Let's finally formally address Knuckles.

NOTE : This thread is not meant for ranting about how useless Knuckles are, nor it is for people who dissaude people who rant. There is already another post in existence if you want to do either of those.
DISCLAIMER: I AM NOT AN EXPERIENCED OR VETERAN PLAYER OF THIS GAME.
In the following posts we shall discuss at great length why Knuckles as a class is not as good as it should be, the reasons as to why it is like it is, and whether it is so bad that it isn't viable anymore to invest in a Kncukles playstyle. I am keeping a one post reserved for the definite conclusions, but I am not that good at summarizing, so if you think you have the time to neatly arrange the points that we cover without bias, please reserve some posts of your own, before a discussion.

Here is the method I am going to follow:
And I don't expect anyone to follow this, but it would make discussions easier​

• This post outlines how to have a discussion, the following post then actually begins the step by step analysis of how to approach Knuckles as a class.
• After that, anyone who wants to reserve posts can reserve them, those contain only what we as a community have arrived as a whole, and NOT anyone's personal opinions.
• Then, after it is evident that no other experienced player needs a reserved post of thier own, we can begin discussions using examples and anectodes that happened with you as a Knuckle user, that shows why it is good/okay/bad.
• If there arises a point that everyone agrees on, it can be put up on the earlier mentioned reserved threads.

I hope that we can reach a reasonable conclusion as a community, and then take some appropriate measures to either:

• Show that Knuckles is a viable weapon AND can compete against weapons like DW, OHS or Katana on an equal level

OR​

• It is not a class worthy of spending as much time as one spends on other weapons, and needs a rework to be viable and interesting again.

And if you're the kind of person who thinks Knuckles is OP and doesn't want to discuss, you can ignore this post. Nothing happens in the Brawler section anyway.

 

How Asobimo thought of Knuckles as a Playstyle:

1. Based on the description of Knuckles in the initial character selection screen, and on the official Toram website it is supposed to be a weapon with low attack, but high attack speed, so the idea was that the total damage per seconds is similar to other heavy attack slow weapons.
2. This is what the official website has to say about Knuckles :
3. This, along with the fact that it is tagged 'EASY' on the weapon selection screen, makes one believe that Kncukles are beginner friendly, and the skills are also somewhat good. (Now, here I mean that to a newbie they look appealing - Smash has 100% Flinch rate, Bash has Stun which has the longest breaking time, sonic wave gives a distant way to tumble your opponent {Which is actually useful imo}, Martial Mastery increases attack, and Aggravate gives a chance to attack again - which with a high attack speed sounds good, at least to a newbie, but we know the truth.)
4. The Problem, is, however, Toram gameplay is not focused around Auto attacks but rather skills and combos.
5. I can see what Asobimo was trying to achieve with Kncukles, a fast paced martial artist that deals a lot of low damage attacks and disarms/distracts the opponent, while the others take time to charge up thier heavy attack. However, if Kncukles was supposed to be the fast guy, Katana and Rampage shouldn't have existed.
6. Bash's animation is slow. Goliath Punch takes time to charge, God hand takes time to charge. Knuckles was advertised, at least to me, as Ultra Instinct, but it has become One Punch man, but it failed to do even that and ended up as Krillin.

No i-frames?

1. Knuckles are supposed to be fast, and they go upto the bosses' belly to deal damage. Kncukles are close ranged fighters who can deal ailments and keep the boss interrupted. IT HAS A SKILL SPECIFICALLY MADE to go right upto the boss, Slide.
2. So, for a playstyle that keeps you constantly in the epicentre of danger, Knuckles has no i-frame, and Forefist Punch and GodHand's damage reduction capabilities are mediorce, and don't work for all cases.
3. Goliath Punch has a time limit to perform after charged, and we can't wait for the boss to perform its attack lest we lose stacks. So the lack of good defense also shows up here.
4. With how frequently one has to jump right into the face of danger as a brawler, Breathwork's 30 sec timer is a major drawback. It doesn't even have a graphic icon to indicate timer.
5. Knuckles don't need high health, we don't aim to be tanks. We need enough damage reduction and resistance capabilities to survive in close range combat.

<Reserved for more important issues with Knuckles>

 

i want to add this point:

6.knuckles' stat growth is counterintuitive to their skill effects.
attack is lower and matk is higher, which would be fine if they got appropriate skill effects. but both their skill trees are entirely physical. the aura enchantment skill that converts magic power into physical force was given exclusively to bow/bowgun instead.
the only magic punch skill in the game leans more towards atk and scales with STR.

 

Their atk growth is really poor. If the boss have high def, knuckle has no chance to contribute dmg.

Other weapon has the means to counter high def boss. Katana with two handed, 1h with PCR, bow with satellite, etc.

They need to buff physical stats, only relying 2 atk from agi is no where enough.

Knuckle already has many skill which useful for combos
Combination from crusher skill is very useful for filler.
Breath work + impact can easily reduce your mp cost.
If you feel knuckle don't have enough ampr, you should try to reduce the mp usage instead.

Or you should eat resistance food instead? If common glass cannon build can't work, why push it? Try anti-bullet glass cannon instead. If you want more resist, use the shield. Survival build is not as bad as you think.

For goliath time limit , you already know we have slide.

They need to add physical Pierce buff for knuckle line up. Annihilator only make knuckle have the same standing as ohs, but against high def boss, pcr will always win

 

The first three skills: Smash, Sonic Wave and Bash are impossible to use freely in combos. Bosses are too reactive to those ailments yet at the same time, they are needed for low cost combos.

Best effect would be to change their function such that they can they make break parts appear on successful (non-graze) hit and have a % chance to flinch, tumble or stun only when break parts are visible.

Aggravate should allow MP recovery based on AMPR per any execution of any martial skill, chase attack should add a normal proration attack damage every time a martial attack hits a target with break parts showing.

 

A few things that were mentioned here were at least partially improved with the assassin skills. No i-frame? Shadow walk is probably one of the best i-frames in the game. No chance against high def bosses? Sicarius gives a 30% pierce buff.
I also disagree on removing the interrupts from the knuckle skills. It‘s probably the only reason to play knuckle right now to get 3 100% interrupts. That‘s also why I hate annihilator, it finally gives an attack buff, but removes the best feature of knuckles by reducing the interrupt chance by 50%. Also it‘s clearly not intended that knuckles use STR as stat, but it‘s just so good atm (who am I kidding, since 2015) that the cdmg buff outweighs the little increase gained by dex. I hope knuckle will get the warrior treatment and get a „scale with agi/dex“ multiplier for their core damage skills. Another potentially good, but ultimately trash skill is chakra. 15 ampr and increased resistance? Yes pls! 3 second cast time? Oh..... Just give it the wcos treatment where halberd gets a default cooldown reduction.

 

Using assassin skills as an argument is a double edge sword. On one hand, it does fix some stuff (though shadow walk is useless for soloers).

Yet at the same time, those skills are better suited for blade and halberd, not knux.

The interrupts are pretty good, removing them is wrong yet at the same time, using them on later games bosses is also wrong. From pillar golem, the game starts to straight up punish knuckles users. This is why i suggest that those three skills make the break parts visible first and then successive hits would trigger the flint, tumble, stun etc. It makes the skills use able in combos without being spam able.
Eg:
First hit with smash: Break parts show for skill level seconds

Second hit with smash: Trigger flinch effect. If break parts showing.

 

A3. Knuckle with passive skill + Tera potion only without other ASPD boost skill can easily achieve 2 stack GSW motion ( 20% ),so it not just sound good but really good just people expecting more( me as well) . If you been playing knuckle for a long time and swift to other none AGI build, you will feel the huge different.

A6. Try Heavy Smash you and will know what slow actually mean. I think goliath punch is still way more faster than 3 charge CF, and it's have about 5 seconds for you to release when reach 5-charge. For god-hand....longer time animation is what we expected, because between this skill charging and release, you will have -90% damage, it's this skill animation only 1 second, than i hope it's reduce 100% damage like PDEF.

Regarding the chakra, i know people mostly hate him because of high Cast time...but actually when we have AGI300 + DEX247, our CSPD will reach 1500+ and with another +500 CSPD buff we can have 2K CSPD which make Chakra become 1 second cast time. If not mistake, i remember chakra is the only skill that can reduce -50% on all damage including fractional damage, so it quiet useful actually but ofc i hope it's can have at least -1~2 cast time when use will knuckle.

Martial and Crusher skill have different playstyle, although using same weapon system.

Crusher is more on Melee-combat, it's require more damage reduce/ higher HP to keep him stay in front of combat, and i believe this is why all of it skill is short range, and skill like God-hand/Forefist punch that reduce damage, Breathwork that heal HP and Floating kick that bring you back to melee immediately, thus the build should focus more on HP or resistant that keep you survive in front line and continue deal damage.

Martial Skill as everyone know is more on breaking and weakening the enemy, it's very useful on earlier stage boss but getting difficult on latest boss because of ailment counter. But if we read properly on the martial skill you will realize it's actually is design to fix in different situation. For those full ailment counter Boss, it's have Rush ( none-ailment skill), and for those partial ailment counter, it's have chariot. The 20m of sonic wave allow us to break boss skill from far side ( sw will still break boss skill even they have ailment counter ). All this skill allow Martial to fix in any boss combat, just damage tooooooooooooooooooo low. Thus from my experience, martial should focus more on AMPR build for rapid skill purpose.

How Crusher and Martial look like in my mind.
Martial


Crusher

 

The battle stance is ugly

 

On this topic, can I just say that staff has the most awesome stance? Katana is a close second. Magic Device is an abomination.

 

this is heresy, md has a lot of wing-like apps and your char floats while using it, they're nothing but blessed

 

Here's something I want to add :
While I accept that Assassin and Dagger skills are quite good, and have iframes and stuff, that's the credibility of dagger sub Weapon and another skill tree.
While you speak of potions and food buffs, does it make Knuckles on par with other Weapons who have similar food and potion buffs? (This is a genuine question)

Knuckles on its own isn't good for beginners, you need the entire skill tree And Potions and Food buffs and aura buffs from other trees to even reach 500K damage on best of your attacks.
------------------------------------------------------
I was Using a level 100 Knuckle character, and I was invited to a party fighting Grass Dragon Yelb nightmare.
I was performing breaking, but I didn't get the breaker rank - a lvl 80 Bowgun did.
I was dealing 100K - 180 K damage with Goliath, but The attacker was again the Bowgun guy.
At last I discovered I was the only one with Magical skills, so I did some proration.
The only reason I think I was kept is because I could access Nightmare and they couldn't.

 

Just to let you know, the breaker rank is determined by proration if I remember correctly. Not actual breaking. (Which is super weird ^^; )

 

If you go back to the character creation screen, it is stated that playing knuckle is easy, and it's true. Cap you character if you want astronomical damage.

As a brawler, you didn't do much auto attack, thus a bg took your breaker rank.

You're prolly competing with a bg cf. You need rush while charging your goliath.

You're not a mage. They too have magic skill but prefer not to use em. They will have high numbers occasionally but it will not make the fight faster.

Some party feel safe when they see a brawler in the front line. ^_^

 

resistance food can make a huge difference. Lv 7 resist buff will add 32% resistance. Add protection or aegis from shield skill (available for all weapon) you'll get half damage. And god hand could further reduce more dmg? What a coincidence.

 

Oh this just reminds me, I built a full 2s knuckle char this free reset and compared the damage with my other classes a bit on alto (all are completly equally geared).
(All skills are smited besides tenryu):
Rush: 780k
Tenryu: 1.03m
Shining cross: 1.03m
Dt: 1.11m

I didn't take screenshots of the exact assassin stab numbers, but very roughly halberd did ~1.8m, OHS ~1.4m and Knuckles ~1m.

Edit: With equally geared I don't mean exactly the same gear, but the same gear level

 

AGI>STR Knuckle ?

 

Yep

 

One more incident:
A few days ago, I made friends with a newbie, a female who took OHS as a beginner Weapon.
She was at Eerie crystal at level 19, and I took her up and completed Chapter 1, making sure not to immediately kill the boss, and letting her make a few hits and dodges too. (Like in Mino where one of its attack has a safe spot right beneath it's legs rather than moving all the way out)
After Minotaur I thought of gifting her a beginner gift. I found a 288~ sword refined to +D at about 84K spina.
I was a bit startled.
It had taken me 3 days of searching to find a good Katze gloves (158+E) for about 120K spina, and here I could find a decent-ish OHS for much, much less.
Then I asked her what her ATK was.
I had spent 115 points of AGI on my Knuckles at that point, with Martial mastery and Discipline (but had an MD equipped)
Her ATK was 705. Mine was 630~.
Mind you, she definitely hadn't assigned stats after 19, and I assume she hadn't done that before either. I removed MD and my ATK was just only marginally higher than hers.
This shows the difference of ATK, just by availability of weapons, and how poorly Knuckles scales .
I tried to hold ground by telling her my ASPD was 1500~ and I can make up for low ATK, but I can I ?

 

If you're seeking atk stat, then create red steel box, so you can get red steel tonfa inside. Goodluck farming/buying it. ^_^