Consolidated thread about Combat and Spell changes for the Monk class...

i'm a bit concerned about all this. just at a glance, it seems as if we've been dumbed down a great deal. i mean, equip your rgf, or whatever you use, and click your lil stifle when it pops. those number on the ca's almost seem as if you'd be wasting your effort to click half of them. kinda like playing an extra warrior in eq. auto atk and click slam every few seconds. as far as tanking, i don't think much will change in ppl minds. we still have low hp and mitigation, which makes it brutally unforgiving to stand us in front of a mob that hits in the 1000's. imo ppl will see us as a leather armor class with no shields.

i'm not trying to bit** and moan, but i'm really concerned with my ability to get into raids after this. as it stands now, the raid leader sees me as dps. (yes i know, if i wanted to play dps i should have rolled a scout, but i made a monk, and i get in where i fit in) is he gonna pick me up as a quasi-tank ? i dunno. i guess i'll just have to wait and see, but ppl are already suggesting i switch my warden to my main. that's kinda funny, cuz they hinted at a warden nerf with that "ballancing" statement.

/shrug

Originally I was against the changes, and hated giving up my DPS, but with all the new skills and goodies they're giving us, I find it hard to complain.

A few things to note about these changes.

Weapon dr now takes top priority. No longer is there an unfair advantage to using a 3.8 second delay flail and saying its top dps simply because you can time your arts, as now all arts are instant cast. This means a pair of dual weilders with a competative combine ratio can own up to straight melee auto attack dps without the penalty of potentialy losing 3-4 hits per CA you use. So while many of the attacks may seem to do far less dmg now, and they do. Basicly what they did from my understanding is just removed the dmg modifier to CA from str.

As far as tanking goes, i see great promise in the upgraded stances and mitigation values of armor. As gaige said hes mostly t5 rare gear and has 44% mitigation. Stances adding 560 mitigation vs all physical damage at adept 1 also leaves much promise to the adept 3 and master 1 versions (and soon master 3). With a good chunk of fabled armor (about 8 ) i top out at 2050 mitigation (i beleive thats 39%) and 82% avoidance. So with the changes i suspect ill be well over 55% mitigation but at a loss of avoidance down to about 72%. The goodie spells are the ones to look for; Upgrades to face of the mt, winding dragon now being our prime defense stance, upgrades to dragon stance (which now adds a 15% to proc large amounts of hate) and you come out with a monk who can self buff + 1300 mitigation with adept 3s/masters and who can proc 500 + pts of hate every other swing with a flail. As well as the lil goodie of 360 degree block potential rocks.

While we still will be "tanks without a shield". We get bonuses such as inate shields, the ability to tank with weapons such as the ancient combine great flail (+8 parry, 500 hp proc 200 to most resists) without losing 20% avoidance but while increasing the procs of hate from our secondary agro stance.

Lastly, the ability to add 28% of OUR avoidance to the MT makes brawlers the top choice for dodge buffing a MT. 28% of 70 is much larger then 28% of 40-50%.

As far as less hp, i wouldnt worry about that. If you choose +hp % trainings, you should be able to competatively compare hp to most unbuffed guardians. That is, similar amounts of fabled, and close stamina, and your hp shouldnt be drasticly off. Self buffed on live i pus 4700 hp with tank gear on, granted i dont have the + hp buffs of guards.

Gage, any new ranged attacks? We still stuck being the only archetype incapable of hitting from outside an epic's AoE?

What about defensive procs, like sanguine imbued, is it on hit still?

That is an excellent post, very insightful and well written. Nicely said. I'm glad our community has so many active and contributive members. Its great to be a part of something like this
As for the Transcendant Vision comment that is a very good point which I think a lot of players miss. The new description on the spell is a lot more descriptive and what it does is allow the target of the buff to use YOUR avoidance stats up to 28% effectiveness via melee damage.
So, say you cast this on the MT of your raid who has 65% avoidance or something. You get set up in your defensive/tank setup with lots of agility gear, etc etc. Say you are hovering around 80% avoidance in the MT group. I'm fairly sure that after the revamp we will have the highest avoidance period, even compared to bruisers. So the mob does a crushing attack against the MT that hits for say 7k dmg or something. The attack will roll against the guardians avoidance numbers and if he fails to avoid he has a 28% chance to use your avoidance against the mobs attack. Through my time in FoH and experimentation etc, this is an invaulable tool, and Noah loves it. Even though the proc chance is being lowered, we still benefit from the highest avoidance post revamp AND the skill adds deflection which helps our avoidance even more. So keep in mind if you have TV up you really should focus on your own defensive setup, to make TV work that much more, even if you have to sacrifice some DPS to do so.
Also, I'll post some pics from a newer Gaige, with more fabled and some other things. I did choose all stamina traits and %HP, so I normally have more HP buffed than most other fighters in our raid, save guardians.

No, at least not yet and I'm pretty sure the ranged component of Focused Strike was removed.

But, if you find yourself in a raid where you need to attack via ranged and not joust, I would seriously try to invest in fulginate stars.

They cost a little over 3gp a stack, so they are very expensive, but with fulginate stars and my t5 rare pouch I'm able to do 200 to 375ish ranged damage; versus the 20 to 40 I do with iron stars.

Now, I would never recommend always using fulginate, as that's pretty crazy, but if you are in a lot of raids where you guild is using ranged strategies, they are more than worth the investment.
Message Edited by Gage-Mikel on 08-06-2005 02:03 AM

I just wanted to ask a quick question. I am on test myself so I am going to try and test this myself but I'm only level 12.

The Martial focus line of spells are now constant and use 1 concentration. What I want to know is the effect. Its says it increases the effectiveness of our CA's by raising
our fighter and brawler skills.

Has anyone noticed any change in our CA's? If skills no longer grow with level how does an increase in the skill the work off help? Does it just mean it has a better chance
of landing on mobs that are a higher level than the brawler/monk?

Im looking at making a monk vs a bruiser, really more for roleplay type reasons. My main focus i want to be on 2handed weapons, it appears with a monk this is a good weapon choice (except a few raid exceptions due to mob immunities) for the monk it appears they get bonuses for fighting totally unarmed which to me is a little boaring. can you give me some insight about how the monk does now and in the combat changes with 2 handed weapons vs say a brusier? thanks!

I feel that Brawlers' intended role in Eq2 was adequately explained before release. However, at release and up until today Brawler’s have not been performing that intended role due to game mechanics. I’m really sorry to everyone that grew accustomed to the role that Brawlers have been filling since release. And I can understand how those people must be feeling betrayed and outraged right now.
That doesn’t change the fact that the combat revamp is coming and, if its done right, it will put Brawlers in the role the developers always intended them to fill. Unfortunately, we (myself included) will have to either adapt or find something new.

Well, like I said. I frequented the website slightly prior to release and after. I read the instruction manual. I read the in game information that was presented to me as I developed and picked my class.
I missed the memo that said I was supposed to be a tank and nothing but.
In fact, if memory serves, most of the information available in class descriptions talk about monks toning their body for rapid, accurate strikes. And the bruiser being described a juggernaught pummeling their enemies into submission.
Not sure how that sounds like a tank either

In my opinion this a re-vision. But if theyre going to change the rules, don't force a change on people. Thats how I kinda see it.

I use Control Breathing alot currently -- if it now takes up 1 concentration, are some of our other abilities that work well together (i.e. self-buff takes 3 conc, and then sacrifice/intervene line takes 2) going down in the number of concentration slots they use?

First, big thanks to Gage for all the info.

Secondly, in no way do I believe that monks are broken except perhaps in terms of DPS. A slight dps nerf to bring our overall dps just under that of scouts, with perhaps a corresponding increase in mitigation, would not have been unwelcome. That is certainly not what this CC is. No, monks are not raid-level MTs. Never have been, and, if we were to continue the way things are, never will be. I don't have a problem with that. I'm perfectly happy to sacrifice the ability to tank epics in exchange for the higher dps and overall flexibility that I currently enjoy.

/* Disclaimer: No, I have not played the changes. I'm going to give my opinion anyway. Feel free to argue, as I am genuinely interested in what you have to say. If someone who HAS played the changes would like to respond, I'd be delighted to hear it. Fo Serious. */

Further, I don't think for a second that the CA changes Gage has kindly provided for us, or the changes mentioned elsewhere, will permit us to tank the same high-level epics other fighter classes can. Not a chance in hell. Based on my own experience with epic mobs (which, while not complete, is also not inconsiderable) I'd say one of two things would have to happen:
- Brawlers get avoidance in excess of 100%
- Brawlers avoidance stats are not affected by mob level. (i.e. 80% avoidance is 80% avoidance, be the mob 50 or 57)
I've seen no discussion of either of those options, and In fact the big combat changes post very clearly emphasized that avoidance and mitigation would scale with mob level. (I freely admit I don't spend a crapload of time on the forums. Apologies if I missed something.)

Having read all the posts and CAs and whatnot, I can't honestly say I'm happy. I think this is overkill and will remove flexibility and usefulness from what is currently a flexible and useful class. I hope I'm wrong, but if I'm right I won't bother to reroll.

The nature of avoidence and the effect of AGI will be changing with this patch, it will not be as easy to hit the cap as it has been, and it will be even harder for plate classes to hit it. In terms of mit it will be going up all around. As for our offense, its way too high, usually falling right below Wizard/Warlock and sometimes even competitive with them. The only way to retain class balance is to take a chunk out of our defense or our offense and I hardly think our defense can afford that.

Like it or not, we are fighters, and the overall nature of fighters is suppose to be a balance of offense and defense. Yes we are different from other fighters, but we are still part of the fighter base class so it makes sense to share basic underlying characteristics with other fighters. Even if it was not clear we were intended to be tanks from the start, as our chars gain new abilities and levels there are very distinct signs that of what our class was intended to be. Our various taunts were given to us so we could manage agro, we get several short term mit/deflection/defense raising abilities, and we have stances that are intended to help us maximize our offensive/defensive potential (because as a balanced offense/defense class, we need a way to tip the scales in one way or another depending on the situation).

I think am taking, and think we all should, a wait and see attitude about this. I have my hopes and my doubts, but It would be best to reserve final judgement for when we have experienced the full effect of the combat changes in there most complete form.

Lastly, sony is doing this change because they know there is a clear imbalance, not because a few of us felt we would rather be tanks than dps, many changes have occured in this game that I was opposed to but they happened despite my opinion because they were beneficial to the playerbase as a whole. I strongly advise you to give the changes a chance before deciding whether to quit or reroll.

These changes look awesome. Thanks gaige for the post.
I love the 'Instant' casting times on spells. I can see a lot of folks making 16 line script files with a 'BURN' macro to unleash all these CA's at once. I wonder if that works.
In the games current form I find myself using less and less CA's as my auto-attack melee damage with haste is doing more damage than the CA with its cast timer.

BTW Guk.Gage = my 29 Gnome warlock, PWNED!

Yeah, someone told me you did that right after I left or something

Ive been playing my monk since launch and have been very happy with him. I can MT with the best of them with a good healer. Soloing and Douing are great and I like the utility of the class. Only thing he cant do well is tank epic mobs and I never had a problem with that. A monks main way of holding aggro is its damage, thus monks/brusers do more DPS then the rest of the fighter classes. From what I can see, there are no new taunt or CA's that add hate, so Im not sure how making monks tougher will make them better tanks...



But, that not the real reason for the CU anyway. IMO SOE needed a way to slow folks down so they dont run outta content so soon, thus keeping the monthly income going. You all know as well as I do, that all the folks that hit 50 in the first 3 months and have killed every mob and completed every quest are ready to go and will prolly burn thru DOF inna couple months. If you look at the overall changes to all classes you'll see what Im talking about. Power regen spells and ablities are all going down, while CA take more power to use and cast faster. They are lowering the overall DSP, so now it takes longer to kill anything.



If all the changes they are making are trully needed and are they way the game was meant to be, why did they wait almost a year to do something about them? You feel like your paying to Beta Test. And Honestly, how can you expect to have such major changes to a game that folks have been playing for so long and not make them upset or even mad. I for one am not going to get the new expantion until I see how the CU plays out, monkey or no monkey.



Kakarot

50 Monk

Kithikor
Message Edited by Kackorat on 08-10-2005 10:59 AM

- Fighter spells and combat arts have received a balance pass. In general, Fighter combat abilities have been made more efficient, either by reducing their power cost or increasing their damage. Please examine your spells and arts, as some effects have changed.
This is part of an update note posted today for combat revamp. Also consider that while Fighter damage has been reduced, Scout and Mage damage has been increased. It’s too early to know if they are lowering the overall DPS.

And for new taunts, our existing Dragon Stance CA and its new upgrade Dragon Advance use 1 concentration point but give us a chance to proc a taunt. The numbers are being adjusted as evidenced by Gaige’s screenshots, but the average amount of taunt per strike seems pretty good at this time. I am in agreement that they need to give us better tools for getting group agro.
I do empathize with everyone that has grown accustomed to the role Brawlers have been filling since release. I can understand the feelings of people who thought our current role was our intended role. There isn’t much we can do but adapt or find something new.
Message Edited by Cwiyk on 08-10-2005 06:49 PM

Improved efficiency pleases me. We need to be able to hang in the fight taunting and doing damage to hold agro.

Gage, just to make sure I've got this....

From the pics it looks like we still have 4 stun/stifles? Palm-Tiger-Cobra-Talon? And, any new info on the "under certain conditions" ? Epics immune, or epics can resist?

Only stun I saw we lost was Mongoose...and who really cares. Will mess up my solo CA chains a lil but, not too much. If those 4 land on Epics...sweeeet.

What effect is Wisdom having on us? With the new Control Breathing...

Losing interrupt on Infuriating Calm kinda bites :/

Keep the great info flowin!
Message Edited by Nefarien on 08-11-2005 01:38 AM
Message Edited by Nefarien on 08-11-2005 01:38 AM

And our DPS?
It lookes like we are getting royalled screwed over here. AT the moment, im a very good tank and the best melee DPS. How is the DPS with all this new BS they bringing in? we still highest in melee?