Producer's Letter

[Doctorivil]

~ Someone asked about monk handwraps. The reason there are so many things that don't work with them is they are not "weapons" in the way they were implemented. Because of this all enhancements that make attacks require a separate implementation for handwraps. If we, behind the scenes, classified them as a type of weapon this wouldn't be the case. The other option is to do an entire handwrap enhancement pass and do the special implementation on everything that isn't working. I'd prefer the first because going forward we wouldn't need to special case each attack, but it might require monk players jump through hoops to convert there handwraps. And by hoops I mean visiting the stone of change. So we haven't finished our evaluation yet on what is the best course.

This sounds good, as i understood handwraps get to be weapons and all the code about them not being weapons can go away.
If for one side i do understand the beauty of non-weapon attacks flavor in monk, removing that part of the code making it lighter sounds like a way to improve overall game performance.

~ The idea for making Slave Lord 8 was it can follow Temple of Elemental Evil. I will revisit the heroic level with the team and see if we want to target 9 or 10.

On this, i can agree that it is cool to have more "free" heroic favor. But we at this point for there are plenty of options to get exp at that level.
For the past few updates we have been getting this heroic+epic quests that overload heroic exp...
That means we can skip a lot of content and i'm not sure if that's what devs intend.
At the same time i have this feeling that when i get to epic there's very few "new" things to do.
We have CitW chain, Haunted Halls, Thunderforge raids and couple of unrelated quests (they're all very cool btw) but other than that it's all repeated quests done in Normal/Hard to farm exp to ETR. I'd love to see new quests/packs being put in just Epic levels so that we can have fresh content after a heroic life.

[DrawingGuy]

So I had an idea of a possible way to recode wraps without having to dig through 10 years of code: simply create them as a completely new weapon. Leave "unarmed" as is in the coding, which is what you are doing when you have nothing equipped, and add "handwraps" its own thing. Simply use all off the animations from unarmed for attacking and cleaving.

Concerns:
- Two Weapon Fighting with only a single weapon. This could be handled by unique coding, or possibly having wraps automatically "duplicate" itself into the offhand weapon slot so it sees it as two weapons equipped (in the background of course).

- Off-hand stat damage. Unarmed is unique in that it gets full stat damage for off-hand strikes rather than 1/2. I would not want handwraps to lose that.

- Cleave off-hand strikes. Another unique thing to unarmed. THF weapons get higher base damage for the x[W] of cleaves along with glancing blow damage. TWF is weak when it comes to cleaves, but that's ok as it gets the additional ability and proc types from having a second item in off-hand. Unarmed gets off-hand strikes on cleaves, and I think handwraps should keep that.

- New cleave applications. This would apply no matter how they fix unarmed - moves like Momentum Swing and Strike Down would need animations applied

- Proficiency. If handwraps were to be coded separately, there obviously comes the concern of classes with no Monk levels and not in GMoF getting the full unarmed attack rotation along with getting their damage at Xd6 rather than d3/d2. The best solution would be for "non-proficient" to get the standard non-monk attack rotation at 1d3. If that can't be managed, completely bar non-proficient use of the weapon. The latter would suck as people would lose easy access to ooze/rust beaters when they don't want to farm/craft proper ones, but it is probably better than dealing with raging Barbarians with their gobs of STR running in Legendary Dreadnaught. Only way to gain the Handwrap Proficiency feat would be Monk level or GMoF base core.

- Uncentered attacking. If you can qualify the attack cycle type for proficiency, you can tag uncentered as well. However if you cannot, I don't see it being too big of a concern as it presents no damage exploiting concerns. Sure, you might see Clonks in full armor running handwraps or other build types that forgo stances and finishers in favor of armor defenses, but I don't see that as game breaking.

- Empty Hand Mastery. I'm unaware of anything in the game that changes the base damage of a weapon, so I see this as one of the biggest hurdles... but I see that concern applying if you directly tackle recoding Unarmed itself as well. Tackling that tech could possibly open up future possibilities, so hopefully that can be done. Unfortunately it may be best to completely circumvent. A d6 averages 3.5 damage and a d8 averages 4.5 damage - a 28.6% increase. Where this calculates would affect this number as you have crits, melee power, action boost damage, procs, etc... but it would be a quick and dirty way to give the damage increase the base die gives. The major concern with this, though, is Druid/Trees... would need to make sure that this bonus would not apply to them.

- Crit Profiles. Many enhancements and Destiny applications that affect crit profiles do not work with unarmed. It being a weapon would change that, though I actually think that is something that should be looked into as I would see that as homogenization of the game. Personally I would rather that they continue to exclude unarmed/handwraps and keep it as the worst crit profile in the game. Handwraps would instead gets its damage through faster attacks and higher base damage.

Obviously there is still a grip of concerns to deal with, but still possibly far less daunting than recoding the existing complexities of unarmed.

[Paisheng]

Earlier in this thread R2Play suggested an idea for an Unarmed Monk Line. Here is my idea on that:

Monk Unarmed Line

Tier 1:
Flurry of More Blows Action Boost: Choose One:
Attack Boost: Activate to gain +4/+6/+8 Action Boost bonus to hit for 20 seconds.
Haste Boost: Activate to gain +10%/+20%/+30% Action Boost bonus to attack speed
for 20/20/20 seconds AP1

Tier 2:
Deft Strikes: You gain +3%/+6%/+10% chance to make offhand attacks while centered and
wielding two weapons or fighting unarmed. AP 1

Tier 3:
Vital Points: You gain +1/+2/+3 hit and damage with open hand and monk weapons in
which you remain centered. AP 2

Tier 4
Strike With No Thought: When centered with open hands or a monk weapon, you gain
1%/2%/3% Double Strike or 1%/2%/3% Double Shot (depending on whether your
weapon is melee or ranged). AP1

Tier 5
Empty Hand Mastery: Your unarmed weapon die size is increased from 1d6 to
1d8/1d10/1d12. AP 1

Notes:
1. One of the key signatures of monks is to be the fastest striker in the game. Monks
should not have to cross train to fighter or rogue acrobat to get the haste boost clickie.
Therefore this for unarmed tier 1.
2. Deft Strikes fits well into this line though reduce AP to 1.
3. Vital Points provides some needed buff to catch up with other melee passes.
4. Continues the monk flavor of being fastest striker.
5. Empty Hand Mastery makes a tier 5 cap to an unarmed line, with a little beefing up. From the
original 1d6 to highest 1d12 is only an improvement of +3 damage per hit so it is not out of league.

Something like this would give the unarmed monk some needed love and would fit thematically in the Shintao Tree.

[Karadon_II]

On this, i can agree that it is cool to have more "free" heroic favor. But we at this point for there are plenty of options to get exp at that level.For the past few updates we have been getting this heroic+epic quests that overload heroic exp...That means we can skip a lot of content and i'm not sure if that's what devs intend.At the same time i have this feeling that when i get to epic there's very few "new" things to do.We have CitW chain, Haunted Halls, Thunderforge raids and couple of unrelated quests (they're all very cool btw) but other than that it's all repeated quests done in Normal/Hard to farm exp to ETR. I'd love to see new quests/packs being put in just Epic levels so that we can have fresh content after a heroic life.

I disagree. There are multiple avenues to level a heroic character at this point. As you say: "we can skip a lot of content" and therefore you can chose to skip a lot of content that is later available with an epic version. This will keep each life filled with "new things to do". The choice is yours, and choice itself is good.

[RD2play]

My view in blue

So I had an idea of a possible way to recode wraps without having to dig through 10 years of code: simply create them as a completely new weapon. Leave "unarmed" as is in the coding, which is what you are doing when you have nothing equipped, and add "handwraps" its own thing. Simply use all off the animations from unarmed for attacking and cleaving.
Unarmed and Wraps should be the same thing, only wraps will give you weapon effects.

Concerns:
- Two Weapon Fighting with only a single weapon. This could be handled by unique coding, or possibly having wraps automatically "duplicate" itself into the offhand weapon slot so it sees it as two weapons equipped (in the background of course).
We already have Special Cases like BS and DA which apply different "Weapon style Feats" when used as single/2 weapon/S&B, I think Wraps should work the same, where they are affected by "Unarmed Fighting", and 2WF Feat lines. A monk will get the first "Unarmed feat for free" and be able to pick up the other two Unarmed Feats as Monk Bonus Feats or Regular Feats. The Unarmed Feat Line should make your wraps deal d6/d8/d10 and grant some MP, or something like that. A Centered Monk will also still get Unarmed Strike increasing the [w], and get the Awesome Centered Animation increasing the speed by 8% like it is now. Other classes or Uncentered monks would get the "Boxing Animation" and no innate increase to Attack Speed

- Off-hand stat damage. Unarmed is unique in that it gets full stat damage for off-hand strikes rather than 1/2. I would not want handwraps to lose that.
Agreed

- Cleave off-hand strikes. Another unique thing to unarmed. THF weapons get higher base damage for the x[W] of cleaves along with glancing blow damage. TWF is weak when it comes to cleaves, but that's ok as it gets the additional ability and proc types from having a second item in off-hand. Unarmed gets off-hand strikes on cleaves, and I think handwraps should keep that.
Agreed, same with WW giving 4 attacks to unarmed, though this feat should be fixed to give 2 attacks for THF/SWF and 3 for 2WF, we need to discuss whether Unarmed always gets 4 attacks or that you should be Centered and otherwise get only 3.

- New cleave applications. This would apply no matter how they fix unarmed - moves like Momentum Swing and Strike Down would need animations applied
They should work like any other Cleave for Wraps.

- Proficiency. If handwraps were to be coded separately, there obviously comes the concern of classes with no Monk levels and not in GMoF getting the full unarmed attack rotation along with getting their damage at Xd6 rather than d3/d2. The best solution would be for "non-proficient" to get the standard non-monk attack rotation at 1d3. If that can't be managed, completely bar non-proficient use of the weapon. The latter would suck as people would lose easy access to ooze/rust beaters when they don't want to farm/craft proper ones, but it is probably better than dealing with raging Barbarians with their gobs of STR running in Legendary Dreadnaught. Only way to gain the Handwrap Proficiency feat would be Monk level or GMoF base core.
I Disagree, Only a Centered Monk should get the Cool Unarmed Attack Animation. See my suggestion for Unarmed Feat line, which could be taken by any class to increase the base DMG die, +[w] would be greater for monks, but +[w] gear could still apply to anyone who took this feat line.

- Uncentered attacking. If you can qualify the attack cycle type for proficiency, you can tag uncentered as well. However if you cannot, I don't see it being too big of a concern as it presents no damage exploiting concerns. Sure, you might see Clonks in full armor running handwraps or other build types that forgo stances and finishers in favor of armor defenses, but I don't see that as game breaking.
Indeed. Though Stances should be returned to Monk majority builds IMO, no more "1 level dip" to be Grandmaster!

- Empty Hand Mastery. I'm unaware of anything in the game that changes the base damage of a weapon, so I see this as one of the biggest hurdles... but I see that concern applying if you directly tackle recoding Unarmed itself as well. Tackling that tech could possibly open up future possibilities, so hopefully that can be done. Unfortunately it may be best to completely circumvent. A d6 averages 3.5 damage and a d8 averages 4.5 damage - a 28.6% increase. Where this calculates would affect this number as you have crits, melee power, action boost damage, procs, etc... but it would be a quick and dirty way to give the damage increase the base die gives. The major concern with this, though, is Druid/Trees... would need to make sure that this bonus would not apply to them.
See above.

- Crit Profiles. Many enhancements and Destiny applications that affect crit profiles do not work with unarmed. It being a weapon would change that, though I actually think that is something that should be looked into as I would see that as homogenization of the game. Personally I would rather that they continue to exclude unarmed/handwraps and keep it as the worst crit profile in the game. Handwraps would instead gets its damage through faster attacks and higher base damage.
This would be open to discussion, but IMO it would be great if the Crit Profile of Wraps could be improved upon.

Obviously there is still a grip of concerns to deal with, but still possibly far less daunting than recoding the existing complexities of unarmed.

[Grailhawk]

- Two Weapon Fighting with only a single weapon. This could be handled by unique coding, or possibly having wraps automatically "duplicate" itself into the offhand weapon slot so it sees it as two weapons equipped (in the background of course).

I disagree on this imo the gearing options that allowing you to use the offhand gear slot adds out way the cost of farming a second set of wraps. It also keeps the system homogeneous and goes a long way in preventing the SWF+TWF bug that exists with some forms of unarmed fighting.

This should also be what determines if you are SWF vs TWF, as i think both styles should be valid on a monk using unarmed.

- Off-hand stat damage. Unarmed is unique in that it gets full stat damage for off-hand strikes rather than 1/2. I would not want handwraps to lose that.

I don't think they should have had this from the get go and bet it was a bug that was declared WAI.

- Cleave off-hand strikes. Another unique thing to unarmed. THF weapons get higher base damage for the x[W] of cleaves along with glancing blow damage. TWF is weak when it comes to cleaves, but that's ok as it gets the additional ability and proc types from having a second item in off-hand. Unarmed gets off-hand strikes on cleaves, and I think handwraps should keep that.

Again I disagree. IMO this is a bug that too many people have called is WAI with out confirmation.

- New cleave applications. This would apply no matter how they fix unarmed - moves like Momentum Swing and Strike Down would need animations applied

I don't really think you need new animations for this you just need to let it work unarmed, It should not work any differently for unarmed then it does of any other combat style.

- Proficiency. If handwraps were to be coded separately, there obviously comes the concern of classes with no Monk levels and not in GMoF getting the full unarmed attack rotation along with getting their damage at Xd6 rather than d3/d2. The best solution would be for "non-proficient" to get the standard non-monk attack rotation at 1d3. If that can't be managed, completely bar non-proficient use of the weapon. The latter would suck as people would lose easy access to ooze/rust beaters when they don't want to farm/craft proper ones, but it is probably better than dealing with raging Barbarians with their gobs of STR running in Legendary Dreadnaught. Only way to gain the Handwrap Proficiency feat would be Monk level or GMoF base core.

Having the Fury of Blows feat is what determines what animation you use IMO proficiency should not really matter and every one should be proficient with handwraps. Monks just are better then every one else which is what Fury of Blows does.

- Uncentered attacking. If you can qualify the attack cycle type for proficiency, you can tag uncentered as well. However if you cannot, I don't see it being too big of a concern as it presents no damage exploiting concerns. Sure, you might see Clonks in full armor running handwraps or other build types that forgo stances and finishers in favor of armor defenses, but I don't see that as game breaking.

Fury of Blows requires being unarmed if you are waring armor yous should not gain the benefits of Fury of Blows hence you should not get the "monk" unarmed animations.

- Empty Hand Mastery. I'm unaware of anything in the game that changes the base damage of a weapon, so I see this as one of the biggest hurdles... but I see that concern applying if you directly tackle recoding Unarmed itself as well. Tackling that tech could possibly open up future possibilities, so hopefully that can be done. Unfortunately it may be best to completely circumvent. A d6 averages 3.5 damage and a d8 averages 4.5 damage - a 28.6% increase. Where this calculates would affect this number as you have crits, melee power, action boost damage, procs, etc... but it would be a quick and dirty way to give the damage increase the base die gives. The major concern with this, though, is Druid/Trees... would need to make sure that this bonus would not apply to them.

The original proposal for SWF was to have it increase the base weapon die damage before W, if they don't have the tech now they have at least done enough research into it to know its possible (I would hope).

- Crit Profiles. Many enhancements and Destiny applications that affect crit profiles do not work with unarmed. It being a weapon would change that, though I actually think that is something that should be looked into as I would see that as homogenization of the game. Personally I would rather that they continue to exclude unarmed/handwraps and keep it as the worst crit profile in the game. Handwraps would instead gets its damage through faster attacks and higher base damage.

For multiclassing reason I think its a bad idea to restrict unarmed from the benefits of crit multiplier and threat increase. That said I do think that the Shinto tree should focus on Doublestrike/Offhand Proc/Offhand Doublestrike and Melee Power and not have any crit multiplier and threat increases.

[Grailhawk]

We already have Special Cases like BS and DA which apply different "Weapon style Feats" when used as single/2 weapon/S&B, I think Wraps should work the same, where they are affected by "Unarmed Fighting", and 2WF Feat lines. A monk will get the first "Unarmed feat for free" and be able to pick up the other two Unarmed Feats as Monk Bonus Feats or Regular Feats. The Unarmed Feat Line should make your wraps deal d6/d8/d10 and grant some MP, or something like that. A Centered Monk will also still get Unarmed Strike increasing the [w], and get the Awesome Centered Animation increasing the speed by 8% like it is now. Other classes or Uncentered monks would get the "Boxing Animation" and no innate increase to Attack Speed

Not a fan of adding a new combat style, I do think that wraps should offer the option of TWF or SWF though.

I Disagree, Only a Centered Monk should get the Cool Unarmed Attack Animation. See my suggestion for Unarmed Feat line, which could be taken by any class to increase the base DMG die, +[w] would be greater for monks, but +[w] gear could still apply to anyone who took this feat line.

Its not Centered Monks only its any one who has Fury of Blows, and meets the requirements for Fury of Blows which i believe is limited to unarmored but might have weapon restrictions as well.

Indeed. Though Stances should be returned to Monk majority builds IMO, no more "1 level dip" to be Grandmaster!

At this point I don't think this is a big deal anymore, and kind of like that Kensei fighters who splash monk can really get a Samurai flavor going, but ya this was a big mistake in U19.

[Aletys]

For accessories, the new loot gen is actually well done, IMO. While I get chaff, I also get very nice items for most every non-weapon/armor slot. So much that I end up vendoring or giving away a lot of really good items. This is because there are a large number of effects for these slots, and some (CON, Insightful CON, False Life, etc) are needed for every class. Even some which aren't, I usually keep things like CHA items for UMD purposes, at least until upper epics. The only real complaint is the lack of deadly and speed on accessories.

For Armor, it's not terrible. But there are comparatively few effects possible, and many are now spell power. So it tends to look like a casters paradise. Fortification is also nerfed to drop in lower values than before, meaning it's worthless for that. My low-resources group character is still, at L16, waiting for a decent fort item (we haven't farmed a Minos, and the rest of the group seems resistant for some reason. Maybe because as first lifers we'll likely hit 20 before getting everyone 20 taps).

For weapons, it's a total failure. DR breakers no longer drop. Many desirable effects no longer drop. Due to the stripping out of most melee effects, and the sheer number of caster effects, and the lack of controls on what effects land on what weapon type and in combination with other effects, the vast majority of weapons are either bad melee/caster combinations that no one ever uses, or caster only. All lootgen weapons are pretty much vendor trash. In the rare instance you get a melee weapon with actual melee effects, you're likely to get speed (should never be on weapons) or deadly (same, having them here is bad design), but no real dps boost. The only true benefit is being able to get a really low level Vorpal. But since really low levels go by quickly anyway (just grab Carnifex!) that's not a benefit. It's so bad, that my guild has started using the E-star challenge weapons to fill in gaps, as you still get good melee effects there. Even on a bad roll, a E-star weapon is simply better than any lootgen weapon out today.

Weapons need a lot of melee-specific effects added back in, speed and deadly removed to accessories where they belong, and controls preventing caster and melee effects from spawning together. Until then, it's all going to be vendor trash.

Yep. Pretty much sums it up.

I like the new loot system, comparatively speaking. But the weapons effects and combinations totally suck eggs. No DR breakers, no disruptors / banishers / etc.



Now as to the OP: very psyched. A little disappointed that ToEE is left without the Village of Hommlet, but the Slave Lords quests being added is very cool. And I find it surprising that they are mining Greyhawk material overall. Then again, they are classics for a very good reason.

Completely agree with both of you. I'd add ranged weapons to the "completely useless" list. My AA needs spell power & enchantment focus, but I don't want those on my bows (I get those on my gear), I want damage effects & DR breakers. Ditto for my other ranged toons: caster effects are completely useless for my rogue mechanic, but that's all that seems to drop on XCrossbows & repeaters.

Another issue is the elimination of improved paralyzing, banishing, etc. At epic levels using standard versions of these is a complete waste of time. The mobs save 100% of the time. You need the improved versions to have any chance for them to work in epics. Removing them was a very bad decision, and the non-improved versions should not be dropping on epic level weapons. That just makes them vendor trash.

[azrael4h]

Another issue is the elimination of improved paralyzing, banishing, etc. At epic levels using standard versions of these is a complete waste of time. The mobs save 100% of the time. You need the improved versions to have any chance for them to work in epics. Removing them was a very bad decision, and the non-improved versions should not be dropping on epic level weapons. That just makes them vendor trash.

To be fair, even Improved Paralyzing wasn't worth much beyond EN, and low level epics at that. IMO, DC-based effects should scale with the item level, just like every other effect does now. So a ML1 Paralyzer would have a DC of say 10, ML20 maybe 30, etc... Scale to reasonable effectiveness. If it never lands it's worthless, if it lands too much it's OP.

[lyrecono]

re: kobolds - I see and respect your dissenting opinion.

I started playing DDO because it was the only D&D mmo in town. I had no clue about Eberron, and a LOT of it was absolutely non-D&D'ish to me as an old-school Greyhawker. Eberron was the campaign world due to licensing arrangements. License agreements which seem to be loosening enough for the inclusion of other worldly content.

I look forward to the inclusion of more content I am familiar with, and am making my statement that I'm willing to back that interest monetarily.

In no way am I trying to imply there shouldn't also be Eberron/FR content as well.

From my standpoint the realms were detrimental to DDO, the writing suffered (e.g. elminster/anna), the level design has suffered(remember large 3D dungeons like pit or STK?), the balance suffered (the 2 expansions and the eveningstar packs in between were terribly balanced leading to 2 years of ranged supremacy).
15 badly written quests that lead up to a disappointing raid with pis spoor mechanics with notorious drop rates of loot that they have given away on multiple occasions.
Badly written prison fan-fic that makes you wonder who the most stupid villain is, the shadow dudes or the pdk that drop magic users and thieves behind a wooden wall of all things.

And the worst insult is that they most likely spend money on a setting they never had too, there was plenty of places unexplored in Eberron.
You are aware that we're basically on the equivalent of Australia here?
There is an entire continents to explore that is far more advanced than what the realms have to offer.

On Eberron, no. On Faerun, heck yeah! After the remarkably wonderful job they did with the Stormhorns, I was really looking forward to the magic desert of Anauroch.

Besides, the Netherese storyline needs a completion: the Empire of Shade must fall!

i couldn't find pictures but for those who played aion or PoE, a former seabed dried up can make a interesting dessert.

Nuke the realms

This!
The realms are a dark page in DDO.

But...but... These are a few of my favorite things.

What would really help people group is world of warcraft style summoning stones in quest hubs and near quest entrances.

Basically you get 3 + people grouped, and any 2 people at the quest entrance can summon the rest of the party members.

Of course this would take away from those shiny friendship bracelet sales.... Not sure if anyone even buys those...

The worst part of grouping for me is always waiting for everyone else to get thier.

Why wait? Unless newer players that i might have chosen to mentor, i have simple rules:
My lfm, i step in when i'm ready
If you fall behind you're left behind.
If you can't keep up you shouldn't have been there to begin with.

Troll. Very troll.

Oh no, a different opinion must be a troll!!!

I think a Monk needs to gain PRR and MRR as they level up, as a class feat, so they can keep up with the other melees near and at endgame with cloth/nudism (in any stance). Make a nice, healthy +30MRR/PRR a more attractive level 20 Monk automatically granted class feat. As incentive. Because dr10/epic is NOT. That way you can keep in line with lore (scaled to DDO) with the Monk 20 DR feat. For the first time.

Don't make them spend AP on it unless it's going to be a really big bump.


On a more realistic note: Monks on Earth, in this world we live and breathe in, have greater natural resistances, saves and damage resistance and automatic recovery than any other melee fighter I've seen, read about or met. Sure folks know field medicine and often use it adeptly but Monks are on another level entirely.

Monks can Trance and walk over coals that boil fat and fry skin in seconds, meditate in boiling oil that would instantly kill a non-Monk, meditate in sub-zero weather that would kill a non-Monk and punch with the force of a small automobile up to 6 times per second while weighing less than 120lbs. Even a raging barbarian couldn't put that much force out with a two handed weapon weighing what a Monk does. To top that off, the Iron Skin ability allows them to prevent Piercing and Slashing damage entirely (focused Qi).

For every bit of additional mass a Monk in DDO has, add to the amount of resilience and brute force said Monk can churn out in addition to these facts presented. Then, because Monks are Psionic in nature, well... you see where I'm going with this. More Monk levels, more Psionic based power growing in the Monk to suit the Monk's needs. The Henshin Mystic does not use arcana per se, it is Psionic.

Then with Monks... "Do not pollute the pond." Some Monk abilities simply discontinue upon multiclassing. Others dilute. None remain constant.

Monks are scary powerful in real life and many can use any weapon with expert proficiency, even furniture and appliances.

On a side note: I'd like to see a Figher 20 automatic feat called "Bushido" where they deal 1% more damage for each 1% of HP they have that is less than their maximum.

Even if they are western fighters and never heard of bushido?

Monks are not supernatural.
like any other human that applies all his/her time&attention to one particular skill they might become good enough to excel at it.
However, a healthy dosage of skeptisism is required when dealing with them.
Monks can Trance and walk over coals that boil fat and fry skin in seconds
The video link show a monk sitting in a fluid in a big pan.
From a medical educators guide:
The severity of a scald injury depends on the temperature to which the skin is exposed and
how long it is exposed. The most common regulatory standard for the maximum temperature
of water delivered by residential water heaters to the tap is 120 degrees Fahrenheit/48
degrees Celsius. At this temperature, the skin of adults requires an average of five minutes of
exposure for a full thickness burn to occur. When the temperature of a hot liquid is increased
to 140oF/60oC it takes only five seconds or less for a serious burn to occur

As for boiling oil:
It's hard to measure the boiling point of oil. The reason is that well before it reaches its boiling point, oil will start to smoke. This is called the ’smoke point’. The smoke points for some common cooking oils are here:

Safflower - 510 F (266 C)
Soybean - 495 F (257 C)
Corn - 475 F (246 C)
Peanut - 440 F (227 C)
Sesame - 420 F (216 C)
Olive - 375 F (191 C)
(from http://wywahoos.org/wahoos/cookbook/tools.htm)
The exact temperatures will also depend on how pure the oil is.

The boiling point estimates that I’ve found are pretty sketchy, but a fair estimate for soybean oil (most cheap cooking oil is soybean oil) is about 300 C (or 572 F)

However, most of these oils are mixtures, when pure they would be far more viscus than the oil in the video.
What starts to boil in the video is most like the water in the video, which is bad enough at a 100 degrees Celsius.
My father (a cook) has picked up (boiling) pots and pans from the stove all his life, he can pick up bread buns from the oven (280 degrees Celsius) with his bare hands.
That's not amazing, it's damage to his nerve system making him no longer feel heat until it's too late and starts burning deeper into his flesh when he does screw u in the kitchen.
combine years of nerve damage with salves that isolate you from a certain degree of heat and your monk is a trained showman, a non magical show magician of sorts.

The same goes for the sub zero monk, no inner fire rubbish but someone that sits down in a (non windy) snowy location, on a piece of isolation material.
Big deal, i have sat on the mat in the snow after a nice sauna (on a non windy day), it's not a big deal.
The one inch punch video is a nice example of someone using physics and the years of training to do one cool trick.
Him getting hit with a stick was laughable, do it with real oak and it wouldn't break, his resolve would.
As for his punch, his regular punch was compared to a boxer but no numbers were mentioned for his 1 incher.
Also keep in mind that were dealing with the history channel who are known for their show, not their accuracy. (the same guys who also broadcast the debunked ancient aliens BS)

"Even a raging barbarian couldn't put that much force out with a two handed weapon weighing what a Monk does." Actually, no within D&D rules, it's all based on strength, of wich the barbarian gets more and 1,5 times it due to it being a 2handed weapon.
As for reality, again, no, it depends on str and training of course but a 2 handed item will generate more force, that's why people use 2 handed hammers to hammer something into the ground.
Take a look at a pellet drum(or Den-den daiko), the human body generates a lot of force when used like that.
That why it is used in sword fighting and wrestling, for example the shoulder throw.
The only thing the 1 inch punch has going for it the element of surprise, speed and needing only 1 hand to use it.

Qi/chi/the force has never been proven.
The shaolin are no different than a circus family, training makes them ale to do those things, reputation and misdirection does the rest.
Don't get me wrong, fighting jacky chan (even in his current age) would still be scarry to 90% of the population but due to his expertise and training, not because of mystical mumbo jumbo.


I agree monks in DDO need a lot of help but bringing in real life show/con men doesn't help your case

Dear DDO Developers,


p.s. How about a half dragon race with lots of claw attacks, breath weapon, and MRR

p.p.s - It's ok if the Greensteel cloaks look cooler than any other cloaks in the game hehe ;p Something like super dark metallic forest green outlined by a shaded silver with bright silver trees growing up the back (maybe a nekkid elf chick riding a dragon? yes yes yes [takes some visual inspiration from Frank Frazetta], also god bless Robert E. Howard {who was also from Texas by the way} and Conan!{Check out back issues of The Savage Sword of Conan first 50 issues}) and a holy aura shimmering off the whole thing yeah that would be sick.

Half dragons wouldn't fit in the setting.
However, cosmetic skins in the style of conan/boris vallejo would be very nice, i have asked for this on multiple occasion but we never had a reply from the devs.

Some replies:

~ We generally don't talk about content further out than one update. We certainly intend, as an example, to do additional raids in the future.

~ Everyone has a favorite class, and whenever we talk about class updates players of other classes want theirs next. On the topic of cleric specifically, they will get a boost when we do a pass on War Priest since they would also get those changes. In the future we'd also like to do domains for clerics to help differentiate them from FvS.

~ Bound to character space is serialized with the character when the character is sent off to the database, and as we look into lag it is clear that's expensive. We don't have plans, for performance reasons, of increasing that. And yes, we would love it if that wasn't the case because we would *all* like more BtC space. It isn't worth more lag though.

~ A4 involves the players being captured, and we did not think that players would find playing an area with no gear as particularly fun, especially when we looked into the cost of the new tech required to make something like that work. As an aside, I also liked the fight on the docks and understand the desire to see it in DDO.

~ When we talk about augments, we don't mean that they would be crafted like LGS. We mean that we would make slotted items display a better description and use the slotting UI for augments. We know that the effects on already slotted LGS don't show enough information and we will be looking to change that before we moved regular augments to use that system.

~ We were concerned that an Anauroch landscape would have too little to offer that wasn't seen in the desert content we already have. I am not saying it would never happen if we saw enough player interest; just that desert areas can be tough when we are looking to offer variety in landscape.

Sev~

PS: As an aside, I also did/do enjoy Jeff Dee's artwork. I played a *lot* of V&V and enjoyed it there as well.

Go take a look at aion, the risen ocean bed functions as a desert in a way ddo has never seen.
As for the no gear thing, i agree, you already had a huge problem balancing content lately, imagine having to do that for all the classes we have today and are so gear dependent..

I agree with sev another desert adds nothing plus I am against all Realms. I don't play epic but an epic wilderness should be the Mournlands and it would be epic all healing is stop or greatly reduced and the creatures there would be truly epic.

War- and bladeforged only? that would get old real fast for fleshies, i do agree with far more Eberron content.

[DrawingGuy]

Replying to two people's points... this post will be long.

I disagree on this imo the gearing options that allowing you to use the offhand gear slot adds out way the cost of farming a second set of wraps. It also keeps the system homogeneous and goes a long way in preventing the SWF+TWF bug that exists with some forms of unarmed fighting.

This should also be what determines if you are SWF vs TWF, as i think both styles should be valid on a monk using unarmed.

The SWF+TWF bug has nothing to do with handwraps - it is triggered by Animal Form being considered Unarmed, which is coded for TWF and then the character equipping a single weapon + orb to qualify for SWF. That glitch would fall out of the purview of recoding handwraps.

I disagree with handwraps being SWF or being broken into actual single weapons (by single weapon, I meant being able to slot only a single weapon as it occupies both hands). If they code them as qualifying for both, people will just splash Ranger and get both bringing it back to the same exploit nature of Animal forms. If you break it up into single weapons, you have a world of animation/coding concerns with mixing weapons with wraps along with proc concerns.

It's fine being left as TWF.

I don't think they should have had this from the get go and bet it was a bug that was declared WAI.

Flurry of Blows in PnP has your full STR bonus apply to ALL successful attacks, so it is indeed WAI. I just want to be sure they don't break that.

Again I disagree. IMO this is a bug that too many people have called is WAI with out confirmation.

It's true that it's unclear if this is WAI or a bug, but why rob unarmed of something that is unique? As I said, THF gets higher base weapon and glancing blows. TWF gets a second weapon slot for additional stats and procs. You can even expand it to S&B that has the shield stats that can boost cleaves along with also getting glancing blows when using DAxe or BSword. Unarmed getting offhand is a perfect special feature... besides why would we want to nerf damage of a currently underperforming melee type?

I don't really think you need new animations for this you just need to let it work unarmed, It should not work any differently for unarmed then it does of any other combat style.

The animations will not necessarily translate to unarmed. This was a point of something that they need to double check, not necessarily something that would need ac

Having the Fury of Blows feat is what determines what animation you use IMO proficiency should not really matter and every one should be proficient with handwraps. Monks just are better then every one else which is what Fury of Blows does.

Fury of Blows requires being unarmed if you are waring armor yous should not gain the benefits of Fury of Blows hence you should not get the "monk" unarmed animations.

The proficiency concern was brought up because I'm suggesting creating Handwraps as a new weapon outside of current unarmed. I'm looking for a way to solve the problem of the complexity of unarmed... and by creating it as a new weapon, it will likely divorce itself of the attack animation coding behind Flurry of Blows. If they can hook the animations on Flurry of Blows, it indeed would resolve these concerns.

The original proposal for SWF was to have it increase the base weapon die damage before W, if they don't have the tech now they have at least done enough research into it to know its possible (I would hope).

True - which is a good sign. Though the fact that it never even made it to Lam makes me wonder if they hit serious coding concerns. But considering that it would be a single weapon type with a single change, that could be the difference.

For multiclassing reason I think its a bad idea to restrict unarmed from the benefits of crit multiplier and threat increase. That said I do think that the Shinto tree should focus on Doublestrike/Offhand Proc/Offhand Doublestrike and Melee Power and not have any crit multiplier and threat increases.

Personally I think people that are multi-classing should simply build for their playstyle. They want to use handwraps? Then don't waste the AP on crit profile enhancements... just like you wouldn't be taking Tempest TWF enhancements for a Great Axe user. I want to avoid it being just like any other weapon, but once again that is a matter of personal preference - I will defend my viewpoint, but I'll hardly be upset.

----------------

Unarmed and Wraps should be the same thing, only wraps will give you weapon effects

Unarmed would still exist - I'm brainstorming a possible solution for a way to code wraps as a weapon.

We already have Special Cases like BS and DA which apply different "Weapon style Feats" when used as single/2 weapon/S&B, I think Wraps should work the same, where they are affected by "Unarmed Fighting", and 2WF Feat lines. A monk will get the first "Unarmed feat for free" and be able to pick up the other two Unarmed Feats as Monk Bonus Feats or Regular Feats. The Unarmed Feat Line should make your wraps deal d6/d8/d10 and grant some MP, or something like that. A Centered Monk will also still get Unarmed Strike increasing the [w], and get the Awesome Centered Animation increasing the speed by 8% like it is now. Other classes or Uncentered monks would get the "Boxing Animation" and no innate increase to Attack Speed

I find that to be unnecessary. They can buff the Monk tree and just leave them using TWF without having to code and create an entirely new combat feat line.

Agreed, same with WW giving 4 attacks to unarmed, though this feat should be fixed to give 2 attacks for THF/SWF and 3 for 2WF, we need to discuss whether Unarmed always gets 4 attacks or that you should be Centered and otherwise get only 3.

WWA is a cleave, so is covered in my cleave comment. I do agree that WWA needs to be changed/buffed for weapon users so it procs twice giving them 2-4 attacks from the cleave, but that is a different concern.

I Disagree, Only a Centered Monk should get the Cool Unarmed Attack Animation. See my suggestion for Unarmed Feat line, which could be taken by any class to increase the base DMG die, +[w] would be greater for monks, but +[w] gear could still apply to anyone who took this feat line.

GMoF has always given anyone access to the unarmed attack animation while centered. Of course almost no one would ever use it as their weapons are stronger, but why remove the option?

Indeed. Though Stances should be returned to Monk majority builds IMO, no more "1 level dip" to be Grandmaster!

Another "different concern". The fact that they made stances selectable feats is a big part of what gave the rise to the Monkcher and the Centered Kensai. I was pretty upset when this first happened as I could create builds with a splash of Monk that had higher survivability and more unarmed damage than a pure Monk... but it has been years now and I'm well past the point of caring. I'd much rather they spent their development time elsewhere.

[axel15810]

Devs, I really want to see new adventure areas this year. I miss the immersion they provide. What I really want more than anything with the rest of this year is a few full adventure packs, each containing an adventure area, 3-4 flagging quests and a raid. All with legendary level 32 or higher versions.

I want to see more new experiences rather than new races or revamps to systems that only give us more ways or more convenient ways to play existing content.

[RD2play]

Not a fan of adding a new combat style, I do think that wraps should offer the option of TWF or SWF though.



Its not Centered Monks only its any one who has Fury of Blows, and meets the requirements for Fury of Blows which i believe is limited to unarmored but might have weapon restrictions as well.


At this point I don't think this is a big deal anymore, and kind of like that Kensei fighters who splash monk can really get a Samurai flavor going, but ya this was a big mistake in U19.

I don't agree with you about SWF to apply to wraps, it should not. Or are we going to have one arm tied behind our back? I do feel there is room for more combat styles, Sev~ already mentioned (quite some time ago) he likes to put in Pole-arms at some point. I feel it is a perfect way to allow for other classes to make use of Wraps, though Monks should remain the master.

I don't believe Flurry of Blows is granted to you when in GMoF, only the being centered part, which requires no armor, and wielding a centering weapon, i.e. Q-staff, Wraps or Kama. Then there are feats/enhancements that allow for Centeredness with other weapon types. Flurry will only grant extra Dodge, and Attack Bonus ->http://ddowiki.com/page/Flurry_of_Blows.

Well I like to see Stances be changed back to majority Monk builds, I agree with you is was a big mistake back in u19!

[Doctorivil]

I disagree. There are multiple avenues to level a heroic character at this point. As you say: "we can skip a lot of content" and therefore you can chose to skip a lot of content that is later available with an epic version. This will keep each life filled with "new things to do". The choice is yours, and choice itself is good.

I can, in part, agree with that, but i still feel that epic only content would be more fun.
Plus, most of the new "epic" content is level 30+, meant for you to run while exp capped.
Maybe i'm doing it wrong but getting from level 20 to 30 for me means running dailes over and over again.

Also it doesn't make much sense for me being level 27 and have no exp penalty running quests level 21...
... to avoid that we should have plenty of content to run with bravery bonus from level 21 to 30.

[RD2play]

Replying to two people's points... this post will be long.

...

I find that to be unnecessary. They can buff the Monk tree and just leave them using TWF without having to code and create an entirely new combat feat line.


WWA is a cleave, so is covered in my cleave comment. I do agree that WWA needs to be changed/buffed for weapon users so it procs twice giving them 2-4 attacks from the cleave, but that is a different concern.


GMoF has always given anyone access to the unarmed attack animation while centered. Of course almost no one would ever use it as their weapons are stronger, but why remove the option?

I am not saying to remove functionality of 2WF for Wraps, only to add the option for other classes to also be able to use them. A monk gets a lot of Bonus feats which it can use to increase this base die by taking these and pick up 2WF, on top of getting +[w]s from Unarmed Strike.

I agree wit you on WWA,

True about GMoF but anyone who is not Centered should also not get the Cool animation is all I am saying. and With my proposed Unarmed Attack Feat line players could opt to use unarmed also on other classes, maybe opening the way to some cool new builds that use GMoF ED.

[RD2play]

To be fair, even Improved Paralyzing wasn't worth much beyond EN, and low level epics at that. IMO, DC-based effects should scale with the item level, just like every other effect does now. So a ML1 Paralyzer would have a DC of say 10, ML20 maybe 30, etc... Scale to reasonable effectiveness. If it never lands it's worthless, if it lands too much it's OP.

I totally agree DC effects on weapons should scale. IMO with ML and Enhancement (tho now they are the same basically). There needs to be a base range that is random like 5-10 for paralyzing, 10-15 for improved paralyzing and 15-20 for Epic paralyzing. lets say paralyzing starts dropping on 5-12, improved 12-20, Epic on 20+ (or there could be some overlap?)
For this example that would mean the value would be "R+ML+E" => 5-10 + 5 + 2 = 12-17DC @ML5, 10-15 + 15 + 5 = 30-35DC @ML15, all the way up to value of 15-20 + 30 + 14 = 59-64DC @ML30.

[Zistra]

On this, i can agree that it is cool to have more "free" heroic favor. But we at this point for there are plenty of options to get exp at that level.
For the past few updates we have been getting this heroic+epic quests that overload heroic exp...
That means we can skip a lot of content and i'm not sure if that's what devs intend.
At the same time i have this feeling that when i get to epic there's very few "new" things to do.
We have CitW chain, Haunted Halls, Thunderforge raids and couple of unrelated quests (they're all very cool btw) but other than that it's all repeated quests done in Normal/Hard to farm exp to ETR. I'd love to see new quests/packs being put in just Epic levels so that we can have fresh content after a heroic life.

You have just described a problem solving itself. Having additional Heroic content, such that you don't need it all in order to hit 20 allows one to skip some of it that has an Epic version in favor of getting the Bravery Bonus and first-run XP bonus at Epic, rather than Heroic level. Doing that allows you to avoid repeating as many quests as Epics. Admittedly I own everything, but I seldom rerun the same epic quest more than once on the way to ETR.

To avoid accidentally breaking streaks when nearing Epic cap, running as Heroic Elite any content that also has a Legendary version means if you later run LN or LH, it won't be your first run of that quest and streak won't be affected.

[Zistra]

Not a fan of adding a new combat style, I do think that wraps should offer the option of TWF or SWF though.

OK, logically speaking, what does SWF with wraps look like? Using your fist like a club (While holding the other arm across your chest, no doubt)? Nonsense! SWF for wraps is ridiculous.

[Zistra]

To be fair, even Improved Paralyzing wasn't worth much beyond EN, and low level epics at that. IMO, DC-based effects should scale with the item level, just like every other effect does now. So a ML1 Paralyzer would have a DC of say 10, ML20 maybe 30, etc... Scale to reasonable effectiveness. If it never lands it's worthless, if it lands too much it's OP.

^^ This. Always boggled my mind that Paralyzing was a fixed DC17 whether you got it on a ML8 Masterful Craftsmanship item or a ML28 item. Made it a great L10 gear item that you shelved after Vale because it didn't proc enough. If the DC were ML+n, you could pick the n to suit how often you wanted paralyzing to proc. And if you wanted an "Improved Paralyzing" (named items, for example), just use a higher value of n for that.

[Zistra]

^^ This. Always boggled my mind that Paralyzing was a fixed DC17 whether you got it on a ML8 Masterful Craftsmanship item or a ML28 item. Made it a great L10 gear item that you shelved after Vale because it didn't proc enough. If the DC were ML+n, you could pick the n to suit how often you wanted paralyzing to proc. And if you wanted an "Improved Paralyzing" (named items, for example), just use a higher value of n for that.

You could even have a different value of n for "pure" paralyzers (weapons with no other effects) vs weapons at the same ML that had another effect or more.