Sugestion for making monk better

[Safire]

I allready obtained 4 classes at level 100 by the time i picked up monk
For the difficulty of the 4 I will rate them 1-10, 1 being a breeze and 10 being about the same as teaching lead to float in water without outside forces affecting its ability to float or the waters weight in any way.

Bloodmage - 2.5
Cleric - 2
Mage - 5
Druid - 1

And then I tookmonk for the combonation of getting the skill: forsight, the 1,000 dex and the 1,000 evasion also I figured it couldent hurt to have a good unarmed skill. Currentally I have ground my way up to level 91 monk and using the same scale that I used for the other 4 classes I have reached 100 with so far I would,

Monk - 9.75

I find Monk to be so difficult and the following seven reasons are mostly the big ones:
1). Monk has a very low damage output.
2). Monk has a very low rate of actually hitting enemies with physical or special attacks (critical strike excluded due to the face it actually automatically hits).
3). Most of the special abilities that monks have are linked on the same timer (I think there are 2 or 3 timers for monk abilities).
4). The monk spcial abilities also have a timer which is not practicle for actual use due to the time required for abilities to reset or even the abilities on the same timer to....set.
5). Monk evasion/defense does not counter for its other weaknesses by a long shot.
6). Monks are limited to a light armor (Which for Hand to Hand combat would make sense but in this game it is almost a mistake to have such a weak class in light armor)
7). Monks lack a lot of carry over with spells from other classes especially healing spells

Now what I believe would help Monks and Disciples a good deal of help would be a conterattack ability that could be gained through a quest (something kinda like cloak of thorns for Monks and Dsciples) and the quest could be something you talk to a Monk/Disciple trainer and you get a quest to go do battle at an arena or something to prove your value as a monk by killing something like named mobs and have it set up so that there a various....teirs throughout a mountainside (it doesnt have to be a building maybe something like flat beat down areas going up a mountainside whare the named mobs spawn for thoose who have the quest(non repeatable once passed) each clearing or teir leads to the one above it and dependent on how far you can go up the teirs determines how powerful your counter attack skill will be (with about 5 teirs and have it set up so the first teir is a teir 1 second teir teir 2 named ect. named boss but also set up so that if you can only get to a certain teir you can get the continued part of the quest later for a reduced exp reward) and once you finish whichever teir you were working on and/or the last teir you will get a counterattack skill for the highest teir you have completed (higher teir ones clear out the lower teir ones)

The basic rules for the quest would go as follows
1). You must be a Monk, Spirit Disciple, Flame Disciple, Ice Disciple, or Storm Disciple while working on this quest if you are not one of thoose claases your efforts will not advance the quest as well as the named mobs will not spawn for you.
2). The mountain arena should be a fair distance away from any portal while not being close to or have a path that would not allow passage of low level players due to high level mobs moderate level mobs ect.
3). The teirs should recognize your adventure level and not qualify winning a battle with a higher teir monster (to prevent low level monks from getting rushed through by their high level friend).
4). You cannot skip any teir to save time ( Teir 5 requires teir 4, which requires teir 3, which requires teir 2, which requires teir 1.)

Now if anyone else notices anything that should fit in the Rules that is missing please post about it.

This is how I think the skills should work

Teir 1
Skill: Weaker Counterattack
Player attempts to return melee Attack(s) from Enemy/Enemies
Damage Done: Normal Melee Damage (ignores 10% of opponents armor)
Duration:15 minutes, Timer: 15 minutes
Must be in adventure class: Monk, Spirit Disciple, Flame Disciple, Ice Disciple, or Storm Disciple
Must have Compleated teir 1 of the mountain

Teir 2:
Skill: Lesser Counter Attack
Player returns Enemy/Enemies melee attack(s) with a quick side attack(no actual animation for this)
Damage Done 106% normal melee damage (Ignores 20% of opponents armor)
Does an additional 2% damage in blue stance
Duration: 15 minutes, Timer: 15 minutes
Must be in adventure class: Monk, Spirit Disciple, Flame Disciple, Ice Disciple, or Storm Disciple
Required Adventure level: 20
Must have Compleated teir 2 of the mountain

Teir 3
Skill: Counterattack
Player returns Enemy/Enemies melee attack(s) with a blow to the side(also no animation).
Damage done: 108% normal melee damage (Ignores 30% of opponents armor).
Does an additional 4% damage in green stance.
25% more difficult to dispel (if aplicable)
Duration: 15 minutes, Timer: 15 minutes
Must be in adventure class: Monk, Spirit Disciple, Flame Disciple, Ice Disciple, or Storm Disciple
Required Adventure level: 40
Must have Compleated teir 3 of the mountain

Teir 4
Skill: Advanced Counterattack
Player returns melee attack(s) from Enemy/Enemies with a calculated blow to the side(no animation for this one either)
Damage done: 110% of normal melee damage (Ignores 40% of opponents armor)
Does an additional 6% damage in red stance
50% more difficult to Dispell (if Aplicable)
Duration: 15 minutes, Timer: 15 minutes
Must be in adventure class: Monk, Spirit Disciple, Flame Disciple, Ice Disciple, or Storm Disciple
Required Adventure level: 60
Must have Compleated teir 4 of the mountain

Teir 5
Skill: Expert Counterattack
Player returns Enemy/Enemies melee attack(s) with a quick, calculated, and powerful blow to the side (once again no animation for this)
Damage done: 112% normal melee damage (50% of it ignores armor)
Does and additional 10% more damage in blue stance
75% more difficult to dispell (if aplicable)
Duration: 15 minutes, Timer: 15 minutes
Must be in adventure class: Monk, Spirit Disciple, Flame Disciple, Ice Disciple, or Storm Disciple
Required Adventure level: 80
Must have Compleated teir 5 of the mountain

[CallakDW]

The biggest mistake for monks is their low attack speed. Monks by tradition are supposed to be the quickest and most accurate figters in most games. They have lower damage rates, but that is *supposed* to be made up for in speed, which for some reason HZ never accomplished.

[Gremblthrg]

I allready obtained 4 classes at level 100 by the time i picked up monk
For the difficulty of the 4 I will rate them 1-10, 1 being a breeze and 10 being about the same as teaching lead to float in water without outside forces affecting its ability to float or the waters weight in any way.

Bloodmage - 2.5
Cleric - 2
Mage - 5
Druid - 1

And then I tookmonk for the combonation of getting the skill: forsight, the 1,000 dex and the 1,000 evasion also I figured it couldent hurt to have a good unarmed skill. Currentally I have ground my way up to level 91 monk and using the same scale that I used for the other 4 classes I have reached 100 with so far I would,

Monk - 9.75

I find Monk to be so difficult and the following seven reasons are mostly the big ones:
1). Monk has a very low damage output.
2). Monk has a very low rate of actually hitting enemies with physical or special attacks (critical strike excluded due to the face it actually automatically hits).
3). Most of the special abilities that monks have are linked on the same timer (I think there are 2 or 3 timers for monk abilities).
4). The monk spcial abilities also have a timer which is not practicle for actual use due to the time required for abilities to reset or even the abilities on the same timer to....set.
5). Monk evasion/defense does not counter for its other weaknesses by a long shot.
6). Monks are limited to a light armor (Which for Hand to Hand combat would make sense but in this game it is almost a mistake to have such a weak class in light armor)
7). Monks lack a lot of carry over with spells from other classes especially healing spells

Part of the difficulty is due to your rating; if you did monk as your second class, for example, it would have been much easier to level.

1. Unarmed damage is certainly low; for regular damage, you need strength from a higher strength class, and for special attacks.. well, you'd have to not use Unarmed. It has the fastest and lowest damage individual hits, so with strength has similar DPS to other weapons unstyled; but special attacks are scaled on the damage of an individual hit, so Unarmed really loses out here.

2. Hit rate is actually pretty good if you fight things close to (or below) your level or are heavily set up towards Unarmed use - 10 unarmed and dex per level for pure monk, after all, lend themselves to accuracy. Perhaps your problem here is due to higher rating and fighting things rather above your level.

3-4. Seperate timers? Multistrike, Crit Strike, and the chain attacks are all on seperate timers, and cripple, nerve strike, and stunning blow have so little effect as to not be worth using anyway. Power Style and Evasive Style share timers for every class, and I don't recall Knit Bones and Mind Over Body sharing timers. Some of the timers are a bit long, but the effects can be worth the wait. (Iron Body!)

5-6. High evasion doesn't make up for other weaknessess, I agree certainly; and since evasion is a shared skill, someone could level up monk and benefit from the evasion when in another class, in fact one of the main reasons people do take monk. For those of us with an unarmed class as main, though, perhaps a passive nonmasterable evasion boost would make up for the shortcomings in armor. Oh, and don't forget HP; 18 per level is low for a class that is supposed to go fight things in melee.

7. Pure monk only gets basic spells, but flame and ice disciple can cast all arcane spells, and storm and spirit disciples can cast all mystic spells except the Health spell lines - which are limited to mystic caster primary classes in any case, and unarmed classes are designed to be more melee than caster.

The counterattack ability you propose would be too powerful, especially in the hands (no pun intended) of a multiclassed disciple - particularly one using a staff weapon. To get in a free attack every time something swung at us, with a fist buff effect...
Oh, and flame disciple already has a damage shield.

I'm definitely not denying that the unarmed classes need help, but they need more than just a powerful ability; what is needed is a review of the fundamental aspects of combat performance, a class review - and this is needed beyond the unarmed classes as well, but is (and should be) a lower priority than technical stuffs such as basic client issues.

- Gremblthrg, flame disciple

[Phillip]

I'm leveling both monk and druid right now. Monk is so much harder to level.

[Safire]

The counterattack ability you propose would be too powerful, especially in the hands (no pun intended) of a multiclassed disciple - particularly one using a staff weapon. To get in a free attack every time something swung at us, with a fist buff effect...
Oh, and flame disciple already has a damage shield.

I'm definitely not denying that the unarmed classes need help, but they need more than just a powerful ability; what is needed is a review of the fundamental aspects of combat performance, a class review - and this is needed beyond the unarmed classes as well, but is (and should be) a lower priority than technical stuffs such as basic client issues.

- Gremblthrg, flame disciple

I dont believe the counter attack that I propose would be too powerful ever seen the damage output from cloak of thorns and it ignores armor 100%, besides monk is the primary unarmed combat class and it seems like they try to give monk and the disciple classes a martial arts style to them which means to me that a counterattack would be apropriate as well sure in theory it would grant a multiclassed disciple a lot of firepower but compare it to whats allready out there for the use I would think its fair since I planed on it being self only hence the timer and the duration are the same you cant cast it on an entire hunting party

ok as for the flame disciple's damage shield yes I have heard of it and ive even seen how pitiful the damage output it has compared to the other damage shields I have seen (CoT, Spiked Scales, Glaring Quills)

And yes I do agree that the unarmed classes require a complete and total reconstruction although a powerful ability has proven to truly help in the past for example Gold Rage is a very powerful ability and it is to my knowlage one of the best things they did for dragons although I do know it came nowhare near all that dragons needed it was a good start and thats what I think they need to do with monks and disciples the counterattack I proposed previously is what I think would be that start I do understand that handwraps could technically be considered the start of making monk better but I dislike them being a two handed weapon making it impossible to tech something like a satchel or bag to add to the possible techs you can put on.

I also do understand that the basic client issues should take priority although I also understand that it's not the stable client that most people (or at least I should think most people) play games like horizons its well for some it is about being the most powerful, and others its about crafting, and some enjoy the community, I guess different people have different interests and different reasons to play, but the reason I play Horizons is to well mostly find a place that I can use to just relax and game the current client issues dont bug me too much or its just that Ive gotten used to them, and Gremblthrg just remember one thing if they dont do anything interesting soon enough the game will if it hasnt allready drain down to its hardcore players who will still eventually get bored and leave the client should be a priority I agree just it shouldent have every single thing pushed aside just for it

As they say every dog has its day and if they do put in something alike my counterattack idea or if it inspires a good idea to the EI staff that could just give the Monk class its day...

Also if anyone else agrees with Gremblthrg on his statement

The counterattack ability you propose would be too powerful, especially in the hands (no pun intended) of a multiclassed disciple

perhaps you could post something that would also work this thread is about tweaks or abilities Monks should have due to there low firepower they have at this moment but I would like to ask from people who do post other sugestions here to try and not put anything in that will cause EI devs to not take this seriously (yes, I am assumeing they take it seriously now)