Fencer Archive
Thread: Important TC Patch Info 11/26/2003
I wanted to show you some new information about the new patch that impacts Fencers. There is more than this, but it either doesn't impact Fencers directly, or was already known.
1. Added to-hit bonus for melee vs. rangedweapon attacks
This is a replacement for the damage multipliers and a sub-feature for the damage mitigation addition (detailed below). If you use a ranged weapon against a melee combatant, you will be easier to hit.
2. Damage Mitigation
Damage Mitigation is an ability to reduce the maximum potential damage output inflicted by your opponent. There are two forms... Ranged Mitigation and Melee Mitigation. As Fencers, we have Melee Mitigation.
There are three levels of Mitigation that you progress through on your path to Master Fencer.
- Mitigation 1 = 20% damage range reduction
- Mitigation 2 = 40% damage range reduction
- Mitigation 3 = 60% damage range reduction
What this does is reduce the MAXIMUM damage a melee-category weapon can do to you, not the whole scale.
For example, if a melee weapon is listed as 100-400 (Average damage of 250), and you have Mitigation 3 (60%), the damage is NOT reduced to 40-160. (Average damage of 100)
What is reduced is the offset of the maximum damage from the minimum. On the example weapon above(100-400), the base (minimum) damage is 100, and the maximum damage is offset by an additional +300. It is this +300 that is reduced by 60%, bringing it down to (300*0.4)= +120. Adding this +120 to the base damage we get a new maximum damage of 220.
Now the weapon's effective damage range is 100-220.(Average damage of 160)
This will not have a tremendous impact on weapons that do not havemuch offset between the minimum and the maximum damage values, such as lower-end mobs and player weapons. It was not designed to target these attacks (although it does help).
What thisis designed to do is to make it more practical for melee players to tank higher end mobs... instead of absolutely requiring creatures for this. The higher end mobs have a MUCH higher offset between their minimum and maximum damage values, so this mean a melee profession player will become a far more viable tank against such opponents.
In other words, the Devs have heeded to our wishes to claim a significant combat role during high-end encounters, whereas before all you needed was a creature, a medic,and some ranged players. Melee were optional, and often ineffective. This fixes that.
Oh, ranged professions get a ranged version of this that does the same thing against ranged attacks.
I'm very excited about this change! 
3. HAM Changes
The Developers are working on an experimental change to the way HAM is use for specials. They plan to bring it out in stages so each part can be examoined for validity. Just looking at any one part can lead to exaggerated expectations both positive and negative, so until the entire system is revealed it might be hard to see the end result.
Phase One:
Now the HAM cost from executing a Special Attack Move is not directly deducted form your current HAM pools. Incoming damage form an oppoent's attack still is, however. Instead, HAM costs are deducted from the maximum value of the HAM pools. If the cost of a Special Attack Move is greater than your current HAM pool's maximum, then it cannot be performed. This means that you cannot incapacitate yourself through the use of Specials.
Example: You begin with 1000 Health. You execute a special that costs 100 Health which reduces your maximum Health to 900. You are hit with 200 Health damage which reduces your current Health down from 900 to 700, but your Maximum remains at 900. You then execute another 100 Health special and it brings your maximum down to 800, but your current remains at 700. You execute another special (a big one) that costs 300 Health. This brings your maximum Health from 800 down to 500. Since 500 maximum Health is less than the 700 you previously had in current Health, your current Health mustobviously be dropped to the new 500 maximum.
What this accomplishes is the alieviation of both incomming attacks and performing specials to be eating away at your current HAMs in the same manner, and will permit you to avoid making yourself as vulnerable as the way HAMs used to work. ... this is a good thing.
Ok, now for the second part of the equation.Some of you will like this, and some of you will not. At this time I must reinforce the knowledge that none of this is set in stone, and subject to tremendous change as the need arises.
The "damage" (if you can call it that) to your maximum HAM pool size.... is NOT healable via Stimpacks. A Stimpack can still heal damage done to you by an attack, but only up to your current maximum. This is going to require a change in strategies for many of us that used the occasional Stimpack. (And any of you Doctor/Melees out there that were constantly boasting and bragging all over the place about how effective you were in melee combat... guess where that just got you?) In fact, part of this change was to allow us combat professions to be able to be effective without requiring a SWG PhD. Just a wee bit of Medic ability is going to take you a long way, since you won't we worrying about healing Specials costs.
Hold on... before you panic... that's not all. We aren't left this way. The maximum value of you HAM pool can be restored! In fact, it regenerates. Not at the same old creepy crawly rate that your regular healing regeneration provides. The damage from specials is on it's own timer completely independant of the regular regeneration rate. In fact, the damage form each special you perform is on it's own regen timer.
To find the regeneration rate, take the total HAM cost of your special (to that pool) and divide it by 25. This is the regnerate rate "per second." I put "per second" in parenthesis because the "ticks" may not be exactly on the 1second interval... but the total regeneration rate is the same. In short, regardless of how much HAM a special uses, it will be completely restored within 25 seconds of when performed that special.
This is a very significant regeneration rate... and the nice thing is... you didn't require Doctor buffs to have it.
The good: You no longer have to either BE a Doctor or have access to Doctor buffs to be a competant melee profssion. Yes, Doctor buffs will give you a larger HAM pool which helps. But by reducing the negative impact of performing special on your HAM, and the greatly accellerated rate at which it regenerates, we can last much longer in combat before requiring any healing.
The bad: You must now be more observant of the use and timing of specials. You cannot bring yourself down to a bare minimum HAM and pop a Stim to make it all better. When you get a reasonable ways down in maximum HAM, you will want to fall back on regular attacks for a few seconds to allow your maximum to regenerate. You will want to time the use of your big Stims to when you maximum HAM pool is higher rather than lower, and have some small Stims on hand for when your maximum HAM is lower. Not that big of a "bad"... we just have bene presented with a system that relies a bit more on strategy than it did before.
4. Extended Range
Extended all weapon ranges under 10 meters out to 10 meters. This should diminish the number of "out of range" messages you get due to server-client synch issues. Woot! This should be a nice boon to us Fencers!
Please place your comments on these changes below. I will ask that if you have not experienced these changes first hand that you do not go berserk with your comments on this. It's very hard to envision the reality of this new potential "proposed" system jsut through the description. I know that when I first heard it described I paniced. It took quite a bit of discussion with the Developers intentions, and some clues as to where they are going with this before I could see the beauty in this system. My hopes are that I described it here well enough that I don't inspire that same panic.
Please include with your comments whether your opinions are strickly from your understanding of the concepts I detailed here, or if you went to TC and experienced them first hand. I'll be relaying this information back to the Developers.
~Lyahpar~
La Femme Fencer
"Thrust if you love Fencers!"
Message Edited by Raphayl on 11-26-2003 06:39 PM
Message Edited by Raphayl on 11-26-2003 06:51 PM
Raphayl wrote:
The "damage" (if you can call it that) to your maximum HAM pool size.... is NOT healable via Stimpacks. A Stimpack can still heal damage done to you by an attack, but only up to your current maximum. This is going to require a change in strategies for many of us that used the occasional Stimpack. (And any of you Doctor/Melees out there that were constantly boasting and bragging all over the place about how effective you were in melee combat... guess where that just got you?)
That little part in ( ) is by far the funniest thing I've read all day
This is like replacing stims with regeneration rate, thus we're depending on regeneration rate much more than using stims, which I'm not sure if it's a good idea.
However, what I can see beneficial about this is the mind pool.
Greetings,
"3. HAM Changes"
Sounds like a complete disaster waiting to happen. Just when I though things (for the game overall) where getting better, they try and do something as stupid as this.
Enjoy!
Will there be an indecater(sp) on the ham bar that shows how much of our 'maxium' pool for specials is remaining? Other then that, I like the new HAM system purposal so far.
Hmm...
I'm a doctor/fencer type and I don't like the idea of the HAM changes. I won't be able to heal myself to the level of my maximum HA? That doesn't sound right. I haven't "bragged" that I was all powerful or anything, but now after just starting playing this game they are nerfing my character.
just making a comment,
You fencers are very lucky to have Raph. I come here to your boards whenI need to find some information on weapons, damage or otherwise. What I see everywhere else is, at least to me, undecipherable explanations of how things work, what I see here is, decipherable ones.
Good job Raph, keep it up
and thankyou
Heh, i'm hoping once the entire HAM system gets revealed, it will be alot better, because right now, this "solution" is the wrong way to go. It actually [i]punishes[/i] you for trying to kill something faster. Yes, you can just spam specials anymore, but now you have to just sit there and beat at it with the normal auto-attack half the time, while you still take dmg. The more you do specials, the faster you will die, it seems now.
The new HAM system is garbage. 25 seconds to fully heal a special usage? c'mon. battles against a single creature (save for the big nasties) hardly last 25 seconds currently.
I know that this doesn't wholly apply here, but about those of us who use the brawler skills to aid in the fencing? they are still VERY much broken and with the new HAM system it'll be impossible to make good use of a brawler skill. Case in point, I am a master brawler and love to make use of both intimidate and warcry. These in fact take more ham away than any other special i use (i only special with a vb).
Both intimidate and warcry are still broken in their success rates, despite being proclaimed as fixed. So now, if i warcry2 for eg, it costs me 171 ham, if i miss, i like trying it again, sometimes it actually takes me about 4-5 tries to connect (broken, b/c I have many fear releases in my clothes and it still has the long spells of failures far too often), then all i have to do is heal up. Now if i miss, i have to wait 50 secs (i can only imagine using it twice in a row) to try it again? not to mention the fact that i still intend to use intim2 and at least a lunge2, a dizzy2, and both health hits somewhere along this process? WOW, gj devs. this doesn't make it more strategic, it just makes it much more time consuming 
since our new defenses (which are sounding quite nice indeed) combined with our current ones will most likely keep us alive to allow for the regeneration.
I am aware that this is indeed only phase 1 of the HAM fixes, but if the following phases have similar "strategic" intentions as this one, I'm switching to master chef (not meant as a joke, i heard they are being made awesome now).
I'm sorry, but the HAM cost change sounds aweful.If anything, this will make being a doctor more of a requirment so that you can buff your max HAMthusactually be able to use specialls and survive the 25sec regen timer, not to mention the advanatage of reduced HAM costs via buffage.
The Gaffi stick has a high Health/Action and a low mind cost. Stims are what makes the Gaffi stick usable, and quite good. Toss the advantage of stims and you might as well toss the Gaffi stick. Don't even think of using a Stun Baton. Your max ham will be in the 1 hit kill range in about 5 seconds, much less the 25 sec regen time. Don't forget the high HAM costs of warcry/intim/CoB. All of this goes double if youPvP and need to migrate your stats around composit to protect from all of the acid/heat/energy/etc attacks ranged types use.
Again I'm sorry, but I think this change, should it go live, will just leave non doctors at an even greater disadvantage. Docs have more Max HAM to burn and they can greatly reduce, and even totally negate,the effect of HAM costs on weapons via secondary buffs. The rest of us have neither advantage and would only be hurt by this.
Thanks for the info, raph
but i dont' like this.....new HAM cost system....hmm....make us a one hit kill target if use specials.
Tover wrote:
I'm sorry, but the HAM cost change sounds aweful.If anything, this will make being a doctor more of a requirment so that you can buff your max HAMthusactually be able to use specialls and survive the 25sec regen timer, not to mention the advanatage of reduced HAM costs via buffage.
The Gaffi stick has a high Health/Action and a low mind cost. Stims are what makes the Gaffi stick usable, and quite good. Toss the advantage of stims and you might as well toss the Gaffi stick. Don't even think of using a Stun Baton. Your max ham will be in the 1 hit kill range in about 5 seconds, much less the 25 sec regen time. Don't forget the high HAM costs of warcry/intim/CoB. All of this goes double if youPvP and need to migrate your stats around composit to protect from all of the acid/heat/energy/etc attacks ranged types use.
Again I'm sorry, but I think this change, should it go live, will just leave non doctors at an even greater disadvantage. Docs have more Max HAM to burn and they can greatly reduce, and even totally negate,the effect of HAM costs on weapons via secondary buffs. The rest of us have neither advantage and would only be hurt by this.
I'm a TKM/MD so I'm probably biased. However, anyone can pay for a doctor buff (or have a guild doc / friend doc buff them for free) so I don't think it leaves non Doctors out. It may just give more incentive to get the buffs if one were to want to spam specials.
Good doctor buffs can last well over 2 hours, which is probably more than the play timefor the majority of players.It shouldn't be hard to make the money for buffs back. Full buffsusuallygo for around 5 to 10 k on my server and thatcanbe made back in 1 set of missions on an advancedplanet pretty easily.
However, since fencers have a working CoB (unlike TKs currently) and with the added melee damage mitigation they are adding, maybe buffs won't be needed at all.
I dropped doctor for a bit, and did fine (this is just as a master brawler / novice TK - no CoB, no damage mitigation) since knockdown (lunge2) followed by warcry2 (with BE clothing) is very nice against creatures. So I doubt that doc will be seen as needed with CoB and added damage mitigation. I only worked back up to MD when I found my wife really missedrez andcure disease.
I'm waiting until I can copy my character to the test center before testing out new changes, so will wait to see how it goes from people there. I'll keep my fingers crossed and hope for the best.