Baashem
Hey Team
First off, thank you for all the work that's gone into monk so far, the kit is genuinely fun on paper, and I've really enjoyed the pulling tools and the flexibility they give us in group content. I know every class is a work in progress this early, and that resources and attention are stretched thin with EA on the horizon, so I want to lead with appreciation before getting into feedback.
That said, a group of us (shoutout to @Phuture for the tireless data-gathering and @Baashem for pushing high-level play with his team) have been digging into weapon damage formulas and think something may be off. The short version: a low-tier item, the fishing pole, has been consistently outperforming our intended weapon (Grudgehaft) in actual combat logs and the effect seems to get more pronounced against lower-AC targets, which feels backwards from what you'd expect. The fishing pole's listed weapon ratio (0/25) would suggest it should be doing minimal ratio-based damage, so the results don't line up with what we'd assume the formula intends. We're happy to compile fuller data if it'd be useful, but didn't want to bury this message in numbers.
A few other things we'd love clarity on, when you have bandwidth:
Where monk DPS is meant to sit. If the tradeoff for our pulling/utility kit is lower sustained damage, that's totally fine, we just haven't seen that stated anywhere, and it'd help set expectations for the community. Right now there's a gap between the "perfect weapon" class fantasy and where we're landing in practice.
Dodge/block and mitigation post-AC-changes. Moon Style's stated bonuses don't seem to be reflected at baseline, and the 10% damage absorption feels like it may need a second look given how AC scaling has shifted. As leather wearers with few itemization paths to raw AC, dodge/block are really our only lever for survivability and that lever feels weaker than intended right now. Concretely: I'm at 283 AC unbuffed in DPS gear (353 with Mend), and the swing in incoming damage between those two states is huge. Content that felt manageable before the AC changes (a couple Pale Guards, for example) now burns through all my defensive cooldowns and FD.
Feign Death and line-of-sight re-aggro. This one seems like it could use a distance-based modifier a handful of light-green mobs with LoS on me recently took 10+ feign attempts to fully drop.
To be clear, we're not asking for an immediate fix or expecting monk to tank endgame content, just hoping to function as a credible off-tank in a pinch (bad pull, threat slip, etc.), which doesn't feel reliably possible right now.
Mostly what we're after is just acknowledgment that this is on the radar, and if possible, a sense of "the vision" for where monk is headed, pulling role, DPS role, mitigation role, or some blend. Totally understand if formulas and tuning are still in flux and this is a "later" conversation, we just want to know it's a conversation that's happening.
Thanks for reading this far, and for everything you're building, I am really excited to see where the class goes I've played monk since 1999 and will be continuing to play it regardless, its a personal choice. I told Shawn in his stream the other day that all my family and friends will be getting an abundance of MnM merch for Xmas and I will be supporting this game as much as I can donate and contribute too.
