Un-Nerf Combat Tactics (Trip, Stun, Sunder, etc)

[Boromirs]

I have a level 20 Human Kensai Fighter using Greatswords. It is my first build so has a few mistakes in it that I want to straighten out. Finally got 32pt build unlocked and have a Heart of Wood to rebuild and improve. I was following a path, then went custom and made mistakes along the way.

I have tactics but they never really worked well at lower levels so I never tried to upgrade any of them. From what I am reading they seem not to worth much at this point.

I am interested to know if there is one or two tactics to invest in that would be worth it to the build that would have any usefulness at endgame?

Side Note: I would also appreciate any links to a 32pt Human Kensai Greatsword Fighter if you know of any. Did some searching but didn't really come up with much.

Thank you.

I actually don't understand dev thinking on these changes. I'm thinking they were attempting to "imrpove" these tactics by adding "cooler looking" animations. But unfortunately screwed up the usefulness in the process thereby ultimately destroying there useability (although they were kinda bad to begin with and thus weren't used too often by too many players).

A fix of the bugs (slowness/not being able to hit anything) and a complete review (to make them more popular) would actually be great.

[Monkey_Archer]

Just tested monks on lamannia the other day:

Utterly rediculess:

EVERY monk special attack gets an offhand proc. Every THF/TWF special does not.
Trip - even tho it does the same animation as TWF/THF, gets an offhand.

Due to this I can only come to the conclusion this is a hard BUG. It doesn't make sense for monks to be so vastly superior at everything tactics.

I mean just look at the raw numbers, its rediculessly unbalanced now:

20 Ftr or 20 Bbn (once upon a time the top tactics build) vs 20 Shintao Monk:
Both 100% built for tactics.

Attempting to stun (eg: Render helpless) as many monsters in a 60 second window as possible:

Barbarian or Fighter:
Stunning Blow
1 CHANCE, rolling a 1 automatically fails.
Slow animation.
DC: Very good, in the high 40s, low 50s with maximum stacked rages/fenzies/stars aligned
To get a strong DC they have to SEVERELY sacrifice DPS by using a stunning weapon.
Total:
15 second cooldown gives 4 attempts in 1 minute.


Monk:
Kukan-Do:
1 chance, cannot miss.
Cooldown: ? (mm not even on the wiki, someone let me know)
DC: Very good, in high 40s on a monk spec'd for max tactics.

Tomb of Jade:
1 chance, cannot miss.
Cooldown: 60 seconds
DC: EXTREMELY Good - enemy must make TWO consecutive will saves. DCs in the 50s reachable. Essentially unsavable in most scenarios.

Stuning Fist:
2 chances, can miss, but rolling two 1s in a row is unlikely
Cooldown: 6 seconds (amazing)
DC: Very good, with 2 chances to land, at a DC in the high 40s its near unsavable vs most enemies.

Stunning Blow:
2 chances, can miss, but rolling two 1s in a row is unlikely
Coodlown: 15 seconds
DC: Decent, less then a barbarian, but still can reach 40+ DC for a extremely high chance to land - better then the bbn due to double proc.

Total stun chances in 1 minute:
2 kukan do (if its 1min cooldown, think its less)
2 tomb of jade
10 stunning fist (double proc chance) = 20
4 stunning blow (double proc chance) = 8
=
32 chances.

A monk gets freaking 8 times the amount of stuns chances of a fighter or barbarian gets every minute, at generally far better chances to land all of them.

INSANELY BROKEN. Not to mention things like improved sunder, which not only is unbalanced, but makes no sense from a RPG perspective either (pucnh a guy to damage his armor is FAR more effective then smacking him with a massive two handed maul?)

Fix this please.

<<Warning: /sarcastic paraphrasing ON>>

I've been leveling a barbarian TR lately...

Utterly ridiculous.\

EVERY cleave gets glancing blows! My monk didn't get offhand attacks on great cleaves, and had to go through an extremely slow, nearly 2 second animation. Due to this it must be a bug.

Its very unbalanced, just look at the numbers:

Barbarian:
In one minute can perform 60 supreme cleaves + 60 regular attacks with glancing blows.
Total: 120 glancing blows + 60 full damage hits on all targets around you, not counting your main target.

Monk:
In one minute can do 10 cleaves with offhand procs, and 10 great cleaves without offhand procs, and suffer a drastically lower attack speed due to the animtation.
Total: 20 full damage hits +10 offhand procs.

A barbarian gets 6 times as many AOE hits as a monk! and they hit much much harder too! INSANELY BROKEN fix plz

<</sarcastic paraphrase off>>

Of course it looks unbalanced when you compare, in isolation, a class ability + PRE to a generic feat that any class can take.

Currently all TWFs get offhand procs on sunder, not just monks.
THF get glancing blows on all cleaves, TWF and unarmed does not.
Monks get offhands on stuns and trips, other styles don't.

So yes, monks do have a significant advantage with their class's main ability (stuns) and with trips as well, but THFs have an equally significant advantage with cleaves, great cleaves and supreme cleaves.

I do agree however that they should return offhands and glancing blows to all combat feats.
Monks are better as stunning because that is how the class is designed, just like barbarians are designed for AOE damage, and just like fighters are designed to be useless ( err...). The day a barbarian can stun as well as a shintao monk is the day monks should get supreme cleave

[redspecter23]

Is it just me or did a bunch of recent posts just get deleted from this thread? Very confusing.

[Shade]

I do agree however that they should return offhands and glancing blows to all combat feats.
Monks are better as stunning because that is how the class is designed, just like barbarians are designed for AOE damage, and just like fighters are designed to be useless ( err...). The day a barbarian can stun as well as a shintao monk is the day monks should get supreme cleave

yes and I didn't say that they shouldn't be better.

I just don't think a monk should be 800% better at stuns.

50%-100% better? sure.

800%?
What are you smoking.

[Monkey_Archer]

yes and I didn't say that they shouldn't be better.

I just don't think a monk should be 800% better at stuns.

50%-100% better? sure.

800%?
What are you smoking.

Monks should be 150% better, due only to the cooldown of 6 seconds vs 15 seconds, and because their stuns involve a cost. Which assumes that TWF/THF should get offhands/glances back on thier stuns.

On a side note, I think an improved stunning blow feat should be added, same as improved trip, 10 second cooldown, +4 DC.

[Shade]

Is it just me or did a bunch of recent posts just get deleted from this thread? Very confusing.

ugh yea.. I been getting all kinda ninja posts here too and other weirdness so im gona assume that was a forums glitch, and not a moderator doing some weird stuff.

anyone got a cache of my post? dont wanna re write it.

[Monkey_Archer]

anyone got a cache of my post? dont wanna re write it.

lucky i was here

[redspecter23]

Just tested monks on lamannia the other day:

Utterly rediculess:

EVERY monk special attack gets an offhand proc. Every THF/TWF special does not.
Trip - even tho it does the same animation as TWF/THF, gets an offhand.

Due to this I can only come to the conclusion this is a hard BUG. It doesn't make sense for monks to be so vastly superior at everything tactics.

I mean just look at the raw numbers, its rediculessly unbalanced now:

20 Ftr or 20 Bbn (once upon a time the top tactics build) vs 20 Shintao Monk:
Both 100% built for tactics.

Attempting to stun (eg: Render helpless) as many monsters in a 60 second window as possible:

Barbarian or Fighter:
Stunning Blow
1 CHANCE, rolling a 1 automatically fails.
Slow animation.
DC: Very good, in the high 40s, low 50s with maximum stacked rages/fenzies/stars aligned
To get a strong DC they have to SEVERELY sacrifice DPS by using a stunning weapon.
Total:
15 second cooldown gives 4 attempts in 1 minute.


Monk:
Kukan-Do:
1 chance, cannot miss.
Cooldown: ? (mm not even on the wiki, someone let me know)
DC: Very good, in high 40s on a monk spec'd for max tactics.

Tomb of Jade:
1 chance, cannot miss.
Cooldown: 60 seconds
DC: EXTREMELY Good - enemy must make TWO consecutive will saves. DCs in the 50s reachable. Essentially unsavable in most scenarios.

Stuning Fist:
2 chances, can miss, but rolling two 1s in a row is unlikely
Cooldown: 6 seconds (amazing)
DC: Very good, with 2 chances to land, at a DC in the high 40s its near unsavable vs most enemies.

Stunning Blow:
2 chances, can miss, but rolling two 1s in a row is unlikely
Coodlown: 15 seconds
DC: Decent, less then a barbarian, but still can reach 40+ DC for a extremely high chance to land - better then the bbn due to double proc.

Total stun chances in 1 minute:
2 kukan do (if its 1min cooldown, think its less)
2 tomb of jade
10 stunning fist (double proc chance) = 20
4 stunning blow (double proc chance) = 8
=
32 chances.

A monk gets freaking 8 times the amount of stuns chances of a fighter or barbarian gets every minute, at generally far better chances to land all of them.

INSANELY BROKEN. Not to mention things like improved sunder, which not only is unbalanced, but makes no sense from a RPG perspective either (pucnh a guy to damage his armor is FAR more effective then smacking him with a massive two handed maul?)

Fix this please.

There ya go.

[Chai]

Is it just me or did a bunch of recent posts just get deleted from this thread? Very confusing.

Yeap, and none of them were anything that violated any rules. Im starting to think that the forums might not have fully recovered from being turned off for a week. Ive even tried to post a few times now and been told that Iam attempting an action that my account doesnt have permission for, then hit reply again, paste post back into thread, and it allows the post on the second attempt.

[Kavassa]

that is prolly due to inactivity while u were typing your post. anyway id like to say i like the ideal of improved stunning blow but as a an added bonus they should make stunning blow do the same thing that improved sunder dose with fortitude save except do it to will save and the same for improved trip but with reflex save.

[redspecter23]

I'm giving this thread a bit of a bump as it appears after U12 the devs have taken some action. Though expected, it's not quite the change I was hoping for.

As of U12 monk tactics, specifically Trip, Sunder, Improved Sunder and Cleave now do NOT proc off hand attacks. I can only assume this is an intended change. Stunning fist, ToD, Quivering Palm and other monk exclusives remain unchanged and allow for offhand procs still... for now. This puts unarmed twf and standard 2wf on a slightly more level playing field, but it's not the balance we wanted.

So I suppose that answers the question as to whether the original tactics nerfing was intended in a very roundabout, stealth nerf, sneaky sort of way. Why was this change not posted in the release notes?

I'd still like an official dev response on how they view combat tactics and how they are intended to function. Are more nerfs coming? Are there some unexpected buffs planned? As has been mentioned many many times, melee need all the help they can get to close the power gap between them and casters, especially in endgame content. This is not the change we were looking for. I was really hoping that standard 2wf'ers would be un-nerfed and not the other way around with the nerfing of monks. So the big question is, why would offhand procs on tactics be so bad? If the official answer is "it's overpowered" I think I'd laugh and spit coffee all over my screen as the caster/melee debate rages on in my mind.

[waterboytkd]

Agreed. Nerfing off-hand procs on tactics is just ridiculous. Melees need every edge they can get if they want to close the power gap at all. Off-hand procs on tactics (including special AoE attacks, like Cleave), and having tactics interact in some way with glancing blows (most often just proccing to glancing blows, but in the case of Cleave, doing something else, like maybe a damage boost?) is a must.

I know from a PnP point of view, it looks broken to allow Trips, Stuns, Sunders, and Cleaves to proc to offhands, doublestrikes, and glancing blows, but this isn't PnP. In PnP, no wizard was ever doing hundreds of damage with a DoT every turn in addition to slamming bad guys with 800 point polar rays, and having all of them crit for over 2k.

Making tactics proc perfectly and mesh perfectly into our attack routines will not make melees OP. It still won't even close the gap with casters. But it is a start.

Devs, please make tactics attacks proc perfectly and mesh into attack routines perfectly.

[Shade]

End the stealth unwarranted stealth nerfs.

I mean anyone remember this post from Eladrin, some years ago:

Prestige enhancements are planned for fighters and paladins. Before that, however, the melee classes (especially fighters) will be glad to see an array of tactical feats made available to them.

They planned to give us more options is the only official thing we heared. We got the ftr and paladin pre's.. We never got new tactic feats, instead we got stealth nerfed tactic feats.

Yet we get alll these unexplained nerfs at a time everyone agrees melees need improvement as they are vastly behind casters.

At least give us a reply Eladrin, I know you've seen this. Explain to us why the constant stealth nerfs need to happen every major update. Why can't they at least be in the release notes? Are these just unintended side effects of the animations? Tell us something.

[redspecter23]

End the stealth unwarranted stealth nerfs.

I mean anyone remember this post from Eladrin, some years ago:



They planned to give us more options is the only official thing we heared. We got the ftr and paladin pre's.. We never got new tactic feats, instead we got stealth nerfed tactic feats.

Yet we get alll these unexplained nerfs at a time everyone agrees melees need improvement as they are vastly behind casters.

At least give us a reply Eladrin, I know you've seen this. Explain to us why the constant stealth nerfs need to happen every major update. Why can't they at least be in the release notes? Are these just unintended side effects of the animations? Tell us something.

Agreed 100%. The devs as far as I know haven't ever publicly commented on the current state of tactics other than posting the new animation changes quite some time ago. There was never a dev comment about the offhand nerfing at all and it wasn't in the release notes. We don't know if the nerfs were intended or not, though it seems like they were. Was something "broken" about having off hand procs on tactics, such that a nerf was deemed necessary? If so, can we have a dev response? Right now, it looks like you're stealth nerfing something that many people didn't really think was broken in the first place. We have questions, where are the answers? Believe me, I can understand the need for nerfs. They do have to happen from time to time, but undocumented changes are sneaky and lame and should only ever be done in situations where clear exploits are being fixed.

This situation can be smoothed over by a quick dev response stating the following:

Off hand tactics were nerfed on purpose? Yes/No
If yes, explain the reason please?
If no, a timeline for a fix please?

Maybe it's just me, but that seems like a very reasonable request.

[NarakuSama]

<<Warning: /sarcastic paraphrasing ON>>
fighters are designed to be useless ( err...).

it was bad idea to say that.. wanna see whether or not my fighter is useless


but i agree too, its really not fair that melee in general are far behinde casters.

heck with my lvl 12 drow wiz i do more fire damage to enemies then what my lvl 20 human fighter do with my tier 3 GS greatsword of fire.
my fighter have titans gloves and is greatsword kensai III.
the gloves give +6 str and another +6 str sla that stack with power surge(+8 str).
i noticed once that fireball from my wiz do more fire damage to enemy not sensitive to fire then what my fighter do to enemy sensitive to fire on my best hit with power surge and glove's extra effect and the extra fire damage from the weapon itself that come out from time to time.
and my wiz is not even build to deal extra fire damage

[Shade]

Monks tactics got nerfed in U12 as well.

Related thread about the U13 notes saying it just happend (which is false, its live now):
http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?p=4279615

blarhgg..

Turbine do you even care anymore?

No one asked for this. Pre U9 combat tactics worked like this for the last ~5 years, and it was all fine and good.. The feats , especially stunning blow were greatly debated about being worth taking or not, EG: BALANCED.

You infact promised to buff combat tactics.

All i can say is: Why!!?@$!#*!!!!!!!!!!!!!

If you feel the same way, reply please.. They tend to start reading these suggestion threads at around 10,000 replies I think.

[voodoogroves]

Pretty sure I've already chimed in my support.

We needed the other tactics boosted to closer to what monks were, not the dropping of monks down.

If not that, we need better ways to get higher DCs, lower cooldowns, lower ki costs, something.


... and a lesser heart so I can re-work the dude I just swapped to use wraps a while back because he got off-hand tactics procs. Boo.

[MrWizard]

I had gotten rid of all melee tactics like that save one toon with improved trip.
They pretty much killed that a few mods ago...too bad too, cause I think they added flavor to a build.