Hello all, I'm a little unhappy with the change to MA. It's nice and easy to remember that each level just adds on top of the previous one now, but the difference between level 2 and 4 is almost arbitrary. All the bonuses that helps you actually win the fistfight, aside from the level 5 burst, lies at the two earliest levels. This makes it so a cheap smoke dispenser with MA lv2 can fight equally with a 40+pt melee specialist with MA lvl3-4. While they do hit a bit harder, they don't feel like more skilled fighters from having that increased level. I'm sure this has been brought up already, just wanted to express my opinion on the matter and hear if people agree that this could use some tuning along with theorycrafting some possible changes.
Shoot the assaulty stuff and assault the shooty stuff still applies, and is where the Damage bonus will really kick in.
It depends on what else is on the units' profiles; the specialist may have higher CC, better melee weapon, or other skills. E.g. SAS have MA2 and CC22 with AP+Shock CCW. Whereas Valkyrie gets MA3, NBW, Berserk and an EXP CCW. I think the latter's going to have a better chance of hitting, and is going to do more damage. tldr; My impression is that Martial Arts is now just part of a unit's skill-set, and it's the whole thing that shows how good they are in CC.
I can agree on the whole CC against shooty and shooty against CC thing, doesn't change that the difference between a level 3 martial artist and a level 4 one doesn't feel all that impactful in play.
In N3 the difference was that Martial Arts 4 was worse against an opponent with CC>20, so you used MA3 instead. In N4 MA4 is now as good or better than MA3 in all situations.