I like the katana a lot; it’s different attacks add a fun new element to the game. The charge is great for those times when you get surrounded by maul and hammer users and will add a new level of creativity to every fight.
For the light hit combo I like the speed of the 1st hit in general as well as the bleed, although the speed between swings 2 and 3 seem a little slow. In addition the time between hit 3 and the finisher seems to be a split second too long and I’m getting interrupted a lot. I would suggest having the finisher start a smidge earlier, hits 2-3 swing a little faster, and/or enable hyper armor.
Years ago I took Iaido and Ryu Sei Ken and the light hit combo chain feels like a Kata, which looks great however in a real fight there wouldn’t be as much pausing between swings: apparently duels between well trained samurai lasted less than 10 seconds because of the speed of the blade coupled with the sharpness.
Love the Musashi legendary too, and if you release the Yamatai DLC around the same time as the Katana live release it would feel like Christmas
The fourth hit that applies the bleed isn’t able to be canceled, and the only really usable attack against a high tier maul/2h npc is the heavy attack; light hits get interrupted
Yeah not sure what the design intentions of the Katana are, but with bleed only on fourth attack (which you will never land with how slow and tiny the attack arc is), you negate a strength perk. With having no heavy combo, you negate another strength perk. That’s 50% damage you just won’t see.
I’m not sure if it’s supposed to be an option for low str chars, so ditching perks isnt seen as a big thing? It needs to be way faster, and the arc of damage needs to be bigger, you’re pretty much forced to use auto-facing when using it, which makes it a very dangerous weapon to use.
As others have said, you get interrupted way too easily as well.
While I enjoy the heavy dash and that it passes through enemies, I’m not sure if it is worth it compared to other weapons, since you give up having a heavy combo altogether, which is where most damage comes from.