With the update, fist weapons can now be forged with an ability called “Power Grab”. When a fist forged with power grab breaks a block or a downed creature the items are returned to the player. Unfortunately, many of the best use cases are out of reach so for now this is mainly a parlor trick. Can the devs show some love for the fist and fix one of these major hurdles that stop Power Grab from being useful?
First off to loot a creature you must first kill it, and then hit it an additional time with the power grab fist to retrieve the items. This can be very difficult on enemies which fell when they died. That floating cuttletrunk you killed? It fell out of the sky and into water. You still need to dive in the water to retrieve it. That roadrunner you shot? It was sprinting at full speed away from you, you still have to navigate around to find it at the bottom of a gulch. If you kill several things, it will still be faster to run over to them to loot at close range with an autoharvester than with Power Grab. It means you have to spend extra durability and extra time to use Power Grab, and wasn’t saving time the whole purpose of having Power Grab in the first place? Why not make it so that fists with Power Grab can kill and return the items in the same shot?
Next, the fist will not break surface resources like plants or boulders. Why can we grab onto a sheer cliff and pull a cube out of it, but we can’t grab onto a palm-sized pebble or a flower with a thin stalk? Wouldn’t this be an excellent time to use power grab? To pick up those thinly spread sundrops? You still have to locate your target and aim well to get anything. It would be great if you could grab surface resources with the fist.
The only thing it does grab well is blocks, but even that could use some major improvement. You still have to click for each thing you want to break and grab and cannot use skills like rapid fire on the fist which would make it so you can click and hold. Power Grab would also pair well with the aoe effect. You can forge AOE onto a fist, but it does not actually break multiple blocks, it only lowers the fists damage.
At it’s base range the fists only have marginally more range than an autoharvester (11 m versus 9 m). That means you absolutely need to pair range and power grab together to get some use out of it, still it seems pretty weak as all the major uses that come to mind apparently don’t work.
I think it is because that kind of block haves no physical hit box and therefore the projectile from the fist will go right thru it, making it impossible for the fist to target and damage the flower.
I do not think any changes can make this situation more time saving then simply using an auto harvesting tool. Mostly due to the fact that fist weapons are limited by their action speed, and the auto loot boon is not limited by action speed.
I agree. And since using this as an autoloot tool will reward you for accuracy, the range could be justified to be longer than an autoharvest tool. Or maybe it’s a technical issue?
If there is only 1 or 2 mobs, or the mob is higher elevation then you are, then yes I can see that being the case, and if you are solo hunting on a lower level world
however if there are 5+ mobs then the action speed of the fist can slow it down to the point the auto-looter is faster, as all you have to do is run around, while you use a higher damage weapon to kill the mobs
Furthermore, If you are hunting with other people, or are on a public hunt, then the bonus of killing the mob and having the it being back the loot in one go may simply not be possible, if someone else kills it,
Lastly Until they make gem fists, (And they better do it at some point or i might start sending physical letters in the postal system to their office a few times a week, requesting gem fists) this bonus I feel is somewhat limited on high level worlds, as a modest amount of players use slingbows as the main weapon.
I feel this boon and tool just is not suited for general mob item collection, and is more suited for specialized situations such as if there is just a handful of mobs or the mob is out of reach in terms of elevation.
I think this boon is much better suited for mining purposes, and on that note, as you mentioned, They do need to fix the AoE boon on the fists,
But would it hurt the tool to make it so items are returned to you with the same hit? If it’s technically easier to do if it’s only on last hits, so be it. The one great use I see is a range sniper for hunting roadrunners. Or just other solo hunting sessions, not everyone hunts in a group.
No, it wouldn’t hurt the tool. My statements simply points out that the auto looter is better in most cases but not all cases, and that i feel nearly no amount of adjusting will make the fist boon equal to or better then the auto-looter for general use.
This is deliberate as the Fist is setup to not collide with the surface resources. This is because the Fist is primarily a weapon and getting your attacks blocks by the surface resources or grass would be annoying.
That doesnt answer the what is probably the most important part of Tonezones post tho. When I read about the fist I assumed that the fist would bring you the drops from whatever it killed cause you know, that just kinda makes sense. I dont understand why it was decided not to have that feature but in my opinion (I havnt used the fist yet so idk if its really cool yet anyway) it should definitely have that feature to make it really useful and fun. If not then it should at least be able to be forged to have that ability! Theres my 7 cents lol