It can be countered. The methods are not 100% reliable but is any mechanic in game 100% reliable right now?

You can try to roll towards them at a 45 degree angle or roll straight at your dashing lunging opponent. If you roll towards them but slightly left or right so you go behind them the dash attack will go right by you. If you roll straight at them their lunge attack will fire as your in an iframe. If you stand there spamming bash like a lemming having no idea what your opponent is going to open up with you're going to get facerolled, and rightfully so.

While facing your charging opponent you can roll straight back and come up out of your roll with an attack towards them. Who gets the attack to work, whose attack cancels or beats whose, you or them, is anyone's guess.

You can always try to turn and flee if you have time to see someone sprinting at you and they're far enough away that you have time to start a dbash and they have enough distance to perform a dash attack. Or you can drop a grenade or meltabomb at your feet, and while facing your opponent, backpeddle or roll straight backwards and start shooting the grenade.

To say it cant be countered is a bit of a stretch.

1 Or people are still trying to figure out the new lunge distance of both fast attack and power attack as it used to come in from 2 miles away, or maybe its because you have to fire a Dbash 2 seconds ahead of where you intend to hit because get this Dbash has a incredible wind up that is telegraphed from last bloody week so if anyone gets kit by a Dbash they literally have no one to blame but themselfs, also lastly the lunge attack is designed to cover distance hence lunge.

2 I dont use lock on and out right refuse to and hope to hel its removed, also evade attack does beat Dbash.

3 Why are you assuming people just Spam Dbash people usually open with Dbash because people usually open with a fast attack not a power attack, if people opened with a power attack more often i wonder what would ranged players spam? So considering Dbash is reactionary with feck all offencive merit i wonder what the problem is fast attack spam or Dbash spam.

My mileage with rolls have varied. Rolling in melee ends up with my eating the damage regardless in the majority of cases. I've essentially discarded it. And why is predicting an opponent's opening spamming? If it's fairly obvious what you're going to do and I predict it, I should have a reliable counter.

I've already said Alexis or Michael Chan should clear up this issue. According to the melee thread rules, which could be outdated, evade and lunge attacks are considered light attacks. Technically, they should lose to the bash in the current system. Alexis even mentioned it in the thread later on:

I agree with BAsh beating Evade attacks. If they're not that's broken. I seem to have mixed results when bashing versus evade attacks, but then again I have mixed results with bash even working at all when it very well should.

Lunge attacks however should beat the bash. As I stated if a player is spamming Dbash before an enemy is even within melee range, that bash should NEVER beat a lunge. You're committing to a bash prior to your opponent even being in melee range, assuming you should be 100% invincible to either a lunge or a fast attack, knowing you have a 2/3 chance of success. That's not right IMO.


If spamming bash is your first instinct when you see a melee opponent sprinting towards you, you were either spoiled when bash gave 100% invulnerability a few months ago or you're simply making a poor choice. Bash > Fast attack, not Bash > everything but strong attack. The lunge beating bash makes sense, again, because the bashing player is committing to a move based on the thought that "I should be invincible even though I have no idea what my opponent will do, but Bash gives me a 3/4 chance of beating everything".... That's wrong.

Bash should not be the axis upon which melee combat spins. We had model that for a couple months when bash > everything and melee was horrible. Bash should resoundingly beat a rolling attack but not a lunge attack. A rolling attack can be initiated after you start bashing while an opponent is already in melee range. This gives an unfair advantage and negates the purpose of the bash. The lunge attack on the other hand requires a running start well outside of melee range, then the dash attack. If you're spamming bash versus an opponent that's well outside melee range assuming you should be 100% invulnerable even though you have no idea what your opponent is going to do, you deserve to lose.

If lunge attacks and evade attacks are equivalent in terms of force (both have a bit more force than a light attack but are still light attacks), bash should beat both. Breaking this rule is equivalent to saying "Rock beats scissors but only if they're a certain type of scissors. Otherwise, scissors beats rock."

I'm sorry you had such a tough time with the bash in the past, but I never bash under the assumption that it will beat everything. I even said I only do it when people enter range because they lunge. It's a prediction, one based on the fact that a lunge is a light attack. If I did a wakeup shoryuken in Street Fighter 4 based on the assumption that my opponent will try to use "meaty" moves or try a mixup, people may call me a scrub, but it's just a move based on a prediction. You could spam wakeup shoryukens, but it's ill-advised. I feel it's much the same way in this game.

We are in agreement on the rolling attack, are we not my friend?

Again, I will ask, do you think it's fair that spamming bash versus an approaching opponent, at which time you have no idea what they're going to do, should give 100% immunity versus 3/4 possible incoming attacks? You're saying spamming the bash before the opponent is even in melee range should give immunity to anything your opponent can do except for a strong attack? That's a 75% success chance the bash gives you, that's too much and will result in "bash based melee combat" for EC. No thank you.

The lunge is the perfect answer to a player spamming bash because they simply see you coming. They have a myriad of other options as I've listed. Committing to the bash with an opponent that's far away enough to do a lunge attack is a bad move and should be punished.

If you feel spamming bash versus an approaching opponent that's outside of melee range should be rewarded and should offer 100% immunity versus 3/4 possible incoming melee attacks, then I'll respectfully agree to disagree. Those 3/4 attack btw being lunge, rolling attack, fast attack, and the 4th being strong attack.

Sure, I'll agree that a Dbash can't beat a lunge attack...as long as you agree that when you take any ranged damage while lunging you get stunned. Why? I find it hard to believe any attacker is going to go for a lunge, catch a round in the face/chest, and still keep his concentration for his attack.

Rock paper scissors right? Dbash can't counter everything right?

A lunge or evade attack should be blocked by a Dbash. The reason so many ranged players hit Dbash as the opponent is attacking isn't because we are/were spoiled. The reason we preemptively user the Dbash is because that's how the melee works. Why? Good luck watching someone's fast attack animation start, then hitting your Dbash button, then having it work. Pray tell, what's the time between the start of a fast attack animation, and the time the damage hits you hmmm? I'm willing to wager it's damn near faster than average human reaction time. The dbash was basically designed around "guessing" your opponent's move before he does it. That's why they do it preemptively.

By allowing evade and/or lunged attacks to break the Dbash, you completely crumple the rock-paper-scissors system. Sure, I'd be on board with it if ranged damage could actually take out a fucking charging melee opponent, but with how fucked ranged damage is nowadays you'll damn near never stop a charging melee, especially considering their attack travel.

You're basically backing every ranged player in the game into a corner saying "Ok, you have Dbash, so if they fast attack and you GUESS it right, you're good....but they also have a lunge that you can't defend against at all, but hey you can try to roll away and before you even finish your animation they'll be swinging at you or lunging at you again."

If you want to try and imagine why ranged players are upset, it isn't because we are spoiled. Try to imagine if your lunge was interrupted by just getting shot at, that one shot was enough to stun you if you lunged (due to the reason that catching a round to the chest would be pretty disorienting while trying a lunge). Basically, as a melee player, you'd have to guess if they're going to shoot at you or not, but it doesn't matter because there's no way to dodge getting shot at except by rolling.

Congrats, if you've imagined that, then you know why we are pissed.

We are certainly in agreement, but let's not ignore that you can have other options as a melee character. I know that you tend to wear your opponents down with a pistol before you engage, no? I've experienced it firsthand.

I would say it's more than fair, and if many players are doing it consistently (as they are with the lunge attack), it should be easy to bait and beat with a strong attack (in a perfect 1-on-1 scenario when they don't have friends).

I think it's more fair to say that everyone craves consistency with the rules, and if the fundamental system has any changes, the devs need to let us know. That's why I think it's a bug. I can't envision Brent or Alexis changing the fundamentals of RPS so drastically with little to no warning.

The bash giving immunity to 75% of all possible incoming melee moves is too much in my opinion.

Lunge
Rolling attack
Fast attack
Strong attack

That's too much immunity for any single melee ability.

You guys know you can roll out of the bash after you're started to bash, right? So if strong attack is the only option to beat the bash, and you can roll out of the bash, how the hell is a melee aggressor ever supposed to win a melee encounter? The bash(and rolling out of the bash), in essence, could theoretically beat 100% of all possible incoming melee attacks. Do you really want bash based melee in EC?

If you ask me, that's splitting hairs. I can see it from your perspective, but according to what we know there are only 2 choices there: fast attack or strong attack. The lunge and roll are certainly the more situational attacks that are meant to close distance or confuse your opponent. Those are the added benefits IMO.

I like you Njord, and I really don't like disagreeing with you because we both--along with everyone else--want the same thing: enjoyable combat across the board, whether it's in melee, ranged, or vehicle. But I really haven't added anything new to the discussion or even my opinions. I think I simply parroted what the current system should be according to the devs. Does that mean the devs are infallible? No. But I'd say it gives more weight to my argument seeing as they are probably looking at it from angles and perspectives that only the designers of the system can see.