[Ryu-Kazuki]

Chaos » Tue Apr 21, 2015 6:36 pm[/url]"]

Neus » Tue Apr 21, 2015 12:19 am[/url]"]Stalemate does kind of fit into a category of does and doesn't, since it negates the attack, but it triggers when you are targeted for an attack. As for whether or not Ghosthand should stop it, maybe so? The hand slot is rather important and if you're willing to give it up to stop one skill then I think that's okay.

Except that you can also give up the hand slot to get a weapon that won't be Stalemated. Honestly, it seems like too much of a nerf to Stalemate to let Ghosthand bypass it; instead of people having to work with the consequences of a single weapon type, they can just swing it without a care in the world. While it might be going against the physical tank class, there's enough tricks to make the guaranteed bypass brutal. (Excel weapons, Power Gradation, Ether Invitation, empowered Riposte, Checkmate....) Mind you, most of those skills can be used with weapons that can already completely bypass Stalemate to begin with.

P.S. Kensei is well-equipped with skills that can bypass Stalemate's crap AND get around the Black Knight's defense. How you are unable to work with that is beyond me.

Ghosthand or not, you have the setback that you can't normally use your main or a weapon, unless you have Ghosthand or a sub-weapon. You can't say someone's just swinging their main weapon without a care in the world when that hand slot could be used for other defenses or something. Either way, you have to make a sacrifice. I don't see Ghosthand doing much harm by nullifying this skill since there's still other ways to defend against these weapons.

Or we could turn Ghosthand into another version of Nihilist and make it cancel the wearer's effects too.

Ghosthand already bypasses Riposte, and everything else, so why wouldn't it bypass Stalemate? It doesn't make sense for it to make an exception for one skill (unless you snuck your way into it too, Wraithguard).

Stalemate also only blocks three weapon types. So an Excel Lion with Sharp Claws or a custom part can pretty much act just like a sword and do about the same damage if charged properly.

Excel weapons are usually junk unless you find the right material / quality.

Power Gradation is understandable, but then again, if your Power Grad gets blocked every time, not only is it useless, but you're also wasting FP and extra M.

EI is a capped, static damage (that as far as I'm aware, can be reduced with defenses).

Riposte can only be increased by certain factors, and still be defended against in certain ways. So Kensei may have some slightly better damage, but would it matter when you get noped every time it gets proc'd because Stalemate procs every time it does?

Most of the mentioned skills are basic attacks that use STR as a formula, and can be reduced in damage, which is what BKs are designed for.

With the way Stalemate works not, there's honestly not much point in getting certain other skills because you can pretty much shrug off most damage from the general melee populace. I'm not saying Stalemate itself needs a nerf, but having a weakness for it, isn't a bad thing either.

[MegaBlues]

I changed my mind, having Ghosthands work against Stalemate is a bad idea.

Instead, everyone should switch to Monk and use an excel fist whenever they know the enemy is a Black Knight.

[MakeshiftWalrus]

Chaos » Tue Apr 21, 2015 11:36 pm[/url]"]
P.S. Kensei is well-equipped with skills that can bypass Stalemate's crap AND get around the Black Knight's defense. How you are unable to work with that is beyond me.

You mean the auto-hits with their fantastic 75% Strength scaling and high FP cost? The ones that 90% of all Kenseis only take a single of because they're literally garbage compared to the passives when you can get much better attack skills from other classes? The only good thing about them is the fact that they /will/ hit no matter what. Regardless, these doesn't 'Get around the Black Knight's defense' at all. They're still lowered by the Defense stat, which mind you hits for even less due to the 75% scaling instead of the 100%

I personally think Ghosthands working with Stalemate would be a great idea if only to give back some love to non-BK melee characters. Swords are literally doomed against any decent BK, and considering LE and how every damn character is a top dog now if they want to be, I don't think it's too much to ask that a basically 60% damage negation chance gets a single counter.

[Sarinpa1]

Let me repeat - Stalemate usualy ends up being a coinflip, or close to it. It has a weakness. It is really unreliable.
The best ghosthand could be doing is to lower the chance even more. And the whole argument that "Hand slot is very important." It's not. It is important only for some builds. Others usualy just end up with a shield, bands, or some special utility item. So no. Equipping ghosthands everytime I fight a BK is something very, very viable.
And it will ultimately just fuck over the only thing BKs had to actualy have edge. Especialy so when you are an axe using BK. Stalemate is the only thing balancing out the fact you have to frequently try and hit with 30%, even after applying all those lovely hit bonuses, when you fight a dodger. Removing that would pretty much mean, for axe users, that you either spam the (Earth damage AoE BKs have) or just pray to RNG that you will get extremely lucky.

If you all still feel bwaaah 60% to negate my attack is OP, perhaps ghosthands should lower the chance by half. AT BEST.

[MakeshiftWalrus]

Sarinpa1 » Wed Apr 22, 2015 11:47 am[/url]"]Let me repeat - Stalemate usualy ends up being a coinflip, or close to it. It has a weakness. It is really unreliable.
The best ghosthand could be doing is to lower the chance even more. And the whole argument that "Hand slot is very important." It's not. It is important only for some builds. Others usualy just end up with a shield, bands, or some special utility item. So no. Equipping ghosthands everytime I fight a BK is something very, very viable.
And it will ultimately just fuck over the only thing BKs had to actualy have edge. Especialy so when you are an axe using BK. Stalemate is the only thing balancing out the fact you have to frequently try and hit with 30%, even after applying all those lovely hit bonuses, when you fight a dodger. Removing that would pretty much mean, for axe users, that you either spam the (Earth damage AoE BKs have) or just pray to RNG that you will get extremely lucky.

If you all still feel bwaaah 60% to negate my attack is OP, perhaps ghosthands should lower the chance by half. AT BEST.

I'd like to point out that BKs were in no way shape or form weak before the addition of Stalemate. In fact, it's only gotten stronger since then with both new skills and buffs to old skills.
Sure, Stalemate is a coin flip most of the time, but that doesn't excuse the fact that it completely negates damage compared to things such as Wraithguard, which saw a recent nerf because it was deemed too strong.

You're not going to crit a BK despite going max crit now that the Defense stat factors into crit evade and you know well that it's very much possible to increase your hit beyond those 30% you claim to have. BKs typically get very decent Skill as well as several hit boosters once paired with other classes such as Kensei or Ghost, the latter being the prime partner of a BK due to how well they work together. Even if you did only have 30% chance to hit, you still have Mad Chop which strikes five times, per time used.

[Sarinpa1]

I'm not aware of the crit evasion even factoring defense, is that really true? If not you still can easily crit a BK

30% of a madchop is still around one hit if you are lucky. As for Wraithguard, it was because of the formula that it was too strong. And because it touched ALL damage. Not basic attacks.

[MakeshiftWalrus]

Sarinpa1 » Wed Apr 22, 2015 12:27 pm[/url]"]I'm not aware of the crit evasion even factoring defense, is that really true? If not you still can easily crit a BK

30% of a madchop is still around one hit if you are lucky. As for Wraithguard, it was because of the formula that it was too strong. And because it touched ALL damage. Not basic attacks.

As of update 1.17 half of your Defense is added to your crit evade.
But it's still a hit regardless, compared to the total removal of all damage from Stalemate, save the elemental effects from your weapons which sometimes proc. Sure, it only counts for those three types of weapons, but those are the only weapons three entire classes use. More if we count the base classes.

I also forgot to mention that Board Shaker magnetizes, which lowers evade, so throw than on top of the pile which can mess up a dodger's day.

[Ryu-Kazuki]

Base chance 25%.

On one of my BK characters, I have 60 DEF at lv 50. 25 + (60/2) = 55%. Now let's say with a 95% chance of DEF, I get 10 more. 25 + (70/2). 60% chance to proc. That's not guaranteed, no. But without +DEF equipment, and other +DEF bonuses (minus the BK passives, because those are being applied in this current formula), that's still pretty fucking good. Especially if you stacked more +DEF from skills, items, and racial passives, your chance can get even higher.

Now, even if that was bypassed, or failed, considering how much DEF you have, base, bonus, and armor wise. Is it going to matter much when you have a large amount of Crit Evade, and Physical defense? Not really, unless the damage was magical in some manner.

Reliability isn't an excuse to say it has a weakness, if you want to focus on stacking DEF for protection and Stalemate, you are free to do so. But other melee shouldn't be shafted all because BKs decide to play an Ace Card in terms of combat, especially if they use heavy hitting attacks and stack high HP on top of it.

Right now, with Stalemate having no weakness other than "reliability", you're pretty much in analogy an idiot trying to attack an empire's castle wall with an iron sword, hoping to get a cut in it that wouldn't go very deep because of how dense the wall is.

[MakeshiftWalrus]

I firmly agree with Ryu. The only skill that BKs should be fearing from any class using swords, spears or axes would be Power Gradation, and that was nerfed so you can no longer spam it. And even if it hadn't been nerfed, the Resistance stat isn't as rare as it used to be.

I think we should give this change to Ghosthands and see how it goes. After all, if it completely breaks the game it's only removing it again, right?

[Sarinpa1]

So you're saying that someone that focuses solely on defense, with getting pretty good stats, all boosts they can get and it still being very close to a coinflip is not a gaping weakness in the skill.
/giggle.
No weaknesses other than that?
Only martial weapons
Only basic attack using skills and basic attack itself

I don't know. I even make beautiful lists and its like people don't read it.

http://www.neus-projects.net/viewtopic.p...amp;t=1193

Linking recent Jays post, this would be the suitable weakness for stalemate. Not a simple item most setups wont be in trouble for using.

Yes, res isn't as rare as it used to be, but it's still not as high to not pose a weakness in BKs defenses.
To add, a little needle wielding sword- dancer piercing heavy armor, sure, that sounds likely. The way it is, I'd say it finely compliments the sort of rock-paper-scissors we have. (Don't read : One class/setup decimates other. Read : Some classes/setups just have a harder time defeating it.) And given the amount of things that is completely unaffected and the fact that only duelist and its promos don't have much to do againts it (And that's not saying it doesn't have anything) just points toward a fault in your tactics, not of this skill.