Proposed Monk Changes

[Breigon]

why would you want to deny someone their own path, you go your way, another goes his own?

unless you take pleasure in denying someone their right of way?

<3 Zzionzz. Not my intention at all.

if monks were never meant to tank, they would never have had a 10% bonus to avoidance to begin with.

Just pretend its time=0, boom, no tanky. ;-) Hell, I still tank the same stuff I did before the combo system, it is just slightly more challenging (and pretty sure we get a combo for that).

10% avoidance is really only impacting us tanking (since we 20% when we arn't attacking), so the question now becomes: should monks as a class fulfill the role of "offtank better than the other melee classes"?

If monks as a whole dislike the combo system and want to go back to min/max'ing weight on gear, I am with you guys. But, I just wonder if fear of change is stopping something really cool from happening before all the small details/fixes are hammered out.

 

[donfolstar3]

I really like the idea of incorporating a revised form of the combo system into a /stance

*and reverting to the 10% avoidance/weight limit

Agreed and agreed. Though bring the weight limit back at X2 the limits so it is still a thing that needs to be thought about in regards to bags, coins, inventory but much less so with gearing.

Building on my previous post of:
combos = meh
special innates = [fart noise]
stances = horrible bloat

How about revamp the stances into, wait for it, the XX basic stances of Kung Fu or the more pop culture animal styles or some SoD lore equivalent. Keep/combine the current monk stances that are useful or good and make the remaining stances alter the functionality of the special attacks for different situations (evasion, dps, ?utility?). Alternatively there could just be a four-five stances that include the existing useful stuff which each changing special attack functionality, though probably have some special attacks stay the same (flying kick/racials) in each form to keep the number of abilities reasonable.

Changing stances on the fly to access specific ability could be more involved than the combo system and much more responsive (I think i'm going to need to tap in 10 seconds!). It would remove checking spam, timing difficulties, and mostly importantly unify and fix three iffy systems into one .

 

[booster]

Changing stances on the fly to access specific ability could be more involved than the combo system and much more responsive (I think i'm going to need to tap in 10 seconds!). It would remove checking spam, timing difficulties, and mostly importantly unify and fix three iffy systems into one .

This bothered me as well.

The combo system is pretty unresponsive and you have to plan ahead 2 cycles in advance before you can trigger an effect. You cannot pre-load a combo with 2 hits and hold it to help this because the combo falls off after a real short time period. If you need to tank you better hope you were already building toward tank combo, need a lifetap.. better have been building one for the past 10 seconds, etc.

It's just really sluggish and doesn't feel like comboing because its so drawn out between actions.

 

[donfolstar3]

I worked out a more detailed model of my proposed three in one fix at work today. Thank you somebody for paying me to think about SoD.

The NEW and IMPROVED Monk Animal Stance Model:

PURPOSE: To unify the Combo, Special Attack, and Stance systems into one streamlined model that is responsive, bloat free, and F-U-N. I went with Animals names b/c Kungfu stances have impossible to remember if you do not speak mandarin or kind of goofy translations names.

DISCLAIMER: Everything here is half thought out (that is about as hard as I can think) by a bias individual. If something is crazy stupid, unbalanced, or other sucks please be gentle and constructive.

SPECIAL ATTACKS:
Flying Kick returns to the same as before, or slightly tweaked damage as needed for balance.
Dragon Punch/Tail Rake innate .01 second stun to replace /s 13 Rending Rage
Round Kick, Tiger Claw, and Eagle Strike would have no special function baseline ("vanilla"), but would gain special abilities in certain stances. [This is kind of the crux of the entire system, so hopefully it can be scripted]

ANIMAL STANCES:
LVL : Name : Stamina usage
-Notes

Stamina usage [this is an area where I am no doubt being Monk bias and greedy]
---LOW = no drain with full buffs
---MEDIUM = no drain with full raid buffs and proposed Skill of Hand AA
---HIGH = 5-10 ticks depending on buffs/AA
---VERY HIGH = 1-2 ticks depending on buffs/AA

10 : Bear Stance : HIGH
-Exactly like /s 11 Crushing Blows - Lose double/triple but hit for 3X damage
-Special Attacks remain vanilla
-While this is not the best stance currently it would be MUCH more exciting at low levels

20 : Monk(e)y Stance* : LOW
-Exactly like /s 6 Reflexive Stance - You are able to react foes behind you, allowing you to dodge and block from all sides, as well as become immune to backstab.
-Round Kick: Knockback
-Tiger Claw: ranged one tick Calm spell [blue or lower mobs only]***[really important that you read the *** before flipping your shit on this one]
-Eagle Strike: Flying Eagle Strike**

30 : Mantis Stance : MEDIUM/HIGH
-Similar to /s 9 Raging Whirlwind - Lose double/triple but hit many targets
-Special Attacks remain vanilla

40 : Tiger Stance : HIGH
-Exactly like /s 12 Dance of Death - Auto Riposte but lose avoidance
-Special Attacks remain vanilla

50 : Eagle Stance* : MEDIUM
-Defensive stance avoidance/accuracy
-Round Kick: Seven-Sided Stomp**
-Tiger Claw: +aggro [same as current function]
-Eagle Strike: Wrath of Nalansar**

60 : Dragon Stance : MEDIUM
-Aggressive stance avoidance/accuracy
-Round Kick: Slow Time**
-Tiger Claw: Eagle Strike Combo**
-Eagle Strike: Massive Kick**

65: Turtle Stance : VERY HIGH
-Exactly like /s 14 now
-The only Extreme stance that locks you in

Stance Notes:
*Monkey Stance and Eagle Stance should maybe switch places, depending on if monks would want to be pullers or OT for leveling up.
**Any carryovers from the Combo System would have to be tweaked. Obviously tapping for 500 or tapping for 1200 on CD would be broken. Similarly buff/debuff duration would need to be one tick.
***"HOLY CRAP YOU ARE A CRAZY PERSON WHO WANTS TO RUIN THIS GAME!!!" Ok. Two counter-points: 1. Monks have this ability on another game that is very very similar to SoD. 2. Wall Splitting is tacky, boring, and unquestionably an exploit if looked at in a vacuum. This ability WOULD NOT end splitting (wall or other) as it only works on one mob at a time [or would require perfect planning and super human timing to work on two- which if you can do it then kudos to you!] and, as proposed, only works on blue or lower cons. Also, the inherent nature of server ticks would make this ability anything but certain.

ALTERNATE ADVANCEMENT CHANGES:

Skill of Hand: Reduces the stamina drain of stances to the point where MEDIUM drain stances, with full raid buffs, would be stamina drain neutral??? [Honestly I am not sure what to do with this one. A fairly blah idea]

Discipline of the Body: Reduces the Innate 50% chance of special attacks missing by 50% per rank.
No AAs: 50% miss chance.
1 AA: 25% miss chance.
2 AA: 12.5% miss chance.
3 AA: 6.75% miss chance.
4 AA: 3.125% miss chance.
5 AA: 1.5625% miss chance.
This leaves a small margin for failure, similar to FD not being certain.

SEMI-RELATED ADDENDUM: Restore the weight limits and avoidance bonus, but +50% (or double) the old limits so monks still have to work at it, but can still function without every WR bag and with some awkward upgrades.
Sure, weight limits are a pain in the ass sometimes but it made the class unique and gave you something else to consider which was immersive. Make the cap higher but the avoidance dropoff steeper so it is less of a pain but also less forgiving so we do not have to listen to "back in my day" stories from half the Monk population.

CONCLUSION: Hopefully this is not the dumbest thing you have ever read on the forums. I really think that a unified system is the way to go, even if it is totally different from this one. The bloated list of stances, unresponsive combo system, and counter-intuitive innate specials that monks currently have combine into a nightmarish patchwork of disparate ideas.

 

[Raxton]

I could see donofstar3s idea being pretty good but it looks like a ton of dev work.

I think a simpler fix may be to nerf the current combos but add back that effectiveness to the two specials preceding the combo. I.e. each round kick would do a small tap. Each flying kick a small nuke.

 

[syadasti]

I honestly don't see how hitting Round Kick all day (for the heavy DD combo) instead of Flying Kick is really all that different from dps'ing with a monk before. I've spoken to numerous of my peers on t9+ and the consensus seems to be that the only combos truly used are RK x3 and RK, RK, FK.

If we're going to be stuck with this combo system and no option is given to return to the old style monk, then I should hope numbers are reviewed for the other combos so there is some viability and versatility in combo use. Maybe I need to go back to parsing and looking in to the other combos but it feels like all the other combos are a waste of time or simply so situational that it's forgotten by the time it truly would be useful.

As it stands now, I feel that the class was robbed of an aspect of its identity (weight restriction vs avoidance) in exchange for a weak gimmick that addresses the issue of DPS without really offering much. If anything, the supposed defensive stance needs tweaked because I've completely given up on it. It feels silly to even use when I can just use the lifetap combo and get arguably better results.

 

[Dinadass]

I'd be in favor of just adding the combo effects to each special attack due to the clunkiness and other issues with the combo system.

donfolstar3's idea is creative but I wouldn't want to actually have to deal with it.

 

[donfolstar3]

I'd be in favor of just adding the combo effects to each special attack due to the clunkiness and other issues with the combo system.

donfolstar3's idea is creative but I wouldn't want to actually have to deal with it.

I am not sure what you would have to deal with exactly. The useful stances (ethereal, WW) are kept exactly the same and the new special stances are just aggressive/defensive with "adding the combo effects to each special attack" which would be impossible without stances (or some other mechanism) since there are more combo effects than special attacks.

Without knowing more (read: anything) about how the SoD script system works I cannot say if this new system would be "a ton" of work for devs. Since my proposed Animal Stance System uses existing mechanics I would guess, from what little I know about programming, that it would be a lot of editing existing code:

-Opening the server list for monk stances then deleting, renaming, and changing the levels on existing stances would cover most of the new stances as they are functionally the same.
-Changing scripts to check what stance the monk is in instead of tracking which special attack preceded the final attack that triggers the Combo effect. [if such a thing is possible]
-Changing proc rates on Special Attack innates (root, enrage, etc..) to check or otherwise be modified by the proposed AA changes
-A million other things

This would definitely be more work than a bandaid thrown on a mediocre system (which is what seems is the general consensus about Combos/Stances in this thread), but again, the whole point is to unify the various monk systems into one smooth system instead a mishmash of different ideas.

 

[Dinadass]

Having to wait 15 seconds to switch stances if something happens mid-combat that makes you want to switch from DPS to tank or situations like that is what I dislike about your idea. It seems like it would be even clunkier than the current combos. Having to deal with stam regen, switching gear/weapons causing you to drop to normal stance, stam regen bugs, etc just makes me not want to make the stance system any more integral to our class.

 

[donfolstar3]

Being able to switch between dps/tank/puller mode every 15 seconds is certainly less clunky than being able to do a single special every 12-haste seconds. Switching gear dropping you to normal I had not thought about, though you already have to switch stances right now unless you want to stay in normal so... ...?

If the problem is stamina drain/management then perhaps instead of the three modifying stances I proposed above there could just be two that are aggressive/defensive clones without stamina drain (Eagle/Dragon above) that also modify all specials (instead of just the three above). That was my original idea that would preserve all of the Combo Effects and change nothing about how stances work now. I just changed my proposal because even though it is awesome, and changes the slow clunky combo system tool bag into two sleek and sexy tool bags, I figured people would cry foul over Monks being able to do essentially what they do now without a drain. Maybe I was just being paranoid.

Though that leaves the Skill of Hand AA a ???. Maybe instead of changing the way those two AAs work just leave them the same, but with Hand making innates nearly never miss instead of whatever abysmal rate it is now. That would be a lot simpler.

 

[Dinadass]

The aggro problems with the combo system are unintentional and should be fixed soon.

Is this going to be adressed? Quoted post is three weeks old.

It'd be great to get an update on the other issues that have been brought up since then as well.

 

[huey]

I'm slowly starting to abandon combos in general unless I'm duoing. They're just not reliable enough right now and even when they do work, in most situations I've been in lately the mobs die too fast for them to have much use. Also, I don't know if it has been mentioned, is intended, or if it isn't the case and I had some hidden mechanic going on while I was testing it, but I couldn't land a single combo before expiration while in defensive stance.

 

[syadasti]

Sorry to hear that Hugh- they seem to be working fine for me. As much as I hated them originally, I've come to grudgingly adjust. (I think this is more due to me not willing to give up on the character I've been working on for the better part of five years. Anyone around me will attest that I do nothing but bitch and whine about the changes.)

The lifetap combo is super useful for solo'ing and the added dps from pushing round kick 3x is certainly welcome, if somewhat ironic. I just sorely miss not having to loot, forgetting that I left things in the bank that I normally would have carried (because of having to loot) and, most importantly, the ability to tank in a pinch. Pulling certain zones has become a lot less forgiving and some places, boxing has to be handled with more care.

Right now, what I'd like to see is some changes to the defensive combo so there is actually a reason to even consider using it. (Likewise on the other combos but I'll settle for having a third of them worth using.) I'd also like Force of Body tomes to be revised, seeing as I barely use Flying Kick anymore. And again, whatever happened to the avoidance bonus out of combat? I might be a little less critical of the class change if these issues were addressed.

 

[phroggonalog]

on a side note

a buddy of mine ingame killed the Wind Hag, level 25 adept, and happened to have 3 monks with him. apparently they get the level 65 version of the 1200 kick!

long story short, with monks doing that damage @ wind hag, you can skip past the 70% and 30% hp points where adds are summoned (literally skip past those points, the adds end up not being summoned at all)

things like this should probably be fixed

oh and comparatively, the wizard spell at level 24 is less than 200 damage, base.

 

[Dinadass]

Yeah I'd imagine the 500 lifetap would be pretty powerful at mid levels too.

I'd really like it if all the special attacks just had a side-effect similar to the current combo effects. That would still get us to use different special attacks depending on the situation and would probably be a lot less buggy and frustrating. The combo system as it exists works great in long fights against a stationary single target without a weird hitbox, but unfortunately that does not describe the vast majority of content in this game. Give Flying Kick a watered-down Jur proc or small nuke, Round Kick a lifetap, Tail Rake and Dragon Punch a small AOE, etc. balanced to be around 1/3 the power of current combo effects or a bit lower.

 

[huey]

Been awhile since anyone in the know has chimed in, while the general tone of feedback had become increasingly negative, and possibly just given up on. Don't suppose we could get an update as to whether this stuff is still being looked at at all or if we're just stuck with the current form? Almost seems as if it all just became too exhausting to deal with and subsequently ignored.

 

[donfolstar3]

While I still am think a top to bottom overhaul would be swell Susvain's suggestion of just replacing the old, unreliable, mostly bad special attacks innates with the good combo abilities and eliminating the clunky, unreliable, combo system would be a huge improvement.

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.

 

[Stryda]

number 2 sounds dumb cuz why would a monk need 20% avoidance when not attacking anything...i dont get it...not attacking anything = no aggro = no need for avoidance? unless there has been more dumb stuff that has been added since my vacation...

for number 3 can u also make it so we can do super air combos like in street fighter? jus saying...it would be more cool....i would come back and kill something for a minute and log out...

 

[CharmCitysKing]

number 2 sounds dumb cuz why would a monk need 20% avoidance when not attacking anything...i dont get it...not attacking anything = no aggro = no need for avoidance? unless there has been more dumb stuff that has been added since my vacation...

taking less damage while pulling, I'd imagine

 

[Stryda]

so ur making it easier to pull? dumb...