So, I was reading through lots of posts, post AGI nerf patch. I am seeing a lot of different things about the monk class now. I see a lot of "my monk cannot tank now" responses. Well, I am a lvl 50 monk, and I do not really notice a difference in my tanking abilities other than its a bit harder now. I used to tank from the top of sol eye down to the bottom, and with certain buffs I would never get hit. Now, that I can see is one reason why they changed AGI, I mean the game needs to be challenging. However, did they balance the challenge/gameplay ratio out to where the game is playable still? Now, I have tanked recently doing heritage quests and other things all over the place. Tanked last night in lava storm killing level 49++ drakes. I barely noticed a difference in my tanking abilties, other than I had to get healed every now and again. Where as before, I just never got hit. So, we need to break it down and see exactly how AGI effects avoidance. Now, a monk has several skills for deflection. They have riposte, parry, and block. They have one skill for avoidance, dodge. Now, are the two directly related and linked to your AGI? I don't know, I am not a DEV. However, deflection only works 180 degrees from your front. So if you have mobs behind you it does not work at all. Dodge, I think is 360 degrees around your character. So, these people who are having issues, are they using proper tactics? What level ranges seem to have issues? At level 50, I can't complain too much, I think I can still be main tank no problem. Is it mainly the 30 to 40 game that is harder now? How does agility directly effect avoidance? How does it effect deflection? Are they both tied together? A dev needs to answer this for us so perhaps, we can all get a better idea why they think its workings as intended, and others say its not. I, for one, think there is no issue because I have no problems playing my monk. It is more challenging than it previously was, but I never get dropped in like a new york minute like some of you are saying. However, I think we need to consolidate all of our thoughts and issues in one thread so the DEVs can view it. When expansions come out, I want to play my monk in the tank role as intended. So, lets get these problems (if any) fixed now. Please list the mobs you were fighting, the config of your group, and the outcome so we can try to see what is hurting our class the most.
/agree Nice post Gangster. As a lvl 43 monk, I too notice increased difficulty tanking but, as you put it, pre-patch the experience was basically too easy, and that prompted this change. I am still able to defeat all the mobs I previously could (solo and group), but I use up more of my health doing so, making it more risky. But then again, risk vs. reward is the underlying issue here. I for one don't expect to make it entire battles without being hit, and that was the case pre-patch for some encounters. I for one WANT the game to be challenging, and so far I have seen nothing to make me think our class has been entirely shattered by this change. If anything, it makes it more interesting to be a monk because now, with people taking the hits they should have been, it forces you to re-evaluate how you play your class to make sure you weren't being lazy in how you do things. By that, I refer to the tactics we've all discussed these past few months. With this change, it is increasingly important for people to learn the nuances of their class, and make sure they use all the skills given to them to prevent as much damage as possible, while maintaining the "flow" of groups. In general, the tactics we've been preaching to people become even more important to our role as tanks and group members in this game. Message Edited by Grabaan on 02-03-2005 12:52 PM
At lvl 41 the difference is huge compared to other tank classes. I group with a lvl 41 Paladin nightly, and there used to be a debate regarding who would tank. Now there's no question. He takes less damage, has higher Defense, and better taunts. I think they need to address the issue of 'balancing' the tank classes. Previously, Monks took less damage (due to avoidance), but had inferior taunts. Now, we're inferior (at least at my level) in every way, so there is NEVER a situation (at my level) where a Monk would be chosen as a tank over another warrior type.
Inferior taunts? How so sence you dont see a taunt effect number you really have no way of judging it. Your statement has no factual basis. I can pull mobs off pallies all day long. Also you claim that you take more dammage, I also have found that not to be the case, I have a higher defence rating and take less damamge than the plate classes I just pulled the mob off of.
I have to agree, I notice little difference I play both a monk and a ranger. I do notice that the scouts tend to be a bit more vuneralbe to low level attacks, something they were almost immune to.
I do applaud the attempt consolidate factual issues under 1-thread so its more valuable to the random SOE rep that might read. Now I am not a dev but I do remember SOE made a few comments a while back on how tanking/monking and differences between monks and other tanks. (The point of this reiteration is that we can hopfully understand the makings of "what makes a monk tank" vs what are fallacies in perception and eventually agree if there are in-balance issues) Monks differentiation point is deflection only: All other tank classes have defense and parry. All other tank classes have "skills": dodge, block, miss, parry, riposte (not sure if deflect is an actual result or if its "block"). Monks have inherent blocking effects via deflection, which I am guessing is a simliar effect as a tank wearing a shield. The monks deflection skill also is enhanced via innate roundshield effect. Damage over time is via avoidance or mitigation: (btw: SOE said AC is the measure is your damage over time measure) Avoidance = deflection (blocking w/ shield), parry, and maybe "miss" (defense). Mitigation (as SOW pointed-out) is based armor type, tier, level difference, etc. (I wouldnt think mitigation has any relation to defense but it could) Agility effects avoidance not mitigation (I thought SOE said/implied this somewhere) As we can all see buffing your agility does not numerically show on the skills list for parry, defense, or deflection. Other buffs do (specially these buffs will have the state improvement in parry, etc,. int its buff description.) However, agility has an effect on avoidance and therefore does has an effect on parry and deflection. I am just not sure why these effects wouldnt show-up in the skills window. As it stands now the skills window (e.g. parry, defense, or deflection) has no real value other than showing some skill has a buff that is effecting it positively or negatively. Also, I dont know why some skills show-up while others dont (e.g dodge). I can see where riposte wouldnt show since its probably a sub-skill under parry. Now back to the point, agility has impact to avoidance skills but doesnt show-up in the skills list. Pre-patch: agility at higher levels (e.g. 150+) had severe imbalance issues when tanking. Meaning anyone with 150+ (250ish+ unhittable) agility could solo tank group mobs, tank red group mobs w/o getting hit. Scouts (same as monks w/o deflection and aggro), could effectively tank (not be hit) hard group mobs. From that, agility obviously impacts avoidance (parry and miss.. and for the monk, deflection). Post-patch: agility has a significantly less impact to avoidance? What does this mean? Probably this one change didnt change any of the fundamental formulas (SOE stated) but had a profound change on the impact of agility and the avoidance skills it effects. Through personal experience solo mobs are still them same level of difficulty but group mobs are nearly impossible to solo, where pre-patch it would be easy for any class to solo group ^^ mobs. The change to agility seems to effect all classes the same (they all get hit more often) except for the monks b/c when we get hit we have the same mitigation pre vs post patch. Mobs have been buffed (especially group mobs for 30+) to be more effective against agility, mitigation, and general defense and avoidance skills. Meaning, they hit more, hit harder, etc. Pre-patch, not much of a difference for high agility tanks and especially for monks since they would only get hit mayb 1 in 10 or 1 in 5 times. So the times they would get hit, it was managable. Mind you, this could only be done with a decent agility and with a defense buff up (e.g. brawlers or spiders). There was quite a good balance (IMHO) with monks at 20-45ish range in being effective tanks. I have had quite a few experiences tanking with low agility pre-patch and while being 'ok' tanks were significantly less able to tank compare to other tank classes. Also, other tank classes generally dont have high agility (compared to monks) and could tank effectively well with decent armor. This all seemed fair to me, hit less but harder (monks) vs hit more often for less damage (guardians). Resultingly, there seemed to be a good balance between monk tanks vs other tanks. A key point: Post-Patch: agility is nerfed (mobs are tougher). Monks are effected the most. Why? Because we lost our agility (e.g. effective avoidance abilities) and did not have any improvement in mitigation. Believe me, deflection + light armor <> heavy armor. This is apparent with the posts that monks are getting eaten by group mobs in less than a few ticks or if grouped (healers going OOM in the battles). Also with the innate deflection of a roundshield does not compete with another tank wearing a kite/tower or some other high class shield. Pre-patch, monks with normal agility were substandard tanks. Monks with high-agility were competive tanks (or maybe slightly better).. and any class (scout or fighter) with UBER agiilty were "unhitabble". Since monks were "ok" tanks with normal/good agility, any nerfing of agility would effectively lessen a monk's tanking ability. Compoudly, since mobs have been also enhanced, the effect is much more noticable. Since SOE stated the effect of agility (or nerfing of) will be "Profound", then the effect of the monks tanking ability should also be negatively profound. Also, in groups one could say monks can get group buffs to help with tanking. Well what are these group buffs? I have yet to find any support class boost my parry, defense, or dodge, vs what I can do with spiders stance, karmic, etc. Resultingly the groups effectiveness would be mob debuffs (slow, str), melee effects (stun), and agility buffs (which has minimal impact to tanking now). Agreeably groups can kill the mob faster and therefore the tank would take less damage. But if a monk has to rely on debuffing the mob every fight (therefore minimizing the number of attacks on the monk) vs a guardian which can soak up damage w/o any debuffs (I havent read any other tank classes complain that much on their tanking ability post-patch... afterall someones got to be able to tank well post-patch or SOE would most definately make a patch fix), that doesnt seem balanced... Quite simply monks were good tanks pre-patch b/c they could avoid damage and the damage they took would be large... but overall balance out. With the nerf of agility (meaning hit more) monks just become substandard tanks or least have become worse tanks vs other tank classes (pre-patch). SOE didnt mention any improvements to monks other skills (e.g. deflection, parry, etc), so its very apparent we have become worse when compared to the other tank classes. I think SOE forget to notice how dependent monks were on high-agility in being just "competitive" tanks any negative effects to agility obvious makes us worse. -Jenjer Message Edited by Jenjer on 02-03-2005 11:31 AM
I'd like to see you scrounge up some monks that agree with you in regards to monks getting superior taunting skills. I'm guessing the reason you're peeling a mob off a Paladin is because you're not assisting and using all your High DPS + taunts because you have an ego and want to show people in your group that you can tank too? I just don't beleive you, Mamaseeta. I've tested this with identical leveled Pallys. What is your unbuffed Defense by the way (and level)
Goodness, who cares about taunting. The threads about agility, post-patch monks, and their ability to tank. Agreebly taunting is important but that defeats the whole purpose of this thread.... which btw: is to consolidate comments on post-patch changes and whether monks need to be balanced. -Jenjer
I agree other fighters have a wider range of more intuative taunts over monks, but holding aggro is not the issue here. The issue is to be able to fill our archetype role of being a fighter. However, before this turns into a cry fest of how monks suck now, I want to make a few points clear. Monks orginally had balance issues in the level 30 range. This problem came straight out of beta and into the live version. So, they patched a few things, gave us round shield usage, ect. Well, they then patched it again taking away the shield and giving us built in shields. Now, they nerfed agi and increased mob difficulty. I don't see how some of you didn't see this coming. Monks are not meant to be gods among men. With certain buff combinations I could out tank any other class hands down. Because I never got hit, and I did more DPS in higher levels. Now, a guardian with the same buffs could do pretty much the same thing, minus the DPS. The DPS difference is suppose to be one of the balance offsets of the sub classes. IMHO, pre nerf we were pretty powerful, perhaps a bit too powerful. My solution would have been to increase mob difficulty over nerfing how certain things worked. However, due to morons who flamed how scouts could tank better with agi buffs things like this happen. So, now back to the matter at hand after getting my inital point across about balance. It seems the level 30 to 40 range is having issues with balance. So, lets break it down to review some key points. Group mobs now have equal amount of chance to hit you, as you do it. So, I guess that means if you are at maxed haste, it is as well. Thats when debuffs and slows come into play. Also, all group mobs have increased damage and increase hit points (increased stats). So, the level 40+ zones are pretty much: CT, perma, EF, some of feerott, and I suppose lava storm (however LS is mainly 45+ imo). Each one of these places has different mobs. I always found CT to be a walk in the park minus the fear through the wall bug. I mean it seemed to me mobs were just weaker there. Same thing with Permafrost. It seemed to me permafrost was also a walk in the park compared to lava storm and sol eye. So, again lets give some specific examples of these issues: Group config Equipment Zone Mobs One example i can give last night is: 50 monk 50 troub 50 inquis 50 zerker 50 warden 49 illusionist I tanked level 49++ mobs in lava storm. I owned them, barely got hit enough to cause any major danger. I needed to be healed, but nothing that made the healer work hard or anything. I did this last night against the drakes doing the GEB heritage quest. I think the game needed to get harder. I flew to level 50 with very little challenge. The instanced access zones are mostly a joke. I flew through all of them. The only one that was a challenge was the heart of fear access quest, and the bastion of flame. However the bastion was very easy once you figure out how it works. The challenge is figuring it out. The throne room in RE was a joke. However, there are challenges else where a lot of raid mobs are now beefed up. My main problem with the end game content is risk vs reward right now, but thats a whole new thread. So, lets get some specific examples of monk tanking issues so we can see if its perhaps the wrong tactics used or if its the class being busted. I for one can tank just fine AFAIK at level 50.
I would like to direct you to this thread http://eqiiforums.station.sony.com/eq2/board/message?board.id=6&message.id=6584 I am level 34 and have a defence of 4201
Finally a lvl 50 monk thats being constructive instead of just knockin' on SOE. At any rate, lvl 27 monk/mystic (2 boxer). I fought my usual mobs that range from blue groups with no arrows to the group^^ mobs, also white groups in the same "arrow" range. Only thing I noticed is I need to get healed a bit more, a couple more wards have to get thrown on, and I have to pay attention to the self buffs I'm using (I used to forget to use some buffs because I'd simply take no damage). Now things like karmic focus and Face of the Mountain have a purpose. Granted I always used Karmic Focus before, but last night I actually saw it "kick in" so to speak. When it was down, I took more hits, when it was up, I deflected more. Before I didn't notice the difference either way unless I was going against a named or something like that. I too have the same questions as GangsterFist. How agility directly affect avoidance and deflection? It looks like right now, those skills operate independant of AGI, and thus has made the game more challenging. At any rate, I'll keep leveling up, and keep tanking with my monk, because thats whats fun for me. Seeing GangsterFist post that he's having no game breaking problems at 50 puts my worries at ease for the higher end of the game.
I have a question can anyone take on mobs now? I used to be able to take on a mob of 3-4 blues and kill atleast 2 of them and still have half health now they kill me before I even kill one. I can only seem to take on mob green ^ and still get worked but I can beat them. Did they patch it so you can't take on mobs now? Also when in group I don't MT i'm mostly DPS but now it seems if the main tank gets killed I can't take over cause they hit the crap out of me. As before I would take damage but not as much now is like super hit taking my life down to nothing in like 3 hits. Anyone else had this problem? Pumx Monk Lvl 22
Anyway, I've put my input in this debate already and have nothing left to add. I just hope something is done to make my character competitive with identical leveled (not two levels below me) tanks of other warrior types. All this has done is validate all the naysayers that Monks aren't tanks.
I'll make this simple Me (47monk) all my gear is yellow or better, have fbss ect. All my skills/abilties are adept 1 or better. Group make up 43 zerker 45 Inq 45 mystic 45 assassin 44 chanter Loc: Permafrost Mobs: everything from light blue to the 2group named mobs I tanked for 2 hours my health was like a yoyo but i could tank it just ran the inq and mystic LoP. So they say lets see how well the Zerker can do. We hunted killed same mobs with "ALOT" less use of power. I didnt even need to shield the zerker with my abilitie that before the 2/1/05 patch was useful to help them parry/block better. We had zero down time with the zerker ....0 With me tanking we and down time between every fight except the ice goblins. So for 2 hours i get to listen to them talking about how bad my class got "nerfed" i cant even out tank a zerker 4 levels lower than me. I know agil needed to be adjusted that was a no brainer but somthing is out of whack now. We need better deflection or somthing. I really find it odd that some see this and others are like its a small change ect. Do this tho set up a group bring in a plateclass 4 levels lower than you and watch how easy it is for them. This was about balance right? 2nd night was the same but had a 42 guardian instead of the zerker same results. I had to use every abiliie available to me and still i get out tanked by another plate class except this time i was 5 levels higher. /shrug I can tank but no where near as good as a plateclass 4 to 5 levels lower.
Let_me_make_myself_perfectly_clear_to_those_that_just_like_to_argue. At_lvl_41_as_a_monk_I_cannot_compete_with_other_lvl_41_tank_classes. My_Defense_is_lower_and_my_taunts_are_less_effective_and_I_take_more_damage. Understand now? Sure, a group of 4 lvl 43 critters are pulled by our tank. He secures aggro then begins working on one of them. I can change target (not assist) to one that has full health and do DPS, taunt, etc and peel it off of him. And, let's say that our tank is 3 levels below me... I just may have a higher Defense than him too. Is that what you're trying to say, Mamaseeta?
I don't know which is worse getting nerfed or having to deal with Mama turning another decent thread into [FaarNerfed!]. Khar
Gangster: First off, I've learned so much Monk [FaarNerfed!] from you it makes me silly. Thank you for taking the time to write such informative posts. They are well-written and extremely valuable to me and I'm sure others will agree. I wrote this post in another thread and thought I would throw it here. I'm assuming all tanks are created equal. If this is the devleopers intent, we are not where we should be in terms of tanking. Please note that I still love my Monk and I think we are still effectve, just not defensively equal (we take more damage) Here's my story: I was in EL the other day. I was soloing along side a level 29 Pali (I'm level 31 Monk) and the Pali's AC was 400 less than mine and he was able to solo level 35 (solo) mobs much easier than I could. I was taking far more damage. (I didn't parse any logs). If their goal is to create all fighter classes as equal tanks, they have to close the defensive gap between armor AC and our deflection/ parry skills. Deflection/ parry is overrated in the AC value. What should happen if they want fighter classes to tank equally (all else being equal): Mitigation: attack1: 100 attack2: 100 attack3: 0 attack4: 100 attack5: 100 attack6: 0 attack7: 100 attack8: 100 attack9: 0 attack10: 100 TOTAL DMG: 700 Avoidance: attack1: 0 attack2: 0 attack3: 0 attack4: 400 attack5: 0 attack6: 0 attack7: 0 attack8: 300 attack9: 0 attack10: 0 TOTAL DMG: 700 What is happening Mitigation: attack1: 100 attack2: 100 attack3: 0 attack4: 100 attack5: 100 attack6: 0 attack7: 100 attack8: 100 attack9: 0 attack10: 100 TOTAL DMG: 700 Avoidance: attack1: 0 attack2: 300 attack3: 0 attack4: 700 attack5: 0 attack6: 400 attack7: 0 attack8: 400 attack9: 0 attack10: 0 TOTAL DMG: 1600
