Teras Kasi Archive
Thread: A constructive post about TK skillsets.
It seems to me that the focus on our profession is based soley on tanking and pvp issues.
I firmly believe that if all of our skills worked the way they were designed to work, both of these issues would dissapear. For example, lets examine knockdown. At first, it knocked down a target, and they couldnt attack for 15 seconds or so, then before they attacked, we knocked em down again. Ok, this was HIGHLY efficient, yet was against the designers vision of how pve combat should commence. So, they upped the HAM cost on it. All it did was make us ineffective in PVE and didnt change one bit how we fought in PVP. I could take out two rebs if I got close enough, but I couldnt kill a Huurton that conned white. So, after a HUGE outcry of TK and other KD professions, the devs came up with what *could* have been the fix: Put a timer on knockdown, and lower HAM costs. The problems were: It didnt give a delay on the creatures attack when it stood up. At best, it delayed them one round of damage, which is not worth the ham cost. Also, if we missed our target, it counted as a knockdown and wouldnt let us do it again for 30 seconds. Thus, Knockdown was and is officially worthless in PVE, but in PVP, a dizzied target that gets knocked down is still dead, so the opposite of what was trying to be accomplished came into existance.
Thats our mainstay skill, and it is now worthless. Let's examine other skills that have no effect, or such an obscure effect, a difference cannot be shown.
Blind.... Supposedly makes me harder to hit. I have ran extensive tests on blue, white, yellow, and red. There is next to no difference in how often I get hit.
Dizzy... Is worthless in PVE. It does absolutely nothing.
Stun.. Look at dizzy.
Combo 1 and 2.... I dont understand why this skill was implemented. It actually takes LONGER to kill a creature, as all damage is spread throughout the 3 ham bars.
Unarmed Spin... Almost a worthwhile skill, exept if more than 1 creature is attacking you, you should hit burst run instead of this. The damage output is meager at best, and renders this a worthless skill.
Power boost (Meditation3)... I am almost positive this skill is a known non-working skill, but I have not read any post confirming this. I hit the button, I receive 500 mind wounds, and my damage, to hit, and speed modifiers are all the same. It seems as of now, the code for this skill has yet to be implemented.
Beserk... Good for novice brawlers in the 1-3 skill boxes. After this, it becomes more damaging to the user than the receiver. Absolutely worthless to any Teras Kasi.
Unarmed Defense Skill Mod..... Simply does not compete against decent armor. We DO enjoy the luxury of not receiving encumberance penalties, but in the long run, armor actually prevents more damage than without. Just gets old putting it on, killing (if venus and mars are in perfect alignment that is), and taking it off to heal.
Precision Strikes.... It seems in ALL professions that feature this, the only worthwhile precision strike to use is mind damage. Pve and pvp. I can understand why action and health are there, and perhaps if our other skills worked properly, we could use them to finish off a target if any one of their HAM bars gets low.
Lunge... Put the damage back on. It is on the same timer as knockdown now, so it would make sense.
Intimidate and Warcry... I actually *can* tell a difference by using them, the problem is, I have to use it 2 or 3 times before I actually hit with it, and by that time, I have sustained a good deal of damage, and have dealt none. Blind, and Stun should give THESE effects, while dealing damage.
So, I think that if our skills worked, and they each had a supporting role in a battle, they could be used together to make our 'tank' abilities apparant. If I stunned, blinded, and dizzied, I should get ALOT less, with a LOT less damage.
Why the talk of implementing a whole new skill? It is indeed intentioned correctly, but what to do with the rest of our unusable skills? Seems like we're throwing them under the rug, while bringing out a neat new shiny toy to play with. I'd rather clean up the old one, and play with it.
Unarmed Spin - I love this skill. Running away from a pack of blue/white conned mobs is lame.
I've killed up to 11 hermit spiders + sentries with just this move. Alot of times when doing missions, i just run to the lair, kill it, meanwhile the mobs spawn and come attack me, surrounding me. When the lair is dead, i just spin, spin, spin....
ta da, 10 dead enemies, and me with over half my ham still left. Hitting unarmed attack for each of those would have taken much longer, cost much more HAM, and I would have taken much more damage.
One of the most usefull moves when doing pve missions(note: it would be pretty stupid to try it vs high lvl white/yellow and red cons). Add a tat sunburn to the equation, and its even better.
hmm... i can't agree with ya about stun not doin' anything. my favorite combo set is stun and intimidate, gettin' them both to stick is a trick, but when they do i recieve about 60-70% less damage.
my typical attack tacticfor PvE
health hot 2 (bleed that sucka and get him to come to me)
armspeed sliced knuckles : 2 or three auto attacks
disarm knuckles : stun, intimidate (pray for stick)
arm damage sliced knuckles : and wack away, maybe disarming and reapplying stun or intmidate if need be, or throwing in a body hitspecial here or there
I posted some ideas about TKA skills here -
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=teras_kasi_artist&message.id=15862
Jatr wrote:
Unarmed Spin - I love this skill. Running away from a pack of blue/white conned mobs is lame.
I've killed up to 11 hermit spiders + sentries with just this move. Alot of times when doing missions, i just run to the lair, kill it, meanwhile the mobs spawn and come attack me, surrounding me. When the lair is dead, i just spin, spin, spin....
ta da, 10 dead enemies, and me with over half my ham still left. Hitting unarmed attack for each of those would have taken much longer, cost much more HAM, and I would have taken much more damage.
One of the most usefull moves when doing pve missions(note: it would be pretty stupid to try it vs high lvl white/yellow and red cons). Add a tat sunburn to the equation, and its even better.
Well, the lairs having 56k hitpoints will force ya to modify this tactic. 
Hmm, to be honest with you man, I don't see how this would work for most TK's. You're telling me you have 10 hermit spiders attacking you while you spin away? Perhaps this is fine at your level, but when you get to Master TK, those hermits will con green, and the creatures you 'spin away' on (white cons) would eat you alive in under 10 seconds. Again, it isa case of a skill being decent for a while, then becoming obsolete. I posted the original post from a master , or close to master, TK's perspective. I suppose I missed out on the spin tactic in my 'youth', but it sounds like it is working for you. Give it a few weeks.
Also, stun+intimidate combo.... I'm gonna do some tests, and post the result here. I'm hoping you're on to something with that one.
Anyone else have some *secret* combinations that drastically reduce damage? If so, PLEEEAASSEEE post it!
He's right on intimidate, it's one of the few options left to us that actually helps.Intimidate 2 is definitely better but getting master brawler can be quite pricey on the skills. I had to drop it so I can work up my doctor skills, but it was still tough, I'm going to miss intimidate 2. After the last big nerf I fought a gnarled rancor using intimidate 2 and armor and won. The rancor averaged 30-40 dmg a hit on me because of that combo combined with our melee resilience. I merely started the fight with intimidate 2 and immediately used berserk 2 and pummeled the tar outta the thing. Now when I tried a graul mauler later on it turned out badly, I'd have probably lost using this tactic thanks to the grauls massive kinetic resistence. The graul was only hitting me for 30-40 but I was only hitting him for 200.
Anyway, that's a little of my experience in the matter. Haven't tried using stun with intimidate yet, might have to give it a try.
Liriel Baenre
Heh, don't know where you learned your tactics from. Those lame spiders can be killed easily way before you get anywhere near 1/2 HAM. Anyway, many of you don't seem to understand what most of these attacks do, let me try to explain a little.
Blind doesn't change their accuracy, it lowers their attack and defense stats.
Stun lowers defense slightly more than blind does.
Dizzy simply makes it possible that an enemy will fall over if it tries to change postures.
Warcry delays the oponents next action.
Intimidate is a little tricky. It is supposed to make you harder to hit (what you seem to think blind is supposedto do) but it doesn't do that at all until intimidate 2. At intimidate 1 it GREATLY lowers your oponents attack. I think this is a glitch.
Melee and ranged defenses are greatly misinterperated. Most people think that these lower damage. That is what unarmed toughness does (and it does this VERY effectively, better than the best armor on the market). The defense mods are instead the evasion mods that we have always wanted. The higher these mods, the less likely you will be hit by an attack. These are seperate from the special evasion moves such as block and dodge. These work as a natural intimidate 2, though not as effectiely as intimidate 2.
Please note that I have studied and tested all of these quite a bit. If you see them doing something else, don't hesitate to explain. These are how they have worked for me and I've watched combat spam very closely to figure these out. I find blind, stun, and intimidate to be the most useful skills of all. An enemy with all 3 of these will be extremely easy to defeat with just regular auto-attacks.