Multi Opponent Combat

Training in Multi Opponent Combat (MOC) gives a character an advantage against multiple opponents, as the name implies. Effectively, training in MOC makes the character less susceptable to Force on Force, a system that lowers a character's stance based on how many enemies are attacking said character at once. Additionally, this skill allows the use of the MSTRIKE verb, and affects how many targets will be attacked with its use, or, if using the focused version, how many times one opponent is attacked.

Type	Square			Semi			Pure
Profession	Rogue	Warrior	Monk	Bard	Paladin	Ranger	Cleric	Empath	Savant	Sorcerer	Wizard
Max Ranks Per Level	1	2	-	1	1	1	1	1	-	1	1
Training Point Cost	10/3	4/3	-	7/3	5/2	10/4	15/8	15/10	-	15/10	15/10

Force on Force

Main article: Force on Force

Force on Force is a system that lowers a character's defensive stance upon being attacked by multiple opponents. Each opponent lowers the character's stance by 25% until the character is treated to be in a fully offensive stance. Beyond 4 opponents, the defending character's defensive strength is further lowered, making Force on Force a very deadly thing to any character not trained in Multi Opponent Combat. However, a character who is trained in this skill requires more opponents to have the same effect. These offset benefits used to be gained at ranks 10, 25, 45, and every 25 ranks thereafter; however, GameMaster Coase rolled in a set of changes in May of 2008 which updated the ranks required to offset an opponent. See the "Summary of Benefits" chart at the bottom of this article page for the most up-to-date effects of training.

Multi-strike

Main article: MSTRIKE (verb)

A character who has 5 ranks in Multi Opponent Combat will attack two targets if unfocused, but a character needs 30 ranks before getting two strikes on a single target, using the focused version of MSTRIKE.

The unfocused version of MSTRIKE will attack a number of opponents equal to what they can ignore from the Force on Force system (see above). The focused version is two strikes at 30 ranks, and an additional strike every 25 ranks thereafter.

Note: a character trained in Two Weapon Combat swings both weapons for every strike.

Multi-strike Roundtime

The roundtime associated with a multi-strike increases as the number of strikes increase. It also depends on the speed of the weapons being used to make such a strike.

Roundtime = Weapon Speed + ((Number of Strikes - 1) * (Weapon Speed / 2)) + 1

If a character is using two weapons, the "weapon speed" is calculated as Primary weapon speed + secondary weapon speed - 2. If the off-hand weapon is slower than the primary hand weapon, a +2 penalty is applied to the roundtime when using two weapons. If the off-hand weapon goes above the off-hand weapon weight limit (the limit depends on the character's strength), an additional +1 penalty is applied to the base speed of the two-weapon attack.

For example, a character using two sais (base roundtime: 2) will see a weapon speed of 2 seconds for the pair of sais. If the character then makes a four-strike multi-strike, the roundtime for the attack will be 2 + (4 - 1) * (2 / 2) + 1 = 6 seconds. If the character has a bonus to roundtime due to having high agility and dexterity scores, this roundtime will be reduced by that much, down to the minimum for the weapon combination they chose (4 seconds, for a pair of sais). A character making the same attack with a pair of katars would instead get (3 + 3 - 2) + (4 - 1) * (3 + 3 - 2)/2 + 1 = 11 seconds.

Summary of Benefits

Per the post by GameMaster Coase on 26 May 2008, the required skill levels for certain benefits have changed, in some cases dramatically. The updated skill requirements are:

MoC Ranks	Number of Targets	Focused Mstrike	FoF Offset
5	2	1	0
10	2	1	1
15	3	1	1
25	3	1	2
30	3	2	2
35	4	2	2
45	4	2	3
55	4	3	3
60	5	3	3
70	5	3	4
80	5	3	4
85	5	3	4
90	5	4	4
95	5	4	5
100	6	4	5
105	6	4	5
110	6	4	5
120	6	4	6
135	6	5	6
145	6	5	7
155	7	5	7
170	7	5	8
190	7	6	8
195	7	6	9

Where number of targets is an unfocused strike, and the focused is how many times you can strike a single foe. The FoF offset is how many creatures you can engage above one before a DS pushdown.

References

• http://www.play.net/gs4/info/skills.asp#multiopponentcombat
• http://www.play.net/gs4/info/combatguide.asp#multiopponents