What were devs thinking when they made Monks?

[xtraball]

Originally Posted by Lhancelot [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Hey on my baby monk I just made, I am DWing wu trance sticks, because they look awesome! When do these become bad, I mean how long could I weild these cool looking sticks of beatdown before they start to turn out bad damage compared to the twink warriors and rogues I will be running with?

What, you want to kick ass and look uncool ?? [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

[Jimjam]

Originally Posted by Raavak [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

I thought I've heard that on Live during the tail end of Velious some guilds were using well-equipped monks to tank NToV. Their skill mostly is with not getting hit, and with SoD's and such hold aggro well. I'd think some unlucky "rolls" and *splat*. But, they are almost unstoppable.

Considering they had the same defence skills as warrior, and they were subject to the same worn ac cap in velious, they mitigated just as well... The only draw back was having above average hp instead of best hp :P.

[Axlrose]

To return to the original intention of the original poster, similar to what were developers thinking when they created monks, but did they intend for bards to "twist" their songs? I have always heard it was discovered by accident that playing three songs (or more) was not the intention.

[Raavak]

Tbh, I've always thought it was strange there were monks in AD&D and then in Everquest. When I think "monk" in the sense of heavy armor and longswords theme sort of like dark ages Euro, I think a cleric-type in a brown robe. Not a Shaolin monk and master in gung fu.

I should see if Gary Gygax or one of his accomplices ever wrote anything defending the class.

And as far as why Verant/Smedley/McQuaid included it from the beginning... who knows. I would guess an AD&D influence. I know Diku MUDs were an influence on EQ and Brad, but I never played a MUD that had a monk class.

[pasi]

From my perspective (long post):

Monks weren't great in classic. In general, melee weren't great in classic. Unlike here, you can pretty much ignore most PoSky sky itemization for the duration of live. Monk are a low/middle tier class.

Kunark was the initial attempt to bring melee in-line with casters. Weaponry makes probably the largest jump - monks especially benefit from this. However, Kunark was short-lived. Most hardcore players were not even 60, and the higher end spells were very rare. Epics were a rarity outside of Ragebringer, Celestial Fists, and Fiery Defender. At this point, no one figured out the myriad of ways to blow past the bottleneck shaman epic spawns. Monks are a medium/high tier class.

Velious was their first expansion without increasing the level cap. For the most part, casters don't scale well with gear, they rely on spells (and later mechanics such as AA and focus effects). Overall, the new spells were either utility or weak. This was really their first expansion developed specifically for raiding.

With Velious, a lot of gear ends up being all/all with absurdly high AC. At the time of launch, they probably did not care much about AC values as the AC hardcap was easily reachable on plate classes (not so much monks). Monks already had a fantastic combat skills tables for avoiding damage. You could counter-argue that gear got buffed as the expansion went along, but look at the AC on those items. Monks get a huge itemization buff as they introduce the primal/priceless weapon trader and fist of lightning (Fist of Nature should not be in the game until Luclin). For whatever reason, the developers were reluctant to greatly buff rogue top-end damage. My speculation is that is due to the strength and ubiquity of ragebringer. Rogues still make great strides in weaponry, but not nearly the same gains as monks. Monks also benefit from 2hander combat-tables and receiving triple attack. Monks are a top-tier class.

Monks are very strong coming out the gate in Luclin. Monk primal fists are relatively much stronger than other primal weapons (15/20 vs 13/20). This becomes less of a factor in Luclin as players obtain Vengeance gear (primal's ATK counted toward the ATK cap). Rogue Weaponry caught up and added things like backstab mods. The two big monk weapon upgrades were Vyzdra Fangs and Caens. Other than that, there wasn't a ton of great, new weaponry introduced for monks. My opinion is that they either over-budgeted the procs on the shiny new HtH weapons or that they feared giving BSTs insane weaponry. Fist of Acrylia was nerfed right out the gate. The only other upgrade was on XtC. Cursed and XtC have insanely large loot-tables. It was much easier to just get a Caen's and farm yourself a GCB.

Meanwhile, casters make great strides with focus effects, horses, AAs and new spells (and the fact that raid mobs have INSANE AC). Rangers get AM3/EQ which narrows the gap some. CHeal takes a nerf and the (essentially) AC-hardcap gets changed to a softcap which brings purpose to plate-armor again. All the while, warriors complain and get monk mitigation nerfed. Monks remained mid/high tier, but started to fall off as the expansion progressed.

PoP/LDoN is when monks significantly decline.
If monks hadn't lost their pulling role already to SKs, they definitely have to bards w/ FM. In exp groups, the new lull spells were a huge improvement to previous spells and defeated the need for a puller.

PoP toned down raid-mob AC which did benefit melee - just not enough to compete w/ castes.

A ton of fights in zones with charmable mobs meant that enchanter DPS was back on the menu if needed. Concussion Pants initially let wizards clown other classes.
Rogues got very large weaponry upgrades w/ Ifir, DoD, and JTFB. Necro became top-dogs when they shortened DoT duration and changed Extended Affliction to Burning Affliction. The implementation of LDoN curse spells only expanded this gap. Shaman got to piggyback on the DoT changes (and their LDoN curse). Shaman just lacked a (re-usable) way to drop aggro, but could arguably take the #2 spot if a tank was geared enough. Monks were a mid-tier DPS class and worse than necros, SKs, and bards at pulling. Low/Mid Tier class.

Even after the Luclin AC nerfs, monks still avoided melee damage better than knights (lol), but could not reliably hold aggro. If you compare monks to knights, I'm sure they look overpowered, but knights needed double-digit expansions before they graduated from trash.

Long Post.
TLDR: Velious is the sweet spot for monks. Monk dominance is transient. This server is capped at Velious.

[Alanus]

Originally Posted by pasi [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Even after the Luclin AC nerfs, monks still avoided melee damage better than knights (lol), but could not reliably hold aggro. If you compare monks to knights, I'm sure they look overpowered, but knights needed double-digit expansions before they graduated from trash.

Well equipped paladins (elemental/time gear) during PoP were pretty powerful. Obviously didn't have the DPS of monks, but no other class could solo Venril Sathir and Kunark dragons. I even used to 2-box regruas in powater with a shaman.

[Damn]

Originally Posted by xtraball [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

What, you want to kick ass and look uncool ?? [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Yes Yes indeed

[Raavak]

Originally Posted by Alanus [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Well equipped paladins (elemental/time gear) during PoP were pretty powerful. Obviously didn't have the DPS of monks, but no other class could solo Venril Sathir and Kunark dragons. I even used to 2-box regruas in powater with a shaman.

I think that one pally named Alanus that did that stuff was a cheater.

[Rygar]

Originally Posted by pasi [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

From my perspective (long post):

Monks weren't great in classic. In general, melee weren't great in classic. Unlike here, you can pretty much ignore most PoSky sky itemization for the duration of live. Monk are a low/middle tier class.

Kunark was the initial attempt to bring melee in-line with casters. Weaponry makes probably the largest jump - monks especially benefit from this. However, Kunark was short-lived. Most hardcore players were not even 60, and the higher end spells were very rare. Epics were a rarity outside of Ragebringer, Celestial Fists, and Fiery Defender. At this point, no one figured out the myriad of ways to blow past the bottleneck shaman epic spawns. Monks are a medium/high tier class.

Velious was their first expansion without increasing the level cap. For the most part, casters don't scale well with gear, they rely on spells (and later mechanics such as AA and focus effects). Overall, the new spells were either utility or weak. This was really their first expansion developed specifically for raiding.

With Velious, a lot of gear ends up being all/all with absurdly high AC. At the time of launch, they probably did not care much about AC values as the AC hardcap was easily reachable on plate classes (not so much monks). Monks already had a fantastic combat skills tables for avoiding damage. You could counter-argue that gear got buffed as the expansion went along, but look at the AC on those items. Monks get a huge itemization buff as they introduce the primal/priceless weapon trader and fist of lightning (Fist of Nature should not be in the game until Luclin). For whatever reason, the developers were reluctant to greatly buff rogue top-end damage. My speculation is that is due to the strength and ubiquity of ragebringer. Rogues still make great strides in weaponry, but not nearly the same gains as monks. Monks also benefit from 2hander combat-tables and receiving triple attack. Monks are a top-tier class.

Monks are very strong coming out the gate in Luclin. Monk primal fists are relatively much stronger than other primal weapons (15/20 vs 13/20). This becomes less of a factor in Luclin as players obtain Vengeance gear (primal's ATK counted toward the ATK cap). Rogue Weaponry caught up and added things like backstab mods. The two big monk weapon upgrades were Vyzdra Fangs and Caens. Other than that, there wasn't a ton of great, new weaponry introduced for monks. My opinion is that they either over-budgeted the procs on the shiny new HtH weapons or that they feared giving BSTs insane weaponry. Fist of Acrylia was nerfed right out the gate. The only other upgrade was on XtC. Cursed and XtC have insanely large loot-tables. It was much easier to just get a Caen's and farm yourself a GCB.

Meanwhile, casters make great strides with focus effects, horses, AAs and new spells (and the fact that raid mobs have INSANE AC). Rangers get AM3/EQ which narrows the gap some. CHeal takes a nerf and the (essentially) AC-hardcap gets changed to a softcap which brings purpose to plate-armor again. All the while, warriors complain and get monk mitigation nerfed. Monks remained mid/high tier, but started to fall off as the expansion progressed.

PoP/LDoN is when monks significantly decline.
If monks hadn't lost their pulling role already to SKs, they definitely have to bards w/ FM. In exp groups, the new lull spells were a huge improvement to previous spells and defeated the need for a puller.

PoP toned down raid-mob AC which did benefit melee - just not enough to compete w/ castes.

A ton of fights in zones with charmable mobs meant that enchanter DPS was back on the menu if needed. Concussion Pants initially let wizards clown other classes.
Rogues got very large weaponry upgrades w/ Ifir, DoD, and JTFB. Necro became top-dogs when they shortened DoT duration and changed Extended Affliction to Burning Affliction. The implementation of LDoN curse spells only expanded this gap. Shaman got to piggyback on the DoT changes (and their LDoN curse). Shaman just lacked a (re-usable) way to drop aggro, but could arguably take the #2 spot if a tank was geared enough. Monks were a mid-tier DPS class and worse than necros, SKs, and bards at pulling. Low/Mid Tier class.

Even after the Luclin AC nerfs, monks still avoided melee damage better than knights (lol), but could not reliably hold aggro. If you compare monks to knights, I'm sure they look overpowered, but knights needed double-digit expansions before they graduated from trash.

Long Post.
TLDR: Velious is the sweet spot for monks. Monk dominance is transient. This server is capped at Velious.

So many acronyms! And no idea what those items are or stand for, too lazy to look it up.

I agree that Kunark really seemed to jump the shark with weaponry for all classes. Having a 2H weapon in vanilla that was a 2:1 ratio was like the gold standard, I seem to remember 3:1 being the gold for 1h weapons (like 8/24 Short Sword of the Ykesha). Then trash drops like 30/40 2Hers, insanity monk weapons (23/28 on wu's was ridiculous in itself, nevermind 28/30, 29/30 + 100DD stun). The new 1h standard was like 2:1 or close to it.

I really question if Verant was making crazy itemization for melee just for making money (i.e. you cannot compete without Kunark, so buy it today). I think by the time Velious hit they realized their err and tried to correct it but it was too late. I wish they didn't go so crazy in Kunark and make almost all classic weapons obsolete instantly (Is there even a relative weapon left from Classic to Kunark? Maybe Mithril 2her since haste was harder to come by, or maybe Ghoulbane for twinking.

[Daldaen]

I agree mostly with what Pasi said.

Luclin/PoP brought monks back down to earth, and brought most other classes up to where they should be.

Need Luclin and PoP. They make servers far better.