ESSAY: DEVS Please review monk classes!!

To compare a monk to a Reaver or a Berserker is foolhardy in the extreme given the fact those two melee classes are so overpowered. So let's take a moment and compare a monk to a Paladin or a Warrior. Both are allowed the use of metal armor, where the monk is not, and damage output of the monk doesn't even begin to draw close to that of he weapon user. There are a couple reasons for this.

1. Weapons - a Mithril Two Handed sword has a much higher damage output than a barefisted monk could ever dream or hope to achieve. Now this is supposed to be balanced by the monk hitting faster. This - IN PRACTICE - doesn't wok. Even with the Priceless Ashthorn Medallion, our delay is still pretty much comperable to the sword user and dps falls much short of the sword user. Hand wraps didn't really solve this problem since they did not modify our damage or our delay at all - they were simply a mechanism for parry techs and weapon sockets.

2. Strength - If there were a simple change that would fix everything that's wrong with monks, it's in their strength. Those who train in martial arts are pretty strong people in the real world. But not in Horizons. They have less strength per level than most other adventure classes!!! In order for a monk to stay competitive against a weapon using class, they need to level fitter (10 pts per level in strength) in addition to their monk class just to be competititve. Is it really fair to force a person to level two classes instead of just one to meet what other classes do with one school? And increase in the monks' strength per level would up their damage without changing the game mechanics and would make monks more equal to their piers without overpowering them. Right now it's 8 pts per level. Bumping it to 9 would be a huge improvement, though in the real world someone who uses their fists to kill things for a living would most likely justify a strength of 10 per level.

I trained in martial arts in real life when I was a kid. Disciples are really cool because your adding the martial arts thing with a magic line. You even get a really cool fist buff that everyone can see. But there are some problems. A friend Kerraktave made me a spell - Lightning Storm V and dual teched with with nature damage and pierce. It's requirements were lvl 95 adventure and 1010 nature use. By putting all my training points into nature that I possibly could, I was only able to achieve a base nature skill of 1000 - 10 points shy of being able to cast this spell. I submitted a trouble ticket in frustration because though I'm a nature user, I'm a gimped one. This means in order to use this spell I would have to raise Druid to level 100. THAT'S NOT FAIR. I already have to level a second class (fitter) to stay competitive, why am I being forced to level Druid also to have a good monk character? That's not FAIR!!! (Oh and the cool fist buff vanishes after porting.)

Please see: http://yarf.furry.com/~tigris/horizons_1097458194.jpg

In conclusion, I want to say this. Monks are cool and fun to play, but those are the ONLY reasons you play them. That's sad. How many monks do you see on a server at a given time? ******** FEW. Why? Because they are fun to play and that's all. That alone proves to DEVS that this class is inferior and needs help to be balanced with other classes. They have cool abilities but are owned by things 25 levels under them. I routinely get eaten alive by lvl 75 Shadow Spiders. I have seen so many people try a monk class and then abandon it because it just wasn't what they were hoping for in damage output. Some even assumed all of HZ was like this and left the game after trying a monk. David Bowman describes the monk has a fast-hitting melee character with a high damage output. If that's what we're supposed to be, then the DEVS are woefully uninformed about the class. I invite any of the AE staff and dev team to come on a hunt with someone who has play a monk for 8 months like I have and come see the damage comparisons for themselves. I personally feel the answer is to up their strength gain per level, as it would up their damage to normal without overpowering them, to 9 or 10 pts per level to be more in line to what a martial arts user would gain in the real world. Yet still we monk players sit here and do nothing like abused housewives and just take it up the ****** month after month. Well now the shard mergers are over. Amon and Ssrydian asked to be poked to review the monks after merger. Well, it's after merger now. PLEASE REVIEW THE MONK CLASSES! WE NEED SOME LOVE!

Monks don't get 8 in strength per level.. they get 6.

Bumping it to 9 would be a very good improvement.

I will write up a monk/disciple post that may hopefully address all of the key issues that all of the monk classes face.. and post that as well.

Sorry, I can no longer edit the post for some reason, otherwise I'd fix that. But yes 6 is what I meant but typed it wrong, sorry.

Monks I think are hard to balance stat wise. All schools get 26 stat points and it seems for the most part that melee users get 5/5 in focus and power and then another 16 to dish out to their main skills (give or take a point). Since they get 10 dexterity which helps to make sure they land their hits as well as increases their evasion, monks are pigeon-holed into 6 str.

And then you have the disciples, who can use magic and so power and focus are needed stats, but they're no better off than strength pt-wise.

For pure monks, I think dropping dexterity down to 9, robbing a pt from power and sticking those 2 into str would help. Might even go so far as to raise str to 9 and lower dex to 8, but then you start to lose a bit of the class flavor imo.

Disciples is a rough one for skills. . .not sure how to approach that. I guess just leave the stat raises the same as a pure monk and have the spells purely for the effects they do and not so much the damage.

I may be mistaken, but monks only get a dex of 9.

Tigris I do respect you and your knowledge of monks but I have to disagree with some of your statements here.

While I agree monks need some help with their strength training fitter is not required to hunt as a monk. I did it with no fitter training at all. Martial arts does not require one to posses physical strength.

On the nature skill issue..you are not a caster plain and simple tier 5+ spells are for pure casters or those who multi up a pure caster. We use our magic skill to augment/enhance our combat we dont have our magic skill to be pure casters. You as a storm disciple are able to cast your epic spell without training points thats better than some hybrid classes.

Reavers are horribly over powered however serkers are where they should be with the exception that they need 1 point less evasion imo.

Pure monks get 10 dex disciples get 9 dex and even with that we still miss alot against mobs near our level :(

Monks and disciples need love and they need it bad.

Personally, and i have stated this in the other forums...WE DO NOT NEED MORE STR! Of course it would be nice to slam a mob just as hard as a pally...but we are not a pally. Monks do NOT hit hard..not in the same way as a warrior would. We hit accuratly...we hit fast...we evade...we dodge.....

I'm all for monk love but not at the expense of becoming another warrior class which we are not suppose to be. We play the roll of back up tank ...maybe at times...and extra dmg dealing....

If you want us to be equal to warrior then speed us up. if you want us to do as much dmg as a warrior then take our dmg output per single hit...make it the same as a warror...then cut it in half and add an extra hit per swing. We are a dps (damage per second) class.

IMHO add MAYBE 8 str per lvl instead of 6 and double our speed. If 8 is to powerful then drop us to 7. 6 is really to low atm i'll not argue that...but we don't need 9-10 per lvl.

I wish I could find a copy of the origonal statement by Jeremy Stanz comparing us to Berserkers, but this will have to do:

"A master of melee damage, the Monk makes a superb melee damage dealer." - AE BOARDS

Are we? No. If not strength, how do we become so?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Tigris

I wish I could find a copy of the origonal statement by Jeremy Stanz comparing us to Berserkers, but this will have to do:

"A master of melee damage, the Monk makes a superb melee damage dealer." - AE BOARDS

Are we? No. If not strength, how do we become so?

---

There is more than one way to skin a saris.

Strength would be the easiest to increase our damage output but there are other options

Such as...
Every attack hits twice - this would ofcourse double our dps and bring us up closer to crazy arse damage. This is explained as us using both hands to attack rather than just one.

Replace our generic melee specials with monk specfifc ones, or alter the generic melee abilities to factor in our delay as a positve thing rather than negative.

Increase the damage that UAM adds AND narrow the variance. At present the damage add can vary by about 30 points.

Make unarmed damage ignore armour - not likely but would help.

About that comment of ignoring armour, I think that might actually really be the ticket. We don't do much damage, but we are supposed to hit fast, the game engine appears to be limited in the speed an attack can occur. I think that's why theusers of long delay weapons like 2handed mauls have the edge on us, they keep getting faster with buffs. We cap out pretty early since our delay is small to start.

With a percentage of our damage being armour ignored it would really allow us a place and a role in combat. We would consistantly deal damage to a mob even if it were small amounts at a time. We would be like walking bleed attacks. Though not the 'masters of damage' we would be able to kill some heavily armoured things in a unique way instead of just making us another xxxx swinging class.

Alternately if we could get a passive flurry, that would allow us to increase our attacks as well, though this suffers from the same problem that our flurry attacks have now. Each attack has armour reduction taken right off the top. It's significantly less powerfulthan a single hit of equivalent damage. (Making things likehigh level flurries almostuseless.)

-HratLi

Yeah Jeremy Stanz's post about how monks should do Berserker-scale damage is lost with the Tazoon.Com boards. Oh well. Anyhow, trying to make a list of suggestions for possible fixes.

1. Unarmed damage ignores armor
2. Increase Str/lvl
3. More Evasion to counteract new mobs
4. Each attack hits twice

Any other thoughts?

Every hit lands twice. Kind of like a old school flurry I (flurry with all specials and no damage decrese). For a monk disciple I don't think this would be over powered.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by evilkarl

Every hit lands twice. Kind of like a old school flurry I (flurry with all specials and no damage decrese). For a monk disciple I don't think this would be over powered.

---

It would even make sense given a monk has two fists.

I've been watching my damage of late and I don't think there's any possible way to *overpower* a monk.