It's all anecdotal. No one has parses between the changes. I'm still able to do everything I was doing before the change. I can still pull. I can still tank. I can still DPS. Sure, my methods may have changed slightly, but I'm still able to do the work assigned to me. It's not a nerf, it's a lateral movement. What is it you were doing that you're not able to do now? If a properly timed stunning kick is going to save you from dying while you're tanking, you're not strong enough to tank that mob. If it's to split pull two mobs, we have several other methods of split pulling. If you're trying to save a healer, that healer made a mistake and pulled too much aggro. Use FPP instead and you'll save the healer by taking the aggro from them. You sit on stunning kick, chances are you sit on FPP too. Me not playing the class the same way as you doesn't mean I don't know how to play the class. Me using a mez + lull + MM combo instead of a stunning kick + run + ID combo to split two mobs doesn't make me a weaker monk. Me using stunning kick instead of crippling strike increases my DPS and decreases my time fighting a mob. Choosing to chase a mob a few feet for a few seconds doesn't make me a weaker monk. What role is it that monks are no longer able to fulfill due to this "nerf"? What is it that I'm doing as a monk that I'm doing wrong?
So your reasoning is that because other classes have these abilities, and better versions, us having weaker versions of them is pointless? and thus irrelevant what kind of changes/removals are made? I don't want you to take this the wrong way, because I actually usually like your posts Thrillo, you seem like a sharp guy - but that is crazy logic. Couple other things: noone said it was out "selling point", noone said the class is now broken, etc. It's about the cumulative effect of tools being removed or weakened that has an impact on playstyle and enjoyment. Again, it's not about a "role" being broken. As an example - I don't know about you, but as a monk some of the most fun I have is chain pulling in super fast high damage groups where it borders on controlled chaos. Me having more tools to control that chaos is satisfying and engaging. Me thinking other people can just deal with things is not engaging. I like having tools to contribute. Now I have less ways to do this. Is the game broken now? nope. Can I still play? of course. It's just slightly less fun.
No, I'm saying we're not a utility class. If people want a snare or a stun, we're not the ones who they should look to. We're a DPS class. No worries - thick skinned. More offended that you misspelled my name . Everyone drops the second h for some reason. Chain pulling is fun. High damage groups are fun. I just don't see how stunning kick fits in, or the stun portion of it being nerfed negates being able to do it. If anything, the added DPS is going to help for high damage groups (not that we get to participate anyway, sometimes I need to just drop a mob off and go collect another). You mentioned cumulative effect. The cumulative effect of this update was a DPS increase, and a change in mob DPS which hasn't been parsed. The reduced efficacy of our stuns hasn't been parsed yet. How long do mobs stay stunned now vs. before? 3 seconds every 18 seconds vs. 1.5 seconds every 4-5 (?, can't recall FK cooldown) + more frequent resists. Does this result in more or less mob stun time? When using Heel, our kick cooldown is reduced again - are we going to be able to stun lock a mob during the burn? Maybe that new situation is worth the cost of the old situation (stun during pulls). Add in the eye gouge on strikes and we now have all monks doing a nerfed stun + attack debuff, vs. most monks doing stun with no added debuff. Is the debuff + partial stun enough to offset overall mob DPS in a fight? Instead of getting spikes of high mob DPS (attacking mob) and low mob DPS (stunned mob), we now get consistently lower mob DPS (debuffed mobs). Are pre- and post-updates equal for mob DPS? I don't know, no one has parsed it. And it's too late to evaluate it as we don't have a server with the pre-update settings on it anymore. If the cumulative effect of this is higher DPS for us and lower mob DPS, it's a win. If it's higher DPS for us and equal mob DPS, it's still a win. If it's higher DPS for us and higher DPS for mobs, it could go either way - a win or a loss. There would need to be a balance to evaluate. How much would you give mobs in terms of DPS for you to get DPS?
Doh, my bad! haha I think it's pretty clear we just have different playstyles/priorities for what we like about the class. You literally said "DPS" 17 times in your last post , and I barely care at all that we had a small dps increase. So you know, to each his own. It is what it is at this point anyway, it's not like the devs are going to change it back.
Yes, I wanted you to paint pictures and tell stories. Otherwise I'd have no idea how this is impacting you. Ideally these stories would be convincing, but at the least they would be informative. I won't disagree that your first scenario is an opportunity where Stunning Kick could provide an advantage to avoid a disaster. However, one mob stunned for 3s is highly unlikely to save anyone regularly if they are in an imminent death situation. Single mobs tough enough to present that level of danger are likely to be stun immune. Groups of mobs will be minimally impacted by a single 3s stun. I will grant that from time to time, a well timed stun might buy another player the second or two they need to click Fade or Divine Aura. But this still falls under the marginally useful category. It's cool when it works, and fun to try, but unlikely to stop a wipe or even a single player death in a majority of cases. The second scenario is more realistic. When you run out of tricks you run out of tricks, and Stunning Kick was one more trick to work with. I'm still not sure how Stunning Kick is useful for pulling, whatever you hit with it is coming for you, albeit 3 seconds later. With short durations on Lull and AE Mez, any delay in the pulled mob leaving the range of potential adds is a risk. Still, if you had found some way that it was useful then I understand lamenting the loss of it. Thrillho mentioned some alternate options which I didn't know about so I'll be playing with those. Generally though I just have the group help out. Which means a Ranger backs me up, or the Warrior just says screw it and pulls everything I have at the time. Either way we do just fine.
Two mobs immune to mez / lull standing next to each other Stun one from a distance, the other runs towards you When the two are far enough away from each other, imitate death to drop aggro on the one which was stunned Stand, hit the close one, pull the single to your group Was a convenient method of pulling. The only time I can recall needing to do it in recent memory was in Crypt of Decay with those big guys with the scythes. This is going to be replaced with the new RoS AA that pushes a mob back with a 90% chance of it being blurred. Can't recall the name of it. A much more useful tool I would think, but I haven't had the opportunity to test it yet.
I run into that in Katta Castrum: Deluge from time to time. Some of the Shissar are mez immune and sometimes they are spawned next to each other. Generally when that happens I just revert to the old ways of pulling before we had lull/mez. It's slower and takes a few tries but they can still be split. The Stunning Kick method would certainly be easier though.
Thanks for adding to the discussion. Active or not, it was an example of when it occurs. Sure there are mobs in EoK that are immune to mez, but how often are they grouped together and not immune to stun? The giants come to mind, but they're not stunnable. Maybe the Lab HAs when they were almost all red cons, but it wasn't often that you would need to split them if you knew their mechanics. And more often than not I would just tank 2-3 of them to save myself a bit of time in the grind for coins. Researchers in the static Lab are immune to it as well, but the only time you get them in groups is in Atrebe's room. But again, you don't need to pull with stun kick. They're easily splittable, and once you have the room broken you don't need to worry about any of that stuff. This just reinforces my point earlier - this method of pulling is so rarely necessary, losing it is such a little hit compared to the gain we get elsewhere. These areas are still pullable / splittable, you just have to use a different method to do it.
I love your ignoring the snare being removed when talking about pulls as only the stun was something we used. I really have no desire to discuss this any further. Remember all that utility we got for being nerfed down to third tier melee damage? Yeah, they took all that away. But you go ahead and pretend it's no big deal. Monks aren't an essential class any way and most have rerolled zerks now. I'm one of three or four people on my entire server who actively play a monk day to day and my guild absolutely hates the fact I'm putting time in to a monk. I'll bet my account that you play a monk, maybe once a month or so. The rest of the time you're daily is a tank of some sort... Probably a SK.
If only you would hold yourself accountable to the "bet my account" comment. Alas those were just big talk words with no action behind them. In which case we will just have to see what excuses you give in a few posts (after Thrillho responds) as to why you still have the account...
Anyone that doesn't see how stun is useful for pulling clearly has never spent much time pulling. Whether you use it much or not isn't the point. It's a valuable tool and it would suck to lose.
it is quite apparent....Heather is just about this forums biggest troll...clearly not the most intelligent person in the world....CLEARLY not a good monk and totally a windbag because they will be losing their account based on their words of idiocy aimed at Thrillo, whom I m guilded with and raid with and plays a monk quite often. So what now Heather??? I almost feel sorry for you. Really...almost ... you think you are smarter and more informed then you are and therin lies a great tragedy for you. Your inane banter here and you thinking your smarter and better at your class then anyone else is becoming TIRESOME for all here on the forums and most see you for what you are.... someone grasping for straws from their basement crying for attention and asking the world to look at you because no one else does.
they are probaby hating the time your putting in to a monk because you are failing miserably at being one btw.
I didn't ignore snare being removed. It hasn't been discussed - most people are talking about stunning kick being removed. I don't know much about it to be honest. I can't recall the last time I actually used it, and I have no idea which page of which hotbar it might be on if I even made a hotkey for it in the first place. I think I would be on the complete opposite on this one if you're wanting to use this in pulls - I posted in beta forums a few expansions ago asking for a velocity increase AA for pulling mobs so we can pull faster. I don't think we're third tier melee damage at all. And even if we were, a change like this is adding DPS for us. Ohh are we betting pink slips? Should I put up a wager too, or were you just being rhetorical? Rhetorical, I think. In any case, a quick magelo search of my forum name would've given you a pretty good idea of which class my main is: https://eq.magelo.com/profile/3674318. Not entirely up to date - server and guild have since changed - but it should suffice. I don't know many people who would get an Artisan's Prize, max Tear, and full set of EoK type 5s for an alt. I'm sure some people would, and I would probably give them the benefit of the doubt on their knowledge towards their class.
Did the snare we had before the changes work the same way as Stunning Kick? Was it ranged and able to be activated by a key press? Did it have a decent duration, like a minute or more? If so then I could see that as a big loss. The main importance of snare to a class that can FD is that snared mobs stop when you feign, they don't path at all. I've pulled for years with an SK and that was the main advantage I had over a Monk puller.
