Pikeman Archive
Thread: News from TC
I would argue that overpowering TKA's can have a few possible negative consequences for other melee classes:
- Center of Being or other melee skills get nerfed vicariously.
- Thedifficulty of building acommunity of players for any other melee profession simply because there are not enough reasons to play any other melee class over TKA.
- Other melee classes are unable to compete in their niche because of the existence of many players in that niche using another much more powerful class.
- The possibility that balance will begin and end with Teras Kasi and will never get to us, leaving SOE satisfied that brawler professions are "fixed".
It might be alright if SOE is really thinking along the lines that you indicate, but I find it hard to believe this is so. TKA's have always been ahead of the curve. They have always had great damage, versatile specials, and good skill mods -- along with the meditation tree. I have to worry that SOE will overbalance them, possibly nerf, find a good spot for them and never touch the other classes from where they are right now (partially because by far the largest audience of brawlers on themain discussion forums are TKA's).
And of course, the value and "fun" of being a fencer drops rather a lot if TKA's are just that much better at everything you try to do. Right now I will probably take at least two TKA branches just because they are very good and it's hard to finda reason not to just take the other two and have done with it.
We don't want the main result of this patch to be that a lot of TKA's take the Fencerstances line.
So, I'm concerned but also patient. We need to test out the delay caps. I need to make a new batch of every melee weapon (fortunately I just got a good supply of new resources for this) and see if there are any upgrades. And we shouldn't overreact although, imo, we should also be ready to make some noise if TKA's go in as too powerful with still not enough for the other melee professions. That doesn't mean necessarily calling out for a nerf (that will happen anyway), but rather simply making sure that everyone is well informed of the state of TKA's and the state of other melee professions.
--- Flynn and Gaffyn McDonnell
I updated this a bit.
It now includes better accounting for the changes and the start of a comparison between classes.
Take a look at the overall changes to Fencer skill mods and the comparison between Fencer skill mods and swordsman. Wow. +50 to ranged and melee mods. +40 to accuracy. Etc. There's a lot towork with there. Of course that also means that a lot of people will just take the Fencer Stances line. Hmph.
Now, I just really, really hope that there is a change in the speed cap for fencer weapons. With that in, I think I won't be able to help but pick up fencing again.
--- Flynn and Gaffyn McDonnell
This is great news I can't wait for it to go live I will be much much much better. When will it go live?
I rather hope this does NOT go live very soon.
Why?
Because the code is chock full of bugs. SOE unleashed the last patch early (even though we TC'ers knew it was full of bugs) and that was a disaster for them and us.
We've had this now for 3 days and have had somewhere around a day of uptime. Right now you can't trade anything at all. /trade doesn't work. Bazaars don't work. Vendors don't work. Our workarounds are factory hoppers and droids. Kinda sad really. =P
Destroy missions are broken and lairs don't give xps when you destroy them.
There's weird sporadic lag that has nothing to do with your internet connection.
There are several crash to desktop issues.
And we haven't even started testing cities yet because there are no politician trainers!
. . .
So I wouldn't hold your breath. SOE said they rolled this one out to TC early to get in lots of extra testing. It will probably be a good while. Hopefully that good while is enough.
--- Flynn and Gaffyn McDonnell
Ok did I, or did I not read on his website that fencers now have MUCH better defenses than tka, or was that my imagination?? Think of EQ, maybe tka=monk, who does insane damage but can barely tank, and that fencers are now tanks, who can also do damage, but not as much as TKA. Not only would fencers have better defenses, but if we could also wear armor think how hard we would be to hit, and thus tougher in PvP and very useful in PvE. I dunno if this is what sony is going for but from the looks of it, we are now going to be a tanking class, who are basically impossible to hit! I would LOVE that, as than I could have the defenses of a fencer, and the damage of a TKA! Oh gosh that would make me so very very happy. But maybe I am just assuming too much, and you know what they say about assuming, it makes and ass of u and me. HAHA, man that's the oldest one in the book. But seriously, if as he says they didn't improve TKA defenses, we now OWN tka on the defensive stats. (105 dodge! WOWOW!) Plus we have 100 accuracy now, which would mean we actually HIT in pvp. But like raph always says, it might not come into play that way, maybe they are just starting high and gunna lower it till it feels right. But whatever the case, IT"S VERY PROMISING!
-Manwe
PS, and maybe(being positive) TC can't do trades because there are 100 new 1h swords out there! Or maybe just 5 new, but either way!
As a Master Fencer I expect to be able to compete w/ another Master TKA period.
As a Master Fencer I expect to be able to compete w/ a Master 2 Hand SwordsMan
As a Master Fencer I expect to be able to compete w/ a
Master Pikeman **dont laugh***
As a Master Fencer close range I should be able to destroy and Expert BountyHunter..even w/ his LLC.
As a Master Fencer I should not be one-up'd by any class w/ maybe the exception of Master BH or Commando.
As a Master Fencer I should be more viable in combat than a not even Master CH w/ 2 Greater Sludge Panthers **though it's not not that way right now**
I simply want to be competetive.
Re: the 'how I want to compare with others'
I'm fine with all of those except the one where you say you want to be comparable to a Ch with 2 sludge panthers. Thats stretching it a *lot*. That's saying that you want to be comparable to approximately 10 to 12 times your HAM and three sources of damage. 2, assuming the CH has no combat skills whatsoever.
In real life I am sure that an armored warrior skilled with, and using, one handed weapons, would probably be able to take on 1 panther/tiger/lion. 2 on one? The kitties would easily overwhelm him withattacks far faster than he could recover. Now if you throw in a creature handler presumably taking pot shots at you with a low end pistol (yousaid a CH with two pets, you implied that the CH would not have the skills you previously mentioined, i.e. he would not be skilled with weapons, however it is reasonable to expect him to have a CDEF pistol or something equivelent), you just throw the equation into wack.
I see no reason why a master fencer should be able to take on two sludge panthers at once. 1 sludge panther and a weakly skilled CH, sure. But give the CH some skills and healing packs and the fencer *should* be doomed.
Dillos wrote:
Unfortunately I don't think so,xdisparatex. TKA now will get Defense Acuity skill of +195 at master. Defense acuity is a combined dodge/counterattack/block all rolled into one and is almost twice as high as the fencers dodge skills at master.
Firstly, I think there's a typo in the TKA tree... I read somewhere that the Defensive Acuity bonus in ONE of the skill boxes is >100.
Secondly, you can't really compare numeric values for bonuses between different skills, because we don't know how they fit into the calculations. It could turn out that a +10 to Dodge is better than a +100 to Defensive Acuity. TC hasn't been up long enough for extensive testing on the new system to be done.
Erebr wrote:
Re: the 'how I want to compare with others'
I'm fine with all of those except the one where you say you want to be comparable to a Ch with 2 sludge panthers. Thats stretching it a *lot*. That's saying that you want to be comparable to approximately 10 to 12 times your HAM and three sources of damage. 2, assuming the CH has no combat skills whatsoever.
I think you're taking that a little too literally. The way I read it, he's saying a CH of comparable level to his level of Fencer shouldn't have access to an array of creatures that can take him out without breaking a sweat.
Well if it's true that tka have higher defense, damage, speed, and accuracy than fencer, than sony just sucks giant ass. BUT, I don't think that's true, they honestly couldn't be that stupid. It's just impossible. They would not, EVER, be stupid enough to put tka head, shoulders, chest, and balls above every other brawler profesision, it's gotta be a mistake. I just refuse to believe that's how it's gunna turn out, even for one patch, that would be sheer stupidity.
Oh and the fencer vs. 2 sludge panthers, fencers should be able to do SOMETHING with their special moves so that the sludge panthers are unable to hit him, or easier to hit, or something that would even the playing field. Like a tka, w/ knockdown, we should be able to do something to bring those big guys down to our level, or us up to theirs.
-Manwe
It's important to note that TKA's have this high defensive acuity (which I agree is probably at typo, but even at 100 less, is still a very large boost for them), can buff with meditate and have a much higher melee toughness.
The problem is that TKA's are on both ends of the spectrum. Whereas it looks like swordsman are being tweaked to be offensive masters with much less defense, and fencers are becoming more finesse with higher defenses and accuracy -- TKA's are gettingthe best defense and the best offense of any melee class.
Actually I really like how the three non-TKA classes are turning out. Depending on how speed caps go, fencers look as though they may soon be rather on-par with swordsman. Ok, pikemen probably still have some problems early on, but at master they're not that bad really. Together the three look pretty good.
But then TKA's just mess up the mix by being better in basically all dimensions and having this cool utility line tacked on top of that.
Againwe need to check out speed caps and weapon upgrades, if any. I'm not reserving my comments yet though because I have to imagine that, if anything, these will only benefit TKA's.
We'll see. If only Test Center would get back up.
---Flynn and Gaffyn McDonnell
Gab you said you were a weaponsmith? Could you make a vibro lance and a long vibro lance to see if they changed the stats on them? If my hunch is correct, they slowed us down significantly, added more damage, and reduced the ham.
Yes. It is really important to get weapons made to test their stats and to test out the delay caps. I plan on getting weapons made asap. I have pretty good materials so I should be able give a picture of any changes that have occurred to high quality melee weaponry (the only I can't check is that I cannot yet make advanced vibro units).
Unfortunately Test Center is -still- down. So no new news on this front.
--- Flynn and Gaffyn McDonnell