But... that's a flail, not a mace (3rd pic)

Items should be small boosts to the basic fighting mechanics. Certainly, if half of the players are running around with clones, that changes how you play the game. If rarely you encounter players with clones, that's just a small addition which makes the game more interesting.

Mirage fix options:
1. clones time out
2. make mirage potion extremely rare
3. clones only have like 1-2 hp

Yeah, that's the only reasonable explanation :)

Yeah, basically everything in the update is broken.

Yeah, it should be hard to stay king for long. But it should also be hard to kill a king, harder than just left clicking a few times. Noobs will never learn the game if they can kill kings this way.

I prefer the hammer over the sword. Sword special is especially good against crowds. But in the age of directional block, fighting a crowd is unwise. Hammer special can be used to escape, to chase, to get close to ranged opponents, to surprise unaware opponents, and it gives you a better control over positioning than all other special attacks, and that is important against skilled opponents. Also, with practice, less and less of your attacks will miss.

My point in coming here to ask is to have a discussion about it. Maybe other people have thoughts about it too.

Well, the 50 bones happened on a lucky server with only one ranged player (was it you, if I remember correctly?) and a steady supply of noobs around. But the point is, if I wasn't clear enough, that this strategy can achieve some results, and that is fundamentally bad. Because that's not the game I want to play.

Well, 50 bones is nothing to sniff at, but on average I tend to collect more normally than this way - or at least that was until directional block came about. Now I'm trying to adapt, but I am still often dying an embarassing death to hit-hit-etc. noobs. Hence the experiment: I had to test if that's actually a better strategy :)

I'm not lobbying for removing the directional block. Ask rezoner if you don't believe it. But I have concerns as far as the current balance of combat is concerned, and I have yet to find a tactic that works out well. But I will give it some time.

All of the conclusions are perfectly valid. I did the experiment, and these were the results. It doesn't mean that noobs can do the same.

Maybe they indeed were just mediocre players. Hard to tell where the skill boundaries are.

30% oh well... I tried to give a rough estimate, but I couldn't find an appropriate word in English. What I mean is "a considerable portion that I've found surprisingly high".

He means directional block, if I may guess.