a different kind of uc idea (in General)

the other uc thread got me to thinking once again about helping uc out. i have always been a proponent of bringing it more in line with all other damage types linear progression but was just wondering how it would balance if uc were allowed to get more than just two hits from dex advantage instead of adjusting its damage model.

So an increasing base to hit?

Give it up to a 3 or 4 hits from dex advantage instead?

Would be an interesting idea, in line with monks from dungeons and dragons 3rd ed. Those guys got to attack more than any other class.

no, the bth is added to the dex part of the equation now which is capped at 100% based on the attacker's to defender's dex ratio. i am suggesting that cap of 100% be removed for uc.

Not sure if this is capable/smart but... giving the Helm's Gauntlets a PTH + upgradeable bonus which would only apply for UC and give more possible 3,4 or 5 multiple hits could be and idea. Also with it's current bonus's

If UC is going to be competitive at high levels, I'd like to see a money sink involved. How about a new blacksmith-only item (and a few in auctions initially to keep it from being impossible) that only applies to UC, but that costs a ton to upgrade?

Perhaps have the damage scale in a way similar to a DD spell?
have it work at a percentage of its level to determine damage.
Penalise the damage if the strength is lower, penalise the pth and evasion if dex is lower.
Do the penalising in the same manner as the evasion penalty with low dex.

probably base the damage as 25-30% of the of UC level, for every 1% that strength is lower, lower damage by 1%. for every 1% that strength is higher add 0.5%.
for every 1% that dex is lower, lower PTH and Evasion by 1, for every 1% that dex is higher, increase PTH and Evasion by 0.5

I think the idea behind UC is that the damage is not based on money. otherwise you roll a tank.

Flurry of Blows based on massive dex advantage... gimme gimme gimme!

In line with UC as a whole and awesome!

poor man's melee option was always my thoughts as well.

I think the idea behind UC is that the damage is not based on money. otherwise you roll a tank.


^^ Exactly rawr that's what i was trying to say in the other thread.

There are ways to make UC competitive, you just need to be clever and

use whats given to you. For example the innate evasion, and open ranged

slot.. etc.

kef, if you have to use an exbow, it is not really the uc that is being competitive in my opinion.

Brass Knuckles? (gloves)

An non upgradeable item which allows the dex to hit more multiples.

I think we need to make cloak/gi a lot better for UC users (along with UC balance, dmg or pth or otherwise). Jigs are/will be too strong because you can directly junction UC skill to the jig.

kef, if you have to use an exbow, it is not really the uc that is being competitive in my opinion.

I only partly agree with you, and this is why. If you were an archer you don't have the option to use an exbow obviously, unless you have multiple minions. With UC your required to train strength and abit of dex, with an open ranged slot. Strategically why wouldn't you invest in some weapon that will help your chances? If you choose not to in a sense that's a waste of 5-6 rounds, and maybe it wont be the Uc that will win you the fight but isntead it will be the strategy as a whole you know?

if uc didn't have a dex cap for cth... then poor mages that only have 20 dex will get hit like 9999 times.

^
imagine the fight logs!

if uc didn't have a dex cap for cth... then poor mages that only have 20 dex will get hit like 9999 times.


I kinda like this idea now ;), poor enchanters haha.. always getting

pummeled into nothing and tossed aside haha..

Exactly, you get out what you put in. Have money and want more damage run tank. Jon said tanks should out-damage mages b/c they don't require NW. I don't see why it would be any different for UC.

if they use evasion, this would give them one more reason to train dex up. ; )

Actually if you took the Dex cap off completely it would be semi unbalanced right off the bat because it's another thing you have to think about defending against. However, I'm all for having a new style attack and therefore another defense to worry about. Besides as it is, UC becomes worthless, so making it another threat is very interesting.

UC:

I haven't used it in a while, but things that I liked about it prior to changes to evasion and archery:

Defensive dex. I'd like to see that back.

The ability to use a bow prior to needing archery to use a bow. I'd like UC to have this ability. Aside from the damage of UC being too low, the other thing is keeping alive long enough to reach melee. An alternative to keeping alive long enough is reducing the enemy enough by the time you reach melee so that you're in a one on one battle with the opposing damage dealer.

A bow enables you to do that. Perhaps an amount of inbuilt archery skill - enough to hit at least using a bow, perhaps with a dex hit on top - would give your average UC guy a bit of a fighting chance.

The SoD is good, but it's a lot weaker than it used to be before the damage reduction.

I don't know, I'm just musing, but giving a UC guy the ability to use a bow better than you can currently would give him an assist in the damage front...

UC and bows aren't exactly thematically correct however, maybe have UC give a boost to slings, and add another high damage sling to the game that is comparable to the ELB, but only if you have UC trained.

So you can use the SoD or the single target one.

Or just have UC hit in ranged as well, just have the combat log say something like "Monk hits Enchanter dude with Ninja Stars for 5000"

Add Endurance to UC.

Make UC damage Linear.

UC is problematic in terms of build. To ensure you have the largest weapon and Strength and Dex the best build is single minion. But that means your chances of hitting melee are slim against certain opponents. But if you add kill slots you dilute your XP.

The 'common' build you see in CB is with an exbow or axbow attached. But that only cements what UC is good at , which is going against tanks. It's almost unnecessary. But it also doesn't allow for extra damage. Which is what UC really needs.

A ranged attack of some kind that inflicts damage is what helps it: it's certainly what helped me fight a broader range of opponents than simply tanks back when I was a (self described) king of UC.

On a thematic note, if the UC tank is a Monk then historically Monks were quite often excellent archers as well as hand to hand combat. A bow could be used to hunt remember, because Monks needed to eat. It's also an excellent defense which would have been necessary.

Give them bowman ability, that would solve a lot of problems.

UC + Mageseeker would be a perfect combo.

What about the SoD? It does not require any skill or any change to the current system.

if removing the dex cap entirely is seen as too strong, there is quite a bit of room to play between a dex cap of 100 and unlimited. it could also be tied to uc effect or level and unlock through growth in the uc skill.

for example the base is 100 like for all melee but the uc effect is added to it:

if your uc effect is 50 then your cap is 150
if your uc effect is 150 then your cap is 250
etc.

remember that the axbow is already in the game and if the exbow is a valiid counter then the axbow can be as well. ec is also already in the game and i think this change would make both the axbow and ec more useful.

I like the SoD, and the spread damage is great, but it ceased to become as useful as it was previously when damage was lowered overall. It's also hugely vulnerable to GA. But of course that's allowed.

For the damage you achieve per CB buck it's also a far more expensive weapon than the bows.

The bth or dex cap, whatever one you end up choosing doesn't need changing. Monks can hit plenty. As for the ST of their hits, if you want to hit hard, put money into a weapon.

if the uc effect is used, then the highest uc in the game would get about two more dex hits given enough dex advantage. that is of course before items increase the uc.

my 8 jiggy would also get about two more dex hits given enough dex advantage. ; )

An ELB is just as vulnerable to GA. Especially given the overall lowering of damage making is less likely to break through the GA cap.

There are ways to counter GA damage.

I think 560cth with the highest jiggy in the game is enough.

err...in my last post that should have been my 8m level jiggy!

calculations please, that number seems high...even if it is the largest tat in the game.

Actually that number might be a little bit higher, but that is around the UC effect that LR has I believe. It is probably 5-10 higher or maybe more though.

that isn't just the largest jiggy then but the largest jiggy boosted by a junctioned uc as well as gear?

Is there a way I can make my SoD have 400 cth, short of a trillion dollars?

he actually has the highest trained uc as well. so that is the cth of the highest trained uc junctioned to the highest jiggy/tat in the game?

An ELB is as vulnerable to GA yes, but the average user of GA is normally on a multi minion team. The SoD might hit four minions at once, returning four separate GA hits per strike. Compare that to a double striking ELB which, although the returns might be greater to a degree, only hit back twice a round.

That's what I mean about great vulnerability to GA.

Oh, so dudemus there is something I can train to up my cth?

perhaps you should start a thread regarding that topic, this topic is about how to boost uc and giving an alternative to the standard option of making the damage linear and in line with all other damage in the game. i was trying to offer a suggestion that i think is more in line with the unarmed combat tradition.

i have never ran a sod team or even used one so i have no input on that. sorry! ; (

>Compare that to a double striking ELB which, although the returns might be greater to a degree, only hit back twice a round

JW, please elaborate. I don't understand :(

this has never been about more damage at any one point in the growth model.

once you look at this chart:

http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0AhqtN8y13_DadEl1QnlqTDd5ZzhERVRxdjVUeVp1WWc&hl=en

i think you will see that there is no way that uc (and thus a jiggy) can compete with linear damage models as the game progresses. this is not about getting more damage for any one level of uc but more about its viability over time.


early uc will likely have to go down and i am not sure how that will work out for its early viablility.

after seeing how low the increments on the damage mod get by doing the chart above, i will have to say that i no longer like the idea of adding more dex hits as that would also be a temporary fix unless you totally uncapped them. i would rather just see a linear damage model even though the flurry of blows would be cool!

Make UC's pth match closer to weapons pth, make UC require money, then, maybe then should UC have an increased damage.

no one is asking for increased damage titan, did you look at the graph?

Yes, now compare the graph of UC's pth to weapon's pth. (Linear change to a graph = increase in damage over time)

i already have! ; )

here is a graph showing uc's pth (curve also) as it compares to a linear pth model on the hal.

weapon pth in the game is also on a cost curve and you will see that they are pretty much in line with weapons, much more so than the hal at least!

http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0AhqtN8y13_DacjRqczd2eElKZXpqeW5LdGk5dFZ3eUE&hl=en

that is actually the jiggy's pth curve but the jiggy uses the uc table for determining pth based on tat level.

I'm not saying that the Hal isn't broken as well, I'm just saying compare a model of percent change in pth of weapons to that of UC. LR reached 400 pth already with his Jig. Find out how much NW it would take to achieve that.

not with his jig he hasn't, perhaps you mean his jig boosted by items and junctioned with the largest uc in the game?

the pth of uc is 1.2 times its effect, i will add that to the first graph since you brought it up but it is also on a curve just as weapons are for their + cost.

Ok, so should I say, "give us a way to boost my pth by training something?" Would that be more clear?

ok, i added the uc pth to the first graph. the first five million xp gets you about 44 pth while the last five million that i have data for only gets you about 5 pth.

that last number is high, but it requires 205 million xp to get that from uc. again, i am not advocating changing the pth from a curve, just the damage model.

Ok, looking back through the pth charts from the wiki I guess the only true problem I see is the jigs unique ability to get UC from character skills. Yes, characters using UC can do that, but you can't train something to up DD damage or Hal damage.

so you are willing to give uc a way to boost their pth directly with nw investment? two can play that little game! ; )

i did state in the other threads regarding uc that i would rather see a linear damage model and no junctioning of uc for jigs as that only helps jigs and not all of uc and is a temporary fix even at that for jigs.

^ That sounds like a much better idea. As to UC being able to boost damage with NW, if you want NW boostable damage go tank. That's pretty much what Jon said. Will quote if needed.

i don't want that at all, i just want uc damage to scale with other damage in the game into perpetuity.

; )