Runes of Magic US / AU

WARNING: WALL OF TEXT INCOMING!

I'm currently playing a Battle Monk Build (Priest-Warrior for those who aren't familiar with the lingo), and recently retired my War-Druid (Druid-Warrior). I thoroughly enjoy both of my classes builds. In fact, of all the characters that I've made (and I've played all but 3 combos), the Battle Monk and War-Druid are my favorites. I love the versatility that RoM showed by allowing healers to be able to go toe to toe with the enemy. That said, there's a small issue with both of these combinations that I think can be fixed with a very simple solution. I submitted my idea as a ticket but I'm sure that won't get far so I wanna see what everyone else thinks and offer some constructive criticism. Here are my thoughts:

Both the Battle Monk and the War-Druid have some decent damaging skills and some interesting methods of damage output. The Druid-Warrior, having damaging skills that scale with wisdom, have a slight advantage (in terms of statting) over the Battle Monks. By stacking Wisdom the Druid-Warrior gains both healing power and Damage for their attacks. HOWEVER there is a major issue with both classes, and that is gearing.

Both combinations are "healer-based." Believe it or not the weapons aren't the main issue with being healer-based. The War-Druid has an elite that increases their pattack and weapon damage by a certain number, and the Battle Monk gains weapon damage percentage bonus. The issue is that your main class binds you to being only able to wear cloth armor. If you look at cloth armor you will find that there isn't a set in game that offers pattack or pcrit. It is all geared to magic damage, magic crit, or healing. This makes sense as most combinations with the priest and druid are magic or healing based. However the strength for those combos is the downfall of the Battle Monk and War-Druid. Since both Battle Monk and War-Druid are physical dps capable (determined by examining their skill sets), it is important for each to stat accordingly. This means lots of pattack, pcrit, dexterity (yes, dexterity... I don't know if you've played a Battle Monk End game or not, but they miss a ton), and stamina. Since no cloth gear gives pattack, pcrit, nor dexterity, Battle Monks and War-Druids have to stat their gear fully with pattack, dex, and stamina just to catch up with what other dps classes get by just equipping their gear. Meaning, while stating as a dps is totally possible and realistic, the Battle Monk and War-Druid will never be viable as a melee dps class because all their stating has gone to catch them up with other dps classes, let alone try to get them ahead. This brings me to Two conclusions:


1) The first idea I present before you is this: Allow Priest-Warriors and Druid-Warriors the ability to wear chain or leather armor. In order to implement this, you could simply modify two existing elite skill in the same fashion in which the Warrior-Knight and Warden-Warrior skills were modified. Example:

Change the Druid Elite Glory Wand from:

To:

And Change the Priest Elite Battle Monk Stance from:

To:

(Note that both of these skills can be upgraded to make them better, I just didn't include the upgrade amounts to save space.)
Here's my rational:
What stats are needed to be able to be a physical dps? Pattack, Dexterity, (and frequently pcrit). To keep the crit rating to the rogues and scouts, do not let these combos wear leather. This also means that there will still be a need to stat Dexterity every now and again, but that's fine, this will keep the class from being overpowered in their pattack score. Additionally, this also allows these combinations to be able to take some hits without killing over. (Ever seen a mage get swarmed?)

2) Make new gear that caters to these two builds. Frankly, not the best idea. We would then get into the issue of auction houses being flooded with "junk cloth gear" making building a Battle Monk or War-Druid fairly easy, since their gear is useless to ANY OTHER of the cloth wearing builds. The largest complaint to this idea is that if you catered to the Battle Monks and War-Druids that you also would have to cater to the War-Mages (Warrior-Mages). My rebuttal: Unlike the Battle Monks and War-Druid, the War Mage can wear cross class armor. Meaning they can wear mage gear and stat for magic damage, while still gaining the set bonuses and inherent armor bonuses to magic damage and magic attack. Battle Monks and War-Druids cannot do this since they are tied to cloth armor only.

Long story short. I think the Priest-Warrior and Druid-Warrior could be fixed by simply letting them wear chain gear. The process of making new gear to suit two combinations seems pointless, and it'd be much easier and more effective to allow these two combos to wear existing armor and gear. Let me and Frogster know what you think =)

Quoted from "flyingltj;510147"

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The way you have this written I dont think is the way you intend it to be described.

As its written, druids would be able to equip chain armor in an 8 second window, and since that window expires after 8 seconds they will lose this ability then practically be naked.

While we all love our naked druids, I dont think this is what youre intending

In my opinion having such a feature to equip chain would make more sense if you stuck it with "Slash Fury" seeing as slash fury is a passive & it cant be deactivated/debuffed.

The intended idea was to allow the Druids and Priests to be able to equip chain armor while the Glory Wand Buff and Battle Monk Stance is active, which is a 900 second buff. But adding the chain ability to another ability is totally possible. My reasoning for placing it with the Two buff I did was because those are the two buffs that really define The Battle Monk and War-Druid. Even if you made wearing chain part of the 50/50 elites, the idea is the same. The "out of class" combos, that specialize in dps as a healer, could easily be brought into balance by a simple implementation of a clause on an elite. =)

I think the buff would sound better if written:
Raises your attack speed by 1.0% and healing 1% for 900.0 seconds.While Glory Wand is active, allows the Druid to equip and wear chain armor.Plus, when you are physically attacked, a protective shield will appear that absorbs 45.0 damage for 8.0 seconds. (This buff can be triggered a maximum of once every 20.0 seconds.)


Honestly, it doesn't too much matter to me if there is a time frame in which you can and can't wear chain armor, I was simply trying to put the chain wearing skill with an elite that seemed the most logical. Thanks for the positive feedback everyone =) It'd be nice to see Battle Monks and War-Druids more often.

Galenwaithien Thanks for correcting my mistake. Though all the more reason to allow Battle Monks and War-Druids to wear chain and not Leather. =)

None of the links you posted are working XD I've looked through the runesdatabase for all the cloth gear, the only items i found that favored physical dps were accessories, and capes. Both of which are class neutral. The main issue I was trying to address was the lack of pattack from armor, though you do seem to be correct. I hear rumor that Battle Monks were supposed to be considered for a revamp. Let's hope thatt revamp is as good as the Warden one.

Quoted from "suprra;510239"

Must be a registered member of au forums I guess to view the images.. I've edited the post, hopefully it's able to be seen now

Awesome! I've never seen those pieces. The Runesdatabase ( at least the one I've seen in the US) doesn't contain those pieces... or maybe I'm just blind. At least those pieces are a good step in the right direction.

As for making the chain ability a passive: It's totally a possiblity. I was just trying to keep to the theme of having the battle Monk and War-Druid "stances" being active. In hindsight, it'd probably be a pain to have to have the buffs active everytime you went to change gear XD

Quoted from "AngelIsrafel;510717"

It's not just a problem with yellow stats.

I would almost argue that it's not even a problem with yellow stats. A proper D/W and P/W really doesn't need much wisdom (though it is more beneficial to the d/w since they get damage boosts from it). You can find all the stats you could even want in any variety you could ever want. The ONLY issue i have with these combos is the innate stats of the gear. Here's and example of what I mean:

This is a piece of lvl 70 chain gear:
http://www.runesdatabase.com/item/227833…'s-battle-armor
This is a piece of lvl 70 cloth gear:
http://www.runesdatabase.com/item/227869…ousand-feathers

Even if you disregard the fact that p/w and q/w are melee classes and need the defense which, obviously, cloth does not provide; the innate stats of the chain gear just just better suited for the p/w and d/w. Note that it's not just limited to these two piece of armor. Most cloth is the same way as the one I posted, giving mattack or wisdom/healing.

On a different note, I was just thinking about the possibility of them adding new armor for level 72 that meets our need as p/w and d/w. Bad idea says I. Why? That means that you have to be able to use inappropriate gear for your class until you are level 72, by which time you will then be expected to be able to run in a party to obtain your own gear. We've all seen that person in the party who is geared wrong, or improperly for the instance. The gear would then fall to the AH to be distributed to the p/w and d/w. Frankly, that idea makes my stomach churn. I don't know what other servers are like but our AH is pricey.

I think the ONLY viable fix would be to let p/w and d/w wear chain, that way they can grow up using chain and begin able to stat appropriate gear, rather than having to wait until they are level 72 before they can even think about getting gear suitable for their needs.

This is just my take on the matter though.

Quoted from "AngelIsrafel;510717"

Cloth has virtually 0 Pdef which means casters trying to go Melee get eaten up. This is why i vote D/W should get an elite that allows them to wear Chain (Which means you're no longer statted for Healing or Mdam) or rework the entire Battle/healer concept, since clearly it's not working as intended.

Sorry had to address this in two parts XD
I totally agree with you. I think the best solution is to allow the battle/healers to wear chain armor (in fact, most other mmo's allow priests to wear chain and sometimes even plate armor as a way to keep them alive, but that's a totally different topic of conversation). I also agree that if, for some weird reason, they can't allow d/w and p/w to wear chain then the whole battle/healer combo needs to be either removed and changed to something else, or simply revamped in a way that would let us become useful party members by basing our pattack and defense off of wisdom. This, to me, seems like a much larger hassle than it would be to simply let those two combos wear chain.