So I was sitting there bored tonight since we aren't raiding, and I hurt my knee so I am currently bound to my apartment for the rest of the week so I thought I would take a look at Feign Death, mainly in APW by testing the fail rate, with the plan on seeing what if anything affects it's success rate (including if dalkain's rings really work).  Even if all these numbers change during an engaged mob with all sorts of debuffs and dots on them, it still applies to what I do since I spend a lot of time FD'ing around by myself.

The Test

First I feign deathed in the gnome city 100 times, first without Dalkain's rings.  Then again with Dalkain's rings on.

The results were:

w/dalkain's:3 fails/ 100 Feign Deaths
w/o dalkain's: 3 fails/ 100 FD


Then I decided to test it in combat, to do this I used 20m ranged shuriken to engage apw mobs so that they would be within melee range and swing on me before I would be able to fd, I faced them and did not use any buffs or evasion skills.


First I tested against the Cartheon Bonebreaker near hub:

w/dalkain's: (haven't tested yet)
w/o dalkain's: 17 fails/ 100 FD's

Then against the Cartheon blackhammer and dark night:

w/dalkain's: (haven't tested yet)
w/o dalkain's: 21 fails/100 FD's

I got interrupted when I decided I would go help a friend level rather than waste time "experimenting" on something someone designed and plenty of people probably already knows the answer to.  I'm sure I will get bored again and do more tests.  Overall I think it is about what I expected though, I failed ~1/5th of the time.  Seems like a good number to me.

FD is always frustrating when it fails, but I really like the way it works currently, and the way split pulling currently works and I personally would not like to see it changed .  I didn't notice anything wrong with it as dragon, not saying there isn't a bug for aggro with dots, but its kind of hard to test since, even if it is only putting you back on hate list after the next tic and still wiping your hate initially when soloing you would still get aggro all the same.  I hope someone can test it though, so that they can fix the bug if there is one without messing up Feign Death for the rest of us.

Pictures:

http://www.legionoflegendsguild.com/download/file.php?id=315&mode=view
http://www.legionoflegendsguild.com/download/file.php?id=318&mode=view
http://www.legionoflegendsguild.com/download/file.php?id=319&mode=view
http://www.legionoflegendsguild.com/download/file.php?id=321&mode=view
http://www.legionoflegendsguild.com/download/file.php?id=325&mode=view
http://www.legionoflegendsguild.com/download/file.php?id=326&mode=view
http://www.legionoflegendsguild.com/download/file.php?id=327&mode=view

As someone who "exploits" current buffs, I don't macro any buffs into my thousand fist line.

I find that I do more damage macroing them into my Palm explodes the heart macro, then following up thousand fists line.

Hammer Fist has:
 Errant Strikes
/useitem "Belt of the Ages"
Staggering Fist
crescent kick
/reactionautocounter
/cast "Hammer Fist"
/reactionautochain

(I also use it as my spam finisher button, in order to maximize staggering fist and crescent kick during certain buffs)

Exploding Heart has:
Fists of Celerity
quickening jolt
staggering fist
crescent kick
/wear "Flawless Pariah's Power Bladed Staff of Devastation"
/reactionautocounter
/cast "Palm Explodes the Heart"
/reactionautochain

Then I spam the previous macro as soon as cool down is up, and chain that until fist line is done, by then Fists has usually worn off and I use ashen hand for the remainder of the buff duration.

I will generally use the 2nd macro again for fists of transcendence

It works as a one button macro, I split ES and FoC because sometimes due to lag one may not fire.  Other times however they used to fire normally, it is all about latency I guess (only so many commands went through on time before it is sent in to the servers maybe?)


In LoL raids, when we hit our max damage bursts on non General Vicus bosses (which I love how fujitsu refered to as exploiting since we simply call out our buffs as I'd imagine bow does, wish I cared enough to dig through the mud of Xeth's forums to see what exploits his guild has been accused of  )

Palm explodes the heart for me usually ranges around 70-88k at the highest with a dot ranging from 6-12k

Fist chain ranges from 60-190k at the highest

They can fix whatever "bug" they want, I have never been an average monk and I won't be one after the change either.  If anything I find it funny that when there is talk of nerfs incoming suddenly Fujitsu is an average monk and can't for the life of him figure out how to burst over 100k whereas before he boasted breaking 6k on most parses and out damaging everyone in his guild.  You must have some insane secret damage or something Fujitsu, because I don't know how you can top 6k so much when you claim that you can't hit for more than 25-40k stacking ES and Fists of Celerity (by your own account on these boards).

I don't have great gear because I generally offer my members first crack at gear, but I think I know how to play my class.  It is just a game, it isn't rocket science, and you don't have to exploit to do burst damage similar to what Fusoya and Taliskar posted.

You two are missing a buff somewhere, I have SNARF gear (comparatively) and I rarely hit for less than 50k on thousand fist line during boss fights.

Is your STR at or near cap (mine is not even at cap, only ~950 with full buffs and fully STR buffed meat) I assume it is.

You are macroing FoC, ES, and Quick jolt together?  You are getting cleric and war short term buff?  Pally aura?  All debuffs on mobs (maybe your raid setup is missing a class), do you have belt of the ages, and mithril runes of STR and Damage?  All I know is in my guild we all stack as many damage buffs as possible every big timer (5 min non buffed), I couldn't tell you the specifics but I can try to ask at tonight's raid.

I don't think Fujitsu is hurting on damage from his posts on the subject, but I'm hardly geared like Fusoya and I can replicate similar numbers.

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 ) 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.

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?

Clerics I believe have a raid class lead as well, glad to see we have any class lead.

As long as you are not in Sung's pocket 

Well gee maybe they should name a new class lead and then they might have some answers.

But no I'm sure cel and the sorc lead have just as much insight it must be a bug!  Or some other serious game flaw, monks actually wanted in raids other than fifteen seconds for a pull, what is this injustice??  This is Everquest after all isn't it!!?

Oh wait...

1.  Got any tips for getting Pain's parser to work?  I tried re downloading IE7 and .net, I can tell you that two other very good parsers are xanadu's and mmosite's

2. There is an exploit, however I hope that the dev's are aware what the exploit is and can fix it without having ANY end buffs stack, because without tuurgin buffs we are back in end hell.

3.  I disagree monk/rogue damage I feel is fine in groups, and right where it should be.  Solo wise we are a melee class, I never expected to be top tier solo.  We solo alright in many instances, the fact that is much harder than other classes I don't think is imbalance I think it is working as intended.

4.  Spike dps is the exact reason why nerfing our FD would kill our class, monk's damage is at least 50-70% spike and without a full aggro wipe we wouldn't even compete.  Casters do not need this full aggro wipe, all they need is a raid buff that reduces spell hate similiarly to melee hate and for a few of their broken deaggro's (if you consider ranged rangers a "caster")

5.  Exactly and when I tried to explain this to cenn he just ignored me, every class not gearing the same way/ having the same playstyle does not equal imbalance.  I have a caster char, and do not think they need to change INT at all other than fix the bug where going over makes it like you have 1 INT.

Other than the sorc and bard lead whining, have you actually talked to any dev Fujitsu that hinted there might be changes?

I would be all for celerity and errant not stacking, it would reduce drunken's dps enough I think that I don't think anything else needs to be done.  I think refresh haste should still stack, it does not just benefit us.

I don't think they should reduce our damage at all, they should just boost some caster dps and add some hp onto raid mobs to counteract the change in overall dps.

I played pulling classes before in other MMO's, and I do not think it is acceptable to be pigeon holed to that one job, I also disagree that our solo ability would be considered a class defining aspect.  At 50, and before then with good gear it can be a definite advantage (as well as FD's usefulness) but I think other classes can do it as good or better.  Melee need top damage right now to be viable to raids.  If you are going to take that away take away stance removal from disciples and rangers, and make our hate transfer more relevant because without those I would much rather have a caster and not have to deal with ae effects.

I am still looking forward to testing out the haste changes, if it is decent don't forget the extra secret procs as well.

I also hope that it will help make a bigger difference between dragon monks and harm/drunken (due to their proc), as well as hand to hand monks vs. two handed weapon monks.  Maybe even to the point where a hand to hand monk would invest more into haste, making us slightly less burst dps (which is how I would describe all current monks at max level now) and more sustained DPS (which is how I pictured Dragon monks, with their additional large damage end attack, and decent dot and proc to keep their damage high throughout the fight)

There are lots of environmental/ mob quirks that make solo pulling possible, but it will never be as fast as a coordinated and experienced pulling team.

A lot of this is answered here:

http://www.vanguardmonks.com/option,com_smf/Itemid,27/topic,1048.0/

I generally activate quickening jolt with my exploding heart macro and it lasts through the 4 thousand fists.

I haven't had problems with errant strike not working here, however I have had all sorts of problems if I have it up and my defensive target is not the tank.  Such as chains not popping when they are suppose to.

On another weird note about errant strikes and the patch, my counter abilities will occassionaly activate when my defensive target dodges or parries I hope this gets fixed soon as it makes monks go from now debuffs, to basically king of all debuffs with quivering palm activating several times a minute on me fighting trash and Brok the biomancer in Marina the other night.

Dalkain's rings (I have 2) seem to give me a rather large bonus to my FD chances.  However due to the difficulty of changing equipment sometimes once you have engaged a mob in APW, I only use them when dragging a healer's corpse or something.

As for holding spell casters, if you have a sorc to cast reflective runes on you I find that helps, and failing that a reflection granite carving does the trick pretty well.  I generally do that if there is not some corner/pillar to hide behind while the mob is inbound.

As someone who played Dragon monk to 50, and then raided with dragon monk before switching to drunken can I say one thing?

Dragon monk is not THAT bad.  You all blow it way out of proportion, let's see some parser evidence to back up some of your claims of horrid dps.   And don't give me 4x thousands fists becauseyou are talking about 60k+ avg every minute and 45 sec (assuming you have a bard in your group), and ~25k every other 45 seconds or so.   Yes drunken get that, but dragon gets a pretty decent dot. a proc and much more flexibility with the weakness system.   I think without parsers everyone gets too caught up in a few big numbers, and forget about the little ones that add up during a long boss fight which is really how monks play in a lot of other MMO's.  To really max out dragon's damage you have to play it much differently, make sure your dot is always up, obviously still spam explodes the heart, and thousand fist chains as much as possible, but you also need to to make the most of our weaknesses much more than drunken because you aren't constantly firing off chains throughout the whole fight.  The end result is much closer damage wise than you would think, I did not switch from dragon due to the poor DPS and would go back if I wasn't needed for corpse dragging (frankly put, the perfect dodge abilities harm and drunken get are not needed at all for pulling they are just easy buttons).

Dragon does not need a full revamp, AoE IS useful on MANY fights (not to mention that behind exploding heart line, thousand fists, and dragon's own finisher line it is the most powerful finisher vs. one target), and with raid endurance the way it is dragon is by far the best AE'er of the three due to their style specific cone.

I also disagree that it should be as simple as highest dps, middle, lower.  I don't remember that ever being the case, even in beta and at launch all the damages could be pretty close, it is just about different ways to reach those numbers.  All classes should have different things to offer like has been said, harmonious has their utility/debuffs, an awesome dot and what not, drunken has spike damage (for aggro)y, and dragon has AoE, a proc, and the best endurance attack (as it says high endurance cost, high damage Six Dragon Strike along with it's enraged exploit blow any other styles endurance attack out of the water).

I think they should as much as possible try to work within the current parameters of the different styles, when you change things too much that is when you end up creating more imbalances and just end up hurting the entire class.

I like the idea of possibly adding INT or something that further boosts secrets to dragon monks,fix drunken's hate transfer onto defensive target, but I really think very little needs to be done as far as class balancing even if i am in the minority with that opinion.

If none of you are willing to put up numbers, next time my guilds farms entry wing or something I'll try to do some parses with dragon vs. other styles (although Quinn sounded like he was doing this already).

I'm not saying dragon doesn't need some help, but I'm worried they are going to either go overboard and end up getting the whole monk class nerfed, or scaling back the other two styles enough that you have to choose between 0 utility or poor dps, and to be honest if that is the choice I'm parking myself in group 4 and going to alternative strategies for pulling etc.

Part of the address changed last night as we changed the content management format or something..., sorry should work now.