Some thoughts on duelist skills

I’ve played a few games with the new Duelist in beta, one without challenges and the rest with 3. Strategy-wise, she feels kind of clunky to play. My main complaint is that several of the weapon skills don’t feel good to use, and are too conditional in their use - it’s a great game though!

Let’s take the rapier as an example. The unique skill allows the duelist to dash towards an enemy and guarantee a hit. Great for killing pesky snakes in the sewers! The problem with the rapier is that you can’t use it when an opponent is close to you. A common pattern in SPD gameplay is luring an enemy towards you and kiting them through doors for surprise attacks. The duelist’s rapier skill is only useful when engaging an enemy, not when kiting it. As a result, it feels frustrating to be unable to use the dash to reposition, and I feel silly just standing in a doorway whacking at them. Huntress can get lots of bonus damage with her bow, mage has the wand, rogue has a cloak for sneak attack, and warrior has innate tankiness with the seal upgrade. Maybe the duelist’s rapier can be used as an instant movement action that hits enemies nearby?

The spear and glaive also feel similarly useless, since the duelist’s skill is once again useless in melee range. Since they both have low attack speed, the duelist can only get in one free attack with the spear sometimes before an enemy moves into melee range. Duelist is heavily reliant on either bonus move speed or attack speed to have the spear/glaive skill feel good to use. I think increasing the knockback to 2 tiles would be a reasonable solution here. I’ve noticed that Evan buffed the glaive to do extra (and not reduced damage), but that doesn’t seem to fix the fundamental issue with the skill.

Otherwise, I like the cleave and guard skills. It feels satisfying to repeatedly slash a ton of ghosts, or to block an evil eye’s attack. The stances and heavy blow are kind of meh, since they’re just buttons to press when you need more damage.