Yes, the monk's primary deal is damage, but to say they are a pure DPS implies that DPS is their one and only capability or concern - Which was never the case and never will be.
The only offensive fighter to make pure DPS their concern is the Rogue, and because of this they should and will always top the DPS charts among offensive fighters.
Yes, they will always top the chart, that must be intended. Ranged damage is worth more than melee damage, so if the Ranger dealt as much damage it would be imbalanced. The Monk is able to take more damage, so if he was able to deal the same damage, it would be imbalanced. And since a big part of being a bard is buffing the party, he should obviously not deal as much damage himself as the others, since that would be imbalanced. All classes are however to a greater extent "pure DPS", that's what they do. They should be able to deal about the same amount of damage, but in diffrent ways. Geting a head start from using ranged damage, being able to do more damage by staying alive longer and buffing your party (if we count that towards the bards own damage, which we should).
None of the classes are equal in terms of dealing damage. They are in the same ballpark, but the amount of damage they deal varies based on what else they have going for them.
The bard does the least because he has the most utility. Rangers do less than Rogues but have evasion and utility.
The Monk on this totem pole is suppose to be better than a Ranger in short fights, but worse than a Ranger in long fights. So the Monk is never going to be the top of the DPS charts, and the class must be augmented in other ways to balance it out.
When I talk about "dealing damage", I mean the total damage the class is responsible for (see previous quote-reply). Not just what they hit themselfs. But I think we understand each other.
Let's say each class is basicly 80% the same as the other classes sharing the same job, 15% are flavor towards that goal, and the remaining 5% giving them something else besides their main objective. Those 5% is ranged damage for the Ranger, part of the buffs for Bards (as in the healing) and being stealthy for the Rogue. The Monk is probably intended to basicly be 5% thougher than the other 3.
You're way off.
The differences in capabilities between the bard and rogue is far more than 5%, and it doesn't just come down to flavor. They are fundamentally two very different classes that bring very different things to soloing or teaming.
First of all, I was comparing to other job-classes, and if you compare the rogue and the cleric, they are alot more diffrent than the bard and rogue. Second, I was saying 20%, not 5%. But that doesn't really matter since I wasn't claiming any numbers to be correct, I was just using them as an example, i e "Let's say...". I'm still convinced though that they are fundamentally two very similar classes, they are acctually the perfect example to prove my point. They are both all about dealing damage, the Rogue does it all by himself, therefore his own DPS is the highest, and the Bard is the most dependent on others, therefore his own DPS is the lowest. If they are currently not balanced with each other, that is unintended. They are intended to do the job of an "Offensiv Fighter" equaly good, just different.
You could even go as far as saying that the Monk is the off/def, the Ranger is the off/caster, the Rouge is the off/off and the Bard the off/healer.
Bard's aren't offensive healers.
Rangers aren't the equivalent of an offensive caster. The Ranger is a jack of all trades, mixing high damage with evasion, utility, and buffs.
Your attempts at comparative analysis fall apart when you don't understand the classes you're comparing.
Monks should have the best defense but don't to any significant degree.
Haha, obviously Bard's aren't offensive healers.
The Disciple is an offensive healer. However, out of the 4 offensive fighters, the Bard is the most healerish and the Ranger is the most casterish (due to his range!). (Before 20% wasn't enough difference wasn't enough, now 5% is too much? I don't get it
But then again maybe I was using an unnecessarily complicated way to explain myself
)
It's true that I have little to no experience in any other class than the monk, but since this thread doesn't have anything to do with that I don't really understand why you even mention it.I agree with you though that the Monks probably should have the best defense, but the fact that they don't at the moment doesn't really matter since this is all about the future and what sigil really want's, not the game's current state. Atleast that what the title says.
The Monk is a unique case in that he has the flexibility to go the route of off/off, off/tank, or off/utility.
The problem is that the system is fundamentally flawed in several ways and just results in a weak monk, because neither form by itself brings enough to the table to make the Monk shine above the other offensive fighters.
The best path these days is harmonious, turning you into a weaker jack of all trades than the Ranger. The Dragon, pure DPS, is a waste of time when Rogues and Rangers outperform you. The Drunken is no longer viable since the evasion nerf, but before the nerf it WAS the one form that really set the monk apart from the other offensive fighters.
The Ranger gets to perform offensive, off tanking, and utility all at once.
The Monk should be able to perform offensive better than the Ranger if they go Dragon, but be inferior in tanking and utility.
The Monk should perform tanking better than the Ranger in Drunken, but should be inferior in damage and non-tanking utility.
The Monk should be similar to the Ranger in harmonious form, but with his own flavor - That is he combines good DPS and good evasion with team utility all at once. The Monk's team utility should be slightly better than what the ranger has to offer. The Harmonious monk should do have better sustained DPS and evasion in short term fights, but the Ranger should pull ahead in long term fights as they learn their enemy.
If the Dragons debuff can boost the party more than the Rangers abilitys can, then the Dragon should have lower DPS than the ranger and vice versa. I'd like to see the dragon have pretty limited weaknesses abilities though, and just slightly higher defense than the ranger, and better DPS since he's melee. Being all out offensive should hurt. (His three stances could balance this out though, so he wouldn't have to be at the extreme all the time, which if looking at the current dragon seems intended.) Lowest defense, highest offense of the styles, least group-oriented skills. AoE-power.
The Harmonious should be more team-oriented than the dragon, weaknesses etc. Having lower base damage than the Dragon, the Harmonious has more crit to even things out a bit, although still having lower DPS than the dragon. Medium defense, medium/high offense. The most group-oriented skills.
The Drunken Monk should have more group-oriented skills than the Dragon on, about equaly many as the Harmonious. Should be able to help the tanks doing their job, without taking over as a tank. In some really awsome way. Maybe stealing alot of aggro, being forced to hold it for like 7seconds and then be able to choose a new target for it. Lowest offense, highest defense. Keeping people alive based, aggro/team-oriented.
So yeah, we basicly agree if we don't count the part about switching between the styles. It just seems waaaay imbalanced to me. If we were just 60% effective in each stance comparing with others that could fill that roll, we would be 180% effective overall, but at the same time we would only be about half as good as anyone else at what we do. But if we on the other hand is about 99% as effective as another class (i e, harmonious vs ranger), we would be incredibly imbalanced. Your idea is interesting, but it would be impossible (or close to) to balance it. About the whole skills thing I think your completly right though. The Monk isn't supposed to have 1/3 of every other class' skills. We were once "complete". However, Monks in that form were surely extremly overpowerd, so they split us in 3 which was a good thing. The thing remaining now however is that they make us more skills to compensate for our current shortage, making each style not just unique, but also content-filled. It doesn't matter if we are balanced if we get alot less skills than other classes. Geting skills is part of the fun, we shouldn't have less content.
That's pretty much the same for every job. Cleric is healer/tank, Disciple is healer/off, Blood Mage is healer/caster and the Shaman is well... I don't really know.
The Shaman is the jack of all trades. Melee damage, healing, nuke damage, buffs, survivability (in bear form), and utility.
The fact that the Shaman is the master of none of these doesn't stop him from being very powerful, a capable solo and team class.
Cool. Having a Jack of all Trades from another Job-group would be cool so you could compare, test som duo-setups with the two. I just don't want the monk to be that
I hope none of my answers seem to be the same thing repeted over again, now I've stated how I would like to see Monk class develope and I've read your ideas (a couple of times before aswell
).
We won't be able to really define the monks concept though, since Sigil has probably already got their master plan and they'll put it to work as soon as the overpowerd classes get nerfed (as it should be, one class being to strong pisses of everyone but that class, while one class not being strong enough only pisses of that class). But I guess you just wanted to vent your ideas, but then the title of this thread really should have been "This is what I wan't the monk to be like", or you could just have made a post in the "Monk Wish List" thread since you know QTM reads it.
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