Earth monks stuffed?

[AylinIsAwesome]

Which is a major issue for the sneak attack based monks, they've screwed over an entire style of play with this, popular one at that. They need to throw a bone to the other stances, if they want to remedy this.

I agree completely. I'd like adjustments to come in the form of minor buffs to air and fire and a significant buff to water, but I have a feeling it will come in the form of a massive nerf to earth first.

Air stance is still be the best DPS stance. If it gets any buffs though, perhaps ~6% dodge at the Grandmaster level? Though I'm not even sure it needs that.


Fire is still mostly useful for undergeared Monks who need more to-hit and Ki per hit (or for Monks who want the maximum possible Healing Amp). This one I would agree needs a buff, but I have no idea what sort of buff would be appropriate.


But yes, Ocean stance needs a huge buff. Maybe an increase to saves, +5% dodge (and to max dodge), and an increase to DCs (of maybe 2 or so)?

[redspecter23]

I agree air is just about right. If it's a stance that anyone uses any reasonable amount of time, it's close to balanced. I just dislike that whatever water does, earth generally does better. This is in part due to the dodge cap and the fact that the water dodge bonus may not do much at all if you have other dodge sources. The earth stance AC bonus will always be of benefit, regardless of how much AC you have from other sources until you reach somewhere in the 150ish AC range I'd guess.

Perhaps if the dodge bonus from water was an exceptional type so that in water stance and only in water stance you could break the 25% dodge cap by up to 7 points (I believe that is grandmaster water + the destiny water bonus). This could put you at up to 32% dodge if you have invested heavily into it in other areas. (conveniently enough this is fairly close to 1/4 mitigation and 1/3 mitigation respectively) This change could allow water stance to be a defensive stance as it was intended to be, but as it's offensively weak, you aren't getting the "whole package" that you do with earth.

[Kiel]

Hah! Earth monks stuffed?After playing my main dex based light monk then jumping to my other melee's id carry that a bit farther monks in general are struggling and i mean badly.

[fco-karatekid]

PRR (Physical Resistance Rating) is a new stat with the update. It can be found on your character sheet by the elemental resistances. Increasing this number reduces the damage taken from physical attacks. Mouse over the number on your character sheet to see what percent.

Grandmaster earth stance now grants +20% AC as well to help mitigate damage. You can increase the PRR to 30 with standing with stone in Grandmaster of Flowers.

Monks are not totally stuffed. You can't match a stalwart defender for physical damage mitigation but monks are not made of tissue paper now either.

A tad overstated - I noticed I took more dmg from my (tier1, not grandmaster) mountain stance last night in Epic content, too; but it wasn't earth-shattering (ehheehe).

As a result, I'm going down the EDIT: dreadnaught Destiny chain first. Will go Flowers after I get some HP and a little more protection.

[fco-karatekid]

I don't think earth monks were screwed at all. You're still getting your increased critical range, your increase to constitution, your free 70% hate generation. Your PRR went from 20% to 8%. Monks have more ways to deal with damage mitigation than any other class however.

There is the dodge bonus, which a lot of us are already geared out to increase for, access to an enhancement chain of Healing Amp no one else gets, inate resistances etc.

My armor class went from middle fifties topping out in the low 60's to now low seventies topping out in the low 80's. Considering that even the most well armored of tanks are still going to get hit about 20-30% of the time and the Epic - Hard being a gaint red easy button, I'd say Earth Monks are still doing fine.

When the fix Horoth's new Spell Like Ability "Banish players from DDO", we'll get a chance to see if Earth Hate Tanks are still viable, but I'm going to guess, based off the Epic-Hard Chrono I did last night were the Abashi pulled a Manic-Harry, with the new epic Destinys, tanking may not be needed in some of the old quests.

For those who haven't tried it yet, you should. A veteran player remarked that it was the first time since there was an eChrono he had heard someone ask "Can we do the optionals?"

The question for Earth Monks now isn't "Did we get screwed" it's "Which is going to be better for my damage Legendary Dreadnaught or Fury of the Wild?"

QFT. Bottom line is some are still thinking their level 20 is at cap... it's not - you got more building to do. When you get 25 and your destinties ffinished, THEN complaints about stuffed monks will be more relevant.

[sebastianosmith]

Hah! Earth monks stuffed?After playing my main dex based light monk then jumping to my other melee's id carry that a bit farther monks in general are struggling and i mean badly.

My main is also a dex light monk. He does take a bit more damage now but nothing he can't handle with FoL, healing finisher and the occasional CSW pot. I found that a change in tactics from "standing there beating the snot out of mobs" to "float like a butterfly, sting like a bee" made a considerable difference in his survivability while not impairing his DPS to any major degree. The addition of Dodge, Mobility, Spring Attack and Precision have also been instrumental in keeping his Soul Stone from popping out since U14 dropped. Monks aren't that much worse off than before. You just have to play them a little differently.

[Indoran]

I pretty much dumped AC completely on one of mine and yeah, his AC still sucks and the mitigation doesn't feel that much different from before. Got hit a lot before, get hit a lot now.

mmmmm reroll? pretty much pre motu and after it... same advice... reroll

[slimkj]

mmmmm reroll? pretty much pre motu and after it... same advice... reroll

I wasn't complaining, I'm very happy with him.

[fco-karatekid]

I wasn't complaining, I'm very happy with him.

Yah Slim's experience has been mine... it's not WORSE/BETTER, it's just slightly different.

[Monkey_Archer]

Earth Monks used to get 20% damage reduction (with Grandmaster). Now they get 15 PRR (about 8% damage reduction).
Other classes get PRR for free with their armour.

With the changes, monks will get hit more often, for more damage.

Actually its quite the opposite; Earth monks are in the best shape they've ever been, and put all other stances to shame now.

The earth stance 4 by itself only gives 15 PRR, but rank 3 Standing with Stone adds an additional 15 PRR to earth, which gives you about 18% damage reduction (nearly identical to the old 20%).

What makes earth so ridiculously overpowered now though, is the 20% increase to AC, which makes getting to around a 50% defense chance (70+ ac at cap) extremely easy, even if you don't build for it...

What got stuffed is all the max dex/wis monks that built and geared for ac, and now have less then a max str/con earth monk that didn't even try

[Therrias]

Have any of you actually tried water stance since the update?

My pure monk goes from 6% dodge to 25% dodge just with water stance.

My multiclass character with 9 monk levels goes from 11% dodge to 25% dodge just with water stance.

That dodge is autocapped.

[OliviaCrowley]

Have any of you actually tried water stance since the update?

My pure monk goes from 6% dodge to 25% dodge just with water stance.

My multiclass character with 9 monk levels goes from 11% dodge to 25% dodge just with water stance.

That dodge is autocapped.

Water Stance is bugged. It is supposed to give 1/2/3/4 dodge. Instead, they put the decimal in the wrong place and it gives 10/20/30/40.

[dunklezhan]

Have any of you actually tried water stance since the update?

My pure monk goes from 6% dodge to 25% dodge just with water stance.

My multiclass character with 9 monk levels goes from 11% dodge to 25% dodge just with water stance.

That dodge is autocapped.

yes, but it's a straight out miss chance on anything that gets past your AC. So if your AC is at 40-50% miss chance which my 20 Wind monk easily exceeds now without building or gearing for AC before, still only 75% of the remaining hits get through, giving you an overall miss chance of what, around 60% without even trying for AC? My monk's on about 65% mitigation with no gear. If I get 25% dodge on top of that, that's about a 72% miss chance straight away. getting hit 28% of the time when I was getting hit 95% of the time? Yes please. But I don't have any dodge gear. So I'm in earth stance because the overall miss chance is better due to the AC boost, plus obviously the (now reduced) damage reduction/mitigation from PRR.

Point being, at least for my wind-sometimes-earth monk, I'm very happy indeed.

Of course, I was never an 'end game' tank - at the hardcore end of things, it may well suck, I really couldn't say!

Also, does anyone know if/how it stacks with blur/displace? Cos that will make a big difference and GS displace clickies aren't that hard to make.

[OliviaCrowley]

Also, does anyone know if/how it stacks with blur/displace? Cos that will make a big difference and GS displace clickies aren't that hard to make.

Total effective chance to avoid an attack is determined by multiplying all of your effects together. For example:

50% defense from AC, 25% incorp from dark monk, 20% from blurry item (or cloud kill for true-seeing bosses), 25% dodge is done as follows: 0.5 * 0.75 * 0.75 * 0.8 = 0.225, or a 77.5% chance to avoid any given attack.

[dunklezhan]

Total effective chance to avoid an attack is determined by multiplying all of your effects together. For example:

50% defense from AC, 25% incorp from dark monk, 20% from blurry item (or cloud kill for true-seeing bosses), 25% dodge is done as follows: 0.5 * 0.75 * 0.75 * 0.8 = 0.225, or a 77.5% chance to avoid any given attack.

in other words without incorp: ((AC hit chance * dodge hit chance * concealment hit chance)-1)*100= overall miss chance (if you ignore the fact that you have negative number at the end).

So my monk with a roughly 50% effective AC, no incorp but with max dodge and displace from a clickie on top: 0.5*0.75*0.5 with displace for 81% miss chance or 19% chance of actually being hit.

When the clickie's not on and I'm just getting the 20% smoke bonus from that piece of GS, it comes out at 71% miss chance or actually being hit 29% of the time.


In earth stance, that should get slightly better because of the AC boost, but not very much I expect (without access to the game I'm not going to speculate on what my particular enhancement set up gives me, I can't even remember what level of earth stance I bought. Not grandmaster, certainly).

Of course, I don't actually have 25% dodge chance. I've got about 6%. So that's about 62% mitigation on my actual live character and a little further damage mitigation. from PRR (definitely worth wearing at least some form of armoured bracers or PJs for the free PRR if nothing else).

You know what? I can totally live with that, when before I was being hit 95% of the time at level 20 on the same monk.

Now, I'd have to regear/spec significantly to improve from this (which is right and proper: I've more or less ignored defenses up to now except that smoke/displace item). But unlike pre-change, I can now see a route to improvement - that what I really need to do as a monk is go for max dodge gear because it will make the biggest difference for the smallest investment.

It might finally be worth me getting the dodge feat and mobility as a monk, and I like the sound of that. But just by being a monk and being geared for moderate DPS, I am now by virtue of being a L20 (which is pretty awesome compared to a pedestrian NPC) wearing some fairly basic but monk specific gear (sentinel bracers and the robes from VoD) for moderate protection from actually being hit, but little to no damage mitigation when I actually am hit in my pajamas. That sounds about right for how I've built and geared the character.

Before, that was as far as I was likely to get without some major grindage. Now though, with some moderate investment in dodge gear for noticeable boost to my damage avoidance (rather than huge amount of effort for it to make any difference at all). If I really went for it now, I'd be up near the very respectable (compared to previous) 80% damage avoidance reasonably easily, but I'd still be getting hit hard due to lower PRR than a comparable AC heavy armoured melee. That sounds about right to me for a monk, it really does.

The question for me is what about heavy armour tanks - they're going to have to really work for that extra dodge because they don't have any inherent dodge, they have it capped due to dex bonus restrictions on armour, and they're working really hard for their extra AC too, all still at the cost of damage output... and they're never really going to get better than 85% miss chance. Of course, they also get a feckload of PRR. But I'm not sure it really balances out given the to hit changes because those heavy tanks have still sacrificed a lot of DPS.

Sounds like monks got a big boost to me, while heavy armour tanks are nerfed by an amount I can't really comment on since my 'tank' is only L14 and I haven't played him since the xpac hit.

I dunno. I'm not sure, as a monk player, that I'd want to be complaining too much about this.


Edit - and all this reasoning isn't going to affect the outrage of anyone of any class who was getting 95% miss (97.5 with displace cast by someone else on them) before after loads and loads of grind, who is now getting no more than about 85% mitigation (even with displace), which it appears is only about 5% more than someone with a moderate grind investment. Personally in real life when I've had to put a load of effort into doing something and then someone comes along with an invention of some sort that makes it a breeze for everyone else, mostly I think 'thank goodness for that, now if i try to do it again I won't have to try so hard'. I didn't begrudge new WH40K players when games workshop brought out their spraypaint undercoat even though I'd had to undercoat all my figures with a brush, I thought 'hooray! Awesome idea! That'll make it easier for folks to get involved and now I don't have to worry about that if I start a new army!'

But I spend my life in the "minority opinion" pool, so I doubt anyone else agrees with that

[OliviaCrowley]

Words.

Excuse me, these are the forums. You are not allowed to have a reasonable and level headed opinion here. You must be angry at all times!

Joking aside, I'd like to mention that 40-50% defense from AC is pretty reasonable to hit. I'm not really trying to get it on my monk and I have almost 70 AC standing at 23. Apparently 50% defense at 25 is low 70s.

[slimkj]

Are monks totally stuffed?

Update: My currently played Monk is feeling more saucy than ever. 57 Stun DC, wheeeeeee!

[Blank_Zero]

I don't think this is correct. Mine certainly don't.

Then you built a poor monk. Even my STR based HOrc monk can easily hit 80+ AC and 15% Dodge. And it's my 3rd string toon for gear.

Protip: Stop dumping WIS when building monks.

[Taimasan]

meh

[slimkj]

Then you built a poor monk. Even my STR based HOrc monk can easily hit 80+ AC and 15% Dodge. And it's my 3rd string toon for gear.

Protip: Stop dumping WIS when building monks.

Thanks, enthusiastic build helper! But I don't dump Wis, I just don't bother gearing for AC.

Poor is subjective. I'm very happy with my monk, as I said.