Thoughts on Monk changes

[Tianie]

Since it seems they are going to be reviewing Monk, I thought it wise to add my thoughts.

First off I want is to be able to play a viable monk, with just Monk enhancement trees, though I like Falconry, I hate having to take something outside of Monk to make monk viable.
And Grandmaster of Flowers, is weak also, but that can be a different discussion.
Now I would like BIG changes to the MONK, but I'm guessing these are going to be tweaks, not an overhaul, so I will keep to small but important changes.
First my guess they do not want to add too much power to the Monk trees, because with Falconry, that might be too much.
My idea is to add Insight bonus' to the Shintao tree, that way they will not stack with Deadly Instinct in the falconry tree.
With the changes to THF, the staff builds do not need much help, but it would be nice to see more Universal (any centered weapon) effects in all monk trees.
The monk trees are too centered (pun intended) on specific weapons, to where they are not as useful, when spending all your points in just Monk trees.
I have heard people say that we will be getting back the increases to handwraps weapon dice in the base class. This would be nice but it would be nice to be to all centered weapons.
Though maybe at a lesser amount to non-handwraps, like .5 on handwraps and .2 on non-handwraps per increase.
Also an increase in offhand damage, say giving full stat increase, or more +s to off hand doublestrike.
For defense, we are not that bad off, but alittle more AC and PRR, would be nice. The big problem is damage over time, and non evasionable bursts of energy and such.
Now these would not be a major problem, except Monk is MELEE. We can't just find a safe spot and blast away. We are in the middle of stuff.
An increase in MRR would be a big plus. Something like +5 MRR cap every 2 or 3 levels. Then some more added to the Enhancement trees.
One easy change that would be good, is change the perfect self (level 20 monk) ability to +20PRR/MRR and MRR cap, and give the level 17 ability Timeless Body something useful.
I think these would be a good start, but some of the problems with Monk are wider, problems with the overall meta, like melee and ranged and spellcasters overall.
But that said, feel free to add your thoughts.
And thanks to the devs for reading this.

[droid327]

I think the issue is more that, outside of Henshin, Monk is tied to SWF/TWF and those are inherently limited in melee right now. Ninja is tied to DEX, and that's also limited since as long as there's no DEX trance you're 0.5x mainstat mod behind in damage. That's not a problem with Monk per se though, and if they ever address those systemic shortfalls, Monk will benefit by proxy. Also they really need to update Qstaff attack speed to be the same as all other THF weapons.

I dont think the class needs to be weapon-agnostic, though. I like the idea of monks using monk weapons. There's always Kensei if you want to specialize elsewhere, too, for melee. We just need to make sure monk weapons are worth using.

The enhancement trees could use a major modernization, though. I dont think the basic design itself is bad, they're just no longer tuned for the game as it is, especially endgame...bonuses and damage that poorly scale, too many buttons, slow pace of play, etc. Ninja in particular doesnt really do anything worth doing with its tiny poison DOTs and slow-building debuffs. Shintao and Henshin could likewise be brought up to par with the efficacy of other melee-specific trees like KotC. Tossing in some MRR cap in the upper echelon of Henshin might be nice too for a robe-obligate class

Also worth noting is that Monkchers are likely to be the top beneficiary for Horizon Walker and the overall bow updates, though that doesnt solve your issue of being uni-tree dependent.

[Red_Knight]

Since it seems they are going to be reviewing Monk, I thought it wise to add my thoughts.

First off I want is to be able to play a viable monk, with just Monk enhancement trees, though I like Falconry, I hate having to take something outside of Monk to make monk viable.
And Grandmaster of Flowers, is weak also, but that can be a different discussion.

This here? This confuses me a great deal. Since when has the monk class not been viable? It's been decent, if middle of the road since the class was first introduced. And it's only gotten stronger since then. The biggest issue monks had for a long time was the fact they had to work extra hard and sacrifice a lot to hit high enough AC that the min/max crowd considered "worth it". To be fair though, said min/maxers held the belief that if enemies can hit you more often then 5% of the time (nat 20 only), your AC is too **** low. At level 20-23 (level I hit before the defense revamp) I was finding an AC in the mid 40's was very viable. Yes, I got hit more often then 5% of the time. In fact, it was often around 45% of the time. But between the Fist of Light finisher, Stunning Blow, and my other class given (and Shinto enhancements) it was more then enough most of the time. Between fights if needed I could heal up with Wholeness of Body. And if I needed a bit more, even a cleric or favored soul hireling could provide that extra little bit to help me push through difficult content. I was regularly soloing Epic Hard quests. After the defense revamp things got easier still, to the point where I could leave the hireling behind in many quests that had previously required one.

And Grandmaster of Flowers is "weak"? News to me. If you're tacking it onto a different class, maybe it's weak. But adding it on top of a level 20 monk is quite effective. Additional burst healing, AoE damage (which Monk class mostly lacks), ranged damage that is pretty decent, as well as improving many things monks can already do... And you're saying this is "weak"? When I finally managed to scrounge up enough Tokens of the Twelve to True Reincarnate Venoma Hammerfist I was a level 27 Monk/Level 5 Grandmaster of Flowers and had never considered switching to a different Epic Destiny. Not even to unlock abilities I could Twist in. I was soloing some quests on Epic Elite, although I chose to run Epic Normal or Epic Hard more often then not. I did so not because I couldn't handle Epic Elite on that quest, but because Epic Normal or Hard would go a bit faster, and I wanted to burn through my daily set of quests with the char before switching to a different one.

No, I don't run Reaper. I don't consider Reaper difficulty to be fun.

[kanordog]

Good ideas but they already know what's gonna change and no feedback will have effect on their decisions

I hope I am wrong.

[Tianie]

hmmm, thought more peeps would have a comment on this.

[J1NG]

hmmm, thought more peeps would have a comment on this.

Here's the thing, we know nothing about what the Devs "think" is underperforming, and what is overperforming and thereby in need of tweaks or reworking to make it better. So since we have no parameters of what is going to be changed, it's going to essentially just be a wish list of stuff we want.

Not really much to comment on really because of that, since everyone has something they want seen and implemented. And as a wish list, not really something we can say is likely or unlikely to happen or anything to really discuss about. Since something everyone might think is pointless or bad and needs lots of work, might get picked up on and done in game because it suits what a Dev thinks is the way forward and their new design.

So again, it's not so much there's no thoughts on the matter, it's just not going to be really productive to just talk about anything... :-/

Until the Devs actually have such discussion for us players to talk about. Far too soon to discuss really.

PS. My wishlist.

Since we have the Eldritch Blast now, can we please modfiy the Ki Blasts to look like Hadoukens now? Or an upgraded version that looks like Sunbeam for a Kamehameha Wave Blast? Also, want to be able to use Light Gravity as a clickie, to simulate the Lightness style of martial arts in Wuxia that DnD Monks are based off.

J1NG

[Mindos]

Here's the thing, we know nothing about what the Devs "think" is underperforming, and what is overperforming and thereby in need of tweaks or reworking to make it better.

Didn't the devs state that quarterstaff monk was in the top three of dps according to their testing?

[FlavoredSoul]

Didn't the devs state that quarterstaff monk was in the top three of dps according to their testing?

Especially funny is that they said this well before the 2handed fighting buffs that made quarterstaff monk semi-viable (not top tier, but not totally trash), back when it was one of the worst specs in the game that wasn't total trash like throwing hammers.

[Soulfurnace]

I think the issue is more that, outside of Henshin, Monk is tied to SWF/TWF and those are inherently limited in melee right now.

TWF is currently meta, and will be more meta once the raid hits if they don't change the loot.
Like, TWF is higher dps than THF and with a tempest splash is AOE-enough to get away with it.

But it's also a lot harder to do good than barb/fighter/paladin/bear. Those are much easier.

[FlavoredSoul]

TWF is currently meta, and will be more meta once the raid hits if they don't change the loot.
Like, TWF is higher dps than THF and with a tempest splash is AOE-enough to get away with it.

But it's also a lot harder to do good than barb/fighter/paladin/bear. Those are much easier.

TWF is not meta, a few builds that happen to be TWF are meta, there is a key difference there.

THF as a Style(as well as Alch and throwers) is most meta for melees, especially THF pally (Greatsword, Maul, and Falch variations with both STR and CHA versions).

Overall I think the melee archetype is a lot more balanced between combat styles than it was before the THF pass, though SWF could perhaps use a small buff such as allowing any SWF weapon to strikethrough but with a much lower hard cap somewhere in the range of 50-100% or so (and no strikethough in their combat style feats) compared to THF or Bsword/Daxe/Sunsword weapons., assuming the opened up more class strikethrough enhancements to not require THF. TWF could probably use something small to make it usable on non-tempest, non-dagger VKF/rogue builds.

[Soulfurnace]

TWF is not meta, a few builds that happen to be TWF are meta, there is a key difference there.

THF as a Style(as well as Alch and throwers) is most meta for melees, especially THF pally (Greatsword, Maul, and Falch variations with both STR and CHA versions).

If you're talking meta, then greatsword paladin is dead, and cha paladin never existed. Cha pally ain't meta. Throwers are incredibly weak, aside from 20 seconds every 2 minutes. They're nice in raids because raids are mostly **** - there's a reason you see them used in almost every high skull completion.

Pure ranger is better than half the THF builds, but people haven't caught on yet. Lamplighter on a scourge is pretty tasty. Splits are good with weapons other than lamplighter.

It's just one of those things that'll take people 6 months to catch on to, and then they'll realize it's OP.

[Indubitably]

I would just be happy with the ki attacks, finishers, and most of their enhancement attacks to get a revamp.
There was too much flat stat power given to them to compensate previously and it made the monk system kinda needless.

By improving the damage/crit/effects of the ki attacks, finishers, and ki spenders and other enchancement attacks... and make them scale better with level. It would make the monk style more interesting again. That would be a better way to balance it.

Henshin for example:
- has void strike which is extremely average compared to other T5 attacks and requires 4 other enhancements. Vorpal on a 20? Really? Cool in the past... very average compared to paladins multi-swing-cleave-always vorpal.
- has 4 elemental vulnerability attacks where are very average and take a lot of hotbar space. Past the first element they are really much the same. These could be combined into one attack with "improvements"
- the light attack in T5 becomes worthless the instant you enter reaper.
- Incineration wave looks cool...but is possibly the most worthless attack in the entire game. Only good for breaking CC by tickling everyone. Ki Bolt isn't much better.
- Cauldron also looks awesome... and the capstone gives it a nice personal melee buff - but the fire damage it'self is likewise average.
- lighting the candle fire proc damage is very lackluster. it shouldn't be close to alch, EK, or AA... and probably not as much as paladins light proc.... but it should feel like it makes a difference.
- all base monk starters and finishers are mostly pointless except for the light that gives you some tiny healing and the SP cost reduction one under rare circumstances.

Since the tree is so fire focused, I wouldn't mind seeing some of their abilities and effects that use fire damage to scale off fire spell power AS WELL as the current melee power scaling.
Much like fan of knives from Vistani does with force. It wouldn't break the skills or make them way too powerful. but would require some creative gearing thats still manageable to get the most out of the skills (and can always be ignored by people that want to focus on pure melee).

Ki bolt, Incineration wave, Cauldron of Fire, Light the Candle could all have this mechanic added... along with some level scaling (especially for incineration wave).
Also, getting each of the three core abilities one core earlier would be great. They are all gotten so late for what they do... or move them into the actual enchancement tree?

[FlavoredSoul]

If you're talking meta, then greatsword paladin is dead, and cha paladin never existed. Cha pally ain't meta. Throwers are incredibly weak, aside from 20 seconds every 2 minutes. They're nice in raids because raids are mostly **** - there's a reason you see them used in almost every high skull completion.

Pure ranger is better than half the THF builds, but people haven't caught on yet. Lamplighter on a scourge is pretty tasty. Splits are good with weapons other than lamplighter.

It's just one of those things that'll take people 6 months to catch on to, and then they'll realize it's OP.

You're missing my point on Paladins, they are so strong right now that even suboptimal variants are still better than 95% of TWF that aren't dagger based.

You say throwers are weak but then say they're used in every high skull raid completion so??? Outside of their 20 seconds of burst they're still strong enough for high skull regular questing and low skull raids, and their burst is incredibly important for some high skull raids where the burst is needed.

Pure tempest scourge is actually good for non-dagger TWF standards, but I disagree that it's overall stronger than THF paladin in actual gameplay, maybe it's test kobold times are 2 or 3 seconds faster that doesn't really matter. THF overall still has far more meta builds to it's name than the 2 or 3 meta TWF builds. Note how i didn't say TWF has no good builds at all, I specifically mentioned daggers and tempests in fact, but the style overall is weaker outside of the few niche builds it has.

[Varr]

It is obvious that all the monk abilities including path need to be front loaded to level 1 or 2.

It is unimportant that I run a 18/2 Vamp/Monk. Irrelvant, front load is the only real path.

[Tilomere]

I'm not sure that heroic monks will benefit form the overall changes considering the WWA nerf.

[Soulfurnace]

You're missing my point on Paladins, they are so strong right now that even suboptimal variants are still better than 95% of TWF that aren't dagger based.

You say throwers are weak but then say they're used in every high skull raid completion so??? Outside of their 20 seconds of burst they're still strong enough for high skull regular questing and low skull raids, and their burst is incredibly important for some high skull raids where the burst is needed.

Pure tempest scourge is actually good for non-dagger TWF standards, but I disagree that it's overall stronger than THF paladin in actual gameplay, maybe it's test kobold times are 2 or 3 seconds faster that doesn't really matter. THF overall still has far more meta builds to it's name than the 2 or 3 meta TWF builds. Note how i didn't say TWF has no good builds at all, I specifically mentioned daggers and tempests in fact, but the style overall is weaker outside of the few niche builds it has.

Aight, so let's address this.

Paladins: What TWF are you comparing them to? Ranger, ranger splits, rogue, rogue splits, VKF EK. Any of those will do more dps than a paladin. I guess 3 of those are VKF.

Throwers: Yes, they're weak. The trick is they're RANGED. That's why they're used. Because a melee just DIES. SPLAT. GONE. Anything ranged is required, and throwers are the best amongst the worst. Their burst is nice, but the key part is the fact they're ranged.
If all that was needed was burst, they'd be using BOWS. Yes, I know, bows.

You can disagree all you want, that's fine. I don't actually have to convince you, because I'd be wasting time trying - you sound like your mind is already made up.
I can say it has higher dps and still AOE 67% of the time, you'd complain about that extra 33%. I can point out the increased dps and build synergy, as well as self debuffing makes up for more, you won't care, and that's fine. The fact a tempest gets perma dust and fetters with lamplighter is pretty dope. The fact it can be done without being pure tempest allows some disgusting splits.

[Havocthedemon]

If you're talking meta, then greatsword paladin is dead, and cha paladin never existed. Cha pally ain't meta. Throwers are incredibly weak, aside from 20 seconds every 2 minutes. They're nice in raids because raids are mostly **** - there's a reason you see them used in almost every high skull completion.

Pure ranger is better than half the THF builds, but people haven't caught on yet. Lamplighter on a scourge is pretty tasty. Splits are good with weapons other than lamplighter.

It's just one of those things that'll take people 6 months to catch on to, and then they'll realize it's OP.

Yeah I’m not sure what game you are playing, but the only melee that exists right now is THF. I’m not saying that’s a problem, but the only TWF build I’ve seen even remotely recently was pure rogue assassin. Which seems pretty good for single target dmg but the lack of heals is miserable for me. Ranger you say? Haven’t seen tempest in...wow idk how long the only rangers I see in reapers are splits for sniper shot.

[Soulfurnace]

Yeah I’m not sure what game you are playing, but the only melee that exists right now is THF. I’m not saying that’s a problem, but the only TWF build I’ve seen even remotely recently was pure rogue assassin. Which seems pretty good for single target dmg but the lack of heals is miserable for me. Ranger you say? Haven’t seen tempest in...wow idk how long the only rangers I see in reapers are splits for sniper shot.

Give it 6 months. It takes time for builds to filter through, and different servers take different lengths of time to adopt a build.

Ghallanda was full of throwers, but thelanis had almost none at that point in time. Paladins were all over khyber, but ghallanda had (has, really) bear fever.

The fact different servers have their own meta is amusing, but any changes to the meta - short of a massive re-work, which generates noise - takes time to come through.
Someone finding something that performed better than expected and now has a new weapon isn't gonna make noise, so it'll take time to be seen and adopted.

But yeah, pure scourge, rock that mace or whatever it is.
When the new feywild raid drops, gonna rock some khopeshes.

[NemesisAlien]

Here's the thing, we know nothing about what the Devs "think" is underperforming, and what is overperforming and thereby in need of tweaks or reworking to make it better. So since we have no parameters of what is going to be changed, it's going to essentially just be a wish list of stuff we want.

Not really much to comment on really because of that, since everyone has something they want seen and implemented. And as a wish list, not really something we can say is likely or unlikely to happen or anything to really discuss about. Since something everyone might think is pointless or bad and needs lots of work, might get picked up on and done in game because it suits what a Dev thinks is the way forward and their new design.

So again, it's not so much there's no thoughts on the matter, it's just not going to be really productive to just talk about anything... :-/

Until the Devs actually have such discussion for us players to talk about. Far too soon to discuss really.

PS. My wishlist.

Since we have the Eldritch Blast now, can we please modfiy the Ki Blasts to look like Hadoukens now? Or an upgraded version that looks like Sunbeam for a Kamehameha Wave Blast? Also, want to be able to use Light Gravity as a clickie, to simulate the Lightness style of martial arts in Wuxia that DnD Monks are based off.

J1NG

[Nickodeamous]

I'm not sure that heroic monks will benefit form the overall changes considering the WWA nerf.

This right here is spot on. If they nerf WWA, no amount of "ki" attacks or damage will make up for the WWA cleave. If you look at Paladin, they have a cleave called Holy retribution.

Holy Retribution: Melee Channel Divinity: Executes a powerful holy cleave against nearby targets that deals +5[W] damage, 100 extra holy damage that scales with 200% Melee or Ranged Power, -6 to all ability scores for 10 seconds, and recharges one Smite Evil charge to you. On Damage: Evil creatures may be forced to make a Will save (DC 10 + Paladin Level + Charisma Mod + Sunder Bonuses) or be destroyed.

This is an amazing instakill ability that I used when I did my paladin past lives. Simply put, at lev 12, you can swing a greatsword and kill most thing in your path with ease.

Monks simply do not have this level of cleave, so the bread and butter is the whirlwind attack. This is not an instakiller, but does do decent damage right now. They already nerfed the speed of it with the attack speed "correction". If they nerf the W's, take away the double hit (after they added doublestrike to counteract the slowness of the move in heroic) and don't provide a solid cleave option that is on-par with what they have had before, than that is just plain wrong.

I personally cant be bothered with Ki attacks. I don't even use them after I get my vorpal wraps at lev 4. Sure, its good they are making a change to increase the damage done by these attacks or whatever, but nerfing whirlwind attack (again) will have far worse consequences to folks that wanna play a viable monk. taking away the double hit is bad. that's like taking away 50% of the damage.

Now, lets see what really happens. We don't even know yet. Hoping the nerf doesn't happen.