Fencer Archive

The reason they want to give us a Tank button seems simple to me. They don't want to give us anything that is permanent. Increased defense mods are permanent. Really **edit** hot armor would be permanent until it breaks..

So what is the solution a button with a timer. I would place a bet that this has already been discussed and this was a brainstormed solution to try and keep us balance and not turn us into rancor eaters..

But I'm in agreement the problem isn't tanking or even as much defense mods as it is kiting period. This is the only in game major problem that I expierience, all others are nerfable or adjustable. Kiting MUST be fixed. I have gotten DB'd so many times this way and the real sad part about it is when the PC makes statements like "I owned you".

When reality is that server lag owned me.

I'm not against tank abilities. Give it to us, but ALSO solve the kiting problem and not try to pacify me with other toys..

FIX KITING, FIX KITING, FIX KITING...

Zenah Fencer-2/2/1/1 Doctor-2/3/1/1

See the below post, Holo posted this in the TKA forum:

http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=teras_kasi_artist&message.id=16249#M16249

to quote:

So we are looking at :

Upping melee damage. A meleer who closes with a ranged profession should be much more competitive than they are right now.

Adding active Defense moves. These moves will allow meleers to both tank against other melee classes, and close the distance between ranged characters and themselves with less risk.

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-As Holo stated in a differentpost, the reason why they wanted to give melee a tank move was to address the issue of pets being the tanks of the game, as well as making melee more viable in groups. I for one have little problem tanking with good armor, I am not invincible, but I do alright. I can take many red con mobs solo with one or no heals.

-The "tank" move will be mainly for group purposes, as you will be doing little to no damage while using this move. The real question that arises is how we will gain xp without doing much damage. So in the end the tank move could be very tricky to be made correctly.

My choice would be a middle ground. A special move that acts as a state effect, making us more likely to dodge, while still being able to dish out damage from regular attacks.

Clarification: I can take many red con mobs at different times NOT at once.

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StGabriel wrote:
Countless MOORPG's have managed to balance passive tank defenses. I fail to see why SWG cannot. Let's face it, if they're going to try to buff up tanking abilities for melees then they are basically just reinventing the wheel with ranged weapons as nukers and melees as tanks. The tank button makes the whole system transparent though with one ability that makes and breaks the class. Furthermore it makes the tanks even less interesting if it prevents actual attacks. It would be basically telling all tanks to just go and play DAoC as there they will actually be able to do something more than spam their defense special. If/when we whine about this the best thing they can do is basically remove the ham costs and restrictions on the active ability which is, in effect, to make it a passive ability where you just have to spam a button every once in a while.

We need a smooth increase in tanking abilities, not one on/off button and tanking can't be the only thing we do. The smooth increase will invest actual variation and specialization into melees instead of a flat opportunity to spam one make or break ability.

Active defenses are fine, if they're subtle. Like for example, it would make a lot of sense to beef up the existing defenses and then put some minor actives on top. Perhaps, for example, we would be allowed to choose active defenses that emphasized melee or ranged defenses and would give a 20% or so bonus to respective toughness (we should have ranged toughness too imo) on top of some already decent passive defenses.

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StGabriel

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I like that last idea alot. If they do decide to give us a tank move I hope it would at least be proffesion specific. For example, fencers could parry kinetic damage well, swordsman could block energy passively with their big swords, and pikeman could get some cool sort ofevadin move against both action and kinetic at weaker resist rate.

There is a very good advantage not mentiones yet to having an "effect" special move (similar to berserk) that would boost temporary defense and offense (at master level maybe); and that would be the advantage of large scale group PvP. When a melee runs at the opposing force many if not most of the opposing force's weapons fire on the melee. This gives the ranged allies of the melee a big advantage, becaus they are not under fire.

2 words:

DODGE

PARRY

These have to start working right...

I sort of like the idea of an active defense. It has the feel of some paper-and-pencil games where you had to decide if you wanted to go into defensive "parry-and-dodge" mode or all-out-attack mode.

I got the impression that the active defense would not significantly decrease our combat damage. That you'd hit the /tank button (hopefully it will have a better name), and then it would last for 20 to 30 seconds, during which you would still be able to attack and use other special moves. If for some reason it is not like that, and it reduces you to just being a damage-avoidance machine, then it will suck, and I won't be very happy about it.

Maybe a more interesting implementation would be to have a toggle for melee combat. When entering combat, you are in offensive mode by default. But, you could toggle to defensive mode, a state in which your chance to hit and damage were reduced (but not crippled), but your passive defense bonuses were increased signficantly. In this scenario, the toggle could be a free move, costing no HAM. This would give you some active, tactical choices, without hurting your HAM. You could bounce back and forth between offensive and defensive stances during a single fight, as the situation changed.

But, I'll take what I can get. Almost anything would be better than the nothing we have now.

My ideas that I stated above were not meant to be "in place of"...but "in addition too".

Our core defenses as they stand should "WORK" first.

What I was saying was that if there is a special defense button then it indeed should be

1) Different for every Melee class ie Dodge parry for us,
more elaborate blocks for Pikes & Swordsmen etc

2) This move SHOULD have HAM implications, because
remember-they should have already FIXED and ADJUSTED
our existing defense FIRST.

3) HAM should not be destroyed from uses of this button;
but make me use it strategically make it be
profession specific.. we use a bit of mind or action
OR AT A COST TO A SECONDARY STAT.


Hopefully this clears some things up.

Here is an interesting thought:

You havea defensive special action, say /defense.

When you punch that special, it doesn't cost you any HAM, but it sets your character to a "defensive" state.

While in that state, your character will attempt to dodge/parry any melee attack that comes in. If you succed, you don't take any damage from the attack, but you do suffer some minor HAM costs associated with the dodge/parry.

At any time, you can /enddefenseto take yourself out of the "defensive" state.

I think this would be easier to manage than a timed /tank command. It would also allow for more strategic choices about when to end the defensive posture.

Just a thought.

JB

I like /defensivemanuevers as the command.

Another possibility for implementation is varying stages of effectiveness. Like say you get +5 of it in several of the boxes in brawler and a couple more concentrated on a skill line in the advanced brawler professions, like for +10, +15. Let's call this skill Defensive Tactics, ftm.

So say at novice brawler you get +5 in Defensive Tactics, either make it so that the +5 make it last a certain amount of time or increase the chances that you will be dodging/parrying attacks. The higher you rise up in the brawler ranks you get more of this added in from several boxes. The more you have, the more effective the skill becomes. This is a good solution for the different advanced brawler professions. Each profession should get a different amount of it so everyone does not become the same at dodging/parrying.

They could even put in /defensivemanuevers1 and /defensivemanuevers2 and so on, instead, with each skill being better than the other.

This should also get a flashing animation like berserk. Two crossed swords with a circle backdrop should be cool for the icon and would flash in the screen like the berserk icon does.