Over the past few months I've gone up against a pretty crazy number of h2h specialists. It seems since the tweaks were made to pummel that everybody and their brother has taken h2h as a second spec. Obviously that's melodramatic, but if you have statistics on how many are taking this spec and others you'll find it very high up. I digress. Facing all of these h2h specs I've been stunned like a gazillion times. I'm not asking you to nerf stun, but give it a look m'kay? A small timer a la blackjack, a reduction in success rates on multiple attempts a la sleep...something. Please?

Success rate is fine. Adding a timer would be an alright idea, though.

I like the two ideas here, that (1) stun gets a timer like blackjack so the victim cannot be re-stunned immediately; and, (2) -str and/or -dex on the h2h warrior reduces his abilities to some extent. Obviously not terribly much, but it should be taken into account. If it is already, then perhaps a tad more.

if you want to put in a timer give a longer duration
to them being 'out' say 4-5 hours out and a timer
a little longer maybe 8? that would give one stun
and plenty of time to fight after. and still keep stun
worth bothering to use.

I'd have to disagree on how often it lands.
I'll admit it is pretty good compared to
some skills, but it isn't 'all that', there are
plenty of nifty skills for other specs that land
just as/far more often.

remember how poorly hth did before it was worked on?
when a guy uses primarily hth and is considered a 'beast'
or scares people into logging off as soon as he arrives..
then maybe i'll start to think it might be overpowered.
i've been on both ends of stun plenty of times and it just
doesn't seem too bad. doesn't seem too great either.

It works 100% of the time against you in pk and something less than 100% for you in pk. Once I figure out the quantum mechanics behind such a conundrum I'll rule the universe.

Today I was stunned three times in a row. I'm wearing nice gear by most people's standards with an Eldritch Crown with a lion's head mask. I also had the full array of supplications up. My groupmate gets stunned by X. I then get stunned by X immediately after. All of my supplications will last for the duration except for one, sanctuary. I wake up and put sanctuary up. X attacks and stuns me again. Now protective shield and fly will fall by the time I wake up. Thankfully my groupmate kills X. I wake up, take maybe 3 steps and Y stuns me. This story could be repeated using a number of different letters. The end result, however, is that I spend about 9 out of 10 straight ticks stunned. I see this often because EVERYBODY'S best idea is to stun the healer. If these people ever get it together...

I attack X, maledict him up. Fight, get stunned. Groupmate wakes me, I re-engage X, stunned. Groupmate wakes me, I re-engage X, stunned. Groupmate wakes me, X gets away.

Kind of frustrating since there's not much I can do about this.

Obviously that's melodramatic, but if you have statistics on how many are taking this spec and others you'll find it very high up.

Actually, it's in the middle of the pack.

I'll kick some ideas around with the Balance People, but I don't think it's quite as good as you make it out to be.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

Stun is amazingly reliable. Almost too much so. It seems to never fail when I fight H2H specs. But this has already been addressed.

The thing that I am curious about is how often H2H specs hit me. They hit me so much that disarming a H2H spec is now the last thing I want to do. Even though my hand-to-hand is perfected, I can't parry or shield block fists if my life depended on it. They hit me even more than when I fight a weapon I do not even get to learn in my guild. It is not uncommon for me to get hit 4-5 times a round when fighting H2H specs (granted the damage on each blow is not as high as with a weapon but the sheer volume of landing blows actually makes them do more damage overall), not to mention their 4-5 hit lagging pummeling attack.

I am not sure if this is just my experience but maybe have a look the frequency of H2H specs actually hitting? Or maybe allow other factors to affect the efficiency of punching, eg. type of head gear, size of target (enlarged or shrunk), race (giant vs. gnome) and possibly other factors.

In my opinion -str should factor in to how well h2h specs work. Right now it's just a fallback for people who don't know how to equip themselves.

>In my opinion -str should factor in to how well h2h specs
>work.

I agree wholeheartedly, and certainly -dex as well. -str should also affect the ability to stun IMO.

Right now it's just a fallback for people who don't know
>how to equip themselves.

Very true. All they do is try and fight with weapons and when they are about dead, they drop weapons and always stun. Then they run away or bring in the big gang to jump you. And you are right, they are almost as effective wearing crummy equip as when wearing excellent equip.

I beg of you, don't make it any worse!

When I played a hand spec it never let me down (and I neither practiced stun nor iron-hands), and when I've fought hand specs I can only remember one occasion when the guy couldn't stun me before I managed to kill him.

Are you using it on people with place of the raging river legacy or something?

Since h2h spec has now been turned into a fairly powerful offensive machine, I would personally tone down the utility aspect if the offense is to be retained.

I experienced it landed about 60% when perfected. Don't think it should be toned down much, possibly shorten the duration or make it work less when your dex is low. Skills with a too low success rate tend to be useless in my eyes. Especially a skill like stun which is mostly used in defensive/buy time to prep purposes. It's not like necro sleep when you are often pretty much guaranteed a kill if it lands.

The effectiveness isn't what bothers me. It is the fact that it can be stunned again as soon as you wake up.

We tweaked Stun down slightly by increasing the number of variables it looks at. Under the best of circumstances, it's unchanged, but more things can negatively impact the success chance.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

n/t

I am going to have to find these variables because I was just stunned three times in, I think, four attempts during one raid by Saresha. No blackjack-like timer? Come on. Please?

1) (N=4) is not exactly a detailed study.
2) The change is not drastic. Will it help you? Sure.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

It is like facing blackjack back in the olden days. Where you'd wake up and the thief would blackjack you again. These days you start fighting a hand spec they stun. You engage them again after waking, they stun. With the other improvements to hand specs, perhaps lower the chance of stun working or add a timer to it.