TOD Change

[TPICKRELL]

The fastest Shroud ever (10 minutes) was done using 9 dark monks... I don't think they were sub-optimal.

In terms of elapsed time for a Shroud completion, the dark monk was and still may be a very good choice. High saves and possibly AC, Shadow Fade all add up to less incoming damage, one less healer= 1 more dps... very good damage against portals (full TOD and decent non-crit base damage) which are the biggest single time sink.

These factors do not translate into anything like comparable performance in the more important (at least for gearing a monk) areas in Amrath.

A well geared dark monk will be solid DPS, the problem is that the dark monk trying to get geared out is sub-par in Amrath, which is the only place he can become well geared.

[dragons1ayer74]

Never seen 2000 or 2500 damage hits and really on only very rarely seen the 1500 (my dark monk rarely switched out of fire stance). The pendulum swings I don't like it but again I do not like most nerfs, Wounding of Puncturing nerf was still worse in my opinion. If the game was not so focused on DPS, monsters with mountains of hit points, portal time sink, mass insta-kill immunities these nerfs would not need to happen because their would be other alternatives to overcoming monstrous hit point obstacles/time sinks. Untyped pure no-save damage was fun for the dark monk while it lasted. I am pro DDO and U7 will be a great update even with this blemish.

[grodon9999]

A well geared dark monk will be solid DPS, the problem is that the dark is sub-par in Amrath, which is the only place he can become well geared.

I'm calling BS on this.

[TPICKRELL]

I'm calling BS on this.

Your experience may differ but that's my experience with several different monk builds.

EDIT -- Note that my original post was edited as I intended to say that the dark monk who was trying to get geared out was sub-par in Amrath. Once fully geared, he is solid DPS pretty much everywhere.

[Chai]

The old TOD gave even very poorly equipped monks something that trumped all of these- massive damage, on demand, with no gear requirements and no resource consumption. That's just plain overpowered and well deserving of a "nerf."

At level 9 no less...

Most of you are thinking with your player hats on. When I put my DM hat on and think this one through, I conclude this ability to be severly overpowered, as I did on day one of its implementation.

What SHOULD HAVE happened though instead of a nerf, would be to give it abilities to make up the damage. 10% DPS can be made up over time, over levels, and added up between many new abilities rather than tossing one ability at the class that does a huge lump sum of damage and cant be stopped, then nerfing it later on when people spec for it and use it to accomplish things they normally could not have.

[TPICKRELL]

Never seen 2000 or 2500 damage hits...

I've never seen 2500, but I definitely saw a few 2000's last weekend fighting the Epic Crate Golem guy in Snitch.

[toughguyjoe]

Most of you are thinking with your player hats on. When I put my DM hat on and think this one through, I conclude this ability to be severly overpowered, as I did on day one of its implementation.

You're not thinking about it correctly. There is no DM hat. The DM hat is changed to a Developer Hat.

Developers need to make sure all classes are at least semi balanced, and also flavored enough so that they can be useful in different situations.

All classes need to be made...to catch the interest of players, so to speak.

ToD WAS over powered. Here's what bothers ME about the change:

Add save for half. That's totally ok with me.

Change it to Negative Energy. Not ok with this. Negative energy has all sorts of "bad" or "dark" connotations, but I think making it Evil damage would have been more fitting.

What bothers me the most, is that they caved in and made shroud portals take Negative Energy damage. I mean, such strange changes just scream to me that there is a better way to do it.

[Doctahg]

I'm really fed up with non monks telling MONKS that they put out 1500-2500 damage every 15 secs. I'm only Lv18 but I rarely hit 1500, can count on one hand the 2000's and never hit for 2500. It sjust isn't that common.

[zebidos]

I am curious how these DPS calculations were done, 300 - 400DPS???

My level 18 light monk does like 30 - 40 damage per hit and crits for about 80 - 90 with a bloodstone. How on earth do you get it in the 100's???????

[Qezuzu]

But this constant nerf-buff-nerf-buff cycle is getting old. I wish the Devs would put some testing into it, and just get it right from release, not subject us to beta versions.

That isn't going to happen. Not because of the competency of the developers, but because of how life works: You are *not* going to get things right the first time.

Especially if you don't do a sizable amount of testing (Even if their QA team had several dozen people, the amount of testing they do on each piece of content does not even begin to compare to the hundreds of thousands of hours the players will spend on it in its first few days of release).

Especially if it's something as complex as a massive multiplayer game. And I'm not talking about the game code here.

Furthermore, you have an extremely low chance of pleasing every person. Even 90% of people.

And as for the ToD: Several 500 damage hits with no save every ?15 seconds was pretty ridiculous in itself. Now it has a save of 30+WIS mod at level 20. It just makes wisdom more important for Dark Monks. Even if you have a low wisdom it is still 250 damage.

[SINIBYTE]

Even if you have a low wisdom it is still 250 damage.

Which my level 12 barbarian crits for...

[kernal42]

I am curious how these DPS calculations were done, 300 - 400DPS???

My level 18 light monk does like 30 - 40 damage per hit and crits for about 80 - 90 with a bloodstone. How on earth do you get it in the 100's???????

DPS = damage per second, not damage per strike. If you're a monk fighting with handwraps, you should have quite a few strikes per second.

-Kernal

[quickgrif]

I'm really fed up with non monks telling MONKS that they put out 1500-2500 damage every 15 secs. I'm only Lv18 but I rarely hit 1500, can count on one hand the 2000's and never hit for 2500. It sjust isn't that common.

They removed the 4th and 5th strikes anyway as far as know according to talk on the Lam boards. So those numbers are not accurate anyway.

Well I will say it once here and be done with it.
Did the recent change fix the place where monks are overpowered the most (9-18): NO

Do dark monks offer anything but dps to a party: NO

So what you get is a one trick pony that everyone builds around the only useful tool (TOD).
Now this is changed in a way that still makes it way overpowered at lower levels and weakens it at higher where minus the 4th and 5th proc was in no way shape or form overpowered.

What makes matters worse they give it a chance to be buffed with the dark finisher. Now the problem is many end game bosses are immune to the curse lines. Not only that but the dark finisher is on the same timer as TOD. Plus the curse line as it stands is total garbage.

So in a nutshell they took a one trick pony dark monk and made it a slightly less powerful one trick pony at end game.

[dkyle]

That isn't going to happen. Not because of the competency of the developers, but because of how life works: You are *not* going to get things right the first time.

I'm not even talking about programming, which is complicated and certainly error prone. I'm talking about game design, coming up with rules. This is difficult, but in a different way. It's entirely possible to release a well designed, balanced game. People do it all the time. They come up with something, playtest it, modify it, come up with something else, repeat until it's good. Then release.

My greater concern is they don't even seem to really be trying to avoid nerf-buff cycles:

One of the reasons we didn't release Ninja Spy III in this update is specifically so we can take the effects of these changes into account.

So they all but know this nerf will require a buff, they just can't predict how much? This isn't "oops, we made a mistake, let's dial this back a bit". It's "let's try this out for a while and see what happens". It's as though they just accept nerf-buff cycles as an inevitable requirement of game design. That it's OK to playtest in a production environment.

[gurgar78]

I'm not even talking about programming, which is complicated and certainly error prone. I'm talking about game design, coming up with rules. This is difficult, but in a different way. It's entirely possible to release a well designed, balanced game. People do it all the time. They come up with something, playtest it, modify it, come up with something else, repeat until it's good. Then release.

My greater concern is they don't even seem to really be trying to avoid nerf-buff cycles:



So they all but know this nerf will require a buff, they just can't predict how much? This isn't "oops, we made a mistake, let's dial this back a bit". It's "let's try this out for a while and see what happens". It's as though they just accept nerf-buff cycles as an inevitable requirement of game design. That it's OK to playtest in a production environment.

Based on which set of Dark Monk DPS numbers you believe, it may well be "Ooops, we didn't dial it back enough"

[Geonis]

What I think is funny, is the people most against it aren't even reading the numbers here. They are simply against that big fat "500" popping up.

Check the DPS numbers posted up earlier in this thread, ToD is a ~10% DPS boost (with no save).

If you don't think that is comparable to the Light monk's heals and buffs, then argue that. Quit crying for the nerf to the Dark monk.

[gurgar78]

What I think is funny, is the people most against it aren't even reading the numbers here. They are simply against that big fat "500" popping up.

Check the DPS numbers posted up earlier in this thread, ToD is a ~10% DPS boost (with no save).

If you don't think that is comparable to the Light monk's heals and buffs, then argue that. Quit crying for the nerf to the Dark monk.

With all due respect, it seems the argument changes every time a point is debunked. In the Lama thread, the difference between light and dark was irrelevant. The important thing was how dark monks compared to other DPS classes.

Now that it's been shown that dark monks (and light monks as well) are competitive with other classes, it's turned into a problem with dark not getting a big enough DPS advantage over light monks to justify losing light's utility.

[dragons1ayer74]

What I think is funny, is the people most against it aren't even reading the numbers here. They are simply against that big fat "500" popping up.

Check the DPS numbers posted up earlier in this thread, ToD is a ~10% DPS boost (with no save).

If you don't think that is comparable to the Light monk's heals and buffs, then argue that. Quit crying for the nerf to the Dark monk.

How much is that TOD getting boosted against constructs and undead? Hmmm minus ALL!

[Aaxeyu]

Which my level 12 barbarian crits for...

That's completely irrelevant.

I'll repeat what I said in the lama thread: "Either nerf ToD or remove kamas, q-staffs and light path from the game. IMO."

ToD is not something every monk gets, if the class is balanced around that single ability it greatly limits valid monk builds.
Sure, light path monks got some nice stuff, but only if it's only one light monk in the party. But that still leaves dark monks who uses anything but handwraps.

[Geonis]

With all due respect, it seems the argument changes every time a point is debunked. In the Lama thread, the difference between light and dark was irrelevant. The important thing was how dark monks compared to other DPS classes.

Now that it's been shown that dark monks (and light monks as well) are competitive with other classes, it's turned into a problem with dark not getting a big enough DPS advantage over light monks to justify losing light's utility.

Who said the difference between light and dark was irrelevant ?

I do think Monks should be relatively close to the other DPS classes.

Now what "relative" is, I am not certain about yet, but I don't think they are too far off from where they should be prior to the triple nerf to ToD. (Save for half, change to Neg Energy, removal of the 4th and 5th strikes[this part is not a nerf to me but a fix, the other 2 changes are nerfs though])

My point is no one thinks light monks are overpowered, correct?

So it comes down to ~10% damage versus the light buffs.

Again if you feel that the comparison is not roughly even, then argue that.

I do love how you managed to avoid addressing that.