Is Annihilator overrated?

The damage done didn't seem very different (Red Steel Tonfa +E). I'm a semi tank btw since Str and Dex kinda suck, and I believe Asobimo might have intended for Brawlers to be semi tanks rather than being "too fast to dodge attacks".

Anyway, I tried soloing CG. It was way easier without Annihilator. The damage seemed similar enough and my attacking combo, Impact>Chariot, had a medium chance of interrupting the AOEs. Flinches had a 3sec cd. I could've stunlocked the boss if it hadn't evaded 5% of the time (tested without anticipate gear)

 

Just realised I made 3 posts about Brawlers.. well, the second was a "bug report" but still

 

I use annihilator if I have no plans to interrupt the boss. Below 1M chariot damage if no annihilator. ^_^

 

If they wanted them to tank they should've given them VIT scaling.

Godhand from Crusher skill tree still gets me Red eyed every time I look at it.

Anyways, Annihilator kinda stinks if you running fast farm parties given it's stupid high cost and knux more than difficult mp recovery.

You can do without it unless something changes with lv5 skills.

 

The skills Forefist Punch, Godhand, Breathworks, Earthbind work well with more HP. I guess Chakra could be meant for dps moments. Being able to 100% fts is usually given to more support/tank roles. Str and Dex builds are pretty weak, so adding some Vit isn't a bad choice. If they were intended as semi tanks, their defenses wouldn't be as powerful as pure tanks. This is only a guess, of course. I'm not saying that they are definitely good semi tanks

Ig I'll use Annihilator less. Everyone was worshipping it and I overestimated it

 

• Whyever you think Forefist Punch/Godhand is good?
  • Forefist punch is 300 MP, something I don't find very efficient given the low AMPR of knuckles. It also reduces an arbitrary amount of damage, and you need to be really good at recognizing skills to know which one would be blocked.
  • GodHand is just a direct upgrade to Forefist punch, and costs even more. Both require you to HIT the enemy, or attempt to hit it, which is insanely difficult due to ranged bosses and small range of knuckles.
  • Seriously, you can't defend yourself from the boss 3m away, because your character will have to walk to start using Godhand/Forefist punch. Perfect defense is a much cheaper and much more reliable option.
  • Offensively, it isn't worth it either. By the time you get 3 Godhand stacks, you can perform two Goliath strikes. The damage increase is abysmal.
• Breathworks is a faster heal, yes, but waiting 30 seconds for another heal is dangerous. Royal heal or Heal is better, and you can also heal/revive others. It is, however, a nice combo ender, and you can cast Annhiliator after it.
• Earthbind heal caps at 1000.
  • It also doesn't scale properly. If my health is 2000, +1000 heal would be nice, but I only heal 100 per mob. Not good for bosses. If I want to heal 1000 per mob, my health has to be 20000, at which point the 1000 HP heal is insignificant.
  • Its damage growth from AGI is also abysmal. It has a multiplier of 2.2 at 350 AGI, barely enough to one-shot the blue bubbles. Its range is also tiny, which means it is useless for mob farming as well.
    • Storm has a similar multiplier, but Storm gains from 4 INT, so it's not a fair comparison.
• Chakra is good, but it is difficult to keep up and sustain. 50% resistance, 100 free MP, and 15 AMPR!
  • It does go away if you get hit, but since Knuckles is a melee class, you will never sustain the 15 AMPR at all.

What Annhiliator is good at is giving KnuxMD farmers the extra juice to farm. The amount of INT increases drastically due to Knux having 50% of its weapon ATK contributing to MATK directly, and the other 50% via conversion.
Also, Annihilator also takes into account the refinement, so a +S, +A, or +B will show the difference in ATK gain very much.

 

I use godhand in short save combo (Finale/Slide ender). It's mainly to buff Goliath.

I just watched a video (1min ago) where Kombiii used Bless in a semi tank build. It heals without cast time, but needs MATK. Knuckles gain that from Dex, right? It might be doable but I'm not exactly sure.


Knuckles have access to Elegant Poise and Perfect Defense for defense

Lastly, I said that Knuckles may have been intended as semi tanks. The developers are bad at balancing so their intentions don't usually go through. I'm just testing it atm

Thanks for the detailed info btw

 

Just to add, God hand is worse because it requires you to get hit as well. On a main AGI character. Whose main job is to DODGE!!! I really wanna sit down and have some words of logic with the dude who thought of that skill.

 

Says, crusher be crushed.

That dude thinks that brawler's will be happy to have magodhandchi(magadachi). Lmao. ^_^

 

At least Katana have the whole counter style gameplay going on. Where the hell did that leap of logic come from though? No where in Brawler's playstyle is there a counter skill or counter style gameplay so it can't come from there. Brawler doesn't have any VIT or defensive skills. Chakra doesn't count because it takes time to cast..... CAAAAAAAAAAAASSSSSSST.

The only counter skill brawlers get is from crusher skill tree which is 3MP, which is far too much for any knux user to use reliably. Goliath doesn't counter and the main tree skills rely on you dishing out the ailments as opposed to getting countered.

The kinda logic leap it takes to go from that to Godhand is INSANE.

I have no idea how they did it, I really don't but oh WOW they did! Godhand is HERE!

Spoiler

AND IT FREAKIN SUCKS!

 

Since the developers intend for a different playstyle with barehand, it is possible that barehand (pure) dps may eventually surpass Knuckles