I finally got a chance to test the changes and found I don't really miss the stun. To be clear though, if they hadn't raised the AC softcap then I wouldn't be happy. Running my usual HA in EWK I was able to complete it faster without feeling like I was going to die constantly. I run the HA solo with a J5 Healer Merc, so I'm the tank. I was Mending less and Feigning less as the damage wasn't as spikey as it used to be. I never used Stunning Kick to pull, so nothing lost there. Even in EoK I just pull from range and the goblin spin-stun is a 540 so you end up in position to run away anyway. Inside Droga I could see it being more useful with limited range to pull from. My only real issue is that removing Stunning Kick from my mash key broke stuff and now I get "You are too distracted to use a skill" messages a lot. I replaced it with that Wasp thing and there doesn't seem to be a good order that works with it in there. Will have to play around some more until I get the right combo and order to make it work right.
I added pause commands and that fixed my mash key, so all is good. Got a chance to play with a group last night and it went well. I'm hitting the mash key every 30s now instead of 10s, and I prefer the extra damage from the added kicks on auto. Looks like we're getting a better Thunderkick rate in today's patch, so that should boost the damage a bit more. Overall I can't complain, I just don't see how this is a nerf unless you base your entire value off of the Stunning Kick ability.
So, I'd have to explain the value of an on demand, melee range not required, three second stun, and why that becoming, a random < 50% chance, melee range only, 1.5 sec stun is a huge nerf to you? No thanks. You have a nice casual day.
Only if we have to explain the added dps to Heel from being able to get most of the damage from Stunning Kick every second rather than every 9 seconds. and being able to have the attack debuff and the additional damage from Eye Gouge (that you wouldn't have been able to use with that stun anyway). Yes, we sacrificed something but I think what we gained outweighs it.
Wait, you obviously don't parse. You do realize that with AA before this change that eye gouge proced on it's own all the time, right? Please, show me what we gained. Go on, leay it out there.
So you don't know. The DPS "increase" is to say the least is really negligible (less than 5k dps at 105 even in the best of circumstances) compared to the damage taken (this is nuanced but the difference here is life or death in some circumstances) with this change and to boot, the loss of the ability to stun at will, when needed is a huge nerf.
I wish I could've parsed a before/after on the change. It would be great if we could actually log in to Test and Live at the same time to do parse tests at the same time, effectively halving our test time. But for some reason, we can't. Anecdotally my DPS went up, and my Heel burn especially. How much it went up is unclear to me. In terms of tanking ability, I absolutely do not know how this impacted it. If the overall stun time (higher frequency but lower duration, higher resist) has changed, I don't know if it's being offset by the attack debuff. I've still been able to tank the same mobs for the same time. Losing the reliable at-will stun hasn't impacted my game much. I've lost that technique for pulling, but to be honest I didn't use it much in the first place anyway. I'd rather have the added DPS to end the fight sooner.
So we gained: 25% AC softcap increase (actual realized gain is in the 50-100ac range) 1 extra K/FK/RK per cycle Improved Eye Gouge Proc (I know you love Eye Gouge, I read threads...) Improved Thunderkick rate And Lost: Stunning Kick I get it, there was some situation you encountered frequently where using Stunning Kick allowed you to manage it. I'm sorry that is no longer an option. I did enjoy popping Stunning Kick when a mob would switch aggro on somebody, it made me feel more useful. I haven't parsed in a while, but I did run an HA faster than I've ever run it before, after the changes. I run this same one all the time so I can tell the difference. Base damage is increased. Maybe it's how I spent my refunded AA's, who knows. Honestly, I'll probably never use the new stun functionality. And would only use the snare if I was the last resort for stopping runners. Flying Kick is just too good, and Thunderkick with it. So coming out of this more tanky and putting out more damage, this is an improvement. I'll be doing some parsing soon, not sure what I have saved to compare it to, but the impact of the extra kick should be easy to suss out.
I think the saddest part of this (or at least the most annoying) is that some of you can't realize that a large utility nerf and poor design/implementation shouldn't be excused by or equivalent to a small dps increase. I'm sorry that half of you would trade off every activated skill you have if it meant you could stand there with auto-attack on and do more damage. Gotta close that gap on the parse between you and berserkers right? who gives a @#%^ about everything else. But it's cool, you can also solo some low level garbage with just a merc easier now. I guess I have to remind some of you that monks weren't the only ones to get that 25% AC softcap increase, so don't pretend like that is part of this "trade off." So i'm sorry to be blunt, but if you still don't care about this nerf after seeing it in action then you are one of three things: 1. Never going to be good enough to play your character to it's maximum ability, and didn't/never would use a skill like this to it's potential anyway. 2. A raider who has been sold on us needing more damage at any cost, and pulling/utility doesn't matter much to you anyway. 3. Too tired to care much after god knows how many years of playing this game. #3 I don't blame. The other 2, if you're defending this change still, then you've been sold on a failure and lack of understanding of our class from whoever thought of this change.
Too late to edit my last post, but I realize maybe that was a bit aggressive. My bad. I just think this was one of the worst and least thought out changes i've seen in a long time, so pretty bothered by seeing it defended/accepted.
It doesn't matter who else got the AC softcap increase, it affects us so it matters to us. Somebody please tell me what critical situation you are experiencing where you, the Monk, are saving the day with Stunning Kick. Enchanters can stun, Paladins can stun, Clerics can stun. It was nice to have, and I agree the change makes our stun far less useful, but this isn't class defining or critical. You want to see the removal of a utility ability that bothers me? The day they come for my single target lull or AE mez for pulling, that's the day I revolt. Those would affect me greatly. I pull and I apply damage, those things matter to me. 3s stuns are nice, but 1.5s stuns still interrupt spells which is the original point of stuns. If I need to interrupt spells I'll use it. We didn't have snare before, now we do. That's added utility. It's one thing to say this change negatively affects out ability to stun, it's quite another to look at all the changes and call the overall effect a nerf.
Of course it matters to us. But you are listing it as something we gained weighed against what we lost, and the two aren't connected at all, it was a game-wide change not tied to monks at all. In the 3 (?) different threads this has been discussed I myself have already laid out many situations in which the skill was used that can't be used in those manners effectively any longer. If you weren't using it as a pulling tool, combined with our lull, mez, moving mtns, line of sight, pathing, kiting, etc then you weren't doing what you could as an exceptional puller. I won't even begin to go into all of the quality of life scenarios it assisted with, especially for healers, to help mitigate wasted healing on incoming (for us and others). It's a major cumulative affect. I'm glad you brought this up. The 1.5 sec stun is resisted constantly and is absolutely unreliable for any relevant interrupting. On top of that, it would not only be a loss in dps to have to use round kick instead of flying kick, but the way these are tied to auto-skilled abilities means that in order to even effectively TRY to be ready for interrupts you would either have to not even use auto-skill and lose a massive amount of damage or be ready to cut off auto attack and make sure the refresh isn't down from flying kick spam. The way they have these abilities all tied together and sharing a CD ensures that we no longer have ANY kind of on demand stun that is ready to go. What are you talking about? We did have snare before, it's exactly the same as it is now. It was called Crippling Strike and was it's own separate AA skill. Now it's just tied to Kick, and falls into the same terrible situation of always being on CD because we're always spamming FK. So uh.. yeah, if you never used either skill and didn't know one of them existed, then i'm sure this change does seem okay.
Your argument would make sense if we didn't get it, but we did, and in the same patch even. It was intended to bring up the AC of non-tank classes. We're a non-tank class. It was gained simultaneously, so of course it will be measured against what we lost. You seem to be caught up with the fact that it wasn't expressly given to us as a balance item for the AA changes. Why does that matter if we now have it permanently? I think it's two threads, but I'm not going to dig around for your posts. If you used it in critical ways, I'd love to hear what they are. I'm guessing they will turn out to be "marginally useful" ways, but please enlighten me. As for what I use to pull, the aggro management tools have been plenty, and I can always have a group member tag something as the last step if it comes down to that. It certainly beats the old FD only method without the extended target window from way back when. But seriously, Stunning Kick causes aggro and the mob is coming after that. It's bad enough when a mob stops to cast a spell and you are watching the timer on lull and mez, I would never delay the pull myself and risk the adds. I'm not against the resist rate being fixed, and my understanding is that the loss of DPS is the tradeoff for taking the stun option. I'm not against us having an effective stun, but I never used Stunning Kick outside of combat so I'm not seeing this as a huge nerf just because it's no longer on command. Fair enough, I didn't notice the AA. But you are saying it's the same aside from the choice between it, Stun, and Thunderkick. I'll use it if stopping runners is more important than max dps, same with stun if I need to interrupt casters. Meanwhile I'm doing more damage (extra kick), and taking less damage (AC and Eye Gouge). The best I can say is that maybe it's a lateral change, possibly a minor nerf. But I'm still not seeing a "huge nerf" once everything is taken into consideration.
Blah blah who cares about a worthless 3 second stun, when everything except trash cannot be stunned. Lets see some of your insane super elite parses since you like to try to talk down to others, and who is your monk? Are you even the top monk in your guild? On your server? Hope this gets the thread closed so we don't have to see your elitist posts on it any longer.
It was a nerf. People who raid or are just lazy, don't care because it doesn't affect them; as the only thing at all that they care about is DPS anymore. People who don't raid and are not lazy, care immensely. The guaranteed on-demand stun or snare (when the mobs are stunnable or snareable) was very useful and a matter of choosing to activate a different attack. When they made these changes these lines they should have taken a page out of the original changes to the Dragon Punch AA that happened back around DoDh; the end result of those changes was that the AA was both passive and activated, with the activated part having a longer reuse timer, but did not prevent us from using our other special attacks. In the current case, I would say to have the AAs to also have an activated version that is available maybe once every 20 or 30 seconds, in which we could have a guaranteed stun or snare that worked under the same range limitations that the original activated AAs used; but this would not include the extra damage that the old AA line did and be available less frequently.
All this thread does is explain why the Monk class is dieing to me. Seriously, most of the people "playing" monks now have no idea how to play a monk. It's painfully obvious. It's been really sad to watch our class devolve into this bunch of wanna be's and rerollers.
More vague bologna about how Stunning Kick is super important as an on-demand ability with zero specifics as to why. But this time we get a "If you don't know then you are why the class is dying." Seriously, I'm going to put this is simply as I can. If you can't explain to me how you actually used Stunning Kick to be super-amazing, with actual descriptive words that explain the actual situation, then I have no choice but to assume you are just being butt-hurt. No, I'm not the best Monk ever to exist. I don't raid. I do pull things though. I pulled things before we got all these cool new toys. I used to FD pull with an SK and understood the differences in the options between the classes way back when. How I used Stunning Kick (with specifics OMG!): In group, mob turns on me or somebody other than tank, I hit Stunning Kick. This minimized damage to the other person or me. This was nice, but not class defining or critical. Most of the time it wasn't up anyway because it was in my mash key. If I didn't do it, we'd still succeed, if I did do it, we might succeed slightly smoother than before. Net Effect: It was fun to do, despite minimal impact. Solo, mob is shredding me, I hit Stunning Kick to give merc healer an extra second to land a heal. This was also nice, but not critical. My backups to that are Mend and Feign Death. Now they are my primary options. I need both less because of AC changes and better Eye Gouge proc, but I do still need them. Net Effect: I actually handle these situations better now because they happen less often due to the other changes. Your turn, give me a reason to agree with you. Show me how the old Stunning Kick was a critical ability that made a real difference between success and failure.
How much is a stun-at-will worth for a monk? In terms of raiding, very little - most, if not all, raid bosses aren't stunnable. If they are, they're typically stun-locked by classes who are considerably more capable at it than us (read: enchanters). This is absolutely a boost for monks on raids - an area we have been in low demand in for a long while. In terms of grouping, it's difficult to say. There is a balance to be struck between utility and DPS. Would you give up stun if it were for a massive DPS upgrade? Say, 500k DPS? Of course you would. Who wouldn't? The absurdity of that is to make a point - there is a DPS number you would take to give up being able to stun. The question becomes, what would be the lowest number you would accept? Was the change from before to now worth the loss of stunning kick? Is the tank taking more or less damage now that we have a more resistible, shorter cooldown, shorter duration stun kick as well as an attack debuff? No one has posted parses about this - it's only been anecdotal evidence. Even my own - I'm still able to tank, the tanks I group with are still able to tank, and now mobs die a bit faster. I have no idea how much of an increase in DPS it was, but I'm pleased. Holding on to it while you wait for a mob to cast is silly. You should have been using it as it came up. Stunning kick wasn't the only tool for pulling in our arsenal. Lull / AE mez works so well, I rarely had to use stun kick to pull. Want extra distance between you & the mob? Neshika's blink. Want to split a pair? Lull one. Or mez both. Or MM one. Or use that new RoS pulling tool that pushes a mob back. Or split them the old fashioned way. Or just pull two and tank one of them - pop earthforce. Running mobs and the snare / crippling strike. Where are you guys fighting that you need to snare a running mob? I cannot recall the last mob that ran. They all fight to the bitter end.
