Teras Kasi Archive

While we wait for information to be released, I wanted to get an overall feel for where everyone thought TKs should be after the Combat Balance.



Scale:

(Lowest Importance/Weakest) 0 - 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7 - 8 - 9 - 10 (Highest Importance/Strongest)

1. Offense (overall)
   
   
2. Defense (overall)
   
   
3. Skills
   
   
   • Meditation
     
     
   • Powerboost
     
     
   • Force of Will
     
     
   • Targeted Pool Attacks
     
     
   • Random Pool Attacks
     
     
   • Defenses versus States
     
     
   • Melee/Ranged Defenses and/or Toughness

THIS IS JUST FOR ME TO GET AN OVERALL FEEL FOR WHAT YOU THINK WE SHOULD BE LIKE POST-COMBAT BALANCE.





And then Comments if you have something you would like to add



Please keep responses in a similar format, but if you would like to break it down further or generalize more that is fine as well.

(Lowest Importance/Weakest) 0 - 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7 - 8 - 9 - 10 (Highest Importance/Strongest)

1. Offense (overall) - 6 - I think we should be strong enough to hold our own, but I think a lower overall offensive power more adequately represents a Martial Aartist watching for an opening and exploiting it to take down their opponent.
   
   
   
   
2. Defense (overall) - 10 - We should be able to evade (block and counter) attacks without an equal. As unarmed combatants in a weapon dominant world we must learn to avoid damage in any way, watching for an opening, and then taking down our opponent.
   
   
   
   
3. Skills
   
   
   • Meditation - 9
     
     
   • Powerboost - 5
     
     
   • Force of Will - 4
     
     
   • Targeted Pool Attacks - 8
     
     
   • Random Pool Attacks - 6
     
     
   • Defenses versus States - 7
     
     
   • Melee/Ranged Defenses and/or Toughness - 10

Comments:



A couple of things to note, this is MY OPINION AS A PLAYER and not my opinion as Correspondent. As Correspondent I represent the Community, not my personal objectives.



Now that that is out of the way, I'll explain my thoughts more. While trying to keep balance among the other professions in mind, and trying to figure out unique roles for each instead of each profession basically being a rehash of every other profession just with different weapons and one or two unique attributes, I felt a different type of change might give us even more of an unique role. Generally emphasis is placed on watching an opponent, evading damage, and exploiting a weakness to defeat them in traditional unarmed Martial Arts. Technically each Melee Profession would be considered a different type of Martial Style, and general practice is that an armed opponent uses the weapons to do more damage than the unarmed opponent. That is why I ranked Overall Offense lower than what you probably expected.



Defensively the same could be argued, but not from an aspect of evasion instead of blocking. Realistically I doubt we will ever be "the" defensive profession, but I think it would be a great niche for TKs to fill. An unarmed Martial Artist should be able to evade hits.



Skills are a tough call. Meditation definitely makes us unique, but you'll notice I ranked Powerboost fairly low. This is not because Powerboost is not useful, but because it is a skill I rarely use. Generally I'll use food or Doc buffs if I choose to be buffed, and otherwise just go unbuffed completely with food hotkeyed if I get in a pinch. Powerboost just is not something I use often.



I ranked all attacks fairly high because of the different styles of Martial Arts. Some attacks will be focused to end the fight, while others may be generally aimed to wear down an opponent over soem time if it is known that a single attack will not end the fight.



Force of Will is definitely a valuable skill to have, but in its current incarnation is not as useful as it could be, and thusly rarely used. Mainly that is why I ranked it lowest on the list.



Defenses I ranked highest due to the way I described the profession above.










Now, feel free to post yours and debate, but remember that this is friendly discussion while we wait for Official Information, and just something I wanted to get feedback on. If it gets out of hand I'll ask for the Thread to be locked. Also remember that this is strictly my personal opinion and will only be represented to the Developers if the Majority of the Community agrees, have no fear in me being just in that respect.

Message Edited by Ryutek on 09-14-2004 04:58 PM

1. Offense (overall) 8: We should be able to do significant damage (especially to get states on our enemy)
   
2. Defense (overall) 7: Should be well balance profession with good defense and offense.

1. Skills

- Meditation 9: it is a very useful skill tka's have

• Powerboost 8: also useful
  
• Force of Will 5: although it is useful, i find it doesn't work quite right and don't see a huge need for it..thats IMHO
  
• Targeted Pool Attacks 10 : Martial arts you know where you are attacking and target specific areas to weaken your enemy
  
• Random Pool Attacks 1: Teras Kasi shouldn't have too much random pool attacks.
  
• Defenses versus States 6: should be gooddefvs states because they have learned how to take advantage of these abilities andmake them work against the enemy
  
• Melee/Ranged Defenses and/or Toughness 4: should have decent melee defense, but not a great amount of ranged defense (teras kasi shouldn't have the need. they keep their prey close when they attack)

unless i read the post wrong... i used the numbers to put each of these in order of importance.

Offense and defense should be both average. That's kind of how we are now already. I like being the ones that can hold our own both offensively and defensively and still be balanced.

As for skills...

Meditation - 10. This should be what sets us apart from other professions, the one really cool thing that TKAs do. I think that if we get any new abilities after the revamp that they should be part of meditation.

Powerboost - 7. I love powerboost but we have to be careful not to let it be too powerful. I've heard rumors that buffs in general will be nerfed during the revamp (and I hope that's true) and that might make powerboost look too strong. At the same time, don't weaken it too much if it's needed or it won't even be worth using.

Force of Will - 5. It's a cool ability and can save your life, but like powerboost it's one of those things that can become overbalancing easily. Even more than powerboost. I pretty much like how it works now.

Targeted Pool Attacks - 6. The flexibility we have now is good, where we can target any pool we want. Actually, if they do make mind healable in the revamp, that will be even more important than before since PvP won't be all about who can attack the mind pool the best. We don't need those pool attacks to be really powerful either, I think it's good enough that we can team up with a specialist (someone who's really good at hitting only one pool).

Random Pool Attacks - 3. I simply don't like them much. Well, random attacks like Unarmed Hit X are ok, I guess what I dislike more are the combo attacks. They don't target a single pool *or* do a lot of damage. I'd like to see the combo attacks get replaced, honestly, maybe with more defenses.

Defenses versus States - 6. Our defenses aren't awful but I'd like to have more if possible. I think more stun defense and some intimidation defense would be cool.

Melee/Ranged Defenses and/or Toughness - 8. Actually I think these are fine for the most part. What I'd like is to get Defense Acuity working better. DA should be equivalent to other evasion... Like +50 DA should work as well as +50 Dodge. The fact that we're limited to +96 is enough to limit us, and we can't stack it with any other profession either.

Meditation

9 - This to me is what makes a TK a TK, our meditation abilities should open up all sorts of enhancements to us but only one at a time, the ability to have an extension to skills such as Center of Being for a short time maybe, just generaly ways to enhance our selves & give us our own play styles between all the TK that are around at the moment.

Powerboost

5 - It's a skill which I love but as I have said in Meditation there should probably be more types, differnt enhancements which we can run one of at a time.

Force of Will

7 - It is another of the skills which sets TK apart from other proffesions in my opinion, but it is commonly dabled in, I belive as it works now is fine but it needs more of a boost at master.

Targeted Pool Attacks

7 - I belive them to be important but a couple of months ago were we not told that Target Pool attacks would now only have more of a chance of hiting that part of the body? I'd quite like to see the ability to hit certain points of the body, say aim for the right arm as maybe they are not wearing armour there, things like that. I belive this is how Combo hits were supposed to work, to pick up holes in armour like that but there does seem to be a bug where having only some bits of armour acts like you are wearing a full set.

Random Pool Attacks

6 - not as important as Targeted Pool but this is where we should be very strong, the ability to land states should be with these as well (as it is now) & these should be the deciding hits, although I prefer doing my damage with targeted pool hits I also like to make sure my opponant has as many states on them as I can land, these states should come from our powerful random pool hits.

Defenses versus States

4 - I belive this is where we should be quite low with possible exception of Stun & Intim (ones that are normaly low on other proffesions should be a bit higher for us at Master). Also Deffence vs KD should possibly be raised from what it is now, not by much but enough so we can take a couple of hits, maybe tie it in more with DA.

Melee/Ranged Defenses

2 - I belive this is where we should be at our worst, nearly all hits should stand a very high chance of been on target for us, then our DA & Toughness should come in to play.

Toughness

9 - Our ability to take hits should be second to none, the ability to absorb much of the damage from a hit is another thing that is more TK then anything else in my opinion but of course this should come with down sides as well, for example the lack of Ranged & Melee Deffence I have mentioned already but also maybe lower it with the encumbernce of the armour which is worn so we cannot become as we do now & be able to take near any hit.

Deffence Accuity

8 - I know you didn't ask for this one but I thought I'd add it anyway as it plays an important roll in my view of a TK's deffence. I belive that this is where what happens with the hits comes in to play more then anything, either we Dodge it, causing no hit, no state. We may Counter Attack so we take some damage but we turn it around a bit & inflict a hit on the opponant. We may Block, further reducing the damage we take on the final outcome but still causing damge, then of course we could do nothing & the toughness takes it. Which of course is how it works now how ever it needs some fixing, there simply should be more chance of this working, as with the exception of evading the attack all together we still take the damage but how it effects us changes. I belive this to be a strong part of been a TK yet, like on all other proffesions, there should be ways around it which lower it happening, it should be a strong deffence but a breakable one.

This is just a quick brush by and is only my opinion. I think TK is working like it should. It is a high powered profession, but has the limitations when someone is using composite armor. The defense is terrible on the TK, regardless of what ppl say. It compliments quite nicely though because you can't have a high offense and high defense, that's unbalanced.

As for skills, mediitation and force of will are invaluable to me. I love being able to heal wounds by myself and avoiding the db's when i'm incapped when something suddenly makes it past the armor. The power boost i think can be done away with. It is a temporary "buff", but like some ppl have stated on the forums, it almost makes the tk too self sufficient.

As for Pool attacks, nice to have andshould bepart of the offensive area of the TK.

Defense against states, Tk's have that? Again, one of the weaknesses for having the good offense and the ability to meditate, force of will, and power boost.

Closing: Again, i think TK is working like it should. The only complaint i have is not being able to do any other damage besides kinetic. I've seen some post relate to Martial Arts and defending themselves and what have you. We can't go off of real life, otherwise things would beall sorts of retarded. Ranged profs would kill all melee in a single head shot before the melee could get within range, a real master swordsman (one who studies Iaido, kendo, etc.) would be able to kill someone is one slice of the sword, etc.... We must not related to real life but rather what would balance the profession in relation to the other professions.

Added my responses above

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Ryutek wrote:
While we wait for information to be released, I wanted to get an overall feel for where everyone thought TKs should be after the Combat Balance.

Scale:

(Lowest Importance/Weakest) 0 - 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7 - 8 - 9 - 10 (Highest Importance/Strongest)

1. Offense (overall) 6
   
2. Defense (overall) 9
   
3. Skills
   
   
   
   
   • Meditation 10
     
   • Powerboost 6
     
   • Force of Will 8
     
   • Targeted Pool Attacks 4
     
   • Random Pool Attacks 10
     
   • Defenses versus States 8
     
   • Melee/Ranged Defenses and/or Toughness 9

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