pull+kick+force push over edges all the time. I see ppl doing it alot, especially in those stringy, tiny little platforms over mile-long drops in ctf maps. I hate those damn canyons and deep holes. they're scary