you want to kill a monk? roll up a ranger
Monk Abilities
That or a blademaster.
blademaster has it even easier.. I forgot about that one!
Just give monks more forms, like snake and bear. And of course, allow expertise in anatomies. We all know expertise isn't just for those special skills, but of course, how often and a bigger chance at landing chakera strikes depend on them. (of course not soley, but mostly)
Not true, would you like to take away bodyslam from a Berserker because it'd to much like the bash of a Warrior? There's more ideas stated here than just giving a monk control of his abilities but since you're focusing on that one let's think. A monk can do what in combat now? Dirk Kick, Kick/Double Kick, Air Thrash, Trip, disarm but barely any weapon skills? Trip isn't that effective due to the high curve of the PB most people will be flying when you get near them or will flee to fly. Personally if I see any class looking for me in my pk range I do anything I can to negate their lag skills. Monks just don't have as large of a strategy in them as other classes, there's things there but they're not what you can count on all the time. Horse kick is great but you can't depend on it, Tiger claw hits hard but you can't use it as a finishing move.
This may be wrong, but when I've played them most of my strategy with a monk was decided by the stance. Choosing it was more than half of the battle. Now this in a way does help monks, you can sit back and let your luck decide and be ready to chase while just using dirt to keep them blind. You can air thrash which will usually just cause an opponent to flee. Monks SHOULD HAVE MORE. They should be able to choose more in how they fight, no they shouldn't have the selection of a blademaster but why couldn't they have some selection?
Fact: If a martial artist is wanting to slow an opponent down what do they do? Kick them in the legs. Why can't monks do so? Just because Blademasters are around that doesn't mean that another class should be held behind due to them being simular. So my ideas are this:
Monks should have more active skills in combat. This doesn't have to be like the critical strike of a blademaster but being able to hamper an opponet somehow would be nice. Having to rely as much on luck as skill in combat isn't fair to a class when no other must do so. Every other class is capable of boosting this or that, to increase their key abilities. Monks likewise shoul be able to do so. I do not think they should have the selection style the blademaster has, maybe add in different types of attacks to the styles. One for each, such as: a low kick in crane to slow down / enfeeble an opponent. This will allow the monk to increase his bonuses from the speed and accuracy of this stance. An elbow strike to the temples in Buddha which hampers casters. Give each stance a special attack that is done by command.
Does anyone else feel like Monks get shafted in cabals? I've always thought that because of their lack of weapons, armor restrictions, and fighting styles that monks got the short end of the stick here.
Neutral Monks, there is no reason why they shouldn't be around. None at all. With strict discipline does NOT come a necessity to join one side or the other. Look at the classes that are restricted to good or evil. Paladin, Cleric, Healer, Shaman, Dark-Knight and Necromancer. Now I may be wrong about the DK, but all but Necromancer are good or evil due to the gods they follow. And even if that's not why a DK falls in with Necro on being evil simply because that's what they ARE. Raising creatures from the dead, trapping souls in your weapon. All evil. Monks have no reason to fall into either category and to be honest a part of me sees how they shouldn't be good or evil and purely neutral. But I do kinda see how they could be both.
I agree with some of this. I was not trying to say exactly that monks should be just like blademasters, even though it did sound like it a bit, but why should a pure melee class depend on luck? Especially one that is supposed to be a signified unarmed destructor. In my opinion the only two classes that should really have anything luck involved should be ninjas and thieves. There are times where a monk will chakera a ton and then there can be hours where you hardly ever land them, if ever. Plus most of my ideas were to put more emphasis on anatomies. Anatomies are pretty much for chakeras and you cant even do much with them when they are based on luck. Blademasters can focus their anatomy training onto certain races and only really have two attacks, but one attack breaks down into many different things. Why not give the monks the ability to kick in like three different areas? Examples as high kick, middle kick, and low kick. Each having different things they can do. Such as kicking high can give headaches which do something. Middle kicking can hurt the liver, or cause something like dysentery but with only constant vomiting from the harsh stomach kick. Or kicking low like said before, does enfeeblement or something. And air thrash should be changed a bit. What is the point of air thrash is everyone flees immediately, then you must wait two ticks just to chase, and they start flying again in one hour. If it is going to be a two tick skill it should at least knock them from the sky for two or three hours? Why not? I mean you have to chase them down anyway. And also, monks are martial artists, why not give them some kind of hip throw, or some kind of submission move which strains parts of the enemies body hampering them in some small way. Monk kicks have their minor perks, but I mean there is nothing really except for kick dirt then kick alot, unless you need to disarm a weapon or shield. You can only trip in offensive, in which I think you should be able to trip without an empowerment UNLESS you are in a defensive stance. I also mentioned something earlier about empowerment being longer or just giving the ability to enter the stances because if you are forced to flee, because your luck sucks and you fight crappy, and your empowerment falls, it is tough to empower when you have a good chaser following your tail. And someone mentioned that blademasters and monks should not be too similiar? Then why even make blademasters and give them anatomies? And blademasters are able to switch between minor stances in battle (high, low, middle, left, right, etc...). I just think maybe it would be an idea for monks to be able to switch between offensive stances if they are in an offensive empower, and the same with defense. I mean if your in buddha, then all of a sudden a warrior or something starts to chase you why not be able to switch to horse or drunken to actually be worth anything? Martial artists can switch stances in a fight. I still think it would be nice if gauntlets and boots actually added a small bit along to the monk, they constant use their fists and feet in battle doing kickboxing and such, but wearing certain gauntlets like spiked gauntlets do not add anything. Ideas, thoughts, and criticism please. I want to hear.
Just give monks more forms' date=' like snake and bear. And of course, allow expertise in anatomies. We all know expertise isn't just for those special skills, but of course, how often and a bigger chance at landing chakera strikes depend on them. (of course not soley, but mostly)[/quote']
This is a good idea. Two more stances. Snake form could be an offensive, and bear could be defensive. Although I cant think of what snake would do other than be quick which is already taken by monkey, but bear stance could give extra health or be almost like a dragon stance for the defense empowerment. Or if you want to get even deeper into my mind, why not just make every stance be part offensive and defense and have some sort of expertise option to which stance you would like to be. Such as ninjas get shadow arts, doublesheath, eagle eye, etc... why not give monks the option of picking different stances so each monk could be more individualistic. Monks being solely dragon stance or a monk being solely crane stance. Each stance having its own seperate sets of skills for just the one stance would be awesome. This could go more in depth as well, but I am starting to get a headache and its late as crap. So I want to here some ideas for this.
Ideas' date=' thoughts, and criticism please. I want to hear.[/quote']
Use paragraphs?
That's an awesome idea, maybe have spiked gauntlets cause bleeding. Or poison barbed boots that'll cause a weak poison. Maybe even a few elemental pieces of equipment to help monks out. I hate not being able to use vulns, a major downfall of the monk class imo. Just that along would help them greatly.
Those chakera's are nice for the lack of vulnerability hit'n'stuff. But I know what you mean -- fighting an undead w/ a monk, unless you're part of a certain cabal, is extremely hard.
Yeah but they're not something you can count on like using vuln weapons on a melee or casting a vuln on a mage. It'd also be nice to see Chakera do something besides damage. Maybe small mals that stack?
If chakera's were some how dropped in the amount of lag/damage they did, I could see that being a cool after-effect. Even with kickboxing and martial arts advanced it would be cool to see something like a battlemage's plumbum manus every round to those you fight (-1 str to wrist breaking or enfeeble for 0 hours with breaking/wounding legs and ankles).
Who knows. But I'm still for two more new forms! 
Forms are fine, they'll open up new areas that the monk can fight in. But on the other hand new forms will most likely mean that the old forms will just stay the same. Plus what's needed really? A Bear form sounds awesome, but it'd just be a spinoff of Dragon. If Monks were to get new forms I think they should be entirely different from the others. I also stick with what I said before, each form should have a command. Just a generic command that covers a special attack in each form. Let's just call it special, when you're in tiger maybe have the special activate the tiger claw. In Crane have it be a low kick to slow someone. The special should be an attack that increases the ability of the stance you are currently in. This will remove some of the luck of the stances. I also think that monks should be able to change stances easier if things are left as is. If the stances were made more powerful I could see it, bas as it is right now the stances barely cover if you've chosen the right one against your opponent. If you get jumped by someone else it sucks. Maybe change offensive and defensive into minor stances? Have it so that if you want you can be tiger defensive or offensive to try and find that perfect balance. That way if you are in crane offensive and get jumped and can't fight properly in the stance you're in you can switch to defensive to help you get away.
So many of the classes in this game are separated by so little' date=' that Deykari hit the nail on the head. Let's just wrap all the classes into a little bubble called "Generic", change all the races to human, and give them all a generic set of equipment. That should drive our replay value through the roof, and work wonders for our retention rate.[/quote']
Talk about taking what I said out of context.
Dey
As some what of a monk connoisseur (I've had almost every flavor of monk there is at 50 and cabal E), my 2c:
A. Monk fights are usually pretty one sided. You either get caned, or you cane, or you miss when they are in Awful and you have to roll the dice again. Contrary to popular belief, however, short of a very unprepared opponent there are almost never any "true" lag locks...that spammed command when you are at 50% health is what killed you.
In my experience, you cane mages and get caned by melees.
B. Defensive empowerment is only useful to survive. You cannot, short of pilot error, win a fight in defensive. Especially against a caster. Anyone that encourages you to use buddha against a shaman or Lich is telling you to go for stalemate.
C. I'm all for some monk changes, but I think the fundamentals of the class are what make it so unique and replayable. As such, I would be against a changing of the anatomy/chakera system. However, as I said before, defensive is fairly useless and that creates a lot of room for re-jiggering.
Yeah, I only ever empowered offensive on Neraldis. Now I hear you can second parry in offensive as well, score. As Khaede said, i also noticed the same, I either caned, or got caned. Giant warriors (and berserkers) used to give me curry. Vanedor was always a close battle. It is probably the class I had best luck with killing healers (that and vampires were also capable if you lucked out). For giant meelee characters though, I more or less had to rely on pulling off a phantom dragon. That was about the only combos I used dragon stance for. I usually used crane or monkey aganst casters and other meelee.
I only ever played one monk, so I am not exactly the most learnt in their ways.
I don't think monks need a big tone. They are pretty tough if played right. They are a class you really need to spend some time on mastering skills and anatomies. I do, however, think that empowerment should last longer than 24 hours. Stances still drop. Why can't empowerment last even 48 hours? I don't see this increasing their power but it would make them less of a pain in the ***.
Now with all that said I can see where monks could use something for "flavor" but I really have no idea what to suggest.
A 48 hour empowerment might be a major pain in the arse if you were prepped offensively for one opponent (maybe a cleric/shaman), then he logged out and someone you wanted to empower defense for logged in.
Forty plus hours of being in the wrong empowerment could wreck your day.
As it stands now, you can shift empowerments after only a few hours.
I was able to shift from offensive to defensive and vice versa with around 18 hours remaining in an empowerment or less, but tried it with 22 from offensive to defensive and couldn't.
Dey
Exactly. I would even be fine with a monk shifting empowerment whenever they wanted.
Have the monk just empower. This empower state lasts 48 hours, while he is empowered he may shift between offensive/defensive with let's say a 1-2 hour timer on when he can shift again?