Special Report: Monks

by Unknown

Back to Ideas.

Malarious2012-01-29 03:19:44
I will try to be as non flamey as possible, will underline my reply, but you seem to be construing kata - tattoos with tattoos - TattooMaster.


I decided to convert to bullet points:
* TattooMaster only has one effect, diminish that and lets see it coped somewhere.
---If you count having higher and guaranteed​ armor stats as splendors, having more dmp then splendors and having a higher range to pick that dmp from as splendors as a single effect.

You are viewing this wrong, you just detailed basically all things tattoos themselves do, I dont need the skillset for any of that. TattooMaster specifically gives +armour.


* Armour is all about to be devalued in the warrior report so this would be a double whammy.
---Yes, but the problem is that tattoomaster is better then other forms of armor. When all armor gets nerfed, it will still remain better, and will therefore still be a problem.

Still not better than warrior, still lower than some robes. And no, I think "better" will not mean as much when its value drops significantely. Keep in mind I offered the change first but was reconsidered based on warriors result.

* if this is a "needed change", add the ability to use a 100 weight tattoo.
---While I don't thing this would be a major problem, see above. Even if the armor was nerfed you still get potentially more dmp then splendors to types splendors can't get. This isn't a needed change either, but could be made for thematic reasons.

Again, this DMP thing is a skill in kata. It has nothing to do with tattooMaster

* TattooMaster requires keeping tattoos for its effect unlike splendours and fullplate.
---Tattoos don't require upkeep, splendors do (unless you rune them)? Also, boohoo, everyone else keeps full tattoos anyways, it's a good thing to do.

You cannot rune splendours. Fullplate does not need upkeep. Those trades you could take and forget to get better target armour (you clearly havent seen the 92 cutting robes). You are saying not only do I need a trans skill I must keep it, but you want to greatly cut down its effect.



I spoke to Shuyin and I wanted to actually offer slower balance times on grapples, I was concerned of crying over it. Because while slower balance may sound appealing, in terms of this report it means it will take longer to escape the grapple. I suggest 3.5s writhe with balance of 3.3 (with speed), capped at 3s. This actually will make aslaran slower than what they can do now.

As an aside, I am fine with changing the effects of kata - lock. Currently this disables an arm or leg. The effect of "stops standing" is essential to maintain but the stopping use of that limb can be changed.

I must fully oppose any suggestion that grapples stop momentum gaining. For one thing that would conflict with part of the problem from page 1 as written by Shuyin "However, they also suffer from disproportional ka costs and the limitations of the momentum system." Grapples are the primary form of momentum gain at low levels when there is little other options. If you want to say, Nekai Nekai Kick, feel free to think about this would actually do, nothing.

Shuyin, could you ask the admin if they will take some monk community members (we can assign spokesmen and women easily I think) for the reports. I like the changes, I do, I think they are a little heavy handed, but having monks to help filter it is very helpful and more likely to avoid generally bad results. It is a long shot, but that would sate both the "let us envoy it" crowd while also potentially getting it done faster... mind you at least 2 of those were coming next report cycle so no idea if it will in fact be faster. Otherwise, if the admin would be willing to give us those slots as special envoy slots....... we will put them in right now!

This is getting wordy, I will stop for now!
Unknown2012-01-29 03:21:47
Sojiro:

Making grapples be uncontortable is the simplest idea.

Wat? Acrobats are immune to Thornlashes too; it's one of the major benefits of Acrobatics, to make up for the fact that Bards get pretty minimal DMP.

Malarious:

(you clearly havent seen the 92 cutting robes)

I haven't seen those either. I'm fairly sure I was told that robes can only get up to 74/74...

And yes, Grapples are the primary way of getting past low momentum becasue they are clearly the best choice, and allow the monk to essentialy keep their opponent inhibited while they incease their momentum, essentially bypassing the idea behind the momentum system: that monks start out weaker, but become much stronger as they target an opponent.
Unknown2012-01-29 03:24:16
Frankly, it would be much easier to simply just drop monks from the special report, since it appears that no matter what is written, either the monk party or the nonmonk party will be unhappy.

So, if you guys are fine with just envoying it all, hey, be my guest. I figured I'd try to save you guys some report cycles and get it sorted out while at the same time opening up the discussion for people who aren't monks/in the monk clan.

I didn't seem to have this much of a problem with the other parts of the special report. I wonder why.

Food for thought.
Enyalida2012-01-29 03:32:33
Oh, sorry. Then apply all the changes to Kata-Tattoos. The point is that a monk using Kata-Tattoos and Tattoomaster has all of these things, that they need not have. It doesn't particularly matter where exactly they get it from, as the report is not concerned with a single skill but the over all repercussions of the monk archetype. Attempting to deflect from that is sophistry, trying to save something that many have always considered an overpowered skill. Sorry if I'm getting snippy, but at this point, it's really like you are trying to save something for the sake of personal gain instead of balance by resorting to silly word games.


Malarious:



You are viewing this wrong, you just detailed basically all things tattoos themselves do, I dont need the skillset for any of that. TattooMaster specifically gives +armour.

Alright, then let's lower the overall armor gained by normal kata tattoos. You seem t o be saying that by using tattoomaster you are LOSING everything from tattoos, which isn't the case. You get the better-then-splendours gain and better-then-splendours dmp, when you don't really need either.

Still not better than warrior, still lower than some robes. And no, I think "better" will not mean as much when its value drops significantely. Keep in mind I offered the change first but was reconsidered based on warriors result.

Better not meaning much is fine. Was there some sort of misunderstanding? The idea was to nerf the skill slightly.


Again, this DMP thing is a skill in kata. It has nothing to do with tattooMaster

Again, that's fine. The fact remains that at TattooMaster, you end up having more dmp and more armor then splendors. Recognizing that you get the dmp as a kata effect, the appropriate way to compensate is to lower the additional armor given by tattoomaster. I fail to understand why that isn't a sensible change.


You cannot rune splendours. Fullplate does not need upkeep. Those trades you could take and forget to get better target armour (you clearly havent seen the 92 cutting robes). You are saying not only do I need a trans skill I must keep it, but you want to greatly cut down its effect.


No I haven't seen the 92 cutting robes. Logs? Regardless, dropping the guaranteed armor of tattoomaster by 10/10 is not 'Greatly cutting down it's effect' Yes, you have to keep tattoos, tough. Even 10/10 less, it will still be a quite potent amount of armor to give a class that has either dodging or psymet on top of a lot of potential dmp that you all can get by having tattoos in the first place.




I'm fine with the report as it stands, last I read it over.

EDIT: Edited for invisibility.
Unknown2012-01-29 03:34:25
Sojiro:

Frankly, it would be much easier to simply just drop monks from the special report, since it appears that no matter what is written, either the monk party or the nonmonk party will be unhappy.

I didn't seem to have this much of a problem with the other parts of the special report. I wonder why.

Probably because all of the non-monks expected an overall nerf to monk combat, and thus are unhappy that after all that debate the suggestions ended up being mostly buffs. And of course the monks won't be happy about any suggested nerfs; we had similar problems in the Choke thread until you made an executive discision on how to buff/nerf them. I suggest you do so here as well. I am happy with all non-individual skill changes as of now.
Enyalida2012-01-29 03:37:56
Anyways, at this point, it would be really valuable to hear admin feedback on the entire issue.

EDIT: Also, the recent grapple suggestion is pure genius. It fixes the UP-broken part of grapples, that it can be extremely hard to ever get to an ender if you aren't a speed race, and OP-broken part of spamming it to victory in a concise change. Seriously, you get a +1, suggester of this.
Unknown2012-01-29 03:43:41
foolofsound:

Probably because all of the non-monks expected an overall nerf to monk combat, and thus are unhappy that after all that debate the suggestions ended up being mostly buffs. And of course the monks won't be happy about any suggested nerfs; we had similar problems in the Choke thread until you made an executive discision on how to buff/nerf them. I suggest you do so here as well. I am happy with all on-single skill changes as of now.


Difference between choke and monks is that I have a lot more experience with choke (both as choker and chokee) so I had a good idea on what to do with it to begin with. I've repeatedly admitted I'm a bit (way) less experienced with monk mechanics, which is why I've ended up asking for advice more than I did on the choke report.

I'm not sure there will be admin feedback until the report is submitted, so eh.
Enyalida2012-01-29 03:45:38
They said that there would be...
Xenthos2012-01-29 03:46:24
Enyalida:

They said that there would be...

After he submitted it, then they would give feedback and discuss what is submitted.
Rika2012-01-29 03:49:58
What kind of feedback are you even looking for?
Ytran2012-01-29 04:22:48
foolofsound:

I haven't seen those either. I'm fairly sure I was told that robes can only get up to 74/74...

The theoretical max for splendours is 27/27 (iirc that's base) plus 2 * spread out however, though because of RNG the actual numbers obviously come out a lot lower. On average I get splendours around 70/70, had one set up to 75/74. If the additions don't come out evenly, though, it's possible for one stat to be quite a bit higher at the cost of the other; Arel had a robe with 80-something blunt protection (I want to say like 86, but I don't want to dig through logs so that's a half guess) a while ago.
Unknown2012-01-29 06:03:43
Upon further review, what if I just dropped all grapple-related changes but left everything else? Would that be preferable?

There is a lot of contention related to that, so it may be best to take our time with that and submit changes to grapples through the much-beloved envoy system.
Unknown2012-01-29 06:13:14
Sojiro:

Upon further review, what if I just dropped all grapple-related changes but left everything else? Would that be preferable?

There is a lot of contention related to that, so it may be best to take our time with that and submit changes to grapples through the much-beloved envoy system.

I feel that it's the best feature of the report, solving a deficiency in monks (unreliable grapples) and eliminating something overpowered (fast monks grappling up).
Malarious2012-01-29 06:39:56
I took the ideas to monkish and went for feedback, this is what we ended up with, if somethings missing its explained at bottom.

...................................oOo ReportNess oOo...................................

Mechanics:

-Cap the momentum loss from changing targets to momentum level 2, i.e. don't drop below momentum level 2 when changing targets (Currently it just drops you a flat -2 momentum regardless).

-Make it so you only lose momentum if you actually hit a new target, ex: don't lose momentum if you try to hit someone and get the 'no one here message' (Ahh, I am truly sorry, but I do not see anyone by that name here.)

-Add new optional parameters for kata perform:
*Kata Perform (form name) (target) (part1) (part2) (part3)
*Part1, Part2, and Part3 are over-rides for the defined form name that will tell it what body parts to target instead of the ones that are currently defined in the form. If you leave them blank, it will use the defaults set up in the form (including none, if it is a kata form that does not target any body parts).

-Remove the balance loss when a chain of more than 1 form fails. Right now, if you try a chain and it fails, you lose a burst of balance loss.

Skills:

-Make lunge mods (nekotai nekreve, shofangi skive, tahtetso tahtai, ninjakari jakati) cost 1p less per limb that misses. Ex: If your weapons both hit but the kick misses, that should be 2p, not 3p as it is currently. This is in line with warriors where they do not pay power if the attack misses.

-Add a 3p power cost to Shofangi butojo, with a caveat that it cost 1p if done with the skive modifier.

-Increase the equilibrium time of Harmony Akhoosh to 3s (+1 from original) and increase power power cost +1 (2 total).

-Change Harmony Akhooshlumang to display a monk's stats to be + or - 15% of their current stats, instead of a randomized number right now.

-Add a 1s balance loss when using Ninjakari – Ninukhi when no target is adjacent to prevent spamming until a target arrives. If the target IS adjacent but shielded no balance is lost, otherwise acts as normal.

-Add a 2 minute cool down to Stealth Veil, increase the duration to 5 minutes, have the cool down take place when stealth veil fades. When veil ends you would need to wait 2 minutes to use it again.

- Change kata Lock to no longer disable use of the locked limb, reduce it to 150 ka. Locking legs would still stop standing.

...............................................................................................................................................


Ok things that were left out:

- By unanimous agreement...... We will wait to see the impact of the armor change and envoy TattooMaster if need be, if we do assume it will change armor at trans to 74/74 with a syntax to imbue oneself with a 100 weight tattoo.

- Lock was added to address the issue of how crippling it can be. It is the only grapple that stops attacks too that we are aware of.

- Grapples were discussed for awhile but we concluded further brainstorming was needed and will revisit it, some people had to leave. Discussion included things along the lines of... *gain mo only if a kick is used (this means no speed mod on early forms). *capping what momentum they can get you to. We have not finished on this, we are looking toward standardizing grapples but attempting to fix concerns. The main one we heard was lock, most grapples do not actually do much and you can still attack under them.

- We adjusted the guild specific changes to our liking.
Rivius2012-01-29 16:20:23
Malarious:

I took the ideas to monkish and went for feedback, this is what we ended up with, if somethings missing its explained at bottom.

...................................oOo ReportNess oOo...................................

Mechanics:

-Cap the momentum loss from changing targets to momentum level 2, i.e. don't drop below momentum level 2 when changing targets (Currently it just drops you a flat -2 momentum regardless).

-Make it so you only lose momentum if you actually hit a new target, ex: don't lose momentum if you try to hit someone and get the 'no one here message' (Ahh, I am truly sorry, but I do not see anyone by that name here.)

-- Sure, why not.

-Add new optional parameters for kata perform:
*Kata Perform (form name) (target) (part1) (part2) (part3)
*Part1, Part2, and Part3 are over-rides for the defined form name that will tell it what body parts to target instead of the ones that are currently defined in the form. If you leave them blank, it will use the defaults set up in the form (including none, if it is a kata form that does not target any body parts).

-Remove the balance loss when a chain of more than 1 form fails. Right now, if you try a chain and it fails, you lose a burst of balance loss.

Skills:

-Make lunge mods (nekotai nekreve, shofangi skive, tahtetso tahtai, ninjakari jakati) cost 1p less per limb that misses. Ex: If your weapons both hit but the kick misses, that should be 2p, not 3p as it is currently. This is in line with warriors where they do not pay power if the attack misses.

-Add a 3p power cost to Shofangi butojo, with a caveat that it cost 1p if done with the skive modifier.

-Increase the equilibrium time of Harmony Akhoosh to 3s (+1 from original) and increase power power cost +1 (2 total).
--Yeah, some sort of additional cost to now is probably needed. These ideas sound good.

-Change Harmony Akhooshlumang to display a monk's stats to be + or - 15% of their current stats, instead of a randomized number right now.
--Not needed. I'd rather it just fail sometimes.

-Add a 1s balance loss when using Ninjakari – Ninukhi when no target is adjacent to prevent spamming until a target arrives. If the target IS adjacent but shielded no balance is lost, otherwise acts as normal.
--I think it should still cost balance if they're shielded. Otherwise, I'm on board.

-Add a 2 minute cool down to Stealth Veil, increase the duration to 5 minutes, have the cool down take place when stealth veil fades. When veil ends you would need to wait 2 minutes to use it again.
--You don't need to increase the duration, but the cooldown is a good idea.

- Change kata Lock to no longer disable use of the locked limb, reduce it to 150 ka. Locking legs would still stop standing.
--Sure.

...............................................................................................................................................


Ok things that were left out:

- By unanimous agreement...... We will wait to see the impact of the armor change and envoy TattooMaster if need be, if we do assume it will change armor at trans to 74/74 with a syntax to imbue oneself with a 100 weight tattoo.

- Lock was added to address the issue of how crippling it can be. It is the only grapple that stops attacks too that we are aware of.

- Grapples were discussed for awhile but we concluded further brainstorming was needed and will revisit it, some people had to leave. Discussion included things along the lines of... *gain mo only if a kick is used (this means no speed mod on early forms). *capping what momentum they can get you to. We have not finished on this, we are looking toward standardizing grapples but attempting to fix concerns. The main one we heard was lock, most grapples do not actually do much and you can still attack under them.

- We adjusted the guild specific changes to our liking.
Unknown2012-01-29 21:13:24
I feel that the revised suggestions still amount to an across the board buff to monks, as it only addressed deficencies in monk mechanics while claiming that any nerf to overpowered monk mechanics are "too contentious". Further, I feel that the suggestions attempt to obfuscate this by incuding a small number of nerfs to single skills (all of which are warrented, but would be better suited to envoys). Specifically, the report does not in any way address the fact that a monk can quickly build momentum on a target while minimizing thier ability to inhibit or escape (thanks to grapples, especially on high speed races), nor does it address the fact that a high momentum monk can not only inflict more damage than a warrior, but also more afflictions, and often both during the same set of actions.

Honestly, based on the state of this segment of the report, I am not exactly confident that we can trust the monk envoys to implement nerfs as needed post report, especially not major mechanical changes like the suggested grapple fix.

Further: This issue with TattooMaster is not nessicarily that it has too great an impact, but instead that it allows a monk to have armor that is in every way superior to robes, even splendors, and is only marginally worse armor-wise than full plate, while still retaining vastly superior DMP. It has both superior armor value (show me a Splendor totaling 168, if you can find one), and provide twice the DMP that proofing provides. Further, the concern is that Monks simply do not need so much defensive ability, thanks to the impressive defensive value of both Acrobatics and Psychometabolism, as well as Harmony.

I feel that, in order for this report to actually achieve it's goals, the TattooMaster changes must go through (it's a minor nerf; they will still remain overall superior to robes), and either the grapple suggestion, a damage nerf, or an affliction nerf must go through, in order to address the monk's ability to essentially disregard the disadvantage of low momentum (the grapple suggestion), or else reduce their deadliness at high momentum.

Finally, I suggest again that Shuyin make an executive decision on this, and if it turns out to nerf monks too hard, the monk envoys can envoy buffs instead, something I feel we can trust them far more to do.
Janalon2012-01-29 22:17:48
foolofsound:

Honestly, based on the state of this segment of the report, I am not exactly confident that we can trust the monk envoys to implement nerfs as needed post report, especially not major mechanical changes like the suggested grapple fix.


I feel like you are misguided here. Monk envoys have suggested monk nerfs in the past (including myself). The list includes several and significant nerfs. Please ask if you would like for me to flesh out the supporting evidence in greater detail. Secondly, any envoy can write a report for any skill/skillset; the responsibility to seek mechanical balance is a shared responsibility. Let me point out that you are displacing frustrations with this particular report by with directing your blame toward monk envoys. Finally the "state of this report" is due to the participation (or the lack thereof) of forum goes and the special report coordinator over a three month period. Monk issues are contentious and complex, as are any suggested problem/solutions. Nuff said about that.
Enyalida2012-01-29 22:51:31
I think that the delay should probably not exceed half the time on stealth, though being below 20% is too little. I support increasing the time to five minutes and having a 2-2.5 cooldown that activates as veil ends.
Unknown2012-01-29 23:05:42
That was faulty. If you look at the revised solution, the veil thing has been altered (last night in fact) since I found out it was actually only 3 minutes.

Let me see while I put up another revised version.