Are Monks as avoidance oriented as implied by the dev's?

Good post.

I'm very interested in seeing just how these next patches try to address these issues.


I see alot more people openly talking about what we discuss here on the forums in chat channels. So the cat is out of the bag for sure.

okay, while all of that may be true...I may not like some things, but one thing i love is understanding people, and how they work.
I dont always speak from my POV... There is a thing called real life. When people sign up to play these games, they sign up to play within a totally online persona. Alot of players are not concerened with what another class has. Alot of players just log on and play, no forum shout outs, not EQ2 players.com. Those things are in place for hardcore gamers who play often enough to even deal with things such as guild websites and screenshots of their personal characters. These are not characteristics of a casual gamer.
From that same perspective of a **markerting** perspective, people need to understand that the way the classes are being built, its with good intentions and principle in mind. I agree in all totality with Radric's post. He is absolutely right in his descripstion of the system.
BUT
but that is not going to be how this game is viewed from 3rd party players, and those that want to come here and try this game out. Which is why I always refer to it as marketing suicide. If they announced that they were going to have 24 classes, that werent quite 24 classes but more like 6 subtypes of the same thing split 4 ways. First you wouldve asked yourself, huh? whats that mean? Then after someone explained it to you, you wouldve been like? Aww man, thats stupid, then why didnt they just make 4 classes and be done...
This is from 3rd party, its the same thing that anyone wouldve said with no prior knowledge of this game. You wouldnt be interested because is just sounds like another trap to get players, just like the mentoring system does...
This is the point that im consistently trying to make. Competition drives players, Fun drives players, detatchment from reality, drives players. Its the same reason why we go see movies, why we watch sitcoms, why we get drunk on weekends. This is all in an attempt to detatch from the world around you - at least for an hour - at least for a few minutes - at least for a weekend.
While it may be a noble attempt, and sorry for the psychology and marketing lession, but the class system and the pretty graphics will NOT draw in players. They are too generic ideas that do not equate to fun, competition, or diversity.
These things are required to make sales, these things are required to establish a sense of accomplishment.
Thats what i have been trying to say . Thats great if you love it for the reasons i hate it, SOE just needs to understand that they are seriously hindering their gaming potential by trying to create heaven.
in a moment, think to yourself, would you like to go to heaven if all you did all day was pray and go to church?? Some religious minded people would say yes, but without the opposite being hell, the rest of mankind would probably pick somn else if it was a choice...
Thats the same position that NEW players and others will be put in while playing this game. (think about it for a second)
people dont want to go into a world of fairness and likeability, people strive off thier differences from others. Its what pushes life through the hoops. If the only reason you signed up to play a game OR ANY game for that matter is to whine and bicker about what another class has or doesnt have, then this is the game for them... (trust me there is serious imbalance between the players that care and the players that dont.)

Um, okay.
I like the archetype system. I think six subclasses performing a single role albeit with different flavor and style is cool.

Gage it is nice. And I agree with you. But I also feel that classes are not balanced. Some are just flat better and more fun to play as it stands and SoE needs to fix this.

Radric! Here m8, have 5 of these * * * * *

Excellent post, well written and basically encompassing what every Monk who advocates tanking is trying to get across. I think you should cross post this in the Guardian forum =)

[hr]

Neverlift,

SoE is well aware of the subclass imbalances at the moment, which is why the Priests are going through a balance pass in the next update. Also, the Fighters in terms of taunts and +defense buffs will be looked at.

Sage your post is hard to understand.... If you agree with what Radric says and are some what happy with the archtype system why do you want Brawlers to be more DPS and less Fighter. If you don't like SOE and what EQ2 has become then why are you concerned with the NEW players understanding of the archtype system?? Why in the world would you care what or how SOE attracts new players? Who cares if SOE makes a profit most of the people on this thread already play EQ2 and even you say the archtype system is nice so why worry about SOEs profits? SOE could care less if we have "FUN" as long as we pay for membership. Why would you want SOE to use a (Most effective -- Lest effective) system for classes in a givin role? Another thing thats blowing my mind is why in the world would you want YOUR subclass to be the lest effective in a giving archtype..... If I wanted to make it so SOE had one GREAT tank and all the rest filled in spots that happend to be open I would be working for it to be MY subclass not that of which I don't play. I however don't want this I played a SK in eqlive I very much enjoyed my role as tank however I was in a Raiding Element guild so I NEVER tanked any main mobs for my guild. I could live with this up to the point of GOD which made it so if you didn't play a war you could never be the MT for any grp/raid situation. The "Holy Trinity" is very evil it puts a persons class above the persons skill at playing the class which in my mind is wrong.

only certain types of people cant read my post...not my fault.
but either way - i never said my class should be a dps class, but i sure as heck did say that there are other ways to do it and keep things in tact without the overhaul we are seeing now. They are going to square the classes in balance. So the so called avoidance tank might be seeing a nice bit of mitigation to balance out the issues.
the game is balanced 1-50 - the problems dont start till you see ^^^x4 type crap that avoidance cant compete with.
So take ur time with my posts brew... its alot of good info if you can open up your mind a bit... :smileyhappy:

Trust me its not just the Epic monsters that are the problem. I have been in groups with lvl 50 monk as tank and guardian. Hell a guardian 3 lvl below the monk tanks better and gets hit less and takes less dmg.



On a side note I plan on playing DDO ( Dungeon & Dragons Online) and seeing how it is.

yeah - if they get that game right, it will be awesome. As it stands DDO is already great conceptually....but either way. i just thought of something. If you look at the balance of the situation. Thats what tanking is all about. Thats where the term meat shield derived from if you forgot, lol.'
Just someone to stand there and get hit that can take hits and be the most efficient for a given healer, while holding all the mobs' attention in question.
and that requires consistency and steady progression so that the classes that do achieve 300dps can shine and reach thier full potential without fear of having a deadly mob down thier throat.
While a brawler doing the same job under that same set of circumstances is *understood* to put out more dps and achieve that same goal with less HP and less mitigation and less aggro control as to other classes cannot achieve thier full potential without pullling aggro considering that dps(replacing taunts) cannot achieve the same goal as a full out taunt spell.
yeah. something aint right about that equation...

I have an AoE aggro spell.
I have a single target taunt.
I have a rescue taunt.

I can count on the one hand the amount of times I've lost aggro due to someone burning power on CAs.

I may lose aggro on a long multiple pull due to heals / breeze, but I can correct for this if I know its going to happen. I may lose aggro because people don't assist. I don't lose aggro because people burn power on CAs.

then you have never played along side a warlock above level 35...
they can pull aggro from a guardian or even a zerker if they wanted too... scouts not as much - otherwise because they also have things that lower thier hate with the target. Morso than wizards...
Otherwise, a guardian gets more forms of taunt, as well as Stronger taunts, they arent all the same. In normal situations holding aggro is trivial. You dont see problems holding aggro until you are in a fight with 6 mobs and a ++ boss mob.
Thats when holding aggro counts in a regular six person group. AND becomes an actual task.

Yes, they can pull aggro from ALL fighters. Whats your point?

I can still hold aggro for my group on multiple mob pulls, allowing them to do sustained and consistent DPS and even some burn. Is it easier for a Guardian? Sure, who wants to play the easy classes tho?

All that matters to me is that I can do it, and that it's not because my wizards are sleeping.

If the Guardian/Serker/Monk/Etc is doing their job right and the warlock regularly pulls agro then he isn't doing HIS job right. It isn't a race to see who can get the most hate, it is a cooperative effort to take out the encounter... everyone in the group has hate management responsibilities.. and that includes the nukers/debuffers/healers/etc NOT using thier high end stuff right at the start of the encounter.. they have to scale up as the tank scales up his hate....

Anything else is asking for a party wipe... and one that isn't the MTs fault.

Seems like this has turned into more of a "who can control hate" rather than an avoidance post.

I am going to reply to your post.

1. Rogues will not necessarily have a higher DPS than all fighters even after a balance. The developers have stated they will look into damage balancing, that they will be comparing scout and fighter dps. Even though this is a huge backpedal from early release statements, any balancing of Fighter and Scouts as archetypes will not necessarily translate into changes for monks/bruisers. Even though every class stems from the same 4 archetypes, by sub-class each begins to deviate in it's own unique direction. It is highly possible that brawlers will once again deviate toward scout-like damage potential.

2. Even though (like you) I have a hard time reading most of Sagemorrow's posts, I can easily see that in this case he can have it both ways. Dps role brawlers do not get blocked/parried/riposted. If any non-agro holding melee in your groups has difficulty finding an unprotected flank to attack, someone is missing fundamental understanding of the game. Agro holding brawlers do get blocked/parried/riposted. Enemies have a constant chance to block/parriy/riposte any front side attack regardless of what class holds agro. Brawlers do not get any special advantages to avoid being blocked/parried/riposted, therefore when holding agro brawlers will not have a significant advantage over other classes in DPS.

3. I like to be MA with my monk too! I love that when I am on my guildmates dont have to wait for a different Fighter class to log on. However I dont want to become redundant. If you want to see my feelings on class balance research some of my other posts. In short, I dont want to compete with 1/4 of the server for 1/24 of the raid positions. I dont want to be changed so I am hopelessly outclassed at the other 23/24 raid positions. If we arent talking about raid events then this argument is moot. I can already tank everything in game up to gx2, when I am surrounded by a group of my guildmates. It may be more difficult than when our zerker is MA, but we win just the same. Why so many monks are resisting your good intentioned (if, in my opinion, misguided) desires to orient this class toward a lower damage potential, is that we enjoy being broad range contributors to our groups. I dont want to be forced to build a new guild around myself as the MA just so I can be part of high end raid content.

4. Rogues are not going to scream imbalance and quit if one sub-class of the fighter archetype has rogue-like dps. Well maybe they will, but it will be wrong and unfair. Somewhere in SOE, developers realize that the games longevity depends on a diversity of classes. If monks/bruisers are only useful as MAs yet there is a better MA available, fewer and fewer monks are going to be playing. If monks/bruisers somehow become the most effective MA, other Fighters are going to be played less. When the game becomes 4 classes and a raid mob, noone is going to play at all.

And finally monks were never originally specified as "tanks" (tank is one of the worst words I have ever seen coined). Monks were Fighters, and my monk fights very well tyvm. If you want to take up a fight, why not take up the fight to maintain our DPS or expand our utility. The fighter archetype as a whole needs to be redefined away from simple meatshield strategy. Each subclass needs other useful roles in order to be viable. Right now DPS is the monks only fallback.


Azazel- Nek

Well said, Mr Defiant. I wish I could have articulated my own views on the mechanics of being a fighter as impressively - unfortunately being a girl I don't really do logic, and will stick to making stuff up.
Anyway, 5 stars! Again.

First off I gave you 5* on this post because it was so well written (((but))) I have to disagree with your last point because of this.
Moorgard wrote:
To be clear once again: brawlers are intended to be tanks.

How about, no.

It's not up to you is it, Gage?

Nope, its not. But SoE hasn't done anything but reaffirm our role as tanks. The fact that they are looking into the descrepancy between scout/fighter damage proves that.
/shrug
Sorry if in my opinion I think its broken for us to take a group slot from another archetype. I mean after all, they nerfed scouts when they could tank