ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

Really?
This skill needs to be rebalanced *one* attack shall be enough
Add a secondary effect like bleeding (a deep cut, dealing % dmg each turn and reduce healing by 20%, or whatever).

... it's a fourth tier talent that's arguably less powerful than flurry (3 vs 6 attacks). It's also the premier offensive talent of its tree and one of the few serious burst damage talents fighters have. I'd say it's pretty fine as is.

Wouldn't mind trading the crit for bleed, though, or stun/daze. Perhaps a sunder effect or two.

Pretty sure it is more powerful than flurry. comparison at level 5:

Flurry, 3x mainhand, 3x offhand at 100% damage, total 300% bump attack damage.

Assault: 1x shield strike at 150% damage (more with Shield expertise), 2x weapon strikes at 150% damage and then critical hits (total 225% or more with higher crit mod.) total of 450% + shield damage of a bump attack.

The damage boost to the weapon strikes is not shown in the description.

My main concern with this skill is when monsters will use it. If fighters need better damage then maybe we can also re-balance some other skill to do more damage.
The point is that a monster should not get two free attack turns no matter what skill they use or class they play, as this is simply completely unbalanced and can lead to insta-deaths.
I think shield strike do shield damage and not weapon damage? Not sure how much it is exactly. I am also not sure how much damage bonus critical hits get, but there are equipment items that boost critical damage.

lukep wrote:Pretty sure it is more powerful than flurry. comparison at level 5:

Flurry, 3x mainhand, 3x offhand at 100% damage, total 300% bump attack damage.

Assault: 1x shield strike at 150% damage (more with Shield expertise), 2x weapon strikes at 150% damage and then critical hits (total 225% or more with higher crit mod.) total of 450% + shield damage of a bump attack.

The damage boost to the weapon strikes is not shown in the description.

This is comparing apples to oranges.

The bump attack on a character who can use assault is nothing compared to the bump attack of classes that have access to flurry (so you're comparing a higher base value to a lower one and only comparing the respective differences). Also flurry attacks *can* crit and because assault attacks auto-crit you'll never see crit spikes except off the shield strike. In other words a flurry from someone with a 50% crit rate is generally going to be much higher then someone with a 0% crit rate where as someone with a 100% crit rate won't see much damage increase from assault at all. There's also melee_project to consider, something that won't be multiplied by assaults auto-crit feature but will be multiplied by flurries extra attacks. Even getting hit with an elemental shield (which doesn't exist) + 2x elemental weapon attacks is nothing compared to getting hit with six elemental weapon hits.

Now I'm not saying that there isn't some validity in assault being powerful (and possibly overpowered). I'm just saying that comparing it to flurry and saying it's better and therefore is overpowered isn't a good way to look at it. The talent should be looked at and judged on it's own merits and not based off flurry because while on the surface they share some things in common the deeper you dig the more you realize how different the two of them are.

I think the auto-crits should be removed at least, since they reduce the value of crit defence.

Auto-crits should just raise your crit chance to 100% for that hit; crit defense should then be able to lower it back down.

(Or is that how it works?)

Kinda how it works except the number is ten times that amount. Raising it by the difference between 100 and your current crit so crit defense applied is a good idea though.

Or just by 100%, so it doesn't become less effective as the character gets higher crit. Alternately, just have the crit chance go up with tlvl, possibly to over 100 at 6.5+. This would make it a counter to crit reduction abilities while toning it down a bit in the early game.

Another option might be to have it give critmod instead of crit%. That'd probably be too much, though

I think, if the crit aspect was going to be taken out completely, I'd like to see stacking debuffs on it -- emphasis the 'shock and awe' part of assault. Shield hit does nothing special, but if one weapon strike hits, add cripple -- if the second one hits, too, add sunder arms/armor. Perhaps reduce the accuracy for each hit after the shield strike.

The problem with toning down the crit% at lower levels is that the monsters who are going to instakill you (the reason for asking it to be nerfed if I'm not mistaken) are going to have it at talent level 8 or 9 anyway, which kinda defeats the point especially if it isn't capped off

First they nerfed Shield Wall, and now they want to nerf Assault! Poor Fighters.

Grey wrote:I think the auto-crits should be removed at least, since they reduce the value of crit defence.

Amusingly, I have the opposite criticism - they reduce the value of +crit by making it redundant.

What about THREE melee attacks, but without the auto-crit? As long as you don't have a very high crit rate/damage multiplier it should be a fair reduction in damage.

Also, I don't think the damage modifier is meant to affect the weapon attacks(probably shouldn't).

greycat wrote:First they nerfed Shield Wall, and now they want to nerf Assault! Poor Fighters.

Yeah. I love Reavers and Temporal Wardens, but at the end of the day I'm a Fighter at heart. Suggested nerfings to Rush and Assault are making me wonder, is the Fighter really overpowered? I never really thought so. Especially since Archmages exist....

I've never had a problem with Assault's crits because it seems that I often miss with the shield bash; no initial bash, no crits. I've always maxed Combat Accuracy and often have a high dexterity (though I have played with a few builds that choose Magic as a third stat for escort quest rewards), but I still get frustrated with missing the shield bash and getting nothing from the talent.

Even though Fighters can easily have the highest accuracy attainable in game easier and quicker than any other class [and with the most reason to do so] - the fact that you have to hit with the initial attack to get the other two I think is balancing enough. I too, am a hardcore fighter player, and I have to say, I like the change to Shield Wall, but if Rush and Assault would both be weakened with no buffs to their other core tactical talents [when is Overpower not going to be so not good?]; how is a Fighter supposed to 1) Deal damage [have you guys even tried to get anywhere with Shield Wall up and not using Assault all the time?] 2) Move?

We could reduce the damage penalty of shield wall. Seems the most logical thing to do.

I am playing a d32 fighter a bit in the low to mid levels and currently I can:

Rush a target, strike it, and get another free attack
Use assault to attack 3 times
Total combo: The target gets one action, you get to attack 4 times (one shield attack, one 120% dmg rush attack, and two critical strikes!)

I do not usually play fighters, but from my limited experience with them I feel that fighters can really use a 1-h weapon attack tree. this might help increase overall damage (while maintaining all the tactical options from the shield skills).

Why do they have the 2h weapon options anyway? They are completely incompatible with the two shield trees. Why do they have archery? It is completely useless (unless someone corrects me and tells me they actually spend a category point in it?).

I must say fighters are fun to play, with great tactical skills (repulsion daze is really nice with good positioning) and movement options like rush and especially step up. Bleeding edge seems to be the only good damage talent other than assault. Still, that does not mean rush and assault are balanced skills.