I was able to chat with Talisker about a couple of things today. Here is a brief summary:

Regarding Evasion: We won't see an adjustment as the mode of operation went from internal from the styles to roughly 1/3 from form, 1/3 from items, 1/3 from buffs (pure evasion buffs). We can still reach respectable levels of evasion when you think about it. Sure it's not 70% We can get well over 25% easily.  Anywho....sharpen those martial swords!!!!

Regarding FD: Two important things to note:1.) FD was not intentionally messed with. I let him know I did list it as a monk issue and it should be addressed. 2.) FD in PVP is not a "cheat death" ability it's considered a trick for PVP. This may change at a later time. For now though it is working as they intended it to.

Regarding DPS: They are running the numbers to see where monks actually rank on the DPS totem pole. I'll update this when I get the results of this as well as let you know what they are going to do about it.

Regarding Itemization It's being looked at. As monks we should "need to want" weapons. I think that is a Talkser-ism /boggle This will go a bit to address the DPS situation hopefully.

Next time around I'll try and get some info regarding ability scaling and +dmg vs. %dmg on CA

Cheers,

~QTM

I was playing today and realized my counterattacks are all but useless when soloing, at least as a dragon monk.  My attacks cost so much endurance!  38 per dragon attack is really steep!  but ALSO my counterattacks cost 38 and 25 endurance!?!?!?!   this is far too mcuh, i never have enough end to use them because i spend all my end attacking.  I can't sit around and wait for the counterattack to pop up either because my capacity to solo even con mobs depends precisely on me dishing out damage and fast, because with the nerf to evasion i drop like a caster now   

So if you can address these issues with the big guys upstairs or tell me what im doing wrong, i woudl be very greatful.  I think we would put out damage just fine and comparable to other classes if the fricking attacks didn't cost and arm and a leg to use!  Counterattacks should be even end costs with finishers IMO because they pop up just as often (if not less often)  so why not?  and dragon attacks should be reduced to be more in line (at the least) with our standard monkish attacks.  or make them cost jin and give us a little jin or a better way to kick jin up.  it seems a balance wouldn't be hard to find and that we're close to being pretty in tune. 

I have a few questions that have been on my mind lately...

First, with regards to the Evasion...  If we are talking about buffs from other players, this should no be evaluated in any comparisons between other classes unless they scale differently for different classes.  As long as player buffs apply equally to everyone, such a comparison is irrelevant (as buffs are available to everyone.)  Let's assume for a second that the 1/3 figures above are correct - then I can also assume that a tank (with much much better mitigation than any offensive fighter) can also get +evade from items, buffs, and stances.  This leaves us with little or no advantage.  Is it me, or shouldn't an unarmed martial artist have significantly more melee avoidance than a hulking brute wearing plate armor and wielding a giant weapon?

As for DPS...  I think we all have some idea of where we stand at the moment - but I'm curious where we *should* be?  Monks bring a much more limited amount of utility *and* DPS to the party than many other classes in Vanguard, and all offensive fighters seem to tank equally badly.  I think many players here would feel more at ease if we at least knew where we should stand in the Survivability vs DPS vs Utility department.

This really worries me, simply because I think they will go the route of nerfing our unequiped hand to hand damage instead of buffing our equiped weapons. Anyway I can just cross my fingers that this doesnt happen.

yesturday i was thinking of rerolling as another character, but all this sudden communication.... makes me feel all warm and tingly. i have faith in my monk again

First off i would like to say thank you for taking on this responsibilty,  i think you will do the job well and get some fixes for our class =)

About evasion... truly this does not concearn me too much as the other parts of the class.  Personally I feel about right in this area.  It could maby use a 10% boost from the harm and druken type stances.  I have a routine cleric in group usually and watch how much mana he uses healing me as a harm monk and watch how much mana he uses healing another dragon monk.  Lets just say the dragon monk is a total sponge.  I do suppose though, like i said, the stances could use maby a 10% boost because we seem about equal to bard and ranger even with defensive stance on.  I would think in defensive we should out perform the ranger and bard in this area as we suffer a dps penalty from using it.  We are already crippled in dps apposed to them.

About Feign Death... This area really bothers me.  I am glad that the last patched that changed it to having the mobs immediatly run back to spawn was unintended.  Any word on a timeframe for fix?  Also can you bring up, if you have not already, the other broken parts of FD... such as even when we succeed in the FD anything over 2 mobs will not bring us out of combat without playing with it quite a bit.  It seems with 3 mobs or more I almost always get stuck in combat with atleast 1 of them perma camping me until I am able to get out of it.  More often then not this leads to my death.  The other part is, like someone else said in this post,  mobs higher level then us have to good of a chance to see through FD.  In other words it fails too often.  In group situations we are logically fighting higher level mobs by atleast a level or 2 and usually 4 dots or better for prime expo.  Especially in dungeons.  We should have a greater chance to succeed then we currently do.

DPS... I am glad they are looking at it.  Im sure it will be pretty obvious that we are the bottom of the totem pole and we should not be.  Any word on a time frame on this as well?

When I say time frame,  I obviously dont expect over night.  However,  it would be nice to know something along the lines of... a couple weeks, a month, etc.  The FD portion is my first concern though and would like to hear that being fixed relatively soon =)

Thanks again Quinn

*edit* forgot to mention counterattacks... they are completely worthless.  The reason they are worthless is because they do low damage for a high end cost.  Other normal abilities do more damage for a lower end cost then the counterattack.  Which makes the counterattack useless and a waste of hotbar space.  Also the timer on them, that you have to use them, is so damn fast you barely can get one off by the time you are refreshed from a previous skill use.

I am certainly glad to see monks being looked into.  I do think evasion for harmonious and drunken stances needs to be upped.  I believe Rangers should have better parry skill than monks, and monks should have better dodge skill.

As for DPS, I do not believe that our attacks should be changed to be weapon based.  I do think our DPS is too low.  I believe monks should be the 2nd highest DPS in melee.  Rogues should have better DPS when they remain stealthed.  Rangers should have the highest ranged dps, however their melee dmg should be lower than a monks.  And bards should have the least due to their utility, although should be close to a rangers. Although I do think bard songs need some loving, but that is a different topic.   I like the idea of using bare hands.  I would like to see hand wraps or knuckles enhance our hands though.  I think we should have an additional special attack added that would be used only when a weapon such as martial sword was equipped.  This could be a 400% weapon dmg or something attack.  This would not be usable when equipping bare hands or hand wraps etc.  I do believe a monk should do their highest dmg though with hand to hand.  I think one of our dps problems deals with weapon levels.  If I am a 25 monk, my hands are a great lvl 25 weapon.  However, all other classes are using weapons that are higher level than they are.  A 25 ranger may be using a lvl30 weapon.  I think monks need a way to turn their bare hands (maybe with handwraps) into a higher level weapon than they are.  I also think handwraps could allow us to get the stat enhancements from those slots that we are missing out on.

Guys,

I am totaly booked up with meetings today at work, so I am using my lunchbreak to look over the forums jot down some notes for later talks / IMs with Talisker / Aviar.....  I'll also will be updating the issues / bugs / concerns list here and passing it along to sigil!!!

also-

Junshi, short answer yes thats what I was talking about.

Cheers,

~QTM