ANNOUNCE NEWS #1204
Date: 10/12/2008 at 22:43
From: Roark Libertas
To : Everyone
Subj: Monk Changes

A major change to monks has been loaded. The reliance of monks on
multiple linked forms that had to be planned in advance has never worked
as well as hoped. We have tried things in the past like vibrations and
ruptures to help make it viable. In the end, we decided that the best
option is to just ditch linked forms and go with something else. Today
we have loaded some big changes for monks. In addition to tweaking many
existing skills and adding some new ones, we have also made a few major
changes worth pointing out:
+ Kata forms can be performed singly rather than being required to
string them together.
+ A new concept called momentum lets you build to stronger attacks as
combat continues. This replaces ruptures and staff vibrations.

See AB KATA FORMS for more details on these two changes. You may also
want to look at AB SHOFANGI BOOST (or whatever your specialization is;
every monk guild has Boost) for an expansion on basic Kata form
momentum. Lastly, you will want to review all the AB help files in your
specializations (Tahtetso, Nekotai, etc.) to see which skills have been
added, deleted, or changed. The changes are too numerous to enumerate
here.

Though I will mention two of these changes that may not be immediately
obvious from the AB files:
+ All grapples are two-handed.
+ Punches have been slowed.


Lastly, I want to give a big thank you to Charune and the mortals who
helped playtest these changes. (You know who you are.)

You're welcome

I didn't read through all the help files yet, but what does a basic combat kata look like?

Seems pretty complicated. Now I'll have to make a thing to check current momentum and execute from a whole list of different attacks depending on that state, just for basic bashing attacks.

The attacks will look quite similar. Taking a system that had the old version monk lines in, there was not much modification required from a curing standpoint to adjust to the monk revamp.

Since I don't feel like uploading it to scrying pool yet, I thought I'd just post the full Ab Shofangi here.

ab shofangi
You have gained the following abilities in Shofangi:
Shofa The basic staghorn knife attack.
Skive Attack the defences that would keep your shofa out.
Boost Spend power for superior kata moves.
Logami A knife grapple to immobilize the arms.
Gripping Grip your wielded items in a deathlock.
Shotah Whirl your blades faster.
Disarm A move to disarm wielded weapons.
Stomp Injure a foot with extra leg damage.
Bogami A knife grapple to immobilize the legs.
BullSnort Throw off the equilibrium of others.
HeadButt Attack with your head like an arm or leg.
Butanj Break the jaw with your staghorn blade.
Rake Increase bleeding from your blade.
Whibuta Slice the face, cutting the eyes.
HeelSlam A focused kick with your heel.
Butojo Cut up the tongue.
Shoflai Flay the skin, hindering its ability to heal.
Tomati A knife grapple to impale the gut.
BullStrength Increase the power of your kicks.
Hook Knock down the opponent with a low swing.
Shred Tear apart the flesh of a foe.
Boganj Break the kneecaps.
Ram Knock down barriers.
Kumati A knife grapple to impale the chest.
Crunch Use your knee to crunch a head.
Kumaki Cut the spine.
Buck Kick out your legs like a bucking bull.
Kumato Painfully hurl someone away from you with your blades.
BullKick Hurl someone away from you with a mighty kick.
BullCharge A fierce charge from afar.
BullRage Rile yourself into an energetic rage.

The system is actually quite a bit different. Requires far more aliases and macros, but once you get used to it and start making katas, you get into the flow really quickly.

It also makes monks a lot more fun. I'm having a blast playing with all the new modifiers. We are slower than we were and bashing isn't as good as it was, but (I can't speak for the other guilds) Ninjakari afflictions are amazing. Kudos to Revan and Charune for their work, I know I appreciate it and I'm sure everyone else does too.

...well maybe not the people fighting monks...but all the monks will be thrilled.

During testing ninjakari were pretty much the best because of all the mods they can stack resulting in a ridiculous amount of afflictions (inc. 75 ka knockdown + stun mod). The others aren't quite as good. They should still be playable for affs, I dunno if the damage formulae are up to actually killing anyone though.

EDIT: Oh yeah, and the billion aliases thing is pretty awkward. Shamarah saw it coming months ago and we tried to get it such that some abilities would autodowngrade themselves at lower levels of ka, but it didn't really work out and would probably have been quite hard anyway.

Nekotai has the worst direct-affliction abilities, but it makes up for it by being able to whore poisons really well.

In testing, at least.

They can stack afflictions at a pretty ridiculous rate, but during my testing...I've been leaning towards regen affliction cures. They can windpipe and stack regen cures pretty ridiculously. The damage is kind of meh, but I know the ninjakari have a really easy way to build wounds obscenely high very quickly.

The ninioaghi stun/prone bod is yank only. Good for things like tendon. Oh man, the tendons. Love those.



You can also double eyepeck. That scares me


I'm in looooove.

I get the feeling I got unenemied to Mag just in time.

How did the Nekotai make out from the changes? Still IC and OOC'ly thinking about making the switch, but was waiting for the kata revisions to see if it was worth the leap in orgs. Sounds like Ninjakari made out fairly well.

about the only difference I have seen is that I can't use raze and speed together and grapples take 2 hands instead of one now. Thanks for the nerf.

You can still grapple & kick, right?

You do realize that's not a nerf... right? It's the same ka cost for the double grapple than it was for the one. Which means you can put more mods in or a better kick.

Not sure what you mean, but dhatogh prone + stuns on any jakari hit.

EDIT: Casilu, it is a nerf, and that was the intent. You can't do a grapple and an affliction now. AND grapple arm doesn't stop attacking anymore. Definitely a nerf. Hell, you can't even get any wounds out of a combo with ka lock now.

Although on the plus side, you can now roman cancel out of grapples so you don't have to waste time with throw or whatever if you don't want to.

P.S contrary to Celina's earlier predictions rushing is still a ginormous boost.

I was thinking about the Shofangi grapples with a shred after, especially the ones on the extremities. Those ones became pretty nice.

They were nerfed too, a lot.

Still usable though. (I don't think shred is, but that's ok, I'll just roman cancel.)

this nerf is honestly making me think about going bonecrusher.

Shred almost just bled Lekius out. By itself.