Monks...

Discussion in 'Melee' started by Boyboi, Jun 20, 2018.

  1. Boyboi Elder

    Monks are my favorite class, and I recently reached lvl 110.

    I'm pretty upset to learn that we're terrible. Can't tank, we get out-DPSed by everyone, lowest crit rate of all the DPS classes, nearly 0 utility since anyone can pull nowadays...

    Where is the logic behind how bad monks are right now? Is there any hope for monk as a class? I would almost rather quit EQ than quit playing a monk, but our current state seems pretty sad.
  2. MaddielynBlackStar Lorekeeper

    DBG is a business. Treat classes like a product in a store. Unfortunately SK and ranger (don't quote me) are probably the top two used classes in eq atm, so lets call them a product instead, if your store was selling the most Sk's and rangers, would you care more about making them your 'best' product or try to make something that isn't selling much better in hopes it will sell more. Its sad really cause lot of us really are into our classes and hold a lot of sentiment to them, but by business aspect SK and ranger tend to be the golden crop of classes to dbg based on highest class used :/ Look at necro. They been using 2.0 since level 70 and dbg has yet to come up with some alternative method to give them the buff from it in some other form. They been shafted on dot reworks for apparently years. They ignored the issues with endurance for pure melee classes. They've added newer content that requires old content done in order to obtain a new item (aka artisan prize) yet did NOT fix the many glitches and issues with old flagging for it. Still waiting for a DEV or GM to pop on and say yes we listen and care, yet only way they will listen if you curse them out then they give you warnings instantly. A lot of classes need attention but unfortunately the only time they get attention is when the GOLDEN classes complain they are too "OP" we only get nerfs for attention never buffs :/
    andross77 likes this.
  3. Monkman Augur

    Monks aren't in as bad of a spot like we were the past 2 expansions. TBM and EOK were rough on monks but ROS leveled the playing field a bit between rogue zerker and monk in terms of dps. Don't get me wrong, you're going to have to work for it. AA's + gear make a huge difference when it comes to melee classes.

    Maybe list your current mash key + magelo for some constructive criticism from the community?
    Xianzu_Monk_Tunare likes this.
  4. Boyboi Elder

    Making a class overpowered is a surefire way to get that class played, though. When Kunark unlocked, half the people in my guild on Coirnav switched to monk instantly because they're the highest DPS class in Kunark.

    These sad classes would come back into popularity if they were just tweaked a little. I'm no coder, but it doesn't even seem like it'd be that difficult...increase monks' crit rate, maybe make Mend affect the whole group, bam, viable class again. Surely DBG is aware of the problem? I don't believe they're so understaffed for EQ that they can't fix issues like this when they're still coming out with expansions.

    Make monks :(
  5. Boyboi Elder

    Hey Monkman, I'm going purely off of what I've heard from raiding guilds, other monks, other people, as I newly hit 110 and haven't been raiding or grouping much.

    All I've heard is monks suck, we're a dead class, awful DPS, etc. etc., and this coming from a lot of people in the top raiding guild on my server (FV).

    If we aren't that'd be an excellent thing to hear, all I've heard is negativity surrounding our class to the point of people jeering when a monk says LFG in chat.
  6. feeltheburn Augur

    IDK where the sources come from but monks are alive and well. if the monks you are talking to are getting out parsed by everyone, tell them to re roll and learn the next class better, monks are parsing just fine on my raids, Atacil touches on that as well in working for it, he and I talk much. Also? monks can hold their own just find tanking if NEED be, and shrug on the anyone can pull nowadays comment, there is no pulling or need for pulling in todays game. Seems to me the bitter and negative monks your talkin to are the ones who can't pull their weight as a monk. Just my 2cp
  7. Derka Power Ranger

    Hybrids took a pretty big hit with the Spell Casting Reinforcement nerf. I really enoyed having a 6 minute bow disc.
  8. MaddielynBlackStar Lorekeeper

    I have a Monk,berserker, and beast. And I have read several hotkey sites set up several solid command chains etc, my monk and beast both have raid weapons at least, my berserker still has only group old eok weapon, and out parses both them, with less aa's less augs and less gear. The monk was the lowest of the three sadly. Tried re-reading looking up and working keys several times, and all she ever does is just generate a ton of agro with very little dps comparative. Grant It I only have drunken monkey rank 2 and not 3, not sure if this would make a huge difference, but again all of those constantly added in still make monk feel lacking. Maybe its just a cause you have to be really fast at combo chaining? Could be me. But when a non raid gear beserker beats a raid geared (ish) monk and beastlord it is kind of sad. Not to say berserker need any more nerfs but monks diffinitely seem to need something. They don't tank/molo dps like they use, so many options now with other classes for cc/pulls, feel like monk lost a lot of their class specific functions, but then again many other classes are suffering the same affect unfortunately.
  9. DaciksBB Augur

    Monks having the lowest crit rate out of any other class and having no way to force crits just means that monks rely the least on crits to do well (Kar'zok pre-blockers). A good monk can still be very competitive on a parse, they just need to know what to hit and when. Most people think that monks are in a terrible spot just because good monks are pretty rare now (have only personally played with 1 within the past year).

    Our Heel line has seen a substantial boost between every flying kick also having an extra kick and thunderfoot's having its proc rate increased by a large amount this expansion.

    Monks still have FD and mend (and Earthforce) along with strong dps when played correctly. We're in a pretty good spot.
  10. Funk Augur

    I'm not sure why you are listening to people saying monks are terrible. Monks provide awesome sustained and burst in the right group. Even with no adps they can still contribute at a high level if played right.

    Play the class you like man, and maximize it to it's full potential and if monk happens to be that class you shouldn't be disappointed.
  11. RangerGuy Augur

    How about:

    AA:
    Improved Heel of Kanji (4):
    1: Increase Duration by 24s
    2: Limit Spells: Heel of Kanji
    3: Limit Spells: Heel of Kai
    4: Limit Spells: Heel of Kojai
    5: Limit Spells: Heel of Zagali
    6: Reduce Timer 5m
    7: Limit Spells: Heel of Kanji
    8: Limit Spells: Heel of Kai
    9: Limit Spells: Heel of Kojai
    10: Limit Spells: Heel of Zagali
    This passive ability increases the duration of your Heel of Kanji line of disciplines (Heel of Kanji, Kai, Kojai, and Zagali) by 6 seconds per rank and reduces the reuse time by 75 seconds per rank.

    Improved Speedfocus Discipline (10):
    1: Increase Duration by 24s
    2: Limit Spell: Speed Focus Discipline
    3: Reduce Timer by 9m
    4: Limit Spell: Speed Focus Discipline
    This passive ability improves your Speed Focus discipline.
    Ranks 1-2 and 9-10 extend the duration of your discipline by 6 seconds per rank.
    Ranks 3-8 reduce the reuse time of your discipline by 90 seconds per rank.

    Improved Crystalpalm Discipline (4):
    1: Increase Duration by 24s
    2: Limit Spells: Crystalpalm Discipline
    3: Limit Spells: Diamondpalm Discipline
    4: Limit Spells: Terrorpalm Discipline
    5: Reduce Timer 7m
    6: Limit Spells: Crystalpalm Discipline
    7: Limit Spells: Diamondpalm Discipline
    8: Limit Spells: Terrorpalm Discipline
    This passive ability extends the duration of your Crystalpalm line of disciplines (Crystalpalm, Diamondpalm, and Terrorpalm Discipline) by 6 seconds per rank and reduces the reuse time by 105 seconds per rank.

    Hastened Tiger's Poise (10):
    1: Reduce Timer by 10m
    2: Limit Spells: Tiger's Poise
    This passive ability reduces the reuse time of your Tiger's Poise combat ability by 1 minute per rank.

    Disc:
    Heart of the Storm Rk. III
    Classes: MNK/108
    Skill: Offense (Combat Skill)
    Endurance: 0, Upkeep: 30 per tick
    Target: Self
    Resist: Beneficial, Blockable: Yes
    Focusable: Yes
    Casting: 0s, Recast: 5m, Timer: 18
    Duration: 3m+ (30 ticks), Dispelable: No
    Hate: 1
    1: Increase Hit Damage by 90%
    2: Increase Min Hit Damage by 300%
    3: Increase Hit Damage Bonus v2 by 574
    4: Increase Chance to Critical Hit by 250%
    Adds #3 damage to all attacks in addition to boosting the damage done by all of your melee attacks for %z.
  12. mackal Augur

    They should give monks decap that procs off of idk, round kick?
    Riou likes this.
  13. Cicelee Augur

    My only complaint about the class as it currently stands is more of what I hope/wish/think it could be and is not.

    I feel among the five "arch type" of classes, one should stand out amongst each of them as being an effective solo class-

    Tank- SK
    Melee- Monk
    Hybrid- Beastlord
    Healer- Shaman
    Caster- Necromancer

    Other classes, of course, have the ability to solo that are not listed above. I play a magician, which is obviously a capable solo class. But when you look at the classes among the arch types, I feel that the ones mentioned above are "best suited" to be a consistent solo class.

    However, I just don't feel that my monk is a consistent solo class in current content. And that is where my complain falls in.

    Under Earthforce, yes my monk can solo. And provided it can kill a mob before Earthforce fades, then yes I can solo one mob using that disc. Unfortunately (for now, due to gear/AA/heroics) once the disc fades then it becomes relatively dicey and a crapshoot. Last night, for example, I had Zan Fi and IOT and Speedfocus running. I pull a white con cockatrice (monk is 110 FYI). I died when the bird was around 29%. Now, if I had used Blood Drinker Coating, then yes I live. If I used Shaded Step initially to avoid all hits for 18 seconds or so, then yes I probably live. Maybe I should have FD, let the healer take some hits and wait for a heal to land on me, then re engage the cockatrice. And maybe then I would have survived the encounter.

    But to me, that is not consistent (outside of the FD/mob hits healer merc/re engage when monk near full health). I should not have to use Earthforce, pray I kill a ROS mob after it fades, then wait another minute or two until Earthforce refreshes. That is not consistent... whereas any of the other classes can pull and kill single mobs repeatedly for relatively long stretches of time before having to OOC med/regen. A monk should not have to wait what, every 10 minutes for BDC to refresh and use for 3 minutes-ish then the next 7 minutes is dicey solo tanking.

    And yes, I realize my monk doesn't have max AA or max gear or max heroics. And maybe I have been spoiled for so long with a raid geared, max AA, 18 year experience magician that can consistently solo and be successful that at times, I just wish the monk alt was able to achieve that level of success.

    TL/DR I think the monk class should be able to consistently solo current expansion content. Unfortunately there is too much down time in between kills IMHO waiting for Earthforce to refresh that the monk class solos current expansion content inconsistently. And that is my minor complaint about the class currently.
  14. DaciksBB Augur

    Using Mend to supplement your healer goes a pretty long way with soloing, as does cycling through defensive items such as papers and epic between Earthforce (2.0 especially since it's 25% boost to your max hp-more health for Mend to heal).

    You can also fade and hit Echo to help your merc and mend catch up.

    Probably doesn't help monks that they're a bit more gear dependent than mages to effectively solo.
  15. Fishlips_Jones Journeyman

    Heart of the Storm RK. 3 (or any other rank) doesn't exist.
  16. Axel Furry Hats OP

    Whoever said monks can't tank is lying. Monks can solo RoS T2 content. They also do amazing DPS, both burned and sustained. The only reason people don't like them so much is because in the raid game, they aren't as good as a rogue or zerker in both the DPS and ADPS department. There's also no pulling involved in current raids so that's not needed.

    Outside of raid content, monks are top dog.
  17. Thrillho Augur

    Monks are a suuuper easy class to play in the low levels. No disciplines / AAs, each ability is either new or an improvement on old, no spells, no mana, no endurance costs. Target mob, auto attack, mash key. Next mob, please!

    Then you reach level 51 and start getting new stuff. AAs, ooooo. Disciplines, ooooo! Endurance management...blegh. The higher you get, the more complicated the class becomes. And higher you will become - autogranted AAs, powerleveling, high end gear... By the time you stop with the massive influx of xp, your skills as a monk (no, not the skills tab) are lacking. And that's if you've leveled the regular way - heroics just compound the issue.

    Monks are a difficult class to play. There are so many combinations of our abilities alone that will vary the DPS results. Add in ADPS (bard and shaman epic are good examples) and it gets even more difficult. If you use Speed Focus instead of Terrorpalm with Destructive Force, you're going to get a different result. Which one is better? I think it's still being debated. There are so few of us that play and communicate, the information just doesn't get out. Now you've got people who don't know what they're doing with the class who claim we're not up to snuff.

    We can tank. We can parse well. We can pull. We can survive. Personally, nearly fully BiS-geared, I moloed most of the content in RoS. Including most of VP - the last partisans task I needed an actual group for. I routinely try to steal aggro from tanks in raids, and often end up tanking raid bosses for a little bit while the tank is yelling at me (it's fun, I suggest it). Depending on the event, I've topped full raid parses.

    We don't need a decap / headshot / assassinate. Look at the classes that have those and what has happened to them. Look at the SKs and what has happened to them. They get boosted and nerfed so many times, it's like a rollercoaster. Monks need work, absolutely. We need incremental changes - this latest update is a good step. We received a welcomed increase to an endurance-gaining ability, which is going to help keep our parses up, and an endurance-draining ability that is going to increase our DPS a bit. Imagine adding a kick-you-in-the-use-your-imagination ability. With the amount of kicks we do, it would break us. And instead of dropping that ability, they'd nuke our kicks. We've received a few nice boosts in the past few years. Each time it's been fairly small, very few of them being followed by a nerf. That's the way things should be.

    Play a class you enjoy and you'll do well with it. Each class is strong if they're played properly. You sound like you enjoy monk, so stick with it.

    If you're having difficulty in RoS, which you most likely would if you just hit 110, remember that it is the end of the game. It's supposed to be difficult, and you're supposed to have done a good portion of the game beforehand. There are still disciplines back to Underfoot that we use! Master the past and you'll master the present.
    Xianzu_Monk_Tunare and Dreadmore like this.
  18. Mortium Elder

    Triton has some great monks. They often outparse me. How much of that is down to a lack of alliance support I have no idea, but rest assured monks are quite capable of standing up to zerkers in the way of DPS and have a heap more in the way of survivability.
  19. Boyboi Elder

    Thank you all for your input! Since leveling up, getting gear, and experiencing end-game monk for myself, I can see that all those people putting monks down are dead wrong. It's insanely fun to play with the defensive utility, ability to get around anywhere without much fear of dying, and the fact that we can still get up there in the parses when played correctly.

    Side-note: I hope they don't "fix" our aggro generation! I'm having a blast tanking and I wouldn't be able to do it if we didn't generate absurd aggro.

    Cheers to all you monks out there, I feel like my favorite class is alive and well, even if a lot of people don't see it for whatever reason.
  20. RangerGuy Augur

    None of what I posted exists. They were all "how about" additional ranks of AA and a new disc.


    I have no doubt in raids with some combination of a alliance, bard, beastlord, auspice chains, berserker and shaman support monks can shine. But in the group game or absent that from my experience they pay a heavy price for that sometimes up defensive stuff. I am sure a raid geared monk will chime in and say thats not the case but that probably ignores them having 1600+ hdex and 1300+ hstr or them tanking stuff for the benefit of riposte dps from kicks, procs and 2h.

    My first hand experiences with partially EoK raid geared monk, rogue and berserker and the rest being ros or eok group is the rogue and berserker, who is only 107, can do anywhere from 150-200k dps over time. Like a run of a mission or for a lesson burn in Howling stones. The monk while burning very solid putters along more at like 90 to 110k on the combined for the same situations. Give the other two dark blue humanoid mobs and its a lot more than that. I get monks being behind a bit but not that much.

    From my experience as average joe monk a monk just suffers a bit to much from disc duration. Zan Fi needs to be doubled to like 40% increase to hit damage. Monk discs could be faster reuse like 10 minutes on heel. And Eye of the Storm needs to be 3 up reuse 5 like knifeplay with some love added.