A month or so on from the first Ascendance gameplay at TGS, here are my observations from this Team Shadowhunters Teostra hunt in Paris:

https://youtu.be/JWB41bp4FNY?si=3iyB7trPDwz0rVhA

🪲 Combat loop still looks very much combo > SDS > RSS

🪲 The boost driver and the kinsect slash follow-up look great; the offset seems strong and like the kind of thing we can pull off on reaction; kinsect slash gathering extracts is a great perk; potential to deal strong elemental damage and strong stun damage with blunt kinsects

🪲 Can’t tell if boosted tornado slash comes out faster, but the extra damage ticks are a welcome upgrade, and now we actually have a reason to use it

🪲 The new inverted tornado slash looks neat and adds some fluidity between grounded and aerial; you can SDT after it puts you in the air

🪲 Didn’t see any use of the new powder mechanics in this run; I’m really excited for the powder buffs and I feel the potential upside of them has been lost in the noise of the RLS rage

🪲 SPEAKING OF: Only noted this player use rising leaping strike once; use case for the move is still unclear to me—feels like this could have been a/the dedicated powder detonator rather than or in addition to the tornado slashes

All in all, some neat things here. Need to see more of the powder buffs in action. But based on this run and the information we have available to us, still feels like glaive is in a weird place going into Ascendance. Interested to hear others’ thoughts.

I saw somewhere that sword and shield users would be receiving the ability to coat their weapons with different oils, which I thought was pretty neat. Are us IG users getting any new abilities that are intrinsic to the IG that we know of? (aside from boosted moves of course)