Perk revival idea

[Paulter]

Even though this thread is brimming full of suggestions for martial artist concepts and ideas, I won't be able to apply all of them since it might take quite a long while to make

So I'll just drop in some changes

XP objectives: Dealing damage with perk weapons
Killing gorefasts and gorefiends with perk weapons

Starting loadout remains the same , that means T2 katana (I mean, a whole lot of players say that the katana is really bad on a zerk because its fully outclassed by the crovel aside from attack speed). However, masking grenades are now replaced with shurikens
Pressing G(default nade toss button) releases 3 shurikens in a fan shaped arc, has high penetration and inflicts bleed on enemies along with high stumble power(DOT not finalised yet)


Perk bonuses remains but with % gain changes
*+25% perk weapon damage
*+20% movement speed
*+20% perk weapon attack speed

Some skills are going to be changed

Lvl 5 skill, Steadfast is changed to:
Suffer from no movement speed reduction based on remaining HP, Immediately recovers 3HP per 2 seconds at critical stages and stops once HP returns to healthy ranges(not full though)

Lvl 10 skill, Retaliate is changed to:

Increases perk weapon damage by 5% after getting hit for 10 seconds, can be stacked 5 times, Parrying gains 2 stacks

Completely reworked lvl 15 skills

Combo mastery Hitting a zed makes them vulnerable to more damage on every consecutive hit with perk melee weapons, effect resets after dealing damage to another zed, which instantly removes all gained stacks

Lvl 15

Gunplay Increase perk weapon handling(recoil,reload and swap speed) , only applies to primary and secondary weapons by 15%, movement speed increased by 5%

Reworked lvl 25 skills

Fury During zed time, your attacks are doubled in real time and causes bleed, bleed is able to stack during zed time(damage bonus from skills affect DoT)

Lvl 25

Urban ninja During zed time, all your hand movements(swapping,reloading,bashing,attacking with melees,throwing) happen in real time, your shurikens are also infinite and can penetrate all zeds

The newer skills(especially gunplay) now splits the martial artist into 2 different playstyles->Being a close quarter-ed meleeing enthusiast(while being fragile in nature) or having a balance in between ranged and melee

Don't worry though, it won't become the "oh I can handle almost whatever the game throws at me now" (like beserker with the nailgun +zwei)

The guns for the martial artist have much less firepower as compared to berserker's (which will be discussed in a future thread assuming if I have the time)

 

[Aleflippy]

Sorry for the delay in my answer ! University got me quite busy, so I try to seek out what's popping whenever I got some time

Anyway, on to your rework !


>You definitely flatters by the ideas you took from me ! I'm happy you thought they were worth using. I obviously won't comment to lenghtly about them, since I obviously agree with my own thoughts. But just wanted to point it out.

>I'm kinda realizing that having gorefasts giving you more XP is a bit strange considering I envisioned the perk as being a "glass cannon"... One would think he'd be better at prioritizing tough opponents, so I don't really see why I proposed that. Probably a mix of "all the other zeds are already tied to other perks" and "sword-fencing might be fun". Oh well, that's just a silly detail.

>The rest of the base loadout (passives included), I'm good with.

>I guess that for the level 5 skills, we should think as to what "critical" and "healthy" means ! I guess one could say that critical could be like 1-50HP and healthy would be 51-100HP. Quite simple and effective. And considering that on harder difficulties, you can still die in one hit at like 51HP against some attacks... It still requires you to be careful, even with the healing boost you get. So even if I believe that the perk should be a glass cannon, it shouldn't die in two hits either obviously... So I think the idea is alright. Not too OP, it won't turn the perk into a tank, but will still allow the careful player to survive for longer.

>Retaliate is cool, but it honestly could use an even bigger bonus IMO. When you think about it, the 'slinger and sharpshooter can get a meaty +50% damage "just" by doing their job. Popping caps basically. Here, you have to put yourself in danger in order to get your bonus, and except if you get bodied, you couldn't cheese to get the maximum bonus without putting yourself in great danger. So yeah, I think increasing the bonus to +10% per stack would be more rewarding.

>I believe the combo system could be an innate bonus for the perk, to set it apart from the zerk (and most other perks), but then I can see two main problems with such an idea : first, I'm not that fond of being so binary about choices (melee VS ranged), it does remind me how the medic can only choose to be a buff machine or a one-man-army... I think the amount of skills you get in KF2 is so low that they should apply to all (or nearly all) weapons. But that's nitpicking, I won't lie. Altough secondly : with the increased damage of Retaliate I mentioned above... I'm afraid that the perk might become TOO powerful. Glass cannon doesn't mean that you should be able to kill a fleshpound in one hit ! I'm also a bit afraid that "Combo Mastery" might become the meta pick... Even if you need to put yourself more at risk, most people often choose to go for more damage regardless of what else is proposed. Maybe the skill could add a "tag" system to the ranged weapons, meaning that if you fire a tracking dart to a zed (similar to the medic's healing darts), that peculiar zed will take more damage, including from your teammates? It would last for like 3 seconds, would apply to one zed at a time and only be a mild bonus (something like +15% or something)

>My only gripe is that I really don't see why spamming shurikens would be a good idea. It would look sick, but since it's more of a tool than a weapon, it's really more of a gadget than anything remotely useful. Otherwise, the ZED-time skills are alright, even if again I guess people would be more inclined to choose the skill that increases your DPS rather than the more utilitarian one.

Bottom-line : I won't lie... I still prefer my idea ! With the bleeding and critical strikes, as well as an innate "combo system" and a purely melee expert. But that's definitely alright that you stick to your guns and offer the perk as you envision it, with just keep some light touches from the feedback you got. I think I'd still find the perk fun to use. Plus, I ain't a game developer, so it's not about what I want, but what would be best for the game and the players.