I have tried to start a Monk Changes Thread several times… just to rewrite them. I want to help refine the Monk class to push the class to where I think it should be for the betterment of EQ2 as a whole. Xelgad posted in the ToV Beta a desire to move away from the need for tanking 100% avoid/Death Saving/ Stone Skinning through Named fights. When named stop needing the ability to do this then I will give advice to change the Monk Class to not have the ability for this… but till then I cannot recommend the reduction in any of the abilities that go into letting Monks string the Temps for Survival. With the changes to Taunts and Threat, Monks are fine on threat for holding linked encounters, and we are decent on non-linked encounters. The major problems that I see with the Monk Class as it is atm are. 1. Meditative Mending 2. Unrivaled Focus 3. Brawler Tree Eagle Shriek and Eagle Patience (Int Line) 4. Winds of Restoration (Winds of Retribution Proc) 5. Right Side Prestige Tree 1st - Meditative Mending - Currently it heals for 15% of Max health when the monk takes a hit of 40% or more of their max health, can only proc every 15 secs. I think by changing the proc % to 50% - 60% or more of Max HP and the limiter to every 2-3 sec at most. this would make it so it could not trigger on hits from Adds or trash, but only from named, and only from the larger hits from that named. Also by changing the proc threshold to a larger % it will proc less often as desired. 2nd - Unrivaled Focus - Currently this is 30% DR for 1.5 sec with a limit of every 10 secs. this is a lot of DR for a very short time and it can be wasted on any damage taken not just the larger hits that we need it for. So if it was limited to proc on hits of 30% or more of Max HP then it would help when we need it more. remember this is not an ability to help either brawler with trash, but with hard hitting auto attacks that randomly one shot us. 3rd - Brawler Tree Eagle Shriek and Eagle Patience - (Int line end lines) they are useless in all play now we have mercs at low levels and Heroic chars. it should be a Passive Defensive tool, not much, but something. there have been suggestions over the last several years to make this useful and not OP... at this point just about anything would be better then what we have here. I just want more Options. 4th - Winds of Restoration (Winds of Retribution Proc) - this ability Heals 75% of the Damage Received from the Next Attack. This is a good proc from a defensive Prestige ability… but it will heal the next attack no matter what the % of Damage. If this ability also was given a % of Max Health like some of the others then it would help us survive Passively. I am thinking like a 30% threshold would work. If it was made to be +50% or more then it was be more powerful and more raid/HM Focused. Even if it was only given a threshold of 10% then it will not go off useless attacks. This would be a good change to make this Prestige line more worth taking over just Bob and Weave. 5th - Right Side Prestige Tree. this is getting into more gray area.... I have always seen monks as more ST focused than Bruisers and most other tanks even. Thus having the main DPS boost in this tree being Dragonfire and giving us a reset for Dragonfire also seems ... out of character. On top of this the Waveform, and Fluid Combination do not do enough DPS to warrant an all Right Side DPS spec.... Double Conversion is more dps. So i would recommend making the First dps ability to boost "Combination", increase the abilities that modify Waveform, and also change Fluid Combination to a passive dps/tanking ability (no ideas yet for this). all classes have some defense on there dps side. Some of these changes would affect Bruisers also and i do know that bruisers have abilities in the same places as the ones i am suggesting to change for the monk... and the bruiser one needs changes also, just not going to go there myself since i do not play one.
I'll have to put one together for the Bruiser but the monk population is about triple the bruiser population lol. I will however comment on one of the AA's you mentioned that affect us here. Eagle Shriek / Eagle Patience - This is my idea for this endline and would give us viable options in the Brawler AA Tree. Eagle Shriek When caster falls bellow 50% Health, this will cast Eagle Shriek on caster. ( Last for 10 seconds / can only trigger once every 90 seconds. ) Increases Mitgiation of Caster by 2800 " or whatever it is ' Increases Base Auto Attack Multiplier by 0.225 Eagle Patience When Caster falls below 25% Health, this will cast Eagles Patience of caster. Last for 10 Seconds / can only trigger once every 90 seconds ) Eagle Shriek must be active for this ability to work. Heals Caster for 25% of Max Health @ rank 1 and 50% @ rank 2 Will stone skin the next incoming attack over 25% Max HP / will absord a total of 1 attack @ rank 1 and 2 attacks @ rank 2 Applies a short duration Damage Reduction while active. 2.5% @ rank 1 and 5% @ rank 2 This would make the INT line an awesome tank utility for End Game raiding and isnt 100% needed for Group instances or Soloing. It would allow diversity in the Brawler AA Tree. You could take Crane Flock for AE Auto / Mantis Leap for that smexy lock down / or Eagle Shriek for an awesome ability. Is it a bit over powering, not in the least. You can even up the cooldown on it slightly but I think a minute and half "non modifiable" would be sufficient.
I do agree that Monks are and have seemed to be more common then Bruisers, but the numbers of Main raiding Monks have reduced massively since the release of ToV. that is not a bad idea for Eagle Shriek and Patience. if Eagle Shriek was just passive and Eagle Patience was a clickable Stone Skin... i am not sure that would work to well, since we would then have to watch and see if Shriek was up atm in order to use the Stine Skin that we need now. But i do not have a better idea off the top of m head atm.
No, both of them would be passive.. I guess.. it could be worded as this : Eagle Patience Eagles Patience will add an aditional effect to Eagles Shriek When Caster falls below 25% Health, this will cast Eagles Patience of caster. Last for 10 Seconds / can only trigger once every 90 seconds ) Eagle Shriek must be active for this ability to work. Heals Caster for 25% of Max Health @ rank 1 and 50% @ rank 2 Will stone skin the next incoming attack over 25% Max HP / will absord a total of 1 attack @ rank 1 and 2 attacks @ rank 2 Applies a short duration Damage Reduction while active. 2.5% @ rank 1 and 5% @ rank 2 There for you arnt having to watch the buff and make sure you click and it would be more passive.
I hate to be a kill joy here, but to be honest, I don't find that not having eagle shriek is a detriment to me. By no means am i saying Eagle shriek is a good AA.. its not , its absolutely horrible. I guess what I'm trying to say, is i feel i raid tank just fine without it. When i raid tank, yes i have to cycle my temps (tsunami, bob and weave, etc etc).. and YES there is about a 20-30 second gap in there that i have to rely on other people to keep me up. BUT... if they added something to the Eagle Shriek line, and gave me even MORE temps.... honestly... as much as i hate to say it, i think that would OP the monk... I can already cycle my current temps well enough to raid tank. I think if i get MORE then my tanking ability will be super dumbed down and will be relatively risk free. Sorry to come rain on your parade lol. As much getting more stuff is great... i honestly dont think they need to change it because we cant tank. IF they change it they should change it because its a completely useless ability as is.
I agree with you for the most part. I am not saying that the Monk Class is useless and can not tank.... I know we can tank. I am trying to dive ideas for changes to not make monks OP and reduce our chances of getting one shotten randomly. the temps we have are fine and i would like to see a day that the no tank needs to just sucal temps to ignore the named attacks... and then the monk class should have several of the 100% temps changes... but till that day comes we need to have our passive survivability improved.
I will have to agree with you there as well. Im raid geared decently, and heroics i almost never use my temps, so my passive survivability there isn't an issue... BUT yes, in raid content, my "passive" survivability i can say leaves something to be desired. So i will agree with you there.
Most of my suggestions in the 1st post here are to this ends Edit: also if you did not over gear the Heroic zones it would also probably have passive survivability problems there also.
The only time I really seem to have issues with a one shot has been if the raid mob isnt properly debuffed so hitting like a truck, a cure or curse cure not done in a timely fashion, a fail mechanic which raid wipe anyway or I not paying attention and dont have something up when I have no mit buffs/DRs running. Overall I think Monks are in pretty decent shape and really havent had issues tanking anything to this point. Im sure the latter half of ToV will prove a little more challenging though, but still looking very forward to it. I do like the unrivaled focus suggestion though, would prefer that trigger on a big hit and give the DR for it vs. randomly procing.
Afaik, the main reason for the hp increase this expansion was to make tank health bars more tug of war instead of playing like Gen'Ra, when in fact nearly every single mob in the back half of wing 2 is Gen'Ra 2.0. If you get hit by an auto attack, you're likely dead. The name of the game becomes avoiding/stoneskinning every. single. attack. until you massively outgear the zone, then you only get one shot about 75% of the time. I have not yet tanked Klandicar (for more than a tsunami)/Zlandicar because I am usually on my Fury or running around slaying adds with my mad monk deeps, but I can usually rotate my saves so that I never have a gap. The only time I ever come up on a gap is if I die 3 times with tenacity up, which between stoneskin procs and having 85% effective avoidance even without temps up is unlikely on any mob. Even if I do somehow die 3 times that fast healers can pop saves to carry me to victory. Re: First post 1. Would be OP. And also wouldn't matter half the time end game. 2. It was intended to prevent multi attack spike, and still serves that purpose. Now if only they'd fix multi attacks going through stoneskins...it was pretty sweet getting hit then multi attacked twice and going through 1 stoneskin trigger and 2 death save triggers while still having stoneskin triggers left, and a supposed second of 100% damage immunity....... 3. All of the % health endlines have been useless since 4 rune theer became irrelevant. 4. The entire proc mechanic on everything in this ability is silly. Would rather have what bruisers have, by a long shot. 5. My parse is always Crush, Dragonfire, Waveform, Combination when I'm actually dpsing. (and sometimes VC is up there too) I can't speak for Fluid Combo because I don't hit it as much as I should but it's at least comparable to our lower end CAs (and should probably do a *little* more damage). I don't think the second conversion is as much dps as Waveform if you're behind/flanking. Maybe if you're in front.
@ Buffrat 1st - Meditative Mending - let me clarify my original idea. I was thinking of leaving the % Heal at 15% and changing the Threshold to trigger to 50 or 60% of max health. by increasing the Threshold you are reducing the chance to proc, also my reducing the down time between procs the heal will be back up for the hits that we really need it for. I do know that it would not have an effect on the hits that would do 100%+ of our health, but on everything else it would help some. I do not think it would be over powering at all. 2nd - Unrivaled Focus - if they did fix the problems you mentioned i guess it would feel that was working more... but i guess if the just put a % Threshold on it then it would not be used on hits from the trash mobs just the named. 3rd - Brawler Tree Eagle Shriek and Eagle Patience - i do not care about this ver much... it would just be nice to have something here that is an option for Solo, Group, OR Raid... 4th - Winds of Restoration (Winds of Retribution Proc) - I have seen the Heal Proc on this heal for a lot, but a lot of the triggers get wasted on hits that do not matter. the Max Health is ok... but its only 30% when i have over +150% its not going save the tank... And the ward only procs for like 70k and is not doing much.... I do agree with on this point, but making have a Threshold then it would heal the larger hits and ma have some more effect. 5th - Right Side Prestige Tree - My DPS in Double Conversion is fine in my opinion. I guess i should give the Full Right Side Prestige more of a chance. Edit: @ Stike non of these changes are about tanking the mobs that need 100% Immunities, but its more of just a quality of life so hopeful we do not need the Immunities as much on all mobs. So we can use the Saves for the times we need them.
Meditative Mending hardly ever procs as it is. Even in zones like Dominion I only parsed it proc'ing like 8-15 times in the entire zone. Raising the threshold even further would make it (even more) useless. If the threshold were lowered, it may become a more competitive option, but with any rebalance short of a straight upgrade, I don't see this ability making the cut anytime soon. Unrivaled Focus exists specifically to reduce the impact of multi-attack and flurry on us streaky avoidance tanks. It was very important back when avoidance actually mattered, and not every tank had mitigation so high into the diminishing returns curve that the differences between plate and leather -wearing fighters were academic. Now we're not significantly more vulnerable to these sorts of procs than any other tank, so it was reduced in effectiveness to compensate. However, since all flurries and multiattacks happen within 1.5 seconds of the triggering attack anyways, it still does its job perfectly well. Adding a minimum damage threshold would sort of defeat the purpose, since it's about reducing the damage of lots of smaller hits. The Brawler Intelligence line has been worthless for years now. It would be nice to have a viable defensive option in the Brawler tree, but that tree is already awesome, and we don't really need any extra tanking help at the moment. It's a good design space to save for when future balance concerns arise that require some sort of class mechanics upgrade. Winds of Restoration has always parsed very nicely for me, so not sure what the problem is, here. It's usually Prevention that seems underwhelming in ACT, when I look at it. However, left-side prestige is awesome overall and needs no modification, so the point is fairly moot. Right side prestige is pretty unremarkable compared to double-conversion, I agree. However, I really can't imagine giving up the left-side prestige abilities unless I am filling a pure-DPS role, which is something I never do, anyways. If I want to DPS, I play a DPS class. I pretty much stick with double conversion 90% of the time, except when tanking raids or Dom. The DPS gains from right-side spec would have to be really extreme to change that, and that isn't a direction I really want to see the class take. For the most part, while pushing to improve our AAs is obviously a noble goal, Monks are in a pretty good place right now, and we don't exactly need any help. Brawlers are very skill-dependent, so it's easy for small changes to greatly impact our actual, and perceived, performance. Personally, I don't want to see us back in the "flavor of the month OP class" category--drawing the lazy players out of the woodwork and making the rest of us look bad. Let's save these ideas for the rainy day that, knowing SOE, will assuredly arrive in the future.
1.Meditative Mending Heal for 2% when you dodge, parry, riposte an attack. 2.Unrivaled FocusIncreases the Ward amount received from all sources by 20%. Ward yourself for a small amount when you dodge, parry, riposte an attack. 3.Brawler Tree Eagle Shriek and Eagle Patience (Int Line) Its fine, much better then what warriors have atm in their strength line. 4.Winds of Restoration (Winds of Retribution Proc) Should ward the group, not just the Monk. All wards are terrible this expansion due to how they scale and how health increased, so I think a global ward buff is needed to be honest. 5.Right Side Prestige Tree Its fine, its about the same as what other classes have.
Cheesemen you have a point with Meditative Mending not procing even on challenging content as it is. I guess with a threshold of 40% when we can get over 2 mill HP ... the hits are ether going to be over our HP or not to worry about.... (Its a content problem then) My main desire for this is to remove the un-needed Proc Limiter on it. it could be a useful defensive tool if it is let to proc when it needs to. Talathion i do not think that your Meditative Mending idea would work. it would not do anything for us on hard hitting single mobs and help us to much on a Swarm of mobs. this is not where Monks need to be focused. Cheesemen I understand and agree with you assessment on Unrivaled Focus, but i think it would still be better if it have a threshold of at least 10%. in this way it would be there for hits that would actually need to be reduced. Talathion the design of Unrivaled Focus is fine and does not need to be changed just tweaked. Cheesemen Int Line, i understand and can agree. Talathion Int Line, then your equivalent line needs work also, this line real is useless. Cheesemen Winds of Restoration, i can agree but with just a little addition of some threshold minimums then it could be a actually Defensive Tree, not just Well we need it for Bob and Weave. Cheesemen I can agree with the right side and the rest. I am not trying to get us OP or Flavor of the month again... just trying to make sure we do not fall further behind. I also just wanted to bring up the AA that i felt needing talked about for the futcher changes list when needed.
AA traits are not made to be made for one type of content. Most fighter self healing abilities are mostly for solo and swarm content. In fact almost all of them are, you have to realize that all monks are not raiders, most are soloers or groupers, or roleplayers. Also AAs have to be made for all levels of play, not just raiding.
I understand what you mean, but Monks are designed to be MT tanks, not OT tanks. Monks are fine in the Soloing compartment, and should Not be made better OT's. Since OT's need to be better at dealing with/healing/mitigating a lot of softer hitting adds. Also Monks seem to be just OK with grouping, since we are more gear dependent then Plate tanks. But i do not think your Meditative Mending idea would really address this. (Maybe it would) Monks' Strengths and weaknesses are not in question here. I am trying to highlight here a list of AA that need attention with the next round of Class Changes, since it happens every year or so. with the last round of Class Changes monks were nerfed and i do not think the deserved it... and other tanks got buffs that they probably needed... So i created a list of things I think needed changing. they may not need changed now, but i think this is a good point to start when Monks Need more loving in the future.
