Ki gen, how are they addressing this issue?

[dunklezhan]

Don't know if these have been linked yet but eladrin's responses on the Ki issue.

http://forums.ddo.com/showpost.php?p...9&postcount=15
http://forums.ddo.com/showpost.php?p...9&postcount=17

[Junts]

I saw a Dev post about the saves change. I wish I could remember the number, but I want to say epic minions are having saves go up by 4. Probably means your 42 stun is going to be iffy on high fort minions, but still solid gold on spellcasters and archers. And, another thing to remember, if the mob wasn't a minion mob (correct me if I'm wrong, but the bearded devil trash in eChrono are an example of a non-minion mob), then it's saves aren't being affected at all. Neither are saves in amrath, shroud, subT, etc.

Your monk sounds a bit like my monk, and I don't think the changes will hurt us much. They're hurting the people that were GM fire stance with Crane style to generate infi-ki.

This.

Here's something that people aren't really thinking about yet:

The changes to saving throws will, indeed, make stuff harder to land. However, the change to mob hp makes it less essential to stun or hold every single monster in every epic quest. Many monsters have ~3000 hit points, enough that you can quickly kill them with any decent DPS character in a few seconds. Further, there are two other important consequences of this, one of which Eladrin intimated, and the other no one's talked about.

Right now, we take the damage prevention aspect of CC for granted. We spam damage-increasing, short-duration, incapacitation CC because we can land it and we need it to finish quests in a decent timeframe. We take for granted that this reduces incoming damage to the party by 50-90% and prevents people from dying. In an environment where these things are harder to land and where monstesr are easier to kill, the role of these CC abilities will not be as DPS increasers: it will be as tactical incapacitation to prevent a particularly strong offensive monster (often a cleric or arcane caster type) from decimating the party with its AoE attacks (think of the 250 pt cometfalls, etc, that are already the most dangerous attacks in epic). In parties, you will not stun the first mob you see or need to do that to kill the mob. You will target and stun the most dangerous mob, and in many cases their saving throws are not so good against your attacks.

Right now, you guys are so focused on the feeling that without stunning you will not contribute to the party via increasing overall dps and particularly increasing your own to feel essential. However, the new environment will make more important the other aspects of your class: your ability to reduce party damage taken by incapacitating powerful attackers, to avoid aoe damage with improved evasion, and to take less melee damage via your damage reduction and, in the case of dark monks, the incredibly powerful Shadow Fade. Incidently, this will also increase the overall value of the evasion feat and of other classes with defensive bonuses or abilities, like paladins, who are by and large simply second-class melees right now because their bonus abilities are rarely relevant in an effective group.

These things will continue to make you powerful, significant party contributors because the value of inherent defensive traits will rise because less monsters will be incapacitated at any given time. Your ability to surgically remove these threats (whether by leading in with a touch of death and killing an arcane in just a couple seconds, or by stunning it, etc) while taking less damage yourself will be much more important than it is right now.


Secondly, high-end dps dealing monks already compete in DPS with stronger classes. I can go toe to toe with barbarians and fighters in autocrit killcounts and hold my own, and I am not the best equipped monk by any stretch. I know several monks, including ones with less strength than I, who routinely whoop me in that category. They do not keep up because of bursting effects (while these numbers look great, they are not a very big damage increase at 1d10 per attack) but because of the extremely high monk attack rates, extremely high base damage, and powerful ki strikes like touch of death (500-1000 damage) and even void erase (5000+ hp of instant damage, in a way).

Overall, though, these monk abilities are extremely NOT dependent on autocrit status. Your damage barely does more than double in these situations, as your 1d6 rings go to 1d6+1d10, your damage only doubles plus your seeker, and your bane handwraps etc don't increase at all. On the other hand, fighters and barbs deal 3-4x their damage on every swing in autocrit situations, gigantically magnifying their damage.

While your damage dealing to an unheld target is a little less than half of what your autocrit damage is, their damage on those unheld targets is only 20-33% of their damage on the autocrit target. Losing that damage means that they are losing a lot more damage than you are, and right now, a good monk damage-dealer is competitive with them. This means that in the future, you're going to be an amazing trash mob killer. Everyone is taking a hit to their dps on trash mobs (due to those mobs not being autocrit and at most taking only 50% more damage), but you are taking the smallest hit. Relative to the other melees, you are going to move forward because you move back -less- than they do.

That's what Eladrin was referring to by saying that, outside of the ki issues, you will be better off relative to other melees than you are right now. You don't need to stun every mob you see or land stun every time you press the button to kill effectively. When you do so you will just be even more awesome, and you will still land some, but you won't land every one of them unless you are intentionally prioritizing mobs with bad saves. Since mobs with bad saves will often be the most dangerous to everyone else anyway (ie arcane casters), you will naturally want to target them anyway.


You guys are testing epic by soloing or running with 1-2 other people to test clincal stuff like your success rates instead of thinking about it in terms of how a group functions on live vs how a similar quality group will function in the U9 environment. You will not be playing a game where the priorities and tactics of your party members are identical to what you have used for the last year. Those tactics will no longer be the best ones, and we will learn new ones that work more effectively. It will take incredibly specialized casters to hold most/all monsters in the quest long enough to kill them before they break, and the damage bonus being smaller and less necessary will mean that CC that simply incapacitates (like web, dancing sphere, etc) that tends to incapacitate for longer than the autocrit abilities will be more valuable. You'll save the holds for the largest groups of mobs when you need to massively amp up party dps, and smaller packs will be incapacitated by single, persistent and longer-lasting aoe cc to prevent them from killing the party while they're killed.

Its the lack of adaptation to this new epic environment that you guys are leaving out of your evaluations. You will need less ki to perform as well as you do right now, outside of silly situations like soloing or simply testing your success rates.

[J1NG]

Don't know if these have been linked yet but eladrin's responses on the Ki issue.

http://forums.ddo.com/showpost.php?p...9&postcount=15
http://forums.ddo.com/showpost.php?p...9&postcount=17

Thanks dunklezhan,

They're already quoted or in duscussion in this thread already. Thanks for linking original posts though.

J1NG

[J1NG]

Junts,

What you're talking of is may make sense for the dps crowd.

What about my "ability" monk, Jigglypath? Who's sole goal is to whittle enemies down as slowly as possible? Who's job currently IS to take out the most dangerous mobs where the casters can't go or take out reliably, but clearly can't do it due to clearly lacking Ki generation issues?

The current situation simply demands that all monks switch from "ability" to "damage" for their Ki instead by what you're saying. We may not need to "stun" or "dance" as much, but when it is needed, I would imagine a few monks will have trouble in land their attacks/strikes or their DC "abilities" (due to various min/max of stats, etc)

Which then boils back down to the same issues: Ki generation, or the costs of the "abilities" is not quite right.

If Ki generation is where it should be at, then the issue will lay in the costs themselves for the abilities. And these as of this version of Update 9 have yet to be touched. And I think we can all agree that this needs some looking into at least.

J1NG

[Junts]

Junts,

What you're talking of is may make sense for the dps crowd.

What about my "ability" monk, Jigglypath? Who's sole goal is to whittle enemies down as slowly as possible? Who's job currently IS to take out the most dangerous mobs where the casters can't go or take out reliably, but clearly can't do it due to clearly lacking Ki generation issues?

The current situation simply demands that all monks switch from "ability" to "damage" for their Ki instead by what you're saying. We may not need to "stun" or "dance" as much, but when it is needed, I would imagine a few monks will have trouble in land their attacks/strikes or their DC "abilities" (due to various min/max of stats, etc)

Which then boils back down to the same issues: Ki generation, or the costs of the "abilities" is not quite right.

If Ki generation is where it should be at, then the issue will lay in the costs themselves for the abilities. And these as of this version of Update 9 have yet to be touched. And I think we can all agree that this needs some looking into at least.

J1NG

I agree with that but a point I think is worth making is that your 'ability' monk is a pretty funky build, and its an intentional adaptation to a basic game situation (autocrit cc is completely essential and the game is unplayable without it) that is being changed. It is frequently the case that extremophile builds that are targetted directly at quirks, flaws, or single aspects of the present endgame quickly become bad or less effective when changes are made. Whether that is the demise of the 8 wis, all str stunning blow monk after the touch of death change, or the demise of those silly rogue/monk 112 ac with all the temp boost things that depended on vorpals and con damage to have any offense, the builds that go in most extreme reliance on a particular mechanic or a particular approach to gameplay are almost always the ones that come out worse for the wear.

Don't take this the wrong way, but perhaps a monk as extreme as yours (and you use pretty dramatic terms to describe it) are not something the developers are actively supporting. These kinds of builds sprout, grow, and die off along the edges of gameplay at the mercy of player creativity and developer balance for the middle of the spectrum. When you make a character like that, you have to expect that kind of result someday, don't you? Your build is specifically aimed at being effective vs a game design problem that's being fixed (increasing party damage by stunning, emerald-izing, and kukan-doing as many things as possible so that people can actually kill them), that renders the tactic your build is based on even more obsolete than the ki generation required to execute the build's strategy!

There are certain decision processes that will be demanding and may need to be tweaked with monks. If anything, I think monks have proven to be the class the developers are most willing to change frequently (both good and bad), and that's something monk players should embrace: there are problems with other classes that have taken literally years to ever get fixed with rarely a comment. However, there are still a wide spectra of viable builds in terms of favored races, stance selection and use, secondary functionality, dc focuses, action point selection, etc. Here's something to think about: lower ki generation actually frees up action points, because you are spending AP on ki strikes you never have the ki to use. You might have a stronger character dropping those for other enhancements!

There will be a lot of monks that flourish. There will be monks who don't stun at all and are seriously focused on DPS, there will be monks like mine with low40sish dcs (40-42) who reliably land on poor fort saves and just press the button and hope for a dps increase on higher ones, adn there will be wisdom-based and dc-focused monks who run 43-46 who still land nearly every ability they choose to press. In that spectrum you will have everything from monks who don't spend ki on anything but touch of death and shadow fade to people who force oremis, sun4, and all of crane in order to get 10-11 ki per critical hit to enable themselves to continue to use a lot of ki strikes. There's more variation there than you're giving credit for, and there might even be more variation than we see now, or at least more variation that is also really effective. A lot of the builds that are being pointed at in this thread as examples of builds that are a lot less or completel yineffective after this change are often not actually close to the strongest monk builds in the present endgame - they are builds that are theme builds, creative idea builds, or people itnentionally making build decisions for soloing advantages or other luxuries.

DPS isn't the only reason to be a monk, but it is a consideration for anyone who swings weapons. It may not be the first consideration or even the second, but at some point you have to consider it, because it's a critical part of gameplay.


Eventually, as we get used to this new environment and discover the same quirks in its behavior and things that make it particularly fast or easy or are just uniquely effective as we have over the last year, people will have ideas for completely out of the box builds, and again they will make them and do interesting and creative sttuff with them until those builds too wither on the vine because the underlying problem they're combating and/or taking advantage of is fixed.

To my view, the problem with a lot of the builds that suffer most from this change isn't their ki generation, its that they're so explicitly designed for this world of 'it must be held to die' that they're unable to adapt to the new environment. In particular, if you can't kill an Amrath mob without autocritting it, there's a serious flaw with your build or you are gigantically under-equipped. That's why I focuse dthis whole conversation on epic, because any build that even tries a little to increase its dps should be fine in all the game's nonepic content. You don't have to dps like an ultimate-geared fighter to be a useful character on DDO. There's no quest that comes even close to requiring the kind of dps those characters can put out from even one character, much less the entire party.

[J1NG]

Actually, I think you're looking at Jiggly (and subsequently many other monks) in the wrong way.

Jigglypath is a "dancing" monk. A Pure CC Monk.

Hence the name "Jiggly" Path. Light Path, Dark Path, and then Jiggly Path.

For her to perform her task, all she ever needs is 25 Ki. She doesn't have to be a Shintao Monk at all, she can be a Ninja Spy with NO stuns at all. A Light Monk or Dark Monk. Stuns just happen to help land the "dance" (Shining Star) is all. Of course, not all enemies are suitable for "dancing", so the occasional stun is always good to remove an enemy from combat, hence why she has it.

She has nothing to do with stuns at all for damage. Don't mistake the fact that Kukan-Do can be used for stuns and stun has damage boosts that Jiggly works on the same principle. As I said, I whittle enemies down. Not plow them down at the right moment (after a stun). So the argument about dps and stuns for autocrits being essential or something she was designed to exploit is not really valid for her.

She's not taking advantage of anything, yet can barely output just TWO Monk abilities at the start of the first battle. What about the other Monks? All Monk's have access to Shining Star after all. And if CC is so much more valuable, why can't we CC with Shining Star without killing our Ki unless we're in certain Stances or with certain item sets only?

In groups or at the very start of the quest/raid, there IS obvious Ki issues if you try to CC on a Monk. And again, if the Ki generation REALLY is where it should be, then the Ki costs need a look into. Otherwise, the ability to knock out a heavily protected dangerous target on a Monk can easily be substituted by another caster, or a Barbarian with 800+ hp who'll survive the first rush and then able to stun with a Stunning Blow DC of 60+. Something a Monk can't match up on due to lacking in Ki to powering their abilities.

J1NG

[dunklezhan]

I certainly think ki costs could be tweaked if they aren't looking further at the ease/difficulty of ki generation.

[ckorik]

She's not taking advantage of anything, yet can barely output just TWO Monk abilities at the start of the first battle. What about the other Monks? All Monk's have access to Shining Star after all. And if CC is so much more valuable, why can't we CC with Shining Star without killing our Ki unless we're in certain Stances or with certain item sets only?

J1NG

My monk isn't overly well geared but starts a fight at 55 ish ki. I don't even have a +15 concentration item yet. Considering shining star can be used with the level 1 free monk abilities - and you only need to hit 3 of them (total ki cost 15)

The ki costs of higher tiers of monk elemental and void attacks have been reduced to 5 ki each.

It costs 10 ki to hit the finisher - that's a total of 25 ki. You can open a fight with 2 moves without *hitting* a single thing. And nothing so far has changed from live - except that on live you can't do 2 moves unless you are using the level 1 strikes - with U9 you can use the full power strikes.

Assuming you hit the mob at all you will be better off now - except in stun situations.

Thus the question - are monks supposed to be 'stun machines' - the answer seems pretty obvious. No.

And again to look at the 18 fighter/ 2 monk build - we already looked at fists being worse than kopeshes and thus a *bad* choice for a fighter - someone wanted to make the case that they could 'swap and stun' - sure - but as someone with a fighter/pal/monk build (2 monk!) - I remind you a monk splash *can't* hold ki when using non monk weapons. So no, they can't just build up ki swap to stun then swap back - a fighter that want's to stunning fist must gimp themselves to use fists or take whirling steel and use subpar weapons and *still* swap for a stun - and they still won't have the concentration to hold the ki for long if they do - and they still won't have the other incredible stuff a monk has.

Not only are they spending ki at the same rate but the 1 TOD a minute say my ninja spy gets off that the fighter spent in crappy D6 punches, doesn't close the gap between their higher stunning fist DC

Even with the changes - without the necklace - in wind stance - without crane - I could get off more than 1 ToD a minute - if that isn't outdoing a fighters crappy D6 punches then you are doing something wrong.

Stop trying to stun every mob - you'll have more Ki.

[J1NG]

ckorik,

That is just my own example, there are others that are not identical (obviously, due to the various ways one can play, build and gear the Monk).

***

In my own example, Shining Star for the typical Monk is DC30 Will, it's not going to work wonders even on Melee, it only has a fair chance of working. Meaning you'll need a higher DC or more finishers or abilities activated to get it working. Same as the other CC abilities on a Monk such as Stunning Fist or Kukan-Do, etc.

But if you go High DC, for a Monk that is such a stat intensive class, you WILL end up falling very short in one or more areas. Min-Max'ing on a Monk is nowhere near the same as it would be for other classes, as I am sure you are aware.

So back to my example, I have a higher DC, 41 to be exact, but I have less to hit and a LOT less damage, not enough that it's royally gimp, just enough that I can't hit all that well on high AC enemies, meaning I'll miss more, meaning the Shining Star will miss more if I can't land it. So what do I do to increase my chances? Stun. That is why in my example that is needed. So a minimum of 40 Ki is needed there for my Jigglypath monk.

That's not to say other monks will use as much, or indeed not use more. You can't count out the possibility of that happening.

***

The combined removal of current Ki generation methods AND keeping activation costs as they were that's causing the issues I and several others are experiencing. And that is the current issue that is of concern.

It can be equated to as this:

Example A.
You need to have 10 energy bars to run the 10 hour day. You start off with 5 and get 1 every 1 hour at the end of every hour. Taking 1 every hour. So at the end of the day you have plenty. 5 to spare. (Current Ki generation and consumption)

Now

Example B.
You need to have 10 energy bars to run the 10 hour day. You start of with 5 and get 1 every 2 hours at the end of every 2nd hour. Taking 1 every hour. So you fall short during the process and can't complete the day until the very end. Which basically means fail. (Currently implemented Update 9 Ki generation) Unless you utilise other resources (Sun Stance, Oremi, or both).

In short, the numbers seperating between "I can get this working, just" (Example A), to "I can't get this working without the aid of Sun Stance or Oremi's" (Example B) is small enough that a reduction in the activation costs can actually allow some Monks to break even most of the time without reliance on an Item or Stance. (Example C, below)

Example C.
You need to have 8 energy bars to run the 10 hour day. You start off with 5 and get 1 every 2 hours at the end of every 2nd hour. You have enough to finish your day, and only have a tiny amount left. 2 spare. (The usage of Update 9 Ki generation with lower Ki consumption)

Hence my request for a look through of Ki activation costs for abilities.

I mean really... 15 second timer AND 25 Ki to Stun for 6 seconds? Really? REALLY?

J1NG

[Thorzian]

This.

You guys are testing epic by soloing or running with 1-2 other people to test clincal stuff like your success rates instead of thinking about it in terms of how a group functions on live vs how a similar quality group will function in the U9 environment. You will not be playing a game where the priorities and tactics of your party members are identical to what you have used for the last year. Those tactics will no longer be the best ones, and we will learn new ones that work more effectively. It will take incredibly specialized casters to hold most/all monsters in the quest long enough to kill them before they break, and the damage bonus being smaller and less necessary will mean that CC that simply incapacitates (like web, dancing sphere, etc) that tends to incapacitate for longer than the autocrit abilities will be more valuable. You'll save the holds for the largest groups of mobs when you need to massively amp up party dps, and smaller packs will be incapacitated by single, persistent and longer-lasting aoe cc to prevent them from killing the party while they're killed.

.

are you forgetting that those crowd control spells will no longer be extendable? i agree with most of what you're saying (funny actually, i nearly never agree with you) but i see crowd control in epics as nearly a thing of the past. like you say, target the most deadly mobs with cc but i think shroud part 5 tactics of kite and pull will work the best in the future. funny enough, the best class for doing that will be intimidator monks

[ckorik]

So back to my example, I have a higher DC, 41 to be exact, but I have less to hit and a LOT less damage, not enough that it's royally gimp, just enough that I can't hit all that well on high AC enemies, meaning I'll miss more, meaning the Shining Star will miss more if I can't land it. So what do I do to increase my chances? Stun. That is why in my example that is needed. So a minimum of 40 Ki is needed there for my Jigglypath monk.
Hence my request for a look through of Ki activation costs for abilities.

I mean really... 15 second timer AND 25 Ki to Stun for 6 seconds? Really? REALLY?

J1NG

When I read this I see an idea that I already agree with - but presented in a totally different way than I'd say it.

"Monks need love in the too hit dept - we have a very hard time competing against other melee that can stack str and attack boosts and surges"

I agree - I'd love to see an AP line - stance help - anything that would help boost to hit.

As is *I* am looking at how I can incorporate precision into my build - because it looks like it might be worth the feat. Perhaps your monk might fare well from this as well - to help you land the dance without a stun.

[Junts]

are you forgetting that those crowd control spells will no longer be extendable? i agree with most of what you're saying (funny actually, i nearly never agree with you) but i see crowd control in epics as nearly a thing of the past. like you say, target the most deadly mobs with cc but i think shroud part 5 tactics of kite and pull will work the best in the future. funny enough, the best class for doing that will be intimidator monks

30 seconds is still substantially longer than the amount of time before mobs get their 2nd or 3rd or even 4th re-save against mass hold monster.

There is no need to incapacitate mobs for more than that, and 30 seconds is the base duration of all the longer cc spells (web, sphere, etc).

[sigtrent]

The problem is when the fighter has a higher stunning fist DC than a monk could possibly have. *assuming 1 monk lv to get stunning fist* Not only are they spending ki at the same rate but the 1 TOD a minute say my ninja spy gets off that the fighter spent in crappy D6 punches, doesn't close the gap between their higher stunning fist DC. Not only can they gain ki at the same rate *or higher cause of kensai boost* but they can spend that ki on non-stun immune trash, just as effectively if not more effectively than a lv 20 monk. That's the issue I see.

I think you should try actually building such a fighter first. Stunning fist is wisdom based and fighters are almost always purely strength based characters. They don't get many strong benefits from having a high wisdom score as a monk might. The fighter not only has lower ki moves he also has lower base damage and abysmal saving throws in reflex and will. Yes, they can spec out to have a high stunning fist DC but so what? Is that really going to make them a good build when they could have gone for kensei kopesh specialization instead and simply deal far better damage?

Stunning fist isn't even a monk ability, its an optional feat that anyone can take on their build. Trying to claim it is the exclusive domain of monks just doesn't make that much sense and claiming it is the primary reason for being a monk is also silly.

The only thing hurting stunning fist is the monster DCs have increased, and that affects every DC based power int he game, not just stunning fist.

[Junts]

I think you should try actually building such a fighter first. Stunning fist is wisdom based and fighters are almost always purely strength based characters. They don't get many strong benefits from having a high wisdom score as a monk might. The fighter not only has lower ki moves he also has lower base damage and abysmal saving throws in reflex and will. Yes, they can spec out to have a high stunning fist DC but so what? Is that really going to make them a good build when they could have gone for kensei kopesh specialization instead and simply deal far better damage?

Stunning fist isn't even a monk ability, its an optional feat that anyone can take on their build. Trying to claim it is the exclusive domain of monks just doesn't make that much sense and claiming it is the primary reason for being a monk is also silly.

The only thing hurting stunning fist is the monster DCs have increased, and that affects every DC based power int he game, not just stunning fist.

Fighter tactics 4 and the kensai boosts are 6-7 dcs worth of bonus: even with 16-18 wisdom, such a fighter could have a 40 dc stunning fist.

Its exceptionally easy for these builds to have a mid-40s stunning fist. A base 14 wisdom is a very small investment. Add a tome and an item and you have a 22 wisdom: a +6 modifier. That's a 42 dc for a 12 fighter/8 monk build.

On the other hand, there's more to being a monk than the stunning fist button.

Keep in mind that fighter stunning blow bonuses apply to stunning fist, but stunning fist doesn't unlock them: you have to have stunning blow to see the enhancements, but the enhancements boost both stuns.

Warforged tactics is generic and doesn't require the presence of stunning blow to interact with stunning fist. Warforged variants of the above build could bring stunning fist to dc 50 if they wanted to. They're probably the only people besides Blitz builds who can reliably reach a dc 50 stun.

[Chai]

They clearly stated a while back that their intent with KI is that it is NOT a limitless resource, which is what they feel many of us are used to, so we SHOULD notice a change where we have to spend more time building KI before we can use it.

I am not saying I agree with the whole "limitless resource" observation, but that is what they said. Thus they do feel the issue has been addressed, though not to the satisfaction of many in the monk community.

[Lifespawn]

They clearly stated a while back that their intent with KI is that it is NOT a limitless resource, which is what they feel many of us are used to, so we SHOULD notice a change where we have to spend more time building KI before we can use it.

I am not saying I agree with the whole "limitless resource" observation, but that is what they said. Thus they do feel the issue has been addressed, though not to the satisfaction of many in the monk community.

I don't see a reason why devs would make cool monk moves for them not to be used isn't that why they make you certain things for pre's all these cool shintao moves i won't get to use if they don't lower the ki cost on them is just wasted development time.

[Chai]

I agree with that but a point I think is worth making is that your 'ability' monk is a pretty funky build, and its an intentional adaptation to a basic game situation (autocrit cc is completely essential and the game is unplayable without it) that is being changed. It is frequently the case that extremophile builds that are targetted directly at quirks, flaws, or single aspects of the present endgame quickly become bad or less effective when changes are made. Whether that is the demise of the 8 wis, all str stunning blow monk after the touch of death change, or the demise of those silly rogue/monk 112 ac with all the temp boost things that depended on vorpals and con damage to have any offense, the builds that go in most extreme reliance on a particular mechanic or a particular approach to gameplay are almost always the ones that come out worse for the wear.

I agree, and have posted similar in the past, but I do have to make the observation that Turbine made their own bed on this issue due to the fact that they limited the number of optimal options in the end game content to "stun and crit" in the first place. What did they expect gamers to do, other than to maximize for stun DC and crit damage? Its been this way for more than 18 months now, when toons can be capped in 2 weeks. Thus they created this situation where they have to change the game in such a way that it makes some of what used to be optimal builds possibly not even viable afterward. If it werent for creating a bottleneck of options in the first place, we would not have this bottleneck of builds that currently exists. Certainly they could change their game in a way that would allow old builds to still be viable or even optimal, will still opening up the other options they are now allowing after U9, right?

Opening up other options after making older options less viable does not seem to me like more options exist, but seems more like OTHER optimal options exist, and we will have to spec into the new flavor(s) of the month to be optimal.

[Tyrande]

I don't see a reason why devs would make cool monk moves for them not to be used isn't that why they make you certain things for pre's all these cool shintao moves i won't get to use if they don't lower the ki cost on them is just wasted development time.

I think the Devs want us to focus those important Ki moves on important monsters instead of just every monster.

Just like a caster with a SP bar, they pick their targets if there are important monsters; otherwise, they'll just gather the monsters, then AoE CC and/or AoE damage spells.

As a monk; since Cleave/Great Cleaves work better with handwraps than weapons, may be there is a way to generate additional Ki with those feats since you're hitting more monsters at once and some of them may be critical hits at the same time. Sort of like a circle kick.

[Chai]

I don't see a reason why devs would make cool monk moves for them not to be used isn't that why they make you certain things for pre's all these cool shintao moves i won't get to use if they don't lower the ki cost on them is just wasted development time.

I agree.

They do intend for the moves to be used, but they do not intend for KI to be a limitless resource, or at least, that is what was stated.

I would like to see more options in epics, and not just changed options.

[Lifespawn]

I think the Devs want us to focus those important Ki moves on important monsters instead of just every monster.

Just like a caster with a SP bar, they pick their targets if there are important monsters; otherwise, they'll just gather the monsters, then AoE CC and/or AoE damage spells.

As a monk; since Cleave/Great Cleaves work better with handwraps than weapons, may be there is a way to generate additional Ki with those feats since you're hitting more monsters at once and some of them may be critical hits at the same time. Sort of like a circle kick.

Yes and no i don't know many casters that worry about spell points as they are an easy to get consumable.

Casters have many different spells that require no hit and have no save monks have to have the to hit which is already a problem and then the ki to power a special hit and then for the mob to fail said hit or move no other class has to jump through as many hoops to do it's job.