Teras Kasi Archive
Thread: Crossroads...TKA or Swordsman or ???
Ok...I'm at a crossroad and I could use some advice...
When I first started the game I wanted to become a Bounty Hunter...but when I read up on TKA I decided that was the absolute direction I wanted to go...By that time I have pretty much finished my marksmanbefore changing my direction...I'm now close to my specialist in Unarmed...but with the new patch...is it worth it...Swordsman was my second choice, but they were hit pretty hard too I think (not as bad as TKA from the sound of it)...
What I am getting at (minus all the babbling) is...if you had it all to do over again would you still go TKA or do you suggest I go a different path (like back to something ranged)? From the sounds of it (what I've read in other boards and seen posts from Devs) they are working on fixing some of the issues that came up with this last patch...should I continue on my path hoping they get things fixed...or is that a huge waste of my time? And if so, what path do you wish you would have spent your time working on?
BTW...the reason I decided to finish out my marksman anyway when I decided to go for TKA was to have a rounded character (good at a distance, great up close)...is this also foolish thinking?
Thanks...
If I had it to do over...
At this point in time I would never have purchased the game. Since I saw the first Star Wars movie at the age of 14 I have dreamed of living in the world of the Jedi. A pathetic loser? Married, three kids, own my own business, active in the community and in love with the Star Wars universe.
Play the way you want to play and try to have fun. That is what it was supposed to be about. Just be aware they can take it away on a whim.
Good Luck!
If I were you, I'd change and go bounty hunter, or pistoleer. Honestly, this is how the devs are coding the game.
I waschecking the other boards (fencer, swordsman and polearm) yesterday and basically we're all in the same boat. The all hate us and are glad we're nerfed for knockdowns, as it's what made Tk slightly easier to progress in , according to them. They neglect to mention their stackable bleeds, fencer speed equal to tk speed with higher damage, and things like that of course.
Basically, any ranged profession has life easier than any melee profession at the moment. However, if you're a fan of melee like myself, they all have their certain charm.
2h has 2 stackable mind bleed attacks, and 2 mind pool targetting special attacks, as well as some VERY nice area and single target posture lowering moves. They don't get dizzy I don't think so you can't use the traditional fencer exploit... err'strategy' of dizzying and lowering the posture on your mob. They do obscene damage when they hit, but complain of a lot of misses, and pretty nasty delays between swings.
Fencer has some nice damaging specials, but they cost a bit of ham to use, just like ours. As mentioned, they particularly love using the dizzy and lunge combo on anything with two legs. Many brag openly about outdamaging TKs and swinging just as fast. They also get stackable bleed attacks for the health pool. Also, a lot of them are using a low ham cost dagger to do their strategic styles like dizzy and lower posture and switching back to their real weapon, to save ham. All in all, I'd say they are quite close to us, and envy our knockdown enough that I know fencers that take novice tkj and 1st box of balance to use the knockdown to progress as fencers.
Polearm. I can't find a whole heck of a lot being said in the polearm forum.They have knockdowns, both single target and area of effect, but they are pretty tight lipped about their effectiveness. With the nerf bat flailing about, I can see why. They do admit that the knockdown nerf that hit TK, BH and Pistoleer classes this week did NOT change their ham costs, which they say were high to begin with.
There you have it - for pvp or even pve, 2h sword looks **edit** sweet. Drop a couple stacking bleeds, and start chopping at their head. Sounds a lot more efficient than blind stun intimidate warcy knockdown papercut to me. They do however have pretty major penalties to accuracy as I think they get -50 at 5 m. Been awhile since I used a sword to get master brawler so forgive me if that number is too high. All I know is that 2h swordsmen of novice level and up constantly used to one shot me with a single swing to the head. They can't now but they can stack two bleeds instead and then clobber your head. Whether they win or lose they still win as you're gonna have to drop and medi or visit a cantina to clear up all those head wounds.
Fencer seems a whole lot like tk without the knockdown, and bleeds instead. Pretty stylish and classy, and pre-nerf, my fencer friend who was far from master continuously bragged how he could one shot any marksman who was silly enough to get into range (pre-nerf, of course).
Polearm seems to be the least played of all. It might be strong, it might be weak. Simply not enough reliable data to go on.
Found some more pikeman information just now, here's a quote:
"Let me know what you think, course I can already here the 11 mobs knocked
at once with 100 ham cost "NERF" so shhh dont let the other professions know
but if you go through the "fun" of getting the speed , support , and defensive
lines I think we deserve a little fun once in a while."
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=pikeman&message.id=1740
"Yeah as posted many times before, Pikeman OWN in Player VS Monster. Our area knockdown (sweep2) is disgusting. In PvP however, that is a different story."
Pikemen seem to be keeping quiet for a reason =) They successfully ducked the nerf bat, good on them!
Please dont even try to say polearms have it better than you I'm a master Pikeman/Master Ch & currently going up the Balance & Precision tree's for the defense, so you want know what we have?
Knockdown - Yes we have it too & it was the first skill in Pikeman & Tk that I took & want to know something even with a good lance I could only hit the thing I knockdown just ONCE before it started hitting back & god help you if you miss any of your targets with aoe kd. When I got to TK intermediate balanceI could hit whatever I kd 7-10 **edit** times at only two thirds the cost to my HAM I was crazy with power I used to unequip my lance kd then re-equip so I wouldnt kill my self with our high cost kd (though not anymore and you know why). Even at master I only hit 5-7 times after a kd with my LVA.
High damage - Yes most of our weapons hit for alot more than your one ,but take a look at them for crying out loud speed I've already mentioned but our to hit for our good weapons are astronomically low -30 at all ranges for a vibro lance & -57 for a Long Vibro Axe which is just plain rediculous & while I'll be the first to admit that the insane to hit ratio's are (mostly) offset by getting support 4 that tree uses combat experience & was the 2nd to last one I got before masterso thats a long **edit** time before you can start relying on your best weapon to get you through a fight without being scared you'll go on a missing streak & lose to a high blue con.
And as for overall damage well I already stated I am a master ch and used to use 3 Gurrecks when I hunted Biz Natches (It made killing the nests faster) so I competed with them for xp constantly & with my VL I averaged around 200-230 combat xp per and I was 2-0-4-2 in pikeman when I started doing them but when I started leveling up in tk I was still averaging around 180-210 per and was 0-1-0-0the only specials I used most of the time for both proffesions was kd & beserk.
I'm not going to list all of our pikeman cons to your pluses but just be glad for what you have & while I really feel for you guys with the unarmed kd bug (It better **edit** well be a bug 400+ for kd is crazy) you should'nt be trying to bring other melee classes down except try to get yours fixed.
Ps. If your still not convinced on your superiority over Pikemen check this out http://www.rit.edu/~iwm7380/swg/meleebreakdown.html& 1 little tid bit I found on the strat guide is that ALL MELEE CLASSES HIT3 DMG is x4 EXCEPT POLEARMS x3.
Dargo I realize you're upset, but I have been doing research on the other melee professions post-patch and I am sorry, but this is what your own folks are posting. TK don't exist in a vacuum. We will only be adjusted vis a vis other classes with similar abilities, such as Pikemen.
I am not trying to get you nerfed, I am trying to show that our knockdown is a joke compared to yours, and our ham costs should be toned waaaay down.
Your claims of the TK kd costing 2/3 what it did for a pike KD are probably true - PRE-PATCH. Our knockdown now costs far far more than yours. That is what we are trying to get fixed. We are basically crippled as KD was the best thing we had going for us.
I am happy the devs did not up the costs of your knockdown like they did with TK, like they did to a lesser extent with Pistoleer. At least they showed enough foresight (or did they just forget about pikemen entirely?) to not penalize you guys any further.
With this evidence in hand, we can ask them why in god's name a vibroknuckler costs 680 to perform and 210 ham bare handed when it costs a pikeman 112?
I really hope they don't reply with "oops we forgot to nerf pikemen in the rush to nerf you guys", but if it happens, it would have happened anyway without my help. I am trying to get my class fixed, not yours broken. A risky and unpopular move, I know, but honestly, we are so borked atm there's no sense in playing.