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Ninbei
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« on: March 09, 2007, 02:03:30 PM » |
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Currently many monks would agree that we have many serious issues that needs to be addressed, some of which I observe to be issues of high priority:
1. lack of either DPS or Utility to groups
2. high endurance cost of skills
3. redundent skill lines and finisher lines that perform the same stuff (ie thousand fists)
4. lack of use of Jin as Jin becomes useless in higher levels
5. lack of use of Meditation in order to keep Jin up because Jin is useless anyways
6. lack of monk "personality" or "individuality" that distinguishes monks from other DPS classes
To address these issues, I propose some changes to the Jin system:
a) move the entire thousand fists line to Jin-based skills and Ashen Hand to somewhere else (endurance based, maybe?), this way we can have a choice of executing moves based on endurance or Jin, adding depth to the class while resolving the general uselessness of the current thusand fists line (higher end cost at no better dmg than flying kick).
b) make monk stances, in addition to their basic stance bonus, give out an "aura" type buff to group members within 10m, and the magnitude of the aura is directly determined by the amount of Jin the monk currently posseses. For example, monk's offensive stance (Storm Dragon for dragons, Tiger for harmis, and Drunken Fist for drunkens), in addition to their respective stance bonus, give an aura buff for group members within 10m "Fires of Jin", which gives +[monk's jin level / 2] melee haste. So for a level 31 monk with 16 max jin, he gives an aura that grants 8% melee haste to groupmates. In theory, a level 50 monk with 20jin can give a 10% bonus, while a newbie monk with only 10jin can give a max 5% bonus. This bonus is updated every 5 or 10 seconds, so when a monk blows all his jin in a fight, his aura also diminishes down to giving only 1% or even none. With an aura-type group buff that has its effectiveness based on Jin, it gives monks personality, sets them aside from other classes. It also gives monks some useful group utility besides FD. Most importantly, it gives monks a very good reason to try to keep jin as high as possible.
An example:
Monk Offensive Stance (Storm Dragon, Tiger, Drunken Fist): Fires of Jin: grants group members within 10m [Jin/2]% of melee haste
Monk Neutral Stance: Tranquility of Jin: grants group members within 10m [jin/2]% of mana regen
Monk Defensive Stance (Stone Dragon, Crane, Drunken Sway): Shield of Jin: grants group members within 10m [Jin/2]% of melee mitigation
If [Jin/2] is too overpowering (5% max bonus for a monk w/ 10jin, 10% bonus for a monk w/ 20jin at lvl50), maybe it can be scaled down to [Jin/3] or even [Jin/4].
Combining my two suggestions above, it makes Jin a useful resource to maintain because it can be used to trigger chains (ie thousand fists line if it's moved to jin based) instead of ashen hand spams, and the aura gives monk not only the utility monks need (or designed to give extra DPS) to be welcome to groups, but also incentives to use meditation to keep jin max at all times. Revamp of current monk skills may be needed so that monks do not become too overpowered.
There are also two additional issues with monks overall:
7. lack of energy and energy-based skills
8. monk itemization problem as many monk weapons give +energy
These issues may probably be solved by giving monks an energy bar and moving some skills to energy based. A reshuffling of monk skills so that 1/3 uses Endurance, 1/3 uses Jin, and 1/3 uses Energy would add alot of depth to the class (and micromanagement too). Again all skills must be rebalanced to prevent overpowering.
Anyways it's just an idea I came up with while at work lol
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