Games with unarmed combat classes?

syntax42

I am looking for games which have at least one class which fights without weapons.  Fist or claw weapons are fine, but not daggers.  A staff-based melee combat class would also be fine.  The premise of the game should not be martial arts, like Age of Wushu.  The class should be well-balanced with the game and not stand out as underpowered.  

I prefer pay-to-play games, but I am willing to try F2P games as long as they are not horribly favoring those who pay large amounts of money.

cranthug

I am guessing you have no interest in Final Fantasy XIV?  They have the pugilist/monk class in game...supposedly one of the more "complex" jobs to dps with as some of their abilities are off the GCD, as well as having positional attacks for exploiting mob susceptibility from flank and rear attacks.  I have not played one myself but have seen them in action and they at least look pretty cool.

http://finalfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/Monk

syntax42

I might give FF:XIV a try, but it just came out and I want to wait until the servers are fixed.  I also want a free trial before I spend money on something I don't think I will like.  The flashy Asian graphics for just about every ability is an art style I do not enjoy in games.

cranthug

yes, at default settings it is still way too flashy haha.  I turned all effects off except for my own.  Not as blinding.

Dirkin

I don't claim to know all the games, but apart from the already mentioned monk in FFXIV, you'd have to go back a ways to find a good monk class. I can't really remember any in recent games. There are the monks in EQ and EQ2, and in Vanguard.

 

IIRC, in EQ a monk could fight bare handed but they mostly use clubs or other common weapon types. I know in Vanguard the monk class can use bare hands and is limited to martial weapons and uses mostly claws/handwraps or a bladed staff, etc. Vanguard also has the Disciple class, which is a monk/healer class that shares many of the same traits and is quite powerful.

Behold123

Dungeon and dragons online has a monk  class that uses quarterstaff, handwraps or shortswords. the game has really good character customization so if you want you can use multiclassing to make any class an unarmed fighter.

its a premium game so you can play a significant amount for free  and if you like  you can subscribe to unlock all content except for those from expansion packs. The expansion pack content is mostly late/end-game so you would not need to bother buying unless you like the game.

 

fivetigers

Asheron's Call has Unarmed (claw, fist, katar) combat.  It's not a martial arts themed game though.  How powerful or underpowered  it is depends on your overall character build (you pick and level up your own skills).  Pretty sweet game, pay to play.

 

Edit: Forgot to mention, it also has staves.  You could even be a character that switches between unarmed and staff.

ariboersma

wow has monk(staff or fists), rogues(fists) and Shaman (fists).. but I wouldnt suggest you play it =P and all three can use other weapons.. also I think warrios and DKs might be able to DW fist weaps but not 100% there.

AtmaDarkwolf

I honestly want to see a REAL unarmed class based character, one that does NOT need to use comically huge or silly looking 'katars' or claws or such(which, contrary to what most mmo devs think, are NOT unarmed, and DO require 'skill' to use that is FAR different than true 'unarmed' fighting which requires grappling and nerve strikes which you cannot do with such weapons.

 

 

LOL oh well, too complex to balance it out, since by straight 'value' an unarmed character is at a huge disadvantage to a armed character (With any weapon) and to 'balance' it out only, at the same time, serves to make the class/character over powerful and unbalances the whole thing.

 

But imagine how cool it would be to be in control of a 'control' based character who does low dps yet causes 'root' and paralizing effects with his martial arts. Trips, grapples, etc.