The problem is -groups-, but in no way the groups need to be big as it seems. Just bring one person that can concurrently follow you with bleeding+dmg+entangle and guess what? More dust affs in another single balance and your target is ultimately locked out from offense, defense, curing and movement. This really is unfun to play against, not sure how fun it's to play with though
This is an issue independent of monks. You dont get to attack back if five of any class are focusing you down. Groups fights are basically if your focused you dont fight back you just try and survive with serpent or tumble while your team kills the enemy.
Exactly, @Veyils. If 5 or more people are going to lock me down, then of course they will. But if a monk will enable just another person to lock me down while equating the effort of 5 people or more. Then yes, that is an issue with monks.
"Oh the year was 453CE, how I wish I was in Serenwilde now... aletter of marque come from the regent to the scummiest aethership I ever seen, gods damn them all...I was told we'd cruise the void for auronidion and dust, we'd fire no turrets, shed no tears.. now I'm a broken man on a Hallifax tier, the last of Saz's privateers."
I want to clarify that my frustration and comments aren't aimed at the admins who designed and implemented these changes. My frustration is aimed at certain players who propagate this 1v1-first mentality when it comes to monks, "refusing" to nerf their class while some of us have tried to come up with ideas using the same envoy system to make our classes actually somewhat viable in 1v1 but have had hurdle after hurdle thrown at us by these same people in the name of group balance.
Monks are a bursty class. The problem here is that their burst comes every <3s with no prior set up or cost. It is just incomparable with every other class out there. This isn't even taking into account the fact that monks have arguably the best defence as well.
Its not incomparable to most classes. Try reading through the AB files. Less than three seconds costs two power.
I want to clarify that my frustration and comments aren't aimed at the admins who designed and implemented these changes. My frustration is aimed at certain players who propagate this 1v1-first mentality when it comes to monks, "refusing" to nerf their class while some of us have tried to come up with ideas using the same envoy system to make our classes actually somewhat viable in 1v1 but have had hurdle after hurdle thrown at us by these same people in the name of group balance.
Monks are a bursty class. The problem here is that their burst comes every <3s with no prior set up or cost. It is just incomparable with every other class out there. This isn't even taking into account the fact that monks have arguably the best defence as well.
Its not incomparable to most classes. Try reading through the AB files. Less than three seconds costs two power.
3.5 second base. 8 balance buffs (entirely possible and not even that hard to get for a Stealth monk) would bring it to 2.94 seconds.
Balancing for groups is a must - I'm not sure where people are getting the impression that the admin, or anyone, is working on the concept that group balance should be sacrificed for 1v1 viability.
Group balance and 1v1 viability are not mutually exclusive, however, and I intend to aim for both. It's not going to be easy, obviously, and I don't expect to be able to snap my fingers and solve it immediately. But I'm strapped in for distance running. I have no intention of up and disappearing, and leaving things as they are. At the moment, monk in groups, or specifically, Nekotai in groups (I keep saying this, because I'm limiting my comments to the skillset I'm focused on working on) is not balanced. I've acknowledged this multiple times now, and I have offered more than a few different personal thoughts about how I've been mulling over changing it. Whether you want to contribute or not, I'll continue to mull over them and decide on the follow up suggestions and changes.
I've tried my best to respond to every issue that is raised, and not dismiss any single one of them. But general comments that do not point out a specific issue, are unaccompanied by logs, are hardly helpful. And now, we've apparently moved into the territory of comments saying monks are being intentionally made to be ridiculous in groups, despite all the posts I've made that acknowledged that very problem. I think, at this point, I'm going to stop responding to everything that gets posted.
I am probably one of the luckier envoys in this position - most of the monks probably are in a similar situation as the Nekotai, but so far, most of the logs posted have only featured Nekotai. Thanks to those who posted, by the way. Even excluding the unhelpful comments, at least I have abundant material to work with, to pore over, and to use.
If anyone has anything constructive to bring up, I'm all ears. But if you're only going to be unhelpful, you can at least rest with the assurance that I'll continue to suggest changes - without you. Like I said, whether you want to contribute or not, I don't care. I'll work with the limits I'm given, and with the material I have.
Look: I know I've rubbed you the wrong way plenty of times, but I do want to say something that's not meant to be aggressive or antagonistic.
You love your class. You've spent a lot of time balancing Nekotai. But I've been an envoy too, and now all reports since forever are public. You tend to get extremely defensive if anyone tries to point out something that's not quite clicking in Nekotai. You've been doing that for some time now.
I can agree that Nekotai were balanced pre-overhaul. It seems like you did a lot of work to make it that way. Envoying Finalsting was the final touch, and I remember commenting on how cool it'd be! Like, wow, what a functional but not terribly over-the-top guild. So the overhaul's progressing. Everything's proceeding. Then oldwounds are removed during the warrior overhaul. Monks were compensated for their damage multiplier on wounds by getting a huge damage boost, which resulted in the post-overhaul (but pre-monk overhaul) complaints about ridiculous amounts of damage. Okay, whatever. New monks are out now. All of us can see reports now.
I can -see- you arguing against nerfing (amongst other things) the balance bonus that Stealth gets (report 1643). I don't understand why. It sounds like -- it looks like irrational bias. And it's pretty troubling that you're posting all this rhetoric that you're just going to keep on going "without you". Really? The reason we're all complaining now is because we're on the receiving end of monks, on a day-to-day basis. The reason there's other envoys is so that they can chime in and say "yes, this really is broken". But people tend to respect each other and have the guild that has a broken mechanic fix itself. Of course, we just recently had to break that respect because certain envoys didn't want to nerf Night Bonds. Has that brand name Shofangi written on it. It's just disappointing.
Refocusing, you are prepared to leave everyone else in the dust to pursue your own concept of balance -- that's what your bottom line is, is what it seems like (actually it's literally the bottom line of your post here). That's not appropriate. Sorry if this is offensive.
Also, just stating, I have proposed solutions, those being a modifier suggestion for bleeding with a soft saddle vertex and a way to curb the affliction rate by making either damage/bleeding or afflictions opt-in-able (perhaps with a power option to enable the strike to do both?). The latter, I believe, is elegant and shouldn't be dismissed without given fair consideration. Stances could also give no innate bonus but instead be activated via expending power in a boost-esque fashion, forcing monks to continually expend power to achieve their critical levels. Even with those restrictions in place you'd still find monks being ridiculously fast affliction givers without contest.
Honestly, I'm of the opinion that if you're going to make monks physical guardians you should also give them the ridiculous power costs to achieve their potential.
(I'm the mom of Hallifax btw, so if you are in Hallifax please call me mom.)
== Professional Girl Gamer == Yes I play games Yes I'm a girl get over it
Speaking directly to the stealth balance report. There was an envoy channel discussion on it directly prior to it being put up. The comments in the report summarised the conversation, pretty much.
From the very start of the conversation, and multiple times in that conversation, I had made it clear that I was fine with changing the ability in question - specifically to remove the entire speed balance bonus, and change it to something else. I asked for suggestions at that point.
My opinion, from the start:
The ability must give some sort of advantage - and if speed is not acceptable, then change it to something else.
That is as close to verbatim as I can get without quoting myself (I didn't log that conversation, someone else might have, if they can post it, that'd be great)
We went through a lengthy run through of all the speed buffs available, and at the end of the day, it was suggested that a nerf like 3/6 or 2/5 will still make it "useful", because it will still provide an advantage over what is available. And therein lies the crux. I remember quite clearly that I questioned why that would be acceptable, when the start of the conversation was that speed differences between monks is not.
I repeatedly said that the numbers should not be merely lowered, but removed and replaced instead. I was told instead that the report is made on the prerogative of the author based on a problem he sees, and that I am free to respond as an envoy. Clearly, Falmiis either didn't want to, or could not think of, a replacement suggestion. He decided to leave the report as is. That's fine, I have no problems with that - I was told to respond as an envoy, so I did. My opinions in the comments mirror what I said above: lowering the numbers alone don't make sense with the problem statement, and I don't support that anyway. Instead, I support a replacement effect - just not one that is... empty.
To this date, I have received zero suggestions - clearly, if I want a replacement effect, then I am left to think of them by myself. That's fine. Like I said, I will do it, with or without help. If you have nothing to offer - or are unwilling to put in the effort to do so, makes zero difference. I'll do it myself, when I can. I mean, that's what he did, anyway. Since I obviously hadn't put up a report yet, he put up his own, with or without my input. That's fine.
I commented on the report based on what was written. I have not asked him to change it any further, have not asked him to come up with actual replacement effects - something he's not obliged to do, and have not made a fuss of its existence. Like he said, it's his right to submit a report as an envoy, based on a problem he sees, whether or not I agree with it. It happens that I agree with the problem, but not the solutions. He is not obliged to consider my opinions if he does not wish to - or if he has no time to, whichever the case might be, and I'm fine with that. And if he wants to eventually submit that report as is, my comments are already on it for consideration.
In my last sentence, which is apparently part of the what you find inappropriate, I said that "I'll work with the limits I'm given, and with the material I have." In fact, that is true for all envoys. We all work with the limits imposed on us, and with the materials available on hand, just like Falmiis did with his report.
Just to add: the report in question is also in draft stage. It's also well within the realms of possibility that it will change in the future, if and when Falmiis makes edits. That is, of course, another reason why i wasn't making a big fuss - it's a draft. I'm not saying that I expect him to put it in without considering my opinions or implying that he does so on a frequent basis. But if he doesn't want to, especially since I haven't actually, you know, come up with any ideas yet, he doesn't need to - it's a draft.
I am obviously not happy about the solutions in the report, and in an ideal world, I certainly wish those three solutions currently show three great ideas which I can all support. But until I come up with my own alternatives (and the reports are finalised), I don't have the right to be making a fuss about it - and I haven't, until it's been brought up here.
It's easy to complain, it's hard to fix. For all the complaints (forums has plenty of them) about my inferno, I received 1 (one) suggestion as to how to overhaul the skill that wasn't some variation of "nerf the damage." I imagine the monks envoys are experiencing a lot of the same, especially based @Ianir's commentary. Plenty of hate for what you do do though! I literally still get insulted for nerfing warrior stacking.
Monks have the extraordinary task of convincing a game that collectively hates them that their fixes are the best, or that other suggestions are not. It's a lot harder than it sounds, especially when you're starting with a whole new foundation, unlike other guilds that have a decade of experience and tweaking behind them. I'd say don't lose sight of the forest because you're focused on the trees, meaning momentum is gone so balance is actually doable now. That's pretty exciting.
Things that are broken suck, but fixing it well takes time, especially when dealing with something as large as 4 whole guilds. Static sucked, teamquisition sucked, infinite aeon loops sucked, lots of stuff sucks or has sucked until it gets fixed. Everyone has an opinion, not everyone is willing to take a problem to start to finish.
Known Aliases: Celina/Cyndarin/Fire Jesus/The Night/That Bitch who griefed us
Well, one idea that is bubbling in the back of my brain is to emphasize the importance of parrying. (I.E. balance around the idea that good parrying should make it really hard for monks to kill you.)
This would include removing ways for monks to bypass parry without spending significant amounts of power. Increase the effectiveness of parrying only one limb to 100%, and see if anyone with good parrying setup can stop the unstoppable train that monks are.
Technically, pending the change to make parrying 100% (there's a report up for it by Wobou, I think), Nekotai already don't have any parry bypass. This is intentional, and traditional to the old Nekotai weakness (in comparison to the other monks, at least, which used to have affs like kneecap and elbows).
Like all monks, though Nekotai drop parry through prones and paralysis. We also don't have any major prone anymore, however - our tendons have been changed to damaged legs. Again, this was intentional. We did keep our mutilates via grapple-ender.
In short, a Nekotai is probably as close to that ideal as you have at the moment. If people are still struggling with Nekotai on top of that, then it's not a case of making parry more powerful or weakening Nekotai parry bypass, but instead, to lower the effectiveness of the Nekotai abilities themselves.
On the other hand, you could make parry work even when prone, that would remove that bit of parry bypass... but that would also majorly impact warriors. Which probably isn't a good idea.
3) Add MANAFOCUS (costs 1000 mana) [ So I stop having 0 power in every fight from having to Gedulah/powerfocus haemophilia constantly.]
4) Make damagedthroat cure before damagedskull always OR allow us to focus ice applications.
5) The big solution -- Disable envenoming monk weapons and add power costing modifiers (able to be added to any form) to replace their afflicting as needed. Different modifiers for different monks. Important ones being: Haemophilia/Paralysis/Blindness/Anorexia/Slickness.
-- To elaborate, this is my favorite solution to what I see as the biggest problem with monks, their constantly high aff rate. Their unmatched affrate stems largely from poisons, and basically never needing to spend power except to buff their balance time. Certain specs will still need to have their affrate toned down, but this will make monks more bursty, instead of having a constant sustained affrate that's impossible to keep up with.
Possible further solutions: 1) Make paralysis not stop parry, but prevent changing parry. 2) Kicks don't bypass parry.
Kicks being parry able was suggested during the testing and a lot of people liked the sound of that. I'm fond of this idea myself.
Currently parry is a non issue for shofang and tahetso though. Boganj and Rakti'sho can be built into your rotation to pretty much just shut someones parry down. Ninja have good anti parry with the kicks, neko is the one more vulnerable to good parry right now.
Although parry is only really a thing in small groups. In larger groups of 4+ people the target getting focused is going to be proned in some way(most likely) to get around parry anyway so buffing the parry system wont change the dynamics of group combat at all.
The problem is -groups-, but in no way the groups need to be big as it seems. Just bring one person that can concurrently follow you with bleeding+dmg+entangle and guess what? More dust affs in another single balance and your target is ultimately locked out from offense, defense, curing and movement. This really is unfun to play against, not sure how fun it's to play with though
This is an issue independent of monks. You dont get to attack back if five of any class are focusing you down. Groups fights are basically if your focused you dont fight back you just try and survive with serpent or tumble while your team kills the enemy.
Exactly, @Veyils. If 5 or more people are going to lock me down, then of course they will. But if a monk will enable just another person to lock me down while equating the effort of 5 people or more. Then yes, that is an issue with monks.
Try practicing a little bit more against monks and other classes and you'll start to see the differences in a bit more detail. Once you've fixed your curing anyway, no point until you've done that.
For example a druid and a second person can lock a target down and stop them fighting back while killing them. A bard and a guardian can do the same thing(I even got complained at for doing this earlier today). Two of a number of different class combinations using their skills in concert can lock a target down to stop them attacking while also killing them. Monks are not really any different here and like I said two bards will kill and murder a target much quicker than two monks.
Assuming people are curing right which right now again 99% of the game are not curing monks properly which is a huge thing to take into account.
I disagree with you denying the scope of the problem Veyils. The ability of monks to overwhelm a cure balance is unique to monks. This allows monks to simulate the afflicting potential of several other classes combined.
Yes, two coordinated people can lock you down and kill you, keyword here, coordinated. That's not really the issue though. The issue is how easily monks stack up affs to the point where you can't really do anything but die (or hope they fumble somehow and you escape). Obviously monks are in line for nerfs, but that doesn't invalidate the statement that fighting one monk feels like fighting several people.
I disagree with you denying the scope of the problem Veyils. The ability of monks to overwhelm a cure balance is unique to monks. This allows monks to simulate the afflicting potential of several other classes combined.
Yes, two coordinated people can lock you down and kill you, keyword here, coordinated. That's not really the issue though. The issue is how easily monks stack up affs to the point where you can't really do anything but die (or hope they fumble somehow and you escape). Obviously monks are in line for nerfs, but that doesn't invalidate the statement that fighting one monk feels like fighting several people.
I could go druid and I'd be able to overwhelm a single targets ability to eat dust semi passively while also doing constant staff casts. Could do this pretty much constantly. The ability for a single class to overwhelm one cure balance is not unique to monks.
I'm not saying monks dont need tweaks all I'm saying it lets have a bit of rationality. People like Maligorn and Saz are posting logs with exceptionally horrible curing and others are asking for monks to get nerfed because of it. Wait until Shuyin has fixed your curing, test it a bit more and lets use this live test as a proper test because if we try and balance monks based on faulty curing were going to nerf them to the ground for when you actually start to cure right.
Druid dust stack is strong. Druid dust stack is also once every 10 seconds. Monk dust stack is stronger. Monk dust stack is once every 3 seconds (or less).
I don't want to turn this into a discussion about druids, but I've never experienced druids stacking dust on me to the point where I couldn't cure them all off. Especially not while staffing me. I don't know what you're talking about Veyils.
The ability of monks to overwhelm a cure balance is unique to monks.
I'm not sure that's true. I agree that monks are currently really strong in aff pressure, vital pressure and bleeding, but it's not true to say that only monks can overwhelm a cure balance. Technically any build up aff dealer (illuminati, healers, warriors) are overwhelming a cure balance. I don't think that in of itself is a problem. I do think that monks delivering 5+ dust affs in a form is a problem, especially when a couple of them are either hindering (niricol/mantakaya) or locking in a kill (haemotox currently).
I'm hoping once we (the royal we, the admins who actually do all the work) decide which route we're going with bleeding that we can settle a lot of these issues. If there's a viable path to a kill that doesn't involve 500 bleeding a form and 5+ affs then that makes it a lot easier to tone those things down. That being said I think it's totally fine if a monk can do more affs in a balance than it takes to cure off. I don't think a monk doing 3 dust/steam affs, 2 ice affs, or 4 lucidity affs in a balance is a huge concern on the face of it. I think it depends on what those affs are. I think the big issue we're running into here is that monks have always been meant to overwhelm with affs but we used to have crappier affs to overwhelm people with. The overhaul has removed most of these filler affs and so it's hard to embrace that previous identity without being OP.
I think, if anything, the most problematic part of monks is the sheer strength of the dust table, the access to poison spam, and the poisons being primarily on the dust table.
(I'm the mom of Hallifax btw, so if you are in Hallifax please call me mom.)
== Professional Girl Gamer == Yes I play games Yes I'm a girl get over it
@Wobou - You're right, but there's an important difference between all classes that overwhelm an curing balance. Every other one is doing so through a specific affliction that builds over time. (Tempins/Aurawarp/Deepwounds) and these afflictions specifically have a very minor effect themselves. I.E. it allows them to build by outpacing a cure balance while specifically not debilitating the target.
That is entirely different from monks who build by outpacing the cure balance WITH the debilitating afflictions. That's the significant difference that makes them functionally entirely different from every other class.
Edit: Ideas: 7) Add an affliction for each balance [Ice] - Fever [Dust] - Impurity [Steam] - Agitation [Slush] - Dehydration The aff has no effect, but will always cure first, even if you use focus/powerfocus (but it won't consume power/extra bal/beast bal) This can be used as needed in monk skillsets (and others) to give people the ability to stick an affliction.
Dropping the most problematic dust affs from native monk affs (or locking them behind Surge) could be one answer. Nekotai already partly do this as we don't have native paralysis, and blindness requires centre-and-higher stance. I can swap blindness to the surge-and-higher action easily enough.
Poisons do need to be looked at. I'm open to taking ideas, including removing paralysis/blindness from poisons, but again, that does impact warriors significantly, so I don't think I'll make much progress trying to do that.
I think the paralysis report will make paralysis not so important, and so blindness remains the only hindering dust affliction we want to limit when it can be given as an action-aff.
Eco druid with luck from shrugging and a beast spitting can out pace dust on a single target for a time for example. Just because there aren't any/many eco druids in practice doesn't mean it can't be done. With luck so could a harb or caco on paper as well.
Outpacing curing is ok. It's a basic part of combat if you can't out pace some curing balance in some way you'll never really get to killing folks.
Dust stack is getting a nerf anyway which should fix most people's issues with it. Once they learn to cure right anyway.
The ice stack is pretty powerful I guess if you want to look into reducing that thrn that'd most likely fix all the issues of monks hinderance people bring up. Think the issue here is the easy reapplication of broken arms, won't kill you but it does lock down most classes to stop them fighting back. Could look into a reduction of the effect of broken arms.
With the dust nerf and then a comparable ice stack nerf then I can't see monks hindering me much at all.
People are still not curing monks right so how about we you know learn to cure against them and test more though.
Believe it or not, MOST of us who have an opinion in this have optimal curing within the realms of possibility. Please stop using that as a descriptor for monks being fine in their current incarnation. There are already people working on the rationale that they are not fine, hence all the special reports. Do not continually use the statement 'fix your curing' to rationalise them as being fine in a game balance context.
(I'm the mom of Hallifax btw, so if you are in Hallifax please call me mom.)
== Professional Girl Gamer == Yes I play games Yes I'm a girl get over it
Soon the monk dust stack won't be very hindering once they bring in the paralysis change. Eat faeleaf, it'll cure para and blind. Then focus off the haemophilia before they get balance back. You'll easily cure off the deadly afflictions before they recover balance even when boosting.
Ice is a bit more powerful hinderwise with it taking 3 ice balances at 2secs each to cure out the deadly afflictions of a monk ice combo compared to the two dust balances at 1.5secs each once the dust nerf goes in.
The monk dust stack doesn't have to be overly hindering; it merely has to contain enough physical afflictions that you always gain internal afflictions alongside haemophilia until you have the entire table. That is problematic and does not contribute to the monk kill condition by itself, making it excess punishment for correct play. This mechanic is required in neither the current incarnation of monks, nor with the implementation of the deep bleeding idea.
(I'm the mom of Hallifax btw, so if you are in Hallifax please call me mom.)
== Professional Girl Gamer == Yes I play games Yes I'm a girl get over it
How you don't understand this is beyond me. The requisite of having to powerfocus haemophilia every other cure balance is not balanced, and never will be.
I think there's some talking over one-another's heads here. Generally speaking, like Wobou said, doing more afflictions than the target can cure off is not unbalanced in itself. That said, there is a line that the current monk affliction rate is probably over, at the moment, and can be reasonably pulled downward. To use his numbers - 3 dust affs every 3s is probably fine, target will cure off 2 by the time the monk recovers balance. In fact, even if it were higher, it's probably still fine, as long as the target has hindering options against the monk. Generally speaking, if you're not curing well, you do expect to be overwhelmed eventually, even if it was not a monk you're fighting, anyway.
However, monks generally give at least 3, up to 5 affs, or more, currently, through a mix of both guaranteed affs, poisons, and stance effects. That becomes problematic because it hits the "overwhelmed" state faster. Furthermore, I've mentioned this in the past, and Wobou has also mentioned this in his post above, with the compressed aff table, the affs are usually all more potent, which means when you cure off the higher priority afflictions, the lower priority afflictions are now pulling you even further behind with their effects. Edited to add: this is because these lower priority affs, which in the past are almost negligible, are more potent than before, and usually do contribute to some form of either hinder or cure slow-down.
The way to tackle this is two-fold, first, we can limit the hindering affs given by the dust table, paralysis and blindness. Nekotai are in a good place with this, and it can be limited slightly more as well. Next, we can also pull back the number of affs in total that are given, especially at the earlier stances. Similar to the idea of momentum, you shouldn't be doing so many afflictions from the very first attack. You can spend power and give afflictions at significantly higher rate (like what other classes can also do), or you can don't spend power, and make progress at small, incremental rates, which is sensitive to being hindered and thus getting your progress reset.
Monks, as well, are supposed to be designed to be burst. I expect the admin will want to make monks have a big burst of afflictions at some point along their stance progression that will translate to progress for their instakill in some way. Generally speaking, you'll want to then limit their first few stances a bit more, so that there's a noticeable difference when building up to their burst. Obviously, that's not the case currently. So we'll need to pull some of the afflicting power available in the earlier stances down, so that the burst at the higher stances make sense.
If possible, making the burst reliant on the earlier stances would be great - the better you perform earlier on, the bigger the burst later on, and therefore the more progress you can make. That was my guiding principle for the bleeding and the afflicting. Which is why there are tools to stack afflictions in the skillset, and later on, tools to convert stacked afflictions into bleed or damage. The afflictions themselves, however, are a little too powerful to justify being stacked so quickly early on (see paragraphs 2 and 3 above). So they need to be replaced with a different mechanic that translates into a burst at the higher level of stances. I'm fine with Wobou's idea about the hemorrhaging mechanic to replace the aff rate. It is fairly straightforward as far as a "clot prevention" mechanic goes.
As for how exactly to drop early affliction rate in the monk stance progression, there are a number of options available. Removing afflictions from the early stances is one, changing what afflictions are available (so a weaker dust stack, for example) is another. Targeting poisons, like lowering their proc chance, or even removing them as an option altogether is another. I personally have my own preferences as to what to do, but I think the admin have theirs, which may not agree with mine, anyway. At this point, however, it's clear they are working on putting something together aimed specifically at lowering aff rate in the lower stances. I am personally waiting to hear back from some questions I asked before making more reports, at least.
Comments
-Kilian
Its not incomparable to most classes. Try reading through the AB files. Less than three seconds costs two power.
You love your class. You've spent a lot of time balancing Nekotai. But I've been an envoy too, and now all reports since forever are public. You tend to get extremely defensive if anyone tries to point out something that's not quite clicking in Nekotai. You've been doing that for some time now.
I can agree that Nekotai were balanced pre-overhaul. It seems like you did a lot of work to make it that way. Envoying Finalsting was the final touch, and I remember commenting on how cool it'd be! Like, wow, what a functional but not terribly over-the-top guild. So the overhaul's progressing. Everything's proceeding. Then oldwounds are removed during the warrior overhaul. Monks were compensated for their damage multiplier on wounds by getting a huge damage boost, which resulted in the post-overhaul (but pre-monk overhaul) complaints about ridiculous amounts of damage. Okay, whatever. New monks are out now. All of us can see reports now.
I can -see- you arguing against nerfing (amongst other things) the balance bonus that Stealth gets (report 1643). I don't understand why. It sounds like -- it looks like irrational bias. And it's pretty troubling that you're posting all this rhetoric that you're just going to keep on going "without you". Really? The reason we're all complaining now is because we're on the receiving end of monks, on a day-to-day basis. The reason there's other envoys is so that they can chime in and say "yes, this really is broken". But people tend to respect each other and have the guild that has a broken mechanic fix itself. Of course, we just recently had to break that respect because certain envoys didn't want to nerf Night Bonds. Has that brand name Shofangi written on it. It's just disappointing.
Refocusing, you are prepared to leave everyone else in the dust to pursue your own concept of balance -- that's what your bottom line is, is what it seems like (actually it's literally the bottom line of your post here). That's not appropriate. Sorry if this is offensive.
Honestly, I'm of the opinion that if you're going to make monks physical guardians you should also give them the ridiculous power costs to achieve their potential.
== Professional Girl Gamer ==
Yes I play games
Yes I'm a girl
get over it
From the very start of the conversation, and multiple times in that conversation, I had made it clear that I was fine with changing the ability in question - specifically to remove the entire speed balance bonus, and change it to something else. I asked for suggestions at that point.
My opinion, from the start:
The ability must give some sort of advantage - and if speed is not acceptable, then change it to something else.
That is as close to verbatim as I can get without quoting myself (I didn't log that conversation, someone else might have, if they can post it, that'd be great)
We went through a lengthy run through of all the speed buffs available, and at the end of the day, it was suggested that a nerf like 3/6 or 2/5 will still make it "useful", because it will still provide an advantage over what is available. And therein lies the crux. I remember quite clearly that I questioned why that would be acceptable, when the start of the conversation was that speed differences between monks is not.
I repeatedly said that the numbers should not be merely lowered, but removed and replaced instead. I was told instead that the report is made on the prerogative of the author based on a problem he sees, and that I am free to respond as an envoy. Clearly, Falmiis either didn't want to, or could not think of, a replacement suggestion. He decided to leave the report as is. That's fine, I have no problems with that - I was told to respond as an envoy, so I did. My opinions in the comments mirror what I said above: lowering the numbers alone don't make sense with the problem statement, and I don't support that anyway. Instead, I support a replacement effect - just not one that is... empty.
To this date, I have received zero suggestions - clearly, if I want a replacement effect, then I am left to think of them by myself. That's fine. Like I said, I will do it, with or without help. If you have nothing to offer - or are unwilling to put in the effort to do so, makes zero difference. I'll do it myself, when I can. I mean, that's what he did, anyway. Since I obviously hadn't put up a report yet, he put up his own, with or without my input. That's fine.
I commented on the report based on what was written. I have not asked him to change it any further, have not asked him to come up with actual replacement effects - something he's not obliged to do, and have not made a fuss of its existence. Like he said, it's his right to submit a report as an envoy, based on a problem he sees, whether or not I agree with it. It happens that I agree with the problem, but not the solutions. He is not obliged to consider my opinions if he does not wish to - or if he has no time to, whichever the case might be, and I'm fine with that. And if he wants to eventually submit that report as is, my comments are already on it for consideration.
In my last sentence, which is apparently part of the what you find inappropriate, I said that "I'll work with the limits I'm given, and with the material I have." In fact, that is true for all envoys. We all work with the limits imposed on us, and with the materials available on hand, just like Falmiis did with his report.
I am obviously not happy about the solutions in the report, and in an ideal world, I certainly wish those three solutions currently show three great ideas which I can all support. But until I come up with my own alternatives (and the reports are finalised), I don't have the right to be making a fuss about it - and I haven't, until it's been brought up here.
Monks have the extraordinary task of convincing a game that collectively hates them that their fixes are the best, or that other suggestions are not. It's a lot harder than it sounds, especially when you're starting with a whole new foundation, unlike other guilds that have a decade of experience and tweaking behind them. I'd say don't lose sight of the forest because you're focused on the trees, meaning momentum is gone so balance is actually doable now. That's pretty exciting.
Things that are broken suck, but fixing it well takes time, especially when dealing with something as large as 4 whole guilds. Static sucked, teamquisition sucked, infinite aeon loops sucked, lots of stuff sucks or has sucked until it gets fixed. Everyone has an opinion, not everyone is willing to take a problem to start to finish.
This would include removing ways for monks to bypass parry without spending significant amounts of power. Increase the effectiveness of parrying only one limb to 100%, and see if anyone with good parrying setup can stop the unstoppable train that monks are.
Like all monks, though Nekotai drop parry through prones and paralysis. We also don't have any major prone anymore, however - our tendons have been changed to damaged legs. Again, this was intentional. We did keep our mutilates via grapple-ender.
In short, a Nekotai is probably as close to that ideal as you have at the moment. If people are still struggling with Nekotai on top of that, then it's not a case of making parry more powerful or weakening Nekotai parry bypass, but instead, to lower the effectiveness of the Nekotai abilities themselves.
On the other hand, you could make parry work even when prone, that would remove that bit of parry bypass... but that would also majorly impact warriors. Which probably isn't a good idea.
1) Make paralysis not stop parry, but prevent changing parry.
2) Kicks don't bypass parry.
[ So I stop having 0 power in every fight from having to Gedulah/powerfocus haemophilia constantly.]
4) Make damagedthroat cure before damagedskull always OR allow us to focus ice applications.
5) The big solution -- Disable envenoming monk weapons and add power costing modifiers (able to be added to any form) to replace their afflicting as needed. Different modifiers for different monks. Important ones being: Haemophilia/Paralysis/Blindness/Anorexia/Slickness.
-- To elaborate, this is my favorite solution to what I see as the biggest problem with monks, their constantly high aff rate. Their unmatched affrate stems largely from poisons, and basically never needing to spend power except to buff their balance time. Certain specs will still need to have their affrate toned down, but this will make monks more bursty, instead of having a constant sustained affrate that's impossible to keep up with.
6) Courtesy of a silent hero:
Kicks being parry able was suggested during the testing and a lot of people liked the sound of that. I'm fond of this idea myself.
Currently parry is a non issue for shofang and tahetso though. Boganj and Rakti'sho can be built into your rotation to pretty much just shut someones parry down. Ninja have good anti parry with the kicks, neko is the one more vulnerable to good parry right now.
Although parry is only really a thing in small groups. In larger groups of 4+ people the target getting focused is going to be proned in some way(most likely) to get around parry anyway so buffing the parry system wont change the dynamics of group combat at all.
Try practicing a little bit more against monks and other classes and you'll start to see the differences in a bit more detail. Once you've fixed your curing anyway, no point until you've done that.
For example a druid and a second person can lock a target down and stop them fighting back while killing them. A bard and a guardian can do the same thing(I even got complained at for doing this earlier today). Two of a number of different class combinations using their skills in concert can lock a target down to stop them attacking while also killing them. Monks are not really any different here and like I said two bards will kill and murder a target much quicker than two monks.
Assuming people are curing right which right now again 99% of the game are not curing monks properly which is a huge thing to take into account.
Yes, two coordinated people can lock you down and kill you, keyword here, coordinated. That's not really the issue though. The issue is how easily monks stack up affs to the point where you can't really do anything but die (or hope they fumble somehow and you escape). Obviously monks are in line for nerfs, but that doesn't invalidate the statement that fighting one monk feels like fighting several people.
I could go druid and I'd be able to overwhelm a single targets ability to eat dust semi passively while also doing constant staff casts. Could do this pretty much constantly. The ability for a single class to overwhelm one cure balance is not unique to monks.
I'm not saying monks dont need tweaks all I'm saying it lets have a bit of rationality. People like Maligorn and Saz are posting logs with exceptionally horrible curing and others are asking for monks to get nerfed because of it. Wait until Shuyin has fixed your curing, test it a bit more and lets use this live test as a proper test because if we try and balance monks based on faulty curing were going to nerf them to the ground for when you actually start to cure right.
Discord: Pharanyx#4357
I'm not sure that's true. I agree that monks are currently really strong in aff pressure, vital pressure and bleeding, but it's not true to say that only monks can overwhelm a cure balance. Technically any build up aff dealer (illuminati, healers, warriors) are overwhelming a cure balance. I don't think that in of itself is a problem. I do think that monks delivering 5+ dust affs in a form is a problem, especially when a couple of them are either hindering (niricol/mantakaya) or locking in a kill (haemotox currently).
I'm hoping once we (the royal we, the admins who actually do all the work) decide which route we're going with bleeding that we can settle a lot of these issues. If there's a viable path to a kill that doesn't involve 500 bleeding a form and 5+ affs then that makes it a lot easier to tone those things down. That being said I think it's totally fine if a monk can do more affs in a balance than it takes to cure off. I don't think a monk doing 3 dust/steam affs, 2 ice affs, or 4 lucidity affs in a balance is a huge concern on the face of it. I think it depends on what those affs are. I think the big issue we're running into here is that monks have always been meant to overwhelm with affs but we used to have crappier affs to overwhelm people with. The overhaul has removed most of these filler affs and so it's hard to embrace that previous identity without being OP.
== Professional Girl Gamer ==
Yes I play games
Yes I'm a girl
get over it
That is entirely different from monks who build by outpacing the cure balance WITH the debilitating afflictions. That's the significant difference that makes them functionally entirely different from every other class.
Edit: Ideas:
7) Add an affliction for each balance
[Ice] - Fever
[Dust] - Impurity
[Steam] - Agitation
[Slush] - Dehydration
The aff has no effect, but will always cure first, even if you use focus/powerfocus (but it won't consume power/extra bal/beast bal)
This can be used as needed in monk skillsets (and others) to give people the ability to stick an affliction.
Poisons do need to be looked at. I'm open to taking ideas, including removing paralysis/blindness from poisons, but again, that does impact warriors significantly, so I don't think I'll make much progress trying to do that.
I think the paralysis report will make paralysis not so important, and so blindness remains the only hindering dust affliction we want to limit when it can be given as an action-aff.
Outpacing curing is ok. It's a basic part of combat if you can't out pace some curing balance in some way you'll never really get to killing folks.
Dust stack is getting a nerf anyway which should fix most people's issues with it. Once they learn to cure right anyway.
The ice stack is pretty powerful I guess if you want to look into reducing that thrn that'd most likely fix all the issues of monks hinderance people bring up. Think the issue here is the easy reapplication of broken arms, won't kill you but it does lock down most classes to stop them fighting back. Could look into a reduction of the effect of broken arms.
With the dust nerf and then a comparable ice stack nerf then I can't see monks hindering me much at all.
People are still not curing monks right so how about we you know learn to cure against them and test more though.
== Professional Girl Gamer ==
Yes I play games
Yes I'm a girl
get over it
Ice is a bit more powerful hinderwise with it taking 3 ice balances at 2secs each to cure out the deadly afflictions of a monk ice combo compared to the two dust balances at 1.5secs each once the dust nerf goes in.
== Professional Girl Gamer ==
Yes I play games
Yes I'm a girl
get over it
I'll refer you back to this informative diagram:
However, monks generally give at least 3, up to 5 affs, or more, currently, through a mix of both guaranteed affs, poisons, and stance effects. That becomes problematic because it hits the "overwhelmed" state faster. Furthermore, I've mentioned this in the past, and Wobou has also mentioned this in his post above, with the compressed aff table, the affs are usually all more potent, which means when you cure off the higher priority afflictions, the lower priority afflictions are now pulling you even further behind with their effects. Edited to add: this is because these lower priority affs, which in the past are almost negligible, are more potent than before, and usually do contribute to some form of either hinder or cure slow-down.
The way to tackle this is two-fold, first, we can limit the hindering affs given by the dust table, paralysis and blindness. Nekotai are in a good place with this, and it can be limited slightly more as well. Next, we can also pull back the number of affs in total that are given, especially at the earlier stances. Similar to the idea of momentum, you shouldn't be doing so many afflictions from the very first attack. You can spend power and give afflictions at significantly higher rate (like what other classes can also do), or you can don't spend power, and make progress at small, incremental rates, which is sensitive to being hindered and thus getting your progress reset.
Monks, as well, are supposed to be designed to be burst. I expect the admin will want to make monks have a big burst of afflictions at some point along their stance progression that will translate to progress for their instakill in some way. Generally speaking, you'll want to then limit their first few stances a bit more, so that there's a noticeable difference when building up to their burst. Obviously, that's not the case currently. So we'll need to pull some of the afflicting power available in the earlier stances down, so that the burst at the higher stances make sense.
If possible, making the burst reliant on the earlier stances would be great - the better you perform earlier on, the bigger the burst later on, and therefore the more progress you can make. That was my guiding principle for the bleeding and the afflicting. Which is why there are tools to stack afflictions in the skillset, and later on, tools to convert stacked afflictions into bleed or damage. The afflictions themselves, however, are a little too powerful to justify being stacked so quickly early on (see paragraphs 2 and 3 above). So they need to be replaced with a different mechanic that translates into a burst at the higher level of stances. I'm fine with Wobou's idea about the hemorrhaging mechanic to replace the aff rate. It is fairly straightforward as far as a "clot prevention" mechanic goes.
As for how exactly to drop early affliction rate in the monk stance progression, there are a number of options available. Removing afflictions from the early stances is one, changing what afflictions are available (so a weaker dust stack, for example) is another. Targeting poisons, like lowering their proc chance, or even removing them as an option altogether is another. I personally have my own preferences as to what to do, but I think the admin have theirs, which may not agree with mine, anyway. At this point, however, it's clear they are working on putting something together aimed specifically at lowering aff rate in the lower stances. I am personally waiting to hear back from some questions I asked before making more reports, at least.