[2018 Q4] Monk debuf

[Faelon]

[quote]monks can wield bows right, what happens when you wield a bow against one of these dual wielding r̶e̶t̶a̶r̶d̶s warlords[/quote]

They get one attack per round?

[Davairus]

Seriously, wow. You guys definitely rolled up the wrong class if you thought having a bow-wielding monk would be cool... a crossbow-wearing paladin would be cool too but the game doesn't even provide us with that. It doesnt even let us properly throw a spear for the most part. None of this matters on the monk class not only because of prayer beads, but also because they were described as being against ganking and shit (even the evil ones), which makes it lunacy for a monk to be wearing a weapon that is designed to make killing efficient and easy. If you read the monk helpfile it explains all this right away. Literally, that is lunacy. The monks of old are done. Haha. You know what else would be badass? A justice with a five pointed star badge and a six-shooter. Lemme get right on that for you

[Nycticora]

monks having the bow skill and not being able to effectively wield bows is a conveyance problem, if the skill is on your skill list it should be effective. Bows on monks are as bad at the moment as cause continual.

If you put it on the pbase like that, it makes you look at fault. The first reaction is defensive, so the recipient of the message thinks first "This isn't my fault" and then "It's the fault of the person responsible" and then they'll freak out on you. In reality it's not your fault at all and it's a minor missing feature.

I brought it up as a possible solution to the problem. If monks are really getting annihilated by dual wielding and have no twohanded options (which has been claimed but not substantiated) then making bows viable is a potential fix.

[Davairus]

I don't mind if we dont have the skills on the skill list, I do mind people not bothering to read. For instance, reading 'snake style' shows right away a two-handed style to use offensively vs dual wield, which is probably a fine option. It has an enhanced grapple at the very least, of what I can remember. I think people are hoping to just throw up defenses and win with healing. i.e. turtle strategy, even though its been conveyed very heavily in helpfiles that dual wielding is supposed to beat defensive

[Ergorion]

Unless monks get a super parry against all weapons because they're hand to hand masters, the weapon procs should still convey a benefit in the form of not getting raped by rangers, yeah?

[Faelon]

The help file does say two handed for snake style. So does panda. One is offensive, the other defensive. Using an offensive stance against a warrior/hybrid will get you killed. I'd ask other monk players to back me up on that.

Panda style seems to be far less defensive then Crane and substantially less then leopard. My tests with it have typically been failures. Perhaps if chii built faster or more consistently, the style advantage would pay off. It could also work to force warrior typed to maintain style superiority.

[Nycticora]

hey Thorgoth are you totally sure monks are OP? I'm getting the opposite signal here

[Bladefury]

okay, so i took the time to read this entire thing and my feed back goes as such.

Monks who are fighting anyone dual wielding magic weapons in anything other than crane/leopard are going to get eaten alive.

ive found bows to be viable against dual wielding opponents but not quite cutting it to the point where you have the chance to win.

Healing is fine the way it is if you so much as scratch your balls while healing you'll loose concentration and have to start over.

Offence styles are okay if you're not tanking, if your tanking toss all of them out the window and forget it. for example if you use mantis and kick you get a super fucking dope grasshopper kick that does annihilate on top of 2 mangles from regular kick and double kick.

I think nycticora had a great idea talking about making bows a viable option against dual wielding opponents, we lose all right to use our hands to first parry second parry but still can dodge and are able to still use kicking.

Faelon has hit every single point and i back him on everything he is saying. I have spent many hours playing monks across a few different monks and i believe that some of the tattooings need to be redone as well but that's a whole entire other ball game.

[Davairus]

I mean Faelon has more credibility as far as I am concerned, he doesn't have a best friend that raged out on the forums after complaining about monks a lot. I would expect an assassination attempt out of Arunore's kool-aid club. Its obvious, although seems late.
Faelon, I would like to address whatever is underneath youre saying the offensive styles are totally useless, but I'm wondering why its taken until now for you to say anything. It makes me think nothings really wrong and you were just trying to protect your class (fair). Also, because someone brainlessly dual wielding magic damage weapons on a monk spamming bash/hobble sounds like an application for drunken style's stagger.
This thread is a lot of words and little suggestion, to be honest.

[Thorgoth]

Wait..what?

[Faelon]

As far as weapons on monks, I'm not a fan of them being able to use them with any skill. I get the reason for them being on there, for the ability to parry them. However, my feeling on weapons is just that, a feeling.

Davo, I've actually pointed out for a while to most of the monks who ask me questions in game, in the log sections and I believe in the forum, that offensive styles are crap and totally useless in Pk. I did not however bring it up to you all, so I suppose that was a large oversight on my part and I appreciate how that looks foolish of me.

[Davairus]

Thorgoth, was I unclear? It doesn't look like there is anyone else in the thread who agrees with you. The only other person I remember throwing that much shade at monks was calling you his best friend. So, I called your bluff on it.

Its an interesting thread. There should be clearly some shit wrong with monks, I spoke about it the week of release. For example as a monk you are still running around with a 25 hitroll bonus in crane style (an offensive style). It would be like literally impossible to give any other skill in the game that sizeable of bonus, its fucked up. It is literally redonkulous. Doesn't even get a mention in the thread. Doesn't get brought up in the forums, newbie chat, or logboard. A bunch of the other styles have affects that are like, +1 str or something, and that's it. Doesn't get a mention of how incredibly below par that is. If that isn't worth bringing to the table every monk discussion, I don't know what is. I was hoping someone would finally do it.

[Faelon]

[quote] For example as a monk you are still running around with a 25 hitroll bonus in crane style (an offensive style). [/quote]

Crane is a defensive style.

But you are not wrong about the buff of hitroll being powerful. This is countered by the fact that monks are so heavily dependent upon combat style.

[grant]

Hahaha, that's just it.

Crane style is offensive, with better defense than any of the other styles but leopard.

Been a while since I played a monk, so forgive me if I'm off on anything. I desparately wanted to love drunken stance, but even drunk it performed poorly compared to those two.

Offensively, aside from crane, the only one that is really intriguing is tiger, but you have to sacrifice too much defense. So that REALLY leaves mantis (cool ass kick though)/snake(venom kick is nice though)/dragon in the dust.

Monkey is great when someone is slinging offensive spells against you, and phoenix is good against mals/mental. Panda is really lackluster here, even with the stuff it does have.

General overview I have is this:

Reworking stance special abilities would make some sense, and balancing bonuses. Things like rolling water are really bad. The dance of the drunk is too, imo. Also, I always wanted to spearhand someone in snake and get a silence, but I never did. Maybe someone else has. Like Dav said, snake/mantis/monkey/panda all get awful stat bonuses for starters.

I thought some abilities were lackluster as well. Fists of Fury never did much for me in either of it's iterations. Tumble is a cool idea but I never used it. Air thrash isn't great.

So the problem for me is that monks don't have enough active skills to make them interesting enough for me to play, and they're one of my all-time favorite classes. They do have versatility in the stances, but you can really only build them one way right now.

To stay out of inferior combat style, you really only need two different styles and have to time it right against your opponent. Everyone just chooses the best two styles, which are leopard and crane. They're actually the best defensively, even though crane is offensive, with crane letting you go far more offensive (and gear for one stat, damroll) with that ridonkulous hitroll boost.

That's how much better they are than every other style, which are basically situational use only right now. Anyone care to correct me on that?

[Rothak]

Perhaps no one listened to Faelon, but he is correct. Crane stance is defensive, not offensive. I played Kang along with a few other monks, all I needed was leopard and crane. Doesn’t matter if my opponent was dual wielding, I’d still rock crane for the hitroll and kicks. Monkey is some what useful but since it is defensive combat style it doesn’t do much good against spell slingers when trying to get chii built up so again, crane plus kicks worked. All the other stances are basically useless.

[Faelon]

Crane is defensive. Dual wield doesn't equal offensive in the helpfile. It is a defensive style, with the iron body to suit.

[Davairus]

So the thing is this class is made up of over 6000 lines of code. Any attempt at modifying requires an understanding top to bottom of what the goal is to actually do and also to not do, and how to do that with as minimal change as possible. I think this would take me a minimum of about a week to be ready to even try. You can see even after I literally coded it, I still cant remember every detail. I remember my old bullet points, like just wanting snake to be the basic reliable go-to style. I remember panda used to be horse, I took that and buffed it alot, and now people think its useless, which is a bit baffling. I also remember I started it off with a food bonus that people cried nerf on

[Faelon]

That nerf on Panda (the style previously known as horse) was a nerf hammer that Burz would have been proud of.

+1 max Wisdom and +1 to a stat (not max) and have to eat roast food (which has a surprisingly short rot time) vs Short term haste with any food.

[Faelon]

I suppose the question is, are combat advantages sticking around?

If they are, then give better buffs for the monk staying in combat advantage. Increase the chii required, but decrease the lag on switching styles. Not totally lag free, but a bit.

Crane doesn't need anything, other than a punishment for using crane kick while not superior or equal.

Leopard doesn't really need a change either.

The other styles, probably increasing the actives, or their defense capabilities would be enough to make them useful. As well as instituting punishments for using inferior combat styles.

Maybe chii builds faster while superior, but depletes your yin/yang when inferior. Forcing the monk to switch into different styles as necessary.

Just a few thoughts off the top of my head.

[Ergorion]

Those kick styles could have a rogue-like element of using the wrong weapon skill.

Like a kick while in a disadvantaged style would cause you to fall on your ass and eat damage. A kick in neutral would just do kick and double kick damage. Kick in superior gets the bonus stuff.