Monk vs. BST damage mitigation

[rigeld]

[code:1]
CLS  AC    SHLD AVD  DB   DI    AVG    MIT%  ATKS  HIT%  MISS% BLK% DDG% PRY% RIP% | DMG
WAR  2271  15%  0    87   21    223.3  71.1  2573  48.9  42.2  NA   4.2  5.9  5.3  | 109.2
WAR  1380  0%   0    102  21    273.2  64.5  1854  48.1  43.1  NA   4.9  5.9  5.5  | 131.4
MNK  1854  2%   60   100  22.1  311.0  55.0  3476  41.1  47.2  12.0 5.4  NA   4.7  | 127.8
*MNK 1635  2%   60   100  22.1  313.2  54.5  2923  42.0  46.8  11.6 4.9  NA   4.7  | 131.5
MNK  1331  0%   0    102  22.1  317.4  54.0  2550  46.8  42.1  10.4 4.5  NA   4.4  | 148.4
MNK  1063  0%   0    102  22.1  344.4  52.5  2883  46.7  41.0  11.9 4.4  NA   4.6  | 160.8
RNG  1728  2%   10   100  22.1  292.1  59.5  2359  48.5  43.5  NA   4.2  6.0  4.0  | 141.7
RNG  1308  0%   0    102  22.1  316.4  54.2  2026  51.6  40.6  NA   3.6  5.6  4.0  | 163.3
[/code:1]

The weighted down monk, that loses 200 AC, takes 4 DPS more. A huge loss in AC for negligible damage difference. In fact, the average hit goes up by 2, within the margin for error. Basically, the 200 AC difference did absolutely nothing for this monk.

You claim that an increase of 2 points on damage in average hits is withing the margin of error. Prove it. No where in the original post does he state that the margin of error is so large. In fact if the margin of error were so large the whole parse should be invalid.

If you did a straight line approximation between the following 3 lines, taking into accound additional shielding and avoidance, the values line up quite nicely. So I still maintain that 200 AC over softcap has an effect, despite a small one, on mitigation.

[code:1]MNK  1854  2%   60   100  22.1  311.0  55.0  3476  41.1  47.2  12.0 5.4  NA   4.7  | 127.8
*MNK 1635  2%   60   100  22.1  313.2  54.5  2923  42.0  46.8  11.6 4.9  NA   4.7  | 131.5
MNK  1331  0%   0    102  22.1  317.4  54.0  2550  46.8  42.1  10.4 4.5  NA   4.4  | 148.4[/code:1]

Sorry you fail to prove that AC has no effect, please try again.

Okay, I misspoke.  AC over the softcap has little effect.  Sorry for misleading you into thinking I believed otherwise.  My using absolutes was for simplicitys sake and I will try to steer clear from it in the future.

Kreseth, Brodda did parse a monk at 1331 AC and 1063 AC against these same mobs (HoH guardians iirc) and the results are there.  the 300 AC difference is about 12 DPS and 27 average hit.

So 1063-1331 is a 27 avg hit difference.  1331-1635 is a 4 avg hit difference.  AC softcap makes little difference?

And yes, because of the softcap, a lot of monks dont care about thier AC and go HP-STA-Everything Else-AC in priority of determining if a piece of gear is an upgrade.  The only reason I wanted the Barbarian Leggings is because theyre 100HP pants.  If they nerfed them down to 20AC Id still wear them without a single complaint.

[Coprolith]

The wrong people did get hit the hardest, those with the LEAST AC felt it the hardest

Emphasis should have been on "felt". In game perceptions aren't proof of anything and turn out to be plain wrong 9 out of 10 times.

Monks got a base mitigation nerf, yes, they did not however have a warrior type mitigation bonus (it was/is more like the Iksar racial bonus).

If you can prove monks had a mitigation bonus and NOT an AC bonus then please do so.

How hard can it be to understand?

1) Monks mitigate the same way as the other leather classes post-nerf, ergo they must have mitigated better pre-nerf.

2) Iksar bonus is straight AC, and we've already established that the monk mitigation nerf was not because of a straight AC nerf because listed AC did not change.

3) The monk nerf also wasn't a shadow AC nerf, i.e. subtracting a value of 200 from the monk's AC internally without changing the listed AC, because this would lead to monks also having an apparent soft cap 200 pts higher then the other classes which is not the case.

Once you've eliminated the impossible, what remains must be the truth. If it couldnt have been an AC bonus, then it must have been a mitigation bonus. What form that bonus had (a fixed number or a percentage or a combination) we'll probably never know, but it was there. There's no way around that conclusion.

[Goretzu]

Quote:

I said:  Monks got a base mitigation nerf, yes, they did not however have a warrior type mitigation bonus (it was/is more like the Iksar racial bonus).

If you can prove monks had a mitigation bonus and NOT an AC bonus then please do so.



You said: How hard can it be to understand?

1) Monks mitigate the same way as the other leather classes post-nerf, ergo they must have mitigated better pre-nerf.

Yep.

2) Iksar bonus is straight AC, and we've already established that the monk mitigation nerf was not because of a straight AC nerf because listed AC did not change.

Yes, but the two are not related (nice attempt though :)).  
The Iksar bonus is AC like the monk AC bonus and unlike the warrior mitigation bonus.

3) The monk nerf also wasn't a shadow AC nerf, i.e. subtracting a value of 200 from the monk's AC internally without changing the listed AC, because this would lead to monks also having an apparent soft cap 200 pts higher then the other classes which is not the case.

Nope it was similar to the warrior mitigation bonus, it was that mitigation AC did less post-nerf.

Once you've eliminated the impossible, what remains must be the truth.

That is true, but that's NOT what you've just done. :)

If it couldnt have been an AC bonus

None of what you have just said is relevent to that in the slightest, only all you've mentioned is what the NERF was, NOT what the monk AC Bonus is/was.

then it must have been a mitigation bonus.

It was/is an AC Bonus like the Iksar bonus (although there's an interesting question, does a racial AC bonus = class type AC, I'd expect so for simplicities sake).

What form that bonus had (a fixed number or a percentage or a combination) we'll probably never know, but it was there. There's no way around that conclusion.

Yep, as an AC Bonus, which isn't the same thing as the warriors get now, nor is it the same thing (only opposite) as the mitigation nerf (it would have needed to be a direct 200 AC reduction for it to be that).

You're adding 2+2 and coming up with 36.

[Coprolith]

None of what you have just said is relevent to that in the slightest, only all you've mentioned is what the NERF was, NOT what the monk AC Bonus is/was.

Yes i did, you just don't understand a word of what im saying nor do you appreciate the meaning of the parses.
If monks had an AC bonus pre-nerf, then it must still be there. You simply cannot explain the data by saying that it was an AC bonus that was taken away. The only way to explain the data is by a direct change in the way mitigation works for monks at the heart of the combat code.

You keep demanding proof of something that can no longer be proven, while at the same time you can't give a single argument that holds up to scrutiny yourself. Show me one shred of evidence or give me one possible explanation of how an AC bonus and subsequent nerf can explain the available data and then we'll talk again, because as it stands right now, the only logical conclusion is that the nerf was based directly on your mitigation, not your AC.

[Maulx]

It has been my experience with message boards that the person who uses CAPS to make a point is always right.  :wink:

[Aneya]

rigeld thanks for the reply. For the most part your post was well formulated. I just had to nit pik that small point because it was prone to perpetuate misconceptions.

Now if only I could untangle the mess Corp and Goretzu are in.

[Vidyne]

Read and skimmed... lotta arguing...

just from looking and trying to compromise...

It looks like monks had an AC BONUS and still do?
It looks like SoE countered the bonus with a nerf to how monks mitigate dmg overall, nothing to do with taking away the AC bonus?

Does SoE do this alot?

If my weapon swung too fast.... and messed up, and gave me alot of dps.. theyd just make the weapon lower your attack by 500 instead of just upping the delay on it?

Just observations of an outsider.

Or were there two different nerfs to hit monks?
/shrug... im confused...
I feel like someone turned me into an ogre...
okie..
*Bashes topic with club* j/k

[Kreseth]

Read and skimmed... lotta arguing...

just from looking and trying to compromise...

It looks like monks had an AC BONUS and still do?
It looks like SoE countered the bonus with a nerf to how monks mitigate dmg overall, nothing to do with taking away the AC bonus?

Does SoE do this alot?

If my weapon swung too fast.... and messed up, and gave me alot of dps.. theyd just make the weapon lower your attack by 500 instead of just upping the delay on it?

Just observations of an outsider.

Monks have always had an AC bonus to compensate for their weight restrictions.  Always have, still do, always will.  Monks used to mitigate damage better than they do now & once their AC started getting insanely high thanks to All/All gear in velious & luclin they became very, very good tanks.  This was nerfed because they weren't supposed to be good tanks.

If a weapon swung too fast & generated lots of DPS they'd just nerf the shit out of the weapon.  Try equipping a moss covered twig in your primary hand & let me know how that goes ;)

--kreseth

[Tastian]

"Try equipping a moss covered twig in your primary hand & let me know how that goes"

I lost my moss twig primary the sametime I lost wurmslayer in range slot.  8(  So frustrating lol.  Still <3 mah twiggy twig though.

[Goretzu]

Yes i did, you just don't understand a word of what im saying nor do you appreciate the meaning of the parses.
If monks had an AC bonus pre-nerf, then it must still be there.

And it is, in... displayed numbers at least, just not in effect (that is it still exists, but it is effected by the base mitigation nerf just like the rest of monk mitigation AC, that is it is effected by the BASE mitigation nerf).

You simply cannot explain the data by saying that it was an AC bonus that was taken away.

I'm not (I've explained where that comes from), that it was effectively taken away (pre to post nerf), there is a subtle but large difference.

But that has nothing to do with proving it was or is a warrior type monk mitigation bonus rather than an Iksar-esq AC bonus.

The only way to explain the data is by a direct change in the way mitigation works for monks at the heart of the combat code.

Which again is about the NERF, not the AC Bonus.

I'm not talking about the nerf, I've said all along that was a base mitigation nerf (which is part of what made it such an issue, it hit monks from L1-65 or 60 at the time as L65 didn't quite exist then).

You seem to be taking one argument and applying it to something else entirely here.  :?

You keep demanding proof of something that can no longer be proven, while at the same time you can't give a single argument that holds up to scrutiny yourself.

I'm not the one that erroeously claimed the monk AC Bonus was in fact a warrior type mitigation bonus, you are.
Yet there is no proof to support this claim (anymore than there was that monk's were given said 'mitigation bonus' rather than ALWAYS having had their AC Bonus since class conception).

Show me one shred of evidence or give me one possible explanation of how an AC bonus and subsequent nerf can explain the available data and then we'll talk again, because as it stands right now, the only logical conclusion is that the nerf was based directly on your mitigation, not your AC.

Yes the NERF was based up a base mitigation change - I've never said othewise.


But you were claiming (among other things) that the monk AC Bonus was like the current warrior mitigation bonus, rather than like say the Iksar AC bonus (but with the weight limit added).

Which is what I'm talking about (and you were I thought, orginally at least, who knows now :)).

[Coprolith]

One last time then. An AC bonus and a mitigation penalty simply do not cancel out above the soft cap. If you agree that the nerf was a mitigation penalty, then you cannot escape the conclusion that monks had a mitigation bonus pre-nerf.

[Goretzu]

Monks had an Iksar style AC bonus (i.e. extra AC for staying under their weight limit) prior to the nerf (and still do), but not an inherent base mitigation bonus along the lines of the current warrior setup.

The nerf was not a removal of the AC Bonus (although in many cases it was effectively this) but rather a base mitigation nerf, a mitigation penalty if you will.

The AC Bonus is still there it just doesn't do as much as it once did, as is the case with the rest of monk mitigation AC (due to the mitigation nerf), there also seems to be a monk mitigation softcap in addtion to said base mitigation nerf.

[xaoshaen]

What hurt monks wasn't simply the mitigation nerf. It was the combination of itemization fixes (which needed to be done), the mitigation nerf (which was a bit silly), and an artificially lowered AC softcap (which was outright stupid).

You'll note that in the posted parses, the plate classes showed significant mitigation gains from raising their AC, while the monk did not. As Coprolith points out, this in and of itself, does not demonstrate a universal softcap. However, taken in conjunction with other datasets, which indicate similar damage interval distributions on mobs ranging from EP mobs to Quarm, it's a pretty compelling picture. Even more dishearteningly, monks recieve far less benefit for AC over their softcap than plate classes recieve for going over their (much higher) softcap. It's pretty easy to examine if you want to, Cop. Grab a monk and have him tank some mobs
in Earth for a while, then check the damage distribution with 1350 versus 1500 AC. If your results are anything like mine were, they'll look surprisingly like Brodda's results. I couldn't find a mob where raising my monk's ac past 1350-ish really helped, though I didn't parse anything in GoD or Time, and had to rely on Brodda and Arlos for data.

My Beastlord's AC never got past 1100-ish, so I didn't have a good opportunity to see whether or not the 1350-ish cap was in place for all leather classes, or just monks.

Yeah, monks whined a lot. Funnily enough, rogues whined a lot shortly after release, and Rangers whined a lot during Kunark.

[TerjynPovar]

monk mitigation softcap

:roll:

Do you make this stuff up yourself or do you have a writer?  Pure gold!

[a_moss_snake_001]

The way I look at it we have three "leather" classes. Monks and Druids were both in the original game and Beastlords came along much later in the Luclin expansion.

If I have read this board and others correctly and understood the parses then Druids and Beastlords would appear to have exactly the same base damage mitigation value -- if you take a DRU and a BST of equal AC with no AA's and no PoTime/GoD effects they will mitigate to the same max damage value and the same average damage per hit taken (over time) when tanking the same exact creature in exactly the same circumstances - ie. no debuffs, both facing the mob from the front etc. Lets call this mitigation value: [Value_X].

From the way I remember the game "back in ye olden days" Monks initially had rather limited options in terms of the armor they were allowed to wear (in fact a full set of cured silk was considered "phat" for the mid-upper end Monk until long after Kunark was released). This was due primarily to the Verant team and their Vision(tm), who back then were very much into strong "themes" for each class and were trying to make the Monk class feel like their real world counterpart -- incredibly quick and punishing melee combatants who don't wear heavy armor or anything that would hinder their movements.

Obviously being relegated to armor that gave such a low total AC didn't really help a monk survive too well in melee combat, so to offset that somewhat they threw monks a few bones in the form of:-

- An innate AC bonus table that grants monks better AC bonuses the closer to zero weight they are.

- An innate damage mitigation bonus [Value_Y]

- Extremely high "Dodge" and "Riposte" skill values.

- Reasonably high base HP

- The "Feign Death" skill which can lose or significantly lower the monks place in the mobs aggro list.

- The "Block" skill which on average fires significantly more frequently than the "Parry" skill.

- The "Mend" skill which could back then instantly heal 50% of the Monk's HP with the press of a button.
~~ etc ~~

And thus Monk class survivability was maintained.

Fast-forward a few expansions and you saw the game experience a vast amount of mudflation and de-itemization, the "bar" was raised in almost every area and monks were able to wear more and more armor and gain higher and higher AC to the point where the upper-end Monks could actually attain an AC total close (and in some cases superior) to that of the equivilantly geared warriors and knights (albeit it was more difficult to do so).

This in itself might not seem such a big deal if you didnt take into account that the Monks, as well as now having the same AC as the warriors also STILL had those old legacy bonuses back from when their armor was reallly lame (Block was and still is better than parry, they still got the AC bonus table and they still had a melee mitigation bonus above and beyond that of the other leather wearing classes).

This effectively made Monks (especially Iksars) the best melee tanks in the game as long as they could hold aggro. Basically they were Warrior+DPS without a Taunt button and with slightly lower HP. This REALLY pissed the warriors and knights off and they were up in arms about it for a long time.

Sooo, the devs studied the situation for a while and decided the best course of action was to remove the greatest contributing factor in Monk tanking ability.. the mitigation bonus [Value_Y]. Good idea yes, but they also screwed this up badly when they did it and for a brief time Monk mitigation was a bad joke. However a short time later they raised the mitigation value for monks a little more and currently they are in-line with the other leather classes at around Value_X (though some seem convinced that Monks mitigate at a value less than this). This is what  the older Monks refer to as the great "NERF".

Realistically, monks weren't "nerfed" per se they simply had an old legacy bonus taken away from them that was giving them an unfair advantage in a role they were never meant to fufill. I think they left the other things in (AC bonus table and Block > Parry) so that they wouldnt totally screw the low-mid end Monks who didnt have access to the best of the best gear and thus weren't part of the problem.

So when you see Monks in threads asking for the "nerf" to be reversed they are effectively asking for their old mitigation bonus back. Should this happen in modern day EQ where mobs quad for 1200+ in single group encounters? Well thats not my decision and its hard to say how it would affect the fragile class balance as it stands right now. Given the recent warrior mitigation changes and the introduction of Berserkers (who currently out-tank AND out-dps monks) I am certainly not against it, though the knights may complain..

PS: I am aware that a lot of other small changes took place including itemization fixes and AC softcap tweaks but I have never really studied those so I can't really comment on them. Perhaps they were necessary also, perhaps they weren't.