Unarmed Fighting...are you doing it?

[QQkp]

My current character is all-in on the unarmed/monk way of life - going great so far, 55 quests down, level 42, still have to do Lodar and Remgard.

A quick observation - is it deliberate that the "Unarmored fighting" skill is as unrewarding as it is? The monk play style hinges on 3 skills:

• "Fighting style: Way of the monk" offers:
  • AC boost matching "Weapon Accuracy"
  • BC boost around half of "Dodge"
  • DR boost matching "Bark Skin"
  • damage boost twice as good as "Hard Hit"
  • a small bump for criticals
• "Unarmed fighting" offers:
  • AC boost better than "Weapon Accuracy"
  • BC boost around half of "Dodge"
  • damage boost better than "Hard Hit", since it also applies to minimum damage
• "Unarmored fighting" offers:
  • BC boost only very slightly better than "Dodge"

If you think about it from the perspective of a sort of "unrestricted skill point equivalent" (i.e. how many skill points would you need to spend to get an equivalent or similar benefit if this skill didn't exist?), "Way of the monk" scores around 4.5; "Unarmed fighting" scores maybe around 4 or so; but "Unarmored fighting" is hardly more than 1.

I'm not sure if it would imbalance things to modify it now, though.

[Antison]

QQkp,

At the time of creation of "Unarmored fighting" and "Unarmed fighting", there wasn't many people fighting the way of the monk, so the focus on these skills really wasn't there from the development team perspective. That's why we added the "way of the monk" skill. We wanted to make it more fun and attractive.

[QQkp]

That makes sense. In general, does AT development tend to avoid tweaking existing things? I can only think of a couple rare occasions off the top of my head (like weapon damage multipliers and effective critical chance), just curious.

[Antison]

Yes. Changing existing items, skills...etc is limited by necessity.
Maps are changed a lot. The RoLS has been changed a few times. The Xu'lviir has been changed once. As a couple of examples.
Almost everything is subject to change as AT is a game in flux.

[CKork]

I was wondering about the same thing.
IMO the unarmored spec is next to useless, considering the dodge skill.

I think the unarmored skill is one worth looking at.

[JonLin]

I don't have unarmed but I think unarmored works just the way it is.

[CUCHULAINN3]

There should be a way of the priest/mage build. Depending on the priest/mage a sceptor would be one of the few items that would work. I may have to try unarmed or unarmored

[Lacrom]

about unarmored skill, I agree that it is almost completely useless... the dodge skil is far better because it is sometimes needed as a requirement for other skills (such as taunt, really useful one). it's just +10 BC for free once you finished the charwood quest
unarmed skill is one of the best, if not the best skill in the game IMO