firex said:
I know that your mail talent is just for 3 slots, but what I was saying is that it seems lackluster to do it as a talent for only 3 slots, but also pointless to give them full mail (not to mention frustrating for mail dps classes) when they can compete on druid gear instead. and LWs do create mail once they start crafting level 40ish gear, and technically JCs are the ones who create fist weapons (even though really that should be blacksmiths from now on and there's just one JC fist weapon recipe that I know of). I'm really saying keep them as leather because 3/8 mail is a tease that will annoy people, while full leather would work better just from a class design/appearance/flavor standpoint.
I see where you're coming from, and the feature, while sounding cool, does very little for the class and makes itemization harder (because the devs would have to keep an eye on mail armor and make sure that it's not becoming too strong for a small fraction of Monks.) The idea would be much more interesting if Armor was worth a damn. Thanks for making me take a second look at it, I'll probably yank that talent out.
As far as creating fist weapons, there really isn't a strong presence in the game for them at the moment. Wowhead shows less than 200 fist weapons, which is obscenely few. Perhaps a class skill, similar to Runeforging or Poison, would allow Monks to craft their own fist weapons. In this way, there isn't a profession that they feel obligated to take. I'm not saying they would be able to completely ignore drops; just have fist weapons to fill in as needed.
I would consider giving the crafting professions a few fist-weapon related items, however, just to spice things up. Engineers with fist-launching gloves :lol
firex said:
I think the ideal solution is to give them a good refresh ability so they can regen mana easily while dpsing, so they don't even need int on their dps gear (like paladins),
I had planned to include a mana-tap ability that would allow you to syphon mana off targets and a healing tree ability that allowed you to place a mana-drain-over-time effect on targets. I wanted both to be active mana regen rather than passive mechanisms. Spirit of Grace, however, will be talented to return more mana than the 1% it gives you each charge.
firex said:
That way you can stick them with leather/cloth and they would mainly compete with druids, using mostly feral/rogue leather for dps and resto leather/priest cloth for healing. Obviously they should be another 1:1 str:agi AP class to fit them into current itemization, but that works fine with the weapons they use anyway.
Exactly; they have access to healing gear with cloth/resto leather and DPS gear with rogue leather. Basically, with the exception of a very small pool of fist weapons, monks fit into the current gear patterns very nicely.
firex said:
Also, your spirits should cost 0 mana. They work like shaman elemental shields, and shaman elemental shields cost 0 mana (well, the self-only ones do, and earth shield provides such huge healing and free targeting that you can see why it costs mana...). You could give them reduced charges and increased effects on the charges. It would maybe seem too homogenous with shaman shields, but the effects are so different and it's a "unique" but not really class defining mechanic for the shaman.
The concept behind the Spirit spell type comes off awkward because it isn't entirely explained yet, which is hardly your fault. I should have made my documentation better before posting it, but I was in a bit of a hurry.
Basically, the Monk has only three baseline healing effects; a short-cast low-health heal similar to Flash of Light (Lifebolt), an AoE heal centered on the Monk (Lifeburst), and the Overload effect of Heaven's Fury (which heals up to 5 targets around you). Everything else is damage redirection or absorption. That plays a big role and fills in a missing part of the picture;
damage redirection abilities like Shared Pain proc Spirit spells.
There are two undocumented (and incomplete) abilities in my notes. The first is a damage swap; you heal a target for a set amount while damaging yourself for the same. No mana is involved. You then Meditate or life tap that damage away. A talent would unbalance this transfer, allowing you to reduce the amount of damage you take while keeping the healing the same.
The second is similar to Shared Pain, but when the target is injured the damage is spread amongst all nearby allies (based on current health), meaning a huge hit against a tank can be defrayed amongst everyone, which of course can then quickly be healed away with a Lifeburst or Overload of Heaven's Fury.
I've been seriously considering changing Lifebolt to be a HoT as well, leaving the monk with zero single-target direct heals (except for one deep in the healing tree). In my mind, Monks aren't designed to play like any healer currently in the game, and make healing more interesting than whack-a-mole. To me, that means less direct heals, and more 'fire-and-forget-while-DPSing' spells.
Anyways, as far as the 0% mana cost goes, the Spirit spells are all designed to put that spent mana to good use. For example;
Spirit of Grace is basically a haste buff for all nearby players; the 20% mana cost is irrelevant because it restores 1% mana every charge, with 20 charges. As mentioned before, you can talent this early in the Focus tree to give you extra mana back, so it's sort of a slow-working innervate).
Spirit of Life is restoring 60% health to up to 5 targets around the Monk for a mere 18% of base mana. That's 3% of each target's max health times 20 charges. Oh, and there's extra armor (an effect that is spread to other nearby players with a Focus tree talent)
Spirit of Cinder is obviously a soloing / DPS buff.
I was expecting to add two more spirit spells, but I haven't nailed down exactly what they will be.
firex said:
I'd also suggest making thrown weapons a core ability and not a talent. That way monks fill every equip slot and you don't have to come up with a new relic.
That's already done, it's at the very bottom of the PDF File. The talent should read "Make this Baseline!" or something similar. I didn't want to add another relic slot, and I like the idea of monks having throwing weapons to compliment their other ranged options (Windbolt is baseline, Forcebolt is talented in the Focus tree). I also like the idea of having throwing weapons disarm a target. That just oozes "monk".
firex said:
I would make the "requires fist or unarmed weapon" abilities "requires staff or fist weapon" abilities, as I don't think anyone would go actually unarmed for real dps, and this way 2h monks wouldn't be some ultra-niche dps offspec the community mocks (there are dps staves in the game now, anyway). Or you could remove the weapon restrictions altogether so they just go with what's best in each slot.
The bit about "Requires Unarmed" is there to ensure that all of your abilities aren't locked out by being disarmed. Otherwise, you're absolutely right about weapon restrictions; you should be able to deliver a punch while carrying daggers as well, for one. I had a nebulous idea of allowing Monks to have a baseline Titan's Grip-style ability later that allowed them to wield a staff in one hand (freeing up the other for a fist weapon). Honestly, I am not too keen on that. I also don't want to cut staves, because there's something very monk-like about them as well as being a large pool of healer weapons to draw from.
I'm not sure I want to add staff-only abilities either, though the Spirit / Focus trees both would be prime locations for that sort of thing. The best solution is to adjust damage for each ability when using a staff, unless I come up with something cooler.
As far as this conversation goes, I don't want to fill up the WoW thread with theory and such, so maybe we should take it to PMs unless people are actually interested.
Thanks, this thread has been very useful!
