Discuss: 13.8 Martial Artist changes

[Cz]

• The martial arts damage output has been increased! The "damage range" has been increased too, so the chance of doing minimum damage only to monsters has decreased.
• The martial arts critical have been increased quite a bit. You should no longer envy having a shotgun when you use martial arts as your prime attack.
• Blessed with Thunder has been modified slightly. The data for the DoT part of BwT has been changed to correspond with the damage it was actually inflicting - so, the complete damage has not been changed at all. The damage shield segment has been slightly changed and will result in it no longer being possible to stack this aspect of BwT.
• Fixed the stun effect on the Bird of Prey special attack. Note: there is only a possibility of achieving a stun with this attack, it won't happen every time.
• The animations when using special attacks have been fixed.

[Szentasha]

Does anyone see a pattern here? All of the Martial Artist improvements are related directly to the "martial arts" skill. This is sure to make some 70% of Martial Artists very happy. My concern is that there are a good deal of Martial Artists with other skills and interests. Don't get me wrong, I am very happy for my MA brothers and sisters who are getting a boost, but as a katana weilding MA, this doesn't help me one lick. It also seems like a bandaid that doesn't address fundamental problems with the profession. Also, I have heard on the test server that although they have increased the top range, they have decreased the low range at the same time.

The areas where change is needed most that would help ALL Martial Artists are:

- Fix evades. Evades don't work that well, and it is hard to tell when they are working. My evades are maxed at lvl 58, and it doesn't make the difference I would hope for.

- Lower recharge time on healing nanos. The time required to wait after casting a healing nanos is much to long.

- Add nanos. When the other professions are given some lovin, they usually get some new nanos to broaden their usefullness. Why not us?

- Fix bows. Bows never worked right. They are buggy, have outrageous requirements, don't hold enough ammo, and arrows cost too much.

- Fix the minimum damage problem. Note that this is not just an MA problem. Other classes (most notably Adventurers) are also having difficulties in this area.

Oh and please don't assume that everyone plays a profession the same way, and don't create incentives for playing a profession a single way. Please create a world that does not stifle diversity and creativity.

Thanks for listening.

- Szentasha / Unity of the Rose/ 58 Martial Artist
http://www.darksphere.com/uor

[______________Aberic]

nt

[Darkbane]

I'd like to see a bit more feedback on combat in general (configurable?) - you'd have a better idea how raising a skill affected things then.

[______________Takuan]

All good changes but some other ideas that might help.

1. Root needs to be fixed in this patch. Currently in pvp our melee ability doesn't help much when we are chain rooted and shot from long range. Root's can currently be insta-cast and don't usually break after one shot.

2. Weapon zoning bugs need to be fixed.

3. The things mentioned by the previous poster.

4. 2HE weapons that ar MA based such as swords and pole arm weapons. A good katana or Naganata would be nice.

5. Nano resist and evades seem to be an all or nothing condition currently, you either have them jacked up over 1K where they seem to work or they don't work at all. There should be some incremental difference as one adds points where certain lvl NF's or attacks don't work or do less damage compared to the evade/NR skill.

6. I currently interrupt casters 1 time a day if I'm lucky. We were supposed to be able to interrupt casting, what happened?

7. Kicks would be nice instead of the constant punch/slap animation we currently have.

8. MA Unique items in game. I did manage to get hold of a opifex only unique item but it seemed to be geared towards Agent's.

9. Our fist line of nano's doesn't make sense seeing as how there are very few items for MA's that use the other damage type listed on the NF's

10. Perception is useless

11. Concealment should be a part of the MA's arensal, especially after Concealment vs players is implimented ie Ninja. How about a NF concealment line for MA's, not as good as agents but that help to raise concealment/perception.

12. Dimach shouldn't get parried or just plain miss, if it is intended to be just another special attack like FA or Burst then lower the recharge time accordingly.

13. MA armor that doesn't look like a bad Bruce Lee ripoff. Kung Fu is not the only Martial Art in the world.

Outside of that the only last point to make (and I have made it a few times I know) is that the entire combat system PVE/PVP is now dependant on Crit buffs to function in the players minds. All weapons decesions currently are based on a players ability to get Crit buffs to be effective. This takes the numerous DOT weapons in the game and makes them unwanted and useless in the eyes of the player community.

[Sunraven]

2 things I'd like to see

1:- make fists dual weild we could do with breaking the 2 sec hit time

2:- make ma weapons use phys init

oh yeah and some interesting new nano's would be nice too other proffs got them. No idea as to exactly what.
I really hope this is not the end of the ma lovin we still have lots of bugs not even peeked at this patch like the weapons/fists bug FIX THIS!!

Sunraven
lvl112 ma
Ragnarok Inc

[___________Zeroshift]

First off, I dont play an MA, but I have heard their greifs and these changes simply aren't enough.

This is a half assed effort to quite the MA's and I am worried the agents will get the same treatment in the supposed 14.0 patch.

These changes are only halfway there. The MA's dont want to wait another 6 months for you to get around to fixing the other half.

Go all out or don't go their at all, you are only going to piss them off even more.

Take some time and address ALL the issues in one nice patch that the MA can be proud of.

[____________Travesty]

I hope there will be a significant increase in the amount of damage martial artist do with their fists and not just a wider range. The problem with minimum damage was not just seeing the same number over and over again...131, 131, 131, 131...it was mainly that the gun user next to you was doing...430, 252, 103, 74, 319...at nearly same rate of fire. If this was just soldiers, I would understand. But, snipers, shotguns, etc. all outdamage us by two or three fold.

Please tell me that when Im in a mission in BS (the only place clans can scan at high lvl and still fight within 30 minutes), that my normal punches will average in the 250's like my teammates. Goddess, if its...180, 86, 147, 159...

That is my biggest fear, a slight increase in damage masked by a much bigger Range of damage. So people will say "see you just hit for 300, you rock!", when in actually I went from averaging 131 to averaging 143. Oooo yeah Im the Cat's meow. Just go on blasting things with your gun, so I can cry in peace.

Again, this is my fear...please will a high martial artist on test prove me wrong. Fight some reds in BS or borgs and ease my worried mind.

[Breaku]

- Add nanos. When the other professions are given some lovin, they usually get some new nanos to broaden their usefullness. Why not us?

you got to be kidding me. As it is already, almost half the population of ma's are on /afk mode cause they keep getting asked for buffs. Mas' have the best "combat" buffs. I don't think you need more. Go play a adv and then see if you have the same opinion.

Crit buffs (high% too), Ac buff (2nd best), evade buff (1 of the best), str boost, brawl boost, heals, initiative buffs,etc.

i don't think you need "more" nanos, maybe modify the ones you have, even though personally i think they are just fine.

[____________Nutbar03]

The martial arts damage output has been increased! The "damage range" has been increased too, so the chance of doing minimum damage only to monsters has decreased.
The martial arts critical have been increased quite a bit. You should no longer envy having a shotgun when you use martial arts as your prime attack.

Test server recon: Max damage from mele crits has increased (about 30% it seems) however, minimum damage seems to have dropped by about the same. On mobs that I used to bottom out at 100-120 damage, I now can do as little as 70 damage per hit. Average damage seems unchanged. This is at level 90. The higher crits, while nice (950 mele crits), seem fewer and farther between.
Other reports from test servers say a level 117 MA with 727 skill can crit for 1100 against a leet vs about 900 for the same skill on live. This is a pretty small improvement, it certainly doesn't put us anywhere close to a shotgun. What do you mean by "you should no longer envy having a shotgun"?

Blessed with Thunder has been modified slightly. The data for the DoT part of BwT has been changed to correspond with the damage it was actually inflicting - so, the complete damage has not been changed at all. The damage shield segment has been slightly changed and will result in it no longer being possible to stack this aspect of BwT.

I haven't been able to reach any MAs on test with 600+ parry to test the QL 130+ version of BwT. Can you tell us how the damage shield supposed to work?
The 13.6 tag crippled all special attacks because they carry the UNIQUE tag. We can no longer get a new attack if we have a different QL one in our inventory (even in a bag) so we can never improve out attacks and we can't carry a lower QL version to use while deprived. Please remove the UNIQUE tag and consider removing the nodrop tag. Loot type alpha mean that the chance of the MA attack dropped from a corpse actually going to the MA is slim.

MISSING:
-Please fix the most blatant and crippling bug affecting the MA class. Let us zone, debuff and buff with a weapon equipt. It amazing that this bug has been here for so long as isn't even mentioned in the notes of an "MA patch"
-Either make MA weapons use phys init like you said was going to happen or tell us to forget about it. Telling us a change is coming and then not actually making the change holds our IP hostage. No MA wants to spend and IP on melee init and then have it turn useless, but we can't currently use most weapons effectively without good melee init.
- Either allow us to use MA attacks with MA weapons or reduce the huge equip/unequip time on them. MA weapons have been given super sticky sheaths to make equiping/unequiping every MA attack unreasonable. A wall blade takes 5 seconds to draw and another 5 seconds to sheath, compared to 0.5 seconds for a support beam. Not only does this weapon equip time stop our attacks, it interferes with the gigantic 7 second recharge time on our heals. Why does the recharge bar on our heal nano make us unable to draw or sheathe a weapon?
- please fix the Cohort and Horde bugs.
The Punching Bag E-Interview with Gaute Godager, AO Designer
08/07/2001
some clippings:

TPB:As seem to be getting the short end, because of those points, in PVP. Suggestions here, or Funcom's stance on the MA in PVP?
GG: general plan for balancing Martial Artists should help on this. PvP, the Martial Artist is supposed to be the "scourge of the nano casters". He is supposed to get a good chance of resisting nanos, and being able to take down nano-techs quickly because he should have a higher chance of interrupting their execution than all others. His weakness will be against Enforcers and Soldiers, that do (almost) as much damage as him, but have more hit points.

Good chance of resisting nanos? How is this? We have no nanoresist buffs and it's a blue skill. Even if we max it and implant it there is close to 0% chance of resisting a similar level
NT because matter creation can be buffed in so many ways that nano resist cannot. Check this thead for some details MAs are a joke to any class that can root. This will be even more true post 13.8.

TPB: Are thrown weapons in the game?

GG: More thrown weapons will be added in a later patch.

This interview is over 6 months old. now we have an "MA patch" pending and still no sign of thrown weapons. What a waste of a green skill.

[_____________Trigger]

Here simply to support the original poster. Specifically the point on the evades. Do they do anything?? Did you waste your ip on them? NO one knows. I posted on Game Mechanics a while back to try to get some answers about how incoming and outgoing damage is calculated, but got the big nada in response.

[LeetRoolzor]

just passing by...
Where are the ma's with the traditional weaponry?
Katanas, daggers, nunchaku's, bo's (sort of staffs), bows, etc...

Oh and... I hope adv's are soon up for a fix... The adv forum is dying... that means cancelled accounts...

[__________CorwynRose]

Nutbar, you say that they will still envy the sg......man, MA's are SO much faster than the high crit SG's...the ma is supposed to be about speed....not mega hits.

they ars supposed to hit people 10 times before the get off a shot with that big gun. the damage adds up.....hopefully it will balance out somewhat.

[__________CorwynRose]

The MA's "supposed to be" defence against the root is a green skill that is the sore point in their lives......NO, the ma should NOT be able to break a root...that is the enf's rage line of nanos....


BUT THE MA SHOULD< BY GOD HAVE THROWN WEAPONS!!@!!!

they have a green skill, and NOTHING to use it with!

Introduce a line of thrown weapons for the ma.....let them have a chance against us NT's.

i for one think it is fair that they have a CHANCE.....

and fixin the range stuff as well.....that would be nice...

[____________Travesty]

As a person with a ma char and a shotgun char, I can say that early on ma's do punch faster. But guess what happens? Ma's hit the one second wall rather fast in their career, so all further ips in initiative allows them to pull back their aggression bar. Doesnt sound too bad...But, this also slows your heals, which are a must at high lvl. So you have to spend tons of ips into nano init. to keep casting at the same rate. Your reward? better evades HAHAHAHA! sorry sorry...If evades meant something this would truly be an advantage. The truth is vs. critters you only see enemy crits go down, which doesnt require you to pull back on aggro for a high lvl ma at all.

A high lvl shotgun on the other hand, is around 2.5 attack speed, which Can be brought down considerably with init. So, we ma's later on face guns doing 3 to 4 times more damage at nearly the same rate of fire.

I would be happy at lvl 101 to average 220-250 to reds in missions, while shotgun users do 250-300. My rate of fire is slightly faster, that would be ok. But if Im going to go from doing 130 to doing 145 on average....

[______________Vistol]

This is sick.. they LOWERED minimum damage? Are they insane? What kind of morons does FC have balancing things..

Do any of you idiots there actually play an MA? I do freaking 112 damage per hit at 87 on anything over an orange. I'm buffed to hell and back using nanos well over my level, and yet I'm standing in a mission doing 112.. 112.. 112.. 355... 112... great, real great. Why dont you fix some bugs for a change instead of making more.

I'm getting sick of this crap. All you guys ever do is "attempt" to fix stuff, but never actually do any of it. It's either make a class insanely powerful, or insanely suckful.

I don't even attack in groups anymore. I hit brawl, and then stand back to backup heal. Doing 112 points of damage per hit draws more aggro than the damn doc's healing does. It's easier to stand back and throw a heal every 10+ seconds than to try to help out the group. That's great, 350-750hp heal every 10 seconds. 90% of the time it does 350-375. Great group addition there, the enforcer could almost use first-aid kits to recover health faster.

Yes, I'm upset. I've played MAs since release, starting over many times because FC changes the rules saying "Oh dont worry, this should make you better.." yeah, right.

Shadowbane is coming out in a little bit, you might want to think about listening to paying customer concerns rather than starting "discussion" forums on the patch and ignoring them.

What happened to your recent promises that weapons will have physical init? Doesn't look like it's in this patch. Hell, do you guys even know that using weapons switches you from phys init to melee init? How about those absolutely useless evades. Sure, go ahead and max them and turn your aggro bar back to 90% aggro and lose no speed, but gain 5 seconds on your heal casting. In the time it took to heal 500hp that NPC just hit me for 900.

Get a clue.

Severly ticked off,

Dakirn

[____________Nutbar03]

[quote]Nutbar, you say that they will still envy the sg......man, MA's are SO much faster than the high crit SG's...the ma is supposed to be about speed....not mega hits. [quote]

Fists are NOT faster than shotguns with huge crits.

Fists are 1.25/1.25 attack/recharge
Ithaca Ki-8 Snakemaster is 1.00/1.50
Premium Ultra-Light Missile Pistol Raid 9-X is 0.5/1.7

They all go down to the minimum 1.00/1.00 without a whole lot of init skill.

[littlepad]

One bug addressed over a long list.
Not enough.

If i remind well last time you gave MA a bit love, you raised the minimum damage and lower the maximum damage. Sad i can't find the old posts of this old patch.
And now you lower the minimum damage and add to maximum damage.

It sounds a bit.... let's say strange to me.

This tells me you turning around the problem without facing it.

Definitively, this is not what I expect as MA love. This is what I expect as VISA love and doesn't sound good to me.
You promised a lot and you give so few.

The current 13.8 patch MA part is a joke.
We need more.

Rachelle 'Falha' Drapkin
"This is the second chance, no third"

[_______________Drake]

Minimum damage lowered, Maximum Damage Raised....

Wow, now instead of just doing 130 damage every hit, I'll be doing 60-200 damage which is an average of 130 per hit. Yeah, big change there....

I just want to address some useless MA Special Attacks..

Attack of the Snake- Good at low level, but beaten like a dirty rag once you get BwT

Bird of Prey- Stun would be nice, but it better be good enough to beat BwT

Bright, Blue, Cloudy Sky- 4 minute recharge on an attack that does worst damage than my punch, and roots my enemy for how long? Oh ya 4 seconds, the gives me about as much time to say, "Wow, only another 3 minutes and 56 seconds till I can do that to you again!"

Flower of Life- "Here I'll hit myself for 104 damage and I'll hit you for 104 damage, now if only I could kill myself with this attack and you die with me." I thought the object of fights was to win, not to stalemate.



Since I use my fists and I figured out early in the game originality and creatively are hunted and killed regularly in AO, I couldn't care less about the whole melee int and ma weapons thing, but right now MA's are just abused for their crit hit buffs.


BTW
What's with fixing the agent? Like it's real fair already that they can get buffed enough to wear rifles that could kill the agent who's using it in half a hit. While the MA's standing in the corner making sure the agents crit hit buff is still on.

The only reason I'm even playing as an MA is because the fixer has been nerfed back to the stone age, why not try fixing things that are broken, instead of making all the tweeking agents kill us faster.

[_______________Kyana]

BUMP to this entire post so far. Very good concerns that I share also.

Why do we have to keep on posting the same things over and over and over.

Just read the MA forum and you will know these things already.

Fix the MA!!