Martial Arts Power Choices

Hi all, is there any MA powers i can skip or do i need to pick them all? By the way i am skipping the taunt. Thanxs for the input

Cobra Strike is skippable. It's a stun that does almost no damage at all. You'd be better off just killing them.

A lot of people skip Thunder Kick as well.

Cobra Strike isn't bad though, at least if you are /SR or /SD and you are looking for places to pick up defense. The full Razzle Dazzle set gives a bit of a defense bonus.

But otherwise, yeah, Cobra Strike is pretty skippable.

Lewis

Skip Cobra Strike and Thunder Kick and the taunt (whatever it's called). Everything else is good.

I agree with the above posters. Cobra Strike, at least in the later levels, loses its effectiveness over time. Thunder Kick is a nice tier 1 attack, but could also be skipped as you get better options later on, if you have a tight build.

Crane Kick and Crippling Ax Kick are attacks that some people may or may not get, based on personal preference (either for the KB or silly looking animation, etc). MA's optimal attack chain does require both powers, but you won't have a bad build if you skip just one of these attacks, but you should keep at least one of them, if not both, to keep a decent attack chain.

Eagle's Claw might also be skippable in some concept builds. However, you also give up burst damage in your attacks, plus a little of soft-control as well.

I agree with the above posters. Cobra Strike, at least in the later levels, loses its effectiveness over time. Thunder Kick is a nice tier 1 attack, but could also be skipped as you get better options later on, if you have a tight build.

Crane Kick and Crippling Ax Kick are attacks that some people may or may not get, based on personal preference (either for the KB or silly looking animation, etc). MA's optimal attack chain does require both powers, but you won't have a bad build if you skip just one of these attacks, but you should keep at least one of them, if not both, to keep a decent attack chain.

Eagle's Claw might also be skippable in some concept builds. However, you also give up burst damage in your attacks, plus a little of soft-control as well.

I've always skipped Crippling Axe Kick. I didn't like the animation, but I was under the impression that it wasn't that great a power anyway given the animation time. Maybe I was wrong?

And I've always, always, skipped the taunt and Cobra Strike.

I've always skipped Crippling Axe Kick. I didn't like the animation, but I was under the impression that it wasn't that great a power anyway given the animation time. Maybe I was wrong?

And I've always, always, skipped the taunt and Cobra Strike.

I skipped Thunder Kick, and use Air Superiority for its knockdown benefit. While Cobra Strike is skippable as part of your attack chain, you can stack the stun in Eagle's Claw and Cobra Strike to stun bosses.

I am feeling like the only player who kept Cobra Strike

It is nice to have for the IO set bonuses on certain builds... I keep it mostly for the KB IO Proc. Seeing baddies go flying from CS is funny to me.

ok thanks to all that applied...even though i didn't care about the animation stuff

If you have a high-recharge build, then the optimal attack chain for MA is:
Storm Kick -> Crane Kick -> Storm Kick -> Crippling Ax Kick

If you don't have that high recharge, then skipping CAK in your build won't gimp it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shard_Warrior I am feeling like the only player who kept Cobra Strike It is nice to have for the IO set bonuses on certain builds... I keep it mostly for the KB IO Proc. Seeing baddies go flying from CS is funny to me.

I've kept Cobra Strike myself, so you are not alone. Even though I don't use it much, I still like it, since it's a mule for a purple set. And depending on your secondary, it's useful for even some high level mobs. For my MA/Regen in particular, I open up with Cobra Strike and Eagle's Claw to stun Carnie Ring Mistresses and try to keep them perma-stunned to prevent them from throwing their Mask debuff.

Cobra is certainly droppable power, although it does have a really cool alternate animation. I love that uppercut. I wish Babs had attached that to something else. Like, a uppercut/spin/uppercut for Eagles Claw instead of the slow baseball pitch (which I sorta got used to after watching it rake face)

cobra + eagles is nice. While I was hunting fake nems for the accolade before I dropped cobra, I would make sure to stunlock the sucker when he was about to pop his PFF. Stupid fake nems making me waste a minute for them to whip their staff back out.

The MA minimum set with Hasten and some recharge is Storm Kick, Crane Kick, CAK, Focus Chi, and Dragon's Tail. Everything else is skippable. This assumes you can get enough recharge to have the SK -> CK -> SK -> CAK attack chain, which is the highest DPS.

Hasten is very very advantageous because not only is it needed for the optimal attack chain, but is dramatically increases the uptime of Focus Chi and it gets your only AoE attack up again so much faster.

But one of my pet peeves with CoH in general (and MA) is that Hasten provides way too much performance boost for a power pool power.

I'm also a proponent for Cobra Strike and prefer not to drop it if possible. I try to make as much use of the stuns in the set. I love being able to stun bosses w/ BU+CS+EC, as well as prevent enemies like Fake Nems and Paragon Protectors from using their "oh crap" power that would prolong the fight (as long as you time it right). Also, if an enemy has some type of debuff toggle on you, you can interrupt it w/ a stun. I like the animation of the power too, since it one of the more unique animations in the game.

My favorite move is BU+CS+EC+ /e flex1 or BU+CS+EC+ /e dance4 (look good first, win second )