Yes, the title does make it sound more serious than it really is, no this isn't about the silly vanity shops, yes this can possibly be seen as nitpicking. Now that that's out of the way...

This also isn't about each races differences over skill range and hit boxes, that's been talked about enough (probably) so it doesn't need to be said here. (btw Elin are still the best most of the time)

This is about the normal combo attack and how Overhand Strike chains out of it.

Currently, most of the races and genders last strike in the normal combo attack end with one small hit followed by a bigger hit in the same swing, the end result damage is supposed to equal out to the ones that only strike with one big hit.

Barring the obvious, "Hey wait, wouldn't one bigger hit be better for crits?" There's also another issue with how this mechanic functions. When chaining out of the last hit with an Overhand Strike, the race / genders that strike twice can lose the 2nd hit entirely if they chain into the Overhand to soon, since the 2nd "hit" is substantially larger than the first the damage loss would likely be fairly noticeable at higher levels.

However, the race / genders that strike only once at the end of a combo attack will never lose a portion of their damage, regardless of how fast they chain into an Overhand Strike. They can mash away at the spacebar (or whatever they use) without fear and can undoubtedly attack faster than the 2 hit Slayers since they don't have to play a timing game.

This is a broken mechanic on a technical level. Changing it so that all races and genders strike only once for a bigger hit doesn't require any animation fiddling or the like and would level the playing field (more like fixing it but whatever) across the board.

For those wishing to know whom strikes once as opposed to twice:
All Females strike twice (sexist!)
Popori strike twice, also their first 2 animations in normal attacks don't go wide at all making them the worst slayers, bar none. (They still have the most swag)
Baraka I didn't test because I momentarily forgot they exist (oops)
Male Elves strike twice (they are just flat chested women anyway so this makes sense)
Human Males strike twice (I think)
Aman males Strike once
Castanic Males strike once, they also jump forward on the last attack moving them further than every other race and gender. (AKA Male Cast is the master Slayer race, one hit mechanic, moves the furthest, better racials all around)

Can we please get this fixed? (Please god don't "nerf" the Male Cast and Aman to strike twice, "buff" us all up to one hit)

I know everyone hates Slayers (other than Slayers of course) but surely we can all agree that we don't need any more Male Cast Slayers running about right? Right? They are the universal enemies of Tera after all...

Since we are nitpicking...sexist doesn't have a 'c' in it.

Also, the Popori dance and laugh animations are seriously OP.

On a serious note, I haven't independently tested your claims, but assuming that this is true, I think you are quite correct. This does pose an imbalance issue that comes purely from the numbers, and not the animations, and should be fixed. You are also correct that this fix should take the form of making everyone strike once, as the timing of combos (especially with variable latency) should never be that punishing.

Quote: RuQu on 05/18/2012, 09:43 AM - view

I wish I hadn't posted this today with the whole cash shop thing going on, though comedic to me, seems to be bogging the entire forum down.

Or maybe I should post it in the Slayer forums. That would probably be a lot smarter...

So you want to change the damage frames for all the race/sex combos except for M-Castanic.

Instead of changing the animation and damage frames for M-Castanic.

K.

Quote: Threaded on 05/18/2012, 10:13 AM - view

IDK dude, I think it is working as intended tbh.

Is it a bug or a technical issue that I am forced to swim on my Popori, when taller characters are still running?

I don't think so. I am shorter. That has signifigance. The water is up to my chin, when it is up to someone elses waist.

So - a female Elin gets 2 smaller attacks vs a larger male character getting 1 bigger in the combo?

I would say working as intended.

Are the animation lengths the same?

Also, did you verify that the 2nd hit gets cancelled in the combat log?

Last, can you chain too soon on the 1 hit guys to cancel the last combo, or does the big hit need to go off before you can chain?

Quote: Spikoli on 05/18/2012, 10:19 AM - view

It's still one swing, not two small ones, one big swing. Yet it's separated into 2 pieces of damage instead of one. Also an Amani female is stronger than a Castanic male, and I'm pretty sure a human male or elf male would be comparable if not stronger than a Cast Male as well.

Quote: Laecius on 05/18/2012, 10:21 AM

Don't know about the first but you can kind of cancel the animation into the Overhand Strike immediately after the game registers the 4th attack.

Yes, I checked multiple times, I can consistently lose the 2nd hit by doing an Overhand on my Aman Female Slayer.

The big hit is near instant, it happens at (or nearly) the same time as the damage registers for the first hit on the 2 hit swing Slayers, so even if the animation cancels the damage lands.

Quote:

Except for M Cast, M Aman, and probably Baraka, yes.

Advocating those 3 getting nerfed down to crappy female Slayer levels would garner a lot more hate from the people that play them...

Quote: Laecius on 05/18/2012, 10:21 AM

I have it FRAPsed but I've never really uploaded to youtube or converted video to a manageable size before. (Who loves that grand ole slowpoke Frontier DSL upload?)

Regardless, it's actually possible to lose the damage completely for both types Slayers on the 4th hit but you have to be absolutely mashing the spacebar fist of the north star style to pull it off, and most of the time the damage goes through anyway so long as you are decently close to the target.

Everything else still holds true, 2 hit damage Slayers will have to wait out their animations longer than 1 hit damage Slayers by a significant degree before popping Overhead Strike or risk losing a decent chunk of damage.

You can do 100 damage then quickly chain into Overhand Strike

or

You can do 30 damage, wait a bit, do 70 damage, then chain into Overhand Strike

Player Skill is comically reversed in this situation, where it takes more timing to do the same amount of damage slower rather than faster. Timmy mashing spacebar will do more than Tommy timing spacebar.

Not. Cool.

I'm going to go ahead and assume everything is true for the sake of not getting to arguments I know nothing about.

My only comment is have you timed the 1 swings vs. the 2 swings? If they're the same amount of time then does clipping work at the same time? My initial thought is that the problem is you're clipping based on animation, not timing.

Quote: Ryvick on 05/18/2012, 03:23 PM - view

You can stop the animation before it even begins almost and the damage will land even as you're charging the Overhand Strike.

If I had both characters lined up and I clipped the animation the instant I could overhand strike, there's a 90% chance that both characters will hit for that final combo attack (regardless of where they stop the animation) and the damage would pop up even as they are animating for the Overhand Strike.

The difference is that the Cast M will get full damage, and everyone else will not.