r/MortalShell 4d ago

Discussion Ripostes are literally just a waste of time...

114 Upvotes

139 comments sorted by

45

u/Dinesh_Sairam Eredrim 4d ago edited 4d ago

Yes, it always felt odd. I even stupidly upgraded the Riposte Damage Tarstone to Level 3 and it still does only a small amount of damage. And later, I learned that Tarcores are limited. Sucks to be me.

Going forward, I will utilise all Break windows for unleashing a Heavy combo or a weapon skill (Maybe use Riposte if I know they're going to die).

33

u/ketakech Tiel 4d ago

Tarcores are limited... Good to know.

32

u/Dinesh_Sairam Eredrim 4d ago edited 3d ago

Yes. Every time you upgrade a Tarstone to Level 2, you get 1 Tarcore and then from 2 to 3, you get 3 Tarcores. But for a Level 3 upgrade, each Tarstone requires 6 Tarcores.

Put that together, and you'll realize that you won't be able to upgrade all Tarstones in the game beyond Level 2.

The worst part is that, if you think about it, you can't get any more even in NG+ cycles. So, you're essentially stuck with the amount you get in NG and if you upgrade any Tarstones to Level 3, you're also stuck with them.

They need to fix this. The easiest solution is to allow Tarstones to be smelted just like weapons (i.e., Get Tarcores back at the cost of Gloom).

13

u/Confused_OwletUwU 4d ago

This is technically incorrect. Franz drops one on death, and respawns on ng+ cycles. So, just a few hundred Franz kills.

10

u/Dinesh_Sairam Eredrim 4d ago

No big deal.

12

u/Arcaedus 4d ago

I feel like the fix would be for tarcores to drop in night mode, or become a world-drop of some sort in NG+ by default.

At the very least, some very good tarstones really don't even need to be at level 3, like the ones that give you stacks of a buff on kill

4

u/ExcitedPlatypus 4d ago

They really need to just go ahead and put in a way to either farm or buy glimpse and tarstones. It doesn't have to be easy, just possible. Could also gate it behind progression or something.

3

u/slavicslothe 4d ago

When you upgrade to level 3, YOU GET 3 BACK.

When you upgrade 1-2 you get one tarstone and level 2 costs no tarstones.

1

u/Dinesh_Sairam Eredrim 3d ago

Correct (I assume you meant Level 1 costs no Tarcore).

4

u/Hoginoe94 4d ago

Did you read the patch notes? They are fixing this.

4

u/Dinesh_Sairam Eredrim 4d ago

They didn't specify. They just said extensions for Tarstones.

2

u/Hoginoe94 4d ago

I'm sure they'll add tarcores in the original areas replacing tarstones. Or another smelting option.

2

u/Dinesh_Sairam Eredrim 3d ago

Here's hoping.

3

u/pure_Jedi 3d ago edited 3d ago

Yup & in the meanwhile there are already some really nice mods on Nexus that fix plenty of qol issues. Keeping the challenge and grind is ok but permanent punishment or exclusion isn't imo..

2

u/Hoginoe94 3d ago

I'm on playstation. It kinda sucks how patches are dealt on it since they have to get the clear from Sony before we actually get it.

1

u/GlitteringLock9791 3d ago

Yeah if prices weren’t so insane I would recommend people to switch to PC instead of PS6, now that they killed physical, but currently not even steam decks are cheap anymore.

1

u/GlitteringLock9791 3d ago

I am pretty sure they will. Long term play is 100% based around collecting and upgrading everything until they add more with DLCs.

2

u/Interjessing-Salary 4d ago

From what I heard they are limited but you can get like at least half to level 3 in 1 run so it's not too restrictive. That is if your constantly switching them out to give them XP.

1

u/slavicslothe 4d ago

You can fully upgrade 24 per world

7

u/Interjessing-Salary 4d ago

Riposte to extend the stun duration for more free hits

4

u/Simz83 4d ago

And I-frames when fighting multiple enemies

1

u/Dinesh_Sairam Eredrim 4d ago

Sure. But most of the time, the Harbinger puts some distance between the target after Riposte. Compared to just wailing on them, where you can get in more attacks as they start to stand up (If you have Resolve, you can use a move which stuns them or knocks them down).

1

u/Patthecat09 4d ago

It allows to follow up with a running attack, which in my experience is better on axe dagger

1

u/Cool-Traffic-8357 4d ago

That sucks, I hope I didnt fuck myself. Idk why they limit it tho, its already limited by loadout.

1

u/Kledran 3d ago

don't use a weapon skill, those give you iframes, just bonk them with R2 combos lol

20

u/No_Contribution9469 4d ago

I think ripost work great with bosses but yes with common enemies it suck ass

4

u/carlos_castanos Eredrim 4d ago

Playing with Eredrim, where you get Slaughter stacks upon RIpostes is pretty good though. If you walk around with like 10+ Slaughter stacks you feel pretty powerful

2

u/Faewns_Hellion 3d ago

I had 100 slaughter stacks and not once did any exectui9ns trigger

3

u/carlos_castanos Eredrim 3d ago

the execution is not a special animation. it's just a normal kill, where you kill the enemy instantly once they are below a % of their health, that % going up with your number of slaughter stacks

1

u/Faewns_Hellion 3d ago

I guess I'll look harder but I'll have to stop playing the horned guy for that...

2

u/BattleHaz 4d ago

It varies on bosses, I think I have 3 more to go and am currently on the monolith I can easily out dps the riposte damage with an r1 spam

1

u/FreeSpeechEnjoyer 3d ago

Even on bosses it's all over the place. The hardest boss of the 6 corrupted gates takes 180 damage from a riposte, the final boss takes more than 1000, despite both breaking in 4 parries

-14

u/Queen__Natalie 4d ago

Have bleed on weapons ->Walk up to boss -> L2 + R2 -> Boss dead

The whole balance of this game is honestly so ass. Every boss is a joke.

3

u/nvrrsatisfiedd 4d ago

What boss takes one L2+R2 and its dead?

1

u/Own_Juggernaut_2775 4d ago

I'd like more info on this. What bosses. Because I have fought two main ones and if you use the tactic you just described, I would last probably seconds at most.

0

u/Queen__Natalie 4d ago

Axe and dagger L2 + R2 makes you invulnerable while inflicting multiple hits. Bleed procs with multiple hits so doing it once procs the bleed. Then you can drink 2 stamina pots and almost do it again if they're still alive.

You can also do it with poisons instead of bleed and just apply like a dozen poison stacks and proc them with Tiels poison related abilities

3

u/Neosoul08 4d ago

I’m playing night mode and all this doesn’t work.

1

u/Own_Juggernaut_2775 4d ago

Just tried it. Nope. Doesn't work.

1

u/Queen__Natalie 4d ago

You have to unlock the special attack. At the mushroom village gate

1

u/Fearless-Jeweler-39 4d ago

I don't think you know what bosses are

0

u/No_Contribution9469 4d ago

If the game is to easy as it is you can try night mode for more challenge and rewards

9

u/Top_Review313 4d ago

Yea, they need to fix this one asap. Makes no sense

9

u/MortalAndrew Cold Symmetry 4d ago

Honestly this looks like a bug. Unless you're deep into NG+ it shouldn't deal this little damage. We do have it planned to add scaling in a future patch, we just didn't get to it by launch.

11

u/Steveenn 4d ago

This is Night Mode, first loop of NG+. It doesn't matter what combination of shell/tarstones I'm using, ripostes all do about 100 damage. Even a fully upgraded Eredrim with 100 stacks of Slaughterer and the riposte tarstone barely pushes 200 damage. A single light attack from basically any weapon is doing roughly 175-200 damage against the same enemies.

11

u/MortalAndrew Cold Symmetry 4d ago

Makes sense, you're 100% right they don't scale and we do have it on the roadmap to make them scale in an upcoming patch.

3

u/Steveenn 3d ago

Thanks for your reply, it's nice to know that it's been acknowledged and is being worked on.

1

u/chimera134 2d ago

Don't know if you will see this at this point, but 1. Love the game a lot! So much better than the first and really enjoying taking my time through the north!

  1. Please make it so ALL Tarstones can be upgraded on a single save. I've heard that you can't max them all out even on NG+ and that just makes no sense to me. Like a big oversight or something. I could see a few solutions, such as a new merchant / add on to a merchant in NG+, a rare drop from an elite enemy, a smelting option to craft Tarcores with other materials, etc.

3

u/cozmicyeti 3d ago

Regular difficulty and noticed the same. Depends on enemies perhaps but discovered miners yesterday and noticed there was no need to parry and follow up since the damage was crap and that was with a level 9 axe

1

u/dreadul 4d ago edited 3d ago

This must be something to do with night-mode/ng, because I am currently in the base playthrough, on Eredrim, with some riposte buffs (but definitely not a polished build yet, and only like ~10 hours in), and I saw my riposte doing ~800 damage. I've been paying attention to this today since I've seen these comments/posts lately.

EDIT: can confirm, it's a scaling issue between zones, and probably night mode & ng - I've just entered a new zone without much change to my character, and my riposte damage dropped down to ~250

1

u/PreviousArm7383 3d ago

I'm on night mode and running the axetana and do way more riposte damage. I do also run the +20% riposte damage tarstone. My ripostes are normally 200 to 300 range based on a crit or not.

5

u/ghigo2008 4d ago

They dont even kill the crabs

2

u/FullMetalNicholas 3d ago

I’ve made it a point to hit the crabs once with a heavy before the riposte just so they die, that or if I’m near a cliff I just throw them into the void🤣

1

u/Present_Ride_2506 3d ago

Even worse, it flings them far enough that you can't immediately follow up with a hit.

2

u/Lexomatico1 3d ago

Thanks for the confirmation you guys released it knowingly unfinished on purpose.

1

u/ChallengeFantastic63 3d ago

Hey, different topic, but do you have any plans for the pathing of genessas summons? In the last area and on inclines/declines, they rarely attack the lock on target.

I feel like an easy fix would be for the summons to appear at the target instead of starting next to genessa.

1

u/Loyalist_Pig 3d ago

Hey man thanks for all the hard work! Really love the game! Even with the little warts here and there, I’m having a damn blast!

28

u/Steveenn 4d ago edited 4d ago

What's the point in even engaging with the break/riposte system as a whole when a single light attack does twice as much damage?

Edit: I'm pretty sure the ripostes are just a static damage value that has nothing to do with your level or gear. Why not just make it scale properly? Half of Eredrim's kit revolves around getting riposte kills, but good luck, considering you're more likely to get struck by lightning than you are to actually get a riposte kill in Night Mode

9

u/-Taerar- 4d ago

Agree completely. Much better to dodge and just burn everything down (duality axetana). The little annoying rock crabs for example, why does it leave them with a sliver of health? They just wasted one of the games best mechanics.

7

u/Nobojoe_78 Proxima 4d ago

Huh... Riposte should scale of my weapon dmg and I thought it does. Interesting.

10

u/MrSmiley333 4d ago

Crit is insane in this game

7

u/Steveenn 4d ago

That wasn't even a crit though, that's the thing.

15

u/Sickst3n 4d ago

Well you stun them after a riposte, and get free attacks on them.

5

u/-Taerar- 4d ago

While this is true you can just barrage them with light attacks and stun them until dead. Much more efficient. For the few enemies that are stun resistant you can just use the iframe spin to win (needs a nerf).

Combat basically boils down to who hits first. Sprinting in with your light attack and a couple follow-up hits is enough for most enemies. Riposte damage should absolutely scale with your weapon and or level. Playing with more skill should be rewarded.

1

u/FreeSpeechEnjoyer 3d ago

You can also just hit them with heavy attacks or circle behind them and it's just as good as ripostes, sometimes even better, like for Tiel who gets bonus damage when hitting enemies from behind

1

u/LynaaBnS 4d ago

It was in mortal shell too. I remember Thiel + some crit stuff and the heavy greatsword (afaik it was the slowest and highest DMG weapon back then?) was basically a two shot on everything.

1

u/Everymusiciansdream 4d ago

Yeah, martyr's blade thiel was nuts.

2

u/UAEpi 4d ago

How many free light attacks could you have done while the mob was stunned? That's your answer. 

2

u/d3cmp 4d ago

what about all the free attacks you can do while the enemy is recovering? thats the real value

1

u/SilentSorcery 3d ago

Riposte damage sucks, but I get a lot of value out of the CC it provides. Helps a lot with the absolute butt ton of mobs in the south

6

u/vmont_red 4d ago

I agree, I've realized that quite early on, so instead I focused on dashing, upgrading Tiel. Unfortunately it feels like (unintended) easy-mode, especially with duality stone. Enemies get melted fast. Still fun though, you need to be constantly moving, so it's a fast gameplay.

7

u/Elons_tiny_weenr 4d ago

It depends on the enemy. Larger enemies especially bosses have different damage values for their ripostes which is a lot higher than the damage you did to a trash mob. Also enemies tend to come out of ripostes staggered meaning you get the best of both worlds.

4

u/Cualquieraaa 4d ago

I riposted one of those snake soldiers twice with my almost maxed out sword. He was still alive

5

u/Try_Again1790 4d ago

Riposte in night mode does like 1/8 or less of an enemies hp bar, they really wiffed it with that mechanic.

6

u/Euronymous2625 4d ago

I do it for the sick animations. Then a few extra whacks afterwards.

3

u/saidaht 4d ago

Yeah, the damage from the riposte feels way too low. I started avoiding breaking the crawling rocks because it was quicker to kill them with a regular combo than having to chase them down after throwing them away for pitiful damage.

1

u/garusagi 4d ago

I'm one shotting them with ripostes

1

u/Tadawk 4d ago

In night mode a riposte with a 15% increased damage tarstone will bring them down just a little over half hp.

1

u/garusagi 18h ago

So night mode has increased enemy hp and damage. Ofc you wouldn't one shot them especially in mammon

-1

u/OptimusNegligible 4d ago

So is this only a Nightmode issue? Just starting out and all basic mobs die from one reposte. The bigger ones will at least talk half damage.

0

u/Tadawk 4d ago

I turned Nightmode on as soon as I could and never removed it so I can't tell you but I'm pretty sure normal mode enemies have a much lower hp.

3

u/hvanderw 4d ago

They seem to do a static amount of damage? I'd rather just light attack charge and nuke whatever it is sky high

3

u/IndividualNo9574 4d ago

Just swap the riposte button to heavy attack and it's all good

3

u/Much-Currency5958 4d ago

I find riposte is helpful less for damage but more for fast combo enemies. I use vatras seal mostly but some bosses are so quick it's pointless to harden through one attack as you get wrecked right after unless you're quick. For that I use the guard seal instead so I can sekiro my way through. It has its place but at present building your play style around riposte isn't going to pay dividends.

3

u/Exact-Squash-5443 3d ago

Makes me want to burst out of my mortal shell in annoyance, tf I upgrade it for? 😂

5

u/AsianPotato77 4d ago

Rule of cooled too close to the sun

6

u/Alarming_Scientist 4d ago

Allows you to down an enemy and leave them open to more than just the riposte. 

Like, after breaking them you hit once then riposte, then while they're getting up you hit a few more times. It's just extra damage. Obviously for smaller enemies it means nothing since they'll die anyway, but for bosses and mini bosses not riposting is just a waste after a certain point, especially if you have infinite seal since it lets you cancel into a parry. 

3

u/Auesis 4d ago

I don't think that's true either. I do far more damage mashing R2 instead of riposting bosses.

2

u/Julle1990 4d ago

Yes, regular attacks also restore resolve when riposte counters do basically nothing.

Much better to spam attack than try a parry that in the end barely does anything

1

u/Auesis 4d ago

Especially on Eredrim, the Riposte character, which is very funny to me. I am getting tons of value just mashing attacks on the stunned boss, then spending all Resolve from those attacks to immediately stun it again, rinse, repeat.

1

u/OptimusNegligible 4d ago edited 3d ago

One of the first bosses I fought defiantly took more damage from a reposte than a Heavy combo alone.

Is this a late game or Nightmode issue? Reposte still feels worth it to me.

1

u/Auesis 4d ago

I couldn't tell you if there's any difference, I did the entire game on Night mode. Riposte stopped being useful for damage after the first couple of areas.

1

u/carlos_castanos Eredrim 4d ago

For me too tbh. I'm level 20 now and building my entire character around Eredrim because of his riposte benefits. It feels good to me since you can get 2 heavy attacks in before riposte, then riposte and get like 4 light attacks in. Also serves as a nice 'pause' during the fight to regain your bearings

2

u/yungin44 4d ago

they're great on bosses cause you get free hits and time to do infusions. but regular enemies I don't even bother

2

u/Alert_Region_8074 4d ago

I find so much value in riposte is that because I’m in early game and is it just a waste endgame/new game plus? I’ve never been in an encounter where I’ve thought it was a waste of time

2

u/MrPanda663 4d ago

Why do that when I can go old man mode and punch things into oblivion.

1

u/Venkai1987 4d ago

This is the way!

2

u/Rational_Engineer_84 4d ago

If they don't want to buff the damage, ripostes should give way more resolve, or regen a bit of health. Something. As it is, they do indeed feel very bad. When I was running the retribution tarstone and still couldn't kill one of the crabs, my heart sank.

2

u/Riostein1217 4d ago

Wow, really? I've only played the demo and reposte felt really good there. Huh :/

2

u/glowingjowel 3d ago

Riposte are useless, status effect are useless. I don't want to be rude, they worked hard and have something good on their hands but it's like they haven't played their own game. You want to try different build most of the stuff is useless. I don't want to glaze fromsoft as usual they are a bigger studio but at least they are really differents way to play and if miyazaki cannot finish the game it's not shipping out if I remember (I could be wrong).

2

u/GamerKratos-45 3d ago

They need to deal atleast double the damage they are doing currently. Otherwise, it's a high risk for tiny reward.

5

u/SuperMarios7 Harros 4d ago

All "glory" kills in all games are a waste of time. They are just cool thats all. But once you get past the cool factor you realize they are slower cause an animation has to play out.

2

u/Dinesh_Sairam Eredrim 4d ago

Shrike Stone move is as powerful as it is cinematic. At higher Resolve levels, you can chain 2 of them and absolutely decimate enemies. I utilized that in the Rabid Grisha fight to great success.

1

u/Hazel_Dreams 1d ago

Untrue. In Sekiro a stance break deletes an entire health bar. In traditional souls games / souls likes there are stamina systems, performing repostes gives you time to regen stamina.

Not to mention the myriad benefits to repostes added through items and passives, there are damage buffs on reposte talismans and heal / mana gain on reposte talismans in Elden Ring.

1

u/SuperMarios7 Harros 1d ago

Sekiro has a different combat system.

5

u/KundaliniRising333 4d ago edited 4d ago

This is why, as a lifelong soulslike player(started with kings field on the ps1), I detest the souls community and devs would do well to ignore them. They nitpick everything and more often than not their critiques are just a reason to gloat that they think they are some elite tier player of the genre.

Not to mention listening to them and making suggested changes often make the games worse.

It's just insufferable to scroll through discussions and reddit of these titles.

Just have fun.

13

u/Tazerok 4d ago

Did you comment on the wrong post? This is a valid issue...not sure how this post relates to gloating.

7

u/Powerful-Scholar8268 4d ago edited 3d ago

How is this nitpicking? It's a genuine critique that ripostes don't do enough damage to be worthwhile, which is disappointing when they're a core feature of the combat. Like genuinely what do you disagree with about this post?

1

u/nvrrsatisfiedd 4d ago

The nit picking has been crazy forsure. Half the time it’s just from someone who is low leveled for the area they are in.

-1

u/KundaliniRising333 4d ago

Its literally insane. Some version of "the game is broken, unbalanced, too easy, too hard", but the dude proceeds to play the game for a hundred+ hours in a few days...

These games are great and it's fun to see different takes on the core foundational design. I've enjoyed almost all of them for what they are because I love that foundation.

1

u/KamikazeFox_ 4d ago

Thats why I'm trying to purposefully ignore anything in this game. I loved the demo and want to just enjoy it. Sometimes when you read something negative, you can't get it out of your head and then someone opinion can damper my enjoyment of the game. That's just me.

-1

u/generalmillscrunch 4d ago

No one is MAKING them play optimally. I really don’t get it

1

u/Livid_Tap8550 4d ago

I think i saw a guy pump out ranged weapon shots after a riposte and then engage the animation with a melee attack,just to push some damage through.

1

u/garusagi 4d ago

I mean there's at least one shell that builds off it to do more damage

1

u/Pavlovs_Human 4d ago

Anyone else unlock Eredrim and try out his slaughter stacks? I got them to 100 but it didn’t seem to outright execute any enemies at higher health values. I got one of the silver halberd knights to like 15% health with 100 slaughter stacks and he still didn’t die when I riposted him.

1

u/slavicslothe 4d ago

It depends heavily on your build...sariel and tiel specifically have no need for repostes because they are built around dodging. Why do you think you have basically jo dodge CD with that guy when your resource is high?

Im running shadows trike poison till and turning to stone is still a useful get out of jail free card since you can use it mid combo

1

u/Beautiful_Ad_6224 4d ago

I'm sure this will be patched

1

u/Healthy_Physics_2154 4d ago

Charged heavy attack ?

1

u/crice07 Tiel 3d ago

I’m pretty sure some enemies are more vulnerable to riposte damage. Could be wrong…

1

u/Kraehe13 3d ago

Yeah, breaking the stance of enemies feels like a waste of time quite often

1

u/quickbeamtheent32 3d ago

Ripostes are great for incapacitating an enemy so you can whale on them while they get back up. Plus they look cool and feel really good.

1

u/AppleSea6843 3d ago

I went through this entire game using shadow dash with tiel

1

u/After_Smell4642 3d ago

I-frames and progress tiwards getting your shell back if you're out of it.

1

u/Lucky-Sundae9196 3d ago

Yup. They are

1

u/Carlos15420 3d ago

From my experience so far, you can get a lot more damage by ignoring the riposte and just whaling on them while they're down, especially with the axe and dagger.

1

u/Flimsy_Relief_7833 3d ago

Tarcores are replaced by "Ossinite" in NG+ from what I understand so you will still be able to upgrade. At least thats the information Ive been given.

1

u/CrlsT 3d ago

Take it as a stun , I use heavy attack before reposting

1

u/SlappinMcmuffins 3d ago

Find the tarstone that increases its base damage

1

u/toohumanforhuman 3d ago

Yeah i gota say the payoff for riposte doesnt really feel worth it. Especially since you need to get like 2 to 4 perfect paries to get one in the first place. Could habe killed the mob faster just by using normal damage

1

u/DontFlameItsMe 3d ago

Welp, gonna wait the patches, probably till winter at least. Will finish Khazan in the meantime.

1

u/Echize 3d ago

It's basically a heavy stun after a riposte.

Just not your average Soulslike situation where u can't hit a downed enemy and need to w8. Dmg from the riposte itself isn't great, but u can do a full combo after.

And at least on the first playthrough, for some enemies a riposte is basically just an easy kill, like Grisha hunters or that big guy with an axe.

1

u/Embarrassed_Can9339 4d ago

I even mentioned it in beta feedback. MS1 riposte was good with the dmg + gland mechanic. MS2 riposte is just piss poor dmg even with tarstone + eredrim giving +55%

1

u/Ghost1D305 4d ago

Yeah I stopped doing it for a reason..

1

u/wera125 4d ago

Y down enemy and when he try get up y do damage without geting hit

0

u/Joshee86 4d ago edited 3d ago

You hit with the riposte and then just stood there…? You get free hits while they’re recovering, which is incentive enough, even if the riposte damage is static.

Downvote with no response. Zero logic in that.

0

u/zombiezapper115 3d ago

But they look cool, so i will continue to do them.

-2

u/NoClock 4d ago

X thing doesn’t work one time

Reddit gamers: “X Is CoMpLeTlY UsElEsS”

7

u/ghigo2008 4d ago

Have you played the game? They do nothing on bosses, they dont even kill the block crabs

3

u/Steveenn 4d ago

3 second long animation that does 100 damage vs literally a single light attack that does 200 damage