From what I've read the mob cons in EL are really out of whack, most classes can solo reds there with out a problem.
I've heard some of that as well. I must admit when I first started going there a week or so back, I was surprised above and beyond a doubt to be able to solo orange and reds without a problem. It's possible that alot of monks, such as myself are basing the testing between EL red cons and other mobs in different zones. This of course causes confusion.
No, soloing got alot more rewarding post-patch. I can solo yellows (46 monk) with 50-80% health/power left, the exps is better, and more loot drops. I also tried a level 41 ^^ green mob and kicked my butt the first few ticks (was down to 30%). I also tried 2 level 41 ^ mobs. They also kicked my ****. Pre-patch I could take blue level 42^^ easily. To me those changes are all fine and dandy, but if monks cant effectively tank white group ^^ in a group of 6, then SOE needs to re-balance. Not to mention that my ac is about 800ish points lower then a zerker or guardian my level... I am guessing b/c they have a shield equiped and my measly virtual roundshield does not compete. -Jenjer
I started a thread in the Gameplay/Combat forum too, maybe a dev will see it and come over here. http://eqiiforums.station.sony.com/eq2/board/message?board.id=combat&message.id=26137
Well actually i'm a lvl 25 monk, and i'm thrashed by a green 2 lvl 21 and 1 lvl 21^ gnoll, dont know what's going exactly but as we can from everybodirs response this isn't normal balancing and the dev's probebly miscalculated or neglected to take care of our Agi affect after patch.. this brings me back to my last post, what's out best course of action here? we're just waiting for it to get better or is someone reporting this issue, I honestly hope this thread is being monitored by the dev's, otherwise were just blowing smoke aren't we? Your's in agony, Kan
Once I saw what the problem is I've been trying to keep the post alive. Everyone should also roll over to the combat board and post your experiences since it seems the devs are reading that forum.
My level 26 monk is also noticing a huge difference since this agility nerf. No solo mobs yellow take me down constantly to 15% health and blue take me down to 48 % health. I dont even consider tanking in groups because healers cannot keep up with the damage I take. I have yet to see a dev respond to our posts.
the con system does not scale with level. I noticed this on my serker a while back. To me, if I take on (for example) a "gnoll placeholder type 1" that cons green to me, then when I level up one level, any "gnoll placeholder type 1" thats green to me at my new level (and probably blue to my old level) should be exactly the same difficulty. A white con mob should be a good challenge to you, not progressively harder. Yes, it was yellow con to you the previous level, but the whole point of leveling is that you got tougher too. As I leveled up through the low 20s to the lofty level 28 my serker is now, I noticed that I could solo less and less of the solo content. As far as I am concerned a green should act the same no matter my level and no matter what color it was to me when I was lower level..otherwise why bother with the con system at all?
At 25 the only change i saw was against group ^^ mobs. They ripped me apart like i was a butter. i used to get hit hard no doubt but the amount they hit me for doubled.
No read the notes again. it says Huge differences in stats that will include buff and debuffs. This is not only limiting to when u have buffs.
Gage they did comment saying thatfor example: A large shore crab A shore crab A deadly shore crab. All 3 of these con blue and are solo. however, the deadly shore crab is 3x as hard as the normal shore crab because it is part of the new solo and small group content. At 25 the shore crab I could kill without dropping below 80% The large shore crab i could kill with about 60% The new solo deafly shore crab i had to FD or i would be killed and he was at 40%
As a 23 Bruiser, the patch had absolutely zero impact on my ability to fight green group encounters. It was, and still is, completely trivial (though there is one specific exception I've found, but he wrecked me before the patch as well). Just providing another data point for the developers. Personally I'm just gonna chalk this one up to patch-itis until people start posting logs of before/after hit rates. Oh, and I still think the change to the AC number was misguided. Congrats on making a semi-useful number completely meaningless. My unbuffed AC went DOWN 150 points when I hit level 24. Fantastic.
At the risk of getting flamed by a pack of angry monks.... One of the major complaints I hear on this thread is that it is easy to solo an orange (no arrows) but difficult to solo a green++ or blue++. My comment to that is that I think it has always been SOE's intent that ^^ mobs be significantly more difficult than their color implies. ^^ is not simply a difficutly level in between 2 colors. A green++ for example could be as hard as some reds in reality (due to special attacks, buffs, magic, etc). It sounds like you guys are used to being able to solo these creatures (some easily), when other classes couldn't really hope to. I know I would never dream of trying to take a white++ with my Warden (I know, i know... a healer) by myself. Just put it in perspective I guess. I'm not saying you guys weren't nerfed to some extend, just saying maybe it was too easy before if you could solo white++.
The problem now is though, that monks past level 35 are having a hard time tanking any group mobs blue and up, which is definitely an issue.
With all due respect most monks here are not talking about soloing... they are talking about being Main Tank in a full group. Previously we could do it, now we cannot. Period.
Now that we occasionally get hit by the monster, with our pathetic AC, we have no compensatory abilities to make up for the rapid-health-loss that has been one of the main reasons groups don't like to tank with monks. I believe the biggest problem is that monster special abilities, at least at my level (33) almost always hit, and they hit for large amounts of damage. Maybe as compensation they can give the monks greater defense or abilities against the mobs SPECIAL abilities. Then, groups might risk taking a monk as a tank (with associated rapid-health-loss danger) against mobs that chew through normal tanks because of specials. I think having mobs hit us more often since the patch is more balanced. Previously the only thing that would hit me was Specials, and just the specials damage ALONE was enough for groups to shun me as a tank. However NOW we have no reason for a group to pick us as a tank because mitigation is all that is left. Normal Damage + Special Damage == Dead Monk So instead of talking about the agility nerf we can propose some compensatory things to make Monks wanted as a group? Please bear in mind I am talking about the early 30's game here. I am not talking about the 40+ game. -- Savat
To be clear, I do NOT think there was a balance problem before the patch, at least at the levels I have played. I could NEVER dream of soloing a White^^. GREEN^^'s would usually wipe the floor with me solo. I agree fully with the previous poster that said the big issue with the patch is that we now cannot tank even in a full group. Yes, it is harder to solo, but that's not the big deal.
I feel those that say the sky fell down upon them since patch is largely exaggerating and blowing things out of proportions. And in the majority of the cases, posts are made out of ignorance. Is everything like before? No, but fights prior to the changes were far to easy, at least now NPCs actually do damage us as well as others, and we're no longer dodging 90% of incoming attacks. Alot of you forget the original intention was that people were not meant to tank orrange much less red cons even remotely reliably. Since the 01/02/05 patch I've gotten the chance to tank in permafrost with a decent group, long enough to get a feel of the changes. The group setup was a wizard 44, inquisitor 42, troubadour 46, necromancer 47, 42 assassin, and my self 47 Bruiser. I tanked just about everything there though we left gyrok alone, didn't want to risk that fight with only a lvl 42 healer, but all the fights went relatively smooth, even when the bard was AFK for 15 min at some point. The changes have balanced things out for the better IMO not for the worse as too many of you doomsday people want to think.
Jezekiell, you may have a point. Perhaps mobs were too easy before this and now they are more in-line with what SOE originally intended. I have my doubts, given some of the posts I've seen, but it's possible. However, you don't address another significant issue: how Monks tank in comparison to other tank classes. Quite simply, right now, Monks are *not* tanks compared to our plate brethren. When we can tank, in a group of 4, mobs that con White++ at best, and Guardians can tank, in a similar group of 4, mobs that con Orange++ (and sometimes Red++) we effectively become non-tanks. I have no problems with making fights harder overall, so long as the increased difficulty is spread out evenly. Right now it's not, and it appears that it's because they significanly changed how Agi contributes to Avoidance. Scouts are complaining that they can't dodge at all, Brawler-types are complaining that their Avoidance is drastically reduced, Crusaders even seem to be affected although not as much, and Warrior-types are having a somewhat harder time of it. This all seems to point to an Agi nerf, not the one described in the Release Notes, having different degrees of effect on classes that rely on it from more to less. Personally I'm hoping that it is a bug from one of the changes they introduced in this Big Patch (not like there weren't any other bugs in it ) and that it will be eventually found and fixed. Unfortunately, if it is a bug, it looks like it may be hard to track down due to the inconsistancy of the results (some Monks claiming that they're not very affected) and thus it may take a while.
