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!
Originally Posted by Tigris
