Shintao Monk

[mboger]

+1 for persistence

I'm just preparing for the inevitable "Oh, we were under the impression that everyone was impressed by the Shintao PrE and excited to play it" dev comment, so I can then go back and quote myself a million times to emphasize the point that they don't listen and/or care.

[Drfirewater79]

I'm just preparing for the inevitable "Oh, we were under the impression that everyone was impressed by the Shintao PrE and excited to play it" dev comment, so I can then go back and quote myself a million times to emphasize the point that they don't listen and/or care.

get this ...

wait sit down first ... cause i dont want you to throw your computer or something ...

take a deep breath ...

rather then reply about issues everyone is having with update 5 ....


...

...

...

the devs are

..
...
...

looking for feedback about missions for update 6!!!!!!!!!!!

yup you got it ... missions from update 6 are on lama .... while are conserns about update 5 are being put out of sight out of mind ....

[Quijonsith]

LIGHT MOVE .... not light strike ...

in order for a combo to be progressed it must be a COMBO OF STRIKES ...

this is the reason it doesn't progress the chain ...

spells do not add strikes

by stating it is a light only move ... simply means that it is only doable by harmonious Light monks

which is pretty brain dead since shintao is a light only pre ... but it seems descriptions are becoming more brain dead and less detailed and informative with update 5

On my light monk I've used the various 'cures' (removed blindness, curse, etc) to generate combos and they are not strikes. Each of the cures counts as a move from a particular element and works towards finisher combos despite having caster animations.

[mboger]

get this ...

wait sit down first ... cause i dont want you to throw your computer or something ...

take a deep breath ...

rather then reply about issues everyone is having with update 5 ....


...

...

...

the devs are

..
...
...

looking for feedback about missions for update 6!!!!!!!!!!!

yup you got it ... missions from update 6 are on lama .... while are conserns about update 5 are being put out of sight out of mind ....

Figures. They sell Adventure Packs, PrE are thrown around for free. If I offer to pay 400 TP for a useable Light Monk PrE, will that help anything? Devs?

I've pretty much resigned myself to Turbine's new M.O. The MMO market is pretty competitive and in the end it probably makes more sense to make the short term, cash grab, flash in the pan game that this is turning out to be.

[mboger]

On my light monk I've used the various 'cures' (removed blindness, curse, etc) to generate combos and they are not strikes. Each of the cures counts as a move from a particular element and works towards finisher combos despite having caster animations.

Countdown until that gets nerfed, too.

[Rickpa]

The pre is too weak and expensive. I doesn't make sense to be a light monk anymore imo .

I would agree, if every monk was forced to take one of these PrE's. The fact is, with Power Attack, and full two weapon fighting feats, a light focused monk is still pretty fun and effective. What I can't see doing without is unarmed attack/damage as it scales and GTWF at endgame.

I had thought to do my 2nd TR on my monk in the dark path, but found I couldn't support healing dragon marks, and have my needed two weapon fighting feats. Even with dual short swords with improved critical, I can't see this being very effective without full the TWF line. So for me at least, the best PrE is no PrE.

[Drfirewater79]

ITS REALLY EASY !!!

want to have pretty much everything light monk has in a dark monk

its called umd folks

add full ranks into umd

wear a +6 cha item

wear +5 umd item from titan

+2 cha tome

craft a single shard +6 cha skills item from shroud (cost is cheap i suggest air guard)

gh clickie (and then after ward use scrolls to keep it active)

and you should be hitting about 33.5 umd

and that is before exceptional cha item .... and with a base cha of 8

why take shintao ... i can scroll mass PFE at 110% for 4 mins

oh what about blur ?? scroll cast at 90% for 3 mins rather then spend ki for 1 min

why take smite evil ... when ToD does 500 points every 15 seconds ...

why take light monk

70% chance on full heal scrolls (miss on a 5 pass on a 6) does more healing and no combo required

and on top of it all ...

still take ninja spy pre and do more damage with additional sneak attack
ideal for you halfling monk slaying needs.

self buff your self with sheild and resitation to increase your ac

fire sheild prayer and what ever other dps raising spells

stone skin for dr and when you can find them D Door and Firewall too !!!!

and with the top hat (which you can switch on and off with minos between fights)

you get an additional 1 to umd giving an additional 5% chance at using all the scrolls you want.

there is so much more to gain once you take umd on a monk ... and nothing light monk offers is even comparable ... cept in TOD ... one mission in the entire game needs light monks ...

yeah ...

well swap feats as soon as you get your rings ...

[Drfirewater79]

On my light monk I've used the various 'cures' (removed blindness, curse, etc) to generate combos and they are not strikes. Each of the cures counts as a move from a particular element and works towards finisher combos despite having caster animations.

good to know ... but honestly never used any of them other then remove curse .... and that was very rare aswell ... never had to use it three times in a row to make the discovery lol

but really they shouldnt ... i wouldnt be surprised if that got nerfed (or adjusted depending on your feelings on the topic)

if you have to cast it its not really comboish is it ...???

[Drfirewater79]

I would agree, if every monk was forced to take one of these PrE's. The fact is, with Power Attack, and full two weapon fighting feats, a light focused monk is still pretty fun and effective. What I can't see doing without is unarmed attack/damage as it scales and GTWF at endgame.

I had thought to do my 2nd TR on my monk in the dark path, but found I couldn't support healing dragon marks, and have my needed two weapon fighting feats. Even with dual short swords with improved critical, I can't see this being very effective without full the TWF line. So for me at least, the best PrE is no PrE.

why would you want shortswords????

you want gtwf for the extra attacks on a monk with HANDWRAPS ... at lvl 20 your handwraps do way more damage then even the best short sword ...

and stunning +10 sounds meh .. but its still weighted 3% and stunning fist is a must have feat for any monk ... now your dc will be 39-45 rather then only 29-35

big difference

and ninja spy pre is gonna add 4d6 damage every swing that counts as a sneak .. which includes stunned opponents ...

5d6 if you add the ninja spy set from TOD

plus if light monk is getting exalted smite i wouldnt doubt that dark monk gets assasinate.

are they expensive ... yes

are they worth there weight in AP ... no

but still worth taking ninja spy for the extra damage ... even if it costs you one or two halfling guiles to take it.

but my bet is eventually they are gonna remove the high AP cost ...

if they dont then no one will take tier III

as it stands shintao is not worth taking at all ... but then again i have already said why for the cost its better to take UMD and not be a light monk at all.

[Potvin]

I would agree, if every monk was forced to take one of these PrE's. The fact is, with Power Attack, and full two weapon fighting feats, a light focused monk is still pretty fun and effective. What I can't see doing without is unarmed attack/damage as it scales and GTWF at endgame.

I had thought to do my 2nd TR on my monk in the dark path, but found I couldn't support healing dragon marks, and have my needed two weapon fighting feats. Even with dual short swords with improved critical, I can't see this being very effective without full the TWF line. So for me at least, the best PrE is no PrE.

and when the best PrE is none, that means the PrE's suck, and need fixing.

[mboger]

its called umd folks

What were your starting stats? Monks aren't exactly rolling in skill points and traditionally use INT as a dump stat, so what are you trading off to get max UMD? I'm going to eventually TR into a dark monk, so I'm interested in potential builds.

I guess with an INT of 12 at start (5 skill points/level), you could keep UMD, Concentration, Jump, and Balance maxed. Or go 10 INT and swap between Jump and Balance until you hit Level 7 and eat an INT tome. Or, I guess, roll a Human Monk.

Hmm... Something to consider.

[Drfirewater79]

What were your starting stats? Monks aren't exactly rolling in skill points and traditionally use INT as a dump stat, so what are you trading off to get max UMD? I'm going to eventually TR into a dark monk, so I'm interested in potential builds.

I guess with an INT of 12 at start (5 skill points/level), you could keep UMD, Concentration, Jump, and Balance maxed. Or go 10 INT and swap between Jump and Balance until you hit Level 7 and eat an INT tome. Or, I guess, roll a Human Monk.

Hmm... Something to consider.

starting cha 8 starting int 10

gonna lesser reincarnate now that i got a +3 int tome so i get more stats ...

dont need anything but concentration and umd to be a good monk .... and i am halfling

my balance without an item is over 20 and since jump maxes out at 40 a spell is all you need.

[Drfirewater79]

I think i broke it down before ...

cha 8 = -1 umd

so at lvl 20

-1 from cha

+3 from +6 cha item I use sorc TOD ring cause it gives exceptional dex 1

11.5 from ranks at lvl 20

+5 titan golves +3 if light rabbit hat and additional +2 for monk fire combo but not adding to my end list as rabbit hat doesnt stack and i am not a light monk

+4 GH start with clickie then maintain with scrolls

+6 cha skills item from shroud ... the lowest costing shroud items i suggest air guard

+1 from +2 cha tome (cant wait for a +4 only 9 more TODs to go )

+3 umd feat which i dropped weapon focus bludgeon to get ... since at lvl 20 i rarely ever miss anyway .

= 33.5

then Top hat from update 5 stacks +1

= 34.5

and eventually with enough work +4 cha tome giving me another +1

35.5

so without putting a lick cent into cha on a full monk its pretty easy to use scrolls

if your willing to work hard for the gear ...

man nothing is like two manning armath with a fighter and being able to keep him and yourself up through a whole mission on normal ... cept maybe soloing all the way to the maze on hard in gen point with a monk ...



PLEASE NOTE ... THESE NUMBERS CAN BE GOTTEN BY ANY ONE IN ANY CLASS .... SO TAKE UMD !!!!!!!

[elyssaria]

Unfortunately I forsee:

** This PrC will be released as it is in it current state on Lamannia (even if they have recieved tons of feedback sofar)

** They will modify this PrC with later updates

The way I would like to see if is that they actually use the weeks of betatesting to gather feedback and make the changes before they release U5. I do understand that sometimes the problems are of such proportion that they will not have the time to fix it before they release an update. However I don't think this PrC is such problem and the changes would easily be fit in within the beta testing period.

Final words: yes I do agree that the shintao PrC is not very useful in it current state, but I am hoping for a change since it would not be beneficial for the game if the dark path was more or less the only viable choice.

Best Regards!

/Khierra

[Drfirewater79]

Unfortunately I forsee:

** This PrC will be released as it is in it current state on Lamannia (even if they have recieved tons of feedback sofar)

** They will modify this PrC with later updates

The way I would like to see if is that they actually use the weeks of betatesting to gather feedback and make the changes before they release U5. I do understand that sometimes the problems are of such proportion that they will not have the time to fix it before they release an update. However I don't think this PrC is such problem and the changes would easily be fit in within the beta testing period.

Final words: yes I do agree that the shintao PrC is not very useful in it current state, but I am hoping for a change since it would not be beneficial for the game if the dark path was more or less the only viable choice.

Best Regards!

/Khierra

Yeah I think we all know (especially since update 5 is like what 5 days away ... i think what most of us are wanting is confirmation that DEV team KNOWS that shintao is far underpowered ... it has issues/bugs with no word of if they are WAI or not .... lots of suggestions as to fixes with no reply as to what is being considered ..

I dont expect to hear from a dev in the last 5 days ... to much work needed to make sure this goes off without a hitch on monday ... especially since they should be expecting two big changes ...

on monday alot of people are going to be filling out exit surveys and canceling accounts ... this is pretty obvious since every day that i have played on live this week i have met at least two people that had no clue about any changes .. and only knew that guild housing was coming ...

alot of people dont read the forums let alone participate and alot of people refuse to play on lama (dont want to spoil new content and changes before live).

The other big change is that alot of old players will be coming on as f2p or temp subs (small term or one month) just to check out the guild housing ....

my guess is turbine will see how many people joined as a bigger achievement then how many people left as a bigger loss ...

if they had replied to the hundreds of shintao threads with words that would lead us to believe they understand our issues and are planning to rework the class in update 6 (much like they did with pale master if the next update after its was launched faulty) .... if they had done this then when we players hit live and everyone started there dooom speak on live we could tell them its all known issues and getting fixed in next update ... and this "good word" would keep many people from over reacting and canceling there sub over small issues ...

as someone who really only likes to play twf and monks (have everything else just like monks better) this update hits me hard ... especially when i was thinking of changing my ranged ranger to a tempest twf before this updates information came out ...

I hope for the best ... personally i already canceled my sub ... I would be glad to resub if this game looks like its going to be worth my 15$ a month but right now ... it feels like this game isnt even worth my time any more .... let alone my money.

I have been playing less and less already ... hope this guild housing is cool enough to make up for all the nerfs and obvious troubles to gameplay and strat (has anyone tested to see if fvs can still blade barrier the end fight in new invasion ... cause if the blade barriers disapear when you are on other side of the room then there goes ever getting new invasion done anymore)

when people who are used to doing things a certian way get there game turned on there head they often dont enjoy it ...

if the dev's feel that replying to dice roll mechanics is more important then there highlight PRE's then we will see which causes more people to leave ....

some times sorry comes a little too late ...

[Aerendil]

I dont expect to hear from a dev in the last 5 days ... to much work needed to make sure this goes off without a hitch on monday ... especially since they should be expecting two big changes ...

Dev tracker.

on monday alot of people are going to be filling out exit surveys and canceling accounts ... this is pretty obvious since every day that i have played on live this week i have met at least two people that had no clue about any changes .. and only knew that guild housing was coming ...

Most people I've talked to are pretty indifferent on this.
I can't see THAT many people quitting, to be honest.

I have been playing less and less already ... hope this guild housing is cool enough to make up for all the nerfs and obvious troubles to gameplay and strat (has anyone tested to see if fvs can still blade barrier the end fight in new invasion ... cause if the blade barriers disapear when you are on other side of the room then there goes ever getting new invasion done anymore)

Haven't tested this, but I'm sure it still works. You realize why things were changed, right?
Firewall / BB / Cloudkill + Dimension Door = you sit at zone in while the mobs unaggro and sit there in your persistant spells until they die.
It was a blatant exploit previously.

So I'd imagine the range for spells to blink out is pretty big, and not "1 room away" distance, which wouldn't make any sense.
Guess we'll find out soon, though.

[mboger]

Most people I've talked to are pretty indifferent on this.
I can't see THAT many people quitting, to be honest.

I've done a lot of complaining, but I'm not the type to preemptively shout "I'M QUITTING!!!" whenever the Devs announce an unpopular change. In all likelihood, I'm probably not going to be quitting for some time (though at this point, I highly doubt I'll be putting any more money into TP). What I do know, however, is that a few of the longstanding members of my guild HAVE actually quit recently (complete with giving away all their unbound loot and ingredients, so you know they're serious) and several others have opted to not renew their subscriptions. While I agree that most of the people who dramatically announce that they're quitting if <insert change here> happens probably won't quit, there is definitely a significant number of people silently slipping away.

[Drfirewater79]

Haven't tested this, but I'm sure it still works. You realize why things were changed, right?
Firewall / BB / Cloudkill + Dimension Door = you sit at zone in while the mobs unaggro and sit there in your persistant spells until they die.
It was a blatant exploit previously.

So I'd imagine the range for spells to blink out is pretty big, and not "1 room away" distance, which wouldn't make any sense.
Guess we'll find out soon, though.

Yeah not ye tested myself ... was thinking of starting a thread to ask if anyone has tested the distance in missions where it is most relevant like new invasion ...

but really not thinking it matters now ... not like they are gonna make changes now .. prolly wont see any changes for two or three months after this update....

by then i will be on my last weeks of my sub and looking for something else to do ...
that is unless something game changing is announced before then ... half orcs dont interest me enough to keep me around ...

better have something bigger then that planned ..


While i dont think ddos population will be cut in half ... i expect at least 1/8th the population to be filling out exit surveys ...

remember exit survey doesnt mean they stopped playing TODAY it means they canceled there subscription and WHEN IT ENDS dont plan AT THIS TIME to renew it ....

i expect there are gonna be more people who leave the game over update 5 then are drawn to it by guild housing ...

[Drfirewater79]

I've done a lot of complaining, but I'm not the type to preemptively shout "I'M QUITTING!!!" whenever the Devs announce an unpopular change. In all likelihood, I'm probably not going to be quitting for some time (though at this point, I highly doubt I'll be putting any more money into TP). What I do know, however, is that a few of the longstanding members of my guild HAVE actually quit recently (complete with giving away all their unbound loot and ingredients, so you know they're serious) and several others have opted to not renew their subscriptions. While I agree that most of the people who dramatically announce that they're quitting if <insert change here> happens probably won't quit, there is definitely a significant number of people silently slipping away.

I havent quit yet ... let my sub run out twice over the 4 years and once went back to COH for a couple months and checked out WoW for 10 days (actually only took 5 days for me to realize i hated that game but it played on my macbook so it was something i could do while at work lol)

but this is the first time i actually canceled my sub ...

i have seen 3 guild officers quit the game ...2 non officers quit the game

two real life friends quit the game (1 after testing lama and 1 before)...

I have heard of two other long time friends in game talking about leaving to go to AoC.

this is since update 5 changes where announced ...

previous to update 5 and since EU i have seen the guild grow .. convinced lots of people to try the game and some even to sub or buy all the content and premium play.

but these changes are doing more bad then good ..

i canceled my sub ... not cause i am so unhappy with the changes .. .but because its become obvious IMO that turbine has little care for the people who have been playing this game for longer then 6 months ... our money is not worth listening too ...

the game gets dumbed down for the new players ... they remove the dnd from the game and expect us to be happy about it .. and then do not reply to important issues while they are still able to make changes ...

i will enjoy a couple months of ninja spy and maybe something will happen to make me want to play this game longer ...

but i can pretty much bet that there are more people that are gonna leave this game to check out other mmos coming out this november and next spring then are gonna stick around to watch this game die ...

i will always stick my head in every update just to see whats going on .. like i still do check out coh from time to time ... but not gonna spend my money here anymore if there is obviously no reason too ..

the game is fun ... but nerfs deminish that fun drastically ... nerfs should be a last resort not a everyday thing ... and when you put out 5-10 nerfs in one update and stack that with stupid changes that take the flavor of the game away ...

the game loses quit a bit of its fun factor.

[mboger]

In case people aren't feverishly refreshing all the other monk threads, a dev has finally broken the code of silence on monks in this thread. It's not the answer we were looking for, but at least a dev has finally acknowledged that we think Shintao sucks. I guess that's something.