Shattered Kingdoms

Maybe it'd be better to give back giants their size advantage, and get rid of the enhanced damage stacking? If Fist combat is balanced around characters with enhanced damange, it could be unappealing to most casters.

Even with a size advantage, giants would still face low dex, as well as low int and wis if those attributes get included in Fist combat.

Griffons in the Fists...

Wait, griffons don't even have fists! How does that work?

The main argument I see is more of a question of where do you stop the wimping of cabal abilities at?

As already pointed out, there are other cabal abilities that can basically let you say "I win" in proper hands.

This is coming from someone who wanted to remove the Fist from the game, but their entire skill set is essentially based around dealing damage. One to negate reach issues. One to negate AC. One to increase damage overall. One to keep your arms and negate damage. One to further increase melee damage at the cost of other things.

Every single ability is based around dealing damage, and there are plenty of other cabal abilities based around stopping damage. Not to mention the fact that there is an absolute plethora of melee damage reducing spells available in game.

Basically, if you start off the wimping with the Fist then there needs to be a nice little wimp spree started.

It's not a reason not to do it specifically, but I have a feeling that as usual most of the complaints about balance are simply from people that are getting killed and suck too hard to formulate even possible plans of attack.

Peso already pointed out a few more game breaking abilities that other cabals have, and if you want a reason not to go after the Fist abilities then I'll give a small one based on what I already said.

All their abilities are based around the same thing, so wimping one effectively wimps them all. Some will remain nice to a point, but there is much larger effect to changing one part of their skillset than any other cabal.

My better idea? Instead of wimping the Fist, give all the other cabals a buff as follows.

Lower the concentration/mana on IA. Perhaps make HoL a single cast timed object create instead of held as current.

Return mana drain to its former glory and possibly make mote a skill that takes HP instead of a spell.

Upgrade forge, make it cost quite a bit more cash, but you can make whatever piece of eq you want. Add some sort of time limit thing too? Don't really care. Oh, and maybe have favor give the boost instead of requiring you to go get mods.

Make dance work inside of groups.

There, everyone is buffed and next thing you know people will be whining about how the Fist skill set is weak.

That or dissolve all the cabals and simply make some new classes in the aftermath.

Either way, wimping the Fist seems fairly asinine

No, it is seems pretty logical. When any given spell or skill, cabal or otherwise, is too powerful, common sense dictates that it be modified in such a way to make it balanced. Allowing FIST to get eight attacks per round is not balanced, while five or six attacks, all things considered, is a step in the right direction.

Fortunately, Dulrik has common sense. Many posters on this thread do not. Almost every poster agrees the skills are too powerful, yet a vocal minority believe they should be allowed to keep an unfair advantage because balancing their skill set would hurt the cabal’s ability to recruit and sustain members. If the FIST is unable to maintain a decent membership roster without overpowered skills, too bad - they need to get better leaders.

If there are other cabal abilities that are too powerful, I believe Dulrik should review those as well, on a case by case basis, and make changes as necessary.

I don't think the Fist skillset is overpowered, I just don't think it meshes well with the way the code works now.

qft.

Fist skills are fine. I have seen my barb with 1h weapon and no shield dropping a fist merc to 1% hp and after a while dealing (with gs, fury and a sick 2h weapon) 1% dmg/round to an mc hellion with that nifty shield skill. I have seen Riozik dealing with a whole group in melee and dying when they just decided to cast a damaging spell. If you try to kill griffon/(giant) fists or mc giants in melee then I rest my case. None of them needs wimping.

Fist have always been able to deal more attacks out than normal players. Always.

Why is it suddenly this controversy now? Why is 8 suddenly such a horrible travesty over 6? It has nothing to do with fist recruitment numbers, at all.

It has to do with the fact, that why do you wimp something that is outplayable by the average player? Necromancers can get 50 animates, I don't see tearful rivers flying over that? I don't see anyone saying that smart Hammer paladins have the potential to be absolutely unkillable, that it needs to be changed to a % chance rather than complete immunity? 8 is a big number, too big for SK! It must be lower. The actual damage the skill causes is inconsequential, 8 is just so large!

This is one of the more useless of suggestions that has ever gained momentum here on the forums. It's a cry thread hidden amidst the sheep of game balance. I've partaken in many of them myself, I'm not one to cast the first stone, but it's fact.

I consider overpowered something that requires more than one player to kill, and the average player is incapable of dealing with. Multiple instances of that rests inside the game now, and are considered normal every day things.

The fist skillset requires one warrior with heavy armor aiming mid with a two handed weapon, and enough skill training to survive a handful of rounds, and dirt kick.

There is no controversy. A suggestion was made, which Dulrik agreed with, and as a result a change is likely going to be implemented. Your logic is flawed, though. As you state, if there isn't much difference between eight attacks and six attacks, why not just give them ten? Why even complain?

Frankly, I think four attacks, maybe five is enough, since that duplicates what a mercenary can achieve with haste and a specialized weapon. However, it seems Dulrik is leaning towards six, which is more balanced than eight.

A necromancer having potentially fifty animated pets is ridiculous too, but that debate is for another thread.

I think the difference between a necro getting 50+ animates and its basically impossible for a necro to get more than 30 animates alone. To even get to 50 they need to be in a specific cabal, have a massive rift network set up, have a ton of coin to pay off a healer, and certain items to help with mana regen.

To do it with even 5 people helping you still takes a good solid hour to pull off. I've managed it before, but it takes forever and it takes help.

Fist skill set takes one second to type in the command. Thats it and you can do it alone.


I didn't think the fist set was too overpowered until I got jumped by a sorceror in melee and he put out more damage in melee than any merc or barb, even giants, than I've ever encountered. Anytime a sorc can drop you in 2-3 rounds of MELEE combat when you have a full energy suit with greater mp is just rediculous.

I managed to get exactly 70 wights with a Grand Master necromancer alone, without cabal spells, rifts, or healers. It's boring, but it's certainly possible. I could probably have gotten over 100 with help or cabal spells. With pre-prepared, embalmed corpses, help, and cabal spells, you could probably get something like 100 wraiths. It'd just take a lot of preparing and help.