Mind Crush

Rinnai

I've seen several mentions of Tekura (I presume using the COMBO attack) compared to MIND CRUSH & Shikudo. I've got to transcendent in Tekura and am a one-man murdering army now. Still, since MIND CRUSH is better than Tekura (reputedly) I want to understand how it works. If I train up Telepathy and switch to using MIND CRUSH instead of COMBO, is that expected to be a bump in damage going out? Does Telepathy have advantages to overtraining as Tekura does (improved Tekura is better accuracy)?

Dupre

Crush is only better damage if you swap spec to quickwitted+Int and throw in a diadem

Rinnai

I see, so Crush is conditionally better. Is Shikudo always better than Tekura?

Dupre

Yes it is

Kyvarus

Yea seems like Tekura monks need some rework. They don't even work the way they were initially intended to. You can't use any telepathy off balance. (Other than mind command/hallucinate) Making more than 15% of your telepathy abilities utterly useless. Back in the dawn of Tekura, it was always intended to be used off balance. Supposedly the Sentaari devised tekura with the express purpose of meshing it with Kaido and Telepathy. Which it doesn't anymore. 

Or at least thats what is stated in these old forum posts: http://www.angelfire.com/realm/sentaari/oldstuff/skills/telepathy.html

[Deleted User]

They were never intended to work off balance. Very little of telepathy is useless, it just has niche uses and an opportunity cost because it's exclusive from your physical attack sequence. Kaido and telepathy in general are extremely powerful, they just don't work in a combo and never have. 

If anything, the rework of mind scythe into an instantkill has made telepathy more dangerous than it ever was before, because you have an alternative kill route that you can fork into from your prep. I think you would be hard pressed to find any number of experienced fighters who would consider Tekura monks to be underpowered.

Vika

Tekura monk is one of the strongest classes in the game, in my opinion. At all artefacted levels from unfunded to every artie in the game, but diadem and knuckles/gauntlets help.

Obviously It has its frustrations, but all classes do.

Monk has the ability over all other classes to slow prep dangerously and fork BBT or scythe with almost nothing to go off of other than 'Hey my head/torso/both are prepped right now."

Atalkez made it a point to just go around dueling as Tekura monk and just show off how potent it can be and he doesn't automate.

Also I only ever got to duel Jhui's monk twice, but THAT was just rough.

Kyvarus

Yea tekura is good, but it's not the end all. For anyone who has above 5k health, it's a nightmare. You can no longer out damage their restoration balance. Meaning; you have to prep 3-4 limbs and wrench the torso beforehand. You could also in theory go for mind scythe, if you're lucky to get past damaged head curing priorities. However, with like 30-50% of combatants using SVOF, they can all stop that method using simple triggers for shield, diagnose and tree tattoos.

Telepathy was initially meant to be used as an addition to tekura as a form of pressure. Why else allow them to be used in-room? If you were meant to only stick afflictions under blackout, why does blackout require a mindlock, and the other afflictions do not?

Frankly IF the afflictions were there to be used long distance as a measure of stacking metal afflictions, there would be no reason for them all to have eq balances of 2 seconds or be allowed without a mind-lock. Pretty much suggests that they were meant to be used with tekura.

Why provide abilities that cost more balance time than the intended effect? You don't.

[Deleted User]

The thresholds for limb breaks are relatively uniform and generous, it's 8-9 'hits' for me to break against most people other than dragons (without knuckles), and the rescaling of health has reduced the number of odd scenarios that fall below that. There are very simple ways to prevent shield and burn tree, and they're generally a given when you're in your kill sequence.

Whether or not something was 'meant' to be one way or another is all hypothesis; in practice, it's never worked that way, and so it's hard to argue that the way it's functioning is wrong. It's absolutely possible to stick mental afflictions, and the lead-in to scythe is a good example of this - looping impatience alone beats herb balance pretty handily (in DRS, and especially with quick-witted/diadem), and from there you can use batter to force someone to play roulette with their cures. Blackout and the other mental afflictions have specific uses that aren't really part of your standard kill sequences, but these uses do exist, and I would encourage people to play with the abilities and consult experienced fighters who have tried them in a wide variety of scenarios. Monk has such a diverse kit that there's a lot of room for creativity and throwing people off with unexpected sequences.

Kyvarus

Issam said:

It's absolutely possible to stick mental afflictions, and the lead-in to scythe is a good example of this - looping impatience alone beats herb balance pretty handily (in DRS, and especially with quick-witted/diadem), 

So your argument is that it works well with artifacts. Well no duh. I'm not sure if you realized, but you cannot loop impatience or anything in telepathy to stack. Quickwitted gives you 0.2 second gain on your telepathy; Dragon stance gives you an additional .2 at best.  still leaving you at a miserable 1.5-1.6 second balances for 1 affliction. Which is not enough to stack. Not to mention that Batter would take 3.4 seconds to cast out. which is longer than it takes to cure 3 afflictions. Not sure where you thought that's possible. but it's not. 

Also I'm not so sure why you keep asserting it has never been done that way. When there seem to be logs from the Sentaari saying that's how it was.

[Deleted User]

Quick-witted + DRS with no diadem is ~1.2 seconds, not 1.5. Throwing in a level 2 diadem is ~0.9 seconds.

Batter in the same scenario is ~3s. Adding the level 2 diadem turns that into ~2.4s.

EDIT: Oh, I see where you're getting it from now, the line 'Most of these abilities may be used without having balance'. I don't think that was ever true, but I'm not entirely sure which ones these were either. You wouldn't get much utility from them working that way anyway, since the balance time from tekura combos will exceed any of the equilibrium times of the abilities, so you'd just be wasting someone's herbs without making any progress. The important ones wouldn't give you any value from being combo'd like that regardless.

Cooper

Kyvarus you have a lot of this information completely wrong.

You are right about some telepathy originally being comboable with tekura combos (mind drain only, iirc). It was removed for balance reasons probably close to 18 years ago.

Telepathy is very useful in both group and solo fights.

Tekura is viable against pretty much anyone, regardless of their health or break points. Quick-witted and DRS do not work like you described. 

Telepathy was not intended to be used WITH Tekura to kill people, it was more a separate way to kill them, or a way to slow them down or hold them still.

Blackout requires a mindlock to balance it because of how powerful it is.

Your eq times of telepathy skills are wrong. You can definitely stack telepathy afflictions faster than opponents can cure if you are a telepathy monk.

You dug up a website from 20 years ago, and it doesn't actually say what you are saying it does. And what it does actually say on the website is wrong.

Atalkez

Kyvarus said:

Yea tekura is good, but it's not the end all. For anyone who has above 5k health, it's a nightmare. You can no longer out damage their restoration balance. Meaning; you have to prep 3-4 limbs and wrench the torso beforehand. You could also in theory go for mind scythe, if you're lucky to get past damaged head curing priorities. However, with like 30-50% of combatants using SVOF, they can all stop that method using simple triggers for shield, diagnose and tree tattoos.

Telepathy was initially meant to be used as an addition to tekura as a form of pressure. Why else allow them to be used in-room? If you were meant to only stick afflictions under blackout, why does blackout require a mindlock, and the other afflictions do not?

Frankly IF the afflictions were there to be used long distance as a measure of stacking metal afflictions, there would be no reason for them all to have eq balances of 2 seconds or be allowed without a mind-lock. Pretty much suggests that they were meant to be used with tekura.

Why provide abilities that cost more balance time than the intended effect? You don't.

Speaking from experience, there is no one in the game a good Tekura monk can’t kill. They have excellent defense, damage mitigation, and an excellent offense. Yeah Scythe is beaten by head prio, but that just means I’m going to BBT you to death. The only people I’ve had to even think about wrenching against are full artied knights or people with max blunt resistance. BBT can kill 90% of the game with 3, its easy to get 3, and it’s hard to avoid getting hit with it three times.

Batter, Impatience, Blackout, Disrupt, Throw, Drain all have uses in 1v1 and group. Monk doesn’t need off balance Telepathy to make these things useful, they already are.

I promise you that if you believe Tekura underpowered then either you’ve never played it at a high level, or witnessed someone play it at a high level.

Jhui would call you a scrub for even thinking Tekura is underpowered.

Edit: Dragon stance gives an EQ cost reduction, Bear gives an increased damage on BBT, you can change stance off balance. If 5k health is stopping you, you’re not doing things right.

Kyvarus

Okay so just to double check I went to see the reduction dragon stance really gives you. Seems to be a 20% reduction to EQ. 
(Basically tried a number of different abilities and found the percentage to be the same. so we know it's not a flat reduction.)

Then quick-witted is 10% reduction. Diadem level 2 gives you a 15% reduction. Grand total of 45% reduction. So the balances, artied should be ~1.1-1.2 seconds. Which is doable.

But again without the Diadem, your stuck at 30% reduction to eq, which lands you around 1.4-1.5 balance times?


Cooper said:

Kyvarus you have a lot of this information completely wrong.

You are right about some telepathy originally being comboable with tekura combos (mind drain only, iirc). It was removed for balance reasons probably close to 18 years ago.

Ah, So it was like a vestigial limb.  That makes more sense.

[Deleted User]

The equilibrium times I put in my post are the correct ones, I switched to monk and tested them with and without my artefacts to make sure I was giving you the right information. I can't give exact times because there's no exact readout and I'm basing it on my client's capturing, but the variation is small enough that I'm confident in it. You do not need a diadem to beat herb balance, you may just need an additional impatience in your lead up for someone to have impatience stuck before you batter.

Vika

Wrenching head is also an option for relapsing mentals if you dont have enough pressure to beat herb/active/passive. Jhui had diadem and still used it because scythe is super strong.

Dochitha

Confirming Atalkez statements. Tekura is very strong, excellent offense, lots of defensive skills, strong ability to handle all classes.

Keorin

Tekura scales a -lot- with artifacts, and so it can struggle a bit if you either lack the strength to kill in three torso damage back breakers, or if you lack a diadem for scythe. But the class overall is more then capable, and there's only a very few telepathy and kaido skills that -aren't- useful.

And frankly, with artifacted levels of strength, bbt is absurdly strong. If the class needs a rework, it's making it so less then 75% of the game has no answer to a two leg setup.

[Deleted User]

You don't need to damage kill with BBT when wrench torso is perfectly viable. Don't need artifacts as Tekura these days, except maybe ones to survive damage setups from shit like DWB.

Riell

Pyori said:

You don't need to damage kill with BBT when wrench torso is perfectly viable. Don't need artifacts as Tekura these days, except maybe ones to survive damage setups from shit like DWB.

Echoing wrench bbtx3 strat. Tek monk has no issues killing artifacted folks on paper.

Devran

What's the difference between a monk with Level 3 Str and Bear stance BBT and an unartifacted monk in Bear stance BBT?

Assuming mental artifacts (Int sash, collar, diadem) how ruthless is Kai Choke and Mind Crush?  

I'm trying to remember from aaaages ago, but wasn't Choke changed to be percentage only? (I could be totally wrong here this is just vague memory as I don't play the class)

Cooper

I can't answer most of that without logging in, but fully artied kai choke will do about 42% if the person has no resistances to it. 

Devran

Is it a significant difference do you think? For the BBT stuff and Mind Crush I mean.

[Deleted User]

BBT isn't quite as high now that wrench is a guaranteed 3-kill setup. With broken torso and ~17 str it's like 55% or something. Won't get much higher with 19str. Minus like ~6% from the total for out of Bear stance. Honestly don't think Bear is that amazing, but it's nice for squishier people who you don't need wrench to kill, I guess.

Difference in choke/crush is pretty heavy, collar moreso than int I found. Unartied with 15 int is like ~25% choke or something. With 17/lv 2 collar (all thiev has) it jumped to around 36% or so. Cooper was about right when it comes to max arties.

As for the differences for BBT / Crush, it's not that significant since crush is already good without arties. But it's a difference nonetheless. If you're just int/str spec without extra arties, the damage both do is already decent.

Devran

THanks @Cooper and thanks @Pyori. 

I guess the question becomes how well can you mesh the offences? Assuming good artifacts for Int side and Str side, I'm guessing the problem would be you're either Quick Witted or Nimble. 

How well can you perform with Tekura without Nimble? That's what I'm wondering right now.

Also, sorry for hijacking this thread. I promise I'll make a new one if I have any more questions.

[Deleted User]

Unless you're plan on never doing anything 1v1 whatsoever, I wouldn't take quick-witted over nimble. Telepathy gets more than enough reduction with just diadem + dragon stance.

You don't really "mesh" offences with Monk, you're either using Shikudo/Tekura 1v1, or you're using (mostly) telepathy in groups. There's no real crossover except via scythe strat (which you still want to use nimble for), and for finalising a lock with Shikudo (again, nimble).

tl;dr take nimble unless you plan to do literally 0 1v1.

Riell

Pyori said:

Unless you're plan on never doing anything 1v1 whatsoever, I wouldn't take quick-witted over nimble. Telepathy gets more than enough reduction with just diadem + dragon stance.

You don't really "mesh" offences with Monk, you're either using Shikudo/Tekura 1v1, or you're using (mostly) telepathy in groups. There's no real crossover except via scythe strat (which you still want to use nimble for), and for finalising a lock with Shikudo (again, nimble).

tl;dr take nimble unless you plan to do literally 0 1v1.

Disagree! Quick-witted is great for 1v1. I’m leaving for work, but I’ll tag @Farrah

Farrah

I played QW tekura monk for sure (for 1v1). Scorpion/Dragon let you get away with nimble or QW, really. I was still STR spec though. 

Proficy

Pyori said:

Unless you're plan on never doing anything 1v1 whatsoever, I wouldn't take quick-witted over nimble. Telepathy gets more than enough reduction with just diadem + dragon stance.

You don't really "mesh" offences with Monk, you're either using Shikudo/Tekura 1v1, or you're using (mostly) telepathy in groups. There's no real crossover except via scythe strat (which you still want to use nimble for), and for finalising a lock with Shikudo (again, nimble).

tl;dr take nimble unless you plan to do literally 0 1v1.

100% wrong...
Doesn't matter how good your offense is, if you can not survive to pull it off... telepathy and kaido complements the class massively to help stay alive long enough to pull off your tekura finishers, and they are eq based mostly.
And there are plenty of ways to have QW complement your tekura path against certain classes, especially ones that do physical and not magic damage..
Best part about monk is there is no correct stat setup for it, it allows for you to use what ever your strongest in str/int nimble/qw to be able to finish in a variety of ways 

[Deleted User]

Proficy said:

100% wrong...

What, exactly, was wrong?

I didn't say QW was bad, or that you should never take it. More that I wouldn't recommend QW to someone who obviously isn't fully clued into how monk works, seeing as how a number of Tekura's things are done outside of both Scorpion and Dragon. He asked about offence, not defence, of which there isn't really any crossover except what was mentioned.

Farrah

"Unless you're plan on never doing anything 1v1 whatsoever, I wouldn't take quick-witted over nimble." and "tl;dr take nimble unless you plan to do literally 0 1v1." are what is wrong.

I love QW for 1v1, specifically. You implied you can't 1v1 with it at all. The argument can be made for it being better than nimble for only 1v1.