Ideas for melee weapon changes (it's long, sorry)

Something that has been coming up quite a bit and I think this game needs as well is a more defined melee weapon difference with their own risks and rewards in play style and tricks to master.

I have been trying to keep in mind the limitations of the development team as well as realistically how these types of weapon would be used.

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Axe Weapons

Axes in combat are really momentum weapons. The weight distribution of an axe tends to be quick enough once you get it in motion, but something stopping your swing really interferes with your combat effectiveness.

What I would propose for axes, is a mechanic to speed up their swings with each successive swing. Start them at the current speed for a fast attack, the second successful swing would be at sword speed, and the third and beyond at knife speed. This only benefits successive attacks within a window of each other, and would transfer between fast, heavy, and defensive bash. Successful attacks would be anything that isn't a clang or a countered. This includes swatting air and any damaging hit.

I think this change would give a type of specialization to Axe combat that is very aggressive and rewarding to those with skill to read swing range and the rock paper scissor system properly, but could also allow someone to run in swinging like a maniac and then it's up to the defending player to deal with the threat effectively.

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Fists

Like axes in reverse. I think the current windup mechanic isn't as accurate to the concept of punching with a super heavy weight in the hand. Getting it moving is easy, but setting up for the next punch is going to be super slow because you have to stop and reset between each punch.

I would suggest the first punch is faster, say axe speed, and then gets slower through mace and finally current fist speed as you go with a much larger window of reset than the axe would have. This promotes a stick and move combat style. When you connect, your gonna rock someone's world still, but in a prolonged engagement your success diminishes. This increase will be regardless of hits or misses, but clang will reset the speed to normal. This will encourage players to better read their assailants attack and respond accordingly and punish those trying to clang a powerfist with a smaller weapon.

I would also have it set so that defensive bash does not effect the slowing of the swings, but will be fired off at the speed repetitive to the current swing speed level. Because the bashes are being performed more with the shoulders, body, and kicks, they should be slow in proportion to how off balance the wielder is.

I think this is a unique mechanic that would give power fists a fighting chance, give then their own style of combat with its own strengths and weaknesses, and give another facet to combat for people to grow into.

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Maces

This is my least thought out idea. A mace traditionally is going to be something to break and damage armor as well as damage the person under the armor without breaking it outright. For this reason, I think that Maces need to do a couple of things.

1. I think they should do a percentage of damage directly to health based on their penetration rating. Every 10 penetration deals 10% of the damage direct to health. This is not bonus damage, this is an actual split in the damage between the two bars. If there is no armor left, then alldamage to health. TTK should be relatively the same vs a full health opponent but would really shine when working objectives with squads on accurate controlled gun line support.

2. they should reduce the armor regeneration rate and delay if the target they hit. Let's say like half a second or so stacking up to 3 times per hit and lasts until the armor bar regenerates, and reduce armor regen rate by 10 per stack so 30% reduction after 3 hits, that's going to be less crippling than the Slaanesh mark but still very significant.

This weapon is going to be slow still, but this is going to punish and maim folks it hits. It's going to help with pushing and advancing because now fleeing targets can be more easily picked off and more combatants will have to fall back for healing or bunker into cover as they advance.

This gives mace a definitive place on the battlefield as a weapon of demoralisation and facilitator of the advance on a target.

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Swords

Swords are going to be unchanged. They are dialing weapons and are the baseline for which all other changes are based. These are going to be for neophytes in combat to learn and to be more forgiving because of their flexibility of speed but enough damage to make them dangerous all the same, and yet in the hands of a master will still be devistating. I think they are well situated as is, and have already made a name for themselves.

Sorry that was so long, I don't know how I couuld TL;DR this since its not super cookie cutter ideas. I think these are simple enough changes, requiring no new animations, just some coding for buff and debuff mechanics to change the speed of the weapons and in the case of the mace, the actual effect on the enemy. I really want to know what you think on this, if you have any suggestions to improve this or if this would be something the community supports and wants to impliment.

EDIT: fixed spelling errors and made some wording clearer and fixed formatting a little