Work In Progress: Weapon Mastery (Updated)

I agree with this in a sense but the only problem I foresee is where say you need to stay range to get "X" bonus but "X" combo requires melee range.

As I said in the other thread, how is weapon mastery going to affect adding new weapons to DCUO? Won't weapon mastery hamper the process of adding more weapons?

Really like that idea.... Not sure how hard it would be to implement but wouldn't mind seeing it at all......

I'm not a dev so obviously take this with a huge block of salt, but just from the way the WM stuff was described and shown in the stream, it didn't look like it would be compatible with shapeshifting-type powers (or Light construct combos, or Celestial power comboe, for that matter).

I guess it could depend on how the animation system is set up, but there may simply not be any bow-type animations made for the wolf form (for example) so in that case how would you do WM attacks with it?

It may be hard trying to find a balance, but the coding should still be in the game. Just combine whatever coding is used from the Weakening Field home turf mod with whatever code was used on the old Orbital Strike.

I miss when they first came out..... Seeing the avatars in PBG getting bounced around was classic.

I wonder if this might be an option or if our only options are the ones Jens put in the original post.....

I was also thinking along these lines. Here are my thoughts from the other thread:

Jens, I've been giving this a lot of thought, and I have a bit of a different take on it, so I apologize for not using your requested format. While it's evident that support player would like a benefit from WM, there has also been some who want a choice over a DPS bonus or a support bonus, even when running in support role. Here's what I propose:

Tie the bonus type not only to the role, but to the ability cast. For instance, I'm Celestial in healer stance, but running a battle healer build. I perform a WM combo and follow it with Renew. Renew is a single target burst heal that does no damage, so the bonus would be to the heal (increased crit chance/mag). Conversely, I perform a WM combo and follow it with Retribution into cleansed Wither. Retribution, being a damage ability, should receive the proposed DPS bonus. Similarly for controllers, their instant power abilities should receive a crit power chance/mag bonus, whereas a debuff ability that produces damage should receive a DPS bonus. Tanks are a little trickier. It would likely need to be tailored to the tank class. For example, Fire's self heal abilities would have a crit healing chance/mag bonus, Ice's shields would have a defense bonus, a tank pull would have a control resistance bonus, etc.

It's no doubt more complicated, but I think more elegant and would provide players flexibility in how they want to use WM.

QUESTION - do you need to be spec'd into the final WM combo hit? i.e. do you need to have a SP placed in Doom Spin for the Back Fist -> Doom Spin combo?

That would actually be very interesting to see. I like the idea.

If I understood correctly you only need to place a skillpoint for the attack within the weapon you are mastering. In this case you only need to invest a skillpoint in doomspin within the brawling weapon tree.

I really like the role buffs, but i have a question! Please devs answer me.
I will be able to enjoy these benefits for my role without addig new combos for my weapon? Can i reach the bonuses with my end combos with pure brawling? If not it will really hurt the roleplay factor. Roleplay is very important to me in this game, to keep my heros concept. So please do not force us to mix our weapon if not want to. It could work both ways. If someone wanna mix their weapon then mix it with new combos, but please give us the choice to stay with pure weapon if we like to

I'd like to see a damage buff in support roles too. I say this because sometimes there's no need to focus on healing, controlling, tanking when running through easier sections of content. So something along the lines doing a longer combo (also useful to build SC) will also allow you to do more damage and thus help get through trash mobs faster or help kill a boss in the final seconds of trying to get a speed feat.

I was operating on the assumption that the damage buff after a WM combo was an intrinsic thing - and any additional role-related buffs would be in addition to that.

If that's not the case then I would also like to ask that every character should get a damage buff from WM combos in addition to whatever role-specific buff(s).

Jens said the damage component is staying in support roles. Role buffs are gonna be an addition to that.

Posting what I said in the old thread.

TANK: Successful WM grants a blue immunity as if they did a counter. This would result in a great deal of incentive for a tank to want to pull off sometimes, as it would make him able to come out of block to attempt at farming them. I would say this would be PvE only though.

For the other two, I think what you mentioned as fine. Just don't make the controller one an OR. If any stat should stay, it would be the dom, as healing power is a controllers secondary role.

Tie a specific power to WM combos, just like the different tiers in normal weapon combos offers higher levels of power regen. Have the WM tie in directly with a power of a players choosing, the more skill points that are added to thar WM, the higher the output of the power. So if I'm doing a WM combo that I have tied to a PoT, then when I hit tier one of that combo my PoT is cast, at tier 2 the output increases a certain percent. The reason I suggest this is because a lot of healers and controllers will be busy healing green and blue bars to really string together hard core combos. This WM still regardless of what you add to it heavily favors DPS, that's what true job description, hit and keep hitting. No matter what you add it will minimally affect support roles because of the responsibilities of healing blues and greens and tanking are priority, so that alone leaves less opportunity to take advantage of WM.

I know this is still WIP, but it was said in the livestream that there will be a re-arranging of SP trees to make it more balanced with regards to the stats. I am not sure where to put this question, but I think since it is WM that is affecting this SP tree re-arranging, I think this is the best spot for it (rather than in the Combat mechanics thread).

My question is, how would the re-arranging of SP trees affect the armories? Because the last time there was an SP tree revamp, our SP were all reset. And if you re-arrange the SP, that would make the armory builds invalid, right? Just wondering how this will affect the armory builds as it will be a pain to respec again all the builds (since you can only imprint a build where you only have 10 SP unspent).

I thought about this as I was doing feat unlocks on my alts and had to re spec all of their armory builds. That was a pain.

Just thought I would ask. Highlighted the question so that it would stand out. I apologize if it is out of place.

In all honesty till the "combat" mechanics are fixed its more beneficial for support roles to pop vit, rest, health or dom soda 5 experts then use the weapon master stuff.