Looks like the time of monks has come to an end...

[JoeShmo]

https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthrea...es#post6074153

Between the Duality nerfs and the absolute butchering of the melee power from the cores in the Henshin tree, I don't see how monks will remain viable. The big boost in the GMOF epic destiny tree cores is interesting, though I have a feeling LD will remain king.

A sad day for monks.

[DrawingGuy]

Even with 36MP gain, GMoF will still suck compared to other EDs. On top of still getting 28 more MP in LD, you also get 50% helpless damage, +1[W], +1 crit range, +1 crit muliplier on 19/20, perma action boost uptime, along with other defensive and offensive boosts that GMoF does not give. EiN and the tactics boost is nice, but not remotely worth the survival and DPS losses imo. If they ever looked at the flower moves to scale properly with damage, seriously lowered the cooldown of Wholeness of Spirit, as well as other needed adjustments, then it would be a solid option. We'll see if they ever do real Destiny passes.

As for the Monk nerfs... it was pretty much expected for Monk wraps to be nerfed to TWF numbers. Sucks I missed the power boat, but not surprised. The MP nerf to Henshin was unexpected, but can't really deny that 10MP per core was extremely strong. I do think they should have kept Henshin capstone 25, but here isn't really the place to debate.

This definitely does make me lean towards Ninja Spy investment on a handwrap build over Henshin as more SA and helpless damage may outweigh a now small amount of MP gained from Henshin cores.

We'll see what changes they have coming down the line to make Melee compete with the safety of Ranged or the power of casting also at the safety of ranged. Duality did propose the option of DPS to make the danger worth it. Will they load more Melee Power? Or somehow make melee more survivable? Though the latter is tough to do without it also applying to ranged and casters.

Ultimately, though, the days of unrivaled monk DPS may be over, but Monks themselves will be just fine through the nerf.

[JoeShmo]

This definitely does make me lean towards Ninja Spy investment on a handwrap build over Henshin as more SA and helpless damage may outweigh a now small amount of MP gained from Henshin cores.

I was thinking the exact same thing about reordering of APs. I would love to see what you're thinking now for the new AP split, on here or in-game.

[DrawingGuy]

That all depends on your race, your available racial PL points, and if you're pure or not.

If you decide to go all-out on helpless damage with Ninja Spy on a pure while still caring about DCs, you'd have a base split like:

41 Shintao
26 Ninja Spy
7 Harper

That would leave only 6 points to play with. As I'll have every available free Racial point, I'd do this:
41 Shintao
26 Ninja Spy
7 Harper
5 Aasimar -- this will let me get Ascendant Bond and Magical Training as that would put me at 17 points total
1 Henshin


Alternatively if I dropped the Helpless damage investment, I would do:
41 Shintao
24 Ninja Spy -- snagging the WIS and SA damage rather than the Helpless.
7 Harper
4 Aasimar
1 Henshin
3 Vistani -- 3 PRR/MRR and 25% neg absorb is pretty sweet for 3 AP


Obviously the Ninja Spy AP is flexible. If you need to pull for racial cores, or dump into Vistani for Haste Boost while leveling, or still go deep into Henshin as that still provides some other benefits is all up to you. The only hard-set AP spends imo is 41 Shintao for capstone and at least 7 Harper for KtA if you want usable Quivering Palm.

[Tilomere]

18 fighter/2 monk with kensai 60 melee power and stalwart defensive sweep to attack 2 targets at once?

[Kodwraith]

That all depends on your race, your available racial PL points, and if you're pure or not.

If you decide to go all-out on helpless damage with Ninja Spy on a pure while still caring about DCs, you'd have a base split like:

41 Shintao
26 Ninja Spy
7 Harper

That would leave only 6 points to play with. As I'll have every available free Racial point, I'd do this:
41 Shintao
26 Ninja Spy
7 Harper
5 Aasimar -- this will let me get Ascendant Bond and Magical Training as that would put me at 17 points total
1 Henshin


Alternatively if I dropped the Helpless damage investment, I would do:
41 Shintao
24 Ninja Spy -- snagging the WIS and SA damage rather than the Helpless.
7 Harper
4 Aasimar
1 Henshin
3 Vistani -- 3 PRR/MRR and 25% neg absorb is pretty sweet for 3 AP


Obviously the Ninja Spy AP is flexible. If you need to pull for racial cores, or dump into Vistani for Haste Boost while leveling, or still go deep into Henshin as that still provides some other benefits is all up to you. The only hard-set AP spends imo is 41 Shintao for capstone and at least 7 Harper for KtA if you want usable Quivering Palm.

Was about to start a monk thread on where to put my AP and behold, it is already started. I think the basic layout foundations seems to be 41 Shintao / 11Ninja / 2 Henshin (I need Elegant Crane while leveling to keep up with ki).

It seems DG has identified the major tradeoff: killer (in NS) vs. Whatever is left in Henshin at T4 (focus, dodge cap), salt with Harper 8 and possibly VKF to taste.

[DrawingGuy]

What I level with is different than what I run in Epics -- Vistani Haste Boost is great through heroics until you can get the boosts from Legendary Dreadnaught. I spend only 34 in Shintao and call it good 12-20 (other than the 1 point for the core at 18), and save any Henshin spends other than maybe a point until late teens. I run Fire stance through Heroics, which can keep up 1-14. Quivering Palm is where Fire Stance is no longer enough, but you can always roll 3 Henshin until you get Duality wraps. My favorite thing about duality is the fact that I no longer have to waste my Goggles slot to be able to play the way I like.

Ultimately, though, AP is only plat to reset. You can easily find out if you prefer Henshin or Ninja Spy spends.

[AbyssalMage]

If, as Steelstar says, monks were doing 30% more damage than other builds, there is a lot of room to back them off and not cripple them.

I'm not sure the word "viable" means what you think it means.

Key word is "if" my friend My personal opinion is that this difference in damage really only applies to top-tier monks with all the bells and whistles. Any average monks (speaking from experience here) were nowhere near this supposed level of power. Having 30 runs of Strahd and Baba Lysaga under my belt, I have seen what the prevailing end-game builds are (at least on Thelanis) and monks were not the vast majority in any of said raids or in any of the Ravenloft chain for that matter. I guess we will just have to see how things play out.

Here is the thing. We are assuming that Monks were OP from (a) a few Select Players and (b) Developers, who states they were doing 30% more damage...

But yet exhibit (1) "Having 30 runs of Strahd and Baba Lysaga under my belt, I have seen what the prevailing end-game builds are (at least on Thelanis) and monks were not the vast majority in any of said raids or in any of the Ravenloft chain for that matter" is the experience I was seeing as I have been sitting at cap farming "lesser" gear and watching PuG raids form on the LFG for said chains/raids. The debate is over, the developers had another "knee jerk" reaction and I fully expect them to do it again (near the end of April to be exact, during patch 1), and then again and again, as long as they rush things.

Were they "Over Performing" seems to be irrelevant if they are not being played and they were not showing up in the demographic you would expect them too be showing up in.

[ValariusK]

After the changes, Shadowdancer might be a better destiny for a monk than GMOF. Same melee power as GMOF, +6 sneak attack dice, and the 5% vulnerability/break SA/crit immunity proc on vorpal. Plus one of the best speed boosts in the game when stealthed.

[Paisheng]

The time of monks has not come to an end -- perhaps the brief reign of monks as top dog melees has (they were never reigning over several other caster classes though even prior to the melee power butchering of u38. To the former glory other melees should have been brought up, not the monk brought down. i am not expecting any time soon the promised elevation of all melees -- may i be wrong on this!

2 things were most disconcerting of this Nerfdate 38:

1. the monk pass was in operation for a year and a half. it was a pass. Monks and others who borrowed monk levels trusted the pass to stand as cannon for the future.

2. The core 5 and the capstone nerfs on both Shintao and Henshin really took away the tough choice of pure or mixed. Mixed tree abilities and options now edge out as stronger viability in defense, offense and unusual abilities now than pure. i thought this was part of their design in the recent pass to upgrade the pures ....so why emasculate them again?

Monks will go on still -- blander in dps and effectiveness than before (whether you were highly optimized or not). Since DDO strives well to be as close to pnp DnD as possible, they should remember that monks from DnD were the highest dps class by design (faster attacks, more attacks and more damage). Perhaps when they retool all the melees to be more functioning in epics and end game that they will remember this about their genre and give monks back some of that flavor they took as Dps kings.

[Jasparion]

Even with 36MP gain, GMoF will still suck compared to other EDs. On top of still getting 28 more MP in LD, you also get 50% helpless damage, +1[W], +1 crit range, +1 crit muliplier on 19/20, perma action boost uptime, along with other defensive and offensive boosts that GMoF does not give. EiN and the tactics boost is nice, but not remotely worth the survival and DPS losses imo. If they ever looked at the flower moves to scale properly with damage, seriously lowered the cooldown of Wholeness of Spirit, as well as other needed adjustments, then it would be a solid option. We'll see if they ever do real Destiny passes.

As for the Monk nerfs... it was pretty much expected for Monk wraps to be nerfed to TWF numbers. Sucks I missed the power boat, but not surprised. The MP nerf to Henshin was unexpected, but can't really deny that 10MP per core was extremely strong. I do think they should have kept Henshin capstone 25, but here isn't really the place to debate.

This definitely does make me lean towards Ninja Spy investment on a handwrap build over Henshin as more SA and helpless damage may outweigh a now small amount of MP gained from Henshin cores.

We'll see what changes they have coming down the line to make Melee compete with the safety of Ranged or the power of casting also at the safety of ranged. Duality did propose the option of DPS to make the danger worth it. Will they load more Melee Power? Or somehow make melee more survivable? Though the latter is tough to do without it also applying to ranged and casters.

Ultimately, though, the days of unrivaled monk DPS may be over, but Monks themselves will be just fine through the nerf.

The boosts to all the EDs other than LD was because they knew that LD was so far ahead for Melee and threw a little bit at each of the other EDs. Im assuming that's not where it ends. Its simply a recognition that at the moment the other EDs need help. They may still need more help.

[Tilomere]

A red day for monks.

Fell deeds awake, fire and slaughter!
spear shall be shaken, shield be splintered,
a sword-day, a red day, ere the sun rises!
Ride now, ride now!

[C-Dog]

https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthrea...es#post6074153

Between the Duality nerfs and the absolute butchering of the melee power from the cores in the Henshin tree, I don't see how monks will remain viable.

If, as Steelstar says, monks were doing 30% more damage than other builds, there is a lot of room to back them off and not cripple them.

I'm not sure the word "viable" means what you think it means.

[JoeShmo]

If, as Steelstar says, monks were doing 30% more damage than other builds, there is a lot of room to back them off and not cripple them.

I'm not sure the word "viable" means what you think it means.

Key word is "if" my friend My personal opinion is that this difference in damage really only applies to top-tier monks with all the bells and whistles. Any average monks (speaking from experience here) were nowhere near this supposed level of power. Having 30 runs of Strahd and Baba Lysaga under my belt, I have seen what the prevailing end-game builds are (at least on Thelanis) and monks were not the vast majority in any of said raids or in any of the Ravenloft chain for that matter. I guess we will just have to see how things play out.

[Revolted]

Key word is "if" my friend My personal opinion is that this difference in damage really only applies to top-tier monks with all the bells and whistles. Any average monks (speaking from experience here) were nowhere near this supposed level of power. Having 30 runs of Strahd and Baba Lysaga under my belt, I have seen what the prevailing end-game builds are (at least on Thelanis) and monks were not the vast majority in any of said raids or in any of the Ravenloft chain for that matter. I guess we will just have to see how things play out.

As with warlocks, I see a vast majority of monks that suck, A LOT. That doesn't mean that the class is weak, only that the weak players are trying to get to the top before learning how to play the game.

If you fear monks are going to be played out with this change, if you think shintao monks weren't far ahead in dps at endgame, even without duality, then I have bad news for you, and you should try to play a different class.

Anyways, Doom threads are always funny!

[Vish]

Well,
The numbers change from 350 to 300
So not that much difference
Duality will still pawn

However, my elf thrower just got killed
Back to the drawing board

[Robbenklopper]

Shintao will still remain big fun to play for me.
What big boost? GmoF will still suck.
Henshin is going to vanish from the surface.
Life will still go on ...