So if the ranger monk splash is overpowered... what do you do about it?

[Gunga]

5. Roll a ranger w/monk splash.

[Aeneas]

Who told you all that the devs have to give you respecs when they make a character breaking change? They've done it before and they'll do it again. When it happens, deal with it.

I'll bet those of you who made evasion pallies in heavy armor back in the beginning of the game's life don't even remember the character's name anymore.

The obvious fix in my eyes is the limit the wis bonus to monk level, it will still allow pure monks to get as much as 20 AC from wisdom which as far as i know is not currently a possible number to reach. Those who splashed will still get a couple free AC, the evasion, and the monk feats.

[Jendrak]

Who told you all that the devs have to give you respecs when they make a character breaking change? They've done it before and they'll do it again. When it happens, deal with it.

I'll bet those of you who made evasion pallies in heavy armor back in the beginning of the game's life don't even remember the character's name anymore.

The obvious fix in my eyes is the limit the wis bonus to monk level, it will still allow pure monks to get as much as 20 AC from wisdom which as far as i know is not currently a possible number to reach. Those who splashed will still get a couple free AC, the evasion, and the monk feats.

While most of the time i would agree with you i would say this is a little different than a fix to a broken feat. Evasion was never supposed to work with heavy armor so to those that took the chance and lost...to bad.

However, when they change something that is working the way it should because they want/need to its not the same thing and being able to respec would be nice.

And before the "they dont have to do anything" stuff starts. All i said was it would be nice and is something they should look at before they start change too much stuff.

[Borror0]

5. Include some shields with more total AC bonus, either through a base increase like the DT armor has, or a significant bonus, or both.

(And this is what my bet is on for Mod 9.)

Gear dependency...

[SableShadow]

Gear dependency...

To an extent, I don't think we can get away from that.

[DaggomaticDwarf]

I mean the only people who seem to complain about this are the "Kill Counters" who claim they are not keepin count. I mean who cares who killed what? so they can put it in their bio page BFD. Complaining just to complain is useless IMHO. ok now to put on my "Flame retardant" undies

[Borror0]

To an extent, I don't think we can get away from that.

Get rid? Of course not. But Turbine keep on raising the bar each Module, by adding more grind.

I'm not against gear dependency, I also think S&B needs better shields, but trying to solve the problem only (or even mainly) by adding a new, better shield is irresponsible. Grind this, grind that. At one point, the amount of grind to just be affective on a defense spec'd character gets a bit... ridiculous.

[Borror0]

I mean the only people who seem to complain about this are the "Kill Counters" who claim they are not keepin count.

S&B players complaining about how other characters out-do them in every single aspect... care about kill counts?

Odds are that if you're a S&B player, you don't care about kill count. And if one does, he chose the wrong build from the start.

[Kraldor]

But in reverse? Where each non-monk level decreases your bonus? Otherwise, monks at level 1 would be incredibly handicapped, as they would have awful AC, and would continue to have terrible AC until late in their careers...if they ever got there.

Based on your percentage of monk levels out of your total current level, not 16.

So a pure Monk at any level is still 100% monk, and still gets 100% of his wisdom bonus.

[QuantumFX]

1. Nothing.

2. Let turbine raise the to-hit and hit points of mobs even more.

3. Reduce the ability to use monk AC in some maner.

4. Reduce the tempest bonus in some maner.

5. ???

5. Make dodge bonuses from items work like every other AC bonus in the game.

6. Reduce the meaning of a high AC by lowering the attack bonuses. Diminishing returns FTW. (It works for paladin splashes.)

[RuneDude]

This is my second post on these forums. hopefully this idea has not been suggested already.

Was thinking about the Feat mentioned for using longswords and staying centered. How about there be a feat like this for every weapon to use centered.

Reduce the AC to wisdom when not centered to cap out at number of monk levels.

Those with splashes not using traditional monk weapons, can still have the chance to keep their AC. It will somewhat balance out the power of a very top heavy class like monk. Do not see any reason the feat cannot be taken for multiple weapons. Otherwise if you choose not to spend the feat you can still have some AC and have one less stat to worry about optimizing.

However, while the feat should allow centering and usage of monk ki abilities, it probably should not benefit from the flurry to-hit bonus, which should only apply to basic monk weapons.

[SableShadow]

Get rid? Of course not. But Turbine keep on raising the bar each Module, by adding more grind.

I'm not against gear dependency, I also think S&B needs better shields, but trying to solve the problem only (or even mainly) by adding a new, better shield is irresponsible. Grind this, grind that. At one point, the amount of grind to just be affective on a defense spec'd character gets a bit... ridiculous.

Sure. You know my "it's how gear stacks" opinion of balance in DDO. What I'd like to see is not a new "must have" shield grind, but perhaps a new Shield prefix/suffix that gives something good to S&B folks.

For example, although I'm in the minority opinion on this, I think the change to "of Deception" was a significant bonus to the Rogue community. Maybe something similar on shields? Add crafted shields, sure, but add a new random suffix/prefix that grants additional bonuses to fighters or paladins not unlike "sacred" did for DVs? They could/should change some of the shield mechanics (best option) but maybe tweaking how some of the suffixes (suffices?) work would also help the situation.

[redoubt]

I felt like I covered that here...



I wouldnt mind seeing, in addition to the type change, monks be given 1 or 2 ac via the enhancement system. Remember, monks cant inherently use shield wands, and clickies only last 30 seconds. Yeah, there are cookies, but that's not really a part of the build system. So 1 or 2 permanent AC in exchange for the shield clickies is very fair to the monk. It would be non-dispellable and permanent as well.

I thought the clickies were a little more than that time wise... I'll have to look again. hmmm. Anyway...

Trading clickies for feats does not work unless you are a fighter. Monks do not have enough feats to replace shield clickies witih additional dodge feats. My monk has dodge as a feat, but I had to skip out on some other weapon feats to get it.

This fix is interesting, but I cannot see how a pure monk is going to either feats or enhancements to spare. Have to think on it, but I'd still like a fix that doesn't nerf and / or place additional feat and enhancement requirements on the pure class.

[underlordone]

Give them all CHEEESE WITH THERE WINE HAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHA

[cm2_supernova]

Give them all CHEEESE WITH THERE WINE HAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Congratulations! Your DiMaggio like streak of saying nothing even remotely interesting is alive and well!!!

[branmakmuffin]

5. Make dodge bonuses from items work like every other AC bonus in the game.

What does that mean?

[EinarMal]

What does that mean?

I would assume he means only the highest dodge item applies, so they don't stack like natural armor, protection, etc...

[branmakmuffin]

I would assume he means only the highest dodge item applies, so they don't stack like natural armor, protection, etc...

So he's lobbying for a nerf of Dodge bonuses, IOW. I believe the DEX AC bonus is a Dodge bonus (which is why I think Dodge bonuses sack), so (assuming I'm right) either the DEX AC bonus would have to be made its own special AC category (which stacks with everything), or DEX AC bonus would become pointless if the character had a high enough Dodge AC item.

My next post will have more parentheses.

[Noctus]

So he's lobbying for a nerf of Dodge bonuses, IOW. I believe the DEX AC bonus is a Dodge bonus ... [snip]

it is not.

[Aeyr]

Seems to me the original rules for the game pre-MMO were written to have armor/shields provide a relative give and take between dodge and armor bonuses. That is, you could go with heavy armor (i.e. full plate for 9 armor and only 1 dex (=+10 AC excluding pluses on armor), or light armor (i.e. leather armor for 1 armor but up to 8 dex (=+9 AC); thus a pretty comparable defense assuming the light armor wearer has free mobility. Most medium armor fell between these (provides armor bonus between these two examples, but allows for a dex bonus between these two as well). A robe wearer build would have unlimited AC, but was pretty much limited to +10 AC or so unless he tried to squeeze just a few more points in by completely sacrificing all stat points except Dex and Wis (for Monk). Thus many Monks would have comparable AC to that of an average Fighter.

The problem in DDO is it retains the armor+dex limits with a very few slight exceptions of a couple points of AC for enhancements available for very specific classes, but that the bracer/robe wearing Monk splashes can achieve DEX and WIS bonuses to AC that far exceed the levels that the original game designers really considered to be feasible on a PC. This was exacerbated by the availability of inordinately high AC boosting items specific to bracer/robe wearers.

As to fixing this, I would say expect little to no change on it leaving so as to not upsetting those that built these characters. However, I suspect the devs are more clever than some give them credit for and that they may just release new defensive bonuses to all the non-extreme dex/wis based characters. I have no idea what that might be (maybe dodge bonuses tacked onto raid armor loot, maybe stacking DR bonuses tacked onto raid armor loot, etc). Such additions would help narrow the gap between 90% of the characters out there and these extreme AC builds).

I liked some of the other ideas posted here, but I've already written too long a post.