Leafiara (prime)/Mechanical Musings/Combat Maneuver Choices

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Preamble

After testing Phase 3 of the Player System Manager for five weeks, I figured that I'd experienced enough to settle on plans for which combat maneuvers I'd learn on each of my characters when the changes went live. Below is my thought process for each one in case others find it helpful!

Bard

 Skill                          Mnemonic        Ranks
 ----------------------------------------------------
 Combat Focus                   focus           5/5   
 Combat Movement                cmovement       2/5   
 Dirtkick                       dirtkick        4/5   
 Feint                          feint           5/5   
 Groin Kick                     gkick           4/5   
 Precision                      precision       1/2   
 Side by Side                   sidebyside      5/5   
 Sweep                          sweep           5/5   
 True Strike                    truestrike      5/5   
 Vault Kick                     vaultkick       1/5   

Available Combat Maneuver Points: 1

Click here for explanations!

Context

My bard uses a lance, has fully trained 2x spells, and wears either robes or torso chain mail depending on whether what she's hunting would leave her better suited with more DS or better CvA.

Explanation

Bards are pretty scant on maneuver options, so many of her picks are there for lack of anything better to do. Many of the setup maneuvers are mostly or entirely for defensive purposes since bards have better magical setups or, at higher levels, can forego setting up and jump straight to offense.

• Combat Focus: Almost a gimme since bards' one weakness is TD. I'd recommend this to every bard unless they hunt bandits 100% of the time.
• Combat Movement: Mandatory prerequisite to Side by Side, but nearly useless on its own.
• Dirtkick: Somewhat filler, but out of bards' available maneuver options, this seemed to be one of the most likely to be valuable at least in very niche situations, including future Ascension-based hunting grounds.
• Feint: Staple setup maneuver for many professions. Melee bards are no exception!
• Groin Kick: Another somewhat filler maneuver. I think Dirtkick is easily the better of the two for offense, but training this one does help defend against bandits.
• Precision: Can provide extra versatility for situations where one damage type is more useful than others. I don't feel strongly enough about it to train both ranks, but there aren't many better ways to spend four points than the first rank.
• Side by Side: Staple booster for AS and DS in groups.
• Sweep: Probably my favorite setup maneuver available to bards. Applying Vulnerable is among the best status effects you could hope for!
• True Strike: Another forward-thinking choice, like Dirtkick. I don't think it's especially useful in the current game as it competes with weapon techniques for stamina usage, but it could be strong for hitting overleveled enemies in Ascension grounds.
• Vault Kick: Fluff because I had two spare points.

Additional Considerations

I thought about Cheapshots for defensive purposes, as it's helpful against bandits. I still might drop some amount of Dirtkick, Groin Kick, or True Strike for Cheapshots, but it would only be for defense. Dropping any of those and picking up Hamstring for defense is another option. (I say "for defense" even though I intend for my bard to eventually learn to use two edged weapons, because even in that scenario I think bards almost always have better things to do offensively than Hamstring.)

Spin Attack is another option, but I feel it's generally unnecessary for bards since the main selling point is its low RT and they're already getting that through Song of Tonis. Expressed another way, I think 1-second True Strike is better than 1-second Spin Attack.

Cleric

 Skill                          Mnemonic        Ranks
 ----------------------------------------------------
 Combat Movement                cmovement       2/5   
 Dirtkick                       dirtkick        2/5   
 Feint                          feint           5/5   
 Groin Kick                     gkick           5/5   
 Side by Side                   sidebyside      5/5  

Click here for explanations!

Context

My cleric uses a falchion and katar alongside her spells. That said, I'd train almost exactly the same things on a cleric--or indeed any pure--regardless of their build, with minor tweaks made mostly to accommodate RP.

Explanation

Clerics' maneuver options are very few, but even then, some stand out as more helpful than others largely for defensive reasons.

• Combat Movement: Mandatory prerequisite to Side by Side, but nearly useless on its own.
• Dirtkick: One of the few maneuvers that works just as effectively in more defensive stances, but clerics have better things to do. I took it just for fun when helping lower level characters on their bounties.
• Feint: Staple setup maneuver that's extremely useful both offensively and defensively. If there's one maneuver to train on every cleric, this is it.
• Groin Kick: Amusingly enough, this and Feint are a cleric's best ways to inflict RT on the enemy. Being hilarious is a bonus! ...as is getting extra defense against bandits.
• Side by Side: Staple booster for AS and DS in groups. The AS gains here are more necessary for running a war cleric than any other build, including even war sorcerers since the latter have access to a larger number of non-native AS boosters.

Additional Considerations

If pures eventually have the ability to learn weapon techniques through Ascension, I'll either drop a rank of Dirtkick to take a rank of Precision or drop a rank of Groin Kick to take both ranks of Precision. The added versatility isn't to be overlooked.

Cunning Defense might be worthwhile for a cleric who has no Combat Maneuvers nor Dodging nor 2x Perception, but becomes unnecessary overkill with diminishing returns at some point. By the end, the full five ranks are only giving +1 defense against maneuver rolls.

Empath

 Skill                          Mnemonic        Ranks
 ----------------------------------------------------
 Combat Movement                cmovement       2/5   
 Cunning Defense                cdefense        5/5   
 Dirtkick                       dirtkick        3/5   
 Feint                          feint           5/5   
 Groin Kick                     gkick           1/5 
 Side by Side                   sidebyside      5/5   

Available Combat Maneuver Points: 2

Click here for explanations!

Context

My empath uses a maul alongside her spells. That said, I'd train almost exactly the same things on an empath--or indeed any pure--regardless of their build, with minor tweaks made mostly to accommodate RP.

Explanation

Empaths' maneuver options are very few, but even then, some stand out as more helpful than others largely for defensive reasons.

• Combat Movement: Mandatory prerequisite to Side by Side, but nearly useless on its own.
• Cunning Defense: I don't think this is the optimal mechanical choice since the math works out that it's giving a whopping -1 to enemies' maneuver rolls. That said, since empaths have 3x Physical Fitness, I figured I'd go all in on accentuating one of their strengths by pushing maneuver defense to the utmost.
• Dirtkick: One of the few maneuvers that works just as effectively in more defensive stances, but empaths have better things to do. Still fun, though.
• Feint: Staple setup maneuver that's extremely useful both offensively and defensively. If there's one maneuver to train on every empath, this is it.
• Groin Kick: Another pick just for fun and because spare points were there. Like clerics, empaths can't inflict RT on enemies without this or Feint; unlike clerics, however, empaths would never have a need to do that since almost nothing is immune to Sympathy.
• Side by Side: Staple booster for AS and DS in groups.

Additional Considerations

There's a case for swapping the number of ranks for Dirtkick and Groin Kick. The latter does give better defense against bandits. That said, empaths' maneuver defense is already very strong and I can at least imagine a scenario where an empath would want to stall out an enemy with Dirtkick while healing down, in which case they'd need a maneuver that works in more defensive stances.

I considered Disarm Weapon, but don't think it's especially helpful since Spirit Servant can retrieve gear and empaths have solid maneuver defense. I was excited for Retreat when its design was revealed, but higher level enemies--the one thing I'd want to retreat from--can close the distance and attack through it anyway.

Monk

 Skill                          Mnemonic        Ranks
 ----------------------------------------------------
 Burst of Swiftness             burst           5/5   
 Combat Focus                   focus           5/5   
 Combat Mobility                mobility        1/1   
 Combat Movement                cmovement       2/5   
 Coup de Grace                  coupdegrace     5/5   
 Evade Specialization           evadespec       3/3   
 Kick Specialization            kickspec        5/5   
 Rolling Krynch Stance          krynch          3/3   
 Side by Side                   sidebyside      5/5      

Available Combat Maneuver Points: 1

Click here for explanations!

Context

My monk is primarily a brawler with a conventional build, but is learning to use dual katars for the sake of having more AoE weapon techniques available.

Explanation

Monks have an excellent set of combat maneuvers available and can be extremely versatile with them. I usually prefer versatility over min-maxing, but in this case I think it's better to min-max--or, in other words, to go deep into an idea rather than go wide. This can work with any of the unarmed combat specializations, but I'll explain mine and then make the case for the others.

The short of it is that Spin Kick with max Kick Specialization is by far the strongest single-target reaction technique and can often pick off enemies one by one more quickly than anything else you could be doing.

• Burst of Swiftness: Strengthens the Major Bleed damage from Slashing Strikes. Also has other benefits like slightly increasing evasion rate or slightly reducing RT and slightly increasing UAF when using kick-heavy Fury or kick-heavy mstrikes, but I think those are very secondary to the Slashing Strikes benefit.
• Combat Focus: Virtually a gimme for a monk, whose main weakness is TD.
• Combat Mobility: Before the creation of Spin Kick, I considered this very solid for monks, but not a must-have since they're great at avoiding attacks even while prone. Now I consider it a must-have on a Spin Kick build since they need to be standing to use it.
• Combat Movement: Mandatory prerequisite to Side by Side, but nearly useless on its own.
• Coup de Grace: I'm not willing to forego Vertigo to have Martial Mastery, which means monk AS isn't great. Coup serves a dual purpose of raising AS and finishing off enemies that fell short of being killed, which should happen fairly often when attacking with katars or AoE. For the other squares, I think two or three ranks are fine, but because of monks' diminished AS, I want a full five ranks to keep this active as frequently as possible.
• Evade Specialization: Half of the linchpin of the Spin Kick build since you get an additional 10% chance to dodge and react.
• Kick Specialization': The other half of the linchpin. What's even better than obliterating enemies in five seconds, which monks do with focused mstrikes, is obliterating them in two seconds, which monks do with five ranks of Kick Specialization.
• Rolling Krynch Stance: What used to be a staple is more niche if the monk has an alternative weapon style trained. Since mstrikes lock out weapon techniques, it's a matter of picking one or the other and I almost always side with weapon techniques. That said, unarmed combat is drastically more viable than AS-based attacks against heavily turtled enemies with Wall of Force up, so it has its place.
• Side by Side: Staple booster for AS and DS in groups. The AS is really helpful for monks who use weapons but don't have Martial Mastery, since they otherwise fall way short of other squares (and paladins).

Additional Considerations

Surge of Strength is a very reasonable idea, especially on a weapon-wielding monk, but I felt that Side by Side and Coup de Grace were enough, where the former is passive and the latter has a lower stamina cost than Surge. If I end up discovering that Rolling Krynch isn't necessary, I'll most likely take a few ranks of Surge.

There's a case to be made for Duck and Weave for its synergy with Evade Specialization, but I think Rolling Krynch wins out. There's also a case to be made for Slippery Mind for better defense against warding attacks, but I'd prefer stronger offense.

That said, there's a question of why my monk has Combat Focus instead of training any of her disabling options--Headbutt, Sweep, Cheapshots--in an attempt to stop enemies from casting at all. I don't think it's reasonable to assume you can hit first 100% of the time, but even if you could, I'd say you can accomplish the goal of stopping them with weapon techniques alone.

A Martial Mastery monk who primarily battles with edged, blunt, or two-handed weapons is the use case for taking Parry Specialization over Evade Specialization, since their reaction techniques trigger from parries, but at that point you also need to take two ranks of Stance Perfection to prioritize parrying over evading. I don't like the point sink.

Paladin

 Skill                          Mnemonic        Ranks
 ----------------------------------------------------
 Combat Focus                   focus           5/5   
 Combat Movement                cmovement       2/5   
 Combat Toughness               toughness       1/3   
 Feint                          feint           5/5   
 Precision                      precision       2/2   
 Side by Side                   sidebyside      5/5   
 Spin Attack                    sattack         5/5
 Surge of Strength              surge           5/5   
 True Strike                    truestrike      5/5   
 Weapon Specialization          weaponspec      5/5   

Available Combat Maneuver Points: 1

Click here for explanations!

Context

My paladin uses two war hammers as her primary weapons and is now training to use two broadswords as backup to keep a rotation of weapon techniques going, along with having fully trained 2x spells. She also wears metal breastplate instead of full plate.

Explanation

One "problem" with paladins is that they can reach overwhelming enough AS and CS advantages over enemy DS and TD that they don't need setups. Despite having many combat maneuver options, a number of them are redundant in light of either weapon techniques, their spells, or both, so I gravitated toward passive abilities.

• Combat Focus: Pushing paladins' very solid combination of TD and CvA even higher.
• Combat Movement: Mandatory prerequisite to Side by Side. Very slightly less useless for a two weapon paladin than it is for every other profession, since their DS isn't exceptional, but I'd rather just keep up Wall of Force.
• Combat Toughness: The first rank is a very solid +15 health for its cost and can help against getting slowly poked to death.
• Feint: Staple setup maneuver for most professions... but eventually it's not necessary to paladins offensively, as Aura of the Arkati does its job better. Still extraordinarily valuable defensively to avoid RT lock, though.
• Precision: Very useful when using war hammers--or morning stars, for that matter. I prefer war hammers since I'd much rather trade 0.025 DF for -1 RT on assault techniques than the other way around. (That's true in general, but especially true on a paladin due to high AS, Arm of the Arkati, and more flares from Holy Weapon and/or Fervor encouraging more swings per minute.)
• Side by Side: Staple booster for AS and DS in groups. Overkill AS.
• Spin Attack: Dinaden and others alerted me to the incredible value here. Basically, anything that adds another 3-seconds-or-less option to the paladin toolkit is extraordinarily welcome. I'll say more about this in notes.
• Surge of Strength: Even more overkill AS that also serves the purpose of buffing Concussive Blows.
• Weapon Specialization: Still more overkill AS.

Additional Considerations

I initially took True Strike over Spin Attack before others told me just how strong Spin Attack was. I still think True Strike is a very forward-thinking choice; I don't see it as especially useful in the current game as it competes with weapon techniques for stamina usage, but the world of hitting overleveled enemies in Ascension grounds or just while leveling is a different story. I might still find a way to fit it into her maneuvers if I end up liking Ascension ground.

I tinkered with the numbers to consider dropping some number of ranks between Combat Toughness and True Strike to take Groin Kick for defense against bandits, but just couldn't talk myself into it. Paladins have perfectly good maneuver defense, especially one like mine who's not in full plate, so I was only concerned with avoiding Feint since a wider variety of enemies use it.

Training Stance Perfection to move parrying ahead of evasion in the combat order of operations is something to consider for any build with blunt, edged, or two-handed weapons trained. That said, paladins have neither Parry Specialization nor the Combat Mastery feat, so their opportunities for Clobber, Riposte, or Reverse Strike will only be a third as common as warriors'.

Tainted Bond is relatively less valuable to a build with multiple weapon types trained, or indeed even two weapons of the same type since it's not benefiting the offhand.

Elaborating on Spin Attack

When paladins got Spin Attack, I overlooked it because I was used to overlooking it. Even now, I don't see it as especially valuable to warriors, rogues, monks, rangers, or bards. Warriors and rogues have better things to do with their stamina, monks and bards have better things to do with their RT, and on a ranger I'm more interested in power boosts--from effects like Camouflage, Tangleweed, or even Spirit Strike--than speed increases.

I don't see any of those reasons applying to paladins, though. Area of effect and assault weapon techniques are better uses of stamina, but have cooldowns. Divine Incarnation Smite is a better use of RT, but only has limited uses in a ten-minute window. Judgment is arguably a better use of RT, but only given a sufficient number of enemies--and, even then, still likely only in a context where the paladin's area of effect technique is on cooldown.

The bottom line is that a paladin can rotate between Spin Attack, Divine Incarnation Smite, Judgment, and assault techniques for pretty sustainable three-RT-or-less attacks throughout a hunt.

(Each does come with a caveat, though. Spin Attack needs to be backed by an infused spell in a bonded weapon to compensate for the lack of aiming. Smite needs to be backed by heavy training in Religion lore for power and/or Spiritual Mana Control for number of uses. Judgment needs to be backed by heavy Paladin Base ranks. Assault techniques need to be backed by Multi Opponent Combat and Combat Maneuvers.)

Ranger

 Skill                          Mnemonic        Ranks
 ----------------------------------------------------
 Combat Focus                   focus           5/5   
 Combat Movement                cmovement       2/5   
 Dirtkick                       dirtkick        5/5   
 Disarm Weapon                  disarm          1/5   
 Feint                          feint           5/5   
 Groin Kick                     gkick           4/5   
 Hamstring                      hamstring       3/5   
 Shield Bash                    sbash           3/5   
 Side by Side                   sidebyside      5/5   
 Sweep                          sweep           5/5   

Available Combat Maneuver Points: 1

Click here for explanations!

Context

My ranger uses a longbow and has fully trained 2x spells, but most things I'd say about his combat maneuver choices apply to any build.

Explanation

Rangers have such a poor selection of maneuver options, especially relative to their wide array of magical disablers, that nearly everything here was trained for defensive purposes.

• Combat Focus: Pushing rangers' very solid combination of TD and CvA even higher.
• Combat Movement: Mandatory prerequisite to Side by Side, but nearly useless on its own. Even more useless for archer rangers than most other professions and builds since they have exceptional DS.
• Dirtkick: The most relevant (and thematic) maneuver for an archer ranger since it deters enemies from evading or blocking their arrows.
• Disarm Weapon: Purely here for defensive purposes.
• Feint: Purely here for defensive purposes.
• Groin Kick: Purely here for defensive purposes.
• Hamstring: Purely here for defensive purposes. My ranger doesn't even train for edged weapons.
• Shield Bash: Purely here for defensive purposes. My ranger doesn't even train for shields.
• Side by Side: Purely here for defensive purposes--and not even the ranger's own, since more DS isn't that needed, but more so aid to group members. The AS boost doesn't even apply to ranged.
• Sweep: Almost purely here for defensive purposes. Tangleweed is generally better offensively, but adding Vulnerable is helpful.

Additional Considerations

Cunning Defense is probably good at lower levels, but extraneous at higher levels as rangers grow into exceptional maneuver defense. Dislodge exists and is meant for ranged, but I don't think rangers need it at all when they have spells. Retreat almost makes sense, but doesn't since it just breaks on your next offensive maneuver anyway. True Strike would be an option if it could aim, but it can't.

(coming later: rogue, warrior)