Shattered Kingdoms

Alright if the player base is unable to handle something powerful with out trying to break it so the Fist skills could use some minor tweaks.

Problem with the armor tweak is paladins, mercs and heavy armor priests. Scouts and shamans are more powerful that all three of those when it comes to Fist combat. Most people are bitching about Giants and Griffons Fist anyway. I know size has been limited in its effects on Fist skills. I think setting fist damage to the same across the board for size and hand/claws would deal with this complaint.
Limiting hastes effect on Fist skills might be a good idea granting a max of 7 attacks (3 * 2 ) + 1 haste not 8 (3 +1 haste) * 2. Id stick with three attacks before I went down to two because Fists before the tweaks where a laughing stock when it came to melee combat.

It is important to remember that Fists have no skills that are use able outside of combat (short of being able to bash doors), this is a draw back of the cabal. Every other cabal has something that is useful outside of combat. If Fists are to be reduced in effectiveness in combat perhaps a skill outside of combat should be looked at ?

Cyra to slow them down to barb speed while they also have to deal with a large draw back. Their blocking skill doest not go even close to making up for it. If you where to slow Fist skills down to Barb speed you would need to either Up the damage or remove the draw back. Something which I hadnt really thought about till now. if you where to slow the fist skills down to not that great a speed and remove the drawback it could be interesting giving it a concentration drain and remove the draw back already in place.

A 2% cost on pe is not much to pay for free 'old haste'. Secondly, if you think that...you're either a fist not wanting to lose his skills or you're never seen a fist fight.

That blocking skill is better than shield wall. Wrapping up all the person's defensive abilities into one then boosting them is pretty sweet, if you ask me. Something that should be boosted, while their damage output is reduced. It's called monks, folks, not karate kid!

Grakus clearly you dont know the whole story of what you give up and Im not going to tell you here. As for blocking skill being better than shield wall you can also use shield block parry E parry with shield wall look at the whole picture.

For the record I played Tonth I lead the fists for a long time. I do not currently play a Fist. For the larger part of the time I was leader the Fist skills hardly rated on the PK field. It would take a good player to make use of them to bring it to par with anything, there where logs of someone going 7 rounds of combat and taking 5% damage against a Fist, any fist that was not a priest of sorceror or shaman was better using a weapon. I spent a lot of time trying to think of reasonable alterations to the fist skills to improve them to fit their RP (making size not matter was one of my major pushing points limiting giant fists and improving gnomish fists). After the change I was harsher on inductions to stop people jumping on the we want l33t skills bandwagon. These changes where very major and promises of minor tweaks came with them. I am a supporter of balance if you nerf the Fist skills back to how they where expect to see the Fists inactive again. The RP is good but the draw of power is stronger for most players. You can play the same Fist RP in most cabals if your a skilled RPer.

Here is an idea for a big change have fist attack drawn from wis not str. Have Fist defence skills drawn from int not dex. This would wimp majority the current more powerful Fist warriors Griffons and Giants. While at the same time giving a bonus to those more suited to the Fist RP Casters. It would also make GS useless for them in combat so make it easier to tweak to a strength acceptable to those in charge. Only problem is it would suck for those who are interested in playing something like a giant warlock.

Good idea, but you're still punishing true casters for the sake of balancing fighters. How about making the number of attacks wisdom-dependent?

+1 attacks at wisdom <=10
+2 attacks at wisdom 11-20
+3 attacks at wisdom 21-24
+4 attacks at wisdom 25

So wise old gnomes can get the same 8 attacks they're getting now (3 normal + 4 skill + 1 haste). Even the eldest caster griffons will max at 7, and giants are probably looking at 5-6.

Add in a little int dependence for the first offense and defense skills, and I think the cabal will be in good shape. Balance can always be re-tuned once they're more caster-centered again.

The majority of Fist players don't abuse the Fist tactics as much as the couple people that do and the people that do are elite players as it is and know how to generally make any character build elite and out of balance because they've had significantly more experience. Please don't consider nerfing something because of potential as opposed to actual use. People should be lucky that even half the Fist cabal doesn't use their characters like Mitch (Irekoya) because then people would REALLY be bitching. There is far too little abuse (and even less now that Irekoya has deleted) for the amount of bitching. When there are enough logs to prove that half the cabal is wtfpwning everyone with Fist skills, then balance should be considered.

Kevin

I think we need to not go by "well, if EVERYONE is doing then it's broken" philosophy.

Or else we'd be in real trouble with that flawed logic.

It's laughable that you think that. The ability of a Fistie to "block attacks" via this skill is almost on par with a swashbuckler's ability to parry weapons, save for the fact that as far as I know it is unaffected by the reduction in ability to parry by "non-parryable" weapons.

The problem doesn't lie with haste, that has already been rectified by an old code change. The problem is with a particular cabal skill that doubles the number of attacks a fist member gets.

Fists should have the same limitations that everybody else has, the inability to get over six attacks a round. The code should just default to capping attacks per round to six or something silly like that.

Just change the skill to affect weapon speed, that way a fist member can get extra punch(es) without gaining up to 4 more attacks a round.

*WARNING* STUPID PEOPLE SHOULD NOT READ THIS

If we're going to start nerfing, let's nerf across the board and make this fair. If people want to start this, let's level the playing field rather than aiming at one cabal.

Will anyone agree with me that the ability to evade the law is infinitely more useful in any situation (when it comes to getting the jump and just raping people and getting out) than 4 more unarmed attacks than a barbarian?

How about something that prevents, without remorse, any single skill/spell you choose from being used against you? In effect, leaving someone who can twink completely unkillable?

A room-effect snare in the hands of a warlock?
I hate seeing a slippery slope like this get started. Every cabal except the Adepts has an overpowering factor in the hands of someone. Instead of dumbing things down, let people have fun with what's at hand? Punish people if they ignore RP?

At *most*, get rid of haste effects on fist skills. At *most*. I still think that's regrettable to go with a nerf bat at a cabal that's found its feet after a long time.

I think Dulrik's fix will be the easiest. Add to the weapon speed with cabal skill X and I think that's sufficient for balancing it out. I am rather happy the cabal is seeing new life again. So I don't even care if they are overpowered. There was a time when every cabal has had advantages for one reason or another. Let them shine for a while before we go taking away the newfound strength.

A

Fixed! In any cabal skillsets, after my round-trip, that's arguably the most 'overpowered'.

I have mixed feelings about wimping current Fist's skillset. After removing brawling from factoring the number of attacks, and the tuning of different requirements for the skillset, it's made the cabal desirable to be played. Taking that away, players will simply find the next 'best' to exploit.

There are also certain few players in the game that play anything to deadly effect. Players just need to exercise moderation and common sense. In my opinion, leave it be, let new toys be new toys. There are ample ways to counter the skillset.