Teras Kasi Archive

vexing, I appreciate the kind words, and I understand your reasoning (in that SOE wont want to code new systems etc.). But they asked us what we thought TKA should be, and so I (along with the rest of the board members) are just giving em what we think would be cool. If they are truly dedicated to making big changes, spend some of the millions of dollars a month they make on hiring more staff to work on each profession. Using the volume of code or work that has to be done to implement a new system as an excuse to not implement it is ridiculous. They added vehicles, mounts, and cities. Why cant they throw a few new things into TKA?

Hypatian-

I havent truly used TKA enough (even though I'm one skill away from mastering it. Yay!) to tell you where I see TKA as far as defenses/damage/debuffs. But I will say this- Instead of a focus on those categories, I would like to see a focus on strategy. You may think debuffs are strategy, and to a certain extent, they are. But I want to see real strategy, where you dont just spam your debuffs on everyone and say "oohh, check that man, I used alot of strategy to PWN that guy." I want certain weapons or abilities you have to decide on before the battle starts, so you have to check out an enemy before you blindly rush into battle. And so people can develop strategies for different opponents and share them here. I want this forum to be about the intracacies of TKA, not "BEST WAY TO GET UNARMED 4 PLZ READ!!!". Right now, and in the future if we only focus on your listed aspects of the profession, I don't see the potential for those kinds of intracacies.

I like tka fine as it is now, and honestly don't like the idea of changing anything again.

Alright.

I have a few problems with the template he laid out for the Teras Kasi proffession.

Heck. It even scares me. It scares memorethat I'm going to have to grind through another proffession as I'll be forced to drop Teras Kasi as It will not only no longer be fun, but it will also be immensly weak. (unlike Commando which wasn't fun and was overpowered)

Allow me to defince my key Concerns.

Offensive Summary:

• The most debuffs & state changes
  Alright, I agree with this.
  
• The most effective state changes and debuffs
  Once again, I thought this was originally going to be part of the proffession.
  
• No weaponry of any kind
  Sounds good on paper, but when we are suddenly deprived of damage, AP, and a way to channel high level drops into weapons, we'll relise this was not a wise decision.
  
• The ability to do AP1 with the precision striking skills
  Okay, so our weakest specials will be the ones we are forced to use if we have to fight someone in armor... This is going to give every other proffession IMMENSE advantages over us as they will still all have the same specials and damage while we are going to be weakened. You may say that they are not ineffective, but that is right now, when we still have our large damage modifiers. Without those these specials will cause us to be essentially useless. (Again Just like in the early days of the game)
  
• The ability to do kinetic damage with new, "grappling" skills
  A nice idea, but please don't replace other specials with these.
  
• No bleeds
  Very large weakness, I mean, with bleeds you can bleed, hop on a bike to escape, and then return later to reapply the bleed. I've seen this done immense numbers of times. And it happens to us all the time. Most don't fully realise how big of a negative factor this is to us... We are the ONLY combat proffession without a DOT. It is a VERY big weakness for which we rarely recieve credit.
  
• No area attacks
  I agree. But with the rest of your immensly weak template I think it's just ANOTHER thing we are set to lose.
  
• Fastest attack speed
  I think this is a good idea. But it hardly balances out everything else that we lose.
  
• Lowest damage per hit
  I'm okay with this, it's realistic.
  
• Lowest overall raw damage per second
  Bad Idea, especially with the rest of the template. I mean, we shouldn't have the highest, but wwe should have at least the second lowest, with this template we are set to hit for less damage per second than PIKEMAN who average about 200... Unless all the other melee recieve a BIG boost, I am scared to death at the prospect of this nerf.
  
• Random HAM Pool Attacks
  I'm surprised you forgot this massive weakness. I mean, we may have small attacks for individual pools, our primary attacks are for random pools. The weaknesses of this are obvious, and IMMENSE, possibly equal to or greater than that of a lack of bleeds.

Defensive Summary:

• High/Highest passive defense mods
  I agree, we should have the highest. But I suggest they be balanced towards the fact that other proffessions can stack their defences. Without factoring this, we'll be utterly unable to stand up to any fencer/pistoleer, or carbineer/swordsmans.
  
• Highest resists to state changes/debuffs
  Isn't this in the proffession description? I mean, read the Guide! It's hilarious!
  
• lowest "toughness" score
  Bad Idea,I understand having it lower than other proffessions, but I suggest it NOT being the lowest, If it is, it will be yet another major thing that the other proffessions can easily outdistance us on. Not to mention that most passive defences don't work well right now. Only incredibly well done builds actually are NOT hit. With incredibly lowered toughness, it will suddenly be that we are the new pikeman, fast, weak, kinda hard to hit, but when we are... x_X.
  
• Self buffing and recovery through meditation
  An already existing feature, one I think offsets a small amount the lack of bleeds and random damage pools. This is a unique feature and we pay to have it.

I hope you think more about the template Mr. Heavy. It really would hurt us immensly, and really, we have no reason to be hurt.

I think we are fine as is. We have already been through the balancing act once before. That nerf made me leave the game for afew months. I came back a little over a month ago after a friend had told me we were fixed. I find the discussion of us getting balanced again, Scary. Please just fix/balance the other professions and stop listening to the PVP whiners.

Ok here is my opinion, I have also studied Kung Fu and Karate and have done some martial weapon training also.

What TKA should be if we base it on real martial arts :

The most Agile.

The most fast.

The most accurate.

Have the BEST counterattacks.

Have moves that can penetrate armor - ever been hit by a 3rd degree+ black belt kung fu student? It hurst more than a bat, makes your lungs cringe in pain. I don't care what anybody here says, you are taught from day one on how to hit so that the damage is caused internally.

We should have bleeds a health bleed specifically - in the higher end levels of studying martial arts you really learn how to hurt peoples organs.

We should also have decent defenses.

Lower ham costs - having high ham costs doesn't make sense - you should be utilitzing your opponents energy against him.

The tricky part is damage - I have seen people fly half way accross the room from one hit from a black belt. I have seen footage of Bruce Lee doing his 1 inch punch, which was lethal if he wanted it to be.

I want to say we should be the highest damage dealers(not in single hits, but dps)in close combat - because really I think a martial artist could take down a fencer, a swordsman, or pikeman, in 2-3 hits. But then that createsa balance issue, problem here is that I think TKA should require master brawler - because you learn all weapon fundamentals in most martial arts schools this would then serve as a balance factor in making sure tka is the best.

Have the highest discipline of all melee classes( what this can translate into in game context I have no clue..)

Some trivial things I would change...

Get rid of the master title - you never become a complete "master" your always learning.

Change our titles to reflect a belt system - I personally think the titles we have are so stupid.

Also we should have Dojo's.

I really don't expect anybody to agree with me - but this is based on my real life experiences.

Phobos..

WOW, well I'm glad I read some of that draft so I can throw in my opinion. I do want to say that I appreciate the work involved in getting all that ready to present to the devs, but I have to disagree onsome of the major points you have there.

here goes:

first thing that really hit me, "We do no see ourselves as "the damage dealers". Weapons were invented and used because they are more damaging than bare-handed strikes.We see ourselves as having the lowest damage per hit, and the lowest overall damage per second of the brawling professions "

-gonna be blunt here, its nuts to ask for less damage. This would make us weaker than the other melee classes, and hurt us against the ranged weapon classes. I just don't understand why tka's would ask for this.

second, "We would like to get rid of Vibroknucklers. We are an unarmed profession and we dislike having to rely on weaponry."

-gotta disagree here -> if you think about it most 'martial arts' have some weapons involved.I think it would be nice to have nunchakus(spelling?)or sai for instance as optional weapons,with certification at master level only."Monk-like" characters in other mmorpgs have weapons to use, and I don't see why they can't be in this game.But, back to the point,if you made the 'fists' as effective as Vk's its one thing, but taking vks out without enhancing fists (seems to be implied) is a terrible idea. You should be asking for more weapons rather than asking to get rid of what we have.

Again, I'm not disrespecting the effort put in here, but I hope you think about that before you ask for those changes. I have to say, like I posted before, TKA is fine and very functional the way it is. In my opinion, asking for less damage is just asking to short change your profession.

Zaln - TKM flurry

I’d just like to add upon your proposal for Teras Kasi’s future. “Precision“,that’s the vibe I’m getting and I want to take it further…

PRECISION STRIKES:

• Doing away with “UnarmedHit1/2/3”.


• In return, the three precision (Body/Leg/Mind.) strikes within the “Precision Striking” branch would be increased in damage on par with the “Body/Leg/Mind” shots of the ranged professions, becoming our staple damage dealing attacks.

With the above taken on board, the “Unarmed Combo” techniques would become viable in that they target either two HAM bars or all three (“UnarmedCombo1” and “UnarmedCombo2” respectively.), so combined with yourideal of improved “debuffs” and agility I could see Teras Kasi becoming a very tactically minded profession.

SUMMARY:

The notion of being able to target an opponent's weaknesses effectively, exploiting that single gap in their defence and attacking it ruthlessly, that’s what I desire in a unarmed melee profession.

Okay... People are going crazy here saying "don't ask for a nerf" and "we're fine just the way we are." Remember that they're going to be changing *all* combat professions in really really serious ways. In some ways, we're the most likely to change significantly, because unlike most professions we don't really have a lot of different weapons to have scale up. In other ways, we're the least likely--for the same reason, really--we're already scaled on our damage output mods.

What I do *seriously* expect to change is the damage output curve. I think we're going to see a much smoother increase from novice brawler to teras kasi master. Why? Because other professions are going to smooth out. Right now, you go up one or two skill boxes in any combat professions and get access to some of the most damaging weapons available. Instead, everybody's going to start low and move towards high damage as they progress.

Anyway, the point here (and especially with Mister Heavy's big post about the direction of TKA) is *not* about tweaking the profession as much as it is about ansering the question of "what is the role of a teras kasi artist?" *Everything* is going to change. Our job here is to describe what we think the strengths *and weaknesses* of the profession ought to be. We can't be the best damage dealers and the best defenders at the same time, as an example. So what is it that a teras kasi artist should be doing? How will we work when soloing? How will we work in groups?

TroupeG: I agree with you about strategy being an important consideration. This is one reason I continue to go sort of back and forth on the question of new damage types for teras kasi artists--because this is a strong and interesting piece of strategy for all other professions. (And will grow stronger as the weapons are more balanced out so that there isn't one "best weapon" for each profession regardless of damage type, and will grow stronger if, as I expect, bleeds are made to be limited by armor.)

I guess I just feel that debuffs and other "funny moves" are to a great degree the way we can apply strategy. Everything should be situational--is this creature exceptionally resistant to posture changes? Do we need to use intimidate to soften the blows, or will it ignore intimidate? These choices are reduced at high levels because many effects either always work or never work, and it should be more something that varies from one type of creature or NPC to another. We should learn things like "this creature is going to totally ignore any sort of intimidation tactics, but blinding it works well."

The trouble, of course, is that this touches on the entire world, and we have less of a handle on what varieties of behavior are out there. I do know that there are some creatures that ignore my knockdowns, some that ignore intimidates, and some that ignore blinding attacks.

The other side of the question is: what do we contribute to a group? Again, I like debuffs and "funny moves" as an answer here, because it gives us a great chance to help out everybody else who's fighting with us.

If the majority of people believe that we should be the best tanks, that's fine, too--but note that if we say "give us the best tanking abilities", our damage output will probably be reduced. And if we say "give us the best damage output", our tanking abilities will go down. What we're saying instead is "we want to be middle of the road in pretty much everything, *except* that we have special abilities that are really interesting." I personally think that this approach is the one most likely to keep us at the kind of balanced level we're at now, possibly with more effective debuffs at the high end.

I'd be very uncomfortable if we end up saying "we want to be the high end damage dealers", because that is basically going to mean that our only technique will be to dive in hitting as hard as we can, and I hate that style of play.

Anyway, *given* that things are changing, where do we want to end up? Do we want to be a tank, a heavy hitter, or a jack of all trades? Or something different?

Schwartzwind suggested that we remove the big-damage unarmedhit1/2/3 type attacks we have now in favor of more powerful pool-directed attacks (though presumably still less powerful overall than unarmedhit1/2/3 as we have them now). I think that's a pretty dramatic change, and a pretty interesting idea. I'm not sure exactly how it would work out, but I'd be willing to try a change in that direction.

Basically, anything that moves us more into a position where we have to think about what we're doing would make me happy.

An added interesting idea might be to put the different damage type moves that have been talked about onto the pool-hitting moves. Perhaps have body hit do AP1 kinetic damage, action hit do AP0 restraint damage, and mind hit do AP0 stun damage. (Just as an example that makes some reasonable amount of sense--I know the arguments against stun, and I bet they're redoubled if it's stun damage to the mind pool...) That way we'd be powerful in that we have three pool attacks at our disposal and some extra damage types and possibly AP potential... *But* we're hamstrung in that we can't hit mind against a creature that's strong vs. stun, or hit action against a creature that's strong vs. restraint. Or something like that. So we'd be driven to make choices like "I can hit at the action bar which has gotten pretty low, but I know that this creature is going to shrug off most of the damage..."

Only suggestion I can offer is my experiences with dueling OTHER melee classes. If the person is (which they almost always are) in good 85+ composite, we have to duel so tactically, that its extremely hard to win. We do little to no damage to people in heavy composite. Sure if its a wookie or they arnt in armor they get torn up, but I guess you can say its the same way with any other profession. Like take for example if I duel a Fencer with Pistoleer def's and the guys in 90% composite. Being a TKA ham costs can be hard to deal with so I only wear a Helmet, and a Chestplate (from my experiences it seems the most managable with the best performance). First off, the Fencer in NO way will be able to be dizzy kd'd, and if i do knock him down, they just stand right up, trust me ive tested this with multiple people of the same template, either you get unimaginably lucky, or the guys not doing something right. Ok so dizzy kd is out of the question, lets look at the other ham bars I can attack. Health? Hmm, we have no bleeds to help out, I do about 20-40 damage to the pool per hit which with muon,vercupti,fishak - spamming it leads me to an empty mind bar before I get him to 3/4 of his health. Action? Once again a healable bar with no bleedable moves and still only doing 20-40 damage. Ok unarmed heat hit, still being easily defended in most cases... ie: Food/Drinks/Muon/Equillibrium/High kinetic resist helmets. Duel starts, the fencer starts whoopin on me with the stun baton. Now the stun baton may cut through armor, but the thing totally drains the mind pool with moves. This has been my tactic to fighting this guys: #1 Keep center of balance ALWAYS up. #2 watch yourmind and try to heal bleeds asap. #3 DO NOT try to knockdown/posturechange/dizzy, it wont work. #4 Dont spam your specials (yet) you'll just kill yourself with it. Before I get to the last moves let me tell you that I am 4/4/4/0 in doc. In my opinion its the best thing you can accompany with TKA mainly because you can cure yourself from Dizzy KD, heal yourself for full damage with lesser mind cost over time, and buff yourself in the field of course =P. Ok so youve been sitting there taking a beating from this fencer and youre seeing that hes been trying to annialhate you with his Baton. Wait for him to reach near 1/4 of his mind or less. #5 Start spamming head hit. The point is to try and take him by surprise of his fast depleting mind bar. If he pops a muon, I'd probably lay off the spamming and wait again - keeping yourself alive, letting him spam. In almost all Fencer w/ Pistoleer defence duels Its come down to the last 4-5 hits.

As you can see - TKA is certainly a useful and good profession, but when people start slapping on 90% composite and other armor... it tends to usually end in a trip to the cloning center.

I'm all for Giving up AOE attacks for lets say being able to hold 2 VK's, we have 2 handsi see no problem with this, also the AP 1 at Master Sounds Good, but maybe too good.

Hi!

I have a solution to the AP problem, that doesn't require some of our worst attacks being the only ones that can penetrate armor when every Schmuck in the game has a suit of it!

• +1 AP at Master!
  -Simple, makes master more desirable, and it will help with the thousand suits of uber armor running around. I think we should keep the precision attacks, but at master, a free +1 would make all Teras Kasi quiete happy.

I also think, that without our VKs and Nerfs to our damage, we will be dealing immensly meager amounts of damage, so I suggest,

• at master, we also have our damage range increased, from measly 1-30, to 1-90.
  -It's a small increase, but it would hardly rival well made weapons of other proffessions. and I think many Teras Kasi masters would appreciate this.

just my 15 bucks...

If they are in fact successful with fixing Defences and make it so that it isn't a matter of how many hits you can take, and make it so that it's How many hits you don't, then I will approve of this new template, but until then, I fear this design, and hope that it is NOT implementated.