Details on Combat Changes in Mod 9

[HumanJHawkins]

There are a lot of threads on the much despised combat changes. And Thankfully a dev response saying that they are working on fixing the things people hate. But can players please give specific detail about how this has nerfed your characters?

Is it just that all TWF toons have fewer attacks per second, or is it specific builds like TWF who don't have high BAB due to Rogue levels, etc?

I also hear it is worse in the mid levels, but I don't play any mid level toons. What are the worst cases of this?

[sirdanile]

Whilst dps increased it LOOKS like you're attacking slower, and that makes people think they are less effective.

[HumanJHawkins]

Whilst dps increased it LOOKS like you're attacking slower, and that makes people think they are less effective.

I haven't tested anything myself, but several fairly stable and analytical people have said that it really has hurt their characters. As I am too lazy to investigate for myself, I was hoping one of them would explain. :D

But seriously, it sounds like DPS has decreased a little for everyone except maybe THF builds. Turbine states that an attack was removed (not just the animation, but the attack itself) for the main hand. And that attack speed is more dependent on BAB now (in place of the 5th attack). This would be a nerf to anyone who took a splash of something other than Fighter, Ranger, Pally, Barb, as that would mean a lower BAB.

Any details?

[BlackSteel]

at BaB 20, TWF actually got a BUFF. but for anyone of lower Bab you'll be sufferring on ur journey up to lvl 20.

THF autoattack recieved a buff, while the twitch attack got neutered.


atm, playing anything below the high teens in level is mind numbing, the swing speed is atrocious.

[wolfy42]

If you don't have a pure fighter mix and full BAB progression you get a slowdown in attack speed basically. Even with divine power it does not seem to compensate for the lower BAB for some reason.

In addition there always was an attack speed increase with higher BAB...but not it is more noticable especially early on. This is especially true if you multiclass with more then one non-fighting class.

For instance a cleric/monk or favored soul loses out on 2 BAB right off the bat. If leveled evenly with monk/cleric levels it is a 4 BAB loss by level 8...which is now significant. Even a pure favored soul or cleric has a significant penalty to attack speed by level 5 compared to say a pure fighter.

Rogues at least have haste boost to help.....but when you compare non-pure melee classes to fighter classes now it's a pretty drastic difference...which is made even larger if the fighter has haste boost as well.

Since almost any class can now HIT the monsters due to the changes being made.....the new way fighters seem to gain better proficiency in melee is by attack speed. When you factor in BAB bonus to attack speed, fighter haste boost and eventually alacrity bonus at 20....fighters will be attacking MUCH faster then clerics or favored souls.

It's an interesting way to deal with the changes...but I really do not like it. You could compensate for the lower BAB and attack bonuses of non-fighter builds before pretty easy...but you can not compensate nearly as well for the attack speed bonuses.

[Kylas_Maernos]

My main char is an 18th pure cleric, who does S&B when the times allow it. The combat speed is way too slow....period

For reference, and for those that compared the current speeds to fighting under water, Take one of your characters and equip a shield and weapon. Swing it......look at the animation speed.

Now take that same character and go swimming underwater in the harbour with the sheild and weap still equiped. Can someone rationalize how you can move your arms faster underwater while shield and weapon equiped than you can when you are in combat?????

Now......before the fanboys jump on this to tear it to shreds; Swimming animation and combat animation may be totally different situations, but they should have some sort of correlation to proper speeds. The current combat changes were too drastic.

[HumanJHawkins]

<cut>ou could compensate for the lower BAB and attack bonuses of non-fighter builds before pretty easy...but you can not compensate nearly as well for the attack speed bonuses.

Thanks for the explanation. That's what I gathered, but as I said, I was too lazy to figure it out for myself.

Frankly, I think this is awesome in principle. It seemed lame to me before that there was not a greater combat penalty for multiclassing with a non-combat class. But the trouble is that Turbine let it go on so long, that everyone adapted to the rules as they were, and made multi-class characters accordingly.

It must be pretty harsh for people with several affected toons. :-(

I'm kinda' lucky, as I come from a PnP background and learn slow... I always wanted to make one of these builds, but because it sucks in PnP, I could never let myself lose the BAB. So I never built toons like that.

[Missing_Minds]

Now......before the fanboys jump on this to tear it to shreds; Swimming animation and combat animation may be totally different situations, but they should have some sort of correlation to proper speeds.

Sure they are. Attack is tied to BAB number, swim is tied to swim skill.

As for the attack speed. Level 3 FvS... and right now.... attack 1 and attack 2 have roughly the same speed. the 3rd attack has a 1/2 the speed if the first two. It is like I'm rearing up for a hard thrust to kill. *dice rolls a 1. wiff.. doh!*

However, I've also seen a lot of bad timing of swing to mob recognition of hit as of late also. I get the honest feeling that something isn't quite right in the system, and it isn't soley related to the BAB attack rate. It is going to be hard to "fix" a system if the fix needed isn't located in the system design.

edit: oh yeah, forgot to mention, does this change upset me? Nope, not at all. This is so very minor, and I'm more melee oriented than caster. (range is still snafu).
Are my combat tactics fubared from these apparent slow downs? Nope, not at all. The fact the hit detection arc is NOT where the animation says it is, (same with mob placement) is what screws me up 9/10 times STILL.

[Zuldar]

I guess after all this time we've built up a tolerance to haste.

[dopey69]

fight like they have trog poison or just on heroin slow slow slow i am sure turbine will work this out just hope they hurry!

[Missing_Minds]

I guess after all this time we've built up a tolerance to haste.

Haste has been abused so much it is a crutch anymore.

[Halock]

HHmmm so multiclassing into non melee oriented classes hurts your melee output..... so people want all the versatility and lose nothing? I like the tradeoffs, makes sense imo.

Then, i like the slower attack speeds as well.