Monk Barefist and their Hitpoints

[null1fy]

I don't know if this is a ridiculous idea.

Monk barefisted damage becomes viable at various points in the game. Monks are the only class where this is really ever used, and you have a drastic tradeoff in hit points and statistics because of the loss of two weapons (or a two handed weapon).

Is it possible to encode scaling hitpoints for 1-65, and possibly at 65 depending on AAs or codexes, or maybe just a flat amount at 65 for monks with bare fists?

At the end of the day, it isn't a make-or-break decision, but I think it would be something which would balance out barefists and might encourage people to find some good gloves and go back to the fists again.

 

[Nwaij]

To my knowledge, there are gloves that make bare fists better then any weapons of the same tier those gloves are. The loss of HP/stats from weapons is the balancing for this. Atleast that's what I thought all the time.

 

[Dimmi]

To my knowledge, there are gloves that make bare fists better then any weapons of the same tier those gloves are. The loss of HP/stats from weapons is the balancing for this. Atleast that's what I thought all the time.

There are numerous instances where you have to sacrifice survivability to maximize DPS if that's what you're going for. I remember going through most of spires and a lot of tur'ruj with an idol of manslaughter equipped on Dimmi to maximize his DPS b/c I was guilded with Manguadi and he was mean to me.

 

[null1fy]

Ok I'll quickly post a somewhat uncomprehensive comparison of gloves vs. weapons throughout the tiers. This will start at T3/4 because before then it's pretty much uncontested truth that monk barefist damage beats out weapons until you can get around 0.70 ratio weapons.

Monk Fist damage @ 65: 13/18 (0.722)

T3/4:

http://wiki.shardsofdalaya.com/index.php/Thought_Tearing_Claws
http://wiki.shardsofdalaya.com/index.php/Fleshbonded_Fighting_Claws

+3 magic damage (account about +1.5 true damage). 0.806 Ratio, Loss of about ~50 hp otherwise gained by items and potential DD procs.

http://wiki.shardsofdalaya.com/index.php/Ornate_Draconic_Leather_Gloves

+2 Fire Damage (account about +1 true damage), DD Proc. 0.778 Ratio, loss of about ~100 hp otherwise gained by items and potential DD procs.

vs

http://wiki.shardsofdalaya.com/index.php/Needle-Fist 0.75 Ratio, Bladecoat
http://wiki.shardsofdalaya.com/index.php/Infested_Digits 0.739 Ratio
http://wiki.shardsofdalaya.com/index.php/Crimson_Fistwraps_of_Wrecking 0.70 Ratio, DD Proc
http://wiki.shardsofdalaya.com/index.php/Taskmaster%27s_Bloody_Knuckles 0.741 - 0.882 Ratio, DD Proc

T5/6:

http://wiki.shardsofdalaya.com/index.php/Wraps_of_Discipline

+3 Magic Damage, Stun Proc (+1.5 true), 0.806 Ratio, Potential loss of about ~150 HP

http://wiki.shardsofdalaya.com/index.php/Fistwraps_of_the_Chosen

+2 Fire Damage, DD Proc (+1.0 true), 0.778 Ratio, Potential loss of about ~150 HP

vs

http://wiki.shardsofdalaya.com/index.php/Fist_of_Chaos 0.81 Ratio, DD Proc
http://wiki.shardsofdalaya.com/index.php/Black_Fist_of_Malath 0.846 - 0.885 (Aszhii is listed as a T4 encounter, but I'll place him more practically at T5 in terms of how much you'll have to scout him, seriously, to consider getting this weapon)
http://wiki.shardsofdalaya.com/index.php/Hand_of_the_Inviolate 0.826, DD Proc

~~~~~~~~
There's Kind-of a break in tiers for gloves/fist weapons from T6 to T8
~~~~~~~~

T8/T9:

http://wiki.shardsofdalaya.com/index.php/Fingers_of_Frost

+4 Cold Damage (+2 True), 0.889 Ratio. Decent gloves, I never had much play time with these (at all) but with no DD proc I doubt these are that great. You also lose 50-150 HP, depending.

http://wiki.shardsofdalaya.com/index.php/Handwraps_of_Twisted_Souls

+6 Disease Damage (+3 True?), 0.944 Ratio, DD Proc. The first item that's really competitively stat allocated to compete with previous weapons. Ganlak fists provide a lot of what you 'need' in gloves to do well, however, disease is also one of the highest mitigated saves in the game. Not sure how well these parse in practicality. Potential HP Loss of 50-100, depending.

I think that might be it for glove weapons at this tier?

vs

Not many options (By the time you're T8/9):

http://wiki.shardsofdalaya.com/index.php/Wardfist 0.865 Ratio
http://wiki.shardsofdalaya.com/index.php/Black_Fist_of_Malath 0.846 - 0.885
http://wiki.shardsofdalaya.com/index.php/Searfist 0.913 - 1.00 Ratio, DD Proc

Other fists like Taskmaster Knuckles and Fist of Chaos stay good, even at this tier, if you can't get a Cane of Calefaction or a good 2hander

High T9/Breaking-in to T10:

http://wiki.shardsofdalaya.com/index.php/Silence 0.944 Ratio, DD Proc, All sorts of goodness. This is really the one-of-two items that exist in the game for monks that aggressively competes with weapons, and in instances, out-parses fists. I currently use Silence and parse about 450-500 with them on trash, vs. using Handwraps of Twisted Magics and Searfist which I parse about 350 with them. It's a huge difference.

Using these nets me, personally, about -400 HP. I think those that are able to attain Silence would lose about 300-400 HP from a fairly solid 2hander or pair of weapons

vs.

http://wiki.shardsofdalaya.com/index.php/Searfist 0.913 - 1.00 Ratio, DD Proc
http://wiki.shardsofdalaya.com/index.php/Hand_of_Delusions 0.952 - 1.00 Ratio, DD Proc. Debatable T10 encounter.


So what can we take away from this?

- Gloves appear, at first glance, to be on about even keel with equippable fist items up until T9. This seems to contradict Nwaij's statement that the better increase of damage from gloves outweighs the drop of hitpoints and statistics.

- Monk weapons, in most instances throughout the game, just aren't that interesting until around T9 when proc rate starts to increase, gloves become more useful and generally a paradigm begins to shift where white damage isn't the only source for monk DPS.

- There's an exponential curve in DPS that occurs at T9/10 with gloves with an accelerated cost of hitpoints. Not sure if monks should be scolded for this since they're a dps oriented class. Dimmi mentioned Rogues need to sacrifice stats for humanoid bane items but also so should Monks. Does this mean Monks have to take a double-hit to statistics and hitpoints?

 

[Nwaij]

High T9/Breaking-in to T10:

http://wiki.shardsofdalaya.com/index.php/Silence 0.944 Ratio, DD Proc, All sorts of goodness. This is really the one-of-two items that exist in the game for monks that aggressively competes with weapons, and in instances, out-parses fists. I currently use Silence and parse about 450-500 with them on trash, vs. using Handwraps of Twisted Magics and Searfist which I parse about 350 with them. It's a huge difference.

Using these nets me, personally, about -400 HP. I think those that are able to attain Silence would lose about 300-400 HP from a fairly solid 2hander or pair of weapons

IDK about mistborn being "High T9/breaking-in to T10", but sacrifying 300-400 HP to increase your DPS by ~35% sounds like a really really good deal to me!

 

[Rorne]

IDK about mistborn being "High T9/breaking-in to T10", but sacrifying 300-400 HP to increase your DPS by ~35% sounds like a really really good deal to me!

Unfortunately it depends on how reliable a boost it is etc which is kind of hard to measure. I'd love to see barehand be given some kind of niche to make it a realistic choice outside a few sparse cases.

 

[null1fy]

I feel like my thread was some-what glazed over in which I feel like I provided a lot of glaring issues with monks-

-lack of higher-end fist items
-lack of fist items actually doing much dps (at all)
-bare handed dps is better, absolutely, with silence over any fists with a huge drawback

Unless I'm just completely mistaken and need to be corrected.

 

[Dinadass]

I feel like my thread was some-what glazed over in which I feel like I provided a lot of glaring issues with monks-

-lack of higher-end fist items
-lack of fist items actually doing much dps (at all)
-bare handed dps is better, absolutely, with silence over any fists with a huge drawback

Unless I'm just completely mistaken and need to be corrected.

When you say "lack of fist items" are you talking about Hand to Hand weapons? If so, then I'd agree. Monk DPS overall scales horribly compared to other classes from the mid tiers to upper tiers. Prior to shadow staff, the vast majority of monk DPS comes from auto attack melee damage, and weapon ratio does not increase enough for monks to keep pace with other classes. I know at least one dev said the same, and rebalancing monk weapons overall would be one solution but would also be quite an undertaking. Making Force of Body worth more than ~5 DPS per tome would also help.

Back on topic for this thread though, there are basically three times in a monk's life that bare fists are used:

Leveling/fresh 65, where 13/18 plus 1-3 elemental damage blows any weapons away
Using Silence in the t8-t10 range
Matron's Grasp for AOE dps (only a few monks have this)

In general I don't think giving up hp/stats from weapons to do more damage is a bad thing, but it might be nice if bare fists had a more consistent niche or something. Maybe making more gloves have AOE procs or utility procs, or changing a monk AA to make fists do something interesting. Adding something to boost HP while using bare fists doesn't seem like a good fit to me though.

 

[aardvark10k]

what if monks got the AC of their gloves divided by 10 rounded to the nearest integer added to their bare fist attack damage as weapon damage and not elemental damage. so if you have gloves with 30 AC it adds 3 real damage to your attacks. if your gloves have 7 AC you get 1 real damage, 14 you get 1 damage, 16 you get 2 damage, etc, etc. it would make up for the loss of stats from two weapons and it would make finding high AC monk gloves good. its kind of like your gloves are armored and tough and make your punches land even harder the more armored they are. monk gloves would possibly have to be rebalanced but it would give developers more control of how much damage they want monks to consistently get for bare fisted damage. the elemental damage would just be considered extra.