Teras Kasi Archive
Thread: Ramblings of recently /respec TKA
Page 1 of 1
After5CST
Tue May 03, 2005 4:10 pm
#1
Prior to CU, I was an indoorsy medical center doctor, handing out wound heals and crafting low-level stimpacks, and largely unaware of combat for the most part, other than by reputation. Suire, I would adventure with a friend, but with some small amount of Pistoleer skill, poor pistol, and padded armor, I was mostly there just to provide healing and company on the hunts.
Some newbie suggestions for people -- like myself -- who didn't have TKA experience pre-CU and would like to experiment with the profession. Please forgive any mis-named abilities, as I'm away from the game and can't seem to find a quick summary.
Center of Being is an abilitythat greatly increases your survival rate by reducing enemy damage (and possibly making you somewhat more difficult to hit). It has a relatively short duration, so you must pay attention and re-center whenever it goes away. So far, whenever I'm losing health faster than my opponent (1 on 1, PvE ), it's because I've gotten careless and forgotten to renew it after it faded. Summary: use CoB regularly, without fail, or buy body bags in bulk.
Power Boost is a useful ability that adds 500 to your health. It requires that you first /sit , then /meditate , and finally /powerboost in order to achieve the desired effect ( noted by an icon under the HAM bar ). There are currently notions that it does not work in all places: in particular, on hills and steep slopes. Summary: not totally essential, but PB deserves to be considered as a buff before any difficult fight.
Combo Attack is an incredibly cool-sounding ability ( that's fairly high up the tree, as well ) that is -- as of this writing -- severely underpowered. I average half of the damage with CA that I can get with the low level melee attacks ( I forget what they are called at the moment ). Summary: Use Combo Attack only if you really don't want to actually hurt your opponent.
Armor Break will basically double your damage output from melee attacks on that opponent for a short time. However, I tend to fail more than I succeed against real threats ( opponents at or above my level ), so I don't use it as much as I might like. Summary: Armor Break can be very useful against opponents, but don't expect it as the ultimate armor breaker and bet your life on it.
Dizzy Attack (whatever its real name is) is there, works and consistent. Summary: Use a Dizzy Attack whenever your opponent isn't dizzy, to give you a small edge.
Knock Down is a useful ability, but I've yet to get it to work more than once per creature. While the foe is down, I have yet to actually hit them. Still, it's useful if nothing else to give you a brief breather from their attacks so you can re-Center of Being after one has worn off. Summary: Use Knock Down occasionally for good effect, but it's easy to overuse in combat.
Vibro Knuckles, while they may sound really cool, currently underperform bare-handed fighting by a large margin. (at least mine did). For even less damage, combine VK with Combo Attack for very long, slow combats. Summary: Skip VKs and get your own hands dirty -- you'll be glad you did!
The TKA's Innate Armor seems to work fine for me. I wear nothing but my newbie clothes ( sandals, pants, shirt ) and can stand toe-to-toe with pretty much anything at my level. Comments on the board seem to indicate that TIA isn't always so reliable.
I also carry a pistol ( even without skill ) just to lure out a critter from a mob for one-on-one confrontation. However, I make sure to disarm it, because as of this writing some TKA abilities ( including Center of Being ) seem to be disabled when I have the pistol equipped.
I'm sure others can give a much better summary of what to use or not use, but this is experience gleaned from the boards and tested out with my character post-CU.
A TKA/Doctor hint:
Since CU, I've been jumping across professions, trying to find something that would fit well with doctor, and match my playstyle ( yes, I'm aware the combat medic is supposedly quite a bit more powerful than doctor now, but I couldn't care less.) After several attempts ( Doc/Pistoleer, Doc/Creature Handler, Doc/CM ), I've finally found TKA and doctor as two professions that really do mesh well together.
Keeping Power Boost, Center of Being and Bacta Infusion active on a TKM/MD makes fora very durable character: damage is reducted from enemies significantly, and you get health points back every second on top of that. Using this simple combination, as a new-ish TKM/MD, I survived and defeated a pair of PvE Lvl 82 opponents at level 80. As a former combat wimp, I was very satisfied with my accomplishment ( although others are probably laughing at me as they read this ).
My Charater:
Master Doc, Master Medic, Master TKA, four skill points remaining (trying to decide what to do with them, or whether to re-spec).
Page 1 of 1