U54 Preview 2: Tabaxi and Tabaxi Trailblazer

[Steelstar]

The Tabaxi Race and Tabaxi Trailblazer Iconic have been added to the game!


Before we start:

• IMPORTANT NOTE: The short turnaround between Preview 1 and 2 meant most of our time was spent on polish and bugfixing. We have not yet done much in the way of feedback adjustments, but we are planning on some before Live. If you gave feedback suggestions in Preview 1, we ARE still looking at those threads, but feel free to reiterate them here.
• Tabaxi and Tabaxi Trailblazers may still have lingering animation issues. If something doesn't look right, don't assume it is intended or already on our radar - please let us know exactly what you were doing, what kind of weapons you were holding, and whether your character was Male or Female!

Here's a short list of some of the things that are new or changed in this Preview 2 build:

• Female Tabaxi now have hair options!
• Some animations on Tabaxi and Tabaxi Trailblazers have been fixed, including visual animation issues, physics issues (such as climbing ladders), and animation speed scaling issues.
• Several Tabaxi and Trailblazer abilities that were meant to grant feats now actually do, including Deflect Arrows, Lucky Cat, and 9 Lives.
• Moved enhancements around in the Tabaxi and Trailblazer trees for thematic order.
• Attune and Wayfinder's Weapons now properly appears in the Trailblazer tree.
• Stealthy now appears in the base Tabaxi tree, replacing Natural Climber. (This is hopefully temporary - we'd still like to replace this, possibly in both trees, due to feedback.)
• Fixed some icons in Tabaxi and Trailblazer cores.
• Fixed the DC listing in Rank 2 and 3 of Trailblazer's Wide Sweep.
• Fixed the tooltip of Wide Sweep to not specifically reference Improved Trip; it now more accurately lists what it does.
• Wide Sweep no longer trips bosses and other usually-untrippable creatures.
• Fast Sprinter now requires Focused Agility.
• Tabaxi and Tabaxi Trailblazers now have advice text in chargen.
• Handwrap attack timing and sounds should now be correct on Tabaxi, Tabaxi Trailblazers, Shifters, and Razorclaw Shifters.
• Special attacks such as Wide Sweep and Drifting Lotus while using a Staff as a Tabaxi Trailblazer should now deal damage and be timed properly.
• Tabaxi's Escape Artist now properly grants Concealment.
• Tabaxi's Deep Scratches now properly deals damage
• Tabaxi's Cat Scratch ability is now labeled as an AOE (it was already acting as one last preview)
• Icons for the Dexterity and Charisma cores in Tabaxi and Tabaxi Trailblazer have been corrected.
• Tabaxi's Land on Your Feet ability now works as intended.

Tabaxi are a base race that starts in Eberron. Resembling cats, Tabaxi are a dexterous race that are light on their feet. Their innate feat allows them to move quickly for a after spending a short time planning their next move. Tabaxi make good Rogues, Monks, and Bards.

Tabaxi Base Stats:

• +2 DEX
• Starting Feat: Feline Agility: After standing still for 6 seconds, when you move again you gain a +30% Action Boost bonus to Movement Speed for 6 seconds.

Tabaxi Racial Past Lives:

• +1 Tumble
  
• +1 Dexterity
  
• +1 Racial AP

Tabaxi Tree:
Cores:

• Core 1: +1% Dodge, +1 Maximum Dexterity Bonus in Light Armor
• Core 2: Multiselector: +1 DEX / +1 CHA
• Core 3: +1% Dodge, +1 Maximum Dexterity Bonus in Light Armor
• Core 4: Multiselector: +1 DEX / +1 CHA
• Core 5: +1% Dodge and Dodge Cap. +1 Maximum Dexterity Bonus in Light Armor

Tier 1:

• Sharp Claws: +1/2/3 to Attack.
• Cat Scratch: Active: +2[W] AOE Melee Attack. 6 second cooldown.
  
  • This is a custom animation - A wide swipe with the offhand. With THF and SWF, you'll hold the melee weapon in just the mainhand. Uses your main hand weapon for damage unless you have an offhand weapon equipped.
  
  
• Acrobatic: +1/2/3 Balance, Jump, and Tumble. +2/4/6 Armor Class while Tumbling.
• Land On Your Feet: You don't take falling damage.
• Sneaky Strikes: +1 Sneak Attack Die

Tier 2:

• Surprise Claws: +1/2/3 to Attack while Flanking.
• Hunt Down: Your Cat Scratch now Hamstrings opponents for 3 seconds, reducing their movement rate by 50%. Some creatures are immune to the Hamstring effect.
• High Places: After falling for at least 1.5 seconds, when you land you gain +2 Critical Hit Confirmation, +2 Critical Hit Damage, and +25% Armor Piercing for 20 seconds.
• Honed Reflexes: You gain the benefits of the Deflect Arrows feat, knocking aside one incoming projectile that would have struck you every 6 seconds.
• Slip Out of Danger: +2/4/6 Saves vs. Traps. Rank 3: You gain +1 to Reflex Saves.

Tier 3:

• Stabby Claws: +1/2/3 to Melee Damage.
• Corner: +1/2/3% Dodge Bypass
• Stealthy: +1/+2/+3 Hide and Move Silently. +20%/+35%/+50% movement speed while sneaking. Rank 3: While centered and Sneaking, your passive ki regeneration is increased by 1.
• Focused Agility: Your Feline Agility now only requires you to stand still for 3 seconds, and lasts for 9 seconds.
• Sneaky Strikes: +1 Sneak Attack Die

Tier 4:

• Feline Versatility:
  
  • Lash Out: +5% Offhand Strike Chance if using a Light Melee Weapon or Rapier in both hands.
  • Rapid Scratch: +3% Doublestrike while Single Weapon Fighting
  • Quick Paw: +3% Doubleshot with Thrown Weapons
  • Vigor: Vigor SLA
  
  
• Deep Scratches: Your Cat Scratch now deals Bane damage to targets it hits that are vulnerable to Bleed. This damage is equal to 1d8 damage +1 damage per Character Level, and scales with Melee Power.
• 9 Lives: You gain Rogue's Defensive Roll feat. (While below 20% HP, there's a chance equal to your Reflex save that attacks do half damage and have their effects negated.)
• Fast Sprinter: Your Feline Agility now grants 50% Action Boost Bonus to Movement Speed and lasts for 18 seconds.
• Lucky Cat: (Req: 9 Lives) You gain Evasion.

-------------------------------------------------------
Tabaxi Trailblazers are Iconics that start in Sharn with one level of Monk. Passed down between generations of Tabaxi, the title of Trailblazer represents this Tabaxi's ability to always find a way forward. Like standard Tabaxi, they can gain the ability to negate falling damage and move with quick bursts of speed. Tabaxi Trailblazers can gain True Seeing and can gain defensive bonuses when they dodge and tumble. They also use their expanded Dexterity to excel with Quarterstaves, gaining offensive bonuses with the weapons and the ability to use them to trip all nearby enemies.

Tabaxi Trailblazer Iconic Base Stats:

• +2 DEX
• Base Feat: Feline Agility: After standing still for 6 seconds, when you move again you gain a +30% Action Boost bonus to Movement Speed for 6 seconds.
• Tabaxi Trailblazers use a unique set of Quarterstaff attack animations!

Tabaxi Trailblazer Iconic Past Life Feat:

• Iconic Past Life Stance: +1 to Trip DCs per stack of this Past Life, up to 3.
• Passive Bonus: +1 to Saving Throws vs. Traps per stack of this Past Life, up to 3.
  
  • (Known Issue: The Iconic Past Life is not working yet, nor does it have the correct in-game text.)

Tabaxi Trailblazer Tree:

(Abilities in Orange are the ones that are different from the base Tabaxi.)
Cores:

• Core 1: +1% Dodge, +2% Dodge Bypass
• Core 2: Multiselector: +1 DEX / +1 CHA
• Core 3: +1% Dodge, +2% Dodge Bypass
• Core 4: Multiselector: +1 DEX / +1 CHA
• Core 5: +1% Dodge and Dodge Cap. +2% Dodge Bypass

Tier 1:

• Sharp Claws: +1/2/3 to Attack.
• Low Blows: +1/2/3 Trip DCs. Doubled if you have a Quarterstaff equipped.
• Acrobatic: +1/2/3 Balance, Jump, and Tumble. +2/4/6 Armor Class while Tumbling.
• Land On Your Feet: You don't take falling damage.
• Sneaky Strikes: +1 Sneak Attack Die

Tier 2:

• Surprise Claws: +1/2/3 to Attack while Flanking.
• Wayfinder's Weapons: Wooden Weapons you are wielding are immune to damage.
• High Places: After falling for at least 1.5 seconds, when you land you gain +2 Critical Hit Confirmation, +2 Critical Hit Damage, and +25% Armor Piercing for 20 seconds.
• Deflect Arrows: You gain the benefits of the Deflect Arrows feat, knocking aside one incoming projectile that would have struck you every 6 seconds.
• Slip Out of Danger: +2/4/6 Saves vs. Traps. Rank 3: You gain +1 to Reflex Saves.

Tier 3:

• Attune: +1 Ki Regeneration on melee attacks, +1 Passive Ki Regeneration
• Great Weapon Aptitude: +5/10/20% Strikethrough (req: Two Handed Fighting)
• Stealthy: +1/+2/+3 Hide and Move Silently. +20%/+35%/+50% movement speed while sneaking. Rank 3: While centered and Sneaking, your passive ki regeneration is increased by 1.
• Focused Agility: Your Feline Agility now only requires you to stand still for 3 seconds, and lasts for 9 seconds.
• Sneaky Strikes: +1 Sneak Attack Die

Tier 4:

• Wide Sweep: Melee Quarterstaff Trip Cleave Attack: +1/3/5[W] to all nearby enemies. Enemies who are hit must make a Balance check (DC 14 + DEX mod + Trip bonuses) or be Tripped for 20 seconds. Shares cooldown with Great Cleave.
• Staff Deflection: While holding a Quarterstaff, when Deflect Arrows triggers you gain a +10% Action Boost bonus to Doublestrike for 6 seconds.
• Cat's Eye: You have True Seeing, which cannot be dispelled from you.
• Fast Sprinter: Your Feline Agility now grants 50% Action Boost Bonus to Movement Speed and lasts for 18 seconds.
• Escape Artist: When you tumble, you gain 25% Incorporeality and 25% Concealment for 20 seconds. This can only trigger once per minute.

[Tianie]

I see no changes to make it good for handwraps, just proves my comments on the last thread.

[Steelstar]

I see no changes to make it good for handwraps, just proves my comments on the last thread.

There are no plans to make it better for Handwraps at this time, sorry.

[KraftLorance]

One of my biggest complaints last preview was that the Eye scar was mandatory. This update has introduced a new character creation slider that gives a bunch of scar options, including having no scar. Thanks for following up with the artists on this, Steelstar!

[salmag]

Only 2 comments, so far.

1. Remove Land On Your Feet from Tier 1. While I agree it is thematic with the class, this is useless. 99.7% (this is just an estimate) of people will have some form of Feather Fall. I would replace it with stealthy from Tier 3. Also, Stealthy should offer "Rank 3: Does not break stealth while using levers, opening doors, etc."

2. Move Cat's Eye to Tier 3, where Stealthy was.

[Artos_Fabril]

There are no plans to make it better for Handwraps at this time, sorry.

More importantly, I see nothing that makes it better as a staff-wielding Monk than as a Thief Acrobat, continuing the trend of Iconics being suboptimal to bad at their designated class.

Worse, I see nothing that makes it better better as a staff-wielding Monk in any tree than as a Ninja-spy using any weapon other than Quarterstaff, in which case the non-stacking, tumble-dependent concealment and incorporeality is even less useful that it already was.

[DYWYPI]

The cosmetic armours in Preview 1 varied quite a bit thus I presume the Tabaxi version wasn't complete at the time (that is the same cosmetic being modelled).

Obviously that Dutch cat Character name managed to slip past the word filters: Stomme poes. ;-)

[Lokeal_The_Flame]

Add skeletal Tabaxis to some of the undead quests
Add Zombie Tabaxis to some of the quests
Make a sarcastic Tabaxi NPC that sarcastically meows at you
Create a quest where Tabaxis are being buttheads in ways that cats are famous for
Catnip jokes

Whatever you do, do not take Tabaxi completely seriously, there is some humor to be had, milk it a little!

[Lokeal_The_Flame]

The cosmetic armours in Preview 1 varied quite a bit thus I presume the Tabaxi version wasn't complete at the time (that is the same cosmetic being modelled).

Obviously that Dutch cat Character name managed to slip past the word filters: Stomme poes. ;-)

[Dandonk]

The iconic is very underwhelming. It needs some more qstaff related goodies, and preferably some way to boost WIS since QP is still WIS-based.

Also, the PL bonuses are awful. Trip is meh, and +1 vs traps is meh-meh.

[QuantumFX]

Still having climbing issues on a Male Tabaxi Trailblazer. 36pt build with qstaff in hand.

/loc info:
(Standard): You are on server 17 at r1 lx976 ly80 i2049 cInside ox-165.70 oy-315.85 oz-234.10 h267.2. Game timestamp 9392.432.
(Standard): Q:0x7002FF3B

[GramercyRiff]

Add Wisdom as a stat buff in the cores for both Tabaxi and Trailblazer in addition to Charisma and Dexterity. Get rid of High Places (unless max jump can activate aka it has to be trivial to activate) and add the armor piercing to Deep Scratches.

The problem remains that nothing here inspires me to spend money on the game for this.

[Artos_Fabril]

Add Wisdom as a stat buff in the cores for both Tabaxi and Trailblazer in addition to Charisma and Dexterity. Get rid of High Places (unless max jump can activate aka it has to be trivial to activate) and add the armor piercing to Deep Scratches.

The problem remains that nothing here inspires me to spend money on the game for this.

Not being innately pay-to-win isn't a point against it.

On the other hand being pay-to-lose and pay-more-to-lose-slightly-less should not be the only alternative.

Also, leaving the baseline Tabaxi as a Dex/Cha option is fine, but leaving WIS off the Iconic intended to be a monk is not a good look.

[Dandonk]

Special attacks such as Wide Sweep and Drifting Lotus while using a Staff as a Tabaxi Trailblazer should now deal damage and be timed properly.

Wide sweep deals damage now. It does seem to land a couple of moments later than I'd expect, though. Hmm, mostly a problem when moving. (female iconic with her starter qstaff)

[Aelonwy]

Why was the color selector for lips/noses changed? I no longer can select a soft pink its now a dingy grey-pink. I will demonstrate with images.

Left original from Preview 1, Right my attempts to get close on Preview 2 but the nose color is DIRTY. Why? Nonsensical change that just irritates me.

Proportions are still off. Snout/muzzle is still somewhat too large for the head and torso is still short for the arms.
Thanks for the scar selections, and hair selections. Hair selections are a bit odd, they all remind me of the super teased/over-sized hair styles of Final Fantasy characters. Any chance for just a few normal hairstyles? will the store hairstyles be applicable to Tabaxi?

I tried one store hairstyle but it didn't give me the style pictured it gave me a different tabaxi style than my original choice.

I like that hair dyes work on them, any chance we can get the end of the tail to change color as well.

Also the cosmetic cloaks from Isle of Dread are still NOT visible on female tabaxi.

[Nickodeamous]

So, what we are bring told is that a handwrap monk (in order to play as an Iconic Tabaxi), would have to switch to a staff build.

Although this sounds fun, I just can't bring myself to spend the real world money it takes to move all 10 of my filigrees and sentient stone from my handwraps to a staff of shadow or other stick. I better go test it on lam to see if it is even worth it, cause last thing I wanna do is go through 22 sentient tools to swap to staff and back to handwraps if it's not any good.

Or, you could just make switching out filigrees free to VIP. You do that, and i have no issues with this tree.

Honestly, an iconic monk should be able to use handwraps, shurikens, or a staff.

Nico
(actual monk player)

[KraftLorance]

Has there been a discussion about calicos? Is it something that could be easily added to the slider? Is it something we could get as an eye dye in the store (Well, contacts, obviously). Like, one a scale of "Psionic Githyanki" to "Tiamat" how likely is it that some kind of calico can be possible by Update 55?

[Artos_Fabril]

So, what we are bring told is that a handwrap monk (in order to play as an Iconic Tabaxi), would have to switch to a staff build.

Although this sounds fun, I just can't bring myself to spend the real world money it takes to move all 10 of my filigrees and sentient stone from my handwraps to a staff of shadow or other stick. I better go test it on lam to see if it is even worth it, cause last thing I wanna do is go through 22 sentient tools to swap to staff and back to handwraps if it's not any good.

Or, you could just make switching out filigrees free to VIP. You do that, and i have no issues with this tree.

Honestly, an iconic monk should be able to use handwraps, shurikens, or a staff.

Nico
(actual monk player)

There is nothing here to make you switch to a staff monk, or to switch your race for more than the "required" TRs, and you certainly don't need a 10 filigree weapon for knocking out 3 IPLs, even if you wanted for some reason to also use it for 3RPLs too.

They can still use handwraps, they just aren't optimized for them. Then again they aren't optimized for Monk at all, so I don't know why that would surprise you.

[Aelonwy]

I did try to make a tabaxi that resembled my (last cat) a silver point tonkinese (similar to siamese) but I couldn't find any selection combination that colored the ear-tips and made an entire mask around the eyes and mouth only. Maybe I missed something. Anyone create something close?

[Nickodeamous]

There is nothing here to make you switch to a staff monk, or to switch your race for more than the "required" TRs, and you certainly don't need a 10 filigree weapon for knocking out 3 IPLs, even if you wanted for some reason to also use it for 3RPLs too.

They can still use handwraps, they just aren't optimized for them. Then again they aren't optimized for Monk at all, so I don't know why that would surprise you.

Hey there,

I guess that's not the point I am trying to make. I'm really looking at the iconic only for my post. (should have been more clear). I kinda want to be able to sit at cap and try this out to the fullest capability, which mean, giving it a good college try and maxing out what I can. If I wanted to knock this out, I would just make them all a fire sorc and call it a day and run to 30 for the iconic lives. I will def not play it as a monk for my racials, since that to me is just me getting my completionist back, so I want it to be fast.

That being said, I agree, this "monk" iconic is not really optimized at all, so I agree with ya

Thanks,
Nico