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Monk Overhaul
We are finally done with a design on monks! The initial design was done by the admin and there has been input by a monk council coordinated by Malarious. So now, we'd like to share where we are with everyone to get general input from all.
Monk Design
Monk Design
5
(c) Iron Realms Entertainment 2012.
Comments
Would someone be willing to breakdown how they expect the combat flow/kill strat for each guild will go?
For the Nekotai, the stances will be central. Most of the bleed (vessels) will be in stances, that means the design is putting a lot of emphasis on how fast a Nekotai can cycle through again and again to hit vessels repeatedly - or to spend power to shortcut that by moving backwards in stances to proc a quick bite of vessels. Some of the stance effects I had suggested were also changed, but not by much - the general theme is the same. One "set" for poisons, the other "set" for vessels, and both sets come together for Finalsting where the Nekotai can turn one or the other to contribute to the bleed threshold. More macro speaking, I expect Nekotai to have more efficiency cycling past the 5th stance (without finalstinging) to build more vessels from the first stance up, rather than spending a lot of power pushing themselves to stay at the 3rd/4th stances repeatedly, and that should lengthen the windows between finalsting attempts.
Generally speaking, stances are like a variation on bard song stanzas, but power is spent to jump or return stances. Killer (5th) stance is the only one that can't be repeatedly proc'd, because you can't move "backwards" into a killer stance, only through going by all the previous stances (or costly boosting to push forward in stances) can you hit the 5th stance again.
Actions-wise, I had originally suggested a preparation->affliction mechanic for angknek->angkai where angknek did no afflictions, and angkai only did an aff if an angknek landed beforehand on the bodypart etc, which would have halved our aff output consistently, but I guess the admin felt that was too complicated. T haven't taken a look at the new Nekotai afflictions given by angknek/angkai, and I suspect there might be optimisations needed to be done there, to remove or change some afflictions that might be too good, or not good enough. I'll work on that over the next few days.
I noted this in the excel sheet, but it was cleaned up to make it more presentable (edit: My comments made the spreadsheet messy, is all) but I really like the flavour of the stances. I'll reiterate my thanks to the admin who thought up the names etc. If I get a chance to help out the flavour messages, I'll be very happy.
Gahtirak'sho is going to require at least 125 brusing with all afflictions. I can't exactly see skill wise how they are going to stack the bruising. Unless its simply a case of they are expected to drain all the targets mana first. Similar to Ughathalogg.
Either were looking at a case of these classes can really heavily build bruising super quick to drain the mana or they may need a way to stop the enemy clotting reliably. Thinking the same issue as the Pureblade's had pre exsanguinate change. Bleed/Brusing requirements on an instant kill are super hard to balance right.
That'd be my main concern with building these instant kills.
The nekotai additional affliction requirements are 2x steam, 1 dust and one slush. They are going to be pretty easy to cure off being on three separate balances. Compared to say the Shofangs 3x ice cures, delayed ones as well.
I notice a note in nektotai saying "Vessels AND afflictions cannot be used together, only one or the other will count towards the kill"
But this does not apply to the other monks? They can combined bleed and afflictions for their instant kill yes?
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So once you're at stance 5, you can't stay there beyond one form, correct?
Are we thinking before or after factions? The first quarter of the year the second?
I have not actually put in my thoughts on the whole thing. Been really busy even when trying to do things here, sorry. >_<
Anywho, I will post a larger topic to either here or Monkish, depending on Norns preference. I have some concerns but would like some solutions to be posed too.
2) Current and new, both yes.
3) Should be guaranteed poison, yes.
4) We actually only had 1 ender before (yank). It was modifiers that gave it effects. Ninoaghi (stun mod) was changed to grapple ender. Other mods changed to skills.
5) I do not believe I saw another way to mutilate. So correct I think.
6) Hook stance will cause prone before form starts. Believe active effects trigger first. So it'd immediately feed with that. But I see what you mean if they need to wait on a stance. Though in groups, it will definitely be a thing.
7) Yes. They were just asking about another one. I'll be bringing that up too.
So if I'm understanding this correctly, Creehai also gets the passive ignore parry from Kata. So with Creehai + Angkhai head they'll get a 100% reliable greenlock and can be repeated for 1p.
Missed the hook-stomp interaction. That'll work.
I actually had more issues than just this, but the short is: None of the locks cost power but they are all doable at mo4/5, so they could potentially step back and do it again. Even without nekotai's poison shrug dropper.
I was afraid of that.
And yes, greenlock is a problem - my final suggestions removed greenlock from Angkhai (specifically, I wanted to remove damagedthroat from the arm/leg action abilities) to change it to be a damage finisher based off poisons. I had no intention of keeping greenlock, and wanted to remove it, so I guess the admin vetoed me and put it back in. And yes, my intention with the twist/surge stances for Nekotai is that both the High versions will be very poison based, giving essentially guarantee'd poisons in the surge stance. Naturally, this is my preference, to keep the Nekotai poison flavour, and naturally, I'll continue to push for my original suggestion.
They also added damagedthroat to one of our grapples, it looks like, which wasn't there before, I think, so that'll have to be tackled too. Looks like a couple of our grapples were changed, which is good, I guess, some of the old ones were a little weird, but I think some work needs to be done to tweak the afflictions they give.
Silver crystals form in the ethereal haze of the storm glass amulet, twisting and writhing like trapped smoke, until distinct words that only you can read solidify in the cup of the chalice, "Your strength is potent and you are wise, Torgaddon, but remember to use your might to shield the weaker ones of the Serenwilde. They will need people like you to keep them safe. I watch with pride, My child."
Silver crystals form in the ethereal haze of the storm glass amulet, twisting and writhing like trapped smoke, until distinct words that only you can read solidify in the cup of the chalice, "Your strength is potent and you are wise, Torgaddon, but remember to use your might to shield the weaker ones of the Serenwilde. They will need people like you to keep them safe. I watch with pride, My child."
Okay, regarding the Nekotai active abilities, specifically punches and kicks (I'll leave grapples aside for now), I see a number of concerns. I'll run through them below:
1) Greenlock.
At the same time, it should be noted, that the new greenlock is much lower in cost-effectiveness for Nekotai. First of all, old Nekotai greenlock required only 1 poison (slickness) to be transferred to activate. That's why it had so many costs: it had the highest chance of succeeding in the game because we have so many chances of giving that one poison. However, the new Nekotai greenlock requires 2 poisons. This lowers the chance of greenlock landing.
Furthermore, Nekotai have lost their marjoram stack, which was a repertoire of 10 different affs, all cured by marjoram. As mentioned in another thread, most of these affs had limited impact on combat, but they served as buffer afflictions to lock up green/gedulah cures. With 10 affs + 3 lock affs, the Nekotai had a real chance of draining their opponent of power and maintaining the lock (I usually don't need to go all the way to all 10 affs, if my opponent has been using power too). Without this, however, the minimum 5p and 3mo cost would have rendered the greenlock unviable - the Nekotai basically had to gamble: pull off a properly stacked greenlock, and the opponent gets 3 chances to green and cure out. If they get lucky... well, too bad for you. If they don't, well, too bad for them. You can't repeat the lock readily, so you had to set it up properly beforehand. The gateway was the stack - the more efficiently you stacked the marjoram affs, the more the odds were in your favour.
Now, there are 4, not 3, lock affs, and there is no marjoram stack. That's a double whammy - a bigger chance of green htting a lock aff, and less filler affs to interfere. Curing out of a greenlock is decidedly more easier than in the past, because quantity has been replaced by quality in terms of affs, and there are very little filler affs left to enable that kind of strategy. At the same time, the power cost of a greenlock attempt cannot be lowered to compensate. This is because the cost must be higher than that of a green or gedulah cast. Otherwise, the greenlocker will just literally repeat it until the opponent is out of power. In short, the minimum cost of a greenlock attempt must be at least 3, if not 4 or more. It's simply not viable to base an entire kill strategy around greenlocks anymore.
To complicate this, the Nekotai surge stance I suggested now gives what is essentially a 100% chance at giving poisons, in the past, Nekotai poison advantage was a matter of higher chances than normal, but not 100% guarantee'd poison chance. With a 100% chance, it's, as Shedrin notes, guarantee'd. If greenlock is to be kept, this becomes literally not an option - they are mutually exclusive, one cannot exist with the other.
All of these in mind, I repeat my argument to remove greenlock for Nekotai. Faced with the choice between the opportunity to advocate for real poison supremacy (actually guarantee'd poisons) and a greenlock that is now less cost-efficient and more unwieldy, I'll make the choice for the former any day. As a note, I am aware that there are Nekotai who feel the opposite, that we should keep the greenlock. I am confident, however, that going for poisons is more beneficial to Nekotai in the long run.
Solution: Refer to point #4 below, on changing Angkhai, but generally speaking, remove damagedthroat or asthma, or both, from the Nekotai repertoire.
2) Angknek/Angkai afflictions
That said, there are a few issues that I can see will be a problem from the outset, right now, and these I will strongly urge to change now:
Prone on Angknek legs
Giving prone to an arm action on a monk form is a bad idea. Even without the prone multiplier of the old monk damage meta, prone stops parry, prone eliminates dodging, prone prevents attacks and running and disables certain reactives, and is a pre-requisite for a number of other group-based abilities (like some timed instas, for example).
A prone on an arm action for free means you're going to spend most of your time proned against a monk. It won't be too disruptive to the target's offense... but you might as well delete parry and other defenses at this point. There's a good reason why beast kick (proning) is on normal balance instead of beast balance.
Proning a target, and ensuring the prone sticks for a number of seconds is fine if it has proper pre-requisites. Alternatively, just plain proning that requires full balance and can't be combo'd with other monk actions is also fine. No-req prone on one of three monk actions is a bad idea.
If the other monk guilds have something similar, you'll also want to look at changing it.
Solution: Make Angknek sprawl the target and give a 1s stun if the leg hit by the Angknek is afflicted with damagedleg, otherwise, does nothing.
Either way, the solution is to lock the sprawl behind an aff requirement (Nekotai Oriama grapple-ender can give damagedleg). Doesn't have to be damagedleg, of course, but it's a good choice.
Disloyalty on Angkai legs
This is not a balance problem, but just too far out the not-thematic scale. I mean, I've never been one to care too much about theme, but disloyalty from a slash to the legs is probably... stretching it a little.
Solution: Change Angkai legs to give healthleech.
If we MUST have a steam aff here, I'd suggest healthleech instead, but that creates a different problem I'd like to highlight in my next point:
Sickening and disloyalty in Angkais
These two affs are part of the Nekotai finalsting aff-replacement function. These (and recklessness/healthleech) are afflictions chosen because they are available via poisons, but were not available via a Nekotai arm/leg action. It's an important difference, because a native affliction given by an action is guarantee'd, but poisons are not. By adding these affs as native to the Angkai, there is a problem, because it is important that a Nekotai can't guarantee these affs on the same form as a finalsting.
If you allowed that, I would basically Angkai gut and leg, and then finalsting, and always get a free -500 on my finalsting bleed threshold.
That's one reason why I did not make scorpionfury the 100% poisons guarantee'd stance (even though that makes more sense). You can guarantee giving your target these poisons on the surge form, but that gives your opponent a window to cure before you did the finalsting, or you can try for it as a poison in your finalsting form, but you have a chance to fail. If we want to keep sickening and disloyalty (or healthleech, as per the previous section) for Aangkai, then we need to change the finalsting affs to other ones (that can be given by a poison).
Basically, the rule of thumb is: if it's an aff that contributes to finalsting's threshold, it should not be able to be afflicted with 100% chance on the same form that you do the finalsting. This, by the way, can also be applied to the other monks - though it's subject to exceptions depending on their instakill conditions etc. For Nekotai, this is probably a good rule to just be consistent with.
Solution 1: Change finalsting's boosting affs from sickening/healthleech to vomiting/sensitivity instead.
Solution 2: Change Angkai gut to vomiting, and change finalsting's boosting aff from healthleech to sensitivty instead.
Both solutions basically make sure there's no overlap between the affs Angknek/Angkai does, and the finalsting boosting affs.
3) Angkhai afflictions
To resolve it in that line, therefore, the most basic thing we need to do is to remove asthma or damagedthroat from Angkhai, and make it the main Nekotai ice-affliction arm action, with a Surge (4th) stance pre-requisite to giving those afflictions. To fill out the other bodyparts:
Solution: Angkhai will give relapsing, and also give an additional ice-affliction if used in a Surge or Killer stance: damagedthroat (head), collapsedlung (chest), internalbleeding (gut), damagedarm (arms), damagedleg (legs).
Notice that I moved Sprongma's afflictions (collapsedlung and internalbleeding) here. Part of the reason for that is because I don't think Nekotai should have a very strong ice affliction stack. Three ice afflictions, and strong ones, in a single Surge/Killer stanced form (via an Angkhai/Angkhai/Sprongma form), is probably not a good idea. Changing it to two at the max, and make it so that no Nekotai kick gives an ice affliction, will be better. If things still look bad, we can move all these to Sprongma, instead, and limit Nekotai to only one ice affliction per form. But I'll not go that far for now.
4) Sprongma afflictions
The issue with this, is that the bonus bleed requires another Sprongma... which means it'll pretty much never happen. In my original suggestion, I asked for Sprongma to do bonus bleeding (or damage) if it was used on a bodypart that already had an Angkai affliction. Basically, to allow it to trigger off an arm action, so that it can be done in the same form. This would have been balanced by Angkai afflictions being locked behind Angknek preparations (in my original idea). In other words, the ideal would have been a Nekotai needing to do Angkneks to prep different bodyparts, use Angkais to trigger those affs, and then use a Sprongma in the same form as the Angkai, to trigger additional damage/bleeding from that.
Without this multi-layered interaction, you can't create that kind of bonus triggered-bleeding. A Nekotai will never see a Sprongma bonus bleed happen, because the aff it requires will be cured by the time he recovers balance from his previous Sprongma. Yet you can't make a Sprongma just trigger off any Angkai/Angknek aff, because then there is no pre-requirement, no gate blocking access to this bonus - it's no longer a "bonus" if you do it every time by default.
Instead, I would like to rework Sprongma, to become more than just another affliction kick, and instead be a damage-finisher that is paired with Angkhais. This is also the second part of the reason why I shifted the Sprongma affs to my previous suggestion for Angkhai in point #3, so that we can do this instead:
Solution: A Sprongma must be performed on a bodypart that already has the affliction an Angkhai will give it (ie. Sprongma to the head on a target who currently has damagedthroat) If not successful, nothing happens beyond the basic kata kick damage. If successful, it will instead deal damage based on the target's current bleeding (only raw bleed). The amount of damage dealt should scale to the amount of cure balances (sip, sparkle, dust, steam, slush, ice) the target currently has off-balance:
The reason I'm suggesting this is so that Nekotai get a damage burst that is based off both poisons (cure balances) and bleeding. As a kick, it becomes mutually exclusive with Finalsting. A Nekotai will only be able to proc this effect once per form, because it's a kick. At the same time, tying this to cure balances means that a Nekotai needs to have used a wide variety of poisons beforehand, to maximise the effect of this triggered ability, otherwise the damage will be low - it'll also be easy to balance in isolation. If it's too strong, drop the scaling, if it's too weak, increase the scaling, and those changes will not affect any other aspect of the Nekotai repertoire. Lastly, it also is layered behind so many steps (build bleed, build poisons, build stances, hit Angkhai on the same bodypart beforehand) that it warrants the bonus given.
This is similar to my original idea, that makes use of the target's cure balances. I think there is merit in the idea of forcing a Nekotai to spread his poison use widely - it becomes a strategy that requires thinking very, very carefully about what poisons to use, and it has a very short window, because by the nature of splitting your poisons over the four cure balances, they are cured off faster.
5) Leg darts
Solution: Make the PLACE <poison> <left|right> command not require and not take bal/eq, and allow it to replace the last placed dart. Don't have to have more than one charge, as long as the Nekotai can perform the command to change whatever dart he has put onto his legs when he needs to.
I'm about to head to work so I can't go through all of the points you raised but I did want to make one central argument. Even though your suggestions are about your own kit which you certainly have the right to suggest I think it's a little pre-emptive to remove greenlocks from the Nekotai kit. I am historically not a fan of greenlocks either but to my eyes it looks like they gave us greenlocks back to cope with heavy targets. In your case with burstvessels maybe that's not as necessary and maybe ultimately greenlocks can be removed without an issue from your kit but I think it's the sort of decision that should be made after actually using the abilities.
What I want you to imagine though is that you're fighting a psymet user who has bloodboil up. Against someone like that your only way of winning without a slitlock is 10 burst vessels. Without the greenlock as an option, you might justifiably ask for more reliability for your vessels, and thus the monk that is better at building vessels than TKs are is born.
Now all of that being said I do think being able to repeat a form that good for 1p is a problem. Shofangi have a similar problem although not quite as reliable (if I'm reading things correctly we have to have someone sprawl + damagedleg or another stand stopper before our greenlock form to actually lock). Here are some random ideas for dealing with this:
1) Make Angkhai cause the next powered urchin stance cost x power more. This gives you a strong greenlock that you are disincentivized to repeat.
2) Make Angkhai head only work in killer stance which I believe prevents repeating.
3) If you really want to nerf greenlocks without entirely removing them you can copy the Tahtetso who I believe still has there's as a grapple ender which definitely makes them the least able to lock.
Specifically about psymet bloodboil, that's a strategy that will eventually lead to a burnt out psymet. Bloodboil is probably not the best example - it's actually a very risky ability to use to counter bleeding. But let's say, theoretically, there's some combination of skills/race/setup out there that renders the person immune to bleed, but is actually balanced. In which case, the Nekotai route of bleeding is out of the picture - for argument's sake, let's assume that this counter is intended as a part of meta balance.
That's where the secondary, poisons route come in, and that's why I very much rather put emphasis on poisons than on greenlocks, especially now that the admin have taken up my suggestion of allowing specific poisons to lower the finalsting threshold, that's definitely no longer just a fun flavour, but becomes an actual part of Nekotai offense and strategy. That's also why I am keen to develop secondary kill routes (like a damage burst based off poisons) other than just Finalsting.
Naturally, if I do move to buff vessels when such cases pop up, I do expect to be compared to TKs, and for such a change to go through, it'll need to be justified with a valid reason. If there actually, eventually, IS a valid reason to make Nekotai vessel output higher than TK output, though, I don't see a problem. The two classes do have many differences - Nekotai have no access to clots, for one, and various other considerations. As it is, I DID ask for clots in my suggestions, but the admin took that out, and I'm fine with not having clots for Nekotai. It does have the potential to mess things up a lot more.
But basically, I'm not sure that there's an inherent problem with the hypothetical situation that another class has a higher vessels output than a TK - assuming there actually is a proper, valid justification for it, with all relevant considerations taken into account.
How that might be achieved is to have the vessels mods do more at lower vessels amounts, and/or cost power.
I'll definitely keep that as one way to rework vessels, if an issue comes up where that might be a good solution. It's definitely more interesting than straight buffing (or nerfing) vessels output. Thanks.
Okay, I just took a look at the Nekotai grapples, and the first thing that leapt out at me was the new Ootangk:
Chest: Asthma
Gut: Anorexia
Limbs: Slickness
I'm guessing I missed this in the original spreadsheet - I didn't have time to look at grapples in detail, but these affs won't work. I would have suggested something else if I had noticed. A grapple is a 2-handed action that the opponent writhes out of, and during which, the grappler can't do anything with his arms, and during which the opponent can't move away. Targets can still attack (except for specific grapples that disable the limb it is attached to). For Ootangk, the old grapples had a percentage chance of stopping a cure from happening, that lasted for as long as the grapple held. It wasn't useful, but it had a niche, at least. These affs, however, would be cured the moment you did an Ootangk, and you would lose aff pressure on so many fronts - not to mention that, even before my previous post, damagedthroat and asthma would have been able to be given by a single Angkhai (albeit with a stance limit).
I think it might be better to rework the three Nekotai grapples together to fit the new stances. There's Oothai, Ootalangk, and Ootangk. I'm thinking we can make one of them the poison grapple, the other the bleed grapple, and the last one just a general asphyx/damage grapple for newbies/midbies (same role as current Oothai, anyway).
I'm thinking that it would be a good point of balance if we made them weak if used without set up, but made it so that they would snowball themselves, assuming the user made the effort to build up beforehand.
My suggestions:
Ootangk: Poison grapple - Deals normal grapple damage and no bleed, but one poison from each weapon have a chance to transfer (ie. as though the user did two nekai slashes with poisons, but with grapple damage instead). If the target has 4 or more poison-based afflictions when the grapple lands (inclusive of the potential poisons from the grapple itself), it'll also give an additional affliction (use the list above). If the target has 6 or more poison-based afflictions when the grapple lands, it'll give that affliction but also hide it (silent afflict).
Ootalangk: Bleed grapple - Deals normal grapple damage and 200 bleed, but no poisons from weapons will transfer. If the target has 3 or more burst vessels, deal an extra 200 bleed, if the target has 5 or more vessels, deal another extra 300 bleed.
Edit: Actually, this Ootalangk would be a bad idea. We don't want to be able to do burst bleed based on existing vessels and couple it with a finalsting immediately. That would be stupid. Let's try a different tack:
Ootalangk ver2: Bleed grapple - Deals normal grapple damage and 150 bleed, but no poisons from weapons will transfer. If target has 350 bleed or more, cure 350 bleed and give 1 vessel. If target has 800 bleed or more, cure 600 bleed and give 2 vessels.
Oothai: Asphyx (choking grapple) - Deals 1.5x normal grapple damage in asphyx damage type. Head only.
None of the Nekotai grapples should disable any limb they are grappled on etc.
Ideas and other suggestions welcome.