Calibix
02-16-2007, 02:49 AM
I am a lvl 30 monk on Hilsbury, Dragon style ( Jaxinor ). I tank everything for my static group, as there (as usual) always seems to be a lack of competent plate tanks. Also, the majority of the time I tank in my offensive stance for the proc damage and agro. However, on some mobs/ multiple pulls I do switch to defensive for the ac and fire/cold resists.
I don't understand how some people say they can't kill 2 dots there lvl easily, I mow through them conserving jin and health fairly easily, though after a few mobs I'll need to eat some food. The crit decrease does suck, but its not nearly as bad as people make it sound. The crit system in and of itself needs work imho, its much to random right now.
That being said, monks still need a lot of work. The group I play with is very competent and generally consists of me, a shaman, necro, ranger, psionicist, and a sorceror. Of these classes, only the shaman doesn't consistenly out dps me. Ranger peels agro often, unless I get some good shots in at the start If there were a parser for this game yet, I would show you numbers. Unfortunately, all I can go by is general observation. The ranger can crit for 5k probably every half hour or so. I've never hit over 3.3k. Sorc can crit for the same, highest crit is 7.8k. Psionicist can crit about 3.5k on nukes, and up to 800-1200 on dots. Necro is a newer addition, can't comment so much, but he definetly rocks the house. Even the shaman has had a 2k+ crit, and dots for over 800.
There are 3 fundemental problems I see with monk dps:
1) Advanced finishers do less damage than finishers.
Not sure if this is intended, but as it stands adv finishers routinely do less than finishers. Part of this is because you must land a crit on the finisher to activate the adv finisher obviously. Kick of the heavens routinely does 200-500 less than flying kick, and about 0-200 less when it crits. Expand those ranges and you get an idea for 1000 fist/Thundering fists. That is just plain silly. Especially in the case of thundering fists, you get to use the adv finisher so much less than the finisher, it would only make sense that it would do more damage or at least the equivalent amount of the finisher's damage.
2) "Upgrades to CA's scale very poorly
I'm not in game to check the exact numbers (if someone wants to help me out here that would be great), but a perfect example is boundless fist 3 to 4. I was anxious to use it, so unbuffed I attacked an even 2dot with BF 3 and then BF 4. The difference was about 20-40 damage. Difference between Six Dragons Strike was about 40-60 damage. Holds true for every offensive ability we have, and Ignore Pain. This is a serious issue and needs to be looked at. If i get ambitious tomorrow I'll have the ranger do some testing with me to compare upgrade differences in our main attack (Boundless Fist for us).
3) "Secret" techniques need to be adjusted
First of all, I absolutely love the idea of secrets. I love the flair and versatility they add to the monk class by being able to add a specific damage/effect in a given situation. Secondly, this point is very similiar to the second. Secret damage in beta was one of a monk's primary offensive weapons. Like above, the damage on Secret of Fire scales very poorly, and when I get secret of Ice 2 tomorrow ( ok I lied, i'm like 3 bubbles from 30, lol, but I gotta get to sleepy soon!), I'll let you know how that scales. Also, I've heard concerns about the refresh time on secret of celerity being a little high. Heard it was 20m, which seems pretty high. I realize it will probably be pretty decent, provided the damage doesn't suck like the rest of the secrets (if it was like a double auto attack, that would so pwn). However, I don't see something that only lasts for 20s like that being worth a 20m refresh. It seems pretty on par in usefulness with Dragon's Rage, a dragon style technique that automatically crits if it lands, which is on a 5m timer.
Finally, I'd just like to say some other things quickly about monkish things. I can't stand that green border bug that happens on our abilities, even though I can't quite explain when it exactly happens. I'd like to use some of the nicer weapons I'm finding lately, but: 1) It is absurdly hard to raise weapon skills (2h slash, pierce, etc.) 2) attempting to do so is extremely unreliable and buggy. You could log in barehanded, put on a bladed staff, attack some mobs, then turn around and it will tell you you can't use hand to hand because no line of sight. You will not get 2h slash updates, maybe you will get bladed staff updates. if you take staff off and fight barehanded, you may still get bladedstaff updates. However, you start missing all the time because the game thinks you are using a bladedstaff still, and you skill in 2h slash is about 1/3 of max because you can't @(#&!@#(&$ raise it. logging in with the weapon equipped works sometimes, but skill seems to just stop updating at times. I have gone for over an hour on green mobs straight auto attack w/ no skill updates before.
Enough of my ranting. Please let me know what you think.
And I'd absolutely <3 to hear what a dev thinks about his. please please post a reply.
Thanks for your time, remember to FD fast!
TeH CaLiBiX
I don't understand how some people say they can't kill 2 dots there lvl easily, I mow through them conserving jin and health fairly easily, though after a few mobs I'll need to eat some food. The crit decrease does suck, but its not nearly as bad as people make it sound. The crit system in and of itself needs work imho, its much to random right now.
That being said, monks still need a lot of work. The group I play with is very competent and generally consists of me, a shaman, necro, ranger, psionicist, and a sorceror. Of these classes, only the shaman doesn't consistenly out dps me. Ranger peels agro often, unless I get some good shots in at the start If there were a parser for this game yet, I would show you numbers. Unfortunately, all I can go by is general observation. The ranger can crit for 5k probably every half hour or so. I've never hit over 3.3k. Sorc can crit for the same, highest crit is 7.8k. Psionicist can crit about 3.5k on nukes, and up to 800-1200 on dots. Necro is a newer addition, can't comment so much, but he definetly rocks the house. Even the shaman has had a 2k+ crit, and dots for over 800.
There are 3 fundemental problems I see with monk dps:
1) Advanced finishers do less damage than finishers.
Not sure if this is intended, but as it stands adv finishers routinely do less than finishers. Part of this is because you must land a crit on the finisher to activate the adv finisher obviously. Kick of the heavens routinely does 200-500 less than flying kick, and about 0-200 less when it crits. Expand those ranges and you get an idea for 1000 fist/Thundering fists. That is just plain silly. Especially in the case of thundering fists, you get to use the adv finisher so much less than the finisher, it would only make sense that it would do more damage or at least the equivalent amount of the finisher's damage.
2) "Upgrades to CA's scale very poorly
I'm not in game to check the exact numbers (if someone wants to help me out here that would be great), but a perfect example is boundless fist 3 to 4. I was anxious to use it, so unbuffed I attacked an even 2dot with BF 3 and then BF 4. The difference was about 20-40 damage. Difference between Six Dragons Strike was about 40-60 damage. Holds true for every offensive ability we have, and Ignore Pain. This is a serious issue and needs to be looked at. If i get ambitious tomorrow I'll have the ranger do some testing with me to compare upgrade differences in our main attack (Boundless Fist for us).
3) "Secret" techniques need to be adjusted
First of all, I absolutely love the idea of secrets. I love the flair and versatility they add to the monk class by being able to add a specific damage/effect in a given situation. Secondly, this point is very similiar to the second. Secret damage in beta was one of a monk's primary offensive weapons. Like above, the damage on Secret of Fire scales very poorly, and when I get secret of Ice 2 tomorrow ( ok I lied, i'm like 3 bubbles from 30, lol, but I gotta get to sleepy soon!), I'll let you know how that scales. Also, I've heard concerns about the refresh time on secret of celerity being a little high. Heard it was 20m, which seems pretty high. I realize it will probably be pretty decent, provided the damage doesn't suck like the rest of the secrets (if it was like a double auto attack, that would so pwn). However, I don't see something that only lasts for 20s like that being worth a 20m refresh. It seems pretty on par in usefulness with Dragon's Rage, a dragon style technique that automatically crits if it lands, which is on a 5m timer.
Finally, I'd just like to say some other things quickly about monkish things. I can't stand that green border bug that happens on our abilities, even though I can't quite explain when it exactly happens. I'd like to use some of the nicer weapons I'm finding lately, but: 1) It is absurdly hard to raise weapon skills (2h slash, pierce, etc.) 2) attempting to do so is extremely unreliable and buggy. You could log in barehanded, put on a bladed staff, attack some mobs, then turn around and it will tell you you can't use hand to hand because no line of sight. You will not get 2h slash updates, maybe you will get bladed staff updates. if you take staff off and fight barehanded, you may still get bladedstaff updates. However, you start missing all the time because the game thinks you are using a bladedstaff still, and you skill in 2h slash is about 1/3 of max because you can't @(#&!@#(&$ raise it. logging in with the weapon equipped works sometimes, but skill seems to just stop updating at times. I have gone for over an hour on green mobs straight auto attack w/ no skill updates before.
Enough of my ranting. Please let me know what you think.
And I'd absolutely <3 to hear what a dev thinks about his. please please post a reply.
Thanks for your time, remember to FD fast!
TeH CaLiBiX