Developers, Monks Need Love!

[Emili]

As long as monks keep selling well on the DDO store, they will always get love.

They are after all the most expensive class, and thus always get the most attention.

Despite that, people still want more. I find it amusing, but hey.. Good business for turbine I guess. Everytime they get attention, thats more money int the bank.

Monks are and have always been a major focus for almost every single update, including the current one. It was has been mentioned monks Ninja Spy III is the next PrE to be released.

Monks will likely get all 3 of there full PrES long before some clases get a single tier3.. Much les more then 1 to pick from.

I just hinted at that above... was funny the bards sat back for near four years before they got tier II.

[Draccus]

As long as monks keep selling well on the DDO store, they will always get love.

They are after all the most expensive class, and thus always get the most attention.

Despite that, people still want more. I find it amusing, but hey.. Good business for turbine I guess. Everytime they get attention, thats more money int the bank.

Monks are and have always been a major focus for almost every single update, including the current one. It was has been mentioned monks Ninja Spy III is the next PrE to be released.

Monks will likely get all 3 of there full PrES long before some clases get a single tier3.. Much les more then 1 to pick from.

Bingo. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that the flood of monk gear and improvements coincided with Monks being made a purchased class.

[stainer]

Bingo. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that the flood of monk gear and improvements coincided with Monks being made a purchased class.

If that is the case we should be seeing a lot of FvS activity.

[MrLarone]

If that is the case we should be seeing a lot of FvS activity.

not sure if you're aware but they're getting a pre next update ;-)

and monks were pay to play for as long as i've played (which is about as long DDO going F2P), not just after the last couple of updates.

[DevHead]

I'm done complaining about SF, b/c since I can't change the update, I'll have to adapt.

I'm most interested in the Ninja Spy PrE; third tier, pl0x.

I agree with a previous poster that Rangers need some love, but I think that's for ranged damage and animal companions that don't suck (I can get a friggin' Dire Bear! in PnP). However, this topic is for monk discussion. Everyone else can gtfo. Yeah, I said it.

[TreknaQudane]

... as to the question of stunning fists vs a kensie's stunning blow... I appologize for the synergies of a 12/8 or 18/2 fighter/monk towards stuns but you must realize also when it comes to unarmed attack that the build is lacking monk's damage die advancements, many of the monks enhancements in KI strikes and a ton of other advantages a monk get past level 8.

Well, to be fair...

Counting all the weapon spec feats a Fighter gets with enhancements, they're lower unarmed die will still do more physical damage than a monk.

The 12/8 will have an unarmed die of 1d10 (2d6 with Jidz in Earth stance, HP, why not) and deal an extra 8 damage due to feats and enhancements. That averages out to 13.5 (15 with Jidz/Outfit) compared to a 20 Monks base of 11 (13 with Jidz/Outfit)

The 18/2 will definitely be lower however ... 1d6 only averages out to 3.5 with the 8 Feat/Enhancement bonus.. oh.. wait... that's 11.5, they're slightly ahead.

The biggest difference between the two is that the Fighter will have great stuns and horrible damage ki strikes. The pure monk will have less physical damage but greater ki strikes which if used smartly can be exceptionally helpful at boosting damage.

When U9 launches it will definitely hamstring my finesse light monk. It can't reach the DCs need on epic now nor can it dish out enough damage to make the +50% remotely helpful, it really did rely on burst damage from stuns.

My Dark monk however will more or less weather this change and not see much of a drop in utility. If anything I may not have a reason to use SS on the monk either as a method of building ki or as a serious way to deal some damage (Cutthroat Smallblade and Radiance2/Steam2?)

ToD and Stunning Fist are becoming less of the defining features of the Monk class with the emphasis sliding to their other often ignored abilities... As much as I'm sad that one of my characters is becoming about as useful as a paper weight, I'm glad that the it will give me other options than build ki, hit ToD, build Ki, hit ToD.

Side note: Now that ki gen on stun -is- getting nerfed this would be a good time to remove the Unarmed only component from Stunning Fist and allow you to do so while wielding weapons and centered.

[dpadan17]

The monk nerfs pale in comparison to the nerfs of human versatility and evasion in medium armor. Those were game changers. WoP and transmuting also were in my opinion bigger than this. The cloud kill and scroll nerf was a tough one to swallow as well. At least now with nerfs you have respect options. Not like you had to delete and start over like many people did after the batman nerf.

true but there were other big options to use besides those, like the helplessness of stunning or mass hold.....now that the dc's are higher and less reliable to hit, it will be worse.

and also, you had other viable options besides WoP's and transmuting......what really do monks have now they have taken away what makes them "god like"?

and just a thought, maybe an overreaction....if they were so god like, why wasn't their an abundance of these being played more? because it cost money? IMO i don't think this would have stopped it.

[Thuriaz]

Emili - I kinda agree with you that on a monk you loose a bit more multi-classing than you gain even if what you gain is stunning fist. However on a kensai hybrid what you gain is also bar none some of the best Ki generation as Kensai adds to Ki directly per attack. The other things you loose are less valid in the end game as a result of better Green Steel weaponry and epic gear that helps boost attack to hit vs a raw weapons Kensai. What I'm basically aiming at is that Ki generation on a NON-STR primary focus monk right now is very small to non-existant compared to the cost. Even assuming you could generate 25ki per 20 hits thanks to critical hits and crane in wind stance you'd have a rough time keeping enough ki or building enough to use TOD, however on a fire primary build while you'd build Ki quicker and have a better To-Hit end game (more strength boosting options) you'd be spread thin negating your chances of landing TOD (so your can use it say 3 times as often but only land maybe half the time with it). It'd be like a Wizard being required to make Touch Based Attacks on a Dex roll to land hold monster. Would it negate the wizard completely? No but it'd remove a portion of their abilities.

A solution though does exist, and it's even pretty simple.

Ki strikes, TOD, for that matter ANY monk SPECIAL strike should have an automatic hit range of +20 (meaning the chance to land gets a +20, not the DC) this changes the nature of a wind stance, fire stance, or water stance monk and allows stance shifting a bit more. It's also the simplest option and makes the most sense. It allows a wisdom focused, or semi-wisdom focused monk with GOOD DC's to go from landing maybe 40% of the time to landing 80 - 90% of the time. It also makes using any Ki strike at any cost attractive enough to consider, especially if the mob is evading constantly.

[krogyy]

the main thing i would like is to have metal handwraps in the random loot tables. ransaking a lvl6/12 quest over and over for a chance that is essentially zero to get a silver handwraps is simply unfun.

for the rest, i agree the ki generation issue should be looked upon. probably the easiest for the devs is to lower the costs of all ki strikes (not only the elemental ones). this would enable greater bursts hence better tactic play.

i disagree on the stunning DC. fighters are the masters of combat tactics and should be the best at it if they so choose, period.

[krogyy]

Ki strikes, TOD, for that matter ANY monk SPECIAL strike should have an automatic hit range of +20 (meaning the chance to land gets a +20, not the DC) this changes the nature of a wind stance, fire stance, or water stance monk and allows stance shifting a bit more. It's also the simplest option and makes the most sense. It allows a wisdom focused, or semi-wisdom focused monk with GOOD DC's to go from landing maybe 40% of the time to landing 80 - 90% of the time. It also makes using any Ki strike at any cost attractive enough to consider, especially if the mob is evading constantly.

this makes a lot of sense, actually.

maybe tie the bonus to monk level instead of a flat bonus so the pure gets better benefit.

[Razcar]

Silly sarcasm post in a thread asking for input on ideas, you're creativity and well thought out sarcastic post is still just a troll post.

No. I'm saying that monk players are spoiled silly. And they constantly bellow like fat 5-year olds whose parents are trying to replace their chocolate bar with something healthier. Unfortunately these parents try this very seldom, and instead prefer to heap on more goodies.

Here's my idea. Having one P2P class get extremely much attention at the expense of all the other classes is bad game design. If Turbine's greed after kids' lawn-mowing wages makes other classes than the P2P one less fun to play something needs to be changed. Either Turbine should spread out their income from the classes more, or they should not charge for classes.

What we are seeing now is DDO more and more becoming like the dime-a-dozen Asian P2P MMOs, where you Pay 2 Win. All right - I suppose it was inevitable. But then spread it out. Monetize across the board. Don't split up classes into A and B divisions in regard to Dev attention just because some bean counter has decided that monks should be P2P and not, for example, rangers.

[elujin]

i think the monk smite gets + to hit not sure though would make snes though that and easyer stance dancing

[Missing_Minds]

the main thing i would like is to have metal handwraps in the random loot tables. ransaking a lvl6/12 quest over and over for a chance that is essentially zero to get a silver handwraps is simply unfun.

I know this isn't what you are looking for, but Devil Assult on hard has its tables modified such to where metal handwraps will drop if I recall correctly.

edit: looks like you are doing just that.

[Nick_RC]

/hearty non signed.

They dont need any love. All they need is a slight ap cost on a few of the lines.

Two things monks need to realise.

1. They ARNT going to be on the top of the dps heap and have all monk perks. Deal with it.
2. Ki generation was never supposed to be an infinate resource. You will have to pick and choose what you do JUST LIKE EVERY OTHER CLASS DOES.

All the monk benefits have just been hidden behind a 'max dps nothing else matters' approach. Im thinking alot of the changes mean that verastility will be more important and it looks like they are trying to make the game at cap more like 1-19. Where monks pwn stuff far faster than anything else.

N

Edit: anf not agreeing doesnt mean non-helpful.

[Thuriaz]

Alrighty then, I'll offer a little challenge to the naysayers. I've talked to a couple epic players and from what I near, to hit on a 2 you need a Bonus to Hit of ABOUT 58 so to hit on 8 you need a bonus of about 52. Now I know we get 20 from levelups, you can probably push dex to get another 10 which gives us a 30, so here is the challenge.

You show me I'm wrong on this, show me where you'll get that last +20 to hit with dex. I'm not even asking to hit on a 2 now, just on an 8 or heaven forbid a 10 (half the time). I'll even nerf damage for you and throw in precision so we can hit on a 6 at the cost of damage output, but without precision I want to see where that last 20 will come from. Remember, levelups must go at least 3 into wisdom so that a monk has a FAIRLY GOOD CHANCE to land a stun/ki attack on a successful strike (Since strikes won't be very successful to begin with). Feel free to use wind stance for the +2 from there.

Now, after you've done that, on the same build how much Ki can it build up per strike? Per second? Since obviously those of us protesting lack in the math fu of those superior players, show us, how long will it take a finess monk to build up ki. Figure that in 20 hits they are landing 15, and I figure your looking (without a necklace you can't get till endgame) ABOUT 15ki per 15 seconds, remember Ki degenerates when not fighting so you have to be swinging and hitting from round to round like a drunk at a toughman competition to stand a chance at keeping that Ki building. So, 1 ki per sec, that's 50 seconds to use TOD, that's 1 TOD a minute IF AND ONLY IF the enemy mobs are sufficiently populated OR powerful (what mob takes a full 50 seconds for you to kill in a team?) to last 50 seconds.


I'm not saying monks are completely nerfed to uselessness, I'm just saying that the math fu I've done in it's most simplistic form shows one truth, without MULTIPLE past lives, without going strength, and without the best gear a Monk will under preform EVERY OTHER CLASS in the fields it specializes in, will have some abilities gained as early as level 9 PERMA LOCKED OUT so that only in the rarest of situations would it be viable, or possible, to fuel them.

But if I'm wrong show me some math, I'd be very interested to see the flaws in my logic and reasoning. I can think of a few VERY SPECIALIZED BUILDS that may succeed in epics, but even then they'd loose a lot of what makes a monk unique.

Was Ki being generated too quickly on stunned mobs? Yes, no argument there, that is as much a fault in the layout of the crane path as anything. Does this new nerf fix that? In a sense it does, it's curing the cold by killing the patient, the cold is gone for sure but so is the patient.

Now onto the easily to implement solution. Change the crane path, make it give a base ki PER HIT, that DOES NOT STACK WITH FIRE STANCE. This would balance the stances and builds back out and provide the fines builds an option again.

[elujin]

Alrighty then, I'll offer a little challenge to the naysayers. I've talked to a couple epic players and from what I near, to hit on a 2 you need a Bonus to Hit of ABOUT 58 so to hit on 8 you need a bonus of about 52. Now I know we get 20 from levelups, you can probably push dex to get another 10 which gives us a 30, so here is the challenge.

You show me I'm wrong on this, show me where you'll get that last +20 to hit with dex. I'm not even asking to hit on a 2 now, just on an 8 or heaven forbid a 10 (half the time). I'll even nerf damage for you and throw in precision so we can hit on a 6 at the cost of damage output, but without precision I want to see where that last 20 will come from. Remember, levelups must go at least 3 into wisdom so that a monk has a FAIRLY GOOD CHANCE to land a stun/ki attack on a successful strike (Since strikes won't be very successful to begin with). Feel free to use wind stance for the +2 from there.

Now, after you've done that, on the same build how much Ki can it build up per strike? Per second? Since obviously those of us protesting lack in the math fu of those superior players, show us, how long will it take a finess monk to build up ki. Figure that in 20 hits they are landing 15, and I figure your looking (without a necklace you can't get till endgame) ABOUT 15ki per 15 seconds, remember Ki degenerates when not fighting so you have to be swinging and hitting from round to round like a drunk at a toughman competition to stand a chance at keeping that Ki building. So, 1 ki per sec, that's 50 seconds to use TOD, that's 1 TOD a minute IF AND ONLY IF the enemy mobs are sufficiently populated OR powerful (what mob takes a full 50 seconds for you to kill in a team?) to last 50 seconds.


I'm not saying monks are completely nerfed to uselessness, I'm just saying that the math fu I've done in it's most simplistic form shows one truth, without MULTIPLE past lives, without going strength, and without the best gear a Monk will under preform EVERY OTHER CLASS in the fields it specializes in, will have some abilities gained as early as level 9 PERMA LOCKED OUT so that only in the rarest of situations would it be viable, or possible, to fuel them.

But if I'm wrong show me some math, I'd be very interested to see the flaws in my logic and reasoning. I can think of a few VERY SPECIALIZED BUILDS that may succeed in epics, but even then they'd loose a lot of what makes a monk unique.

Was Ki being generated too quickly on stunned mobs? Yes, no argument there, that is as much a fault in the layout of the crane path as anything. Does this new nerf fix that? In a sense it does, it's curing the cold by killing the patient, the cold is gone for sure but so is the patient.

Now onto the easily to implement solution. Change the crane path, make it give a base ki PER HIT, that DOES NOT STACK WITH FIRE STANCE. This would balance the stances and builds back out and provide the fines builds an option again.

how mutch dps does a finnes fighter do ?
you can't call whole class gimp becous cous the finnes version doesn't do well

[Thuriaz]

True, but I can when it requires 4 primary stats to be effective, even Paladins have less stats to try to tie into. A Paladin with a mid range charisma starting score looses a LITTLE damage output on each attack, a monk who has a mid range wisdom score looses EVERYTHING they are supposed to be able to do. So where do you get the extra points for wis?

TRing, Finess (so that you can near dump strength), or dump Con.

Are you suggesting monks dumpstat con?

Show me how you can get a first life monk up to a 41 DC without +4 tomes and a good to hit bonus otherwise. Heck, how about with just +2 tomes. Remember a monks DC comes out to 30+ Wisdom bonus as a rule (either 10+ 20 from monk levels, or 10 base + 10 from monk levels and 10 from wraps depending).

By my math that would require a wisdom score of 32... which is doable if you start with 18wis, which means your dumping SOME score somewhere either Strength, Con, or Dex. I've postulated before that dropping the TWF chain may be required for monks, but that leaves them with a 50% reduction to Ki generation end game no matter what stance they are in, and that was all assuming a +3 tome in there too. So monks are taking an 80% drop in Ki regend due to the hold nerf (fine fine) and then another 50% drop to get decent wisdom DC's !??!

You call that balanced? Lets just get rid of the whole Ki thing and give them limited uses of attacks per minute instead, it makes more sense, it's closer to P&P, similar enough to Paladin that it can't be that hard to implement, and MUCH More viable.

[AtomicMew]

OP, you are totally wrong. Monks are going to get a HUGE boost for U9.

The nerf to ki generation is so trivial. So you need to use Oremi's instead of Nyoko's for trash mobs? OH NO major game breaker right there! Not... c'mon, guys.

You're still going to be doing more DPS because of having +5 holy vorpal transmuting rocket handwraps of super-duper everything bane. Not only that, but you're going to be doing more RELATIVE DPS in the party, compared to other classes, because the auto-crit nerf means that other classes can't just switch to picks.

[grodon9999]

/hearty non signed.

They dont need any love. All they need is a slight ap cost on a few of the lines.

I agree, but isn't that "love?"

[Thuriaz]

"your going to be doing more DPS, you should be happy"

No one has been asking to make the monk an "ubber dps class" what they've been asking for is to remain viable in the areas they OBVIOUSLY have enhancements for. Tripple the DPS, if we can't stun or fire off TOD, we're just fist fighting barbarians.

On the other side of that, as I do like to provide the other side, I ran something up in the character planner and it IS possible on a human monk to wind up with a 20 STR, using only a +1 dex tome, 10 Con, 16 dex, 16 Str, and 16 Wis to wind up with a 24 - post 2 tome - wis score (32 after gear), but all your feats are Twf chain, toughness, improved crit, and dodge for a dark monk (both types of stuns), winds up with ungeared 288hp also. Not the worst build I've seen, but it still seems like a very limited set of build options to make it work. I think more than anything the complaint monks are having is this, it use to be the most versitile to build class, now it's the most limited. I can see one... maybe two pure build stat layouts that work now instead of at least 10 or more before.

Is it viable? Sure, it'd also work fairly well as a dwarf (maybe better) and less so as a warforged, but it still would remain, as it is, a very limited stat layout. I can't see what you could change without nerfing the DC's below acceptable and still generate Ki on this build concept.

I figure, ungeared 288 HP that means... roughly speaking, geared maybe 400+ HP, again, no bad, but again not very much different you could do in terms of builds and still remain epic viable. I suppose I shouldn't complain on that, more feat starved classes are like that also (barbarians, rangers) with all pure builds being basically the same and cookie cutter. It's just sad to see the most customizable class go from being "You can make a monk however you want" to "you gimped your toon the second you decided you wanted to be different at all". Maybe I'm missing something though, is there some hidden way to up the DC on TOD that I don't know about?