Phasing Out Combat Training & Combat Veteran

[Doctornull]

Yeah as far as I'm concerned even the Nulltweaks solution is the bare minimum necessary for an interesting Mastery talent set.

It's strategically interesting -- do you plan for more damage (but more limited weapons), or do you plan for Flexible Combat? -- but it's got no real tactical implications at all. And even then, there's so much room for strategic improvement.

The current mastery talents are awful because they basically ask the player: "Can you guess what weapon you're holding?"
[_] A Knife
[_] Not A Knife

... and that's neither a strategic choice nor a tactical option.

[supermini]

Sometimes Weapon Specialization systems work, but other times they don't really add any meaningful decision making. If investing in Combat Training is your only choice for investing your Generic points into - you don't have a meaningful choice for investing your Generic Points.

In Tales of Maj'Eyal, you are pretty well forced to invest in a Weapon Mastery (including Staves, Mindstars, and Exotic if you try and hold out for them) on Melee Focused characters, or you otherwise heavily handicap your character's damage output. You don't have any real competing choice to invest your Generic Points in over Weapon Talents because nothing comes close to matching them in scale of importance. IE, you are restricted to having to invest in Weapon Mastery on your Bulwark starting out as you would never invest in Conditioning or Survival because they are completely subpar in comparison.

Incorrect. The choice you have to make is when to spend those points into the weapon mastery. This isn't a game where you spend most of the time at max level, most characters only hit level 50 at the prides, and some only at High Peak. So the order in which you get skills is an important build choice. It's possible to delay the 5th point in weapon mastery until the very late game or you can rush it early. It's possible to run with 3 or 4 points in armor mastery - the 5th point doesn't really make that big of a difference. For a dex user it's possible to take less points in accuracy. This all gets more complicated by the fact that different classes have different masteries for the combat tree, and it's possible to boost it further via items.

In short, there's plenty of decisions to be made. If you are straight up maxing weapon mastery first thing as soon as you get the opportunity, that's your playstyle, not the game's fault or even the most optimal way to play.

Accuracy is more important in the early game, and armor training is twice as important as weapon mastery in the early game. Damage isn't really as important as you make it out to be. Most mobs can't heal unless they have an infusion that allows them to do so (one reason why vitality was buffed), so you can take your time to whittle down a rare over 5 separate combat encounters. What matters the most in this situation is being able to survive for long enough, and infusions and armor training are much more useful there than weapon mastery. You can't kill a bulwark rare? Big deal. Drag it to the explored part of the level and then just escape and avoid it.

There is also the problem that certain classes like Marauders or Temporal Wardens aren't really playing as intended due to having to invest in two separate Weapon Mastery types and Exotic Weapons being pointless to use because players will never realistically use them because they don't really come into use until later in the game - though I'll give Nulltweaks a nod as a general direction that could be used to fix that specific problem.

I don't quite understand what's the problem here. Marauders are not playing as intended? They are playing as dual wielding variants of the berserker. You can go dual dagger or 1h + dagger here and it's up to you how you want to set up the masteries. If you think the additional damage is worth another 5 generic points, that's an option, but it's still a decision that you have to make. We could get into the specifics of what is optimal, but I don't see a problem here.

Both classes that you list as having "problems" are among the most powerful in the game right now.

Eliminating Weapon Masteries means that meaningful decision making can be made elsewhere - your Bulwark can meaningfully look into investing in Conditioning or Survival, your Marauder can use the One Handed Weapon or Dagger unless he finds Two really powerful Daggers that would tilt his interest into using them, unless your Arcane Blade invests in specific weapon techniques he can use whatever suits the players fancy.

There's nothing stopping you from doing so now. You can float 3 generic points in town, which is enough weapon/dagger mastery to switch around for a long time. If the town thing annoys you, there's an addon that lets you respec anywhere.

I don't see how the con for thick skin, or using stat items to qualify for stuff in general, even ends up in the same discussion. Your solution to tie thick skin to actual constitution turns constitution into a must have stat. And where does it cut off? You can't have a cap on stats the way that you have with generic skills, so I could have 150 constitution (like I had on a sun paladin, mostly for a giggle), and how much resist all should that give me? You haven't fixed the problem, you just created different ones.

If the value is something like 0.1 All Resistance per stat, then with 150 Constitution you could have at most 15% All Resistance. The Value could be altered as desired. Regardless, if we can make +Stat gear more important, to the point that people might actual consider wearing it FOR the +Stat, then that's an improvement, since no one wears gear for +Stat outside of leveling.

I don't know what to answer to "it can be just altered as desired". You are just throwing stuff at the wall to see what sticks.

Right now it's reasonable to assume that you can get about 10% res all from thick skin by mid game, either by leveling con or using +stat items, and thick skin is a mid game skill, anyway. You can see it as a HP multiplier. When you have low hp (early game), +hp items are worth more than resist all because it's possible to double or triple your hp pool and there is no way that resist all can catch up with that. In the mid game when you have more hp (and maybe a good shield rune/heroism), taking 10-15% less damage becomes more meaningful because you already have a larger "padding" to work with, so multiplication becomes more worth than addition.

If you make it scale off a tertiary stat, you are breaking this dynamic. Biggest stat increases come with t4-t5 items in the latter parts of the game (you can often max out thick skin just on stats from gear you would wear anyway in the late game), so if you set your resist/con low your resist all would be low in the mid game when you need this survivability the most and then shoot up in the latter parts of the game when it already becomes less of an issue. If you set it too high, you solved the early problem, but you end up giving resist all to a stat that cannot be capped, which becomes a huge issue in the late game.

If anything, I would tie thick skin to levels just like accuracy and be done with it.

To your other point, yes I usually keep stat gear for levelling stuff around, but if you're suggesting that people are ignoring +stats on gear completely, I have to say that it's just you.

You end up having to redo all artifacts and all egos in the game to reflect this.

I don't see this as a bad thing, as eventually all the artifacts and egos will need to have a quality pass done to them at some point.

Quality pass has been done some time ago, there are very little useless artifacts left. There might be an issue with artifact weapons since they are less valuable now because of the new on hit mechanics that got added to melee relatively recently, but that is for another topic.

Additionally, +Stat needs to be elevated a bit in importance is right now it's pretty useless to have on equipment you intend to use to fight with.

No it isn't, it's just you undervaluing stats on gear.

A nimble fighter in light armor should be able to make better use of his lighter armor to protect himself then a clumsy fighter should be able to protect himself in heavy armor. The nimble fighter can better move around in his armor to make blows glance off him where a clumsy fighter will likely end up taking the full brunt of attacks blow after blow.

That actually makes perfect sense - not to mention it literally lines up with countless (if not the majority) of other games in how Armor ratings work.

That's not how heavy armor works anywhere, including real life. I hate to bring reality in game mechanics discussion, but you can jump, wrestle and mount a horse in plate armour. Until firearms, everyone always wore the heaviest armor they could afford, it didn't
significantly impair their ability to fight, there are no recorded historical deaths of people in plate armor dying from arrow wounds (apart from arrows to the face when they lifted their visor). Now that we got that out of the way, can we talk about game mechanics?

In ToME terms, armor hardiness represents what proportion of incoming blow can you even stop with armor. If you don't have the mobility talent, or some other item/talent, that's 30% for light armor. That's why you can't just stack a ring with 20 armor on a piece of light armor and stop hits like you're wearing heavy. I don't ever see it making sense that light armor stops hits better than heavy armor. There are some exemptions in the game (spydre), but it's hardly the rule. It takes significantly more resources to reach parity with heavy in terms of armor hardiness and rating.

Armor hardiness scaling off a stat completely removes this and makes light and heavy armor equal, and gives more of it to dex users which is just weird. It also makes dex which is already the best defensive stat even more important.

Stats already (both directly and by way of physical power, accuracy bonuses, crit chance) influence damage. I would start here: http://te4.org/wiki/Combat_Damage

Beyond that, they do play a large role in character design. For melee characters dex makes for a better defensive stat because it allows you to shrug off crits, cunning is a better offensive/utility stat (in terms of utility, it helps with various skills like track and piercing sight). Con is a bit of a bad stat to level, but in general the demise of con as a result of heroism infusions and +hp egos has made for a better game because bigger hp padding makes for less one turn kills and makes it easier to play builds with lower life ratings. I'm not opposed to buffing it in some other way, or having classes that depend on it more for skills.

And yet, do they help that much? How many times have you passed over using a +Stat gear because increasing ones Stats is pretty useless. Outside of leveling up, +Stat equipment is barely worth giving the time of day too.

Do you want to talk about specific cases or in general?

In terms of combat damage, I linked that article on the wiki in my last post, but here's a run down:

Code: Select all

dam = 0.3 * (phys_power + totstat) * power * talented_mod

phys_power is physical power
totstat is your stat modifier for the weapon
power is derived from weapon base damage
talented_mod is the mastery bonus

What you can notice here is that your damage increases in a significant way with the increase of stats that are used for that weapon. At some point, it's better and easier for a berserker to get 10 extra str than 10 extra phys power, because his stat modifier is 120% str. As you can see in that equation, the stats hold the same importance for determining damage as physical power. It bears mentioning that unlike physical power, str does not suffer from diminishing returns. After you have 60 physical power it takes 3 points for each additional points, after 80 it takes 4. There is no such limitation on stats, and there have been characters that ended the game with 150+ str.

If you want to talk about something else, like equilibrium using classes, getting willpower high up is especially important for them because it acts as a limit of how many sustains you can run at one time and how relatively expensive it is for you to activate abilities with high eq.

Dex gives you accuracy bonuses and help you shrug off crits (this works on spells and mind attacks as well, unlike armor training). Cun gives you crit and helps with utility skills like track, piercing sight, etc. All these effects can be quantified. If you see an item with +20 dex it shouldn't take long to realize how beneficial this is to almost any character, dexterity being the best defensive stat.

Only Con is the stray here, but this has been discussed to death already.

So, no, stat bonuses are not useless, you're just doing it wrong.

[Delmuir]

That's not how heavy armor works anywhere, including real life. I hate to bring reality in game mechanics discussion, but you can jump, wrestle and mount a horse in plate armour. Until firearms, everyone always wore the heaviest armor they could afford, it didn't
significantly impair their ability to fight, there are no recorded historical deaths of people in plate armor dying from arrow wounds (apart from arrows to the face when they lifted their visor).

That's actually not true at all. Numerous arrow/bow combinations could pierce plate-mail, most notably certain Mongol bows and the English Longbow...

The Mongols themselves usually went into battle with silk on, rather than heavy armor, as most of the damage from an arrow happens when removing it and the arrows often didn't penetrate the silk and would instead push into the wound, stopping bleeding, and would slide out comfortably without additional damage.

People didn't always wear the heaviest armor they had access to, it was situational depending upon their military tactics.

[jaumito]

[OT]

That's actually not true at all. Numerous arrow/bow combinations could pierce plate-mail, most notably certain Mongol bows and the English Longbow...

True and false. Indeed, a lucky shot could sometimes pierce plate armor, yet plate armor was very effective to stop longbow (or composite bow) fire during the Middle Ages. When there wasn't muddy terrain, stakes, or other defensive measures to tilt the odds, heavy knights vs longbowmen matchups always resulted in a few dead horses and lots of dead longbowmen (e.g., Patay.)

[/OT]

[Red]

I do support abilties like Roll With It (I think it's called) to represent how lighter armor lets you, well, roll with blows and generally be more mobile in your defense. That being said, even if it's not the most realistic, heavy armor should be made the better defensive gear. Historical silk armor or not, this is a videogame, and when you start accepting wizards and demons, I think we can accept a few innaccuracies in how battle armor works for the sake of good game balance. And, as an added note, I don't think the Mongols ever had to deal with Archmages. Might have given them different ideas on armor, who knows.

And about the extra 10-20 generic points melee classes would get via the removal of these trees, I would take a look and see how that'd affect their gameplay, but most importantly, see where they can spend it. If there aren't enough points, then more skills are needed before the current ones are phased out. (Escort trees are not a valid replacement. There is no guarantee of getting an escort with a good tree, no guarantee of getting an escort with a tree at all, and finally, escorts are rock - stupid without an addon. I don't want to rely on one of the most suicidal AIs in the game for a required spot to spend generics.)

[Delmuir]

[OT]
True and false. Indeed, a lucky shot could sometimes pierce plate armor, yet plate armor was very effective to stop longbow (or composite bow) fire during the Middle Ages. When there wasn't muddy terrain, stakes, or other defensive measures to tilt the odds, heavy knights vs longbowmen matchups always resulted in a few dead horses and lots of dead longbowmen (e.g., Patay.)

[/OT]

Lucky shot? Ask the Poles if that's true… their heavy-armor clad soldiers were destroyed by the Mongols, and their bows. Poland was largely conquered in the 13th century by the Mongols who almost universally wore no or light armor and the Polish royal army that fell at Leignitz was heavily armored, usually full-plate.

Full-plate is very good armor but it didn't a lucky shot to take it down, with the right weapon. The Mongols in particular were the most effective at it which is why they never lost to an army that consisted of mostly fully armored soldiers. They feasted on that.

[Red]

Delmuir, hate to rain on your parade, but videogame. Game balance trumps logic, otherwise the people who can control the elemental forces of nature itself would always beat guys who are good at swinging a sword.

And, of course, archers are fully capable of killing an armor clad player. Hell, slingers can kill an armored player, and I doubt there's many records of people firing sling bullets through plate armor.

[Davion Fuxa]

I think we can put real life mechanics aside......

The main thing is that in the game I see nothing wrong with making a Lighter Armored characters being able to get the high armor value like abilities of Heavily Armored characters that naturally run around in Heavy Armor if the Heavy Armor users are naturally more clumsy or untrained.

To sort of illustrate things:

-You attack me with a strike to the chest with a Mace. I can't dodge, but I know how to move so that your attack instead glances off my shoulder so I only take 40% of the impact from the mace. I'm wearing Leather Armor so I only reduce the resulting impact by a negligible amount.
-You attack me with a strike to the chest with a Mace. I can't dodge, and I don't know how to move so your attack hits me squarely in the chest and I take 100% of the impact from the mace. I'm wearing Massive Armor which helps reduce the impact by a sizable amount of 60%.

And a sort of in-between

-You attack me with a strike to the chest with a Mace. I can't dodge, but I know how to turn my body so that you fail to make a square hit on me and only inflict about 50% of the impact with your mace. I'm wearing Heavy Armor which help reduce the impact by 20%.

Personally, the above makes sense to me. All values from the above three examples equals 60% reduced damage on the player - one method was through skill, one was through equipment, and one was through a mix of both. Note as well that the Stat doesn't have to be Dexterity either - or Dexterity could stop doing some of the stuff it does (I can recall someone suggesting it no longer reduce critical chance for example, and that it be moved over to Constitution to help support that stat).

Heck, if Armor Training didn't effect what equipment you could equip and you could equip Massive Armor so long as you had the Strength for it, I wouldn't mind if a Rogue with 5/5 Armor Training could get near or better Armor values of that Sun Paladin with 0/5 Armor Training in Massive Armor.

*************

It's probably important to note that it isn't like anything I've suggested here is automatically set in stone and can't be changed or modified to make it work. For the example of how much All Resistance should the Constitution stat give - I don't know, I'm not playing Tales of Maj'Eyal where Constitution gives All Resistance to tell you how much is too much or too little.

In regards to the suggestion that characters levels could handle how much All Resistance the player gets, I'd note that I still don't know how much All Resistance a player should get either. Just as much as linking All Resistance to stats, the amount can't really be firmly placed until the game is played a bit to see how enemies and the player are effected at any different point in the game.

As a note I'm fine if we link All Resistance to levels as opposed to Constitution - that has the benefit of preventing the player from effectively being able to control how much All Resistance they get if we are scared they might break the game balance if they had that control.

*************

If rephrasing it helps, a player would be hardpressed NOT to invest talents from the Combat Training Category early on. Outside of investing in replacement Categories like for Mindstars or Staves, you equipment requires too much choice to invest in. There might be some decision making in what talents to pick first within Combat Training, but you'll still only be investing in the Combat Training (or Mindstars and Staves) talents.

Survival, Conditioning or Other Generic Categories are rendered 2nd tier and you won't be investing in them until much later; simply because it is no where near optimal to invest in those categories until suitable investment is at least made in Combat Training talents. The effects one might get from talents outside of Combat Training might be quite strong later on but the immediate gains to be found within Combat Training completely require the player to focus their efforts there if they don't want to severely handicap their character.

The problem with Combat Training as a whole is that it limits choice so that Melee characters need to focus a lot of attention on its talents to survive. There is no real optimal choice outside of the Combat Training category or respective Mindstar/Stave Category alternatives.

*************

I'm not sure I even want to broach the subject of 'point juggling' here. We had the thread 'Preventing over the top skill point juggling' and I think the amount of attention it got is more then enough evidence that its an attention getting issue.

I'll just keep the text short here and say that in my opinion, juggling points should be prevented.

Edit* I had to fix Math.

[Red]

As it stands, there needs to be a replacement for these skill trees. If they are simply removed wholesale, it might make other generics more attractive, but you said it yourself. They're vital in the early game. Until an appropiate alternative is added, or at least a functioning one, they can't be removed without crippling a fair amount of classes.

And while your examples were all equal, a 40% damage reduction, I personally feel that that's not right. A lightly armored character should take more damage than a heavily armored one, but should also have either a greater damage output or more utility options. This would make them rather distinct from one another-wearing leather might give you the freedom to murder your opponents with ease, but at the same time it makes you easier to kill. Trundling up in heavy armor might restrict you from killing your opponents so quickly, but you'll be much more likely to survive their blows.

To put your examples into game mechanics, light armor reduces damage by 40%, heavy reduces by 40%, and massive reduces by 40%. However, light armor gives 5% fatigue, heavy gives 10%, and massive gives 15%. This makes light armor unequivocally the best choice, since it offers the exact same benefits at less penalty.

To sum up, if all armor gives the same benefits, there might as well be only one category of armor, light, since it gives the least penalties.

[Davion Fuxa]

I had to redo the math because I made a mistake, so now the reduced value is 60%. Anyhow....

The thing to note is that heavier armor is still going to provide more protection then lighter armor. A Rogue will use lighter armor, but that's because of Acrobatics and Stealth requiring he use lighter armor - the Sun Paladin will use the Massive Armor because he is going to get more protection from it. A Marauder as well will use the heavier armor since he isn't restricted to using lighter armor (until appropriate talents inch him towards lighter armors).

It will pretty well just be more or less the same as it is now - just that it is possible that a Rogue in light armor could indeed be better at reducing incoming damage then a Sun Paladin in massive armor. As for the Marauder, he'll have the highest value in damage reduction.

[Red]

What cost would be associated with greater defense? I'm okay with a Rogue build being tankier than a Sun Paladin, but this should come at heavy oppurtunity cost. It should be taking points away from offensive skills, non-defensive utility skills, require sustains that can be dsirupted and take stamina away from other uses, etc.

I guess what I'm saying is I'm okay with evasion tank or even outright light armor tank builds. I don't think they should be main builds (if the main Rogue build has defensive abilities, that's just natural. If it out tanks a Sherman, then something has gone rather wrong in the whole "stealthy stabby" class design.) but if a sidegrade that focuses primarily on defense gets amazing defenses, that's alright with me. That's great, in fact, since it opens up more build options. The main thing is that it should be, at best, equal in power to a normally built Rogue. Not a normal Rogue, plus extra defense.

[Doctornull]

The main thing is that in the game I see nothing wrong with making a Lighter Armored characters being able to get the high armor value like abilities of Heavily Armored characters that naturally run around in Heavy Armor if the Heavy Armor users are naturally more clumsy or untrained.

To sort of illustrate things:

-You attack me with a strike to the chest with a Mace. I can't dodge, but I know how to move so that your attack instead glances off my shoulder so I only take 40% of the impact from the mace. I'm wearing Leather Armor so I only reduce the resulting impact by a negligible amount.
-You attack me with a strike to the chest with a Mace. I can't dodge, and I don't know how to move so your attack hits me squarely in the chest and I take 100% of the impact from the mace. I'm wearing Massive Armor which helps reduce the impact by a sizable amount of 60%.

That top one sounds a bit like a dodge. You've moved (partially) out of the way of an attack.

Actually, hmm. Graded dodging instead of all-or-nothing. Moving 60% out of the way is an interesting idea you've got there.

Heck, if Armor Training didn't effect what equipment you could equip and you could equip Massive Armor so long as you had the Strength for it, I wouldn't mind if a Rogue with 5/5 Armor Training could get near or better Armor values of that Sun Paladin with 0/5 Armor Training in Massive Armor.

Rolling the Mobility light armor talent into Armor Training might be nice. Especially if we take the opportunity to merge Mobility and Field Control into one category worth taking.

It's probably important to note that it isn't like anything I've suggested here is automatically set in stone and can't be changed or modified to make it work. For the example of how much All Resistance should the Constitution stat give - I don't know, I'm not playing Tales of Maj'Eyal where Constitution gives All Resistance to tell you how much is too much or too little.

IMHO aiming for 15% at 60 Con is a good breakpoint, then give diminishing returns after that, possibly up to an asymptotic limit around 25% or something. I'd expect this limit to be more relevant to NPCs, of course.

I'll just keep the text short here and say that in my opinion, juggling points should be prevented.

Yeah ideally you would not have to juggle points, nor juggle too much gear.

[Red]

It's not a dodge, it's just moving with the blow. Roll With It, for example, gives 10-15% physical damage resistance not because you dodge a blow, but because you move with the blow instead of letting it hit you full force. This would make Davion's suggestion work basically the same as armor, a portion of the blow that doesn't do damage because you went with it instead of trying to be a tough guy and taking the blow full force.

A 40% dodge rate would be rather more powerful than 40% reduction of physical damage from armor. If a melee strike deals 100 physical damage, 50 light, and 50 fire to a character in massive armor, he's getting hit for 60 physical, 50 light, and 50 fire for 160 total. Over ten turns, that's 1600 total damage. But if a lightly armored character with a 40% dodge instead of 40% armor gets ten hits over ten turns, each hit deals 100 physical, 50 light, and 50 fire damage. But four hits, on average, will completely miss, making a total of 1200 damage since he avoids the non-physical damage too.

Unless you want to make light armor a better defensive choice for all characters, not just Rogues and other characters who can't wear or can't afford the penalties given by massive armor.

[supermini]

That's actually not true at all. Numerous arrow/bow combinations could pierce plate-mail, most notably certain Mongol bows and the English Longbow...

The longbow doesn't do well against heavy armor at range. Yes, you can puncture it with armor piercing arrows at close range, you can kill a rider's horse with it, but in terms of actual combat ranges puncturing the side of a face plate where it's thinnest is about the best you can hope for.

Take the much advertised victory of Agincourt. One thing that battle is famous for is execution of the prisoners - there were so many that the English king executed thousands of them. One of the most deadly arrow barrages in recorded history, and more prisoners than you can handle?

That is not to say that longbow wasn't effective, it certainly was, but it was most effective against lightly armored opponents, which was most of the soldiers on the battlefield. An average soldier would have a helmet and a padded jacket for protection. Heavy plate was the domain of the knights who can afford it. To actually pierce it you have to get within distance of 30 yards, maybe less. And forget about plate armor, even mail was good enough most of the time.

Anna Comnena wrote that during the Battle of Durazzo, the Byzantines started shooting the Frankish horses because their arrows were ineffective against the armour. Odo of Douil wrote about king Louis VII during the 2nd Crusade, losing his bodyguard and forced to flee the enemy by scaling a rock face. The enemy fired arrows but, "by the will of God his armour protected him from the arrows." Saladin's biographer wrote that the crusaders were protect by "very heavy felt and so stout a coat of mail that our arrows did no harm…I saw foot-soldiers with as many as ten arrows in their backs, who marched on as usual without breaking ranks."

Mail was worn over padding, so even if the arrow would puncture the mail coat, the padding would usually be enough to protect the wearer. Even the much celebrated bodkin arrow is a technology that existed since the Bronze age and it wasn't really guaranteed to pierce through mail, and when you think about it, if that was the case mail armour would never have developed.

The use of archers in medieval warfare wasn't as armor piercing machine guns. They were used to disrupt enemy formations and demoralize the enemy, with then those gaps exploited by infantry and cavalry.

The Mongols themselves usually went into battle with silk on, rather than heavy armor, as most of the damage from an arrow happens when removing it and the arrows often didn't penetrate the silk and would instead push into the wound, stopping bleeding, and would slide out comfortably without additional damage.

Mongols wore armor into battle. It was either a silk garment (like the padded equivalent of Europe) or of lamellar type. They didn't have urban centers or opportunity for labor intensive armor production.

People didn't always wear the heaviest armor they had access to, it was situational depending upon their military tactics.

They most certainly did wear the best protection they could afford that was practical. In hot climates plate certainly wasn't popular because it's the equivalent of sitting in a pressure cooker, but if we're talking about medieval Europe, that's certainly the case.

[Razakai]

The problem I'm seeing is with CT removed, most melee don't have many places to put generics except for stuff like Antimagic/Fungus and escort categories. I'd support CT being retooled into something more interesting rather than an automatic -10-15 generic points though.