earth strikes

[elujin]

Earth strikes useless in u9 ?
And is crane usless too ?

[Elixxer]

Without free crits they are, less useful. Useless? No.

If we DO get a crit with say, longsword, with earth/earth/earth finisher that makes it x4, and we would add 50% more damage to all the incoming damage including the splash damage right? I'm not 100% sure about what is true or fasle coming with U9.

[Impatiens]

I assume by "earth strikes" you mean the triple earth finisher and Fists of Iron because the actual earth IV strike is still going to be the best dps strike regardless.

Triple Earth finisher, Fists of Iron, and Crane won't be as useful as before, no, but I wouldn't say they are useless. I'll probably switch to Hound from Crane though come U9 unless something about it is changed.

[Kinerd]

Outside of autocrit, earth strike IV gives 16 * 21 / 20 + 2d10 * 2 / 20 = 17.9 damage on average. The other elemental strikes will give 2d20 = 21. The only question is whether the target has elemental resistances, and specifically elemental resistances to the elemental strike IVs you have. If you are attacking something that has no resistance to lightning, air strike IV wins.

It's also possible to quantitatively define how much Fists of Iron and triple earth gives. Fists of Iron changes the multiplier from 2 to 3, so with unarmed we go from:

17 * x + 2 * 2 * x = 21 * x
to
17 * x + 2 * 3 * x = 23 * x

Or an increase of 23/21 = 9.5% on average.

By the same maths, triple earth is an increase of 25/21 = 19%.

[Impatiens]

The thing is many things will have elemental resistances, so Strike of the Enduring is still the best all purpose strike. Now, in certain situations the other attacks will be better though, yes. Whether Earth IV is the best or not is moot for me though because I don't have enough AP to get GM Earth anyway :P Earth strikes are definitely not "useless" though even after the changes. They just aren't as powerful as they were before.