And hopefully the last big fancy post, the set of skills for knuckles.
First of all, all of these skills can only be used with knuckles. For most of them it makes sense, but a couple would be VERY USEFUL without knuckles, and you just can't use them without knuckles. Kinda lame. Maybe they'll revert it. Nexon's been getting better about these things. On to the skills.
First you need to know, knuckles use a "combo" system. This is basically handholding, but it also results in some of the nicest animation I've seen in mabinogi since assault slash. And on top of this, you don't have to use the combos stated, you can load whatever skill you want whenever, as long as it's not using the combo buttons.
Second general knuckle knowledge, knuckles reduce the range of windmill, and decrease the load time of counterattack (Not really, the combat revamp gave normal counterattack an 0.5 second load time too so this is moot now)
First chain skills, Dashing Strike and Focused Fist. Let's look at the similarities. Both of these basically "blink" you towards an enemy. Both are still effected by windmill. The first, Dashing Strike, walks you towards the enemy, until you get in certain range, then you blink forward and hit the dude. It'll act like assault and keep you from being flinched out of it by magic and ranged attacks, and also will intercept a basic melee attack. Windmill still gets you, I think smash still gets you if they can manage to land it. It does not have even half the range of assault, however, so it's pretty useless for eating a ranged attack. Maybe it gets better with levels. Pretty straightforward. The second is a teensy bit more complex, and probably as complex as the knuckle skills get honestly. Focused fist acts basically like blaze, except after you release the chargeup button, you blink forward, like dashing strike, and slam into the dude. This also inflicts a debuff that reduces defense and protection.
Now, once you perform one of them, you can either press F1, or F2, or load a new skill.
If you press F1, you'll use Spinning uppercut. Single hit, and lowers defense and protection like Focused Fist. Pretty basic.
If you press F2, you'll use Somersault kick. Three hits, has a small chance to "daze" an enemy, preventing it from using magic or alchemy. Handy.
Both of the chain two skills that we just went over leave you open for a pretty decent amount of time. A second or two at least. Once you execute one of them, you can press F1 or F2 again, or load any other skill. This is probably prime time to use a non knuckle exclusive skill, but we'll get to that.
If you press F1 AGAIN, you'll use drop kick. This will send the opponent FLYING backwords a pretty nice distance, huge dust cloud, the chain 3 skills basically make you look like a huge badass. If the enemy hits anything with its hitbox, it'll damage it and knock it back too. Heavy stander can cancel this "mega-knockback". The enemy you are atacking can't hit you out of it, but any other enemy nearby can. Unless you're a giant, without chain mastery (a knuckle skill) at rank 9 or higher, you can't use heavy armor with this skill. Once you have chain mastery up there, you can do it for reduced damage.
If you press F2 again, you'll use pummel. You knock the dude backwords a good distance, then jump on him, and well, pummel him. A lot of damage, but leaves you open for a good long while. Advanced Heavy Stander keeps you from using this skill at all. There are three parts of the animation, the knuckles take durability damage for each specific part, not each hit. Criticals are calculated seperately for each part. If the enemy dies in one part, it will end on that one. Probably does more damage then drop kick, but also leaves you open far longer, at least 2-3 seconds. Maybe more.
If you go all the way to tier three, the enemy is miles away from you and it is prime time to switch weapons and plink at him, or load a defensive skill. The opportunity for inter-skill tree combos has ended by that point. Let's move onto the last two skills.
Tumble. If you have knuckles equipped, you leap backwards a good distance. It's a pretty good way to gain some distance, but again, knuckles only. Kinda lame.
Respite. You sit down and regenerate HP and Stamina for a short period of time. If you're interrupted you don't get any of it, and if you use magic or alchemy afterwords, it'll take 25% hp and stamina away from you. At rank 9 and above it has a chance to remove poison, for how often you encounter it. Has a two minute long cooldown. Good for solo dungeon runs I'd imagine. Doesn't repair wounds obviously. Again, need knuckles. Dumb, but whatcha gonna do.
I haven't gone over chain mastery, but it's a pretty generic "raise damage/lower cooldown for chained skills" thing.
In general, for most of these skills, if there's a penalty, it's for elves. Bonuses are for giants. Giant friendly, but not quite as much as lances. If you're using light armor you're fine as far as major penalties go.
And that's knuckles. It seems like an easier way to get into melee combat without having to learn the mechanics of skills, probably does more damage then weapon skill combat (I dunno, N+smash is actually pretty hefty for single target damage), but is limited to one dude, and leaves you open for a loooong time. Less flexible and bad defensively, but nice damage. Probably good for soloing.
Poll
0 (0%)
Author
Topic: Mabinogi-On Steam! Close combat revamp! (Read 379834 times)