I was curious about your thoughts on how balanced they are.

Currently, they tank very well, for their circumstances (i.e. no shield, though they do imply an increasing percentage in the hth skill which helps against the majority of mobs when ranking, so yes almost any class can take advantage of that), They can deal damage with pummel, lag with crushing blow. They have vital area for maladictions, hell they can even knock people out with stun.

I was wondering if the damage on their skills or in general might be a little steep. Pummel in my experience, often regularly gets more hits than drum. It also has nasty side effects in addition to the damage, that ALSO land more often than mace spec's drum's fifth hit the unusual 'telling blow'. They are unable to be disarmed, and the maladiction that seems to affect them most is only -dex.

My point is, they are nasty well rounded ####ers, maybe a little too well rounded IMHO. I can understand them utterly overpowering bards and thieves and maybe unprepped shapeshifters (save stoneskin/haste)

But warriors and anti paladins wearing weapons that they are masters at and lethal with? Huh?

Anyway, I'm just wondering if hand to hand is a little bit too competitive with the other specs in all aspects. It's a jack of all trades spec in some ways, moreso than flail. Of course this is all in my humble opinion.

But they can't even be disarmed to negate the wide variety of things they can do. They are hard enough for other classes to parry. Imms, Can you just tone the damage down a wee bit so that they aren't outdoing people that are actually wielding weapons in that aspect, like maybe decimates-mutilates average on pummel instead of dismembers to ***demos or something similar? It isn't rational that they are as powerful and versatile in CF as they are in Final Fantasy Tactics honestly, and that's what it looks like, heh. (You'll know what I mean if you've played the game. Those dudes can outdo most melee classes in damage early on and make up for the equal damage to the other classes by almost replacing white mages and chemists later in the game.) If not the damage, than are any other balance tweaks in the works that you can at least say, "We're thinking about it"? I hope I didn't exaggerate too much.

After asking a Immortal. I was told that fists weapon ave are nothing compared to a ave 31.

Down sides to hand spec:

A few of mobs are immune crush damage (lots of loab mobs that is)

No ability to use vulns of weapon material & damage type.

No extra damage from artifact weapons (ie high end ave weapons)

No extra damage/hit roll from being able to hold two weapons dualed (12 12 or for some even 15 15.

Some skills function poorly based on weilded weapons.


These are all fairly major downsides to hand to hand spec.


PS: My last axe spec had little troubles ripping through a hand to hand.

>A few of mobs are immune crush damage (lots of loab mobs that is)

Alot of different weapons and a few other specs have to deal with this too. You can just wear another weapon for this??? It's like the retardo argument that parry doesn't go up with polearm/spear... maybe you should quit adding spin/distance into the equation... We're talking PC vs PC fights and not everyone has that certain immune_blunt armor.

No ability to use vulns... This is to be expected when you take the spec, moreso than the other vast majority of weapons in the game who suffer the same problem. Use a different weapon/spec.

No extra damage... again expected when you take this spec. You get a middle of the road decent average and two lagging skills and two maladiction skills and one sleep skill for the price of sacrificing a weapon.

No extra damroll/hitroll... comes from equipment. You'd be surprised how little hit/damage roll makes on a weapon if you don't have it supplemented with gear. Average matters far more. The rest, see my comment about extra ave damage.

Some skills function poorly... I'm not sure what you're saying here. The only thing I see is ironhands and unarmed defense skill also suffers from the less ability to parry albeit to a greater degree.

What I'm saying is, the helpfile says that you parry poorly and are in much more danger when you go unarmed against an unarmed specced warrior. I'm saying that they are getting some form of this bonus against foes wearing a weapon, hands should be EASIER to parry when you're wearing a weapon, not harder than daggers or swords. I'm just saying, try wearing a sword against an opponent that is specced in hand to hand. Get your skill in it somewhere decent, 85-100. Even if you have hth perfected for ranking purposes and parrying mobs, hand to hand specs are getting the bonus against opponent's defenses they should be getting for unarmed foes and assassins with unarmed defense.

Like I said, I'm a particularly silent player when it comes to game balance so it's a little rare when I think hard and say, "Hey, this might need some looking into." I don't know what to make of crushing blow and pummel both lagging and doing maladictions, and can even ignore pummel actually doing more strikes than drum on average. But the parrying is a little out of whack in my humble opinion.

n/t

So long, and thanks for all the fish!

Why?

At least give me some feedback, even if it's just, "It's balanced and you're talking out your ass."

I still think it's a little odd that hand to hand specs are difficult to parry when you're wielding a weapon, and pummel by my observations does outdo drum a good bit given both are perfected.

I can play a bit longer and e-mail you a log if you wish, even if they just give you a chuckle and make you shake your head. I'm just looking to see rational reasons as to why they can do what all they do, as well as they do, and where my argument is flawed, misconcieved or generally untrue. It's a rare thing that I say "Hey, this might be a little off." instead of blaming my own skill or lack thereof, so I was just looking for a little discussion on the subject, even if it's just, "You're wrong, they're balanced. Practice PK/prep/think a little bit more next time you fight the spec."

>Why?

Because I never thought I'd see the day someone thought the hand to hand spec was overpowered. It ranks 6th of 8 in spec chosen. It used to be mainly a utility spec until we tweaked the damage skills a little (pummel, crushing blow). However they still do roughly the same amount of damage as they previously did. As for how well they tank...I honestly don't think we've touched that code in a couple years.

>I still think it's a little odd that hand to hand specs are
>difficult to parry when you're wielding a weapon, and pummel
>by my observations does outdo drum a good bit given both are
>perfected.

Pummel probably has a chance to outdo drum...but overall, the average damage done by pummel hasn't changed since before the skill was tweaked. It just looks prettier to see six hits instead of one big one.

>I can play a bit longer and e-mail you a log if you wish, even
>if they just give you a chuckle and make you shake your head.
>I'm just looking to see rational reasons as to why they can do
>what all they do, as well as they do, and where my argument is
>flawed, misconcieved or generally untrue. It's a rare thing
>that I say "Hey, this might be a little off." instead of
>blaming my own skill or lack thereof, so I was just looking
>for a little discussion on the subject, even if it's just,
>"You're wrong, they're balanced. Practice PK/prep/think a
>little bit more next time you fight the spec."

Honestly, I haven't looked, and right now, I probably won't. There is a reason there are over 100 sword specs, and less than 35 hand to hand specs.

So long, and thanks for all the fish!

Stun seems to land an awful lot. I think its pretty much always been like that though. Is it overpowered? No, probably not, but it is very damn nice.

I've been on both ends of a hand spec recently by playing hand warrior and assassin and by fighting a whole slew of them. A fire hand spec tanked better than a fire sword with the same skills learned. A fire hand did more damage than a fire sword, comparable gear given. This isn't really due to them hitting harder, but moreso to the hand spec landing most of his melee hits. As in, dang hard to parry them. Seems kinda lame to me.

I just don't see how a hand spec should be able to tank so damn well and have his hits that much harder to parry/shieldblock/dodge. I'm sure either you or Sebeok wrote the code for the tiered damage on hand/assassin/handspecs, and I like it, but it might be a bit out of proportion to what you initially intended.

Oh, I'm not griping, I'm just pointing out what I've noticed in game.

hand spec hits seem hard to parry, even when you are good at hand to hand.

The biggest con for hand to hand specs is the inability to take advantage of racial vulnerabilities, aside from gnome/svirf.

I agree with D about hand to hand melee hitting very, very often. The help file says they do real good against oppenents without weapons, but they seem to do really well against people with weapons. Too good? Maybe.

Hutto, the Sleepy Nitpicker

>The biggest con for hand to hand specs is the inability to
>take advantage of racial vulnerabilities, aside from
>gnome/svirf.

... and fire/storm/cloud giants and minotaurs being resistant. That kinda sucks for hand to hand.

nt