A question to my fellow monks.

Discussion in 'Monk' started by ARCHIVED-Gaige, Mar 3, 2005.

  1. ARCHIVED-Craaq Guest

    It seems like it is balanced for everything but raid mobs from what I'm reading. So for about 85% (a guess) of the 350,000 people that haven't even seen a raid mob its working ok; and for 80%? (levels 1-40) of the game content its working ok.
    Obviously players have leveled a bit faster than what SOE was ready for and this issue (end game content, raid mobs, raid roles, etc) is another thing they have to stack on their already over full plates.
  2. ARCHIVED-SageMarrow Guest

    i said that already gage-answer this question- no alternate info - just answer these questions.

    how do they do that and dont make us on par with guardians?

    how do they do that without another mitigation increase which would negate the use for medium armor all together other than fluff?

    how do they change raid mobs without nerfing them for everyone even the gaurdians if statistics effect the classes the same?(agility strength).

    what place do you have in a grp with sub par tanking in comparison to ANY Plate wearing class and not enough dps to compete with the classes that are already in game such as scouts and wizard types?

    answer these questions gage - you cant have a stand without a proposed solution which stand as the rules of debate - if its just as simple as - "i would like to see it this way" then say that so that we can filter out your opinion as viable.:smileytongue:

    and yes craaq - we have in fact been just fine 1-40 - some find thier place as MT - some find their place as DPS - its very diverse - but the problem is = we are neither nor - the better or the best at either which puts us not only behind guard/bez/sk/pal/ but after all that is said and done - also swash/brig/assasin/ranger/wiz/warlock. for spots in grps. (of course this is speaking for the time when scouts get their damage increase btw)
    Message Edited by SageMarrow on 03-08-2005 04:11 PM
  3. ARCHIVED-Gaige Guest

    From 1 to 50 any fighter can tank.
    This is balanced.
    It doesn't make us all on par with guardians, nor does it make guardians useless.
    Raids need to be the same way.
    They've done it for most of the game, the remainder can't be too hard.
  4. ARCHIVED-ArivenGemini Guest


    to address a few points Sage...

    -I- certainly dont see that monk=hybrid, even looking at the skill base... nor do I see the conjurer or SK as hybrid.

    Feign Death is a wonderful tool that I use with my monk... it has saved my hide and prevented party wipes that would result if I had died. There have been a few times I would love to have that ability with my berserker.

    I have used invisibility to get to places I needed to when I am going to pull or to escort a group member... its a nice ability.. but not the sole province of the scout (and monks) ... since mages get it too.. AND can apply it to others.. does that mean that mages are all really rogues?

    My taunts with monk seem to work just as well as my taunts with my berserker or my cursader... Yes, my serk gets better agro control than my monk or cursader do.. but thats from the buffs that come with the class (berserk is a buff, and counts towards hate).. but I have no problems managing agro with my monk.. in fact I can manage the exact same encounters with my monk as I can with my berserker... I just have to know what I am doing..

    And if you dont believe that a mez isn't a help to a main tank, then I have to seriously question if you know what the role of MT is at all?

    We are ALL about controlling the creatures in the encounter while everyone else removes them.... anything extra is just that.. extra.. and a mez is a wonderful tool to control a mob in an encounter.. I know for one I would love to have FEWER things beating down upon me at one time ... saving my health and my healers power... if that control of the creatures of the encounter is from super hate generation al la serker, or mez or fear or anything... it STILL COUNTS as part of a VALID skill set...

    As a tank I could care less what damage i do.. and in fact am perfectly willing (in a group) to accept ZERO damage... as long as it lets me do my job.. and that job as defined by SOE is to TANK..

    I do it well.. and I do it with three different classes of tank so I hope I know what I am doing... certainly my guildmates think so... because many a night has passed with them going with no tank rather than pick up a random LFG one when I am not available.. and there is also the times when the guardian in our group.. who is of higher level than me.. has opted for me to tank due to him beliving I can control the mobs better.... so yeah.. my monk is a tank.. and I want her to STAY a tank... not get relegated to "oh we cant find any one else to help beat on these guys, I guess we have to settle for the monk..."
  5. ARCHIVED-SageMarrow Guest

    yet again - we arent referring to your guild affairs - there are more players in useless guilds that never play together - and even more players not guilded at all- that does not matter - because if you guardian friend kept on top of the BEST armor and equipment for his level - then you would see a BIG difference post 40. you holding aggro better than a guardian is not a reality in the least if he keeps his skills upgraded and his armor correct- their weapons dont matter at all except for extra stats while tanking.

    as for fear and intimidate- those abilities are nice - but jeer locks more encounters than it will ever save since mobs run into the ceiling and everywhere else they can find-

    intimidate is cool - but it last 6 seconds tops at adept anything - which is enough time to do very little other than mez it so that another MT can get it - but when a roaming mob aggros from the back end on the healer - and everyone is assisting you - turning to do anything other than taunt takes too long -

    only tanking monks have a problem with the obvious logic provided- no one says you cant or that you dont - only that you dont as well as whats ALWAYS available in other classes = both in dps - and in tanking at ANY level
    Message Edited by SageMarrow on 03-08-2005 04:52 PM
    Message Edited by SageMarrow on 03-08-2005 04:54 PM
  6. ARCHIVED-FamilyManFirst Guest

    My answers:

    We should be on par with Guardians IMHO. As should Paladins. Bruisers, Berserkers and Shadow Knights should all be on par with each other, too, said par being only a tad below that of Guardians, Monks, and Paladins. That's what SOE has tried to do and continues to strive for. Get used to it.

    Oh, come on, now you're being dense. They could do it with a boost in Deflection. They could alter Deflection to cover more than 120 degrees. They could do it with a boost on one or more of the Monk's defensive Combat Arts. They could give Monks an inherent boost in Defense. There are many ways. The Mitigation change was done: 1) to reduce the spikes of damage that Brawlers, Monks, and Bruisers saw and 2) (IMO) because they had to somehow fix the goof they made with the Agi nerf but didn't want to eat humble pie.

    By creating new abilities just for raid mobs. Who knows? they may even find that those new abilities work well on regular mobs too. Also, by creating new raid mobs with new abilities best faced by alternate tank classes (Crusader-types, Brawler-types). By tweaking individual abilities and spells of raid mobs.

    You are the one who claims that Monks are, by design, sub-par tanks. I disagree. I think that the Monk design is an excellent Tank, their defenses just need a little tweak upward. I refer you to the posts, pre-Agi-nerf, with story after story where a Monk said, "I'll tank," their group-mates said, "Monks don't tank," and the Monk in question said, "Watch," and proceeded to stun his group-mates with his tanking ability. Little has changed since then save a Monk's defenses. The Mitigation change may have given it back, or it may not quite have; reports are inconclusive.

    As far as "best at nothing" goes, a Monk should be able to compete with a Guardian as Best Tank and occasionally win. Sometimes the Guardian should win. Given SOE's design goals it should matter little what class was picked but rather how well and skillfully the player plays his/her class that determines who wins that contest.
  7. ARCHIVED-SageMarrow Guest

    alot of different methods sound good on the spell level familymanfirst -

    but even if they put a spell in persay that was a corrosive acid spell that stripped the usefullness of the armor of a guardian - it wouldnt matter - its not about the defence on that level of AC - its about the guardians core defensive base that his mitigation and ability to block etc comes from-

    a guardian has already illustrated that he can tank just as well without the armor for the most part (look up a guardian named Noah). its about the defence that can be achieved by a fully buffed gaurdian in a raid situation - not to mention his HP-

    this is what makes the goals you suggest unattainable- please believe this isnt a debat to me anymore - but i want to find a solution and i cant - so dont make this between me and you = its about all of us -

    its more complicated than it looks- so no im not dense - and yes i have explored the options - to achieve what you want with our class - we will need to be a special project by the devs. which can also be disastrous cause the other classes may feel as though they arent receiving the same attention. so there is NO simple solution- only ways to work around what is given - read my post in the tankin forum - may actually be a way to please everyone at once....
    Message Edited by SageMarrow on 03-08-2005 07:34 PM
  8. ARCHIVED-Yama Seishin Guest

    I even said THEY MIGHT NOT CHANGE OUR DPS AT ALL, AND RAISE SCOUTS.
    Regardless, when that happens scouts = more wanted for DPS slots.
    We need to concentrate on getting our tanking ability balanced.

    [/QUOTE]


    Gage, I know that you have said this too. I did not mean to imply in my post that you were suggesting otherwise. Even though the original post did seem to ask precisely about that scenario, hence my reply.

    I agree that when scouts are made more competitive, monks will be left out in the corner somewhat. Guardians can tank best, pallys have wide utility added to their tanking, same goes for SKs and Berserkers. Since Monks can't compete in group utility, what is left? Combat.

    So making them more able to tank needs to be a priority if this class is "equal" to other fighter classes, no doubt. I hope that they improve it accross the board, because it is not just raid content that challenges the monkies, but even every-day fighting too. Deflection needs some improvements to make up for the lack of mitigation, lack of substantial HP, lack of 360 dmg "soaking" and lack of shield choice.

    On the other hand, since "fixing" all of these things would get us very close to what a guardian is, minus their wild taunts, I would emphasize monk/brawler ability to adapt. We can do both dps and tanking, but when we do one we cannot do the other. This should be accomplished with stances and buffs, to a greater range than what we have available today.

    Peace
  9. ARCHIVED-Birdrunner Guest

    Nope. I'm a Monk, not a Guardian, and I'd like to stay that way.
  10. ARCHIVED-Amanojakae Guest

    As Ganstafist raised many times, one way to make monks an attractive tank is to give mobs the abilty to hit through plate's mitigation. Now this won't solve the problem because groups will only select monks to tank those specific mobs. However further to this idea this is what I think can help

    Lets make mitigation on a slider scale compared with the size of the mob. The larger the mob (i.e. above man size) the lower the value of plate's mitigation. This is a penalty for wearing heavy armour and a bonus for light armour users because they can dodge the blows.
    The above can also be explained in real life logic. A guardian will not mitigate much damage if he was crushed by a ton of bricks, whereas a nimble monk can step away from the blow.
    So what we will have is a viable monk tank depending of the situation and the type of mobs you are facing against. We will see more monk tanks in TS tanking giants. But guardians can still tank much better than us against cents and undeads.
    This will also solve another problem currently being raised, the ease of a single group killing epic mobs.
    Say for example Coldtooth. Who would you now want to tank with? A guardian with a penalty mitigation being frequently hit for 1000+ damage? or a monk with high dodge and liable to be killed with 2 blows in quick session? In both cases it would seem we need more healers as back-up, thus taking more group spots from DPS class. This will ultimately mean a 6 man group is just not enough, and 2 groups can only provide the nessecary man power required.
    Of cause this will be a nerf to plate wearers but thats a whole other issue, but we now have a very viable monk tank.
  11. ARCHIVED-SageMarrow Guest

    great post bro .... im not cutting down ideas here..just tweaking them into perfection.

    just about all the raid mobs in game are HUGE! .. IE _ DRAGONS ..

    some are average sized - but no way to make it an open difference - where as that would make sense in a strategic combat environment which currently doenst exist.

    maybe an instanced zone with a named giant whos attacks actually need to be avoided. ive always said they should give us some sort of athletics skill so that we move faster in and out of battle- cause monks on a horse to me - just aint right - kind of like a swimming skill that increases in speed as we travel by land but make it useful in battle- which would give us some utility in training mobs to a safer spot - or saving the grp by running them off if we over pull

    heyy = just a thought
  12. ARCHIVED-ArivenGemini Guest


    On this I beg to differ... he -may- be able to keep ahead of my monk in agro control... but I seriously doubt that he could keep ahead of my berserker :) which is what i use half the time when tanking.. and I think that I could keep pace with him with my monk... I am looking at all this from as many angles as I can. I have a monk, a berserker, a cursader, a druid a inquisitor a sorcerer and a swashbuckler.. I am trying to look at as many aspects of the whole process in group as I can... to know my strengths and to use them to alleviate the weaknesses of the other classes in group with me...

    Out of all that I have a monk for the tanking aspect of it.. because that is what a monk is... and I want as many strengths IN the class FOR tanking as I can get. Simply so that I can do my job to the best of my ability, if I dont do the best then it is my fault and I will correct that flaw... if the flaw is in the implementation of the class then it behooves SOE to fix that and let us tank.. give us the tools we need to do as well as any other in the archetype and I will be happy.
  13. ARCHIVED-SageMarrow Guest

    dude - no disrespect- but read the other nine pages of post -

    lol its too late at night for you to re- itterate whats been said 100000000 times-

    we understand that you are and try to be as skillful as possible=

    for christ sakes- this game aint that complicated - if you are at least 18yrs old - the game should be a cake walk beyond comparison to anything else - it takes being awake and half- **** using what tools are given to you. with a well balanced grp- fights dont become a challenge till you see 45^^^ (epicx3) -- thats when fights turn around and become a mixture of skill/balance and survival of the fittest-

    everything else experience related is a cake walk- on the skill level - it involves at best - paying attention and switching mobs long enough for whatever purpose - when skill is implemented - then i will give skill credit -

    thats coming from a madden challenge Finalist 2 yrs in a row now - Tekken Tag Tournament regional champ in texas... Devil may cry fan- dynasty warrior fan- lol- games that take real skill- even several first person shooters= im a gamer-

    these games take skill and practice- point and click whats given to you aint hard - its not about your skill - its about your classes skill, and your competence with that skill - not overtly one or the other, if a tank has a bad pull out of 40 - hes not a bad tank- he just made a mistake - if a mob gets out of control because a caster was buffing during a pull - doesnt make him a bad tank - it means the caster needs to NOT cast during a pull.

    not too complicated if i must say... no disrespect to those of you who take great pride in your gameplay skills - but in its current state = eq2 is nothing more than a past time of loot farming and tradeskilling - the most fun is when you get a good grp and do a dungeon crawl that you havent done before and you dont know what to expect.

    im sleepy - work with me.
  14. ARCHIVED-ArivenGemini Guest


    I dont think you get it... some of us are posting.. and yes late at night, to be sure that we are heard on the issue. They do read the message boards, they do pay attention, I want them to be sure that they know where I stand on the issue. The fact that this has gone on so long means that there are quite a few people with opinions in this matter and you not wanting an opposing one heard doesnt negate the fact that it exists.
  15. ARCHIVED-Tully14 Guest

    Ariven

    Just give up man, this guy thinks that 80% of monks want to just be dps.
  16. ARCHIVED-SageMarrow Guest

    no i dont THINK that.

    we took several polls here - in this forum and others and there a consistant trend

    1.) they like being able to roll 2nd tank in grp and do dps just for sheer grpability

    2.) they also understand the skills and abiliities given to them and see the direction they could most easily go without a complete class overhaul in the direction of tanking ability at a more efficiently level.

    3.) most monk players are not fond of playing MT in grps - they can and they do - but they know with a plate tank in grp - they take the back seat. would rather the flexibility.

    4.) they would rather not spend another 6 months convinvcing ALL the other classes that we can tank and tank well, when they are happy with the ability to fill either spot currently.

    so when i said that - i didnt mean any harm - and we respect your opinion greatly, but thats what polls are for right? to see how the community feels- which we have done and which we have achieved here. nothing more nothing less. guild affairs and static groups and RL friend grps are not a factor in this discussion because most - dont know ANYONE IN RL that plays. most are NOT in guilds. So they have faith in your ability because they have faith in YOUR ability - the same doesnt go for 2 perfect strangers in the wilderness= one with plate mail - one with light armor and sticks which is where most of us find ourselves.

    pre - conceived notions dont matter among monks- because yes we are tanks - but they do matter among the other 350000 players who think that we arent - and know that in the right gear and armor they can do it more efficiently. (not better- efficiently)

    out of all - number 2 is the one that matters. in order to put us on an equal playing feild with the other 4 plate tanks = it would take a complete turnaround of our skills - more taunts - less combat arts - more mitigation - and a complex system that gave us 360 degree deflection. which is considered A CLASS OVERHAUL IMO. right or wrong? grp buffs arent meant to be aggro holding techniques- we do it because we HAVE to - in order to control aggro - but i can assure you- a grp buffs intended use - was for buffing the grp.

    i understand using whats available to do your job - but why would i higher a gnome to mine gold with an wood chopping axe when the guy behind him is an ogre with a mining pick? its not a good question is it?
    Message Edited by SageMarrow on 03-09-2005 10:57 AM
    Message Edited by SageMarrow on 03-09-2005 11:01 AM
  17. ARCHIVED-Gaige Guest

    Sage, with our skills currently as is, any monk out there can tank for any xp group from lvls 1 to 50. Period.
    Message Edited by Gage-Mikel on 03-09-2005 11:11 AM
  18. ARCHIVED-SageMarrow Guest

    :smileyvery-happy: im not getting suckered into this gage because you miss the point. because just as many get to 1-50 tanking as those who get through 1-50 dps ing =

    thats all im saying =

    and no we dont tank as well as plate tanks in our best gear in comparison to thier best gear of the equal or same level. comment on skill as you may - but i assure you the skill in this game can be cut with a knife.

    this my friend is SKILL ---:smileyvery-happy:

    http://www.collegehumor.com/?movie_id=121507
  19. ARCHIVED-Gaige Guest

    Yes, currently you can offtank/DPS to 50. I doubt that will be the case when scouts are superior, but we'll see.

    I was simply stating that you said our skillset does not promote adequate tanking, and it does.
  20. ARCHIVED-FamilyManFirst Guest

    Wrong. You are convinced that the skills given to Monks are completely inadequete to tanking. Most of the Monks here don't agree. Many, perhaps even a majority, prefer to do DPS, but they don't contest that the Monk can, and does, tank reasonably well. There are issues, which we've gone over and over in this thread, but the Monk is designed to tank and has the skills to do so.

    For pete's sake, Monks have two Taunt lines, a single and an AOE. Monks have buffs and a decent DPS to augment aggro. That's why the DPS Combat Arts are there. Monks have defensive abilities to reduce DToT (Damage Taken over Time). What about these skillsets needs to be "overhauled?"

    I contend that Monks' defensive abilities need to be tweaked up but not overhauled. Also, given the data from the tests I've done (to prove that Deflection is not 360 degrees) it looks to me like the Defense skill needs to be smoothed out, so that there's not such a sudden drop in mob hit rate once a Fighter's Defense gets to a certain point relative to the mob's level.

    If you want to continue to assert that Monks' abilities would need a complete overhaul to allow "efficient" tanking then I call on you to be specific. Explain what Combat Arts and/or other skills and/or gear that Guardians have, by name, that Monks can't compete with. I will, of course, try to rebut your arguments, but unless you get specific all we're going to end up with is a back and forth of, "no, they're not!" "yes, they are!" which will get us nowhere.