Aye, things are moving in the right direction but slowly.  I think, though, that the slowness of game improvements will largely go away after APW is finished.  I remember reading posts a couple months ago from devs talking about how when they started APW their team only had one channel through which to pass game updates and patch material.  During the APW work, they established other channels that could be used once APW is through.  What I think this means is that they'll be able to work on large game updates without blocking work on smaller patches in the future and that should speed things up considerably.

What does the equiped effect "hopton's set of effluence" do?

I think this was actually in the last Test Server Patch Notes.  Dunno if iron hand actually got increased all the way to 200 though.



I don't think that any finishers or counters have been able to open chains on live.

Did the diamond body change make it in this patch?

Well, there are actually 3 FD abilities that monks get - FD 1, FD 2, and FD 3.  FD 1 has an 8 second reuse timer, FD 2 has a 4 second reuse timer, and FD 3 has a 2 second reuse timer.  Those timers are specific to the FD skill.  Its also tied to global cool down, though, because it takes 2 seconds for all other abilities to become usable after using any FD skill.

Ay, I agree with that.  FD should definately be an option for normal grouping but it shouldn't make other options obsolete.

Sounds very reasonable to me.  I'd like to see these put in. 

The +30% stun resist for drunkens interests me though.  On the surface, it seems like drunkens ought to get +30% avoidance (or some reasonable %) but considering a drunken monk's emphasis on tanking, the stun resistance also seems practical.  I personally play a harmonious monk so I'll ask, what do you drunkards think would help ya more?  maybe a mixure of both at less potency?

It would be nice if they would put in monk/disciple specific armor graphics for the pieces that we get from APW so that we can look like the monkish fellows and fellettes that we are.

To this I reply... kewl 

Will there only be the flat, initial jin cost of turning on a secret or will there be a jin cost over time while it is on?

Something to remember is that, at least at the start, it was one of Vanguard's concepts to make different classes excel at different types of fights; e.g. warriors tank best vs magic users, dread knights against undead, etc.  So, there may well be some fights where its good to have a bunch of disciples in the raid and others where disciples don't shine as much (other classes may find themselves like this as well).

I dunno if this will be the case or if SoE is putting this into practice anymore.  I just remember that it was one of the things that Sigil talked about during beta.  If they do continue with this, it'll be interesting to see how it works out for Raid content.  It would add another element to raid strategies but might estrange some of the more unique classes.

Actually, when I think about it, the whole t4 blacksmith making better may be one of the main reasons for why they did it.  They may be trying to look out for that blacksmith so that he isn't run out of business by everyone getting an unlimited supply of better-than-his shurikens.

Now, I like the idea of having an infinite supply of things to throw as much as the next guy, but I don't think its unreasonable for us to have to pay a blacksmith (or become a blacksmith) to sport the best throwing items.  It ensures that the crafted gear is still valuable though not essential.

Also, we have to remember that its no small thing to become a T4 blacksmith anyway    If we do anything, I suggest we make the questline less tedious and grind-oriented

Of course, my opinion is based on how I only use throwing items for pulling.  I don't care too much about how much damage I do on a throw as long as the mob is runnin for me afterwards.  For pullin, I'd still get the summon pouch so I could keep myself supplied with infinite pulling fodder.

Hey there, welcome to the cool kids' table 

Hey folks,

I've been a lurker on these boards for a while and I play a lvl 45 harmonious monk in game.  I'd like to comment on the damage scaling that Quinn mentioned in his above post.

I think that the damage scaling is probably our biggest issue right now.  From my personal experience, I'm able to do good damage in a group, when I'm buffed, etc.  However, I got a graystone bladestaff a few weeks ago and one thing I noticed was how little my dps increased.  The weapon I used beforehand was a Zank from CiS so I would think that my dps would go up significantly.  It went up, but not significantly.  I think the root of our damage scaling problems is that our skills barely take our weapons into account.  It would be nice if our skills were set up so that the bulk of our hit damage comes from a percentage of our weapon or autoattack damage.  I think our barefists should be our static baseline (equivolent to setting skills to static damage values), and weapons can either cause it to go up or down based on the quality of the weapon.  In any case, it doesn't seem right that after getting large weapon upgrades, we still do similar damage.

Another idea I had, just as an interesting concept, was to remove weapon damage from fist wraps and have them add a percentage of our barefist damage again, as well as stats, instead.  As we level up and our fists increase in power, our fistwraps will scale and reflect that increase.

Ok, that makes more sense now.  Thank ya