Weekly Discussion 54: Martial Arts

[ImpousVileTerror]

I rather thought Energy Melee's thing was originally-best-single-target-damage-nerf'd-to-meme-status?

[Myrmidon]

On 6/8/2020 at 1:33 AM, Redlynne said:

Remove Crane Kick (redundant) and replace with Dragon's Tail (NEEDED!!!) for Stalkers.

As someone that took Martial Arts/Dark Armor to 50, do this immediately.

[Xeres]

As a MA/WP is my main I feel the need to chime in.

 

Love: Animations.  Don't mess with this please.  They're quick and good looking, even Eagle's Claw.

Dislike: Dragon's Tail does less damage than Cross Punch with Kick and Punch taken.  A main power should -never- fal. behind a similar PP power even if there are two other powers taken to boost that PP.

 

I think the power set in general needs a boost in damage.  Whether it's a straight number increase or something more creative like a buff that acts as a "belt system".  1-10 White belt buff, - maybe +5% damage.  11-20 - Yellow belt buff, 6.5%, 21-30 - Blue - 8%, 31-40 - Red - 9.5%, 41-49 Brown - 11%, 50 - Black - 15%.  Maybe even a mission to get the black belt or any of the belts.  All of that being debatable on the numbers, etc.

[nihilii]

I wish the Stalker version of Eagle's Claw (longer recharge, higher damage) was ported to Brutes/Scrappers/Tankers.

I despise the short-lived hidden +dmg/crit buff tied to Eagle's Claw. It's not intuitive, it doesn't make much sense thematically, and it nudges me into a more focused playstyle than I like. I'd gladly trade it for the above - or even for a further damage increase to Eagle's Claw, even if it came with higher recharge as well. Bump the recharge to 20s and the damage in consequence, give a meaty animation the meaty damage it deserves.

 

Eagle's Claw should be the Crushing Uppercut of MA, and not something some people advocate skipping.

[cranebump]

On 6/9/2020 at 9:12 AM, Redlynne said:

Already implemented by Cryptic Studios prior to shutdown in 2012.

The options already exist in the costume editor.

I had no idea. Thank you.

[Redlynne]

12 hours ago, Troo said:

@Redlynne seems to have a pretty good grasp on the good and meh related to MA.

 

Most succinctly: "Raise the minimums to reduce variability while holding the line on the performance maximums."

• This could be enough of a performance increase without the associated power creep.

When you're tweaking performance, you need (as a developer/game designer) be VERY sensitive to the maximum performance envelope AND the minimum performance envelope at the same time.  You're much more likely to be successful with the delivery of "dev love" to a powerset by raising the minimums while holding the line on the maximums.  That's one of the best ways to keep power creep in check.

11 hours ago, Brutal Justice said:

I like the increased crit chances and would rather see those expanded.

Increasing crit chances will raise the maximums while doing next to nothing for the minimums.  That is power creep, plain and simple.

[Leogunner]

Well I remember suggesting adding a kind of gap-closer into MA by making Eagle's Claw a teleport-to-foe attack that received a lot of support.  Shifting some of the secondary effects to be more consistent like @Redlynne suggested would also help increase the performance without increasing the power curve.  Would shifting Shock Therapy's old mechanic of increasing your movement speed with stacks of +movement speed be another kind of utility that could differentiate the set?

[Brutal Justice]

Just now, Redlynne said:

When you're tweaking performance, you need (as a developer/game designer) be VERY sensitive to the maximum performance envelope AND the minimum performance envelope at the same time.  You're much more likely to be successful with the delivery of "dev love" to a powerset by raising the minimums while holding the line on the maximums.  That's one of the best ways to keep power creep in check.

Increasing crit chances will raise the maximums while doing next to nothing for the minimums.  That is power creep, plain and simple.

Raising the minimums while holding the maximums is a catchy phrase for sure.  Slightly increasing the single target damage of a largely single target power set doesn’t seem like as much power creep as simply replacing a redundant single target attack with an aoe, ie cobra strike into dragon’s tail.  

 

Mass aoe damage and blowing up entire spawns before other players can even contribute is the cry on these forums almost constantly.  In fact, these aoe death machine teams often have people just jumping from one large group to another, as quickly as possible, blowing up minions and lieutenants and leaving bosses behind for cleanup by the weaker/single target toons.  

 

People are calling for energy melee to be returned to its former self.  Energy melee and martial arts have very similar playstyles and goals.  Heavy single target with minimal to no aoe.  The problem with these sets is they are outperformed in single target by sets that also outperform them in aoe damage by an astronomical amount.  

 

As I said before, energy melee already stacks stuns.  Raising those minimums, as you say, would do next to nothing for the set.  Energy melee is your example of this already.  Is battle axe better than war mace because its minimums are more consistent?  Let single target sets do single target damage

 

Power creep is giving dark melee more aoe damage.  Plain and simple.  Letting martial arts hit a single target with a 13% crit rate as opposed to a 10% crit rate is a minor damage increase.  I propose cleaving crane kick because it fits the animation and would increase single target damage and add “flavor” aoe, not any sort of meaningful aoe.  

 

Restore energy melee to its former self and increase the single target of martial arts.  Let energy melee bring the cRuNcH @Camel and martial arts bring the KaPoW.  

Edited June 10, 2020 by Brutal Justice
Added sources

[Camel]

50 minutes ago, Brutal Justice said:

Raising the minimums while holding the maximums is a catchy phrase for sure.  Slightly increasing the single target damage of a largely single target power set doesn’t seem like as much power creep as simply replacing a redundant single target attack with an aoe, ie cobra strike into dragon’s tail.  

 

Mass aoe damage and blowing up entire spawns before other players can even contribute is the cry on these forums almost constantly.  In fact, these aoe death machine teams often have people just jumping from one large group to another, as quickly as possible, blowing up minions and lieutenants and leaving bosses behind for cleanup by the weaker/single target toons.  

 

People are calling for energy melee to be returned to its former self.  Energy melee and martial arts have very similar playstyles and goals.  Heavy single target with minimal to no aoe.  The problem with these sets is they are outperformed in single target by sets that also outperform them in aoe damage by an astronomical amount.  

 

As I said before, energy melee already stacks stuns.  Raising those minimums, as you say, would do next to nothing for the set.  Energy melee is your example of this already.  Is battle axe better than war mace because its minimums are more consistent?  Let single target sets do single target damage

 

Power creep is giving dark melee more aoe damage.  Plain and simple.  Letting martial arts hit a single target with a 13% crit rate as opposed to a 10% crit rate is a minor damage increase.  I propose cleaving crane kick because it fits the animation and would increase single target damage and add “flavor” aoe, not any sort of meaningful aoe.  

 

Restore energy melee to its former self and increase the single target of martial arts.  Let energy melee bring the cRuNcH @Camel and martial arts bring the KaPoW.  

Moar  cRuNcH!!!

[Alchemystic]

Give Crane Kick its original 'Chun-Li' animation 

[Redlynne]

2 hours ago, Tyrannical said:

Give Crane Kick its original 'Chun-Li' animation 

That was basically Flurry with a foot (as originally animated) ... that meant when you missed resulted in a "smell my foot for no damage" animation.

[Leogunner]

1 hour ago, Redlynne said:

That was basically Flurry with a foot (as originally animated) ... that meant when you missed resulted in a "smell my foot for no damage" animation.

I believe that was the old Storm Kick that was the chun-li kick.  Crane Kick had a lift-leg *POSE for a sec!* straight-kick animation.

[ShardWarrior]

Would love to see the animations from Martial Combat ported over as options for Martial Arts.  Were it me, I would boost the damage on Dragon's Tail a bit.  Other than that, I rather enjoy the set.  I love playing Scrappers and it is a great set as a single target boss killer. 

[ImpousVileTerror]

Another thought occurs, although it might be too "not part of the original design."

Perhaps a mechanic where certain Attacks have a chance to instantly reset the Cooldown on other Attacks.

Granted, the cooldowns are all pretty short already, so perhaps not . . . hmm . . . 

[Apparition]

The only changes I would like to see is to reduce the endurance cost of all powers a tad, and increase the radius of Dragon’s Tail to ten.

[Wild Claw]

Hrm....

 

I like the MA set personally, and I'm not a min/maxer in the slightest so I can't comment about it underperforming vs any other set. But other people say it does, so ....

 

When I cast my mind back to all the old Hong Kong chop-em-sock-em movies that this set seems to follow, two things pop to mind.

 

One, is scenes where the 'attacker' is knocking the attacked about by small increments, basically controlling where the victim is standing and *keeping* him from falling down in order to continue wailing on them. @Redlynneideas of making the minimum stuns more consistent and more easily stackable feels like this to me.

 

Two, is a lot of the martial-artist vs martial-artist fights are them blocking and avoiding blows from each other, turning them into attacks of their own. Maybe some kind of small +def or +resist on successful to-hit rolls on one of the powers? Just spit-balling ideas here. Though to be honest, without the visual cue of a duck, jump or parry, it won't feel quite right.

[Uun]

I've played thousands of hours on MA dating back to I2. My main on live was a MA/Inv scrapper, which I remade on HC.  I'm surprised nobody has suggested this (unless I missed it), but I'd like to see Storm Kick replaced with Spinning Kick from Martial Assault or otherwise converted to a cone. The set really needs another source of AoE damage. You could do that and still proliferate the defense buff (see Guarded Spin from Staff).

[Keen]

Many of the Martial Arts animations are great, but once Martial Assault Combat for Blasters came around with that *amazing* spinning kick animation, I just want that ported to MA. That's my #1 request for the set.

 

The alternate animations however, IMO look really bad, all of them. The momentum just feels wrong, lacking weight/impact. For those wanting more "punchy" animations, I think more alternate animations from other sets could benefit the set and maybe reduce the migration to Street Justice or Kinetic Melee (which have their own issues). Also it would be cool to restore the Chun-Li kick as an alternate animation to a power with the appropriate activation times.

 

Edited June 12, 2020 by Keen

[Sailboat]

On 6/8/2020 at 2:33 AM, Redlynne said:

Remove Crane Kick (redundant) and replace with Dragon's Tail (NEEDED!!!) for Stalkers.

One of the few clear distinctions made between Scrappers and Stalkers is that Stalkers get less AoE and are somewhat harder-hitting vs single targets.  Giving them all the AoE in one Scrapper set seems to alter this design decision.

 

Now if the solution were to give MA for Scrappers MORE AoE, I have no problem sharing some of it with Stalkers.  🙂

[Bossk_Hogg]

20 hours ago, Leogunner said:

I believe that was the old Storm Kick that was the chun-li kick.  Crane Kick had a lift-leg *POSE for a sec!* straight-kick animation.

Now I want a "flailing melee" set, with the old Storm Kick, old Barb Swipe, Shadow Maul/Flurry, old Jump Kick, etc. Maybe have some of the dual pistol animations (sans pistols) for maximum goofiness. 

[Wild Claw]

13 minutes ago, Bossk_Hogg said:

Now I want a "flailing melee" set, with the old Storm Kick, old Barb Swipe, Shadow Maul/Flurry, old Jump Kick, etc. Maybe have some of the dual pistol animations (sans pistols) for maximum goofiness. 

Call it the 'Drunken Master' set...

[ImpousVileTerror]

Honestly, any melee attack with over 3 seconds of animation time should be an Autohit.   That, or it caps out your Defenses for the duration of the animation.

[Redlynne]

1 hour ago, Sailboat said:

Giving them all the AoE in one Scrapper set seems to alter this design decision.

When a melee powerset has 1 AoE attack ... it's an ALL OR NOTHING proposition whether or not that 1 AoE attack ought to be granted to Stalkers.

Dragon's Tail in Martial Arts is such a case.

 

I say yes.

You say no.

 

Now, if none of the Stalker primaries had any AoE attacks allowed in them, I'd say you have a leg to stand on ... but since that's obviously not true ...

 

[ShardWarrior]

3 hours ago, Keen said:

Many of the Martial Arts animations are great, but once Martial Assault for Blasters came around with that *amazing* spinning kick animation, I just want that ported to MA. That's my #1 request for the set.

This please! 😀

[Shred Monkey]

Cobra strike and Assassination Strike need kick animations so the set can be all kicks and no hands (as an option).