Monk Ridiculousness

Daklore

One time, I survived an axk combo followed by three bbts.

Rynn was not impressed. ... but I only tanked it because I had a truefavour and algiz. Unfortunately, I don't have logs. ... Or do I? I might, I don't know. But I remember it fondly. Was a very very long time ago, back around when we could still proc double-hugalaz, but a little after it was removed.

Santar

an axk combo followed by bbts isn't ideal dps. rynn was also unartied, presumably fighting a runewarden. also, since he's dormant, gonna assume this was a long time ago

Cooper

Monk prep is not fast. It is less slow than Knights, but slower than pretty much every other class.

Jovolo

Outdated

Cooper

To properly set up most classes (2 arms, 2 legs, 1 torso) it's a minimum of 18 combos on someone with a decent amount of health with no dodges, parrying or mount bypassing.

That's 40-45 seconds assuming absolutely no hinderance and chasing balance.

Takes serpents ~10 seconds to hypno you.

Sentinels take less time to set up all your limbs.

Less time for Apostates to get past your curing.

Less time for BM to set up your limbs.

Less time for Magi to set up your limbs.

Less time for Occultists to get behind your curing.

Less time for Shaman/Jester to get a doll/puppet with enough fashions.

Less time for Sylvan to set up limbs.

Not really familiar with how long it takes an alchemist.

Arditi

Yes, because the complaint about monks and blunt icons is the preparation time, not that they gib people in three combos.

Cooper

Arditi said:

Yes, because the complaint about monks and blunt icons is the preparation time, not that they gib people in three combos.

There's been multiple posts lately about how fast monk prep is, or how incredibly quick it is, etc. You can see from how many disagrees my post got how big of a misconception it is.

Arditi

That shadow in the sky isn't one of @Penwize or @Dunn's atlatls, that's the point going over your head.

Dunn

I have four atlatls guys.

Cooper

You can read my multiple other posts in this thread (and regarding blunt icons in other threads) about monk OPness and how to fix it (or realize that prep time for a class is also included in how powerful they are).

Tesha

Two full combos to a limb on most targets will prep, if not break. That's 6 seconds, max, per limb. More like 5 with scorpion and balance trait, if not faster.

Knights need to DSL a limb around 8 times to prep it, = 16 seconds a limb.

Sentinel, Bard, Priest, etc. don't use limb damage the same way (ie - they don't do it just so they can get a damage instant kill, it's more for freeze pound or riftlocks or general hindering). 

Comparing limb prep to hypnotising time, getting past curing, etc. is absolutely silly, because there are strategies to deal with that. Sylvans do it for heartseed, Magi do it to hinder for retardation, and I'm not convinced Blademasters prep faster, assuming equal arties.

How to deal with Serpent's "10 second prep"? Prioritize impatience or paralysis+walk out.

How to deal with Apostate's? Manadrain, hinder, control their momentum.

How to deal with Blademaster's quick prep? Be defensive with impaleslash/low mana, prioritize mana, make smart defensive moves.

How to deal with Magi's prep? Tumble onto a flamed monolith, flame a cube, many ways.

How to deal with Occultist's momentum? Hinder, tumble behind a wall if you have to, whatever.

How to deal with Shaman/Jester? Cure correctly (also, monks prep way faster than it takes to fashion a doll)

How to deal with sylvan? Reconstructive/restoration to torso, don't fall for the same trick twice.

How to deal with monks? You don't. You die. You lie there and take it and die.

There are no strategies to deal with getting broken and axekicked for ludicrous damage. Monks both prep the fastest and have the best ability to make use of that prep, especially with mind command built into their combo. Your arguments that other classes prep more quickly (counting momentum as prep, which is silly) are made void by the fact that there are solid strategies to survive their prep. There aren't really any strategies for surviving axekick. You just die.

Arditi

So, when are you going monk?

Tesha

I don't plan to. I enjoy Priest.

Cooper

You are ignorant if you think that monks can prep limbs with full combos on any sort of reliable basis, especially if you consider two combos the maximum time it takes to prep a limb.

I never mentioned Priests, and never said anything about every class using limb breaks to secure damage for a kill.

How is freeze pound not a damage instakill like bbt/axk?

Then you outline a bunch of strategies to delay your opponent's set up time (which, by the way, work just as good on monks!!)

Then you say there's nothing you can possibly due to prevent dying to a monk once you are prepped, AFTER you had mentioned tumbling behind a wall to survive an Occultist. Guess what? That is going to stop you from dying to that monk too.

I really hope your post was just to troll me into an argument and you really don't think what you posted.

Tesha

No, no trolling, just going by my experience against Jhui, Nemutaur, and Mizik as Bard v Monk. They prepped me extremely quickly, curare axes are a godsend for bypassing avoidance and if you open on a full combo, there's a good chance you get an unparried limb. Enfeeble/axekick is much faster than tumble, as is wwk combo+remove armour/axekick. I don't feel a need to debate it further than this though.

Nellaundra

Cooper, you are really outdated as a Monk.  Back when I played one, I could have my opponent full prepped in less than a minute and I didn't even make use of kicks beyond sweepkick to insure accuracy.  No arties, no telepathy, no Kaido beyond a few survival abilities (not even Kai Heal) and horrible armor.  About the only thing that stopped me from routinely killing my opponents was being out-DPSed, them having a mount, or being artied to the gills.

Yes, axe kick is rather stupid.  But, it's a bit more reasonable for the non-arti monks and the ones without an Icon.  Just nerf the blunt Icon or remove it, because that fucking thing is the source of all of this.

E: Oh, and Priests.  Priests always kicked the shit out of me cause I had no clue what the hell worked against them.

Double E: My reading comprehension is shit today, looks like.  Just reread the posts and I'm sorry, apparently not seeing things right.

Anyway.  @Tesha, there were several ways to deal with Monks.  You're a Priest, you have one of the best already.  Piety them.  And then walk out of LoS or the area entirely.  Boom, the Monk can't do shit to you now.  Wait for them to run out of Kai or something, or walk in and touch shield immediately to throw them off when they try to attack you.  If you can drain their mana (which as a Priest you should be doing anyway) then their Kai Trance goes away, along with regeneration and transmutation.  The minute they break something, tumble away.  Don't ask questions about it or try to fight through it, just LEAVE and make sure you have piety wherever you want the Monk.  You are going to die if you stay there.  That's how all classes work once the time/setup for their kills have been met.

I am not going to stay in the same room as a Priest after they put all four brands on me and are draining the shit out of my mana.  I would be absolved near instantly and people would laugh at me for trying to fight that.


Shit, I'm not staying in the same room as a Priest at all.  Paladins really aren't equipped to fight those, given that they're affliction based and their prep is pretty damn slow.  I'd have to LoS them and that would -never- kill a Priest or anyone else, if it was a one on one situation since I don't have an arty bow.  It'd have to be lunge spam, which I don't think would work quite as well against a Priest as it would against someone else.

Cooper

No part of your post contradicts anything I've said. I agree 100% about axekick and icon, and have said that many times.

I didn't say it took longer than a minute to prep (40-45  seconds in case you forgot is less than a minute). Arties, telepathy and kaido are irrelevant to prep time, as is armor.

Monks SHOULD kill anyone that they full prep and execute a good kill combo on, otherwise how would they ever kill people?

Daklore

I remember when Runewardens could kill anyone they got a full prep on.

Then they nerfed disembowel. Then they buffed it. Then they nerfed it to need torso stacks. Oh sure, people still do it. But I said screw it after the torso. I have enough trouble trying to bypass parry for a setup half the time to begin with. No, no, don't turn this into an "educate Daklore on how to prep as a runie". I already know the lulz hugalaz+thurisaz spam with curare/prefarar whoring thing. ... People who know any better know enough to run away from that, though. XD

Iocun

Cooper said:

Monks SHOULD kill anyone that they full prep and execute a good kill combo on, otherwise how would they ever kill people?

That's exactly the problem about balancing any prep class. Either the "proper prep and execution" kills people, or it doesn't. What is however more fun and balanceable are ways of shifting between different forms of execution, depending on how the opponent defends, which requires that no prep/execution is a guaranteed kill, but that many are potential kills. This usually works better in classes that rely on momentum, since the opponent has more options during the entire killing phase and the attacker has a wider window in which he can get his kills. I thus believe that prep classes should in general move more in the direction of dissolving the distinction between the prepping and the killing phase somewhat, and be constantly threatening during the prepping phase as well. This already works reasonably well for classes like knight (although only with good weapons), sentinel, or bard, but much less for monks, dragons, or jesters.

Dorn

Tesha said:

I'm not convinced Blademasters prep faster, assuming equal arties.

Just commenting on this - assuming by 'prep' you mean 'set up a quadbreak'

The number of slashes to prep one pair of limbs ranged from 4-8, depending on target health and stance

Slash speed is between 1.6s (Thyr/L3 band) and 2.7s (Mir/no band). We'll use 2.4s, which is about Mir/L3 band speed.

Assume the target takes 6 slashes to prep (higher end of the average), that's 14.4s per pair of limbs, or 28.8s for a quadbreak prep.

This is significantly faster than the Monk's estimated 45 seconds.

Now on top of that, the quadbreak is largely unnecessary for a Blademaster unless the target is particularly slippery - we can secure a kill off of a double-break just fine if we can secure a pre-impaleslash. I think mathematically the fastest a Blademaster can go from 'standing start' to 'Brokenstar', assuming no hindrance, is approximately 20 seconds.

Assuming Nimble/L3 band/Thyr, four slashes to prep, and zero latency, with the understanding that these numbers are by necessity approximations::

6.4s for the four slashes,
22s to set up the impale for impaleslash (either by waiting for an attack or pom/neck spam),
2s for the impale,
2s impaleslash balance,
1.6s slash/prone to break,
2s impale balance,
4 bladetwists at ~1s balance each.

Total elapsed time at Brokenstar: 20s.

*/derail*

Jhui

BM is faster for sure, but BM doesn't count for comparisons, everyone knows this

Penwize

You know, BM's another interesting one because, like affliction classes, I don't hear people complaining quite as much at comparatively fast brokenstar kills as I do high damage kills from Monk (and sometimes Magi lately it seems).  Are there just way more monks these days or something?

Kafziel

Pretty sure people have just written BM off

Jhui

Icon monk is better than BM, but that's about it.  Having been most classes, I'd safely pick BM over any others outside of the icon monk/bm matchup.

Isia

Monks at lower levels are also annoyingly hard to fight.

Dorn

Penwize said:

You know, BM's another interesting one because, like affliction classes, I don't hear people complaining quite as much at comparatively fast brokenstar kills as I do high damage kills from Monk (and sometimes Magi lately it seems).  Are there just way more monks these days or something?

I think part of it is there's less people really rocking BM, and less people teaching how to push the class properly. The limbcounter I put together means that, generally speaking, anyone who can read can get reasonable results out of the class, but I've noticed that at least among the newer crop of Ashuran Blademasters, their tactics amount to 'doublebreak to Brokenstar' and 'die' with little effort to explore any other options.

There's also generally answers to BM kills - if you never engage while under the effect of Impaleslash, immediately run on any arm breaks (preferably via flight) and tumble fast on leg breaks, you're going to prevent a Brokenstar ever landing and severely reduce the threat of a mangle-lock or the like.

This might be boring, especially since a Blademaster can effectively loop Impaleslash, but the Blademaster's liable to find it just as boring. And short of somehow herding you into an indoor room with walls/a door or something, they're going to have extreme difficulty keeping you from just continually escaping the danger zone.

Penwize

True enough, but that's true of monks and arm breaks as well, except we don't have hamstring.

Daslin

If I break arms without a leg, you had BETTER believe I'm spamming the shit outta jpk. No need for hamstring when you can chase like that!

Dorn

Far as I'm aware, a Monk has very little reason generally to break arm/arm, given they can break arm/leg while proning?

Blademasters lack that option - if we want to break your arms, we have to break one or both of them at once without being able to touch your legs. Which makes it that much easier to just walk away/fly/strum lyre/raido/pathfinder/whatever other escape method you want to use that Hamstring doesn't block.

Break arms/strike neck helps slightly, but doesn't do a terrible amount really. While under voidfist it might secure the quadbreak - but then you have to stick around for the voidfist, and that's usually a terrible idea.

Honestly, Blademasters have a really sharp duality between their setup and execution - Knights have a momentum phase in their execution, but it's a lot harder to no-sell it like you can with a Blademaster. I'd put us almost close to proper momentum classes in that execution stage - so long as you don't fail on really simple things, buying even one second away from us usually means we have to start over.

...Exploring this mathematically:
Armslash at 1.6s (we'll assume Thyr/L3 band), break arms/paralysis. Let's pretend that for whatever reason, you can't or don't run here - maybe they timed their attack for a long balance, or maybe you like living dangerously. You're curing your arm.
Legslash at 1.6s, break legs/prone. Still curing your arm.
Impale at 2s. Negligible bleeding. Your arm cures halfway through this balance, and you start curing a leg.
Impaleslash at 2s. More negligible bleeding.
Bladetwist, 0.9s. Bleeding for ~200, which requires 10 clots to get rid of - you can clear this but it'll eat a lot of your mana, (10*60=600 base + 10*(1/30)=33.3%, total is probably close to 40%) Let's assume you sip mana/eat moss here - so you recover about 25% of your max mana. You're on 85%.

You writhe off, your leg finishes curing, they impale again, 2s, you tumble. An extra ~150 bleeding - 7 clots to get rid of, 7*60=420 base + 7*(1/30)=23.3%, total is likely around 28%. You're on 68%.
Bladetwist, 0.9s. Another ~200 bleeding, another ~40%. You're on 28%
Bladetwist, 0.9s. 200 more bleeding. You clot off most of this, leaving you on ~60 bleeding and zero mana.
Bladetwist, 0.9s. 200 more bleeding, 260 total now. You sip mana and clot as much as you can - probably getting bleeding down to ~160. Your other leg's cured now.
You tumble off, taking 150 bleeding and escaping. You're now at 310, you eat moss and clot down to ~260.

They follow and impale again, 2s, 150 bleeding. 410.
Bladetwist, 0.9s, 200 bleeding. 610. You writhe here, sip mana and clot down to 550, stand up and run. They haven't been maintaining Hamstring, so even if the room is fully walled with a door in the way, you can open door/leap dir and get out. So long as you stay away, they can't Multislash for more bleeding and try for a last-minute save, Voidfist has a 3s balance to let you get away, pom/knees relies on you using balance right before it, they -could- pom/neck spam but you can spam move and you'll probably win.

Assuming fairly standard curing and not tumbling when it would hurt you (the first impale), they can't kill you. If you have any kind of extra trick (like holding off on applying to arms, or even applying to legs on the armslash), they probably can't even put you in a danger zone. If they get a torso break first, that'll get you killed - but they have a bit more trouble with torso breaks than Monks.

Basically, people die to Blademasters because they don't understand the class mechanics. Understanding can be gained through practice and learning.
People die to Monks more often because of low level or not enough artefacts. Levels cost time, artefacts cost money, which itself costs time (either time working IRL to pay for them, or time grinding gold to buy credits in-game).

That's probably why people complain more about Monks than Blademasters, ultimately.

Synbios

@Dorn: I just realized that Blademasters are a hybrid prep/momentum class.