Protean questions

[Johnny]

Is Protean claw damage based on Brawl or Melee?

Also, the claws deal aggravated damage - how useful is this? Enemy vampires do not seem to regenerate anyway (the bosses never do, and the lessers die too swiftly) so aggro isn't any better than lethal.

[memimo]

Well, the claws are listed as weapons in the console, but the manual does say that it turns the vampires hands into claws, so i figure they depend on unarmed not melee.

But I do know that enemy vamps do regenerate. Just much slower than you do... so that u can run away, hide, regenerate and then come back to finish the job.

[matthew13]

Protean claws are definitely based on brawl (says so in the manual if you look close enough). Also, and I could be wrong on this, aggravated damage cannot be defended against (maybe for those with a Fortitude skill). I've noticed that vampires and other boss types go down real fast when using Protean claws at the higher levels.

A couple problems with Protean: framerates can make this style of combat seem slow if you don't have a fairly top end system; and damage does not get really impressive until Protean 4 or 5.

[memimo]

Aggravated damage is defended against in a different way... in the game, u have 3 defences -- blunt, lethal and aggravated. That's why fire usually hurts like hell, whereas a baseball to the skull can be glanced off. and I assume most enemies don't defend against aggravated damage too well. Hence the flamethrower's lack of ammo...

[Faust]

Protean is based on brawl. The claws deal aggravated damage. My major issue with protean was that I felt it was clumsy and awkward. While the damage was useful situationally, it always felt inferior to what I could do with a katana, as I was able to move the katana much faster. As such, I wasn't convinced that aggravated damage had the same type of "advantage" it does in PnP or VtM Redemption. In theory it can't be defended against (though, I would add, fortitude defends against it), however, in game play terms lethal damage isn't defended against particularly well by your foes either.

From my experience, I felt protean could have used some tweaking. Now, those with superior video cards than mine, a lot of visual adjustments, and a lot more passion for the Protean discipline will defend it. But this was my not so uncommon experience with its aggravated damage. Personally, I longed to see protean emulate its PnP counterpart a bit more. A variety of shape changing powers would make me want to play a Gangrel every time through....