Go Apoco!

Keep reporting those drunken issues!  I'm only a baby drunken monk now but I appreciate it.

Hi Talisker,

Thank you very much for making an appearance in the forums to discuss monk issues.

Best,
   nennafir

Hi,  it's probably this.  I sometimes skin after fighting.

I never noticed it before and I had the same gear yesterday.  Maybe its implemented differently now or they actually changed the gear I have to have +hp when it didn't before. 

On a related note, my gleaming jin windblade has changed to only have 15% parry rather than 25%. 

Very good news. 

Have any of you noticed this?

When I am out of range of the mob and pull with shuriken, I get damaged for about 20% of my health instantly.  This is soloing, and I have no buffs or debuffs on me when starting out the fight.

My combat log shows me hitting the mob and doing damage to it, but doesn't mention why I am getting damaged. 

It does not happen all of the time.

It used to be that 2H slashing was martial sword and bladed staff.
2h piercing was martial staff.

It appears that now bladed staff is 2h piercing.

I know this because I had been levelling h-2-h skill and 2h slashing, and now I can't hit for crap with a bladed staff.  My 2h piercing skill is now rising though.  It'll be 10 soon.

Also >_> my characters bladed staff is invisible.

I agree Chun.  Although I think pve and pvp should be kept largely separate for balance issues, playing a class in pvp can give you a pretty good look at its overall strength.  Playing it solo can also give this look.  Sometimes, pve party playing can pretty effectively mask an otherwise obviously gimped class.  With solo/pvp, its much easier to see that "omg! someone 4 levels lower than me can (a) kill me (pvp) or (b) solo mobs that I can't.  If you do these measures, monk is obviously gimped.  With party pve, all you can do is dps logs, which are fine but don't give the whole picture.

Luckily, monks are still gimp even just looking at dps logs.  But I think they need to do more even after that.

Clerics actually do plenty of damage.  You just probably (a) Have not seen a more damage oriented (i.e., solo) cleric or (b) One that is high enough level.  If you equip a greatmaul you do good damage as a cleric, and you get all of the melee skills hand of censure, smiting blow, and maul of divinity, along with reactions fist of rebuke, maul of the gods, rout.

My almost-30 cleric did comparable damage to a dread knight with a great axe when I duo'd with him recently.  I put attributes in vit and wis first, then str and dex.  Gear is standard heavy plate stuff, and so has a fair amount of +dex and +str on it.

That a party oriented healing cleric without a greatmaul doesn't do damage is hardly the point.  They didn't equip themselves to and so that's that.  Even then, I suspect the most healing-oriented shield-bearing cleric out there can still solo 3-dots that are 3 levels higher than them.

If anything, I would have recommended taking all of their damage (including weapons, skills) and multiplying it by 1/4 to reduce it to 25% of its previous level.  That they are increasing it "significantly" tells me that they don't really have the people who are proposing the changes actually playing several classes to compare their relative strengths.

Soloing, all the time...  feign dead and then go afk a sec in a dangerous area.  Feign dead and wait for patrol slowly to walk away again.

Grouping, say you are in a dungeon and fighting next to another team (not pvp, just pve.)  Mobs gets trained and one team or the other wipes.  You have to wait for the brick-a-brack to clear (maybe say your team wiped and you are waiting for the other team to finish up its current mobs before rezzing cause you think they are gonna wipe to.)  So you wait and then pop up and then use your rez stone on the healer.

Anyway, if they made it viable in pvp they would have to nerf the duration to almost nonexistent, to like 1.5 secs or something ridiculous like that.  This would very obviously affect the pve game. 

I'm just saying, I see letting feign dead work in pvp as inevitably leading to it getting nerfed in pve.  And you are confirming my suspicions by your suggestions.  I hope they just leave it alone.  I'd say make the monk pvp-viable by another route, maybe letting them use their stun in pvp mid-battle or some similar modification, and making it more highly resistaable in pvp for this reason.

But this hurts the pve game...

I am leary of a timer for pve reasons.

Yeah, the invis stuff is pure bullSNARF at the moment.  I assume they realize this and will change it eventually.  But this isn't a thread for bard-pvp concerns, so I'll shut up.

You are right that detarget on an 8-sec timer might be something you could push through, if they still resisted it a lot.  Actual feign death on an 8 sec timer I just don't see going.

One of the problems is that they might not have a single dev out there who is:
(1) Grouping with every class to see grouping issues.  Some issues only arrive in groups and it is necessary to be in them to discover the issue.
and
(2) Soloing with every class to see solo issues.  The soloing is important even if someone mainly groups though because a lot becomes evident when you are all by yourself and you see what you are doing.

Without one person actually going out and playing a bunch of different classes, the inequities aren't really apparent.  I'm sure every "class lead" has grievances and lists all of the downsides to each class.  So if you are just listening to class leads, you aren't really getting the picture.  You really need one person out there who does everything with every class, ALONG with the class leads.

Like many here, I'm sure, I played in beta.  That's not really helpful right now though as so much restructuring was done post-beta.  Also post-beta, I've played a bunch of classes.  Monk is obviously gimp.  You only have to have played, say, half a dozen other classes into the 15-30 range to realize this.  Hopefully they will get their act together and realize it too eventually.

I'm currently having fun playing a gimp class.  We'll see how long it lasts.

The problem with this is that if implemented monks would have an instant cast "invulnerability" ability with infinite duration and 8 sec recharge.  If you contrast this with other invulnerability things like the cleric one that lasts for less than half a mnute and is on a 15 min timer, you can see its NEVER going to happen.  It would mean that if you, as a monk, were ever about to lose a battle in pvp or were ever jumped or etc. etc you could do this and be invulnerable forever and you could pop up after 8 secs, hit them again, then feign dead again.  etc. etc.

If it were useful in pvp, it would require major nerfage.  The problem then is how to nerf it for pvp but leave it the same for pve.  Tricky.  You have to keep the 8 sec recharge to not effect pve.  I guess the only way to do it would be to make it fail basically all the time against pvp enemies but at its current rate against pve enemies.  Anyway, it looks like a big can of worms.  To be honest, I really see (and I have half my chars on Tharridon so I do have pvp concerns) allowing feign death to work in pvp to mean that it will inevitably get nerfed in pve.

I can only say:

(1) With only a 10% dodge, the drunken monk can't really last very much longer tanking this add.  Also, because unlike the drunken fist stance which generates aggro, this one does not generate aggro and in fact because of the accuracy debuff to the monk will have a harder time keeping aggro because he'll miss more.  Finally, the monk could also use the stance which give 5% dodge and no penalty to better effect.  So two of his stances seem better at this off tank role.  In any case, the monk would not last long and would need a healer to keep him going.

(2) Better performers at this offtank role would be:
(a) Any tank.
(b) Any non-bloodmage healer.  I have disciple/shaman into the high teens and a cleric into the high 20's, so this one is from personal experience.  They can last indeifintely against 3-dots several levels higher than them.
(c) A necro (just sick the pet on the add, with the benefit that you can heal the pet yourself) or a psionicist (many crowd control options.)
(d) Maybe other classes.  I am just trying to restrict myself to ones I have actual knowledge of.  None of my suggestions in (a)-(c) are at all "dramatic" and all are eminently practical and viable.

In conclusion, the drunken monk himself has better stances for the situation, but probably needs a healer in any case to keep him going for long.  In addition, there are at least 8 other classes that would be able to do the job much better than him.  The drunken sway stance should--in my opinion--by modified so as to be viable.

I would be happy to hear from high level drunken monks about their experiences with the stance.

Drunken Mastery Issue/Concern:

"Drunken Sway" stance is essentially a "make the fight last longer but change nothing else" button, as it increases your dodge by 10% (making the other guy 10% less accurate) while also making you 10% less accurate.  It doesn't really do anything else except drag out the fight, making it last longer, as both you and your opponent are equally penalized.

But a "make the fight last longer" button is REALLY a "get less xp/hour" button.  No one in their right mind would want it.