Mantis Blades' kill animation makes them useless

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So. There's an issue with the Mantis Blades kill animation. Now, with a Katana, the kill animation is you slicing the other guy's head off, after which you can then move on swiftly to the next target. With Mantis Blades however, it's a slow animation, where you run someone through with your blades, lift the guy up over your head, and then toss him away. On any higher difficulty, any enemies surrounding you will have killed you off, before the animation has even finished. On top of this, when the animation is over, you then have to work on getting your bearings again, locating enemies and figuring out where you are, basically, as the animation interrupts the entire flow of combat. So, that kill animation basically has to be ditched, and replaced with one or several new kill animations, which doesn't interrupt combat, and let's you move on to the next target immediately. Because right now, what was supposed to be the best melee weapon in the game, just doesn't work due to that kill animation :/
 
I agree.

This feels like something they'll address in six months, after the game is working the way it probably should have at launch. My guess? They'll make the world slow down drastically during the animation, like 20% of normal. I think they're far beyond the likelihood of changing the animation altogether.

Personally, I also happen to think the animation is weaksauce. Easy to imagine that they probably originally intended that you'd split the victim in half, but never allowed for torso mutilation in the game engine, so had to abandon the whole idea, so the player character inexplicably lifts the victim off their feet, needlessly.
 
Monowire was also boring. I remember seeing this demo where you could hack and burn people with the wire but it's just a whip on both arms.

Rocket arm does not even have a flying rocket. Just an sound effect and an explosion.
 
You can't even see the punctured area as being damaged. That part kind of bugged me. But aren't you invincible for a second while doing that animation? Enemies seem like they stop shooting, entirely. I usually plan an escape route to run to as soon as the animation is over to prevent getting lit up after that blades kill.
 
I would like a way to cancel out of the animation... very annoying when Im getting attacked and cant get out of it
 

Guest 4478408

Guest
i agree with op, that animation looks cool once or twice but is really annoying and interruptive.
 
They could either slow time for you while the animation proceeds, which would reduce your vulnerability. Or my idea would be that this animation only triggers on the last enemy in a pack - though that would get quite repetitive so it would still need to be kind of random like it is now. It makes more sense to cut it out entirely and just leave in normal dismembering. They could swap it out with a cross-blade head dismemberment like in the Dooku/Anakin fight. This would be much faster of an animation and you could even still have a bit of movement while it is happening.

For real though, mantis blades are practically useless since you can do more damage in a safe manner with a katana/blade and there is no secondary use for the blades like was intended. Much better off just using gorilla arms for both brawling and beating up on low level brats or use the projectile launcher cause that is pretty powerful. But on that topic, they should have made the projectile launcher just use the collection of grenades instead of some "internal and infinite" ammunition (take out the tranquilizer entirely, it is OP and Redikulous). I haven't tried the monowire but I hear it's not that great either - what should be a great stealth tool is kind of janky.
 
They could either slow time for you while the animation proceeds, which would reduce your vulnerability. Or my idea would be that this animation only triggers on the last enemy in a pack - though that would get quite repetitive so it would still need to be kind of random like it is now. It makes more sense to cut it out entirely and just leave in normal dismembering. They could swap it out with a cross-blade head dismemberment like in the Dooku/Anakin fight. This would be much faster of an animation and you could even still have a bit of movement while it is happening.

For real though, mantis blades are practically useless since you can do more damage in a safe manner with a katana/blade and there is no secondary use for the blades like was intended. Much better off just using gorilla arms for both brawling and beating up on low level brats or use the projectile launcher cause that is pretty powerful. But on that topic, they should have made the projectile launcher just use the collection of grenades instead of some "internal and infinite" ammunition (take out the tranquilizer entirely, it is OP and Redikulous). I haven't tried the monowire but I hear it's not that great either - what should be a great stealth tool is kind of janky.
Would be cool to have Mantis,mono etc with diff colors or something :(
 

Guest 4478408

Guest
so i actually just started to use the blades recently.
however, i just commited a small a medium sized massacre with them and i am quite sure now that the animation is tied to the jump attack. this would make the issue much smaller.
 
Yeah, kill animation is lackluster and as liable to be lethal to V as to the target. Also, only having singular kill animations is lackluster, but that word describes allot of the game...
 
so i actually just started to use the blades recently.
however, i just commited a small a medium sized massacre with them and i am quite sure now that the animation is tied to the jump attack. this would make the issue much smaller.

The animation triggers either when you sprint towards an enemy and attacks, as you generally do with mantis blades in order to get to the enemy quickly, which causes a jump attack forward. But, it also triggers if you're killing then with a heavy attack, for example. It sucks on so many levels :/

And you're not invulnerable, while the animation lasts. I've tested that extensively, and you're not. Also, the enemies can move around while it lasts, so you're completely surrounded by enemies unloading into you. So even if you were to be invulnerable, it would still suck. The animation(s) needs to be quick, efficient and varied, and support the feeling of sprinting around the battlefield, slicing and dicing. Right now, it doesn't.
 
The animation(s) needs to be quick, efficient and varied, and support the feeling of sprinting around the battlefield, slicing and dicing. Right now, it doesn't.

That is my biggest gripe with the mantis blade animations. Here I am, sprinting around like a killing machine - tearing enemies apart before they even see me coming, causing mass confusion among the pack of baddies. Then BOOM, locked into a 4 second animation in which I can't move my body, including even just my head to look around. I'm a sitting duck and here's the real problem on very hard difficulty if you are playing against any baddie higher than "moderate" (orange icon or red icon) you can expect to get either one shot or killed almost immediately in this lockdown no matter what your armor, evasion or damage reduction might be because the enemy scaling is so lazily programmed.

Here's the thing though, they could have still allowed for the move without the locked in animation. You should be able to still pull off the move but you and the person who is now attached to your blades would be moving around with you until you drop them (either by hitting attack again or holding strong attack down). Wouldn't it be even cooler if the direction you were pressing when you dropped them from your blade determines the direction in which you toss the body. Hell, if it is a larger person and you have low body stat then maybe you tip over or can fall entirely - at the least just move slower, but you should still be able to move, especially your head, because that is how you zone in on your next meat sack to slice.
 
It should just have a double arm cut or x cut across the neck. This would look cool, be quicker and would vary a little bit versus picking them up like a MK fatality.
 

Jeyl

Forum regular
So taking the non-lethal eye modification that renders all weapons non-lethal is the best way to use Mantis blades since the killing animation won't occur?
 
So taking the non-lethal eye modification that renders all weapons non-lethal is the best way to use Mantis blades since the killing animation won't occur?
That's a good question, actually. Haven't actually tested if that really works with Mantis Blades. I always understood it to be a gun-thing.
 
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