The view from level 46/47

Well, no hard data (haven't parsed it), but from what I saw this evening fighting in KK, the patch lowered the soft-caps and made the demarcation between over the cap and under much harsher. For the stuff under the cap, it was life as usual. For things over the cap, I'd get pasted.



The anecdotal evidence for lower caps is that some critters that I was over for yesterday and could always tank just fine were much harder. Others were the same. Also, when I dinged 47 tonight, the harder sharks (the ones not capped) were instantly noticably easier.



So, it seems like what everyone is saying is pretty much true. The net result of the patch was to put a much greater premimum on high AC gear and otherwise not change things at all if you have good gear; ie. it's turned monks into a serious or dertermined player only type of class. No casual monk'ing around permitted. If you want to monk it, you damn well better get the very best AC gear you can find or you'll have a hard time of it out there.



How do I feel about it? Well, I don't like being nerfed and I don't like to see other people upset that they've been mislead by Verant -- bait-and-switch style, so to speak. On the good side, I don't like the way everyone, his brother, and pet dog are making monks. More exclusivity for the class (like in the old days) would be very nice. Not so nice I wouldn't be very happy if they undid it, but nice enough to be comfortable with things as they are now, too.


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[Fopoodzo]

That sounds about right.





Not sure what VI intended to acomplish with this (besides pointlessly annoy a LOT of people).


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"More exclusivity for the class (like in the old days) would be very nice."



Except now new monks will be exclusively lizards. Human monks RIP.


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So in essence monks used to have bad AC value on their gear but get a bonus to make up for it. However;



1) They f'd up and made a lot of monk usable all/all gear which blew this idea out of the water but can't be retroactively nerfed.



2) They realised that monks didn't feel particularly motivated to chase monk armor because it sucked.



The lastest change leaving us in the situation where monk class armor still sucks but the bonus is reduced. Leaving every monk not in uber armor with a huge nerf to their defence. This might not be a bad thing if (and only if).



1) They go back and make monk class armor not suck. Wu's, crescent, velious all need to be upgraded so a monk wearing them is balanced against other classes in their armor of the same level.



2) They have non suck monk armor in PoP, so that monks don't have to keep building suits out of whatever sneaks past the remaining game balance at VI.



However, given that "Everyone" is convinced that monks are insanely uber from the very moment you click "monk" in character select there's no pressure on them to do anything. Indeed the massive tide of "you deserved it" probably makes them feel very justified.



Very disappointing. Not only a nerf, but a large and particularly poorly targetted example of the species.




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Bjond is human. I have a 60 lizard and I view humans as superior if you are a pulling monk. Human FD is substantially better. The regen on a lizard is nice, but even after the nerf, I'm not worried about the AC. There are other nice fringe benefits to being a mamal, too. <img src=http://www.ezboard.com/images/emoticons/tongue.gif ALT=":p">


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I have no idea what you are talking about. The human advantages are faction and faster levelling. Neither of these would seem even the slightest use in pulling.



I agree with the above poster. The innate Iksar AC bonus is now even more valuable than it was before.




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.. you'd understand. Humans FD faster. Much faster. This makes it a lot easier to successfully wedge an FD in between a group of casters. On my lizard, I get uneasy FD'ing 4 or more. For the human, hell, bring 'em on.



The AC for lizards would help casual folks, but if you've got nice gear, 60 AC over the soft-cap doesn't make any more difference than being 1 AC over it.


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Perhaps. I mentioned this as a human advantage and got flamed for it. As far as I know FD is instant for both races. And the "get up" delay was fixed with the introduction of new graphics.




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I've played both with new and old graphics and my lizard still FD's slow on either one. Ah well, this isn't meant to be a lizard/human thread.



On the nerf topic, humans are definitely hit harder for the reason you said. Casual human monks will be cancelling or switching to druids much faster than lizards.


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[Fopoodzo]

<blockquote>Quote:<hr> you'd understand. Humans FD faster. Much faster. This makes it a lot easier to successfully wedge an FD in between a group of casters. On my lizard, I get uneasy FD'ing 4 or more. For the human, hell, bring 'em on. <hr></blockquote>





Only with the old graphics on, and haven't they recently (a week or so ago) changed that so it is no longer the case even with the old graphics?




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It has been change, there is no longer a pause.


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