Monk improvements

[Infinitedrift]

The monk class still needs some improvements, and by that I mean neither buffs, nor nerfs, but primarily improvement in terms of playstyle:

1. There are too many abilities that do basically the same thing. We don't need 3 fire ki attacks from adept of forms, master of forms, grandmaster of forms, etc. We don't need 3 of each; that's a lot of hotbar action slots being used to do basically the same thing. It's redundant. Instead, there should simply be a fire ki attack that gets upgraded each time you upgrade your stances, and possibly lower cooldown so that you can chain 3 of the same thing together faster without having to use basically the same attack on 3 different action slots of your hotbar.

2. The fists of light finisher isn't worthy. Here's the problem with it: Heals require TIMING. If my group or anyone in it needs a heal right now, they will likely die by the time I complete almost 12 full seconds of different attacks to create a healing ki finisher. Instead, I'd recommend that we simply increase the ki cost of fists of light, and have it heal instantly when it is used. A triple combo finisher could do something like greater restoration. Fists of darkness could do the opposite, which is to say it could trigger negative energy burst, with a finisher that does level drain. This would enable players to make proper use of timing.

3. Almost none of the attacks have any indication that they worked, without viewing the toolbar. If a player uses fire ki attack, there should be some flames showing, ice should have something showing, so on and so forth. You can't even tell if you did it unless you see that it is on cooldown in your action bar.

4. Finishers that debuff, need to apply a visible debuff, just like they do with spells. If someone is poisoned, cursed, etc there is a debuff above their head. It would be nice if these had the same things so that we can tell if it works. Trying to examine the mob you are attacking to see if your ability worked or not is a bit tedious. For some reason, we get a visible debuff for fists of light application, but not any of the finishers

5. A luxury item would be some sort of display that shows you what portion of a combo you are in, in case you have reset your combo without realizing it by pressing a wrong button.

6. Players should be able to buffer combos, that is to say, enter them in advance to a degree. Of course only one combo at a time, but you get the idea. The reason players should be able to do this is because of the variation in attack speed. Players with faster attack speeds would benefit from buffering.

7. Finishers should not reset when interacting with objects. I can see having them reset after casting a spell for example, but seriously not for picking up a collectible. A monk can hold a finishing for all eternity as long as he doesn't pick up a flower. That makes no sense.

8. Finishing moves are often lost with no explanation and no apparent reason citing the message: "You have missed your special opportunity attack. I actually just looked this up and realized that this has been complained about before previously in forums. The reason this matters is because a finishing move requires the investment of ki and a precise combo entry.

9. Meditating to acquire ki should not take longer than resting at a shrine. That makes no sense. A spellcaster according to the lore has to have rested 8 hours; if we are assuming that resting at a shrine constitutes that span of time shortened so that we don't have to endure it in real life, then there is no reason that meditation shouldn't be finished by the time someone else uses a rest shrine. Is the monk really meditating for 12 or 16 hours??

10. Early game ki is super slow, and combo finishers are very difficult to pull off early game as a result. There needs to be an improvement in early game play for monks. For this, there is such a variety of things that could be tried, that I am not absolutely certain what should be done. Any new monk player will tell you though that it is difficult to use monk abilities early game. Ki generation, mobs dying before you can do a finisher, etc basically creates a scenario where the player doesn't really learn monk until he or she gets to the super tough enemies way later in the game.


None of this has to or will break the monk class, but it will make it funner, and easier to play, and easier to manage hotbars and their slots. Thank you

[Logicman69]

1) Agreed that the ki strikes should just upgrade. I can't tell you how many times I have been running at higher levels and not realized I was still using the lower level strikes. The stance upgrades, so why not the stike.

2) I don't have a problem with this. Its not really meant to be used as an instant heal IMO. Its more a supplement or a top off. When I am fighting a tougher mob, I am just constantly spamming the light attack and the finisher (which I can do quick with some clever key mapping). Between that and the healing I get from putting the healing dot on the enemy, I can keep HP up. Where it breaks down is higher reaper content. There I use it inbetween battles to help top me and anyone around me off. You are not a healer (go Aasmir for a quick instant heal if you need).

3) I see the damage pop off on the damage line. I have the type symbols turned on so I can see if they are taking light, fire, cold, acid damage. I'm ok with that vs any more graphics that proc on screen.

4) Agreed.

5) Would be nice, but not sure how it would work

6) Not sure what you mean on this one.. I can prep a combo if needed.

7) Agreed. I understand the concept as you have to maintain concentration to hold the energy, doing anything else breaks that concentration. Maybe tie something into the concentration skill where if you have over 25, you can interact with collectables.. at 50 you can open doors.. at 75 you have mastered concentration and can do anything without loosing the finisher. (I have the same issue with rogues that have to break sneak to open a door... I should be able to open a door while sneaking)

8) This annoys me as well. There is no rhyme or reason behind it.

9) Agreed as well. The timing should be a little closer to shrining.

10) Ki is tied to concentration. It makes sense that you will not generate alot of it at lower levels. That being said, the only time I have problems generating ki is running with a group that nukes. Then it can be frustrating as I can barely get enough hits to generate anything. That is the downside to playing the monk. On the plus side, I can usually get to the mob faster than anyone so I can start hitting it. lol


8)

[Infinitedrift]

2) I don't have a problem with this. Its not really meant to be used as an instant heal IMO. Its more a supplement or a top off. When I am fighting a tougher mob, I am just constantly spamming the light attack and the finisher (which I can do quick with some clever key mapping). Between that and the healing I get from putting the healing dot on the enemy, I can keep HP up. Where it breaks down is higher reaper content. There I use it inbetween battles to help top me and anyone around me off. You are not a healer (go Aasmir for a quick instant heal if you need).

3) You can see the TYPE of damage, but that does not mean you can tell the SOURCE. You might see fire damage from using a Barovian weapon, but that doesn't mean your fire ki attack actually did fire damage, or that you pressed the button hard enough to activate it. You could theoretically check the combat log, BUT the combat log updates so fast and so often, it is practically impossible to review it, especially during combat.. and by the time combat is over, the combat log has already long past whatever you may have wanted to check.

6) Not sure what you mean on this one.. I can prep a combo if needed.

10) Ki is tied to concentration. It makes sense that you will not generate alot of it at lower levels. That being said, the only time I have problems generating ki is running with a group that nukes. Then it can be frustrating as I can barely get enough hits to generate anything. That is the downside to playing the monk. On the plus side, I can usually get to the mob faster than anyone so I can start hitting it. lol

2) It IS used as an instant heal, IF someone has completed the combo. You could change it to where it does the same thing. I realize that monk is not meant to be a main healer, BUT I am merely suggesting that monk be enabled to properly time a heal without having to spend 12 seconds putting a combo in. The ki cost could remain the same, for example it would normally take 30 ki for 3 fists of light, and an additional 10 for the finisher for a total of 40ki cost, and if you wanted to limit spammability you could just give it a cooldown BUT it could be executed and timed for when it is actually needed, is really what I'm getting at here. I'd say make fists of light the heal itself, instead of a finisher. Instead for a finisher, they could make it restoration (and/or greater restoration enhancement for Shintao) or like a positive energy burst that they have in the radiant servant tree. All it really does is change the timing of the heal, and its availability; it doesn't have to heal for more.

6). I guess I didn't clarify enough; buffering is a term primarily used in fighting games. It means you can enter the commands in all at once, and then they will execute. For example if I buffer a combo, I put in air, dark, air for falling star strike as FAST AS I CAN POSSIBLY ENTER IT, and then the attacks will execute the rest of the way on their own. For example, if I press 3 air attacks really fast before it even finishes the first attack, I could just stop and the buffering would finish executing it. I guess people who never played fighting games wouldn't be familiar with that type of control, but you're basically programming the sequences of attacks ahead of time, and the computer finishes executing them for you

10) The maximum ki containable is determined by concentration, but ki GENERATION is another story. Concentration doesn't affect how FAST ki is generated. Correct me if I'm mistaken, but I do not believe so. I'm not advocating that monks have more maximum ki at earlier levels; just faster and/or easier ki generation so that they can actually use their abilities instead of just holding down the left mouse button all the time. Unusable abilities make for boring game play.

Thank you for responding, and I am glad that people are on the same page in general. It will make the monk class a lot funner with these type of changes, and hopefully more people would play it more often.

[Phoenicis]

2) It IS used as an instant heal, IF someone has completed the combo. You could change it to where it does the same thing. I realize that monk is not meant to be a main healer, BUT I am merely suggesting that monk be enabled to properly time a heal without having to spend 12 seconds putting a combo in. The ki cost could remain the same, for example it would normally take 30 ki for 3 fists of light, and an additional 10 for the finisher for a total of 40ki cost, and if you wanted to limit spammability you could just give it a cooldown BUT it could be executed and timed for when it is actually needed, is really what I'm getting at here. I'd say make fists of light the heal itself, instead of a finisher. Instead for a finisher, they could make it restoration (and/or greater restoration enhancement for Shintao) or like a positive energy burst that they have in the radiant servant tree. All it really does is change the timing of the heal, and its availability; it doesn't have to heal for more.

6). I guess I didn't clarify enough; buffering is a term primarily used in fighting games. It means you can enter the commands in all at once, and then they will execute. For example if I buffer a combo, I put in air, dark, air for falling star strike as FAST AS I CAN POSSIBLY ENTER IT, and then the attacks will execute the rest of the way on their own. For example, if I press 3 air attacks really fast before it even finishes the first attack, I could just stop and the buffering would finish executing it. I guess people who never played fighting games wouldn't be familiar with that type of control, but you're basically programming the sequences of attacks ahead of time, and the computer finishes executing them for you

10) The maximum ki containable is determined by concentration, but ki GENERATION is another story. Concentration doesn't affect how FAST ki is generated. Correct me if I'm mistaken, but I do not believe so. I'm not advocating that monks have more maximum ki at earlier levels; just faster and/or easier ki generation so that they can actually use their abilities instead of just holding down the left mouse button all the time. Unusable abilities make for boring game play.

Thank you for responding, and I am glad that people are on the same page in general. It will make the monk class a lot funner with these type of changes, and hopefully more people would play it more often.

2) look at the T5 henshin ability 'there is no shadow without light' it requires you to be a dark monk, but the attack spams HP automatically.

6) buffering goes against the way DDO operates, and just LISTEN to the screams of people when they killed because they buffered attacks but coulden't interrupt them to heal. (And you can already do this with things like autohotkey and/or voice attack)

10) run in sun stance.

[Infinitedrift]

2) look at the T5 henshin ability 'there is no shadow without light' it requires you to be a dark monk, but the attack spams HP automatically.

6) buffering goes against the way DDO operates, and just LISTEN to the screams of people when they killed because they buffered attacks but coulden't interrupt them to heal. (And you can already do this with things like autohotkey and/or voice attack)

10) run in sun stance.

2) Ok, but why is a heal on demand the feature of a DARK monk of ONLY the henshin mystic? That's exactly the opposite of how it should be. I can see allowing henshin mystic the option to do both, but a path of the light monk should be the EXPERT at it.

6) You could have it as an option for players which can be selected in gameplay mode. Players who want it can use it, and players who do not can opt out. In fact, you can just default it off, but for those who wish to use it, it would be a nice option. It doesn't have to be either/or.

10) Players shouldn't require a specific stance to properly generate ki. Otherwise, there isn't much incentive to run any other stance. In fact, sun stance is so good I almost don't have any justification for running other stances. The ki generation is better, almost always the monk items that benefit sun stance are better than the others. Wind stance is probably the least useful. How many monks are using it really?

[Phoenicis]

2) Ok, but why is a heal on demand the feature of a DARK monk of ONLY the henshin mystic? That's exactly the opposite of how it should be. I can see allowing henshin mystic the option to do both, but a path of the light monk should be the EXPERT at it.

6) You could have it as an option for players which can be selected in gameplay mode. Players who want it can use it, and players who do not can opt out. In fact, you can just default it off, but for those who wish to use it, it would be a nice option. It doesn't have to be either/or.

10) Players shouldn't require a specific stance to properly generate ki. Otherwise, there isn't much incentive to run any other stance. In fact, sun stance is so good I almost don't have any justification for running other stances. The ki generation is better, almost always the monk items that benefit sun stance are better than the others. Wind stance is probably the least useful. How many monks are using it really?

2) Hey, don't ask me to explain it, I simply pointed out what you asked for exists already.

6) I suspect that type of change would dig into the very lowest levels of the spaghetti code that is DDO. That scares me, it should scare you too.

10) I don't imagine the plan was for monks to stay in one stance all the time. I generally swap between sun and wind stance, sun to generate ki, wind for general combat. I only rarely use earth or water.

[ShinuzukaRakam]

1. There are too many abilities that do basically the same thing. We don't need 3 fire ki attacks from adept of forms, master of forms, grandmaster of forms, etc. We don't need 3 of each; that's a lot of hotbar action slots being used to do basically the same thing. It's redundant. Instead, there should simply be a fire ki attack that gets upgraded each time you upgrade your stances, and possibly lower cooldown so that you can chain 3 of the same thing together faster without having to use basically the same attack on 3 different action slots of your hotbar.

I agree that the the standard ki attacks should automatically upgrade, and the tech seems to be available based on the automatic upgrades for the stances. A lower cooldown would be nice, perhaps a 2 second cooldown instead of 3.

2. The fists of light finisher isn't worthy. Here's the problem with it: Heals require TIMING. If my group or anyone in it needs a heal right now, they will likely die by the time I complete almost 12 full seconds of different attacks to create a healing ki finisher. Instead, I'd recommend that we simply increase the ki cost of fists of light, and have it heal instantly when it is used. A triple combo finisher could do something like greater restoration. Fists of darkness could do the opposite, which is to say it could trigger negative energy burst, with a finisher that does level drain. This would enable players to make proper use of timing.

In my times playing monk, I almost always had a Healing Ki ready to fire in early levels, just using the Fist of Light attack instead of other elemental ki attacks. As I moved into later levels, I would rotate through a few different X-Light-X combos, and in-between, I'd generally keep a Healing Ki prepped, just in case something happened, or a large pull was incoming, etc.

3. Almost none of the attacks have any indication that they worked, without viewing the toolbar. If a player uses fire ki attack, there should be some flames showing, ice should have something showing, so on and so forth. You can't even tell if you did it unless you see that it is on cooldown in your action bar.

4. Finishers that debuff, need to apply a visible debuff, just like they do with spells. If someone is poisoned, cursed, etc there is a debuff above their head. It would be nice if these had the same things so that we can tell if it works. Trying to examine the mob you are attacking to see if your ability worked or not is a bit tedious. For some reason, we get a visible debuff for fists of light application, but not any of the finishers

Most of the standard elemental ki attacks that simply add elemental damage can be seen in the damage numbers with the corresponding icon. I do agree that some of the other ones, like the water ki attack from the Enhancements should have some sort of debuff icon on the enemy when it's active.

5. A luxury item would be some sort of display that shows you what portion of a combo you are in, in case you have reset your combo without realizing it by pressing a wrong button.

As we've seen with Alchemist, a display object can be used to show your "combo", and having one of these for Monk combos would be pretty great.

6. Players should be able to buffer combos, that is to say, enter them in advance to a degree. Of course only one combo at a time, but you get the idea. The reason players should be able to do this is because of the variation in attack speed. Players with faster attack speeds would benefit from buffering.

I'm not sure I'd agree with putting this into DDO. I think just lowering the cooldown on the combo pieces would help the speed of using combos quite a bit without requiring a new system that queues up all the inputs you send to the server, which could definitely cause a problem when you try to switch to a different action, but the game is still processing your queue of combo-forming attacks instead of letting you use something like Stunning Fist or Quivering Palm.

8. Finishing moves are often lost with no explanation and no apparent reason citing the message: "You have missed your special opportunity attack. I actually just looked this up and realized that this has been complained about before previously in forums. The reason this matters is because a finishing move requires the investment of ki and a precise combo entry.

This can be pretty frustrating, especially when it happens in a do-or-die moment.

7. Finishers should not reset when interacting with objects. I can see having them reset after casting a spell for example, but seriously not for picking up a collectible. A monk can hold a finishing for all eternity as long as he doesn't pick up a flower. That makes no sense.

9. Meditating to acquire ki should not take longer than resting at a shrine. That makes no sense. A spellcaster according to the lore has to have rested 8 hours; if we are assuming that resting at a shrine constitutes that span of time shortened so that we don't have to endure it in real life, then there is no reason that meditation shouldn't be finished by the time someone else uses a rest shrine. Is the monk really meditating for 12 or 16 hours??

I agree with these completely.

10. Early game ki is super slow, and combo finishers are very difficult to pull off early game as a result. There needs to be an improvement in early game play for monks. For this, there is such a variety of things that could be tried, that I am not absolutely certain what should be done. Any new monk player will tell you though that it is difficult to use monk abilities early game. Ki generation, mobs dying before you can do a finisher, etc basically creates a scenario where the player doesn't really learn monk until he or she gets to the super tough enemies way later in the game.

For early-game ki generation, I would recommend swapping to Fire stance, which grants an extra 1 on-hit, and 3 on a crit.

[Logicman69]

The buffering makes more sense to me now, and I get it. Those cooldowns are long so often times I am having to pace myself. I don't think this is a bad thing, its just a change in playstyle. I have learned to time the attacks.

As to the point about stances, I switch stances depending on what is needed. If I am in a group at lower levels and need KI, then fire stance it is. Soloing and mid-game, I'm running mostly in wind stance for the extra attacks and speed. At end game, I am in flipping between ocean stance almost exclusively. This is mainly due to the Legendary Perfect Pinnacle ring. I use ocean stance for trash mobs and minor named as the trip bonus you get from being in ocean stances procs A LOT, especially on constructs. For bosses, I switch to wind to get the extra electric and bleed damage. The point is, you should be switching your stances as needed. If you are just hanging out in one stance, then you are missing out on half the fun of the class.

[Infinitedrift]

If you are just hanging out in one stance, then you are missing out on half the fun of the class.

Well I've been trying to make a dire bear monk stacking the AC bonus from combat expertise, earth stance, and dire bear for +45% AC. I do switch to Ocean stance for obvious defenses against elementals and casters. I think to make it even clearer, I don't believe that ki generation should be primarily associated with a single stance. In my opinion, the monk should be able to generate ki independent of the stance. I don't expect everyone to agree with me. I don't really use wind stance much though; the doublestrike is nice but clearly the enhancement bonus to speed doesn't stack with haste.. or items that also provide enhancement bonus to attack speed, so to me that's kind of a waste. I haven't got to try the legendary perfect pinnacle yet, but it's in my bank

[Infinitedrift]

3) I see the damage pop off on the damage line. I have the type symbols turned on so I can see if they are taking light, fire, cold, acid damage. I'm ok with that vs any more graphics that proc on screen.

This doesn't seem like you're really doing anything though. You could have fire, acid, etc as passive damage on your weapon. It's just not very engaging. You could press Alt+Z and turn off the UI, and then you literally can't tell one attack from another, and also can't distinguish any of them from simply holding down the left mouse button to attack.

[Mystickal]

I agree that the the standard ki attacks should automatically upgrade, and the tech seems to be available based on the automatic upgrades for the stances. A lower cooldown would be nice, perhaps a 2 second cooldown instead of 3.

Because the standard Ki attacks do not automatically upgrade, you are able to put multiple Ki attacks on a hotbar. They do not share a cooldown. This allows you to process elemental based finishing moves without much delay, or do rapidly cycle ki attacks for extra damage.

For example, you can put Grandmaster Strike of the Enduring, Master Strike of the Enduring, and Adept Strike of the Enduring on a toolbar. Assuming you have enough Ki, you can hit all 3 in succession and then your finishing move attack - this takes about 1.5-2 seconds.

10) Players shouldn't require a specific stance to properly generate ki. Otherwise, there isn't much incentive to run any other stance. In fact, sun stance is so good I almost don't have any justification for running other stances. The ki generation is better, almost always the monk items that benefit sun stance are better than the others. Wind stance is probably the least useful. How many monks are using it really?

If you're always in the same stance, you're doing it wrong. Typically I'll have a 'default' stance and then swap to another stance as conditions warrant. At lower levels I'll typically run in Fire stance for the extra Ki generation and bonus to attacks. I'll use the other stances at low levels, but rarely - mostly Air for the bonus to reflex saves. At higher levels, that default is typically Ocean stance for the bonus to saves, dodge, AC, and DCs that it gives, but sometimes I'll flip to Mountain if I need to pull/hold aggro or rarely Fire if I'm burning through too much Ki. Usually at the higher levels though Ki generation is not a problem

Air Stance also boosts one of my multiclass toons - a monk/assassin and the +2 bonus to assassinate that it gives makes up for the loss of the assassin capstone (I use the Vistani capstone on that build, so I get a net +2 to all stats instead of just Dex and Int, and +10 melee power at a loss of +4 sneak attack dice)

[DrawingGuy]

I know my opinions may overlap some of what others put in here, but my own input:

1. There are too many abilities that do basically the same thing. We don't need 3 fire ki attacks from adept of forms, master of forms, grandmaster of forms, etc. We don't need 3 of each; that's a lot of hotbar action slots being used to do basically the same thing. It's redundant. Instead, there should simply be a fire ki attack that gets upgraded each time you upgrade your stances, and possibly lower cooldown so that you can chain 3 of the same thing together faster without having to use basically the same attack on 3 different action slots of your hotbar.

Hard disagree. Short of them buffing the higher tier Ki Strikes to zero cooldown, having multiple versions is critical to the combo system. Triple Light and Triple Dark show how bad it is without that. If they did zero out the basic ki strikes, that might be too strong a buff, and might lead to nerfs that hurt in the long run.

2. The fists of light finisher isn't worthy. Here's the problem with it: Heals require TIMING. If my group or anyone in it needs a heal right now, they will likely die by the time I complete almost 12 full seconds of different attacks to create a healing ki finisher. Instead, I'd recommend that we simply increase the ki cost of fists of light, and have it heal instantly when it is used. A triple combo finisher could do something like greater restoration. Fists of darkness could do the opposite, which is to say it could trigger negative energy burst, with a finisher that does level drain. This would enable players to make proper use of timing.

This taps more into the fact that the new enhancement system kicked these finishers in the teeth. There used to be MULTIPLE Light and Dark moves, so building a finisher was like the others. Turning the strikes into finisher equivalents would either make them so Ki intensive as to break all of the other Light and Dark combos (or else stifled by even bigger cooldowns), or be a bit broken. What I would like to see is for them to have a selector where you can pick a Light move version of Jade strikes + Dismiss if you are a Light Monk, or the current non-light version if you are a Dark monk (or do not want the moves to break up other combos). Dark Monk would get the Dark options in the Ninja Spy tree with Darts + Flash + Touch + Shadow. The 15+ second timers on these moves would stop spamming of the finisher ultimately meaning you can't cast it faster than every 12s or so anyways, but would make the moves MUCH less clunky.

3. Almost none of the attacks have any indication that they worked, without viewing the toolbar. If a player uses fire ki attack, there should be some flames showing, ice should have something showing, so on and so forth. You can't even tell if you did it unless you see that it is on cooldown in your action bar.

The lack of animation is a blessing for Monk DPS as it lets you spam the abilities without breaking your attacks - without it, we'd be near the bottom tier. While having things be flashier would be nice, that is a lot of effort into animation and art assets that would lead to a nerf I'm not sure they would balance against.

4. Finishers that debuff, need to apply a visible debuff, just like they do with spells. If someone is poisoned, cursed, etc there is a debuff above their head. It would be nice if these had the same things so that we can tell if it works. Trying to examine the mob you are attacking to see if your ability worked or not is a bit tedious. For some reason, we get a visible debuff for fists of light application, but not any of the finishers

Most debuffs do not have a visual indicator. To attempt to do so could create too much visual noise and lag. Simply having the Examine bar be more reliable on staying up or having them add an option to keep it up permanently so all you have to do is target to see your debuffs is all I think is needed.

5. A luxury item would be some sort of display that shows you what portion of a combo you are in, in case you have reset your combo without realizing it by pressing a wrong button.

A better visual indicator would be nice, like what Alchemists have, though I'm not too bothered. There is already the special move indicator - it may not be perfect, but it works well enough. All combos overlap on the first and last bit of the combo, so if for some reason your special move doesn't appear on the indicator with your last move, you're at most two away from finishing it. This only becomes painful with triple light/dark as this is where the indicator is the most finicky and is locked to a single move making them clunky. Having the additional move options for Light/Dark would fix this concern for me as well.

6. Players should be able to buffer combos, that is to say, enter them in advance to a degree. Of course only one combo at a time, but you get the idea. The reason players should be able to do this is because of the variation in attack speed. Players with faster attack speeds would benefit from buffering.

What do you mean? You are not required to hit a target with strikes to qualify for a combo. You can prep your Light buffs (such as SP saving for buffs or anti stuns for certain mobs/bosses) or your Dark CC/debuffs as you go into a fight. Or are you saying that starting a new combo should not take away your current finisher? For that I don't think that would work as many combos overlap on strikes, meaning you could be blocking yourself from the actual combo you want.

7. Finishers should not reset when interacting with objects. I can see having them reset after casting a spell for example, but seriously not for picking up a collectible. A monk can hold a finishing for all eternity as long as he doesn't pick up a flower. That makes no sense.

This would be a nice change, though really is only a problem if you're trying to buffer your combos.

8. Finishing moves are often lost with no explanation and no apparent reason citing the message: "You have missed your special opportunity attack. I actually just looked this up and realized that this has been complained about before previously in forums. The reason this matters is because a finishing move requires the investment of ki and a precise combo entry.

This mainly happens if you are stepping on the cooldown of a finisher. You can add finishing moves to a shortcut bar to watch their cooldowns as the Special Move indicator does not show them. I simply work in various rotations to avoid this. The other common issue is hitting the finishing move button before the servers see the last move as completed, which is especially frustrating on the clunky build up of pure Light or Dark. The quick use of the FM button typically only overwrites the last move used, so you will only be one move away from the FM again, but the problem is the failed use STILL puts the move on cooldown, so trying to spam it again will just get you more errors due to the CD. Try to get in the habit of giving it half a second before hitting the finishing move. Use a bird attack as a spacer, jump, or whatever helps you get in the habit of not mashing the FM button too quickly after a combo.

9. Meditating to acquire ki should not take longer than resting at a shrine. That makes no sense. A spellcaster according to the lore has to have rested 8 hours; if we are assuming that resting at a shrine constitutes that span of time shortened so that we don't have to endure it in real life, then there is no reason that meditation shouldn't be finished by the time someone else uses a rest shrine. Is the monk really meditating for 12 or 16 hours??

Agreed - I almost never use Meditation because of its absurd slowness. Should be much much faster, or just instant like Inner Focus. If you're in the mood to go Zen, you could still use Wholeness of Body.

10. Early game ki is super slow, and combo finishers are very difficult to pull off early game as a result. There needs to be an improvement in early game play for monks. For this, there is such a variety of things that could be tried, that I am not absolutely certain what should be done. Any new monk player will tell you though that it is difficult to use monk abilities early game. Ki generation, mobs dying before you can do a finisher, etc basically creates a scenario where the player doesn't really learn monk until he or she gets to the super tough enemies way later in the game.

This is one of the key points that I think personally needs changing. Until you can get a +3 Ki item at end game, Ki is so slow you're not able to use most of your classes abilities. It's a handicap that makes the class much less fun to level and completely unnecessary. I see + Ki items as an item tax that is already on top of their Reinforced Fist item tax, and I don't think it should be force and hurts lower level gameplay. Levels 6 and 12 should come with innate + Ki, or if you want full ki buildup available to minimal splashes, tie it to Forms feats, which would give up to +3 at 18. A change like this I feel would go a LONG way to improving the leveling experience and making Monks less painful to equip.



So while many of those changes would be nice, I really think only two changes are needed to bring Monks where they need to be:

1) As already mentioned, make Ki buildup innate to improve the leveling experience and fix an unneeded item tax.

2) Give Monks more MRR. This is actually a critical issue. Monks are the ONLY class in the entire game forced into unarmored. Arguing Evasion is silly because every other class can use Light armor with their evasion and have 100 base MRR instead of only 50. If the argument is, well, casters need the downside too, the fact is they can wear armor and Sharn shows they'll happily give caster cloth MRR but not monks. Capping Monk at 50 just doesn't work in the current end game. There are raids with unavoidable mechanics balanced around MRR. Reapers were given spells that cannot be evaded, there are more dots and unevadable AoEs (like exploding spiders). I've been arguing for years that cloth should just be 100 like Light armor, but if they want to try to keep a caster disadvantage while allowing Monks to survive in their typical melee role, I would suggest replacing the long broken Ki Shout ability with a +50 MRR cap while centered. Sure it would then be an AP tax that every Monk will be forced to spend to survive in the current game, but is needed.

There are other small things I would like to see, such as adding back in the core mechanic of increased die steps with Monk levels as that was a change that was harmful to heroics, but with those two changes I'd be quite happy.

[Infinitedrift]

I know my opinions may overlap some of what others put in here, but my own input:

Hard disagree. Short of them buffing the higher tier Ki Strikes to zero cooldown, having multiple versions is critical to the combo system. Triple Light and Triple Dark show how bad it is without that. If they did zero out the basic ki strikes, that might be too strong a buff, and might lead to nerfs that hurt in the long run.

The lack of animation is a blessing for Monk DPS as it lets you spam the abilities without breaking your attacks - without it, we'd be near the bottom tier. While having things be flashier would be nice, that is a lot of effort into animation and art assets that would lead to a nerf I'm not sure they would balance against.

Most debuffs do not have a visual indicator. To attempt to do so could create too much visual noise and lag. Simply having the Examine bar be more reliable on staying up or having them add an option to keep it up permanently so all you have to do is target to see your debuffs is all I think is needed.

A better visual indicator would be nice, like what Alchemists have, though I'm not too bothered. There is already the special move indicator - it may not be perfect, but it works well enough. All combos overlap on the first and last bit of the combo, so if for some reason your special move doesn't appear on the indicator with your last move, you're at most two away from finishing it. This only becomes painful with triple light/dark as this is where the indicator is the most finicky and is locked to a single move making them clunky. Having the additional move options for Light/Dark would fix this concern for me as well.

You missed my point. You can get the exact same effect without taking up 3 hotbar slots.. there is no reason we need 3 separate attacks that add fire damage when we could just use one.

Your argument about lack of animation is ridiculous.. because I'm not suggesting all new animations. I'm suggesting that an animation for the TYPE of element be added overlapping with the normal animation. The original attack animations don't have to be changed. How hard would it REALLY be to just make a puff of fire look like it is coming out during the normal animation?

I know that most debuffs don't have an indicator.. that's what I'm complaining about. It's too tedious to determine whether someone has negative levels so that you can remove them and help your party members. You haven't refuted my point here. In fact, you haven't made any valid arguments against what I have said here. You don't understand what I've said about buffering because you didn't really read it, and you probably don't have experience at fighting games.. so I would suggest that you read it again. It simply means if I press 3 buttons before cd's up, they will finish initiating on their own when the cooldowns make them available.

[Infinitedrift]

If you're always in the same stance, you're doing it wrong.

That's an absurd argument, because character creation in D&D 3.5 edition is about OPTIMIZATION. The different stances add penalties and bonuses. A strength character would want the bonus to strength and combat DC's from Sun stance AT ALL TIMES. A dex character would want the bonuses to damage, AC, and reflex saves from air stance AT ALL TIMES. This idea that there is anything good from shifting stances all the time is silly, and I can guarantee that most monks are probably not constantly changing stances. The only reason I ever change stances from one to the other is because of the ki generation in Ocean stance that helps maintain current ki, so that it doesn't "bleed" out, and/or if the extra reflex saves can help with traps or spells. I can practically promise that especially in early game, everyone is ALWAYS IN THE SAME STANCE, so according to you they are all doing it wrong in SUN STANCE.

[A-O]

Because the standard Ki attacks do not automatically upgrade, you are able to put multiple Ki attacks on a hotbar. They do not share a cooldown. This allows you to process elemental based finishing moves without much delay, or do rapidly cycle ki attacks for extra damage.

For example, you can put Grandmaster Strike of the Enduring, Master Strike of the Enduring, and Adept Strike of the Enduring on a toolbar. Assuming you have enough Ki, you can hit all 3 in succession and then your finishing move attack - this takes about 1.5-2 seconds.

Too bad the finishing moves are less than useless and any effort made to click the attacks is an opportunity cost that's higher than the benefits.

Monk moves have been useless since their introduction, and have only become more useless as epics have scaled on and they've been forgotten.
I agree with OP of the thread in general, but the main thing that needs to be done is to restrict finishing moves greatly, and increase their effect 10 fold. Same with the fire/earth/etc strikes.

I'd say make em hurt bad, like (heroic levell*d6)+(epiclevel*2d20)*(MP*4). So at 200MP you'll be hitting for 2500. And set cooldown to like 7 seconds. Replace the old versions so you only have the best available. And then make the finishers actually good as well. Scale those up big time.
Some of the less up-to-date players might be thinking "but 2500 every 7 seconds*4 is super OP", to that I say, that's just 1400 DPS give or take. About 10-13% of the DPS you'll do as a Monk. Hardly big. If monks are OP from this change, nerf something else.

Also. Increase Ki costs, or nerf Ki gain. Make it an actual resource cause it's stupid atm. Spam whatever you want (i.e. nothing since it's all bad) whenever you want and you'll still be full Ki all the time.

If you're always in the same stance, you're doing it wrong. Typically I'll have a 'default' stance and then swap to another stance as conditions warrant. At lower levels I'll typically run in Fire stance for the extra Ki generation and bonus to attacks. I'll use the other stances at low levels, but rarely - mostly Air for the bonus to reflex saves. At higher levels, that default is typically Ocean stance for the bonus to saves, dodge, AC, and DCs that it gives, but sometimes I'll flip to Mountain if I need to pull/hold aggro or rarely Fire if I'm burning through too much Ki. Usually at the higher levels though Ki generation is not a problem

Air Stance also boosts one of my multiclass toons - a monk/assassin and the +2 bonus to assassinate that it gives makes up for the loss of the assassin capstone (I use the Vistani capstone on that build, so I get a net +2 to all stats instead of just Dex and Int, and +10 melee power at a loss of +4 sneak attack dice)

If you put that much effort into stance swapping you're doing it wrong. Pick the stance that corresponds with your main stat and stick in that from 1>30. Or, if you can't be arsed to run haste pots, run air from 1>20 when you get alacrity 15%.

[Logicman69]

2) Give Monks more MRR. This is actually a critical issue. Monks are the ONLY class in the entire game forced into unarmored. Arguing Evasion is silly because every other class can use Light armor with their evasion and have 100 base MRR instead of only 50. If the argument is, well, casters need the downside too, the fact is they can wear armor and Sharn shows they'll happily give caster cloth MRR but not monks. Capping Monk at 50 just doesn't work in the current end game. There are raids with unavoidable mechanics balanced around MRR. Reapers were given spells that cannot be evaded, there are more dots and unevadable AoEs (like exploding spiders). I've been arguing for years that cloth should just be 100 like Light armor, but if they want to try to keep a caster disadvantage while allowing Monks to survive in their typical melee role, I would suggest replacing the long broken Ki Shout ability with a +50 MRR cap while centered. Sure it would then be an AP tax that every Monk will be forced to spend to survive in the current game, but is needed.

.

YES PLEASE!!!! The biggest hassle I have with my monk build is trying to get MRR. The only option I have found is to use fillagrees to up the MRR cap. Even then, I was only able to get it to 77 (Nystul's Mystical Defence is key!). Yes we have improved evasion which does help SOME, one **** dot applied to a monk on a high level setting is pretty much instant death.

It would be nice if we could see MRR tied to feats like "diamond body" where it not only grants immunity to poison, but raises the MRR cap by 25 points. Perfect self would then grant an additional 25 points to MRR cap. That would get a lvl 20 monk a 100 cap to MRR. Not game breaking, but a much needed improvement.

Additionally, you could let monks wear light armor with some negative penalty to their monk abilities. I could see (and this is going to be an unpopular opinion here) that wearing light armor would negatively affect ki generation. Ideally you would not wear that armor till higher levels (15+) where Ki generation is no longer an issue (Moonrise Bracers FTW).

I wonder if we can have @lynnabel weigh in on this if there are any plans to address this.

[DrawingGuy]

You missed my point. You can get the exact same effect without taking up 3 hotbar slots.. there is no reason we need 3 separate attacks that add fire damage when we could just use one.

Your argument about lack of animation is ridiculous.. because I'm not suggesting all new animations. I'm suggesting that an animation for the TYPE of element be added overlapping with the normal animation. The original attack animations don't have to be changed. How hard would it REALLY be to just make a puff of fire look like it is coming out during the normal animation?

I know that most debuffs don't have an indicator.. that's what I'm complaining about. It's too tedious to determine whether someone has negative levels so that you can remove them and help your party members. You haven't refuted my point here. In fact, you haven't made any valid arguments against what I have said here. You don't understand what I've said about buffering because you didn't really read it, and you probably don't have experience at fighting games.. so I would suggest that you read it again. It simply means if I press 3 buttons before cd's up, they will finish initiating on their own when the cooldowns make them available.

I didn't miss your point, but rather that it would be bad unless they made the moves have 0 cooldown, and that would be a straight buff. That could lead to nerfs that hurt in the long run. I wouldn't mind the buff in the slightest - it indeed would be nice to save shortcut bar space, but what exists works.

As for what you are suggesting with the overlay animation, I just don't think their system works in that way because the monk strikes work off the standard attack animation, not off their own animation. Maybe they could just have a generic puff that goes out in front of you that is not attached to any attack animation, but that may end up assigning an animation cooldown that would prevent rapid abilities. It is another nice to have, but may backfire on us if the devs pursued.

For debuffs to have some form of ongoing visual animation or whatnot, there would be simply too much noise for all the debuffs in the game. Most MMOs that have a slew of debuffs will simply just have icons over the monster or in some designated area of your screen. The game ALREADY has that with the examine window - so if they simply gave the option to lock the examine window as to always on you could then put the window wherever is convenient and then have a place to glance if you need to check the debuffs.

As for "buffering", I DID read what you said, and what you said wasn't clear. What you're mentioning here is something completely different. You're talking core game engine changes to allow for queuing of moves, and that is simply never going to happen.

Too bad the finishing moves are less than useless and any effort made to click the attacks is an opportunity cost that's higher than the benefits.

All to-hit finishers work like ki strikes in that they apply with your attack animation, thus are straight DPS increases as they all provide at least +1[W] to your attack. Earth > Earth > Earth (gives you a +1[W] with +2 crit multiplier, and couples with both the fact that earth Ki Strikes and Fists of Iron are the best DPS Ki strikes) and Fire > Dark > Fire (+1[W] auto-crit) are straight gas finishers. Air > Air > Air is a massive debuff of 15% to enemy attack chance. You SHOULD be using your finishing moves.

The only finishing moves that suck are:
- Fire > Fire > Fire: A burning hands ability with an animation that is just a straight DPS loss. Only useful for breaking things you can't break yourself.
- Water > Water > Water: The debuff doesn't work on bosses and there is better CCs to use on trash. Just not worth it over spamming earth, air, and dark moves if you have them.
- Any light finisher: Unfortunately these are crippled by a long animation that interrupts your attack cycles for 1 minute buffs. While they are situationally useful, their extremely short duration cripples even that aspect. Going Light means you're hobbling yourself for some minor support (mainly Fists of Light tagging and removing curses in raids)

Monk moves have been useless since their introduction, and have only become more useless as epics have scaled on and they've been forgotten.
I agree with OP of the thread in general, but the main thing that needs to be done is to restrict finishing moves greatly, and increase their effect 10 fold. Same with the fire/earth/etc strikes.

I'd say make em hurt bad, like (heroic levell*d6)+(epiclevel*2d20)*(MP*4). So at 200MP you'll be hitting for 2500. And set cooldown to like 7 seconds. Replace the old versions so you only have the best available. And then make the finishers actually good as well. Scale those up big time.
Some of the less up-to-date players might be thinking "but 2500 every 7 seconds*4 is super OP", to that I say, that's just 1400 DPS give or take. About 10-13% of the DPS you'll do as a Monk. Hardly big. If monks are OP from this change, nerf something else.

Nah, I prefer the smaller spammable setup we have now. I like the constant swirl of attack combos - to me it makes Monks one of the most fun classes to play. Light Monk finishers need a revamp (either just making them long duration buffs or at the very least attack type to eliminate their animation and give them extra purpose).

Also. Increase Ki costs, or nerf Ki gain. Make it an actual resource cause it's stupid atm. Spam whatever you want (i.e. nothing since it's all bad) whenever you want and you'll still be full Ki all the time.

Unfortunately I'd have to label this as "you're playing it wrong". Even with a +1 Ki item and in Fire Stance I still feel like I'm fighting with one hand behind my back as I can't afford to play that actively. Not until you get a +3 Ki item are you actually able to play fully, and that isn't until 26 at the earliest with a raid item. At that point if you're constantly attacking, then you will always have Ki on tap. If you aren't, you can quickly find yourself dry. I think that is a good place for Ki as a resource. As I stated in previous posts, the issue is not too much Ki, but rather not enough while leveling.

If you put that much effort into stance swapping you're doing it wrong. Pick the stance that corresponds with your main stat and stick in that from 1>30. Or, if you can't be arsed to run haste pots, run air from 1>20 when you get alacrity 15%.

The days are over that Earth stance is the end-all-be-all. Sure I'm pretty much forced into Fire from 1-26 due to Ki issues, but you should still be using stances as the situation demands. Water stance for DCs and survivability. Earth to take and hold aggro when needed. Air for DPS. Fire for Ki + DPS. At end game I typically water-stance for trash fights and either Air or Earth for Boss fights (or water if spell saves are more important). Sure, I'm not flipping through them during fights, but there is no reason to leave DPS or survival options on the table if the situation calls for it.

[A-O]

All to-hit finishers work like ki strikes in that they apply with your attack animation, thus are straight DPS increases as they all provide at least +1[W] to your attack. Earth > Earth > Earth (gives you a +1[W] with +2 crit multiplier, and couples with both the fact that earth Ki Strikes and Fists of Iron are the best DPS Ki strikes) and Fire > Dark > Fire (+1[W] auto-crit) are straight gas finishers. Air > Air > Air is a massive debuff of 15% to enemy attack chance. You SHOULD be using your finishing moves.

The only finishing moves that suck are:
- Fire > Fire > Fire: A burning hands ability with an animation that is just a straight DPS loss. Only useful for breaking things you can't break yourself.
- Water > Water > Water: The debuff doesn't work on bosses and there is better CCs to use on trash. Just not worth it over spamming earth, air, and dark moves if you have them.
- Any light finisher: Unfortunately these are crippled by a long animation that interrupts your attack cycles for 1 minute buffs. While they are situationally useful, their extremely short duration cripples even that aspect. Going Light means you're hobbling yourself for some minor support (mainly Fists of Light tagging and removing curses in raids)

You seem to misunderstand what opportunity cost means. That doesn't necessarily mean you give up e.g. animations (that's would mean a factual DPS loss/cost), but rather clicking a button, keeping track of the hotkeys etc. Spending that time moving, repositioning etc. is smarter and will give you more. Your argument to that might be "but I can do both perfectly", and my response to that would be "doubt it".

Nah, I prefer the smaller spammable setup we have now. I like the constant swirl of attack combos - to me it makes Monks one of the most fun classes to play. Light Monk finishers need a revamp (either just making them long duration buffs or at the very least attack type to eliminate their animation and give them extra purpose).

Unfortunately I'd have to label this as "you're playing it wrong". Even with a +1 Ki item and in Fire Stance I still feel like I'm fighting with one hand behind my back as I can't afford to play that actively. Not until you get a +3 Ki item are you actually able to play fully, and that isn't until 26 at the earliest with a raid item. At that point if you're constantly attacking, then you will always have Ki on tap. If you aren't, you can quickly find yourself dry. I think that is a good place for Ki as a resource. As I stated in previous posts, the issue is not too much Ki, but rather not enough while leveling.

If you think it's worth dedicating 16 hotkeys, spamming them in the right order, etc. to get <1% more dps? Then yea, I might be playing it wrong. But I prefer saving 17 (finisher too) hotkeys, and spending that time doing something that actually has an impact in R10.

The days are over that Earth stance is the end-all-be-all. Sure I'm pretty much forced into Fire from 1-26 due to Ki issues, but you should still be using stances as the situation demands. Water stance for DCs and survivability. Earth to take and hold aggro when needed. Air for DPS. Fire for Ki + DPS. At end game I typically water-stance for trash fights and either Air or Earth for Boss fights (or water if spell saves are more important). Sure, I'm not flipping through them during fights, but there is no reason to leave DPS or survival options on the table if the situation calls for it.

To me it sounds like you are doing a lot of extra things that you think make a difference because it sounds good on paper. But it isn't good. The costs aren't worth it. The time wasted isn't worth it.

I can absolutely see thinking all that matters if you don't have any gear and playing low R. But once you start playing R10 with the best gear, doing that unnecessary stuff isn't worth the little benefits you get.


EDIT: What you are describing is what I want Monk to be. But it isn't, and it isn't going to be with finishers and strikes so weak.

[DrawingGuy]

You seem to misunderstand what opportunity cost means. That doesn't necessarily mean you give up e.g. animations (that's would mean a factual DPS loss/cost), but rather clicking a button, keeping track of the hotkeys etc. Spending that time moving, repositioning etc. is smarter and will give you more. Your argument to that might be "but I can do both perfectly", and my response to that would be "doubt it".

If you think it's worth dedicating 16 hotkeys, spamming them in the right order, etc. to get <1% more dps? Then yea, I might be playing it wrong. But I prefer saving 17 (finisher too) hotkeys, and spending that time doing something that actually has an impact in R10.
To me it sounds like you are doing a lot of extra things that you think make a difference because it sounds good on paper. But it isn't good. The costs aren't worth it. The time wasted isn't worth it.

I can absolutely see thinking all that matters if you don't have any gear and playing low R. But once you start playing R10 with the best gear, doing that unnecessary stuff isn't worth the little benefits you get.


EDIT: What you are describing is what I want Monk to be. But it isn't, and it isn't going to be with finishers and strikes so weak.[/QUOTE]

It is a game of quantity - I haven't done any recent number crunching, but the Earth combo alone can add ~10% DPS. It is by far the most potent one as even the base moves scale with MP and can be multiplied by crits and has the strongest special elemental ki strike. Fire>Dark>Fire is a fair step lower, but still more than 1% increase on its own (around 3-5%). Air is indeed pretty pithy on the DPS factor, but is stacked with Knock on the Sky and rarely resisted basic moves for a strong debuff combo (which nicely fit as both debuffs last 30s). For trash between CCing priority targets, QP, and positioning, you'll be hard pressed to fit in just Earth combo let alone any others, but Earth is worth it if you can squeeze it in and your Ki is not hurting. For bosses most are simple enough that moving/positioning is basically a non-factor (static tank-and-spank or circle kiting), so you can quite easily fit in combo cycles.

I definitely think you are underestimating combos as they provide a statistically significant boost to your DPS - you should at the very least be fitting in all of the Earth combos you can. They may not be obvious big numbers (though Earth finisher crits can be pretty nice) so it may fly under your radar, but it adds up. The power creep of other classes means that maybe they can afford to be boosted - particularly the combos I mentioned - but I prefer them keeping it a game of quantity to obtain the potential for the unique flair and hectic complexity. There are plenty of other melee classes that play slower with rarer and bigger moves if that's your desire.

But with how they handled the Monk nerfs, it makes me wary asking for DPS buffs. For now them simply fixing Monk MRR and lower level Ki options would make me happy. Well, that, and fixing Whirlwind attack speed.

[A-O]

It is a game of quantity - I haven't done any recent number crunching, but the Earth combo alone can add ~10% DPS. It is by far the most potent one as even the base moves scale with MP and can be multiplied by crits and has the strongest special elemental ki strike. Fire>Dark>Fire is a fair step lower, but still more than 1% increase on its own (around 3-5%). Air is indeed pretty pithy on the DPS factor, but is stacked with Knock on the Sky and rarely resisted basic moves for a strong debuff combo (which nicely fit as both debuffs last 30s). For trash between CCing priority targets, QP, and positioning, you'll be hard pressed to fit in just Earth combo let alone any others, but Earth is worth it if you can squeeze it in and your Ki is not hurting. For bosses most are simple enough that moving/positioning is basically a non-factor (static tank-and-spank or circle kiting), so you can quite easily fit in combo cycles.

I definitely think you are underestimating combos as they provide a statistically significant boost to your DPS - you should at the very least be fitting in all of the Earth combos you can. They may not be obvious big numbers (though Earth finisher crits can be pretty nice) so it may fly under your radar, but it adds up. The power creep of other classes means that maybe they can afford to be boosted - particularly the combos I mentioned - but I prefer them keeping it a game of quantity to obtain the potential for the unique flair and hectic complexity. There are plenty of other melee classes that play slower with rarer and bigger moves if that's your desire.

But with how they handled the Monk nerfs, it makes me wary asking for DPS buffs. For now them simply fixing Monk MRR and lower level Ki options would make me happy. Well, that, and fixing Whirlwind attack speed.

The problem comes when you count all the attacks you do. In the time it takes to recycle and earth earth earth you've done 2.25*4*2 = 18 normal attacks. Getting +2 multiplier on every 19th attack isn't a lot. Put into numbers that's 2/19=10% more crit multiplier = 1.2% DPS roughly. I tried to test but didn't test thoroughly enough to see if the finisher +2 multi applies to doublestrikes as well, if that's the case than it's 20% more multiplier = 2.4% DPS. And if you cycle that perfectly with Fire dark fire finisher you'll get a total of maybe 5% more DPS. More than my hyperbole, but not worth the effort in R10 gameplay when there are more important things to keep track of.

In my mind, a class revolving around combos and finishing moves should get more than 5% dps from said feature. In my mind it should be at least 25% of their DPS.