/Monk Bulds

[Jacoby]

~Should read /monk builds~

I've heard a nasty rumor in game that the Dev's are going to require that /monk builds be centered to gain the Wisdom armor enhancement. Is this true?!?

If the DEV's do this I "DEMAND" that you give the community the ability to full respec their toons.

I'm not sure you remember your errors in the past so let me remind you.

1) You nerfed the Bards by eliminating the sale of d-door and firewall scrolls. It took warchanter and spellsinger enhancements before anyone would consider playing them again. Result: People left the game.

2) You nerfed Paladins by taking away some of their high level buffs. Result: Almost no one plays a pure Pally anymore and there are numerous posts for Pally love on the forums.

3) You nerfed Mage, Sorc and Cleric spell points in an effort to "balance" the game and on top of that increased the cost of heal scrolls. Result: People left the game and there is a desperate shortage of Clerics in game. It's simply become too expensive to play a Cleric outside of guild supported runs.

I have an issue with the whole game balance thing. When you run a "normal" quest and the enemy caster's have 500 hit points, how exactly is that balanced? Fire elementals immune to cold damage? Undead immune to disruption? etc., etc.

I know this post will be flamed but good god ya'll. Your reinventing the game to please who? Your just ****ing off the general population, leave normal difficulties, lets say normal???? The elite players can have elite!

[Korvek]

3) You nerfed Mage, Sorc and Cleric spell points in an effort to "balance" the game

When exactly was this one? Are you talking about the enhancement change back in 3.3? Casters had their spell point pool increased after Mod 4, not nerfed.

[Angelus_dead]

You should probably get your facts straight.

3) You nerfed Mage, Sorc and Cleric spell points in an effort to "balance" the game

In what way does additional spellpoints equal a nerf?

I have an issue with the whole game balance thing. When you run a "normal" quest and the enemy caster's have 500 hit points, how exactly is that balanced?

Is that a serious question? Player characters may do 150+ DPS each. If two players attack that mob, he'll die in 1.6 seconds. What's wrong with a monster lasting over 2 seconds of combat?

[BlackSteel]

um, why would u need a character respec to fix that? all you would need is a single dragonshard and to craft/collect new weapons. The only thing stopping /monk builds from being centered is what weapons they use. Put down the rapier and pick up a kama. Its another good reason for a shroud deconstruction mechanism, but you're character would by no means be broken by having to remain centered.

[Enochroot]

If the DEV's do this I "DEMAND" that you give the community the ability to full respec their toons.

I didn't realize we could just demand it, we could've avoided a 100 page thread.

[krud]

um, why would u need a character respec to fix that? all you would need is a single dragonshard and to craft/collect new weapons. The only thing stopping /monk builds from being centered is what weapons they use. Put down the rapier and pick up a kama. Its another good reason for a shroud deconstruction mechanism, but you're character would by no means be broken by having to remain centered.

/agreed.
you get an offensive mode (great dps, good AC), and a defensive mode (ok dps, great AC). You would only no longer get the best of both at the same time. It's not the end of these builds by any means.

I think turbine will start to make it so you have to choose which things to be best at; AC, dps, etc. You will no longer be able to be the best in all at the same time. Anytime a build or class arises that excels in all of the above it's a good bet that it will get dialed back a bit.

[Arkat]

Drive-by thread.

The OP won't address any of these points. He probably won't post in this thread again either.

[Deuce]

*snip*

If the DEV's do this I "DEMAND" that you give the community the ability to full respec their toons.

*/snip*

Yeah, good luck with that...

[rest]

I equipped some light armor on my rogue/monk the other day and was uncentered. I did not receive the wisdom bonus to my AC. Not a big deal as I didn't take the monk splash for the wisdom AC buff, but for a stance which i need to be centered to use. Not it was a moot point to me anyway.

And did you really think that something as broken as giving ANYONE with a monk splash an AC bonus equal to their wisdom modifier should be allowable? C'mon.

[WeiQuinn]

I equipped some light armor on my rogue/monk the other day and was uncentered. I did not receive the wisdom bonus to my AC. Not a big deal as I didn't take the monk splash for the wisdom AC buff, but for a stance which i need to be centered to use. Not it was a moot point to me anyway.

And did you really think that something as broken as giving ANYONE with a monk splash an AC bonus equal to their wisdom modifier should be allowable? C'mon.

You became uncentered because you donned a suit of light armor. Monks cannot use armor or shields, it unbalanced them.

As for nerfing the Wisdom bonus to AC, they shouldn't do it. It is a Monk feature that is only removed when the Monk picks up a Shield or puts on Armor. Using a non-proficient weapon may render the Monk unbalanced, but should not affect the Wisdom AC bonus.

And yes, I am leveling a character to be a Ranger 18/Rogue 1/Monk 1 to take advantage of the feat and Wisdom AC bonus. Worse comes to worse, I don't take the Monk level and pick up a second Rogue level or a Fighter level instead.

[rest]

You became uncentered because you donned a suit of light armor. Monks cannot use armor or shields, it unbalanced them.

As for nerfing the Wisdom bonus to AC, they shouldn't do it. It is a Monk feature that is only removed when the Monk picks up a Shield or puts on Armor. Using a non-proficient weapon may render the Monk unbalanced, but should not affect the Wisdom AC bonus.

And yes, I am leveling a character to be a Ranger 18/Rogue 1/Monk 1 to take advantage of the feat and Wisdom AC bonus. Worse comes to worse, I don't take the Monk level and pick up a second Rogue level or a Fighter level instead.

I understand why I became uncentered, but I was led to believe the WIS bonus to AC applied to you no matter if you were centered or not. That was not the case with me. But as I said I took my monk splash for an entirely different reason than most people. Even if they did make it that you had to be centered to get the WIS bonus, it wouldn't affect me as I wear robes and outfits anyway

[sephiroth1084]

I think that this would be a fairly reasonable change, since monks have not been functioning quite as intended: more people are taking 1-2 levels of the class and not bothering with any of their special abilities or weapons, just for Wis to AC, evasion, and an extra feat or two.

The upshot, is that, aside from messing with crafted weapons and a feat or two, this doesn't really break anyone's build. Sure, players are going to have to sacrifice a little DPS and a little of their ability to use stat-damagers if they want AC, but this seems an entirely fair trade-off to me, and is a MUCH better idea than any others I've seen for addressing the /monk issues.

[Enochroot]

I think that this would be a fairly reasonable change, since monks have not been functioning quite as intended: more people are taking 1-2 levels of the class and not bothering with any of their special abilities or weapons, just for Wis to AC, evasion, and an extra feat or two.

The upshot, is that, aside from messing with crafted weapons and a feat or two, this doesn't really break anyone's build. Sure, players are going to have to sacrifice a little DPS and a little of their ability to use stat-damagers if they want AC, but this seems an entirely fair trade-off to me, and is a MUCH better idea than any others I've seen for addressing the /monk issues.

As long as there's an easy way to change rapiers to kama's, shouldn't be a problem.

*** Edit *** I thought about this flippant remark last night, but even "an easy change from rapiers to kama's" wouldn't matter, it would still implode many builds to make a change such as this. And since there was a dev remark that the functionality was *working as intended and wouldn't be changed* - it would be insane to change that now without some sort of respec mechanism in place.

[Spectralist]

I understand why I became uncentered, but I was led to believe the WIS bonus to AC applied to you no matter if you were centered or not. That was not the case with me.

Actually you do retain your wisdom to AC regardless of whether or not you are centered. You lose your wisdom to AC if you equip an armor or shield though. That equipping an armor or shield also uncenters you is entirely coincidental. You are also supposed to lose wisdom to AC if you become encumbered, but i'm not sure if that's implemented.

The only way losing your wisdom armor if uncentered would be acceptable would be if remaining centered were easier. Simply allowing you to remain centered when using any weapon monks are proficient with(clubs, xbows, daggers, and hand axes, as well as their special weapons) would do the trick for me.

I doubt they would do this anyway though. It would annoy a lot of people, it wouldn't really improve the game any, and it would be further from PnP rules.

[sephiroth1084]

As long as there's an easy way to change rapiers to kama's, shouldn't be a problem.

*** Edit *** I thought about this flippant remark last night, but even "an easy change from rapiers to kama's" wouldn't matter, it would still implode many builds to make a change such as this. And since there was a dev remark that the functionality was *working as intended and wouldn't be changed* - it would be insane to change that now without some sort of respec mechanism in place.

How would they implode? What part of the builds is predicated upon using rapiers and such along with the Wis to AC? WoP rapiers while maintaining a great AC? Better DPS than monk weapons afford while maintaining great AC?

In the first case, the trade-off is more than reasonable (when considering how ridiculous both stat-damaging weapons and the monk AC splash are), and for the second, the drop in DPS should accompany the higher AC...that tends to be the balancing factor in D&D: as you specialize more and more in one particular area, you weaken yourself in others, where attack, saves, AC, damage and HP are the standard elements that shift here or there in this system. Ranger/monk, however, currently break that system of balances, because they have the best (or second best) DPS and AC, and have very good saves and basically the same attack bonus as anyone else. And they have evasion to go with that.

Meanwhile, a character wielding a big **** shield, and wearing heavy armor, who has specialized in being defensive, comes in 3rd place out of 4 in non-magical DPS (THF/TWF, S&B, archer) and 2nd place in AC--the thing they were aiming for in the beginning.

Anyway, I digress. What part of the current builds would be broken under this change?

[Enochroot]

How would they implode? What part of the builds is predicated upon using rapiers and such along with the Wis to AC? WoP rapiers while maintaining a great AC? Better DPS than monk weapons afford while maintaining great AC?

In the first case, the trade-off is more than reasonable (when considering how ridiculous both stat-damaging weapons and the monk AC splash are), and for the second, the drop in DPS should accompany the higher AC...that tends to be the balancing factor in D&D: as you specialize more and more in one particular area, you weaken yourself in others, where attack, saves, AC, damage and HP are the standard elements that shift here or there in this system. Ranger/monk, however, currently break that system of balances, because they have the best (or second best) DPS and AC, and have very good saves and basically the same attack bonus as anyone else. And they have evasion to go with that.

Meanwhile, a character wielding a big **** shield, and wearing heavy armor, who has specialized in being defensive, comes in 3rd place out of 4 in non-magical DPS (THF/TWF, S&B, archer) and 2nd place in AC--the thing they were aiming for in the beginning.

Anyway, I digress. What part of the current builds would be broken under this change?

Well, take an elf ranger/monk build, for example. If this change is implemented, why on earth would you have bothered either a) going elf, or b) going with the monk splash?

Basically you've now gimped your own build based on previously *known* information.

I'm not saying they're not really really good, these builds, I'm just saying, if the fix is to break the builds, and no way to recover lost time - then you're going to lose players.

[Jacoby]

To answer the flames, I knew there would be many.

1) They did nerf spell points in a MOD some time back. Most casters lost on average 100sp. Many were peeved when this happened and stopped playing their Cleric or left the game altogether. When the server population lagged, Turbine had a loot weekend over a couple weekends to try and recover adding 1 level to the value of chests.

2) The nerf that I am referring to is the one that I have heard about in game comming in the next mod. It would require a multiclass monk to be centered to get the AC Wisdom bonus, which they are currently not. Many AC builds use "Rapiers" or finesseable slashing vorps. This nerf would eliminate that build or reduce it to monk weapons only which would eliminate all but Vorpral Kamas from being used to get the AC bonus. No more high Crit Rapiers or Short Swords. Why do this?

3) I've seen several threads flamming WoP weapons. Firstly, I have only Puncturing which work just as well if your using rapiers. Secondly, if stat damaging weapons are so "ridiculous" then what do you call trash mobs with better than 1000hp, deathward and elemental immunities on normal difficulties? Turbine has unbalanced the mobs and you, flammers, want them to take the only leveling weapon we have out there.

If I spent 6 months to get my build just right, gain and bind weapons to this build, pull nice raid loot for this build, use +2 and +3 tomes on this build. Why then should I not be able to demand a full respec when they nerf the hell out of it. I've invested the time and I'm "paying" to play it.

4) If Turbine nerfs Monk builds and WoP or P then the difficulty will increase exponentially. It will cause a decrease in population yet again and I ,for one, want to see this game live on. It's simply the best game out there.

[sephiroth1084]

From what I see, most people ask, in the same breath, for a nerf to WoP weapons and insane monster HP and immunities. I don't believe anyone is crying for the first, without also deeply desiring the second. I, for one, feel that the second will bring about the first to a degree as a matter of course, but that's unimportant here.

What do ranger/monks really lose under this change? 4-8 AC when wielding their WoP, Banishing and Smiting weapons, and some DPS (not a ton). That character would have to choose between specialty weapons and higher DPS, and a higher AC, but would be able to swap back and forth to accomodate varying situations.

What gets lost, aside from some greensteel ingredients?

[Denssor]

I've heard a nasty rumor in game that the Dev's are going to require that /monk builds be centered to gain the Wisdom armor enhancement. Is this true?!?

Good, I was hoping they would do that.

[GlassCannon]

If the DEV's do this I "DEMAND" that you give the community the ability to full respec their toons.

YOU chose to E X P L O I T a flaw in the code! Of course you should be penalized! Now go reroll.