Sooo when is MA going to be adjusted?

In other words, let me polish your knob Arcana. Figuratively of course.

The thing is, if you are in no position to say anything beyond telling people they are wrong and have no idea what they are talking about; yet can contribute nothing beyond "I'm not at liberty to discuss it". All while also saying as of GR you are completely reworking your vision of the set from the ground up. The result is you sound as contradictory as one of those fanatical religious people on the corner. Any person who doesn't blindly follow you (see above person) would tell you that it would be far better to say nothing at all.

Just so we are clear, in this thread you have come across as saying you are the only one who knows anything at all, yet what you know is going to completely change in 2 months and you are going to start from scratch at that time. Essentially what that means is what you know and have been thinking has been dismissed and you are going to be moving in an unknown direction in 2 months, but you still know it all even though you are starting from the ground up and may have new ideas from what you have at this point in time.

Then you regale us with stories of how you invented snipes and convinced Castle you were right about MA nearly 3 years ago. But did you convince him you were right about the ideas you haven't even thought of because you are starting from scratch with the set in two months? I'm really impressed if you did and I can definitely understand why you wouldn't be able to talk about something like that. I just wish you'd use your super human ability to see through the veil of time for something more meaningful, but oh well. I hope you are thankful for people like Ryuuk.

Challenge ... accepted.



CAK is, as you've pointed out, the #1 stumbling block.

The underlying problem is that just as every scrapper primary has a "power up" ... whether it be Build Up/Focus Chi or something analogous ... and every scrapper primary has a single target Taunt ... it is also true that every single scrapper primary has an Immobilize of some sort. Clearly the *original* intent was to give scrappers something which would allow them to "control" runners, since a melee only powerset can be easily foiled by repositioning to disengage.

This is ... as far as these things go ... "okay" thinking, in generic/general terms.

The problem is ... what happens when the theorycrafting meets the gameplay.

As players have complained, since before Castle rose up and overthrew Geko ... Immobilize ... especially a WEAK single target Immobilize ... is exceptionally worthless to a scrapper. Immobilize AT RANGE at least offers some minimal mitigation from melee damage. But within melee range, the value plummets to almost nothing. This is especially true when the Immobilize MAG is so anemic as to only be capable of Immobilizing MINIONS ... who pose little to no threat to a scrapper whatsoever because of La Machine buzzsaw factors in which scrappers, once reaching the endgame, rarely expend more than 3 attacks on a single minion (if that).

CAK's Immobilize would be USEFUL if it were on Cobra Strike(!), where it could be used in the early levels against mobs in Atlas Park, Galaxy City, The Hollows and Perez Park ... all of which like to run, and young scrappers rarely have enough damage to finish Minions off in 3 or less hits before reaching level 10 ... but that's not how Immobilize was added to Martial Arts. Instead, it was placed on a power which at level 18 means dealing with the end of Steel Canyon, Skyway, Boomtown, Faultline and soon moving on to Talos Island, Independence Port, Dark Astoria, Terra Volta and Striga Island. A great many of these mobs you encounter in these levels render Immobilize of questionable value (at best!) ... especially considering Tsoo Sorcerers and Sky Raider Porters teleporting away.

If CAK's Immobilize were moved over to Cobra Strike, then Cobra Strike could at least function like a "ghetto hold" combining both immobility and stun. But no ... we've got ... CAK.

And sad as it makes me ... I think that we're going to be stuck with CAK as an Immobilize, no matter what arguments are made about the sheer worthlessness of an Immobilize on a power that comes too late to be worthwhile against the categories of mobs most likely to run away ... the lowbies.



That said ... if we're going to get stuck with CAK as an Immobilize, because every scrapper primary has an Immobilize ... the question then becomes ... HOW can an Immobilize be leveraged to be USEFUL to a Martial Arts scrapper? Even more importantly ... how is CAK a better choice of an attack power than Air Superiority or even Jump Kick?

It can be pretty easily argued that Air Superiority is dramatically superior to CAK in terms of both mitigation and utility. So how to bring CAK, a level 18 primary power, "up to snuff" in comparison with level 6 pool powers?

The way I see it, there's basically two options ... for the Immobilize.

CAK can either be configured to have a high MAG Immobilize, which lasts for a short(ish) duration ... or ... CAK can be configured to have its current anemic low MAG Immobilize and make it last for a long duration, permitting self-stacking of the Immobilization to "useful" MAG levels after repeat use as part of an attack chain.



The second thing I'd want to do is give the "Crippling" part of CAK's name some actual, relevant, game mechanical support.

Let's try giving CAK a Damage Debuff to target ... which lasts long enough to self-stack. Something like a -10% Damage Debuff which lasts for say ... 10 seconds.

Throw in a -30% Recharge Debuff which also lasts for 10 seconds, and is intended to self-stack, and we'll have a power which has USEFUL effects beyond just "simple" immobilization which isn't merely "on par" with (or worse than!) a level 6 pool power which can deliver greater combat utility through a dirt simple knockdown.

And the beauty of it is ... neither the Damage Debuff nor the Recharge Debuff is modifiable by enhancements ... meaning that there's no change necessary to the allowed enhancements or permitted IO Sets available to the power. Meaning, no running afoul of that tendril of the Cottage Rule.

Keep the anti-Fly and movement Snare properties, as well as damage, recharge, endurance and animation times constant ... and we'd have something competitive.



What say you ... Arcanaville?

It's the end. But the moment has been prepared for ...

I've personally always thought that the toxic in spines should be doing -regen, and still think it should.

I'm not opposed to handing out low doses of -regen to some melee sets. It's not a major factor until you start giving it high numbers (like ~150%+). If you look at widows for instance they get a bit of -regen (iirc 25% on a couple powers). It's not a major factor, but does make things a bit smoother as the targets you affect (below high ranking foes) stop receiving ticks of health. It's nice if you hit something with a dot power and it doesn't recover some health running away and survive it.

I don't see -regen as a solution to any melee set problems, but as a layer in the process it could be a reasonably attractive tool.

It would be situationally helpful, yes, but only if it's in addition to, not instead of, other buffs.

In everyday gameplay I don't see it making enough of a difference to make up for the set's other shortcomings. For Stupid Scrapper Tricks, yes. On a team, maybe, although your pitiful -regen would be nothing compared to what some of your teammates bring. In regular gameplay, especially at the high end....well there are Super Arachnoids. Everything else, you're over-killing anyway.

Definitely agree

Is that really true? I can't think of one in Fiery Melee...or Broadsword/Katana...or Claws...Really just Dark Melee's Midnight Grasp and Martial Arts' CAK.

Impale. Personally I believe every melee set should have an Immobilize of some sort but that's neither here nor there.

I still don't get why people are focusing on Crippling Axe Kick. It's clunky, but really changing it would do nothing to fix the set. I guess it could get a big boost to improve the set's performance, but if they did that then nothing would really change. The set would still use SK - CAK - SK - CK, and people would still skip all the other powers. The tier 9 would fall even more behind if CAK was improved and people would have even less reason to use EC.

I personally would rather have the set tweaked in a couple of areas. A total redesign makes me nervous. I already have MA characters that I am invested in. My preference is to save the cutting edge design ideas for staff/polearm and whatever other sets are coming down the pipe.

CAK is already perfect, it has a slow effect which in pvp is super considering the travel suppression, it's already hard enough for Melee AT to catch runners and kiters.

Welll....

My two cents then.

If the consensus is the only "right" thing to do to EC is shorten the animation, I'd vote for changing it completely.

There is precedent for this drastic step, indeed, MA has had animations completely changed already.

There must be SOME suitably awe-inspiring kung fu kick out there that only takes about 1.8 seconds to perform. I say let's find it and toss up some vids!

Sadly, it might be the best attack outside of Storm Kick we have. The DPA might not quite be as high as Crane Kick, but then again I am not kicking my targets away from me.

Now that BAB fixed the animation and put the sound in the right place the attack flows much better than it's reputation from back in the day when it was mistimed and had bad sound placement. The alternate animation is not bad either; though it doesn't flow as well as it good because of the "wind up" with the fist to round out the longer time.

Without CAK what is your attack chain? Are you using Thunder Kick? EC?

Hmmm...I use CK on my Martial Art Scrappers, and truthfully, the KB has never been a problem. It doesn't happen nearly that often.

It is annoying no doubt. One thing I've learned to do is let the enemy live. I Crane Kick and immediately shift select the next enemy and take them down while the first is getting up and running back.

It gets really annoying on the last rescued hostage when you mistakenly Crane Kick the last mob you have to defeat off the top of the factory map or something and then have to go chase them down into another spawn to finish the mission.

Solo: I do the same thing. I let them make their way back to me and deal with the other enemies.

Team: I'm a st specialist and as such usually going after high ranking threats. Having two bosses run around with 10% hp is just as dangerous as having two bosses at 100% hp. If I were an ma/inv or shield I would continue with the strategy of switching targets because they are going to be under a long duration taunt and will come back to me. Other secondaries, the risk of a squishy doing pretty much anything to get their attention is fairly high. Especially since I likely just knocked them out of range of the punch-voke tank or anyone else helping with agro control.

That says nothing of me knocking them out of my own preferred areas such as away from my rttc, or powersink, or damage aura, or dragon tail.

Crane Kick's high kb actually gives solid support for the idea of adding some -regen to the set. If the dev's really intend for us to switch targets after crane kick then it would be nice if said target didn't go and heal back some of that damage in the time it takes them to make their way back to us. Or the devs intend for us to have near zero dps due to knocking the target away all the time, which I hope isn't the case.

It also lends support to the idea of adding 2-3 seconds of -kb to CAK. That way you can combo in to CK without worry of zeroing future damage. Which as of right now if you lead with CAK into CK it takes even longer for them to come back to you due to immob and/or slow, which is further contrary to synergy. The short duration -kb would allow CK to still function as it does now unless you combo into it. win, win and would mean less disruption to powers if people like them the way they are now.

But then again I've been told
by the all-seeing prophet, so I'm not sure why I'm even talking as this thread has already been blessed by her omnipotent vision.

I have seen -KB in CAK suggested here before. (Hell I might have even made the suggestion.) It would be awesome to be the scrapper set that can group with Energy/ and other knockback heavy sets and be able to keep the mob in one place. Not to mention negating my own Crane Kick.

That was me and it was made in conjuction with providing Crane Kick with some high mag KU along with the KB and not giving CAK -KU.

This is a great idea, and I would take it even further and consider adding -KB to one lower tier attack for every melee powerset. This would go a long way in lowering the KB "hate" that exists in the game. I love my KB, but when I am trying to beat something down in melee range, I would prefer not chasing it all over the map when the Energy Blaster decides to "let fly".

This? This is genuinely good, original thinking. It adds more depth and strategy to the basic button-mashing of combat. "Do I want to move this foe, freeze this foe in place, or just hammer him?"

Can we get a Dev in here to poke around at this one?

For the Martial Arts example, if you want to knock a baddy away, you lead with crane kick. If you want to anchor him for the drubbing, lead with crippling axe kick. Lord knows it'd be easier to tolerate some of the less melee friendly combos out there with this as an added feature.

This could enhance melee toons and many others all at one go.

Thumbs up, gents!

The issue here is that the Devs didn't really take that into consideration at all when they made the set. Somewhat understandable, it's something that's been a part of the game since Day 1, so they had no real appreciation of how game play would develop and settle down.

The high KB attack of Crane Kick was an aesthetic choice, one of their ways of simulating "Movie-Fu" in the game. Which, while nice to look at, really breaks up the flow of battle, because the player IS forced to use this attack as a finisher only.

And yes, it has been suggested that CAK be given a -KB component before, but I don't think that will ever happen.

Personally, I'd love to see this changed so that the victim being thrown away acts as a projectile, too, carrying a narrow cone knockdown with minor smashing damage... but I think we'd have more luck getting this changed to a narrow melee cone ala Head Splitter/Golden Dragonfly. Even then, it won't change the detail that you can't reliably put this attack in an attack chain.

Unfortunately it is a tough issue to tackle. The kb is visually great and it is even fun provided you can get past the negatives it brings. I personally wouldn't want to take the effect away from the power, but I would make it more reliable and increase it up close to 100% chance of occurring. I don't think you can change what CK does without taking a lot of the flavor away from the power. So ideally we shouldn't.

Despite the earlier misinformation, CK presents a much larger overarching issue toward MA as a whole than CAK. One that I'd solve with CAK as mentioned, but I remain open to ideas of course. I know as of now CK is one of the main reasons I went fire app and now include ring of fire in my attack chain. While not actually a terrible DPA attack if the target lives long enough for the long duration dot to complete it does tend toward lowering MA's dps even further if used (better than when the only option was web grenade). But it is still higher than if I have to keep chasing the target down.