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(I'm leaving roleplay generally a little bit to the side with this, as I think that if anyone can pull off a great character with their chosen class, whatever it is, then it all evens out in the end. Sorry for going so long lol)
Having played a Martial-Arts ES for like 3 years now (and was my first character to max out, too), I do feel quite entitled to say that they feel very underwhelming - it felt specially so after the dodge-enchant nerf a while back, though I understand that running around with +60% chance to dodge at all times is probably not very balanced. lol
ESs, and much more so martial-art ones, shine when you weigh in maintenance, as it has been said before. 13/15 damage a hit at 90%/75% without using any items at all is not too shabby, though it kinda pales next to other classes' innate weapons (and more so if you add activated abilities to the mix... Umbral Sword + Blood Frenzy + Shadow of the Dust does what, 17 at 100%? Plus you recover HP and MP every hit. Right, right, I'm ignoring the drawbacks of each of those skills.)
I did feel pretty under-powered when it came to faction-play and the raiding game. Only when dear leader gifted me a blackened gauntlet and I could have it enchanted, I started to feel a little bit more helpful, specially with ward-bashing I did make a good tank in a pinch with Hidden Energy, though, which, by the way, doesn't work with a gauntlet. Adapt to slashing, and with a few affinity potions you cover most of the pet damage types - leaving out only impact, done by wheels, and arcane, by some lich and WM pets IIRC, in which case you can either drink some invulnerability or just plain kill the pets, since they are never plentiful (your dodge helps a lot here with keeping you alive, too). Of course, without an aura, it means sitting there for several minutes as you wait for pets to tire out on you, or you could also wait until the forts lower a bit to try to kill the petmasters instead. If you suck like me and don't get Way of Fire, then good luck trying to do any sort of meaningful damage over forts.
The high dodge (around 40 it was?) also is a good deterrent against actives, since they will on average only be hitting you around half of the time. All said, though, a Nexus Champion could do all this, at a lesser CP expense *and* with an aura active (90 CP for active adaptation is... not so good, ignoring the other small benefits the skills give)(+3 kick damage you will actually never use, now that's an awesome skill ).
Master of the Flow is a meh skill. It is not really an additional "20% more dodge". Instead, it adds a "maximum" dodge of 20%, but only if the attacker already has a 100% chance of hitting you. If their hit chances are lower, the net damage avoided is also lower, as is the case of most pets hitting around 70% or even less, so it's help with tanking is arguable. Works better against player-characters, and Maeval, I guess. Funny thing, if you have more dodge, this skill's impact actually worsens (Example: Only the Wrackwyrm hits at 75%. Add the average's ES dodge of 30%, and it becomes a 45% chance to hit. If you activate flow, it reduces it to 36%, that is, a reduction of 9%. For all other pets, it's going to be even less. Up to you if that is worth the 60 CP and ap+mp costs).
I'm definitely not going to play a hand-to-hand Eternal Soldier next breath, not in breath 4 if the class remains as-is. I'm considering a factioned melee ES, as enchanted melee weapons are more competitive (and getting Way of Fire this time around), but still not 100% convinced. I very much like the class, but its foggy niche -that is even filled to a better extent by other classes- and a general lacking cooperative characteristic to the class (there's not much you can give in a group, other than a so-so meatshield) make it feel like it's really not worth the effort.
Oh, by the way, I do love the idea of an impact aura that is actually the character punching/kicking people that try to get close I had thought of that before, too. Maybe take out that lousy kick damage Lashing Kick gives, and change it for that?
This is the kind of negative feedback post I like to see. And now that you mention Lashing Kick and the pending Damage aura in the same breath, it actually gave me the idea to simply roll the new aura into the existing Lashing Kick skill. The bonus Kick damage is still pretty good until you get the next skill which makes it obsolete. I don't see any reason to outright remove the bonus kick damage, but I'm liking the idea of putting the Aura there rather than trying to find room for another skill in the already pretty tight CP budget. _________________
That does make a certain amount of sense. A pure H2H ES is somewhat inferior to a Wolf Revenant (for the record, 16/90% for the bite, or 18/95% Blood Frenzy - US is underwhelming) and Way of the Lashing Kick is a worse speedbump than Meditation.
I'd also be curious to hear from gun ESes to determine if that side of the class needs to be buffed a bit. They obviously take a bit of enchant maintenance but can do a fair bit of damage (though they're no gun wizard). Master of Munitions, meanwhile, seems to be an infrastructure skill rather than a combat capability, and gun ES ferals seem to have little that H2H don't, aside from immunity to immunities (though they're low-maintenance compared to other gun ferals).
This is the kind of negative feedback post I like to see. And now that you mention Lashing Kick and the pending Damage aura in the same breath, it actually gave me the idea to simply roll the new aura into the existing Lashing Kick skill. The bonus Kick damage is still pretty good until you get the next skill which makes it obsolete. I don't see any reason to outright remove the bonus kick damage, but I'm liking the idea of putting the Aura there rather than trying to find room for another skill in the already pretty tight CP budget.
Woooooooow! That would be awesome :D I think I will need more character slots!!
EDIT: I've never had a gun-ES, but I've heard the immunity-ignoring skill doesn't work if your weapon is enchanted (e.g. attacking an IB with a fire-enchanted pistol will do 0 damage), which is kind of a bummer (but irrelevant if you are a feral).
Reviving this, since my whining is not yet coherent enough to spam the Suggestions forum.
Aeon, regarding the gun ES skills. I'm having a very difficult time justifying anything beyond Way of Fast Hands on mine. (char link).
Fast Hands is wonderful combined with an enchanted shotgun, and moving shotties to the top of the food chain is a strong stealth buff for the ES. That it only fills the shotgun halfway is a little goofy, but I'm not struggling for inventory space so who cares.
Master Marksman not doing anything to soak makes it a niche skill already, and the bug about not working with enchanted weapons shrinks that niche even further. It only does anything against NCs (and I guess HtH ESes) adapted to Piercing, Holy Champions using a water cloak, and IBs that you're attacking with a flamethrower. (And the IBs still have pretty good Fire soak, so that's kind of moot.) Strong as my hateboner for Tattoo of Adaptation is, I still can't justify spending 60 CP to deal with it.
Master of Munitions is... weird. It's almost an alternative to the Gunsmithing tree (moreso if the quality mod was +2). But they cost equal CP, and good luck getting to T3 without the ability to fix guns or make ammo. Munitions provides a buffer against mid-raid weapon degradation and gives you something to do with the plentiful Pistol Clips you'll find in the process of getting the ammo you actually want, but is that worth 60 T3 CP? I don't think so, especially on a class that seems to be a cut below on its core role.
Speaking of that core role again, I was looking at my DH and ES side by side the other day, and wow, Way of Earth really is dinky. Neat facts:
Eternal Soldiers gain less total soak than any T3 innate armor, beating only the Paladin in total soak gained. In order: Seraph (78 with all skills, 68 with just Spring & Stance), IB (72), Doom Howler (51), NC (49), ES (44), Paladin (35). While this is only a rough point of comparison, Way of Earth is dramatically behind tank armors and only middling in hybrid class armors.
The NC's primary weaknesses are Impact, Piercing, and Slashing damage, which see substantial gains with mundane pristine armor; Riot Armor+Light Body Armor or Leather Cuirass kicks those up to 6/6/5, for a gain of 8 total points of soak. (Paladins likewise gain 5). Eternal Soldiers can either wear this same gear to gain 2 total soak, or wear a pristine fireman's jacket for 1 extra Fire soak. (Doom Howlers are in a similar position.) So despite having weaker innate armor overall, the ES also struggles to "catch up" via supplementary items.
Looking at pets... Eternal Soldiers' 4 Fire and 3 Death soak make them bad against Hounds, their 4 Holy soak for dealing with LS pets is unremarkable (tied with the IB, NC, and DH for worst), and 4 Unholy soak is okay vs. Wrackwyrms but beats only the Paladin while tying with the NC and non-defender Seraph. And they don't really make up any ground vs. Liches, since again mundane armor can trump Way of Earth.
Put in other terms, for each damage type, the Way of Earth is equal or worse to both tank classes' armor and at least one hybrid class. The only exception is the IB's 4 Impact soak.
In short, if they're supposed to be competitive with other classes as tanks, they need to be getting a lot of value out of dodge and/or Way of Urgency because their armor simply isn't up to snuff. (And relatedly, is Master of the Flow basically a worse version of Phasing? Signs point to yes.) Updating Way of Earth's mundane soaks to from 5s to 7s would likely go a long way while staying in line with the "good versus regular stuff, bad versus special stuff" theme of the class. Alternatively (or possibly additionally) specialized armors that provide decent exotic soaks would give them an opportunity to fill in the "holes" in their armor that otherwise need potions.
I always wondered what the purpose of Master Marksman was. As you said, so few classes have damage immunities or resistances that it almost never results in a benefit. (Hell, even if it cost only 10 CP, I'd still have trouble justifying the purchase.) On one hand I think it'd be interesting if the skill instead made the ES ignore some amount of soak (or a 40% or 50% chance of ignoring all soak) when shooting other people, but on the other I would not want the ES to become the Void Walker Lite in that regard.
(I realize I've kind of commandeered this thread for general ES whinging. Sorry/not-sorry.)
Maybe Master Marksman's niche should be ignoring a certain amount of forts? That'd make the ES more of the guy who endures pet attacks while gibbing the petmaster, as opposed to others who aura-down the pets themselves. I wonder if you'd have to take away fort-ignoring from the VW skill though (which would probably not go over well), and even then it feels like thinking in a vacuum. By which I mean, I expect most raid teams would still use an aura-tank to do primary tanking, and the ES would just be a killer instead of a tank. And killing aura-weakened pets is a really efficient source of XP for everybody, which is further incentive to bring a traditional tank. I think I just talked myself out of this.
Couple other scattered thoughts:
Way of Vim is really neat, but it uniquely does not make the ES any tankier. Seraphs get an aura for 0 CP (not durability but still very relevant for a tank class), IBs get a big sack of HP. Is that maybe part of the class's issue from a design perspective? 0CP skills aren't generally super powerful, but they tend to be formative, which Vim decidedly is not.
Other weird bit - the ES is unique in his tankiness being (partially) tied to his choice of combat tree. Master of the Hidden Energy is pretty much totally out of reach for non-HtH builds, and Dodge+Evasion being tied to HtH at the mortal level is kind of a big deal as well since dodge is specifically their "thing". (I think the latter is supposed to change for B4 though?) If they do get an aura and it does get folded into Lashing Kick, non-HtH builds will happily pick it up but probably never use the kick damage. Again, not sure this is bad, but it's certainly out of the ordinary.
More actionable: are we sure Way of Urgency is bad? It's not super effective as a damage buff, but I only just realized (thanks, wiki!) that pet attacks don't consume status ticks. It's still not something that you'd use every time you want to kill someone, but it seems handy when you're getting munched on by a handful of pets. (Probably not so much a horde.) Curious what people's experience with it has been.
More actionable: are we sure Way of Urgency is bad? It's not super effective as a damage buff, but I only just realized (thanks, wiki!) that pet attacks don't consume status ticks. It's still not something that you'd use every time you want to kill someone, but it seems handy when you're getting munched on by a handful of pets. (Probably not so much a horde.) Curious what people's experience with it has been.
Well, I think Yukari's description of the skill works pretty well here:
Yukari wrote:
A worse "Bolster Attack", at tier 3 and with higher CP and activation cost? Its only arguably redeeming feature is the +2 soak and the fact that you can stack it (I think, the Wiki doesn't have information on this; it seems not enough people have gotten this skill in order to make a reliable report. lol).
Couple that with a grand total of 0 people with the skill (last time Xirv posted stats) out of 26 Eternal Soldiers, and you are going to have some difficulty finding people who can give you a first person perspective :/
I personally think the skill is extremely lackluster not just because of the bonuses it provides but because of the 2 AP activation cost which discourages casual use (15 damage Cobra Strike does 180 damage over 12 AP; 17 damage Cobra Strike does 170 over 10 AP with Urgency) and 'professional' use because it is unnecessary for tanking (affinity pots + invul pots making most ESs tank-class but for the lack of an aura, and you are only working off potion ticks if you attack within the enemy SH).
EDIT: I haven't been able to reproduce 15 H2H damage myself when looking at the skills. With a 13 damage base (Attack skills +6, +5 from Cobra Strike, 2 being the base damage), we get 156 damage without vs 150 damage with Urgency, so the numbers still work out even though they are closer this time. _________________ For the Kin!
That's all true, but I'm wondering if we're coming at it from the wrong direction. It absolutely fails as a damage buff that coincidentally buffs your defense. But as a defensive buff that coincidentally boosts your damage? Doesn't look so terrible.
I've run into a fair number of petmasters outside of strongholds lately (or just tentacle swarms) and have generally had to retreat after taking out 1-3 of the pets. My dodge is only just now getting respectable, but dropping all those 5 damage pings to 3 damage while taking them out seems handy. And if you're more concerned about killing the petmaster than farming the pets for XP, the damage-per-AP is worse, but you're triggering fewer reactive ticks and thus further boosting your survivability.
I still don't think I'll be picking it unless I end up netting a bunch of badges, but I'm less convinced that it's useless than I was. Certainly looks like more bang for your buck than Master of the Flow. Edit: to expand on that, MotF is always 20% more survivability. Whereas the most damage a WoE ES can take from a pet is 10 (death damage from a nether hound, or slashing from a fossil monstrosity). So an extra 2 soak from Urgency is 20% more toughness for those, and 40% more toughness against the assorted pets whose damage would drop from 5 to 3.
I'd like to see Master of Reflex boosted to 15% and Master of the Flow give another passive 10% dodge on top of what it is doing (a skill that gets weaken by its parent skill...a different discussion altogether). What this does is put the maximum dodge the ES can achieve at 55% dodge 5% more what a Lich can do and just barely equal to what NCs can achieve. Maybe then I'd think about using an ES to tank for a raid team.
Ofc, this are all about this breath. ES should be in good shape next breath.
What's the highest dodge a nexus champion can get? I don't think it's higher than that of an ES with dodge armor.
Currently an ES in an evil/neutral faction can get 55% dodge and in a good faction 58% dodge (With up to 63% if an Advocate blurs you).
Judgemasters only have 55% to hit so you can tank them until their MP runs out or until the forts are down. Ghouls and wights have a 60% to hit which means they only hit 5% of the time. Hellhounds would hit more often but aren't usually seen in large numbers. An ES with enchanter/alchemist support seems more than capable of tanking a pet wall.
Not being able to aura down the pets does seem to be their greatest weakness. You should be able to tank for the team to come in and clear out the the forts and then WoF the petmaster.
Everybody can get Dodge + Evasion (+10%) and enchanted armor (+10%). Combining that with other class-specific skills:
An ES can get Super Reflexes (+5%), Way of Water (+15%), and Master of the Reflex (+10%), for a max of 50%.
A Lich can get Terrifying Aspect (+10%), Simulacrum (+20%), and cast Blur (+5%) for a max of 55%.
An NC can get Super Reflexes (+5%), Tattoo of Equilibrium (+16% at 0 morality), and cast Blur (+5%) for a max of 46%.
A DO can get Terrifying Aspect (+10%), Lord over Domain (+10%), Legion Master (+10%), and cast Blur (+5%), for max of 55%.
A Revenant can get Super Reflexes (+5%), Strength of Darkness (+5%), and Animus of the Bat (+15%) for a max of 45%.
I'm getting further and further out of my level of experience here, so I may be missing a few tricks or classes worth mentioning. But overall, the ES is not ahead of (or even at the front of) the rest of the pack, but as per usual does not have any conditions attached to his perks. People aren't going to have Blur up all the time, and all the other peaks assume favorable tile locations, teammates, pets, morality, etc. The ES is also not exactly paying out the nose compared to these counterparts, at only 90CP (equal to the non-Blur Lich), whereas this theoretical DO has shelled out 180 CP for his full defense tree.
So again, it gets into not just what peak performance is, but how often that peak performance is achievable thanks to CP availability and specific circumstances.
Just adding that Neutral classes in Good factions can get Knot of Keepers R2 for an extra 6% dodge/defense if they heal somebody. _________________ With me, always.
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).
Its only arguably redeeming feature is the +2 soak and the fact that you can stack it (I think, the Wiki doesn't have information on this; it seems not enough people have gotten this skill in order to make a reliable report. lol).
