Official Thread: Monk Overhaul is Live!

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  • That's Wobou's suggestion as a tweak to make the bleeding system as a whole better, yes, but I'd just like to point out that it's a good idea only because it solves a mechanical problem, and not because of how logical or illogical it is - which really shouldn't be a priority consideration.

    The mechanical problem that diminishing returns is aimed at solving is group-stacking. The reason why it works is because it, on theory, leaves 1v1 untouched, while working to lower group combat to manageable levels, and automatically normalizes its effect depending on the number of participants in group combat. The need to make sure that bleeding as a mechanic still has the potential to ramp into a kill is a drawback, as it always has been with other forms of diminishing returns as well. Pre-clotting restrictions like what Wobou has suggested via either minimum bleeding, or disabling of pre-clotting entirely, can be used to remove or mitigate that drawback, and ensure the diminishing returns does not remove 1v1 viability.

    Diminishing returns in itself doesn't really solve the problem Shedrin is explaining - it's those secondary mechanics (some hard-coded way to prevent clotting) that are being suggested which will solve Shedrin's described issue as a side effect of being a complement to diminishing returns. Whether or not that's a path we want to take... that's up for debate.

    Giving wounds to monks... yeah, it's a fundamental re-work of the class. Considerations to weaken the current monk ice repertoire will definitely need to be taken.

  • edited March 2017
    Instead of changing how bleeding works, you could add something to monks that allows them to do a % of current bleed or bruising as damage be an effect of their attack.  That way you wouldn't have to re-balance other classes, and monks would get the vitals pressure they potentially need one on one.

    The problem that's already here, and isn't going away with any of these suggestions is how easy the instakills will be to pull off in groups, and how easy it will be for monks to stack insane bleed.  The bleed would be at least mitigated by some diminishing returns formula, but that depends on the numbers.

    Final aside: That Ninjakari have two dust affs as bonuses for their instakill is imba.  Death beast gives two dust affs balance free.  With that beast power Ninjakari get to roll the dice and have an automatic balance free leg up on any of the other monk specs for pulling off their instakill.  I think the most elegant solution is that death beast should only give one dust aff, but that nerfs basically all monks that are going for dust strategies to stick haemophilia.
    Take great care of yourselves and each other.
  • edited March 2017
    Ciaran said:
    Instead of changing how bleeding works, you could add something to monks that allows them to do a % of current bleed or bruising as damage be an effect of their attack.  That way you wouldn't have to re-balance other classes, and monks would get the vitals pressure they potentially need one on one.

    That doesn't solve the issue Shedrin raised, but that's an interesting idea for other reasons. I'm not sure if the other monks have it, but Nekotai has something similar in my original idea for sprongma (though that was changed) and currently as a finalsting. I had been envisioning it as a finisher rather than as the build-up.

    I had been somewhat fixated on doing a % of current bleed as additional bleed in all my previous ideas of the bleed snowball, but that ran into the problems that Veyils illustrated with his examples - snowballing into itself so fast that it ramps up even from zero.

    Doing a % of current bleed as additional damage instead won't let it snowball into itself, it'll just be a bonus if the user manages to have some leftover bleed. Perhaps you're right, and this might be a better alternative than my original ideas. I'll say right now that if we're going purely based on my logs with Ciaran, it's not an impossible thing. Many times in the log, when I hit Ciaran, he had some bleeding leftover from my previous attack. It was just not at instakill level. Though those logs are a week old now, so, more spars and logs are needed.

    That said, even just on theory alone, Ciaran's idea won't resolve the core of of the issue that Shedrin raised. That's something we still want to think about.

    P.S. Speaking of logs, where are all the other logs? I can't be the only monk doing combat spars. Hell, I haven't even been online enough to do spars since I did them with Ciaran. Please log and post them, people. And get other monks you know are sparring to post theirs. I've been accused of doing only theory crafting and not actually going out there to get how things actually work. It would be good if, you know, I also don't happen to be the only person posting spars.

  • Am quite aware re: the suggestion. I was the one who engineered the formula. 

    Regardless, I don't think the admin-side would be for rewriting the monks and overhauling them again.
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  • I also want to give a special PooPoo shoutout to Ninjakari who won't spar.  How are we supposed to get a feel for your class balance if you keep your kit a secret? You know who you areeeee.
    Take great care of yourselves and each other.
  • So, we've been watching the live numbers and the special reports come in. We're looking into solutions regarding the bleeding and just did some envoy testing with the bleeding diminishing returns last night (as per Report 1641).

    Ciaran said:
    I also want to give a special PooPoo shoutout to Ninjakari who won't spar.  How are we supposed to get a feel for your class balance if you keep your kit a secret? You know who you areeeee.
    I am going to note that this is a feedback thread, not a callout thread. Don't turn it into one.
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  • edited March 2017
    I'm not a fan of 1641 report as a stand alone report in itself as its going to heavily effect non-monk classes with bleed and how they work together in groups.

    Bleeding/brusing numbers in individual class cases for groups has been balanced pre-monks, this change would mean every class involving bleed/brusing would need to get their numbers adjusted in line with diminishing returns.

    Which I suppose isn't a bad thing it just means you'd need to add in a caveat to report 1641 that all bleed skills and their numbers will get reworked based on this. 

    EDIT: It also doesn't address the outlier issue of people being pretty  much immune to monks.
  • I don't think that's true at all. Bleeding is a problematic mechanic and always has been. Any class with bleeding as a central theme cannot be balanced for both groups and 1v1. 

    The problem is hardly singular inside the monk archetype. The numbers in 1641 won't have a profound impact on classes that do supplementary bleeding and, even if they do contribute bleeding, if it isn't checked by some form of curve then you've just returned to square one. 

    Besides, buffing bleed skills in tandem with releasing 1641 is just a buff to upfront bleeding and would overwhelm what the curve achieves as it's a really subtle slope.
    The preclotting change in tandem with 1641 would make 1v1 bleeding stick long enough for setup -> execute (Though this depends on if preclotting functions on the global tic or will reserve the bleeding tic and override for x seconds after the bleeding application) while ensuring that preclotting won't be a 'I'm already a dead man walking even though I've just been tapped twice'. If anything the curve is too generous.
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    get over it
  • edited March 2017
    The categorization that current bleed numbers do not need to be adjusted is not true, either.

    Current bleed numbers are based off a paradigm that there is no diminishing returns - in fact, they are supposed to ramp up as time goes on as a function of attrition. How that attrition is achieved, has been a little different based on each individual envoy's plans - my original plan was to make it grow as a function of itself - I'm not sure if any were depending on ice afflictions (and internalbleeding), and in general, all of them rely on vitals pressure to run the target out of mana as time goes on.

    My personal plan is, obviously, not compatible with diminishing returns. In which case, a diminishing returns meta will force me to change the way Nekotai build bleeding attrition - most likely through vitals pressure. That will neccesitate a change in the bleeding numbers - in some cases, it will have to go up, in others, it will have to go down. And as a complement to those changes, a new functionality like what Ciaran suggested may also have to be introduced. Alternatively, Wobou's hemorraging idea, or just a global disabling of before-tick clotting, will have to be implemented.

    Either way, there's definitely a need to tweak monk bleeding in general, and it's well within the realms of possibility that non monks which do supplementary bleeding will need to be looked at as well. (Edit to add: there's a need to tweak things when diminishing returns gets put in globally.)

    Bleeding was a "problematic" mechanic because it has always been a flat numbers game. Meaning the problem was with max mana putting some targets forever out of reach. It wasn't a problem because of group combat. Flat bleeding most certainly can be balanced in both group and 1v1, through a function of other mechanics. Old Nekotai bleeding was balanced in groups because of momentum mechanics and the way vessels worked via time. By the simple virtue of the fact that vessel bleeding was a function of time, and the fact that low momentum restricted a Nekotai's ability to give vessels paired with important affs, prevented multiple Nekotai from immediately giving large amounts of flat bleed in the first few moves in a group. No matter how many Nekotai you had, each of them needed to build their own individual momentum to start bleeding - which then only started to snowball after the vessels had stuck for some time.

    The momentum mechanic (and loss of momentum on target change) used to limit monk attacks to very low impact actions in the first couple of moves, then ramped them up dramatically at the 4th and 5th momentum. This meant that it was entirely possible for a Nekotai to go through an entire group clash, participate in killing 10 different targets... and never hit those power spikes for any of them. This was a frustration and a problem in the past, and that imbalanced powerspike that momentum provided has been significantly spread throughout the new stances system -  moving up the stances do give stronger effects, but the differences are more linear than exponential, and most give the impression of being "different" effects rather than just "stronger" effects. In addition, bleed has been built into monk actions as an instant "affliction" rather than as a self-increasing value via vessels. That's why we're seeing flat bleed from monks in groups to be problematic today, because they're dropping their payloads earlier in a group scenario, unlimited by momentum mechanics.

    We're not going back to the old exponential-like burst of momentum, of course. But it's important to note that just because bleed has always been flat numbers, doesn't mean it's impossible to make flat bleed balanced for both group and 1v1. Momentum, with all of its attendant problems, certainly made it possible in the past, and it certainly isn't the only possible way. We just have to make our own version of such a balance in the new meta where momentum doesn't exist. Whether that be abandoning flat bleed entirely and moving to percentage bleed only, or a hybrid, or using a different set of mechanics entirely, there's certainly room to explore and innovate.

  • Can you walk through the numbers in the calculation a bit more?

     bleed = max(0.2*original, original - (original * current_clots /
                 max_clots)) Where original is the original bleed amount.
                 current_clots is the number of clots it would take to cure the
                 amount of bleeding the target currently has, and max_clots is the
                 target's max mana divided by 60.

    So assuming a target with 10k mana and 100 existing bleeding being hit with a 1k bleed attack.

    Four variables in the equation are:
    "max" ?? not sure what this variable is referring to? Is this a different variable to max_clots or is it supposed to be the same variable?
    "original" is the "original is the original bleed amount." Or do you mean the original bleed amount in the new attack?
    "current_clots" is the clots required to clot away the original bleed, depends on what you mean by the original variable?
    "max_clots" is 166.66 from total mana/60

    Can you clarify what the max variable is and what the comma after the first original variable is supposed to do?

  • Also any word on looking at the outlier issue against monks?  Right now I feel like I'm near immune to monk bleed with the 50% reduction in clotting cost as a mugwump. Could be worth looking at shifting the effects of mugwump and the magic crown to something else if bleed is going to be a major focus. I don't think race should play that much a role in your resistances, I'm basically 50% resistant to bleed in a round about way as mugwump. Seems like it'd be tricky to balance with issues like this in place.
  • edited March 2017
    1 :
    2: Where original is the original bleed amount. That is: The amount of bleeding the attack would do before being modified. This is apparent since it's being subtracted from itself. If it was the amount of bleeding on the person already the formula would be removing bleeding from the person eternally.
    3: Current clots of bleeding already on the person
    4: The formula as quoted is dynamic and scales to the person, giving people with lower mana an advantage. This is easily remedied by making max clots static by using the maximum obtainable manapool (or whichever pool you'd want to balance around).

    A single hit for 1000 at 100 bleeding, balanced around a 10000 mana pool would give 940 bleeding. Five subsequent attacks of 200 bleeding would instead give 860 bleeding instead, if none was clotted. It's exceptionally easy to adjust the actual diminish / strike by adding a term to the quotient modifying difference.

    Edit: Given that the formula was written in normal convention I didn't think it'd be hard to read.

    Edit*2: The strength of it is that the returns become stronger as your bleeding becomes higher, meaning there is a sweet point in the middle.

    Edit*3: On later inspection I'd move the min to 0.4-0.5 and make the mana pool a static around 11300; A single hit of 1000 bleeding at 2000 bleeding already would give 469; five subsequent hits of 200 at 2000 would give 426. There would be a neat hinge around 2200, where preclotting is limited but still has a high enough threshold to enable bleeding instas with a little bit extra.



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  • That said, there are many ways to fix bleeding, whether specific to monks or otherwise. This is just the one that is clear and foremost to me.
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  • Veyils said:
    Can you walk through the numbers in the calculation a bit more?

     bleed = max(0.2*original, original - (original * current_clots /
                 max_clots)) Where original is the original bleed amount.
                 current_clots is the number of clots it would take to cure the
                 amount of bleeding the target currently has, and max_clots is the
                 target's max mana divided by 60.

    So assuming a target with 10k mana and 100 existing bleeding being hit with a 1k bleed attack.

    Four variables in the equation are:
    "max" ?? not sure what this variable is referring to? Is this a different variable to max_clots or is it supposed to be the same variable?
    "original" is the "original is the original bleed amount." Or do you mean the original bleed amount in the new attack?
    "current_clots" is the clots required to clot away the original bleed, depends on what you mean by the original variable?
    "max_clots" is 166.66 from total mana/60

    Can you clarify what the max variable is and what the comma after the first original variable is supposed to do?


    max is a function that means returns the greatest number of its arguments, all the max() part of this means is that diminishing returns will never reduce the bleeding to below 20% of its original amount.

    original in this case means the amount of bleeding for the new attack we're calculating, pre diminishing returns.

    current_clots = the number of clots it would take to reduce the victim's current bleeding to 0 before the amount that this formula is calculating. This means if they have no bleeding this number is zero (which means that this formula will not diminish any bleeding if it's all clotted off)

    max_clots = The maximum number of clots the victim can produce, which is basically max mana / 60.

    All that being said I think if we go with a diminishing returns formula it won't be this one as written but the idea and the hope is basically to do the following:

    1) Discourage clotting off everything (or in the case of solution 2 of that report stop you from doing so outright)
    2) Allow you to set relatively high base values of bleeding to allow 1v1 without worrying too much about groups
    3) Ideally soften the curve such that monks don't immediately destroy people with low mana while still retaining low mana as a disadvantage

    Veyils said:
    I'm not a fan of 1641 report as a stand alone report in itself as its going to heavily effect non-monk classes with bleed and how they work together in groups.

    Bleeding/brusing numbers in individual class cases for groups has been balanced pre-monks, this change would mean every class involving bleed/brusing would need to get their numbers adjusted in line with diminishing returns.

    Which I suppose isn't a bad thing it just means you'd need to add in a caveat to report 1641 that all bleed skills and their numbers will get reworked based on this. 

    EDIT: It also doesn't address the outlier issue of people being pretty  much immune to monks.

    Yes this will impact non-monk classes but I think it will be for the better. Anyone who cares about bleeding should be interested in discouraging/disallowing people from clotting it all off instantly. I'm not sure I agree that everyone's bleeding was balanced in groups before but to the extent that it was balanced it was because people had fairly small numbers. Pureblade bleeding for example was made small on purpose because people were rightfully fearful of what a PB stack would do in groups. This change would allow classes in that situation to ask for better numbers without adversely affecting groups (or at least that's the hope).

    Given the buff of getting rid of pre-clot I think it'd be preemptive to ask for new higher numbers for everyone to adjust for diminishing returns.

    In regards to not solving the mana outlier problem it doesn't solve it directly but what it does allow you to do is give monks high base values or bleeding based on max mana percentage + flat. That's what I'm referring to when I say that monks can be rebalanced around 1v1.

    I'm still torn on whether or not I prefer a monk-only solution or a global solution. I think we could make a mechanic for monks that could be more precisely balanced, but I think it makes sense for a snowball mechanic to have a diminishing returns in groups as well.

  • Veyils said:
    Also any word on looking at the outlier issue against monks?  Right now I feel like I'm near immune to monk bleed with the 50% reduction in clotting cost as a mugwump. Could be worth looking at shifting the effects of mugwump and the magic crown to something else if bleed is going to be a major focus. I don't think race should play that much a role in your resistances, I'm basically 50% resistant to bleed in a round about way as mugwump. Seems like it'd be tricky to balance with issues like this in place.

    Oops I missed this one. While ideally I would like to be able to kill people without worrying about their race if it ends up being the case that a competent monk can kill a 13/13 mana demigod but can't kill a mugwump then I'll take that. The answer to the outlier question depends very much on which route the game takes on bleeding. Both of the monk specific bleeding solutions in 1637 would allow you to be killed as a mugwump with 13/13 mana but depending on your perspective the removal of the hardcounter might be a negative thing not a positive thing.
  • MaligornMaligorn Windborne
    https://ada-young.appspot.com/pastebin/TitjI6St

    All this happened in about 30 seconds.


    https://ada-young.appspot.com/pastebin/wzvsUS5X

    Why.

    (fully deffed for both instances)


    image
  • FalaeronFalaeron Jolteon
    edited March 2017
    Because new monks are not balanced around groups, either.

    It's just taking the problems that people foresaw with giving Pureblade so much bleeding that they would be anywhere near viable in 1v1s, but ignoring them entirely and tuning them up a few more notches by giving them even easier dust stacking, more damage and more bleeding.
  • Maligorn said:
    https://ada-young.appspot.com/pastebin/TitjI6St

    All this happened in about 30 seconds.


    https://ada-young.appspot.com/pastebin/wzvsUS5X

    Why.

    (fully deffed for both instances)


    Your not clotting right at all just looking at the first log.

    First log, you cured haemophilia but didnt clot away any bleed. Need to be clotting when you cure. Got about 540ish bleed on you at this point. Could have clotted it away but you didn't. Then haemophilia got reapplied. You then diagnosed and clotted when you had haemophilia which caused you a loss of mana for no reason. Then you got hit by a warrior and Tarken hit you again. You then ate dust and cured haemophilla again and still didnt clot away the bleed.


    Not curing relapsing properly, its dust not yarrow. I know mm hasnt been updated yet.


    I've not gone through the entire log but your healing really can be heavily improved just looking at the first few combos.

  • MaligornMaligorn Windborne
    I can agree with that. Still think it's pretty over the top.

    image
  • edited March 2017
    Its hard to say with your logs. Two main reasons your letting the bleeding get so high is that your simply not curing any bleeding at all once you cure haemophilla and secondly your then burning your mana by clotting when you have haemophila on. So your kinda killing yourself.

    Issue is monks do % based bleed on some of their forms so their designed that you cure right and clot right to get rid of the bleed. If you don't do that then their bleed snowballs right now. It's like not focusing and having bad prios in aeon, you need to be curing right or its just going to put you in a position where you die super easily. 

    Fix up your curing then retest it. Most of the tests on monk bleeding were done on targets who cured right.
  • MaligornMaligorn Windborne
    edited March 2017
    I have my curing such that I won't clot if it'll take me below half mana, for obvious reasons.

    EDIT: Frankly, I thought haemophilia would just stop you from clotting (like deny the attempt and not suck your mana away) if it was stuck on you. Why did this change? EDIT 2: Maybe my memory is just terrible.

    image
  • edited March 2017
    Maligorn said:
    I have my curing such that I won't clot if it'll take me below half mana, for obvious reasons.

    If you check your log thats not your issue. You were at 9400m|95%, mana and refused to clot for some reason.  Then when you tried to clot it took you to 8140m|83%, -1260m.  Your simply not clotting when you cure hemophilia no mater how high your mana is.

    EDIT: Although if its system issues you need help with and combat logs could maybe take it to a different thread to avoid this thread going off topic.
  • edited March 2017
    The Nekotai sprongma bleeding burst at surge forms and higher is tending on the too-high side. Regardless of unoptimized curing, dropping 1.5k (insta req) bleed from zero is probably not a good idea. I noticed and mentioned this right after my spars with Ciaran - and I'm thinking of ways to scale them down (either in conjunction with, or in lieu of, diminishing returns). Suggestions are welcome. That said, sprongma does have a host of more than decent restrictions. Pending diminishing returns, or an alternative to it, I'm also open to leaving the burst as it is, if diminishing returns can solve the current problems with it.

    Flat bleed in new monks, in general, is not properly taking into account group combat mechanics at the moment, if only because the bleed values that each additional monk puts onto the target in the first few hits are not tempered downwards depending on how many monks are there.

    Lastly, the two cures that I can see from Maligorn's logs which m&m are outdated for Nekotai are:
    Relapsing (yarrow -> dust only)
    Angkhai head (slitthroat -> damagedthroat)

    If you find any more outdated line/cures, put them up or let people know. I imagine there's quite a few. Naturally, the other monks also have plenty of those, I imagine. In the meantime, put affmesages up and disable the current angkhai trigger (or hotfix it to remove the mm.valid.proper_slitthroat() function from it), and it should solve that one. Relapsing will have to wait for a m&m released update, I'm afraid.

    ^\w+ gracefully cuts .+ across your head with an Angkhai arc, slicing open your throat in three crimson streaks\.$
    Change slitthroat to damagedthroat for this.

    Fixing some of the curing problems should help against being unable to clot. The haemophilia/clotting issue is related to how m&m handles bleed, I think. It doesn't track it as a native value based on actions, and clots only after seeing a bleeding tick or a diagnose. You could do what Rivius uses for his own system, and use the SHOW BLEEDING command instead. Do it upon being hit by every monk form. Assuming hidden haemophilia isn't given, m&m should then clot as early as it can without wasting mana when haemo'd. You should see a marked improvement to your handling of bleeding after that, and be able to better evaluate Nekotai bleeding. Once the fixes are done, more logs would be appreciated, to better see what the differences are before and after. If you make changes to your cure priorities, it'd be great if you also jot them down (if you remember).

    These combat logs are important for balancing, for confirming tentative assertions, and also for the community to make changes to systems/strategies/curing. Thanks for posting them. Much more useful than one-liner assertions based off preconceptions.

  • I think another way to handle it is to make monk attacks, each of the strikes, only either do the damage + bleeding, or do the affliction associated with it at the discretion of the user.

    This would remove the double-dipping and remove what makes monks more problematic to me - the ridiculous affspam on top of the bleeding dilemma on top of an extremely strong dps. (Also delete envenom).
    (I'm the mom of Hallifax btw, so if you are in Hallifax please call me mom.)

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  • This is not just Nekotai, I think, but do you really think a burst like this ( https://ada-young.appspot.com/pastebin/yIdZdXmE )
    3 dust affs, substantial damage, over the top bleeding,  a slush aff that focuses on extra vitals pressure is somewhat decent for group PvP on a single balance? 

    Not sure it was the intention but this overhaul does allow 4 men groups to wipe a single target with 8-9k health in 2-3 seconds in the current form. It can arguably be done faster,  or sometime closer to that with different synergies. But well, monks do allow a huge pressure into this. ( https://ada-young.appspot.com/pastebin/YKmNDH_7 )
     "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."

    -Kilian
  • edited March 2017
    @Saz

    Unfortunately you cut the start of the log off so no one knows what hit you before hand.

    Thankfully I had logged the whole day in a massive log. So I went to my side of it and prior to your log start point you'd also taken a hit of Tyamits passives and his vinelash attack and also another attack from Tarken and me.

    So you'd taken a wyrdenwoods passives, my passives and hits, a thornwhip,  a monk combo and a warrior hit to bring you to 1300 bleeding and 6024h(72%) health and 100% mana. I notice you didn't cure the haemophilla right as well so just left the bleeding on even with 100% mana which is a common issue really.

    After that you then got hit with the single 1300 bleed tick, then 2300 damage from the mage then a second hit from tarken then I landed the killing blow. 

    That's not really an issue with monks that's an issue of five people hitting you doing constant damage attacks and you getting squished to damage. You died as easily to damage before monks came out and you die to damage as easily after. Don't blame monks for that.


    First thing for you to fix Saz is your hemophilia curing though. If you'd have fixed that even with five people hitting you you'd have survived a single extra hit.


    EDIT: I've a few logs of handling monks in groups from the past few days and I've not really found them much of an issue now I've fixed my curing. Well they are deadly but so are lots of other class combinations. I'll see about getting some of these logs up when I have the time to cut them out of the day log.  Worst one I got was me and kreon vs Tarken, Sondy and Roman. Lasted about seven mins of Tarken and Sondy focusing me before I died but me and Kreon manged to get a kill off on Roman before I got squished.

    Other pretty bad one was from Shedrin and Tarken. Shedrin pretty much just kept me locked in aeon with Tarken supporting and doing bleed but well plenty of other classes like a Moondancer or a bard could have killed me in a quicker time than Tarken did. 

    I'm mugwump for 50% mana reduction, 10ish resistances across the board. 16% armour from roboes and it takes two monks a considerable amount of time to kill me.
  • Yarith said:
    I think another way to handle it is to make monk attacks, each of the strikes, only either do the damage + bleeding, or do the affliction associated with it at the discretion of the user.

    This would remove the double-dipping and remove what makes monks more problematic to me - the ridiculous affspam on top of the bleeding dilemma on top of an extremely strong dps. (Also delete envenom).


    I'm... not sure what you mean by double-dipping.

    Damage/vitals pressure are on different cure balances from aff cure balances. You cure both simultaneously. Also, all classes in the game do both afflictions as well as vitals pressure simultaneously.

    I can see the complaint that monks (or specifically Nekotai) are doing too many afflictions at once (3 native afflictions from actions, possibly more from the stance and poison effects) as indeed something that is problematic - especially in groups. However, the main crux of the interaction is haemophilia, which affects bleeding - and that it's the lynchpin to what makes monks, or Nekotai specifically, get their kills (ignoring the max mana outliers that Shedrin/Veyils mentioned). Monk, or at least Nekotai, design is about keeping haemophilia on the target long enough to get bleed to stick - and instakill off 1.5k of it as a req. With the way haemophilia/focus works, haemophilia is intended to be simultaneously applied with damage/bleed in order to achieve a kill - as with all classes.

    Right now, the only real way to stick haemophilia is brute strength/quantity. That is to say, putting so many high prio dust affs that the target has to cure those before haemophilia - thus letting it "stick". There are many ways we can address this, of course. This is sort of a relic from the past - it's how Nekotai have always worked (overload curing via quantity) back when you couldn't choose what afflictions to cure. With the new meta, changing that makes sense: sheer number of afflictions won't stop a focused cure taking haemophilia off, anyway.

    Some ideas: Relapsing, for one, could be an affliction that can be changed that will affect much less of the other classes, and can be repurposed to be more specific for Nekotai trying to stick haemophilia. Another idea is cure balance knocks - one that faced a lot of opposition from Malarious in the previous thread, so I'm not pursuing that too much. Of course, I understand his opposition was because of the number of dust affs Nekotai already have. But on paper, it's a good way to allow a Nekotai to stick haemophilia without needing many affs. Removing envenom isn't something on the table because of so many other classes it'll affect, but something similar could be done where a poison will "overwrite" the native aff an action gives (so that an action only gives a poison, or only gives the native affliction, not both). This interaction can be implemented for Nekotai specifically, too, so no other monks/classes need to be affected. It will necessitate changing the way poisons work for Nekotai, obviously, which is fine as well. Actually, while writing this, I'm now thinking that it's a good idea - I'll see if I can use that to change the poisons route stances.

    All of those are avenues that can be explored, which can result in getting rid of the idea of overwhelming cure balance via sheer amount of afflictions. This helps prevent Nekotai in groups from just putting out a large number of affs at little cost (because that currently is how Nekotai stick haemo).

    But to summarise and go back to the very first idea that spawned this rambling post of mine - I don't think the bleed and the afflictions should be made mutually exclusive. Haemophilia + bleed simultaneously is how Nekotai at least are designed to work. Cutting down the number of affs given at once, and changing haemophilia sticking to something other than overwhelming cure balances via brute strength is something we can explore - but for now, what I'm looking out for is bleed numbers that are too high: where if the burst is so high that haemophilia becomes irrelevant, and not needed to achieve a kill - basically, I'm focused on bringing bleeding numbers in-line first, whether that be shoring up numbers that are too low, or clipping too-big bursts at surge forms etc.

    For example, if a Nekotai can put out 1.5k bleed on a surge form, and hit a killer finalsting before the target can clot, then... there's no point in the first three stances, and no need for the Nekotai to continually put haemophilia on the target again and again over many forms in order to keep sticking bleeding. If the Surge burst isn't enough to hit insta requirement in a single form, then that means a Nekotai needs to have the target already have some bleeding beforehand, is the intention.

  • No. All classes in the game do not do damage and afflictions simultaneously and those that do have rates and damage far inferior to what monks do. Saying otherwise is blatantly incorrect.
    (I'm the mom of Hallifax btw, so if you are in Hallifax please call me mom.)

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    get over it
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