Okay, you're right about the Flight. I missed that post, but I remembered the one about the FearAura and other things still being usable being a bug.

Yeah I'm well aware, I already got yelled at for it.

As for other suggestions...

I couldn't care less about Obliviousness as I don't use it, wanting to see all of what's going on all the time, but I suppose I don't mind if the bal/eq thing is removed or made very, very short.

The only problem I have with Red/Roots/Malkuth/etc being temporary is that they're bal/eq based, making it a lot more difficult to maintain during a fight. I didn't mind the Mass thing so much in Achaea, as it was a salve that could be reapplied when no critical afflictions were on you, but it didn't stop your attacking. It's only a minor gripe and my personal opinion, but I prefer to use a non-bal/eq solution with a limited number of "charges" for this sort of thing. Six in one, half dozen in the other, maybe.

Really, I just want a mass salve-like thing here, I'm fine with just importing mass salve itself, but I tried to at least keep the idea behind red/malkuth first.

The admin like their uniqueness, afterall.

I'll try to address everything brought up regarding monks.


I've only played Ninjakari, so I can't speak for all monk archetypes (although what I say is at least partially true for them as well).



Ignoring code-ability isssues....

Does solution 1 assume no other balance-decreasing effects? Also, ka weight is extremely delicate (at least for Ninjakari), and the easiest way to nerf speed for us would be to increase its weight by 25. I think 50 would be too much, honestly. An increase in 25ka would render at least 75% of my current forms impossible at the momentum level they are designed for. I can address the difference between 25 and 50 more later if asked, but I don't feel it's the most important thing to address. Also, 3s seems too high. At my current spec, without speed, I hit 2.8 seconds which is no faster than similar specced knights.

I'm only aware of one report of a monk having a speed less than 2.0s, and I don't see how it's possible to get under 1.5 short of a bug being somewhere.

Facts about my testing:
-240 speed chain
-level 2 bal recovery (aslaran)

Assumptions:
every 5 points in speed reduce balance by 0.1s

Tests with 240 chain on aslaran:
No speed: 2.8 seconds
Speed: 2.3 seconds

Tests with 240 chain on illithoid (net 250 chain):
No speed: 2.9 seconds
Speed: 2.4 seconds


The above tests suggest that level 2 balance recovery is better than an extra 10 points to speed. If every 5 points does give 0.1seconds, then as an aslaran, I have the equivalent of 255 chain.

The only improvements speed improvements that I can give are another +10 points dropping me to 2.1 seconds with speed.

Placeus, with harmony and kephera, was able to add another +10 points for a total of 270. Going from 255 to 270 is in increase of 15 points, so .3 seconds meaning he should have hit 2.0s flat. Would he have reincarnated into aslaran, my tests show 1.9 seconds.

I don't know how lvl3 bal rec would affect the speed times, but I seriously doubt the jump to lvl2 to lvl3 bal would result in the equivalent of +20 speed. I doubt anyone can get below 1.7seconds as a monk, and that's assuming a base 220 speed weapon, +30 (2x +15 stat runes), +10 (harmony).

I didn't touch on racial, but here I will:
Theories:

260 chain:
no speed: 2.7 seconds
speed: 2.2 seconds

260 chain as illithoid/kephera (270 chain)
no speed: 2.5 seconds
speed: 2.0 seconds

260 chain as aslaran (275 chain)
no speed: 2.4 seconds
speed: 1.9 seconds

260 chain as faeling:
no speed: 2.2 - 2.3 seconds
speed: 1.7 - 1.8 seconds


What does this mean? It is possible to get under 2 seconds, but it requires a fully runed weapon(s) as well as harmony to do so in addition to purposeful racial selection. I'd hazard a guess and say that I'm the fastest monk in the game at the moment with my 2.8 seconds with out speed.

The fastest I could become without changing race or spec would be the equivalent of a 265 chain, or 2.6 (no speed) and 2.1 seconds (speed). Faeling can probably bump it up by .1 to .2 seconds.

Note: I did not include hyperactive in any of this.


One thing to remember is that hold and lock are both unafffected by the speed of a weapon. As an aslaran, my hold and lock averages about 3 seconds anyway WITH SPEED.

You can't modify lock with speed until momentum 2.

Ninshi + speed = 2.3 seconds as predicted. If I ninshi you, however, I'm going to yank with ninoaghi for a prone+stun. It's possible to yank (75), ninoaghi (75), and speed (100) at momentum 1 though. Given that it's from a Ninjakari, though, I'd call that an actual combo.



This is probably the better route to go to affect low momentum grapple speed. But both hold and lock are only affected by racial speed, so the ridiculous times aren't there.

Ninshi, then, would have to be your target. I'd be willing to nerf it to not have it build momentum, but I would expect a special report to adjust the other skills that depend on it. I can go into more detail, but that change without compensation would cause more problems than fix.

For me, it's more about the affliction/hindering rate than the balance recovery time itself. You cannot compare balance times for monks to warriors or any other archetype directly. Not to mention, monks have more guaranteed afflictions than warriors, meaning that the RNG is less kind to a warrior, in general.

Those speeds are very fast...

The 25 vs. 50 ka difference was rather arbitrary on my part, you understood that my intent was to address low momentum grapple speed. So is the 3s capped speed, really. I'm glad you put up actual numbers, though.

I honestly was not aware that race played such a large factor in determining monk speed. Come to think of it, warrior speed races haven't been nearly as popular as monk ones, so now I'm trying to figure out whether something was done to aslarans, etc. to make them less popular, but I think it's because the racial specs were just that good.

All in all, maybe racial speed can be capped then, if that is in fact the main culprit.

Racial speed has already been nerfed twice.

I'm for balancing monks. The problem with the Ninjakari is that we have skills that don't work and/or are entirely useless. When you nerf one of the ones that do work, you risk taking what was OP to UP.

Short of another monk overhaul, I don't see introducing new momentum levels to be effective. It will nerf monks, sure, but I can see it easily going way too far.



Honestly, I think the best thing to do would be to give each monk guild a 1-month special report where they can tinker with the skills.


Racial speed probably shouldn't be nerfed. It has been done twice already, and aslaren are -very- squishy.

EDIT: I forgot to mention that the ease a change can be coded also dictates what can be done. The best thing to do is work with what we have and change the small things rather than make big sweep changes.

With the current envoy system, I hate when people say "Make the big change, let the envoys fix the rest." It's 1 skill per month, and even then, the change isn't guaranteed to go through.

Ugh, Forum-voying.

I feel like talking it out on the forums is better than ragenerfs whenever you lose to x skill myself

It's also good for clearing misconceptions!

Absolutely!

Though I'm not really sure the admin would want to give a special report to monks right now, given the endgame changes, harmonics/illumination, and whatever else they have planned.

While I know that 'leave the rest to the envoys' is a bit unreasonable to ask, there's not much else you can do. Personally, I feel like it's better to address the biggest issue and then have the envoys finetune the smaller stuff, but I can understand the hesitation.

Swoop -used- to go through shield. It no longer does.

Make hoist instantaenous now or bypass shield. It is like wisp except the target -always- writhes out so long as it's triggered before you move them somewhere and it is stopped by shield, geyser, highjump, hexagram. It is even stopped by shield after you see the hoist start. Basically hoist doesn't work because you can writhe it or someone else can geyser you unless you give it like an 8 second writhe time.

I know. The problem is that the last monk report didn't do enough and the envoys haven't had time to address everything that needs addressed from the last one.

To fix the useless skills, I'd need at least 7 months assuming that each report was accepted. Throw in X-amount of skills to nerf, it can easily take over a year to fix just the Ninjakari unless other envoys want to donate slots.

The problem with fixing big stuff is that the game changes faster than envoys can fix it. A big change would only set us further behind.

Seems like they could make the mass salve effect a scroll and put it on scroll balance, thereby making you choose at times between using a healing scroll and re-upping your mass scroll defense.

Similar effect, keeps some of the uniqueness.

Edit: Also, could make it stop only adjacent summons, since that is typically what it affects in Achaea, with a few exceptions. Cloak tattoo and shield, generally, stop distance summons.

Edit 2: An idea might be a "roots scroll" or something. You recite it in a room and cannot be involuntarily moved from that room so long as the roots defense is up. Lasts 3-4 minutes; if you move voluntarily, the roots defense is removed.

I may not be very affected by this issue, but I like this scroll idea! But why make it fade after a few minutes? You need to pay for the scroll, charges are limited, it will eventually decay.
Or something.

The timer ensures that you need to be diligent to avoid being summoned, so that's the part that makes sense. Having it go away when you move makes less sense, and I'd be against that part. Basically, it's something you "turn on" when you're in a situation where summoning might be happening and turn it off otherwise.

I'm not sure it's better to take Achaean style summoning over Lusternian style summoning. As it is, almost anything stopped by mass is impractical. Achaean summoning is more of a punishment for tumbling.

I'd actually prefer summoning to be something that happens to noobs or the heavily ganked only. As it is, group combat is 'who can chainyank/beckon/wisp/rad/springtrap' the other guy more.

I like the scroll idea too.