anyone try the new MA/ yet?

oh boy, villainous Scrappers!

I want to try out the new and improved MA/, and I'm wondering if anyone can toss me some feedback on it and it's new changes as of yet. I'm thinking MA/DA for my ebil scrappy, whatta ya think?

I think that would be a good combo.

I shall have to play my MA/Regen... he's a Level 40 now. I really hope the changes have positive effects on him.

I made an ma/fa as my first praetorian to check out the changes for both. So far I'm loving the new cobra strike. Verdict will have to wait on the other changes, not even level 10 yet

The change to CS made it more attractive alone. 25% drop in stun chance is not really noticeable when you have a way shorter recharge time for stacking the 75% sun chance that we still do have. Crippling Axe Kick is looking better too. I'll have to try it out tomorrow after work.

I've only messed around with it a bit. Haven't respec'd into Cobra Strike yet, though I'm looking forward to that.

Crippling Axe Kick hits like a truck now. It's very nice.

I love the new MA changes, I've been going on about them since beta. I kind of stopped playing that character on live since it was disappointing compared to the test version.

I think MA/DA should work well.

I already had cobra strike, but now I can actually include it in my attack chain. I also added CaK, but we'll see how it goes. I'm not a fan of either animation for it.

Be sure to use Eagle's Claw followed by Dragon's Tail, when you get there. Seeing 8 or more criticals while everyone falls down is great fun.

heck yah! It'll stack oh so nicely with OG too

at this rate I won't get any sleep when i get home now, damn you night shifts!

I have been playing my IO'ed MA/WP.

He is now even more powerful! With the recharge I have currently, EC and DT are fairly well synced. EC+DT is now like having another AoE due to the crits.

With CS in the mix now, I am ripping through spawns quite well, since there is always a power waiting.

Basically, my MA/WP is my new 'main'. His name does not hurt either - Kungfucius.

I did almost all my content testing with MA in beta. It's glorious these days. I am rolling one on Live very soon.

hit lvl48 last night on ma/regen (started a while ago). Awsome. Whish we could slot Achille's heel though! XD

Is the Eagle Claw buff applied if the power starts during the buff, or finishes?

I just hit lvl 12 on my MA/DA today. LOVE the KB in Crane Kick!

An interesting tidbit is that, if ever there was someone who disliked the knockback mechanic of Crane Kick, Cobra Strike is now an EXACT number-clone of Crane Kick, and replacing the knockback with a 75% chance to stun. So it's feasible to replace CK with CS.

However, using Storm Kick, Cobra Strike and Crane Kick in the lower levels turns you into a boss-slayer, particularly if you have Hasten.

I can see dropping one of these in favor of the Crippling Axe Kick and Eagle Claw powers as part of the attack chain: animation be damned, CAK is phenomenal for DPS now, and additional crit rate on our T9?! I'll take it!

At this rate, I might just end up dropping Crane Kick so I don't have to be bothered with chasing down the random non-rooted/non-CC immune enemy.

Eagle's Claw
Storm Kick
Crippling Axe Kick
Cobra Strike

-seems like it could just melt away a hard-target like butter under a blowtorch.

Can anyone list the official changes? The patch notes are massive.

Huh. I hadn't even heard they'd made any changes. As someone with four level 50 MA sccrappers, I'm kinda interested in what's changed too. ^_^

(Haven't played any of them this week, either.)

More changes than I had gleaned initially, and a couple bits I missed entirely:

Martial Arts

* Cobra Strike:
o Decreased Recharge Time from 20 seconds to 10 seconds
o Increased Endurance Cost from 10.14 to 10.19
o Increased damage scale from 0.25 to 1.96
o Reduced Stun chance from 100% to 75%
(Note: the damage, activation and recharge become identical to Crane Kick)

* Stalkers Eagle Claw: Increased Recharge time from 12 seconds to 16 seconds, increased damage from 2.28 to 2.92, increased End Cost from 11.86 to 15.18

* Scrappers Eagle Claw: Eagles Claw now increases the Critical Chance of Martial Arts attacks by 33% for 2 seconds after it has been activated.

* Crippling Axe Kick - increased recharge to 11 seconds, and increased damage and endurance cost appropriately. Added 10 second scale 1 Defense Debuff.


The -Defense on Crippling Axe Kick is quite intriguing: that and it's damage and activation time makes it almost the best attack in the set as far as efficiency is concerned, second to most likely Storm Kick (because it's ridiculously solid DPA).

And as it turns out, Eagle Claw apparently is just a one-shot buff after the attack, so it'd be best to use it on either Dragon's Tail for 3+ enemies, or maybe CAK against a single hard-target.

omgwtfbbq!?

Cobra Strike:
Increased damage scale from 0.25 to 1.96

The ability to chain an attack after EC with the increased crit percentage is just awesome. That along with the change to Cobra Strike really make the set feel and play the way I pretty much always wanted it to play.

I respec'ed into Storm Kick, using the new "gut punch" animation, as I had always wanted a few punches mixed in with kicks on my MA. I was using Boxing, so the improvement in damage was dramatic. With Cobra Strike on top of that, which had always been a part of my attack chain for the stun alone, I'm doing WAY more damage. (Or course, the respec included a reslotting for damage, although I've still got 3 Rope a Dopes in it)

The Eagle's Claw/Dragon's Tail combo I've found REALLY increases my damage against multiple targets, because Dragon's Tail now Criticals far more often than before. In fact, I'm using Eagle's Claw as an opener when I never would have considered that before.

I never really had a problem before, although my MA/SR's defense is pretty light, he also has Invoke Panic and Intimidate which he uses a lot as damage mitigation. I'm definately killing a lot faster, though, so the loss of mitigation from Cobra Strike, such as it is, isn't really noticable. It still stuns a good portion of the time, and combined with either Crane Kick or Crippling Axe Kick it lets you do a lot of damage fairly quickly.

I still haven't picked up Crippling Axe Kick because even with the alternate option, I still can't stand its animation. I have a SS Tanker that uses that haymaker, so I'd rather use Crane Kick.

I've held off seriously playing MA for years, and I'm much happier with what I'm seeing now. Started my MA/Shield the day before and love him to death. He's 24 now and wow shield goes SO well with MA and my concept . I still wish they would make Eagle's Claw more worthwhile, I'm not convinced even with the EC/DT combo. As long as it keeps a long activation (and the hang time kick animation for that matter) for such low damage I'll never take it.

Well, just got 63 month badge. After IOs, SR was no longer lolsr. And now, maybe MA won't be the worst.

MA/SR might still not be the best, and I'm sure its not, but both buffs together are making me really happy with the game, as my main.

As stated above, crane and cobra are now the same. Simply brilliant and I love it. I was wondering about the changes last night and went to make a new scrap to look at the numbers. When they stayed the same when dragging over the two numbers I about crapped my pants.

I still agree that CAK's alt animation could be more kung-fu'ish, but i use it, atm, because damn near anything is cooler than the original animation, which always made the power unplayable for me.

EC+DT is just awesome, just wait till you try it or see it in action in a bit 8 man group.

I absolutly love EC's animation, and have always had it, #s be damned. Like someone else said, its now my opener instead of my closer. I used to open with storm and use as often as is up.

I never thought I would ever say this, but I'm now actually torn between which one to take, crane or cobra??? I'll probably go cobra as I'll have two kicks and two punches (storm EC, and cobra and CAK alt) for a nice mix.

THANK YOU DEVS!!!!!

I have respec'ed my L50 MA/Regen and started a new MA/Shields Praetorian who's up to level 9 right now.

For the my L50, I have switched out Crane Kick for Cobra Strike and I haven't looked back. My performance is still pretty much the same, but with Cobra Strike's 75% stun, I'm able to take down +conned Bosses easier, able to stun-locked them but still not drop my DPS. This is easily apparent when dealing with Carnie Ring Mistresses. Before, I had to mix CS and EC to try to keep the Ring Mistress stunned so she doesn't hit me with her Carnie Mask power. It wasn't always successful. But now that CS is buffed, I can consistently keep a boss stun-locked and keep the hurt on.

On a side note, I did notice that the buffs also came with slightly higher Endurance costs, so my END was dropping faster than expected (and this is with both Quick Recovery and Stamina, for about 4.15 end/sec). I did this against both Freakshows and Carnies, though against the Carnies, my observations might be skewed because they also have their END-draining AoE attack.

For the newbie MA/Shields, with just SK and CS (and with some vet powers), I am getting solid hits. Couple them with TK or CK (both of which you might want to respec out later in the build), and you already got a decent attack chain before level 10.

Just this simple change to CS has put some new life into the set, and has increased its soft-controlling aspect as well bringing it closer to being a top Single Target set (barring uber high-end builds). It does seem much more fun, and I'll see about revamping my guide for it in the coming weeks.

I was one of the people who hated the knockback in Crane Kick, so the new Cobra Strike makes me very happy. I'm playing and enjoying my MA/SR character again for the first time in years.