I get the #### beat out of me by a hand spec,
Why? Because he landed more blows than I did, now wtf is up with that?
I've also played a hand spec and even hand vs hand people sure do hit each other alot.
I dunno maybe somethings not quite right with the way parry/dodge works against hand to hand..
I dunno but damn that was retarded

Hand to hand specs are far more accurate than they have business being. It definitely has been in need of looking at for several months now but due to the impopularity of their initial tanking ability with ironhands at 75% the other problem gets overlooked and the numbers underpromise their potential sorely, IMHO.

Hand to hand specs are going to get torn apart in general melee without a decent percentage in ironhands. Ironhands happens to be one of the toughest automatic skills to raise in the game. (However they get the to-hit bonus as soon as it hits 75)

Pummel is signifigantly weaker than regular melee. In fact I wonder why crushing blow isn't used more often instead. Both are three rounds of lag but maybe pummel is more accurate. Didn't seem that way to me. Crushing blow eats through assassins almost as fast as pincer. If you're getting outmeleed while hasted+accelerated, then the assassin IS ALSO hasted/accelerated. Also, getting maladicted isn't a good idea.

Generally the easiest way to outdo a hand spec is dramatically increase the damage you do on individual hits, because in many cases they will hit you more than you hit them, it's nearly a given. In the one time Grurk and I fought, (and the same thing happened with several ragers and rangers) he won by the fact that the damage on each individual melee hit with his axes and his spec attacks was so high that he didn't need to worry about the fact that I was going to pepper him with massacres. (I.e. he was doing what a cloud giant does best, which is hard to overcome even with basic preps on a good day) As a half-drow I only had so much HP, and an axe spec doing ***demolishes or ***devastates on individual hits with just physical resist doesn't need to worry about how much damage he takes. In that particular fight preps would only have prolonged the agony. You also need to either lag them or make sure they are lagging themselves with anything but stun (or wear saves versus paralysis)

Everyone suggests that the HTH skill and parry skills will help... I've been on both sides. The HTH skill is a mere token resistance against HTH spec melee attacks. Use a shield if possible but the best defense is a better offense because you cannot break or disarm their weapon and not everyone has the special imm_blunt armor. Just keep in mind that, depending on their race, their damage type is always going to be the same if they use that spec. When hand specs get especially nasty is when coupled with dagger for maladicts or axe spec for sheer weaponbreakage/disembowel/plain lagging + damage potential. Whip is a distant third due solely to entwine (but whip plus hand makes for one of the widest variety of utility warriors in the game. They still tank for #### though.) Dropping their strength/dex works to kill their dodge but the trick is surviving stun or their melee hits long enough to do it.

If you really want to pick on an HTH spec though, the time to do it is early on in their lives. Ironhands has probably not even risen out of the 75-80 range and they don't have their most lethal and fearsome moves yet except for maybe pummel. They need to be doing all the tanking they can to get that ironhands up (and not be wearing a shield for best results) so most likely you will catch them with some portion of their health gone in a levelling group PK situation.

HTH specs have a combat advantage for a huge percentage of time in their lives between the levels and a glut of situations that the spec was never intended to give in it's original design. Until it gets looked at, it will take some ingenuity on your part to survive the sheer number of extra blows that you will be eating or the saves versus paralysis to save you from stun when you finally do get the upper hand. Best classes against an HTH spec are necromancers, conjurers, transmuters, dagger specs with the Place of the Raging River Legacy, and two handed dedicant paladins with the right virtues, specifically champion's stand.

Crushing blow lag on you and them varies. If they "look dazed", it's two on you and one on them. If they are "knocked down" it's three on you and two on them.

Also my ironhands got to a reasonable level pretty quickly with Derafhac, and I hardly took hits at all. Svirfneblin. If it's a second specialization and you use it occasionally it'll go up, so I have to disagree somewhat about the difficulty.

Stun is annoying. Kill them before they can do it.

and I've never had a problem killing h2h specs with my warriors, and as a warrior I've never had trouble killing with my h2h specs. I think the reason why, is because I'm always hasted when I fight. Which always leans the battle in my favour.

My only other suggestion find some damage reduction.

You are always hasted when you fight? Seriously? You won't fight if you aren't hasted?

That's a joke, right?

Against some warriors I'll always use haste, those tend to be sword,axe,mace.

Other classes not nearly as much although each circumstance is their own.

Haste if relatively easy to get, if you know where to look. I always have a few haste potions on me. It's to mainly deal with group fights because I tend to fight 2 or 3 people at once. I don't usually group to pk.

A big reason why hand to hand is more powerful than it should be at times is that people don't have hand to hand practiced to a level that they often do with other weapons.

I mentioned this exact same thing a little while ago. Like you all, I just get peppered by H2H specs like no one's business no matter what my defenses are or weapons used. Go figure.

Anyway, my experience from a hth spec was sort of confusing. I owned antipaladins melee-wise. Shamans I didn't feel like I hit much at all, and they in return tended to hit me just as much as A-P's. I often got outdamaged while permalagging them with bash(they had sanc & protection working for them though)

With warriors, it was a huge difference between chars. Certain axe, dagger and mace specs gave me a hard time with me hasted, while other warriors just were walkthroughs. I think perfecting hth plays a very large role in how well you defend against punches (surprise :p)

Assassins in general tanked me very well. I got a log of me nearly getting outmeleed by an assassin when I have haste+accelerate.

Thieves didn't tank me well at all.

Shifter forms dodged everything like they always do

And paladins.. I dominated the melee in some fights, while others I had a very hard time.

Mages almost never parried anything.

All in all I don't feel that they hit too much though. I rather regretted not choosing another spec. I hate not having a good combat opener besides trip/bash/dirt.

I've noticed with my last several characters that hand to hand specs hit me more than *anyone* else. I parry weapons I don't know (paladin didn't know axe or dagger or spear or flail) better than hands on a handtohand spec. And not just by a little. It was like a hand to hand spec just ignores shieldblock and parry and just hits me. I've noticed this for a while and on several races and classes and it's always true, the hand to hand spec hits me virtually every time. Even when my hand to hand skill is up in the 80s or 90s (or 100, which it has been), and even when I am wielding a sword or mace or something else that should parry well, and a shield, still I get hit pretty much all the time.

Glad you brought it up.

I wondered if they were getting the bonus they get against unarmed enemies or something, even when enemies were armed.

Generally though with h2h and parry at 100% (happens without spamming) I still see fights like:

melee hit
melee hit
melee hit
melee hit
melee hit

pummel hit
pummel hit
pummel hit
pummel hit
pummel hit
pummel hit

melee hit
melee hit
melee hit
melee hit
melee hit

melee hit
melee hit
melee hit
melee hit
melee hit

You flee, or you get stunned and waxed with a pincer, impale, charge.

Pummel has three rounds of lag and will rarely if ever hit
with six punches.

I understand where you're coming from, though.

And if I do something other than flee, it lags me a round, and then I get what I described. bleh.

And before anyone calls it a whine (which I know you are not), please remember that I said h2h was fine whilst I was still playing one and before it got upgraded.

Pummel ranges from 2 to 6 hits when perfected, averaging about four. Six hits happen something like 10% of the time.. The hits are quite a bit weaker than regular melee hits. And you can always wimpy from them. Imho pummel is a nice skill, but far from deadly. It's more annoying since it's hard to capitalize on the pummeler lagging himself since you can't disarm him or anything and it can thus often force you to flee. Hth specs can be hard to outdamage, but they're not very deadly unless they managed to permalag you with bash.

"you can always wimpy from them" A single hit for an oblit as opposed to someone wimpying on the first of six hits.

On top of what you said, it seems like only 5 or 6 hit pummels lag (or at least gives the "dazed from all the blows" echo) and only 6 hit pummels generate the "battered and bruised" echo.

sds