Yey a chamber blocking thread.
Here are some additional 'facts' as I know it, and actually I haven't tested the timing with new animations yet.
But if someone swings at a chamberblock time, they will get the hit in unless the person either holds his strike a half second longer, or does a FAST feint, like not the normal feint most people do but a very spam oriented one. Most people don't feint that fast. If that does happen, you still have time to cancel your chamber block attack and go into a regular block.
So the mechanics of chamber block, it seems like during the chamber animation you have a small collision object on your weapon that has to block the incoming weapon. So the timing is not necessarily on the whiff (thougt works nice when everything is line up) but is actually when the weapons going to hit you. So a big weapon will have a slight different timing then a sword, but if you chamber it late into its hit from the person's side you have to facet he weapon as it comes in and swing so your chamber animation contacts their weapon.
I think at this point when you have a feel for the timing you can safely chamber any single hit from any player. Well I have trouble with overheads since I'll agree there that thrust doesn't line up well with it, and further even if you do stuff the overhead with a thrust it feels easily blockable, not to mention if your weapon doesn't thrust you can't even do it, so I just have given up on chamber blocking overheads. Anyway so any single hit you can chamberblock, if they hold it or feint it though it is harder. You can chamber block 'regular' feints too as long as that second swing comes at normal timing. But again if they are doing that you just swing to chamber block their first attack and they generally will have to block you.
So all that said, (i hardly play battle) but when I do, I'm afraid to chamber block something unless i'm feeling reckless because there is no point to doing it. If I somehow get into a 20+ second duel with a good player then I would start considering doing it, but in general in battle its better to just block and attack. If it is a new player their defense will crumble. If it is a good player someone will come jump in on either side before you've had time to resolve it.
I don't think you actually can increase the window of time for a chamber block because it uses the chambering animation. If you try with a warhammer you'll see that you actually have a larger window of time to chamber block stuff, just its so slow so you really have to start it almost at the same time as someone's swing.
I think what it needs is to somehow take away the instant death feel you get when you chamber block. (bold for skimmers to pick out in wall o text). Maybe there should be this current short window of time for it to work, and then around that window of time it heavily reduces the incoming damage you take from the swing. So if you swing slightly early or slightly late for a chamber, you take 50% damage from the attack. This could sort of simulate that someone tried to riposte but f'ed up so your blow still goes through, but your weapon got fouled up a bit and you didnt strike with the full force you had applied.
This way the chamber block success is still a 'high skill' mechanic, but the penalty for failure is half as less as it used to be, or more, maybe 75%, i dunno. That might work.
Here are some additional 'facts' as I know it, and actually I haven't tested the timing with new animations yet.
But if someone swings at a chamberblock time, they will get the hit in unless the person either holds his strike a half second longer, or does a FAST feint, like not the normal feint most people do but a very spam oriented one. Most people don't feint that fast. If that does happen, you still have time to cancel your chamber block attack and go into a regular block.
So the mechanics of chamber block, it seems like during the chamber animation you have a small collision object on your weapon that has to block the incoming weapon. So the timing is not necessarily on the whiff (thougt works nice when everything is line up) but is actually when the weapons going to hit you. So a big weapon will have a slight different timing then a sword, but if you chamber it late into its hit from the person's side you have to facet he weapon as it comes in and swing so your chamber animation contacts their weapon.
I think at this point when you have a feel for the timing you can safely chamber any single hit from any player. Well I have trouble with overheads since I'll agree there that thrust doesn't line up well with it, and further even if you do stuff the overhead with a thrust it feels easily blockable, not to mention if your weapon doesn't thrust you can't even do it, so I just have given up on chamber blocking overheads. Anyway so any single hit you can chamberblock, if they hold it or feint it though it is harder. You can chamber block 'regular' feints too as long as that second swing comes at normal timing. But again if they are doing that you just swing to chamber block their first attack and they generally will have to block you.
So all that said, (i hardly play battle) but when I do, I'm afraid to chamber block something unless i'm feeling reckless because there is no point to doing it. If I somehow get into a 20+ second duel with a good player then I would start considering doing it, but in general in battle its better to just block and attack. If it is a new player their defense will crumble. If it is a good player someone will come jump in on either side before you've had time to resolve it.
I don't think you actually can increase the window of time for a chamber block because it uses the chambering animation. If you try with a warhammer you'll see that you actually have a larger window of time to chamber block stuff, just its so slow so you really have to start it almost at the same time as someone's swing.
I think what it needs is to somehow take away the instant death feel you get when you chamber block. (bold for skimmers to pick out in wall o text). Maybe there should be this current short window of time for it to work, and then around that window of time it heavily reduces the incoming damage you take from the swing. So if you swing slightly early or slightly late for a chamber, you take 50% damage from the attack. This could sort of simulate that someone tried to riposte but f'ed up so your blow still goes through, but your weapon got fouled up a bit and you didnt strike with the full force you had applied.
This way the chamber block success is still a 'high skill' mechanic, but the penalty for failure is half as less as it used to be, or more, maybe 75%, i dunno. That might work.
