Teras Kasi Archive

Read some of that post, not all of it though. Disagree with the point it is trying to make. First, despite damage aspects, marksman already have an innate advantage of range over us. I am OK with this. They will be shredding us with blasters while we try to get into range. I am OK with this. What I am not OK with about this class. We need to have a viable way of tangling up an opponent. Make lunge have a reuse timer if it works, but also make a person have a delay before they can get up and run away. Reduce our HAM costs - as it is I don't even bother with using specials because they virtually always do more harm than good. All I do is run up to the npc / creature and hit attack and win. Give me a REASON to use my special moves. There is a great system in place with some potentially useful abilities.

RyuSilverBlade,

First off I am a martial artist and if i wanted i can take a person out with one blow to the head. Look dude, you have point about how a Brawler should have to take his time to be a TK because all he is is a street fighter but once u become a TK u should be as powerful if not more powerful than a Bounty Hunter. They should both be equaled out by there moves to a point where its just plain skill is what is needed to win. And skill is not running and shooting my friend skill is knowing when and how to use your moves effectivily against your oppent. A TK should be well adept to stealth soan armed man wouldn even see him until its to late.You cant tell me that its fair that u guys can run around while im a meter away fromyouwhile you are shooting my HAM bars to death. Im only a freaking meter away i can u know jump kick u into the ground that way you have to endure a little pain that i can get in before u start runnign for your life again. Or how bout a simple sweep kick to knock your butt down on the ground so i can get some punches and kicks in. U know what would even be better how bout a move where i run up to u and i disarm u so know u have to fight me one on one because you know we are martial artists and we can disarm many people. You cant tell me its fair that a pistol can be in my face and i cant do nothing about cause I will tell you right now if you had a pistol to my face and running turned away from me and shooting like in the game: one u would miss me probably everytime and two i would definetly kick your ass take that gun and shove into your face. So next before you start talking about how guns should be better its not especially when u should almost be able to run around unoticed and able to disarm a guy before he knows it then we would see who wins the match mister i gotta gun and im should be better than all the TKs.

My Sentiments,

Your Best Friend

Then why not have people drop dead after one blaster fire? I don't understand how someone can run full tilt with a rifle in their hands and fire with any accuracy at all. Since we are struggling for a believable reality, how about addressing this?

I would say that Teras Kasi Artist is well in line with the other professions, if not above, in terms of pure damage. With the addition of Vibro Knucklers a Teras Kasi Artist can and does hit for over 1000 damage berserk while being able to execute knockdown moves. If you believe that TKAs are weak compared to the other classes, just post a thread in Daddar's message about reaching TKA Master. Ive fought next to him and he does unreal damage, largely because of a combination of knockdown and a good setof vibro-knucklers. He can mow through Tuskan Raiders at an incredible rate, and he dosent even wear armor, with a full set of Chitin absorbing 30% melee damage and a personal shield generator he could tank as well. Of course he dosent really need to tank because he can take down Tuskan captains faster than 5 gun-men candefeat a single normal raider.

Currently there are a few Master Marksman (Im nearly there), but there are no master snipers, pistoleers, or carbiners. TKA's can advance more quickly because theydont require the same resources as a marksman. For example, with meditate they have the ability to heal without needing medic levels; at master level meditation they can even slowly cure their own wounds. On top of this the only weapon a TKA will ever need is a good vibro-knuckler, and there are very good ones available on Bloodfin where we play. I can only assume that they will be available on every server very soon. However, very few people have managed to make good versions of the higher-end weapons yet. Many are charging upwards of 20k for laser rifles and carbines,andmost of these are of inferior quality,in addition I haveyet to see a single specialist ceritifed weapon avaliable aside from the odd E11 rifle. I believe damage should level out when the higher end marksman tools become avaliable, though Im sure that TKA's will always have the advantage in terms of damage output. Obviously the price for doing more damage is opening oneself up to more damage, but also consider that a lone marksman without trapping ability is eventually going to close to melee range with a creature if he dosent have a burst run ready.

Those of you having trouble with unarmed melee should consider a few things. First, try to get enough money to get a good pair of vibro-knuckles. Second, be careful how you use them as they tend to do alot of damage to HAM bars if you constantly use special attacks, its better to go berserk and attack with vibros, only occasionally throwing in special moves like knockdown. Third, get a good set of Chitin armor. Fourth, brawlers tend to have the advantage against humanoid opponents. Knockdown attacks will be more effective against humanoids, espcially those that use guns. You should alsogain significant damage bonuses if you catch an NPC trying to blast you at point blank with a rifle or carbine. For the above reason the Tusken Fort on Tatooine is a great place to get unarmed exp; the raiders can be tough however, so make certain you are in a large group. If you're an inexperienced brawler I'd also wait until they get down to about half-life before opening up your attack.

Before making any judgements about the viablity of the TKA think about trying any one of the four things above, then come to a decision. Thank you.

Even if you do become a Master of Teras Kasi, you're still not invincible. You still won't even compare against a Master Commando. You still will take much more damage against opponents than a Pistoleer will. You probably won't even do as much damage. This is how it should be, as your chosen weapon is merely your own fist.

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I'm unclear on these points that Ryu made in his post.

1 - I was under the impression that the Commando weapons (examining statements by players on the Commando discussion board) dopoor damage, bordering on out right pitiful.

2 - Do TKA's take more damage in melee combat than Pistoleers, or does Ryu mean overall damage because the Pistoleer will not be engaged for a while (taking advantage of range as long as possible)?

3 - Not dish out as much damage as a Pistoleer? I've heard that TKA's do 1000 a hit with a decent set of vibroknucklers and Berserk mode.

4 - Does a TKA need to take other skills to compete, like a wide selection of +meleedefense and +rangedefense from the Fencer/Swordsman/Pike trees? Or are those not important, given the effort in obtaining them, so that the ones from TKA itself are either (a) worth enough on their own or (b) don't matter anyway because the +defense skills don't actually do enough to matter?

Thanks,

Marcus

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Knight725 wrote:

Also, if you think about it, ever been punched in the face with brass knuckles? That can kill you. Happened to me....

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whoah...you are dead?

Sorry Knight725, couldn't resist.

I'll agree and disagree. IMO the profession only needs a couple minor tweaks, not any sort of rebuilding. It needs to be "balanced", which is not the same as "equal damage output".

Teras Kasi Artists should not deal as much damage as a Pistoleer. On the other hand, all the Pistoleer DOES is fire a pistol. He doesn't get much in the way of defensive abilities.
Compare us to, say, a Fencer: we do less damage, but have higher defensive bonuses (almost double) and more useful abilities.

In groups I've been in, we TKAs weren't the damage dealers. We were the ones who tanked the creatures, put all sorts of status effects on them, and such. We were a valuable addition to the group, and we pulled our own weight, but that does NOT mean we dealt as much damage.

So, here are our advantages and disadvantages as I see them:

+ Meditation skills. The ability to eventually self-heal means I don't need to keep any medic skills for healing myself up.
+ Never disarmed. If I didn't bother to insure, I can still get to my corpse fully armed. Of course, you have less reason to even bother going after the corpse.
+ No ongoing weapon costs. I don't need to buy new guns as I level up, and I don't need to buy them if they wear out.
+ Better defensive skills than any other class. We get +5 or +10 to melee/ranged defense at each Power level, while the other melee types only get +2 or +5. Plus, all those Combat Equilibrium types of abilities.
+ Lots of neat "status" attacks. The Pistoleer might do Bodyshot2 over and over, while we can mix stun-dizzy-blind in with the hits. That's good in groups, because it frees everyone else up to do their normal attacks.
+ Unarmed Lunge 1. It was just plain brokenly good in beta, but even as a 1-damage thing it still is useful. I've pinned down VERY red monsters while the rest of the group gunned it down; without me, it would have chased them around and killed several. When a creature is chasing an almost-dead rifleman and you force it to kneel allowing him to get out of range, it's a big deal. While the other Lunges are useful, Unarmed is the best for this purpose because of the speed.
+ The ability to attack all three pools individually at higher levels.
+ It's just really cool to watch your character headbutt something.

- Can't target a specific pool at all until Intermediate Power Techniques. In a group this isn't so bad, but it bites for soloers. We also only get one attack for each pool, unlike the Bodyshot1-Bodyshot2-Bodyshot3 chain Pistols get, so it's not as effective overall.
- Lower damage in general. Buying vibroknuckles helps a bit. Even the raw speed of the attacks doesn't completely make up for this.
- Being a melee type in general means range issues and more damage taken.
- Since you're not using an actual weapon a lot of the time, there's a quality issue. A weapon can be heavily experimented to reduce the HAM drain of specials, increase the attack bonus and speed, and of course raw damage. With fists, you're stuck with the default.

Did I miss anything?

RyuSilverBlade, that was a very well written post. I do like the fact that you are taking the art of Teras Kasi so seriously but since you didn’t make up the art, I don’t think it’s right for you to tell everyone else who is studying it what it’s philosophy is.

I think Mister_Heavy said it best though. This is fiction, not reality.

I think most people who are playing TKA want to do so because they like Hong Kong cinema or at least the American cinema that has been heavily influenced by Hong Kong.
Haven’t you ever seen a Hong Kong movie, or maybe an American Jet Li movie? The martial artists in those movies take on guys with guns all the time and come out ahead. Furthermore since Teras Kaisi is a made up art, the rules are even more limitless as to it’s potential. If you create a make believe world with a make believe fighting style you could make any rules you want for it.

Well when they start runing which your right they will i just equip my flame thrower and fs2 the crap out of them .

Commando-2-4-4-1

TKA-0-1-2-1

CH-3-2-0-4

The equations for calculating force are known to just about everyone on the undrooling side of High School. Bullets do NOT hit with magnitudes more force than fists. Bullets are small, and the bulk of their energy comes from their speed. They travel fast. They travel on the order of 10x as fast as a punch or a kick, even from a gifted Martial artist. However, there's a problem. A bullet weighs in the grams, or ounces is you prefer. A 12-gauge slug weighs one twelfth of a pound. The heavier they are, the slower they go, too. A man's fist weighs perhaps 2 pounds. The arm it's attached to maybe another 20. Even assuming an unskilled commitment of mass to the punch, the force multiplies.
A skilled martial artist can apply a great deal of his body weight to a single strike. Bruce Lee was famous for it. The difference in damage comes from the difference in the surface area over which the force is applied.

If a bullet is so much stronger than a fist, why does a kevlar vest work? The answer is... the bullet isn't, but if you stretch its area of application to something analagous to the size of a fist, it becomes non-lethal.

How do I know these things?
I passed HS physics.
I am a target marksman, and a liscensed carry-concealed permit holder.
I am an instructor and black belt in Kenpo Karate.

At ranges greater than 5m, the gun will kill you if the guy pulling the trigger can see and aim at you. You're just dead, there is no other outcome.
At ranges of less than 5m, the gun is far more limited in scope than the hands or feet, and far more easily dealt with. As I tell my student: No one will ever wrestle your hands or feet away from you and shoot you with them, and your hands or feet will never misfire. They're also always loaded, and you can take them wherever you want.

Realism arguments? Explaing CH to me.

Oh yeah, but I do agree with the threadstarter that we're where we need to be. Just his reasoning doesn't hold water.


-FL

What're we going to have next? Characters going to the crapper to relieve themselves?We're going to need to take naps? Nourish ourselves? We gonna lose the ability to auto-run and instead auto-walk everywhere? Because it happens in real life?

Ok, fine. I accept your argument. Lets balance by removing all firearms and replacing them with sling-shots. There's your "real-life" balance. A lengthy, but ultimately sophistic post that has very little merit.

or maybe you could have to buy battery's and ammo for your guns there is some reality for you. Go ahead have some fun with that one.

Now a i pose the question who scares you more a cop with a glock or say Jet Lee who would you rather fight? Me personaly i feel i have more of a chance with the cop cause i can hide be hind things.

If this was reality based i could hide behind a tree or a wall in a fight and not get hit but no we do. Now imagine if we could hid behind trees and walls see how the pistol biy feels about that. The you would have to come around the wall to hit me

i think blasters shoot lasers not bullet. Also i don't know of any commandos that will take on a Master TKA, well not any experienced commandos.

Who knows, maybe i'm wrong. I'm an extremely satisfied Master TKA and hearing the other side go nuts about how bad we should be as unarmed makes me laugh. Even if it IS in responce to a TKA or brawler whinning and moaning.

This /knockdown2 /unarmeddizzy /intimidate is for you bro

---timoul