Fencer Archive
Thread: Effects of Publish 6 on Fencers
Ever since Raph has left us, this forum has degraded to post regarding who is more uber (TKM vs Blademaster usually), does dodge still stack, etc. No one is taking the appropriate actions to inform the community of what is going on with the upcoming patch.
Even more importantly with Publish 7 bringing us the combat rebalance, it is imperative that we obtain a new correspondent now. We absolutely need our voices heard as to not be passed over, ignored or even worse nerfed.
I'll leave that discussion for another time and thread, instead I'd like to focus on how the patch scheduled for Thursday the 12th effects us. (Small note, my TC installation is currently broken so I can't login until this is fixed).
State of defense stacking
Dodge/Counter/Block, melee/range defense and the various defense vs. stats still stack. There has been no nerf or any date given for such a nerf.
My gut feeling says it will be fixed in some way with the combat balance. The devs are aware of the problem/benefits of min/maxing defense mods, however have only stated that it is "being looked at".
Obviously this topic is very important to fencers who rely heavily on their defensive mods, and as I find out more information I'll keep you all posted.
Change to DOT (damage of time) attacks
First and most prominent is that DOTs no longer stack. You will no longer be able to apply one-handhealthhit1 then apply one-handhealthhit2 (Shim and Shim Shiek) and have both effect the target. This effectively means that once you are at Footwork 4, healthhit1 is now rendered obsolete.
Being that it is only a matter of two skill boxes, I believe we as a community need to decide the best way to handle this. It seems like an awfully big waste to be given a special that will be used for such a short time.
Now I haven't had a chance to test this yet, but I'm also hearing that the DOT effect has been drastically weakened. I'll try to get my set up fixed to test it out tomorrow and let you guys know what to expect.
With the exception of commandos and combat medics (who are not effected), Fencers probably are the most reliant on their DOT attacks of any combat profession. The DOT helped us compensate for the damage we lose verse the other melees. Unfortunately this change is already going through so be ready.
New Food Changes and the Imperial Crackdown
This is not an implicit change to Fencer but does effect us heavily.
Many of the popular mind foods have been retired or altered, most notably Fishak. While I haven't yet read all the way through the Chef revamp, my guess is that we won't be able to rely on those foods any longer. If anyone has information regarding this, please let us know 
.
Fortunately our day-to-day weapon (the Gaffi) has a rather low mind cost (about 18) so it won't hurt us as badly as say the riflemen. It does affect the stun baton which tends to be more mind intensive (around 45).
Now what does the crackdown have to do with this? Well with the change to chef food, it looks like we will be more reliant on Muon Gold. However Muon, being a spice, is now considered contraband.
Rebels caught with it can be Tef'd and forced into a PVP situation. This isn't the place to argue about the merits of such a system, but I did want to let the community be aware of it. Imperials are not immune to the scans, and do take a faction and/or rank loss when caught with banned items (penalty depends on what the Devs settle on when they push it to live).
*Note - Corrections to this made in following post*
New Weapons and Schematics
Some combat classes are receiving new weapons. Most notably are the new Stun pistols and the Two-hand Scythe. Others are having their weapons fixed (Pikeman).
There appears to be no change to any Fencer related weapon. The only exception is the Rantok sword which may receive a boost through the improved reward system. Of course this will only effect post-change weapons, so all the old Rantoks floating around will not change. Fortunately the Devs have put in a system where if you completed the Jabba quest, you can do it over and obtain the new sword.
To keep the sword place it in your backpack, house or deposit box. When you go to finish the mission, they will make you do it again. This allows you to finish the quest but retain the sword.
It is important that we make our concerns and comments heard in a constructive way. Flaming is not the answer (look at the BH forum). This was once a great community and I'm still impressed by the knowledge some of you impart on others.
You don't have to be an english major to get your point across, but please try to use paragraphs and punctuation. If someone doesn't have to fight the style of your writing it makes it much easier to understand your message. Try to remain clear and concise with details where appropriate.
We are at a tremendous disadvantage with no direct line of communication to the Devs. However if we pull together as a community I believe we can make it through this situation.
Feel free to make any corrections and comments (I would hate to spread misinformation).
Thanks for your time,
Message Edited by Kaynab on 02-09-2004 10:58 PM
Message Edited by Kaynab on 02-10-2004 09:34 AM
Well, I am very involved in the chef revamp as I am Chef plus 4243 fencer. I can tell you not to worry too much about the disappearance of Fishak. There is a new mind food called Vasarrian Brandy that when experimented on properly can do around +400 to mind and it's secondaries. That's only 100 less than muon, but without any downer. And if the filling is done well, you should be able to pop several of these at once giving you a nice 1200-1600 total mind buff for roughly 30 minutes.
Nice job Ro !
I guess im just gonna keep my build and just wait till combat patch to see exactly what they will change.
It's awsome though that you took the time to research this info for all us Fencers out here !
Keep up the good work !
Kaynab wrote:
Change to DOT (damage of time) attacks
First and most prominent is that DOTs no longer stack. You will no longer be able to apply one-handhealthhit1 then apply one-handhealthhit2 (Shim and Shim Shiek) and have both effect the target. This effectively means that once you are at Footwork 4, healthhit1 is now rendered obsolete.
Being that it is only a matter of two skill boxes, I believe we as a community need to decide the best way to handle this. It seems like an awfully big waste to be given a special that will be used for such a short time.
Kaynab wrote:
and do take a faction and/or rank loss when caught with banned items (penalty depends on what the Devs settle on when they push it to live).
Laeren wrote:
You're speaking solely on the basis of someone proceeding onto higher levels of Fencer (to mastery, presumably). For Fencer dabblers, this is just fine where it is, and there is no reason to make it any better or different based on higher-level bleeds. Not everyone will be proceeding up to Footwork 4.
Lord_Anakin wrote:
Kaynab wrote:
and do take a faction and/or rank loss when caught with banned items (penalty depends on what the Devs settle on when they push it to live).
Please visit the GCW boards, the actual penalties for imps are there. There is no rank or faction loss, there are some penalties dependant on your rank. But nothing as severe as it once was.
. I hadn't read this thread yet.Thank you MutantSquirrel, the brandy had completely slipped my mind (heard the guild chef talking about it in /gu). This is exactly the kind of info I was hoping for
MutantSquirrel wrote:
Well, I am very involved in the chef revamp as I am Chef plus 4243 fencer. I can tell you not to worry too much about the disappearance of Fishak. There is a new mind food called Vasarrian Brandy that when experimented on properly can do around +400 to mind and it's secondaries. That's only 100 less than muon, but without any downer. And if the filling is done well, you should be able to pop several of these at once giving you a nice 1200-1600 total mind buff for roughly 30 minutes.
.
Barsabbas wrote:
As far as weapons go, let's make the stun baton usuable and more balanced with the jawa rifle. Rifleman deal out so much dmg that it makes our little stun batons look really puny, not to mention they burn more hams than the jawa. Other than the stun baton (which i thought was supposed to make the profession special until i saw a good jawa rifle) i think we're good on weapons, especially considering the defenses and COB mods we get.
I actually like the Stun Baton where its at. Of course it took me buying 20 of them, getting them sliced and one obtaining a 34% damage slice to get one I truly found useful.
If the Crackdown does work and slicing becomes much less desired, the Stun baton will suffer. I'd like to run the numbers comparing a Gaffi, VibroBlade and Stun baton against various targets to see where it becomes more useful. I have a feeling that the Stun baton only becomes truly useful when the kinetic resist is above 50-60%.
If anyone is on Ahazi and would like to help, send me a /tell in game. (Preferebly I need someone who can wear armor, so that counts you out Domax 
).
Kaynab wrote:
Laeren wrote:You're speaking solely on the basis of someone proceeding onto higher levels of Fencer (to mastery, presumably). For Fencer dabblers, this is just fine where it is, and there is no reason to make it any better or different based on higher-level bleeds. Not everyone will be proceeding up to Footwork 4....As soon as you start basing revisions on dabblers, the better chance you have of being nerfed.>Its not fair to suggest or make changes that only affect the hybrid Fencers, when the majority of us use Fencer as our sole combat profession while suplimenting it with something else (Ranger, Bio-engr, Weaponsmith, etc).
Agreed. Or like me, we don't suppliment Fencer with any other combat profession at all.