Best class for bashing/influencing

Crosis

Hi,
With the new changes to race, I thought I'd see what everyone's thoughts would be on what the best PVE class is. I am playing a ninjakari monk which seems pretty nice with 3 attacks, but as far as I know monks wear no armor. I'm hoping to see what other people who play with different classes think.

Cyndarin

The one you enjoy the most. Bashing is bashing, everyone just mashes a button.

Qistrel

Monks have the best armour aside from warriors, by getting fully tattooed. I'm not sure exactly what a non-tattooist gets, but it's def better than the robes worn by casters. It's more expansive than robes, and can take a while to get it done, but, I'm pretty sure it's still cheaper than what warriors have to pay.

Or you can just wear robes, that works too. Wear robes till you can afford tatts.

Daganev

The more strikes, the more opportunities for critical hits. So I think monks win there, unless the whip is better than the 3 attacks.

For influencing, it's going to depend on much a large ego pool matters. Monks are limited to a max level of 8 in health and ego,and that might affect how well you can bash or influence mobs above your expected level.

Qistrel

Um, so. I'm pretty sure this is a fallacy. I've world-shattering critted ordinary sized stuff with a jakari hit, and it stays standing. Cause, each of our strikes does way less damage than a single strike from other guilds. I think it's something like 1/2 damage for the kick, and 1/4 for the arm hits. We get more crits, but they're all smaller, so. Not really, no.

We summon way more guards though. So, there is that.

Lerad

Yes, it is a fallacy. I've explained it a few times before, read this post to:

http://forums.lusternia.com/discussion/comment/11120/#Comment_11120

Qistrel

I had more than one actual monk tell me not to buy a whip, cause it would make me bash slower. :-/


As for influencing, I can answer this. It used to be bards, because they got highest charisma. Harmony monks are pretty good too, and mage/druids with demesne are decent too. Qistrel influenced to demi as a druid, getting really good buffs from druidry/stag/ecology. But ecology lost it's vixen boost to charisma, so. Probably less good now.

It's probably still bards, if you invest in dramatics and learn dramaturgy, you get awesome boosts. Can also go with one of the races with a level 50 boost to empowering (loboshigaru, mugwump, fink, bard dwarf, bard tae'dae)

Lavinya

I max out my ego with music, dramatics, influencing, a throne and a small ego blessing. Experimenting with different races, ego really doesn't matter, but an influencing race perk does. Speed stays the same, so as long as you have an alright amount of ego, you can influence as any class. Have a racial perk i found in my small testing thus far decreased the number of ego attacks by one per mob. Same buffs, same ego, same speed, just one less hit so a shade more efficient.

The influencing attacks are around 1 second slower than the old system with a 20cha race and same skills and buffs.

Daganev

Lerad said:

Yes, it is a fallacy. I've explained it a few times before, read this post to:

http://forums.lusternia.com/discussion/comment/11120/#Comment_11120

Not sure I understand the fallacy.
If you roll dice, everyone has a 1/6 chance of getting a 6. 
However the person who rolls 3 dice, is more likely to get a 6 than the person who rolls 1 die.
Anydice link: http://anydice.com/program/6132

Lavinya said:

I max out my ego with music, dramatics, influencing, a throne and a small ego blessing. Experimenting with different races, ego really doesn't matter, but an influencing race perk does. Speed stays the same, so as long as you have an alright amount of ego, you can influence as any class. Have a racial perk i found in my small testing thus far decreased the number of ego attacks by one per mob. Same buffs, same ego, same speed, just one less hit so a shade more efficient. The influencing attacks are around 1 second slower than the old system with a 20cha race and same skills and buffs.

Interseting, what were you influencing? Because I didn't see a difference with Lirangsha.

Qistrel

Except, that's a bad analogy.

Actually, you're rolling a six sided die and we're rolling 3 two sided dice.

Not sure how else to explain that my crits don't kill stuff in one hit like other classes do. I need crits on all three hits to match a crit from other classes.

Lets say a pureblade warrior deals 5 damage. He gets a Crit, dealing 5x2 = 10 damage.
Now, a monk also deals 5 damage. But, it's made of kick for 3 + jakari for 1 + jakari for 1.

I get a crit on the kick. 3x2 = 6. 6+1+1 = 8 damage. That's less.

And if the crit is on a jakari hit, it's even less. 3+2+1 = 6

If I get crits on all three hits, only then am I doing the same damage as a warrior. More crits, smaller hits.

If I get a W-S on my kick, I might kill the thing in one hit. But, even then, I'm losing damage, because I have to wait to regain my balance before I can do jakari hits, and Damageshift doesn't compensate for this loss.

We get more crits. Our crits deal less damage. We are not better. We are the same.

Lerad

Daganev said:

Lerad said:

Yes, it is a fallacy. I've explained it a few times before, read this post to:

http://forums.lusternia.com/discussion/comment/11120/#Comment_11120

Not sure I understand the fallacy.
If you roll dice, everyone has a 1/6 chance of getting a 6. 
However the person who rolls 3 dice, is more likely to get a 6 than the person who rolls 1 die.
Anydice link: http://anydice.com/program/6132

Yes, and if you count total number of critical hits, a monk will have 3 times the number of critical hits... out of 3 times the number of total hits. A caster with 35% critical chance will hit 35 critical hits out of 100. A monk with 35% critical chance will hit 105 critical hits out of 300, within that same time, dealing the same amount of total damage, and with the same amount of damage boosted by critical hits.

In other words, by simple math, a monk's dps does not increase more than a caster's.

Daganev

I see, I ran the numbers.  They aren't equal, but the monk is worse.

 Lets assume a 100 damage hit, and each type of crit has -1% chance starting at 10%. (this is basically a 45% chance to crit)

So a monk does 50 + 25 + 25 damage per combo and everybody else does 100 damage per hit.

The formula for the monk damage looks like this 

50+(0.1*(50*2))+(0.09*(50*4))+(0.08*(50*8))+(0.07*(50*16))+(0.06*(50*32))+(0.05*(50*64)) + 25+(0.1*(25*2))+(0.09*(25*4))+(0.08*(25*8))+(0.07*(25*16))+(0.06*(25*32))+(0.05*(25*64)) = 633;

Everyone else looks like this:
100+(0.1*(100*2))+(0.09*(100*4))+(0.08*(100*8))+(0.07*(100*16))+(0.06*(100*32))+(0.05*(100*64)) = 844.

Cyndarin

Monks used to be the best bashers, but that's because they just hit so fast due to the way chained katas used to work. They've fallen behind.

I hate these meta threads, and genuinely mean "whichever you enjoy the most." If you pick a class just because it bashes better, you aren't going to stick with it in the long run.

That being said, the best is are (IMO) Paladin, Cantor, Celestine, Moondancer, Ebonguard/Serenguard, all other warriors. In that order. Divinus wins bashing every time, Celest has it super easy. That's the way the cookie crumbles.

The worst being Nihilists and Shadowdancers. Yay excoro.

Qistrel

@Daganev I think it's more like 3/5, 1/5, 1/5. But yeah, it's something a bit like that.

Steingrim

Daganev said:

I see, I ran the numbers.  They aren't equal, but the monk is worse.

 Lets assume a 100 damage hit, and each type of crit has -1% chance starting at 10%. (this is basically a 45% chance to crit)

So a monk does 50 + 25 + 25 damage per combo and everybody else does 100 damage per hit.

The formula for the monk damage looks like this 

50+(0.1*(50*2))+(0.09*(50*4))+(0.08*(50*8))+(0.07*(50*16))+(0.06*(50*32))+(0.05*(50*64)) + 25+(0.1*(25*2))+(0.09*(25*4))+(0.08*(25*8))+(0.07*(25*16))+(0.06*(25*32))+(0.05*(25*64)) = 633;

Everyone else looks like this:
100+(0.1*(100*2))+(0.09*(100*4))+(0.08*(100*8))+(0.07*(100*16))+(0.06*(100*32))+(0.05*(100*64)) = 844.

I still suspect Lered is incorrect, but perhaps not and I'd also suspect that after the race changes things are if anything a bit closer. The way to tell would be to for someone actually doing something along the lines of the above, but you'd need to cover all the values needed.

Crits have two values, critical rate and critical magnitude (given that denizens have a bound amount about health, I'm unsure that magnitude plays no role).

Attack speed simply has to be figured into any equation. Could probably include countering shields in here somewhere (raze vs no raze (doing 60% more damage on that attack), even with a beast you won't have shield balance each shielding).

Most if not all classes can kill most things by hit and run. But when I was a monk I would stand there and go toe to toe far more often (if you're not hitting and running you're usually killing faster). As a non-monk I have to keep an eye on bleeding, as a psymet monk "What's bleeding?"

Lerad is right about forms costing some damage, some of the time (due to when you kill something and have unused strikes). But that comes into play only if someone has damageShift.

You'd also have to figure in damage resistance, which while a factor is something which bites you less if you pick and choose where you hunt.

What else can you think of?

@Crosis Monks with Psymet and Harmony are probably going to be one of the easier and faster bashers out there. No matter the difference in bashing rates, if you don't get damageShift (trans Discipline) you'll be taking a huge speed hit. Likewise, if you plan on doing tons of influencing you'll want to trans Influencing for CharismaticAura. If you're looking for a knight, probably Templars. Mage probably geo/pyro (all the mages are fairly equal I personally like the damage types on these two more).
 

Lerad

Before damageshift, monks wasted less overkill damage because their crits always dealt less damage than a crit of the same magnitude of a caster. They STILL wasted overkill damage due to forms, and they didn't hit particularly faster.

The only and the biggest reason why monks in other IREs are premium bashing classes is because sdk/ucp/ucp was damageshift before damageshift existed. Monks in Lusternia have never had that advantage, ever.

Tankiness is a real consideration for bashing, yes. I never factored that into my arguments until some time in the last year, but I acknowledge it is a big factor. However, it should also be noted that Lusternian tankiness is spread through different classes through different niche abilities. The biggest call to fame for monks is psymet bloodboil (and dmp glut, but dmp glut has gone away now anyway) and regen (also gone away). Bards in certain situations can tank better than monks (I never knew what illusoryself did until Celina showed me a week ago, and oh boy), and the best tanking abilities for other IRE monks, vitality and transmute, are given to WARRIORS here, not monks. Comparatively, celladjustment is a sorry piece of...

Monks do have high armour (not as high as warriors) and great resistances and regen. But like I said, their only real call to tanking fame is bloodboil. In almost every other area, there's an archetype that does better. Which is fine - but which also means monks really aren't the "premium" bashing class by any stretch of the imagination.

Lavinya

Daganev said:

Lerad said:

Yes, it is a fallacy. I've explained it a few times before, read this post to:

http://forums.lusternia.com/discussion/comment/11120/#Comment_11120

Not sure I understand the fallacy.
If you roll dice, everyone has a 1/6 chance of getting a 6. 
However the person who rolls 3 dice, is more likely to get a 6 than the person who rolls 1 die.
Anydice link: http://anydice.com/program/6132

Lavinya said:

I max out my ego with music, dramatics, influencing, a throne and a small ego blessing. Experimenting with different races, ego really doesn't matter, but an influencing race perk does. Speed stays the same, so as long as you have an alright amount of ego, you can influence as any class. Have a racial perk i found in my small testing thus far decreased the number of ego attacks by one per mob. Same buffs, same ego, same speed, just one less hit so a shade more efficient. The influencing attacks are around 1 second slower than the old system with a 20cha race and same skills and buffs.

Interseting, what were you influencing? Because I didn't see a difference with Lirangsha.

I have been testing with Morgfyre godrealm mobs, since that was the only influencing I had in my buffer pre-overhaul to compare to.

Steingrim

@Lavinya Lerad means he believes it is false that monks bashing damage is better due to having three attacks. He wasn't commenting on the dice thing.

If Lerad is right (and he very well may be) it is more like comparing these two cases.

Everyone but monks and knights have a single 1 to 300 die.

Knights have two 1 to 150 dice.

Monks have three dice two 1 to 60 and 1 180 (either that or two 1 90 and 1 120) its been too long since I've been a monk I forget if the damage is 30%/30%/40% or 20%/20%/60%.

You can quickly see the larger the 'die' range the more the effect is minimized.

Lerad has put a lot of thought into this and I wouldn't be surprised if he was correct. Above I was just saying that if someone could come up with a model we'd have more certainty as to if he is.

Lavinya

Think you tagged the wrong person Stein! I haven't been discussing monk bashing at all. I was responding to the question about what I influence

Daganev

Yes, I've already proved that monk bashing is worse. As would two weapon knight.

Cyndarin

Mmmmmmm Illusoryself. I can outtank myself as an SD for periods of time. It's amazing on astral.

edit: No one ever believed me all those years that I said glamours was a million times better than ecology. 

Synkarin

Yeah, Glamours is better if you want to blow through power

Cyndarin

I played an SD for 4 years. When don't I blow through power. 

Steingrim

Lavinya said:

Think you tagged the wrong person Stein! I haven't been discussing monk bashing at all. I was responding to the question about what I influence

Daganev to whom you were responding to and your to yourself. Thanks.