A question/clarification of strikethrough change on test server

[Couching]

<i><b><span class="postbody">Strikethrough will no longer work with a successful dodge</span></b></i><span class="postbody">Here is my search and understanding of avoidance on mobs:</span>Mobs have 360 Dodge, while Riposte, Parry, and Block are frontal only on non-brawler mobs. Brawler mobs have 360 Parry, Dodge, and Deflect, with frontal Riposte. -Pinski<i><b>If it is correct, it means we get ZERO extra hit ratio on non-brawler mobs as long as we stay back of mobs.</b></i>How many brawler type mobs are there in raid and how often do we tank in raid?How could it be right then? Comparing to other epic, strikethrough is totally useless.Please, if you want to nerf monk, with mythical epic, dps, fine, give us another effect, such as bruiser epic, 6 minutes reuse tsunami and self heal to 60%.If any dev read this post, , please correct me if my understanding is incorrect.

[EQ2Luv]

If they want to limit strikethrough to a particular type of avoidance check, it should be works only on dodge.  I say this partly because of what couching said, that dodge is the most common form of missing, and hence the change severely cripples the utility of strikethrough.  However, I say it moreso because of the unusual impact the mechanics of this would have on monk dps, which I outline below.  Essentially, the way the skill is currently worded you will potentially do more damage when the mob has a chance of parrying than when it does not.  This is assuming that they implement it as the description implies.  ("On a successful parry/rip/block/deflect, will strike the mob anyway with 50% probabillity.&quot<img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />I think the craziest thing about this proposed change is that if the mob's dodge rate is high enough (specifically greater than 50%) you will actually do better dps standing in front of the mob because of the order avoidance checks are performed in (dodge comes last).  An attack from behind that would have been dodged would have a chance of landing from in front because the mob might parry/rip/block it, in which case strikethrough would trigger and 50% of the time hit the mob on the successful parry/rip/block.  Even more whacky is that there are circumstances where you'll hit the mob more often if your melee skill is 0 instead of maxed out.  Why? If the mob's dodge rate is high enough (>50%), it would be better for the mob to parry your attack 100% of the time (assuming you can deal with the riposte damage, or are fighting a brawler mob from behind), rather than risk a dodge.  Moreover, debuffs that reduce a mobs parry would be detrimental to a monk's dps, since it reduces the chance of a successful strikethrough which is more likely to hit than if it were to go to a dodge chance.  Scouts are reporting hit rates of 50% in VP with maxed out melee skills, so its certainly conceivable that a brawler without good buffs or in defensive stance for the sake of conferring avoidance to the MT would be at a miss rate of more than 50%; dodge rates are even higher on level 88 mobs.  Regardless, the theoretical possibility of doing more dps with weaker melee skills or fewer debuffs is there with the proposed changes. If they want to limit strikethrough to a particular type of avoidance check, it should be works only on dodge.  Granted, the name strikethrough then makes less sense, but mechanically its just bizarre to actually hit more often from the front or with weakened melee skills.    The alternative is to make dodge checks occur after strikethrough succeeds and thus have a chance to dodge after the parry is "strikethrough'd".  However this would make the skill even more ineffective since dodge is generally a very high % on orange mobs.  Plus, as Couching has said, the current system offers no advantage at all for those attacking the mob from behind (unless it is a brawler mob).I believe it is better to change it to work only on a succesful dodge.  Some might say that it is overpowered for a "tank" to be able to do good dps on orange mobs. (And make no mistake, strikethrough's usefulness is already limited only to orange con mobs-it does very little for yellow and below where hit rates are 90%+ without it).  However, brawlers are without a doubt the worst tanks against orange mobs because  their uncontested aviodance is the lowest, and indeed is almost non-existent when in offensive stance for doing dps.  Their mitigation is likewise the lowest, and it shows significantly on orange mobs.  Their primary role on orange mobs is doing dps, just like a scout or mage.   Monks rely the most on their autoattacks for dps and for hate gain.  Autoattack misses significantly more often than combat arts on orange mobs.  Thus monks really need this boost to be useful on orange mobs.  The fact that stacked groups can make monk dps very high should be attributed not just to strikethrough and the monk, but to the powerfulness of the buffs that some classes have (such as illusory arm).  The tanking utility of monks in zones like VP is already being taken away (peel on rooted mobs.)  I believe it's unnecessary and will underpower the monk class to take away our dps utility as well.  Strikethrough is unusual in that it has utility almost exclusively on orange con mobs.  Monks need an edge on orange con mobs to compensate for their weak tanking ability on orange mobs stemming from low uncontested avoidance and low mitigation.  To say that a monk should not do good dps is contrary to trends in previous expansions and in this expansion on yellow mobs and below, and is also contrary to statements made by developers that brawlers should not tank as well because of their substantial dps.  At the moment guardians are getting closer and closer to monks in dps potential (now even while wielding a tower shield), and this gap will close substantially with the proposed change. 

[Couching]

No, EQ2Luv, You are not going to get better dps standing in front of mobs.In game mechanics, when you hit a melee attack on target, you need to pass parry check, then block/deflection, then base (dodge) check.In other word, your dps will drop if you stand in front of mob since your hit will be avoided with extra parry and block check.Even with strike through, your total hit ratio drops a lot since you can bypass parry and block check 100% from back of mobs.

[EQ2Luv]

<cite>Couching@Crushbone wrote:</cite><blockquote>No, EQ2Luv, You are not going to get better dps standing in front of mobs.In game mechanics, when you hit a melee attack on target, you need to pass parry check, then block/deflection, then base (dodge) check.In other word, your dps will drop if you stand in front of mob since your hit will be avoided with extra parry and block check.Even with strike through, your total hit ratio drops a lot since you can bypass parry and block check 100% from back of mobs.</blockquote>I think it depends on the exact wording and implementation of the new strikethrough.  Strike through says 50% chance to strike the mob on a successful avoidance check.  If you then remove dodge, it would presumably be 50% chance to strike the mob on a succesful parry,block,deflect, or riposte.  This to me implies that it would bypass the dodge check on a successful strikethrough.  If this is the case, then parries etc will lower the effective dodge rate of the mob and thus increase the hit rate.  Example: The mob has 75% dodge rate and 50% parry rate.  Hit rate from behind is 25%.Moving to the front of the mob, there is a 50% chance of parry - of these parries, with my interpretation 50% of these will  strikethrough meaning they hit the mob without performing a dodge check. (This is where my interpretation differs from yours -- yours would say that these strikethroughs would then still have a 75% chance of missing, and thus give a lower hit rate.)   This means 25% hit rate from strikethroughs alone.  Additionally you pass the parry and dodge check 12.5% of the time, and thus have an overall hit rate of 37.5%.  If this is not the case, then there is nevertheless a problem.  Specifically, if developers determined this was a balanced decision based on the number of hits that are dodged vs. parried from the front, this does not reflect the actual dodge rate of the mob - only the dodge rate for those hits on which the mob did not parry.  So if they see a parse that says 25% of attacks are parried and 25% are dodged, and decide okay lets only strike through the parry, that should be fair and only cut its utility in half, that reasoning would be incorrect-- it does not actually mean that you strike through on 12.5% of attacks -- you will lose 33% more strikethroughs to the subsequent dodge check.In short, the new change makes strikethrough [Removed for Content] either way, and either more [Removed for Content] or just plain weird depending on how strikethrough is implemented.  I hope that instead of using your version of strikethrough, they consider what i said at the end of my post, and give monks something that is useful for more than just when we are tanking in front of the mob (which we rarely do on orange con mobs).

[Couching]

I admitted that in your example, you will deal more dps but it's never the case in raid.By parsing, Phara dar, 1801/3021 (hit/total hit), 52 hits were parry/riposte. The parry/riposte chance is only 1.7%. 1168 hits were dodged, 38%.All in all, strikethrough is totally gimped if it didn't work on dodge. If monks, with mythical epic, deal too much dps on orange mob, lower the percentage of strikethrough rather than totally ruining it. Or giving us another ability as bruiser epic, 6 minutes reuse tsunami with 60% self heal or zerker epic, permanent aoe on auto attack.The nerfed strikethrough is the worst ability on epic.

[EQ2Luv]

<cite>Couching@Crushbone wrote:</cite><blockquote>I admitted that in your example, you will deal more dps but it's never the case in raid.By parsing, Phara dar, 1801/3021 (hit/total hit), 52 hits were parry/riposte<u><b>. The parry/riposte chance is only 1.7%. 1168 hits were dodged, 38%.</b></u>All in all, strikethrough is totally gimped if it didn't work on dodge. If monks, with mythical epic, deal too much dps on orange mob, lower the percentage of strikethrough rather than totally ruining it. Or giving us another ability as bruiser epic, 6 minutes reuse tsunami with 60% self heal or zerker epic, permanent aoe on auto attack.The nerfed strikethrough is the worst ability on epic.</blockquote>Well this is a very good example to bring to the attention of developers.  Basically the change is essentially making strikethrough completely worthless.  This is indeed too extreme.  Reducing miss rate by .8% is far too weak to even call an ability.  I again would maintain that strikethrough on dodge is not overpowered because of monks weak tanking on orange mobs and the fact that strikethrough is only powerful on orange mobs.  I agree with you that the current change is too extreme, and that if they want to reduce monk dps then reducing the rate of strikethrough is a better move than to have it not affect dodge.  Dodge is simply too large a source of misses -- the others do not account for hardly anything.  I do have one question about your numbers though - is that hit rate for all attacks or melee autoattacks only?  Melee attacks of course miss quite a bit more, so the dodge factor could actually be higher for just autoattacks. 

[Couching]

I need to make an update on the parse of phara dar, 3021 total piercing, including scouts attacking from back of phara dar. That's why the chance of parry is so low.After checking ACT again, from Main tank, the slashing is 176/422 (hit/total hit), 106 hits were parried/riposted, 25%, and 140 were dodged, 33%.The root problem is what's our role in raid? We are fighter but are we going to be main tank in raid? No. If not, there is no point to fight in front of mob. Then Strikethrough is totally useless.Are we going to be off tank in raid? Yes, sometimes and you can count how many fights we need off tank in raid. (that's why zerker and pal are whining of off tank role that is almost not needed).Moreover, when off tanking heroic adds, the hit ratio is much better than fighting lv87 epic mob such as phara dar. Strikethrough is almost usless.Again, if dev has problem on monk dps on orange mobs, tune down the percentage of strikethrough rather than totally gimped it or give us another <i><b>useful ability</b></i> such as bruiser epic or raid utilities, such as 20% enhancement on our haste raidwide buff.Otherwise, nerfed strikethrough is the worse ability on epic all over all classes since we can't get any benefit from it in 90%+ raid encounters. It's much worse than zerker epic, at least, they can deal god dps in avatar fights.

[rathi2]

<p>the effects of the change in stikethrough is one that only effects the late game raiders because it is pretty hard to get atm. so the change should be looked upon as how it affects this population. from my own experience the role of a monk is one of off tank that sit on name encounters primarily and tanks occasionally. on hard fights meaning ie orange mobs avatars, vp mobs i normally am either clicking [I cannot control my vocabulary] due to the nature of some encounters cause i have fd..., sitting on the name and dpsing which means i will occasionally have to assume agro if altruism procs or tank dies or spikes, or sometimes helping with adds more dpsing role because again we dont have the aoe hate tools as sks, zerkers, or pallies. In almost everyrole we raid in which is what this weapon is made for supposedly we are primarily dpsing and occasionally assume agro. so how in the hell does the best part of our mythical going ot help us with this change? like 80% of the time i am dpsing on any worthwhile raid encounter. these weapons are supposed to help us raiding yet u are going to change it so the best part of the weapon, the part of the weapon which made it mythical doesnt work for us 80% of the time we raid. like what couching said if you want to do this just give us an entirely new skill. changing it to not work on dodge will only make it utterly worthless. </p><p>I find it hard to believe that it was so much overpowered then all the rest of the mythicals of other classes. there are many other classes who have better mythicals then ours but i loved it the way it was even if it wasnt maybe the best out of all the mythicals. It gave us exactly what we needed. i really am failing to see the rational for this change. i understood the peel change but this one is completely beyond me. </p><p>Denubis </p><p>Saints of Norrath </p><p>Blackburrow</p>

[Zarvax]

<p>alright, let's talk balance... take strikethrough off of our epic.</p><p>okay, thats done... now let's balance it against the guardian epic... hmm, how about we take the unarmed requirement off str. line?... sounds balanced to me... atm, the guardian epic is more overpowered than ours ever was... and you are nerfing ours... thanks.</p>

[ChillHard]

If your going to nerf strikethrough than fix the freaking hit rates on orange mobs to be begin with....you finally get something right and than you screw it up. If your gonna dumb down our raid epics, than dumb down nexona and druushk for christ sakes.

[Couching]

<span class="postbody"><i><b>Mythical epics should help players be better on their roles in this game. </b></i>Every mythical epic should follow this rule.What's our role in raid? Off Tank? Dpser?  or utilities provider?For most monks, our roles is dealing dps on the back of mobs in 90%+ encounters and providing our raid wide haste buff.We already have major issue of dealing dps in higher tier raids due to horrible hit ratio on orange mobs. Here is a quote from Aeralik:<i><b>"Fighters are worse off than preds and rogues. Preds and rogues put more emphasis on combat art damage in general so really aren't in that bad of shape. Fighters put more emphasis on auto attack so take the bigger hit. The mechanics haven't changed with the expansion we are just using higher level mobs so its a slightly lower hit rate than what it was with the previous avatars." said by Aeralik.</b></i>That's why most monks are very satisfied with our mythical epic in the beginning since it helps our role a lot in raid, especially in higher tier raids.Now, with the change of strikethrough on test server, we won't get any benefit in dps unless we are tanking. Even we are tanking, the benefit from strikethrough is bare to minimum. <b>We don't need it to tank heroic adds in raid. The few extra hits on heroic adds in tanking means nothing comparing to bruiser epic effect, 10 sec tsunami with 60% heal, or guardian epic effect, waiving damage from riposte and removing shield limitation in warrior tree.</b>How could it be balanced on each epic? Even our major role in raid is dealing dps, I have no problem to get an useful tanking effect but please, it has to be <b>useful</b> rather than a total gimped effect. I have several suggestions of <i><b>useful</b> </i>Mythical epic effect in tanking:(1) A life saving skill, similar to bruiser epic. (2) Riposte damage waive effect, similar to guardian epic.(3) Enhanced stun stance: No more stun with our stun mitigation buff.Or it would be best if we can get an effect which helps our dps in orange mobs since even Dev has admitted that fighters dps on orange mobs are worse off than preds and rogues. I have several suggestions of <i><b>useful</b></i> Mythical epic effect in dps:(1) Keep strikethrough in current version, adjust the percentage to be balanced with preds and rogue dps in orange mobs(2) Enhanced crane flock effect: Reducing reuse timer 50% on crane flock.(3) Enhance our CAs damage 20%. It helps our dps to be on the right track of rogue and preds dps on orange mobs.For utilities, my suggestions:(1) Enhance our raid wide buff 30%(2) Enhanced Tranquil vision: raising the 54% chance to 70%, hate transfer to fighter from 5% to 10% and hate siphon from non-fighter from 9% to 18%.(3) raidwide fd with 50% aoe immunityDev, you may think some of my suggestions are over powered but I want to show you that you have a lot of freedom to not ruin monk mythical epic. <i><b>The nerfed strikethrough is the worst effect</b></i> I can think since we rarely tank in raid, even when we are tanking, its useless.</span>

[EQ2Luv]

I'm not sure I like the raidwide FD, but other than that I agree that your suggestions would be better than the current strikethrough, which all seem to agree is useless in its new form. 

[EQ2Luv]

Did the strikethrough change go live, or are we still allowed to comment on this topic in the hopes of getting a reply? 8^)