12-20-2015, 06:49 AM
I've made like two threads trying to get this nerfed before. Nobody is arguing the special attack is not situational, the problem is that it outperforms every other special attack by a large margin. As a mage, book smack does respectable damage (40-100 blunt, usually), and removes an entire action from the opponent. You can't create distance, because your one movement action will be met with the attacker following and book smacking once again. It can be paired with knockdown to eat an entire turn, which is not as 'gimmicky' as many of you are trying to make it out to be, just a death sentence.
As a tank, this translates roughly to "In this battle we both take one action per turn but uh you take 80 damage every turn on top of that." Better hope you're a crit whore.
So, yes, you can get high dodge, you can go first, you can make it dangerous to approach so close with a tome class, but there is NO other instance of a special attack causing this kind of impact on a fight. When's the last time somebody's heard "oh man, I fought them but I just could NOT win because of (slice/stab/multifront/widespin/palm strike)"? Because I hear that often about Book Smack. Make the momentum reduction 1 instead of 2, punish people who hit resists after being book smacked.
As a tank, this translates roughly to "In this battle we both take one action per turn but uh you take 80 damage every turn on top of that." Better hope you're a crit whore.
So, yes, you can get high dodge, you can go first, you can make it dangerous to approach so close with a tome class, but there is NO other instance of a special attack causing this kind of impact on a fight. When's the last time somebody's heard "oh man, I fought them but I just could NOT win because of (slice/stab/multifront/widespin/palm strike)"? Because I hear that often about Book Smack. Make the momentum reduction 1 instead of 2, punish people who hit resists after being book smacked.