Teras Kasi Archive

/Rant on/ First let me start by saying, I am sickened by the thought that the dev's would think this was a fix....how in any thought process at all would taking 1/3 of players Health, Action, and Mind for using a special move be considered a fix.Real life analogy - I get into a fight, but if I attempt to hit you I break my own nose, I try again and break my own jaw...hmmm maybe I shouldnt fight anymore /Rant off/

1st - Knockdown nerf

Knockdown is our only special ability, and the only thing that makes us useful in groups or soloing. If it was felt that knockdown was too powerful than give it a timer, not kill it completely. Sadly Pistoleers get knockdown that is ranged further and costs less. If you can explain how a pistol specialist is better at knockdown than a matial arts master you are far wiser than I. Knockdown should cost a minimum of HAM (our class base move) and have a timer if it is felt that it was spammed to much. And if a timer is put on Knockdown please make sure it is almost unresistable. I have to spam knockdown 3-4 times in fights sometimes to make it stick once.My personal opion is knockdown was not broke, it defined our class, it was our only special ability that make us dangerous. Other classes are dangerous because of either distance attacks, or higher damage outputs, we have neither, now we have nothing. And finally why put VK's in the game for our class only and then make them cost to much to use. Hmmmm...maybe we should make the pistol folks holster their gun first to start their special moves.

2nd - Defense

Hahahhahahahahhahahahahahha. Now that was funny. We have no more defensive capabilities than every other class. And want to hear something cute, Pistoleers get dodge, melee defense and ranged defense! By my count thats2 equal and 2 betterfor the pistoleer. We should have dodge and block naturally for our class, we are supposedly the martial arts masters and we have no abilities to block or dodge or are tougher than any other class.

3rd - /stick

Important, but not top of my list anymore. I guess one way to stop complaints in one area is to make the pain hurt more someplace else.

4th - Meditation

Master of Balance and Power just now even looking at meditate, just so I can get MTKA. Has no real worth or meaning, nice that it cures bleeds quicker, but bleeds from the things I am fighting in groups really require a doctor. Meditate does not rest me any faster than just plain ol' sit.

5th - HAM costs on specials

Unfortunately SOE has done such a good job at making sure I don't chain any moves that I don't use them anymore. The HAM costs hurt more than the MOB most of the time, I cant afford to use a move that takes 1/5 of all my stats so that it does 75-100 points more of damage. Beserk has became a thing to use if the fight goes perfect or I am in a large group and wont get aggro. Miss 2 Berserks and I am half down (easy and normal to do),ohhh wait, I havent hit it yet...nothing like starting a fight half dead, and best doing it to yourself.

6th - Hit while moving

If the mob can hit me while moving and pistoleers can run in circles or away and hit with high accuracy, why can I hit a thing whilechasing it. Maybe I just don't get it, but it would seem easier for a person to swing his fist while running that fire a pistol over his shoulder when running away. *shrug*

I wish you luck Thunder, but as I write this I will give SOE about a week to clear up the KD nerf, and not just somewhat but where it is a useful skill. I really enjoyed this game, and was having fun with my friends playing it, but I will not play Mythic's game of lets make theflavor of the month character, until we learn how to balance. Changes should be made in small increments, review and change again if necessary, taking a sledge hammer is not my idea of change, and not acceptable to a paying customer.

Good luck

-Dac

HAM costs of every special attack since the patch went up and now pull from the mind. Effectivly ruining my play even more. Any and every other issue can wait IMO. Right now all I can do is attack, wait, and heal and pray I kill the mob before he hits my mind too much. Using ANY special attack hurts me more then helps.

I just want to make one point clear:

KD DOES NOT NEED A TIMER EITHER

I don't know what everyone thinks this for. I am not a KD spammer but if you want to spam KD in Pve go ahead, its boring and slow for 4mil unarmed XP. And they've already fixed the PvP damage issue. I agree with Damian_Knight that sometimes you need to spam a couple when you know the first 2-3 aren't going to land. And go to the Tusken Raider fort and see how many people survive without TKAs putting down multiple rapid KDs.

KD needs to be put back like it was or better. I posted what I think is a decent solution above. Please read...

1) Knockdown Nerf - HAM Costs are unreasonable (especially with VK equiped). This may have been "fixed" already as long as Weaponcrafters can experiment the HAM costs away. The downside to this is the damage and speed on such VKs would not be worth it.

2) Are defensive skills working? - Nope, I do not believe so. Not the way our profession is described, anyway. We need more testing done.

3) /stick command - I don't need this, I'm fine without it. Others may (and will) disagree. I'm not a PvPer (yet) so I speak strictly from a PvE standpoint. I dislike how some ranged NPC types will kite me, but I'm learning ways around it.

4) Meditation Branch - People are asking for its own Experience Type. I see a problem making a change like this. Right now,all the advanced melee professionsprogress via2 different types of experience - Combat for one discipline, and a specialized exp (Unarmed, 1 Hand, 2 Hand, Polearm) for the rest. Adding a third typeof experienceto TKA would change the experience pacing/balance. SOE would need to implement a similar change in everymelee professionto keep them fair. I seriosly doubt they would make a change this big, this late.

If a Meditation Exp were implemented, it would need to be handled like Scout Camps. You get experience only for what you heal, and you have a cap on how much experience you earn for each meditation session. The problem I see with this, is macroing. I don't want our profession to be played afk, like dancers and musicians currently appear to be.

On a side note,a meditation type experience would be great for an Elite-Elite TKA type profession (if SOE even adds one). The idea of Combat Stances has been kicked around, and could also be rolled into this profession.

5) Specials - SOE has already sorta answered this... they said they need better descriptions of what each special does, and I agree. I did some testingand I actually hit for *less* on stunned creatures.. I was doing about 5% less damage per hit on the stunned creatures. Wasn't stunning stuff supposed to do more damage? Or does it improve our accuracy? This is the problem.

With all the negative feedback going around, I want to mention what I DO like. Fighting has become a lot more tactical after yesterday's Uber Patch. Rather than just keeping KD and going to town, I need to think more aboutwhat I'm doing.

Now for my personal request...

I want the HAM strikes in the Precision Discipline changed to bleeds. They don't have to be up to par with the ranged disciplines, or the other melee professions. It's just a little something extra to flesh out our profession some more. I see a TKA bleed being like Xena's pressure point strikes.

(1) KD does not need a timer.

(2) Remove KD from ranged people... they don't need it... they can kite us. Kiting requires work... Pistolwhip, healthshot1, healthshot1, healthshot1, healthshot1, pistolwhip, repeat, DOES NOT. Riflemen do just fine without KD... and I mean Riflemen WITHOUT T21s... I have a dlt20a and I can solo a tusken bantha. I'm not even a Novice Rifleman yet.

(3)Put the knockdown costs back to where they were for melee.

(4) Lower the costs of specials for us further... I don't think even a move such as UH3 should be as draining to someone as powerful as a TKM.

(5) Increase the base walk speed of Teras Kasi Master by making it the same as a normal player's run speed... I say Master because that way someone can't just go up one branch and get the same bonuses as us.

(6)Fix the no attacks/specials while moving... or add a /stick command as many have suggested before.

(7) Increase our ranged defense (defense vs. chance to hit) greatly. Ninjas in some movies are able to dodge bullets (yes, I said movies... this game is based on a movie.) Also, one of the bases for the Chinese martial art Wushu is to defend against guns by being so blindingly fast.

If they fixed all these, I'd be a hell of a lot happier playing a TKA... and my Teras Kasi Master status would actually mean something... It'd be "Oh **edit** a TKM... RUN.." instead of "Oh look, another Teras Kasi Master."

REPOSTED from my thread on balance issues for melee. The full text can be found at;

http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=Development&message.id=311860&highlight=#M311860

=======
Top issues for this major balance area;

1) Ranged is better at hitting in melee than melee.
2) Ranged has better melee than melee (pistol whips for example).
3) Ranged has special moves at a distance that are cheaper and more powerful than melee.
4) Ranged does as much or more damage than melee.
5) A 2 minute old newly created character with a CDEF weapon can kite and kill a grandmaster of any melee class.

How to fix this? Lets look at all the other games that have tackled that problem for ideas and a few can be modified easily to apply

1) Revised bonuses based on range allowing mellee to actually have a postive to hit in close (we actually have a negative 5 in most cases)
2) Adjustment of ranged classes melee attacks to be far less than a melee person in offense and more the defense ability they were designed for.
3) More HAM for melee ~ call it body development for thier physical training allowing them to survive longer and close. A static bonus of X HAM per skill box.
4) Speed. Melee classes need a static speed boost in say incrments of 5% up to about 25% at high levels such that they can close on their targets and stop the kite cycle. Ranged would still get in their two hits or three but now melee could have a hope of reaching them.
5) Unique special abilty called say "engage" where a melee combatant can reduce the movement speed of an opponent allowing them the role of delaying attackers to save groups as the flee or to pursue and stop fleeing opponents allowing others to catch up.

Simply changing the damage will not solve any of the fundemental issues and in fact is more liekly to throw things further out of balance.

====================

As of now, knockdown 2 in most cases does less damage to the creature you are doing it to than it does to yourself

So i am working on my weaponsmith and tailoring stuff until (and if) they fix TKA's supreme suckiness

Pistoleer has a better kd than TKA. Is FAR better dueler as TKA is a joke in duels. Has NO RANGE DISADVANTAGE. This is BS

Knockdown Nerf

Not only was knockdown out best offense, it was also our only real defense. As it stands, TK as a profession stands crippled. The prohibitive KD costs make it difficult or even impossible for us to solo single white con creatures at Master or near master level. Unless you have medic skills or a medic with you, you will incap yourself performing knockdown even bare handed enough times to keep the mob in control while you dispatch it.

PVP

The knockdown nerf also cripples us here, especially with 75% damage reduction. Just how are we expected to make melees stand still long enough to take them out when even as a master we are doing 50 damage a swing unarmed and 75 with vibroknucklers? Sure we can style away, but the excessive styling costs will cause us to do as much damage to ourselves now since our styles also do 25% damage. Are we to rely on the cheesy unarmedlunge1 and unarmed dizzy combo? Come on, we are master TK, we shouldn't find novice level brawler skills more useful to us than our 'power moves'.

Kiting Mobs

Just like in pvp, anything with a gun loves to run circles around us blasting merrily. Knockdown allowed us to deal with this in a fashion. Again, we are now forced to use novice brawler's unarmedlunge1 or master brawler's unarmedlunge2.

Defense

Without knockdown, we essentially have none. If you're killing knockdown, throw us a bone, give us some real working defense so we don't need to rely on knockdowns to keep from getting creamed by white cons.

In a nutshell, our style costs are a bad joke, bare handed or with vks equipped. Knockdown is especially bad. You want to nerf knockdown, find another way to do it. You have taken away a powerful attack, but at the same time failed to realize that it was ALSO our only real defense.

Sure we as a profession have other concerns, but unless these are addressed - and oddly enough, they *all* have to do with the nerfed knockdown, there's little reason to bring them up as our profession becomes a joke.

Do not bring pistoleers into this, they are not the issue. I hate the nerf that they got, but I would hate for the constant beotching to get them nerfed as well.

Agreed Bazooka,

Lets try to get us fixed without crippling someone else.

• Knockdown Nerf

Wrong : insanely high HAM cost (in case nobody noticed)

Solution : don't allow KD on an already down opponent (no more spam, no timer to put, very simple)

• Are defensive skills working?

Dunnow...

• /stick command

Wrong : doesn't exist

Solution : make it exist

• Meditation branch

Dunnow, though special meditation XPs seems a good idea

• Specials

Wrong : not only the KD is too high (and all my secondary stats are like 550 or more)

solution : dunnow

Our largest issue should have something to do with why a designer thinks a TKA shouldn't string in specials? After all a TKA not using a "special" isn't anything but a common brawler, excepting the fact hes a good one.

With that said, how can a TKA string together the specials that make the class what it is, when the HAM cost kill him (without VK) in the first 20 seconds of battle.

________________________________________________________

And to think, I used to be able to beat up small animals...

________________________________________________________