this is the straw which broke the camels back, not the only reason. as far as actually convincing the devs to take a different look... yeah right. unfortunately the only people they talk to or interact with are the high end raiders, who unfortunately do not take any notice of whats good for the game as a whole just whats best for them.

after silius' post on the forums on this subject i sent him this pm, thought you guys should know.

first off, yes my account is cancelled for a multitude of reasons, which means this message carries exactly no weight whatsoever. however, after spending the last several months of my life enjoying a class, i figured i would make 1 last attempt to break through the wall of raiders who seem to comprimise the only voice being heard in regards to this subject,

First off i do not believe the path you are taking is the correct one. in my opinion it is not actually adressing the problem but is instead treating the symptoms of that problem. that being the case, if vanguard continues to exist as a game and grow then the problem will return in the future.

the first issue i think that needs to be addressed is simply recoding the thousand fists line of attacks and the shiv/shank attacks so that there are no multiple swings taking place. the coding for these has got to be complex, and the fact that the flat damage buffs did not do what was expected had your model been correct should be a pointer that there is something else going on. this was brought up when the first flat damage post by talisker was made, and was shouted down by the same folks giving you the advice you are listening to now. you will be better in the long run removing the complexity from the coding in attacks than trying to keep them in. Also, and i will be the scourge of the monk world for suggesting this, but i would remove the 5-piece monk proc from apw armor. it is wickedly overpowered.

The second issue which needs addressed is going to be raid buffs. melee classes disproportionally increase when raid buffs, and i believe most of the issue comes from the combination of turgin's and renewal. unfortunately if you nerf the abilities because of the growth they obtain in a raid environment it also means you disproportionally nerf them out of that envirionment. i am aware of the issues for tanks it would cause to uncouple these 2 buffs but that combination makes it possible for rogues and monks to just repeatedly spam their abilities. considering how utterly worthless everyone considers melee haste in raids should be a clear indicator of how often we actually have auto-attack on. we don't.

i believe that taking these steps, and possibly re-evaluating how Fists of celerity, quickening jolt and errant strikes stack will solvfe the majority of the problems without creating the lopsided negative effects on characters who are not in a raiding environment. i also believe that correcting these problems now will also help to eliminate the need for further nerfs down the road.

Like i said, due to my inactive account i doubt this will be read, but this is a viewpoint which i know is shared by others in the monk community who realize monks are very OP in a raid but have a very different view as to what the causes are, and what should be done. if you have read this far, thank you for your time.

Sincerly,

XXX

the biggest thing is to make sure you get the 5-piece apw bonus. after that it will be fill in gaps to compliment your own playstyle and gear set. i know thats kind of a nebulous response, and that fuji's is way more specific. however if your only raiding once a week you'll want to look at your own weakest geat and go from there, at least thats how i've always handled it. but the 5-piece is going to be a must have for any and every monk.

i'll post this here then honest to god im done. someone else can take up a fight that is no longer worth fighting as my account expires in 2 days time and i will not be playing. the issue is going to be in the coding for multiple swing attacks. when they first discussed how they work with the flat damage "bug" they stated that effects such as FoC were adding 1 more swing effect on to the end of say 1k fists. i really think they are wrong just from looking at the combat logs. i think it is adding a second 1k attack, which means 3 more swings, not just 1. this gets exacerbated with drunken because it adds up to 8 more swings than intended throughout the chain. this is made even worse when you add errant stirke in which is adding not another swing but another full 1k fists attack, and then the 5-piece proc which is adding yet another. double all that with QJ and you have real problems.

the fact that the vanguard team has decided to do a 1 point calibration of damage using the absolute max damage point means that monks without a 5-piece apw proc are going to be substandard in their dps, and instead of a somewhat linear progression in dps as you advance you have a flat curve until you are raid geared, then it suddenly pops up. in this instance it really is the gearing which is creating one of the issues here.

As i stated at the beginning, i'm done with this now. i am sick of fighting the same people who swear MONKS are way overpowered and need the nerf bat. it has been obvious since day 1 on this issue that the VG team is only listening to a very limited number of people on this issue, and that they do not want to generate enough data to actually determine a cause for the problem. they simply want to take the easiest way out of this mess in the short term with out any thought to long term or game wide consequences.

i disagree, the changes are every bit as bad as i am saying. they have gutted the class until you get raid gear. end of story. literally on light blue 3 dots i now parse at 1100 dps.

wow so i just learned that all of the problems i am already having with the changes and dps etc.... do not include the only "fix" they were sposed to do to start with! thats right the flat damage "fix" will now be added on top off all the other crap.

im just gonna go ahead and say it now: the vanguard development staff is SNARFing clueless.

/edit
after a limited number of fights on test im now showing at a whopping 1150 dps. so to all those in 5 piece who are doing testing with the devs take it all off because right now we are just screwed with out it. balancing based on anbother damage multiplier effect is lunacy and thats what is happening.

no, the sdad day is when they decide that instead of retuning raid armor (lets face it the 5 piece proc screws us) the decide to screw everyone who doesnt have it.

its these kind of idiotic decisions that made me cancel. the game, in my opinion, does not have the resources to hire competent people to develop it.

logged on to test to check out the new models for SNARFs and grins (my account is active until the 25th) and decided to log in to hak there and my sorc who is 50 as well. wow what a difference. hak is in RI/Swamp/APW gear and the sorc is in Pantheon/Xenn gear with i think 2 drops from heg. the result?

hak is currently dragon on test, and he struggles and i mean <10% health left, to kill a magmite ravager outside afrit.

the sorc? consistenly 3-shots them.

and just re-reading some stuff on the VG site.... and laughing in a sad pathetic sort of way....

the following is a quote from talisker's "upcoming combat fix explained"

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.


just made me chuckle. especially since i now know a lot more about how those 500k hits were coming about, and the 3-part exploit that was required. fun fun.

anyway, im done with this. between the bullSNARF nerfs coming in gu6, sony's total lack of support for the vg team, and the fact the vg team can't even get simple things right (how many people are wearing faction armor?) let alone "balance" classes its just too much hassle and not as much fun. i just do not see them as being able to make vanguard live to its potential, and i do see them turning it into a wow clone. the game has lost its immersion and fun for me, starting with the ridiculous factional mounts and now crappy class rebalancing and sparklies for every ground spawn quest item.

in short i do not feel that testing their game for free, or paying to play a bug ridden game that is slowing having the life ground out of it by bad developer decisions is worth my time or money.

good luck to all of you who are still enjoying the game.

while the mit penalty was reduced, storm dragon stance was reduced from 24% -> 18% so we gain 7% mit while loosing 6% damage. not really a worthwhile tradeoff imo.

jin surge is also a 15s refresh and only effects 1 hit again.

overall i really am not happy with the changes, i can barely handle a 3-dot who is 4-levels below me at the moment on test.

cause here it comes.... the melee bug fix is in fact... a huge ass nerf which is including many many changes which have nothing to do with the "fix."

all this so the whiny ass sorcs can have their way.

for those of us who have been dreading it, the flat damage nerf is on test now. i strongly encourage everyone to log in to test and see how bad it is. it will be much easier to push for any changes now than after its live. i have little hope that we will see any love here but maybe we can lessen the blow.

i just hope they nerf errant strikes. i know i said the "N" word about other monks, but this one ability is causing way too many problems and is resulting in all monks getting the nerf bat. if drunken is sposed to be the "tanking" monk then they should have the lowest dps, not the highest in the game by such a huge margin.

i just love the "bug" fix here. i mean it fixes so much! like how we are going to have to be nerfed again in 6-months when multiple swing attacks become overpowered again. or when they realize multiple swing attacks are the reason that Drunken has such a HUGE advantage over everyone else.

instead of fixing the problem they have simply nerfed everyone, and will have to nerf again in the future to fix what the problem actually is.

of course this is all tinfoil hat stuff, since if your not in the top few guilds you must be an idiot and not understand whats going on with the game mechanics.

well, if whats good for the game is whats good so the high end raiders can get more content... vanguard is gonna have an awfully short life.