Teras Kasi Archive
Thread: Dispelling a few myths about Teras Kasi: Why we do not need to be nerfed. (First Draft)
ArkMindSpear wrote:
Antares, you waste your breath. Weather or not TKA needs a nerf, they will never admit it. Each patch they get stronger and every one else gets a fraction of what they get, they have the edge on every aspect of melee except for no bleeds. fencer has a little more melee and ranged defense. But tka get as much or more of everything else by a long shot. Just becouse some things do not work right they think that means they arn't overpowered, just becouse they are not AS overpowered as they should be. As is, a JUST TKM against any other JUST master melee, dosen't stand a chance,maybe fencer now, but if they fix your defense acuity they also will not stand a chance. That is ALL they have. And you guys want it too. What a bunch of selfishness. God forbid you guys shouldn't have the upperhand in EVERY fight. As it is a master pikeman couldn't beat a tkm unless the tkm hits peace. We do less damge to ou guys than you do to us, due to toughness. You guys do it faster and more accuratly. we can't knock you down. You guys get meditate(power boost). If you use regular attacks, and we use special moves, we kill ourselves faster.
There is a HUGE gap between tka and other melee, either boost the others or nerf TKA, i don't care anymore. And what i say dosen't matter anyway, becouse no one reads these bords and nothing i say will rewach devs ears. SO i can bash the 80% of melee who are tka. Why are 80% of melee TKA? Becouse they are o-v-e-r-p-o-w-e-r-e-d. JUST beocuse you guys are missing like 3 things that other melee have dosen't mean you should get 3 times as much as everyone else. we CAN NOT beat you. Can't you undertand that? Not just you, we can't beat idiot tkaas who can't use their proffesion. We can't beat lower level tkas who are idiots either.
If you don't want to get nerfed get your ass over to other melee forums and all of you ask the devs to help them.
But since i know you won't.
NERF
NERF
NERF
byr- Ark
Yeah I'd agree we're overpowered compared to other melee classes, more specifically pikeman and swordsman. Swordsman I see as simply needing some tweaking to make them more effective damage dealers since that seems to be their bent. Pikeman on the other hand need a complete over haul. Fencers don't really need that much work. I mean the template of the day seems to be Fencer/pistoleers or fencer/TKA's. But even a straight up fencer has a good shot of beating a TKA. Right now we're balanced with fencers. Their defence beats our offence. So I guess the way to help balance swordsman would be to make them extremely accurate perhaps? Even then I could see a mild toning down of TKA's defence and accuracy to make them more of a happy medium. Unfortunately SOE doesn't do happy mediums. As many people have pointed out they decide to nerf things back to the stone ages. They don't have a nerf bat, they have a nerf bazooka. For pikeman, though, I have no clue what you can do to make them good. Probably fix their HAM costs and give them non-timered knockdowns like carbineer. Not sure what else ya could do.
TKA Weaknesses:
Only one damage type. Can be a problem against specific mobs although in theory this is a non-issue for xp'ing (just don't fight mobs that have bad resists). Mixed results for PvP. You can't target weaknesses but only one melee class can target a weakness for composite anyway (stun batons versus composite with no stun layer).
Only AP1. Again, mostly a non-issue for leveling although this can be a significant issue against high-end content. In PvP AR1 is high enough to do full damage against all player armor (if/when AR/AP are working as intended).
Defensive Acuity/CoB are broken or are simply not that effective. Compared to other melees this is definitely a significant disadvantage. I can honestly say though that I have no idea whether the current state is intended or not. I hope not personallly. Defensive acuity should be a noticeable boost. Whether it should be as good as other passive defenses however, I do not know.
Beholden to all of the restrictions/penalties/weaknesses of a melee profession. Vulnerable to kiting, etc.
Have no bleeds. Bleeds are an effective damage tool that TKA's lack.
TKA Strengths:
Very high damage output. They are indeed the only profession to gain a +damage bonus. Other professions see more damage simply due to improve special damage multipers and improved weapons. A high-quality high damage sliced VK is effectively a 300-450 weapon with a 2.2s delay (although the delay doesn't matter when considering the next point).
They are speed-capped for all attacks. TKA's are able to obtain 100 speed bonus meaning that ALL attacks will be at 1 second no matter the initial delay or the special modifier. A few other professions or profession combos can do this as well but many can not (well, without some really good skill tapes anyhow). Master swordsmen, for example, will fire specials off much slower.
The meditation line. They are unique among melee (and among basically all combat professions) in that they have one line that is entirely devoted to utility skills. Powerboost is a fantastic skill and meditating away poisons, diseases, wounds and bleeds is also very useful.
High defenses. They have a very high defensive toughness reducing all melee damage by 232%. If you take master brawler as well then you will have a 264% reduction of all damage (i.e. you would have taken 264% more damage if you did not have the melee toughness). The issue of defensive acuity and Center of Being does mitigate this although it is yet to be understood whether this is intended or not.
Dizzy/knockdown is poverful. Other professions get this as well, although many do not.
They can target all HAM bars with high damage specials. Their health damage special has the same multiplier as the best fencer health damage special. I haven't confirm if this works the same for other melee classes although I believe that to be case. This makes TKA's very versatile paired with other combatants and allows them to deal mind damage as well as a swordsman, except for the lack of bleeds and with some accounting to be done for different weapons, etc.
Contrary to many clains otherwise: I would argue that TKA's have very low special costs. The facts of the matter are that special costs are high and difficult to handle no matter what profession you are. The efficiencies on VK's are relatively low. Furthermore, TKA's have good options for further reducing special costs. A low damage, high efficiency VK can still do very good damage (due to +damage mods) with a 1/3rd or better reduction in overall HAM costs. Looted VK's can also have very low damage costs and allow AR1 damage without a huge damage cut. Fists also do very good competitive damage at a special cost that is much lower than that of essentially any other profession. Whereas VK's with armor and no buffs can have special costs of 100 or so, other profession, master brawler abilities, etc. can get into the 200-300 range.
Conclusion
TKA's have many more advantages than disadvantages. This is to be expected, every profession should have more strengths than weaknesses, otherwise why even bother? All the same they are a very powerful and effective profession. Is this too powerful? That I do not know. It depends on far too many things many of which are up to the developers. None of their abilities are outright broken in power. Other melee professions (notably pikemen, and when it comes to damage dealing, fencers -- ignoring dodge and CoB for a moment, fencer damage is almost half that of any other melee profession) are currently in need of some help and while it is possible to compare and realize that TKA is certainly much more powerful than a given profession (at least in several contexts, an overall comparison is almost always very difficult to do), that doesn't indicate being overpowered as it could be the other profession that is underpowered.
The coming large-scale changes to the combat system will certainly shake things up and we'll have to see where things stand after that before any discussion on this issue will be that useful anyway.
StGabe.
Message Edited by StGabriel on 12-11-2003 05:07 PM
from the people i have met, the only class they are truly worried about fighting specificly are TKAs.
The state of being over powered is all reletive.
Your defense accuity is broken right now.
when they fix it you will have almost the same defensive power of a fencer. But have all the forementioned strengths. Then we will see how much you fear fencer. You will all once again, have everything.
As a matter of fact......when your defense acuity kicks in, you will once again have it all over pikeman. You will basicly have +106 to either dodge, counterattack, or block as i'm sure you know. We have +115 to block. Just block. ya know, the one that you still take about 50% damage. On top of our crappy defenses. you guys take about 50% of what we take already. So that puts us on par with you if you dont' have defense acuity and assuming we block 100% of the time. But you gets DA.....on top. You guys get tons and tons piled on top. +106 defense acuity, +56 toughness, +60 somthing ranged and melee defense, and CoB.
There is a huge gap. It needs to be delt with.
TorvusMessorius wrote:
carbineer doesnt for example
yes they do
its called actionshot 1 and 2
They can target all HAM bars with high damage specials. Their health damage special has the same multiplier as the best fencer health damage special. I haven't confirm if this works the same for other melee classes although I believe that to be case.
I have to say that if this is the case I haven't seen it. I see my body hit 1 do 500 damage or so, same with leg hit 1. I would hardly consider that to be a high damage special. Although I haven't gotten head hit 1 yet but I highly suspect that it's not as great as you play it up to be. Honestly these moves are useless outside of finishing an opponent off. I mean how many fencers use body hit 1? None, because body hit 2 and 3 makes it look likea joke. Body hit 1 is what newbies use to level up and it's suppossed to be the end-all-be-all of damage? I honestly haven't seen it. I'll run out and test this tomorrow after I finish all my classes but I still can't believe the targeted pool shots for TKA are as good as you say.
Contrary to many clains otherwise: I would argue that TKA's have very low special costs. The facts of the matter are that special costs are high and difficult to handle no matter what profession you are. The efficiencies on VK's are relatively low. Furthermore, TKA's have good options for further reducing special costs. A low damage, high efficiency VK can still do very good damage (due to +damage mods) with a 1/3rd or better reduction in overall HAM costs. Looted VK's can also have very low damage costs and allow AR1 damage without a huge damage cut. Fists also do very good competitive damage at a special cost that is much lower than that of essentially any other profession. Whereas VK's with armor and no buffs can have special costs of 100 or so, other profession, master brawler abilities, etc. can get into the 200-300 range.
I think you're forgetting that TKA specials tax all 3 HAM bars. So if you're counting only action it'll only be a 100 but if you include health and mind in their I'd bet you'd see big differance. I don't have hard numbers but from my own personal experiance I've seen ALL my bars flying down when I spam UH2. Not to mention that they tax mind ham which is by far the most debilitating ham bar. I feel this is fair though. TKA is powerful and one of their weakness is that specials eat mind ham.
Antares, you waste your breath. Weather or not TKA needs a nerf, they will never admit it. Each patch they get stronger and every one else gets a fraction of what they get, they have the edge on every aspect of melee except for no bleeds. fencer has a little more melee and ranged defense. But tka get as much or more of everything else by a long shot. Just becouse some things do not work right they think that means they arn't overpowered, just becouse they are not AS overpowered as they should be. As is, a JUST TKM against any other JUST master melee, dosen't stand a chance,maybe fencer now, but if they fix your defense acuity they also will not stand a chance. That is ALL they have. And you guys want it too. What a bunch of selfishness. God forbid you guys shouldn't have the upperhand in EVERY fight. As it is a master pikeman couldn't beat a tkm unless the tkm hits peace. We do less damge to ou guys than you do to us, due to toughness. You guys do it faster and more accuratly. we can't knock you down. You guys get meditate(power boost). If you use regular attacks, and we use special moves, we kill ourselves faster.
There is a HUGE gap between tka and other melee, either boost the others or nerf TKA, i don't care anymore. And what i say dosen't matter anyway, becouse no one reads these bords and nothing i say will rewach devs ears. SO i can bash the 80% of melee who are tka. Why are 80% of melee TKA? Becouse they are o-v-e-r-p-o-w-e-r-e-d. JUST beocuse you guys are missing like 3 things that other melee have dosen't mean you should get 3 times as much as everyone else. we CAN NOT beat you. Can't you undertand that? Not just you, we can't beat idiot tkaas who can't use their proffesion. We can't beat lower level tkas who are idiots either.
If you don't want to get nerfed get your ass over to other melee forums and all of you ask the devs to help them.
But since i know you won't.
NERF
NERF
NERF
byr- Ark
Antares, thanks for all the info! I know how bad the Pikeman have it, (used to be one, but that was when I first started the game and had never trained any other weapon) I included a very long segment on the Pikeman and other melee classes for the Final draft which I'm sure you all will very much appreciate.
Ark, I hate to say it, but we hardly need a nerf and you are being a bit rude. Perhaps we are in fact imbalanced againest other melee, but personally I find that those other melee should be given immense bonuses as opposed to nerfing Teras Kasi.
I also wish they would just remove the lunges... would fix so many problems
antares
master pikeman/novice tka
Ack. I goofed. I missed Body Hit 3. I didn't see it in the tree because I expected it to be master. My bad. The best Fencer profession specific multipliers are all 3.5. The best TKA multiplier is 2.5 So TKA's are nearly as good. The multiplier on UH3 is 4.0. That seems to mean to me that you should never use UH3 and should always use hit whatever HAM bar is lowest. UH3 will definitely give you higher damage numbers, but only about half of that on average will go to health (making it effectively like a 2.0 multiplier against health). Think of all the times you've fought a mob with UH3 and you basically emptied all of its HAMs before it went down. If you'd used BodyHit, you would have killed it faster. I use HAM specific specials for almost all of my attacks now and it works very well for me.
Note that I got these multipliers from the TKA and Fencer FAQ's. If anyone has reason to doubt their numbers, let me know.
I think you're forgetting that TKA specials tax all 3 HAM bars. So if you're counting only action it'll only be a 100 but if you include health and mind in their I'd bet you'd see big differance. I don't have hard numbers but from my own personal experiance I've seen ALL my bars flying down when I spam UH2. Not to mention that they tax mind ham which is by far the most debilitating ham bar. I feel this is fair though. TKA is powerful and one of their weakness is that specials eat mind ham.
Without buffs in full ubese (with crappy slices), UH3 (the most expensive TKA special that I use) costs me just over 100. That has my seconary HAM's all at 150 or below. I have taken as much as 300 damage from specials for other weapons or using the master brawler abilities in this same state.
The HAM efficiencies on my damage VK's are 34/50/34 or so. The HAM efficiences on my other VK's (which unsliced only come out to about 103 damage or roughly 30% less VK damage), are at 23/24/23. I believe you can get looted VK's with lower than that although I have yet to obtain any myself.
For comparison, here are some other melee weapon HAM's (these are quoted from some high-quality weapons, but not necessarily the best possible, just as my VK's are not the best possible):
Long Vibroaxe: 82/66/29 -- Total: 183
Power Hammer: 114/36/23 -- Total: 173
Vibrolance: 55/78/29 -- Total: 162
2h Curved Sword: 29/62/35 -- Total: 126
Damage VKs: 34/50/34 -- Total: 118
Gaderiffi Baton: 60/36/16 -- Total: 112
Low-HAM VKs: 23/24/23 -- Total: 70
Vibroblade: 14/25/14 -- Total: 53
The one metric where VK's do have high HAM costs are the with respect to mind, which does matter significantly if you have time to heal and such. In practice however, VK HAM costs are fairly low, especially given the possibility of using low HAM VK's (I suspect the mind cost on those VK's could go as low as 20 or so). The one weapon that definitely beats a VK is the vibroblade, although it's damage is pathetic (see below).
You might wonder: well ok, but what about HAM efficiency. I.e. you might think: yeah, but VK's do their damage quickly and so I'll burn through HAM more quickly.
Well for that matter, we might consider average damage per attack and try to factor that in.
Sliced Power Hammer:~410 average damage (AP2) -- TotalHAM/Damage: .42
Sliced damage VK: ~375 average damage (AP1) -- TotalHAM/Damage: .31
Sliced Long Vibroaxe ~325 average damage (AP2) -- TotalHAM/Damage: .56
low HAM VK: ~325 average average damage (AP1) -- TotalHAM/Damage: .21
Sliced Vibrolance: ~275 average damage (AP1) -- TotalHAM/Damage: .59
TKA Fists: ~265 average damage (AP0) -- TotalHAM/Damage: ???
Gaderiffi Baton: ~240 average damage (AP0) -- TotalHAM/Damage: .46
2h Curved Sword: ~200 average damage (AP2) -- TotalHAM/Damage: .63
Vibroblade: ~130 average damage (AP1) -- TotalHAM/Damage: .40
I'll grant you that this analysis doesn't factor in for different AR's of the target or for the increased performance of mind, both things that will swing against the TKA. All the same I think that it is an imperfect but good indication of the relatively high efficiency that TKA's are capable of. I do not know the exact numbers for unarmed HAM's but I would guess that they are around 10/10/10 making barehand fists probably the most HAM efficient melee weapon (not counting lightsabers -- I think I heard those have pretty darn low HAM's).
By the way, for weapon data I used the best values from either: weapons that I have personally made or weapons listed here:
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=fencer&message.id=5660&highlight=anatomy#M5660
But like I said earlier, with a new HAM system and new weapons coming in, most of this is moot anyway. We'll have to see how that shapes up.
StGabe.
EDIT: Oooooops! Heh, correcting a mistake on the special damage multipliers. Yeah, I goofed in my original post, it happens. =-)
Message Edited by StGabriel on 12-12-2003 02:13 AM
The one factor you left out, and understandably so, because it is quite impossible to factor in, is accuracy.
As a Master Pikeman, my damage is approximately 60-75% of my theoretical maximum due to my accuracy, while as TKM, it's around 90-95%.
I agree. Why?
Because compared to other melee classes, which are currently all sadly underpowered, Teras kasi are powerful.
But this is hardly a reason to NERF us. I mearly means that Pikeman and the rest need some love!
I personally would RATHER be a pikeman, it fits more in my character, and my profficiencies in the real world. But the class is so immensly weak I decided on the next closest character design, a Teras Kasi. Which is nice as I am heavily into all aspects of martial arts. With the exception of Bushido, which I hope to begin training in when my family moves to Japan.
Let's compare (rounding off) the costs of some popular elite brawler weapons....
VK: 34/54/34
Powerblast Hammer: 110/50/30 (guesstimate)
Long Vibroaxe: 89/76/31
The Pikeman boards are awash with complaints of 300 HAM specials. I'd imagine the heavy sword boards have a few threads discussing the strategy of "less is more" with specials....
Tell me again, WHO uses more HAM? The TKA who can pack in 40 moves to a powerboosted HAM bar, or the Pike/Swordsman who depletes a health bar in four to seven hits?