Knife fighting damage too low, balance issue

[SausageJavelins]

Knife fighting is what I use as my primary combat skill, along with Psychology on the secondary bar. Early on, I found it a great combination and found myself out-killing many of my friends.

But oh, OH how that has changed!

Early on, damage was probably a little too high, say level 10 through 40. But after that, my damage has plateaued while other skills (sword, druid, archery, cow) seemed to do more and more damage as they leveled up.

I am currently sitting on lvl 70 knife fighting, with 2 points from bonuses. I do, on boss mobs, roughly 300 more points of damage than I did 20 levels ago, which sucks in higher level areas. I have since upgraded my mods, but the base damage of higher end knife fighting abilities is super low:

Opening Thrust - 119 (81 base)
Venomstrike - 381 (180 base)
Gut - 350 (142 base)
Surprise Throw - 884 (393 base)
Fan of Blades (AoE, 15 meters) - 406 (198 base)
Backstab - 1207 (660 base)


I think these numbers are a little low, but I am operating within a vacuum as I was told there are essentially no high level knife fighters to give feedback Well here's my two cents: please increase knife fighting damage so that it is a viable skill at higher levels, because right now it is totally not worth playing, and I am only sticking with it because the throwing knives make me wax nostalgic for the Thrown Weapons skill back in Asheron's Call. :(

[Mbaums]

Oh my goodness another knife fighter!

I am still farming gear but I just hit 70 knife +bard. Used to be knife psych, so I respect your choice. My setup is to build everything around backstabbing.
I have a 1500 backstab that I use a bard buff to push to about 2k.
I don't group as much as I should, but I I'm about on par with someone using hammer.

I need to find a good blacksmith and get throwing weapons because I know I'm missing out on surprise throw. I dream of able to get into a group and have 3 back attacks.

I'll post my exact numbers later.
One issue I have is the inconsistencies with mez and backstab. Yeah it works for full damage, but mez and gut doesn't? And gut has an error message but backstab doesn't?
Actually haven't tried surprise throw yet.

[Mbaums]

My mostly solo setup--

Opening Thrust 8: 149
Surge Cit 7: 386
Gut 7: 281
Slice 8: 459
Backstab 7: 1566 (virtuoso to 2192). The mods for BS increase at 3% per tier, but 6% at tier 13, which I think is lvl 60?
Venom 7: 474

I don't have gear setup for the cut/not cut bonuses.

[Citan]

Thanks for the feedback! We'll look at some balancing issues in a little while -- unfortunately nothing is as simple as it looks; boosting base ability damage would lower the potency of the mods, because they're all intertwined. But base damage itself is only a small part of the puzzle, and I suspect the bigger issue is a lack of synergies with other skills. For instance, Venomstrike is really designed to work with other gear that boosts indirect poison damage. What other skills are you using with it?


Mbaums - please report those bugs in-game (if you haven't done so since the last update). As far as I knew all bugs related to mezzes and monster attention were fixed! (Also I'm not even sure what error message Gut shows... definitely not intentional.)

[Mbaums]

Mbaums - please report those bugs in-game (if you haven't done so since the last update). As far as I knew all bugs related to mezzes and monster attention were fixed! (Also I'm not even sure what error message Gut shows... definitely not intentional.)

The error message got straightened out, where both attacks can return "The target is looking at you!". I must have missed the backstab fix because mez+backstab works so well that I've been only pairing BS with Mez (while solo).

I'm actually not sure if Mez+ back attack working is a bug or Mez+ gut not working is the bug. It really does not feel game breaking since at most a player will have 1 mez while solo, and they both have a 30 second reuse timer.

Edit--
The mod on backstab stops it from working with Mez, the +XXX trauma damage over 10 seconds mod.
Edit 2, backstab seems to be working w/ full damage but the special trauma dot is producing the error message. Hard to tell without a combat damage window.

[wuwu]

Been meaning to post something about knife fighting as well. I use knife/psychology too. If you pay attention to the mobs weaknesses it works really well and I was happy with the skill until I tried sword/archery. The difference is not just a matter of play style like I expected but of raw power. All of the solutions I come up with require a passive ability and this game is not about really about that. The only suggestion I have is to allow knife skills to ignore a percentage of armor though skinning/butchery. The big idea is that knife fighting just needs a boost at the start of the fight the sustained damage seems fine.

[SausageJavelins]

Citan - I use psychology as my secondary, 3 of which are heals which I end up needing:

Tell Me About Your Mother 3: 70 (base 1)
Psychoanalyze 4: 318 (base 128)
You Were Adopted 4: 688 (488 base)
Pep Talk 4: Restores 160 health to me or targeted ally (base)
Inspire Confidence 3: Restores 110 health to all allies in 20 meter radius (base)
Positive Attitude 3: Restores 70 health, power, and armor to me


Basically I just wanted enough heals to save myself or someone from certain death, but without being a pure support role. Tell Me About Your Mother works with backstab and surprise throw, Psychoanalyze (or TMAYM) is required for You Were Adopted so I might be able to put another psych attack ability on the bar, but that would likely increase damage minimally (and not at all addressing knife damage lacking).

I appreciate the response, I have been unable to get to the forums for awhile (hence the silence from me on this thread).