The Problem with Blades - Nihan & Satori

[ShinAkira00]

I've been doing a pure Katana playthrough and decided to try the Nehan and Satori combo but using them in sync is a bit too awkward. They reworked both items to work as a pair but the requirements just don't align with how melee weapons in general are designed in the game. There is no way to really swap between just those two weapons so you end up with these awkward pauses mid combat that just makes the combat a bit unfulfilling.

Yes, while Nehan is loading to return to you, it is possible to immediately switch to Satori by hitting the attack button. The problem is once Nehan returns, there is no way to switch back to Nehan because the tool wheel will immediately switch to your fists which is next on the tool wheel. So you can throw Nehan, then attack with Satori but then you will have to pause and go to the tool wheel to switch back to Nehan again.

Knives in the game were redesigned to work by itself and Katanas by itself, not together so it seemed an odd choice to design Nehan and Satori around a mechanic that the game doesn't really recognize. They need to allow you to apply "disarm" to the weapon slots on the tool wheel. You can only swap items on the tool wheel like recovery and grenades but not weapons. Until then it's really not worth disrupting the flow of combat to continually select one or the other, that's just not very fun.

 

[Nixilos]

This is an old standby of mine, my first 100% run through the game used a knife with a katana. It works well if you are on pc and manually select your knife but I can see your problem with it using the wheel.

What it is meant to support in my mind is a stealth blades playstyle, you are using the knife primarily and then when you miss a headshot you automatically switch to your sword to finish them off. They added this to encourage the old playstyle now that they nerfed it with the split between knives and blades. Not that you can't use the combo in open combat but it's just style at that point, maybe useful on a really tough target like a boss.

You might be able to find something for this on nexus if you are on PC but I'm not seeing exactly what you would want myself, I'll edit my reply if I spot something. The only suggestion I can offer you is to make sure your arm slot has something useful on it, or just punch someone to add insult to injury, it's like an action movie it doesn't have to make sense.

 

[Jared0811]

I've been doing a pure Katana playthrough and decided to try the Nehan and Satori combo but using them in sync is a bit too awkward. They reworked both items to work as a pair but the requirements just don't align with how melee weapons in general are designed in the game. There is no way to really swap between just those two weapons so you end up with these awkward pauses mid combat that just makes the combat a bit unfulfilling.

Yes, while Nehan is loading to return to you, it is possible to immediately switch to Satori by hitting the attack button. The problem is once Nehan returns, there is no way to switch back to Nehan because the tool wheel will immediately switch to your fists which is next on the tool wheel. So you can throw Nehan, then attack with Satori but then you will have to pause and go to the tool wheel to switch back to Nehan again.

Knives in the game were redesigned to work by itself and Katanas by itself, not together so it seemed an odd choice to design Nehan and Satori around a mechanic that the game doesn't really recognize. They need to allow you to apply "disarm" to the weapon slots on the tool wheel. You can only swap items on the tool wheel like recovery and grenades but not weapons. Until then it's really not worth disrupting the flow of combat to continually select one or the other, that's just not very fun.

This wasn't an issue pre-2.01 (I'm playing katana + throwing knife as well). As there was a "bug" that didn't let you switch to arm cyberware in your quickchange rotation which made the gameplay very smooth as you can just hit the attack button and your katana would come out and it would work every time.

Since 2.01 they've fixed the "bug" but had the unintended effect on these builds, which is why I've stopped playing until it's fixed. It should be a toggle-able option. As far as I know normal fists (without cyberware) shouldn't be in the rotation but they are, which is quite annoying; and even then a lot of people would probably be running gorilla arms just for the body stat checks.

Really hope they fix it soon.

 

[ShinAkira00]

This is an old standby of mine, my first 100% run through the game used a knife with a katana. It works well if you are on pc and manually select your knife but I can see your problem with it using the wheel.

What it is meant to support in my mind is a stealth blades playstyle, you are using the knife primarily and then when you miss a headshot you automatically switch to your sword to finish them off. They added this to encourage the old playstyle now that they nerfed it with the split between knives and blades. Not that you can't use the combo in open combat but it's just style at that point, maybe useful on a really tough target like a boss.

You might be able to find something for this on nexus if you are on PC but I'm not seeing exactly what you would want myself, I'll edit my reply if I spot something. The only suggestion I can offer you is to make sure your arm slot has something useful on it, or just punch someone to add insult to injury, it's like an action movie it doesn't have to make sense.

I don't really agree that stealth was the intended support. The technique using both blade and katana is supposed to mimic those depicted in old Japanese samurai films. That is evident by the owner being Saburo. His entire design is a reflection of that and the Samurai's primary weapon is the katana. The short blade is supposed to be a secondary weapon. I don't think they went through all that trouble for it to not make sense, it's just poor design.
It's a simple fix as the person above suggested, remove fists from the wheel rotation. No one is going to be in guns blazing combat and suddenly switch to fisticups. My suggestion is to just allow players to change what's on the tool wheel, including disarm so they can slot only the weapons/items they want access to.

 

[suhtiwdog]

Devs should just give us the option to toggle lock weapon slots & arm slot on/off to bypass them when quick switching weapons during combat.

I’d say it shouldn’t be too difficult for a AAA company to implement… but then again, we can’t get even get flying cars or cosmetic cyberware unless an unpaid modder decides to do it for free for the community.

Perhaps someone in the community has already developed a “fix” for this situation if you’re on PC…?

 

[Nixilos]

I don't really agree

That's all good. I did qualify it.

in my mind

You have a point, it's just that my focus was on gameplay and usefulness. It's a rough time to be trying to pull single knife shenanigans in open battle while leveling, and unless you are practiced with the knife throwing or they made it more forgiving you are going to miss more often than anyone likes to admit. What it seems viable for is the playstyle I illustrated, though there are better options.

There are set items like this in other games that encourage a playstyle without being endgame or optimal, they are meant as suggestions, and it's a good one considering knives and katanas used to scale together instead of separately. The only thing that really matters anymore is what stats you choose on cyberware though anyway, it's the only place you are getting a meaningful amount of damage, and these are both still considered melee even though knives are thrown. So there's that.

It still works for those of us who don't weapon wheel it, you just put the katana after the knife and manually switch back to the knife with 1 or 2. Not that that helps you. I played a triple knife user that switched to mantis blades when out of knives automatically in 1.6 and it was a blast.

 

[ShinAkira00]

Devs should just give us the option to toggle lock weapon slots & arm slot on/off to bypass them when quick switching weapons during combat.

I’d say it shouldn’t be too difficult for a AAA company to implement… but then again, we can’t get even get flying cars or cosmetic cyberware unless an unpaid modder decides to do it for free for the community.

Perhaps someone in the community has already developed a “fix” for this situation if you’re on PC…?

Yea I'm on PC but I play with a controller. I have checked if there are any mods but so far the closest thing I've found is "Cyberarm Cycle" which allows you to swap fists on the wheel with another cyberarm. It seems a lot of ppl have an issue with that fist on the wheel. It makes no sense as far as design goes because you really only use it in the mini game/quests not mid combat.

I guess I'll just use the sword by itself since I doubt the devs will fix this.