SF Monk changes - such as they are at the moment.

Discussion in 'Monk' started by ARCHIVED-mr23sgte, Feb 5, 2010.

  1. ARCHIVED-mr23sgte Guest

    This is SF for Monks in a nutshell - the Monk EOF AA tree is still lacking and of the SF AA abilites in Brawlers tree are tied to the endline abilities which is pretty meh..........no changes to AE for wisdom crane twirl.
    Tsunami duration increased to 20 seconds at Master
    Crouching Tiger added immunity to Strikethrough attacks.
    Dragonfire resistability was decreased so it hits now
    Inner Focus TSO AA recast timer decreased and changed to greater than 20% damage.
    Deflection chance has been merged into block chance.
    Brawler 4.0 delay end game weaps this tier
    Chi is now a 7:30 recast
    Crane Flock is now 2 minute reuse
    **UPDATE - Bob and Weave recast lowered to 2:30 --Thx for listening Xelgad
    General Alternate Advancement Changes
    The Class Alternate Advancement tree (EXP02, Kingdom of Sky) no longer requires you to put points into the attributes before putting points into the abilities. All of the Class Alternate Advancement lines excluding the "Endlines" now can be increased to 10 points. The first Alternate Advancement will grant 4 Stamina and the primary stat for the class. The primary stats for classes are:
    • Fighter: Strength
    • Scout: Agility
    • Mage: Intelligence
    • Priest: Wisdom
    Most percentage based Alternate Advancements will grant the same amount at 10 as they currently do at 8, however, those two points will no longer need to be spent in the attribute AA. Damage, heals and procs will improve to beyond their current strength with the additional points.
    Sentinel's Fate increases the Alternate Advancement cap from 200 to 250. Each "Class" (Warrior, Brawler, Enchanter) has received 6 new Alternate Advancements, 5 that lead up to a final "Endline." Each "Subclass" (Guardian, Monk, Illusionist) has received 7 new Alternate Advancements, 6 that lead up to a new "Endline" for a total of 20 new points in each of those two trees. Players can also spend 10 of these points into the existing Shadows tree.
    The Class Advancements can have 8 points spent per ability. The "Endline" has two ranks at two points per rank. It is unlocked with 16 points spend in the Sentinel's Fate AAs in the Class Tree.
    The Subclass Advancements can have 5 points spent per ability. The "Endline" has one rank at two points per rank. It is unlocked with 10 points spend in the Sentinel's Fate AAs in the Subclass Tree.
    Changes To Current Alternate Advancements
    • Mantis Star now decreases AGI and STR as well as STA.
    • Mantis Bolt now inflicts more damage.
    • Mantis Leap now grants a short duration threat priority proc when used.
    • Combination now inflicts a substantial amount more damage.
    • Superior Riposte is now a stoneskin.
    • Evade Check is now a positional detaunt.
    • Enhance: Will of the Heavens is now a decrease to the reuse.
    New Alternate Advancements
    Please understand that these are the current versions of the new AAs. All of these abilities are subject to change. Please feel free to post any and all feedback.
    Brawlers
    • Tiger Reflexes: Adds a small chance to Flurry on Auto-Attacks.
    • Monkey Wisdom: Reduces the recast of Altruism. and adds an additional trigger.
    • Mantis Mastery: Increases the duration of Mantis Leap.
    • Swift Wings: Improves the duration of Crane Flock.
    • Eagle's Patience and can be activated while Eagle Shriek is active to grant stoneskin. It'll trigger on all damage if the caster is below 10%, damage that is more than 10% of the caster's max health if they're between 11% and 50% or won't trigger if they're above 50%
    • Brawler's Tenacity: 2 triggers - The Brawler can prevent death on themself once ever 5 minutes. This is ability is only active for 20 seconds after cast------ suxs .........needs to be perma trigger buff.
    Monks
    • Silence: Improves the base damage done by Silent Palm.
    • Snow Blindness: Increases the duration of the daze of Arctic Talon. also increases damage by 4%
    • Outward Tranquility: Improves the ward of Outward Calm.
    • Numbing Blows: Grants the caster additional mitigation to their worn armor.
    • Combined Strengths: Improves the damage of Combination.
    • Dragon's Rage: Adds an additional effect to the defensive stance which adds hate to Dragonfire.
    • Provoking Stance: Adds hate positions to Challenge and Silent Threat for a short duration.
  2. ARCHIVED-mr23sgte Guest

    Rythalian said --- thread in Beta:
    Hi all,
    Just got into Beta, and waiting on copy, have looked things over carefully on a beta-buffed toon and read up to date on the threads.
    Here's what I see as the remaining Monk AA/ability issues (thought it might be helpful to Xalgad to put them all in one spot, in a condensed form).
    These are roughly in order of priority, as I see it:
    1. Eagle's Patience either (1) should not require Eagle's Shriek at all, or (2) should be a passive ability.
    2. Brawler's Tenacity should be until cancelled, with an appropriate (3 minute?) recast. Barring that, it should be at least of 3-5 minute duration.
    3. Tsunami should be instant cast, or much faster than 1 second (like .25). Happens much too often that we die while it is casting, and every similar fighter ability is much faster to cast.
    4. Crane Twirl needs to have it's damage scaled appropriately to the expansion. I would say it needs to put out roughly 3x the damage it currently does to bring it up to par with other fighters' AE autoattack. Also, it should be melee damage, not spell damage. The damage type is probably less of an issue with the crit consolidation.
    5. We need a different enhancement to Tranquil Vision. The hate transfer is minimal, and works counter to the combination of our frequent raid roles (damage preventer for MT/offtank). Makes no sense for us to be tranferring hate to another fighter if we are trying to gain hate or keep aggro ourselves as the offtank. One idea: if we are in defensive stance, we get a brief proc'ed increase to our deflection chance each time we successfully prevent damage on our transfer target (ala the boost to Mend from our 4 piece TSO bonus), (2) if we are in spider or offensive stance, we get a brief proc'ed increase to melee crit bonus each time we successfully prevent damage. This solution would be both useful and distinct from the bruiser's enhancements.
    6. Combination should automatically land if the appropriate punch/jab/kicks have landed and it is up. Server side lag, particularly on high population servers, makes it much too difficult to land it otherwise.
    In general, the direction they have taken monks (both brawlers really) seems to be "They can do what other tanks can do automagically, they just have to push the buttons at the right time to get it to happen." I'm ok with that. In fact, I kind of like it. Thing is it's not always possible.
    I am in particular thinking of double attacks from raid mobs. The first attack and double attack all land at once, meaning that when they get through, they are very likely to kill a brawler where they would just badly hurt a mitigation tank. It would be one thing if this happened on a special ability where there was a casting emote or some brief warning, making us watch for it and react to save ourselves. But we can, and do, frequently die from raid bosses' autoattacks. You can have the reflexes to hit a major league fastball
    Hereo said:
    The Monk endline ability from TSO AA tree "Bob and Weave" has a 4m recast - I never understood why the recast was 4M vs our Brawler Counterpart having a "Impenetrable Will" 2M 30 Second recast which seems about right for this type of ability. These abilities are Very similiar and I think the Monk 4m recast is long overdue to be adjusted to a lower recast time.
    **UPDATE - Bob and Weave recast lowered to 2:30 --Thx for listening Xelgad!!

    Monk Changes I would Like to see:
    Monk TSO AA's: "Meditative Healing" Needs Heal amount % increased and health damage to trigger % decreased. (This was planned as part of the scrapped fighter changes and would be a huge boost to Monk tanking).

    Couching said:
    Nice post of consolidated monk issues.
    I would like to add some extra issues.
    First, I hope we can get our deaggro aa in monk tree and evade changed to something useful.
    The dps gap between brawlers and T2 dpsers is larger with each new expansion since EOF.
    When a tank in the group can hold aggro off real dpsers, he/she can hold aggro off monk as well as long as the monk is not trying to compete aggro with the group tank.
    Even if we get aggro in the group, so what? We are tank and we have so many live saving tools for heroic content.
    There is really no point to keep those deagro aa for monk. They are useless, period.
    Second, our raidwide buff is becoming one of the worst of all fighters instead of the best in EoF. A lot of classes can get casting speed capped or close to cap with aa and gear. Currently, SK and zerker raidwide are a lot better than ours.
    Last, Everburning flame is really useless for most monks. Most monks with legendary gear can get over 140+ haste. We can get our haste to haste cap easily with group buff. What's the point to have Everburing flame then?
    Unless the haste cap is going to raise in SF, Everburning flame is totally useless in SF.
    Crabbok said:
    Since these issues are for both Bruisers and Monks, figured I'd get a thread going here instead of mirroring the same stuff on both subclass sections.
    INT Line - Eagle Shriek - This was recently bumped up to 50%, which is a small upgrade but honestly it's still just a bad ability. The crit chance is pointless. This ability was cool in KoS, because most people had under 20% crit, in fact about the only crit you could get was mark of the awakened, and your AAs crit. But now everyone's going to be close to 100%, and this AA is just silly. And if a brawler gets knocked below 50%, a little extra mitigation isn't going to save him. Even if you bumped it up to 75% this ability would still be terrible. This line needs to be changed to reflect the times.

    If it's going to give mitigation, then it needs to give permanent mitigation, maybe 500 all-the-time mit. If it's going to be a proc when you get low, then it needs to give stoneskins when you fall below 50%, because that actually WOULD save a brawler. and I'd say just remove the crit altogether and replace with some other stat, maybe base autoattack modifier, base damage, or something.

    Crane Twirl from the WIS line needs a revamp, similar to the fix that Mantis Bolt received. It's damage is abysmal. raise the proc up to about 2500,, maybe 3500 at rank 10.
    Our new SF endlines from the brawler tree are kinda underwhelming. The STR line flurry is awesome, but every other endline only affects that same tree's ability... which kinda stinks because we can't have any use of them if we don't get that same tree's endline. Since nobody is going to pick the INT line anyway... that is the first one that should be changed. The Wis Line's Crane Flock modification is ok, but I'd suggest adding an extra buff that raises the max # of Targets Crane Flock can strike. STA Line is fine, but still i'd rather a separate ability, rather than another mod of an endline. The AGI line is terrible. Even with it maxxed your still looking at almost a 3 minute recast of altruism, which isn't going to make any difference. If it's going to modify Altruism, then it needs to allow Altruism to be better, IE give it multiple charges, and let it be cast on self.

    The final endline ability doesn't work, and even if it does get fixxed it needs adjusting. the 50% health requirement of casting it makes it an ability that will probably never save a brawler's life. Our biggest problem is we get 1 shotted, or doubleattacked/strikethroughed and die ultra fast. There is simply no time to cast that after one hit, but before the double-attack which kills us. I love that were getting a self save/vs death, but just want it to be useable. Increase the duration to 30 sec, remove the health requirement, and lower the recast a bit and you'd have an all star ability.
  3. ARCHIVED-BChizzle Guest

    Hereo covered it pretty good. I think overall the changes in BETA are a step in the right direction, but I really hope we continue to get tweaked because we certainly aren't there yet and our counterpart in bruisers got some serious upgrades in the utility front so hopefully more is coming. The new class dev while super quiet really seems to take our feedback seriously I just hope he realizes we aren't totally fixed yet and drops us as an issue to be active on.

    Me personally I think the two most impactful things that we have gotten this BETA are immunity to strikethrough in defensive stance and 4.0 delay end game weapons. Time will tell though.
  4. ARCHIVED-Siatfallen Guest

    So wait, let me get this straight...
    We're getting more survivability. Okay, that seems to be the direction they want to take the class. Question is (this is rhetorical if you couldn't tell): Are we as viable as plate fighters despite lower mitigation and problems with damage spikes?
    We're also seeing some mediocre improvements to AE damage and hence aggro (Crane Flock change and new end line - it'll now be 24 seconds per 2 minutes, so about 20% of a fight at worst compared to 10% before?). Where does this put us in comparison with the designed AE tanks? My wager is behind them?
    Our utility continues to be as much /fail as it has been since tSO launch, and our DPS falls further behind t2 classes - no surprises there really, just observing that it seems to be the case.
    Obviously broken self-buffage and overhasting remain unaddressed (this was brought up for the first time in... I don't even know. KoS if not before. Come on now).
    We're obviously being moved away from being a class that thrives on versatility and towards a more purist role - and you still leaves abilities such as Mongoose stance (which hasn't served a decent purpose since the expansion it went live with unless you were running with a really bad tank in), and retain a tranquil vision buff that is actually a detriment if we're trying to OT?
    I mean, I may disagree with the direction this class is headed in, but if they're going to do it, could they at least do it properly?
    So what's the good news? We get to continue to be almost-as-survivable as plate fighters, now with almost-as-good AE aggro? Am I being overtly pessimistic here?
    Grats bruisers on getting utility, though. It was about bloody time, too.
    On another note: Increased duration on Tsunami means we'll be able to stay under our various "can't touch this" (where did I but my hammer?) buffs for longer, with fewer gaps. That's useful and since I'm not on test I guess I'll hold my scepticism on that specific count until being able to test it myself - but it doesn't seem like that much of a fix.
  5. ARCHIVED-couching Guest

    Nice post, Hereo.
    With the merge of deflection and block, we have a good amount of block in offensive, finally. It's a good change for both raiding and heroic content.
    With the changes in beta, casual brawlers will be much smoother in tanking heroic content.
  6. ARCHIVED-BChizzle Guest

    There will be doom and gloomers like Eilien but he has always been that way. Basically we are headed in the right direction but not there yet, the said the difference between us now and SF is huge and the divide has been narrowed.
  7. ARCHIVED-Siatfallen Guest

    BChizzle wrote:
    I see you still haven't learned to stop using ad hominem attacks in trying to advance your own points. Keep trying, you'll get there someday.
    If you'd notice, I was asking a reasonable question in the above, based on the information given, while observing that I wasn't in BETA to test it myself.
    If the best you can do in return is to call doom and gloom on said perspective (while agreeing with my basic assesment that these changes still leave us lacking, wtf?), then I suggest you just say you agree with me instead - It's less confusing that way.
    Bottom line is: If we're not quite there yet, what are we missing? and much more importantly, exactly what is the monk better at than other tanks right now - from the looks of what's stated above, the answer should be "not a whole lot". You're there however, while I'm not, so you very likely know something I don't.
    Enlighten me?
    Edit: Just to clarify, I've said this before and I'll say it again. I don't mind monk survivability and AE aggro being inferior to plate tanks - But if we're not equal and it sounds like we're not, I'm just curious what our advantage is? I'm not saying we don't have one (since I'm not in beta), I'm just not seeing it in what's written here.
  8. ARCHIVED-BChizzle Guest

    Siatfallen wrote:
    Get real close to the screen for this, I don't want you to miss even a word. OK you ready?
    THESE CHANGES ARE GOOD AND ITS A POSITIVE THING STOP WITH ALL THE DOOM AND GLOOM BECAUSE YOU CAN'T FULFILL YOUR ROLE OF 12 SECOND TANK YOU HELD FOR A FEW MONTHS BACK IN ROK, ITS 2 YEARS LATER SOME OF US WANT TO PLAY MORE THEN 12 SECONDS EVERY HOUR WHEN THE MT GOES DOWN.
  9. ARCHIVED-Siatfallen Guest

    BChizzle wrote:
    So wait... A few months back in RoK? Okay, I'll pretend EoF and KoS did not happen then - for the record, that's one year later. Also, in case you've forgotten, I'd love to repeat it: I tanked named mobs in Veeshan's Peak. you'll notice most of those take more than 12 seconds to die.
    Now, while persisting with personal attacks, you're also producing stawman arguments to even remotely justify your points of view. I also like how you felt like you had to write with big letters to make the point seem... More obvious?
    I get that you like the changes - but read my post here (actually make that my last quite many posts in these forums). I get where the brawler class is going. I think it's blatantly against what our class has been described as for a long time, but whatever. It's happening, so there.
    I did NOT question the nature of the changes made in the above (though I'll admit, I stated I did not like them). I questioned if they went far enough.
    You reply with a post basically saying "Yeah, Eilien's being all doom and gloom and that's just him being silly. These changes are good, even if they're not quite enough". So like I said, just state that you agree next time.
    So really, writing in the friendliest of tones here, maybe you need to read what I write here, and not what you think I should write given the perspective you're pretty sure I have?
    You'll notice you posted before my edit above (sorry, did not see your post before going to edit). If that doesn't clarify my question for you, I'm not sure what will. Maybe pretending that someone else wrote it, and it'll suddenly seem reasonable?
  10. ARCHIVED-couching Guest

    Siatfallen wrote:
    We were not almost-as-survivable as plate fighters in TSO. We are also not almost as good AE aggro in SF.
    But we are almost-as-survivable-as plate fighters in SF, at least in heroic content. For raiding, we won't know untill we start raiding in SF. But one thing for sure, with the strikethrough immunity in defensive and delfection merged with block which boosted our uncontested avoidance, the survivability gap between brawlers and plate fighters are closer.
    For AoE aggro, we get some boost but we are still the worst fighter of aoe aggro. However, in all honest, I am not so worry about that in heroic content because the worst time has gone, TSO.
  11. ARCHIVED-Siatfallen Guest

    Couching@Crushbone wrote:
    Fair enough on the almost-as-good on survivability in tSO. I agree we were a fair bit behind in tSO, but I figured that if people tanking end-game on a regular basis in tSO, it constituted being almost-there at least at that tier of play. Passable if not competitive, what-have-you.
    I take it the zones are less AE-centric in SF from what you've seen so far if AE aggro doesn't concern you much? As much as I think that's a bad way to balance a class, I guess I could see it working, at least until the next xpac.
    As for raid survivability, I don't think it was that much of a problem in heroic content in tSO anyway - aggro management was, but once you hit ~175-180 AA, the tSO class line helped out with survivability a lot (there wasn't much else to go for, so there). So, yeah, we'll have to wait and see how it turns out.
    I ran in raid gear for pretty much all of tSO, though, so that colours my perspective on that one a lot.
    Finally, how does merging block and deflection help our uncontested avoidance? Are we talking about better jewelry options here?
  12. ARCHIVED-EQ2Luv Guest

    Couching@Crushbone wrote:
    Did they actually merge deflection itself with block? I thought they just merged +deflection chance and + block chance. Is all deflection really uncontested now? This would be uberly huge, but I haven't read this anywhere.
  13. ARCHIVED-BChizzle Guest

    Siatfallen wrote:
    24 seconds of craneflock
    Cranetwirl being more effective due to the stat consolidation
    Mantis leap being a moderate type ability
    Provoking Stance
    If you spec for AE agro and you can't keep it with these abilities then sorry you shouldn't be playing a tank. However, most of us won't be speccing for ae agro we are designed to be single target tanks its like fitting a square peg in a round slot.
  14. ARCHIVED-couching Guest

    EQ2Luv wrote:
    There is no more deflection avoidance. We get block from our deflection skills. That's why we get a lot of block avoidance even in offensive stance.
  15. ARCHIVED-couching Guest

    Siatfallen wrote:
    There is no more delfection avoidance. The deflection skills give us block avoidance. It's a huge boost espeically when we are in offensive stance. I have 50%+ block in offensive with TSO gear.
    For AoE aggro, we get some upgrades. Since we can get work done in TSO with less aoe aggro management, there is no way we can't in SF. ,
  16. ARCHIVED-EQ2Luv Guest

    Couching@Crushbone wrote:
    Even if they call it 'block', is it uncontested or contested? Deflection chance (now block chance) is normally a function of your deflection skills vs. the weapon skill of the mob, and this is why it is said to be 'contested', because raid mobs have huge bonuses to their hit chance against the contested avoidances (parry, defense, deflection).

    Has it been confirmed that the chance of 'blocking' for brawlers will only be a function of the mob's level and their deflection skill, like it is for shields and the shield protection value?
  17. ARCHIVED-Siatfallen Guest

    BChizzle wrote:
    I ask mostly because not caring about AE aggro in tSO heroic content was counterproductive to say the least. If that's different in SF, great!
    I'd love to feel like I didn't have to spec this class for a kind of tanking it just wasn't designed to do very well.
    I'm hearing a lot of "we're getting better at this" - which is great, mind you, despite my scepticism. Not my perfect world, but at least some kind of direction.
    My question remains: So what do we do better than the other tanks?
    I'm hearing some "almost-as-good-as" here, some "we can get the same done, but we have to more active to be as effective" there (and I like that idea, but it can't exactly be called balanced if we get nothing in return for the increased effort) and some "we're better than we were over all, but still a bit behind the others" other places again.
    What have they, after a year of development (remember, essentially nothing has been changed about the state of this class directly since tSO launch, despite recognition when fighter revamp 2.0 was scrapped that it was needed), come up with to make the brawles stand out and shine amongst the fighters?
  18. ARCHIVED-couching Guest

    EQ2Luv wrote:
    Block is block and it's not changed. I know it's really a good news for brawlers.
  19. ARCHIVED-Siatfallen Guest

    Couching@Crushbone wrote:
    Okay, that sounds like an insane upgrade - I thought they meant that uncontested deflection now = uncontested block so it'd stack better with other stuff. I'll look forward to seeing that go live and figuring out how it'll work.
  20. ARCHIVED-BChizzle Guest

    Siatfallen wrote:
    I had 80-85% avoidance MT'ing in a BETA raid yesterday with Gungo's avoidance check on me with SF raid gear on. You can expect that avoidance will actually work better for us now. Comparable same raid a week before the paly tanking it with my avoidance was about 60-65% avoid.