Martial Arts Isn't What It Use To Be

I will first off by saying that I understand why the devs made MA the way it is today. It was a fast weapon, thus could be difficult to clip with. They slowed down some of its combos to increase its clipping potential; and in turn bugged up its damage. Here are the patch notes:

Martial Arts

• Elbow Drop: This attack now completes more quickly decreasing its DPS potential when clipped.
• Spinning Punch: This attack now takes longer to complete increasing its clipped DPS potential.
• Smoke Bomb: This attack now takes longer to complete increasing its clipped DPS potential.

MA was more viable as it use to be in my honest opinion. The combos are slow, but unlike brawling for example they are not fluid. Its like there is a pause between each attack, giving it a sluggish and choppy feel. Also the buffed damage the Devs gave to certain combos aren't really all that beneficial. It takes what seems like an forever to get to the end of its combo in order to utilize the new smokebomb. The spinning punch being the second longest combo doesn't really help either.

from the patch notes it seems that the devs were going to make the animations slightly longer for those specfic moves. But instead it seems ALL the moves were slowed down. It makes MA actually less viable as a PvP wep and a PvE wep. Heres my reasoning:

PvE

• The strong attacks are at the very end of the slow combos, so getting to them is actually counterproductive to dps'ing.
• Elbow drop being made faster, decreased its dmg. It was MA's only strong single target move. Hand-stand kick and knee thrust are a single target stun and single target juggle moves respectivly. really not that useful in PvE raid content.

PvP

• Any serious PvP'er can and will see smoke bomb and Spin punch from a mile away. Not throwing up a single block throught MA's long combos is downright unfathomable
• Elbow drop's dmg was decreased slightly to compensate for the increased speed. making it less clippable .
• All combos are slower and players can not take advantage of the stun kick and knee juggle as easily.

But the real question is: Why did the Devs feel the need to change it?

You seem to have the gist. Feels like I'm fighting underwater with MA these days. Left the character I was using with it.

The biggest problem I see is what you mentioned about fluidity... It just isn't fluid. The hits on MA and the combos skip or lag behind. I can't really tell what it's doing wrong but you can see it there when you use it. The only real reason to use MA right now is the BB. The ranged combo on it is just fun and productive.

What they did to martial arts was sickening... It's a perfect example of new dcuo trend..

Its a classic example of: "if its not broken; don't fix it"

Actually, Smoke Bomb is really good in PvP, and I've seen it work very well a couple of times. People don't always block when you're doing the first few hits. By the time they block, your last few hits are not vulnerable to block. In addition, the input window for Smoke Bomb is actually long enough to be delayed. So what happens is, when they see you doing a combo, they block somewhere around the 3rd and 4th hit. By the time you get to the 5th hit, you can delay the Smoke Bomb, causing a psychological attack on the blocker. Since the blocker doesn't want to get block broken, he releases the block and try to attack. That's when you can release the Smoke Bomb and clip it. Basically, it's all about timing.

As for why the devs feel the need to change it? Well, I'm just guessing but it's probably because Smoke Bomb was more useless prior to the update. Dunno about Elbow Drop, Spin Punch and the overall speed of MA though.

I like it more when people do this.

Then its all about who has the better poker face.

So you find the smokebomb beneficial in pvp? Ok.

What about PvE

Hardly use it. But eh, not everything's for PvE. I hardly use Reflect Pain in PvE, for example.

You're right. It's not very fluid at all.

I have found the new slowed down Martial Arts is taking some time to get use too; but I have decided not to complain and just try and learn the new rhythm to it. As for Smoke Bomb and Spin Punch I try and use it right after a power that knocks the enemy, that way there is lots of time to get it in and it helps build the power back. With weaker opponents it ends up doing a second Knock or stun. Also on weaker opponents if not a power I find a good Knee Hit that knocks the opponent into the air and then follow up with either spin punch or smoke bomb works good. Honestly I do miss the fluidity and speed of the old Martial Arts but it is a MMO after all and things change, part of the experience is learning new things, otherwise it would get boring.

I think Dammacx is a DCUO employee! No way would someone who seen how bad the MA has become could side with how wrong this is! MA is supposed to be quick and this is slow. Brawler and Two-handed combat is faster than this!

i wish it was more fluid as well. and i hope they make it more kung fooey. the way it is now doesnt seem martial artsy enough. do you understand what im saying?

2H is far more fluid I believe

I think the scaled combos was the right choice, they did it for every weapon, if you delay longer between clipping in powers you should get a higher % of damage on that hold IMO.

what I think the problem with MA is, is it's just slow now. It use to be faster than I felt comfortable with. I use to think brawling was super slow and lame, and MA was too fast and I hated it. Now MA seems slow too . IMO the taps need to have their speed increased so it's reasonable to get to those later combos. It just takes too long to get tot he good AE combos.

How can MA be too fast... MA should be fluid and fast, and be a mixture of jabs and kicks!

It was too fast for me, I agree, it should be fast though and it should be reverted to it's old speed.

Yea MA does indeed feel very clunky. I don't use huntress anymore because of that update.

Do you want to run all t5 challenges?

smokebomb is beast in PVE, martial arts is one of the better all around weapons in fact