Krakphet (Harmony fire-body) does increase damage. Akhang (requires all three ang- mantras) adds +10 to weapon stats. Nothing else in Harmony adds damage, though one of the spirit mantras is SUPPOSED to modify damage based on a comparison of your karma versus theirs. It doesn't, and hasn't for a long time.

Mind that health damage modification due to wounding starts at 300 deep wounds, and caps out at... 3750? Going from 100% (base) damage from 0 to 300 deep wounds, and scaling up to 250% damage at the wounds cap. Mind, this is just going off memory. I want to say it was Placeus who did this initial number crunching.

We might have to meet up and have Eldanien do some beating on your pet. He's an acromonk at the moment, likely to stay that way for the next few days at least. But as a titan faeling, this should provide some contrast for comparison.

Wow, +10 to weapon stats seems like a pretty sweet skill. Not sure what it takes to get all three ang- mantras... though it sounds annoyingly complex. In fact, reading about chanting harmonies gives me a headache. Can't imagine how a harmony psymet juggles it all.

Your second point about damage modification sounds very, very probable. Since I was kicking for about 300 wounds, I noticed an approximate bonus to 50 damage from the round before. Something like:



Didn't get far above that point. Though, the graph produced a very straight line from my very limited window. Would love to run another set of tests using either nekai or punches to build wounds up through about 4000 wounds (or an approximate 50 nekai hits). That would give me enough data points to "see" the pattern through graphing wound and damage points.

Yeah, would also love to see damage done to my pet with your faeling acro. What's your max dex? I didn't take into account weapon stats (through tempering and runes). So we might need to adjust for that by having you swing with my nekai.

Then I need to pull all this information together into a Game FAQ style guide to place into some monk clan for future reference.

One of the reasons I switched to acrobatics, but I think most harmony monks don't switch mantras mid-combat...

I went poking through the forums to read up on the back history of psymet discussion and found this thread:

http://forums.lusternia.com/index.php?showtopic=13724

Interesting what issues have persisted since the beginning, and what issues have already been addressed through an Envoy process.

One of the fundamental issues I've found with Psymet is that Psionics is designed with the intention of being a mage's primary offense, where Psymet is meant to be a utility skill for monks. While some decent support skills are provided past Master level, this is of little use to novice monks, who have a choice between the wonderful, and in some cases vital possibilities granted by Acrobatics (sprinting, climbing, somersault,) and a number of low-end psionic abilities which they cannot use effectively. Novices, who may come in expecting the two skillsets to be reasonably equal in terms of utility, end up hurt because of this design oversight.

As such, I'd propose making Psychometabolism a full tree, still Psionic in nature, with the combined skills of Psionics and Psychometabolism, and move about the skills to allow for earlier access to helpful utility abilities. This will help make Psychometabolism a better choice alongside Acrobatics at lower skill levels, and allow for rebalancing without threatening to affect mages' primary attack powers.

Proposed list as follows:


Summary of changes:
Removed: Psiblade, PortraitReading, EgoWhip, Amnesia, PsychicPush, Shatter
Moved: Regeneration, DoublePain, Introspection, Shift, Mindfield

Just throwing this out there but if you took out skills, even unused or thematically useless ones, won't those players want skills back in those slots? I mean, having an AB that is shorter than the others would just be bothersome to the eye, I would think.

I kinda doubt you're going to see it changed from a base/spec skill to a flat skill just for monks. It doesn't work that way.

Why not? The aetherfaring skillset went from a base w/three specs to a streamlined skillset. How is this proposal much different? At least if the Furies refuse this idea, we will pick a new approach to evoying the psionic side of psychometabolism.

Remember, only four of twenty something psionic skills go to support psymets. How would you suggest this issue to be addressed? I would love to hear your constructive ideas...

Even with stuff cut out, this list is longer (at 33) than Acrobatics (at 24.) The problem is going to be redistributing skill relatively evenly throughout the levels. And it'll be easier to add in more monk-centric abilities at this level.



The base skill is just something that flat-out doesn't work for monks, and is going to be difficult to alter as it's already bloated and optimized for mages. This is the best solution I could come up with to make things easier for monk novices while minimizing end-game balance.

The other solution I could come up with is to allow monks to use kata attacks off psi balance, making all of the Psionics tree useful. I'm sure people are thrilled by the prospect of monks having more abilities per round.

Agreed that the the mage-skewed psionic skill set is mostly incongruent with monk psychometabolism; the few exceptions being ironwill, mindbar, bodydensity, and psiarmour (after all the secondsight buff can be achieved through herbs).

I mostly agree with your stance on how to envoy the issue by flattening the tree for psymets... though I feel you go too far and not far enough in the same stroke.

Psymet monks could easily stand to loose every psionic skill (other then the previoulsy mentioned four. The only other potential keeper is psychicpush. Stealth and ninjakari both have abilities to move an opponent into an adjacent room. I wonder if harmony monks could benefit from psychic push. Otherwise I think the psionic half of the tree still stands to be pruned.

Though, this makes me realize that flattening, pruning, and reorganizing the psionic/psymet are all separate issues. Would we stand a better chance of the Furies acceptance if we made flattening step one, with a second evoy proposal to prune/reorganize?

Wow, lots of stuff happening here.

A couple of quick notes
- krakphet is a flat 10% increaase to damage. It doesn't affect wounding.
- all my testing shows that tahtai and the other power mods are +40% damage and wounding. Not sure how your test got up to 75%

The admin promised us clairsentience by like 2 years ago, which I think they've forgotten about but Estarra will probably want to keep her options open and not change the spec structure.

Posting from an iPhone, so I don't have the capacity to cut and paste links easily. Check out page four where I post all of my numbers. I tested everything out under a variety of conditions. Nekreve raised a nekai, nekai from 160 wounds to 280 wounds... a 120 wound difference. 120 is 75% of 160. Remember, nekreve and the like won't effect wounding from a kick... So you won't easily see the 75% wounding to armed actions in a nekai, nekai, kick w/nekreve mod where the kick is unaffected because it is an unarmed action.. If you have proof otherwise, please post some numbers so we can compare side by side. Doing so would greatly deepen the general knowledge about monk kata mods.

Not sure how clairsentience relates to psychometabolism thematicaly, or how it would work mechanicaly. Could you fill in the details... I would love to hear more about it!

I can understand how admin would not want to change the spec structure. That being said, this will severely limit how to address the issue of four psymet friendly skills in psionics (cluttered with 15 mostly unusable mage offensive skills). As Thul mentioned, one option is to suggest that psymets gain an ability to use channels between katas (somewhat like how I command my beast's actions). The other is to bring certain psymet skills down into psionics (i.e. doublepain which only gives a 5% boost to wounding). Last option is to just dwal with it and warn novices against taking psionics unless they plan to invest lessons past master where there is finally some payoff.

In my honest opinion, Thul raises a good point about psionics (which is primarily an offensive skill set for city mages) largely not being accessible to psymet monks. I've done my own rundown of how psionics adds to psymet here: http://forums.lusternia.com/index.php?s=&a...st&p=755863

There've aready been suggestions to move psymet skills down into psionics, to flatten psymet into it's own skillset, to make psionic attack actions more accessible to monks. etc. etc. etc. So far all I've heard in response is these ideas will never pass through a Furies final decision if properly put through the envoy process. We shall see pending the Nekotai REPORT 447 by Thul: http://forums.lusternia.com/index.php?s=&a...st&p=767140

The only thing I have not yet suggested is to Envoy psionic skills to make them more accessible to psymet monks. This is in reply to Esano's comment:



Take the skill Portrait Reading for example:



Denust says:



The skill is too situational, too skewed for city dwellers, and not at all applicable. WHAT IF, Portrait Reading could be replaced with:



The skill would basically work like a more limited Hunting Companion in the Hunter/Tracking skillset:



First and foremost, only elemental and cosmic enchanters can enchant paintings. This automatically precludes monks, and especially precludes the commune monks who don't naturally have access to these types of enchanters within their org. Not to mention, paintings can only be hung in indoor, urban settings. I would be very hard pressed to find such a location within Glomdoring (I believe the Black Tower is the only one). These conditions heavily skew usage towards city mages.

Moving the skill to pets ensures equal access between commune and city. The skill could expand certain stealth elements (i.e. an eavesdrop like skill) outside stealth monks. The application would be to beast link, drop your beast off someplace you want to keep an open ear, and leave it there. If someone doesn't like a linked beast, they can just kill it. The only real issue I see is that a stealth beast with beastlink up could be nearly undetectable... as third eye doesn't see invis beasts; however, INFO HERE still works to detect them. If someone feels this is really OP, you could add the stipulation that skills like Lowmagic Blue (and other similar skills that prevent eavesdropping) could "hide" conversation from the beast. I think something like this could be win/win for monks and mages alike.

Thul, another fundamental issue with psymet monks operating on the psionic mechanics is the duration each of the psionic channels take to independently recover. From AB PSIONICS CHANNELS:



What does this mean? Well in an earlier reply to this thread, Esano explains:



The real issue is post-momentum monks loose one level of momentum for every 7 seconds of kata inaction. This places substratus and id activities on the verge of dropping one momentum level if used mid-combat. Substratus comes dangerously close considering a momentum drop is nearly guaranteed if someone was to web a psymet monk after using a sub psionic action... and there is no contort-like, quick writhe for psymet monks (see my psymet shift proposal). This means the fundamental mechanics of psionic recovery is fatally flawed against psymet monks. This is especially frustrating as it places many psionic/psymet actions as working against a monk, opposed to acrobatics which speeds up actions (i.e. springup, contort, pre- and post- envoy proposal for hyperventilate.

Thul's envoy REPORT 447 indirectly addresses this in congruency through two options:

1. Make Psychometabolism its own skillset, still Psionic in nature, with the combined skill list of the current Psionics and Psychometabolism skillsets combined. Rearrange the list and trim certain elements to better benefit lower power monks, with emphasis on easier access to utility skills. Proposed list here: http://forums.lusternia.com/index.php?show...st&p=767140
2. Solution #2: Allow kata-type abilities to be used off psionic balance. This will actually give monks some use for the active type Psionics abilities.

Pending the outcome of this report, it may be necessary to come up with alternate strategies on how to envoy psionic/psymet mechanics to make it more compatible with momentum monks. Taking into consideration the very limited amount of psionic attack actions available to a psymet AND how using psionic actions is incongruent with katas and monk momentum, I propose to directly and simply address the issue by increasing psionic channel recovery for psymet monks (i.e. make it faster).

Here are two possible options for Envoy:

1. Upon reaching psychometabolism specialization in psionics, give monks a psymet ability/defense to speed up channel recovery by 50%. That is Sub recovers at 2s, Super recovers at 3s, and Id recovers at 3+s. So as not to bloat psychometabolism, this skill could replace introspection.
2. Upon reaching psychometabolism specialization in psionics, give monks a psymet ability/defense to speed up channel recovery by 25%. That is Sub recovers at 3s, Super recovers at 4s, and Id recovers at 4+s. So as not to bloat psychometabolism, this skill could replace introspection.

OK, so introspection in it's current form would bite the dust. No worries, the skill goes to increase recovery time on ego, mana, and willpower. Ego and mana are easily recoverable through scrolls/sparkle/sips; it's willpower recovery that takes a hit. Ah well, to the rocking chair! Kata, stealth, and psionic actions generally don't chew up tons of willpower. Not a tremendous loss. This proposal would go to solve several things. First, consider what psionic actions are available to psymets:



From psionics: amnesia, alter aura, hyperhidrosis become somewhat more available. In psychometabolism: cell adjustment (mentioned here) and shift (mentioned here) don't have the hefty 4s pricetag associated. All of these abilities are readily available on the Sub channel which I would hope to see gain the most benefit from this proposal.

Even suspended animation which requires an open Super channel becomes more accessible. Sus Animation is somewhat of an anomaly because it requires the Super channel to remain open to enact. Typically I see psymet monks locking down Id and Super with locked psymet defenses, leaving the option for the Sub channel to either remain open to access a wide variety of abilties OR locked into a third defense. As I play my monk now, I have to unlock Super to utilze suspended animation... which has a hefty power and time price tag associated for what is "panic button" skill. Sus Animation has it's own set of issues which I will address in a future post.

This, right here, could solve a wide host of issues regarding psymet monks operating on psionic mechanics.

Harmony is similar to Psychometabolism only in that three "mantra" abilities get locked at a time... comparable to how psymet can lock three channels. That is when the similarities begin and end. Psychometabolism has a ton of locked abilities that act as very specific defenses against very specific guilds.

Pheromones against Bards and Driuds. Bloodboil against Druids and Monks. Forced Symmetry / Lifedrain against warriors. Double Pain against... well, nothing (yeah, no good general offensive locked ability. See this link.)

However, switching defenses is incredibly impossible because of the super long recovery time. Most psymet defenses lock into the Super and Id channel, which both carry around a 6s recovery time. SO, 6s to unlock and another 6s to relock a defense... totaling a 12s cumulative waste where the monk is consumed by psionic recovery and cannot use equilibrium or balance. Compare that against the workings of Harmony mechanics:



Yes, Harmony monks can swap a defense in AND out in a single syntax. What's recovery time to switch out three Harmony defenses? Well, for that I consulted an expert:



Compare the Psymet unlock/lock 12s recovery to reset defenses against Harmony's 3.something to Na Na Na another mantra. Again, another argument why I whole heartily believe this proposal given in the post above is the one-stop fix to addressing the current underlying psionic mechanics for psymets:



Sure, it would still consume 6s to swap out defenses, but that is an amazing increase over what it is now!

Actually I believe you can use balance while off psionic balances.
As shown by this.

(Mostlly) wrong. At least where it counts for monks (i.e. arm and leg balance).



As compared to this:



Apparently can't use punch balance while in psionic channel recovery. This is the very heart of the problem which is partially addressed through Envoy REPORT 447 in solution #2:

The last thing we need is monks with MORE stuff in their combos.

And by MORE stuff you mean Amnesia and Cell Adjustment? There are no real offensive actions that would mesh with a monk offensive... though, I appreciate your uninformed fervor.