"Essay" on suggested Peel change...

[Harpax]

<p>I typically don't post on these forums because most threads turn into nonsense quickly, but I felt it was worth the time to put my thoughts together regarding the proposed change to Peel.  I can only hope SOE and the player community take a moment or two to entertain my thoughts and start some sort of dialog on this topic.</p><p>-Harpax of Unrest </p><p>The proposed change to Peel is far too drastic given the current ability for Monks to tank Epic content without this spell.  Monks two largest issues at this point in time are agro control, and survivability.  The current version of Peel may be a bit over the top in providing agro control, but it does provide the ability for our class to use the other tools we have available to increase our survivability and create an opportunity for monks to be a viable "Plan B" tank if a raids MT goes down.  </p><p>I'd propose that to be able to effectively tank an encounter, you need to be able to balance Survivability time and Agro control time.  </p><p>Currently, a normal Peel "cycle" would provide about 1.5 minutes of agro control if it were to last its entire duration.  I'm not sure what other monks do, but my typical "survivability chain" starts with Tsunami, to allow healers time to find the new target to heal.  At AD3, this is approx 10s.  As Tsunami is wearing off, I'll activate Body like Mountain (Root + Mitigation) which allows for another 30s of survivability.  As this is fading, Iron Stance goes up next (Stun + Mitigation) for another 30s.  As Iron Stance is fading, Body Like Mountain will be close to refreshed so there are a few seconds of "pucker factor" before it kicks off and allows for another 30s of mitigation.  Peel normally wears off for me with about 5 or so seconds left in the second cast of Body Like Mountain.</p><p>In this situation Survivability time and Agro control time are balanced, allowing you the ability effectively tank the encounter.  It is by no means a certain thing as with mobs double attacking, a poor roll of the RNG and you have a dead toon.  But the point is it at least *allows for the chance* to successfully tank an Epic mob for sustained period of time.</p><p>Trying to do this without peel in a raid situation flat out doesn't work.  All other agro transfer abilities ignored, without Peel, monks generate agro by hitting the mob and relying on their taunt proc and underpowered taunts.  However, our two main survivability buffs make this near impossible with the Root and Stun components.</p><p><b>I don't disagree that Peel in its current form needs to be looked at.</b>  I know some of the main raiding guilds are running with 2 monks (which was UNHEARD OF pre-peel) and have trivialized some encounters to the point of farming status.  Oddly enough, during FanFaire 07 in speaking with some of the developers they mentioned that monks would be "highly valuable in raiding" once ROK came out, and it was definitely the case.  However, the suggested change to Peel sets monks raid value back to pre-Peel days which frankly was non existent.  If the change does in fact go in as currently suggested, a strong look should be made to find alternative ways to provide balance to monks ability to tank or provide something more than a haste/casting speed buff to a raid.</p><p>I'll close with some potential suggestions:</p><ul><li> Set a invulnerability flag on Peel (like Lifeburn or mez on an epic) equal to the refresh timer on Peel. This would prevent a multi Monk lock down on raids.  Couple this with a 33% reduction in Peel duration (1min at M1 vs 1.5min at M1).</li><li> Add a hate gain component to Body Like Mountain line and Iron Stance line, like maybe an additional chance to proc agro.  Having abilities to buff your mitigation for survivability yet neuter your ability to maintain agro are situational useful at best.</li><li> Change Iron Stance line to be a Stifle vs a Stun.  This would at least allow monks to move with a mob and attempt to regain agro through their DPS and taunt proc if other raid members pull the mob off of the monk.  Couple this with the above hate component change.</li><li> Make Rescue irresistible (across all fighters). A spell with a 15m base recast timer should not resisted.  Shorten recast timer if irresistibility is too much.</li></ul><p>And for the very drastic measure:</p><ul><li>Re-evaluate monks role in game.  Yes we can tank heroic content, but so can most scouts.  Provide the option to be more DPS focused than we currently are and give up our limited tanking ability.</li></ul><p>Currently the monk community is confused at what our place is.  We are tanks by game design, but yet the same game design limits our ability to do so.  Our Mythical Epic contains a buff to allow us to have chain like mitigation, but that will only be obtainable by a smaller contingent of the community.</p>

[mr23sgte]

Those are some really good ideas - I would be pleasently suprised if they were implemented instead of the current pro posed butchering of our level 80 ability.

[Turb]

<p>Good comments Harpax.</p><p>The fundamental issues are of Peel duration (a 'slight' change indeed!) and mechanics (avoiding aggro for the duration rather than trying to build it) .</p><p>The less radical solutions to the peel 'problem' would be either</p><p>a) reduce peel duration (halve it for example, and see how that goes)</p><p>b) add an 'invulnerability' as per stun/stifle/etc so that only one monk can peel one mob</p><p>I suspect most monks were kinda expecting (a) to happen at some point.   </p><p>The proposed change makes little sense, because it removes the value of Iron Stance that Peel so neatly brought back, because Peel works by not generating aggro, and being stunned is good for that of course.</p><p>If the new Peel does get changed to be aggro-based, then Iron Stance should as suggested above at the very least be stifle only (via a direct change or even a property of our fabled epic).</p>

[Harpax]

<p>Thanks,</p><p> The general feedback on the suggestions has been positive fortunately.  Unfortunately, the majority of the eyeballs and traffic seems to be focused more on the ZOMG NERF threads, which completely the opposite of what SOE seems to say they want. <img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p>

[EasternKing]

<cite>Harpax wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>I typically don't post on these forums because most threads turn into nonsense quickly, but I felt it was worth the time to put my thoughts together regarding the proposed change to Peel.  I can only hope SOE and the player community take a moment or two to entertain my thoughts and start some sort of dialog on this topic.</p><p>-Harpax of Unrest </p><p>The proposed change to Peel is far too drastic given the current ability for Monks to tank Epic content without this spell.  Monks two largest issues at this point in time are agro control, and survivability.  The current version of Peel may be a bit over the top in providing agro control, but it does provide the ability for our class to use the other tools we have available to increase our survivability and create an opportunity for monks to be a viable "Plan B" tank if a raids MT goes down.  </p><p>I'd propose that to be able to effectively tank an encounter, you need to be able to balance Survivability time and Agro control time.  </p><p>Currently, a normal Peel "cycle" would provide about 1.5 minutes of agro control if it were to last its entire duration.  I'm not sure what other monks do, but my typical "survivability chain" starts with Tsunami, to allow healers time to find the new target to heal.  At AD3, this is approx 10s.  As Tsunami is wearing off, I'll activate Body like Mountain (Root + Mitigation) which allows for another 30s of survivability.  As this is fading, Iron Stance goes up next (Stun + Mitigation) for another 30s.  As Iron Stance is fading, Body Like Mountain will be close to refreshed so there are a few seconds of "pucker factor" before it kicks off and allows for another 30s of mitigation.  Peel normally wears off for me with about 5 or so seconds left in the second cast of Body Like Mountain.</p><p>In this situation Survivability time and Agro control time are balanced, allowing you the ability effectively tank the encounter.  It is by no means a certain thing as with mobs double attacking, a poor roll of the RNG and you have a dead toon.  But the point is it at least *allows for the chance* to successfully tank an Epic mob for sustained period of time.</p><p>Trying to do this without peel in a raid situation flat out doesn't work.  All other agro transfer abilities ignored, without Peel, monks generate agro by hitting the mob and relying on their taunt proc and underpowered taunts.  However, our two main survivability buffs make this near impossible with the Root and Stun components.</p><p><b>I don't disagree that Peel in its current form needs to be looked at.</b>  I know some of the main raiding guilds are running with 2 monks (which was UNHEARD OF pre-peel) and have trivialized some encounters to the point of farming status.  Oddly enough, during FanFaire 07 in speaking with some of the developers they mentioned that monks would be "highly valuable in raiding" once ROK came out, and it was definitely the case.  However, the suggested change to Peel sets monks raid value back to pre-Peel days which frankly was non existent.  If the change does in fact go in as currently suggested, a strong look should be made to find alternative ways to provide balance to monks ability to tank or provide something more than a haste/casting speed buff to a raid.</p><p>I'll close with some potential suggestions:</p><ul><li> Set a invulnerability flag on Peel (like Lifeburn or mez on an epic) equal to the refresh timer on Peel. This would prevent a multi Monk lock down on raids.  Couple this with a 33% reduction in Peel duration (1min at M1 vs 1.5min at M1).</li><li> Add a hate gain component to Body Like Mountain line and Iron Stance line, like maybe an additional chance to proc agro.  Having abilities to buff your mitigation for survivability yet neuter your ability to maintain agro are situational useful at best.</li><li> Change Iron Stance line to be a Stifle vs a Stun.  This would at least allow monks to move with a mob and attempt to regain agro through their DPS and taunt proc if other raid members pull the mob off of the monk.  Couple this with the above hate component change.</li><li> Make Rescue irresistible (across all fighters). A spell with a 15m base recast timer should not resisted.  Shorten recast timer if irresistibility is too much.</li></ul><p>And for the very drastic measure:</p><ul><li>Re-evaluate monks role in game.  Yes we can tank heroic content, but so can most scouts.  Provide the option to be more DPS focused than we currently are and give up our limited tanking ability.</li></ul><p>Currently the monk community is confused at what our place is.  We are tanks by game design, but yet the same game design limits our ability to do so.  Our Mythical Epic contains a buff to allow us to have chain like mitigation, but that will only be obtainable by a smaller contingent of the community.</p></blockquote>Peel in is current form is totally and utterly broken and over powered, them fixing it does not give you some right, or arguing point /  bargaining chip, to demand they change things to suit your wants and desires.Accept that you have had the use of it for 4months or so and let go.And as for asking for even more dps lol your a tank class no? ive not seen any other tank class in rok posting 4.5-5k ZW's which is on par or better than most rogues who play eq2.Perhaps you should just reroll to a dps class, and play that, instead of crusading to get monk's made into something that tanks better than a guard, and dps's better than scouts and mages.