I hate to be the naysayer in the "what will the novices do zomg halp" but uh, my level one says:


North of the mess. (Newton Caverns.)
This location is flooded with shallow, crystal clear water. A dirty fink stands
here, smelling up the place. A tiny finkette stands here trembling.
You see exits leading east, south, and west.
406h, 342m, 342e, 0p, 598en, 600w esSix-
SYSTEM PAUSED - SPAUSE TO UNPAUSE
ka punch finkette left
ka punch finkette right

Drawing back your left fist, you punch a finkette.
406h, 342m, 342e, 0p, 593en, 600w esSix-
SYSTEM PAUSED - SPAUSE TO UNPAUSE

Drawing back your right fist, you punch a finkette.
Unable to withstand more punishment, a finkette collapses and dies.
You have slain a finkette.
406h, 342m, 342e, 0p, 586en, 600w esSix-
SYSTEM PAUSED - SPAUSE TO UNPAUSE

You have recovered balance on your left arm.
406h, 342m, 342e, 0p, 596en, 600w esSix-
SYSTEM PAUSED - SPAUSE TO UNPAUSE

You have recovered balance on your right arm.
406h, 342m, 342e, 0p, 596en, 600w esSix-

I think I disagree with you, but elaborate just so I can make sure.

You're not using the Kata forms, so nothing changed for the way your newbie is fighting.
Try it with forms, and then think how to teach it to someone, unlike you, that has no clue about it.

Are you listening? Why do they have to use forms? How is telling them to ka punch left, ka punch right more complicated than explaining chaining kata forms of which they couldn't even do more than punch in in the first place? I hate to rain on your parade, but I was part of the original implementation. The old system didn't allow level ones to do any more than this and took far more commands/reading to do newton than just punch or kick.

Edit: Just to further reinforce my point, you can actually punch and kick before you can make forms in the skillset.

I have been sent the following 4 forms to use for bashing under momentum, no scripting necessary:

Kata Study Bash1 (raze left, shofa right, kick left=225ka)
Kata Study Bash2 (raze left, shofa right, kick left=225ka)
Kata Study Bash3 (shofa left, kick right w/ skive=300ka)
Kata Study Bash4 (shofa left, shofa right, kick left, skive/speed=400ka)

Sending newbies to hunt using ka commands is easy and cheap, and if you do it, I feel sorry for whoever passes through you.
Kata forms is the core of Kata and eventually they'll need it, so better sooner then later.

Or do you hunt/pvp using ka commands only? No? I didn't think so.


Your numbers are wrong?
shofa = 75, kick = 100, skive = 175, speed = 100, Bash4 is 475ka, so only usable at 5th form.
Also, I used to be able to do this kata form on the first form (Mythical Shofangi), and not the fifth, so you can't expect me or anyone else to be happy to be wacked by the nerf stick

Easy? Yes. Cheap? No. Use your noggin! What you're saying is similar to me saying that warriors should be using maneuvers to hunt NPCs because simply using swing/jab is lame. It makes no sense!

No it's clear that new guardians shouldn't use cosmicfire because later on they get symbol strike. Also, wiccan newbies can no longer use nature curse, they simply can't bash until they magically get credits for cudgel. Knights shouldn't bash without maneuvers, etc.

Yeah I feel sorry for the only proteges I have, being demigods and all that.

Wiccans don't get cudgel!

They get Drawdown/Nightkiss.

I know it's possible without forms. However the entire appeal about monks is now momentum, and not using forms basically means you miss out on a very important aspect of monks.

Regardless of whether newbies use punch or not, I do think the current ka distribution is screwed and needs fixed. If someone at Virt of their spec only has 50 ka base, something just is very very very wrong.

So what's so wrong with starting out bashing slow for a few hits? Just curious, I'm not a monk so I don't know the details or anything...

I wasn't talking about higher levels. God knows I hate razing manually and wish I could just bashcrash my face into the keyboard, but if you are so hard up, you could always just use kata raze for 50 ka as one arm balance like knights on separate katas for when monsters shield.

I don't get you...

Me / We /Whatever: "It's not good / fair how you cannot make decent forms with a low skillrank in your spec. Novices can't use forms at all."

You: STFU Novices can bash just fine. *posts log with no form bashing*

Me: "Um yeah -without- forms, but forms is what makes monks MONKS. And they won't be able to use forms decently until they are mythical / trans. Something is -wrong- here."

So... what'd I miss?

At trans / mythical you are just "slow" for a few hits until you build up momentum.

At skillranks below that you basically cannot use forms -or- momentum decently. As has been said before, the base ka at virt is -50-. That is a single punch. People below virt in their spec thusly cannot even use forms the way they are meant to be.

Of course if everyone says that you should only be able to play a monk after you have transed the skillset and basically miss out on the major aspect of Lusternian monks until then.. duh. I disagree about that, that's all.

I guess you missed the whole point in which I compared it to the previous ability of monk "novices" to bash. Making a form that can only use punch was sure exciting for them, I imagine. Especially since number of forms per autokata string was also based on spec. Two one punch forms together? Heaven. Made monks monks if you ask me.

They had for ka in the first place under the old system. I actually encouraged them to not use forms at first in the old system too, because they can actually use the full ppk way ahead of time AND the first form under the old system had a bad enough balance penalty that it matched.

Autokata was supposed to go away with this update in the first place, people are apparently lucky it didn't.

People can use forms decently, especially once you hit M3+. Not everything has to have skive. Like I said, all you have to do is have a single macro that does a form with strike/strike/kick no skive, and one that does kata raze/strike/kick. If a mob shields, you do #2, normally you do #1. You can even throw back the skive if you get lazy past M3. Personally, I don't wait 12 seconds to engage the next mob while bashing, so messing around on Sintor I haven't had a single problem after throwing out two whole forms.

Edit: And just to keep things in perspective, it has already been said that the 50 at virt for base is an oversight that is being corrected, I don't know why you're still hanging onto that.

*twitch*

No, if it scales at a level where you have 50 starting ka at VIRT then no they can't use momentum / forms decently until they trans. In other words they can't use momentum, can't use kata modifiers, can't use shofangi modifiers and finally can't use forms. Wouldn't you say that's a majority of their skills they suddenly "can't" use?

Then again. If they want to make the entry requirement for monks "trans I probably shouldn't care to begin with. It ain't my game plus I've always liked small guilds over larger ones. And this will definitely turn people away that can't or don't want to make huge credit investments.

punch/punch/kick is 225 ka. You won't have that for a base until at least mythical. And -that- is my point about what is wrong here. PPK was a novice form, now you can't do it until you are well on your way to having finished learning your spec skill.

PS: Rest of what I said above applies. And thusly I'll shut my mouth. Considering the amount of taking that goes on on clans / Serenwilde, small (silent!) guilds are a blessing.

First of all, read the edit. Second, PPK was used at trans due to being faster by the majority of players anyway, they would just throw in a skive/raze on the first hit if they were lazy and couldn't be bothered to change once the mob shielded. Third, throw a single punch form twice and you can do whatever you want. Fourth, do you sit around for 12+ seconds between mobs for some reason? I sure don't.

EDIT: Nevermind you win. This is worthy.

1. The edit came before you replied to yourself! Actually before the first post landed!

2. Shouldn't be. In fact, if you were on the monk committee, you would be able to see my original suggestion which was completely banish punches to newbieland and make them horribly ineffective against players and only decently good against mobs, mirroring naturecurse/non-master weapons/the really low elemental blast skill/etc.

3. What? This is specific to momentum. You can make single punch forms and go up in momentum.

4. Don't unlink, wuss.