Dueling

[meleeattacker]

Heya, folks. New to Mount & Blade and I've got a few questions that I'd like answered, if possible!

1) What's up with people facing the ground when they swing their sword? I suspect it's just to make it harder to see which direction the attack is coming from, but is there more to it?

2) One-hit kills. Any tips? I tend to hit the legs of my opponents more often than not. Should I aim for the head?

3) Thrusts - they tend to 'whiff' at close range... but not for everyone, lookslike! The better players I've watched can make successful, one-hit kill thrusts from really close range. Any advice here? How do they do it?

4) Blocking. I think blocking is what I do best, but it still is very frustrating when you mean to block left and yet you block down because of the way you moved your mouse. Any specific way to practice this, apart from, well, blocking more? And/or any tips?

Thanks!

 

[Knight of the Rose]

1>  Many people aim for the legs since they are usually more lightly armored.

2>  Head shots always do the most damage unless the head is obscenely protected in comparison to the body.

3>  Aim to the side or down or ANY direction where the tip of the sword is not stuck on the enemy and has no where to move.  Once the sword starts moving into the thrust,  THEN you aim towards the enemy and the thrust will push through.

4>  Practice practice practice.  You get get a blocking buddy.  Find a duel server that has like 10000 gold limit.  Buy they heaviest armor so you guys dont die fast,  stand in front of one another and start pounding away.  You can also practice chamber blocking like that.  In the end its all about practice.  Repetition will ingrain in your brain when you see certain arm movements in the enemy you know what swing he will throw as soon as he starts it.

 

[Kittenhuffer]

Hey and welcome.

1) I don't know if it's part of some people's tactics, but mostly it's because they're playing in third person view.

2) If you're playing in third person view, it's normal to aim low because of the fact that if you look up, your character blocks your view. I usually aim for the head as soon as I've released my attack, by moving the mouse forward, then move the camera back once the attack has landed/been blocked. Aiming for the head is usually the best, yeah, depending on their helmet, of course. You can do a lot of overhead swings, too, as they're more likely to hit the head.

3) The trick is to aim a bit to the right of your opponent when you start the attack, then turn into him towards the end of the thrust. Shorter weapons are easier to thrust with and don't "whiff" as often as spears and lances, for example.

4) I had that problem as well in the beginning. It felt like the game couldn't really understand which way I was moving my mouse, but after some time you'll just start blocking correctly without thinking of it. You can play the tutorial and do some sparring with the NPCs there and just block until you feel like you've gotten better at it.

EDIT: Oh well, Knight of the Rose was faster at replying.

 

[meleeattacker]

Thanks for the quick replies! Kittenhuffer, you said "If you're playing in third person view".. are there any good duelers out there that don't play in 3rd person view? If the best players use first person view, I might as well start training with it - if not, it'll probably just make it harder to adjust to 3rd person if and when I find out 1st person view isn't good..

 

[Kittenhuffer]

I have no idea, to be honest. If I had to make an uneducated guess, I'd say that not a lot of people play in first person view. Almost everyone I've seen talking about it just say that they use it whenever they've got a bow/crossbow and their view is blocked by a bush or a tree or something.

 

[Tumetsu]

A bit more of advice

I don't know anyone who uses first person in melee. You cannot see to sides and the direction of incoming arrows and stuff. I have tried it but found it very unusable.
It's very useful in archery and lancing, though.

1) Are they really trying to hit legs? It does less damage.

2) Big weapons, moving to the direction you hit (=speed bonus), headshots. These are the things as far as I can tell.
When dueling, people usually don't use armor, so hits to head aren't as good as when armored.
If you try hit head and do overhead swing, learn to correct your aim, because the enemy is most likely moving.

3) Don't thrust when enemy is close I'd say. Maybe some guys can do it but I think it's a lot easier to just do side swing.

4) Practice, as said. And practice. Finding opponents who feint a lot helped me greatly, though.

 

[meleeattacker]

Ahh, to specify, all my questions are in relation to dueling, so arrows aren't something I'll have to take into consideration. Though I should have specified this in the OP.

Tumetsu, no, they're usually not aiming for the legs.. they're just looking down and starting from the ground level.

 

[Urist]

Everything has been answered well, I'll just add something to point 1):

Because of the 3rd person view many seasoned players look down because it's easier to judge the distance to opponent this way.  It's usually done unconsciously, a habit that grows unintended for most players. In fact in my opinion it's better to aim high to hit the head for more damage. However, one disadvantage of aiming for the head is an increased chance to miss. Aiming for the body center is an alternative here.

I had the look-down-disease in Jedi Knight Academy. I try to keep it away from me in Warband.

 

[Hanniba1]

Looking down can also make very close side swings with longer weapons hit closer to their sweet spot = less glancing and more killing.

 

[EdwardWellcraft]

I play in first person mode all the time and I generally compete at a very high level. (as "Isord" on the GK server these days.)

Also if you are using a blunt weapon a hit to the legs has increase chance of knockdown, so that may be why some people are aiming down.

 

[doomsayer]

Yeah, I either try to aim for the head or feet since it's mostly the most unarmored spot.

 

[Tumetsu]

I play in first person mode all the time and I generally compete at a very high level. (as "Isord" on the GK server these days.)

Do you use first person in battles, TDMs and such or only dueling? I can't imagine how to fight effectively against crowd when you can't see sides. Even with third person view I must often rely on blind left block because of the general chaos.

That leg hitting... You guys seem to be in some higher level in dueling than me or something because the most important matter I have in mind is to get good swing in, not what specific place it hits.

 

[Urist]

The armor argument for hitting the legs is only practical if there is a big mismatch between body and leg armor. So for example if someone decides to go barfooted in his maille hauberk. Especially if one only has a weak weapon that has good chances to bounce off the body armor. However the base damage is reduced at the leg hitbox so going for the head is better (and easier imo) here.

For the increased knockdown chance when hitting the legs: it's a myth. I don't think it's actually implemented and if it was it would only apply for the few knockdown flagged weapons.

The only other good reason I read here other than improved distance control is the afromentioned circumvention of the weapon sweetspot mechanic.

 

[meleeattacker]

The low attacks don't always hit legs, they just start low... often they are aimed at legs, though, but not always. My impression is that people do it because it's harder to see if it's going to be a thrust or swing. The best players I've seen don't usually do that much, but seems like most of the "second tier" players who are still really good, do it.

Can't be because of armor as every dueling server I play on has 10000 gold.

 

[EdwardWellcraft]

I play in first person mode all the time and I generally compete at a very high level. (as "Isord" on the GK server these days.)

Do you use first person in battles, TDMs and such or only dueling? I can't imagine how to fight effectively against crowd when you can't see sides. Even with third person view I must often rely on blind left block because of the general chaos.

That leg hitting... You guys seem to be in some higher level in dueling than me or something because the most important matter I have in mind is to get good swing in, not what specific place it hits.

I look around a lot, plus I usually fight in a circle with people since I'm trying to get behind them. So I've developed really good situational awareness. It's really how I can do so well in siege. Fighting 1v1 there are plenty of people that can beat me, but I can handily defeat 5 or 6 people at once by playing them off against each other and looking for openings.

As for leg hitting, I think very few people are actually aiming for the legs. Most people are probably playing in third person and want to get a better view around them, so they look down a bit. This is especially the case in dueling where we aren't wearing any armor, you definitely just want to aim for chest shots. I'll only aim an attack if I'm sneaking up and want to one hit someone who is unaware. Nothing quite as satisfying as thrust a one handed spear right into someone's head and getting a kill.

 

[Reapy]

Everything has been summed up here pretty much. For my 2 cents, which is the same as most other people chiming in here, I think in general unless the person has no helmet on and heavy armor, you want to aim head if you can. So practical situation, if they have the 40+ armor on, and no helmet, try for the head, otherwise chest or whatever.

I still don't aim for spots on the body too often, but that is me being spazzy. Also, even though it is minuscule, you can think of your attack range as a sphere around your body. When you aim higher or lower you are farther away from your target and can miss the head or legs when you would have connected to the body. Also I have had shots just fly over someone's head due to poor aim, and usually it is better to connect then to go specifically for the head.

For me I headshot a person when I sneak up behind them, when I am chambering them, or just somewhere I'm 90% confident I am going to land a hit. But that is just me, and I can't always do a lot of things at once. So yeah, hit the head if you can, just make sure you understand you have a slightly less range and can be prone to miss the attack, and if you miss you don't interrupt them, which might cause you to be hit when otherwise you would not have been.

For the thrust, I think that sweet spot is based on time. Sweet spots are the mechanic which cause the thrust whiffing. So the reason that attacking to the side and swiveling into a person works, is because you have allowed enough time to pass during the swing for the sword to become 'active' , then you intersect it with the other guy's head, doing the full damage.

With some weapons you can stab a guy in the feet at point blank due to it being farther away, taking enough time for the sweet spot time to expire and do full damage. Though in practice this really impractical. If someone's that close, just kick them

But generally the swivel thrust is more about confusing a person then hitting someone with a thrust point blank imho.

Finally for 1st vs 3rd, if you like the look and feel of 1st person, use it, otherwise I would say that the game feels designed more around 3rd person and your best bet is to use that, you can just see more with less effort. As people said it seems best for some specific cases, but generally you have a better view of the action in 3rd person.

ok, all done rambling