Binjo:

I personally think that once warriors get their appropriate armor penetration that tattoomaster will be fine. The dmp is great but even combined with psymet there are many people I've seen who have far stronger resistances to everything than I do so I don't think it's in need of a nerf.

I suppose this is a derail, but the issue with TattooMaster isnt that it is too good against warriors, but instead that it is superior to robes in every way, and sacrifices only a small amount or armor value in exchange for high DMP to vitually all damage types. In addition, there is no upkeep cost on tattoo armor, nor the tedium of having to enchant multiple sets of robes in order to get passable stats.

Specialized trades tend to be better than normal trades. Robes are normalized, unlike tattoos you can readily change trades and keep the armour though. Not having to upkeep tattoos is considered a bad thing, means you only every use your trade on a person once really. Based on the results I am actually hoping to see tattoomaster mean an extra tat over the higher armor. Does +12 mean much if it has the same value as +4?

I say the randomized times on writhing are required for balance. Your enders should be possible but not guaranteed.

In no way does uncertainty mean balance unless everything was Set up to assume guaranteed kills. Grapples will almost never kill you directly, they tend to be lead in tactics, not stand alones. If you want to keep th range you are talking faster times, kee in mind grapples dont stop attacking, so its rathre easy to prevent a grapple ender yourself.

Monks have quite a bit more reliability in their afflictions than warriors, their closest analog, so you can keep this bit of uncertainty without sacrificing too much.

Many skills are made based on needing to end, in multiple instances these are required to function properly.

I think you may want to review monk offenses. Warriors are attrition class, monks are affliction, monks do not have behead or something that kills you over time. Warriors are their own unique brand of attrition (curable but outpaced).

As it stands there is no reason why any grapple enders should fail, since you are literaly dedicating 6 seconds to achieve the enders effect, rarely will the grapple itself be the purpose in any way. You can disagree but I do not see supporting evidence to say grapples should be random. We changed them prior to avoid the 2.2 second forms and that was adjusted several times due to issues with who did testing and what the specifics were. In the end Sior had still not gotten them to where they were expected, even though he chaned them som three+ times.

P,S. Grapples were adjusted in speed after the full change of monk speed levels. The tester was an aslaran using max speed weapons, which is why aslaran do just fine with grapple enders.

Really looking for some other monks thoughts here

The random factor is minor enough, and I still disagree that the grapple itself is never the goal. Grapples hinder in their own ways, and there are several flavors that have their own effects without any enders required.

Maybe the balance loss from BC/AL Knockdown should be enough that the victim cannot stand up before the warrior regains balance, regardless of the warrior's speed, dexterity, weapon stats, etc.

And, let's remove deep wounds from monks. I'd like to see that.

You have made at least 3 statements so far that tell me you have no idea how monks work. I have a bardic entry on this sort of thing, here let me link it for you.

http://www.lusternia.com/bardic/an-introduction-to-the-martial-arts

/shameless plug :D

- You need to read more thoroughly "rarely will the grapple itself be the purpose in any way". That does not say grapples are never the goal.

- Some skills actually require wounding, if you changed those relevant skills I think they would be OP.

- Damage buildups also require wounds.

- Removing speed from the grapple equation is a good thing, it means with high level runes I will not have huge grapple levels and it helps simplify the equation.

- There is alot of modifiers and ender skills that rely on grapple mechanics being fixed, as it is I am pretty reliable on grapples as aslaran, and a no go as a human.

- This is a mistake from a prior change, this is a very intricate and complicated bug. It resulted from us saying grapples shouldnt be 2.2s and spammed. We are aiming to fix it, not to "buff" or "empower" grapples. That is why I also introduced a floor, you should see benefit but it should not start gunning past.

- I am not adverse to higher numbers but we have to also balance how fast the writhe from grapple is, 3.8s grapple with 4s writhe would be scary. We want writhes lower which means something has to match up to it for grapple speeds. Only way to remove all gap is require you chain the form, but this causes problems when you need to use spit, headbutt, or beastmastery for instance.

I know well enough how monks work. I have never liked the mechanics from any standpoint.

I'll leave it to Binjo to correct me if I'm wrong, which there's a good chance of, but I thought with the Shofangi crunch grapple ender that it does lead to a kill over time. Reading the report (615), it appears that the wounding threshold for crunch was lowered, so this could be me misunderstanding exactly how crunch works on my part. But, to be honest, it sounds like a grapple ending behead.

Referencing an earlier post of yours Malarious, doesn't grappling the arms of say a warrior or even another monk prevent attacking unless they writhe out?

Calling monks an affliction class seems a bit off, I'd class them as affliction/attrition since over time, they will build wounds and said wounds lead to higher damage. Unless I'm off on what the consensus on attrition combat that is.

Please do keep in mind, I ask these questions out of honest curiousity and my own perceptions. By no means am I attempting to prove you wrong. I'm just trying to understand the mechanics a bit more, and I figure if I'm asking the dumb questions, people who don't wanna look dumb don't have to.

Crunch is a unique insta, it doesnt remove head but its lethal over time, every guild has an "insta" which may actually have a delay. Crunch is very very very unlikely to kill you, you have to do it many times last I checked with Wobou.

It actually depends on the grapple. Hold for instance only stops standing, you can attack and all while held. Lock can disable what its on, I havent tested what that implies, I checked with some others and they said the arm wont work locked. You do not usually see it because it does not have many things to follow it. Ninshis/oothai/etc dont stop attacks. Lock is the only general grapple that can target the arms, most grapples are "targetless" or head.

We do 300 wounds or less for a full form, in general they do not build up at any rate you would want to call us relying on it. Its attrition in the same way a blademaster will run you out of willpower, can we do it? Yes, but it is not something you are counting on. The exception is a damage focus, which I already stated will require wounds.

I have no problem with people asking questions :)

The reason I classify monks as an affliction class by the way is note all the times you have died. Either they have aimed for damage (probably not as likely on a warrior) or they have used a targetted affliction set. Even damage tends to base around proning afflictions as they are easier to make use of than wounds. Nekotai will try to lock you, shofangi will use lacerations or lock you, tahtetso will set up prone into insta, and ninjakari will lacerate insta or lock you (eventually). As a rule of thumb monks are aiming for something that does not auto kill you over time, with the exception of crunch which was a carry over of another IRE skill.

Crunch is like a game of roulette (I shamelessly substituted the propabilities of winning a roulette game with Crunching because they're so damn similar):

10 Crunches (LOL Why u no work?!!)
- probability (odds) to kill at least 6 of 10: 34.4%; odds = 1 in 2.91
- probability (odds) to fail at least 6 of 10: 41.1%; odds = 1 in 2.43
20 Crunches (TROLOLOLOL. This is fail...)
- probability (odds) to kill at least 11 of 20: 36.5%
- probability (odds) to fail at least 11 of 20: 46.2%
100 Crunches (ROFLCOPTER. WHY??!!?!?!oneoneone)
- probability (odds) to kill at least 51 of 100: 35.5%; odds = 1 in 2.82
- probability (odds) to fail at least 51 of 100: 56.8%; odds = 1 in 1.76.

Any Shofangi could relate to that ^. No Shofangi should ever use Crunch unless they're bored and manically depressed. It is not the grappling equivalent of behead. Behead doesn't make you crunch 20 times with a low probability of sucess, even with appropriate wounding levels, and then make you ragequit for a month from fighting. >_> So yeah... don't bother crunching in a 1vs1 game. Or even in a group fight. You've got better things to do than play a game of Crunch roulette in a team battle.

I had a big long post in here, and lost it. Long and short of it, without some testing with how crunch builds and what not, it seems like this change could turn it into the monk equiv. of heartburst/spheres. With the potential changes to armor coming from warrior changes, monk wounding may have to be adjusted to compensate for that so that their wounding doesn't spiral out of control. Finally, 100% grapple ending means 100% chance of heavy+ warrior affs, which while not necessarily a bad thing, does seem like it's introducing some power creep on something that a person ought to be able to defend against with proper hindering, preparation, etc.

Also, seconding Iasmos' question, if monks receieve a 100% chance to get a grapple ender on someone regardless of speed/race/mods, shouldn't warriors receive the same from knockdown? AL/BC currently MAY be capabable of it if lag is on their side, they're a specific race and have their weapons tempered towards the higher end of speed. With the chance for the second hit to miss completely (accursed miss chance) or not proc a wound worth the time and effort (looking at you lacerated arms) it seems like a reasonable question/request. Obviously, something that should be handled via envoys, but I don't think I'm comparing oranges to apples here.

Also, wanted to state that I wasn't attacking you or anything because a tone of curiousity is hard to convey via text, and the last thing I want to do is tick someone off and cause the discussion to get snippy over a misunderstanding.

RE crunch math: How recent are said numbers and are they real or did you literally pull them from roulette odds? Also, is it starting from a critical head wound state, no wounds, etc? And lemme tell you, between hitting the right part of the body, and getting past the hate that the RNG has for me (using a severspine maneuver, I went to 7.5k wounds against 100 cutting plate with 563 prec, aslaran str and dex (with flex and geburah up).

Edenwe:

Crunch is like a game of roulette (I shamelessly substituted the propabilities of winning a roulette game with Crunching because they're so damn similar)

Ask Wobou how a fellow Shofangi monk recently fought for 40 minutes with an opponent that was toting critical head wounds. And well... Malarious is right about how Crunch is lethal over time. It just takes half an hour of "faith in God" to pull it off.

Also 100% grapple enders don't bother me. We're an affliction class by design. We're not meant to be an offshoot of the warrior archetype. What bothers me is that you need to be an Aslaran to make Grappling viable. Give other races a fair chance? Yes? I hate the idea of telling novices that grappling isn't very reliable for their class if their current choice of race is anything other than Aslaran to pull off grapples 100%. We're not trying to buff grappling, we're making it fair for all races to use it.

I will do these in order.

Wounding won't "spiral out of control", like I said, we do maybe 300 wounds, we cant even put you into medium readily and we have to adjust wounding and damage alot (via the strength mod in kata). Even if changes were huge, like say people lost 15% of their total wound reduction, we would do another 45 wounds.

The only heavy regeneration affliction ender I can think of is Ninjakari tendon. This is a bad comparison on several fronts, the most important being. 1) You can assume tendon on the ninshi so you can preapply and most systems will. 2) Ninshi wont stop you from attacking or hindering, if you see ninshi and go head and gash cheek or mantakaya you could stop them from finishing it.

Yes that is apples and oranges. Iasmos I assumed his comment was sarcasm, being able to grapple has nothing to do with knockdown, nor is that a "monk" report. Last I checked you could still double tap as an AL, havent checked BC. Making a change to an affliction guild is not the same as adjusting an attrition one. If my grapples dont go off I didnt do anything, if your attack hits the wrong area you cause wounds and potentially afflictions elsewhere. We were designed to different effects. Making X reliable does not mean Y deserves it.

I did not take you as attacking me. :)

God I have to agree with Edenwe. As a Ninjakari I had to tell people who wanted to enter combat to go aslaran. Remember the standard is that an aslaran will reliably do their grapples, only other races dont. We are trying to make equal footing while giving time to use an ender (have to have a window people can hit a button inside of).

I had a big thing about races, race boni/maluses, etc, then I viewed back a few pages and saw that Malarious said that so long as there's no racial malus/properly optimized weapons, the 100% grapple ender should be possible.

Also, hate to be that person, but it seems like the report has strayed a little bit. Emphasis is mine.

Sojiro:
Problem:
Monks as a whole are considered to be slightly overpowered given the reliability of their offense in giving high level warrior afflictions at a fast rate. However, they also suffer from disproportional ka costs and the limitations of the momentum system.

So far, for solutions, there's

Sojiro:
Monks:

-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.)

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

-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. You dont lose momentum when a form fails.

-Standardize grapple length and recovery. Do not take weapon/race stats into account. Make grapples faster for base speed races but do not make them faster than current for races with balance bonuses.

I feel like the boat may have been missed. I'm not saying the solutions so far provided are things that monks don't need. However, if power costs are going to be done by envoys, well...seems to me like you guys will get your buffs and the nerfs will come down the road. Which, until said nerfs come, seems a wee bit off. Not taking weapon/race stats into account, I assume we're only talking about +/- speed. So, does that then make tae'dae grappleking? I did see that Malarious mentioned that it should only apply to non-malus races, just wanna be sure that tidbit doesn't get left out.

What specifically is potentially going to be done about the bolded part of the quote? I've seen the italicized parts discussed, disected, and fixed over the last few pages. I took the time to read through the thread again to make sure I didn't miss anything, and beyond a vague "let's take care of those darn regen affs via envoys and power costs" there doesn't seem to be much thought given to that. Overall, the current changes as is, and emphasis on this, feels like buffs with no nerfs. Am I wrong on that?

Standardize grapple length and recovery. Do not take weapon/race stats into account. Make grapples faster for base speed races but do not make them faster than current for races with balance bonuses.

That's a nerf to races with balance recovery bonuses, such as Aslaran. We want to standardize grapple so that it works for all races. That doesn't make one particular race better than another in anything involving grappling. So I don't see how a Tae'Dae could be king of grappling if he's no faster than an Aslaran after getting grappling speed standardized. Weapons/race will no longer influence the speed at which a person grapples. If I were a pro-Aslaran player. I'd be pissed, because then I wouldn't be able to pull off lol-4grapples before someone realizes what happened. But you know, that's a worthwhile sacrifice to see other players of different monk races get a fair chance. Like Kepheran for example.

They would be grappleking because of damage. They'd be grappling as fast as the fastest races (like Aslaran) with boatloads more str behind the attack. Can you say 'oothai'?

Hold breath.

Standardizing grapple will go a long way to helping monks as a whole, given its role in monk offense, then you can nerf potential issues as they come up.

I personally feel that the current monk envoy are the most reasonable bunch yet, so I have a certain amount of faith that they'd do their job.

I think the reasoning behind what lilija was getting at is that the admin wanted a set of solutions that were applicable to the class as a whole. Delving into each specialization to adjust power costs definitely isn't that, so I suppose that's why it isn't being included in this report. Though, yeah, the proposed solutions are way off from the stated problem of the report, heh. What witchcraft is this?!

It's sorta wonky. Monks are generally acknowledged to be in need of nerfs, and the special report is (minutely, sure) buffing them in hopes that they nerf themselves afterwards. Sorta makes me wince at the intervening months, but hey.