Ki gen, how are they addressing this issue?

[Tirisha]

This change is intentional and WAI. You will find a dev saying this in the other Ki generation thread. You will have to browse thru that if you want to see it for yourself.

Basically if you are not in Fire stance you are SOL.

From my personal tests it is not too bad (albeit very noticeable) if you play solo, you will still be able to generate enough ki, it will just take a little longer. The real problem is when you are in full groups. You will never generate sufficient Ki in full groups or raids no matter what stance you are in and what gear you use.

The short and skinny of it is this:
The Devs hate monks and/or do not know how to play monks. :P

They haven't stated that. What Eladrin said is that Ki wasn't meant to be a limitless resource. Which is the current state with Auto-crits+crane. They haven't made a statement on the current state of ki in Lammania, only that Auto-crits was considered a fix, too which extent I fully agree.

I don't agree however that ki should be as it is, only significantly different between a lv 20 monk and a lv 1 monk. when using Firestance or oremis kneck.

A Dark monk should be able to keep up TOD and stunning fist in my mind, and as it stands against non-stationary targets you would be lucky (with crane/improved crit) too keep TOD on timer. nvm cool abilities like Abundant step or shadow fade or whatever those light monks get

[Junts]

I'm not suggesting it isn't a problem that finesse builds as a whole are bad on DDO: I'm just saying that they are. Finesse as a character option is far from encouraged in endgame content right now. It should be useful, but it isn't - even those halfling guile rogues are better off, and would have better to-hit by going strength based. That's messed up, but it isn't a fundamental problem with the monk class (or its ki generation), its a larger problem in the game design.

In any case, you chose to build your character to specialize in a bunch of things that aren't hitting monsters, generating ki or even necessarily landing special abilities (I'm 13 base wisdom, no levels there and I'm only 2 wisdom behind you). You can't expect to have a free and easy time doing a bunch of things you didn't try to specialize your character to do.

It sucks when DDO comes along and makes your build ineffective. It happens to every class and at least you have lesser reincarnation available to adapt. You don't need to be a warforged str-build. But you probably want more than a 19 strength. It would not be that difficult to move to a str/wisdom halfling, which happens to be extremely effective. By the time you factor in things like rage, ship buff, madstone rage, the availability of abishai bonuses, etc, it's easy to pass your 32 dex in strength for equal to-hit and better performance in pretty much every bit of content you'll run - and you could always still swap your gear to ac if you really want to solo Amrath stuff sometime.

[Junts]

They haven't stated that. What Eladrin said is that Ki wasn't meant to be a limitless resource. Which is the current state with Auto-crits+crane. They haven't made a statement on the current state of ki in Lammania, only that Auto-crits was considered a fix, too which extent I fully agree.

I don't agree however that ki should be as it is, only significantly different between a lv 20 monk and a lv 1 monk. when using Firestance or oremis kneck.

A Dark monk should be able to keep up TOD and stunning fist in my mind, and as it stands against non-stationary targets you would be lucky (with crane/improved crit) too keep TOD on timer. nvm cool abilities like Abundant step or shadow fade or whatever those light monks get

My dark monk can keep tod and stunning fist going, right now, with wind+shintao and no autocrits present. That's a pretty low ki load.

The people who are complaining are the ones who like to use a ki strike every second, void4s everywhere, earth strikes as much as possible, plus tod or shintao moves. Those people need to build for that kind of ki generation and not get it for free.

[Tirisha]

I pull aggro from fighters, barbs and paladins pretty regularly on non-epic bosses. I dont hold the epic bosses very often primarily due to the loss of sneak-attack hit bonuses.

There's no reason a monk designed to can't play a dps role .. even a wisdom-based monk. You're the one playing a dex/wis build that can't hurt anything and complaining you aren't a dps character.

Builds with weapon finesse are irrelevant on DDO. It isnt just monks - even drow rogues are better off strength based right now.

While I agree with the majority of this statement I believe that Weapon Finesse monks are not irrelevant. They are a viable build right now because the dps swing is marginal in comparison to a str build in most cases. And the added advantage of AC is nice for raids and general non-epic stuff. They will still be viable after U9 goes live, but only if they work oremis neck into their set up. It is a powerful build at will continue to be a powerful build.

however, I'm of a personal opinion that a pure 20 capped non-firestance monk shouldn't have to relay on oremis to provide a meaningful difference in ki consumption/efficiency when compared to a build with only 1 monk lv.

[Tirisha]

My dark monk can keep tod and stunning fist going, right now, with wind+shintao and no autocrits present. That's a pretty low ki load.

The people who are complaining are the ones who like to use a ki strike every second, void4s everywhere, earth strikes as much as possible, plus tod or shintao moves. Those people need to build for that kind of ki generation and not get it for free.

I can't imagine you can keep them both on timer without oremis

[QuantumFX]

The people who are complaining are the ones who like to use a ki strike every second, void4s everywhere, earth strikes as much as possible, plus tod or shintao moves. Those people need to build for that kind of ki generation and not get it for free.

Incorrect. You can’t keep the ki generation necessary to cycle Stunning Fist and Kukan Do with Wind 4 and Oremis. You should *really* try playing a shintao before posting such inaccurate information.

This is with a 95% hit rate and 100% success on the stuns.

[ImFour20]

Can anyone point me to a DEV response that talks about future plans for ki gen .. cause as it is on lama (this weekends version) i cant see me playing my monk much at all.. and since its the one class i actually really enjoy playing ... i dont know why i would want to log in. Its been hard enough to log in this last two weeks ... almost seems pointless given the changes.

I can't point you to a link(maybe someone else can) but Eladrin(i believe is the dev that commented on it) said this change to Monks and their Ki gen is known and planned. They said you were never intended to have an infinite supply of Ki for spamming finishers and strikes.

So, dont plan them changing the system in any way. As I did with my Dark Monk that dumped Wis and used Touch of Death. . .I'll have to change and adapt. I imagine as long as there is a way to generate an abundant amount of Ki, I'm fine with it(with oremis and firestance). Whether or not that is your ideal stance or gear setup is another thing.

[Aesop]

I believe the Devs did lower the cost of the upper tier strikes in this last Lamannia build.


I also don't think that Stance should have anything to do with Ki Gen at this point and would be far happier if they tied Ki Gen into levels.

level/Ki Gen Modifier

1/1 per HIT
4/+1 per CRIT
8/+1 per CRIT
12/+1 per HIT
16/+1 per CRIT
20/+1 per CRIT

Give Fire Stance a bonus to damage
+1 per tier for 1 handed light and thrown Ki Weapons
+2 per tier for 2 Handed and Ranged Ki weapons
+2 Seeker per tier


Earth could have tanking benefits
5% damage mitigation per tier
10% Hate Generation per tier
+1 Natural Armor Bonus

Air can have its classic double strike procs and Enhancement bonus to Attack Speed

Water ummm can have bonuses to DCs, Saves at the higher tiers maybe even a bonus to their SR or something


Aesop

[QuantumFX]

I believe the Devs did lower the cost of the upper tier strikes in this last Lamannia build.

Just the elemental and void strikes.

I also don't think that Stance should have anything to do with Ki Gen at this point and would be far happier if they tied Ki Gen into levels.

level/Ki Gen Modifier

1/1 per HIT
4/+1 per CRIT
8/+1 per CRIT
12/+1 per HIT
16/+1 per CRIT
20/+1 per CRIT

Indeed.

Give Fire Stance a bonus to damage
+1 per tier for 1 handed light and thrown Ki Weapons
+2 per tier for 2 Handed and Ranged Ki weapons
+2 Seeker per tier

Since I have nowhere else to put this comment: Personally, I would like Turbine to just make the Tier 1 Stances the Stat Trade off and the basic elemental strike.

I like your suggestions for Sun stance.

Earth could have tanking benefits
5% damage mitigation per tier
10% Hate Generation per tier
+1 Natural Armor Bonus

I’d still go stacking +1 Natural AC per active tier. For a “tanking” stance it actively works against a “Tanking” stat. (DEX)

Also 2 DR/- (Stacking) and 3/6/9 DR/Adamantine would be an enticing change.

Air can have its classic double strike procs and Enhancement bonus to Attack Speed

There might need to be some defensive attributes added if Earth gets too powerful.

Water ummm can have bonuses to DCs, Saves at the higher tiers maybe even a bonus to their SR or something

In some ways I’d like to see “Intuitive Attack” added somewhere in tier III/IV. You would then only be trading off between DPS and the effectiveness of DC based attacks.

[J1NG]

I had this big piece written down originally, but removed it to stick to facts:

Test:

Number of runs: 5 each scenario

Toon in use: Jigglypath (Charisma Monk)

Jigglypath = the ultimate in Monk ability user. I Kukan-Do (25 Ki) then Shining Star (5, 5, 5 then 10). A total of 50 Ki usage from the start of battle. No strikes for damage are used. Only for CC. This is how I play in Live, I outlast my enemies.

***

Jigglypath: Live

Stun, get Ki, do mojo, no issues, some Ki left. Wind Stance IV

***

Jigglypath: Update 9

Stun, get Ki, lacking in Ki a lot (approx 5-10 Ki from complete combo, more if I miss), can't do mojo before stun recovery. Wind Stance IV

***

Jigglypath: Update 9

Stun, get Ki, do mojo (just about before they recover from stun), not quite lacking in Ki - just about makes even (VERY close, approximately 5-6 Ki odd, reliant on to hit as well). Sun Stance IV (I'd say about a 70-75% chance of success most of the time, but once misses are included it falls short)

***

In short, yes, you CAN keep Ki up.

In reliance on the following:

1. Sun Stance
2. Oremi
3. Both

And this is without strikes for damage too.

If this is the way things are going, then the diversity of Monks has just been slashed... By a LOT.

Which means there is no customisation for Monks, Turbine can rip out those other stances. The Shintao PrE. And the Necklace slot as well. Because there isn't a combination for those characters that don't REQUIRE the previously aforementioned things to run as they would NOW in Live.

Great way to waste money Turbine on developing the Monk enhancements, PrE, changes, etc, especially after so many updates Turbine that you were working on them. I've never seen such a wanton need to waste development time and money, as well as future purchases of the class in such a quick and big way personally. Quite astounding.

J1NG

PS. I'll test my Ninja Spy Monk later so see how badly it is for him. But I have doubts that he will fare better. He's a pure dps toon, no CC at all, so should give a good contrast to usage and Ki consumption.

[Lifespawn]

They are addressing the issue of ki gen problems that people are reporting by ignoring them.

A few select people have no problem keeping KI i want whatever they have going for them because my fire based monk can't keep ki up except when solo in a group if i happen to get a stun with my 40 dc sf it is dead before i can get more than 1-2 hits on it.


People that can keep plenty of KI up for anything they need are not making use of monk abilities correctly.

The ki problem is akin to telling a pally they can't use divine sacrafice when it's off timer.

[J1NG]

Actually, here's some good news:

Preliminary testing. Ninja Spy. Sun Stance II.

Assuming you use zero abilities, and save for Touch of Death, you can get an abundance of Ki for strikes in between.

This lot really do have too much Ki on hand. They're not reliant on anything but dps, or don't care if they fail their DC's on stun etc because it's secondary to their damage, ie strikes and ToD only.

This is why there's a lot of monk players who have no idea whats goin on.

J1NG

[Junts]

Actually, here's some good news:

Preliminary testing. Ninja Spy. Sun Stance II.

Assuming you use zero abilities, and save for Touch of Death, you can get an abundance of Ki for strikes in between.

This lot really do have too much Ki on hand. They're not reliant on anything but dps, or don't care if they fail their DC's on stun etc because it's secondary to their damage, ie strikes and ToD only.

This is why there's a lot of monk players who have no idea whats goin on.

J1NG

Also keep in mind that stunning fist alone is a relatively small ki expenditure. The abundance you speak of is more than enough to run stunning fist, shadow fade, and even touch of despair to fuel triple dark finishers, as none of those are actually all that expensive.

Its when you get into really trying to run multiple earth strikes or void4s in between your stuns and touches that you're gonna have ki problems.

Honestly, I don't think they intend to try to balance monk dps based on whether or not you can hammer the buttons to keep 7 strikes on timer or not.

I appreciate that a lot of you have played monks with this basis, but its extremely hard for them to balance it in a fair way because it becomes very much about connection quality, equipment quality (ie your hardware, how many keypresses your computer recognizes simultaneously) and the like.

I've played my monk in a spec where boss fights consisted of rotating earth 2-3-4, air 2-3-4 as fast as i could push the buttons, and while its definitely higher dps, its hand-cramp city and it requires you to stare at your cooldowns. I don't think this is actually how monk is meant to be played.

Comparison to divine sacrifice isn't very accurate: divine sacrifice has a trivial cost because its intended to be used a lot more often. Ki generation isn't designed to make the cost trivial, and that's why many uses of ki are much stronger than divine sacrifice.

[J1NG]

Actually Junts, no it's not.

I can fit Void Strikes in between as well as Earth Strikes on the Ninja Spy in Sun Stance, so long as I'm doing it judisciously. And not trying to do it all at the same time. And no one else is hitting on the same thing (ie I'm hitting on portals for this test so it's fine, but a test just now also with others on mobs resulted in reduced Ki recovery)

This is DPS play. Solo. On an entity with enough hp to keep you going. ie bosses and portals.

This is NOT how all monks play.

And especially not on mobs.

So please don't say that Ki generation issue is not there. And that it's OK because it works for a subset of Monks.

This is an issue unless Turbine wants to get rid of all the other stances, enhancements and abilities.

J1NG

... Already planning my last life as a FvS instead of a Monk ...

[sigtrent]

Exalted Smite is also not very good, primarily because paladins have such a limited number of them.

I love exalted smite... On the trash mobs I pace it out and on the big fights I use it to grab initial agro or lead in with a big pile of extra damage.

The joy and utility of smacking a monster for 500+points on a swing is well worth the AP spent IMO.

[QuantumFX]

They are addressing the issue of ki gen problems that people are reporting by ignoring them.

Acting as devils advocate for a second here: The developers are in the end stages of a development cycle. They may not have the ability to determine when or how they are going to address the issue.

[sigtrent]

On none Firestance monks ... the special attacks are the only feature we have.

That is not true. Monks get bonus feats which you can apply to offense or defense, you get excelent saving throws and immunities, you get stat buffs from your stances, you get built in added AC and AC from two stat sources. Monk is a partly defensive class and one of the three best in the game. You've already noted your monk takes good advantage of those features. To expect to also be top of the ballpark in DPS is too much. There have to be trade offs in good game design.

If your an AC monk you are completely useless at end game (including epics but not only in) because without ki you cannot do enough dps to kill mobs ... you cannot build ki fast enough to take advantage of extra damage or healing from ki strikes (pending on monk pre) and things like Smite Tainted and other HI KI COST attacks which already require some pause for ki generation are also made completely useless because of the changes to crit production for monks.

Completely useless is a vast exaggeration. If you can hit a monster you are not useless, you are contributing to its death. Monks have the fastest basic attack rate and access to many sources of bonus damage. Having to slow your ki moves down by a % is not what I could call Awesome to Useless. If you were at all useful before, you are now slightly less useful. The character of your toon has not changed, only its absolute potency. That happens to everyone in this game from time to time and in every MMO ever made.

Ki strikes are how monks are balanced out to fighters and barbarians (and even then they are poorly balanced) with a 19-20 crit range monks are now worthless.

Fighters and Barbarians have no meaningful defense to speak of and thus have many offensive advantages. Yes, fighters can be AC tanks but it requires far more of a sacrifice in DPS than this lower rate of ki generation does for you.

What should monks give up for their very strong defensive and utility advantages? Nothing at all? Does that sound like good game design? If Barbarians can't maintain an offensive advantage what does that class offer? If a monk can do the damage of a fighter why ever roll a fighter when they have nothing for skills or defense?

DPS wise you will be doing more dps on a kensai fighter because of higher natural crit range and higher stun DCs. or a Frenzied Barb who has insane damage on 19-20 far superior to anything a monk can do and a natural hit of over 100 (my barbarian does between 88-120 per hit physical alone self raged non crit)

They are DPS classes. Lets see what happens when a typical fighter or barbarian tries to solo Sins on Hard in their spare time. Wipe in the first hallway is the answer unless they are chugging mad potions and playing at the absolute top of their game. All that defense and utility you have must have a cost and the cost is offense.

For AC a defender build can use scimitars and get higher ac if built right can grab intimidate and hold full aggro using intimidate (my defender has a 88 AC over 90 if buffed right in raids ... and has a fraction of the gear no yugoloth pots as my Monk who hits 87 fully raid buffed with yugoloth pots) and they do compareable damage when you add fighter attack boost and higher crit rates and procs from greensteel (another monk short coming)

What they can't do is do that DPS while having that AC at the same time.

For KI GENERATION .. a fighter has it better two levels of monk rest fighter using longswords can generate and use ki more effectively then a full monk? makes no sense at all does it.

Nonsense. They don't really have much they can use that ki on that is effective in combat. Sure they can get a big pile of it and hit level 1 elemental moves for an extra 1d6 damage. It's hardly a big impact.

For healing - not even as good as free spells for radient servant

Except for the fact you have great access to healing amplification and clerics have pretty much no inherent melee offense.

For buffs - not nearly as good as barb buffs and last only 1 min making them useless especially if you cannot build ki fast enough to use them.

You seem to be forgetting that your stances are buffs that last as long as you want them to last and confer a range of benefits.

For CC - not nearly as high DC as fighters or barbs for stuns and not nearly as high as casters for holds and caster holds are mass not single target.

Casters are easy to kill for the most part and fighters have to invest heavily for those DCs and they are on longer timers and barbarians are feat starved to begin with.

without KI monks are worthless. This update makes monks worthless. Cant take advantage of Quivering palm if you never have enough ki to use it.

And without mana casters are useless, but the point is that ki and mana are limited resources, not endless fountains. Ki is time limited and Mana is rest limited. If you can spam Ki moves at will then its not limited and the mechanic isn't working properly.

[J1NG]

Acting as devils advocate for a second here: The developers are in the end stages of a development cycle. They may not have the ability to determine when or how they are going to address the issue.

A simple

"We understand everyone's concerns, will will be looking into the issue further at a future point and will see what can be done to rectify the issue."

Or

"We are looking to augment the innate features of the monk, and feel that the extra Ki powered feaftures should take a hit for these incoming abilities not to be too overpowered. So hang in there Monk players."

Or

"Suck it up kids, we're in charge, we tell you how to play. If we make a pile of ****, you just take it! Understand?"

Would be more than enough.

Currently? Zip.

J1NG

[QuantumFX]

A simple

"We understand everyone's concerns, will will be looking into the issue further at a future point and will see what can be done to rectify the issue."

Or

"We are looking to augment the innate features of the monk, and feel that the extra Ki powered feaftures should take a hit for these incoming abilities not to be too overpowered. So hang in there Monk players."

Or

"Suck it up kids, we're in charge, we tell you how to play. If we make a pile of ****, you just take it! Understand?"

Would be more than enough.

Currently? Zip.

J1NG

Have you seen how much forum screaming is required to get them to do something like that? They’ve done it before but it took *a lot* of forum comments to address it. (And it seems, the developers spent a signifigant amount of time to convince the decision makers to let them.)

They may also have some ideas that involve a carefully implemented balance pass. This mod is evidence of how the developers work on stuff like this. Eladrin’s comments about “Splitting the elemental enhancement lines” came something like 6 months ago. Now we have a system that makes choosing an elemental savant path a real decision.

[J1NG]

They may also have some ideas that involve a carefully implemented balance pass. This mod is evidence of how the developers work on stuff like this. Eladrin’s comments about “Splitting the elemental enhancement lines” came something like 6 months ago. Now we have a system that makes choosing an elemental savant path a real decision.

And where did this Monk design change first come up? The first I read of it was this Lamannia update (Mod 9 Update 9). So... Something doesn't add up.

Balance pass? Meh. The only balance pass I can see is the balance in their bank. And I'll be sure to advise everyone NOT to buy the Monk class until Turbine sorts this out to a satisfactory degree.

J1NG