Monk vs. Bruiser DPS tests...

[CyberZomb]

<p>So I have several questions regarding my findings when dueling with my 70 Monk Zhen (guk) vs. my friend 70 Bruiser Kunglao (guk).</p><p>Monk (Zhen) NOTE: 95% master spells</p><p>HP - 8500 (approx.)</p><p>Mit - 40% (approx.) offensive stance</p><p>Avoidance - 50% (approx.) offensive stance</p><p>Haste - 116 </p><p>DPS - 20</p><p>weapons</p><p>scepter of destruction (vampiric adorn) and thorn wrapped bindings (phantom adorn)</p><p>AA's </p><p>Full INT and WIS lines and have most of the left side of the monk tree filled out (92 aa's)</p><p>Bruiser (Kunglao)</p><p>HP - 8000 (approx.)</p><p>mit - 44% (approx.)</p><p>avoidance - 56% (approx.)</p><p>haste - 0</p><p>DPS - 0</p><p>weapons</p><p>Marr's Fist and Fists of Bashing (no adorns)</p><p>AA's </p><p>Full INT and WIS Right side of Bruiser tree.</p><p>In the numerous tests we have done, when standing still (dueling melee only) the bruiser is coming out on top almost every time.  Sometimes by 40% life (we are not mending).</p><p>Some things to note...</p><p>My offensive stance is M1 and his is AD3</p><p>If I use a strength potion to get my STR up close to his then I come a lot closer and even got him about 20% of the time.</p><p>He is still winning almost all of them when I use a hp potion and not wearing the fbss (so I have more hp from different belt) and I have almost 9k health.</p><p> This makes no sense to me or to him at all considering that I have 116 haste and 20 dps and he has none in the testing we're doing, plus my weapons are superior in damage rating.  </p><p>Any thought on this...  it's somewhat frustrating!!  LOL </p><p>Zhen</p><p>P.S. - If we do a full on duel, he stomps a mudhole in me.  Any tips on dueling a bruiser as a monk for ca order and what not?</p>

[ChillHard]

lol, your just bad at dueling =P

[Antas22]

Given that your haste is at 116, I assume you're using Everburning Flame. That constant health draw, combined with his higher mitigation, avoidance, STR and his weapons higher damage ratio (better crit results) kind of takes the mystery out of it.

[Xanrn]

<p>Honestly Monk CA order?</p><p> Yeah hit Tsunami and then pound him into the dirt in 10/12 seconds.</p><p>Tsunami, Cobra, Dragon Breath, 1st knockdown, soaring dragon, frozen palm, artic talon, 2nd knockdown and then any single attacks left and if he still alive when your Tsunami drops smack him with silencing palm. Then repeat.</p><p>Maybe Silencing Palm when he is below half health so he can't mend.</p>

[Blindrage#2]

<p>I don't think you read his post.  His weapons are far superior to mine.  He has 1k+ more HP, even if he dropped everburning, it wouldn't matter, it's not taking over 1k health from him, AND it's giving him extra attacks. He is full master, i am probavly 75% master  Keep in mind he is attacking me about 4 hits to each of my two.  He should be laying waste to me, considering he has 20DPS mod and 116 haste.  I have 0 in each plus [Removed for Content] weapons, compared to his.  You can't really tell him how to win a duel because there are so many counters, for example when he hits tsunami i will just stop attacking and run around and or fear him until it wears off.  His stuns/stifles are useless for 30 seconds thanks to Close Mind.  Obviously you have never dueled a bruiser on pve.  Knockout combo just [Removed for Content] the living [Removed for Content] out of him.  Now on a pvp server it will be a much closer fight due to the restrictions on stun/stifle/mez/root, etc.</p><p>Thanks for your input, even though you didn't give any constructive feedback.</p><p>Kunglao</p>

[Kalem]

<p>That definatly doesn't sound right.  I only have a newbie monk, but I do have a level 70 bruiser.  At the least, the fights should be much closer.</p><p>Just for kicks, try fighting him in a neutral stance, or defensive.  It could be that the M1 offensive stance is lowering your defense by a bit too much.</p><p>When you say "melee only", you mean you guys are just auto attacking?  If so, you really should be winning.</p>

[tt66]

Yeah, the bruiser should not be doing twice as much auto-attack damage as a superior-geared monk. Something is screwy.Some other proc based thing that wasn't mentioned in the OP? As to duels.. well, there ain't much that can beat a bruiser who has stonedeaf, closemind and KOCombo ready to go. Best advice I can give is to have a rematch directly after the first one, before his timers come back up!

[Blindrage#2]

<cite>Kalem wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>That definatly doesn't sound right.  I only have a newbie monk, but I do have a level 70 bruiser.  At the least, the fights should be much closer.</p><p>Just for kicks, try fighting him in a neutral stance, or defensive.  It could be that the M1 offensive stance is lowering your defense by a bit too much.</p><p>When you say "melee only", you mean you guys are just auto attacking?  If so, you really should be winning.</p></blockquote>M1 Offensive stance doesn't lower your Defense/deflection/etc by more, it would be less if anything.  Making him have more than me.  He has Cane Twirl maxxed, and I only have 6 pts in to it, so he has another advantage on me.  He also has his weapons adorned for more dmg and I do not.  I really don't know [Removed for Content] is going on here.

[Kalem]

<cite>Blindrage#2 wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Kalem wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>That definatly doesn't sound right.  I only have a newbie monk, but I do have a level 70 bruiser.  At the least, the fights should be much closer.</p><p>Just for kicks, try fighting him in a neutral stance, or defensive.  It could be that the M1 offensive stance is lowering your defense by a bit too much.</p><p>When you say "melee only", you mean you guys are just auto attacking?  If so, you really should be winning.</p></blockquote>M1 Offensive stance doesn't lower your Defense/deflection/etc by more, it would be less if anything.  Making him have more than me.  He has Cane Twirl maxxed, and I only have 6 pts in to it, so he has another advantage on me.  He also has his weapons adorned for more dmg and I do not.  I really don't know [I cannot control my vocabulary] is going on here.</blockquote><p>Something's not right...either something is not working right for the monk class, and it just hasn't been noticed, or we're missing something in the setup that you two have.</p><p>I'm not familiar with the EoF monk AA's.  I would recommend that the monk try some different AA builds to see if there's an improvement.  How big is the strength gap between you two?  He seems to have faired much better when boosting his.  If it's too low, he should for the sake of the test, try to match yours as close as possible, with jewelry.</p><p>Seriously, it's always been thought that the monk should win if the fight is based on pure auto attack.</p><p>Edit: Are you sure the M1 isn't reducing his defense by more?  I always thought it did.  It was one of the reasons I was leary about upgrading mine.</p>

[Antas22]

<cite>Blindrage#2 wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>I don't think you read his post.  His weapons are far superior to mine.  He has 1k+ more HP, even if he dropped everburning, it wouldn't matter, it's not taking over 1k health from him, AND it's giving him extra attacks. He is full master, i am probavly 75% master  Keep in mind he is attacking me about 4 hits to each of my two.  He should be laying waste to me, considering he has 20DPS mod and 116 haste.  I have 0 in each plus [I cannot control my vocabulary] weapons, compared to his.  You can't really tell him how to win a duel because there are so many counters, for example when he hits tsunami i will just stop attacking and run around and or fear him until it wears off.  His stuns/stifles are useless for 30 seconds thanks to Close Mind.  Obviously you have never dueled a bruiser on pve.  Knockout combo just [Removed for Content] the living [I cannot control my vocabulary] out of him.  Now on a pvp server it will be a much closer fight due to the restrictions on stun/stifle/mez/root, etc.</p><p>Thanks for your input, even though you didn't give any constructive feedback.</p><p>Kunglao</p></blockquote>His weapons have superior DRs, that doesn't make them superior. Everburning DOES drain a great amount of health, and honestly, he's probably--scratch that, almost DEFINITELY--missing attacks given the low delay of the Scepter of Destruction. And don't underestimate the crits. Fists of Bashing and Marr's Fist have significantly better damage spreads than his weapons, that means your low crits are yielding more added damage.It WAS constructive feedback, that you apparently completely ignored.

[Fleaba]

Aight, it's time to do some real testing.First, duel with no weapons equipped and everburning blaze off. Just auto attack, don't use any CA's. Mark down your results and then try it with Everburning blaze on. See how much of a difference that makes for ya. I duel with everburning blaze off myself....Now throw on your weapons...auto attack to the death there too. NO everburning blaze.Next, duel using CA's. First results should show who's doing more straight up auto attack damage. Next one will show you how much of a difference Everburning blaze makes in the monk's final amount of health at the end. Next will show you who has better weapons and lastly will show you how much your CA's come into effect. As for the dueling, get sneaky and tricky with him. Use fear, FD to make him lose target when your in the middle of some npc's or something....FD then cast a totem of the jaguar right off the start to let his temporary buffs burn up... I doubt he'll have any form of see invis or see stealth going so that'll throw him off. Watch his target window to see what buffs are going up and steer clear of him when he's got god mode going...save your CA's for when you'll actually do damage.. Once his temp buffs are down, hit crane flock and follow that by devistating fist and just auto attack for a bit. Lots of directions you can come from in this duel. Just learn your opponent and figure out what it takes to beat him. I swear up and down by the Symbol of Stability you get from the city merchant....keeps you from being stunned for 1 min <img src="/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

[mattmandude]

I don't know how much different the dueling rule sets are from PvP, but I've never had a problem fighting bruisers. Don't know if this will help you, but generally this what I tend to aim for as far as a strategy against bruisers.1. Throw up tsunami once you know he's engaged and attacking, and be sure to be in offensive stance (without everburning, in fact I never have that on for pvp), and cast all your CA's as fast as possible (auto attack is not something to worry about in pvp heheh).2. If you have the stamina line root, use it, then back off (switch to defensive stance) and kite him for a bit with ranged, try using your fear once the root comes off (the idea is to wait for your CA's to come back up, taking minimal damage).3. Once your CA's refresh, jump back in (can switch back to offensive or stay in defensive since tsunami will be down, either way depending on the situation) and pummel him with what you left.Just try using this strategy roughly, as there are factors that will affect the battle obviously (when he uses mend, etc.). Something to think about is how bruisers are also based on burst DPS. And there's also other neat little things you can do like using feign death to clear his target, running around an obstruction, etc.Hope that might mean something to you =)

[Bewts]

<p>Doesn't blaze drain a significant amount of health?  How long are your fights taking?  I mean even if you have him out done by 500-1k health and you lose 150 every 3 seconds from blaze that means anything that goes over 30 seconds you lose the advantage of haste if you are 1k over him on health and anything over 15 seconds you lose the advantage if you have 500 health more.  I really don't see any advantage of using haste from blaze in PvP if you are 1v1 only, but thats my opinion.</p><p>Big damage spread weapons have significantly upgraded my raid damage, I don't know how it would affect PvP but I would assume the same.  Procs are great but if half your damage comes from auto attacks then I would seriously consider looking at max damage of 1hers in regards to your weapon setup.  Sometimes real fast is too fast - which may be contributing to the bruiser winning.</p>

[Antas22]

<cite>Bewts wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>Doesn't blaze drain a significant amount of health? </p></blockquote>Significant is putting it lightly; it drains 1% every 3 seconds. So with 8500 hp, thats 85 every 3 seconds, which means if the fight lasts a minute, thats 1700 health gone. As I said in my first reply, there's really no mystery here.