Tranquil Staff DPS -- The May 29th Patch

[Dontaze]

I recall, as do many of the monks I have met on this server, the Tranquil Staff being THE monk weapon of the Kunark - Velious classic era. It was simply the best thing a well geared monk could wrap his hands around outside of VP / NToV. The Project 1999 monk community regards the weapon no differently. Nearly every high level monk I’ve crossed paths with wields a Tstaff, or dreams of wielding a Tstaff if they don’t have one yet.

My understanding is that before the 5/29 patch of last week, the Tstaff (or any 2h weapon for that matter) was doing a bit too much dps. Max damage crushes did seem a bit frequent to me, but the dps never looked too outlandish. My frequent parses in 55+ groups fit me snugly between warriors / rangers and rogues on the melee dps spectrum, which is exactly where monks were designed to go.

After the changes to 2h damage last week, myself and every other Tstaff using monk I’ve touched base with cannot believe how much it has been crippled. Some monks say their bare fists out-damage their Tstaffs now. Others have reported their Tstaff dps getting bested by well equipped warriors. While this monkly hearsay has no data (yet) for me to include with it, the anecdotal evidence is quite compelling. I’d trust the word of respected p99 monks over archived Allakhazam comments any day, especially considering that many p99 players had firsthand experience as a Tstaff equipped monk during the years this server strives to emulate.

I could be wrong about all of this. Perhaps as a Tstaff wielding monk on p99, I have a bias that has skewed my observations of the past and present. Regardless, I hope the truth about the legendary Tranquil Staff (and by extension, classic 2h damage in general) can be uncovered through discussion and research. I never played a monk on live so I can’t comment much on the Tstaff’s performance in the distant past, but I am highly interested in doing whatever I can in the present to contribute to the knowledge of this topic. Extensive parsing of the Tstaff and other monk weapons / combinations is on my agenda for this week, so hopefully I can get some useful data out of that (Some preliminary testing of Tstaff vs. Adam Club + SoS dps showed the 1h combo consistently doing 10-15 dps more than the Tstaff, ceteris paribus).

That’s all I have for now. Looking forward to hearing from those that know significantly more about this topic than I do.

TLDR - Did the classic Tranquil Staff perform as poorly as it currently does on Project 1999, or does the post-5/29 Tranquil Staff do an injustice to this historic Everquest weapon?

P.S. - If any developers want to give me a parsing assignment or snag me for some testing in game, I’d be more than glad to help.

[Rejuvenation]

I think maybe giving the community a fighting dummy, ala EZ Server, to help work out the melee damage equations would be a good resource for people to help get melee dmg back to the classic implementation...I know its a stretch, but is this a possibility?

[Versus]

Something is definitely off. I've gotten so disgusted with the T-Staff DPS that I've switched to using my RFS, which seems to out perform it. I really don't think this was the case on Live, as instead of hearing so much about the T-Staff, you would have been hearing about the RFS. Unfortunately I didn't play a Monk on Live, so I don't have knowledge of the past to draw on. Regardless, Adm+SoS and RFS should both be outparsed by the T-staff, which it currently is not.

[Malkav]

Shadowknight here, I feel your pain. My 2handed weapon damage bites the big one now, my jade inlaid crescent axe rarely hits for over 100 and I'm missing much more than before... and I have a 41% haste belt from sky. Whatever this last patch did it is horrible, and has made playing much less enjoyable.

[Tulvinous]

There are a few different things to keep in mind about the current state of melee DPS. With the current patch in whole, there are several things affecting the accuracy of which the Tranquil Staff is currently at and what it's supposed to be.

Overall 2h classic damage bonus was adjusted to the supposed amount.

Overall proc rates were adjusted, lower than expected if I recall reading from another post.

And also a new mitigation/avoidance/accuracy table for pc's for attack skill caps were put in play. Live or Custom tables? /shrug

All of this has affected melee DPS in whole to be lower than before only because we were doing more max then min dmg overall as reported by the devs. Now we're doing more min dmg then anything it seems when compared to other classes.

The staff's proc effect in it self is also in question still. The staff has the chance to stun up to 12 seconds, as reported by people on old forums and here that played on live. However, it seems to only been lasting 3 seconds at BEST. Maybe the proc was adjusted at some point in time to be 12, but started lower? More so then not, it only lasts approx 1 second in my travels. I can proc the staff and start getting hit again BEFORE the worn off message appears. I can proc the staff when a mob is fleeing and it will continue to keep running away. The stun is not supposed to wear off the next time the npc is hit, that statement is inaccurate.

I used this weapon on an iksar monk back in velious inside velketor's labyrinth w/ a fungi tunic and epic trying to farm AA's. The same should be relative now w/o epic haste. I also personally recall the stun randomly lasting between 3 to 6 seconds, I never really saw anything longer then that because I either proc'd again or the mob died. My health would never drop below 50%, mend was used to eliminate obvious downtime, used my ~100hp heal item between fights and continued on.

As with Adriana, msg Apocaly dev's in game and let us know what can be done to squash these bug issues, as a whole or individually.

[kanras]

There is no point in framing your argument around one weapon or 2h v. 1h. The 2h damage bonuses (which are correct for where we are on the timeline) were ninja-patched in over a month ago. The only thing that changed is the hit distribution, and that is a mechanic that handles all weapons equally. If you have issue with it, please discuss it in this thread:

http://www.project1999.org/forums/showthread.php?t=34925

[Aadill]

Kanras, was that patch in reference to this patch from live?

http://www.tski.co.jp/baldio/patch/20000419.html

TWO HANDED WEAPONS UPGRADED, APRIL 19, 2000

As part of the emergency update completed last night, a change was implemented that increases the amount of damage done by someone wielding a 2 handed weapon.

This change was made due to a statistical imbalance in the way that damage is calculated at the mid-to-upper levels. A person wielding a one-handed weapon of a given ratio was able to do more damage than when wielding a two-handed weapon of the same ratio.

We would like to stress that no change has been made to the amount of damage done by people wielding one-handed weapons. The net result of this change is that people choosing to wield two-handed weapons will now do more damage than they did before.

[Tulvinous]

Nice find Aadill, interested in knowing that answer myself. It sounds as if that is a post patch fixing something Sony originally goofed on.

[Enderenter]

There is no point in framing your argument around one weapon or 2h v. 1h. The 2h damage bonuses (which are correct for where we are on the timeline) were ninja-patched in over a month ago. The only thing that changed is the hit distribution, and that is a mechanic that handles all weapons equally. If you have issue with it, please discuss it in this thread:

http://www.project1999.org/forums/showthread.php?t=34925

I'm sorry, but if a warrior using one-handers is even close to outparsing a monk using Tstaff (as suggested by multiple people on these forums), then something is clearly broken with 2 handed weapons. Likewise, if monk hand to hand comes close to outparsing Tstaff, something is clearly broken.

Warriors should never outparse monks. If, as you imply, the only thing broken with monk damage right now is hit distribution (which is supposedly affecting all melee classes) why are warriors consistently outparsing monks?

I'm referring to this:

All this makes me cry a little. A warrior was doing more dps then i was with his 1handers then my tsfaff. 36% haste/Tstaff to 21%haste and some 1handers. Hmm.

And also a guild xp group last week that I was in, where a 56 monk (Staff of Battle, FBSS) was getting outparsed all day by a 58 warrior (Black Dragon Blade, Ringed Mace of the Ykesha, FBSS). He was also doing more dps with his fists than with 2hb. He said when parsing his 2hb that the dps was so inconsistent it would be as low as 20 at times - his fists were consistent 60 or so dps.

[Aadill]

Warriors should never outparse monks. If, as you imply, the only thing broken with monk damage right now is hit distribution (which is supposedly affecting all melee classes) why are warriors consistently outparsing monks?

http://www.tski.co.jp/baldio/patch/20000525.html

MAY 25, 2000

The Runed Fighter's Staff, previously usable by Monks and Warriors, has been restricted to Monks only. The statistics on this staff are much more powerful than normally allowed for warriors. This change is retroactive and will be reflected on items currently in inventory. Though we strive to avoid negatively adjusting items after they have been earned, this item presented a balance issue, making the change necessary. We apologize to warriors that currently own this weapon.


Seems like this is in reference to warriors being too powerful but only in relation to one item, which indicates the possibility that warriors can do sizeable damage but it was considered game-breaking. That leads me to believe that 2h weapons specifically meant for DPS classes not being good DPS weapons is a problem, as well.

[Enderenter]

Seems like this is in reference to warriors being too powerful but only in relation to one item, which indicates the possibility that warriors can do sizeable damage but it was considered game-breaking. That leads me to believe that 2h weapons specifically meant for DPS classes not being good DPS weapons is a problem, as well.

Any class can do sizable damage, given the right tools (int casters: Rod of Annihilation/Tola robe).

My point was, give a monk an RFS and a warrior an RFS, and roughly equivalent STR/haste, and the monk should easily outparse the warrior.

[Aadill]

That's what I'm agreeing with, Ender :) You probably said it a bit clearer, but I was just pointing out that a weapon was specifically changed because the mechanics of the warrior class were causing an imbalance for other classes due to the high damage nature of 2hand weapons. As of right now we don't see that sort of high damage nature of 2hand weapons so that is the root problem, for certs.

[RupesTZ]

Kanras, was that patch in reference to this patch from live?

http://www.tski.co.jp/baldio/patch/20000419.html

TWO HANDED WEAPONS UPGRADED, APRIL 19, 2000

As part of the emergency update completed last night, a change was implemented that increases the amount of damage done by someone wielding a 2 handed weapon.

This change was made due to a statistical imbalance in the way that damage is calculated at the mid-to-upper levels. A person wielding a one-handed weapon of a given ratio was able to do more damage than when wielding a two-handed weapon of the same ratio.

We would like to stress that no change has been made to the amount of damage done by people wielding one-handed weapons. The net result of this change is that people choosing to wield two-handed weapons will now do more damage than they did before.

I'm interested to hear more about this patch note our friend Aadill brought up. I'm thinking this must be an error because as others have said fists seem to be near or greater DPS than my tstaff which just isn't right.

[Tulvinous]

This thread is more about the staff and not overall 2H damage. In addition the proc is unreliable in duration to what it was on live servers.

[azeth]

I think maybe giving the community a fighting dummy

I initially thought you meant as in a unkillable NPC with XX ac/mitigation/resists for anyone to pound on for any length of time in EC for example - solely to provide exact parsing data for the dev staff.

[Versus]

I initially thought you meant as in a unkillable NPC with XX ac/mitigation/resists for anyone to pound on for any length of time in EC for example - solely to provide exact parsing data for the dev staff.

Initially? I thought that was exactly what he meant. Not a bad idea, IMO. But you know before long you will hear...NOT CLASSIC! BURN THE WITCH!

[Aadill]

As long as it's level 1 so it doesn't provide skillups it's not a bad idea, at least for testing purposes.