Ughbash: Re monks.

[Bigcat Daddy-o]

Hey Ugh. Just read your thoughts on the state of monks on the other thread and thought I'd start a whole new one as there were a few questions I wanted to ask you. I just brought my monk out of hibernation for this expac, about 2 weeks in. In SOF I had been down to shm/dru/pal/mage as I could pull easily in FM with druid mage combo.
In SOD, about the time I hit FOS, and all the indoor dungeons I wanted to do I decided the monk was the way to go for pulling. It has worked brilliantly and he has replaced my mage in my 3 box with mercs or friends group.

My monk has about 700 AAs, and almost all were focused to pulling or defensive. I just now am starting to branch out to get some DPS AAs and offensive power. I intend to get a parser soon and see how he is doing on dps as I put more AAs in to that.

Currently he is in a mix of SOD group gear, mostly T4, 1 T3 (stupid hat essence won't drop) and 2-3 T5. Using high maul of ?? from Tosk, and dire Cestie (main hand).

I have had him 'emergency tank' up to Korafax trash so far. He tanked Beguiler Chandra from about 18%, using delay death skill and at the end impenetrable. Wasn't pretty but he got the job done! I have actually been quite impressed with his abilities this expac, so was surprised to see your discussion of the state of monk.

I really like his pulling skills. I'd like to see Imitate death on a bit faster recycle, and it's a bit annoying to be lieing down waiting for agro to clear where I know a bard just has to /fade a mob off.

I have a bard friend who groups with me quite often, and there are certain pulls that we always put the monk on. Beguiler Chandra being one of them because monk has shown to be a better rampage tank than the bard so far. Mend has been brilliant for this as well as delay death. I haven't used impenetrable on rampage yet, because I wasn't sure if that pushed him off of rampage tank or not?

Stuff that I wanted to talk to you about, in complete randomivity.

Grappling strike: Been having troubles with the enrage/walk away but can't be snared mobs in Korafax( caught me off guard the first time. hehe.) so I bought this AA. Wasn't a lot of use to stop them, but MAN! was it brilliant to help with positioning when my merc tank decided to jump in too early in tight spaces. Any other uses for this that I might have missed? This one alone made it worth while, and wish I had bought it long ago!

As I had said, I have bought almost exclusively defensive or pulling type AAs. Anything that made him tougher to kill, or made the job easier to pull was priority one. The only defensive AA I haven't bought is staff block, because I don't have a good 2hb so I use 2 1h weapons.
What would be the most recommended AAs MUST HAVE types for monk on the offensive side? Just kind of an order of preference thing. Decided I'd start with the 18 lvls of extra strikes from main hand, but quite willing to refocus if there are better bang for the AA buck.

NOTE:I can't access the monk boards from work, and I tend not to surf much in the evening as I like to spend what time I have for EQ on playing EQ.

Peace

[Ughbash]

Where to start. First my monk is about 2900 or so AA and fairly well raid geared with a focus on AC (buffs around 4650), all defensive AA done working on offense from SOD, was maxxed before SoD came out.

Well in the group game a monk can pull, how often that is needed varies by where you are.

A bard will out mitigate a monk (assuming equal gear and AA) however a monk may avoid more I have not seen any parses on bard avoidance, do bards get shield block? If so if that was maxxed shoudl help them a little more.

Inpenetrable is a very nice disc, for 12 seconds you can tank just about anything. Some monks prefer voiddance which is complete avoidance, but I personally use inpenetrable since it will refresh FAR faster. If you are fighting in Korafax or worse bloodfields you can finish a mob, but it is harder to actually tank the mob (I usually tank for the groups I am in).

One of my pet peeves is my end burn rate, using end for pulling, occasionally inpenetrable, Whorl (or Calanin's SYnergy) and crippling strike to snare, I go through end very fast. Even faster if I need to use distraction rather then lull. Now if you use a bard for most pulling and then the monk for occasional pulls you will not have this problem.

Grappling strike. Nice for placing a mob, or for pulling it off a ledge wall when people have pushed it where it should not be, does not work for stopping a mob from running and yes I got the same suprise in Korofax when mobs ran. First time that happened I played dead and the merc died, which was better then me dieing and then the merc.

Imitate death sure it woud be nice if it was faster but *shrug* I am used to not having it, heck I rememebr when Feighn did not even drop aggro guaranteed. I sometimes had to feighn let mobs wander off, /quit and reconnect before walking back uphill in the snow with no shoes... and we liked it darnit!!! In all honeslty I use ID for invis as often as I use it to drop aggro (well almost as honest) and for raids nowadays well I just train the raid and don't bohter to FD or imitate death. Fastest way to clear the endless trash.

For pulling a ranger can situationaly be your best bet assuming 85 and harmonious arrow beign available. Shock troopers for rathe progression being one spot they are wonderful for.

As for offensive AA since you dual wield, I would go ambidexterity, max ferocity, rapid strikes and burst of power. Wu's is also good. I tend to like passive AA over activated, and since you will probably always have champion you may not need Zan Fi quite as much, but I can recommend that as it lasts 3 or 4 min and has a refresh of 10 min. While not offensive critical mend and hastened Mend are both important.


If you are going to be using Calanins synergy over Whorl then I would suggest maxing Stunning Kick and hastened whatever it is called that lets you get it down to 30 seconds. Then you can hit stunning kick immediately after Calanins to get a nice boost to the damge done by stunning kick.

Right now a ranger can pull in many cases as well as a monk, can definitely out tank a monk (assumign similar gear and AA), adn can out dps a monk (assuming he can use his barrage of arrows). With max headshots a 85 ranger is soloing about 18 AA for a lesson. So perhaps I am a little frustrated with monks now and especially on raids see absoulutely no reason to include a monk. They are sub par dps, and offer no utility.

[Ughbash]

Did some more thinking.

I think in all fairness now would be a decent time for a alt monk, but not a decent time for a main monk (which may be in part why I have the crap colored glasses on). After all if you have people or alts you can get nice gear for monks, the group gear is admitedly the best gear by far that monks have ever had (or any class for that matter). For a main who has to tank his way throug the named to get that gear though it is a bit trickier, can I do it? sure but then I am a raid monk not a gorup monk and the gear is not an upgrade for me (though my alts are likeing it).

[Keltsete]

[Unmei]

Were monks at one time some sort of premier DPS class? I don't recall that being the case.

Or perhaps, to spin this another way... how is this situation different from any time since PoP?

Bards do, oddly, get shield block, which strikes me as a bit weird since they didn't hard ever used to get shields. @_@

[Keltsete]

[Brohg]

See, to me rangers and especially beastlords have to work much harder to do all the dps you credit them with. The spells they get aren't an advantage, they're a hurdle, since they HAVE to be used to have decent performance. Call me crazy, but all else equal and ancient history aside, players that work harder at it should dps higher. All else isn't equal, of course. Ranger and beastlord get heals that don't matter to any group and get snare just like thirteen other classes; while monks only have an instant large self-butt-saving heal, they're one of the thirteen other classes with snare, and Feign Freakin' Death. Oh wait, that tally didn't seem to favor rangers and beastlords, did it... Oh, wait, they have movement buffs! - which monks don't need because they already just plain run much faster with unlimited duration and in any zone. The only reason to play a ranger from a class powers standpoint is Tracking. The only reason to play a beastlord from a class powers standpoint is you're gender dysphoric irl and developed a furry fetish to smother it.

[Keltsete]

[Brohg]

Show me a monster who mitigates FD.

[Unmei]

To be fair, who -cares- about ranger attack buffs anymore? People always hold those up as why rangers are so uber. C'mon, seriously. Beastlords complain all the time about how Ferocity -sucks- because the returns on ATK are so minor at this point, but the ranger buff that buffs for less than half of what the Beastlord Fero does is some magic uber buff that adds tons of DPS to the raid? It must be the 4% double attack that so many people are already capped on that makes the difference, right? C'mon, get real.

And Harmonious Arrow is up for a huge nerf, so...

And if you seriously think a beastlord has more utility than a monk or somehow does more DPS, I don't think we can continue this conversation without my breaking down into a fit of giggles.

What's wrong with being a pulling/DPS class? It sure beats being a DPS/Pet class, since being a /Pet class is generally considered a liability, not a group role.

[Bigcat Daddy-o]

[Finori]

Just as a side note. I think people way too readily dismiss attack buffs. Read ! The attack buffs will shift you up on the DI scale. Of course a raid geared and buffed melee DPSer will overpower any group mob. But it is fair to assume that under raid conditions attack still matters as well as for groupers fighting group mobs. I also get the sense that the current EQ developers have a much better grip on these systems. And they have stated their intent to make attack (de-)/buffs even more meaningful.

[Ughbash]

If you are on a raid and you are melee dps, and NOT using ranger buffs, you are hurting your dps.

Plus heir nice group buff to boost melee.

Plus their nice MGB auspice.

They also off tank WAY better then monks.

Now why would anyone want a monk on a riad?

Just delete the monk class as far as I am concerned.

[Unmei]

Are you seriously suggesting that anyone would ever voluntarily use a monk -or- a ranger as an offtank on a raid? -_-;

[Ughbash]

[Ughbash]

[Brohg]

No, and they don't. But being offended that they can work their asses off to just approach what you do effortlessly I find ridiculous.

[Keltsete]

[Brohg]

"Hard" objectively? No. Compared to monks? Certainly. Monks, Rangers, and Beastlords all have to stay in melee, hit their skill attack button (Kick, Rake, FK, w/e), and disc correctly. Rangers and beastlords both have the additional requirement of combining nukes with their melee to do good dps. Rangers have to wrestle with Barrage of Arrows (15° arc to the left of center, while mob is being pushed by 30 guys and pets) to actually compete. Beastlords have to manage their warder regarding position and survival and mix in dots, to get their dps. Not "tough" like hitting a 93mph fastball or balancing the state budget, but yes, much harder than monk dps.

[Keltsete]

[Brohg]

Again, relative numbers. 0.5sec is "fast", but melee delays are also really low on dual wielders. Not losing any swings is, dare I say it? Hard. Key spells Barrage of Arrows and Yowl at the Moon are 1.5sec cast time, even.

[Ughbash]

[Keltsete]

[Ughbash]

[Unmei]

[Brohg]

And if the answer is four, then not only is something not wrong with the class, but your argument fails?

[Ughbash]

[Ughbash]

[Unmei]

Why would anyone want more than one ranger when they could fill that slot with a rogue or a berserker? I think it's your mindset that is screwed up, not monks. Of course, I think the whole raid game is one gigantic f-up, so if you insist on basing your class valuation on it, I'm not going to be much help.

[Keltsete]

[Ughbash]

[Bigcat Daddy-o]

[Ughbash]

[AbyssalMage]

Coming from a Beastlord I can see your complaint about the state of the monk class. I actually don't know where you stand DPS wise on a raid. But thinking you should come above Wizzy or Mage in a short duration fight is just funny to me. But I also don't think you where inplying that either.

Hopefully the community supports your /petitions to have your DPS increased but I wouldn't complain too munch. Monk's Innate run, defensive skills, and FD are an envy to many classes. It sounds like they need to make pulling a part of the game once again and that would solve some of the issue's of a Raiding monk.

[Ughbash]