These suggestions are linked to the core idea of this topic and balance with other mechanics I'll be adding to this topic. In short, 300 primaries are freed up by making sprinting, combat maneuvering, and blocking secondaries. This allows new primaries to be added to every role.
The point of these suggestions is to allow players to pick a specialization within melee and make that melee specialization have a primary cost that justifies its value. Right now A LOT of things are given out for free. For instance, if you train the skills needed for poleaxes you can use spears, axes (1h and 2h), poleaxes and shields. It's more free stuff than a politician promises in their campaign speeches!
NEW SKILLS / CHANGED SKILLS
Shields and Shield Sub-Skills
Shields(Primary) - Having a shield equipped now counts toward armor weight. Shield skill reduces shield contribution to armor weight from 100% to 0%.
--Bulwark (Secondary) - Applies 0-10% of a shield's slashing and bludgeoning protection and 0-25% of a shield's piercing protection to all body parts while the shield is equipped.
--Tower Shields(Primary) - Tower Sheilds give a 30% move speed reduction. This skill reduced that to 10%.
These changes take shields from something everyone gets for free and make them into something that costs a bit but are strong enough to justify those costs. Making 1+shield a true playstyle worth considering.
Two-Handed Weapons
Two-Handed Weapons(Primary) - Two-Handed Weapons now drain 100% more stamina. Training this skill reduces stamina use by 2h weapons by 50%. This means 2h weapons don't change at all so long as you train this skill. Spears are treated as a 2h weapon for the purpose of this skill.
Every 2h weapon is better than its 1h version. Spears, which can be run 1h or 2h, are the only 1h weapon as good as a 2h weapon. This change makes 1h viable by making them a lower point cost. Either a 1h weapon has to be buffed with an additional primary (such as shields or dual-wielding) to be as good a 2h weapon, or it's a low cost-investment pick-up for non-foot melee builds that want some melee with less primary investment.
Dual-Wielding and Dual-Wielding Subskills
Dual-wielding(Secondary) - Dual wielding allows a 30% reduction in swing timer for a 50% reduction in damage per hit. You strike with one weapon then the other if your strikes are initiated within 2 seconds of the last attempted strike without the use of feint (Feinting keeps you on the same weapon). Otherwise, you always start with your primary weapon. Dual-wielding is a secondary and does nothing except allow it's child skills to be trained. Each child skill reduces the 50% damage penalty to a 25% damage penalty.
--Off-Hand Axe: Reduced damage dual-wield damage penalty to 25% when wielding an axe in your off-hand.
--Off-Hand Club: Reduced damage dual-wield damage penalty to 25% when wielding a club in your off-hand.
--Off-Hand Sword: Reduced damage dual-wield damage penalty to 25% when wielding a sword in your off-hand.
--Off-Hand Dagger: Reduced damage dual-wield damage penalty to 10% when wielding a dagger in your off-hand. Wielding a dagger in the main hand gives an additional 10% penalty reduction (To 0% at 100 skill)
So you may notice that even with the skill fully trained that dual-wielding barely increases damage output with most off-hands. This is because the intent of dual-wielding is less to increase overall damage output, and more to allow you to strike quickly enough that parrying your strikes becomes far more difficult. This is counterbalanced by blocking changes I'll elaborate on further below.
Off-handing a dagger does increase damage output a lot, especially if you main hand one as well. This is because daggers are an insanely short weapon that is awkward to wield alongside a longer 1h weapon (Though doing so has some benefits to blocking outlined below). Main-handing a dagger leaves you incredibly exposed to other melee weapons so the damage pay-off is well justified. Also, this just makes a hell of a lot of sense thematically.
Finally, why make the individual off-hands the primary? Because it's stupid that most games require you to have additional training to wield 2 different weapons in a dual-wielding setup. Most dual-wielders that actually existed historically used two different weapons because training to fight with something in your off-hand is so different from fighting with the same weapon in your main hand that it's better to choose a weapon that complements your main hand than just wield the same thing twice. In reality, dual-wielding was rarely used but when it was it was often with a weapon specifically designed for off-handed use.
Poleswords
Poleswords: Same skill it is now but without the prerequisite of other skills. Polearms function the same as they do now except in the blocking skills outlined below.
You shouldn't have to learn 2 other weapon types to learn poleswords. Poleswords benefit from reach (as they do now) and a difficult-to-read move set (as they do now). They 100% block all damage from all weapon types like other 2h weapons. But they are treated as a 1h weapon in terms of opposing parries. This makes them good against other 2h weapons but less good against other weapon types.
It's worth noting all poleswords are 2h and require that primary as well.
Poleaxes
Poleaxes - Same skill it is now but without the prerequisite of other skills. Poleaxes are reverted to the easier-to-read animations they had in beta. Added brace attack that hits mounts and mounted enemies that connect with your weapon while holding a thrust.
--Anti-Calvary Tactics(Secondary): +0-100% damage against mounts and mounted opponents. 0-100% chance to stop a mount hit by a brace attack.
Poleaxes are changed in much the same way as poleswords except that instead of maintaining a moveset that makes them more difficult to read/parry they are given anti-cavalry application. This puts them as a not-great weapon for fighting other melees as far as two-handers go but a great weapon for countering mounted melee (or any other mounted build dumb enough to get close to them).
BLOCKING CHANGES
With blocking now a free skill as outlined in this topic, what is and isn't fully blocked is instead determined by the block bypass of the attacker vs. the block defense of the defender. This is entirely down to the type of weapon used.
Two-Handed Weapons (2h Swords, 2h Axes, and 2h Clubs)
Blocking 100%, Bypassed by Nothing- Bypasses as 2h weapon
Polearms (Spears, Poleswords, Poleaxes, and Quarterstaves)
Blocking 100%, Bypassed by Nothing - Bypasses as 1h weapon.
One Handers (1h Swords, 1h Axes, and 1h Clubs)
Blocking 95%, Bypassed by 2h - Bypasess as 1h weapon)
Daggers
Blocking 70% Bypassed by 1h&2h - Bypasses Nothing
Special Block Statuses
Dual-Wielding - All parries/blocks are executed with the main hand weapon and use its block status but the parry speed is based on the off-hand.
Shields - All users with a shield equipped use the shield for block/parries which has 100% block against all weapon types.
The point of these suggestions is to allow players to pick a specialization within melee and make that melee specialization have a primary cost that justifies its value. Right now A LOT of things are given out for free. For instance, if you train the skills needed for poleaxes you can use spears, axes (1h and 2h), poleaxes and shields. It's more free stuff than a politician promises in their campaign speeches!
NEW SKILLS / CHANGED SKILLS
Shields and Shield Sub-Skills
Shields(Primary) - Having a shield equipped now counts toward armor weight. Shield skill reduces shield contribution to armor weight from 100% to 0%.
--Bulwark (Secondary) - Applies 0-10% of a shield's slashing and bludgeoning protection and 0-25% of a shield's piercing protection to all body parts while the shield is equipped.
--Tower Shields(Primary) - Tower Sheilds give a 30% move speed reduction. This skill reduced that to 10%.
These changes take shields from something everyone gets for free and make them into something that costs a bit but are strong enough to justify those costs. Making 1+shield a true playstyle worth considering.
Two-Handed Weapons
Two-Handed Weapons(Primary) - Two-Handed Weapons now drain 100% more stamina. Training this skill reduces stamina use by 2h weapons by 50%. This means 2h weapons don't change at all so long as you train this skill. Spears are treated as a 2h weapon for the purpose of this skill.
Every 2h weapon is better than its 1h version. Spears, which can be run 1h or 2h, are the only 1h weapon as good as a 2h weapon. This change makes 1h viable by making them a lower point cost. Either a 1h weapon has to be buffed with an additional primary (such as shields or dual-wielding) to be as good a 2h weapon, or it's a low cost-investment pick-up for non-foot melee builds that want some melee with less primary investment.
Dual-Wielding and Dual-Wielding Subskills
Dual-wielding(Secondary) - Dual wielding allows a 30% reduction in swing timer for a 50% reduction in damage per hit. You strike with one weapon then the other if your strikes are initiated within 2 seconds of the last attempted strike without the use of feint (Feinting keeps you on the same weapon). Otherwise, you always start with your primary weapon. Dual-wielding is a secondary and does nothing except allow it's child skills to be trained. Each child skill reduces the 50% damage penalty to a 25% damage penalty.
--Off-Hand Axe: Reduced damage dual-wield damage penalty to 25% when wielding an axe in your off-hand.
--Off-Hand Club: Reduced damage dual-wield damage penalty to 25% when wielding a club in your off-hand.
--Off-Hand Sword: Reduced damage dual-wield damage penalty to 25% when wielding a sword in your off-hand.
--Off-Hand Dagger: Reduced damage dual-wield damage penalty to 10% when wielding a dagger in your off-hand. Wielding a dagger in the main hand gives an additional 10% penalty reduction (To 0% at 100 skill)
So you may notice that even with the skill fully trained that dual-wielding barely increases damage output with most off-hands. This is because the intent of dual-wielding is less to increase overall damage output, and more to allow you to strike quickly enough that parrying your strikes becomes far more difficult. This is counterbalanced by blocking changes I'll elaborate on further below.
Off-handing a dagger does increase damage output a lot, especially if you main hand one as well. This is because daggers are an insanely short weapon that is awkward to wield alongside a longer 1h weapon (Though doing so has some benefits to blocking outlined below). Main-handing a dagger leaves you incredibly exposed to other melee weapons so the damage pay-off is well justified. Also, this just makes a hell of a lot of sense thematically.
Finally, why make the individual off-hands the primary? Because it's stupid that most games require you to have additional training to wield 2 different weapons in a dual-wielding setup. Most dual-wielders that actually existed historically used two different weapons because training to fight with something in your off-hand is so different from fighting with the same weapon in your main hand that it's better to choose a weapon that complements your main hand than just wield the same thing twice. In reality, dual-wielding was rarely used but when it was it was often with a weapon specifically designed for off-handed use.
Poleswords
Poleswords: Same skill it is now but without the prerequisite of other skills. Polearms function the same as they do now except in the blocking skills outlined below.
You shouldn't have to learn 2 other weapon types to learn poleswords. Poleswords benefit from reach (as they do now) and a difficult-to-read move set (as they do now). They 100% block all damage from all weapon types like other 2h weapons. But they are treated as a 1h weapon in terms of opposing parries. This makes them good against other 2h weapons but less good against other weapon types.
It's worth noting all poleswords are 2h and require that primary as well.
Poleaxes
Poleaxes - Same skill it is now but without the prerequisite of other skills. Poleaxes are reverted to the easier-to-read animations they had in beta. Added brace attack that hits mounts and mounted enemies that connect with your weapon while holding a thrust.
--Anti-Calvary Tactics(Secondary): +0-100% damage against mounts and mounted opponents. 0-100% chance to stop a mount hit by a brace attack.
Poleaxes are changed in much the same way as poleswords except that instead of maintaining a moveset that makes them more difficult to read/parry they are given anti-cavalry application. This puts them as a not-great weapon for fighting other melees as far as two-handers go but a great weapon for countering mounted melee (or any other mounted build dumb enough to get close to them).
BLOCKING CHANGES
With blocking now a free skill as outlined in this topic, what is and isn't fully blocked is instead determined by the block bypass of the attacker vs. the block defense of the defender. This is entirely down to the type of weapon used.
Two-Handed Weapons (2h Swords, 2h Axes, and 2h Clubs)
Blocking 100%, Bypassed by Nothing- Bypasses as 2h weapon
Polearms (Spears, Poleswords, Poleaxes, and Quarterstaves)
Blocking 100%, Bypassed by Nothing - Bypasses as 1h weapon.
One Handers (1h Swords, 1h Axes, and 1h Clubs)
Blocking 95%, Bypassed by 2h - Bypasess as 1h weapon)
Daggers
Blocking 70% Bypassed by 1h&2h - Bypasses Nothing
Special Block Statuses
Dual-Wielding - All parries/blocks are executed with the main hand weapon and use its block status but the parry speed is based on the off-hand.
Shields - All users with a shield equipped use the shield for block/parries which has 100% block against all weapon types.
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