The 4th combat style in ddo: unarmed

[Delacroix21]

Sev, when are we going to see unarmed dps brought up to par with weapon dps. Unarmed has gotten farther behind each update as more classes/EDs get crit range boosts that work with everything EXCEPT unarmed. You have acknowledged previously that pure monks are lagging behind, and Shintao is the unarmed tree.


Will you consider changing the Shintao tier 5 to +1 crit range on hit (like swashbuckler) instead of +1 crit on being hit? That alone would probably fix the problem.

[Saekee]

Sev, when are we going to see unarmed dps brought up to par with weapon dps. Unarmed has gotten farther behind each update as more classes/EDs get crit range boosts that work with everything EXCEPT unarmed. You have acknowledged previously that pure monks are lagging behind, and Shintao is the unarmed tree.


Will you consider changing the Shintao tier 5 to +1 crit range on hit (like swashbuckler) instead of +1 crit on being hit? That alone would probably fix the problem.

Funny that when I first started playing, no one would have considered Monks to be behind. Full offhand damage coupled with stun ability from a stat that also helps saving throws and AC (which also tended to be very high and still relevant), faster handwrap attack speed. Then with enhancement pass, any monk gets fists of light and shadow veil as well as another 10% offhand strikes. It was like--wow!

BUT then allowing players to add master of forms feats on multiclasses as well as causing the DC of stunning fist to be based on character level changed a lot--add to that keen edge fighter stuff.

I am still not convinced that monks are behind in that they have a great helpless-rendering attack and a nerfed instakiller (QP), an ability that attacks enemies resistant to stunning fist (jade strikes) and excellent defenses (easy to max dodge etc, improved evasion, spell resistance etc). From a missed-chance perspective, they are only sans displacement (which one could do on an elf or a splash)--they are one of the few classes than can get 25% incorporeality. They can even pump up PRR with earth stance even if this is inherently limiting them to one elemental stance.

Unarmed monks do get the TWF line buffs so they technically fall also under that combat style.

that said, I totally agree with your suggestion Delacroix to change the tier 5 of shintao.

[Delacroix21]

Funny that when I first started playing, no one would have considered Monks to be behind. Full offhand damage coupled with stun ability from a stat that also helps saving throws and AC (which also tended to be very high and still relevant), faster handwrap attack speed. Then with enhancement pass, any monk gets fists of light and shadow veil as well as another 10% offhand strikes. It was like--wow!

BUT then allowing players to add master of forms feats on multiclasses as well as causing the DC of stunning fist to be based on character level changed a lot--add to that keen edge fighter stuff.

I am still not convinced that monks are behind in that they have a great helpless-rendering attack and a nerfed instakiller (QP), an ability that attacks enemies resistant to stunning fist (jade strikes) and excellent defenses (easy to max dodge etc, improved evasion, spell resistance etc). From a missed-chance perspective, they are only sans displacement (which one could do on an elf or a splash)--they are one of the few classes than can get 25% incorporeality. They can even pump up PRR with earth stance even if this is inherently limiting them to one elemental stance.

Unarmed monks do get the TWF line buffs so they technically fall also under that combat style.

that said, I totally agree with your suggestion Delacroix to change the tier 5 of shintao.

I LOVE monks, I always try to play them in every dnd game. But I am also a power gamer, and all the best builds I can make (very high survivability and very high dps) don't use unarmed, as it is too inferior.

I sure hope the shintao tier 5 gets changed, as it does nothing for you if the mob is stunned or a group of mobs are held by a caster. It is ridiculously inferior compared to the swashbuckling version.

[Saekee]

I LOVE monks, I always try to play them in every dnd game. But I am also a power gamer, and all the best builds I can make (very high survivability and very high dps) don't use unarmed, as it is too inferior.

I sure hope the shintao tier 5 gets changed, as it does nothing for you if the mob is stunned or a group of mobs are held by a caster. It is ridiculously inferior compared to the swashbuckling version.

yes but the swashbuckling Tier 5 is overpowered, even a mistake (although when I get around to running a bard, I would take the Warchanter freeze path since it can affect enemies resistant to CDG. But then, I do not think I will ever get there as I am stuck on my current monk splash build). I would not use that as a standard or everything will seem like weaksauce. Sev mentioned in the assassin feedback thread that the developers admitted that the experiment with an insta-kill based upon a skill would not be repeated.

[Blackheartox]

Funny that when I first started playing, no one would have considered Monks to be behind. Full offhand damage coupled with stun ability from a stat that also helps saving throws and AC (which also tended to be very high and still relevant), faster handwrap attack speed. Then with enhancement pass, any monk gets fists of light and shadow veil as well as another 10% offhand strikes. It was like--wow!

BUT then allowing players to add master of forms feats on multiclasses as well as causing the DC of stunning fist to be based on character level changed a lot--add to that keen edge fighter stuff.

I am still not convinced that monks are behind in that they have a great helpless-rendering attack and a nerfed instakiller (QP), an ability that attacks enemies resistant to stunning fist (jade strikes) and excellent defenses (easy to max dodge etc, improved evasion, spell resistance etc). From a missed-chance perspective, they are only sans displacement (which one could do on an elf or a splash)--they are one of the few classes than can get 25% incorporeality. They can even pump up PRR with earth stance even if this is inherently limiting them to one elemental stance.

Unarmed monks do get the TWF line buffs so they technically fall also under that combat style.

that said, I totally agree with your suggestion Delacroix to change the tier 5 of shintao.

Every class can get 25% conceal due to shadow dancer.
Wizzards get 35% conceal, and every class has ability to use shadow cookies for a 1minute long shadowdaner form.
I personally value only the invisi portîon of veil to be honest.
Maxing dodge will be easier as rogue tho after this update, rogue will be the master of dodge, and monks became from op to uhm something.
They are sitll ok, but they fall behind unless a tree build

Also keep a simple thing in mind, a barb in gmaster of flowers or a barb using handwraps with dumb animation in blitz will outdps a monk based on wraps combat.

That is sad imo

[Delacroix21]

yes but the swashbuckling Tier 5 is overpowered, even a mistake (although when I get around to running a bard, I would take the Warchanter freeze path since it can affect enemies resistant to CDG. But then, I do not think I will ever get there as I am stuck on my current monk splash build). I would not use that as a standard or everything will seem like weaksauce. Sev mentioned in the assassin feedback thread that the developers admitted that the experiment with an insta-kill based upon a skill would not be repeated.

People talk about insta kills, but they are meaningless. They only work on trash mobs, that a decent toon should be able burn down in just a few seconds. As for swash tier 5 being OP I don't think so, as smashes are not the highest dps builds in ddo) nor are they the 2nd highest, or third highest.

[Saekee]

Every class can get 25% conceal due to shadow dancer.
Wizzards get 35% conceal, and every class has ability to use shadow cookies for a 1minute long shadowdaner form.
I personally value only the invisi portîon of veil to be honest.
Maxing dodge will be easier as rogue tho after this update, rogue will be the master of dodge, and monks became from op to uhm something.
They are sitll ok, but they fall behind unless a tree build

Also keep a simple thing in mind, a barb in gmaster of flowers or a barb using handwraps with dumb animation in blitz will outdps a monk based on wraps combat.

That is sad imo

that is fair Blackheartox re incorporeality in shadowdancer but then you must run in SD to have it. Which everyone says is a crappy destiny.
Wizards get the 35% incorp if they are in pale master form; yes that makes them quite nice especially now that they are popping on heavy armor and adding displacement as well.
Shadow cookies--that is compensatory for what a class lacks and hardly sustainable.

Interesting though what you say re barbarian. But then being a monk is not all about DPS--survivability, some team buffs etc.

[MrWindupBird]

I'm beating a dead horse a bit here, but unarmed is superbad. Unarmed monks are quite lousy defensively now too, but I can live with that- the anemic offense is very hard to deal with however. And contrary to what other posters have claimed, there is no flipside to it: monks dont have utility, and just because it bears reiterating, they do not possess strong defenses.
There's really no question on this front. I am one of only 2 powergamer types I know of on my server who still plays an unarmed monk, and it's pure stubborness.

There've been some other threads on the topic, sadly buried in the Monk subforum where none but the most stubborn and out-of-touch tread, so I'll link one here:
https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthrea...d-monks-a-bone

It has some good information. One take-away: top-shelf monk dps is almost exactly half that of a barbarian, using the Bruntsmash beatdown with multiple tries. No one is suggesting that monks ought to do more damage than barbarians, but when you have mediocre defenses (even compared to a barbarian, with heavy armor, uncanny dodge and Blood Strength), and little utility (bards, vanguards both stun much more effectively than do monks), doing half damage is not acceptable.

I'm going to requote myself from another thread, laying out some math for those of you who might be skeptical.

Some good discussion.

.....
It kind of bugs me that bards (freezes), as well as pure 20 fighter and pally vanguards are far better at stunning than monks. They can stun more mob types, have AOE stuns, and can reach a higher DC without sacrificing their damage: Wisdom remains the only stat left without a stat-to-damage option, I believe. Why is beyond my comprehension: I think that the community still has a hangover from 2012 when monks were good. Or else the implicit assumption is that monk=ranged, which tells you everything that you need to to about the viability of unarmed combat.

In case there's any confusion, unarmed monks are not anywhere near high-DPS right now. Before epic levels, monks traded off terrible crit profile for better attack speed and good base damage, but as the game has evolved the tradeoff has gotten increasingly bad. Monk crit profile has not evolved with that of other melees, and the increases base damage across the board made the unarmed die steps comparatively weaker. Lousy enhancements, and non-functioning abilities and items (eg Know the Angles not applying damage bonus to unarmed, Sanctified Gages not applying light damage) have exacerbated this. Here's another example
Let's put a pally with warhammers in LD, and compare it to a monk, also in LD. Both have overwhelming critical. The monk is in Master Earth stance for +1 mult on 19-20.
Pally: Crits 15-18 x4, 19-20 x 6
Expected physical damage over 20 hits: 13x1 + 4x4 + 2x6 = 41 times base damage (plus 28 x seeker)

Monk: Crits 19-20 x 5
Expected physical damage over 20 hits: 17x1 + 2x5 = 27 times base damage (plus 10 times seeker)

Assuming equivalent base damage (** See note below), the paladin does 50% more physical damage than the monk, ignoring seeker damage (so total difference is probably closer to 60%). That assumes no-fort, which is reasonable even in undead content with the fort-reduction we have available now. The 60% figure seems about right to me from my play experience. The pally incidentally has a large defensive advantage (MRR, PRR, Lay on Hands, cures, saves) as well for anything and everything that is not EE Miior.

**As far as comparable base damages:
Pally has 7d6 light damage scaling with melee power, in addition to 15 bonus melee power, higher Str from Divine Might.
The monk gets an extra ~5d8 (if shintao T5) from monk bonus die steps. 2.5 [w] from 20 monk, 1.5 Dance of Flowers, 1 Improved Martial Arts. Monk also gets 10% offhand and full-str offhand bonus. The 7d6 light damage and monk extra die steps are very comparable (at the cost of a feat, and a twist for the monk), and the 15 melee power and full-str off-hand balance out nicely too. If you start including things like Sanctified Gages not working with unarmed, and the scale shifts further away from Monk.

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TL;DR the new enhancements give really interesting character building possibilities, but aren't balanced. TWF is bad, monks are bad. Game is still fun, fortunately.

[Delacroix21]

I'm going to requote myself from another thread, laying out some math for those of you who might be skeptical.

Very well written post, and sums up a lot of issues.


Honestly though I do think changing the shintao tier 5 to+1 crit on hit would go a long way to bring monk dps up to par with characters rocking 11-20x3 at all times. It won't make them equal dps, but it will close the gap a good bit.


Alternatively we could scrap that idea, and make 1 simple change: 20 monk unarmed goes from 3.5w(1d6) to 1w(3.5d6), so feats and enhancments and wraps that add 1w will have a lot more effect then just a lousy 1d6. Monk crit range and multi is balanced in dnd against a huge base damage (1d20). But ddo +w scaling removes this advantage from unarmed and still leaves them with a **** crit range and multiplier.


Sev, could we try one of these ideas? The 2nd idea will also have little effect in heroic levels where monks are fine, and a big effect in epic levels where monks are hurting. For example: thunderforge hand wraps tier 3, crippling flames + dragons edge: live is 8w(1d6) or 8-48 base similar scimitar user will be 4.5w(1d6) or 4-27 but with 5 times the crit range due to multiple + crit range stacking. Damage in 10 hits will be base 88-528 + 299 crippling flames + dragons edge (1 crit for x2) for a total of 387-827. scimitar will be base 80-540 (5 crits for x3) + 1,495 crippling flames + dragons edge for a total of 1,575-2,035. What a enormous difference!


Edit- crippling flames + dragons edge adds an average of 299 damage per crit.

[Alternative]

Dps being one thing, but a cloth frontline melee is going to their ass kicked quite fast too. And the tactical abilities from shintao tree have laughable cooldowns and potential DCs especially when you compare them to a pdk bard freezing everything in sight, then there's the CdG vs QP comedy.

Seriously the only reason to play a monk now is if you want 10k stars, and they plan to take away even that.

[Delacroix21]

Dps being one thing, but a cloth frontline melee is going to their ass kicked quite fast too. And the tactical abilities from shintao tree have laughable cooldowns and potential DCs especially when you compare them to a pdk bard freezing everything in sight, then there's the CdG vs QP comedy.

Seriously the only reason to play a monk now is if you want 10k stars, and they plan to take away even that.

Yep monk has become a 2 or 6 level splash and nothing more. I hope unarmed dps and survivability (which I actually think is ok atm, I can build very survivable monks, will just have bad dps), gets looked at.


I still laugh when people talk about mortal fear being good when crippling flames (or burning emptiness on fire immune) and a 50% crit chance WAY outdps it, by an enormous margin.

[Rhysem]

yes but the swashbuckling Tier 5 is overpowered, even a mistake (although when I get around to running a bard, I would take the Warchanter freeze path since it can affect enemies resistant to CDG. But then, I do not think I will ever get there as I am stuck on my current monk splash build). I would not use that as a standard or everything will seem like weaksauce. Sev mentioned in the assassin feedback thread that the developers admitted that the experiment with an insta-kill based upon a skill would not be repeated.

CDG isn't all the hotness of swash. The hotness of swash is it gets broken at level 4 and doesn't let up.

My gear is not especially great (either for the monk or the swash), but I tr'd from a monk and let me tell you swash >>> monk. If swash isn't #1, then that just makes monk that much further behind -- and they aren't bringing any utility with them really.

[Delacroix21]

There have been some good points made here, as well as a wonderful dps breakdown vs Melee. Moving forward for the Devs lets provide them ideas as well as narrow down what needs to be buffed. I will start:

1. I believe unarmed needs to be completely recoded. Adding the damage to the character and not just making hand wraps a "weapon", that uses its own animations was a horrible idea, and has caused tons of issues with things not working for hand wraps, no greensteel hand wraps (back when greensteel was the best in the game), forcing monks to farm a hard to pug raid ToD to bring hand wraps closer (but still far away from) other Melee weapons. Recode hand wraps as a weapon, the same as holding a dagger/club/staff, and just tie the unarmed animations to them (just as axes/mauls have an animation tied to them vs greatswords). Once it is coded as a weapon, everything that works for weapons will work on hand Wraps! (CRot enhancers, etc.) of course this will mean disabling ToD rings, but all monks will happily give up using level 18 rings at level 28.


2. Once hand wraps are coded properly, the next thing is to fix their dps. Unarmed has the WORST crit profile in ddo, one of the Lowest damage dies (d6, which makes a BIG difference when using +5w skills etc.), but it has always been this way in dnd. What made unarmed still viable in dnd was its base damage! At level 20 a monk would deal 1d20 with his fists while the other Melee would be stuck with the same 2d6 great axe. That was helped balance unarmed, but not completely. Unarmed needed a further buff and got it through a higher attack rate with flurry of blows. Ddo completely threw out both advantages where unarmed has only a fraction more attacks per min then SWF/TWF, and deals LESS damage per swing then two-handed weapons (thunderforged greatsword 4.5w2d6: 9d6, vs monk 8d6). This is even worse with attacks that use +W as +5W on a greatsword becomes 9.5w2d6: 19d6 vs monk 13d6. All the while having a horrible crit range and multiplier. Solution: make monk level 20 BASE damage the 1d20 it was supposed to be, and +W effects increase this 20 sided die vs a lousy 6 sided die. So the same thunderforge hand wraps now become 4.5W1d20. Unarmed needs high base damage to make up for its horrible crit profile.


3. Monk survivability isn't what it once was with the inclusion of PRR and monks aren't even the AC Kings of ddo anymore to compensate. Now a simple fix would be to add 5prr to every monk AC increase, for a total of 25prr, but I don't think we should go that route. We should stick with the concept of monks not being hit as often, but hit for more when they are. To accomplish that, I see 2 changes: first is change monk AC increases from 3 to 5 (for +25 instead of +15 at 20), 10 AC inst much but that's a good thing. The other change is to change earth stance from +20% AC to +30%, I am totally fine with removing the +1 crit multi on 19-20, as the dps this adds is minuscule at best. This will give all monk builds a tiny boost, and tanking builds (earth stance) a bigger boost.


4. Another change is to fix the 2 monk stances no one uses (or at least shouldn't be using)= air and fire stance. Air stance is worthless, you can get the same attack speed from +speed items and doesn't stack, just as bad is the doublestrike which surprise suprise doesn't stack with items either. Change air stance to a STACKING 15% speed at grandmaster, the doublestrike changed to a bonus that stacks with anything. Next is fire stance, the other supposed "dps" stance that falls utterly short. The only dps Fire stance gives is the 4 strength, which is a whopping 2 damage! The extra ki on hit isn't really usefull until we get more ways to turn ki into dps (that will be discussed in point 5). Instead fire stance should add +.5w per tier, for +2w at grandmaster (remember with the above changes +2w won't add only +2d6 anymore, but +2d20!)


5. The final change is to improve the monk epic destiny: GMoF. Now this tree is preety solid EXCEPT for the unscaling petal strikes, that interrupt your attack sequence and actually LOWER dps. The simple change for this is to allow these to scale with Melee power, and then remove the casting animation of the first 2 petal strikes and make them like monk elemental strikes: instant cast and don't interrupt your attacks. This will also be a proxy buff to fire stance, as now the extra +ki on hit will have a use! The other minor change is to adjust the +1/2wisdom modifier to the DCs of all the abilities in the ED to +full wisdom modifier, which will help them actually not be saved against aside from on EN difficulty. On live few if any monks have 60 wisdom, which makes petal DCs at 28 a 50 (10+28+12) which we all know is a joke on EH let alone EE. The next change involves everything is nothing. For one raid (lloth) this was considered usefull, now it's a joke compared to other characters insta killing left and right. A wail of the banshe on a 5min cooldown is not usefull. Instead the cooldown should be 1 minute, with the charging of 25 strikes removed. A 1 minute cooldown will mean monks will use this often, but not get them even close to true insta kill classes.


Thank you for your time and consideration of these points, I honestly do appreciate it.

[Therrias]

I still laugh when people talk about mortal fear being good when crippling flames (or burning emptiness on fire immune) and a 50% crit chance WAY outdps it, by an enormous margin.

Lol, nothing beats mortal fear vs trash. Unless you only fight mobs with >5k hp at cap?

[Delacroix21]

Lol, nothing beats mortal fear vs trash. Unless you only fight mobs with >5k hp at cap?

Mort fear: 8-64 force: 31 average per hit, with 5% chance to cut mob hp in half (this rarely goes off when mob is at 90-100% hp, but even if you think the average damage this deals is 1k, that's 5% of 1k= 50 damage average per swing= 81 average total per hit). Though it's more like 500 damage on average (5% of 500: 25) for 56 average damage per swing.


Crippling flames: 135-325 on crit: 230 average on crit. Holy sword + divine crusader with scimitar: 11-20x3 so 50% chance to crit (50% of 230= 115). Adds average of 115 damage per swing.


So that's 81 (really more like 56) vs 115. Also 2 negs from crippling flames takes a lot of hp off EE mobs. So enjoy beating your trash with mortal fear.


Damage to mob breakdown: 150 base damage per swing, 299 average damage on crit (crippling flames+dragons edge), 11-20x3 scimitar. 5% proc chance is 1 in 20 swings, so let's see how much crippling flames adds up. In 20 swings, the above will deal 8999 damage, with crippling flames adding 2,300 damage alone, (allready a great deal more then your average mortal fear proc, as you should see only 1 proc per 20 swings on average).


But enough of this= you have wasted all our time derailing the thread from talking about buffing unarmed. Get back on topic please.

[Enderoc]

How about a crouching tiger hidden dragon idea where you can toggle a secondary stance at a lower form level and you could do this for each level up to Grandmaster where you find complete balance. You can only have one adept, one master and one grandmaster form toggled at one time however.

With Earth generating 200 hate you may not want to be in GM stance there for example, or you just may.

Why not have three different forms flowing at different levels of mastery?

[Seikojin]

Sev, when are we going to see unarmed dps brought up to par with weapon dps. Unarmed has gotten farther behind each update as more classes/EDs get crit range boosts that work with everything EXCEPT unarmed. You have acknowledged previously that pure monks are lagging behind, and Shintao is the unarmed tree.


Will you consider changing the Shintao tier 5 to +1 crit range on hit (like swashbuckler) instead of +1 crit on being hit? That alone would probably fix the problem.

LOL

Probably after wraps become bludgeon weapons.

[Delacroix21]

How about a crouching tiger hidden dragon idea where you can toggle a secondary stance at a lower form level and you could do this for each level up to Grandmaster where you find complete balance. You can only have one adept, one master and one grandmaster form toggled at one time however.

With Earth generating 200 hate you may not want to be in GM stance there for example, or you just may.

Why not have three different forms flowing at different levels of mastery?

Its a novel idea, but I just dont see the current stances offering enough even if you were stacking all 4 at grandmaster level (I understand your change was to stack master/adept/novice stances not 4 grandmaster). They need to fix the stances themselves first I think. But thanks for your ideas!

[Therrias]

Mort fear: 8-64 force: 31 average per hit, with 5% chance to cut mob hp in half (this rarely goes off when mob is at 90-100% hp, but even if you think the average damage this deals is 1k, that's 5% of 1k= 50 damage average per swing= 81 average total per hit). Though it's more like 500 damage on average (5% of 500: 25) for 56 average damage per swing.


Crippling flames: 135-325 on crit: 230 average on crit. Holy sword + divine crusader with scimitar: 11-20x3 so 50% chance to crit (50% of 230= 115). Adds average of 115 damage per swing.


So that's 81 (really more like 56) vs 115. Also 2 negs from crippling flames takes a lot of hp off EE mobs. So enjoy beating your trash with mortal fear.


Damage to mob breakdown: 150 base damage per swing, 299 average damage on crit (crippling flames+dragons edge), 11-20x3 scimitar. 5% proc chance is 1 in 20 swings, so let's see how much crippling flames adds up. In 20 swings, the above will deal 8999 damage, with crippling flames adding 2,300 damage alone, (allready a great deal more then your average mortal fear proc, as you should see only 1 proc per 20 swings on average).


But enough of this= you have wasted all our time derailing the thread from talking about buffing unarmed. Get back on topic please.

Your math is way off. Where do you find mobs with 1k hp at endgame? At 28 on any non-cakewalk content, you can count on Mortal Fear for 36 average force damage and at least ~200 average proc damage per swing.

If you didn't want to talk about Mortal Fear, you probably shouldn't have brought it up.

[DrWily]

I'm still waiting for the day non-monks/GoFs can effectively beat mobs down with bare hands. But that'll be for another thread.

I've only done one monk build that I actually completed, and that was a dex-to-dmg longsword build (actually it was a 10/10 Rouge/Monk split, but I consider it just enough to be a monk build). IMHO unarmed sucked, I'm more of a dark monk type of guy anyway. And I still don't like how a Shintao monk Kukan-Do you from your back, despite it literally saying You lock gazes with an enemy. Meditation of War shouldn't have had penalties on it to begin with, seeing how it's a T5 enhancement. The Earth Stance enhancements should be redone, some things need to be removed or better yet changed to support the other three stances.