I really like the suggestion for clot, actually

Interesting ideas Shuyin.

Re speed:

I like the idea of tinkering with speeds across the board, and raising the balance cost of monk abilities if people think they're too fast. I've only been able to find one group of actions (tahto'sho/kaife/shotah/ninchu) which are sub 2 seconds. These can hit 1.4s with neutral balance, 270 weapon speed and speed mod. Just about everything else sits around 2.2 seconds.

I'd bump these build-up actions up to 2.2 sec to match other actions and consider removing the +2mo aspect of them. They'd still be usable to get from 0 to 1 mo which is helpful. Once the outliers are fixed I'd make an assessment on whether monk attacks are still too fast, then change them all together.

Re grapples and writhing:

With the exception of Ninjakari Illgathoru, yanks are pretty useless. In my opinion the afflictions that they give just aren't worth using two actions for. One kata to perform the 2h grapple, then a second kata to perform the 2h yank. I would much rather use these 4 actions to deliver other afflictions. Tahtetso's greenlock is nigh-unachieveable due to it relying on a 2h yank, meaning that you have one kick and one poison to deliver the other elements of the greenlock.

Solution 1:

A simple solution to writhe speed issue would be to change Illgathoru & bairakobo to non-yank actions, re-evaluate Illgathoru affs if necessary and just leave the remaining yanks as a bit of flavour. This is the easy way out.

Solution 2:

Change yanks to 1h actions. This would also need a re-evaluation of Illgathoru and removal of tahtetso collapsed lung (windpipe/collapse lung in one form!). This would make yanks useful enough to justify fixing up writhing from grapples.

Solution 3:

Change writhing so that if you are sprawled and grappled, you take longer to writhe out of the grapple. The monk will need to put effort into sprawling you before grappling to be able to have a chance at a yank. This would require looking at of proning kicks (starkick) to ensure that a monk can't kick/grapple for guaranteed longer grapple writhes.

Re grappling for momentum:

I don't have any strong feelings on this. Stopping momentum gain on a grapple doesn't seem like it would be an unreasonable nerf to monks. With an runed up tahto and neutral balance race, I only grappled for momentum if rebounding happened to be up when I had balance, and this was only because grapple is slightly faster than raze. Otherwise, normal weapon attacks are much faster than grappling for building momentum.

I didn't know the momentum boosters took less balance. I'd be happy to move them inline with the other skills.


I would actually call every Ninjakari yank useful. The ninshi/yank combo does nice bleeding and has a chance of preventing health applications, by itself. Barbs contributes to the bleeding. Ninoaghi is perhaps the least useful yank, but it's definitely still useful. Constrict serves as an excellent way to get the benefits of the grapple (can't leave freely) as well as the damage/bleeding/blackout/unconsciousness, especially against lower-health individuals.

However, I will agree that 4h actions is taxing especially when you consider that with the entire picture (poison application being one).

I am immediately against solution 1. It sounds good, but it's a great way to unnecessarily nerf 5 Ninjakari skills (ninshi, barbs, ninoaghi, illgathoru, constrict), all of which I'd say are relatively balanced (Report 404 addresses Illgathoru).

Solution 2 and 3 are interesting, and I don't feel strongly either way for them.


My only concern about grapples not giving momentum is, again, the Ninjakari's reliance on the grapple. If Ninshi was exempt, then it would be fair.

Edit: I'm going to think about how adding a new level would affect monks overall. It might be a good solution depending on how it's handled.

I just realised that I may have been confusing people with my terminology. By 'yank' I mean any action which is a grapple ender. Not just those used by ninjakari.

If you list out all the yanks I think it's clear that Illgathoru and constrict stand out as the only ones which are powerful enough to justify the sacrifice of 4 actions, and for Illgathoru it's only worthwhile when targetting the legs for tendon.

throw (prone)
snap (break limb)
toss (eject from room in random direction)
bomrakobo (dislocated limb)
bairakobo (windpipe)
disarm (unwield weapon + momentum loss)
shred (bleeding + momentum loss)
kumato (eject from room in random direction)
oriama (bonus wounding + mangle if prone for momentum loss)
amihai (bleeding + masked venom)
ninoaghi (prone + stun)
illgathoru (stun, phrenic, tendon, open gut, severed nerve + bleeding)
constrict (blackout + unconscious + damage)

I'm not sure there's the divine or player ethusiasm to embark on another big monk fix and re-evaluate each of these skills individually. Hence I tried proposing blanket fixes.

What I was trying to get at with solution 1 is that there are a lot of yanks which are just plain awful (see: shofangi). If you take the few yanks which are relied on by guilds and make them actions with the appropriate tweaks, you can just relegate the yank mechanic to the scrap heap.

Like I said, that would be the easy way out. I would love to see yanks actually be useful, but there are so many of them across the guilds that a blanket change (like solution 2 + 3 that I put above) could have unintended effects.

Also: if grapples are changed so they do not build momentum, they should still reset the momentum loss timer.

Hrmm, that all looks like a bit of a tangent to the OP.

To relate back to the OP: Writhe speed and yanks complicate the issue of tweaking monk attack speed. With a few exceptions, yanks don't contribute a lot to monk combat.

Solution 1: Getting rid of yanks would greatly simplify the issue of fixing monk speed.
Solution 2 + 3: Make grapples/yanks the same speed as other monk attacks and scale them up and down with all other actions. Require the monk to sprawl the target if they want the grapple to last long enough to yank.

Oh oh! Make some kind of malt only brewmeisters can make that works like mass....

Less reliance on the nearly non-existent Brewmeisters is a good thing. More business for the poor Bookbinders is also a good thing.

I had an idea to fix tahto'sho/kaife/shotah/ninchu (boosters).

They allow the building of momentum too fast and allow easy compensation to afflictions/skills that cause momentum loss.


To use my own numbers with speed. I'd go from a 2.3 second form to a 1.5 second form (with 33%), but mo increase is less. The difference of +2mo in 2.3 seconds rather than +2mo in 3 seconds. 25% is 2.3 -> 1.7 with +2mo in about 3.4 seconds.


Basically you can keep momentum levels against a specific opponent. I think a shortened bal time compared to other skills would also be a bit necessary, but not really too great of a bal reduction.



EDIT: It may be worth considering that the boosters consume leg bal; I would, however, push for 33% over 25% to compensate. Consuming leg bal would prevent abuse of kick-spamming

EDIT2: Solution 2 is a bad idea.

I'm trying to make monks slower, not faster! It's not just a momentum thing. It's an overall "you're just too fast" thing.

Actually I'm not sure why brewmeister and tinkering were made to be bard only. The purpose was to expand enchantment to communes and alchemy to cities.

So my idea is to open up alchemy and Brewmeister spec as well as enchantment and tinkering specs to monks

I always wanted to see tattooing or fletching as a yet to be developed monk trade. Whereas forging would be great for monks, I'd take brewmeister any day (like a Trappist Monk... different kind of monasticism though).

I think monks should be banned from tradeskills.

"Those on the path of the monk must be dedicated, and thus have no time for economical pursuits."

Or something like that...


they get enough from bashing >_>

I'm trying to fix monks in a balanced manner. No one has proven that monks are too fast, just that they can produce strong afflictions in a short period of time, and I think it's utterly ridiculous to say "monks are too fast" across the board. The main reason is because of the boosters. Hit mo5, use a form that uses 2-3mo, hit booster to go back up to mo4 or 5. That's the problem.

The solutions make monks slower. Monks do less damage and less wounds per knight, so spamming the boosters over and over is counter-productive except perhaps in group fights where the only goal is damage (at at that point, it's moot). But monks can do more damage elsewhere than spamming a booster anyway.

The proposed solution makes them slower, because it makes momentum gain slower.

Most trades aren't worth $$$. Are you speaking about "eastern" or "western" style monks? Even at that, there is a decent sized disparity in western monks (i.e. Jesuit and Trappist monks). Keep your monk hate comments to yourself.

Monks afflicting too fast is a direct result of monks being too fast. Momentum is pretty dumb too, don't get me wrong, but they're both problems.

Also, no, knights don't cause more damage if they're using a proper PvP weapon. PvP weapons hit like beastmastery battle.

EDIT: And it's only minimally relevant to you that you do less wounding. If you put people in heavy with one combo, your damage would be retarded too.

What is the proposed solution Sahm?

In a single combo, a monk can give a person 5-7 afflictions, not including health damage, bleeding, or deep wounds. That right there is my number one problem with monks. Now, that would be a little more balanced if they weren't hitting me every 1.5-3 seconds with that same number of afflictions. Plus, many of these afflictions are hindering in ways that make it overly difficult to fight back, hinder, run away, etc. I find myself constantly prone, stunned, paralyzed, grappled... it's more annoying than enjoyable, unfortunately.

First of all, it's not going to be greater than 2.2 seconds and will be more in the ballpark of 2.8s WITH SPEED and 3.3s without speed. I am an outlier in speed, having 2 cosmic knight runes and being aslaran which makes me a full 0.6s faster than the average monk. If you want to address the <2s times, you need to tackle hyperactive.

Secondly, the forms that hit for 5-7 afflictions are more than likely afflicting things that are easily cured, two of which are caused by poisons. You won't see the "overly difficult" afflictions until a higher momentum (which keep coming because of the boosters). As far as I can tell, Ninjakari can apply a max of 8 afflictions. Three of which are going to be numbs (basically useless and cured by applying health, which will also cure the wounds at that part), another two from poisons. That leaves 2 for a jakari with dhatogh (prone + rare wound-based chance of stun) and 1 from the other hand action.

Any forms that are going to hurt you are going to do on average 3-5 afflictions (2 may come from poison) and cause varying momentum loss if the skills are balanced.


I think the best thing to do would be to change the boosters to greatly slow the rate of high-risk afflictions and let the envoys handle the ridiculous OP skills. In fact, solution 1 would actually be better suited to keeping a monk down because they would lose momentum periodically over time. The reason it needs to be faster than a normal skill is because if it's the same speed, monks will (smartly) choose to use other skills that give the same momentum gain and afflictions.




I think it's impossible for one form to take someone from no wounds to heavy. Quite sure in fact. Building high wounds is actually difficult for a monk if a person can parry and stance pretty well and has their priorities straight (applying rather than sipping). Knights should be capable of doing more damage than a monk because more wounds = more damage.




Finally, the monk guilds can't really be compared to one another. Keep specific problems to the guild, and if the specific problems exist across all of them, then you can address problems with the archetype. The majority of the complaints I've heard about monks originate from one skill in a particular monk guild in some way or fashion. Then people hear about it and wrongfully assume that it applies to the entire archetype. Throw in the fact that many monk skills are bugged (positively or negatively or unknown), the problems get exaggerated due to hearsay, and people don't understand the complexity of the class, the result is angry mobs complaining about 1.5s balance times.

@sahmiam

Allowing monks to indefintely maintain momentum would be a bad idea. Classes who do not have godly hindering must run if a monk gets to high momentum. If you take that away the situation will get worse, not better.