Revisiting Disarm Special Move

[spoonyd]

Well at the risk of being flamed by every disarm/splinter happy dexxer left in UO (and yes there are lot of those) I've decided to bring this up and voice some concern on the subject. Before I get into specifics I would first like to point out that I play characters of all types including the temp that abuses this particular problem the best aka Fencer Archer.

Ok so we should already agree that disarming is pretty much the most n00bish special move in UO at current and tends to cause the most frustration among the 90% of templates that carry SOME sort of weapon whether it be a dexxer type or a mage weapon. Disarm is still abused SEVERELY and WIDELY used contrary to dev belief that their "nerf" several months ago fixed everything. Their fix was to implement an immunity for 10 seconds which seems like the right idea at first till one points out that you are still DISARMED for 5 of those 10 seconds. This means that you will have a 5 second window of opportunity to be offensive and on screen with a target...yippie??? Assuming u are some sort of dexxer you will get between three and four swings of your weapon if they stand still for melee or on screen for ranged. If you elect to NOT disarm back then it means you'll hit roughly 1.5-2 times in that window before you can be disarmed again. No one is coming close to dying in 2 swings which means you are right back to getting disarmed again and there's nothing you can do about it. If you are some sort of caster with a mage weap it means that assuming they miss after you rearm you can cast about 2 bigger spells (6th-7th circle) in that window. Once again no one is dying to one explosion and a spell plague even if cursed.

There's my argument about disarm ONLY before I get into the meat of the problem. You COULD say "Well you should just run if you get disarmed and let the timer expire". If you say this you are correct to a degree sure. I can just get away for 5 seconds and come back. Unfortunately there's no good answer for someone who just refuses to let you hold a weapon on their screen and you WILL be forced into defense and offscreening. Now let's combine that with someone that can disarm you and still hit you ranged either with throwing, archery, or a tactics mage using a fork for disarm.

Ok so we've established part of the problem. Now here comes the rest of it.....

Everyone knows that splintering was overpowered to a degree and received a nerf to make it more fair. Splintering on its own is PERFECTLY FINE. It's very strong giving a bleed and a slow walk to a target. It's harder for mages to cast between bleed ticks and blocks some healing with bandage on dexxers. Now when you combine that slow walk with bleed and add in DISARM (which is both offensive and defensive in the same special) I can now just pound my target while they're bleeding for a good 3 seconds while he's stuck on my screen. Splinter cannot be removed with apple or any other means so they are essentially "stuck" in front of me defenseless with no weapon in hand. 210 stamina archers can fire an easy 2 AIs for 35 a piece plus hit spell(s) in that window and follow with running shot till they die using VERY LITTLE effort and not much mana because of 55 LMC studded suits.

Now you could say "Well hey frenzy whirl makes you slow walk now so what about that? Isn't that overpowered too?". To that I say no bc Frenzy doesn't disarm you and make you bleed all at the same time. Yeah on my fencer archer I also carry a Wakizashi in case I run across someone I can't disarm (wrestle mage).

The big problem becomes "What should the devs do about it assuming they see my point, pvp test that, and then draw the same conclusion?". My answer is....I don't know....Overall I think the disarm immunity timer should be a good bit longer than just 5 seconds after rearm timer expires. Even without splintering I can just completely deny someone's offense for as long as I choose and that doesn't promote pvp action. Forcing every temp to have wrestling in order to pvp and play their character isn't a solution. Most templates have ABSOLUTELY no room for another 120 skill points if they don't already have it.

My only real conclusion is this....If the devs wanna leave splintering the way it is and leave disarm the way it is then splintering should NOT FIRE if you have disarm special toggled. Splintering is essentially a free strong "special move" at 20% of the time based on intensity for 0 cost that can be combined with the most offensive and defensive move in the game.

 

[Quickblade]

Also you forgot mentionning that you have to re-arm after the desarm, which is subject to a small ''you must wait before perform another action'' 2 seconds timer, which means in others words, that you can't : chug, use apple, use a trap box, or use any other item or consumable when re-arming. I think desarm should make the target re-arm you automaticaly after the 5 seconds, and maybe increase mana cost of the desarm ? I dont know, desarm is probly the most op special move right now, because for 5 seconds you can swing 4 hits (assuming you hit at 1,25 sec) to a target having 0 defense ability.

 

[Smoot]

The Single thing i think UO could benefit from WOW pvp is the wow's steel weapon chain (is that what its called?)

Added like a refinement, or from the imbue menue a property could be added making the weapon immune to disarm. say like 140 imbue weight or so. This would require an open imbue slot.

Problem fixed.

 

[Quickblade]

The Single thing i think UO could benefit from WOW pvp is the wow's steel weapon chain (is that what its called?)

Added like a refinement, or from the imbue menue a property could be added making the weapon immune to disarm. say like 140 imbue weight or so. This would require an open imbue slot.

Problem fixed.

I like this maybe 150 weight could be a good balance.

 

[CovenantX]

I like the idea of a weapon chain (or property of some sort) to make certain weapons immune to disarm. (Though I do believe it should take the same property slot as "- mage weapon").
Mage Weapons are good enough, they don't need a nerf, but they also do not need a buff. That being said, a weapon chain shouldn't take any item weight, but should count a 1 property.

I don't think disarm needs a direct nerf though. I still think melee dexers ( not Throwing & Archery) are underpowered.

Especially now that there's a min/max chance to hit/miss, of 5-95%, even disarmed no dexer has a 100% chance to hit you (this isn't counting DCI, OR parry either)

This means at +45% DCI +5% minimum dodge chance is 7.25% chance to dodge While disarmed.
This is also, assuming there's not an additional "Dodge check" since this min/max hit/miss rule has been implemented.

A dev would need to comment about this new hit/miss rule, whether or not there's a second check to see if the dexer hits or misses.

 

[BrianATudor]

In my opinion there are at least 2 ways to fix this. These are the best I can come up with:

1) Weapon Chain- as Smoot said, an imbuing property that makes your weapon immune to disarm. Although, this can ruin the effectiveness of clutch defensive disarms. It would also somewhat destroy its offensive power. If you see a disarm weapon being equipped, you can just switch to your weapon which has weapon chain imbued.

2) Make your defense chance be calculated by your highest weapon skill, not the skill of the weapon equipped. This would not affect the defensive power of disarm. It also would still be very effective on mage weapons. Almost all mages would be down 15-20DCI when disarmed still. This would greatly improve the quality of dexxer vs dexxer fights as well. Disarm would not be the first move in every fight any longer.
Edit: Yea this option kind of does nothing for mage weapon users... The only solution I can think of, would be to have defense chance locked (except for effects like HLD) for 5 seconds after the disarm ability hits you.

I much prefer #2. I feel that #1 is much too strong of a nerf.

As far as Splintering goes... I believe it is not a problem. The almost non-existent defense chance when disarmed combined with any other offensive ability is the true issue. With an adequate fix to disarm, splintering should be fine in its current state.

 

[The Zog historian]

2) Make your defense chance be calculated by your highest weapon skill, not the skill of the weapon equipped. This would not affect the defensive power of disarm. It also would still be very effective on mage weapons. Almost all mages would be down 15-20DCI when disarmed still. This would greatly improve the quality of dexxer vs dexxer fights as well. Disarm would not be the first move in every fight any longer.

This sounds good to me.

 

[Speaking the Truth]

2) Make your defense chance be calculated by your highest weapon skill, not the skill of the weapon equipped. This would not affect the defensive power of disarm. It also would still be very effective on mage weapons. Almost all mages would be down 15-20DCI when disarmed still. This would greatly improve the quality of dexxer vs dexxer fights as well. Disarm would not be the first move in every fight any longer.

This makes it so that mages would destroyed by disarm but dexers aren't?

I'm not for a change that is only a one way street. Any idea should address both issues, kind of silly dexers get a free pass in the situation but mages don't. No thanks.

Even though I have lots of dexers, I don't support a change like this. Yes it would be great on my dexer but I would rather see something that isn't a buff to one class yet not benefiting the other at all.

 

[Quickblade]

With all that being said, yes I agree that having a ''disarm immunity'' on a weapon fo the cost of a property or weight might not be the solution. I think Disarm would need a direct, simple but small nerf, maybe just an increase of mana cost. 25 ---> 35 or even 40 .
40 Mana instead of 25, assuming you have 40 lmc it is only an increase of 9 mana. At 55 lmc, it is an increase of 7 mana.
Please I want someone to come here and tell me if theres a special move better than disarm.
So I think Disarm need the highest mana cost among all special moves. Note that some special moves need 35 mana, so 40 is not a big deal. Nothing is better than disarm, you toggle ONE disarm, and for 5 seconds the target is yours and it needs to run to survive. No other specials make this. So 25 mana right now is a bit rediculous for the most killer pvp special move.

 

[Smoot]

This makes it so that mages would destroyed by disarm but dexers aren't?

I'm not for a change that is only a one way street. Any idea should address both issues, kind of silly dexers get a free pass in the situation but mages don't. No thanks.

Even though I have lots of dexers, I don't support a change like this. Yes it would be great on my dexer but I would rather see something that isn't a buff to one class yet not benefiting the other at all.

the argument for this would be - mages can still do damage without a weapon. a dexters only option is to run away.

 

[Exploit_SX]

the argument for this would be - mages can still do damage without a weapon. a dexters only option is to run away.

When the mage is being hit 99.9% of the time because they're disarmed... I doubt they'll be doing any damage.

 

[Speaking the Truth]

the argument for this would be - mages can still do damage without a weapon. a dexters only option is to run away.

How can they do damage when they are hit every single time? Not to mention almost everything is always stacked against mages. For example hit fireball doesn't do a thing to dexers but it incredibly easy to kill a mage. Could you imagine if hit spells added damage but didn't have a delayed disrupt? Dexers would be up in arms over that even though the extra damage is still there.

Also a dexer can do quite a few things. Most people have ninjitsu in pvp. They could throw darts/stars, conflags, exp pots, shatter pots, thunderstorm (JoAT), attempt to wrestle hit(or get wrestle to disrupt/disarm back) with 150 stam and their hci, vollems/pets(tamer dexer), fear essence, pixies and imps if they have 40 SW.

Are these options going to one hit kill someone? No. The point however is that running away isn't the ONLY option.

So again, address an issue that works with both mages and dexers.

 

[Revan123]

Wow Spoony, I commend you for beginning a really intelligent and modest discussion (modest being you play the same template and exploit it's strengths), but haven't you learned by now? Every intelligent discussion on stratics eventually turns into a troll-fest where the idiots who know nothing about UO put their two cents in. And then the devs listen to the intelligent discussion, as well as the idiotic discussions (or do they?) and then eventually decide to go with their even MORE idiotic solutions. At least the idiots who post here play this game!

 

[Revan123]

When the mage is being hit 99.9% of the time because they're disarmed... I doubt they'll be doing any damage.

I was just about to make this point.

 

[Exploit_SX]

Wow Spoony, I commend you for beginning a really intelligent and modest discussion (modest being you play the same template and exploit it's strengths), but haven't you learned by now? Every intelligent discussion on stratics eventually turns into a troll-fest where the idiots who know nothing about UO put their two cents in. And then the devs listen to the intelligent discussion, as well as the idiotic discussions (or do they?) and then eventually decide to go with their even MORE idiotic solutions. At least the idiots who post here play this game!

It takes someone who plays the template, and fights against it consistently to accurately assess the situation. I didn't add anything because Spoony was dead on with his assessment and to the developers reading this thread I agree with it 100% something needs to be done.

 

[spoonyd]

Wow Spoony, I commend you for beginning a really intelligent and modest discussion (modest being you play the same template and exploit it's strengths), but haven't you learned by now? Every intelligent discussion on stratics eventually turns into a troll-fest where the idiots who know nothing about UO put their two cents in. And then the devs listen to the intelligent discussion, as well as the idiotic discussions (or do they?) and then eventually decide to go with their even MORE idiotic solutions. At least the idiots who post here play this game!

This is an attempt to balance things that are NOT balanced regardless of what side I choose. I don't want this game to turn into fencer archers vs wrestle parry mages. That's EXTREMELY boring and dull.

As for the future of this thread it's no longer up to me and it's out of my hands. It's now up to the OTHER top end pvpers left in this game to carry it on and get the developers attention instead of making this a troll fest. And yeah if anyone tells me I'm just trying to get a nerf on ranged disarm characters please see the post I quoted here. Fencer archer has been my template of choice since the pre trammel days and I've fought both with and against this template for many years. My current pvp temp list includes 2 fencer archers, a fencer thrower, a red mystic mage, a blue mystic mage, a faction mystic mage, and some other secrets I cannot discuss here. All of those mages listed carry a weapon of SOME sort and fighting someone who just spams disarm is 100% NPE. Anyone not knowing what NPE is....... Negative Player Experience. If someone has a way to make any character with a weapon 100% unplayable THAT EASILY it is a negative influence on player vs player combat.

 

[Lynk]

ok bros, so everyone imbues a weapon that has this weapon chain thing on it. I get disarmed, i switch to that weapon, then use equip last wep and go back to my normal weapon.

That is a 'real' solution.

 

[kaio]

Disarm is always a pain in the butt. A realistic colddown timer is 2min.
And please DEVS do not give more special moves to dexxers, they are OP'ed enough as it is.

 

[Goldberg-Chessy]

The first time I read the notes on the Disarm timer I said exactly the same thing. Look it up
What they called a 10 second immunity was really no immunity at all once you factored in the 5 seconds of actual disarm time,the extra second or so for the next swing to land and the basic fact that in the field you are always moving around so there is usually another second or two before the next hit can land.

It is baffling to me that the devs finally acknowledged the longtime disarm issue yet instituted a timer that basically makes no difference at all.

Its like they only wanted to pretend to fix the issue because they didn't want to anger the huge majority of pvpers that were abusing the move.

 

[Goldberg-Chessy]

My suggestions:

1) Increase the cooldown time to 15 or 20 seconds. Should be the most obvious and easiest solution and would go a long way towards balancing the move out.

2) All 2 handed weapons should be completely immune to disarm in the first place. It is basic logic and makes sense as far as game mechanics are concerned. A warrior holding a kitchen utensil(butcher knife)in one hand should not be able to disarm another warrior holding an axe or spear with both hands.
Would work very well I think as it forces anyone very affected by disarm to switch weapons and take the tradeoff of no chugging or having to lose an offensive mod for balancing weight on their 2 handed weapon.

3) Code it so that even after disarmed dci is not affected. Probably impossible to do but would be a great solution imo as it would still leave disarm as a great defensive move. And isn't that what it was intended to be in the first place? A defensive move.
As it stands now it is a grossly overpowered offensive move with defense built right in

4) Add a Chivalry and/or Bushido spell that grants a temporary immunity to weapon disarm. It would seem to make sense as the similar evasion spell already exists.

 

[Quickblade]

My suggestions:

1) Increase the cooldown time to 15 or 20 seconds. Should be the most obvious and easiest solution and would go a long way towards balancing the move out.

2) All 2 handed weapons should be completely immune to disarm in the first place. It is basic logic and makes sense as far as game mechanics are concerned. A warrior holding a kitchen utensil(butcher knife)in one hand should not be able to disarm another warrior holding an axe or spear with both hands.
Would work very well I think as it forces anyone very affected by disarm to switch weapons and take the tradeoff of no chugging or having to lose an offensive mod for balancing weight on their 2 handed weapon.

3) Code it so that even after disarmed dci is not affected. Probably impossible to do but would be a great solution imo as it would still leave disarm as a great defensive move. And isn't that what it was intended to be in the first place? A defensive move.
As it stands now it is a grossly overpowered offensive move with defense built right in

4) Add a Chivalry and/or Bushido spell that grants a temporary immunity to weapon disarm. It would seem to make sense as the similar evasion spell already exists.

I like the #1, maybe a cooldown of 15 seconds and increase mana cost from 25 to 35 and we're done. Its not unbalancing, the dexxer still have the opportunity to disarm and have a 5 seconds free to kill the disarmed target, then he will have to wait 10 more seconds to perform disarm again. But right now its cost so little mana and they can almost chain disarm over diarm as it is right now...

 

[SlobberKnocker]

interesting discussion on both sides. hate to say it but I don't run into many disarmers these days. seems most of the pvp crowd plays ranged melee templates or mage variations. (I did get disarmed by a ninja deathstriker last nite) but essentially I hiked up my skirt and ran and even with the deathstrike going off still survived. main reason for me why my swordsman is retired and drunk on ale most days in my castle. damn difficult to run an effective sword/fence (fuggedaboud) macer these days.

 

[CovenantX]

Beginning to wonder if anyone even plays a melee dexer (in pvp) anymore. the only ones I ever fight are nerve/DS, anything else is an archer/thrower+ a melee skill.

Disarm should only have a cooldown, when disarming other melee weapons, A 'weapon chain' should only be possible on melee weapons (maybe two-handers), and mages don't need such a thing.

 

[BrianATudor]

Considering the fact that with a good splinter disarm an archer can kill the target before the disarm ends, I don't think increasing the disarm cool down timer will solve this. The archer will just wait for the timer and try again. Eventually he will get the disarm/splinter and be done. There needs to be a fix that will keep players fighting each other, not one that will encourage running and waiting for cool downs.

 

[temu]

Why do people have to YELL in their posts? It makes you LOOK like guys have TOURETTE syndrome or SOMETHING.

 

[spoonyd]

Why do people have to YELL in their posts? It makes you LOOK like guys have TOURETTE syndrome or SOMETHING.

This thread is an attempt at a solid discussion that should lead to a fix. Anything that isn't constructive should be ignored by the players discussing the issues at hand.

 

[spoonyd]

ok bros, so everyone imbues a weapon that has this weapon chain thing on it. I get disarmed, i switch to that weapon, then use equip last wep and go back to my normal weapon.

That is a 'real' solution.

Obviously you didn't think thru this post very well. If you get disarmed you still have a 5 second REARM TIMER. Therefore this logic is flawed.

 

[BrianATudor]

Everyday more people have been joining the wrestle parry mage vs disarm archer battle lol...

 

[Lynk]

A mystic or necro mage with a mage weapon to fight other mages... parry scribe mage when they are dexer heavy. pretty ez. no changes needed.

 

[Goldberg-Chessy]

A mystic or necro mage with a mage weapon to fight other mages... parry scribe mage when they are dexer heavy. pretty ez. no changes needed.

What are you talking about?

The entire gist of this thread is that disarm was not corrected one bit.
It was obviously a big enough issue for the devs to want to attempt to correct it but they didn't. The timer is so short that it really isn't even a timer once you factor in actual gameplay.

Disarming a mage is just as bad as disarming a warrior. It is and has always been a crutch that has only negative effects on any type of legit pvp.
No way in the world that such a cheap and easy move should negate so many skill points.

Disarm as it stands is way too powerful because it is so offensive and defensive at the same time.
It is a ridiculous lather,rinse,repeat move that only appears to be in the game to allow very bad players to attempt pvp at the lowest level.

 

[The Zog historian]

Wholeheartedly agreed. I've fought too many noobs who could only play disarm dexxers, to where in days past when I bothered with duels, my first rule was, "No disarm."

Lather, rinse, repeat is exactly what it is ("Apply until one of you is dead or you run away"), and it's only exacerbated by the ease of making a high mana regen suit.

 

[BrianATudor]

What are you talking about?

Disarm as it stands is way too powerful because it is so offensive and defensive at the same time.

I believe this is where the problem lies. Disarm should NOT be offensive. Defense chance needs to be calculated by highest weapon skill. Im not sure how this could work for mage weapon users. Quite possibly this should become a drawback to mage wep users? It does save about 100 skillpoints...

 

[funkymonkey]

I think more of the issue is the lack of templates that people play, even if they just added back in the toggled specs whilst casting it would open op more of a variety of templates, but they wont.

 

[Goldberg-Chessy]

I think more of the issue is the lack of templates that people play, even if they just added back in the toggled specs whilst casting it would open op more of a variety of templates, but they wont.

Not sure about that as far as Disarm is concerned though.

A lot of people would start dusting off their old Disarm mages if they could just leave Disarm toggled while blasting away with spells.

In the past it was way too easy for people to play a crappy mage and rarely ever die to a warrior for no other reason then chain disarm. Mages with very little dex and hci were able to get off too many disarms

 

[BrianATudor]

Allowing specials to be toggled while casting definitely will not fix this problem. It will further encourage the wrestle parry mage vs disarm dexxer trend that is going on today. The problem lies in the fact that disarm is offensive AND defensive. When I really sit and think about it, it seems that disarms offensive power was not really intended... If you are disarmed should you really be running around with close to zero defense chance? Or should you be screwed into playing defense because you cant attack for a short duration? It seems like the latter was the intended use for disarm, but game mechanics caused the former to be an unintended mishap.

 

[spoonyd]

Not sure about that as far as Disarm is concerned though.

A lot of people would start dusting off their old Disarm mages if they could just leave Disarm toggled while blasting away with spells.

In the past it was way too easy for people to play a crappy mage and rarely ever die to a warrior for no other reason then chain disarm. Mages with very little dex and hci were able to get off too many disarms

This is extremely correct as well. Could we get a dev comment on this or at least a sign that we are being heard as the last of the pvpers? Obviously I'm not trolling my own thread but we would love a shout out!