Hi peeps and good day!
For a bit now throughout the Discord Knife only section I noticed quite a few people were asking for karambit only or karambit as main knife. The problem this game seems to have is the fact you have to spam M1 so much on certain fights that most people can pull off a run or 2 and they feel pain in their hands right after sometimes for longer than a couple hours and this brings some concern. As it is now it looks like many people might choose not to run this category with the standard knife (butterknife%) and usually the case is to go based off of what everyone thinks atleast for those who run the category. So with this I'd like to see what everyone thinks overall including those who said they were interested in knife only in general to share their thoughts.

NG Karambit would start with the standard knife at the beginning of the game and pick up the karambit from the Duke before the castle, I've done the standard knife until that point multiple times and even on VoS it's not bad at all. A few of us out here who knife also want a way to perform runs above Casual and karambit would be the most solid way I would think.

If you think 45 minutes -1 hour (literally ) of fighting Moreau without dying is fun , at Hardcore, not even VoS, stick with base knife. If you want to make only ONE or TWO runs making this a challenge run and not a speedrun run, before you quit entirely from this category and hate the game ,go with base knife.If you want some Carpa tunnel at your hand go with base knife.

1. Base Knife is suitable for Casual -standard. Nowhere else
2. Karambit is suitable for Hardcore/ Village of Shadows.Overpowered in lower diffiulties,but still FUN
Many opinions expressed after finishing casual runs ONLY with base knife /casual,should refer to casual runs and not for higher difficulties.

Same was sent to discord

I totally agree.
Butterknife is fine for casual for maybe 2 runs, even standard if your willing to mash that m1 button for the added amount. However HC or VoS is an absolute no no.

With it currently set as butterknife only (although other knives has been mentioned briefly by mods) i, like others in the discord knife only section, will likely do the run for a small while on casual, maybe standard, and then abandon it unfortunatly.

This does make me sad thinking about it but butterknife just isnt enjoyable as a run on the whole. Even on the best days/runs iv never done more than 3 runs and it messed my carpel tunnel up so bad i couldnt game for days.

And while the karambet doesnt seem like much of an upgrade to butterknife it most definatly is. Especially so when it comes to both enjoyment of the run (on all 4 difficulties) and wanting to stick with it and push for leaderboard placements.

As others have said in the discord, and above, karambet low% is definatly the way to go or its just not going to be a category that will survive the test of time.

I know there are also those who love the lightsaber, personally i dont, so to include everyone it would be great to see both karambet low% and lightsaber low% added asap to the runnable categories for knife only.

Although i am new to speedrunning for the leaderboard placements, i do find myself enjoying knife only more when only using guns for the 6 or 7 points that is needed and only knifing the rest. However i understand why others want to use the guns etc whenever they can to speed things up, but thats just me hoping one day it might become someyhing others want as an official run.

I truelly hope those of us who want to run knives only categories, most notably the karambet, will get the chance to be much happier with karambet added asap to the available options. Although we are very few in the grand scheme of the game with so many other categories using the full arsenal of weaponry, i really hope to get this sorted so the category doesnt get abandonned cause of butterknife only, and it goes on to become a much more heavily ran thing by the community in the future

Thanks for you time

Russ

I'm down for NG Karambit honestly, we allowed the hotdogger in RE3R because the base knife wasn't great, kinda like here. I feel its the same situation but then again I'm not a hardcore runner of knife only. That being said, i would run Knife only if the Karambit was the main knife.

I don't think it makes sense to start with butterknife then pick up Karambit at Duke for the Karambit%. Its a NG+ item and should be treated as such by starting up a completed save file. Duke isn't far into the game so basically just start off with Karambit. Maxy mentioned already that Karambit and Lightsaber will be added in the future unless I got my info completely mixed up.

what RPD_CHAMBERS says is correct its a NG+ item the Karambit will be avalable for NG+ Knife Only catagorys in the future and most likely in the Category Extensions

It would be the more competitive, active compared to butter knife. It will most likely kill butter knife when its added. Due to this it should be the main knife only category not an extended category.

I predict once karambit is open butterknife boards will be frozen in time. Maybe I will be wrong.

@RPD_CHAMBERSRPD_CHAMBERS ofc it makes sense to start NG with butter knife. First and only lycan you ll actually fight in the hut ,is the first test of 1v1 at these categories. We dont want to transfer the recipes and herbs from a ng+ file, ONLY to buy the karambit from duke ,like picking up Hotdogger from the box if you understand what i mean

Karambit% definitely needs to exist, I just finished my first run of Knife only and my fingers and arm hurt somewhat. Have some numbness in my finger tips as well.
This category is not physically healthy in any way and due to health risks and carpal tunnel alone it shouldn't be a base category.
I am curious if anyone that is adamant about it being a ng+ category plans to or has ran knife only yet.

u can bind more buttons to attack so u dont get carpal tunnel

Have you ran knife only? The menu allows you to bind an extra key, which I did. That barely helps in the overall picture besides I split carpal tunnel evenly but less for each hand.

this has been decided and will not be changed and my previous message was just a suggestion to help you if you decide to run this there will be category extensions with the Karambit at in the future

distant or close future? we can help expedite that

The boards only opened 9 hours ago i dont have an answer to that question yet

Hey all! Just wanted to add my opinion to the pot. I personally was very surprised when I heard that the Karambit wasn't going to be the knife of choice for NG KO runs, and while I understand that it is an NG+ item, I don't think it takes anything away from the value of an NG run. In fact, it seems like a lot more people would be interested in running a Karambit-enabled NG category than the one that has currently been established. Additionally, it also seems like the same reasons and stipulations surrounding the utilization of the Hot Dogger in RE3R apply here as well. Here's hoping this decision can be reconsidered, or at least that a Karambit category can be added soon, as I for one will definitely start running a Karambit-enabled category when it becomes available. Cheers!

Butter knife isn’t really fun on console or PC with controller. My twitch has the pc run showing the controller inputs. Boss fights are crazy trying to stay in control while spamming triggers and bumpers. I am going to get my best times in each category but that will be the end of it.

Karambit is a good knife but not OP. Since when are 3-6 min boss fights OP? The 3 sisters aren’t boss fights either. They are just story line with no HP.