Monk: Rough-in of Henshin Mystic

[dlsidhe]

I am not sure I saw LEVEL requirements on the tiers, just AP's spent in the tree. Will double check.

Eladrin said it's possible to cap a tree at level 11, if you don't put points in any other trees. So no more level 9 TOD, but you can grab it by level 11.

Similarly, that means a Shintao could be a walking metalline weapon by 11.

The trade off is no "twisting" from other trees, so you'd only have the PRE tree's abilities. I'd rather grab - as an example - some bits of Tempest for my Drow Shintao than have silver fists at level 11 when they're not super useful until 16-17, or twist in some shortswordery from Ninja Spy to have a piercing weapon option against Rhakshasas when I get into Lords of Dust or Gianthold.

And, I'm stating this now, halfling clonk radiant assassin ninja is the new hotness. 13 Cleric, 7 Monk. Dex based. I'm rolling one.

[chickenmaniac]

So, is it just me or did you kill the enhancements pane from a shortcut that we were using to look at this new fun stuff. Shame, the discussion was great.

[maddmatt70]

From the keymapping options to open the enhancement trees. Some of it's already been subjected to change (as I understand it) and what we see doesn't reflect any of those changes, and the rest is always subject to change.

Since the cat is out of the bag anyway I'll add a couple tidbits.

The spellsinger tree does show some options to add spells to the bard list from selections.
The war chanter tree shows advanced tools of war and skaldic rage.
Ninja-spies and thief-acrobats can show no mercy as an option.
Mechanics have some bomberman style options.

Hey man couldn't you like post the spellsinger spells. That would be cool and stuff.. This is not mournlands or any of that jibber jabber.

[Aashrym]

Hey man couldn't you like post the spellsinger spells. That would be cool and stuff.. This is not mournlands or any of that jibber jabber.

When I first started posting it I was PM'd and kept it out of general chat. The one's I saw so far were:

Gust of Wind
Wounding Whispers (just to edit again, this is a single target sonic DoT that includes 5% physical vulnerability, on the first tier of the tree, so low level. reads d3+2/2lvls)
Majestic Word (technically this is a song, 15 second cool-down heals d8 per bard level, single target, listed as affected by meta's)
Lightning Motes
Phantasmal Killer
Ray of Exhaustion
Ooze Puppet
Dispel Magic (don't ask me why that one was there)
Prismatic Ray
Burning Blood
Harmonic Shield
Wall of Sound
Cyclonic Blast (edited in; I forgot that one off the top of my head)

Give or take off the top of my head. Each tier of spellsinger PrE carried a spell and there were additional options for adding spells in the tree itself.

There was a lot of work done on the spellsinger tree and almost as much on the war chanter tree. EDIT: Clearly those trees are not complete yet and the virt tree populated nothing at the time. If I recall more info I can post, and I remember several of the enhancements.

[sephiroth1084]

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On the post I was going to put up seconded Brennie's concern about the lack of 10K Stars appearing in the list here.

Eladrin, the short of my point is that if 10K Stars seems overly dominant among archers, that archers without at least 6 monk levels are weaker than the Zen Archery versions, that says that everyone else needs a buff, not that 10K Stars needs a nerf or outright removal. It's one of the integral pieces to make a half decent archer these days.

Ideally (as I see it), the different major archery class bases would have their own, individually defined strengths.
Monks would have the highest rate of fire with 10K Stars, and would have the best general survival abilities.
Rangers would have the easiest access to archery feats, not requiring a high Dex (though they lose out on Combat Archery), are the best switch-hitters, and should get some AoE shots, CC or debuffs via their spells.
Fighters should have high damage per shot, access to secondary feats for the style (we currently don't really have any) and should be able to use tactics feats at range (trip, stunning blow, improved sunder).
Rogues would have a lot of damage per shot, maybe vorpaling ranged attacks, but have to sacrifice some key archery abilities due to their lack of feats.
Barbarians would similarly have high damage per shot, while having to sacrifice key archery abilities due to their lack of feats, but would also probably be decent switch-hitters with their high Str, and would have better crits via either Frenzied Berserker or Ravager perhaps.

That's how I see archery developed in DDO, with obvious multiclassing mixing things up. Ultimately, please do not remove or nerf Ten Thousand Stars, please (this coming from someone who would probably gladly jump back top ranger for Deepwood Sniper if that looks even remotely promising).

[Aashrym]

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On the post I was going to put up seconded Brennie's concern about the lack of 10K Stars appearing in the list here.

Eladrin, the short of my point is that if 10K Stars seems overly dominant among archers, that archers without at least 6 monk levels are weaker than the Zen Archery versions, that says that everyone else needs a buff, not that 10K Stars needs a nerf or outright removal. It's one of the integral pieces to make a half decent archer these days.

Ideally (as I see it), the different major archery class bases would have their own, individually defined strengths.
Monks would have the highest rate of fire with 10K Stars, and would have the best general survival abilities.
Rangers would have the easiest access to archery feats, not requiring a high Dex (though they lose out on Combat Archery), are the best switch-hitters, and should get some AoE shots, CC or debuffs via their spells.
Fighters should have high damage per shot, access to secondary feats for the style (we currently don't really have any) and should be able to use tactics feats at range (trip, stunning blow, improved sunder).
Rogues would have a lot of damage per shot, maybe vorpaling ranged attacks, but have to sacrifice some key archery abilities due to their lack of feats.
Barbarians would similarly have high damage per shot, while having to sacrifice key archery abilities due to their lack of feats, but would also probably be decent switch-hitters with their high Str, and would have better crits via either Frenzied Berserker or Ravager perhaps.

That's how I see archery developed in DDO, with obvious multiclassing mixing things up. Ultimately, please do not remove or nerf Ten Thousand Stars, please (this coming from someone who would probably gladly jump back top ranger for Deepwood Sniper if that looks even remotely promising).

I suspect 10k stars will reside within the ninja spy tree when all is said and done.

[maddmatt70]

When I first started posting it I was PM'd and kept it out of general chat. The one's I saw so far were:

Gust of Wind
Wounding Whispers (just to edit again, this is a single target sonic DoT that includes 5% physical vulnerability, on the first tier of the tree, so low level. reads d3+2/2lvls)
Majestic Word (technically this is a song, 15 second cool-down heals d8 per bard level, single target, listed as affected by meta's)
Lightning Motes
Phantasmal Killer
Ray of Exhaustion
Ooze Puppet
Dispel Magic (don't ask me why that one was there)
Prismatic Ray
Burning Blood
Harmonic Shield
Wall of Sound
Cyclonic Blast (edited in; I forgot that one off the top of my head)

Give or take off the top of my head. Each tier of spellsinger PrE carried a spell and there were additional options for adding spells in the tree itself.

There was a lot of work done on the spellsinger tree and almost as much on the war chanter tree. EDIT: Clearly those trees are not complete yet and the virt tree populated nothing at the time. If I recall more info I can post, and I remember several of the enhancements.

Thanks for throwing this out there. These all appear to be 2nd tier spells i.e. no heal spell, no mass hold, no wail of the banshee/implosion, no finger of death, no firewall/acid raid/ice storm blade barrior, no polar ray, no web, no big time dot, etc.. I like the wall of sound and wounding whispers kind of thinking rather then some of these other spells because bards need their own spells. Saying this however bards need their own first tier spells something that is comparable to other classes' first tier spells.

[sephiroth1084]

Thanks for throwing this out there. These all appear to be 2nd tier spells i.e. no heal spell, no mass hold, no wail of the banshee/implosion, no finger of death, no firewall/acid raid/ice storm blade barrior, no polar ray, no web, no big time dot, etc.. I like the wall of sound and wounding whispers kind of thinking rather then some of these other spells because bards need their own spells. Saying this however bards need their own first tier spells something that is comparable to other classes' first tier spells.

Agreed.

[Aashrym]

Thanks for throwing this out there. These all appear to be 2nd tier spells i.e. no heal spell, no mass hold, no wail of the banshee/implosion, no finger of death, no firewall/acid raid/ice storm blade barrior, no polar ray, no web, no big time dot, etc.. I like the wall of sound and wounding whispers kind of thinking rather then some of these other spells because bards need their own spells. Saying this however bards need their own first tier spells something that is comparable to other classes' first tier spells.

Adding phantasmal killer is at least an instant kill spell, and suitable as an illusion, even if it's the lowest form. I didn't see a 5th level auto-grant spell either. That was still blank. What I'm really hoping for is for the bard spell list to actually be expanded still.

Depending on how spell power affects majestic word and what level it caps at it could compare to heal. It's not spamable with a 15 second cool-down and costing a song but 4.5 avg/level at bard level 20 is a base 90 before positive spell power. With full spell power instead of half spell power (it is listed as affected by meta's normally which was the deciding factor on the 50% spell power abilities) that's not too shabby.

There were some enhancements to add a lingering bonus to saves after majestic word but perhaps those could be adjusted/replaced to something more like regeneration so that there is a small lingering HoT with status effect removal on the tics, kind of like a cross between heal and regenerate.

Breca's working on it and is pretty open to feed back in my experience so when it's closer to completion I imagine players will be tossing requests into the mix. I was hoping for more too and I expect a lot of changes although I wouldn't bet on more damage or healing, and possibly less. Turbine really seems to have something against bards sometimes.

[HatsuharuZ]

Stop looking at my internal build.


Yes, the Elemental Strikes selector is in all three trees at (2,2).

I finished the rest of the Mystic tree this week. It's intended to be more of a "casterish" monk than many of the others, the elemental master of the bunch (focused mostly on fire). A force for balance rather than the light or dark tendencies of the other two.

The version you see is a bit old, it's missing a few of the core abilities, like the tier 5 ability Balance in Dawn.

Balance in Dawn
Multiselector:

Every Light Casts a Shadow:
Prereq: Path of Harmonious Balance.
Dark Ki Melee Attack: Perform an attack with +2[W] damage. On Damage: Target suffers 1d4 Negative Levels. If the target dies within 10 seconds, all enemies around the target suffer 1d2 Negative Levels.

Shadows Cannot Exist Without Light:
Prereq: Path of Inevitable Dominion.
Light Ki Melee Attack: Perform an attack with +2[W] damage. On Damage: Target suffers 1d6 light damage every 2 seconds for 10 seconds. This can stack up to 5 times. If the target dies within 10 seconds, all allies around the target receive 100 Positive Energy healing.

The thing I like most about this ability is... well, I'll let you guys discuss it.


The Shintao Monk hasn't snuck into your current build since I was working on it this week. (It's the one I'm in the middle of right now.) A couple of the changes there include your Remove <Blindness/Curse/Disease>/Lesser Restoration abilities are now toggles that apply to your Healing Ki finisher, so it's now actually Mass Remove <stuff> / Lesser Restoration. It also finally has more of the defensive abilities available to it that I've wanted to get in (though some of those come at a penalty to offense).

Eladrin, you made my head explode. I'll be sending you the bill, btw. :P


Seriously though, I'm not sure that giving Harmonious Balance monks such a potentially useful offensive ability is a good idea. It's like a med student being required to take a gun safety class and being given a shotgun at graduation... does that make sense? I'm not sure.... On the other hand, I have a shintao monk, and I would love to be able to neg level things.... hmm....

Oh, and the toggles for adding healing effects to the light-light-light finisher is a good idea.



On another note, would you perhaps be willing to take a second look at the monk finishers? Some of them are redundant, seeing as they can be replaced by the much less expensive and much higher DC Stunning Fist. Specifically, I'm talking about: The Trembling Earth, The Gathering Storm, The Raging Sea, Pain Touch, Falling Star Strike and Freezing the Lifeblood.

[QuantumFX]

The thing I like most about this ability is... well, I'll let you guys discuss it.

The fact that Henshin Mystic can do both Positive and Negative finishers? Yes, that is interesting.

[sephiroth1084]

On another note, would you perhaps be willing to take a second look at the monk finishers? Some of them are redundant, seeing as they can be replaced by the much less expensive and much higher DC Stunning Fist. Specifically, I'm talking about: The Trembling Earth, The Gathering Storm, The Raging Sea, Pain Touch, Falling Star Strike and Freezing the Lifeblood.

To be fair, some of those work well on a cycle with Stunning Fist. Before hitting Grand Master of Flowers, I'd often go Cold/Dark/Cold, mixing SF in whenever it was off timer, and throwing Freezing the Lifeblood in between stuns. Since SF is neutral, you can set-up a finisher with SFs in the middle if that's how things shake out, or hold a finisher for a situation in which you want two quick stun-like effects. Ditto for the charm ability from Void/Dark/Void and Shining Star.

That said, I feel like setting up finishers tends to take too long in that doing so is generally reducing your DPS on either a pre-GMoF dark monk, or a GMoF monk, because you have more important things to be spending Ki on, like GMoF abilities, Touch of Death, Stunning Fist, and Shadow Fade.

[Fefnir_2011]

Stop looking at my internal build.

I know I'm asking for too much, but I don't suppose there's anything you can tell us about Silver Flame Exorcist and/or Warpriest of Siberys? Even if you can't, it's nice to see what you guys are working on. I hope the metagamers theorybuilding and complaining over details doesn't discourage you guys from sharing.

[Coldin]

What do you think? A Light+Dark+Light finisher? That would be interesting.

[Brennie]

What do you think? A Light+Dark+Light finisher? That would be interesting.

Sounds kind of... bipolar to me. Or like a strobe light! Unce unce unce

[Arlathen]

What do you think? A Light+Dark+Light finisher? That would be interesting.

How about?...

Light+Dark+Light: Dawn's Rising Finisher - 50 Ki Cost
In the gloom of the morning, you find that Light of Returning Day fills you with hope and steadfast courage. You project a Balance Aura of for 30 seconds, dealing 2D6 Positive Healing to friendly party members every 2 seconds and 1D6 Negative Energy Damage to enemies every 2 seconds. At 10, 20 and 30 seconds, the Aura pulses, dealing 10D6/20D6/30D6 Positive Healing to all party members within the aura.

Dark+Light+Dark: Dusk's Falling Finisher - 50 Ki Cost
In the falling murk of Dusk, you find the Dark of Night oncoming with the promise of the long night. You project an Balance Aura for 30 seconds, dealing 2D6 Negative Energy damage per 2 seconds to all enemies within the aura and 1D6 Positive energy healing to party members. At 10, 20 and 30 seconds, the Aura pulses, dealing 10D6/20D6/30D6 Negative Energy Damage to all enemies within the aura.

You may only maintain one Balance aura at any one time. These effects would be affected by relevant direct spellpower, i.e Devotion for Positive Energy Healing and Nullification for Negative Energy Damage.

[Eladrin]

Eladrin, or anyone on lam looking at the other monk trees, can anyone confirm if (working title) Breaking Wind is in all three trees? And if so, does this mean 10k stars is a goner?

This will be a RADICAL shift for Monkchers, and so a LOT of forewarning would be appreciated (This would pretty much require most/all monks to lr/tr at the very least to a strength/dex build rather than wisdom, and more likely to lr/tr to get rid of monk levels altogether, since they no longer seem all that beneficial to an archer).

If "breaking wind" is Henshin only, and 10k stars still exists for NinjaSpys or some such, I'll go back to my calendar and reschedule the forum riots.

The Elemental Special Attack selector exists in all three monk trees.

Ten Thousand Stars will still exist in some form. It was too different from the other elemental special attacks to live in a multiselector with them (it's a self-buff rather than an attack), which is why we created a new air attack.

Currently I'm expecting to make it a feat that can also be taken as a bonus monk feat.

There are a couple of other changes to monks - the stances will probably automatically upgrade if you meet the ability score requirements at certain monk levels, for instance, like how the animal forms do. Frees up some AP for other things.

Don't panic about early information though, as I've said a lot, all of this is subject to change. I virtually guarantee that some of it will.

On another note, would you perhaps be willing to take a second look at the monk finishers?

Yes. So far I've modified The Gathering Storm.

[Vargouille]

Eladrin said it's possible to cap a tree at level 11, if you don't put points in any other trees. So no more level 9 TOD, but you can grab it by level 11.

Similarly, that means a Shintao could be a walking metalline weapon by 11.

This should not be interpreted to mean you can get absolutely anything by level 11. Innate abilities are still tentatively level gated and therefore could come earlier or later.

[dlsidhe]

This should not be interpreted to mean you can get absolutely anything by level 11. Innate abilities are still tentatively level gated and therefore could come earlier or later.

Makes sense, as some stuff would be gamebreakingly OP at that point.

[sephiroth1084]

The Elemental Special Attack selector exists in all three monk trees.

Ten Thousand Stars will still exist in some form. It was too different from the other elemental special attacks to live in a multiselector with them (it's a self-buff rather than an attack), which is why we created a new air attack.

Currently I'm expecting to make it a feat that can also be taken as a bonus monk feat.

I'd rather not see 10K Stars turns into a feat. Right now, archery is already far more feat intensive than any of the other styles.

Everyone wants Improved Critical.
THF:
PA, THF, ITHF, GTHF, maybe Cleave and Great Cleave if you are working toward Overwhelming Critical (though archers would also like this)--4 to 6 feats.
TWF:
TWF, ITWF, GTWF, PA or Precision. 4 or 5 feats, unless you're working toward OC, but everyone really wants to be doing that anyway.
S&B:
PA, CE, SM, ISM, ISB, Tower Shield Proficiency (free with a level of fighter) -- 6 feats.
Archery:
Point Blank Shot, Precise Shot, Rapid Shot, Manyshot, Improved Precise Shot, Bow Strength (free with a level of ranger) -- 6. Zen Archery if you're a monk or have monk levels -- 7. Prerequisites may change, but currently you also need Weapon Focus and either Mental Toughness, Arcane Prodigy or a level in wiz/sorc/arti/bard -- 8 or 9 feats. And archers aren't getting OC at that point.

So:
THF -- 6 feats + OC at epic levels
TWF --4-5 feats, or 6-7 feats + OC at epic levels
S&B -- 6 feats, with room to go after OC at epic (8 feats) or build for DPS (9 feats)
Archery -- 6 feats, 7 with monk levels, 8-9 (currently) for Arcane Archer, 9-11 if you also want OC

Turning 10K Stars into a feat puts monk-based archers at 8+ feats, before fitting in Improved Critical. Given how much weaker archery is than melee is most of the time, this is already egregious without further adding to the bloat.