~✞ ✞ ✞ Here lies Monk ✞ ✞ ✞~

[4lkruzeth]

(Clearly ripping off from another thread, just a TLDR bit longer, since there are no Monks in kToS …)

R.I.P.

Monk

2016-2018

Greetings. Have you ever heard about Monk?
Monk is one of the, if not most irritating Damage class to play.
It used to have worth taking with Double Punch spam.
It used to be able to carry through DPS in parties.
It was a controversial DPS class that those main-ed it knew its worth.

Now this is a picture from the last time we saw Monk:

Monk-kun has decomposed and returned to earth, so let us press F to pay our respects.

If you want to avenge him, please join this cause to make IMC listen to us and make them stop butchering this class any further than they have already been doing since way, way, waaaaaay before Re:Build. Monk in Re:Build has the following skill set:

• Iron Skin: 15 points for only 7.5% physical damage reduction while a similar skill [Stone Skin] with up to 9.6% on BOTH physical and magic damage reduction with attributes. Unnoticeable physical damage reduction at best. With that said, mobs in Re:Build don’t hit that hard anyways, so why even bother with this skill.

• Double Punch: What used to be the main DPS skill of Monks is now just a stance copied off from Nak Muay that reskins Auto-Attack and whose only worth is it being attributable for 60% more skill factor at best (A total of 160%, why even bother). The Attack Speed from the stance is only useful if you do not have enough DEX, and DEX from armor is more than enough to make up for the Attack Speed. Also, there is no point increasing Attack Speed past a certain point (2-3 Double Punch per second, easily achievable with getting DEX from gear in ANY class combination) due to Hit Delay so you cannot Double Punch any faster. On top of that, Monk’s skills take so much time to use that you have no time to even Double Punch. Its Strike debuff is removed, making it a worthless skill that isn’t worth any points, unless you want to add 1 point to break structures faster with Double Punch/have Chaplain in your build for Visible Talent (no problem capping Visible Talent damage without Double Punch in the first place, so moot point), or max if you have no DEX in your armor. Palm Strike and Hand Knife take so long to use that you can literally rotate between Palm Strike + Hand Knife and Energy Blast with little downtime, just enough to buff up or use a burst damage skill or two AKA no need to Double Punch at all. Basically, useless skill. (Note, auto-attacking with dagger offhand alone without any buffs is faster than Double Punch level 15, that’s how pointless this skill is)

• Palm Strike: Probably the only half-decent skill in Monk as of now. Does half-decent damage with 4 overheats, and ignores a portion of enemy defense (0.5% at level 1, 7.5% at level 15). Loses its bleed attribute, but its not like that bleed is worth much anyways. Kinda funny how Shinobi’s Raiton No Jutsu uses the same animation. Does not get much faster with more Attack Speed in Re:Build.

• Hand Knife: Got hit hard by IMC and had its knockdown remove attribute taken away. Deals damage with additional damage based on enemy SPR (additional damage not exceeding character max damage) and Armor Ignore attribute. IMC increased the range of the skill a LOT (literally reused Hand Knife from old Hand Knife + Deprotected Zone Synergy), but with no way to remove the knockdown, so the skill sends any monster you hit it with flying high up in the sky where no one can hit them. Even when monsters hit the ground, they keep bouncing up and down for a bit, and probably due to position desync or something, you still can’t hit them AKA a good 1-2 seconds of you and your party not being able to damage those mobs in that duration. Furthermore, it can ONLY be used in combination with Palm Strike (1 second timeframe to use Hand Knife afterwards), so if you get interrupted, you cannot use Hand Knife until you use Palm Strike again AKA one use of Hand Knife gone. IMC probably made this combo thing into Hand Knife to make it feel special, but in this case it simply cripples the skill. Using the skill messes up mobs for your party, but not using it cuts off a major part of your DPS (CBT knockback Monk memes). Does not get much faster with more Attack Speed in Re:Build too. A skill to avoid in parties.

• Energy Blast: Same Energy Blast as with iToS. However, its charge time is increased from 2.5 seconds to 5 seconds, and its knockback remove attribute is deleted. Along with rebalanced damage to be lower, while the damage in theory sounds half-decent, the usage of the skill is anything but. 5 seconds to charge the skill, maybe 1-3 seconds to re-position yourself to hit all enemies, and 6 seconds of channeling Energy Blast makes it about 12-15 seconds of being immobile while using Energy Blast hoping enemies do not sidestep your Energy Blast that’s very lacking in the horizontal hitbox department. In terms of DPS alone, you’re better off just using Double Punch with Auto-Attack buffs to do close or similar damage (unless enemy is weak to Holy). The knockback remove attribute being deleted also brings back the issue of mobs flying out of your screen unless you lure and hit monsters against a wall (not available half the time), forcing your whole party to follow suit. Without a wall, your Energy Blast simply displaces mobs out into the horizons, forcing you to not use Energy Blast for killing mobs in a party AKA another major part of your DPS (CBT knockback Monk memes again). While it has a synergy with Krivis Divine Stigma (Double Energy Blast hits), Divine Stigma only affects 5 enemies, so its use is limited in mobbing and rarely used outside bossing. This also forces Monks to take Krivis (another underpowered class in Re:Build), further bringing the build down should Monks choose to use the synergy.

• One-Inch Punch: Hits enemies with a punch with 4 overheats that deals Silence and HP/SP drain. With that said, the skill got hit with a really HUGE nerf. Its damage is nerfed to the point where its not even worth talking about on a DPS standpoint (Better to just auto-attack with buffs instead), and its HP drain is negligible at best. Increasing levels give it more damage and more duration on its HP/SP drain, but with that said, the damage and drain is not even worth talking about. Using One-Inch Punch again merely refreshes the drain duration of its already negligible HP/SP drain, so one would think its better off just using the skill to refresh drain debuff. However, you deal more damage overall just spamming all 4 overheats in one go so why bother. Also to add that while the animation of One-Inch Punch may look like its range was increased, its range is still as short as ever. A skill only worth 1 point since its Silence debuff is an attribute that does not increase duration with level (even adding points in Iron Skin has more worth).

• God Finger Flick: Does the same thing it did in current iToS, but with 4 overheats, and its strike debuff duration got cut in half (from 10 seconds to 5 seconds, or 3 seconds due to God Finger Flick animation). Would be nothing much to complain about, until you realize Palm Strike and Hand Knife takes so long to use that 3 seconds is almost not enough to use one pair of Palm Strike + Hand Knife. It still only hits 1 enemy, limiting its use to bossing only (or chasing running players by flicking silver at them). A clunky skill as always, but with how Palm Strike + Hand Knife is, all the more clunkier.

• Golden Bell Shield: This skill just keeps changing every time IMC touches this skill, and now its a different skill entirely while IMC gives Oracle the original Golden Bell Shield in the form of Foretell. Used to be invulnerability, but now its a skill that resets all Monk skill cooldowns and a 50% damage boost to Monk skills ONLY for 10 seconds (or 8-9 seconds due to Golden Bell Shield animation), along with a darn long 60 second cooldown and the removal of its pain barrier attribute. The duration of the buff is too short to even use skills properly (like, 3 God Finger Flick and 2 Palm Strike + Hand Knife pairs not taking into account the time taken for mobs to fly up and down), much less even Energy Blast. The skill cooldown reset seems also pointless with how long each Monk skill takes to cast so by the time some skills are used, there are always a few other Monk skills to use. What used to be a Monk’s shield is now a flawed DPS buff. Buff lasts so little, damage buff not enough, cooldown lasts so long. (Note, Monks do more damage spamming Palm Strike + Hand Knife without God Finger Flick when under Golden Bell Shield than with God Finger Flick unless God Finger Flick is maxed, just a funny thought).

ToS used to have Monk, Scout and Hunter in the underused department. Monk being only usable for low Ping players and even then irritating for most to use, on top of getting nerf after nerf with no buffs before Re:Build, Scout being irrelevant in ToS prior to Re:Build and Hunter being neglected for so long prior to Re:Build. Scout became its own class tree with OP classes and Hunter got nicely buffed, but now Monk has become irrelevant and even detrimental in builds for Re:Build.

Monk in Re:Build is flawed damage-wise and “class design”-wise, where just buffing damage numbers isn’t enough, and a rework should be put into consideration. Monk skills with increased animation time makes it so that Monks have no time to use other skills (maybe a 1-2 skills or a buff or two) due to the increased animation and Energy Blast taking more than 11 seconds to use. Adding classes with more attack skills simply serves to add skills in the overall skill set that will not be used, and in the situation where Monks do add such classes, they will probably figure that at that point, it’s better to remove Monk for better class due to how Monk is now. For a class that only has damage going for it, its damage is lackluster at best, while other classes have significantly better damage with utility skills, or have similar damage but quite a bit of useful utility skills to offset the lack of damage. Monk as of Re:Build is as irrelevant as it can ever be in Re:Build and in any point where Monk is considered, there are significantly better choices to choose from other than Monk.

Without any doubt, Monk is the worst class on Re:Build. There’s a LOT of room for improvement and creativity, so please do something about our martial art class.
Here are some suggestions to pick from:

• Rework Monk entirely, the class right now feels so irrelevant, bare-boned and worthless in Re:Build, especially compared to other stronger, much more useful classes in the same cleric tree.

• Reorganize what skills should be level 5, 10 and 15.

• I’m very curious what is Monk’s “Uniqueness and Personality” because clearly there is none of that at the moment. Please get your thoughts right on what Monk should be before even touching and reworking Monk.

• Bring back more attributes (knockback remove attribute, strike debuff attribute, etc etc)

• Make more synergies with other classes like Zealot

• Introduce more useful attributes to Monk

• Rework Monk’s “combo” idea. Only Palm Strike + Hand Knife has this, and its already working badly. At least get this “combo” idea working properly and fluidly, not this mess Monks have now. Maybe something like Corsair’s hit counter from Jolly Roger where Monks get more damage the more they hit? Monk is so bare-boned right now any idea works.

• Move Monk out of Cleric into a different tree

• Iron Skin:
  - Increase the physical damage reduced, and make the skill work on magic damage too (why in the world is Iron Skin worse than Stone Skin, just from name alone)
  - Make an attribute that allows enhancing the skill
  - Make the skill do more than just decreasing damage, like CC mitigation, Pain Barrier or something, lots of creativity here …
  - At least make it so that when under Iron Skin, Monks have a blue aura around them like the blue aura that appears when using Iron Skin for fashion sake or something.
  - Change Iron skin an attribute that allows Monks to use it as a C-guard with old Iron Skin effect, but allow it to block all damage.
  - Delete the skill and make a new skill for Monk. The skill’s usefulness is so negligible in Re:Build. I’ll argue even old Iron Skin is better to some extent since it actually reflects back Velcoffer attacks in a pinch.

• Double Punch:
  - At least give Monks a bare-handed fist stance with Double Punch
  - Make an attribute that increases double punch damage in exchange of SP (like releasing chi into attacks)
  - Convert the whole skill into an attribute that changes auto-attacks to punches and increase attack speed, and delete the skill. It is a pointless skill to even level.
  - Make some combo effect for Double Punch or something (like every 10 hits a damage buff happens, or every few hits giving increased attack speed and damage or a hit count mechanic or something, a lot of room for creativity here seriously), Double Punch is a pointless skill to the point its even better off having it in its olden state where it at least can do DPS-worthy damage.
  - Increase Double Punch damage. No matter how low Skill Factors can go, 100% skill factor hitting as fast as auto-attack is just a worthless version of auto-attack that costs skill points. If you seriously think players are going to spend 100,000+ attribute points to increase that to 160% for an attack that Monks will very rarely use, I think a rework is in order.
  - Delete Double Punch entirely and make a new skill for Monk.

• Palm Strike:
  - Increase its damage
  - Increase the defense ignore, 7.5% is just far too little and far too unnoticeable to even be any sort of buff.
  - Decrease the wind-up and animation of the skill
  - Make the skill be more affected by attack speed, the skill even with maxed Double Punch and Chaplain attack speed buffs does not seem affected by the increase in attack speed.
  - Bring back its additional damage scaling from enemy defense, and make the additional damage not limited to maximum character physical attack.
  - Give its knockback back,and bring back knockback remove attribute.
  - Increase its range.
  - Maybe give it some other function like a stun or an armor break debuff or something

• Hand Knife:
  - Increase its damage
  - Increase the defense ignore, 7.5% is just far too little and far too unnoticeable to even be any sort of buff.
  - Decrease the wind-up and animation of the skill
  - Make the skill be more affected by attack speed, the skill even with maxed Double Punch and Chaplain attack speed buffs does not seem affected by the increase in attack speed.
  - Bring back knockdown remove attribute, or at least rework Hand Knife’s knockdown so its possible to hit the monsters when they are flying up and down and bouncing around.
  - Either at least get this “combo” idea that IMC has for Monk right, or please make it so that Hand Knife is 4 overheat, and delete this “combo” mechanic entirely. Feels very irritating that Hand Knife can only be used after Palm Strike, and if you miss the window due to circumstances like knockback, CC etc, Monks literally lose one “overheat” of Hand Knife.
  - Make Hand Knife “combo-able” with more skills like One-Inch Punch, Hand Knife and Double Punch.

• Energy Blast:
  - Increase its damage
  - Reduce its charge time and maybe increase the amount of ticks it does. Skill as of now on a DPS standpoint is very half-baked.
  - Reduce the amount of time taken to channel Energy Blast
  - Increase Energy Blast horizontal hitbox
  - Make Energy Blast Holy-Strike-Physical
  - Bring back knockback remove attribute. That attribute was made in the first place due to how notorious Energy Blast’s knockback is.
  - Make Energy Blast’s knockback more controlled. I remember in a CBT ToS promotion video the knockback was not as awful so it can be changed
  - An idea to make it so after a certain amount of Double Punch or Palm Strike + Hand Knife, charge time for Energy Blast is reduced and damage is increased or something
  - Make it so Energy Blast can be moved so Monks can shift and “sweep” Energy Blast to mobs wandering around at the side
  - Make a suction effect around the Monk using Energy Blast and around Energy Blast hitbox so anyone close to Energy Blast gets pulled in
  - (Krivis buff) Give Divine Stigma more love and buff it more. Death Sentence outclasses Divine Stigma heavily and Divine Stigma + Energy Blast synergy is only worth it on stationary bosses.

• One-Inch Punch:
  - Increase its damage a LOT, One-Inch Punch is so weak no one even bothers with this skill other than for its silence attribute.
  - Decrease the wind-up and animation of the skill
  - Make the skill be more affected by attack speed, the skill even with maxed Double Punch and Chaplain attack speed buffs does not seem affected by the increase in attack speed.
  - Increase the HP drain portion of One-Inch Punch’s HP/SP drain
  - Remove its 4 overheat and in turn, increase its damage by a LOT for one good burst skill.
  - Make it so the HP/SP drain from One-Inch Punch is stackable, either 4 separate ticks of One-Inch Punch or kinda like Retiarius Blandir Cadena’s Bleed.
  - Increase its hitbox to reflect the range of its skill animation in Re:Build
  - Make it so if One-Inch Punch crits, the ticks from the HP drain crits 100% throughout the bleed of that One-Inch Punch
  - Increase its silence duration

• God Finger Flick:
  - Increase its strike debuff duration
  - Decrease the wind-up and animation of the skill
  - Make it so that the debuff hits enemies around the monster hit by God Finger Flick, and debuffs them too (kinda like Appraiser Blindside)
  - Make it less clunky and make it be affected by attack speed.
  - Increase the range of God Finger Flick
  - Rework or delete God Finger Flick

• Golden Bell Shield:
  - Don’t use the same animation as Double Punch casting please. make a different skill animation.
  - Decrease the wind-up and animation of the skill, 10 seconds is a very short buff for a class with its skills’ animation increased
  - Bring back pre-Re:Build Golden Bell Shield. Re:Build Golden Bell Shield is just that worthless
  - Increase the duration of the buff
  - Decrease the cooldown of the skill
  - Bring back Golden Bell Shield skill animation, why was that removed, the animation looks cool.
  - At least give the skill some sort of CC mitigation, Pain Barrier, or something. For a Shield its really anything but a shield.
  - The skill cooldown reset seems pointless for such a class that never runs out of skills to use. Maybe find a better idea for the skill?
  - Rework or delete the skill and replace it with a new skill

• Rework Monk entirely

There are probably a lot more ideas that can be thought of, but that just goes to show how underpowered, bare-boned, useless, flawed and bad Monk is in Re:Build. Monk has been nerfed again and again since forever with no significant buffs (other than one time Monks got Double Punch attack speed buff and IMC made Double Punch spam a legit thing). So many ideas were given in the course of that period, but in the end it fell on the wrong ears. Exorcist got a better “Energy Blast”, Shinobi got Palm Strike as a revamped skill animation, Oracle got the original Golden Bell shield, and Nak Muay was born from the culmination and crystallization of Monk ideas from Monk mains who wanted the ideas to be used for their class. Its been so long since any sort of buff has been given to Monk. Rebuild is the perfect chance for this, and its about darn time for Monks to finally get a significant buff, not some measly, insignificant, minor, unnoticeable hitbox increases, or buffs that in the end got removed/nerfed, or buffs that never made it out of kTest.

There, it’s time to stop the Monk nerfs. Make the class actually viable in Re:Build.

[RuriUsagi]

F

As a fellow monk main, I came back to ToS recently because of the announce of Re:Build and how every class will be “equals” so you can build as you like and still have a viable character.

“Great, now I can use monk skills as my main damaging skills thanks to Re:Build!” Yeah, nope.

It turned out that monk became worse than before. Why? Just why? I keep coming everyday to the forums hoping for a ktest update that will rework monk totally…

You pointed very well the flaws and good ways to make it better, I hope we can make some noise to IMC change monk, because looks like korean players don’t care not even a little about this class.

Please IMC, give some hope to your fellows monk players

[lastea]

You might get the impression that this is done on purpose by imc at this point, since they haven’t been able to make monk decent for like 3 years now.

The main problem is that monk isn’t very popular on the Korean servers as far as I can see from videos and forum posts there, so this issue never comes up balance-wise by the players and is therefore pretty much ignored.

[4lkruzeth]

Yeah, the majority of videos coming from Re:Build in kTest has no Monk. I tried confirming with kToS players and they mirror the same sentiment that no one in kToS plays Monk even before Re:Build to give feedback. Worst part is its always mostly kToS players whose feedback gets listened while feedback from iToS never gets any attention unless someone in kToS has the same problem. At most I can recall only 2 videos of Monk as of recent, and in those vids they both showcase a Monk with Plague Doctor, and both players only use Plague Doctor skills.

When Monk is so irrelevant that even players who take Monk in their builds don’t even use Monk skills. So much for balance.

[saphien]

Monk needs a Second class!

That way monk could be a build up cls like Paladin for inquisitor (And for Zealot)

The Second class gets then the hard hiting sp draining burst skills.
And Monk could be like the combo monk in ro that would work so good in this game.

I miss Asura Strike

Theorycrafting:
Double Punch >Double Punch >“Quadpunch”>“Aoepunch”>Instantcast energyblast !!

[necly1001]

As a loyal player of monk, I also had to give up monk when 2.0 arrived, because I can’t find a build that fits it. It doesn’t fit in the whole tree. If it is PVE, zelot+inq+any is good than monk. I really don’t know any reason to stick to monk after 2.0. The 2punch change is undoubtedly the most unsuccessful. This is the only soul of the monk, and IMC destroyed it

[Jiyuu]

My condolence.

[c2gaming.seetoo]

Not to make light of your suggestions, but as you said monk is in need of more than just numbers buffs. Those are all just basically numbers buffs. They also don’t address the issue of “why take monk over zealot or inqui or both”. Any suggestions should always answer this question.

[4lkruzeth]

I believe I’ve said more than just number buffs, but perhaps I mentioned that many number buffs to begin with . The reason why I mentioned a lot of number buffs is due to how Monk is now really and the numbers really are too low, I guess.

Monk as a class has nothing to offer other than damage skills. All cleric classes except for Monk either has:

• Strong DPS skills and some useful Utility skills (Inquisitor, Zealot eg)
• Decent, lacking or no DPS skills but makes up for it with more useful Utility skills (Dievdirbys. Plague Doctor etc)
• Just strong DPS in general (Exorcist etc)

Looking at Monk’s current skill kit, Monk probably falls closer to the third category, but with that said, its not even worth putting Monk in there due to such low numbers and how Monk is now. Monk has an identity crisis where its made like a Swordsman class with barely any Utility skills of any sort (much less anything that can contribute to a party other than God Finger Flick which is only a bit useful in bossing, most of its skills only benefit Monk skills itself like a Swordsman class), yet its placed in a Cleric tree where every class is rife with some sort of specialization.

I really believe a Monk rework should be in order since way back before Re:Build, but Monk as of now is so bare and lacking in any sort of identity that its hard to pinpoint any sort of direction Monk should be going. IMC did state that they made classes based on the “Uniqueness and Personality” of the class, and I wish IMC could share what they intended for the class so objective feedback can be given, but the last feedback IMC gave was basically “Oh, we had trouble balancing Double Punch since ages ago, and we finally balanced it by basically making it into an Auto-Attack that offers nothing useful, thus making Double Punch so irrelevant that there’s no need to balance it”, so its kind of hard where to even start suggesting that kind of thing.

I really do feel a major rework is the best way, but its hard to suggest anything objective to the class when even IMC seemed like they have no idea or any specifics on how to move the class forward.

[c2gaming.seetoo]

Personally I always go back to magic hammer. I just need IMC to acknowledge it. They have refused to for almost a year though.

[lucas00lemos]

FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF
I played with monk since the first CBT of the game and never felt a disgust with feel when seeing it in 2.0. It is notable that it needs to be reworked and unfortunately the IMC wants to balance GVG/GTW without balancing the class (logic 0)…
You pointed out great topics on how to improve the class, but I would do it a bit differently:

Firstly, we need to delete certain skills or reduce the maximum level, a big problem is having too many skills for a few points.

• Double Punch
  ->Posture similar to Nak, but more focused on Kung fu Wushu/Shaolin (after all, IMC has already said that the monk has a Kung Fu base).
  ->Its maximum level should be 5, reaching 109.5% (175% with damage attribute). Since the skill does not have SP costs, it does not make sense for it to be strong, yet it can not be useless.
  ->An attribute relative to releasing the “Chi” in his punches costing his SP and increasing his damage. (similar to the marvel hero, iron fist).

• Iron Skin
  ->Surely I would copy the Musketeer’s Buttstroke idea.
  Transform the ability into an attribute to be used in the “C”/Guard button
  ->Having a duration of 3s with 10s cooldown
  As for its effect, it would be the same old iron skin, but weaker and the user will still receive the damage even if it was only half (like the current Re:Build block). It would make the class have more dynamics during the fights

• Palm Strike
  ->Removing the initial damage from the Skill, keeping the effect of knocking down and making the bleeding its main damage (similar to the Broadhead skill) would be very interesting. The attraction of skill has always been bleeding, so why not unify the effect to SF% of the skill?
  ->Returning the attribute to not knock down enemies is important

• Hand Knife
  ->I really enjoyed the current hand knife, both for damage and for its performance. It would probably only remove the “combo” with Palm Strike and change the animation to a punch on the ground (as if it were a punch that caused an earthquake).
  ->Returning the attribute to not knock down enemies is important
  ->It would make an attribute that would reduce skill damage by 90% or even do it without damage and double your mana cost, but ignore any type of “Pain barrier” equal to the Nah Muay Teh Trong(while you spin, you can not perform actions)

• God Finger Flick
  ->This ability certainly deserved to be deleted to give rise to some skill that worked the monk’s legs. A double kick, a flying Kick, a Low Kick whatever. (It’s based on kung fu, not on Boxing…)

• OIP
  ->This skill only needed an increase in its SF% and the DoT were included in the same SF%

• Energy Blast
  ->Increasing your SF% is important, but it can not be too much, now that the skill has 20s of cooldown.
  ->The IMC said it would bring more interaction between classes, so instead of making it double the hits during the divine stigma debuff, how about making it go with element of lightning and/or fire during Immolation and fanatic Illusion?(referring to the attribute that lasts 20s and not the duration of the original skill itself)
  It’s very easy to see someone play Monk without Krivis (I’m one of them, Cleric2>Priest2>Monk3>Zea3 forever) but very difficult for someone to play Monk without Zealot (almost impossible hahaha)

• Golden Shield
  ->Another skill that could easily be deleted to give rise to some buff that grants speed and/or evasions. It is notable that Imc wants most immortality skills to be deleted and that few classes have these characteristics (I do not remember another, just the Oracle).

Let’s wait 2019, imc will adjust the class (we know that for double punch). The class will come back to shine, and we will knock down anyone who cross our paths hahaha (until a lancer appears …)

[4lkruzeth]

Interesting ideas, the Iron Skin one especially. A lot of Monk’s skills can really be reworked and put as attributes, or just simply deleted instead of being skills that need 15 skill points despite how unnoticeable, irrelevant, pointless and/or useless they are to make way for new skills.

[Umineko]

I’d change Monk in another way.

One-Inch Punch gets changed into another attack stance aside of Double Punch: Praying Mantis stance[both cannot be used together].

Praying Mantis stance allows your character to perform counterattacks on the enemy with a 5%+5% per skilllevel% chance (max level 15) when physically attacked. When Praying Mantis Counter is triggered, you receive only 50% of the original damage, and counter with 100%+ enhancement attribute level*0,5% (so for a maximum of 50% counter chance with 160% damage) of the damage you received [i.e. 100% to 160% of the halved damage you received or 50% to 80% of the original damage you would’ve received if not for the counter].

Palm Strike gets changed into a CC skill. It deals no initial damage but instead induces bleeding for 200% per 0,5 seconds with 5 seconds duration. The knockdown effect is changed to apply as soon as the bleeding debuff ends, and will knock the enemy down at the place where he stands (similar to Bwa Kayimans knockdown effect, no more flippering around)

Handknife gets changed into a combo skill that can be used after autoattacking with Double Punch (2x skill factor ratio) or Praying Mantis counter (50% stun chance); its max level is increased to 5 and it’s moved to be learnable from Class level 31. Remove defence ignore attribute, and instead, you get 100% defence ignore and +50% stun chance when striking an enemy from behind.
5 OH, 20 seconds CD.

God Finger Flick has its CD reduced to 15 seconds. Now induces blind debuff for 7 seconds via attribute with 50% probability.

Iron Skin is changed to apply debuffs on the enemy when attacking you. Max level is reduced to 10, it will reduce the enemies physical attack by 2% per stack that hits the Monk for 15 seconds.
max 10 stacks, keeps the enhancement attribute that buffs the attack reduction to up to 32% with 10 stacks.

Enemies fully debuffed by Iron Skin [i.e. 10 stacks] receive additional damage from Double Punch and have a higher chance to trigger a Praying Mantis counter when attacking.

Double Punch receives a 25% defence ignore attribute for level 380+.

Energy Blast is changed.
The initial AoE and attack factor is increased to be overall the same as Rubric.
The long channeling and casting stays the same.
Instead, it receives a new attribute that reduces the damage by 50% in exchange of halved casting time, reduced AoE and free movement during the casting process (i.e. the same as Taoists Divine Punishment).
When hitting the enemy from behind, the physical defense of the enemy will decrease by 15% for as long as the skill continues to hit the enemy.

Golden Bell Shield will now additionally apply a short-lived buff to the Monk that halves the casttime of Energy Blast and makes immune to knockback&knockdown (10 seconds).

[c2gaming.seetoo]

So is everyone really ok with monk simply being a swordie class in the cleric tree? As it stands, with the potion changes (the old one, no new ones to speak off) swordies can self heal.

[4lkruzeth]

That is just a simple observation I’ve made on Monk as a class. All Monk’s skills are just pure damage skills with nothing else going for it (other than God Finger Flick with Strike Debuff), a damage buff that only works for Monk skills and a buff that does too little to be even worth it. Much more similar to a Swordsman class instead of a Cleric class whose skills usually have some utility skills for the whole party to benefit from instead of just pure damage.

[c2gaming.seetoo]

Given the mechanics that already exist in tos, what unique identity would you give monks to differentiate them from swordies that can heal?

[4lkruzeth]

Personally I would like IMC to refine the “combo” system IMC made on Monk’s Palm Strike + Hand Knife and give Monk a purpose in a party other than simply pure DPS.

While normally such mechanics on every class serves to better the class and cement its identity, this particular combo simply serves nothing but pointless hassle (Hand Knife is nothing more than a 20 second cd, 4 overheat skill assuming you don’t get CC or miss the timing thus losing the overheat, and the combo system is merely empty over-glorification) and brings nothing to the party. I believe every Cleric class always has something to bring to the party to make them be worth taking (Oracle Death Sentence, Inquisitor Wheel and Judgement, Dievdirbys Statues, Kabbalist healing, etc etc), and Monk should have something like that at least, if their DPS is going to be as subpar and detrimental to the party as it is with its knockback and knockdown (like cmon, Monk skills displaces monsters so bad position desync happens thus ruining your own party DPS). I’ll like it if IMC can play around with Stances (Eg, different stance gives different buffs, or makes your attacks have different physical properties like Slash and Pierce, or making Monk skills have different physical properties and different stances changes the cooldown of such skills) and/or using skills in different orders to bring about different debuffs or buffs (Eg different orders of skills causing armor break, causing enemy reduced attack, increased character attack etc). With what IMC has right now, this is probably possible. Or maybe what Monks can do other than just martial arts, like praying and meditation, but that requires new mechanic designs altogether.

But of course, that’s just personal preference. The most general (and boring) way to go about it is just to buff up damage numbers and give some way to turn off Hand Knife and Energy Blast CC so Monk can be a pure DPS class that does not interfere with the party. For a long time, Monks have always had a love-hate relationship with Double Punch spam. Sure it’s irritating to spam, but heck it does proper damage especially in a boss fight and doesn’t move monsters around, thus cementing the skill’s role in the class as a pure DPS class (AKA Double Punch the class like how it is with Exorcist and Rubric). IMC removing that part of Monk and replacing it with half-baked damage buffs on skills with the game’s most irritating knockback and knockdown CC kinda killed the class in Re:Build. While a combo system is welcome, the one in Re:Build is just an unrefined gimmick with no purpose, that re-uses old assets (Re:Build Hand Knife existed so long ago, IMC removing it without warning and then bringing it back feels very odd), and is actually more detrimental than simply putting 4 overheats of Palm Strike and 4 overheats of Hand Knife separately. Its like IMC never actually tested this before rolling it out.

Remember CBT Knockdown Monk days where Monks with less healing that other clerics were either kicked and avoided Monk in their parties (LFM > Alemeth/Storage Grind NO MONK), or let them join but told them to use ONLY Double Punch when Double Punch Attack speed didn’t exist, or get kicked? Monk is about to return to those days but much worse with lower CD Energy Blast and 4 overheat Hand Knife. There is already a precedent on how this affects Monk way long time ago, and yet IMC is making Re:Build Monk mirror that but worse (Lower Energy Blast cooldown, 4 “overheats” of Hand Knife as main DPS, compared to when Double Punch still has comparable damage before attack speed patch came and using only Double Punch is acceptable).

Tbh there’s so many ways to go about that identity given how lacking Monk is right now and my idea is only one of the many. If its a class that only has damage going for it, I would wish that the amount of damage Monk does really reflects that (like one of the strongest, if not strongest, damage classes in the game due to the class not having any sort of useful utility skill outside a very situational God Finger Flick AKA a proper trade-off from having only DPS skills and lacking any useful utility skills). I believe that’s justified given how lacking in Utility skills Monk is right now, and how selfish Monk is as a class. Its quite easy to just see how lacking Monk is just by comparing to other classes.

Monk just gets nerfed time and time again before Re:Build, and in Re:Build is like the nail in the coffin where Re:Build Monk is just so lacking there’s so many different ideas to go from.

[RuriUsagi]

I also have some suggestions I haven’t posted before because I was on mobile, now I’m on PC and I can write properly.
I thought about new skills with some type of mechanics to try to make monk more unique.
I will start with the existing skills.

Double Punch:
The way this skill became an AA made it just useless, we want to make monk to punch things and now we can’t even do it anymore. I think they made it so weak because it can “combo with chaplain”, but I hate chaplain and I hate AA. My suggestion would be to make this skill as channeling, to keep punching while holding the button, so it will not kill our fingers while will not be a crap AA. Would give damage every 0.1 sec, for something like 5 secs, and every successful hit will reduce monk skills cooldown in 0.1 sec. Would also change the name because it will be now multiple punches, maybe Pummel.

Iron Skin:
This one has never been good. Would delete it and make as an attribute to give knockdown and knockback immunity, and damage mitigation. The attribute would activate at chance on every sucessful hit with a monk skill, duration of 5sec. Change the name to Iron Body or Diamond Body would be more appropriate.

Hand Knife:
After losing it’s armor break, the skill became pointless. Would delete or simple put it away of the combo and boost it’s damage, give back the armor break and the remove knockdown attribute.

One Inch Punch:
Another skill they killed. Boost damage or delete.

God Finger Flick:
They could do anything, but they choose a boring throw coin skill. Would delete to make something more interesting.

Now about Palm Strike, Energy Blast and Golden Bell Shield will enter later of my rework idea:

New system: Yin and Yang spheres. Some monk skills will summon either Yin or Yang spheres to apply in other skills.

Palm Skills:

Palm Strike: Don’t need much changes, but a better defense ignore % would be welcome, like 50% (Inquisitor has lots of utilities and has 50% defense ignore on God Smash, so why not?).

New Skill: Searing Palm: Can only be used after Palm Strike. Use your other hand to a flaming palm attack in a vital point. Inflict bleed and gives damage on SP. After a successful hit, generate an “Yang Sphere”. Cooldown: 0

New Skill: Chi: Liberate Chi from your palms to cause an explosion dealing holy damage. Need at least 2 Yang Spheres to be used, and consumes x% SP to deal extra damage(extra damage like kagura, not crap like blind faith). Cooldown: 20s

Crushing Skills:

New Skill: Tremor: Trample the floor with one foot giving damage around. Cooldown: 20s. Overhit: 4

New Skill: Iron Shoulder. Can only be used after Tremor. Hit enemies at front with your shoulder. Knockdown enemies(without making them flying away, they just fall on the floor). After a successful hit, generate an “Yin Sphere”. Cooldown: 0

New Skill: Critical Explosion: Punch the floor exploding around. Gives AoE dark damage and if crits gives 200% critical damage. Need at least 2 Yin Spheres to be used. Cooldown: 20s

Energy Blast: First will change the part that the skills takes so long to give all hits, would make it faster like Rune of Justice. Consumes all Yin and Yang Spheres. Gives x% damage for each sphere and give holy and dark damage accordingly.

Golden Bell Shield: It would be okay as it is, would remove the cooldown reduction because the new Double Punch would do it already. Increase damage and gives 4 Yin Spheres and 4 Yang Spheres. This is not a shield anymore so I would change it’s name to something like Inner Strength.

TLDR: Total rework of monk, making new system and new combo. Just sharing ideas, this topic shows that ideas aren’t lacking at least.

[4lkruzeth]

Double Punch:
The way this skill became an AA made it just useless, we want to make monk to punch things and now we can’t even do it anymore. I think they made it so weak because it can “combo with chaplain”, but I hate chaplain and I hate AA.

My thoughts exactly. Personally, I puke and despise the idea of Monk and Chaplain going together into an Auto-Attack combination like that with all my heart and soul as a Monk main.

[c2gaming.seetoo]

Sandly, stances was suggested so long ago. The idea was that double punch would be strike, hand knife would be slash, and 1inch punch would be pierce. IMC did not think the idea was worth doing.