U72 Early Look 2: Monk Revamp

[Palumtra]

Remember when Monks could even resurrect others? (Phoenix Strike)
So instead of updating the combo builders and some finishers you are just taking it away and splatter it around the new Archetype and other trees.
The last unique aspects of the Monks class is about to be erased. RIP.
At least the dependancy on the Falconry tree goes away, but at what cost? Sadge

 

[Nickodeamous]

At least the dependancy on the Falconry tree goes away, but at what cost? Sadge

this is true of the wisdom trance...but it's still missing No Mercy from falconry...

No Mercy: You deal 10/20/30% additional damage to helpless opponents.

 

[J1NG]

this is true of the wisdom trance...but it's still missing No Mercy from falconry...

No Mercy: You deal 10/20/30% additional damage to helpless opponents.

If you're getting Helpless, don't forget the 5% Quality HP bonus on the way there...

J1NG

 

[Nickodeamous]

If you're getting Helpless, don't forget the 5% Quality HP bonus on the way there...

J1NG

Oh yeah! That too!! soo...falconry is still better.

 

[SpardaX]

Looks pretty good to me.
Does the 25% Fort reduction and 50% healing reduction from the Ninja dark attack, and the 25% Fort reduction and 50% healing reduction from the Shintao dark attack stack for 50% Fort and 100% healing reduction?
Also agree with other person, now that Shadow Flurry isn't the auto crit, it probably doesn't need the 20 hp cost. But if you feel like the ability is too strong otherwise I understand.

Dark Path: Hand of Harm: Melee Attack: You strike your opponent down with a terrible curse, halving all positive energy healing done to the target, reducing its fortification by 25%, and increasing its negative energy vulnerability by 25%. Periodic Fortitude saves (14 + STR/DEX/WIS Modifier + Monk Level + Stunning Bonuses) to negate. (12 second cooldown, costs 10 ki)

Dark Path: Shadow Flurry: Melee Attack: +20% damage. Target must make a saving throw equal to (10/14/18 + Monk Level + Highest of Str/Dex/Wis Mod + Assassinate DCs) or have some of their energy temporarily sealed, halving all positive energy healing, reducing its fortification by 25%, and rendering it unable to cast spells. The enemy makes recurring Fortitiude saves to shake the effect. Cost: 20 HP, 10 Ki. Cooldown: 12 seconds.

 

[Viamel]

If Ninja Spy's helpless damage could be made 1 point per tier that would be ace <3

 

[SpardaX]

[*]Dark Path: Hand of Harm: Melee Attack: You strike your opponent down with a terrible curse, halving all positive energy healing done to the target, reducing its fortification by 25%, and increasing its negative energy vulnerability by 25%. Periodic Fortitude saves (14 + STR/DEX/WIS Modifier + Monk Level + Stunning Bonuses) to negate. (12 second cooldown, costs 10 ki)

[*]Dark Path: Greater Hand of Harm: Targets affected by your Hand of Harm are also Blinded and Nauseated until they save.

[*]Dark Path: Shadow Flurry: Melee Attack: +20% damage. Target must make a saving throw equal to (10/14/18 + Monk Level + Highest of Str/Dex/Wis Mod + Assassinate DCs) or have some of their energy temporarily sealed, halving all positive energy healing, reducing its fortification by 25%, and rendering it unable to cast spells. The enemy makes recurring Fortitiude saves to shake the effect. Cost: 20 HP, 10 Ki. Cooldown: 12 seconds.

Since Touch of Death is now Poison damage, we lost the Fist of Darkness strike, and I can't see any other negative damage attacks, and to keep Ninja Spy as the "Poison" tree, and Shintao's attack as the "Debuff" attack, here are 2 changes I think could easily be made:

1: "and increasing its negative energy vulnerability by 25%." becomes: "and increasing its poison vulnerability by 25%". Or another alternative, "and adds 3-5 stacks of ninja poison".

and

2: Swap them around. So:

Dark Path: Shadow Flurry: Melee Attack: +20% damage. Target must make a saving throw equal to (10/14/18 + Monk Level + Highest of Str/Dex/Wis Mod + Assassinate DCs) or have some of their energy temporarily sealed, halving all positive energy healing, reducing its fortification by 25%, and increasing its poison vulnerability by 25%. The enemy makes recurring Fortitiude saves to shake the effect. Cost: -Removed HP cost-, 10 Ki. Cooldown: 12 seconds.

Or alternatively, instead of "Increasing it's poison vulnerability by 25%", make it "add 3-5 stacks of ninja poison". Does sort of the same thing, and then wont stack up on top. And makes building stacks of ninja poison quicker.
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Dark Path: Hand of Harm: Melee Attack: You strike your opponent down with a terrible curse, halving all positive energy healing done to the target, reducing its fortification by 25%, and rendering it unable to cast spells. Periodic Fortitude saves (14 + STR/DEX/WIS Modifier + Monk Level + Stunning Bonuses) to negate. (12 second cooldown, costs 10 ki)

Dark Path: Greater Hand of Harm: Targets affected by your Hand of Harm are also Blinded and Nauseated until they save.

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So now Shadow Flurry the Ninja Spy attack boosts it's poison damage

And Hand of Harm the Shintao attack keeps all the debuffs, Silence, Blind, and Nauseated all in one attack!

 

[Nerosothe]

Many of these changes look super promising and have some potentially cool interactions. Hopefully the preview can come online by monday/tuesday as there's a lot to test. I know a lot of people want this out as soon as February turns around but I would rather an extra week of Lam testing and suggestions as we are dealing with a total class overhaul which has a bit more in terms of widespread interactions and seeing what's lost/bugged with layers of class synergies/systems. Cheers to the dev team, a monk pass is something I've been very excited for

 

[Vox]

Seeing as Ninjaspy is leaning into ranged more than ever, could the strikes, touch of despair, & poison exploit please be given multi-selectors for melee and ranged versions?

 

[BananaHat]

A few thoughts:

Please add back in the Fist of Light healing curse, that is one of my favorite abilities on a leveling monk and with enough healing amp it can still be noticeable at higher levels to top you off. Maybe tie it back onto the smite tainted creature and jade strikes? If so, you should definitely make it last longer since it can't be spammed (15-30 seconds). Maybe even make 3 different versions, 1 tied to each of those strikes, where they are a little stronger (1d2, 1d3, and 1d4 as you go up the tiers). Maybe the dark path could adds stacks of vulnerability to those strikes with more stacks on the higher tiers.

Henshin Mystic - this has a lot of key abilities (wisdom to hit/damage, an imbue toggle, bonus ki on hit which is very nice at low level and pointless once you get higher level gear, battle trance). This tree basically becomes mandatory for any Wisdom using Shintao or Ninja. At least we won't all have to have birds now. I'm concerned that a Dark path Balance of Dawn's 100 hp heal and 6 second cooldown will easily outpace the Shintao and their 21d4 heal with a 12 second cooldown considering the stated goal of a Shintao being the light/dark tree.

For the improved cauldron, it seems more straightforward to just increase the size of the cauldron instead of someone being able to duck out and back in briefly. Give me a line I know I can't cross instead of saying "you can leave but be back in 1 second".


Some other monk recommendations:
-Make meditation more useful. It is too slow for the fast pace of the game. Maybe make it faster, usable while moving (with a movement penalty?), or a passive ability that just simply engages after doing nothing for 10 seconds or something like that.

-Make a better ki dump for higher level monks. I often run around with a full ki bar that I can't get rid of fast enough because you have +3 ki on hit from an item. Can there be an ability that dumps your whole bar and gives you a bonus for each point of ki dumped? Maybe an ability that does a strike that adds 1 damage for every ki spent and it zeroes your bar. That wouldn't be out of line compared to some of the execute abilities adding 500 damage base. Just give it a sufficient cooldown to some of those big strike abilities like 30 seconds.

 

[EbinDamdam]

The monk revamp is somewhat ok, but accounting for the lost of useful finishers it really ends up being a wash. On the current meta, melee monks are way behind the DPS curve compared to any ranged or melee phenotype. Almost 7 years since Ravenloft was released and the subsequent monk nerfs that made monks laughable for a good long while now because of it's tickle time dps.

Things that can improve the monk class to be somewhat close to average dps are: give it more passive doublestrike that is sustainable close to 100 ( every other melee type can reach this standing DS easily without boost), increase in damage either from more +W or melee power, and more critical threat range.

@steel, I can share the numbers from our dps calculator of current dps phenotypes via a dm.

 

[Blerkington]

I don't have any feedback of my own since I haven't played monks much.

I will say that some of the people I know who main monks are very worried about how this pass is going. And I trust their judgement.

 

[Svirfneblin]

If Ninja Spy's helpless damage could be made 1 point per tier that would be ace <3

YES.

Long Overdue.

 

[Thal]

In the continuing vein of wishful thinking, and to keep making the argument:
Imagine the Light Monk's bonus to Cauldron of Flame was that it applied a Consecrated Ground type effect? Did a pulse of Healing whenever the Light Monk cast it, and once every 6 seconds thereafter?
Imagine the Dark Monk's bonus to Cauldron of Flame was that it applied vulnerability for each second an enemy was inside it?
Wouldn't that be a cool and unique way for the different Monk Philosophies to interact with the enhancement trees?
A Light Henshin Mystic is a flurry of fire and healing, but a Dark Henshin Mystic watches as he dissolves enemies in the consuming maelstrom?

That's the type of thing I would expect a revamp to do, is to add exciting abilities which interact in new and unique ways while capitalizing on the iconic parts of the class that people have loved for a very long time.
By this same vein of logic with which you now disassemble the Monk, Frenzied Berserker should get the +Strength portion of Rage, Ravager can have the +Constitution to Rage, and Occult Slayer can have the +Will saving throw portion. Don't worry, they'll all still be there for the low cost of 20 AP in each tree! (ish!)

 

[AMess]

Are we just making a weaker Fighter variant? What makes Monk unique

Fighters get tactics & feats
Paladins get healing & saves
Barbarians get rage
Ranger get ranged & melee
Monks get MRR cap & ?

Here's my hot take, I will enjoy playing the new monk for about a month, but eventually I'll land in end-game where the cost of the MRR cap is to expensive to balance around & there are too many better options.

Let's hope they are willing to re-work the finishers back in as single attacks selected from a list of finishers chosen during the leveling process. The idea that this is hard to code is unfounded, all the finishers can be set up like Trip, Sunder, or Stunning Blow.

 

[Griglok (Karatemack)]

Monk Combos and Finishing Moves

The Combo and Finishing Move system in the Monk class has had issues for a long time. Some of the issues we identified were:

• The combo builders themselves are not especially strong.
• Combo-building is clunky due to cooldowns.
• The combo system is easily interrupted by common actions, resetting your combo.

As we looked into adjusting this system we encountered the following:

• Strengthening combo builders makes the Monk disproportionately powerful across all level ranges, especially as there is no cost (feat slots, action points) in gaining them - Monks get these and their trees and their bonus feats.
• The cooldowns on the builders are structurally important to make sure the system functions as intended, and it is nearly impossible to reduce that cooldown without creating additional issues.
• On our code side, the combo system relies on an opt-out designation for actions to break your combo, meaning that to make the combo system more flexible would require individually tagging hundreds-to-thousands of individual actions as "this doesn't break a combo", or rebuilding the combo system from scratch.

We have instead decided to explore a more comprehensive rebalance of the Monk! So, we're removing the Combo system and putting most of the finishers into the Monk class Enhancement Trees. Let's take a look!

• Strengthening combo builders makes the Monk disproportionately powerful across all level ranges, especially as there is no cost (feat slots, action points) in gaining them - Monks get these and their trees and their bonus feats.

Two things: 1- you have all of the monk FORM feats. You could tie some type of booster/multiplier to the damage dealt by combo finishers to those feats. 2- spending a feat or action point isn't the only "cost". Some spells deal more damage but cost more mana. These abilities could cost more KI if you feel that is appropriate and are already more complex than standard skills to utilize- justifying the relative power of the abilities.

• On our code side, the combo system relies on an opt-out designation for actions to break your combo, meaning that to make the combo system more flexible would require individually tagging hundreds-to-thousands of individual actions as "this doesn't break a combo", or rebuilding the combo system from scratch.

You have tech for alchemist reactions. Couldn't you just use the same tech but to put monks in a "state" that did "x" to their attacks for a short duration when the combo happens? Also- ladders are still being fixed in 2025. Those of us that love the monk combos would be happy to have those "hundreds-to-thousands" of fixes happen over time.

I would have loved for a combo revamp that brought us more than just 3-sequence combos. Imagine if master of forms unlocked 4-sequence combos. Grandmaster added in a couple really powerful 5-sequence combos. Instead we are losing a distinct playstyle. Version 2 of the changes does nothing to address this elephant.

 

[Viamel]

• Strengthening combo builders makes the Monk disproportionately powerful across all level ranges, especially as there is no cost (feat slots, action points) in gaining them - Monks get these and their trees and their bonus feats.

Two things: 1- you have all of the monk FORM feats. You could tie some type of booster/multiplier to the damage dealt by combo finishers to those feats. 2- spending a feat or action point isn't the only "cost". Some spells deal more damage but cost more mana. These abilities could cost more KI if you feel that is appropriate and are already more complex than standard skills to utilize- justifying the relative power of the abilities.

• On our code side, the combo system relies on an opt-out designation for actions to break your combo, meaning that to make the combo system more flexible would require individually tagging hundreds-to-thousands of individual actions as "this doesn't break a combo", or rebuilding the combo system from scratch.

You have tech for alchemist reactions. Couldn't you just use the same tech but to put monks in a "state" that did "x" to their attacks for a short duration when the combo happens? Also- ladders are still being fixed in 2025. Those of us that love the monk combos would be happy to have those "hundreds-to-thousands" of fixes happen over time.

I would have loved for a combo revamp that brought us more than just 3-sequence combos. Imagine if master of forms unlocked 4-sequence combos. Grandmaster added in a couple really powerful 5-sequence combos. Instead we are losing a distinct playstyle. Version 2 of the changes does nothing to address this elephant.

Having the system re-written onto the Alchemist combo system is a good idea that I'm all for.
Honestly I think this revamp needs to be pushed back and given more time

 

[Stryvah]

Are there also going to be any changes to tet-zik

 

[Nickodeamous]

Having the system re-written onto the Alchemist combo system is a good idea that I'm all for.
Honestly I think this revamp needs to be pushed back and given more time

This.

 

[Pretty Good Old One]

It is good to see some attention to Ninja Spy, but the loss of the finishers seems to be a big draw back. The auto crit, even with the HP cost, was a lot of fun. Even Wave of Despair, with the potential for triggering multiple level drains on strike through was fun for leveling. Is there a way to put some of that back, even if it is a feat or active attack in the tree?

One idea that might add back some of the fun would be a low level (in the tree) AOE shuriken attack that adds stacks of ninja poison. It seems very thematic, and would have good synergy with the other ranged improvements.

Another idea: add in something offensive that triggers off of tumble. Maybe use it to set-up finishing moves in place of strike combos (toggle on effect, next attack after successful tumble is Karmic Strike, Wave of Despair, etc.) Cost is Ki and a tumble charge. Depending on the effect, DC or damage could scale off of tumble skill.