Monk Boss Dps > Barb/Fighter Dps Post U11?

[xxpwnedxx]

So since raid bosses have been outfitted with fortification does that mean monks rule out over those barbs/fighters in dps fights??

Discuss.

[Maxallu]

I will guess no.

[elg582]

Answer #1: It's going to depend on the boss.

Answer #2: The 2 classes are, and always have been, extremely hard to compare; what is "equivalent gear" for example? They use entirely different items.

In practical terms, both classes are (well, can be) high DPS; monks are a premium class, though, you have to buy them. Why would you buy a class that isn't better than a free class?

[Alex301]

Do we have any hard numbers for boss fortification yet? I'd still bet on barbarians but it will be closer now.

And better does not necessarily mean more DPS. Monks get many abilities barbarians don't.

[Vissarion]

Pure monks, no. They have other perks, though.

Multiclass monks with lots of haste boosts, probably much closer.

[DawnofEntropy]

The thing about monks is that they are kill fast or die fast, they are ONLY dps. Which they are equivilent to with a fighter currently They hit 7 hits each with x while the fighters and Paladins hits 2 hits in that time with 4x and a Barbarian makes 2 hits with 5x.
x=power of attack.

Monks are designed to take out mages and ranged fighters before they die, fighters barbarians and paladins are designed to hit consistently hard in close combat enemies and take a significant amount of damage.

[Soleran]

So since raid bosses have been outfitted with fortification does that mean monks rule out over those barbs/fighters in dps fights??

Discuss.

Pure monks probably do not out dps barbs or fighters in u11.

You would be more competitive if you were 12 monk 8 fighter or 12 monk 7 fighter 1 rogue.

[Cold_Stele]

Possibly.

Enjoy your spot in the limelight whilst you can, pray you're not the next build the devs whack with the nerf bat for absolutely no understandable reason.


At least you've lasted longer than HElves, one minute they make you the king of boosts, the next boost builds get smacked down in U11 epic raids.

[andbr22]

Don't overestimate Fortification.
Generaly fort was added to epic raid bosses that didn't had fortification (still I don't understand why Leliath had to have any with her bikini kind of armor). On normal endgame raid bosses should have around 50% (rogues with that fort should still outdps other melees).

Also it highly depend on build, and how long take battle.
(For example Lord of Blades even on normal it takes more than 5 minutes to kill him -> most fighters / rogues run out of hastle boost in that time; that same generaly goes for master artificer).
Human / half elf with new fancy damage boosts. Mixing fighter / rogue or even ranger favorite enemy.
Also equipment - if you are equiped purely on DPS (epic claw, holy burst ring, second burst ring, +5 holy metal warps of greater bane, other stuff that not coming me in mind yet). You aslo get biggest boost from bard songs.
Then MAYBE you will be able to outDPS people on hardest content with heaveist forted enemies that were not improved sundered etc.).

[Vissarion]

The thing about monks is that they are kill fast or die fast, they are ONLY dps. Which they are equivilent to with a fighter currently They hit 7 hits each with x while the fighters and Paladins hits 2 hits in that time with 4x and a Barbarian makes 2 hits with 5x.
x=power of attack.

Monks are designed to take out mages and ranged fighters before they die, fighters barbarians and paladins are designed to hit consistently hard in close combat enemies and take a significant amount of damage.

I don't know what monks you play with, but monks should generally be more durable than the other melee classes. They may not have the gigantic gobs of HP, but they will generally have north of 450 if built even remotely correctly, improved evasion, and capstone DR.

[andbr22]

I don't know what monks you play with, but monks should generally be more durable than the other melee classes. They may not have the gigantic gobs of HP, but they will generally have north of 450 if built even remotely correctly, improved evasion, and capstone DR.

don't forget higer than rest healing amplification

[Consumer]

Yay, let's all guess at the answer without having a clue what anything's like.

Clearly monks are better DPS because they attack faster with a Q staff than Barbarians.

[Consumer]

I don't know what monks you play with, but monks should generally be more durable than the other melee classes. They may not have the gigantic gobs of HP, but they will generally have north of 450 if built even remotely correctly, improved evasion, and capstone DR.

Easier to heal fleshy Barbs and high HP Fighters through endgame.

AC does jackall for 99% of monks and a smaller HP bar means it has to be refilled more often, taking more time and requiring running around like a lunatic spamming heals in some situations.

[Iaga]

Easier to heal fleshy Barbs and high HP Fighters through endgame.

AC does jackall for 99% of monks and a smaller HP bar means it has to be refilled more often, taking more time and requiring running around like a lunatic spamming heals in some situations.25% stacking displacement via shadow fade and DR 10 goes a surprisingly long way ...

[WTFFowler]

Easier to heal fleshy Barbs and high HP Fighters through endgame.

AC does jackall for 99% of monks and a smaller HP bar means it has to be refilled more often, taking more time and requiring running around like a lunatic spamming heals in some situations.

All those pesky aoe spells/traps/other things requiring saves be damned, he have high hp and healers. And as Iaga pointed out, shadow fade and displacement are a nice thing to have atop the 10 DR.

I'm sure the world would do just fine if we were all 900hp barbs that can crit for 4 digit numbers, but what a bleak world it would be

[redspecter23]

As fortification goes up, a monks relative DPS comes closer to anyone that is relying on a high crit range profile for extra dps. Various enhancements, weapons and potentially ToD rings will muck up the numbers this way and that, but assuming all things equal, monks do better against high fort mobs than against low fort mobs relative to other melee toons.

The extra bit that hasn't been mentioned yet, is the ability for both light and dark monks to lower the fortification of a boss and allow high crit profile toons to gain back some of their advantage. Even low wisdom dark monks can land a triple dark finisher on many bosses, especially after some improved sunder stacks are in place.

[moops]

Easier to heal fleshy Barbs and high HP Fighters through endgame.

AC does jackall for 99% of monks and a smaller HP bar means it has to be refilled more often, taking more time and requiring running around like a lunatic spamming heals in some situations.

But damage from many end game bosses can be greatly reduced if not avoided with evasion, which most fighter and barbs do not have. Monks make awesome main tanks, esp against Horoth whom a high AC tank without evasion still takes damage. Monk on last boss in echrono is awesome as well.

In the end it does not matter how much DPS one does, if one has no strategy. Average DPS is just fine for all current content.

[testing1234]

alchemical weapons (handwraps) does even the weapon situation at max lvl do think monk will be very close to fighters/barbs possible even higher with this new update on fortification bosses.
they just got a huge boost on best possible weapon possible on wraps (with exception on undeads were mabar was nerfed)
they just went from +0holy icy burst of bleed were the +5didnt work=+0 to a +6 silver acid blast lightning strike electrifying blast alchemical handwraps, and do remember the +6 working instead of +5not working its a very very large boost

edit: after consideration the monk weapon only shintao can afford not to use a silvertreaded weapon so possible should have compared with +0 silvertreaded holy of bleed intead since this is so rare logical to remove the icy burst as chance of finding that weapon randomly generated is so slim its irrelevant. also trying out the +5 that does not work is counter effective so corrected.

[Consumer]

In the end it does not matter how much DPS one does, if one has no strategy. Average DPS is just fine for all current content.

Average DPS inevitably requires more healing and resource use than high DPS unless the damage avoided by everyone (healing with mass heals) is mitigated to a large extent. High AC requires equipment slot and build sacrifices and will lose a massive amount of dps. High AC is not average DPS, high AC is low DPS.

You also waste more sp over healing on toons with lower HP, depending on the HP you may not even be able to keep them above a point where they can be burst down.




All those pesky aoe spells/traps/other things requiring saves be damned, he have high hp and healers. And as Iaga pointed out, shadow fade and displacement are a nice thing to have atop the 10 DR.

Traps?

Most can be bypassed with timing, most can be disabled, most don't do anywhere near enough to kill a high HP toon. Uncanny dodge, trap sense.

Shadow fade and displacement?

Invisibility potion, displacement clickies, and arcane.

10 DR?

10 DR/epic

Barb - 7 DR/- base

[Shade]

For the raids most commonly run.. nothings really changed.

Fort was always 50% on pit fiends.. It's still 50%.
Fort on abbot is 100% as always.

Yea some epic bosses are up to 50% who were otherwise 0%.. But bbns were far ahead on 50% already, so why would monks jump up?

DPS Challenge shows monks are great in bursts against 100% fort (especially the builds with heavy ftr splashs for haste boost iv), less and they are decent but behind.

[moops]

Average DPS inevitably requires more healing and resource use than high DPS unless the damage avoided by everyone (healing with mass heals) is mitigated to a large extent. High AC requires equipment slot and build sacrifices and will lose a massive amount of dps. High AC is not average DPS, high AC is low DPS.

You also waste more sp over healing on toons with lower HP, depending on the HP you may not even be able to keep them above a point where they can be burst down.





Traps?

Most can be bypassed with timing, most can be disabled, most don't do anywhere near enough to kill a high HP toon. Uncanny dodge, trap sense.

Shadow fade and displacement?

Invisibility potion, displacement clickies, and arcane.

10 DR?

10 DR/epic

Barb - 7 DR/- base

Thru strategy groups with average DPS succeed all the time without pot use, I know this because I lead them and I heal them.

Also the assumption that lower HP toons need to be healed more is pretty off.

[sigtrent]

I'd say there is enough range in "boss" fights now its not clear there is any one dominant means for DPs. Monks are certainly not slouches in the DPS game. There are lots of approaches to DPS. Some look better on paper, some seem to perform more consistently in game and as always strong aggressive play seems to be a stronger factor than the variation of high DPS builds.

Shade's DPS challenge is a nice measure for 100% fort targets and is well worth a look if you want to analyze such things. Of course he also has a nice non fort target in there that is worth looking at (though its still not a great measure for rogues).

I find monks vary a lot. Some are DPS power houses, others not so much. How you build them varies a lot. Barbarians are so heavily standardized build wise you almost always know about where they will stand in the party and its just gear and play skill that sets them apart and even with that I tend to only notice small differences.

[butlerfamilywa]

Shadow fade and displacement?

Invisibility potion, displacement clickies, and arcane.

10 DR?

10 DR/epic

Barb - 7 DR/- base


You realize of course that Shadow Fade is more than just invisibility right?

Also remember, a Monk in Earth IV stance (40HP higher than Fire, 60HP higher than wind), has an 8/- DR.

[valharan01]

This is a pointless topic really. Barbs are mindless DPS and nothing more. The era of Barb tanks is over with Fighter and Paladin being vastly superior choices. In point of fact Barb's are only DPS and are not so far ahead of the curve that they fill a useful role in a group anymore. Monk's however have had quite a few buffs in the form of utility that any party can take advantage of especially in a raid situation. Forget for a moment the DPS question which is never really a valid examination of a class in any respect and consider what is actually brought to the group by a well played monk. 1. Good DPS against any mob and excelling against specific types 2. Debuffs galore 3. buffing or cursing that stacks and is unavailable anywhere else except by a monk.

In the DPS vs Utility debate I am always going to side with utility and versatility rather than a 1 trick pony. I cannot count the number of times a character who can do amazing things has pulled our collective fat out of the fire and I also cannot count the number of times a quest has gone south and the 1000 hp barb who is last to die gets exploded because all he could do was swing an axe.

[Iaga]

Shadow fade and displacement?

Invisibility potion, displacement clickies, and arcane.

10 DR?

10 DR/epic

Barb - 7 DR/- baseShadow fade is an incorporeal miss chance (25%) that stacks with either blur or displacement.

Butler pointed out the Earth Stance.

Too many people think that huge meat sacks are the best way to tank in this game. At times they are, but there are tons of other times when a big bag of health is the last thing i want to see when i'm on my healer.

/end derail - sorry OP

[Pintail]

Answer #1: It's going to depend on the boss.

Answer #2: The 2 classes are, and always have been, extremely hard to compare; what is "equivalent gear" for example? They use entirely different items.

In practical terms, both classes are (well, can be) high DPS; monks are a premium class, though, you have to buy them. Why would you buy a class that isn't better than a free class?

Because they are fun to play.

[Rdonaccount]

Shadow fade and displacement?

Invisibility potion, displacement clickies, and arcane.



For someone criticizing others for not having a clue, you sure missed the mark on shadow fade. It's the 25% incorporeality (no raid boss has ghost touch) that offers a significant amount of survivability. Your barb can't replicate that.

[Alkindus]

This is a pointless topic really. Barbs are mindless DPS and nothing more. The era of Barb tanks is over with Fighter and Paladin being vastly superior choices. In point of fact Barb's are only DPS and are not so far ahead of the curve that they fill a useful role in a group anymore. Monk's however have had quite a few buffs in the form of utility that any party can take advantage of especially in a raid situation. Forget for a moment the DPS question which is never really a valid examination of a class in any respect and consider what is actually brought to the group by a well played monk. 1. Good DPS against any mob and excelling against specific types 2. Debuffs galore 3. buffing or cursing that stacks and is unavailable anywhere else except by a monk.

In the DPS vs Utility debate I am always going to side with utility and versatility rather than a 1 trick pony. I cannot count the number of times a character who can do amazing things has pulled our collective fat out of the fire and I also cannot count the number of times a quest has gone south and the 1000 hp barb who is last to die gets exploded because all he could do was swing an axe.

Barbs are miles ahead of monks, and pretty much anyone else, with the exception of a few. Your statement that barbs don't fill a useful role in a group made me laugh :). My barb fills the role of making raids not take forever and the healers not have to chug pots. We do 20 minute normal Lob's with no pots because of the barbs. I crank out about 700 dps with buffs, how about you?

Regarding debuffs.. can you even land those and keep those up 95% of the time on epic bosses? My barbs 56 dc improved sunder would work every time :)

[valharan01]

Barbs are miles ahead of monks, and pretty much anyone else, with the exception of a few. Your statement that barbs don't fill a useful role in a group made me laugh :). My barb fills the role of making raids not take forever and the healers not have to chug pots. We do 20 minute normal Lob's with no pots because of the barbs. I crank out about 700 dps with buffs, how about you?

Regarding debuffs.. can you even land those and keep those up 95% of the time on epic bosses? My barbs 56 dc improved sunder would work every time :)

In epics and everywhere else. You say that pure DPS makes raids better but I have seen far more raids fail due to sp sponge barbs than I ever have because of monks. Barbs make bad tanks esp now and they are great dps but thats about it. Don't be mad the meta will change soon and you'll be back in the spotlight.

[Alkindus]

In epics and everywhere else. You say that pure DPS makes raids better but I have seen far more raids fail due to sp sponge barbs than I ever have because of monks. Barbs make bad tanks esp now and they are great dps but thats about it. Don't be mad the meta will change soon and you'll be back in the spotlight.

My barb has 820 hp and a heal scroll usually hits him for about 300 or so ( I've 71% amp), I need healing a lot less often than the 500 hp melees, but I recieve heals anyway due to their hp dropping below a threshold. I am not sure how a barb is an sp sponge.
In most situations I can still tank fine, I would prefer not to though. We use barbs *gasp* to tank in LoB when our real tanks are timered.
And, I'm still in the spotlight. Barbs do the highest damage possible.

[Consumer]

Thru strategy groups with average DPS succeed all the time without pot use, I know this because I lead them and I heal them.

Also the assumption that lower HP toons need to be healed more is pretty off.

It's not off it's true. I lead all the raids I did apart from 4/5 before I TRed (similar again with epic quests) and puged them all, they complete but it is more straining and the mass heals are always on the high HP toon as it is a rock that will not drop.

A 500 HP toon brought down to 300 HP is far more at risk than a 800 HP toon brought down to 600 HP. I have to overheal the lower HP toon to make sure he does not drop where as the high HP can often be left to drop further without the same risk.

You must also notice with ~ 400-500 HP monks that without good CC in some epics you have to cast mass heal before any damage is taken due to the fast and large drop in HP that happens everytime they take damage.



For someone criticizing others for not having a clue, you sure missed the mark on shadow fade. It's the 25% incorporeality (no raid boss has ghost touch) that offers a significant amount of survivability. Your barb can't replicate that.

I'm sorry, Monks have never been top dog at anything so I never really bothered checking them thoroughly, it was not listed as 25% percent in the compendium so I moved on. Monks that take the Dark path take 25% less melee attacks than light, they also cannot prevent stun, do not get the DR bypass as easily and lose the "utility" that is the Monks main selling point. Even with the 25% the monk is still more at risk than a toon with a much higher hp buffer.


unless the damage avoided by everyone (healing with mass heals) is mitigated to a large extent

Again if the Monk is not the only one in need of healing you are still using sp to mass heal him, whether it is needed or not. If the whole party is made up of Dex/Wis dark monks with high AC, evasion and shadow fade, the raid takes much longer to complete.



Also remember, a Monk in Earth IV stance (40HP higher than Fire, 60HP higher than wind), has an 8/- DR.

And what do you lose by going into earth stance over others?

[Retsam]

Again if the Monk is not the only one in need of healing you are still using sp to mass heal him, whether it is needed or not. If the whole party is made up of Dex/Wis dark monks with high AC, evasion and shadow fade, the raid takes much longer to complete.


Gotta say.. you're the only one saying anything about AC at all. Most monks being played now are STR/CON with
15 DEX so they can down a +2 tome for GTWF(possibly 14 or even 13 DEX if it is a TR that got lucky with tomes)..

They MIGHT dump the rest into wisdom, but i doubt it..

[Malky]

Shadow fade and displacement?

Invisibility potion, displacement clickies, and arcane.

10 DR?

10 DR/epic

Barb - 7 DR/- base

The difference is that shadow fade works for epic/raid bosses while displacement usually does not

GM earth stance is dr 8/- as well

Edit : Lol i'm only the 8th to reply *confused*

On a side note, a pure monk (usually WF) can also have in the vicinity of 800hp when built well (i.e. not gimping the DPS / utility too much) : 800hp, imp. evasion, very good saves and 25% incorporeality is probably more survivable than any barb you could pull out.

[Consumer]

Gotta say.. you're the only one saying anything about AC at all. Most monks being played now are STR/CON with
15 DEX so they can down a +2 tome for GTWF(possibly 14 or even 13 DEX if it is a TR that got lucky with tomes)..

They MIGHT dump the rest into wisdom, but i doubt it..

The lower HP Monks are dex/wis based and many are not STR/CON. Wouldn't 15 Dex stop you from getting air IV which requires an 18 DEX. Those STR/CON monks wasting a level up or going fire for +2/2 and ki generation. Whichever way they do it they make sacrifices Barbs and Fighters do not have to make.


On a side note, a pure monk (usually WF) can also have in the vicinity of 800hp when built well (i.e. not gimping the DPS / utility too much) : 800hp, imp. evasion, very good saves and 25% incorporeality is probably more survivable than any barb you could pull out.

The same argument as the old intimitanks. They may be very survivable but their damage output is awful.

WF power attack also lowers to hit and how many Monks can compare to the THF ESoS Barbarian (high 60ies to low 70ies for 25+ minutes, bursting even higher), looking at somewhere around 20 lower to hit than the Barb without way of the tenacious badger, not enough for epics. WF Monk will have a mid 40ies STR (Barb 70) and a -2 Wisdom penalty reducing DCs, at 800 HP all free feats are toughness meaning no imp sunder and stunning blow. Barb does not have this problem.

Have run a reaver in the past with a monk that boosted past 1000 with the reaver buff. However HP was all his toon could do.

[rodallec]

Monks can be awesome dps.
I believe they are harder to build and gear then barbs.
Nearly got a screenie of 3000 dps on my monk. S being second.
Tried to replicate but only got one with about 2000dps then tr'd
That's on trash though.. So definitely capable of high burst dps :)

Giving bosses increased fort doesnt effect monk dps like it did rogues.

[Orange-Silk]

A 500 HP toon brought down to 300 HP is far more at risk than a 800 HP toon brought down to 600 HP. I have to overheal the lower HP toon to make sure he does not drop where as the high HP can often be left to drop further without the same risk.


Well, the thing is that, by the time the monk has dropped to 300 HP, the barb is likely at 400 HP since they:

a) Actively damage themselves for their DPS.
b) Without evasion, they take far more spell damage, which is usually the spikiest damage.
c) They have aggro unless there's a dedicated tank in the team since they ARE superior DPS (If you play a barb with no aggro with no dedicated tank around, I kindly recommend a reroll).

And I feel a 400HP barb is much more at danger than a 300HP monk since spell damage is usually the spikiest and monk saves are nicer.

Still, barbs are superior DPS and highly survivable, dark monks are less DPS (the difference isn't that big on 100% fort but barb still pulls ahead) and slightly more survivable, and light monks are mostly utility and CC. I have zero problem with any of these in a raid, and a raid with only monks as DPS would do just fine, if a bit slower than the barb one.

But to answer the real question: No, monks aren't higher DPS than barbs now, they just bring entirely different things to the table, and while barbs are awesome at boss beatdowns on mass heals, when running 6-mans, monks have a nice array of things to do when stuff goes south, and barbs just have HP and an urgent need for a healer.

Now, you can take the stupid approach and allow only barbs in your raids, or you can just accept whatever comes your way (yes, even the 190HP rogue who wants to do EVoN)

[Consumer]

Monks can be awesome dps.
I believe they are harder to build and gear then barbs.
Nearly got a screenie of 3000 dps on my monk. S being second.
Tried to replicate but only got one with about 2000dps then tr'd
That's on trash though.. So definitely capable of high burst dps :)

Giving bosses increased fort doesnt effect monk dps like it did rogues.

Your max geared Monk had about 550HP fully buffed?

DPS is an average, not the damage contained within 1 second of max possible output.

[hockeyrama]

a high hp monk usually does not have the best dps (stance and stat choices) and also is wf (means harder to heal then other races even with all the healers friend to boost) and had to sacrifice the superhigh evasion (again stat choices). So in essence they are trying to be barbs with evasion and lower dps (even on fort bosses). However, there are very few high hp monks. Almost everyone I see is in the 4-500 range. Now as a healer in many raids and epics I hate those. Problem is I have to spam more heals to adjust for those. Lets say a party getting hit hard and most people taking some damage. Now the monk takes any and i have to toss a mass crit as I see him down to 250 and worry that a failed save on a spell (everyone can roll a 1) and he now dead. Where the 8-900 barb/fighter can be down to 500 (down almost 400hps which is the total of the monk) and I still may not need to throw a mass. The easiest to heal are the 18fighter/2monk ac,dps,hps,evasion toons in stalwart with over 900hps. They are considerably easier to heal. However, I would ratehr have a 800hp barb then a 500hp monk anyday. Spamming mass cure crits to keep the low hps up is very draining on the sp. I always laugh going into a raid and my pm pure wiz or clonk cleric (both always over 500hps) have more hps then the monk who expects to stand toe-to-toe with a boss.

[Consumer]

Well, the thing is that, by the time the monk has dropped to 300 HP, the barb is likely at 400 HP since they:

a) Actively damage themselves for their DPS.
b) Without evasion, they take far more spell damage, which is usually the spikiest damage.
c) They have aggro unless there's a dedicated tank in the team since they ARE superior DPS (If you play a barb with no aggro with no dedicated tank around, I kindly recommend a reroll).

And I feel a 400HP barb is much more at danger than a 300HP monk since spell damage is usually the spikiest and monk saves are nicer.

Maybe you feel that way, but there's such a thing as melee damage and endgame mobs can do quite a bit of it. 40+ damage per hit from epic trash = 10/2 hits and the monk is dead. Mobs are normally in groups of 3 and up. Take the Scorps in claw, you have groups of 3 scorpions and guardians and some stragglers around. If CC isn't down fast enough the 400 HP toon is dead before a mass heal can be cast. The barb has another Monk HP bar left to take damage with.

Self damage is not a problem, nor has it ever been.

[Malky]

The same argument as the old intimitanks. They may be very survivable but their damage output is awful.

WF power attack also lowers to hit and how many Monks can compare to the THF ESoS Barbarian (high 60ies to low 70ies for 25+ minutes, bursting even higher), looking at somewhere around 20 lower to hit than the Barb without way of the tenacious badger, not enough for epics. WF Monk will have a mid 40ies STR (Barb 70) and a -2 Wisdom penalty reducing DCs, at 800 HP all free feats are toughness meaning no imp sunder and stunning blow. Barb does not have this problem.

Have run a reaver in the past with a monk that boosted past 1000 with the reaver buff. However HP was all his toon could do.

I somewhat agree on the to-hit being a concern for monks, but it's mostly a matter of gear. Cannith crafting introduced a very nice possibility for exemple : Blindness immunity of attack +4 googles with a med/large guild augment slot (i.e. 15 or 20 hp that stacks with everything else). If 800 hp is attainable, it's usually in earth stance and here's what hinders the to-hit too much imo : -2 from not being in fire stance, and -2 from not having the shintao set due to oremi (or alchemical pendant now) being used to generate Ki. Some people live with a lower Ki gen and stay in earth stance with shintao equipped.

That being said, 750ish hp in fire stance is not anywhere near squishy imo when 28.75 % of a raid boss swings are either misses (roll of 0) or incorporeality misses, and in that case a properly designed&geared monk won't have much trouble hitting things. Mine was WF (tr'd into a pure barb atm heh), but i think a horc can easily sport 700+ hp, up to 750ish maybe in fire stance at most without gimping dps much (that means 2 or 3 toughness feats, not all of them ofc!) and that with over 200% amp so scroll healing can go a long way as well here.

The one thing now that favors barbs a lot is supreme cleave spams in packs of trash mobs : no other melee can dream of that kind of dps spike.

Edit: Btw my monk happened to tank a hard vod (pre u11) a few days after hitting the exp cap... i had no incite gear at all and sported 616hp at that time... with devout handwraps i didn't loose aggro at any time and the sorc hjealing me did pretty much everything with scrolls. Add some incite gear and a pair of craftable silver wraps... not to mention greater banes are also +4 to-hit so the enhancement bonus of such wraps is +9 vs their intended target, not that much under an e-sos.

[Ecoski]

a high hp monk usually does not have the best dps (stance and stat choices) and also is wf (means harder to heal then other races even with all the healers friend to boost) and had to sacrifice the superhigh evasion (again stat choices). So in essence they are trying to be barbs with evasion and lower dps (even on fort bosses). However, there are very few high hp monks. Almost everyone I see is in the 4-500 range. Now as a healer in many raids and epics I hate those. Problem is I have to spam more heals to adjust for those. Lets say a party getting hit hard and most people taking some damage. Now the monk takes any and i have to toss a mass crit as I see him down to 250 and worry that a failed save on a spell (everyone can roll a 1) and he now dead. Where the 8-900 barb/fighter can be down to 500 (down almost 400hps which is the total of the monk) and I still may not need to throw a mass. The easiest to heal are the 18fighter/2monk ac,dps,hps,evasion toons in stalwart with over 900hps. They are considerably easier to heal. However, I would ratehr have a 800hp barb then a 500hp monk anyday. Spamming mass cure crits to keep the low hps up is very draining on the sp. I always laugh going into a raid and my pm pure wiz or clonk cleric (both always over 500hps) have more hps then the monk who expects to stand toe-to-toe with a boss.

I played a wf dark monk, and ended up sitting on about 600.

160 base
300 40 con (18 base+2tome+2ship+6item+2enhancements+4madstone+4ea rth)
45 GS
30 GFL
46 toughness x2
20 toughness enhancements
20 minos

601hp

As well as that, wf monks still can attain a much higher heal amp up until lvl 20, where the heal amp gap is closer.

30% monk healing amp
25% wf heal amp
10% DT
20% DT
25% Jidz

My saves are high enough that I can grab the fire and earth elemental from shroud on elite, prepare them both then just stand there, occasionally punching them for a bit of hp if the earth ele does a normal attack.

And on epic, I have a DR8/-, but for all other occasions I can comfortably sit on DR10. Even with a starting wisdom of 8, my will save is high enough, my fortitude save is above par and my reflex save is also high. As well as all of that though, I still can sit on top of kill counts, unless there is a very well geared barbarian. Like I've said in other threads, the barbarian can beat any other class for sustainable dps, but the monk brings far more utility to the table, and they're tricky little buggers to kill if played properly.

TL;DR- Barbs can win on dps, but monks can reach high levels of hp, deal good damage and come with a large assortments of tricks (high saves, improved evasion, stuns, shadow fade, debuffs, buffs etc.)

[Orange-Silk]

Maybe you feel that way, but there's such a thing as melee damage and endgame mobs can do quite a bit of it. 40+ damage per hit from epic trash = 10/2 hits and the monk is dead. Mobs are normally in groups of 3 and up. Take the Scorps in claw, you have groups of 3 scorpions and guardians and some stragglers around. If CC isn't down fast enough the 400 HP toon is dead before a mass heal can be cast. The barb has another Monk HP bar left to take damage with.

Self damage is not a problem, nor has it ever been.

Oh, I didn't know we were talking about trash instead of bosses. The the monk wins hand down as they are the single best melee CC class, barb depends on someone else bringing the CC to the table (maybe a stunning blow every 30 secs if they spent the feat), the monk actively brings the CC to the table while dealing dps. tomb of jade, kukan-do, stunning fist, stunning blow (many monks use it to decent DC's), the void strikes, you name it.

In trash mob scenarios I'd gladly have a full-monk team, in boss scenarios the barb pulls ahead by doing ridiculous DPS while holding his own in survivability. The other advantage of barbs is that to play a monk to full power you need fast fingers, fast reflexes, awesome micro-management and cooldown control, to play a barb to full power you need to look at the rage timer once in a while and maybe twitch or cleave twitch, so it's much more common to see barbs played to their full potential than monks played to their full potential.

My point about self-damage is that, on static boss fight scenarios, the barb HP bar does go down faster than the monks, since it's both the boss AND the barb working to get it down.

[eulogy098]

I wrote this in another thread, and it applies here too::



My dark monk, at its best was not even close to my Barbs at his medium. They were nearly equally geared.

6d6 vicious damage and monsterous base damage along with now 25% damage boost is just too much to overcome , even on 100% fort targets. Barbs are not as reliant on crits as some people are suggesting. frenzy3 19-20 crit multiplers are the icing on the cake, not the cake its self. My dark monk suffered more from fort then my barb, as he lost his Helf sneak attack and prestige sneak attacks.

If multiple targets are around the barbarian has so much higher dps then the monk that the monk may as well not even be calculated at all. As someone suggested it is kinda like comparing apples to oranges. Although I would more compare it as a 50 Cal machine gun vs a 22 Rifle.

I'm guessing anyone that's even remotely suggesting that a Dark Monk can be even a fifty-percentile of a Barbs DPS simply hasn't really played both.

In fact my Dark Monks dps was so pale in comparison to my Barb that I ended up respecing him into Light. Why bother aiming for max dps when your max isnt even close. Lights utility and cc are much more valuable imo.

:::

[Consumer]

I somewhat agree on the to-hit being a concern for monks, but it's mostly a matter of gear. Cannith crafting introduced a very nice possibility for exemple : Blindness immunity of attack +4 googles with a med/large guild augment slot (i.e. 15 or 25 hp that stacks with everything else). If 800 hp is attainable, it's usually in earth stance and here's what hinders the to-hit too much imo : -2 from not being in fire stance, and -2 from not having the shintao set due to oremi (or alchemical pendant now) being used to generate Ki. Some people live with a lower Ki gen and stay in earth stance with shintao equipped.

That being said, 750ish hp in fire stance is not anywhere near squishy imo when 28.75 % of a raid boss swings are either misses (roll of 0) or incorporeality misses, and in that case a properly designed&geared monk won't have much trouble hitting things. Mine was WF (tr'd into a pure barb atm heh), but i think a horc can easily sport 700+ hp, up to 750ish maybe in fire stance at most without gimping dps much (that means 2 or 3 toughness feats, not all of them ofc!) and that with over 200% amp so scroll healing can go a long way as well here.

The one thing now that favors barbs a lot is supreme cleave spams in packs of trash mobs : no other melee can dream of that kind of dps spike.

Edit: Btw my monk happened to tank a hard vod (pre u11) a few days after hitting the exp cap... i had no incite gear at all and sported 616hp at that time... with devout handwraps i didn't loose aggro at any time and the sorc hjealing me did pretty much everything with scrolls. Add some incite gear and a pair of craftable silver wraps... not to mention greater banes are also +4 to-hit so the enhancement bonus of such wraps is +9 vs their intended target, not that much under an e-sos.


The Monks to hit will normally be sitting around 50 first hit, not enough. Your +9 is actually +5 overall due to the penalty for TWF. Crafted goggles would have to replace Tharne's which give more to hit when you don't have agro along with true seeing.

I tanked elite VoD at 17 on a 15/2 Barb using random loot boss beaters and no incite gear. VoD is a joke.




Oh, I didn't know we were talking about trash instead of bosses. The the monk wins hand down as they are the single best melee CC class, barb depends on someone else bringing the CC to the table (maybe a stunning blow every 30 secs if they spent the feat), the monk actively brings the CC to the table while dealing dps. tomb of jade, kukan-do, stunning fist, stunning blow (many monks use it to decent DC's), the void strikes, you name it.

Monk CC abilities require wisdom for DC don't they. Not a primary stat for a str/con monk, stunning blow for a barb though that STR sure omes in handy.

What AOE attacks does the average monk use?

Also that light monk has lower dps than the dark monk, there seems to be no consistency with monks.

[krogyy]

The Monks to hit will normally be sitting around 50 first hit, not enough. Your +9 is actually +5 overall due to the penalty for TWF. Crafted goggles would have to replace Tharne's which give more to hit when you don't have agro along with true seeing.


monks do not suffer from twf to-hit penalties...

Edit: ...when fighting unarmed.

[Thrudh]

monks do not suffer from twf to-hit penalties...

Edit: ...when fighting unarmed.

They also get full STR damage from both hands, not 1/2 STR damage like normal TWF characters.

Monk DPS is not as a good as a Barb/Fighter... But it's still plenty good, and they bring many other things to the table...

I have a DPS barbarian, and I have more verstatile characters... All get the job done... Ignore the people who always say "High DPS means less resources used". That's not always true... A good AC tank will save a ton more resources than a 900 hp meat-bag, even if the fight takes 45 seconds longer. A monk with shadow-fade and evasion and the high healing amp monk get can tank just as well as a 900 hp meat-bag..

All characters are solid. There is a lot more to this game than DPS.

[Consumer]

monks do not suffer from twf to-hit penalties...

Edit: ...when fighting unarmed.

I'm getting everything wrong atm lol, have some rep.

[hockeyrama]

I played a wf dark monk, and ended up sitting on about 600.

160 base
300 40 con (18 base+2tome+2ship+6item+2enhancements+4madstone+4ea rth)
45 GS
30 GFL
46 toughness x2
20 toughness enhancements
20 minos

601hp

As well as that, wf monks still can attain a much higher heal amp up until lvl 20, where the heal amp gap is closer.

30% monk healing amp
25% wf heal amp
10% DT
20% DT
25% Jidz

My saves are high enough that I can grab the fire and earth elemental from shroud on elite, prepare them both then just stand there, occasionally punching them for a bit of hp if the earth ele does a normal attack.

And on epic, I have a DR8/-, but for all other occasions I can comfortably sit on DR10. Even with a starting wisdom of 8, my will save is high enough, my fortitude save is above par and my reflex save is also high. As well as all of that though, I still can sit on top of kill counts, unless there is a very well geared barbarian. Like I've said in other threads, the barbarian can beat any other class for sustainable dps, but the monk brings far more utility to the table, and they're tricky little buggers to kill if played properly.

TL;DR- Barbs can win on dps, but monks can reach high levels of hp, deal good damage and come with a large assortments of tricks (high saves, improved evasion, stuns, shadow fade, debuffs, buffs etc.)

you hav eshown your healing amp without taking into account the penalty you start with a a wf. So a human monk would have way more healing amp then you and almost as much hps but again even a 600hp wf is still harder to heal then a 900hp barb (I say 900 as if you going to max out your mon then a maxed out barb is at around 900). The barb couls also wear a dt armor and be human end end up with more amp. Just trying to show that it is just easier.

That being said the discussion here was about dps from a monk to a bard and the barb will win. If you want to tank you are better with a 18fighter/2 monk or 12 fighter/6pally/2 monk. I am going to post one i have designed for my fighter based off one of the better ac hate tanks i know.

[Malky]

Like said above there's no penalty at all for handwraps, and :


Crafted goggles would have to replace Tharne's which give more to hit when you don't have agro along with true seeing.

We're talking about tanking here... tharne's usefulness when tanking is a tad limited imo ;)

Back on topic : against 100% fort monks indeed are very good dps'ers, i'm referring to shade's dps challenge here : http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=300873 see "any weapon portal entries"... (the challenge is a bit biased in a way : the portal has so few hps that the haste boosts from the splashed monks are very important here, it's a tad different in a long fight and in that case pure monks or 12mnk/8ftr will pull ahead of the other splashes)

Any lower fort brings barbs and multi TRed fighters with esos ahead, and against groups of trash mobs barbs are miles ahead of everyone. That being said, when it comes to tank things barbs are still very good, but so are well built/played monks.

On a side note i remember of a post of nick about what melee classes he wants for epic LoB & MA : pure barb, 18brb/2ftr, pure monk and 12mnk/8ftr... guess why ?

[Consumer]

We're talking about tanking here... tharne's usefulness when tanking is a tad limited imo ;)

We were discussing DPS and survivability. No one would have brought up Tharne's if this was a discussion about tanking. The OP contains the word DPS several times.

[broolthebeast]

either way both are out dps'ed by divines/arcanes till they have no more sp! :D

[elg582]

It's not off it's true. I lead all the raids I did apart from 4/5 before I TRed (similar again with epic quests) and puged them all, they complete but it is more straining and the mass heals are always on the high HP toon as it is a rock that will not drop.

A 500 HP toon brought down to 300 HP is far more at risk than a 800 HP toon brought down to 600 HP. I have to overheal the lower HP toon to make sure he does not drop where as the high HP can often be left to drop further without the same risk.

You must also notice with ~ 400-500 HP monks that without good CC in some epics you have to cast mass heal before any damage is taken due to the fast and large drop in HP that happens everytime they take damage.




I'm sorry, Monks have never been top dog at anything so I never really bothered checking them thoroughly, it was not listed as 25% percent in the compendium so I moved on. Monks that take the Dark path take 25% less melee attacks than light, they also cannot prevent stun, do not get the DR bypass as easily and lose the "utility" that is the Monks main selling point. Even with the 25% the monk is still more at risk than a toon with a much higher hp buffer.



Again if the Monk is not the only one in need of healing you are still using sp to mass heal him, whether it is needed or not. If the whole party is made up of Dex/Wis dark monks with high AC, evasion and shadow fade, the raid takes much longer to complete.




And what do you lose by going into earth stance over others?

OK, this illustrates exactly why so many people have a bad opinion about monks: Sheer ignorance.

I'm sorry, Consumer, I'm not trying to tear you down in any way, I'm sure you are a fine player on a barbarian, but you have such a skewed vision of how the monk class works that it is not surprising that you feel that they are less powerful.

Let's examine your last point, "What do you lose [and gain] from each stance?"
(Assuming 4th tier, but that is representative of 3rd tier, for the most part, as well)

- Fire: +4 STR, -2 WIS, more ki on hits; not used much anymore.
-Air: +4 DEX, -2 CON, 10% doublestrike (and alacrity if you are not hasted, making this the solo stance)
-Earth: +4 CON, -2 DEX, extra ki when hit, DR 8/-, +1 critical multiplier on 19-20
-Water: +4 WIS, -2 STR, bonus to saves, ac when tumbling, etc

Earth and Air are roughly equivalent DPS against crit-vulnerable enemies (or with 2+ bursting effects), while Fire and Water help your special moves (more ki or higher DCs). I tend to run in earth except against portals, abbot (undead), etc.

I guess that, for the most part, it's not you who's exactly wrong; I mean, you are, but only because so are most of the monks you apparently play with. Monk is a VERY difficult class to play, why is it surprising that most people play them badly?

Edit: And note that a badly built and played monk is still more than capable of completing all content in the game :)

[Malky]

We were discussing DPS and survivability. No one would have brought up Tharne's if this was a discussion about tanking. The OP contains the word DPS several times.

If you can tank a raid, you're likely survivable a well in that raid right ? people started talking about monks having low hp and that's simply false, a well built monk will have enough hp to stay alive without being a strain on the healer's sp pool, and he will maintain his dps well beyond a fighter in those new raids where everybody runs out of boosts (and some barbs actually ran out of rages as well on lamma). My point was that not only a monk can survive a raid, but he can even tank it as well.

Edit: not to mention the OP started about dps on bosses having increased fortification, SA dmg isn't that much important here.

As for dps, when i said that i tanked vod on hard when i was freshly 20 (first life ofc), it wasn't about the raid's difficulty : a freshly lvl 20 monk with pretty much no gear (no ToD rings, no epic claw set, no shintao set bonus, no past life, etc...) can keep suulo's aggro with no incite gear/enhancements.... how would it be possible to do this if monk's dps was so pityful ? Now add all that gear that i did not have, and you can imagine how good a monk's dps can be if built right.

[Malky]

Edit: And note that a badly built and played monk is still more than capable of completing all content in the game :)

That's pretty much the curse of the monk class : you can easily get a meaningful AC, vampirism, and lots of other nice tricks with a monk, but if you build him for that he will perform poorly in the high end (lack of attack bonus and hp + meaningless AC in epics). A lot, i mean a lot of monks were built that way, for the sole purpose of having a toon easy to level. Sadly if you want to have a monk that performs well in the high end you pretty much have to cripple him until you reach the cap, get some gear and then, only then, can you perform well in any raid. 90% of monks are built for levelling, and here goes the monk's rep in raids.

The same thing can be said of rogues : if you want a rogue that can stand his ground in high end content, you have to built him in that sole purpose.

The difference with barbs/ftrs is that with those classes you don't have to make that choice, there's only one way to build a meatbag : max str, max con and you've got a good build for both levelling and raiding. Easy peasy, but never shiny :D

[elg582]

a freshly lvl 20 monk with pretty much no gear (no ToD rings, no epic claw set, no shintao set bonus, no past life, etc...) can keep suulo's aggro with no incite gear/enhancements.... how would it be possible to do this if monk's dps was so pityful ?

I asked this in another thread; apparently there is some kind of mysterious change that happens when you add up a barbarian's, fighter's, or paladin's DPS, but not monk's, that proves that evidence like what you describe above not being actually true, and apparently they aren't allowed to tell us what it is, we just have to accept that monks are sub-par characters, denying all logic and evidence but based on the anecdotal evidence of anonymous strangers on an Internet forum.

[Consumer]

OK, this illustrates exactly why so many people have a bad opinion about monks: Sheer ignorance.

I'm sorry, Consumer, I'm not trying to tear you down in any way, I'm sure you are a fine player on a barbarian, but you have such a skewed vision of how the monk class works that it is not surprising that you feel that they are less powerful.

I feel so torn.


Earth and Air are roughly equivalent DPS against crit-vulnerable enemies (or with 2+ bursting effects), while Fire and Water help your special moves (more ki or higher DCs). I tend to run in earth except against portals, abbot (undead), etc.

You may not have noticed but I posed the question because it has an obvious answer. You gain HP but lose DPS. Most people call it a rhetorical question, that is one that's not meant to have any information gained by answering it...


I guess that, for the most part, it's not you who's exactly wrong; I mean, you are, but only because so are most of the monks you apparently play with. Monk is a VERY difficult class to play, why is it surprising that most people play them badly?

You can say the same about every class lol. How many Barbs or Rogues or FvS or Arcanes are played properly. Weak argument is weak.


The points made were:

Lower HP requires more healing and more time, it also reduces survivability.

Lower HP makes you more prone to dieing from bursts of damage.

Evasion is not a be all end all.

Increasing HP on a Monk to levels which come close to a Barb causes a reduction in DPS.

Higher DPS monks must sacrifice CC and utility (light) for damage (dark).

STR/CON DPS Monks sacrifice DCs due to lower wisdom and AC.

Monks have no or low AOE damage.

Monk stunning blow DCs are lower than Fighters or Barbarians.

Focusing on AC for a Monk greatly reduces DPS.

[Malky]

Sorting a bit :




Lower HP requires more healing and more time, it also reduces survivability.

Lower HP makes you more prone to dieing from bursts of damage.

Higher DPS monks must sacrifice CC and utility (light) for damage (dark).

STR/CON DPS Monks sacrifice DCs due to lower wisdom and AC.

Focusing on AC for a Monk greatly reduces DPS.

All of this is subject to the build factor : either a monk is built for levelling, or he's built for raiding. Most monks are built for levelling but that doesn't mean that no monk can perform well in raids, it's just that you have to build them for that purpose (i.e. no ac, max hp and dps)


Increasing HP on a Monk to levels which come close to a Barb causes a reduction in DPS.

Nope, a reduction in 'easier levelling', again.


Evasion is not a be all end all.

Just to be picky : evasion in a 'DPS' thread ? how weird... :D


Monks have no or low AOE damage.

Granted as i said before, that being said barbs have no or low means to instakill trash mobs as well... (agrees on your answer beforehand : yes it's kinda hard to fit void 4 on a raid-oriented (hp wise) monk, hard but not impossible)


Monk stunning blow DCs are lower than Fighters or Barbarians.

Statistically false in most situations : stunning blow has 1 roll (even when twf'ing thanks to a recent nerf), while stunning fist has 2 rolls 80% of the time (GTWF offhand proc rate), you've got to have a **** high DC on stunning blow to compensate for this, not to mention that stunning weapons are 'included' in the monk's improved crit feat, that's very uncommon for barbs.

[eulogy098]

equally played, equally geared and equally supported, a Barbarian does so much more DPS , has so much more hp and has so much more AOE dps that a monk may as well not exist. Play monks at what they excel at imo. some disbales + buffs/debuffs + survivability.

If you build and play your monk for max dps, you're doing it wrong. because your dps, no matter what, is nowhere near max.

[elg582]

You may not have noticed but I posed the question because it has an obvious answer. You gain HP but lose DPS. Most people call it a rhetorical question, that is one that's not meant to have any information gained by answering it...

Yea, that's why I misunderstood; earth stance is HIGHER dps than air. I thought that you were genuinely asking, since your "rhetorical" point was... wrong.




The points made were:


Yea, most of those come from your misunderstanding of the stance situation; the rest are either situational (monks being harder to play means that you might not have ever run with a good monk, which would explain your attitude), questionable ("Evasion is not the end all and be all"? That's why every custom build out there has rogue or monk splash, and evasion tank is the order of the day, right?), or irrelevant (barb/fighter gets higher stun DC, monk gets several tries at it).

Don't worry, guy, I'm sure that barbarian is next on the list for improvements, probably either more DR or ridiculously more HP, and you'll be on par again.

[Consumer]

Yea, that's why I misunderstood; earth stance is HIGHER dps than air. I thought that you were genuinely asking, since your "rhetorical" point was... wrong.

What does the crit multiplier and small base damage increase do against high fort compared to 10% doublestrike, how does the lower ki generation of earth compare to fire when considering touch of death. Hopefully you don't think things are so black and white.

[AtomicMew]

Granted as i said before, that being said barbs have no or low means to instakill trash mobs as well... (agrees on your answer beforehand : yes it's kinda hard to fit void 4 on a raid-oriented (hp wise) monk, hard but not impossible)
This is a red-herring argument. Instakills can be converted into DPS numbers, and even very liberal estimates show quite clearly that barbs are still far ahead in trash DPS.

It's very clear that barbs are far ahead in terms of DPS. In this way, dark monks are a fairly outdated character type, espsecially since they are not even that far ahead in terms of stunning, if at all. Light monks recapture their usefulness in terms of utility. And by utility, I mean aligning the heavens for casters and grasp of the earth dragon for ToD. In this way, they are very much like bards. They are not DPS characters, they are utility. They make other toons do their job better.

[Soleran]

In this way, dark monks are a fairly outdated character type, espsecially since they are not even that far ahead in terms of stunning, if at all. .


Well you sure got that point wrong, thanks for posting inaccurate information.

One nice thing about Dark Monks and Tod is that they can control when they are going to throw down that 250-1500k or higher on a stunned mob.

Monks stunning get 2 chances with one attempt and if the monk does something like 12 monk/8 fighter with sb and sf they can be VERY effective at stunning, much more so then other classes.

[elg582]

What does the crit multiplier and small base damage increase do against high fort compared to 10% doublestrike

It evens it out when you have 2 or more bursting effects.




, how does the lower ki generation of earth compare to fire when considering touch of death.

Ki generation hasn't been an issue since Oremi's came out, wasn't a huge problem before (you skip the ~10 DPS of normal strikes to save up ki for ~60 DPS ToD), and now there is a 2nd item that increases ki gen.




Hopefully you don't think things are so black and white.

Funny, from here, you seem to be the one trying to pigeonhole the class; I am suggesting that monks can do well as tanks, DPS, and/or utility, depending on how you build them, and like every other class out there, will have situations where they do better or worse than other builds and/or classes.

Barbarians are easy DPS, but you don't get much else; monks have to struggle to get that kind of DPS, but it can be done.

[Horkrux]

Consumer, I understand that you love barb's/fighters and how uberawesome they are but you are really being quite negative towards monks. I'll put down my points and hopefully it will atleast help you see where all these monk lovers are coming from.





The points made were:

Lower HP requires more healing and more time, it also reduces survivability.

Lower HP makes you more prone to dieing from bursts of damage.

A well built monk should average hp from 500-700. Thats not low at all. IMO. it may be 300 away from a completely uber barbarian how ever monks have imp evasion.



Easier to heal fleshy Barbs and high HP Fighters through endgame.

AC does jackall for 99% of monks and a smaller HP bar means it has to be refilled more often, taking more time and requiring running around like a lunatic spamming heals in some situations.

most monks have greater healing amp then barbs. so that same heal that hit you for 200 just hit my monk for 400.




Increasing HP on a Monk to levels which come close to a Barb causes a reduction in DPS.

Barbs standing hp is usually just as high as a monk. Only when a barb does rage/frenzy/death frenzy/madstone/yugo/ship does it have a non sustainable HP. if you were to go solo fight a raid boss for example (highly unlikely but using it as an example) after all your barb goodies were out you wouldnt be that ahead of the monk.. Who has emp evasion. Its not end all end all but it sure negates alot of damage.


Higher DPS monks must sacrifice CC and utility (light) for damage (dark).
Because barbs have so much CC right?



STR/CON DPS Monks sacrifice DCs due to lower wisdom and AC.
With gear and correct stat allocation you can still reach a semi decent DC.




Focusing on AC for a Monk greatly reduces DPS.
Who says all monks go for AC ? It would greatly reduce dps on a barb if you did the same thing.

[Ninety0ne]

Monks are merely a 4.3 mil xp speedbump for +1 damage passive pl's b4 you TR into a proper dps class. You can grind 100 runs on every raid etc to get the perfect gear set up for a monk and a life one barb with a GS greataxe and earth hp item is close. It's good that there are players that love their pet monks so much they spend insane amounts of plat/scales/scrolls to produce a sad imitation of a DPS build b/c it makes the sellers that much wealthier. If you like to play one thats fine but please don't try to defend it as anything other than "its fun and I like it" attaching DPS numbers to a second tier melee support class is silly.
Also having a ninja suit is really lame, if you have the throwing stars to go with it doubly so and you need to get out more.

[elg582]

Monks are merely a 4.3 mil xp speedbump for +1 damage passive pl's b4 you TR into a proper dps class. You can grind 100 runs on every raid etc to get the perfect gear set up for a monk and a life one barb with a GS greataxe and earth hp item is close. It's good that there are players that love their pet monks so much they spend insane amounts of plat/scales/scrolls to produce a sad imitation of a DPS build b/c it makes the sellers that much wealthier. If you like to play one thats fine but please don't try to defend it as anything other than "its fun and I like it" attaching DPS numbers to a second tier melee support class is silly.
Also having a ninja suit is really lame, if you have the throwing stars to go with it doubly so and you need to get out more.

Jealous much? :)

[Ninety0ne]

Jealous much? :)

yah i cant stomach being a gimp for 12.9 mil xp for +3 damage but seriously what do you mean? I think its supposed to be some clever way of implying a jealousy of .... a gimp class that gives me the following advantages:

1. being able to foist off silver handwraps for gobs of useful stuff so someone with a ninja fascination can do lol dps.
2. getting to mock guildies stuck in the hamster wheel with their gimpmonks as the run for 4.3 to tr away the horrible?
3. that im not cool enuff to have aformentioned ninja suit?

im honestly at a loss of what i could be jealous of

[Cetus]

Let a barb die several times in Epic LoB and have no rages. Or, let a monk get chewed up by him because of low hp.

Anyway,

Fighter > barb or monk

That is all.

=D

[gloopygloop]

Thru strategy groups with average DPS succeed all the time without pot use, I know this because I lead them and I heal them.

Also the assumption that lower HP toons need to be healed more is pretty off.

For most raids, I agree with Moops. You don't have to heal the lower HP toons more often than characters with raid-appropriate HP. Just let them die and finish the raid while their soulstones pike.

[grodon9999]

Let a barb die several times in Epic LoB and have no rages. Or, let a monk get chewed up by him because of low hp.

Anyway,

Fighter > barb or monk

That is all.

=D

LOL - this could be a holy-war. :)

[elg582]

yah i cant stomach being a gimp for 12.9 mil xp for +3 damage but seriously what do you mean? I think its supposed to be some clever way of implying a jealousy of .... a gimp class that gives me the following advantages:

1. being able to foist off silver handwraps for gobs of useful stuff so someone with a ninja fascination can do lol dps.
2. getting to mock guildies stuck in the hamster wheel with their gimpmonks as the run for 4.3 to tr away the horrible?
3. that im not cool enuff to have aformentioned ninja suit?

im honestly at a loss of what i could be jealous of

The same thing the scarecrow wanted....

[Therigar]

The thing about monks is that they are kill fast or die fast, they are ONLY dps. Which they are equivilent to with a fighter currently They hit 7 hits each with x while the fighters and Paladins hits 2 hits in that time with 4x and a Barbarian makes 2 hits with 5x.
x=power of attack.

Monks are designed to take out mages and ranged fighters before they die, fighters barbarians and paladins are designed to hit consistently hard in close combat enemies and take a significant amount of damage.

This is just wrong. It is so wrong that it isn't even worth the time to try to explain how and why it is wrong. Readers should just pretend that the post never existed -- or assume it was sarcasm, laugh and move on.

[elg582]

Or, let a monk get chewed up by him because of low hp.



What kind of monks are you people playing with? A 12 CON drow monk with **** gear should hit 400 hp at 20 in wind stance, and 750-800 is not unreasonable for a 16 CON WF or dwarf in DPS mode. Considering that a DPS monk will also have Fade up and simply get hit 25% less....

[grodon9999]

What kind of monks are you people playing with? A 12 CON drow monk with **** gear should hit 400 hp at 20 in wind stance, and 750-800 is not unreasonable for a 16 CON WF or dwarf in DPS mode. Considering that a DPS monk will also have Fade up and simply get hit 25% less....

and improved evasion, many of the "big" hits from AoEs will simply miss the monk.

But . . . and maybe it's just because I've never seen a true high-DPS monk in action . . . comparing Monk DPS to barbarian is just silly. You can argue survivability as though the barb gets twice the HP they get hit by EVERYTHING but DPS? Really?

[LeLoric]

Haven't read through the thread at all so sorry if this has been said already. Once people start getting tier 3 alchem wraps for monks the dps question on the high fort elite/epic bosses isn't even gonna be close.

[Soleran]

Haven't read through the thread at all so sorry if this has been said already. Once people start getting tier 3 alchem wraps for monks the dps question on the high fort elite/epic bosses isn't even gonna be close.

If the alchemical wraps can bridge a dps gap of 150 dps I'll be very shocked.

That said if a monk wants to focus on "dps" they better be looking to do a monk/fighter split.

[FuzzyDuck81]

I like my monkeys - survivable, decent dps (i know not the best, dont really care) & some handy buffs/debuffs that are often overlooked since theyre somewhat difficult to monitor.

- stun or otherwise immobilise (jade tomb) enemies for +50% damage from all sources (thus boosting melee & casters)
- unbalancing strike reduces AC & makes them vulnerable to sneak attack, good for any melee particularly those without the best to-hit yet from not having maxed out gear
- dark monks can give 10% vulnerability to an element... boosts damage from weapons (best for lightning IMO) & spells. Presumably this stacks with debuff from savants.
- dark monks can give 3xdark debuff to lower fortification (good for all melees) & make them vulnerable to negative damage (useful for PMs using their attacks between spell cooldowns)
- light monks get jade strike which increases base damage per hit by 10% & fortification by 25%
- light monk fire pos fire gives to-hit & saves which is again good for those without the highest to-hit & that extra bonus to saves can mean less healing needed.. ok only +2 but still, all helps. void-light-void boosts higher but only 10sec, still handy sometimes.
- light monk earth-pos-earth antistun.. a very valuable thing in some places eg. ToD to reduce incoming damage or stop the healer being unable to heal the tank, also other party members that are stunned arent contributing dps
- light monk water-pos-water 25% SP discount.. stretch your casters' SP that much further, more healing/haste/rage/direct damage spells

So while monks arent the very highest DPS personally, with decent DCs, some skill to keep firing off the abilities as needed plus a bit of luck they can act as an effective force multiplier, boosting the DPS of everyone else in the party.

[Ninety0ne]

The same thing the scarecrow wanted....
cool story bro

I think I get what your suggesting now (its almost too clever for my limited abilities) i dont have any brains b/c I dont "understand" how to use a fail dps class... your right I have no clue what a second tier dps class does in the conversation with barbs and fighters.

[grodon9999]

Haven't read through the thread at all so sorry if this has been said already. Once people start getting tier 3 alchem wraps for monks the dps question on the high fort elite/epic bosses isn't even gonna be close.

Until Turbine releases it's next series of buffs/nerfs/ridiculously-stupid-changes that breaks the game again.

[elg582]

a fail dps class... your right I have no clue what a second tier dps class does in the conversation with barbs and fighters.

http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=300873

That's why handwraps top the list of "any weapon portal killing" and 12 monk splashes are well represented in the top DPS categories. None of those are even the "top DPS" builds that everyone is throwing around.

Sorry to let reality intrude on your ignorance.

[Ninety0ne]

http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=300873

That's why handwraps top the list of "any weapon portal killing" and 12 monk splashes are well represented in the top DPS categories. None of those are even the "top DPS" builds that everyone is throwing around.

Sorry to let reality intrude on your ignorance.

yah that poor defenseless cr 0 portal. Its so.... real

[elg582]

yah that poor defenseless cr 0 portal. Its so.... real

Yea, because nothing else in the game has DR or fortification, right?

[Alex301]

yah that poor defenseless cr 0 portal. Its so.... real

I don't see why it's not a valid comparison. Give everyone bard buffs and take away the dr and the monks would gain an even further lead.

[grodon9999]

Yea, because nothing else in the game has DR or fortification, right?

Nah, only about 80%.

[elg582]

I don't see why it's not a valid comparison. Give everyone bard buffs and take away the dr and the monks would gain an even further lead.

Careful, throwing too many facts at him might be dagerous; maybe we should let him watch political debates in between all of these inconvenient facts, like a methadone for bull ****.

[Soleran]

yah that poor defenseless cr 0 portal. Its so.... real

HAHA yeah because if they had a dr fortified target I'll bet you wouldnt see 90% of the dps challenge with ESoS by their name.

Without the ESoS dps numbers it looks like the monk and monk splits did fine overall in the dps challenge.

[stormarcher]

This was a pretty good discussion then it got out of hand so...


http://img830.imageshack.us/img830/2641/yodaibtl.jpg (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/830/yodaibtl.jpg/)

[adamkatt]

So since raid bosses have been outfitted with fortification does that mean monks rule out over those barbs/fighters in dps fights??

Discuss.

Uhh they have always had some fort.....

[Viisari]

Uhh they have always had some fort.....

There were several who didn't.

[sebastianosmith]

I would surmise that if the dark monk Karmic Strike finisher actually worked as advertised with sufficient DCs (40+), no party would want to face the new fort-enhanced bosses without one in tow. Has anyone heard or been privy to this move actually WAI?

[Shuleagh]

I would surmise that if the dark monk Karmic Strike finisher actually worked as advertised with sufficient DCs (40+), no party would want to face the new fort-enhanced bosses without one in tow. Has anyone heard or been privy to this move actually WAI?

For whatever reason curses don't work on devils, so neither does Touch of Despair. On non-devils Touch of Despair does land and considering a 5 stack improved sunder adds 15 to the fort DC its freaking amazing. I've landed it on the Lord of Blades.

[Vengenance]

I wrote this in another thread, and it applies here too::



My dark monk, at its best was not even close to my Barbs at his medium. They were nearly equally geared.

6d6 vicious damage and monsterous base damage along with now 25% damage boost is just too much to overcome , even on 100% fort targets. Barbs are not as reliant on crits as some people are suggesting. frenzy3 19-20 crit multiplers are the icing on the cake, not the cake its self. My dark monk suffered more from fort then my barb, as he lost his Helf sneak attack and prestige sneak attacks.

If multiple targets are around the barbarian has so much higher dps then the monk that the monk may as well not even be calculated at all. As someone suggested it is kinda like comparing apples to oranges. Although I would more compare it as a 50 Cal machine gun vs a 22 Rifle.

I'm guessing anyone that's even remotely suggesting that a Dark Monk can be even a fifty-percentile of a Barbs DPS simply hasn't really played both.

In fact my Dark Monks dps was so pale in comparison to my Barb that I ended up respecing him into Light. Why bother aiming for max dps when your max isnt even close. Lights utility and cc are much more valuable imo.

:::

What he said, I have a capped Barb and a capped Dark Monk and my 20 Barb w/ESOS and EFens Bracers and Gloves does far more DPS than my 20 Dark Monk, at least on end bosses. My monk gets lots of kills and stuns the **** out of trash mobs but my Barb wields a bigger stick and does far more damage.

That being said, my monk is much funner and far less boring to play than my barb. Like the previous poster stated, I'll eventually TR my monk and make her light instead of dark because the CC is better and I find Light Monks even funner to play than Dark Monks.

[Alkindus]

http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=300873

That's why handwraps top the list of "any weapon portal killing" and 12 monk splashes are well represented in the top DPS categories. None of those are even the "top DPS" builds that everyone is throwing around.

Sorry to let reality intrude on your ignorance.

Just wanted to point out if the icon by their name is a fighter's icon, such as the two "monks" you claim lead it, then they are a FIGHTER. Since we're talking about monks here, the mainly fighter splash shouldn't play into it.

[Soleran]

Just wanted to point out if the icon by their name is a fighter's icon, such as the two "monks" you claim lead it, then they are a FIGHTER. Since we're talking about monks here, the mainly fighter splash shouldn't play into it.

Well spots 3 and 4 are 12 monk splits and lets face it a 10 fighter/9 monk that is 1 could just as easily be 10 monk 9 fighter and really lost no dps.

[grandeibra]

@vengeance
What he said, I have a capped Barb and a capped Dark Monk and my 20 Barb w/ESOS and EFens Bracers and Gloves does far more DPS than my 20 Dark Monk, at least on end bossesI am not really surprised that your traditional str-based barb with esos does more boss-dps than your wis based stun-focused monk :)

[Alkindus]

Well spots 3 and 4 are 12 monk splits and lets face it a 10 fighter/9 monk that is 1 could just as easily be 10 monk 9 fighter and really lost no dps.

actually losing a 5% haste boost is a loss in a dps.
All i'm saying is people claim that pure monks are turbine's gift to humanity. But, there isn't a really competitive 20 monk in the mix of portal entries.

[Soleran]

actually losing a 5% haste boost is a loss in a dps.
All i'm saying is people claim that pure monks are turbine's gift to humanity. But, there isn't a really competitive 20 monk in the mix of portal entries.

I agree, 20 monk just isn't going to manage top dps, it really needs those fighter or rogue lvls for haste.

Poor rogues got the shaft in that dps challenge though with the giant at least since no backstabing damage.

Anyway 20 monk isn't going to be top dps in my experience.

[elg582]

actually losing a 5% haste boost is a loss in a dps.
All i'm saying is people claim that pure monks are turbine's gift to humanity. But, there isn't a really competitive 20 monk in the mix of portal entries.

20 barbarians and 20 fighters aren't well represented, either; multiclass is obviously the way to go, whichever main class you pick.

I haven't heard anyone claiming that monks are out-DPS'ing similarly equipped barbs/fighters, but there are people who are claiming huge DPS differences over monk (I think I saw someone quote 150 DPS more; I'd hate to see that monk).

The key here is "similarly equipped"; what is a monk's equivalent of a mineral 2 khopesh? Much less eSoS? Well, we have it now; I bet there will be a triple-air alchemical monk on that list before too long :)

[elg582]

Anyway 20 monk isn't going to be top dps in my experience.

No, but then, neither is 20 fighter. 20 barb, 20 paladin, 20 ranger... :)

[Lord_Thanatos]

The key here is "similarly equipped"; what is a monk's equivalent of a mineral 2 khopesh? Much less eSoS? Well, we have it now; I bet there will be a triple-air alchemical monk on that list before too long :)

That is IF turbine finally fixes handwraps, which from latest reports wont be anytime soon. And that is supposing that the fix actually works and doesnt break 10 more things.

[Ninety0ne]

No, but then, neither is 20 fighter. 20 barb, 20 paladin, 20 ranger... :)

20 barb or 20 ftr is gonna be > the field

[Ninety0ne]

I haven't heard anyone claiming that monks are out-DPS'ing similarly equipped barbs/fighters, but there are people who are claiming huge DPS differences over monk (I think I saw someone quote 150 DPS more; I'd hate to see that monk).


nice attempt to qualify your preposterous earlier statements. Sadly lacking tho

[Soleran]

20 barb or 20 ftr is gonna be > the field

Actually it would be 20 rogue> 20 barb or 20 ft>


Unless of course we throw in KoTC and evil outsiders then > most everyone...


Etc etc etc etc

There are always situations that help determine certain numbers for dps.

Pure monks aren't going to win it, monk splashes can still be up there for dps and offer ALOT of utility, more so then most melee in combat.

[Cetus]

LOL - this could be a holy-war. :)

You're one person who saw what I did there

=D

[Alkindus]

No, but then, neither is 20 fighter. 20 barb, 20 paladin, 20 ranger... :)

You are wrong again. 20 barb is the king of dps. and 20 fighter is also very close by.

[Soleran]

You are wrong again. 20 barb is the king of dps. and 20 fighter is also very close by.

Still wrong, Rogues as long as 50% fort or less win in dps.

This is just turning into a mess of a thread now.

[Alkindus]

Still wrong, Rogues as long as 50% fort or less win in dps.

That's cute. Find me a boss that matters with less than 50% fort. Hell, my barb hits close to if not over 700 dps with all the buffs etc, not sure what rogues claim to hit, but I would assume slightly less.

[Soleran]

That's cute. Find me a boss that matters with less than 50% fort. Hell, my barb hits close to if not over 700 dps with all the buffs etc, not sure what rogues claim to hit, but I would assume slightly less.

Debuffs land all over to lower fort and if you run quests with on normal its not even a question, rogues win. Otherwise go improved sunder or fvs champion and knock down fort and win with rogues.

Barbs aren't the top dps still with 50% fort or less.

And please show you're numbers and gear and buffs to prove 700 dps or do the dps challenge at the very least.

[jandhaer]

That's cute. Find me a boss that matters with less than 50% fort. Hell, my barb hits close to if not over 700 dps with all the buffs etc, not sure what rogues claim to hit, but I would assume slightly less.

Not saying your lying/wrong (as I have played with ya a beast to say the least) but Ive watched some of shades crazy solo vids and I see alot of mid to high 300's with the occasional crit in the 700 range, not sure how that could ever be considered 700 DPS.

[Ninety0ne]

This is just turning into a mess of a thread now.

Not really the topic of the thread was monk dps > than X dps with increase in fort on raid bosses. Then Some inane statistics about beating a poor cr 0 portal and now the tooic has reached its logical conclusion and has resolved to rogue dps vs X (not monk) dps. It seems to be a rather solid conclusion with the answer of of course not.

[Soleran]

Not really the topic of the thread was monk dps > than X dps with increase in fort on raid bosses. Then Some inane statistics about beating a poor cr 0 portal and now the tooic has reached its logical conclusion and has resolved to rogue dps vs X (not monk) dps. It seems to be a rather solid conclusion with the answer of of course not.

Your obtuse comment is well placed along with barbs are the top dps without substantiating.

Pure monks aren't going to out dps rogues, barbs or fighters.

Hybrid classes tend to dominate the player base, not pure classes.

Barbs aren't top dps on mobs with 50% fort or less.

Hence barbs aren't top dps most of the time and pure monks don't beat barbs or fighters or rogues for dps.

Of note: Most top dps were shown using ESoS on a mob with no dr or fort and rogues didn't participate.

End: Pure monks don't outdps most barbs, fighters or rogues.

[Alkindus]

Debuffs land all over to lower fort and if you run quests with on normal its not even a question, rogues win. Otherwise go improved sunder or fvs champion and knock down fort and win with rogues.

Barbs aren't the top dps still with 50% fort or less.

And please show you're numbers and gear and buffs to prove 700 dps or do the dps challenge at the very least.

Myddo Children on Cannith, that's my gear.
Everything a barb would want, and a +4 str tome. I rage to 74 strength.
As for the numbers, It is hard to put a definite, quantifiable value on the dps of a barb yet, since theres a lot of new factors coming into play that have not been fully tested and given as a widely accepted value ( twitch cleaving, and the incorporation of damage boost into spreadsheets).
I have a video of a 1:55 giant killing time which translates into ~600 dps. That 600 dps does not factor in bard songs, my 8 sneak attack damage from tharnes, the soon deadly weapons buff etc.
I think one could reasonably infer that 8 sneak damage, 9 damage from a bard, and the 5d6+ 10 from deadly weapons is well over a 100 dps increase.

Dug up my old comparision video to make you happy, its 1:57, no its not perfect, its on lammania so i'm at a net less of damage since no ship buffs. Like I said I have a 1:55, but I am not going to bother compressing/uploading anything until I have a smooth (lag-free) run.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nAUB9DyqwLU

[Alkindus]

Not saying your lying/wrong (as I have played with ya a beast to say the least) but Ive watched some of shades crazy solo vids and I see alot of mid to high 300's with the occasional crit in the 700 range, not sure how that could ever be considered 700 DPS.

Err I think I might be combined my reply to your post with the other, so see above for my answer :x. But my barb is afaik the only fully geared barb. I crit for over 1k with damage boost active.

[Malky]

Err I think I might be combined my reply to your post with the other, so see above for my answer :x. But my barb is afaik the only fully geared barb. I crit for over 1k with damage boost active.

So you acknowledge that you are in the 0.01% top tier of the barbs all-servers-wide, and hence do not represent in any dimension what an average barb can do. Pretty much like cetuss does not represent what an average fighter can do as well.

It would be clearer to say 'esos' instead of 'barb' or 'fighter', given how powerful that weapon is, and how different the resulting dps is compared to a min2. Not all barbs/fighters have an esos you know...

What's fun is that we are pretty much agreeing on everything (as for me) : 0-50% fort esos wins most of the time, for 100% fort monks can stand their ground. Finding a 75% fort target to make an intermediate challenge is gonna be hard, but i'm guessing that at 75% fort there's very little difference between them. That being said, 75% fort bosses are deemed to be at least imp. sundered so real conditions would rather be 65% fort at most, and in that case esos wins again prolly.

[Alkindus]

So you acknowledge that you are in the 0.01% top tier of the barbs all-servers-wide, and hence do not represent in any dimension what an average barb can do. Pretty much like cetuss does not represent what an average fighter can do as well.

It would be clearer to say 'esos' instead of 'barb' or 'fighter', given how powerful that weapon is, and how different the resulting dps is compared to a min2. Not all barbs/fighters have an esos you know...

What's fun is that we are pretty much agreeing on everything (as for me) : 0-50% fort esos wins most of the time, for 100% fort monks can stand their ground. Finding a 75% fort target to make an intermediate challenge is gonna be hard, but i'm guessing that at 75% fort there's very little difference between them. That being said, 75% fort bosses are deemed to be at least imp. sundered so real conditions would rather be 65% fort at most, and in that case esos wins again prolly.

People's dps calculations assume full gear when they post numbers, I have all the gear needed so a practical application (dps test) can be used to give an estimation of an unknown variable ( effect of cleave twitching).

The conversation was strictly full geared barb vs full geared monk from the start from my understanding. Do not try to change the standard to a typical barb vs a typical monk situation now.

And no, I do not agree, I believe my barb wins 100% of the time.

[Chai]

Ahh yea, the DPS arguement again, heh. You should all TR into water savants. Everything else is subpar.

[Soleran]

People's dps calculations assume full gear when they post numbers, I have all the gear needed so a practical application (dps test) can be used to give an estimation of an unknown variable ( effect of cleave twitching).

The conversation was strictly full geared barb vs full geared monk from the start from my understanding. Do not try to change the standard to a typical barb vs a typical monk situation now.

And no, I do not agree, I believe my barb wins 100% of the time.

Right now that cleave twitch is pretty ridiculous and tied with ESoS is really the match maker for Barb dps not so much without it.

[Malky]

And no, I do not agree, I believe my barb wins 100% of the time.

I'd like to see a proof of that in the 'any weapons portal entries' part of the challenge, barbs are curiously lacking in the upper part of that ladder. The other part, being on a 0% fort target, does hardly represent what kind of dps classes can push out on raid bosses.

[Alex301]

People's dps calculations assume full gear when they post numbers

They usually assume bard buffs and sneak attack damage as well. Barbarians gain a relative advantage compared to the other builds by excluding these sources of damage.

[elg582]

They usually assume bard buffs and sneak attack damage as well. Barbarians gain a relative advantage compared to the other builds by excluding these sources of damage.

People's theoretical DPS calculations are mathematical abstractions; good enough to show relative capability of 2 similar builds, but woefully inadequate when you start discussing dramatically different builds.

So a barb can hit 700 DPS, with the rarest weapon in the game, against 0 DR, 0 fort enemies (I still can't get that number from my math, but whatever); for portal beating, handwraps win (I have never seen a barb-heavy group sitting around in part 1 of shroud waiting for the next portal; monk heavy groups do this all the time). In the middle is, well, in the middle.

Here's an idea: Play what you like and we'l settle it in game, PvP if you think your barb will have time to rage before he dies :)

[~johnny8490]

Reguarding the barb sp sponge thingy...
My main is a healer and I don't feel barbs are SP sponges.
My heals hit big reguardless, so if you have 500 hp or 900 hp. One heal does it all.
I havent had many issues with barbs, even beginner ones, likely because its hard to F up a barb build without trying.

Monks vary the most, even in shroud I have a hard time keeping monks alive since a lot I see running around have 250-300 hp, i was WAY more sp on these guys because they need a heal almost after every single time they take damage. This is not the complete case, I have run into monks with 700hp buffed up that just rip through stuff.

Also someone mentioned they preferred the versatiles builds in their group vs "one trick ponies". I somewhat agree, I do enjoy having them around, however there is a difference between a versatile build that works vs the "i play for fun" build that just doesn't do much later on. One trick ponies are not bad, the point of raiding is the everyone fills a role, in some cases several roles. Barbs and Fighters take the lead very well with easy to obtain high HP and high DPS.

[Alex301]

People's theoretical DPS calculations are mathematical abstractions; good enough to show relative capability of 2 similar builds, but woefully inadequate when you start discussing dramatically different builds.

So a barb can hit 700 DPS, with the rarest weapon in the game, against 0 DR, 0 fort enemies (I still can't get that number from my math, but whatever); for portal beating, handwraps win (I have never seen a barb-heavy group sitting around in part 1 of shroud waiting for the next portal; monk heavy groups do this all the time). In the middle is, well, in the middle.

Here's an idea: Play what you like and we'l settle it in game, PvP if you think your barb will have time to rage before he dies :)

opps, i meant to include the rest of the first line in the quote. I was pointing out that we can't give an estimation to auto-cleaving because of these differences.

But I don't disagree. I really wish people had a greater understanding of how dps spreadsheets work and how any differences in build, gear, buffs or conditions will affect the results. I have discussed several times the limitations of both theoretical math and videos of builds in practice but people seem content on accepting information on face value and spreading the same misinformation without a true understanding of the data.

We can't really calculate barbarian dps very accurately until we know the effects of auto-cleaving though, so 700 dps may well be possible. I very much doubt barbarians are the best in all situations however, although i think they will perform very well in all. A twf half elf fighter with sneak attacks and bard buffs would achieve higher peak dps than a barbarian imo. With aggro they should be hard to beat though.

[Ninety0ne]

People's theoretical DPS calculations are mathematical abstractions; good enough to show relative capability of 2 similar builds, but woefully inadequate when you start discussing dramatically different builds.

So a barb can hit 700 DPS, with the rarest weapon in the game, against 0 DR, 0 fort enemies (I still can't get that number from my math, but whatever); for portal beating, handwraps win (I have never seen a barb-heavy group sitting around in part 1 of shroud waiting for the next portal; monk heavy groups do this all the time). In the middle is, well, in the middle.

Here's an idea: Play what you like and we'l settle it in game, PvP if you think your barb will have time to rage before he dies :)


http://www.recover-from-grief.com/7-stages-of-grief.html, nice to see this thread has reached the acceptance phase.

[Alkindus]

the rarest weapon in the game

I would disagree, there are much rarer weapons.
My set of E-chaosblades took a ton more effort ( and about 6x more reds) to attain.

[Alkindus]

I'd like to see a proof of that in the 'any weapons portal entries' part of the challenge, barbs are curiously lacking in the upper part of that ladder. The other part, being on a 0% fort target, does hardly represent what kind of dps classes can push out on raid bosses.

As soon as I can fix the lag (on my end, I hope) I'll be doing a giant video as I said, and give a stab @ the portal one as well.

[Malky]

I would disagree, there are much rarer weapons.
My set of E-chaosblades took a ton more effort ( and about 6x more reds) to attain.

/signed

e-sos is kinda hard to come by, but there's much worse that exists. It's maybe a bit longer now for the shard considering the lack of pug e-von6 groups nowadays, but still very attainable if you persist.


Edit: BTW it would be interesting to have a separate section in shade's challenge 'no boosts allowed', epic LoB tends to run everybody out of boosts so such a challenge would show how builds perform once they run out of them. For the portal, i'd be interested to see a high-end pure monk entry with alchemical wraps (lightning strike for monks!) and deadly weapons once it works (if it does really double the base wrap damage... uh 4d24 base dmg per hand could be fun)

[Cetus]

/signed

Edit: BTW it would be interesting to have a separate section in shade's challenge 'no boosts allowed', epic LoB tends to run everybody out of boosts so such a challenge would show how builds perform once they run out of them. )

I actually had this as an idea that you beat me to putting in words here.

Having a no boosts allowed challenge would be very useful to see.

I'd argue that with barbs running out of rages in epic LOB due to the sheer longevity of the fight and helfs running out of damage boosts early, (since they have less boosts to begin with)- halforc fighters and monks ultimately end up most sustainable, since a fighter without haste boost pwns a barb with no rages, and monks don't really have limited sources of damage other than racial boosts.

[elg582]

I actually had this as an idea that you beat me to putting in words here.

Having a no boosts allowed challenge would be very useful to see.

I'd argue that with barbs running out of rages in epic LOB due to the sheer longevity of the fight and helfs running out of damage boosts early, (since they have less boosts to begin with)- halforc fighters and monks ultimately end up most sustainable, since a fighter without haste boost pwns a barb with no rages, and monks don't really have limited sources of damage other than racial boosts.

...and we're back to fighter/monk multi, whose biggest trade-off is not getting to run as fast as pure monk or barb (although 12 monk gets abundant step).

There are 2 things about this whole discussion that bother me; first is that we are really talking about the current state of the game, rather than inherent advantages of a given class. Second is that almost everything here is anecdotal: This barbarian is uber, but this monk sucks. I ran with a 350 HP barb last night, can't speak to his DPS because he never lived long enough to kill anything (in cas prey on the hunter!), but I do not consider him representative of the class as a whole.

Barbarians are simple, pretty hard to screw up, but when you do, the results can be spectacularly bad. Monks are complicated, easy to screw up, but when someone does, it's harder to sort out; even a poorly built monk will have some kind of useful offense, defense, or utility. A barbarian without HP or DPS, though...

[grodon9999]

I actually had this as an idea that you beat me to putting in words here.

Having a no boosts allowed challenge would be very useful to see.

I'd argue that with barbs running out of rages in epic LOB due to the sheer longevity of the fight and helfs running out of damage boosts early, (since they have less boosts to begin with)- halforc fighters and monks ultimately end up most sustainable, since a fighter without haste boost pwns a barb with no rages, and monks don't really have limited sources of damage other than racial boosts.

Barbs still have Frenzy though.

[Ninety0ne]

There are 2 things about this whole discussion that bother me; first is that we are really talking about the current state of the game, rather than inherent advantages of a given class.
what was that clever thing you said about facts and reality and all? Maybe fix the words there cause it reads as "the status quo says im wrong but I want it to be different"

[Ninety0ne]

Second is that almost everything here is anecdotal: This barbarian is uber, but this monk sucks. I ran with a 350 HP barb last night
I finally get it now, your totally right if you play with ppl who roll 350 hp barbs I bet your monk does shine.

[Viisari]

I finally get it now, your totally right if you play with ppl who roll 350 hp barbs I bet your monk does shine.

I know several monks who do very, very well while running with fully geared horc barbs..

Monks are good at many things, including dps. Claiming that barbs are lightyears ahead in that is silly, they're the best currently, but they're not *THAT* far ahead, and even then, they're not the top dogs in all situations.

<edit> Though yeah, as far dps actually goes, get a sorc, your barb's got nothing on that guy.

[elg582]

I know several monks who do very, very well while running with fully geared horc barbs..

Monks are good at many things, including dps. Claiming that barbs are lightyears ahead in that is silly, they're the best currently, but they're not *THAT* far ahead, and even then, they're not the top dogs in all situations.

<edit> Though yeah, as far dps actually goes, get a sorc, your barb's got nothing on that guy.

Actually, if we want to simply break the discussion, for 1 second, monk beats all: quadruple critical touch of death of a cursed target ~3600 DPS :D

My point was that it's easy to tell a good barb from a bad barb, and it's hard to make them bad (IDK what that 350 hp barb was doing, most barbs I run with have ~750 hp and do well), as opposed to monks, where apparently 3/4 of players do not focus on DPS to the extent that your average barbarian does, nor do they have to! Barbs have to DPS, they don't have any other function; trap finding doesn't count :P

[Viisari]

Actually, if we want to simply break the discussion, for 1 second, monk beats all: quadruple critical touch of death of a cursed target ~3600 DPS :D

My point was that it's easy to tell a good barb from a bad barb, and it's hard to make them bad (IDK what that 350 hp barb was doing, most barbs I run with have ~750 hp and do well), as opposed to monks, where apparently 3/4 of players do not focus on DPS to the extent that your average barbarian does, nor do they have to! Barbs have to DPS, they don't have any other function; trap finding doesn't count :P

Yes it's very hard to screw up a barb yet very easy to screw up a monk, and most of the good monks I know like running with channels and friends, so unless you're on that list you won't really see them often.