Pikeman Archive
Thread: Ladies and Gentlemen, This is the purposed Fencer change, Please post YOUR thoughts, as a non-fencer
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BoyOfLight
Thu Apr 22, 2004 5:58 pm
#27
I like most of them , as an X Fencer/Swordsmen i say though that Ap2 weapons are ajoke....it makes the heavy swordsmen TOTALLY obsolete because a fencer has a much higher Dps then a MHS ( without Speed tapes ) as it is. Giving them AP2 makes them far more desired in ALL situations
HardwiredXMan
Thu Apr 22, 2004 11:38 pm
#28
Well, I'm a now retired but long time fencer......was a Master fencer for 4 months....considering that all I do is fight 24/7 (no time for sitting around for me...hehehe) I would say that I'm well intuned to what a fencer can, can't do and should do. I'm now a master pikeman and have dabbled in TKA and Swordsman also.....so I have seen some problems from many standpoints.
I can say that this guy is not trying to balance a profession (which is already balanced)but trying to balance a profession with the other melee professions.What we all need to remember is that the devs did not make this game for us to be able to solo all day and all night. It is based on the idea that we group and in grouping we need theservices of different professions to round out the group as a whole. So not all professions will be able to do everything that another profession can. THis is where a lot of people fail to realize the difference between balance game wise and balance profession wise. Of course each profession should be balanced enough that they can survive on their own from the usual roaming mid to high level mobs.....this means either have the ability to sneak by (Scouts and rangers), fight and win(when you have powerful weapons and specials like Pikes and swordsmen)or defend themselves long enough to get the hell out of dodge (when your enemy has 100% resist to all your damage types)......
One problem I see with fencer, which just about all combat professions suffer from, is the placement of the weapons in comparison to the level of the weapon. For example, no professions best or most powerful weapon should be given until you are at least half way into your elite profession or at worse, the master title. For fencers, they get their best weapon at 1 handed weapons 1 of the brawler tree (gaderiffi stick).....pikes also get their LVA way too soon...but basically there is no reason for a fencer to use any other weapon until he gets novice fencer for the stun baton.....even the vibro blade (AP1) is not worth using over the gaderiffi sticksimply because the maximum damage of the vibro blade is almost less than the minimum damage of the gaderiffi stick. I can't remember the last time I've seen any of the fencers weapons besides the gaderiffi stick and stun batonhave a max value of more than 220.
I agree that all weapons in every profession should be changed to reflect the level of the weapon. Meaning, you don't get your AP weapons at all until you reach certain levels in your elite profession. Then every profession should have at least 1 AP2 weapon.....even if fencers got a AP2 weapon, the damage ranges on their weapons are nearly half of what pikes and swordsmen weapons have, so they wouldn't gain any uberness with a AP2 weapon....in fact, they would still be on the lower end of the damage table due to the low min and max damages their weapons already have. Making a currently existing fencer weapon AP2 that only has a max damage of 190 (that's my ryyk) would only make that weapon do 440ish max damage. That's still lower than the avearage LVA before damage mods. AFter the damage mods, the LVA is more than double than 440 (actually nearly 2.5 times more, roughly about 1100). So ap2 on a 86 - 190 Ryyk blade would not be much of an overpowering change to fencer at all.....if anything it breaks a fencer even when fighting a medium AR mob and then those types of mobs have such a high HAM, that 190 max damage is nothing when your chipping away on a 50k HAM target like on the corvette and then I'm not even including resist to kinetic and stun either.
There is another problem with fencer thatcomes into play also when talking about damage output.....the devs have it right for the fencer to play a role (most likely tanking) in a group, but they failed in the fact that the person doing the most damage in a group gets the loot rights....this is one area that makes being fencer in a group a little disheartening as you have to rely on others truthfulness and hope they share (if possible)when your grouped....you tank your butt off, take all the damage, your armor decays from the hits your taking and you never get any loot drops unless your the uber dude in the group.....I can tell you this from experience.....so as a fencer, I mainly solo'd what I could and faired very well....otherwise if I wanted to group and fight high level mobs, I'd never gain anything from it.....I was already a master, so xp was not a reward and not getting loot rights means you can't even getthe crap lootoff the bodies......so solo I went. The only thing left for a master fencer in a group is something like the corvette and just plain fun fighting and chatting with others....but all in all, it gets old and kinda feels like your going to work 7 days a week but you don't get paid for it (no rewards)......
So from my experiences having playedas a master pikeman, a master fencer and no less than 3-3-3-3 in the other melee professions before, I have to say that fencer does need a little tweak with weapons......not to do big damage like pikes, but to increase the pitiful damage they do now......a master marksman can outdamage a master fencer given that the marksman has enough speed SEA's. As a master marksman, I was getting maximums of 2500 hits....I rarely reached that as a master fencer unless the target was KD......now that's sad in my opinion that a novice profession can outdamage an elite profession.
lastly, the damage range of all the melee professions are pretty much on par with each other except fencer which does only half the damage of pike, swordsman, tkm and doesn't have AP weapons to compensate.....so a fencer can hit for 1300 damage every second because they have +90 speed mods.....well, a pikeman can hit for 2800 every 2 seconds.....now who's doing more damage per second......Even if a fight last a long time, the pike's damage will still come out more than the fencer's......therefore, the speed of fencer does not play a part when your talking about master professions......the only thing that matters at master levels is the numbers of the weapons, which we can see are worlds apart.
An average gaderiffi (fencers best weapon) goes about 3.4 speed, 120 - 260 damage with no AP.......An average LVA (one of pikes best weapons, VL being the other) goes about 3.5 speed, 110 - 378 damage with AP2 (adds 25% more damage for each level of AP over the level of AR of your target)...effectively making the LVA a 3.5 speed, 130's - 470's when attacking a AR1 mob. The gaderiffi vs the same mob would effectively be 3.5 speed, 90's - 190's range.....That's 2.5 more damage the pike does over the fencer.
I'm just saying, give the fencers a couple more (maybe 2 more) AP1weaponsandone AP2 weapon....at the same time leaving the damage alone......while the devs are at it, increase the speed of the AP2 weapons to something like 5.0and throw another damage type in there......TKA's should get another damage type also with AP1. THis wouldn't unbalance anything, but will improve fencers damage and range of attacks.....I personally don't like that there are elite mobs in the game that each of the melee professions can't scratch because they have 100% resist to all your attacks......It would be cool if we could have a tradeoff being that we could have a higher defense vs their attacks also, then we could truely tank....but you have mobs that's 100% resistant to stun and kinetic, you can't damage them at all (except for bleeds which aren't much) but yet they still hit your for 1k hits, kill the condition on your armor and make your tanking effectiveness in a group less enjoyable and effective.....I mean even if I can't beat SHAQ down, I can poke him in the eye and blind him right, eye gouging has always been an effective combat technique....even martials arts teaches that, it's the pure basics...
But nooooooo, we can't even do statuseffects on them except once every 3000 hits and then it only last for 1.5 seconds.....LOL That's all I'm saying, if we can't have the defense against them, at least boost our status causing effectiveness to them or lower their defense vs things like blind, stun, dizzy.....give me a chance....otherwise it's like trying to poke a hole in a beam of steal with your thumb, it just aint gonna happen...
But nooooooo, we can't even do statuseffects on them except once every 3000 hits and then it only last for 1.5 seconds.....LOL That's all I'm saying, if we can't have the defense against them, at least boost our status causing effectiveness to them or lower their defense vs things like blind, stun, dizzy.....give me a chance....otherwise it's like trying to poke a hole in a beam of steal with your thumb, it just aint gonna happen...So, I don't totally agree with this guys post, but he does have a point....its just that he went overboard with the master title weapon and a few other things....all in all, I'd like to have some weapon tweaks with all professions.....too many I can think of to post here, maybe I'll make a new post about it.....however, with the revamp coming and the proposed speed changes, the changing of weapons might be irrelevant....but AP still needs to be looked at.......personally, I hope they change everything including Mob's resist and our ability to wear armor with medium and heavy AR......at the cost of encumberance and a little something new....which is, if you have on armor with heavy AR, then you won't be able to use some of your more agile specials like spin attacks and such.....for ranged professions, they should be restricted somehow too.....haven't figured that one out yet.........at worse, they could also increase the HAM cost of specials by 30% for every level of AR you have.......basically make the game a little more flexible.......
other than all of that, fencer is fine....hehehe
PoppaBear
Fri Apr 23, 2004 9:04 am
#29
Hello, Pikemen and Pikewomen! Believe me when I say that Zion doesn't speak for us all, and his words are HIS OPINION. Personally, I think the Fencer profession is just fine the way it is, but I do agree we need new weapons for us.
So please, don't take his post as him speaking for the entire Fencer community, but I'm also glad ya'll took the time to here him out and make comments on what you read. Also, I just started a Pikeman on Gorath, and I'm having as much fun with that as I am with Fencer. Take care!
PoppaBear
Fri Apr 23, 2004 9:05 am
#30
Hello, Pikemen and Pikewomen! Believe me when I say that Zion doesn't speak for us all, and his words are HIS OPINION. Personally, I think the Fencer profession is just fine the way it is, but I do agree we need new weapons for us.
So please, don't take his post as him speaking for the entire Fencer community, but I'm also glad ya'll took the time to here him out and make comments on what you read. Also, I just started a Pikeman on Gorath, and I'm having as much fun with that as I am with Fencer. Take care!
BoyOfLight
Fri Apr 23, 2004 11:57 am
#31
I'm just saying, give the fencers a couple more (maybe 2 more) AP1weaponsandone AP2 weapon....at the same time leaving the damage alone......while the devs are at it, increase the speed of the AP2 weapons to something like 5.0and throw another damage type in there......TKA's should get another damage type also with AP1. THis wouldn't unbalance anything, but will improve fencers damage and range of attacks
Umm by giving Fencer's an Ap2 weapon you are basically sticking the middle finger up to swordsmen who are right now the only Ap2 melee class. The only other melee class that should get an Ap2 weapon is pikeman ( this is coming from a holo-pike, not someone who is gunna be here for more then the next 2 1/2 days ).
With a powerhammer as a swordsmen i can weild a 5.4speed powerhammer at an extremly fast rate ( at master ), even giving a "new fencer weapon" this ability they would still swing much faster because their specials are much faster
Fencer's already have 2 damage types, one of which is insanly effective in pvp because of the very low stun resistance of most armours.
Tka are getting a new damage type ( which i think is ap1 ) but imo ( from a TKM ) the weapon itself is way to powerful and should be weaker then a vk, and be only used to fight against 100% kinetic mobs ( which was the reason tka were needing a new weapon )
I agree with however said that Zion basically wants to have all the benifits of the other melee professions without any drawbacks..this is ridicilious
Daros
Fri Apr 23, 2004 8:14 pm
#32
BoyOfLight wrote:
Umm by giving Fencer's an Ap2 weapon you are basically sticking the middle finger up to swordsmen who are right now the only Ap2 melee class. The only other melee class that should get an Ap2 weapon is pikeman ( this is coming from a holo-pike, not someone who is gunna be here for more then the next 2 1/2 days ).
Our Long Vibro Axe is AP2, just FYI...
I'm one of those who believe Swordsmen should get an AP3, and we stick with AP2 *ducks*. Just makes sense to me, but I'm weird that way. 
BoyOfLight
Fri Apr 23, 2004 9:02 pm
#33
Daros wrote:
BoyOfLight wrote:
Umm by giving Fencer's an Ap2 weapon you are basically sticking the middle finger up to swordsmen who are right now the only Ap2 melee class. The only other melee class that should get an Ap2 weapon is pikeman ( this is coming from a holo-pike, not someone who is gunna be here for more then the next 2 1/2 days ).
Our Long Vibro Axe is AP1, just FYI...
I'm one of those who believe Swordsmen should get an AP3, and we stick with AP2 *ducks*. Just makes sense to me, but I'm weird that way.
Oh wow i thought all pikes were ap2,....Well i dont think Swords should get an Ap3 actually and to be honest thats my favorite proffession of all time ( one of the first MHS ).....If u know how to play a swordsmen and make use of their specials and such and use the right weapons and the right combo's u can take anything outfast...Heck in old holo times i could beat out groups of 20 people for loot rights as it was.....an Ap3 weapon would be like saying ,,1,, to any heavy mob and all other melee proffessions
Message Edited by BoyOfLight on 04-24-2004 12:02 AM
Daros
Fri Apr 23, 2004 10:47 pm
#34
BoyOfLight wrote:
Oh wow i thought all pikes were ap2,....Well i dont think Swords should get an Ap3 actually and to be honest thats my favorite proffession of all time ( one of the first MHS ).....If u know how to play a swordsmen and make use of their specials and such and use the right weapons and the right combo's u can take anything outfast...Heck in old holo times i could beat out groups of 20 people for loot rights as it was.....an Ap3 weapon would be like saying ,,1,, to any heavy mob and all other melee proffessions
Message Edited by BoyOfLight on 04-24-2004 12:02 AM
Nah, they're all AP0, except the VL at AP1 and the LVA at AP2 (the Lance is AP0, right? I can never remember) NSEL is AP1, as well, like it matters.
Reason I say Swordsmen should get an AP3 is because they really are the damage profession, at this point, and that is the direction things seem to keep heading. Just as Rifleman is the ranged heavy damage profession, and gets AP3, so, I think, should Swordsmen. Again, just my opinion...
AndrewGoentzel
Sat Apr 24, 2004 9:41 am
#35
Daros i disagree with giving Heavy Swordsman an AP3 weapon, and citing rifleman for their heavy weapon is ridiculous. The T21 isn't uber until master when you get adv. strafeshot. If any profession should get and AP3 weapon it should be pikeman. Why? Because their weapons have damage stats similar to rifleman and have a higher speed. Giving Hvy. Swords an AP3 weapon would make it the End-All melee profession in the game, especially if the Powerhammer was AP3, with some high level mobs having low blast resist. This is coming from someone who was a Hvy. Swordsman and dropped it due the insane amount of damage that can be done. Dont mean to flame you Daros, but seriously AP3 on Hvy. Swords, just stop trying to convince the devs that you need it...cuz your prof doesnt. But thats my opinion i could be wrong.
Mystic_Squirrel
Sat Apr 24, 2004 3:28 pm
#36
Um... How about Fencers traded away their damage for the ability to tank anything in the game. As just a Master Fencer I could tank Krayts, NS elders (2 at a time), Super Battle Droids and pretty much anything you could find. With that insane ability to tank and high dmg Fencers would be incredibly overpowered in PvE.
Fencer does NOT need changes. You have Aklay bones now that make huge differences to your weapons, and while I doubt you will ever have a better AP1 weapon, its a small price to pay for massive defenses and Dodge out the wazoo.
Daros
Sat Apr 24, 2004 6:31 pm
#37
AndrewGoentzel wrote:
Daros i disagree with giving Heavy Swordsman an AP3 weapon, and citing rifleman for their heavy weapon is ridiculous. The T21 isn't uber until master when you get adv. strafeshot. If any profession should get and AP3 weapon it should be pikeman. Why? Because their weapons have damage stats similar to rifleman and have a higher speed. Giving Hvy. Swords an AP3 weapon would make it the End-All melee profession in the game, especially if the Powerhammer was AP3, with some high level mobs having low blast resist. This is coming from someone who was a Hvy. Swordsman and dropped it due the insane amount of damage that can be done. Dont mean to flame you Daros, but seriously AP3 on Hvy. Swords, just stop trying to convince the devs that you need it...cuz your prof doesnt. But thats my opinion i could be wrong.
Yea, you meant to flame me... admit it.
I did not say that the Power Hammer should be AP3, I said that Swordsmen should get an AP3 weapon... big difference there.
My turn to flame, yippie!
I'm not a swordsman, **edit**. Read my sig. Thank you very much.
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