Monk Unarmed combat

[m2abrams15]

Ok so i will admit i am a new player, but i am a long term Dnd player. i will also admit that the addition of the monk class was the selling point of the game for me. however i was shocked when i got in game and started looking at the numbers relating to unarmed combat. In the PnP dnd unarmed combat monks were devastating late game. with flurry of blows, and 2d10 damage their fists were the best weapons they could use. however in DDo it seems as if we are being told NOT to use hand wraps. Compared to TWF kamas, fist wraps just don't cut it. there is no flurry of blows to make up the difference in attack speed, and elemental damage. Was this the Developer's intent? is There something being done about this?


If this a repeat of another thread i'm sorry i didn't have time to look through the whole forums.

[Kaboth]

Ok so i will admit i am a new player, but i am a long term Dnd player. i will also admit that the addition of the monk class was the selling point of the game for me. however i was shocked when i got in game and started looking at the numbers relating to unarmed combat. In the PnP dnd unarmed combat monks were devastating late game. with flurry of blows, and 2d10 damage their fists were the best weapons they could use. however in DDo it seems as if we are being told NOT to use hand wraps. Compared to TWF kamas, fist wraps just don't cut it. there is no flurry of blows to make up the difference in attack speed, and elemental damage. Was this the Developer's intent? is There something being done about this?


If this a repeat of another thread i'm sorry i didn't have time to look through the whole forums.

Well the reason for TWF over unarmed combat (or so I gather) is the fact that you get more attacks with GTWF and using Kama's and if you are using banishing, disruption, vorpals, etc... you have more chances them rprocing and going off. Lastly, until today, a lot of effects on handwraps were broken, not all, but a lot. They are still working on them (handwraps) as well and make other corrections and fixes for them.

[Dracolich]

The problem is TWF trumps plain ol unarmed combat because the flurry of blows works different in DDO. In DDO I believe the flurry of blows only upps our BAB not ups our rate of attack. I think they did this to keep it on par with a equal level fighters BAB because with flurry of blows on every round of attacks you would get the same number of attacks I believe as a fighter normally attacking. Another problem is handwraps arent dropping with the same type of damage effects Kamas do. It is near impossible if not total myth that pure good can be found on handwraps for I have not even saw it with my own eyes. Pure good is a big damage adder to alot of weapons. Also with TWF and the later versions that improve on it you can have 2-3 more attacks with a weapon with more effects on it. Even though those weapons may do less base damage they excell in sheer number of attacks. I only adopted TWF reluctatly because I was trying to swim upstream using handwraps. I will respec out of it when handwraps are totally fixed.

[jkm]

the general rule of ddo is that a class ability/spell that has a fixed number isn't going to translate well -

spells like circle of death, undeath to death, power word stun, soon to be power word kill
abilities like immunity to disease, immunity to poison
feats like snake blood, weapon focus and skill focus: X (where x is not intimidate, umd, or now concentration for monks)

[m2abrams15]

Would it be so hard to change this? i mean it seems the big diff. (if im wrong tell me )) is that the difference in the number of attacks twixt kama and unarmed. So why not simply increase the number of attacks gained when using unarmed inclemently at certain lvls to match or exceed those of using GTWF. would that help, or at least start to help the unarmed monk's plight?

[jkm]

this is the difference between what my monk's dps is going to be versus my rogues...

peppr vs tortellini

and this is the difference between what my monk's dps is versus my 10 str halfling cleric with divine power/divine favor

ouch

[Dimicron]

Would it be so hard to change this? i mean it seems the big diff. (if im wrong tell me )) is that the difference in the number of attacks twixt kama and unarmed. So why not simply increase the number of attacks gained when using unarmed inclemently at certain lvls to match or exceed those of using GTWF. would that help, or at least start to help the unarmed monk's plight?

One of the suggestions for improvement has been to make unarmed fighting compatible with the TWF line of feats. It does work that way in PnP, why not here as well?

Rumor has it that they are making the monk's air stance melee alacrity buff at least partially stack with haste also.

[jkm]

they are, so that at level 18 you can have the same bonus as rangers get at 6. monks are the new humans...

[SCPRedMage]

What's sad is that in PnP, Two Weapon Fighting works with unarmed attacks. I think that Turbine should give monks a toggle skill that puts them in a "two-weapon unarmed" mode.

[jkm]

one thing i would like to point out is that a two weapon fighting unarmed monk is considered severely gimped in pnp because of all of the attack penalties. my problem with unarmed combat isn't so much that they didn't allow TWF its that they didn't SCALE the damage to go along with the insane bonuses they give every other class - instead they added the finisher system which just isn't practical in combat.

[jkm]

Would it be so hard to change this? i mean it seems the big diff. (if im wrong tell me )) is that the difference in the number of attacks twixt kama and unarmed. So why not simply increase the number of attacks gained when using unarmed inclemently at certain lvls to match or exceed those of using GTWF. would that help, or at least start to help the unarmed monk's plight?

thus far the only thing that is getting attention is the finishing moves. i'm not belittling their effort because i think that the development work that they've done on the FMs is good stuff. however, i also think its daunting to expect people to use them. having 24 buttons keyed to all of the click abilities that monks could have is just logistically impossible, especially if anyone has disabilities that prevent them from being ultra mobile (this was a big limiting issue for a disabled buddy of mine who was looking forward to monks more than anyone outside of rameses, he had to stop at level 5 because it was just to hard to do it with one hand).

[Silverjade]

What's sad is that in PnP, Two Weapon Fighting works with unarmed attacks. I think that Turbine should give monks a toggle skill that puts them in a "two-weapon unarmed" mode.

Maby a toggle for being treated as a two handed weapon too.Unlock with enchments perhaps?
How over powerd would it be to be treated as a two hander? Really a GS maul does 2d8x3 how bad would it be to be two handed damage when a monk right now at 16 does 2d8x2 with only onehanded damage?

[SCPRedMage]

one thing i would like to point out is that a two weapon fighting unarmed monk is considered severely gimped in pnp because of all of the attack penalties.

Considering that we're not dealing with any penalties from Flurry of Blows in DDO, giving monks the ability to use TWF with unarmed strikes doesn't have any more penalties than regular TWF. That puts it on the same footing as the TWF kamas that the OP was talking about.

[feynman]

As it stands, unarmed is lowest DPS option a monk has (OK, a single kama is lower, but that's just dumb); TWF kamas are faster, and staves get extra strength and power attack bonuses. The finishers are too hard to use, too easy to break, and underwhelming in any case.

The solutions are to either give unarmed TWF attack speed or THF damage bonuses.

[SCPRedMage]

The solutions are to either give unarmed TWF attack speed or THF damage bonuses.

Or, like I said, let them use TWF with unarmed strikes, giving them the attack speed benefit of TWF while making them spend the feats to get it.

[feynman]

Or, like I said, let them use TWF with unarmed strikes, giving them the attack speed benefit of TWF while making them spend the feats to get it.

That's pretty much what I just said; frankly, though, I think the strength and power attack bonuses are more likely to happen.

[winsom]

You are right. Yet, despite the problems with unarmed strike implementation, I choose to play an unarmed strike monk, even though she is clearly inferior to TWF monks and other DDO melee-damage dealers in general. I hope Turbine will rectify this imbalance, so I have not abandoned my monk yet.

Unfortunately the devs did not deliver on making unarmed fighting a good choice compared to the game-mechanically superior TWF kamas style. This contrast does not exist in D&D as a monk can TWF & Flurry with unarmed strikes. I suspect this happened in part because the Devs could not get certain handwraps working correctly to begin with, so they didn't want to further complicate their bug-fixing by allowing a monk to wear a wrap on each arm (two weapon fighting).

The devs introduced other game balance errors though. TWF kama attacks can double-deliver special monk damage and finishing moves even though the ki cost is only paid once. Unarmed striking can not do that. Greater TWF kamas is dealing almost twice as many attacks-per-time and this generates nearly twice as much KI as unarmed striking in addition to dealing a lot more damage! That makes Kamas even more of a clear "winner".

Very poor implementation to create one form of monk combat so inferior to the other. Worse still, it has been over 2 months and this has not been fixed and I have not seen any Dev comment about their plans to fix this. I want some kind of Dev response on this, even if it is to state that this inbalance is by design and it will stay that way. I can then re-build my feats and know to spend my 16th level ability bump into DEX to qualify for GTWF. I really don't want to do this to be effective at high level raids. I want my character to fight with martial arts animations.

Handwrap fighting does have a few minor things going for it:

1. Unarmed strike animate slightly faster than kama attack animations.

This is a moot point though once the TWF feats start allowing the dual-wielder to gain the extra attacks & extra Ki in the same amount of time.

2. Handwraps can have the Bone-breaking and Weighted weapon properties while kamas can not.

Bone-breaking is useful (it is not bugged) but Weighted is currently bugged. Weighted wraps are not giving the bonus to Stunning Blow DC or Stunning Fist DC. It is unknown if the devs intend to have this DC bonus apply to Stunning Fist. Not many monks take Stunning Blow feat, so this "advantage" is not much of a benefit compared to TWF kama fighting.

Weighted is bugged and I want it to be fixed ASAP. I think the DC should also apply to Stunning Fist.

3. Unarmed strike and quivering palm only work with handwraps wielded as weapons.

This is a very cool monk ability that kama users lose out on, but that too is a poor design choice. A classic monk ability should be available to all monks regardless of their weapon choice. You don't even need to have hands in D&D to deliver Stunning Fist attacks. Monks can make stunning kicks too. Using arm or kick attack is just a cinematic differencefor the D&D monk. Both are the same mechanically.

I want this particular issue to be fixed, but only after the currently inferior unarmed fighting style is buffed-up/fixed to operate a lot more like it does in D&D so that TWF kamas is not quite as superior.

[Rog]

i want to use 2 hand wraps at one time. i hate the thought of beeing forced to use kamas all the time which i do now.
mojomuscle 8th level halfing gimped insane ac monk

[Krell]

I would love to see Monks get more damage unarmed than with q-staff or kama. To me fist fighting is more fun, visually unique, and you can use all the monk feats. I think Monk damage needs to be more on par with other melee classes. If groups do accept a monk, they are usually looking for melee damage and Monk damage just doesn't compare. I like the style, graphics, and feats. I don't like the damage output, Ki reducing over time, or finishing moves effectiveness or complexity.

[m2abrams15]

I originall;y made an unarmed monk and early on was happy with the damage but as i read the forums yeah....i re-rolled *cry* into a twf kama monk.

one thing that does confuse me, is that the attack animation for a unarmed monk shows/sounds like 3 attacks, but i've only been able to see two hit. is that middle attack real or is that loose animation. Also we have some great ideas going around here, would be greater still to see some Dev response to this