Post:Combat 3.0 Update - 02/06/2012 - 10:42

Re: Combat 3.0 Update · on 02/06/2012 10:42 AM CST	1274
> <<GS,Manipulate>>, yes. those kill critters. but you don't learn weapon ranks by using them. No, you don't, and yes, learning traditional weapon skills as an empath is going to be difficult until we can fill out more of the construct chain. That's sort of part and parcel of being part of a guild that isn't generally supposed to be picking up weapons and beating in the heads of enemies with them. So yes, it is very likely that training traditional weapon skills is going to be little more difficult, at least learning them in the field via parry. At the very least, they'll need to be more active in their training, not just standing and dancing. On the flip side, Empaths will be getting a combat-related skill that is primary for them -- Tactics. This will include some offensive (albeit non-damaging) moves, as well as other perks and benefits in combat. In addition, the impact of weapon skill on the ability to parry is going way down (but not completely away), so most empaths will actually be able to parry better than they can at present, which is doubly useful since parry is the most friendly defense in multi situations. We will get more of the construct ladder filled for those of you who really want to be sword-swinging empaths, and I promise to make that one of my primary focuses once the base rewrite is finished, but we really do need to get away from allowing, let alone encouraging, prolonged dancing in combat. It causes all sorts of problems, from issues with having enough spawn for everyone to just plain adding to lag and a dozen things in between.
This message was originally posted in Combat - Weapons and Armor \ Responses to GM and Official Announcements, by DR-DARTENIAN on the play.net forums.