U40: Unarmed Strike Change

[DrawingGuy]

So whenever departures from D&D core are in your favor, it is an adaption to MMO, and therefore ok, but whenever departures are not in your favor, it is against D&D core, and therefore wrong.

Can't argue with that logic. I'm gona go back to AoE stunlocking everything 100-0.

Since soundburst is an AoE stun in D&D core, it is totally legit. Heh.

I don't know how you derive extreme conclusions from the things I say. I have never once requested for or praised a time when DDO has moved from PnP. While I do understand the logic of some of the changes due to the environment of DDO and the mechanics behind it, I still want the game to be as close to PnP as it can be. I'm not asking for a change "in my favor" - I'm proposing the same pile of kittens nerf! Just in a way that does not destroy a core concept. This isn't the first changes I've spoken up against, and I will speak up against any PnP change, no matter the class, no matter if it is a buff or nerf - especially when it is one that is pointlessly destructive and there are perfectly good options that can accomplish the same thing.

Though it seems you like the game breaking away from PnP to fit into whatever you find most in your own favor. You're exploiting a system that breaks away from PnP - where SP is a shared resource across all casting types no matter your mix and is expandable and replenish-able in multiple ways along with DDO extremes of DC additions allowing for bare splashes to cast at end game levels (a single digit difference on a triple digit potential). It's a departure that is in your favor, so you make no calls to have them have it closer to PnP... however this current departure is not part of a class you generally favor, so you don't care if this one goes through, right? Though let's just end this stupid biting junk now. Casting works how it works - any attempts to change it closer to PnP will be crippling due to the limited and random shrine logic of the game and backpedaling is a whole different beast to ask for. That is why I've been hoping to catch this before the Devs go down this path. But I keep saying that, and you keep glossing over it like it is only a personal pet thing Monk power trip rather than talking about something that has existed since 1st edition. Like Iriale mentions, this is like removing favored animals from Ranger, Weapon specializations from Fighter, Sneak Attack die from Rogues, etc. If they deemed rogues needed SA potential shaved, should they take it from core rather than enhancements or feats/items?

That's why I propose a +1 to damage to fighting unarmed every 4 monk levels. It keeps the flavor ánd helps monks in heroic while not pushing them over the top with 1d6+3 weapons.

I still think they should look at the other sources of unarmed scaling rather than core, but even that additional departure to boil it down to just a single point of damage rather than a step still at least retains a wiff of the concept of becoming more deadly with your unarmed attacks -- assuming that damage only applies while wearing handwraps. But, again, I just don't understand why they would break down another game concept when they have another 7[W] that they could tap instead.

[Tilomere]

Though it seems you like the game breaking away from PnP to fit into whatever you find most in your own favor. You're exploiting a system that breaks away from PnP - where SP is a shared resource across all casting types no matter your mix and is expandable and replenish-able in multiple ways along with DDO extremes of DC additions allowing for bare splashes to cast at end game levels (a single digit difference on a triple digit potential).

DC casting is a huge investment to get DCs and spell pen, and you still only end up around 110 DC after investing an entire character to it.

It literally only takes 2 stunning affixes added to your existing gear somewhere to hit 140+ dire charge DC on an otherwise max dps character.

If monks are going to have a 30+ DC advantage in crowd control (more if you also count epic ward) over a caster, they deserve the dps that goes with it.

[DrawingGuy]

DC casting is a huge investment to get DCs and spell pen, and you still only end up around 110 DC after investing an entire character to it.

It literally only takes 2 stunning affixes added to your existing gear somewhere to hit 140+ dire charge DC on an otherwise max dps character.

If monks are going to have a 30+ DC advantage in crowd control (more if you also count epic ward) over a caster, they deserve the dps that goes with it.

Dire Charge is not unique to Monks, and casters can (and occasionally do) take the feat - especially as you're wanting to fit in Slavers gear, which is very flexible and can let you slap in a 20 Stunning easily and lets you use your casting stat. They've given DC casters major buffs with all-in-one DC items like Nightmothers, putting universals within 1 of max, and general scaling has diminished the comparative impact of feats, so even your worst DCs are still 100+ at end game levels. Gone are the days of picking one or two schools, it is DC casters are good at all of them. Mass hold, dancing, insta-kills, PKing, Stone-to-Flesh, Charms, doesn't matter, you can do it. Caster DPS can actually get pretty solid, but there are a lot of competing feats and DPS caster can't lick the boots of the power of a DC caster... CC, charms, and insta-kills don't scale in Reapers (other than duration, though most cooldowns are still shorter making that moot), so to give that up is a power loss. Just drag in that Monk or whatever melees to do the only missing piece of DPS (all the better if one can tank so you don't have to bother kiting a boss), and you're golden. And that is a point I feel where the Devs have been delaying on passes for Wiz/Sorc. Caster DPS could indeed use improvement, but how? Make it good, and there is absolutely no reason to play anything else. Make it fall short and the place will remain the same: Outside of a handful of specifically easy quests, a caster carries the quest while everyone else is the DPS for them. Dire Charge can only control certain mob types and has 50% uptime (less after you consider skill delays)... and if it glitches and you find yourself doing the circle-charge hitting nothing, GG. And without Dire Charge, even the handful of quests that work perfectly to the limitations of the ability (Like Grim, where you'll see most melee e-peen videos) would be a million times harder without a caster for R10s.

But all of this is off-topic. Monks do indeed carry CC options that help them close in the gaps of Dire Charge, and utility like that is indeed one of the reasons they should not be the #1 DPS option. However, they already are not, but that isn't the main concern I and others have repeatedly been trying to point out. It's not the what - 2.5[W] nerf - it is the how: the destruction of a core game feature, especially in the face of many other better options to do the exact same thing. And the fact that there are a dozen threads and hundreds of posts trying to point this out and not a single acknowledgement only adds to the frustration.

[EDIT] - And as shown by the U40 release notes and avoidance of all further discussion since this was posted on 9/13, this was not an "Official Discussion"... just a decree. While I guess it's not impossible for them to change their minds - maybe if enough people show heroic performance videos rather than just end game to show why deleting a class feature is terrible for balance... but if they were not willing to discuss in their proposed discussion forum in the proposed discussion time, why would they now?

[QuixoticNeutral]

Hello, just wanna add my 2c to this discussion on the off chance a dev will read it:

I only recently came back to the game a month ago after a 9 year break, and have been really enjoying the game. I am a huge fan of DnD's various rulesets, and while I have noted that the devs have made adjustments to the game rules that deviated from it, I felt these were all pretty reasonable decisions due to the nature of making them work for a mmo, while retaining the "spirit" of the rules behind it.

However I am really shocked to stumble on this thread and find you guys are thinking of removing the Monk's iconic large weapon die. I feel that this is the monk's most infamous class feature when people think of them, and adds to the flavour of them being a melee equivalent of the wizard class: weak during the low levels, but slowly growing into demigods as they achieve enlightenment.

I feel that this flavour is important for people like me who fell in love with this game due to its DnD-ness. It'd be like rolling up a wizard but finding out you can't learn fireball because "balance" (*cough* wizards really CAN'T learn fireball in that other DnD mmo *cough*), or finding out barbarians don't get strength bonuses while raging.

I completely understand the desire to reign in certain builds, but feel like this could be done a lot better without making a class' iconic feature unrecognisable to those that play this game for the DnD aspects.

[Sorcerio]

This change does not affect the other sources of Monk Handwrap Damage Dice, such as:

• Improved Martial Arts Feat
• Reinforced Fists item effects
• Touch of the Void Dragon and To Seek Perfection
• The Disciple of the Fist Past Life Feat

I don't know if it has been brought up in this long thread, but since U40 has gone live the Core 5 ability "Touch the Void Dragon" is now only granting 0.5[W], when it should be granting +1[W].

[Nubom70]

Unedited opinion removed because the design team can't understand forum input, inviolate core class abilities,
basic math, and literally break everything they touch when screwing with class balance.

[Tuxedoman96]

Unedited opinion removed because the design team can't understand forum input, inviolate core class abilities,
basic math, and literally break everything they touch when screwing with class balance.

That'll show 'em.

[qwert-y]

There are multiple ways to address this, changing the core mechanic of the Monk class is NOT the way to do this, especially since the issue, as they stated it, lies with end game monks... at cap.

First address the issue of why players do not stay at cap very long.... You have designed a system that promotes multiple lives. The player base gets more mileage, and spends more money leveling than staying at 30 for a handful of raid content.

So when you take a core mechanic, remove it, and negatively effect players from 1-28 harder than the ones who are at 30 what business sense does that make?

Is this how you encourage players to stay at cap?

[Zretch]

And that is a point I feel where the Devs have been delaying on passes for Wiz/Sorc. Caster DPS could indeed use improvement, but how? Make it good, and there is absolutely no reason to play anything else. Make it fall short and the place will remain the same: Outside of a handful of specifically easy quests, a caster carries the quest while everyone else is the DPS for them.

This isn't that hard, DC casters are already forced to abandon DPS gear and feats as it is, just continue to trend towards forcing builds to make a choice. You're either strong DPS with bad DCs, you're strong DCs with bad DPS, or you're middling at both and hit a ceiling at which your DCs are no longer effective and your DPS is no longer relevant at a certain reaper level.

They already do this today with druid builds. You can be an earthquake druid or you can be a wolf druid, but if you try to do both, even with the Falconry tree, you'll be giving up aspects of both. There's just no way to work the gearing, there's a limited number of twist slots, EA is the go-to DC tree and it does nothing for a wolf build, etc, etc.

The biggest concern with a wizard/sorcerer pass is to not increase the class DPS by increasing the class AoE DPS. That's the quickest way to get them follow-on nerfed. Wizards, sorcerers, and warlocks need better single target options for spells, not more AoE to trivialize trash packs in even higher reaper skulls.

And seriously, monks aren't crowd control, let's stop balancing them like they are. A monk isn't going to pin down an 8 pack in high reaper anywhere near as effectively as a wizard, sorcerer, or a warlock. Just because tempest rangers can cast a heal, it doesn't mean they are healers and need their DPS nerfed either.

[Tilomere]

This isn't that hard, DC casters are already forced to abandon DPS gear and feats as it is, just continue to trend towards forcing builds to make a choice. You're either strong DPS with bad DCs, you're strong DCs with bad DPS, or you're middling at both and hit a ceiling at which your DCs are no longer effective and your DPS is no longer relevant at a certain reaper level.

You can't have good dps without good dcs to make things helpless, break through evasion and saves for half damage, and CC things so you don't get 1 shot.

Dire Charge is not unique to Monks, and casters can (and occasionally do) take the feat - especially as you're wanting to fit in Slavers gear, which is very flexible and can let you slap in a 20 Stunning easily and lets you use your casting stat. They've given DC casters major buffs with all-in-one DC items like Nightmothers

Nightmothers is garbage. As you so conveniently point out, slavers gear adds 20 DC. Nightmothers adds a mere 11 DC, or half the DC for a higher level item. This means you need to put a bunch of DC/stats on other gear to compensate, which locks you out of spell power/crit/multiplier on other slots, which locks you out of dealing damage as a caster, for the net result of turning all casters into healer-supports at higher difficulties.

If casters could hit 140+ DC like a melee can with dire charge (and monk stuns) with a mere 2 affixes, they would gear and deal way more damage.

Nightmothers is best in slot, so a lot of people use it, but it is still garbage. Just to make up the difference between it and +20 stunning on slavers, you have to also wear a 5 piece slavers sorcery set. So it takes 6 pieces of caster DC gear to match 1 piece of melee DC gear.

[Zretch]

You can't have good dps without good dcs to make things helpless, break through evasion and saves for half damage, and CC things so you don't get 1 shot.

Actually, you can, but it requires you play in a group. I KNOW, THE HORROR!

[DrawingGuy]

Nightmothers is garbage. As you so conveniently point out, slavers gear adds 20 DC. Nightmothers adds a mere 11 DC, or half the DC for a higher level item. This means you need to put a bunch of DC/stats on other gear to compensate, which locks you out of spell power/crit/multiplier on other slots, which locks you out of dealing damage as a caster, for the net result of turning all casters into healer-supports at higher difficulties.

If casters could hit 140+ DC like a melee can with dire charge (and monk stuns) with a mere 2 affixes, they would gear and deal way more damage.

Nightmothers is best in slot, so a lot of people use it, but it is still garbage. Just to make up the difference between it and +20 stunning on slavers, you have to also wear a 5 piece slavers sorcery set. So it takes 6 pieces of caster DC gear to match 1 piece of melee DC gear.

I don't know why I let you bait me so easily. Tactics power =\= Casting power. Tactics does not let you run around AOE stunning almost everything, including Reapers, at level 3. Tactics doesn't give you AOE insta-kills backed with a half dozen other insta-kills all while having multiple AOE CCs and a half dozen individual CCs. There are only two "tactics" insta-kills. Quivering Palm, which does not benefit from gear (it has less cap potential than casting until you've failed multiple times), and Dismissing Strike, which has an extremely limited target pool. Dire Charge is the only AOE CC that is not class locked (like Freezing from Bard or charges from Vanguard), and even at 2 AOE CCs, it still pales in comparison to casting. If it was comparable, why are you making all these builds that fit in casting to take advantage of spells like Soundburst and Mass Frog? You are also conveniently leaving off stat gear on those tactics DCs: it is taking 5 pieces (or in your case 6 as CON and Qual CON are on different items) - 3 for the stats, and 2 for the tactics. And, again, if you consider Dire Charge to be brokenly overpowered due to DC potential, Casters can take it too... though I've never felt the need to take a more limited CC (mass holds or soundburst work on more target types) that puts me in melee range, can easily glitch if positioning between client and server is slightly off (yay circle charging), has more than double the cooldown, and costs me a feat. Dire Charge is a must-have for any melee... but again, tactics power =\= casting power.

Also Nightmothers is far from garbage. It is 5 DCs higher than Slavers gear after you equip stat gear (which Slavers can mostly cover), just like Slavers is 5 DCs higher that Nightmothers + stat gear. Nightmothers is also providing 5 higher Spell Pen than you can get from Slavers. Of course Nightmothers is making it where you don't need to take focus or spell pen on your slavers gear, leaving room to load up on skills or use other Slaver's gear types. Though the bigger key is Nightmothers can be replaced by other Focus items while there is no other source of +4 artifact DCs coupled with +2 artifact casting stat. I do hope they'll give other sources for the artifact bonuses (Beacon falls short).

Note that you are not really screwed by gear even considering all you need. The flexibility of Slavers lets you cover most of what you need with little to no loss, and you can equip for maximum DCs as well as either max spell power in a type or two, or universal gear that puts you pretty solid. My Warlock builds are only ~100 off potential, and can swap it in without DC loss if needed. Though I guess everyone already knows Warlocks are OP as they come with built-in free DPS along with self-heal options that don't get scaled by Reaper. Gear is not really the constraint... it is having to chose between 25% crit damage vs +4/2 DCs for your Scion. It is taking Exalted Angel rather than Draconic for your ED. Arcane Insight vs Wellspring. It is taking Devour the Soul rather than Heritical Lore. But the thing is, I think that is OK. DC casting does a lot, and all I have to do is party to easily fill in the missing piece of DPS. That, or just kite/perch if I'm solo and just use a little patience and ruins/dots on anything I didn't just instakill.

But again, this is all off topic. This is not a debate about the power of DC casting vs Tactics. It is about the Unarmed Strike Change. I'm not that upset that Monk DPS was nerfed... I'm upset on the how.

[Tilomere]

Gear is not really the constraint... it is having to chose between 25% crit damage vs +4/2 DCs for your Scion. It is taking Exalted Angel rather than Draconic for your ED. Arcane Insight vs Wellspring. It is taking Devour the Soul rather than Heritical Lore.

If Nightmothers wasn't garbage and gave enough DC off 2 affixes like stunning on Slavers gear, you would always pick more damage everywhere else, like a melee does.

It is simple addition. Slavers + Cannith stunning is +26 DC with two affixes, Nightmothers is a garbage +11 DC with two affixes. As a result, casters have to make up the 15 DC shortage to land DCs, which means they don't get to pick any damage.

If Nightmothers was +26 DC, casters would be packing in as much damage as possible, like a melee.

[Nubom70]

Last post with numbers contesting the "epic monk fix" vanished, and the youtube video someone posted was taken down due to "licensing".

They won't reply with builds or numbers from their "intensive testing", so players can try them out. This is like the Watergate of character fixing.

[Nubom70]

Still busted. None of the original monks have returned since the "fix". No monks on the last couple dozen raids. Swopped to a barbarian so my DPS quintupled.