And he's wearing... what, TWO shields??

[Laurel]

editing all my posts - I'm done

[Celephias]

If you take away monks armours...
Have their strikes break equipment same as plexus.

So they could destroy armours all over the place.

But with a toggle option they can control it.

I have to echo Targun's observations here. I've been running some tests without armour and the differences are pronounced. This is probably not surprising but the degree to which it impacts things was to me. To be fair, Cel doesn't have great combat skills but he's not that small and when not wearing armour gets banged up badly and pretty quickly. The same fights with armour, especially good armour, are very different.

At face value I don't think monks or spellcasters (or even rangers) should be able to wear (heavy) armour, but the way the game is wired now it's simply not practical. They'd all get bounced from a room pretty quickly.

[Zestana]

If the magic system is revamped properly it should allow leather armours to be worn by spellcasters due to the high rate of DPS in short bursts they SHOULD be able to do. If not then I echo Celephias here.

[Celephias]

I'm not sure high DPS alone is the solution here at all. If an MU has burst DPS, its very costly in mana (and components). This means its not sustainable simply because you're going to be out of mana in a few minutes.

I can tell you that my tests in unarmored grinding show quite poorly and to DPS-blast as a means of grinding doesn't scale unless they become much cheaper (which overcompensates in the other direction).

In Gen as it stands now, every guild needs a way to 'defend themselves' for the game to be playable. I don't think its enough to say to that high DPS is a solution. This is also just a grinding scenario. Imagine in PVP where two small teams face off, say 3 on 3. If all three players attack the MU without any means of defense, he'll be driven from the room quickly.

Its a real challenge for sure and will require a lot of creativity and tuning to get right I think.

[Tive]

I'm not sure high DPS alone is the solution here at all. If an MU has burst DPS, its very costly in mana (and components). This means its not sustainable simply because you're going to be out of mana in a few minutes.

I can tell you that my tests in unarmored grinding show quite poorly and to DPS-blast as a means of grinding doesn't scale unless they become much cheaper (which overcompensates in the other direction).

In Gen as it stands now, every guild needs a way to 'defend themselves' for the game to be playable. I don't think its enough to say to that high DPS is a solution. This is also just a grinding scenario. Imagine in PVP where two small teams face off, say 3 on 3. If all three players attack the MU without any means of defense, he'll be driven from the room quickly.

Its a real challenge for sure and will require a lot of creativity and tuning to get right I think.

You can always wear the webcloth body-stocking from Sybarus, no ?:))) Not heavy at all and very RPish

[Kitriana]

HELP!

What will I do without Laurel's insights on this topic. does anyone have his messages saved in some archive for me?? PM if you do. Thanks a million!!!!!

editing all my posts - I'm done

[Laurel]

You can always wear the webcloth body-stocking from Sybarus, no ?:))) Not heavy at all and very RPish

[Zhar]

I'm not sure high DPS alone is the solution here at all. If an MU has burst DPS, its very costly in mana (and components). This means its not sustainable simply because you're going to be out of mana in a few minutes.

I can tell you that my tests in unarmored grinding show quite poorly and to DPS-blast as a means of grinding doesn't scale unless they become much cheaper (which overcompensates in the other direction).

In Gen as it stands now, every guild needs a way to 'defend themselves' for the game to be playable. I don't think its enough to say to that high DPS is a solution. This is also just a grinding scenario. Imagine in PVP where two small teams face off, say 3 on 3. If all three players attack the MU without any means of defense, he'll be driven from the room quickly.

Its a real challenge for sure and will require a lot of creativity and tuning to get right I think.

This could be solved (at least partially) by giving each caster guild some defensive spells, which would reduce incoming damage (magic shield, blur etc.). This could possibly make them less armour-reliant and would require preparation and component/mana investment too, balancing the lack of need for armours.

Monks... Well, I can't say for sure but I think they can do pretty well even without armours, at least 1v1, handling groups of enemies is a completely different matter altogether (I'm not really sure how much monks changed after recode so please give me some leniency here). Way back when the enemy had an average of 3 seconds to act between plexuses, not leaving him much time to do damage. The group thingie can always be solved by some form of defensive-evasive abilities, very much like Thornlin Militia and Pirates offer, perhaps draining mana while active or feeding off of focus power or something.

All this aside, I also think that AC in general plays a bit too much of a role in fights, which leads to all sorts of problems (like two-handed weapons and two handed combat being made almost obsolete because of the AC bonus you get from shields).

[Draugor]

I'm not sure high DPS alone is the solution here at all. If an MU has burst DPS, its very costly in mana (and components). This means its not sustainable simply because you're going to be out of mana in a few minutes.

I can tell you that my tests in unarmored grinding show quite poorly and to DPS-blast as a means of grinding doesn't scale unless they become much cheaper (which overcompensates in the other direction).

In Gen as it stands now, every guild needs a way to 'defend themselves' for the game to be playable. I don't think its enough to say to that high DPS is a solution. This is also just a grinding scenario. Imagine in PVP where two small teams face off, say 3 on 3. If all three players attack the MU without any means of defense, he'll be driven from the room quickly.

Its a real challenge for sure and will require a lot of creativity and tuning to get right I think.

This could be solved (at least partially) by giving each caster guild some defensive spells, which would reduce incoming damage (magic shield, blur etc.). This could possibly make them less armour-reliant and would require preparation and component/mana investment too, balancing the lack of need for armours.

Monks... Well, I can't say for sure but I think they can do pretty well even without armours, at least 1v1, handling groups of enemies is a completely different matter altogether (I'm not really sure how much monks changed after recode so please give me some leniency here). Way back when the enemy had an average of 3 seconds to act between plexuses, not leaving him much time to do damage. The group thingie can always be solved by some form of defensive-evasive abilities, very much like Thornlin Militia and Pirates offer, perhaps draining mana while active or feeding off of focus power or something.

All this aside, I also think that AC in general plays a bit too much of a role in fights, which leads to all sorts of problems (like two-handed weapons and two handed combat being made almost obsolete because of the AC bonus you get from shields).

Monks without a proper tanking layman today cant tank at all from what I have noticed if I get more than 1 semi-large oponent, the only thing that gives any tankability from the guild is the sup guru defence. One on one tho... yea monks ROCK one on one nothing else I can say there, even tho plex gradually becomes shittier and shittier every time you use it on the same oponent.

[petros]

One on one tho... yea monks ROCK one on one nothing else I can say there, even tho plex gradually becomes shittier and shittier every time you use it on the same oponent.

Actually, the part about plea gradually becoming worse when used on the same opponent couldn't be farther from the truth. For more accurate information, one should reach out to a monk who has seen some of Sonnie's recent tests with plexus.

There is plenty of incorrect information in this thread. I'd encourage you to validate many of the assertions yourself, or with someone who has done some detailed testing of it as a player. Many times, the perception of an ability has little bearing to the actual abilities themselves.

To the main topic of this thread, there are certainly issues with AC that have been dealt with the last few years. The ability to carry two shields is one that has not yet been properly adjusted for. We'll be looking to do this probably once the guilds are all recoded and the effects on all guilds can be controlled centrally. It may come sooner, however, if circumstances call for it.