Athletics

[Cyclopsided]

Zen is absolutely right about how it used to be, but it has definitely changed.

me on Daughter_of_Mayor_BRD at level 8 with 3 athletics in the exact same gear as The_Mayor_BRD with 13 athletics ran the -exact-same-speed so long as we did not decelerate with changing directions/uneven terrain. (our total weight of gear = 2.3) Now with Daughter having 8 athletics I still have the same top speed, maintain side by side with him, until we start dodging arrows and I slowly fall behind.

Athletics gives functionally faster movement by maintaining top speed more, but the top speed is no longer increased by athletics. I very much so invite you to test this with us, zen.

[MountedRhader]

When I wear armor I'm slow as hell ._.

[Cyclopsided]

When I wear armor I'm slow as hell ._.

Well yes, as you are weighed down you will accelerate much slower and are going to lose more speed in turns/terrain.
If it is rather heavy and you aren't running in a straight line for a while, you may not reach top speed with a low athletics character often.

[Z_E_N]

Zen is absolutely right about how it used to be, but it has definitely changed.

me on Daughter_of_Mayor_BRD at level 8 with 3 athletics in the exact same gear as The_Mayor_BRD with 13 athletics ran the -exact-same-speed so long as we did not decelerate with changing directions/uneven terrain. (our total weight of gear = 2.3) Now with Daughter having 8 athletics I still have the same top speed, maintain side by side with him, until we start dodging arrows and I slowly fall behind.

Athletics gives functionally faster movement by maintaining top speed more, but the top speed is no longer increased by athletics. I very much so invite you to test this with us, zen.

If this is true then it is a big shame.  Agi was already nerfed to hell by the awful wpf scaling so they no longer swing much faster than str heroes.

Still it would explain why my prepatch ninja build feels so much weaker than it did before, if im not actually faster.  Im about to test it in an hour because I have characters at 0, 5, and 9 athletics.  Really hoping there wasn't a nerf.   Still the weapon difference i'm really curious on, because the difference between 1 weight on a weapon feels like a 10 armor difference

[Heroin]

Can we get a dev to confirm or deny that anything has changed with athletics? Because currently, in your "newbie guide" that is stickied in these forums, it claims athletics increases running speed. If you want to keep exact mechanics a secret, fine, but don't purposely spread misinformation.

[Z_E_N]

Ok, I did some test runs.  Good news and bad news:

First, the situation.  I originally was going to choose the NA Duel server because it is always on arena, believing the center part of the arena where you run through the circle would be perfect.  However, it turned out there was a couple of small hills outside of the circle that slowed down the character so had to scrap that.

Therefore, I chose the EU duel server which is on the Ruins map, and found a flat area that had easy markings.

The route:

Starting slightly uphill behind the "rocks" and running in between the tree trunk and rocks straight towards the animal bones.  The downhill part was the acceleration room and I did not start the stopwatch until I passed the tree trunk so I would be at top speed.  (It turns out a character with 0 athletics still needs a little bit of acceleration time even while completely naked).

Now, this route was flat after top speed was hit, and the stopwatch was hit as soon as the animal bones were touched.  This way acceleration was taken out of the picture and it was pure top speed.

I ran 10 times each at an athletics of 0, 5, and 9.    Dropped the highest and lowest to account for human error, and averaged them.

The average of the 0 athletics character was:  19.03

The average of the 5 athletics character was: 15.80

The average of the 9 athletics character was: 13.65


So the good news is, athletics still effects top speed (at least while naked).  However two things of note.  It is definately nerfed.  The speed difference between 5 and 9 athletics is only about 15%, where before it would be 25%.  Also, this is naked.    The speed difference goes down exponentially with weight.  Wearing even light armor, I bet there would be barely any difference.  Wearing medium armor, none.

Before, it was already bad enough that armor effected athletics so harshly.  Now, unless you plan on running around naked with a practice knife, you likely wont be any faster than the next guy.

I would still like to see the differences between equipping different weapons.  Still...9 athletics is certainly not as blazingly fast as it used to be..  oh how I miss those days.

[Khalim]

Did you mind agility? I think it also was an impact on runspeed.

Personally, I think it is okay, that athletic is nerved, because runspeed is a huge advantage.
It seems ridiculous: When I kamikazeattack as peasent I REALLY get a better k/d ration, when I am fully equipped(+medium Armour + shield + Wardarts)
Sure I probably die within the first minute, but often I can rack up ~7 kills and start the battle leading the scoreboard.
When I play more defensivly I end up on kill ration like 5/4 after severayl rounds.

Running speed is a huge advantage!

[Z_E_N]

Separated this post because it is a segue into another topic.

So.. about that AGI.

Now that Walt-F4 has proven that AGI has no passive benefit at all (he proved that AGI doesn't effect attack speed, and WPF does but you don't see much of a difference unless you are 100 points higher than someone else).  It also certainly doesn't effect move speed, as my 0 athletics character has 3 AGI and my 9 athletics character has 27.  In my prepatch study, I had both tests done with the same AGI (27), and increased my athletics from 8 to 9 in the middle of the test with a 5% increase.  If AGI effects movespeed now, it would be much more noticeable with a difference of 3-27.

Anyway...what I'm saying is AGI is too nerfed.

Athletics barely does anything except increase your maneuverability a bit, and if you wear medium armor or better you probably wont even notice.

Weapon Master scales so horribly at higher WPF that your 170 WPF up against his 130 WPF will barely make a difference, and as Walt showed the AGI difference means nothing.

Shield is hypothetically useful, unless that was also nerfed (in native every shield skill point increased damage resistance by 10% and coverage by 10)  We know the "force field" coverage was nerfed, but hopefully the damage resistance remains.

Riding is a little useful, but could probably be used for more power strike, and of course its only for cavs.

Horse Archery I cant comment on, as I don't play horse archers (tried it once, didn't like it and early retired).


Yes, we can all agree AGI 2h spammers prepatch were very powerful.  But now, AGI is so killed that you might as well go full strength with power strike/power draw/power throw and iron flesh, because no other skill makes a tangible difference.  (Not including riding for cavs).

AGI needs some love back.

[Z_E_N]

Did you mind agility? I think it also was an impact on runspeed.

If it does then Athletics is even worse nerfed.  In my prepatch study I kept AGI at a constant 27 for both tests (Athletics 8 and 9).  In this test, I had AGI 3 up against AGI 27.  If AGI made a difference in movespeed but the combination of the 24 AGI difference and 9 athletic skill points difference was only 30% (while naked), then that is pretty bad.

[John]

Agility increases your top speed.  I don't know if athletics increases top speed as well, but in my mind, its main function is to increase acceleration/maneuverability/whatever you want to call it.

[Dravic]

Thank you guys for all those posts you made in this thread, generally now i know that athletics was either nerfed or it was so weak from the start, anyway, the most important thing for me is if my 11 athl build for next gen will be viable, and now i know that it will be. Thank you.

[Kherr]

have to fix my post...

[Cyclopsided]

A good way to test athletics is to find a flat area and start running on a character with say 3 athletics and then have a 12+ athletics character waiting at where you'll have  for sure hit top speed to run beside you. You'll see what me and BRD have observed -- You run THE SAME top speed.

The NA maps have some certain cav maps that are completely flat fields that are good for testing this on, because I think ruins is just enough to slow characters down a bit. But yes, athletics does give functionally faster speed but very little.
Either way, athletics was nerfed for sure and definitely does not give a 5% speed bonus anymore.

We need more testing (or a dev post with the formula)
I may be wrong, but this seems way slow now compared to pre-patch as well.

[Joxer]

Bshit. I can outrun my whole team usually even if they are ninjas with light armor and high athletics. I have 10ath and you do run faster than others then. Liars everywhere...

[Nemeth]

Bshit. I can outrun my whole team usually even if they are ninjas with light armor and high athletics. I have 10ath and you do run faster than others then. Liars everywhere...

If you read the thread, you would know that you can outrun everyone with both scenarios of how athletics works. So please, do before posting.