The changes to CF recently have seen a massive upswing in dex builds and the slow death of many of the giant builds, with a few exceptions still being competitive.

I would like to see a tweak to some of the skills in CF to help giants become viable again. At present, other than weight wielding issues, there is no real drawback to being an arial mace or axe spec compared to a giant mace or axe spec.

This strike me as being odd because one has a str of 19 and the other (cloud/fire) has 25 strength. Now I am sure that if someone took a baseball bat and hit you with the equivalent strength of 19 you would have some broken bones and be pretty hurt but compare that scenario to one of a giant with the same baseball bat. I am pretty sure you would be more frucked up by the latter!!

What I would propose is a change to how maledict skills work for different strengths. Giants with 25 strength getting the full bonus and the maximum -str/dex on their opponent moving down a sliding scale to the weaker races that get less mileage out of the malediction. This should balance out at the high dex/low str races are more likely to evade the giants maledicts.

It would add a dimension to combat by making people decide if they want to cover str or dex in gear to avoid blows or to avoid your maledictive blows being weakened as your opponnent weakens your physical strength.

Maledict skills this would not effect are hamstring, hurl (maybe artery) as they, to me, make less use of strength.


Thoughts?

Honestly it has been touched on here but you are comparing apples to oranges when you compare arial finesse spec vs giant warrior.

Now a dagger arial spec is combining a spec that is highly dex dependant with a superior dexy race. the results are a broad ability to take on most melee based characters and win in the sense you drive them off. What you give up is kill sealing ability.

Giants when paired with str intensive weapon specs by and large are not as effective against as broad an enemy set in terms of who they win. the advantage though is that they can over specialize in escape prevention meaning they have a bigger subset of people very likely to die against them.

The end result is that by and large even though giants can't win against as diverse a group of people as some finesse builds can they do tend to have a higher rate of killing. In that sense they are balanced.

The problems you see arrise is when people don't play smart, being a giant mace spec and trying to out maledict a dagger spec is most likely a waste of your commands. If you can kill them or leave them sevrely wounded in 4 rounds (2 drums, 2 pincers, 3 jabs and a flurry, 3 backhands and a drum, a cranial and a drum, charge and chop, etc..) what does it matter if they can str drop you in 5 and then need another 3 to kill you. Now dagger specs can do a lot of direct damage with conceal but that is offset by the fact that there are virtually no high average daggers in the game so if you are not out direct damaging an arial as a giant... well you are not doing something right.

The top two pk'ers in the mud right now are both warrior. One is dexy and the other is a giant. They have very similar pk wins to deaths ratios, and the giant has about a hundred hours less than the dexy guy.

Do you guys have similar stats for the other 95% of warriors? I'm curious how dexy vs giant stats match-up overall.

I was thinking some more about this topic and I think a bigger issue is: Where's the human warrior love?

Hutto, the Sleepy Nitpicker

Giants need more subtlety. Personally I'd hate to see giants return to being the definitive top dogs again because the archetypal giant playstyle is horribly boring to fight against (and as). It's all just about avoiding lag or outgearing them.

Furthermore, I think dex builds *should* have a small advantage in a straight up fight, since strength builds have an easier time sealing kills.

I have to admit I've not played a giant for a while, but I've fought plenty.

To me, dex builds are now too powerful relative to giants. I don't think giants need to be toned up so much as I think dex builds need to be toned down.

One major drawback of a dex build was that you got bashed and took damage. Now, you get bashed (less, because of evade), and deal more damage than you take (because of dodgy legacies that help you concealed).

It's not just melee vs melee. For communers & casters, the dex build is now more dangerous than the giant build. Bash is no longer the major threat.

IMO the main drawback to dexy/arial warriors is weapon selection, and I think it is a substantial drawback. Basically, there are more heavy, higher avg, two handed weapons than light, higher avg, one handed weapons. Also, several skills DO work better/more-often with higher str.

As far as 1v1 PKing, I think giants are competitive as long as they treat the dexy dagger spec as though it's a shaman that can lag.

>I would like to see a tweak to some of the skills in CF to
>help giants become viable again. At present, other than
>weight wielding issues, there is no real drawback to being an
>arial mace or axe spec compared to a giant mace or axe spec.

Besides several of your key skills working less often with max stats, you mean?

I mean, maybe a better dodge makes up for missing more often, but it's hard to say that there's no drawback.

Maybe its just my playstyle, but I sure would like to get hit less, and have mediocre skills, than hit more and have the skills hit more often. Not sure tactically if outdamaging really comes in to play when its harder to hit them. Just statistically speaking. But I'm still pretty sucky at PK, and have been run over by giants a lot, so I could be wrong. But I don't play warriors much either.... So it may be something I try later.

Maybe I don't know all the ins and outs. Just a suggestion to make giants more brutal.

How about a giant brutality edge that can 'sometimes' add a little extra boost to maledies they inflict like boneshatter, whirl, impale.

If you look to past history, you'll see a slough of giant warriors (rager and non) that have really great pk stats.

You'll see fewer arial/dark-elf/elf warriors that are able to duplicate those pk stats (not saying there are none, just...)

I know for me, personally, it's a lot easier to get a pkwin as a giant warrior than a dexy-race warrior.

It's also at times a lot easier for me to force someone to run away as a dexy-race warrior than it is as a giant.

To put it another way: As Hunsobo (fire sword warrior), I got owned a fair amount by elf STSF warriors. I later played an elf STSF warrior (Feilinal) and had good success. Guess what my greatest weakness was? Igbah - fire sword warrior.

To put it simply, I really don't think giants need any sort of boost, at all.

dex and daggers obliterate every other giant build but fire sword and maybe cloud sword. Armageddon, flurry, and riposte are just too punishing for little elves.

Balance would mean that a dexy dagger spec would never parry against axe, mace, or pole, imo.

axe, pole and so on those builds will be totaly raped by conceals.

I thought the defense skill order went like:

dodge, parry, shield block

Therefore if code were introduced to negate parrying against those weapon types, it would have no effect on whether or not they dodge, as that will have already been determined by the time the parry check comes into play.


It actually makes a lot of sense.

-nt-

.

In every martial system I have ever studied, you dodge first. Absolute avoidance is the best way to keep from getting injured.

>In every martial system I have ever studied, you dodge first.
>Absolute avoidance is the best way to keep from getting
>injured.


Odd? That's nothing. In this game you can grab a piece of driftwood and swim across the ocean!

Or with that same piece of drift wood, you can swim under the ocean...

You don't learn about dodging... ever really. Not until you start whacking each other with a sabre do you really have a use for getting out of the way. And for some real wrist-muscle building fun, grab the epee and see how many times you can smack each other in the arm in 10 seconds.

Then when you're done working out, ask your instructor why in the hell did he take the 2nd floor room in the building with no elevator. Not much leg muscle left for dodging after doing a good workout... or walking down stairs.

>In every martial system I have ever studied, you dodge first.
>Absolute avoidance is the best way to keep from getting
>injured.

Have you ever studied a martial system that takes place in full plate mail? Not a lot of dodging goes on when you're heavily armored.

Also, even unarmed systems that are focused on reality/self-defense/other buzzword generally seem to agree that what you want is interception and response. In a real fight you get punched, and the goal is to minimize the frequency and damage and to take the initiative back from the aggressor. Sport systems are different.

Anyway, CF's combat is super-super-super unrealistic. Fun, but not in any way based on reality. It has internal consistancy, which is what a fiction/game system needs. Its resemblence to actual combat is incidental at best and predominately non-existent.

I don't know as a cronic giant player it has definately gotten alot tougher out there. Especially against dagger specs. Also keep in mind the giants you were talking about had the best gear in the game and were either emperor or chancellor or whatever. For the rest of us non ultra-elites giants just don't compete near as well as the rise of the dex specs.

That which does not kill us,
makes us stronger.

had to get that gear and/or position of power somehow.

Note: I actually am kind of in the "help giants a little" camp.


When you were playing Hunsobo, I was playing Drezen. We both did well PK-wise (I'm sure you did better), but there was very little chance of me actually killing Hunsobo in a 1v1. I gave it a try once or twice, and it ended exactly like I knew it would - me running away like a frightened little girl.

With giants it's that freaking bash that just rules. If you can't mitigate it through some sort of spell, and you know you can't take the damage...then there really is no argument as to how it will turn out. Hunsobo was more or less unique, however, due to the extreme gear (dual humansunders, swordmaster's gauntlets, etc), the crazy emperor powers, and being played by Twist.

Oddly enough, I've always found that I can kill giants easier, in a melee sense, with a more dex-based race. With Iramath I think I died to The Bash once, and that was from the Emperor Nabburak. And I was dropping them on a regular basis.


It does seem like there is something missing from the strength end of the spectrum...a kind of counter to evade. I could list a few ways to handle that via a new skill, but I won't unless there is genuine interest.

>It does seem like there is something missing from the strength
>end of the spectrum...a kind of counter to evade. I
>could list a few ways to handle that via a new skill, but I
>won't unless there is genuine interest.

I'm not necessarily opposed to "something cool for giants or strengthy characters" (although I'm also not convinced their situation is as dire as some people think), but for it to be specifically a counter to evade seems to defeat the point of having evade.

I got bashed down by Kostyan. Woe is me.

He managed to actually kill me with his swordmasters gauntlets firing off a flurry, along with a flurry of his own.

Otherwise, I recall most of our fights being fairly even. Both of required a bit of luck to get the upper hand. They were always epic fights. But I agree, he had the ability to really lay it out, and that made him scary.

In his defense, he said in the original post: "with a few exceptions still being competitive." Giant sword specs are probably one of those that are still competitive in his eyes.

As for me, I don't know if giants need a boost or not.


Hutto, the Sleepy Nitpicker

Does giant boneshatter give more negative strength/dexterity than an arial?

I could ask the same for several other skills that seem like they would favor being stronger. If they have the same numbers, then I don't think that is particularly fair to giants. I'd be much more scared of a giant shattering my bones with a mace than an arial... Along with a giant whirling his axe at me. Or a giant impaling me...etc. etc.