Combat Balance Philosophy

Militis

Oh missed the diagnose. Didn't you say earlier your max health was over 5k?

Also the way the Icon scales, I imagine this is the worst case scenario for damage. But Knights are so hard to kill with pure damage unless you are a STR build Monk with Icon+Artefacts, tough to find a balance there.

Would making it a flat bonus be the answer everyone is looking for? Or just lowered and still scaled.

Oh and we'll have to spar sometime soon @Naisar, I think I'm exactly what you are looking for as far as testing is concerned; semi STR build Monk(14) with 0 artefacts and the Icon.

Santar

Deleting the blunt penetration icon and letting you have a +1 strength icon would be a fair balance. Right now it doesn't even matter if you're in dform, the blunt penetration icon just cuts right through you and you take the same damage as if you were a naked and defenseless Siren. I went out of my way to buy a super high blunt scalemail to fight Monks, and it makes no difference due to that icon.  A +1 strength would still give you a reasonable damage boost for having an icon. The blunt penetration could be toned down to a reasonable level, but then it'd basically serve the same purpose as +1 strength, and you could go back to not screwing over the other classes in your house. The fact that Monk houses that aren't all Monk are using a Monk only icon tuning just shows how incredibly overpowered it is.

Oh, and logs:

i'm in dform with dragonarmour up and an SoA(+20 blunt armour) wielded:

No icon:

6876h, 6252m, 33680e, 30336w cexkdb-07:07:04:758

Nemutaur kicks his leg high and scythes downwards at you.

He connects to the head!

Stupidity Gained!+

Head Beaten!+

Nemutaur launches a powerful uppercut at you.

He connects to the head!

Nemutaur launches a powerful uppercut at you.

He connects to the head!

3979h, 6252m, 33650e, 30324w cexkdb-07:07:06:497(-2897)

With icon:

6876h, 6252m, 33680e, 30560w cexkdb-07:08:33:067

Nemutaur kicks his leg high and scythes downwards at you.

He connects to the head!

Stupidity Gained!+

Head Beaten!+

Nemutaur launches a powerful uppercut at you.

He connects to the head!

Nemutaur launches a powerful uppercut at you.

He connects to the head!

2929h, 6252m, 33680e, 30560w cexkdb-07:08:34:576(-3947)

The above is just absolutely absurd. Over a 1000 damage increase on this axekick just from the icon tuning. The reason dragons have dragonarmour is because they're supposed to be a safe class with limited offense. On top of that, dragons can't dodge much, mount, or hinder effectively, so the dragonarmour is pretty necessary for defense. The icon tuning is almost completely nullifying a Dragon's ability to survive a monk.

Serpent form, scales up, 59 blunt scalemail(about as high as can be reasonably expected), and SoA(+20 blunt armour):

No icon:

5004h, 4380m, 24320e, 21200w cexkdb-07:13:27:177

Nemutaur kicks his leg high and scythes downwards at you.

He connects to the head!

Stupidity Gained!+

Head Beaten!+

Nemutaur launches a powerful uppercut at you.

He connects to the head!

Nemutaur launches a powerful uppercut at you.

He connects to the head!

1604h, 4380m, 24320e, 21200w cexkdb-07:13:28:028(-3400)

With icon:

5004h, 4010m, 24320e, 21200w cexkdb-07:14:22:302

Nemutaur kicks his leg high and scythes downwards at you.

He connects to the head!

Stupidity Gained!+

Head Beaten!+

Nemutaur launches a powerful uppercut at you.

He connects to the head!

Nemutaur launches a powerful uppercut at you.

He connects to the head!

1169h, 4010m, 24320e, 21200w cexkdb-07:14:22:840(-3835)

Not quite as big of a difference in lesserform, but a 435 increase in damage on one combo on my 5000 health is still a very large increase.

Cynlael

Naisar said:

@Cynlael  Wow, that was peculiarly aggressive.  I imagine that yes, if you pour enough credits into willpower regen Sylvan becomes much better.  However, other classes could be spending those credits on things like blademaster bands, or fire pendants, or sip rings.  Get my drift?  And what's this about thornrend?  It's a 3 second equilibrium attack, and has been I think forever.  Quick-witted takes it to 2.7 seconds.  You're going to see some variance because Achaea's not super precise about these things, but the average is definitely going to be sitting near to 2.7.  In fact, I just ran out on my Sylvan alt (jackass) and got an average of 2.711 seconds equilibrium loss across 30 thornrends.  Furthermore, a Sylvan's bashing power doesn't scale well into the late levels compared to other classes because thornrend is slow and a single attack.  Crits are the deciding factor in high-level bashing, and those scale with speed & number of attacks.

http://pastehtml.com/view/czt9n3cn1.html - Thornrends were consistently that speed the entire spar, which lasted around 4 or so minutes because loltouchshield / leave room is hard. Thornrend is one of the highest hitting bashing attacks, so that's pretty irrelevant. 'Sylvan bashing power doesn't scale well' - Yeah, okay. Say that to Raz, who hunted ~35/48 hours of the previous great hunt (the one before the most recent one) without needing to stop for willpower once, and got first place because of it. Seems legit. - Circlet of the will + perma megalith, 400 cr for exceptionally strong bashing (Sylvan's only being limited by willpower, they have every other stat passively bar maybe crits, which is enough at high levels anyway without pendant)

Not seeing your logic, brah.

Naisar

I'm not going to continue this bashing discussion with you until I have some indication you understand what I've already written regarding critical hit scaling.  There isn't much point if we aren't communicating.  

I've already responded to others regarding willpower, which apparently isn't as large of a concern as I'd thought.  The point that you continue to miss (or at least have provided no indication of understanding) is that for a fair comparison you have to look at classes of equal investiture.  A Sylvan with 400 credits of artefacts is probably pretty solid, sure, the question is how it measures up to all the other classes when they too have been given a similar amount of credits to invest.

As for the log - the heck is it supposed to show?  You thornrend exactly once, so there's no attempt to account for error.  And look at these timestamps for the thornrend:

You command the razor-edged thorny vines around you to lash out and rend the torso of Kuheh.

[Thornmaster]:  Torso Broken!

Kuheh attempts to parry the attack, but is held back by wreathing vines.

4378h, 2628m, 12082w cxkb--32%-G:0-[LR|A4:4|L12:0|HT0:4]4 -[WREATHE]14:23:26:140(-125)

You have recovered equilibrium.

4378h, 2628m, 12072w cexkb--32%-G:0-[LR|A4:4|L12:0|HT0:4]4 -[WREATHE]14:23:29:625

Man, I really hope your thornrends weren't that speed for the whole spar.  That would have sucked.

Cynlael

wups. Wrong log, was lagging p bad that time. http://www.logsty.com/logs/wvi1z - With nimble, from when I was blademaster previously and couldn't trait reset.

way longer than 4min, mb.

also limb counter broke gg nore

Naisar

I counted 44 thornrends in that log with an average equilibrium of 2.677 seconds.  Are you sure you weren't quick-witted?  Or actually, do you have a diadem?  Because I think it would be surpassingly odd if you managed that thornrend speed without any assitance at all, considering that as a quick-witted Sylvan my thornrends are consistently 2.7 seconds.

Jarrod

On a relatively unrelated note to the discussion at hand, and more of a comment on a comment in a previous post.

The idea that the blunt Icon is a monk-only tuning is pretty funny to me. Do people not understand or are they not thinking it through?

Sabiru

The former, partly because of the latter

Mishgul

More importantly, why does jester bashing suck

Zeon

bcuz you don't have a blunt icon.

Eld

Because it's jester.

Seftin

Because they are a joke and need lvl 3 blackjack for hunting

Nemutaur

Didn't some Mhaldorian Jester rush to almost level 94+ before changing class and finishing dragon?

Jovolo

Getting Dragon is a state of mind. (Also, he was 26 when he was Jester level 93 and he hunted all the damn time, so it took him longer than if he was a Monk, say. Much less about the class than your mindset though imo)

Seftin

Dont spend the dime, dont get to whine.

All those in favour of making forums accessible once you've purchased 5000 credits say "Visa"

Nemutaur

Jovolo said:

Getting Dragon is a state of mind. (Also, he was 26 when he was Jester level 93 and he hunted all the damn time, so it took him longer than if he was a Monk, say. Much less about the class than your mindset though imo)

Yeah, might have been faster as a monk. But it is really all about the drive and motivation to bash and get dragon that matters.

Kaie

I could be wrong but, I think the issue most people are having with monk right now stems from how setups got easier. Before a monk had to work to get past your parry/dodging. They then added paralysis which when rhk hits guarantees the next two hits. So, looping rhk in your prep combos means that random factor is now gone and you can just mash rhk combos till limbs prepped. The accuracy i did test with iakimen and it is a pretty decent increase to accuracy. He was able to prep me faster for certain but, that's because it's now combined with paralysis. If it was simply an accuracy buff then sure, i'd be able to dodge and parry however, i can't.. no one can once it hits. Then we start noticing these insane finishers. It's not quite so much that BBT or AXK is anymore powerful than it was prior to these changes. It's always been a beast.. since traits and what not. However, it's not always been so easy to setup so you're noticing it more now.

Jovolo

Make wwk not target head, always hit and dismount, and then make rhk targeted at head (parry head), increase accuracy and keep paralysis. 

Kaie

also on the topic of Jester bashing sucking.. it really is more about mindset. Jester bashing is horribly slow, especially with standard blackjacks. I didn't start to enjoy it any until I got a lvl2 blackjack.. it's still slow but, I think a lvl3 would make it good. There's good points to it too though, priestess for healing and the awesome fact that you'll likely never drain your endurance from it. Considering the fact that most classes have to stop at some point to regain endurance or will power, Jester might actually pick up some slack by not having to do that.

Nyboe

@Kaie Axe throwing with venom paralysis also bypasses parry. And monks can do it in a combo too with throw axe, punch, punch. The accuracy of the axe throwing I heard is pretty good too so in comparison to roundhouse kick its about the same except that axe throwing can do limb damage and roundhouse kick can't but the opponent can just pick up the axe when the monk throws it.

For me the problem with monks is just the sheer damage they can do with combo's. It may just be because my class is flimsy, maybe I need to get trans avoidance as right now its inept in it.

Edit: I may have to just stick with Mir against monks from now.

Nemutaur

What Nyboe said, rhk hasn't really changed much except that it saves you 1836 lessons you'd have to spend learning trans weaponry and the handaxe specialisation. Couldn't parry an untargetted handaxe either.

Nemutaur

Jovolo said:

Make wwk not target head, always hit and dismount, and then make rhk targeted at head (parry head), increase accuracy and keep paralysis. 

As much as I'd like this, god damn would it be overpowered. A guaranteed dismount? Would basically mean that either I kai banish to dismount people who give me enough kai or I wwk break break in one combo to ensure they can't remount on the dismount.

This would just punish monks without enough credits to afford trans weaponry again, which is what the rhk buff was all about.

Kaie

I know about the handaxe tactics. It was pretty powerful then too but, again not widespread as not all monks wanted to or were able to shell out for that extra mile. It's just now that monks get it from the start we're seeing it enough to take note of how powerful it is. I'd agree that no class should really require learning weaponry to make use of it's given skills, however.. there should be more to it than just licking your keyboard and waiting to bbt or axk. Maybe I'm not seeing something here but, I don't really see any viable defense against this. I can't parry or dodge to offset the prep, and I can't reset my own limbs. I can shield but, i'm only delaying it then. It's like you really can't do anything to counter their prep which for me is the biggest issue.

Mishgul

Monk is boring anyway. No suave whatsoever. I imagine all monks to look exactly like the big show.

Nemutaur

Kaie said:

I know about the handaxe tactics. It was pretty powerful then too but, again not widespread as not all monks wanted to or were able to shell out for that extra mile. It's just now that monks get it from the start we're seeing it enough to take note of how powerful it is. I'd agree that no class should really require learning weaponry to make use of it's given skills, however.. there should be more to it than just licking your keyboard and waiting to bbt or axk. Maybe I'm not seeing something here but, I don't really see any viable defense against this. I can't parry or dodge to offset the prep, and I can't reset my own limbs. I can shield but, i'm only delaying it then. It's like you really can't do anything to counter their prep which for me is the biggest issue.

Yeah, this is where it gets tricky and major traits come in to play.

I recently fought Hasar in arena, the first time around I had no clue what his limbs were at cause this guy actually stays prone for 4s and fake applies to a limb because he knows he can tank that single bbt or axk. But assuming the monk preps with rhk you can totally fake apply and throw them off.

This forces the monk to take limbprobe. Now most monks will take Nimble, +Stat (str/int), and Limbprobe/Lethal ink. So by forcing them to take limb probe you deny them lethal ink, which means they cannot quickly hammer your shield tattoo.

I do admit it's extremely hard to stop an artied from killing you, mostly it's just a matter of a little trickery with the fake applies and keeping the monk so pressured that they can't finish their prep before you're done with your strat.

Cynlael

^ Failing this. There's always the "lol op ashura monk" thing to say after losing. Right?