Vanguard Monks

This wasn't a combat feature developers were completely aware of, it was not their idea to use it as an excuse to nerf monks and rogues. I approached them with the bug and what I thought were the causes.

It's fun but Monks should not be able to solo trash mobs in APW in 4-5 swings. Impossible to balance that compared to other classes.

We will be doing testing on exactly how much this lowers our ability damage, its not meant to drop us below any other class currently. After these changes Monk and Rogues still be top raid dps...until class balancing goes in. They may decide to release it all in 1 patch. Regardless the abilities will be tested before the class balancing occurs, even if it is released in the same patch.

If the way the Thousand Fist line is coded doesn't allow it to compete with other classes finishers, we'll change the ability to be more in line with its intended damage.

This is in fact a bug fix, the game cannot be balanced with mechanics that are broken so severely. I don't want to see monks drop in damage either, but I realized it's something that needs to be done for the benefit of the game. If the bug wasn't found and fixed, we would more than likely see a flat % damage reduction to all of our abilities and end up having to experience a revamp every time levels / content / gear / buffs / mobs / abilities / anything changed.

This bug fix hurts me probably more than anyone else, because I knew what was happening and could maximize my damage as a result. Defining this bug helped save the majority of the monk community a huge damage reduction, by pinpointing the problems and just adjusting the broken components. In theory, yes Iron Fist and all monks would be affected, but coding is not always as the tool tips read, and yes the developers have the ability to set order of operations. If they want to leave Iron Fist in the Thousand Fist mechanic, they can do so. Personally I'd like to stay at the top of the DPS list and intend to, but not at the expense of the game as a whole. We will remove the bug, adjust our damage to fit what the norm is right now (monks not using the extreme amount of modifications) and then worry about class balancing and adjusting our damage to fit the trend line.

So im still not getting these magic 200k crits.  So can you explain to me how the following is a bug?
Thousand fist
(Melee+155) *3   

In raid thats with all + damage, my melee damage is at ~3000:
(3000 + 155)*3  ==~9.5k

With jolt thats:
9.5*2 = 19k.

With Jolt + fist of celerity + errant strike:
19k (base) + 19k (fist of celerity)  + 19k (errant strike)

Your <highlight>Fists of Transcendence</color> hits SENATOR DEMETRIUS for <highlight>62028 (43712+18316)</color> damage.


I mean i just dont see this bug your speaking of.  Every skill is doing exactly what it says its supposed to do.  To me it seems that the real bug is all the + damage stacks, and that its added directly to melee damage.  Theres nothing in there about multiple effects on the attack.  I mean it fits the equations for the attacks exactly.

On top of that, i see that all 3 (joly/errant/fist) shouldnt stack dont get me wrong.  But i think the big issue is defining where the + damage is added, and apparently adding it directly to melee damage seems to be the issue, but that isnt a bug, thats how its been since day 1.  If they wanted to change how + damage was added to attacks, thats no longer a bug fix thats a change to combat mechanics, one that effects every class by a large ammount.

post a vid of you soloing an apw mob and then ill believe it....

I solo trash in APW all the time and I'm a Dragon monk. I don't even have errant strikes nor any invulns.

Jakik hits regularly for 150-200k when he pops all 3 (errant strikes, FoC and Quickening). It's not make believe and is easily achieved.

On 99 for example I do over 7k dps as a Dragon and Jak can do over 10k dps.

This has to get fixed, plain and simple. I have no Idea why you are not getting the same numbers Fuji, but they are indeed easily achievable.

Not too sure about the effect every class by a large ammount bit?  From my understanding (Unless I missed something?  Wouldn't be the first time.) it really only should effect the listed classes, monk/rogue/pally/turg  aka classes with multihit abilities.  Others really shouldn't notice that specific change.  That said...

Is this an actual parse?  If so, then I don't know.  If its just hypotheticals, then I think I can see a mistake:

In raid thats with all + damage, my melee damage is at ~3000:
(3000 + 155)*3  ==~9.5k

That would be your damage without any +flat damage buffs.  If I understand right, you'd have to add the flat damage to thousand fists 9 times (3 times for the 3 effects in thousand fists times 3 for base + errant + celerity), then double it for quickening jolt (which applies after errant and celerity I believe).

The formula talisker gave was:

total damage = (ability damage + flat damage) * % damage buffs

so your total damage will be (28.5k + X) * 2 where X is whatever damage you got from the flat damage, which I understand can be rather high  :o.

Let me know if my math is off, I'm tryin to get an idea of how this is working.

I fail to see the problem. The biggest factor in the equation is Quickening Jolt, not Fist of Celerity, nor Errant Strikes. I don't see why WE should be fixed - it's Quickening Jolt that gets applied to the wrong things.

Flat damage is added to melee damage, so in a raid if i have 3000 melee damage thats with all the +flat damage added in.  Thats where the real problem is, not in skills that are 300% weapon damage.   The fact that we get the +flat damage added into our regular melee damage makes the hits large.

The flat damage is added 1x to your melee damage, and is then multipled by 3 for thousand fist, and then by 2 for each additional + damage buff.  If you use all 3, then yes the + damage ends up being (3 +3 +3 )*2  So that +200 damage is ending up as + 4000 damage.

The way melee damage works is it already has the % damage modifers in it.  So thousand fist really is as simple as (3000+155)*3    That includes flat damage AND damage modifiers (which dont apply to flat damage)

And yes that was an actual parse of my 60k hit with each of the parts broken down. 

Being as i didnt have war/paladin buffs for either of those attempts id have to assume people hitting for 120-200k are getting those buffs, and that they are most likely the real couprit

Even without quickening jolt, having that kind of fire power available every minute and 28 seconds...Pretty much every other 1k fist chain is one with cool downs. But once again, I stress the fact that if you don't get big numbers now, you won't notice a big difference. The only argument that would be valid at this point are Monks complaining they won't have god-mode anymore. Other than that, don't worry so much. Gonna get gray hairs.

The bug is being fixed and the abilities involved will receive tweaks. You can do all the math 50,000 times over and use 1,000 examples, honestly it won't do any good with the way things are coded currently. Until the changes are made, it's hard to say the exact impact. Once we have something to work with, I can give you more details and updates on which of are abilities are changing because of it. Might even ask a few of you to copy your characters to test and work on it.

I work very closely with Talisker and you can rest assure that the Monk community has representation in the matter.

Sung,

Everyone has their opinions some bear out others don't. You coming on these forums and double posting the same posts as the OVF is not specifically needed. Most understand that the changes will be implemented and are trying to get to the root of the issues. While you may be "in the know" you are not a member of the dev team or the monk class lead and as such your posts no matter how well informed are only opinion. Rest assured that all reading these forums are reading the OVF as well.

You can and most likely will continue to do as you want but know that you are fostering not open discourse but resentment  and bad will in more than a few eyes. These forums are Monk specific and while open to all are focused on Monks and Monk issues. To have another class come in and tell the population here how the Monk class is to be played and how our skills work rubs a lot the wrong way. As a proponent of these changes you coming here and posting is akin to kicking someone while they are down.



Just a bit of insight for you, do with it as you will.

you are 100% right. the biggest problems are the multiplicative effects. the "Flat damage" stuff is just a way to justify a full class nerf, if you only nerf the multiplicatives it only effects the cases where you have tons of multiple attack buffs stacked. take those away and the problem goes away w/o a top down nerf.

they (SOE) i am sure are aware of this. but it is much easier to say "well see we found this bug here, sorry  guys buts its a bug we gotta fix it!" instead of "well, we need to nerf the damage so that sorcs have an edge. not enough people are playing them so we need that flavor of the month."

are the changes going to happen regardless of what any of us think? yep. cant do a damn thing about. it would be nice to have them not try to BS us but well im sure a public relations expert is writing the "official" story.

i agree with you hak. Its a flat out nerf and they are just trying to justify it to the players.

This bug fix wasn't the developers discovery or idea. I came to them explaining the situation and why it was happening. If you saw the amplifications I see every night, you'd realize how broken the current system really is.

Our damage is being changed with balancing anyways, this just eliminates a bug and allows the developers to give us accurate abilities and actually know what they will do. It will probably go in with the class balancing patch, but will be done prior to the balancing. Why would they make up excuses to nerf us prior to class balancing? If anything I think this will help us in the balancing process to ensure people who aren't reproducing the damage I am aren't getting lowered in damage as if they are.

The devs have stated their vision.

Sorc top caster DPS and top overall DPS.

Rogue top Melee DPS
Monk Second Melee DPS.

In the end it will be this way, we will be one of the top DPS classes.

The bug fix is glarringly obvious to those of us that see it nightly in raid enviorments. I personally saw over a 300k hit lastnight on Malazath, and this hit wasn't alone it was accompanied by several 150K+ hits right infront of and behind it.

They will fix the bug and see where our DPS stands once it is corrected.

Remember as I have posted many times I do over 7k DPS on pretty much all bosses and I am a Dragon monk. I do not even have erran fists and I dont use quickening jolt I stick with Frenzy (simply cause I'm busy with stuff and dont want to micro manage yet another clicky).

I only have the single thousand fits/thundering fist chain with only those two abilities, so no errant strikes and no quickening jolt and I can still get over 7k dps, so rest easy in that while our numbers will dimisnish they are not going to drop to an undesired level. And if they do, they will adjust out damage skills to put us where they desire us to be, second highest melee DPS, which is pretty good in my personal opinion.

The margin between the classes are going to be very small. A monk with better gear will out dps a sorcerer, as well as different fights favoring different classes. Even when the classes are considered complete in terms of balancing you will see monks as #1 dps and sorcerers who are #5. Variations due to skill, gear, and which encounter will all impact where you stand as a DPS class. Just because you play a monk doesn't meant you will not be able to surpass a rogue or sorcerer in terms of damage.

Exactly how it should be.  Make player skill the determinant, not broken mechanics or bugged abilities.

My problem with statements like "It won't be that bad, they're gonna be balancing us again", is that the devs have already stated that they believe the Monk class to be finished. We're not going to receive any new revamps. Plain and simple.

Not sure where you got that idea, but I'll disperse that rumor right now.

 Question: fujitsu-xeth asks, "Monks got some attention in gu3, but nothing in game update 4. Feign death dealy still isnt live, our class lead has been MIA for over a month, and drunken and dragon monks are wondering when they will get their useless skills fixed or changed to something meanigful. Stuff like foolhardy swagger (doesnt transfer hate) or sun dragons corona"

Silius: Monks received a pass recently and as we finish up the classes we will still fix bugs along the way. There are currently no plans to revisit monks again in the near future outside of bug fixing.

***
Dev chat-log: http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm?GAMEID=147&SETVIEW=features&LOADFEATURE=1821&bhcp=1
Just over half way down

I think what Fusoya is talking about is that during the melee rebalance, if monks are way under where they should be, then the developers will up the damage of skills until we are back where we should be.

And what simmon is refering to is broken skills, and interform blanace (aka dragon has lots of useelss skills, drunken isnt as defensive as it should be ala taunts and stance)

You are both right, monks will get our skills rebalanced, but we wont get the overhaul we need on stances, ae attacks, and taunts.

Stances are the hardest thing to try and get changed IMO. I really don't like how the 'tanking monk' cannot tank anything in APW, I think it needs to be compensated. With errant strikes losing some of its fire power, I really think they need some other abilities on their hotbar they can use. Also the Dragon monk isn't the DPS or AE monk. I have a few tweaks in current Dragon abilities that I can hopefully push through to make them a better DPS class and give them some unique AoE's. I'm fairly happy with Harmonious monks and where they are, few minor tweaks I'd like to see go in regarding their abilities.

But you can bet your little monk wraps I'm going to be /poke'ing them everyday after this melee crap gets settled for some monk love.

do share.
please.
you may find that what you think is not necessarily what the monk community thinks.

Im Glad to hear that you are pushing for some kind of tweeks because its been a long time since we last saw any.
Overall as a drunken i am happy and with some of the proposed ideas you have in here maybe they will get in and be viable additions to our class specific skills.As for tanking in APW I personally do not see that as how i plan to use the defensive abilities.For me its all about surviving till the next pull is in and safely able to get a heal.
So far im glad to have you leading our class and the rest of us should acknowledge that you are working to get us where we should be.
Just a Drunkens two cents

I agree Kivik.

I'll get into specifics after we finish working on this combat stuff. I'll be taking polls and asking for ideas when it's closer to a time when I can actually push for changes. If I were to mention it now, it would simply be brushed under the carpet, as they are extremely busy worrying about class balancing, mob hp and the current classes undergoing heavy changes. I plan to include responses here heavily in the decisions made regarding the class. The way I see it, I'm merely a messenger.

Really appreciate the work you're putting in on this Fuyosa. If nothing else it's nice to know monks have an active representative with the devs once again.

Monks have needed this second passing over for quite a while and I'm sure in due time we'll get ours, so to speak.

/bow

Copied from my post on the official forums in SOE, ill keep spaming this list till I see something on their list :P

In addition those lists, I shall add the following :

I would like to add general things, things that make Monks fun to watch and play! My target is for fun!

Things like :

- More animation deaths...
- Add couple of death sounds...
- Custom animation when sitting while meditating (Yoga stand maybe?) it should be equal to normal sitting....
- More and more fighting animation!
- Make us NOISY MONKies!!  Let us scream  "Heyaaah! Woaaa....etc"
- Let us Fun to watch!

Again, as for meditating skill(spell) add another one for gaining GIN, and call it Spare ;)  where I gain JIN every 10second while punching/kicking the air :)

I would go AFK for hours while sparing :P

And for the Love of Might Allah please remove the duration of Fake death!  (feign death)!

Sadlly none of those are even possible in the sense that they really wont spend coding time on stuff like that until EVERY thing else is done. :-(

Thats like never, i know :(

If only AoC had a monk class type!!!  Nvm!

I didnt test FD duration, any idea how long it lasts? I might time it or something!

Wiki : What is FD duration : When I remain FD for a long period (Around 15min+)    I automatically stand after that period.

Just need a comfirmation of the situation only, As I also hear its a way to fight camping mules!

it seemed like an hour to me not 100% sure on that though

Blackbelt as a temporary fix for the sound effects, you can download media players and hotkey each sound file to one of your vanguard hotkeys. Would just need to find some appropriate kung-fu sounds. Let us know how it goes if you decide to give it a shot.

-Fusoya

Yup, you can edit the in game sounds by renaming files you find as the same.

(example)
Death.midi   is the default, and you find Awesomekungfudeath.midi.  Just rename the Awesome one into death.midi, and replace the old file.


1) I dont know what the actual names are
2) I dont know what the actual sound file types are (midi, wave, mp3)  i know the in game music is a weird format that plays on mp3 players though (it was like .cal3)
3) I dont know if changing the sounds is permanent, it used to be you would have to patch the game, then add the sound files after you patched, but before the character select.  And every time you patched it would replace the sound files with the default.


Eq2 and eq1 had a neat workaround where you could have a Custom music/sound folder and it would load those instead of default and you didnt have to reset it each time, im not sure if VG has that or not.

Hmm, might actually give it a shot just for the hell of it :P
Sadly, I think it also effects my alts :P specially my wh00res! Imagine female character with male sounds :P   Shemale EWWwww~

I'll give ya my feed back on it since no type of any patch announced yet! Been more than a month!

OKay i just checked and here how it works.

In Song/vanguard/assets/sounds

There are files like Orc_male.isb  and Orc_male.icb

The isb contains ALL sounds that an orc male player would make, this includes, death, fighting, getting hit, emotes.  The icb contains the information of when to play each sound.

To change the sounds you hear you need an unrealed.exe (lol very expensive and its basically the unreal editor for the game)  or a sound program capable of editing the isb (possible but doubt you will find afree one), while maintaining their same location so that you dont have to change the icb. 

It is possible to edit the extension from isb to something else (mp3) and have SOME of them play, but only about 1 in 10 files actually would play.  I had more luck with the in game music