I want to talk about skills, but since no one is logged on and I was thinking, I might as well offer solutions to some problems in Lusternia. Maybe some envoy will take pity and use them.

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The above solution is designed to cover multiple aspects that make monks lame: their ridiculous speed (reports of 1.5-2s or less balance times) and their absolute necessity (depending on the spec) for their grapples to work. I feel this solution addresses both problems elegantly because not only does it reduce the monk speed to something manageable, but it also happens to fix their problems related to grapples (ninjakari in particular).

The reason why I increased the kata cost of speed is to prevent speed+hold/grapple first-move combos, because as it is, monks already use grapples to continuously hinder the opponent while building momentum for themselves, this at least makes them have to open up with an actual combo first before spamming hold.

Note that the ka costs for both speed and superspeed are completely arbitrary, so if a monk with more knowledge can comment on the costs, it'd be cool with me. My intent was to just make it impossible to add these mods into your first form and maybe the second form.

However, should this not be enough, or this suggestion not go through, I have a secondary, far lamer solution:



The above addresses the spam hinder until ready to unleash locks spamming, but it's quite a brute force suggestion and I don't really recommend it, but eh.



This is just to make curing easier for everyone, makes everyone's life a bit more comfortable. I'd like to think it's pretty clear.



Blah blah, makes life better for everyone.



While I feel that Report 397 is on the right track, it is simply not enough given the disparity in summon skills between all orgs and distort. I feel that summoning skills should only work on the unprepared and the heavily ganked, and no one else. Note that in other IRE's, there is a defense called mass salve that does this exact same thing, which was an important balancing factor when it cames to pull skills.

The importance of this change is twofold: it allows for the improvement of certain lacking summon skills, like willowisp and convoke, while at the same nullifying reasons to downgrade other powerful summon skills like chainyank and rad.

I am running out of ideas for general topics I wanted to talk about that doesn't totally infringe on any specific org's skills (which won't get us anywhere, and will only get me called a filthy RL Glom), so now I will be selfish and talk about my own skills:



This partially addresses the problem with swoop for warriors, while it doesn't completely solve it, it sure improves the situation a lot and does not overly imbalance the situation, given that the victim can geyser/hexagram to knock the warrior out of the air. For those who don't know, swoop is the instakill for Crow that pulls you up into the trees if it does not kill you (1/4 mana). If allowed to work while flying, I imagine it will simply bring you up into the air with the warrior, as if he used Hoist on you.

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I'll add more ideas when I wake up since it's 3 AM, when inspiration strikes me, or if I get massively flamed.

I like your idea regarding speed modifier, but I think that it will also require grapple-enders to cause momentum lose, preferably all, so I won't start by throwing in a few punches to build momentum, and then start an endless loop of grapple/ender once I have 5 momentum.

Several problems I see here. First, hold doesn't build momentum out of form:



Though it does in form:



Nor limb lock out of form:



But in form it does:



There is at least one limitation in effect that lock/hold must be in a form to build momentum. The reason I point this out is that in form, it can be combined with other actions and mods such as speed/kick. If you adjust speed time on grapples, it would in essence also effect other kata actions in it's current form. Are you proposing to adjust locks/grapples to not work in forms, not receive any modifications (such as steelgrip), and gain a bonus speed to be pulled off? Not sure how this mechanic plays out otherwise.

Another suggestion would be to raise Ka costs to put basic grapples/locks outside of 1st momentum katas. Though, I imagine these actions were intended to be used in early momentum forms. Advanced grapples (holds, locks, chokes, and their releases) already have an increased ka cost over their basic kata counterparts. Would these be bumped up in ka costs as well?

Otherwise if you make grapples not build momentum in/out of form, I'll still kick ya for my momentum gain.

Secondly, you whitewash monks with the heresy of "reports of 1.5-2s or less balance times." Under what conditions are those balance times achievable? Remember how many things effect monk speed:

• Kata speed modifier
• Kata weapon speed
• Kata performances after the third chained form
• Acrobatic hyperactive (a 10 power skill)
• Illithoid 5/10/5 native weapon bonus
• Racial balance bonus (faeling, furrikin, and aslaran are all viable monk races)

My weapons are:



Under a quick test to first momentum nekai against another player, I acted at 08:09:07:379 and regained balance at 08:09:13:796... I think that means it took about 6 seconds to regain balance. If I heard right, the speed mod gives a half-second bonus to balance. I don't think this is your main contributor to outrageous monk balance speeds. It is an assumption, but I would place money that racial bonus has a much larger impact on balance times. Many combatant monks will go aslaran/illithoid and then pick acrobatics (which opens them up to hyperventilate).

Anyway, I'm not disagreeing that monk speed can get outrageous... just don't think the speed mod is your main offender.

EDIT: In rereading, I see you are proposing that "speed" mod increase the time it takes to writhe and nullify contort. For some reason I thought Ninjakari already had such a mod... but I don't see it on either the Lusteria Lore wiki or Xiel Talnara's page. I don't think this is a good idea. In fact, I think this would make monks even more OP given steelgrip mod make sure that a grapple/lock never missed. So, we would never miss and you could never writhe. Imagine how it would improve a choke or oothai?

I have long felt that grapple/hold should not raise momentum. Slowing monks down would be a good thing, too, though their PvE damage may need to be raised a little to offset.

One of the problems I have with monks is the number of afflictions (and pseudo/meta afflictions, like deep wounds or health damage) they can deal in a single form. A monk with 4 or 5 momentum can take a (mostly) healthy person to a full lock in one combo. I'd prefer to see more than five levels of momentum with the ka costs spread out a little more and/or the ka limits lowered to prevent single-combo full-lock situations.


Swoop goes through shield, which is what makes it pretty powerful. Can't say I'd like to see it used more.

Pretty sure it doesn't.

It did the last time I was hit with it, but that was a long time ago.

Out of all the suggestions to rein in on monk OP'ness, this suggestion made sense. Raise max momentum up to six, with the +boosted max at 7 momentum. It might be possible to do this with very little changes to Ka costs. If current momentum to max ka ratios are the following:



Add in another tier of 350 max ka, and bump everything else down a momentum level:



Adjust change target momentum loss from -2mo to -3mo on change target under this new proposition. Likewise, re-evaluate momentum loss actions. Perhaps some momentum loss actions could be moved from -1mo to -2mo, and -2mo to -3mo given the added tier of momentum.

I also see momentum gain actions as gaining new life under this system, as it widens the range under which the action is effective. Though, in the sake of balance... perhaps add a 2 power cost WHEN the action is aimed at a target (i.e. ka kaife air would not have an associated power cost).

This slight change would delay how long it takes to hit top-momentum forms, could help balance costs of certain kata actions by the -3mo penalty, not impact PVE bashing, would require much less coding and balance issues than any other proposal I've seen so far.

In fact, if this doesn't go far enough, add another tier after 4mo for a 5mo, max ka 450 and bump everything down. Raise max momentum to 7 with the boosted momentum at 8.

However, it still doesn't address monk speed. In fact, it will raise the disparity between races that do and don't have balance bonuses. Also, this doesn't address grapples... but that is a different issue anyway. Thoughts on this suggestion?

I don't know if adding just one level would do it. It'd have to be doubled, I think, to really spread out the ka costs.

And, why shouldn't switching targets take your momentum down to zero? It would keep the momentum from being metagamed by things like grappling an ally before moving next door to hit someone, which was always the biggest problem with kai energy on monks in Achaea (in my opinion, obviously).

Two more variations on a 6-momentum monk build (as suggested above).

First, drop 0/1 mo down 50 max ka to 200, and 3 mo to 300. This would limit monk actions in the opening forms, especially grapples and affliction actions. You could still PPK or raze, punch, kick without mods.



This one gimps monks to momentum build all the way through until 4mo where there is a precipitous gain in max ka.


Again, I don't hear that monk opening forms to build momentum are OP. People are complaining about monk speed and how long it takes to hit top-tier momentum afflictions (and stay there). Not sure if any of these are "the" answer. But again, just putting additional ideas on the table for consideration.

This is a proposed 7-momentum monk build for Zarquan. Again, with consideration of making some afflictions -3mo, -2mo, or -1mo... requiring a +2 power cost for the momentum-building action.

Problem I see with a full momentum loss is that the target can move out of the room for 7 seconds and the monk would either have to face 1mo loss due to time, or switch targets and start from scratch.

This was something Sidd argued for during the period when monks were changed from ruptures to momentum, so I'll let him speak to this. Now that he is a warrior, it would be interesting to get his perspective.

When anyone else switches targets, they're essentially starting from scratch, so I don't see a real problem there. The fact that momentum is based on the attacker much more than the victim is what makes it unique, but it also makes it difficult to balance with everything else that works in the opposite way.

Even though changing the ka costs and/or momentum levels would be a good thing, the speed issue still remains.


I know this thread wasn't intended to be used to balance monks, but you had to see it coming.

Another take at the 7-momentum monk build to even out max ka per momentum level. This way early momentum forms are not gimped as much, and the precipitous gain in max ka at the last two momentum levels are smoothed out a bit.

EDIT: Yeah, Malarious, Sahmiam and I were talking about this issues last night in our Nekotai/Ninjakari monk clan... at least before my power went out and I was cut from the conversation. We saw it coming.

Janalon, Iasmos, take your monk argument back to your own thread and let us comment on the rest of the changes.








I like the clot one.

Vadi posted the clotting thing on its own thread shortly after Shuyin posted this. The point about it being force-able is a semi-valid point, too.

And when he says "unique," he means "wrong." Five momentum is fine if you can do something to your attacker to stop it (and no, "hinder or run for 30 seconds" is not an acceptable solution.) If it's simple enough to knock down momentum (like, every prone affliction gives -1mo), monk speed might end up being fine as-is. Without that, all you do is increase the time until the monks are doing unavoidably retarded things to you. Plus, personally, I don't want Ninjakari having straight faster grapples with something as simple as a mod. Ashlamkh, hooooo!

Also, swoop doesn't go through shield. Still can't have it work from the sky because 1) non-flying races would just fall away and 2) you don't want to remove the perch requirement.

Grapples simply should not build momentum.

Less complicated topic first:





Swoop doesn't beat shield.

I already mentioned in my post that maybe swoop could be redesigned to simply be a more offensive version of hoist, but tbh, I don't really think making non-flying races fall to be that big a deal especially when I don't believe druids have anything to specifically strip levitate. And I never said anything about removing the perch requirement, though I feel like a 1.5s balance loss isn't that big a deal. In fact, flying/swooping takes far longer than swing up/cling/swoop.



4.5s-ish to fly.

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I'm fine with making new improved clot nonforceable, but it's not a mere aesthetics change at all, it helps deal with bleeding a lot.

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Good lord momentum hijack

1. You're using Ascendance Flight, you bug abuser!
2. Artifact wings are half that balance time.
3. Maybe it was Hoist that used to go through shield. I only remember that my shield didn't even phase Kaervas when he Swoop-killed me many, many years ago.

Okay, onto monk stuff:



All my suggestion asks is that all monk speeds be standardized to 3s at best, regardless of form. 1mo combos will be 3s, and 6mo combos will be 3s. In essence, I am asking that all momentum does is allow you access to more ka for combos. I actually offered not building momentum on grapples as an alternative to not standardizing monk speed, which I still feel is the main culprit, but I'm not entirely opposed to including it at the same time as well.

Again, what I am asking is not for a bonus to balance when adding the speed mod, I am asking for an extension to writhe time when adding the speed mod.

Steelgrip already costs 150 ka, and I don't feel like it needs any adjusting, given that as said earlier, certain specs and moves need grapples to be reliable in order to work.



I'm not really opposed to making grapples not build momentum at all, so I'm not really sure what you mean by kick for momentum gain. If you're talking about grapple/kick (within the same action) combos in order to counterbalance the fact that grapples do not build momentum, then I'm sure it can be made so that kick cannot be done at all the moment you grapple someone.



I never said speed mod was my main offender, if anything, I blame the momentum system itself, which is why my solution tries to address that. I suggested fixing speed in order to tackle the issue with grapples. Compound this with all kata weapons now being max speed, then you've got a problem. There's a reason why warrior speed got toned down to 3s max, and we just see that problem again with monks.

I actually agree that hyperactive monks is a major issue, but I haven't really thought of a way to properly nerf hyperactive without giving acro monks something useful in return.



No, ninjakari don't have a mod that does that, but they're currently asking for something like that in report 427. Choke and oothai will not be issues, unless the monk keeps reapplying the grapple the moment you writhe out, the victim will get out after a tick or two. But really, given that pretty awesome thread about Thul a few weeks back, I'm not opposed to reworking oothai itself so it doesn't do a billion damage every few seconds.



That already happens with ninjakari today Monks in general. They just spam hinder until they get crazy speeds then unleash combos/grapples that you can't writhe out/cure out of in time.

What I feel is a major problem with monks is that against them, it's not a matter of how well you cure, but how fast you cure. Having to cure yourself in a game with latency, etc etc is really difficult especially when the odds are stacked against you with your enemy's various bonuses to balance regain.

With that said, I'd rather redesign especially problematic skills (like ashlamkh, if it really is a problem) instead of completely redoing the momentum system, which leads me to...

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I had toyed around with simply widening the momentum gap, but instead of 1-6 like you guys have proposed, I asked for 1-10 with a capped speed. The reason why I don't think this will fly is because I have this really strong feeling that the admin really, really don't want to rework the entire momentum system (by this, I mean ka costs per mo level) again. And while that may be a bit of a bummer, I can't really say I find it surprising given their number of staff/resources.

Furthermore, reworking the entire momentum system entails that you will need to rework each and every monk skill to work within the system, and this will literally take a long time to properly balance yet again. I know that many people are tired of monks, but I don't see them as entirely without hope, which is why I feel like making comparatively smaller adjustments to the current system is far preferable to a complete overhaul.

Note that all I asked for is:

1. Standardize monk speed
2. Change speed mod to lengthen writhe time
3. (Maybe) add superspeed for contort
4. (Maybe) make grapples not build momentum
5. (Maybe) make it impossible to grapple/kick in a form
6. Address individual skills which may need reworking (oothai, ashlamkh, etc)
7. Miscellaneous/unforeseen problems that need addressing

What adjusting the momentum levels will do entails:

1. Capping monk speed so you don't get .05s at mo level 5+
2. Address the entirety of kata to work and synergize within the new system (15+ skills)
3. Address the entirety of shofangi to work and synergize with the new system (25+ skills)
4. Address the entirety of nekotai to work and synergize with the new system (25+ skills)
5. Address the entirety of ninjakari to work and synergize with the new system (25+ skills)
6. Address the entirety of tahtetso to work and synergize with the new system (25+ skills)
7. Miscellaneous/unforeseen problems that need addressing.

I think you can see where I'm going with this. I feel like widening the momentum gap will take far longer and will take more effort.

1. Man, pretty sure Eventru mentioned that they left clairsentience/flight purposefully so they can throw us a small bone

2. Half of 4.5 is 2.25, which is still slower than climb/perch, at the fastest, maybe you can argue that it can be the same speed as climb/perch. But when you fly, you can get geysered/hexagrammed. When you perch, not much can be done to move you.

3. No idea, I wasn't crow then. I did remember swoop used to beat shields, but it has since been changed.

P.S. I'm down to hear what others think about the non-monk suggestions too