Vanguard Monks

http://forums.station.sony.com/vg/posts/list.m?topic_id=31466


Upcoming Combat Fix Explained

Fusoya and I collaborated on this so thanks to him for providing data and feedback.

Greetings all, just wanted to make a post regarding the upcoming combat bug fix.  We know more than a handful of you are worried that rogue / monk and other melee DPS are going to have their abilities nerfed dramatically, as a result of this fix.  Let me assure you. The dmg of your abilities isn't being touched.  I repeat, none of the damage numbers for your abilities are being touched.  No refresh timers are being changed and no costs are being increased.  We hope to get this out for U6, but it won't be released until it is correct.

You should read through this post and make sure you understand it before you ask questions.

The Bug

The bug is a simple, but clever one.  It was not even a visible issue until U3 when players started raiding.  The bug is with flat damage buffs.  Flat damage buffs, like Marshalling Cry (adds x damage for a few seconds) were supposed to modify the damage of the ability in one place.  A simplistic example equation would be:

    Total Damage = (Ability damage + Flat Damage Buffs) * % Damage Buffs

So, if a Warrior, who had +20 flat damage from buffs, executes Kick, which does 20 damage and he had no other buffs, the resulting damage would be 40.  20 (ability dmg) + 20 (flt dmg) = 40 total.

Simple yeah?  We thought so as well.


The bug is this:  Flat damage buffs are being applied for every effect instead of once per ability.  If an ability has an offensively targeted effect that lowers target HP then flat damage is being applied to it.

Effects

What the heck are we talking about?  What are effects?  Let me explain.  Each ability (spell, melee attack, etc) is made up of multiple effects.  Effects are needed so that the ability can do more than one thing.  Example (Off targeted damaging effects in italics):

Boundless Fist - 6 effects (4 with can gain flat damage)

1 effect for melee damage plus dmg
1 effect that restores jin
1 effect for melee damage plus dmg if errant strikes is active
1 effect for melee damage plus dmg if Celerity is active
1 effect that deals additional damage if the opponent is dazed (weakness exploit)
1 effect that removes the dazed weakness from the target
1 effect that adds the weakness enraged to the target

Shank - 8 effects (8 that can gain flat damage)

2 effects for % weapon dmg
2 effects for the "plus damage"
2 effects for % weapon dmg if quickblade is active
2 effects for the "plus damage" if quickblade is active.
So abilities contain effects.  So, going along with what I said earlier, flat damage is being mistakenly applied to any effects that get fired.  That aint good and that is the source of the MASSIVE damage that certain classes can obtain by stacking abilities, exploiting weaknesses, etc.


So we can run through this now, with your new found insight into how the abilities work.

We'll use Shank for our example. 

Shank - deals % weapon damage plus a small amount of bonus damage. 

Quickblade - causes the Rogues attacks to strike twice for a short time.

Our Rogue (lets call him Mardolmer, shall we?) attacks a bad guy with and without Quickblade.  For the sake of ease, let's say that Shank's base damage is 900 and that the plus damage portion is 100.  He also has 500 worth of flat damage from buffs.

    How it is supposed to work w/o quickblade - the damage is 900 (base) + 100 (bonus dmg) + 500 (flat dmg) = 1500dmg.

    How the bugged version works w/o quickblade - the damage is 900 + 100 + 1000 (flat dmg being applied 2x) = 2000dmg.  Here we don't see a huge difference; we are only getting the flat dmg one additional time.

    How it is supposed to work w/ quickblade - 900 + 100 + 900 (quickblade) + 100 (quickblade) + 500 = 2500

    How the bugged version works w/ quickblade - 900 + 100 + 900 + 100 + 2000 (flat dmg applied 4x) = 4000.  This amount is MUCH more than we expect or desire.

So if you followed me through all that, you see that Flat Damage + an ability with multiple dmg effects is a recipe for crazy dps.  Bugged DPS.  I used 500 flat dmg in my example.  This is a very conservative number compared to what players can get in a raid.



Let's answer a few questions:

1. What is this combat spam?  How much dmg am I really doing?

Take a look at this image and then I will decipher it.



Orange Damage (Totaled Damage) is the total sum of an attacks effects and multipliers.
Blue Damage (Added Sums) is the effects and multipliers impacting orange damage.

Using the picture as an example, the final number (orange) for Thundering Fists is the sum of all the "quickly strikes" attacks as well as the damage from the Thundering Fist. The blue text is just what each effect hit for.

Multiple effects within attacks (Thousand Fist, Shank, Shiv, etc.) do not show up unless they are being modified by buffs that add additional swings (Quickblade, Errant Strikes, Fists of Celerity, etc.). When using these additional attack abilities you can see the number of effects in the base attack by the number of blue lines included in the attacks.

Example

[21:50:52] <BLUE>You quickly strike KOTASOTH, dealing 7139 damage.
[21:50:52] <BLUE>You quickly strike KOTASOTH, dealing 7281 damage.
[21:50:52] <BLUE>You quickly strike KOTASOTH, dealing 7121 damage.
[21:50:52] Your <highlight>Thundering Fists III</color> hits KOTASOTH for <highlight>43281 (30963+1231) damage.

**This information can also be learned from the tool tip of the ability: Thundering Fists III  - You pound your opponent with mighty strikes, hitting 3 times for melee damage plus 155. Only available after using Thousand Fists. Increases Jin by 1.**

 
2. Your above example didn't seem that impressive, is the bug really that bad?

Just read this example of real numbers, from a combat log.  The names have been changed to protect the innocent. 


A drunken monk (we'll call him Fusoyak) uses his Thousand Fist attack, which is part of a 4 part finishing chain,
Thousand fists has 3 effects.
He applies Errant Strikes to add an extra strike for each base effect. +3 effects
He also applies Fists of Celerity to add an extra strike for each base effect. +3 effects
This setup gives us 9 effects on the base attack.
Our Monk is fully raid buffed and is timing + flat dmg buffs and crit buffs.
If you apply abilities such as Quickening Jolt (doubles all damage for 8 seconds).  Quickening Jolt is fine when applied to a normal attack - but if it is modifying the flat dmg that has been applied 9x - the results get crazy.
This can result in attacks such as.....

                Wacky Monk DMG

                [21:52:14] <BLUE>An errant strike hits KOTASOTH, dealing 23395 damage.
                [21:52:14] <BLUE>An errant strike hits KOTASOTH, dealing 23469 damage.
                [21:52:14] <BLUE>An errant strike hits KOTASOTH, dealing 23397 damage.
                [21:52:14] <BLUE>You quickly strike KOTASOTH, dealing 21444 damage.
                [21:52:14] <BLUE>You quickly strike KOTASOTH, dealing 21623 damage.
                [21:52:14] <BLUE>You quickly strike KOTASOTH, dealing 21193 damage.
                [21:52:14] Your <highlight>Thundering Fists III</color> hits KOTASOTH for <highlight>197920(143920+54000)</color> damage.


This is ONE attack in a 4 step chain.  I think all can agree 200k attacks cannot be seen as balanced or fair to other classes.


3. You mentioned the weakness system.  How will that be affected?

Weakness exploit damage is also not supposed to receive the bonus from flat damage.  The results are too unpredictable and there isn't a way to fix it without our proposed bug fix (which I'll cover next).  Even if I made the damage from the exploit 1 point and you had 2000 in flat damage buffs it would be too much, not to mention they would suck for anyone who didn't have flat dmg buffs.

Again, we'll pull an example from a combat log.

Exploit Damage

                [21:47:39] <BLUE>You exploit the soul wracked weakness on KOTASOTH, dealing 1975 additional damage.
                [21:47:39] Your <highlight>Ashen Hand VII</color> hits KOTASOTH for <highlight>13699


4. What is this "bug fix" you keep talking about?

We weighed our options and instead of making a blanket change to how flat dmg is added we decided to add a coefficient field to each effect.  In essence this means that we can govern how much flat damage modifies each effect.  What am I talking about?  Let's take a weakness exploit.  Let's say it is supposed to deal 200 dmg when exploited.  We alter the coefficient to 50%.  This means that ½ of the flat damage that you have access to will be applied to the exploit damage.

To fix most of the problems, we will be setting the coefficient to zero on the extra effects on abilities.  It will still affect the base attack, but the added effects won't get the flat dmg.

That is really it.  That is the easy part, trust me.


5. Will my class be affected?

Answer for yourself - you will see a dmg difference if any of the following is true

You regularly combine flat dmg buffs and weakness exploits
You regularly combine flat dmg buffs and multi-swing abilities (Frenzy, Zeal, Errant Strikes, etc)                                                                                                               

If you answered no to the both to these, then you shouldn't notice any change at all.

If you answered yes to number 1, then you will notice a small decrease, unless you frequently get hundreds of flat damage buffs for the express purpose of exploiting weaknesses.

If you answered yes to number 2, then read on.

Some classes will be affected more than others because of ability makeup.  If you have abilities that cause your attacks to hit multiple times then you will be affected in some way or another. 


Low Levels: In any case, if you are low level, say below level 20, you will notice little or no change even if you do belong to a class that is affected the most in the above examples.  The flat dmg numbers at these levels just aren't that high, so you won't really miss much.

Solo:  Only those classes that have flat dmg buffs will notice a change and then only a very minor one.  If you are a Monk who frequently combines Jin Surge and 1k fists chain, you will notice a small decrease in dmg from that combo.  Paladins who Zeal and Marshalling Cry together will also notice a small drop.  Most classes will notice little or no difference.  Remember, we are not altering any buffs, attacks, etc, except to apply a coefficient for flat dmg.  All you bards out there worried that your flat dmg components are getting changed - don't be, as they are not being touched.

Group: The chance that you are currently stacking enough flat damage is still pretty small.  Even with crafted armor and have a bard, the effects should be rather minor.

Raid: The largest change will be felt of you are a raiding character and are able to stack a lot of flat dmg buffs at the same time.  If this is not you, then you will notice little or no change.  At this point, the largest offenders are Rogues, Monks, Tuurgin Shaman, Paladins, War Clerics and possibly Rangers, although this is not confirmed yet.  Of these, the first 2 are the biggest concern. 
I'm not going to beat around the bush on this one.  If you are one of these classes listed, your ability to achieve the amount of damage that you can currently will be diminished.  Yes, this is a dmg nerf.  Before you freak out, read the next portion please.


6. Whoa!  You are nerfing me!?  How will you make sure that this is balanced?  Or, phrased differently "Momma, I hate the bad man.  Make him go away."

We are spending the next several weeks gathering data and tweaking numbers and gathering more data.  Here's how this will play out.

We will do large runs of tests and gather dps data.  Raid tests, solo tests at various levels, group tests, etc.  We will measure kill times, sustained dps, etc.  This is mainly focused on the raid game because this is where we see the largest issues and thus, this is where we need to largest adjustments.
We will make the above changes to abilities by adding coefficients to offending abilities.
We will test again.  We will compare our first set of data with the new and then hold that up against our dps model.
We will alter the dmg of each class that does not fit that model.
We will alter NPC hitpoints to match the new DPS of players and raids
We will test again to make sure that we are spot on.
Monks and Rogues - yes, you are being nerfed at the highest end.  Together with Sorcerers you will still top the DPS charts - only the numbers will change.  I am not going to comment or promise a certain value of DPS.  If you were obsessed with breaking 100k dmg simply to see 6 digits on your screen, then you will be disappointed.  If your goal was to pump out the max allowed dps in the game - you will be happy.  All we are doing to adjusting the game so that the max is lower and so that you are in line with every other class.


7. How can I help?

We will take as much assistance as we can.  At some point in the near future we will make a post asking for help on the test server.  This will be our initial data gathering blitz.  We will gather our own data internally as well, but the more data, the better.  Once changes are made we will want another large battery of tests.  We will post more details about how best to get the data to us when the initial test phase gets closer.


Summary

Soloing, non-raid geared, non-raid buffed will see a very very minor decrease (almost unnoticeable) in overall damage output.

Overall raid DPS in particular by Rogues and Monks will see their spike damage reduced quite a bit, but remain fairly high on the parses (may need further adjustments).  These changes are not going to be implemented without extensive testing with and without raid buffs/effects. Monks and Rogues will not log in and see yourself at the bottom of the damage charts.

In conclusion, I hope this post helps relieve some of the worry that many of you are experiencing. The purpose of the fix is to reduce the spike damage that certain classes are currently able to produce. Normal combat will see very little, if any changes, as the changes will mainly focus on the abilities that allow those classes to modify their damage beyond logical expectations.

Please post if you have questions about what we have detailed here.

As long as they take their time and impliment it the way they intend I think it's going to be pretty good overall, for the game, guilds and players.

I'll be monitoring both boards for further questions if you guys have any. We did many revisions to try and make it as simple as possible while touching on all elements.

So now that its posted i have a few questions/comments

How it is supposed to work w/o quickblade - the damage is 900 (base) + 100 (bonus dmg) + 500 (flat dmg) = 1500dmg.

    How the bugged version works w/o quickblade - the damage is 900 + 100 + 1000 (flat dmg being applied 2x) = 2000dmg.  Here we don't see a huge difference; we are only getting the flat dmg one additional time.

    How it is supposed to work w/ quickblade - 900 + 100 + 900 (quickblade) + 100 (quickblade) + 500 = 2500

    How the bugged version works w/ quickblade - 900 + 100 + 900 + 100 + 2000 (flat dmg applied 4x) = 4000.  This amount is MUCH more than we expect or desire.

1) What is bonus dmg? Is that when a skill says melee dmg + X
2) Is str a flat dmg or is that part of the base dmg?
3) is iron hand a flat dmg? (i thought it said +200 to melee dmg, not to the next attack ill look later)
4) I assume jin surge is flat damage (since it says + 330 dmg to the next attack)
5) i dont really understand the logic behind quickblade/errant strike/fist of celerity, if it doubles the dmg of an attack why should it only double pre flat dmg? i get that it shouldn't be multiplied 9 times or what not.  But if the attack hits for 5k regularly, why should it only go up to 7k when you double the attack
6) Are damage modifiers supposed to apply to flat dmg? Like my +40% dmg rating, is that not supposed to apply to the +200 dmg etc?  (general concern is who decides what modifiers apply to what?)


So i guess i never noticed this since i dont use errant/celerity at the same time. Thus never had 12k dps/ over 100k hits.  My top thousand fist was about 45k. 

So let me give an example to show my confusion i guess.

Thundering Fists III  - You pound your opponent with mighty strikes, hitting 3 times for melee damage plus 155.
(gonna use a 2 hander for simplicity)
Melee dmg is 2800 raid buffed with all my % dmg modifiers on and with a bard song.

So it should be     ( 2800(base)+155 (bonus dmg)) *3 + flat damage (gonna assume 330 from jin surge, 200 from iron hand, and 86 from bloodmage)

8400 + 616 (flat dmg)

Then if i errant strike it goes to
16000 +616

And if i combine errant and celerity
24600+616

The reason i ask is because of str and where it falls into the equation.  Because thats the difference of 
8400 + 616 thousand fist, and a (9k)
5000+1316  (with str added as a flat dmg)  (6.3k)

Simonson's summary:
Go roll a sorc if you are a rogue at the moment (rogues will be redundant)
If you are a monk and like pulling/stancekicking - cool, if you like your dps go roll a sorc.

Another alternative is convincing yourself that being largely useless and weak will be fun, "oh but at least i'll be in the 1 or 2 boss fights that needs melee based dps"

I really don't understand how sorc can be justified as the highest dps.
Consider this:
More dps than rogue
More solo ability than rogue
More group utility (resistance buffs, ranged mezz, dis-enchant, counterspell etc)
Better survivability (don't get hit by dmg shield, most Aes)
Less restricted by position.

Monk still has some useful tricks for raid recovery, stance remove and pulling, but i'm in it for monk dps - the other stuff bores me. Imo monk and rogue should be more dps than sorc, to keep things "balanced"

OKay just tested iron hand and what not.

Unbuffed: Naked (minus 2 flawless fistwraps of striking)
Weapon dmg main: 139-152 (avg: 145.5)
Weapon dmg off h:139-152 (avg: 145.5, 72.75)
Main hand dmg: 409 - 423 (avg: 416)
Main hand minus wpn: 270 (97% of str bonus)
Off hand dmg: 203 - 211 (avg: 207)
off hand minus 0.5*wpn: 134.25 (97% of 0.5*str bonus)
Str: 357
Bonus from str:276.7


Thousand 1984 (1358+626)   (melee+168) *3
Thunder 2103 (1437+666)    (melee +155)*3
Legendary 2081 (1373+708)   (melee+ 149) *3



Iron hand  +200 melee damage
1115-1137  (1327-1349)(+212)
554-569 (659-675) (106...half of 212)


+51.75% dmg rating (gear and self buff)
731 str (+679 dmg)
mathamatical Melee dmg: (145+679)*1.5175 +212 = 1462
Actualy melee dmg: 1423
mathamatical off hand dmg:(72.75+339)*1.5175 +106= 730
actualy off hand dmg: 701



Long story short, the +dmg is being added to the melee dmg, and as such isnt doing anything funky when you use thousand fists.  It was (literally melee+dmg ) *3 * mobs mitigation.  Tested before and after raid buffs, and it was always just melee+x *3.   So this leads me to beleive that iron hands +200 dmg isnt a flat dmg, and it is in fact +melee dmg. Aka

"increase the damage of all melee attacks by 200" = +200 main hand dmg and 100 off hand dmg. To the melee dmg itself

+damage is applied as a single unit to the end result, not 100%/50% in the manner of strength.  If you look at your char sheet specifically it's being applied approximately 66% to MH and 33% to OH.  So +200 damage is +200 damage.  If you have a Str bonus of 200 then that is beeing applied +200 MH +100 OH..

Iron hand:its adding 200 to main hand and 100 to off hand with no dmg modifiers on.  thats me completely naked, the whole concept of 66% vs 33% isnt  quite accurate.   

This is exactly what ive always been told about main hand vs off hand.  Main hand is literally 100% in everything off hand is 50% in everything.  Half the weapon dmg, half the str bonus, and half the + dmg bonus from iron hand.

When you have something thats 50% of something else, the overall result is the main hand is 66% of the total and the off hand is 33%. 

In total iron hand is adding +318 dmg, Sure thats 66% main hand and 33% off hand, but thats also +200/+100 (100% of the buff/50% off the buff)  Depending on how you look at it.  Also it was the exact same no matter what combo of dual wields i used.   

The concept of 66%/33% is great but if you dont get the math that gets you theres its pointless.  Its more accurate to think of it as 100% main hand and 50% off hand as far as how to calculate the damage for each individual hand.

I can say for sure that you are 100% wrong in your math though sung.

Ive tried 12 different weapon combos with different speeds and everytime I get the same result.

Melee dmg (main hand):  ((Weapon dmg + str bonus)*1.dmg modifier) + flat dmg
Off hand dmg ((0.5weapon dmg + 0.5 str dmg) *1.dmg modifier) +0.5 flat dmg

AKA 200 dmg weapon in main off.
500 dmg from str
50% dmg modifier
+200 from iron hands

main:((200+500)*1.5)+200 =1250
off: ((100+250)*1.5)+100 = 625

It adds 300 dmg, on every dual wield combo.  This is because its adding +200 to melee dmg not to the dmg of the next hit.  Its not adding 132 to main hand and 66 to the off hand, its 200/100

He made a point of saying that monks would still compete for top DPS, and said nothing about how sorc should be the highest dps.

I will have to test it out for myself once the changes are released as I'm an english major not a math major.  The impact on fists of celerity and errant strikes are what worries me the most, right now this is such a huge factor in determining my dps as a drunken monk.  A lot of how I plan my abilities revolves around these two, and I am wondering with the change if I can still justify drunken over dragon.

Overall just looking at it, it doesn't look that bad to me.  Other than rogues I often triple the dps of other classes, while I feel that monks and rogues should still top DPS after GU6 (by a significant number in order to justify using melee in most fights) I have never denied that the gap is too large.

I also see nothing about the rumor that refresh reduction are no longer going to stack, for example coda of alacrity and the PSI buff, I worry that that change along with this change to dmg modifiers would hurt monks specifically because of our number of 5 min abilities we rely on.  Any word on this?

To add to the confusion in last nights raids i used Errant strike/fist of celerity 10x with thousand fist chain.  Never once did i get a hit for 200k.

In fact every hit was for around 25k non crit and 35k crit.  Which is exactly what it should be. 
Regular hit for 7k, crit for a total of 11k.  double that x2 and its 11k+11k(fist of celerity)+ 11k (errant strike) =33k total....vs 7k+7k+7k = 21k total. 


Im not sure how fusoya is getting these massive damage hits but its definatly not something i am able to reproduce.  Even with max + flat dmg last night, 50% dps mod + whatever the bard added, I never hit for over 100k.  With 10x4 attempts, youd think id see one.

Also i tried adding jin surge to the mix, and it made no difference, still saw around 23k-26k hits. 


Fusoya if you could elaborate more on where these 100k-200k hits are coming from that would be great. As is i cant reproduce them, and even when i use fist and errant strike at the same time i dont see crazy numbers.  I see proportional dmg increase that makes sense.

Same, stacking all stuff together would get to 40k max

Sorry I haven't responded yet. Hopefully I'll make a post tonight to give some answers, if not tonight definitely tomorrow morning. Little backed up IRL today and yesterday, sorry bout that.

-Fusoya

ya know, i have always felt that "balancing" a class based on bleeding edge geared characters was just silly. go back and tweak the raid encounters and leave the rest of us alone.regardless of how they fix this "Bug" that they werent even aware of before raids came out it will end up being a nerf to 90% of the people who play. as far as ive heard there is *1* monk capable of putting out 200k hits, and its not reproducable by anyone else, and that monk is in one of the, if not the, highest ranking raid guilds out there. seems kind of silly to nerf us all instead of handicapping the raid mobs.

i guess my question is there ANYONE besides fusoya who can reproduce this type of damage?

Well they claim it will only affect raiders, but i doubt that.  The simple reason is the way +damage currently works is how they think.  Its not being added at the end, its going straight to melee damage (check the character sheet on attack and off hand).

For this change to work, they need to change skills like iron hand to be like jin surge where the damage IS added at the very END and not to the initial melee damage.  So even non raid monks will lose about 1500 damage per thousand fist just with self buffs.

I know its pretty hard on the eyes here but on the official forums i posted my rendition of melee dps, and it explains why we are getting +900 damage per attack.  Its 100% due to the way +damage is being added to the melee damage and not to the ends of combat arts.

it *should* only effect raiders. however, they are admitidly nerfing to classes to fix a problem created by the high end raid guilds buff stacking.

Re-read Taliskers post carefully. the method of getting 200k hits is in there. build a raid dps group, bard, probably a paladin or warrior (battlecries) and dps. stack up ALL possible +dmg buffs, hit Quickening Jolt, and see the numbers scale up. instead of making the short term flat dmage buffs not stack, which i suspect is the real culprit, they change mechanics, break who knows what and nerf 2 classes.

granted we are being nerfed in the DPS parse so that sorcs stop crying, but thats a different story.

So this is our dps group.
War, bard, clr, monk, rog, rog

With bloodmage, bear shm, psi, clr buffs.  ETC the works.

Tried both ways, once with jolt and once with quickening symbiot.  Neither seemed to matter because i still capped out at 50k.  There has to be something else to get these 100k+ hits.

I would say my largest concerns are twofold and in regards to the ultimate rebalancing, not the bug fix.  They are in regards to monk and rogue viability in raids and solo.

Rogues:
After the final rebalancing, no one will bother playing rogues (again) because, on raids,  they will offer equal or less damage than sorcerers, less utility, and have to be in melee range behind the mob making them require more resources to support and keep alive if the mob has AOEs or damage sheilds.  Addititionally rogues already solo OKish at best.  Don't get me wrong, it can be done but if their damage was nerfed significantly (after the final rebalancing)they'd be in a world of hurt once again leading to less people bothering to play them.  In groups having them do damage on par with sorcerers typically won't matter much either way as the utility that either provide isn't usually saught after (not saying it should or shouldn't be but its usually simply not considered by most groups).

Monks:
...once again only the hormonious monk will be "the best choice" on raids, as they will at least have debuffs to give to help justify having to fight from melee range.  Drunken, dragon?  Why use them over a sorcerer?  What is supposed to offset the penalty of having to fight in melee range and sucking down all AOE damage plus damage sheilds?  Why burn up the extra liability that requires more healers if you can use more casters considerably more safely from range?  Pullers?  Maybe but I've seen it done just fine with disc and necro (as it should be, since no one class should be an end all be all at something), dragon and drunken need desirable utility for raids or need dps that exceeds that of a sorcerer if even by a little to justify expending the extra healing resources to have them in a fight.  Solo, harmonious monks start doing OK eventually at mid to higher levels, drunk and dragon are pretty poor at it thrughout.  But like rogues they depend on their high dps to burn down the mob faster than they get killed.  If they are nerfed heavily after the overall final rebalancing their solo preformance will go to downright abysmal.  Groups once again, harmonious?  OK, they have their debuffs.  Drunken?  Sure if the group has no tank and they are built right it will suffice for a lot of content.  Dragon? Why?  Why would you use dragon over any other dps class available?  Don't get me wrong, most groups really don't care about the utility that monks or rogues or sorcers (or rangers for that matter) bring to groups, they are just looking for more dps and anything does the job.  But if you can't justify a tactical advantage that a particular class or class/path combo gives then what is the point of playing them when another one can give a comparative edge in most situations?

Dragon is by far in need of some kind of real utility (I've suggested being able to apply some kind of elemental weakness debuff so a mob takes more damage from fire for example etc.) and since drunken's tank abilities are all but useless on raids they need something to offer as well (perhaps fix and expand their options in terms of aggro manipulation not on par with but like a melee version of psi).  Both monk and rogue will need something in the solo dept if their damage is nerfed.

At the end when this grand final rebalancing is done there had better be good and reasonable answers as to question such as "why use a dragon monk on a raid if another dps class such as a sorcerer is avialable?"  It should be a hard decision with both offering compartive advantages.  If its an easy decision in most cases then things are not "balanced".

I agree 100% and sadly this is what i see happening.

Errant strikes, celerity and quickening jolt used in conjunction, iirc

Yeh agreed ronmaru, i've been saying all over the place rogue/monk SHOULD be more dps than a sorc for the exact and obvious reasons you stated. Even my guild sorcerors tend to agree. Maybe not by the margin at the moment, but should certainly be at least 25%more dps imo.
Rogue would be totally redundant with current planned changes, and monk to a lesser extent.
I'll be so sad one day when i got full raid buffs and "your thousand fists hits XXXXXXX for 4k dmg" (with celerity hits for 6k)

Besides, sorc would be more dps than us anyway (maybe their CV is "bugged" too :P) if they could just shed aggro as well. Seems like a much simpler fix to give sorc more detaunt, than change game mechanics that have been in since release. Then they wouldn't have to alter mob hp either. LOL but they can spend weeks trying to recode everything and what-not, hell what do i know.  :idiot2:

200 x 1.5 = 300   You are misinterpreting your own results more than likely.  % damage is added after all +dmg.  the fact that it's +melee damage really doesn't matter at all, +melee damage is the same as generic +damage except that generic affects spell damage as well.  I've done many many many tests concerning +damage (seeing as how bards biggest role is adding +damage) and I'm quite certain that my math is correct.But in order to ensure that I'm not mistaken, I'll test this on a L50 monk.   You can even see the results of adding specific amounts of +damage without adding any +% damage on a per hand basis here:  http://www.vgbards.com/forums/index.php?topic=2182.0

I dont know how the bug is produced but i do know that one of fuso guild mates said he is able to solo a lvl 53/6dot raid mob in apw faster then the rest of the raid.  There is all kind of bugs out there based off of way buffs are stacked and using certain skills in a certain order to do massive dmg or so i hear. I have yet to figure this out myself as i can never do a 100k-200k hit unless im attacking vicus. I am just not figuring out how this is going to be fair to the monks. I dont see the numbers to prove that something is stacking 9x instead of the overall addition like everyone is saying should happen. If u can stack buffs or use certain skills in a certain order to bug out so u can do massive dmg then fix that. Dont screw with everyone else that dont know about it just my 2 cents.

I don't know Fuj, I have worse gear than you and I hit for more than that.  I rarely hit for less than 50k with stacks on my thousand fist line, and I do not use a staff I use legion's choking grasp main hand with striking wrap off hand.

I am usually in MT group, with this setup:

Monk
Bard
Cleric
Warrior
Paladin
Blood Mage

So I guess I have pally aura where as you do not.  Buff wise I have buffs from

every class as well as:
Tuurgin
Hayattet
Rakkur
Single target damage buff (from disc  +15% I believe)
some cleric short duration buff (forget the name)
Warrior force crit
and a few others I would have to ask about.  I just know we all stack our boosts for max dps. every 5 min (or the reduced time after refresh reductions 2min something)
Mithril Rune of Damage
Mithril Rune of Strength
Belt of the Ages (+10% every 30 sec, low level CIS quest)
Helm of Dominion (use it if I am too late for the later chains from war forced crit, though we usually have two wars in the raid so this rarely happens)

I haven't used jin surge since I lost my dot when I switched to Drunken (5 jin for 364 damage yuck)

We do not have a regular raiding rogue, so I am pretty undisputed at the top of most of our parses (a paladin out dps'd me once, I must have been afk :P) and I get buffed accordingly.


Then again I don't get your 6k dps, so maybe I shouldn't stack as much (or maybe I don't know how to parse correctly for true dps numbers, I pull and let tank gain aggro so that kinda hurts my numbers).  I don't get 100k regularly but then again I have no where near yours or Fusoya's gear, I average 40-80k but break 100k often enough, and have come close to 200k on several occasions without an epic and not on Vicus (posted parses on the discussion threads).

I don't know how Fusoya can solo anything in apw, except maintenance sparks/servitors (health pots or what?), but I can single handedly out dps the rest of my raid on adds by myself.

I posted my results here: http://www.vanguardmonks.com/option,com_smf/Itemid,27/topic,1096.msg8989/#msg8989   as I felt it was a more appropriate forum for the discussion

after looking at alot of the parses and notes it seems like SOE just wants to bring down the rogue monk dps and just say we are bugged out. I look for skills to be changed to lower our damage instead of the so called bug fix.

I dunno thor, I think the bug fix is needed because it "should" allow for more flex in design.  Considering that right now most +damage abilities stack on multihit attacks it makes it damn difficult to balance those kinds of buffs because they get out of control in select circumstances.  Reigning that in a bit will make it much easier to balance.

Or to view it differently, if you are building a machine and your goal is relatively smooth output, but you find in practice you have major spikes in the production when you are adding a compound into your mix, you would want to find out what is causing the spikes and fix it so that you can safely add in the compound without it messing up the production flow.

The reasoning for doing what they are doing makes a lot of sense.  So does bringing the DPS classes much more in line with each other so that content can be balanced to be challenging across a range of class combinations.  That's all good stuff and for the betterment of the game.

My concerns (as outlined above) are that, with DPS made more even across the board (as it should be) utility and what a class can bring to the table will be notably more important, and some provide more function or risk/maintenance than others and not neccesarily in proportional ammounts.  Additionally monks and rogues are severely dependant on their ability to blitz down an enemy when soloing, notably reducing their damage without giving them an extra tool or two for soloing can and will most likely have major consequences.  There are a lot of different ways to go about that but ultimately something should be done to compensate.

Some people clearly don't like what I'm saying as I got kicked 3 times yesterday for it, but it doeesn't change the fact that this is the nature of the situation.  /shrug

pretty bad when they have to rebalance all mobs hps to reflect the MAJOR nerf to monk/rogue.

part of what makes these types of games fun is the satisfaction of levelling your character and gaining gear and getting more powerful.....

Well you are now taking my lv 50 dps and nerfing it to lv 40ish!

im about 99% sure this is not a bug fix.

We were designed to have strikes with multiple effects so that our buffs would effect each one, just like 1k fists.  3 strikes so that we should have 3x iron fists damage.  Otherwise we would have a strike that deals 300% damage just like how all the other classes are designed.

They say in their post that this is not a nerf... unless you combine skill x plus skill y regularly then yes you are nerfed.  Well as a dragon monk without using fists of celerity, I do on average 3.5k dps which is more than sorc.  So for you to say that sorc will be highest and you are NOT nerfing me unless i use skill x plus skill y i do NOT believe one word you say.

Regardless of what they call it or not (and I would wholly agree that its a major major major nerf to monks/rogue) it still seems that it needs to happen at this point, regardless of original design.  The potential problem is in the follow through.

With limited resources and such drastic changes...I'm skeptical of how "balanced" things will be left feeling when all is said and done at the end of GU6.  I'll keep my fingers crossed granted but I'm not a fool either and suspect it will take a loooong time to iron out the hitches and glitches.

well im starting to doubt ill play after gu5, if theres not something new for raiders to do, i cant handle another 3 months of farming apw.  1-2 new overlands really doesnt cut it when their loot is this bad.

also its probably gonna be another month before gu5 hits live just because they cant figure out this white texture bug on test.  ( i cant even play cause im stuck in new targ, everything is solid white)

yeah i guess maybe im missing the big picture but i know that iron hands says its applied to all melee attacks and if that true then why should it only be applied to the end result of a triple strike. I thought we got multple attacks for a reason since we dont have a set % attack maybe im wrong.

If they put a cap on flat damage added then we will be gimped for future expansion.... Since we are all hitting that cap already if they put new levels, buffs etc in it will add nothing to our damage.  Rangers and other melee classes that do not have the multiple effects and do not cap out on the flat damage added will still benefit from the new buffs.

What they should do is fix the "bug" and give us higher damage weapons to give us higher sustained DPS, and forget the cap.
 
For rangers they already have axes that top at 250+ damage from outside APW.  Our highest damage is the crafted fistwrap at 152 damage.

My guess is that the devs arent even thinking about expansions/content since they've had their hands so full of bugs since the games release.

Naw they could just cap it at +lvl *10 for the cap on flat damage.