If I remember right, the AB file state that hard/soft only works for unarmed attacks, so assuming punch+soft is better for wounding then shofa, and shofa is better then punch+hard (I'll test it out later when I'll have some free time), it's better to atleast start with PPK+soft for a couple of rounds and then move to shofas when you think you built enough wounds and want to do damage, or stick with PPK and add concussion.

And yeah, I use double boganj and try to add dendroxin or that other limb breaking poison...

Syntax: KATA DEVELOP

MODIFIERS
Kata: Modifier
Ka Weight: 50

By paying close attention to the strength of your punches, you can
deliver more direct damage at the expense of wounding (hard), or vice
versa (soft). Works on all actions.

Note that the "all actions" is ambiguous. Anyway, it worked on shofa in the past. And punch + soft isn't better at wounding than shofa.

EDIT: Yep, punches were decreased in wounding, not damage.

It wasn't there before (checked in the clhelp record), so I must have missed them adding it.
If soft really works with shofa, I have to agree that sh/sh/k+soft starts better, but PPK would always be better for bullrage, which for me sounds stupid. We need more shofangi modifiers

I'm still trying to figure out why the mods were increased in Ka cost, rather than the OP-ness of the breaknose dealt with. I'd rather have seen the breaknose effect removed entirely than have the modifiers increased in Ka cost. Reducing variety in the use of skillsets is something we should be actively avoiding.

Regarding the design flaw notion, I tend to disagree with the health potion concern - at least up until ruptures, which seems to need reduced in accrual rate. But ruptures is a different argument that is still in the tweak stage, I think.

Warriors and monks both make you choose between applying or sipping.

If you get behind against a warrior, you tend to get severe afflicts.
If you get behind against a monk, you tend to get severe damage.

I see them as functioning similarly, with a different emphasis.

To me, it's more a question of severity. I'd like to see a steeper curve, in terms of deep wounds' effects on damage. If you get yourself to crippled in a body part, the damage should be horrendous. But light/medium should see fairly little increase.

This draws out the fight a bit longer in the beginning stages and creates the need for interim afflictions as the monk's means of preventing people from defending a body part or applying health potion. I'm not fond of the idea that perfect curing should result in invulnerability. It should be a huge benefit, but I'm of the opinion that between two like potency characters (might+arties) and like skilled players, a fight should inevitably draw towards death. Defenses/artifacts/abilities in conjunction with player skill should only result in invulnerability for one side when there's a significant disparity between them.

The problem I see with monk design is not the overlap of health potion use. It's the speed at which this critical choice comes into play. It -should- come into play. But let it happen later, and let monks use their abilities to work towards making that critical moment happen sooner.

Stun (which we nerfed, strangely) would have been one way to inch sip/apply further down the timeline of a fight. Proning/paralysis to prevent defending body parts as readily. More afflicts to help with monks pushing towards that critical break point where their damage ramps up. Ruptures would be a good way to work towards that - if you're threatening them with nasty rupture based attacks somewhere, they might sneak in deep wounds elsewhere (without ruptures), and make you choose.

Once we get away from the single-hotkey permalock situations (do these still exist?), I think the mechanics are workable. It's just the numbers that need tweaked.

Though I still wish they'd ditch the kata mechanic.

It seems like the only way most people are going to be satisfied with monks is when their offense is no greater than warriors, their defense still weaker than warriors, -and- their katas take immediate control away from the player. You can't make one archetype similar in potency to another in several categories, weaker in another, and call that balanced. I'm not about to claim monks are a balanced archetype right now, but I worry for the tendencies I'm seeing in monk skill discussions. If we make monks have offensive potency similar to warriors... what is the purpose of the monk? Did we just want a second warrior archetype in robes, as Catarin mentioned above?

edit:

Actually, I'd even go one step further if realism at the cost of coding time were desired. Deep wounds on arms/legs result in greater affliction rate for arm/leg techniques (as current), head/chest/gut being the only areas where deep wounds results in greater damage. Ruptures serve to provide alternative means of afflicting to prevent stance/parry or otherwise hindering healing/defense, thus becoming a tool to use towards building up deep wounds for the damage.

I'd like to see defined what the intended differences are between monks and warriors, and work to push towards or maintain that difference. Otherwise, people are going to try to change them to be functionally identical, consciously or not. These defined differences should amount to more than 'kata, ruptures, robes'.

Afflictions are cured on a seperate balance (i.e. simutaneously) from damage.

So you can choose to apply health or sip health AND eat an herb.

for monks your only choice is to apply health or sip health. Once you fall behind, you can't get back on top, because you become dead if you stop sipping health. With warriors, you can go from critical to light head wounds 3 or 4 times during a fight, because there is only a percentage chance of that critical head level killing you.

And this means monk offense is more powerful. Yes. I don't feel that's necessarily wrong... though the degree of difference is in question. Unless the Admins intended for monks to have the same relative offense/defense/options/etc that warriors do. That's why I'd like to see how they have monks defined relative to warriors.

It doesn't mean its "more powerful" it means that it is impossible to balance properly. Its not like monks can really be hindered all that reliably.

edit: Imagine if every fae attack required you apply mana to heal the affliction.

If you reduce the number of body parts where deep wounds adds to damage, that would help make it more balanced.

If you make the damage increase from deep wounds a sharper curve (nothing, next to nothing, barely more than nothing, noticeable, bam), this would also serve to make it more balanced.

I'm sure there are other ways. Hence my disagreement to the validity of the assertion made.

Again, that just makes it impossible for the monk to kill then.

You either have monks being unable to kill, or not being stopped at all. Hence the imbalance. (note the lack of the term "over powered")

3 legs = balanced

Why is this an either/or situation and every other killing method pushing towards a threshold is not?

A random example.

Moondancers going for a toadcurse kill. Either they have the ability to get past an opponent's mana replenishing ability, or they don't. By the logic presented, the Moondancer's toadcurse kill method is impossible to balance.

Because the only way for a moondancer to get past the user's mana healing threshold is to first afflict them up. The available skills to reduce mana will not outpace sipping mana. And sipping mana alone, will not stop the moondancer from killing you.

And this differs from monks how? Monks can prone, they can stun, and each guild has various ways to hinder curing, hinder defense, or force a decision. Shofangi and Tahtetso both will see changes to their skills when ruptures get added to them.

Continuing the parallel with the Moondancers, they have afflictions to use to work towards the kill condition.

Now it's a matter of tweaking the numbers for balance, so it's neither too easy nor too difficult.

What am I not seeing that you are?

Speaking as a tri-trans Moondancer (Hexes tertiary) I can sometimes get past people's mana curing if, and usually only if, I can get them in a sleep lock. Which isn't always easy, since I suck rather horribly and need more practice. I've also chosen to remain high elfen for roleplay reasons. The thing that I have the most trouble with is keeping them there, and knowing when I can curse, since I don't have Contemplation yet. Just ask Rika.

I rarely try going for a Moonburst kill, though maybe I could if I can hit someone like Rika for 1700 with a Moonburst and learn to hinder properly. (No web enchant FTW!)

Also... I guess I've finally decided to poke at the forums.

Read the first post again. He made it very clear. I'm not sure why you are comparing stun and prone to a sleep lock.

Not to mention that getting turned into a toad != instant death

Yes, please reference the first post. All these specific details you are going into just obscure the truth of the problem.

When monks begin to build deepwounds, they will in turn be able to stick more and more. They become more effective as they get further ahead. This means that once you get beyond the point of the monk being unable to stack wounds on you, you cannot catch back up! Just imagine an exponential curve, that's the monk's offense.

That is why it's unbalanceable, either they'll be absolutely ineffective, unable to stack wounds at all, or they'll decimate you.

To elaborate, if the monk can start sticking the initial wounds on you, that means they'll be more effective next kata form. This means:
A: They already can out pace your wound curing, considering they're sticking wounds on you from the start.
B: They'll further out pace you because they're now sticking more wounds (because sipping is required).

If they cannot stick the initial wounds, they'll never be able to, because they never gain power.

All these afflictions on the side do nothing but hide the problem. That problem is damage scaling based on wounds. No matter how many other barricades you pile on top, this will be the core of monk killing, and it's unbalanceable.

To address Zarquan, chance, and things like parry/stance just serve to hide the problem. If monks were underpowered, possibly having terrible parrying could make them viable, and if they were overpowered, possibly getting lucky (and having perfect parrying on every attack) could stave off defeat for a while. Still the problem is there, the scaling damage.

Parry/Stance only blurs the line, and makes something that's imbalanced look balanced. To an extent that's okay, because nothing can be exactly balanced, but something that is inherently flawed shouldn't exist anyway, and heaping chance and odds onto it wont solve the problem.

They're both sets of afflictions being used towards a kill condition.

Moondancers: cannot Toadcurse kill just tossing lashes.
Monks After 'Impossible' Balancing: cannot damage kill just tossing weapon/weapon/kick.

Moondancers: use afflictions leading to a sleep lock.
Monks After 'Impossible' Balancing: use afflictions leading to damage kill.


All monks: Stun prevents (in essence, delays) sip/apply. Proning prevents stancing to avoid attacks, also increases damage output. Throw puts deep wounds on every body part. Poisons come into play.

For Tahtetso: Bomolini and Starkick can both prone. Bairakobo crushes the windpipe, preventing sipping (ie, forcing the decision). Goti'sho causes paralysis. And probably others that I'm overlooking.

For Shofangi: Headbutt for more offense, Butanj for broken jaw, possibly more that I don't know due to unfamiliarity (though the skillset is generally accepted as lacking synergy)

For Ninjakari: Ninshi prevents applying, Dhatogh for proning, Ninthugi/Ashlamkh to use ruptures for more damage. Note that I'm making assumptions here based on Scrying Pool.

My point is that if monks are doing too much damage, tweak the numbers. If deep wounds are happening too fast, too slow, have too much effect early on, have too much effect later on, have too little effect... -whatever-, this is something that can be fixed with a numbers tweak and monk 'afflict' abilities tweaks.

Take into consideration that if we change nothing else but the scale of how deep wounds affects damage increase (make it a sharper curve), then this changes combat with a monk significantly. Opponents have more time to work their offense on the monk. Just this one simple change has a relatively large end effect. I'm not even saying it's a good change or the best change, but this is an example of how a simple numbers tweak refutes the original post's assertion.

Or my other suggestion - by reducing the body parts that allow for increased damage from deep wounds, we reduce the opportunities for monks to increase that damage output. Stancing/parrying and prioritizing deep wounds on those body parts serves to oppose the monk's goals of getting deep wounds built up to increase their damage output. This is another example of how a simple numbers tweak refutes the original post's assertion.



This actually has little bearing. It still boils down to a question of severity. Relative potency. Your statement doesn't change the fact that these are both examples of afflictions being used in a kill method. But I'll use a different one.

Warriors dish out deep wounds so that they can cause stronger afflictions, hindering their opponent, causing loss of blood (more damage) or hinder curing/healing, leading them to focus more on damage unanswered. IE, they use various skills, primarily to afflict, leading towards a kill. More specifically, they use afflictions to work towards a kill they probably wouldn't get otherwise just by randomly slashing away. Much like a Moondancer probably can't Toadcurse someone by just tossing Lash, or a Celestine probably can't Absolve just by tossing Amissio, or any number of other methods of killing.

The difference between any example I might give and the monk deep wounds damage kill boils down to 1) degree of difficulty and 2) reliability. But then, those things differ between any two kill methods. If monks need to be made more difficult or less reliable, I don't see why numbers tweaking can't accomplish this. Or numbers tweaking combined with affliction ability tweaks.

I missed Shryke's last post, but I'll have to catch up on this thread later.

If one healed deepwounds through eating arnica, or applying salves, and one cured ruptures through eating herbs or applying salves, then you might have a point. But thats not the case

If scaling damage started once you had necessary afflictions stacked on, this would be true. It is not however. Monks do their wounding, resulting scaling damage, and afflictions all at once. Monks aren't working towards a kill condition, they're working, and that's their kill condition.



I just don't understand how analogies and hyper-specific skill referencing is going to actually get you anywhere. It just bogs down the argument.



This essentially puts them in the 'can't stack any wounds' category, because if they can STILL get over the hump, they'll STILL crush you. I think I addressed this well in my earlier post. If they can start killing you, they'll finish killing you. If they can't, they can't.



I sort of talked about this earlier. All you're doing here is hiding the problem. If you make it too hard to build wounds on a limb for damage, you're just sweeping it under the rug, and they'll need a whole new way to kill. Essentially you're removing it. If not, it's still a problem, and equally impossible to balance, if slightly more marginal.

Please directly address something I say!

So what I'm saying is, none of your examples actually balance it. Also, if you just keep posting examples, we'll never get anywhere. You have to argue against the idea!!