Brawler Archive

Ok, this is a running list of the current top 5 issues and what I would consider, minimal responses from the devs. Until this issues are really fixed and explained, I still think they are a big deal. But about 30% of you, mostly unarmed, are asking for a new ist of top 5 issues, so I will compile one and send it to the devs (but I don't think that you will get a answer for the new list either).

So for the new top 5 list, please come up with 5 issues that are either ON the list that we have now and is copied below or, that is a totally new issue. Please remember to state your class (Unarmed, 1H, 2H, Pole) and a brief example/explanation. If you can keep your posts to about as long as the re-printed top 5 list that is here now, and exclude your personal flames and rants, then we can get a list of issues together that is clear enough for all to understand without having to weed through naughty posts. Since people tend to get themselves really worked up about this stuff, and can sometimes post things that are less then constructive, I'll be passing over the posts that have flames/insults and just going through and passing along the ideas that are in constructive well thought out posts.

I will let this stand over the weekend, and send the compiled list of your ideas and concerns to the devs on Monday or Tuesday. Remember, this is YOUR list. This is YOUR chance to say just want to you want to say, and if enough Brawlers (Unarmed, 1H, 2H, Pole) agree with you, then I'm sure it is an issue that effects all Brawlers (Unarmed, 1H, 2H, Pole) and will be passed on.

Current top 5 list and responses.

1. HAM Costs – Special moves seem to cost too much. Most attacks from other things cost less than the current special moves.
-We’ve increased one handed and unarmed, which should help here. (I really hope they mean decrease )

2. Special Moves – Most special moves seem to fail too often. When they do succeed, they appear to do very little to benefit.
-We’re going to add more details to special moves so you know exactly what they all do. We’ll also verify the failure rates to make sure they are reasonable.

3. Defense – Brawlers would like to be able to dodge, parry, and block because they feel they are the tanks of most battles.
-This is something we’ll have a follow up post on. It’ll explain a little more the role of the brawler and his skills. Expect this in the next few days.

4. Accuracy and Hitting While Moving – Brawlers receive a –5 combat to hit modifier when in optimum range. They are also the only class that can’t hit while moving.
-There might be a problem with NPC ranges between the client and server. This is something we’ll look into.

5. Attacks Through Geometry – Currently, brawlers are unable to use the terrain to their advantage. Mobs and NPCs just shoot through the terrain to hit them.
-We’re fixing the terrain issue, walls should block shots in the coming update.

As a Master Brawler, my number one concern would be the fact we cannot attack atarget moving away from us with regular unstyled attacks or with our style attacks. (the only ones that will work are lunges)

I have recorded footage of my character to prove it the "target out of range" issue. Both using a fencing weapon at Novice Fencer ranks and as a Teras Kasi Master, I canbe kited by a hermit spider at a walking pace. Not a lag issue either, I was 2000m plus from nearest town and getting around 25FPS and no noticeeable lag. This is clearly an issue in the combat code, lag only makes it worse. This same issue is easily recreatable. Hermit spiders are ideal for this because they run from you.

The other glaring issue is the new 30 second timer in PvP. I believe in it completely for KDs and Panic Shot, but for lunge1 it should probably not be there, and with lunge2 it should probably be shorter (15 seconds?). That is our only hope in PvP pretty much, especially since we can't hit a target moving away from us.

The current Top-5 list are generally considered fine tuning and code problems, which all need to be addressed. but I'm going tolist design issues.

Scout/Brawler"Creature to hit bonus" - The issue of the "Creature to hit bonus" only working with range weapons needs to be look at, I suggest Scouts/rangers get "Range Creature to hit bonus" and "Melee Creature toDodge bonus".

Damage Types: Range weapon users of any type have several choices, but melee weapon users have VERY few. For most only 1 or 2 types of damage types and that is formasters. Blunt, slice and pierce damage type needs to be added, along with elemental weapons and/or power-upsneed to be added

Auto-Defend!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

my number one issue is the compartively low damage you can deal at expert unarmed.

Every other expert level skill is doing at least 200-300 damage a hit at this point, and brawlers are stuck at 80.

It is so bad infact it's prefreable to use VK w/o a cert as the penalized weapon damage is comprable to unarmed damage and speeds up your attack speed.

This shows a true weakness in game design as certifications intent is to penalize a weapon to the point where your other options are better.

There are two ways to address this issue as I see it,
A) give unarmed a full range of weapons that will allow us to speed up our attacks and give small bonuses to damage.

B) bump basic unarmed damage. If VK's work off of base unarmed damage + the weapons strength then VK's might need to be completely removed. But I would say that unarmed damage needs to be at least doubled.

Being able to consistently hit at 150-180 damage at a speed of around 1.8-2.2 before beserk would seem about right compared to other proffessions, weather this is with an "unarmed weapon" or a bump in base damage is a design issue for the devs.

1. HAM Costs – Special moves seem to cost too much. Most attacks from other things cost less than the current special moves.
-We’ve increased one handed and unarmed, which should help here. (I really hope they mean decrease )

2. Special Moves – Most special moves seem to fail too often. When they do succeed, they appear to do very little to benefit.
-We’re going to add more details to special moves so you know exactly what they all do. We’ll also verify the failure rates to make sure they are reasonable.

3. Defense – Brawlers would like to be able to dodge, parry, and block because they feel they are the tanks of most battles.
-This is something we’ll have a follow up post on. It’ll explain a little more the role of the brawler and his skills. Expect this in the next few days.

4. Accuracy and Hitting While Moving – Brawlers receive a –5 combat to hit modifier when in optimum range. They are also the only class that can’t hit while moving.
-There might be a problem with NPC ranges between the client and server. This is something we’ll look into.

5. Attacks Through Geometry – Currently, brawlers are unable to use the terrain to their advantage. Mobs and NPCs just shoot through the terrain to hit them.
-We’re fixing the terrain issue, walls should block shots in the coming update.

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I think the original list pretty much sums up my concerns except for one. General weapons accuracy should be added into the "Accuracy and Hitting While Moving" category. If the weapons were more accurate, then weapon dependant specials would be able to hit more often, thus helping with the high cost of specials. Also on general melee weapon accuracy, I don't know about anyone else, butit is not uncommonfor me to miss3-6, or more, times in a row with various types of melee weapons. This is as opposed to my pistol, which doesn't miss more than 2 or 3 times in a row at 50+ meters.

Brawler: 4,3,3,4 Marksman: 3,3,3,4 Scout: 4,1,4,1

Top 5 issues:

1) Not enough bonuses at Master Brawler- We should get +10 to protection against dizzy, blind, stun, posture change down, intimidate and knockdown. We're a Master Brawler we should be able to have a bigger chance of resisting this stuff than a Novice.

2) Unarmed damage is ridiculously low. It needs to be doubled to be on-par with the rest of the brawler lines. Even so it would be lower than all the others, rightfully so, but at least it would be in the same league.

3) Knockdown/Posture Change nerf if going to really hurt us. Posture change especially is going to be gimped by this. My recommendation is make it so you can have two posture changes in 30 seconds (so you can force someone to prone) or at least have the cool-off timer for posture change be only 15 seconds.

4) Can't hit things while moving. This is ok now because we can use Lunge to catch things, but the posture change is really going to gimp us.

5) Weapon Issues- Vibro Axe (2H sword) is useless compared to the other 2H weapons. Long Vibro Axe has excessively high penalties.

If the weapons issue is better resolved by those class correspondants, then my 5th issue would be HAM cost on moves is kind of high.

Thank you Spaz, for listening.

1. Unarmed damage is too low.

At intermediate damage was acceptable. As a beginner no one expects to do uber damage, however the damage has increased so little between levels that it is now ( at specialist ) hugely inferior to every other combat profession. I'm aware that just giving unarmed brawlers what amounts to a free, undegradeable weapon upgrade at every level isn't something the devs are likely to do but currently unarmed is not an useful stand alone skill. From personal experience, I can say that if unarmed did not lead to both TKA and Commando ( my goal professions ) I would have abandoned it at Expert.

I would like to see Dodge/Parry/Block added to auto-defend if only for the immersive effect. On a more functional note, counterattack should also be added. Counterattack would come into effect when a miss occurs. Instead of a miss counterattack could happen, your next attack would launch immediately advancing the attack cue.

Unarmed brawler specialist working towards TKA

Hmmm... no mention of the fact that the VK cert was moved to Novice TK, which coincidentally is the point at which it no longer becomes completely unnecessary.

How interesting... wonder why that isn't on your list...

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Mackle wrote:

Hmmm... no mention of the fact that the VK cert was moved to Novice TK, which coincidentally is the point at which it no longer becomes completely unnecessary.

How interesting... wonder why that isn't on your list...

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I have to say the life of a brawler has gotten easier in the last2 weeks. The few changes the devs have made to the profession have definitely helped. We're still no match for a kiting Marksman, but I managed to kill 5 dark blue Rebel AIs while chasing after a sixth. Just kept seeing the text fly by as each one dropped. Eventually got the sixth, but he did a lot of damage to me. Hate being kited.

Well i will post my thoughts then, these are mostly based on my views from the Unarmed players point of view. As well as some swordsman experience since beta.

1) I think Unarmed attack delay should be much lower(that is we should hit FASTER). After all, we are unincumbered by weapons or other things that slow us down. Our damage would be more than reasonable if we attacked at double or +1/3 extra of the speed we have now. I think i read someone saying Unarmed is a 4speed weapon, we should then have a base attack speed of 2 - 3. I would even sacrifice some of our damage gladly for an increased attack speed, and this might be neccessary if the Attack Speed is increased significantly.

2) Our special attacks should have individual timers. Using one should not make you have to wait for it to recycle before using another one, only if you want to use the same again. The recycle should be the same as our normal attacks when using a combination of specials and the timer delay of the individual attacks should be longer than now. This combined with my first issue should make fights much more interesting and would involve much less spamming of one skill. This btw should go across the board for all melee, and preferrably ranged also but thats not the issue here so ill leave it at that.

3) This is a personal preference about the UNARMED skil tree and might not go down well with most people here, but here it is anyway. When in the Unarmed tree there should be weapons avalible of different types, VKs as the king and then others like steel backed gauntlets or spiked gauntlets as well as other tupe of knucklers(brass, steel, spiked...) these would basically always have more DMG than your fists at the correct level but the ham costs would go up for specials as usual and your speed would be just slightly reduced. These weapons should also have different types of damage, piercing, blunt and slashing.This tree could remain Unarmed or be labeled as Hand to Hand or something similar... minor detail is that it would be nice to have one in each hand VISUALLY since we hit with both.
Once in the Teras Kasi tree though you should be much more heavily penalized for using weapons. The point is that i think TKAs should be UNarmed since its their way. If you want to use knucklers and such then stayin the Unarmed tree and use the most powerful knucklers which will givemaybe even more raw damage than a TKA but without all his special skills and buffs, as well as being slower.This would make it simpler to balance the TK also since his hands would be his only viable weapon.

4) Since every other combat class recieves pool specific attacks by their second box up the skill tree, my first point is really important i think. If we attack FASTER we can hit more pools and also give us a better chance of hitting the same one multiple times during a fight. When i kill things i almost always leave it drained in all pools before finally killing it. Unarmed should have the lowest base damage but it should have superior speed to make up for that, it is only logical and fitting and would do much good i think.

5) Dodge, block, evade, riposte(counter-attack) should play a larger role. I constantly miss opponents and very rarely see them miss me. Even the weakest Durni has a higher % hit rate in every fight i have been in and it really is pretty odd.

Ill just point out that these are just my thought and my opinions and i am aware that not everyone will agree and that is ok, i dont neccessarily agree with everyone else either so... But please dont flame for whatever reason someone might find, it is counter productive to this whole thread. Lets be creative here =)

Thanks and have a good one all,

-Irass Tarassar, Trandoshan TKA in the making.
-Chilastra Server