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Thread: The Doctor Guide to Martial Arts

  1. #1

    The Doctor Guide to Martial Arts

    Even though MA has fallen out of favor lately, I never had quite as much fun with any weapon style as I did when I was MA The recent thread about the atrox fist-fighter doc got me thinking and I decided to write up a guide to it. I think this guide might be helpful to people who are unsure of what to do in light of the impending rifle nerfs, and MA is still one of our best damage dealing choices outside of PvP.

    I. Introduction - or, So you Want to be a Kung Fu Fighter?
    The Doctor profession, while not a primary or even secondary damage-dealer by nature, can nonetheless make good use of several combat skills for whacking on those fleshy-headed mutants. Although it's been rendered less popular than ever due to the Notum Wars, it is useful for us to remember that for generating the maximum amount of damage per second in PvM, no weapon available to a Doctor can match our fists. In fact, a good Martial Arts Doctor can outdamage not only other Doctors in PvM, but often many players of more combat-oriented professions.

    In addition to being our most damaging option, it is also very low on IP useage, is friendly to our nanoskill implants, and naturally fast so that raising initiative is less important. Throw in the convenience factor (you never need a wrangle to equip your bare hands ) and the fact that punching and kicking can look pretty darn cool, and the result is a combat skill that has only one drawback: Lack of utility in PvP.

    II. Getting Started: Train Hard, Grasshopper!
    To be a Martial Arts Doctor, make sure you aren't holding anything in your hands, walk up to something, target it, and press Q. You punch it! That is how martial arts works - it is your bare hand attack. Assuming you don't have to reclaim because you punched something that was red when I told you to just now, I will go into more details. Otherwise hurry and rez and get a warp back

    Using martial arts is really the same as using any other weapon, with one exception. When you go to punch something the game will calculate your chances of hitting, based on your Attack Rating compared to the target's Defense Rating. Then it rolls to see if you hit, and if you hit, it calculates damage based on your weapon's damage stats, the target's armorclass, and your damage multiplier.

    Attack Rating is a number you can view in your statistics window, and for martial arts is equal to your martial arts skill plus any AddAllOff modifiers you might have. AddAllOff is short for Add All Offense and can be found as the benefit of several buff nanos, some jobe implants, and certain items. Attack Rating is hugely important for combat because it helps to determine if you hit or miss your target and also provides a damage multiplier to your rolls when you hit something. So having a high AR is a good thing - it makes you hit both more often and harder! Your damage multiplier is equal to (1 + (AR/400)), and is applied to the results of hits after the damage dice on your weapon is rolled but before armor class is subtracted.

    The one exception I mentioned earlier is... that you aren't using a weapon Or at least... it looks like you aren't. When you attack with bare hands, the game engine assigns you a weapon called the Martial Arts Item. This item then works like any other weapon - it's just invisible and you can't see its stats unless you look in the database

    The way that the game assigns you a Martial Arts Item is different from how you equip other weapons. With other weapons, you put them in your hands (often using buffs) and then that's that. Whatever QL weapon you put on is what QL you have, and even if your skill goes up or down, your weapon stays the same. The Martial Arts Item is different: the game calculates the QL of Martial Arts Item based on your Martial Arts skill. The QL of the Martial Arts Item you get is 1/2 of your Martial Arts skill, up to a maximum of QL 500.

    This detail is pretty nifty because raising your Martial Arts skill not only increases your attack rating (which makes you hit more frequently and for more damage), it also provides you with a stronger pair of fists as your weapons.

    III. Initiatives and Agg/Def: Strike Like Lightning, Dodge Like Wind!
    In addition to raising your Martial Arts skill to get stronger fists and higher attack rating, you will also want to raise your Physical Initiative skill as time goes on. Initiative, along with the position of your Agg/Def slider in your status window, affects how frequently you will attack. Each weapon, including the Martial Arts item, has an attack time and a recharge time. The attack time represents how long it takes for the weapon to "wind up" before you swing it or shoot it, and the recharge time represents how long it takes for a weapon to "recover" after you attack.

    Attack time and Recharge time are both capped at 1 second apiece, so no matter how fast your weapon is, and how high your initiatives are, you will only attack once every two seconds (1s attack, 1s recharge - also called 1/1 speed).

    A major influence on your attack speed is the position of your agg/def slider. At 100% (all the way right, or fully aggressive) you will attack more quickly. 100% agg/def modifies both attack and recharge time by -0.25 seconds. At approximately 88% agg/def, you have no bonus. Lower than 88% agg/def, you begin to experience penalties - at 0% agg/def you have a +1.75/1.75 penalty to your attack and recharge times. You might be thinking, "Why should I ever go left with my agg/def slider then?" The reason for this is that the further left you are with it, the more effective your defensive skills become. So people who choose to fight offensively will attack faster but get hit more often by those who attack them, while people who fight more defensively will attack less often but also be missed more by attackers.

    After your attack speed is modified by the agg/def slider, your initiative applies a modifier to it too. Initiative affects your attack speed in the following way: 300 points of weapons initiative, results in -0.5 seconds to attack time, and -1 second to recharge time. So if you have a weapon that is 1.5/2 speed, getting 300 in your initiative skill will make it 1/1 speed. Or, if you have a 1/1 weapon, and pull your agg/def slider left, having a higher initiative will keep the weapon at 1/1 and you get the bonus of better evades too.

    One of the best things about Martial Arts, from the Doctor point of view, is that its speed is very fast naturally and unlike other fast weapons, its damage doesn't utterly stink. The QL 1 to QL 100 Martial Arts Items all have an attack/recharge speed of 1.25/1.25 seconds. From QL 100 to QL 500 fists gradually get a little slower: QL 500 fists are 1.45/1.45 attack/recharge.

    Because your low level fists are 1.25/1.25, you can be punching at 1/1 right at level 1, just by going to 100% agg/def. This is recommended for PvM - most everyone is always at 100% agg/def in PvM unless they can go lower without losing weapons speed. Until your martial arts skill gets over 200, you can save IP by not putting any in physical init (which martial arts uses) and just fighting at 100% agg/def. But if you are at 100% agg/def, even with a QL 500 Martial Arts Item you are very fast, and only need 150 in physical init to punch at maximum speed

    This is a great IP-saver, and having a fast-attacking weapon is important for us, since healing interrupts our attacking. When you have IP for putting into inits, you can start fighting more defensively and still do the same damage, but which will help you survive being aggroed like you will be in many teams. The lightning speed of kung-fu lets us play it safe and still get our licks in between heals

    IV. Brawling and Dimach: Fist of Fury, Soul of Flame
    When you are unarmed there are two special attacks you can make based on your skills. These specials are Brawl and Dimach, and the work just like any weapon special does - you press the appropriate button and make an extra attack, then the appropriate skill locks for several seconds or several minutes, after which you can make the attack again. Specials of this sort always hit, regardless of your attack rating, the target's evades, etcetera.

    Brawling is basically an extra punching attack. It's described as a sort of a "dirty trick," below-the-belt or sucker-punch type move (in fact the MA buff for Brawl skill is called Dirty Fighter). Brawling is an incredible special move, one of the tops in the game for PvM. It recycles very quickly, and can do impressive damage. Brawling damage is based 100% on your skill in Brawling. Higher skill means higher damage. Brawling also crits on occasion, which can really ruin some poor victim's day. I strongly recommend raising Brawling when you have leftover IP after other skills as an MA doctor, and even if it's low, use it as often as you can.

    Dimach is a very hard hitting "soul energy" attack. The upshot of dimach is that, with enough skill, you can do crippling amounts of damage on a decent hit - so much so that at one point weapons-swapping PvP soldiers would dimach as part of their alpha strike. The downside of dimach is that it recycles once every 30 minutes, which makes it kind of impractical for most purposes. For Doctors, dimach is very IP costly, and combined with the recycle time I have to recommend against raising it. If you really badly want to arena duel as an MA doctor, this would probably be the only reason for us to use dimach.

    V. Getting the Most From Your Kung Fu: Techniques of the Masters
    Punching fast, being at low agg/def, and brawling have made you a pretty formidable opponent by now, Grasshopper. You are ready to advance to the next level of your training and learn the secret techniques of the Martial Artist: Martial Arts Special Moves.

    These special moves are attacks that can only be done when you are unarmed. They take the form of items that you "use" (rightclick or use from hotbars) to execute. These items come in various QLs, and have various skill requirements. I highly recommend familiarizing yourself with these moves, using them, and updating them when you can - they will increase the amount of damage you can do over time significantly and many are effectively freebies in that their requirements are skills you would be raising already.

    Attack of the Snake is a quick jab of the fist that does some extra damage. It requires only your martial arts skill, so if you are an MA doc you can use this without any extra IP investments. It's a freebie - take advantage of it! Attack of the Snake does less damage than other MA specials but it recycles very quickly. All around, this is a great choice for the IP squeezed - decent additional damage for no IP. If you are using MA at all, you want one.

    Bird of Prey is a jumping kick that does more damage than Attack of the Snake and has a 30% chance of stunning the target briefly. It locks your skill for about twice as long as Attack of the Snake, but also does twice as much damage - the stun effect is where it shines. Bird of Prey does require relatively high Dimach to use however. I would recommend Bird of Prey as an attack for PvPers who are using Dimach and for whom the stun effect can be a nice boost.

    Angel of Night is a special move that have an extremely high Riposte requirement. Its effect is of a minor init debuff (that does stack with our nano lines) and a melee AC debuff. It also has a really long skill locking time. I would say that Angel of Night isn't worth the IP expense of Riposte, especially because Riposte skill isn't useful in itself.

    Bright, Blue, Cloudless Sky is an attack that has an extremely high Dimach requirement but can be very useful to a PvPer. It causes a worthwhile amount of damage, initdebuffs the victim in a way that stacks with our nanos, and stuns the target for approximately 5 seconds. The drawbacks are a three-minute recycle time and the very high dimach skill required.

    Flower of Life is a very cool attack. Its main attraction to most people is the fact that it is a very good heal (2500 point heal for ql 200). It also debuffs the target's run speed and All Def for 10 seconds after being used. And it looks cool when you use it (like a high kicking thingy hehe). Flower of Life requires Parry skill to use, and the IP cost can get pretty heavy for the bonus. Doctors are already pretty good healers, so I'd mostly look at this as an emergency heal when debuffed or out of nano - situations you'll encouner more in PvP than PvM.

    Shen is much like Dimach (and high Dimach is a requirement). It has a lot of powerful effects, including heavy damage, a DoT, a stun, and an initdebuff. But it locks your skill for a very long time, making it less then great in PvM. Much like most of the attacks using Dimach, Shen is best saved for duels.

    Blessed With Thunder is unique among the special attacks useable by doctors in that it doesn't have martial arts skill among its requirements. Its requirements are Brawl and Parry. In terms of Damage Per Second, Blessed With Thunder is superior among MA attacks. When first used it does a rather hard initial strike, then has a 6-tick DoT of slightly lesser but still nice damage. The skill lock period is 40 seconds, meaning that you can use another BWT before the first finishes ticking - it stacks with itself. If you are serious about doing the most damage you can with MA, you will want to raise Parry and use a Blessed With Thunder.

    Overall... my advice would be not to the specials that require Dimach or Riposte, and focus on Attack of the Snake, Flower of Life, and Blessed with Thunder. Doctors don't have enough IP to go around for most of their career, to be raising skills with as limited utility as Dimach or Riposte in return for special attack moves that aren't useful - especially not when compared to BWT - outside of duels.
    Last edited by Jynne; May 19th, 2003 at 19:41:22.
    Taren "Jynne" Suitt, Level 216/16 Eternalist
    Knight of Unity of the Rose - Check out our AO Tools!
    The Doctor Guide to: Notum Wars Martial Arts Perks! Nano Controller Units
    The General Guide to: Auto-Combat General Perks

    Visit the Roses and check out the shops in our City, NE of ICC at 4500x1500 in Andromeda!

    Iron Law of Exploits: If it can be exploited, it will be exploited. However a rule is exploitable, the exploits become the rule.

  2. #2
    VI. Weapons Training: Let's Crack Some Heads!
    There are a number of weapons that have 66% Martial Arts requirements for wielding them. These weapons are called Martial Arts weapons, and are different from most other weapon types: when you are wielding an MA weapon, you can also punch. The game treats the MA weapon as if it were "dual wielded" with your fists. This means that as an MA doc, you can get the benefits of dual-wielding (extra attacks per minute) without the drawback of spending IP in multimelee skill.

    There are a variety of MA weapons, but one stands head and shoulders above the others for a Doctor: the Parry Stick. The parry stick is a MA/1hb weapon that - although slow - does very nice damage and has the bonus of buffing your Evade-Clsc skill.

    1hb is a 4/level skill for Doctors, although it is more IP costly because it is dark blue it can be raised equally as far as your Martial Arts skill. By a lucky quirk of fate, 1hb can also be triple implanted without conflicting with nano skills, or with martial arts. This is important because although the parry stick is a split attack rating weapon, you can have equal 1hb and MA skills - you aren't "losing" attack rating because it's not 100% on one skill.

    Parry sticks, however, are slow. They require about 750 physical init to get to 1/1 speed at 100% agg/def. Combining the high init requirements with the IP cost of raising 1hb, I recommend against using a parry stick until you are in TL 5 - probably, under the TL 5 cap.

    Although parry sticks can be dual-wielded (resulting in three! attack/recharge timers working for you because of your punching), it's been shown that "triple wielding" in this sense actually can be counter-productive - the parry sticks are weaker weapons than your fists, and dual wielding parry sticks keeps you from punching as often as if you were only wielding one stick. Throw in that it is an additional IP expense you can't afford, and... my advice is: don't dual wield the sticks

    In normal combat using the parry stick will let you dish out very impressive damage when combined with your fists. Because you more or less have to fight at 100% agg/def with the stick that is the reason you're using it - to deal more damage. Too bad that while you're wielding a weapon - even an MA weapon like the parry stick - you can't use your MA specials like BWT.

    But never fear! The requirements of even a ql 200 parry stick are low enough that you can self equip it, and the equip time is fast. You can unequip your parry stick, use your BWT, and re-equip the weapon, hardly losing a beat in the process. This is one of the few instances where you really can have your cake and eat it too

    VII. Buffs and Stuff: Sharpening Your Skill With Others
    There are a variety of buffs that are useful to MA users. Most of them, obviously, are MA profession nanos that can be cast on others. Things to ask for are First Strike (buffs phys init), MA Mastery (buffs MA skill), Dirty Fighter (buffs Brawl skill), and Mark of Peril (buffs critical hit chance). Parry stick users might want to ask for Brutal Thug from Enforcers, to boost their 1hb skill. Take the Shot, an Agent crit buff, is also good.

    Servants of Eight armor is quite useful for MA users, as is Dragon Armor (if you can get it). There is also an MA figurine from the ace camp that you might want to use.

    VIII. PvP: Style of the Unhappy Statue
    The path of the MA Doctor is currently not a popular one primarily because of the plight of melee users in Notum Wars. Any non-Enforcer with a melee weapon will tell you the same story: Rooted, debuffed, dead. If you've read my guide to Notum Wars you will see why melee is a double-bad option for Doctors who hope to do damage to the enemy - you are a primary target, and being a melee means you have to close in to do damage. Bad combination for your health.

    MA Doctors can still contribute very well in tower battles by healing and using a range increaser to debuff, but if you are in a situation where you have to be able to cause damage... you will be stuck spamming first degree burns and self healing while you're chain rooted and picked apart. There really isn't any way around this, unfortunately.

    In duels, you will do okay against non-rooters. Self-buffed especially, you are capabel of defeating a number of professions. Damage shields can hurt you badly, but your healing makes up for that to a great extent.

    IX. Conlcusion: Go Forth and Keeeeel!
    Overall MA is a really fun playing style for a Doc in PvM. You have a ton of specials and different attacks to play with, options for raising secondary skills and specials or not, options for using a parry stick to fight more aggressively, or of going defensive on your agg/def slider and playing it safer than other effective weapons allow for. It's very enjoyable, and a big difference between MA and rifle, to have things to do in combat besides hit Q, but you also have to be careful that you don't let it go to your head - heal others first, don't be striking the Karate Kid pose while your teammates are dying

    MA is probably the best option for a soloing doc, or for someone who's focused on leveling up in PvM and not in fighting, but who doesn't mind IPRing into a ranged weapon when they do get interested in tower wars.
    Last edited by Jynne; May 20th, 2003 at 14:46:25.
    Taren "Jynne" Suitt, Level 216/16 Eternalist
    Knight of Unity of the Rose - Check out our AO Tools!
    The Doctor Guide to: Notum Wars Martial Arts Perks! Nano Controller Units
    The General Guide to: Auto-Combat General Perks

    Visit the Roses and check out the shops in our City, NE of ICC at 4500x1500 in Andromeda!

    Iron Law of Exploits: If it can be exploited, it will be exploited. However a rule is exploitable, the exploits become the rule.

  3. #3
    Great post Jynne.

    I'd second your conclusions, my atrox MA doc has *just* (yesterday) reset MA skill to get in some new implants and weild silly stuff like a pepper pistol for a few levels (he's 110ish).

    As recently as a couple of levels ago I'd had people complimenting me not just on heals *g* but also on fairly decent damage.

    Can't go wrong with MA so long as you are not afraid of burning a few IPR points along the way.

  4. #4
    (cough) Mark of Peril (cough)

    Jynne, I still miss you hitting me with your BOP stick =( we'll talk tho young apprentice =p
    Lisa "Fistofpaper" Bliss
    200 Killpet Legend, RK1

    Natasha "Nursedaou" Evile
    Chief of Stuffed Sturgeons and Healer of Hajk, RK1


    Jynne - ... it doesn't matter if the glass is half full or half empty. Just drink the ****in' water. =p
    Dovve - If you are a poet, when you read the words on this paper, you will see a cloud

  5. #5
    hmmm..

    I'm still MA doc at level 40, mostly I love it since its free compared with buying ammo. Plus I don't have the headache of constant weapon upgrading, armor upgrading is hard enough.

    I've never come across a parry stick, are they higher level? Should I worry about them yet? At this point I never even feel I have enough IP to raise my stats/medical skills/evades enough per level. I'd guess parry stick using would be prohibitive right now.

    What is "TL 5? " Is that like training name level 5 or something? I don't know when that is. I'm somewhat of a newb, having quit the game 1 month after release at level 35 and getting into it again recently with the free "try it again for christmas" month.
    The improvement to this game is mind numbing, its so much more complex now as well. I'm constantly lost.

    Blessed with thunder, I'll have to remember that. So far I've not been sticking points in brawl either, since I never have enough points, so the only attack I use is that "Snake" one. I get the highest snake one I can use.

    My newest discovery is getting the highest A and B type DOT nanos I can use at 40, these sure make a large difference in PVM missions I do... jeez I can't believe I waited this long. One of them wastes about half my nano but with all the nano packs I have it is worth it.

  6. #6
    I've never come across a parry stick, are they higher level? Should I worry about them yet? At this point I never even feel I have enough IP to raise my stats/medical skills/evades enough per level. I'd guess parry stick using would be prohibitive right now.

    Second Hand Peddler sells the low QL ones, they drop off MA mobs in missys, etc. You'll find that almost ALL that you find that is MA drops off Scouts etc. odd that huh ? =)

    What is "TL 5? " Is that like training name level 5 or something?

    Title Level 5, it's lvl 150-189. Short breakdown here, it's basically IP raising caps for everyone. Ever get the message, "You have reached your max for title"? that is this.

    TL1: 1-14
    TL2: 15-49
    TL3: 50-99
    TL4: 100-149
    TL5: 150-189
    TL6: 190-OMG I should really get a life.




    Blessed with thunder, I'll have to remember that. So far I've not been sticking points in brawl either, since I never have enough points, so the only attack I use is that "Snake" one. I get the highest snake one I can use.

    Yes, by all means, REMEMBER Blessed With Thunder. It is the bread and butter of MA life from lvl 60+ (about the time you can easilly start using it) I went from soloing yellows, to soloing reds with it. It's that good. Snake will go bye bye when you do get BWT tho, as it locks the same skill. You only get to use one. My hotbar throughout tho, had and still has (even tho I am ranged now, I still hot swap for extra dmg situations): Flower of Life, BWT, Bird of Prey, MA only UWS. As you get higher as an MA, the BoP gets replaced by a weapon...bow, stick, claw, Torture tool, *cough* River *cough*...but the key here to this ramble is that you use multiple attacks for all diff types of situations. It's figuring out the times to use them that will earn you your fancy new black belt for that med lab coat =)


    My newest discovery is getting the highest A and B type DOT nanos I can use at 40, these sure make a large difference in PVM missions I do

    My doctor, agrees wholeheartedly with you. What I REALLY wanna see...selfishly of course: (hey, I'm as selfish as it gets, I just admit it freely, or at least, I don't charge....) is a breakdown on doc nano's I can skip!

    More Doctor Guides!


    Jynne's Doctor Guide to cheating the doc crystal terminal by skipping the unecessary nano's! (it's a mouthful but omg I need it)
    Lisa "Fistofpaper" Bliss
    200 Killpet Legend, RK1

    Natasha "Nursedaou" Evile
    Chief of Stuffed Sturgeons and Healer of Hajk, RK1


    Jynne - ... it doesn't matter if the glass is half full or half empty. Just drink the ****in' water. =p
    Dovve - If you are a poet, when you read the words on this paper, you will see a cloud

  7. #7
    Another thing to remember if you choose this path of combat, is that you are melee. That means, you can attack while you're moving. Remember to use that in combo with DoT's and perhaps a BwT and you can do amazingly well. DoT#1, DoT#2, BwT and run to another room hitting the mob as you go. dodge in and out of doorways, keep the mob out of line of sight while the DoT's and BwT are ticking away... You'll be surprised how effective this is.
    /DaveDread (D.A.V.E.D.R.E.A.D.: Digital Artificial Violence and Exploration Device/Replicant Engineered for Assassination and Destruction mohahaha)

    200 Opifex Clanner Gimp - Dinged in Style! (dimached a Virulent Minibull) Finally got my head straight, nothing like a goat helmet to get you in shape again. Oh, and those marks on my forehead (yah, still visible through the helmet, duh)... It was a Motorcycle baby. Really. Ran me over in West Athens while I was working on my tan. Think I look bad? You should see the biker.

  8. #8
    -raises hand to ask a question-

    If I don't put up the ability of strength is this still a viable option for my doctor? Also if I -only- put up martial arts and when I have to, physical initiative will this still be useful? I have no great aspirations for pvp and am honestly not interested in it. I just want to be able to solo missions equal to my lvl and give some damage to my teams later on.

    This is a wonderful guid ^-^ Thank you for being kind enough to share it.

  9. #9
    Originally posted by Fastlogic
    -raises hand to ask a question-

    If I don't put up the ability of strength is this still a viable option for my doctor? Also if I -only- put up martial arts and when I have to, physical initiative will this still be useful? I have no great aspirations for pvp and am honestly not interested in it. I just want to be able to solo missions equal to my lvl and give some damage to my teams later on.

    This is a wonderful guid ^-^ Thank you for being kind enough to share it.
    Strength is a large part of the trickle-down for martial arts, so if you don't raise strength your MA skill will be lower. However, the other two trickle-down basics for MA skill are Agility and Psychic, both of which you should be raising. So you shouldn't miss out by much It isn't "optimal" for the highest MA skill, but it will work, is what I'm trying to say.

    Pure punching with no brawling and minimum physical inits is viable, but you will probably want to get Attack of the Snake anyway (it's free on IP!) and use your DoT nanos when soloing then. Since I see requests here... I can bring out the Doctor Guide to Biowarfare in a few days I guess

    It looks most like you're interested in saving IP. You have to understand that by and large with MA, the more IP you spend on using good specials and extras, the more damage you'll do. Some weapons are IP costly but suck; MA can be IP cheap and good, or IP costly and fantastic.
    Taren "Jynne" Suitt, Level 216/16 Eternalist
    Knight of Unity of the Rose - Check out our AO Tools!
    The Doctor Guide to: Notum Wars Martial Arts Perks! Nano Controller Units
    The General Guide to: Auto-Combat General Perks

    Visit the Roses and check out the shops in our City, NE of ICC at 4500x1500 in Andromeda!

    Iron Law of Exploits: If it can be exploited, it will be exploited. However a rule is exploitable, the exploits become the rule.

  10. #10
    Re the Parry Sticks questions from Naughti - parry sticks are a high level option (title 5, level 150+) because you need very high inits to make them swing fast. At lower levels your fists alone are better weapons because they are faster and hit harder. Swinging a slow stick in between punches just makes you punch less.

    Fixed a few typos and the MoP name (Thankees Lis). Also thanks to Dave for that tactic, I never thought of that in my day because I crushed all opposition with my iron fists!

    Or, uh, I mostly teamed and rarely used DoTs except on bosses when I had MC mochies...
    Taren "Jynne" Suitt, Level 216/16 Eternalist
    Knight of Unity of the Rose - Check out our AO Tools!
    The Doctor Guide to: Notum Wars Martial Arts Perks! Nano Controller Units
    The General Guide to: Auto-Combat General Perks

    Visit the Roses and check out the shops in our City, NE of ICC at 4500x1500 in Andromeda!

    Iron Law of Exploits: If it can be exploited, it will be exploited. However a rule is exploitable, the exploits become the rule.

  11. #11
    This is a fantastic thread. thanks Jynne.

    My doc is now 156 and switched to MA from a pepper pistol once I no longer needed it to cast all my currrent nanos, and i have to say I am loving it

    I dont plan to do PvP so I felt this was a good option for me and having spoken to a fellow doc in my guild who is also MA decided it was the option for me.

    This has meant that I am now soloing again instead of chasing a very fast team without having time to stop and loot items. This has meant my strained cashflow is now less burdened.

    I hadn't considered the Parry sticks but think i may look a bit more closely at them, especially as you say the equip/unequip time is fast.

    Once again Thanks Jynne another informative, detailed and all in all just plain fantastic thread springs up in the Doc forums
    Proud Member of Inner Monkey

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    We do not stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing.

    The Impossible I do at once, Miracles take a little longer.

  12. #12
    dumb question:

    I think I may decide to go MA instead of pistol now. I have a great pistol but MA seems to be much less maintainence. My Doc is only 11, should I remake (as I dumped Ips into pistol and ranged skills) or should I just not worry about it and just start dumping into MA?

    Another question, I am Solitus, is that going to hurt me? Opti has more green skills than Soli when it comes to MA. I haven an Opti MA and love her, so I think going MA will make me love my doc also. I had been really not happy with her. Thanks in advance!

    Iciriel, MA
    Avogadros, Supa Fly Doctor
    Pfaraday, High Tension Engie
    Nixxon, Gatecrashing Fixer
    Scylax, Explorer

    "the question isn't what are we going to do today, the question is, what AREN'T we going to do?" -- ferris bueler

  13. #13
    Originally posted by Avogadros
    dumb question:

    I think I may decide to go MA instead of pistol now. I have a great pistol but MA seems to be much less maintainence. My Doc is only 11, should I remake (as I dumped Ips into pistol and ranged skills) or should I just not worry about it and just start dumping into MA?
    At level 11 you haven't spent enough IP to really worry about it. By level 20 you will be full speed ahead on MA and the IP "waste" at this point is really meaningless. At level 196 I have maxed MA, rifle, SMG, burst, aimed shot, and ranged init... in addition to all my base abilities, evades, nano resists, nano init, nano skills, treatment being maxed...

    And I still have IP for 600 perception, maxed pharm tech, maxed nanoprogramming, and some leftover IP still

    I wouldn't bother rerolling just because of IP.
    Another question, I am Solitus, is that going to hurt me? Opti has more green skills than Soli when it comes to MA. I haven an Opti MA and love her, so I think going MA will make me love my doc also. I had been really not happy with her. Thanks in advance!
    I am solitus too The amount of extra trickle-down an opi will get for MA isn't really going to make a huge difference in the long term. Like I said - you don't need to reroll. If you'd really rather be an opi for other reasons that's fine. But you can level your character a couple times and have plenty of IP to get well on your way as an MA-doc.

    It's most important of all that you are having fun If going MA will bring you that then I hope you change over. Pistols are a viable choice for docs, and also seem to be what's coming in the future for us from Funcom. But MA is a solid choice too and it is certainly a lot friendlier to new players who can't afford to be upgrading guns often.
    Taren "Jynne" Suitt, Level 216/16 Eternalist
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  14. #14
    Actually, if you go here you can see the two DoT nano-lines laid out for you. They should stack as long as you are using one from the "Short Term" Line and one from the "Long-Term" line. This is just coming from someone who is rather new to the doc profession though, so if there is more to it than that, I would certainly love ot hear about it.
    "Never underestimate the predictability of stupidity." - Bullet Tooth Tony

  15. #15
    Gj on the guide :-)
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  16. #16
    re the "Will I be OK with *just* MA and not special other bits and bobs"....

    I never bothered with the extra fun bits you can do - parry sticks, weird and wonderful attacks etc although I did get a few Snakes simply because they were so easy.

    Even without the extra fun stuff you'll still be OK (not fantastic and certainly not in the same league as a sorted weapon profession) but you wont feel like a leech thats for sure.

  17. #17

    Thumbs up

    A great guide Jynne, thanks a lot for sharing your experience with all of us

    This will be most usefull.
    - Zeyah

  18. #18
    AH yeah.

    I saw something similar on a doc nano page somewhere, it labeled them A types and B types.

    I was using the two last night in one of those spiffy newer missions that had like yellow orange turrets shooting me. Definately lifesavers with those turret things, makes them way easier to kill.

    I think I'm using a couple well below my level also, since I never bothered to raise those particular skills. I'm 40 now, when the heck do you start getting enough IP that you feel you can raise anything?

  19. #19
    Thank you, Jynne! Your guide is what I came here looking for, and had tons more of useful information that I didn't even know to ask.

    I'm printing it out. It's a keeper, thanks again!

  20. #20

    Thumbs up

    Thanks a lot for this guide, Jynne! I'm a brand spanking new MA doc, and came here looking for info. Your guide was exactly what I needed, and the list of MA Special Attacks and what they do/require is *extremely* helpful.
    *Atlantean*
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