Not sure if this is intended or a bug, but when trying to knock out a crafter thrall they do insane amount of damage. they swing power combo after power combo and knock you around like a rag doll. is this intended? they hurt more than fighter thralls.
Game mode: Official
Problem: Misc
I believe it isâŠ
The game is supposed to be hard. What level is the thrall? What level are you? What armor do you have?
It may be that you are after a Level 3 thrall and you are Level 15 with level one armor⊠that crafter is going to kick your â â â ⊠yup⊠learning to dodge and use a shield helps a lot ( not that I am good with either myself)
I am level 25, wearing royal armor with iron shield. Seems they ignore the shield most of the time and just knock me down right away. Happens with t1/t2/t3 crafter thralls.
sometimes I just cannot get out of the way fast enough and their reach with a one handed mace is pretty far.
I get that it is supposed to be hard, but when crafters hit harder and more frequently than fighters, something is not right. Archers do the same thing when you get in close. they swing that power hit over and over.
Iâve knocked out a tier 3 in Sepermeru at lvl 15 ish. They can finish you with 1 combo pretty much. I managed a tier 4 captain in Sepermeru but it took 15 minutes. 1-2 shots from a captain will kill you⊠but if you do manage to break it. enjoy your new black ice weapon at a ridiculously low lvl.
What I found useful was hitting them 2-3 times with a tier 1 truncheon. after 2-3 hits roll away. ALWAYS. Then cautiously re-engage at ideal distance and rinse /repeat.
Even if you CC them. those last 2 hits on the truncheon combo are risky.
Yea they are supposed to be very hard,especially at your levelâŠotherwise at 60 they will be way to easyâŠno easy mode hear I say! 
Most artisan thralls use a mace. If you kick them, you can immediately follow up with a truncheon combo and land all three hits safely. Take a step back, wait for them to swing and then repeat. They will never hit you.
Just make sure you kick after they finish their combos and before they start the next one, it will stagger them and your truncheon will keep them stunned until your combo ends. If you kick after they begin to swing, it wonât work. Just sprint up and kick fast.
Easy mode already exists 
But theyâre probably knocking you down because maces and axes have shieldsmash.
Archers are really easy too. Since you use a shield, just keep it up and get in their face. As soon as you see them switch weapons, combo the hell out of them. I use an axe and power through any hit they may land. Axe heavy attacks seem to increase your poise, making you difficult to interrupt. Since they canât stop my onslaught, they die before they can get more than one or two hits on me. You can also catch them with a dagger light attack or a spear heavy attack as they are trying to run away and get them stunlocked.
Artisan 4âs (Named) Hit for less than Fighter/Archer 3 of the same race. This doesnât mean its trivial damage, nor should it be.
Just be glad they use Maces normally and not Spears.
Spears would be even easier to deal with though. I use my own spear to mow down any NPC wielding one. They rarely get to attack. Start swinging a heavy attack right before theyâre in reach and theyâre doomed, theyâll die helpless.
I agree, artisans, levels 1 to 4, are more often than not harder to fight than level 3 fighters. And donât give us that crap about the need for the game being hard and whatnot. Artisans should not be expert fighters AND artisans at the same time, period. Ban them for the feat points sploit I say! Seriously, healing has already been nerfed, now put 2-3 guards next to the artisans, but please stop the moronics with their non-parriable combos after combos and stun-locks.
Once you figure out how to deal with enemies wielding each type of weapon, all normal human NPCs become trivial to defeat. The problem I have is ânotâ killing the artisans surrounded by fighters so I can capture them. Thatâs what makes it difficult! With mace-wielders you just kick, combo, step back and repeat. Or start off with the axe leap attack if youâre just going for a kill.
There is something called dodge, use it.
With regular truncheons (because lovetap is using mace combo patterns), once their attack animation is over run into them, slam them 3 times then dodge out of their range. Once attack animation is over, you got the idea⊠Fighter thralls with 2-handed swords and hammers can get into hyper armor, so you might wonât be able to hit them always 3 times
The best way to do this is lure off the defenders you donât want one at a time if you can⊠just keep leading htem away, bait and lead ⊠when you have one isolated, kill them, repeat and rinse until you get the artisan you want and again see if you can lead them away so you can take them on one on one.
Yeah itâs just a pain sometimes. If there are no archers, I can just climb a wall a bit and they begin to split up.
Not that simple. They donât fight with the same rules that we do. I have 800+ zeal thingies, all with the ânew combat systemâ. Whatever the weapon used, 3/4 of the hits go through the shield. They can stagger-lock you with a 3-4 hits combo, and before your last stagger animation is finished, without pause they start a new one, while your last hit in the combo always ends with a 1-2 seconds pause. Anyway, this is an issue for another thread.
Thatâs the easy part. What I do is have a named fighter on follow (NâBatu, since he was the closest to my base, the one who ridiculed me the most at the beginning, and thus was the first I enthralled as soon as I could). Hyrkanian armor, only upgraded truncheon as a weapon, and voilĂ , teh Capture Machine.
Say you are in Sepermeru, fighting either of the aggro groups of the 5-6 NPCs. While you are backing off to pull them in a string, NâBatu is pummeling them from the rear. This usually ends with 2-3 unconscious dudes. He also owned the Pirate Ship. The number of unwanted knock downs that I then have to murder on the ground for the essence is not even funny, I have half a mind to propose a mercy-kill action in the Suggestions forum 
@Funcom: please unread the previous paragraph. No nerf needed here, please move along :).
It really is that simple though.
The AI here is incredibly pathetic. They do not react and change tactics depending on what you do. They never take defensive maneuvers. Every encounter with an enemy wielding a specific weapon type âalwaysâ plays out exactly the same way, every time. This makes every enemy very predictable.
I can 100% defeat mace-wielding enemies without ever being struck. Same with dudes with shields, daggers, bows, etc. So yeah, every enemy becomes trivial to defeat if you pay attention the first time around.
Bosses are the same way. Predictable attack patterns. After the game was release I rolled a new character and ran around exploring, doing nothing to get stronger. I reached the witch queen at level 15. I was naked and had stone daggers, yet she and her statues dropped like flies due to predictability.
But the thing about 3/4 of their attacks ignoring shields isnât at all true. Their weapons do follow the same rules as ours. I use axe and shield as my main weapons. I can keep an army of NPCs at bay with the shield provided they donât hit me with shield smashing attacks, such as heavy attacks from an axe or certain stages of the two-handed hammer combo. You can also block 100% of the attacks from âmostâ bosses, but not all.
Good idea with your fighter thralls though!
We are playing different games then.
Apparently thatâs the case. 
Hereâs a short video of me blocking attacks for a couple of minutes with the basic iron targe, including strikes from weapons with the shieldsmash ability. Dozens of hits from various weapons, 0 penetrate the shield.
Iâm not sure how that adds up to even close to three quarters, but it must be because weâre playing different games.
Iâm not sure what game thatâs from but you should find the correct forum.
But geeze the quality of that video sucks after uploading itâŠ
If enemy is close enough, attacks will go thru shields because there will be no shield hitbox between body and weapon hitboxes.