Raregroove
[09] Warrior
Except katars, tonfas, or any short ranged weapon in Calibur aren’t even in the same league as Azwel’s gauntlets. Hell, I wouldn’t even classify the gauntlets as short ranged weapons given what can come out of them.
Its simple really. Characters already have gauntlets as clothing items and there will be confusion as to whether gauntlets are solely cosmetic or for actual combat. Secondly, you will still have a massive range disadvantage against even katar/tonfa, since you could always CAS your character to the smallest size and now the game's gotta do extra balancing due to this extreme.
In Azwel's case
• I don't like his moveset and I think he's out of place. He'll join the class of characters like Necrid / Algol / Azwel that seem to infect the series but there's always enough interest to bring them in for canonical/story reasons. Azwel is a step in the right direction, because at least you always see the gloves and he's not just protruding spikes out of his body for no reason.
• Azwel is not actually striking you with metal gauntlets, they're just magical conduits that emit energy weapons (makes me want to vomit thinking how out of place this is). Characters like Ivy and Zas do the "battle wizard" or "warrior that can also summon magic" way better because at the of the day you're still identifying them with their whip sword and death scythe first.
Considering CAS isnt used in competitive play, I dont see why the balance matters here. Especially when its already broken for balance with the normal weapons. Clipping issues already exist, character size issues already exist, enlarging items to cover certain parts already exists. What problem would a brawler style actually add here? And the arm part issue? Make anything that covers the hands incompatible with the style. Or have the weapon overwrite the hand part of the gauntlets, like how some clothing parts shorten/get tucked in when paired with certain leg items.
Not sure why Azwel keeps getting brought up. He's clearly not a hand to hand fighter. His style clearly doesnt fit the topic. His actual weapons are conjured weapons, not his fists. Actually, I've never tried customizing Azwel, but aren't his gauntlets just arm parts? When you change his "weapons" you just change the color of his conjurations.
For everyone bring up issues with range and citing the Tekken guests, they were TEKKEN GUESTS. They had pre-established fighting styles that were brought over to SoulCalibur with some tweaks (and I personally found them both to be fun). They weren't movesets that were built from the ground up for SoulCalibur, for use against characters with varying ranges and in a system with a very free range of movement. A new character with this kind of style would be made with these things in mind. Moves that get them in their opponent's face quickly, quick dashes, moves with GI and/or evasive properties, they have plenty of ways to make it work.
And hey, do you absolutely need something in their hands instead of around them? Give them a pair of something like brass knuckles or a short claw weapon like a bagh nakh.
I just plain dont see how a single character using this kind of fighting style, whether they have gloves, gauntlets, or some form of fist supplementary weapon, would break the spirit of the game just because they were different. Billy Kane sure doesnt ruin Fatal Fury or KoF by using a staff. Now if they started throwing in several of them in a single game? That might be a little weird. But one? Come on. Especially so if it's on a new guest who probably wont come back anyway.