Proposed Monk Changes

I am enjoying the different combos and actually use most of them regularly in different scenarios. The problem I have which makes it not so fun is when a combo fails or expires and then I can't get another one to go off for a while (something like five minutes - just enough time to be useless for a boss fight). Then I feel majorly weakened for that time. There still might be a better solution but I do like the combo system.
 
The only times I've gone that long without a combo starting are when there's an issue with distance or a weird hitbox or something and I need to reposition. I regularly miss 6-8 kicks in a row though which does suck pretty bad.

As far as using them all... I don't. I use either the DPS combo or lifetap combo. The avoidance combo just makes our incoming damage even spikier and less predictable while hurting our DPS so I just lifetap instead. The two stuns are very situational in the first place and get resisted so often that they're still a waste of time even in those situations where a stun would help. I have never been in a situation where a tiny mana drain over time (tail rake combo) is useful, especially since it means giving up a lot of dps and/or self heals to do. The mez might be useful except that when you want something CCed you need it NOW not in 10 seconds. And the overhaste is still bugged to only affect you as far as I know.
 
shadowknight3 said:
I am enjoying the different combos and actually use most of them regularly in different scenarios. The problem I have which makes it not so fun is when a combo fails or expires and then I can't get another one to go off for a while (something like five minutes - just enough time to be useless for a boss fight). Then I feel majorly weakened for that time. There still might be a better solution but I do like the combo system.
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donfolstar3 said:
Some monk's I talk to ingame claim to love the combo system, but upon further examination they love the effects and are lukewarm at best with the actual combo mechanic.
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Slow and buggy. Apparently also confuses people about 'what and 'how'. The combo system is like someone who gives us pies [what] by throwing them at our face [how], yet some clowns seem to like it. I think the rest of us would rather just eat pie. Let them eat pie.
 
Are we ever going to see another reply from the people working on this combo system? Do we need more feedback or are we just trolling by now? I'd like to hear what ideas might be generated at this point from those that have a direct effect upon the overall outcome of the changes to the monk class. I keep waiting for a real reply but am sadly disappointed by the lackluster communication involved here.
 
Background - I'm a casual player with only sporadic raiding experience. I've been away from SoD (playing GW2 and Diablo 3). I have a monk and just caught up reading this thread, including all the complaints. I have, what I think is, a somewhat elegant and powerful way to combine the three separate systems (stances, skills, combos) into one.

-The ability to change stances through /s would be removed except /s14 and /s16.

-When monks exit combat, they will be put into the current /s6 with no stamina cost and a 20% evasion bonus. The evasion bonus should work similar to how it does now (or theoretically should be) with the bonus disappearing a few seconds into autoattacking.

-Stances change when you use a skill. Stance change can only occur as often as in the current system (12 seconds?).

-Skills, in addition to their current damage, have an effect similar to the current combo system, and cost a discreet amount of stamina every time they are used. This stamina use on skill activation would be similar to how warriors are currently, but without the warrior's regen mechanism. This would allow you to burn your stamina defensively as well as offensively, somewhat similar to the idea for the defunct Arcane Knights. Effects could be made to scale through level, only start at 65, or some combination - like starting at 35 and scaling.

-Stance switches occur regardless of hit or miss.

-Effects could occur regardless or could be based on hit or miss, depending on balancing.

Skills/Stances/Effects:

Round Kick - puts you in /s1. Causes current seven-sided stomp effect (lifesteal).

Tiger Claw - puts you in /s3. Increases hate and/or causes you to dodge the next melee attack within a time frame.

Eagle Strike - puts you in /s10 (drains stamina). Causes you to interrupt spell cast if possible and/or dodge the next damaging spell within a time frame if possible.

Dragon Punch/Tail Rake - puts you in /s9 (does not work with 2H, drains stamina). Causes aoe effect, could be a dd or dot (similar to current Wrath of Nalansar).

Flying Kick - puts you in /s2. Causes current Massive Kick effect.

This system provides the benefit of being able to react to situations limited only by the stance timer, vs the current build up combo system. It will also allow you to create your own combos by interspersing different skills while the stance timer is on cooldown. Tanking multiple mobs? Use Tiger Claw to go into defensive stance, then use a Dragon Punch/Tail rake to maintain some aggro on the secondary mobs. Your stamina bar becomes a much more controllable resource; you can open with one Flying Kick to get in /s2 and autoattack until a burn phase when you can drop repeated Flyink Kicks. You can try and anticipate phantom strikes or aoes to dodge them with Tiger Claws and Eagle Strikes. If your healers are busy, you can life tap some.

If a more robust system is desired, the effects of skills could change depending on the stance you are in. For example, Dragon Punch/Tail Rake could cause an aoe dot/slow in /s3 and an aoe DD in /s2.
 
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My brother mains a monk and the drop in damage mitigation has been pretty noticeable to our group. I do think the new system is fun, though tough to box with, when there are not miss of 3+ kicks in a row.

FYI, we have been watching this thread daily for feedback and would like to see these changes polished to a finish, but good work so far in getting the changes started.
 
Waldoff said:
Numbers are still being worked out - and we want to keep hearing feedback on them. We are doing a bit of our own parsing too to see if things are where they should be.

Be sure to give feedback on whether or not the system is fun/interesting/worth keeping regardless of the numbers needing a bump. Also any other cool effects or combos would be nice to hear.
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This post was made 2 months ago. Is this still the case or not?
 
Fun?

Spamming Round Kick is not much more fun than the old system of spamming Flying Kick. Being forced to mash the button like clockwork before the combo drops makes me imagine that I am George Jetson OR Charlie Chaplin- so that is fun. Making hotkeys for the other things is a chore, but you can pick pretty colors for them so that is fun.

Interesting?

Very! I am interested in knowing why someone came up with a system that requires you to plan your effects 12-haste second in advance, implemented it stealthier than a ninja's fart, and has since sat on their laurels for two months. I appreciate the work devs do, but everything about this particular process has shown borderline contempt for players.

Worth keeping?

Some of the effects are worth keeping for the monk class. Maybe some lessons about fixing fountains before you go building new stuff on. Otherwise you end up building the new DPS cannon ontop of Tiger Claw which is a pretty epic error for a class redesign level project. Sure, that was corrected, but it makes you wonder.
 
Why does it start with round kick anyway? Personally I'd rather it just stick with flying so when it bugs out I'm not actually occasionally losing dps with the weaker attack.

Trying not to be so negative, what exactly was the purpose of these changes? As is, our dps was definitely increased, but we still don't nearly compare to other comparably built dps classes, and it doesn't seem that it's gonna be tweaked anymore, so I guess we're not meant to be anymore than secondary dps. Our avoidance bonus was taken away, making us no longer a viable option to tank or off tank anything we're not overtiered for, so we're obviously not meant for that. We really have no other purpose besides pulling, and this version of the game hasn't really been designed around needing a puller at all.

All but a few monks that I know have been hopeful about where the changes were eventually going to go, while a small minority of us were generally skeptical from the start. Now, after no response for so long, almost any monk I talk to generally thinks this whole deal is a nerf. Is that what it is? What are we supposed to be now? I mean, at this point even a "we've been too busy to care about this. we'll get to it eventually." or "this is how we intended monks to be. sorry you don't like it." would be something.
 
I'm not a fan of this system really at all i use one of them ever because otherwise i might as well press flying kick and do more dps. Also the -avoidance bonus has completely killed my spirit i don't see why it needs to be nerfed because we can now carry loot.
 
The point of these changes I believe was to fix the low mnk dps and add a fun combo system.* Roundkick was probably used so low levels can combo too.* The problem is the tanking nerf, especially while under the effects of the RKx3 combo are awful.* A fairly easy fix while still maintaining the original idea of the combo system would be to split the effects of the combos between the final kick and the two preceding kicks, while lessening the tanking nerf.
*
Here are the details to achieve this:
*
At 65 the combo system changes.* It now uses FK as combo starter.
New DPS combo is FK,FK,RK
New Lifetap combo is FK,RK,RK
Each FK (regardless of it being in combo or not) performs a nuke at one-fourth current dps combo value.
Each RK (regardless of it being in combo or not) performs a tap at one-fourth current tap combo value.
Remove the tanking penalty associated with the DPS combo.
Change the final combo nuke/tap values of the these two combos to half their current value.
*
The dps combo would then get normal dps value (two one quarter nukes plus one half final combo nuke) plus a small tap.* The tap combo would get normal tap value (sum of two one quarter taps plus final combo half tap) plus a small nuke.* Which is a small buff to either combo, but more importantly, failing a combo due to being slowed, z-axis bugged, or being busy in another window is no longer such a massive penalty.* Force of Body tome now does something as flying kick is used in our two best combos.
*
-Raxton
*
 
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Months later and I'd still take my old monk back in a heartbeat- weight restrictions, even worse dps and all. I'm still dropping in here, hoping for some sort of response from the staff on what is happening with this... is there some sort of specific feedback that is needed for us to progress through this change or are we just stuck with what we have? Any reply would be great at this point, even a "f*ck off, we're busy." one.
 
I wish I had a screenshot of a conversation that Slaariel and I had before the changes went in, when I was vocally against it (love how before the changes I had next to zero support in my views and now................): in this conversation, Slaariel said straight up that the change would not be forced on people, that in-game there would be a choice between keeping the old-style monk and switching to the new-style. Of course this was just a ploy to shut me up, I should have known better
 
phroggonalog said:
I wish I had a screenshot of a conversation that Slaariel and I had before the changes went in, when I was vocally against it (love how before the changes I had next to zero support in my views and now................): in this conversation, Slaariel said straight up that the change would not be forced on people, that in-game there would be a choice between keeping the old-style monk and switching to the new-style. Of course this was just a ploy to shut me up, I should have known better
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arrogant and wrong

Are you fucking kidding? Do you really think anyone could make this shit up? Grow a pair and voice your opinion in a public fashion
 
phroggonalog said:
(love how before the changes I had next to zero support in my views and now................)
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You make it sound like you were alone in saying this entire combo idea sounds like fixing something that isn't broken. Arrogant and wrong. Even in this thread that is clear, let alone the amount of bitching about combos that was ingame from day one.

Sorry if I hurt you feelings by damaging your impressive reputation and not publicly making a big deal about what you said immediately. From now on I will be sure to spend extra time coddling your ego and shitting up thread by telling people exactly why I do not agree with everything they say.

Why don't you go make a new thread about how combos are unbalanced at lower levels so that the system can be insta-nerfed. That has seemed to work well in the past, maybe this time it can be to player's benefit.
 
I talked to Slaar last night, I don't know what if anything is being done but I guess we'll see. He mentioned that he found the bug with Slow Time not affecting your group but nothing else specific.

To sum up my thoughts: At the very high end, monk dps is just barely above the support classes (bst, bard, ench) and substantially below the dps classes. I had hoped that combos would either allow us to be worth a dps spot or provide enough utility to compensate for us doing 500ish less dps than the real dps classes, but neither of those things have happened. Between monk weapon scaling issues (all of our weapons from t11 and on are out parsed by Staff of Shifting Shadows), Force of Body being made useless, us generating such an absurd amount of aggro, having to wear retarded bane gear just to out parse support classes (and only against humanoids, you're SOL fighting anything else), and the bugs and headaches in the mechanics of the combo system, this potentially amazing class update has not done nearly enough to make a difference.
 
Updated:

-Monk combo windows are longer in all aspects
-Slow Time should work (please let me know)
-Hand to hand and flying kick damage scales with +skill items over 250
 
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