Yes, I do notice a difference. I don't take damage when I get hit during dodges.
I don't take damage during aoes.
Notably fiends with their huge hitboxes will hit me and I wont take damage.
I notice a gameplay difference. Against cyclops if I am not going to be able to avoid their aoe in time I will simply time a dodge. Against gargoyles too.
I'm not very interested in arguing about what
most people see or don't see about a skill. In my experience most people barely understand the game they are playing. I mean no offense here, its just that I have lost count of the things that are popularly accepted as true in numerous action games that I have specifically tested and found are not true.
I really enjoy testing games and a large part of my enjoyment of any new game is exploring how the combat system works.
Mostly because true understanding gives me control, and control gives me power. I can then throw myself into situations other people would despair at with confidence, because I understand how it really works.
So I'm really not a good person to talk about intuition, or how something feels. My instincts at this point are to experiment and test before judging. I'm always observing and thinking about what just happened, and if I think its important, I start trying to replicate it.
If you spam dodge you get smacked in your recovery constantly because enemy attacks track you. I'll explain how this works.
You know how some enemies dodge away from you after three attacks and then counter? If you are mashing attack when this happens your attack whiffs because he does an animation intended to hit where they were before they dodged, or if you are slightly late, where they are halfway through the dodge, but by the time he hits they've finished the dodge and he misses.
However if you delay your attack slightly, so that you don't attack until they are past halfway or near the end of their dodge backwards, your attack will be aimed for where they are after the dodge. I use this knowledge to set up heavy attacks on drowners for a clean finish. Hit them three times, delay, heavy attack.
Gap closing attacks don't realign mid way. Once you or they are committed it cannot be modified.
The same applies to enemy monster gap closers. For example the drowner jumping attack. If you have a large number of drowners coming for you in staggered timing and you simply spam dodge, you risk getting hit by the next one before you can dodge again. The second ones jump will be aligned for the recovery of your dodge. If you carefully time your dodges for each incoming jump and press it when they are already committed and halfway to you, you dodge every single one without fail.
Wraith teleports are another example. Wraiths aren't committed to their attack until they appear. If you spam dodge they will appear behind you and catch you. If you time your dodge carefully for after they appear and you dodge away from them you will avoid their first attack cleanly and will get away scott free as long as you dodge a second time to avoid their slow follow through. It takes timing.
Even for humans, they have an attack where they run at you and swing. If you spam dodge they just keep chasing you until they get close enough to hit you. You get hit in your recovery. If you time the dodge for just before they swing, they whiff. Every time.
Spamming dodge isn't even remotely safe. The only reason it appears to work most of the time is because a fair few enemy attacks are fairly short ranged and linear, so you are simply out of range or out of line of attack. But there are numerous moves designed specifically to catch and punish dodge spam.
I absolutely agree that the game doesn't communicate what fleet footed is supposed to do though. But it's not the only ability that has a confusing skill description. I'm fairly used to having to try and work out what a skill description actually means via testing, in pretty much every game. I normally just post whatever information I find on the local forum I usually post on, but with this game, which has really stuck its claws into me, I decided to make an account here and try posting the information more widely, as well as help with testing and to report bugs.
I'm normally quite lazy about that.
I honestly would prefer it if developers didn't try to simplify skill trees, but simply told you everything, even with a secondary drop down box. Tell me the formulas used to calculate damage. Tell me how the dodge is coded, exactly. Explain every status effect in detail somewhere, even if its an optional checkbox for "advanced info". Give me everything.
I promise my head wont explode! I can take it!
