Weapon Skills Update 2012/FAQ

Weapon Skills Change FAQ Frequently asked questions about the Weapon Skills Update 2012. Most of these answers in the FAQ come from the Devs posts from: February 2012 Changes February Weapon Revamp - Revised 11-22-2011 February Update Option #1 (Archived) February Update Option #2 (Archived) Weapon Revamp 0.3 (Archived) Update (Archived) Specific Weapon/Skill Changes What are the changes? There are too many to list here, please read the first two posts in the below thread: http://forums.ac.turbine.com/showthread.php?t=53426 Will weapon damage in loot be slightly greater than what is found on current weapons? Yes. We feel that with the revamp of weapon skills now is a good time to have new loot weapons to find. What are the new skills? New Skills: Although we are not close to finalizing new skill options, we wanted to give the players a taste of a few of the new skills we want to add to promote template diversity. The February patch would bring in new skills that would enhance different aspects of combat. Part of the goal is to give the height/power attack options more of an effect. To give a slight tease into what we are considering, here are some skills that might appear. A 2/2 Dual Wield skill may be on the table. This skill would allow you to wield a weapon in your off hand and use an alternate Dual Wield animation while attacking. Your attacks would alternate between the two weapons, and your weapon swings would be delivered faster than a single weapon. Attack modifiers for each weapon would only apply to attacks with that weapon, and you would use only the highest defense modifier from the two weapons. A 4/2 Sneak Attack skill based on Coordination/Quickness has been discussed. This skill would do extra damage from behind by making a check against your attack roll when you hit from behind. If the Sneak Attack also hits you'd do an extra 10 damage rating for trained and an extra 20 damage rating for specialized Sneak Attack hits. In addition, characters with high Deception skills would have a small (2-5%) chance to proc some of the extra damage with front hits, but the extra damage rating would be halved for Deception hits. A 2/2 Dirty Fighting skill based on Coordination would have different effects based on the attack height of the swing. Your high swings would have a chance to debuff attack skills. Your low swings would have a chance to debuff melee defense and missile defense. Your mid swings would have a chance to cause a bleed effect on the target and to debuff healing effects as well. The bleed effect would scale with the value of the weapon; weapons from lower tiers would have a light bleed effect, weapons from mid tiers would have a medium bleed effect, and weapons from the highest tier would have a heavy bleed effect. The heaviest bleed effect would not be as good as any of the Nether damage over time spells. The chance to activate the debuffs would be based on the skill level and could range as high as 25%. Characters with the skill specialized would use a better version of the debuff effects. The values of these debuffs are still being discussed. A 4/2 Recklessness skill based on Quickness and Strength would be activated only when you were swinging at nearly maximum speed. All hits that are *not* critical strikes would be boosted by up to 20 damage rating, and all incoming strikes against you that were *not* critical strikes would similarly be boosted by up to 20 damage rating while this skill was active. The actual damage modifier would be based on your Recklessness skill and how close it was to your attack skill. If Recklessness is equal to or greater than your attack skill then you get the full benefit of 20 damage rating on strikes that are not critical hits. The additional damage you take from non-critical hits is always equal to the damage you output so you could intentionally not raise the skill if you wanted an option to do 10 damage rating and take an additional 10 damage rating from hits that are not critical strikes. Shield Skill At the same time as the consolidation skills we will be adding a 2/2 shield skill that uses Strength and Coordination. This skill will determine how much al/aegis effect you gain from equipping a shield. Specializing in Shields and leveling your skill will provide the full benefit to top end shields. Training in Shields and leveling your skill will provide a lesser benefit. The idea is that Two Handed Combat, Weapon and Shield Combat, and eventually Two Weapon Combat will all have similar 8/8 total cost. These styles will be balanced against each other. The Shield skill will cap the armor level a shield will provide. The skill formula for Shield will be (Strength + Coordination) / 2. The formula for the maximum armor level your shield can provide will be total skill level for untrained or trained Shield skill, and double the total skill level for specialized Shield skill. This means a specialized Shield user can get full benefit for top end Shields even if they start at 10 for both Strength and Coordination. We plan to have a similar curve for Aegis benefit. If a Finesse Weapons fighter or even a mage are willing to specialize they will see full benefit for all the current shields, What is a mastery? Each race will gain one melee Mastery and one ranged Mastery which will provide a small damage boost with that type of attack. Higher level characters can work to change this mastery to favor any weapon type. Characters can only have one melee mastery and one ranged mastery at any one time. Melee masteries will include Axe, Dagger, Mace, Spear, Staff, Sword, and Unarmed Combat. Ranged masteries will include Bow, Crossbow, Magic, and Thrown Weapon. Existing characters will get one free change to either the melee weapon augmentation or ranged augmentation of their choice. What is going to be my mastery? Races start with the following masteries: ~ Aluvian: Dagger and Bow ~ Sho: Unarmed Weaponry and Bow ~ Gharu: Staff and Magic ~ Viamontian: Sword and Crossbow ~ Umbraen, Penumbraen: Unarmed Weaponry and Crossbow ~ Gearknight: Mace and Crossbow ~ Empyrean: Sword and Magic ~ Undead: Axe and Thrown Weapons ~ Tumerok: Spear and Thrown Weapons Will Mastery be made more severe than DR 5? No. While we want a bonus for flavor, a large part of Asheron's Call game play is knowing what tool to use to get the job done. We want to empower that by keeping the penalty for fighting with an off mastery weapon reasonable. Why are the changes happening? We have rounded up player feedback and the players have, over time, put forth the following goals and suggestions. Address the racial imbalance in templates. Allow a greater variety of weapons to be useful. Allow greater freedom in player templates and racial choices. What is happening to my racial skills? Racial Skills have had balance issues essentially since the game launched. New players are currently able to choose a race and already have an inferior template even as they enter the training academy. Our goal is that races retain their initial flavor, but in the end no race is the superior choice as all races can achieve template parity. All current racial skills will be removed. All races will get Arcane Lore automatically trained for free All races will get 2 additional skill credits to spend at creation All races will get 6 additional points added to the specialization cap Skill/Attribute Reset NPCs and the Temples will have their timers/uses reset to allow players to easily adjust to the new changes. Races will still have their free starting augmentation. Races will gain a free augmentation that provides a small damage boost to one weapon type. Higher level characters can work toward changing this augmentation to any other weapon type so any racial choice can ultimately achieve any template. Characters will be able to change to alternate weapon types that may not be included in the preferred weapon type of any race. Ultimately a character can only achieve one augmentation for a melee skill and one augmentation for a missile skill. What is going to happen to my weapons? Old melee loot weapons will change as Sword=Heavy, Dagger=Finesse, and All others=Light What about after the patch? What will newly pulled weapons look like? Axe Heavy Silifi War Battle Lugian Hammer Light Dolabra Ono Hand War Hammer Finesse Hatchet Shou-ono Tungi Hammer (new weapon that will look like the smithing hamer) Dagger Heavy Dirk Stiletto (double strike) Jambiya (double strike) Light Khanjar Dagger (double strike) Finesse Lancet (double strike) Knife (double strike) Poniard Mace Heavy Morningstar (now pierce) Mazule Mace Flanged Mace Light Spiked club club Kasrullah Finesse Board with Nail Tofun Dabus Jitte (mutates with new staff values) Spear Heavy Spine Glaive Trident Partizan Light Spear (now slash/pierce) Yari Finesse Naginata Budiaq Staff Heavy Nabut Stick Light Quarter Staff Finesse Jo Bastone Sword Heavy Takuba Flamberge Ken Long Sword Tachi Schlager (rapier, double strike, full power pierce, comes in elemental versions) Light Dericost Broad Shamshir Kaskara Spada Epee (rapier, double strike, full power pierce, comes in elemental versions) Finesse Scimitar Yaoji Short Sabra Simi Rapier (double strike, full power pierce, comes in elemental versions) UA Heavy Nekode (now slash/pierce) Cestus Light Katar Knuckles Finesse Claw Hand Wraps (bludgeon) Max Offensive Defensive Modifiers: Sword/Dagger/UA - 20/20 Axe - 22/18 Mace - 18/22 Spear - 25/15 Staff - 15/25 What about quest weapons? Initial plan for quest weapon sets: Paradox-Touched: sword - heavy dagger - heavy staff - heavy mace - finesse spear - finesse katar - light axe - light Spectral: sword - heavy claw - heavy axe - finesse staff - finesse mace - finesse spear - light dagger - light Singularity: sword - light mace - light spear - heavy axe - heavy staff - heavy katar - finesse dagger - finesse Quiddity/Chimeric: sword - finesse mace - finesse spear - finesse axe - light staff - light fist - heavy dagger - heavy Assault: sword - finesse staff - finesse mace - heavy axe - heavy dagger - light cestus - light spear - light Red/Royal/Princely Runed: sword - light mace - light staff - heavy dagger - heavy spear - heavy claw - finesse axe - finesse Palenqual/Renegade: sword - finesse staff - finesse spear - finesse mace - heavy axe - heavy knuckles - light dagger - light Atlan: sword - heavy knuckles - heavy staff - light spear - light axe - light dagger - finesse mace - finesse Hollow: sword - light mace - light staff - heavy dagger - heavy spear - heavy katar - finesse axe - finesse Ravenous/Phantom: sword - heavy mace - heavy staff - light spear - light axe - light dagger - finesse katar - finesse Weeping/Blighted/Isparian: sword - finesse staff - finesse spear - finesse mace - heavy claw - heavy dagger - light axe - light Burun: sword - heavy axe - heavy mace - heavy staff - light UA - light dagger - finesse spear - finesse Fallen: sword - finesse axe - fiensse UA - finesse mace - light dagger - light spear - heavy staff - heavy Mucor: sword - light staff - light spear - light mace - finesse dagger - finesse axe - heavy UA - heavy Noble: sword - heavy UA - heavy axe - heavy staff - light mace - light dagger - finesse spear - finesse Siraluun: sword - finesse mace - finesse UA - finesse staff - heavy dagger - heavy spear - light axe - light Worn/Battered: Sword - light UA - light dagger - light mace - heavy spear - heavy staff - finesse spear - finesse Society/Explorer: sword - light mace - light UA - light dagger - heavy spear - heavy axe - finesse staff - finesse Hero Tokens: sword - light mace - light UA - light dagger - heavy spear - heavy axe - finesse staff - finesse Banished: sword - light mace - light staff - heavy dagger - heavy spear - heavy katar - finesse axe - finesse Gaerlan Quest Weapons: sword - heavy claw - heavy axe - finesse staff - finesse mace - finesse spear - light dagger - light What about non-set quest weapons? Please view the post below: http://forums.ac.turbine.com/showpost.php?p=613283&postcount=4 Can I still use this quest weapon? If the weapon has been updated to Light and you are heavy you will not be able to use the weapon after the change. Can we get a Light/Heavy/Finesse version of all of the quest weapons? That would require over a thousand new weapons to be made and thousands of new lines of NPC logic to be implemented. It isn't really feasible for that to happen. Also we don't want a version for every skill. AC has always been a game where there are quests that have rewards for different skills and players get to go find the quest weapons they want the most. This will carry on and in the future there will likely be quests that only have a Light or only have a Heavy weapon reward. Will each quest weapon suite get access to all masteries? No. Many weapon suites will cover the various weapon skills but our design does not include changing AC to cover every weapon mastery possible with each suite. Part of the mastery distinction will be having a slight advantage in certain areas due to the distribution of masteries among the various quest weapon suites. We understand and accept this. (Our more recent designs have been gem based slayers and we will likely continue that trend for future slayer options.) What about a craft interaction that a player can use on one type of quest melee weapon to change it to another type? ex. Craft a stone onto a Light weapon to make it a Heavy weapon? This actually is at least the same amount of work as above. It would still require over a thousand new weapons and would instead require thousands of craft interactions. Also we don't think a version of every weapon for every skill is the best approach for the game. Is there any way to get my quest weapons replaced? We are sympathetic to players that have a particular quest they might dislike and not want to repeat. A related concern here is a current player that ends up in a position where the distribution of quest weapons leaves them with few good fighting options on patch day. Our plan is to create a vendor with a good variety of attuned and bonded quest weapons that players commonly use and allow each character one free pick from the list to get them going. We explored options for a complicated turn in system but not only was the design potentially confusing, but the system could still leave a player with the desire or need to go outside a particular quest to get a decent weapon. As such, our plan is that each character will get one free quest weapon to get them up and running under the new system, no questions asked. It doesn't matter if you did the quest before. While we will try to cover a variety of weapons in many level bands, we will not be adding every quest weapon in the game. We are only adding attuned and bonded weapons so trading will not be possible. For players that don't have a chance to get weapons in the time leading up to the patch this should get them up and running. For players that have a particular quest they don't feel like doing this will let them skip it. Are my max weapons still going to be max? No. That was never said. We said that weapons would convert over to the new ranges but we had also talked about no weapons getting the new maxes automatically. Melee weapons have gotten a slight increase in damage overall. Weapons will convert over to the new ranges but current maxes will be 1 or 2 points below new max. All melee classes will be doing more damage than they were before when February hits without finding any new weapons. If players want the new absolute max they will need to find them. Spells (not including Void DoTs, Hecatombs, Tusker Fists) also received a 5% increase in damage. Missile Weapons did not receive a damage boost due to 1)Being above the damage curve already due to alt currency damage numbers becoming the norm through new crafting/prismatics and 2) Bow becoming 2 points cheaper while still doing the same damage. Are my weapons now useless? It has been stated many times in the thread. Existing loot weapons before this patch will only change to line up with the new skills. That list of loot weapons is for NEW loot weapons POST February patch. Can we get a universal ammo for all missile weapons? The problem with a universal ammo is that the ammo is what allows us to have different types of weapons (crossbow/bow) be fired at different speeds while still having a similar DoT. If there was a universal ammo all of the missile weapons would have to work exactly the same and there would literally be no difference between a bow/crossbow/atlatl. Will I need to have pack space for any reason? You will visit NPCs in Arwic to get your goodies at your leisure. The only it that will go into your pack is a worthless book that summarizes some of the changes. Arcane Lore wield requirements have been removed from some under-garments available from alternate currency vendors to ensure this does not cause any equipment you are wearing to unequip when you log in.