Responding to 3 related posts - long <there may be some redundancies>
From: James W Hooper <
jhooper@...>
>Thanks for raining on my parade.
>You have attained a level of experience that I may not obtain for months.
>Please understand that this is based on my limited experience and opinion.
Sorry, that was not my intention. Like I said, my monk was great fun until
very high levels for me so I expect you will enjoy your monk for quite a
while. If he wasn't I would not have gotten him so far.
>Prehaps those of us who haven't played under the old feign death, will find
>other means to deal with the problems you listed. No disrespect meant to
>you or any of the others, but it sounds like feign death was a crutch.
Well I did not speak at all of FD pulling which is what you probably heard
everyone mention. And FD IS a crutch. It was meant to be. I continued
playing my monk because we were the masters of melee and also because
of FD (I started my FD countdown at 12th level). At my level, rogues are the
masters of melee and FD simply doesn't work well enough to use as a safety
net. Plus the mobs I face cannot reasonably be meleed to death. We are
just there to do damage to keep the mobs thinking about us while the nukers
and DoTers (and healers) so their jobs.
>Maybe at higher levels we need to learn to adjust our tactics and stop
>meeting problems head on.
Well, the FD pull technique was meant for just that 8).
>Strip us, and we are still deadly. I think we just have
>to adjust our purpose in the Verant universe
I didn't get to my level just so I can still kill mobs while looking for my
corpse.
But of course that was another role for FD. Corpse recovery missions. No
longer.
From:
blacoste@...
>I know a lot of people are going to disagree with me, but Verant's change to
>the feign death is warranted. People WERE exploiting the FD especially
>inside the planes. One way to fix that WITHOUT screwing a lot of lower level
>people was to make it where any creature under level 35, would think you
>were dead and forget about you while creatures 35th and up would use the
>different percentages setup by Verant. I think this fair.
Inside the plains? At 36th level (unless you have another plane level char)
I don't see how you can come to that conclusion. If anything, the change
to FD is even more of an exploit. Imagine now that every mob in the game
is able to track monks without fail. And as another post mentioned. If you
think something is an exploit, why would you say it is ok for mobs under 35th
level? I have always accepted that feigning on non KoS mobs and then
popping back up (to bandage or whatnot) was something of an exploit and I
have been expecting a fix. If they removed that a lot of lower level monks
who relied on it to kill aviaks or whatever would have grumbled loudly as it
would remove their main soloing technique (what would your reaction be if
they did that to you at say 20th level or so?). However the nerf they did to FD
didn't fix an exploit. It just gave the mobs one.
>I have ONLY used
>feign death in serious situations where there was a train on my butt and I
>was definitely going to die because I couldn't make it to a zone.
Good luck now since that aspect of FD has also been seriously degraded.
>I feel
>that's what it was intended to do and some people figured out a way to
>exploit it in the planes with the big creatures. So thats that. I'm fine
>with it.
What difference does it make how it was intended? What you are saying is
that verant should be expected to make things like tactics, strategy, and other
forms of thinking in the game illegal. Giving mob an unlimited
tracking/telepathic
ability is the exploit here. What monks did was perfectly reasonable as long as
mobs aren't telepathically linked, which - oh no - now they are! Telepathic
orcs.
What will they think of next.
From: "John Carney" <
jcarney@...>
>Well, this is just getting plain silly. Your monk is not a worthless pile of
>meat. Its not a mana sponge, or a helpless school girl. The monk class at
>any level does a Great Deal of Damage, and in my opinion more than any
>other melee class with the exception of a warrior with Plane of Fear equipment.
Not a mana sponge? How many 120+ hits do you think a monk can take? See
how long you can stand up to the frenzied ghoul even at 50th when you out level
him by 5 or so! The next best thing to a healer is a great taunting tank or
another
melee class that dishes out more damage. I certainly am not whining about other
classes doing more damage than me. I'd love to have them in my group! The
problem I face is that if I go into a zone shouting "monk looking for group" I
will be
met by silence. Why? Suppose I actually do outdamage other classes. The
problem is that I can't outdmage by enough to compensate for:
the massive HPs of a warrior (complete heal becomes much more efficient and
the warrior gives the cleric the time to cast it, and the warrior can taunt the
mob
off when it inevitably goes after the cleric).
the dual wielding ability of a ranger with great weapons (ykesha = 44th level
monk with similar skill) who can snare SOW and TRACK.
Paladins with great quest weapons with a ton of HP, a complete heal, great
taunting, and a great AC. Not to mention a role as a backup healer
Rogues just tear mobs apart, easily outdamaging any other melee class in the
game at high levels. Of course they are in far worse shape than monks without
someone taking the mobs off them. Rogues were born nerfed and will die
nerfed. But the rogue is still the master of melee.
<and in a second post>
>I didn't say it was. I don't think FD pulling is an exploit. It is handled
>wrong in the Gameplay Logic. Personally I think once you FD and a mob _sees_
>you back on your feet again, it should never believe another oneo of you
>FDs. As I've said before, Verant has a MUD mentality in which they balance
>gameplay at the expense of logic. This is bad design.
What you neglect here is the fact that the mobs you are FD pulling (actually
the mobs you aren't pulling) DON'T see you get up, assuming you are doing
it right. Why should they run back to you when they don't see you get up? Of
all the people who look down on us for complaining about the nerf, not ONE
person has managed to explain what makes this more logical.
<back to first post>
>Your strength lies not with one or two glorious swings for 70 points of
>damage, but in four punches for 23, and a flying kick for 52. Your Armor
>class is not as high as a warriors, it never will be. Get used to it, but
>also get used to Block, Dodge, Block. You hit points are lower, until you
>factor in a 25% hit point heal every six minutes, you're selling yourself
>short.
How about a 44th level ranger hitting 4 times with his ykesha for 40+ each
and a proc for 70? I have kicked for 111, but I usually miss and my average
damage is maybe 40ish. Our defensive skills cap the same as theirs so they
will dodge parry riposte about as much as we do.
When travelling with a healer or 3 you should never need mend unless you bite
off more than you can chew. But if that happens your group is more likely to
evac.
>As for playing with Twinked characters who out damage you, I must answer to
>the positive. I've been playing with Ranger and Bard both of which carry top
>of the line Ykeesha's and they generally out damage me (then again, they
>take the damage then, too and I'm a hell of a lot harder to hit than some
>ranger). The gap is narrowing however, and would be closed if they were not
>wearing haste sashes. Remember, the higher you level, the less of an
>advantage Twinking Gives.
It is very easy to see how much of an impact twinking gives. But it is not
really
a matter of twinking. Equipment is permanent. And on old servers, with limited
inventory/bank space, newer/better weapons will find their way down the line
and the average level character holding a particular prize will decline over
time.
That's just the way the server based economy works. So it isn't a matter of
monks
getting worse, it is a matter of the weapons held by other melee classes getting
better. I am sure Verant intended the monks to be masters of melee. For a
while
they succeeded quite well in my opinion. However, as the other melee classes of
a particular level improve over time with new weapons, monks have basically been
gathering dust and this melee edge has shrunk or become non-existent to the
point
that the other classes offer other things that outweigh any supposed edge we may
have.
For 1-handed weapons, the best a monk can ever do is dmg 14 delay 36. There
are now a ton of weapons in the game that have better dmg/delay ratios than that
and also proc for even more damage (at 44th level a monk is 12/36 which is the
same ratio as a ykesha). Giving that to a warrior who has 1.5-2x your hp, and
can
taunt makes a monks damage dealing capacity in a group very much in doubt. Plus
at the highest levels, melee is just to keep the mobs busy while the DoTs do
their job
and nukes finish the mob off. When shamans and druids can heal and DoT for
2000+ and wizards can chuck 1100+ per ice comet, the extra 2-3 points per hit we
may or may not be adding just don't seem to be enough to compensate the group
for
any of the other abilities the other melee classes bring. That is the reason
why monks
got defined as pullers because it was the only thing we were unarguably the best
at
and of the most important contributions anyone can make to a group. How many
plane or dragon raids were considered to require a monk (pre-patch)? It was
a moot point. You had one or you just didn't bother. Now, monks can still
chain
pull if necessary and lay on the ground. Now even a wizard out melees the
monk. I could be doing that, but that's just not any fun. Which is the whole
point.
>Yes Verant has changed our most unique skill, it will still save youin tight
>situations
Think again. Even the core purpose for FD has been seriously nerfed. It
fails way way way too much, and new spawns can now see through it. And
FD is now very very dangerous not just to the monk but to anyone in the same
zone.
>To be honest, I think we've passed the meaningful discussion of the class
>and have entered into "the Grass is Greener" syndrome. If you're so unhappy
>with your Monk, Give It Up and go play a Dark Elf Necro. Please don't take
>the Monk Name in the Realm of Envious Complainers.
It has nothing to do with any other class being better. I am all in favor of
warriors rangers and what not being great in my group. I am not looking to
be the star of the show. I just want to be invited to a show once in a while.
The problem I have is not with all these great weapons lying around, but the
general consensus at high levels that "monks are only needed for pulling, and
if they can't pull why invite them into the group?"
<rant on>
That being said, I hear too much of this "play another character if you don't
like
the change" crap. Why even play in a game that consistently makes these sorts
of changes? If I wanted to play a DE necro, I would have made one already (of
course they have been seriously nerfed as well, but not as badly because they
are still desirable in groups).
I wanted to play a monk. The monk I wanted to play existed when the game
started. I had something to look forward to. He doesn't anymore and there is
nothing for me to look forward to unless I like to play with my face attached to
the ground while the action surrounds me. In any case, even if I were to make
another character, what will stop Verant from nerfing that class into the
ground?
Take a look at what's on the test server. Shaman spell diurations (eg SOW) are
cut in half) and druids lost tracking. Who knows what else. Will monks get
something in the future to make them seem useful again? Sure. They will
introduce the Iskar monk removing yet another unique aspect of the (human)
monk. What race will virtually all new monks be once the expansion comes?
Humans? Guess again. It is very possible (and I am not prone to conspiracy
theories) that the human monk is being phased out of existence. Of course
we'll have to wait and see what the new race is like, but the email I got from
Verant stated very little of what will be new aside from Iskar monks. An
interview with brad McQuaid tells us not to expect any new skills unless we are
Iskar.
Tell me what else I can look forward to.
<rant off>