[TheRuffKnight]

I think I'll find limited to no argument when I say that duelist rules as the king set of main classes for 80% of basic hitters. Fleur rules as one of the greatest reasons for its ability to help build your momentum economy and effectively give you an extra third move. Now, that isn't to neglect some strong alternatives, because there are alternatives. A few examples:

Rogue main class has the nice benefit of twin dance. Twin dance, with its second hit on basics for 20% damage, can (in my poor math terms. I am totally happy to hear more accurate math since I'm sure mine is wrong), increase your damage with that number in mind, by about 20%. If you count that you land both crits and get that extra third move, you could consider it a further increase in damage, though building momentum by having two weapons is not inherently specific to rogue main classes only.

Bonder can get the great benefit of installing to get their Fight As One Benefit. This means being able to install with a race with great basic hitting stats and upkeep the bonus +30 hit, crit and evade without worrying about your youkai dying. Although I'm sure a MG could null shell their dreams away.

It's not main class specific, but I'll even give the honorable mention of MG which gets akimbo. Basically the same thing as twin dance, except for one reason or another they don't need to main class like a Rogue might. We can even look at things like BK's being able to guarantee their fear on other races like Shaitan by main classing themselves. 

Anyhow, I'll get onto the actual suggestions I'd like to make.

My first suggestion is relatively straight forwards. For one, I'd like to hear people's thoughts on allowing Combination Strike to apply to basic hits. This would remain a main class only thing, but I say this from the perspective of

1) The damage increases provided by things such as Rogue or Duelist, where we can see a damage output increase of roughly 120-150%. The impact of combination strike being able to apply to basic hits would prove to give a similar number, I think. Assuming the multiplier is added to the correct part of the multiplier in the calculation.

2) Incentivizing main classing anything other than Duelist for basic hitting. Global fleur is one concept I've heard of, and although it sounds fun and cool, I could also see basic hitters reaching some ridiculous power with things like a Bonder main class with fleur. That is my take, of course. So my idea would be to take a look at all the other classes and see what we can do to incentivize alternative main classes for basic hitters that also push for some kind of class identity. Not that I'm sure how much class identity combination strike carries.

Alternatively, there is the consideration of adding more skills that utilize basic hits in Martial Artist. Currently, the only basic hit I can conjure up in my mind is Geldoren. Theoretically, you could heaven's kick into geldoren or something similar, but I'm sure no one wants to have to spam whatever two skills over and over to get that proc on a basic hit. This is kind of a very single-class targeted take on something I think a good handful of people have been thinking about, which is basic hitting in general, really. So I'd really like to hear takes on the idea and different ideas. I'm sure mine isn't the ultimate extrapolation of how we can incentivize Martial Artist main classing for basic hitting, but it would nice to see more conversation flowing towards what we can do for different classes in order to more diversify basic hitting identity (or even hear if anyone thinks we do or do not even need that at all). 


Now Introducing: The Boxer Segment

Now I specifically discuss basic hitting as a boxer, and yes, I play  basic hit boxer so I likely have some bias. Keep me in check here if I get to crazy with these ideas. I have three proposals that are specific to boxing basic hitting. The basis for these proposals is that boxer is a tremendous FP sink. Quite large. To parallel that, it is fairly widely accepted amongst many basic hitters that you are often going to have to have a limited focus pool in order to build the necessary amount of hit and crit to reliably do your job. So, what do we do about a low FP setup for a high FP cost class?

Suggestion One: Building schwarz on crit. I propose a change to boxer where critting builds one schwarz! Krahenflugel rewards dodging basic hits with a gain in schwarz. My proposal is to simply add this effect with it. So you land a crit? Boom! 1 Schwarz. You can't really build schwarz reliably as a basic hitting boxer as is, mostly because you're going to hit 0 FP by the time you hit even 4 schwarz, probably.

Suggestion Two: Some sort of mild increase to FP gain on landing a basic hit. Nothing too ridiculously substantial, but something that can help refund the FP expenditure that comes from even just geisting around. Not refund all of it, but hopefully enough to stop a basic hit boxer from winding themself too fast.

Suggestion Three: (Crazy alert) Don't have core class MA skills succ away schwarz at all. I expect this one to be a hot take others won't agree with, but I'll still toss it out there. Personally, I would prefer to see Boxer not receive any sort of punishment or repercussion for using the core of its class. That's about it, really. Boxer struggles more out of the majority of class in being able to maintain its class identity while using other classes. If you want to truly be a boxer and use the full extent of its skills to their full capacity, you're nudged quite aggressively in the direction of focusing on Boxer and Boxer only in your setup that many other classes don't experience. 

These changes here are even more specific, to help improve life for a very specific setup of a very specific class so, as with anything else, I'd really like to hear input on it all.

(Also, I'd like to apologize for two back to back suggestion threads. Moreso, I apologize for any poor formatting, explanations, or trains of thought. My mind is trailing this evening and my thoughts are scattered. Go figure.)

Moved from suggestions to Balance Fu since I think it applies here more?

[Trexmaster]

You're not wrong, Geldoren is literally the only fist-specific basic attack skill. Everything else is an auto hit.

Spamming autohits seems to be a niche fists got pushed into with how all of their promo class push using them, Boxer and Verglas benefiting greatly from using specifically their autohits to get more value out of them. Monk is the only one of the trio that retains its level of power while using any other classes abilities.

What little support basic attacks gets from the Martial Artist line can be summed up as about +20 hit from Martial Artist itself, +0-30 crit from Monk, +4-56 crit and hit from Boxer (Scharfe, it takes at least 12m to maximize the bonus assuming no evades or geist procs, and lasts 3 rounds), and +5-30 crit damage from Verglas (you also get +5-30 power but i'm talking benefits that work specifically for basic attacks).

You could argue Scharfe is a pretty potent buff but building all that schwarz is as Ruff stated going to bleed your FP dry if your opponent doesn't feed you it. Ultimately it isn't even enough to counteract someone using a spirited Disengage without Miragewalk (+60 evade) at max SS.

Having at least some synergy built into Boxer for basic attacking ala building schwarz with crits is a start--I'd also suggest it help boost your damage with fist basic attacks as well with a similar modifiers to boxer skills (5% per schwarz). This combined with FP generation on basic hitting would allow a Boxer to sustain themselves while being built to basic attack rather than tanking up and have a massive pool of FP with the regen needed to carry through the fight.

As it stands a Boxer trying to focus on basic attacks is dead in the water compared to one who simply embraces the auto-hit spam that the class is centered around.

To put it into perspective, a basic-hitting Boxer is looking at building at least STR SKI and LUC. An auto-hitting Boxer only cares about STR from that list. Then you start looking at defensive and utility stats you need, WIL VIT DEF RES, potentially SAN depending on your race. Shorting yourself on any of these leaves a gaping hole in your defenses or in WIL's case puts a very short clock on how long your FP will last until you're forced into nothing but your basic attack.

To quickly wrap up:
Suggestion One: As I stated, this would be a great addition to encourage playing a Boxer who aims for crits, even if fist weapons in their current state don't offer much variety for weapons that enable this.

Suggestion Two: Any kind of FP gain on basic hit would be nice to supplement a basic-oriented Boxer who manages to live long enough to bleed their FP. It could even scale with your schwarz to further reward critting combined with the first suggestion (or just using your boxer autos to speed up the process).

Suggestion Three: Boxer could afford to be less stringent with what skills they're allowed to use from their own base class. A nice compromise could be reducing the penalty to 1 schwarz lost from 2 if it's from MA.

BONUS SUGGESTION: It might be neat if Boxer had a skill that let you choose to augment your fist basic attacks rather than Boxer auto-hits, somewhat in line with my suggestion to just give this bonus to basic attacks.

[Balor]

A lot of good points brought up here. Ruffing more for me to add really.

[Autumn]

I think that even Monk is missing a lot of much needed basic attack support to it to really cement in the fact that people want to run basic attacking sets without duelist nowadays a lot of the time. I do agree that Boxer could use some basic attacking support, but they already have a lot of skill variety, I could end up seeing a passive in the class that converts their non-magic autohits into basic attacks, perhaps even make it a toggle, that way Scharfe will see some fairly distinct usage.

As for Monk, to throw some ideas out into the wind I have some ideas on what Monk could use basic attack wise:

-A Gap Closer for starters would be good for them, introducing a gap closer which scales distance from ki is not a bad idea.

-A Basic attack that when lands increases your Acid ATK for a decent duration, call it like Twin Snakes and have it give +5/10/15 Acid ATK on a successful hit (1.5x when crit)

-Ala old Sky Chariot, perhaps a basic attack that knocks down when you hit an opponent's flank, spending an inconsequential amount of ki to do so, this would give synergy to a poorly underutilized fist, Deadclaw.

[Snake]

A multi-hitting attack rush that delivers multiple basic hits depending on how much Ki you have, or doubled amount if using Ki Awoken. (Tiger Strikes)

A fist-only stance or buff that allows them to 100% counter-attack fist basic hits, like Riposte. (Retribution)

An autohit that sends a small Ki orb in a line ahead to mark an enemy for 3 rounds and deal minor Sound damage. Then when you use the skill again you will dash towards the enemy while ignoring field effects to perform a Kick-type basic hit. (Resonating Strike)

The melee versions of Terra Strike (when used on self, similar to the Boxer's skill but just earth damage and AoE tile break) and Dragon Gale (when using on an enemy within 1 range, a roundhouse kick that knocks the enemy back with blunt damage then does wind damage and makes an Air Shaft under them).

A skill that allows you to send your Ki to a friendly Boxer or Monk, draining exactly 50% of your max HP/FP/Ki/Schwarz/Ice Point Guard (duration) to recover 50% of their HP/FP/Ki/Schwarz/Ice Point Guard (duration), which can KO you (and inflict Certain Defeat permanently) if you give an amount you can't afford. (Brotherhood)

A skill that costs 7M+ to use, that must be used several times (3-5 times before complete?), which grants you a golden Ki Awoken that increases all of your stats but doesn't drain your HP. (Transcendence)