Please post in this thread your detailed suggestions for balancing the monks in general or any particular monk guild!


Moved from this thread to give it a life of its own..

Please think of my responses as an attempt to draw out exactly what you see as a problem with monks. I often find that what people think monks can do and what monks can actually do are wildly different.



I would contend that it isn't one move for a monk to lock you down. They need 5 (at the very least if the opponent isn't trying to hinder at all) to get to the point where they are able to attempt these moves. Furthermore, when they use these moves they are in a position where they cannot perform them again for some time. Also, if the power and momentum cost is properly balanced, the monk executing the form once shouldn't necessarily mean game over.



The only way Nekotai can do what you propose would be using boost (5p) as slit throat costs 550ka and sever spine costs 500. If I were risking this much power, I'd probably also use Nekreve (3p) to maximize my chance of hitting and wounding for applying a poison. So, to take you from no afflictions to severspine/slit throat/slickness, the monk needs to use 3mo, 8p and hope that senso isn't shrugged. The power, time and momentum that the monk used to achieve this can be negated with evoke gedulah (3p) and apply regeneration.



I share your concern about kneecap but probably for a different reason. Kneecap doesn't stop standing so doesn't directly contribute to the lock. Shofangi are able to deliver both kneecap and elbow for 0 momentum though and as these are regeneration afflictions, they tend to stick around for a long time. This is a problem as you'll likely have a few of these affs to eat up green/gedulah attempts to cure out of a lock.

Shofangi can't do the combo you suggested as there aren't enough actions in a form to deliver all those afflictions. The most crippling form I see from shofangi is butojo/shofa/stomp with hook mod and senso. This form gives slit throat/slickness/prone and leg break for 1mo and can be done at 4 or 5mo.

This is the form I mentioned in my previous post as the one which is so easily repeatable. It only uses 1 momentum and 3 power (if they're using the raze mod to improve chances of hitting). If I were to tweak anything, I would look at raising the momentum cost of slit throat, adding a momentum cost to hook or stomp or raising the ka cost of butojo/stomp/hook.

I haven't envoyed these yet because I would like to address issues with my own guild going after others. Also, I haven't really heard any well thought out analysis from anyone else to confirm what I observe. (That's kind of why i'm posting all this, in the hope of generating some discussion).

While I really appreciate you making this thread, what I suggested had more to do with a change to green/gedulah, and wasn't because I wanted to have a discussion about monks. I don't know enough about monks to go into the details after all. Of course, I did say that in my experience, monks are the only class against which I've needed green or gedulah to fight against, because they can slitlock and stop cleanse in one move. Whether Shofangi do it because of double broken knees or one broken leg (either which would have the effect I have a problem with) is precisely the kind of detail I don't see any point in going into. I'm not interested in getting into a long debate about why such things are or aren't OK because it costs power or momentum either. I just believe it is a bad thing to have in the game a one move shut them down combo because it feels "lame" to me and I realize that not everyone is going to agree with me there.

To save reference time for people who are curious, I was suggesting that people who don't have green or gedulah be able to use the skill for a higher power cost (maybe 9 power) because it would make a variety of things, especially the 1-hit monk locks, much less painful and might make it possible for people to PvP against those classes without having said skill. It would take some pressure off of newbies in general too if they could do that.

Fair enough! For those who do want to go into this sort of detail with a view to fixing, or at least understanding monks - please post!

You could've quoted my suggestions, also, unless they were completely invalid...

Green/Gedulah for nine power is not a good solution for anything, in my opinion. You then have to avoid other power moves just to have enough power to get out of these affliction locks.

wait, people still complain about monks?

To be fair, why bother with the 3p for nekreve when you can use one hand for raze. Between spit/beast spit/creehai the odds of senso sticking are pretty good, I never really had a problem sticking the lock on anyone. Sure you miss occassionally, but if you make the order raze/sprongma gut(bypasses rebounding/parry)/then angkhai head for slitthroat, you stick it pretty well. Also, it's 8p vs 5p that can be pretty quickly offset 3p green/gedulah and using 5p lets you hit the lock again sooner. That being said, using this lock will drop a monk from 5mo to 2mo which is a pretty huge drop. I think the greenlock in nekotai is fine to be honest, it costs a lot to hit it and it's pretty easily offset by a stancegut/green/gedulah cure.




As far as other monks go, I think they just need to be brought in line with each other. For instance, Ninjakari burstorgans doesn't cost momentum while finalsting does and burstorgans is definitely better, but pales in comparison to the Tahtetso insta which trumps them all. Ninjakari get free tendons while nekotai cost 2mo (I understand that ninja's need two moves for a tendon, but considering you also get a 1sec stun, I think it should at least cost 1mo and you shouldn't be able to build momentum off of it). Shofangi/Tahtetso both seem to be able to stack regen afflictions rather well etc.

As Geb... or Ceren said... one of them.. The reason there's so big of issue with monks is because, unlike every other class, their offense is determined by their own character, and not the opponent.

For example, warriors have to build wounds on an opponent. Monks don't care what their opponents status is, for the most part, they're just focused on building momentum for the start.
Once that happens then unleash fury.

They'll never be balanced if their potential is based on themselves and not their opponents status... like EVERY OTHER CLASS.

As long as you only consider one opponent, you could say that warriors' wound building and monks' momentum building isn't all that different. It's as if monks built wounds on all bodyparts simultaneously and reached a new level of wounding each time momentum rises. Which in itself is already alot easier than how warriors build wounds, especially since momentum cannot be cured.

Even more important in my eyes, though, is the fact that monks can deliver many, especially high end afflictions, 100% of the time. As a warrior, you can develop standard tactics to get a kill, but your optimal way of locking an opponent, for instance, may only happen one out of 10 times, due to the random element with wound afflictions. Often it will take a bit longer, and in rare cases alot longer. As a monk (I've only played a Tahtetso so far, but I guess this isn't alot different for the other specs), you can really plan out all of your offense from starting hit to killing move, and unless you get unlucky and get a 'fumble' miss, it will pretty much always work (unless you get hindered, obviously).

Another thing to consider is that monks actually have two 'horses' to bet on. They can use their arsenal to effectively afflict and finally kill with afflictions, but as wounds build up - and monks can do wounding that's often had me wonder -, their damage output also easily surpasses that of warriors. I've never tested it outside of real combat except one time with Narsrim ages ago, and I remember he did more than 2,000 damage per combo once my wounds had hit critical (I was a tae'dae Celestine with fairly good dmp, splendours and a shield rune, his tahto had lightning elemental runes). Not sure if that still works as nicely, but it was lethal back then.

It does. If someone is silly and forgets to raise their hood, a monk can be doing 2K damage per combo by the second combo hitting head.

Granted, this is notwithstanding that forgetting to raise hood is Always Bad, but it does illustrate the point that kills via wound-damage are still feasible.

Would allowing FirstAid to use green, even if you didn't have it, be a feasible solution?

FirstAid using Green/Gedulah might be nice, but it's mostly irrelevant to the issues with monks. Their afflictions are just still too fast, too reliable, and too combo-able.

This was the same issue with Puppetry/Vodun in the other games. You weren't fighting them as much as you were just doing your own thing until they died. I can't personally say how well that relates to monks, but it sounds like you're making the same argument.

Ogods, Vodun. Don't even start with Vodun.

I agree completely with Ardmore and Veyrzhul. I wanted to say that myself, but I couldn't have said it quite as well as they did.

I really liked the skillset. Just, yeah, impossible to really balance.

Very true. I was a Jester in Achaea for a short time and I just went the tankiest race there was (<3 Horkval!) and just sat there fashioning over and over. No one could kill me before I could 'splode them.

I've heard stuff about monks hitting their horses etc., which would seem to make worse the problem of "the monk's offense depends on the monk." Has the idea of momentum being target based and not something that exists on the monk been considered?

Another idea, maybe things like web would drop a monk's momentum immediately (not just if it keeps them from attacking for X amount of time).

You lose 2mo when you change targets, if I remember right, but even if you start from 0, it's still only four hits to max.

I see, maybe it should just be more than 2mo then?

1) 0mo-1mo
2) 1mo-2mo
3) 2mo-3mo
4) 3mo-4mo
5) 4mo-5mo

Five hits to 5mo? And then a sixth hit if you want to boost to 6mo where a Nekotai can land the lock.