Monks are not OP: my take

[@dave_hun9682]

T-West's video about monk mechanics: kzbin.info/www/bejne/Y6K1hpSFfdWVras

[@Gyeseongyeon]

Nice one, dave. I think most, if not all, that needed to be said was said. Aoe2, at its core, is a game of tradeoffs. In their attempt to try and speed up the meta in the early game with insane 18 pop scouts, 17 pop archers, and the like into super fast Castle times with minimal army, pros didn’t factor in the fact that monks, which excel against minimal army numbers, become proportionally more powerful in a typical game. They basically want to play this way with impunity. And now that they’re seeing the drawbacks of their precious new meta, they can’t take it, deflect, and misdiagnose monks as the issue. What they REALLY should be doing is slowing down their meta. But we all know that’s not gonna happen with the likes of Hera, Margougou, and all the other high-profile complainers. Takes less brain power to complain that something is OP rather than trying to reassess and reform their meta.

[@Achilles75]

😂😂😂😂 U kind of summed up the whole thing very well.Besides hera always jumps on the OP bandwagon very fast.I remember he made a video Calling ballista elephants OP (which i agreed with him a little bit). I believe the title was how ballista elephants shut down archer civs and how they have next to no counter to it.And 2 days later he had a match up against britons and he was khmer and he was like "hah my ballista elephants will wreck this guy" But no matter how hard he tried( he played incorrectly thats why he couldn't win) He couldn't beat the opponent ,i believe he lost not sure tho.And then his face changed and he was like yeahhh ballista elephants are just meme units anyway,yeahhhhh thats why i lost i was just trolling and having a bit of fun.Everyone knows how ballista are such useless units.🤐

[@Gyeseongyeon]

@@Achilles75 As annoying as the OP bandwagon is from Hera, he's straight-up INSUFFERABLE when it comes to the "underpowered" bandwagon. Remember when plumed archers got a cost hike to what they are today? Hera started screaming "PLUMES ARE TRASH" from the rooftops. No testing, no attempt at using them in real games, he just didn't like the change and so started calling the unit trash. Then in 2021 came "NEVER CA," acting like a slightly different-looking firing animation (frame delay was EXACTLY the same in practice from Voobly/AoC) automatically made them unusable. And what's sad is that people actually listen to this guy and the shit he says... He's honestly the last person I'd take ANY kind of balance ideas from, no matter how good a player he is. For someone who claims he was "whipped into maturity" upon entering the pro scene, time and again he acts like an impulsive, hot-hotheaded, whiny brat with an ego so inflated, it's the size of a hot air balloon, and it only grows with each passing day. I honestly miss the days when Viper was on top. Not to say he was perfect, but he at least wouldn't stir up nonsense on a scale like this.

[@harooooo1]

Spot on. Nicely said about the speeding up of the meta.

[@Gyeseongyeon]

@@harooooo1 Mark my words: If the monk nerfs Hera wants go through, the next thing he'll cry about will be Knights. I can hear him now. "WHY DO KNIGHTS HAVE SO MUCH HP?!" "WHY ARE THEY SO FAST?!" "THEY HAVE NO COUNTERS!!!" "WHY DON'T PIKES COUNTER THEM?!" 111111.

[@LcHR21212]

I'm with you on this one dave

[@sams8302]

Very thorough analysis. The problem is how would you approach the nerfing of monks. Better to leave it be

[@harooooo1]

Good vid! And nice to see someone who prefers the older identical trees mod (made by me) :D

[@u9vata]

Jó analízis. Egy dolog maradt szerintem ki, ami fontos szempont. A papokat az említett mikró igény miatt és sérülékenység miatt alacsony ELO-n eleve nem nagyon használják / nehezebben tanulható, mint a sima meta. Na ha erre még rávarr a játék még egy nerfet akkor a "majdnem lehetetlen" kategóriába eshet a dolog, ami árthat az utánpótlásnak szerintem. Amúgy ha OP lenne a monk, akkor nem a monk-playről elhíresült valakik lennének a top10-ben? Szerintem nem azok vannak ott, akiknek a legjobb a monk micro-ja / play-je, csak max használnak ők is monkot (de természetes, hogy egy játékban felhasználod az egységeket).

[@kane_lives]

Excellent analysis. I would further note that some civs, most notably legacy civs (the initial ones) have abysmal monk tech tree (e.g. Goths, Huns, Vikings, etc). Vikings is something very rarely seen in drafts nowadays, owing to bad Stable and bad Monastery. Many civs that are just powerful in general (e.g. Lithuanians) have full tech trees, while struggling civs (e.g. Huns) have complete garbage. My suggestion would be to give Atonement to all civs, to at least have some counterplay if it's Mango vs Mango, but they have Redemption and you have neither Redemption nor Atonement.

[@mikelivingood7797]

Instead of going into the full breakdown as you did I kept it simple. Yo is considered.the best monk pro player yet he is not dominating. The best monk civs are not top 10 with maybe the exception of Aztecs. Before the cost of crossbows were increased the best micro players were dominating.

[@Gyeseongyeon]

Sorry, but if you honestly believe Yo is the best monk pro player, you’re either limiting your criteria to only the top 5-10 in the world and/or you have never paid attention to anyone else outside that. Ganji, a 2k4 player, blows EVERY top 5-10 player out of the water when it comes to monk control and micro. He’s so good at it, he was even able to almost clear a huge army of LC with Heresy from Jordan in ZeWall in Titans League with a medium size army of monks and a handful of Pikes. No top 5 pro with their current monk skills could ever pull that off.

[@mikelivingood7797]

@@Gyeseongyeon You are correct, I do mean among the top 5-10, monk play isn't producing S tier win nor is it putting Ganji in the top 10

[@darkranger116]

I 100% see what you mean and what you're talking about. At the same time, i honestly wouldn't argue if they ended up costing 125 gold at some point down the line.

[@Lohabquas]

Playing monks in AoE2 is a gateway to gambling addiction

[@kamaniek-o-d-d2524]

New to the game. But from what I have experienced every basic/universal units seems fair. Edit: Only militia seem weak.

[@OytheGreat]

I think the jist of it is that monks are a *frustrating* unit more than an OP unit. Losing vs. monks is probably the most frustrating manner to lose in AoE2. This makes the unit a very controversial one and means opinions are naturally going to be magnified. It's easy to call them 'OP' when you lose to them, because you built up a nice army and your opponent can just convert your key units to their side. Feels way worse than losing your army in an honest fight. But as you point out, it's very hard to achieve this as the monk player. You need great timing, reading of the game, heavy micro and you *still* take a big risk by going for (a lot of) monks. Viper phrased it well when he said the RNG aspect of it is probably the thing that drives people mad. Conversion times take between 5-12.5s (4-10 'conversion intervals'; each is about 1.25s) to convert a regular unit (so: non-scout, eagle,...) which is, IMHO, **way** too big of an interval. Make the interval 7.5-10s (6-8 CIs) and it will be much less frustrating to play against them (or with them!). That's the simplest solution. I would also like to see a change to Monastrery techs. * Faith. It is ridiculously expensive: dramatically lower the cost of it (250 food, 250 gold?) and make it available in Castle Age with an additional upgrade for it in imp. * To offset that, I'd like more upgrades in Imperial Age to make monks a bit faster and sturdier (fervor & sanctity upgrades, just like the blacksmith has upgrades for armour types), with possibly an upgrade similar to Inquisition for a few civs instead of just for Spanish. Less RNG + more tech options for monk and anti-monk plays would make everyone happy, I'd hope.

[@janarthananvijayakumar2089]

Great video dude. Love ur insight

[@danielacuna86]

If monks were OP, then missionaries wouldn't be a meme unit that almost no one uses, especially in a game where unit speed is too important when evaluating a unit.

[@grimrapper5202]

Monk can garrison into TC, Monk also has better range and take relic If Missionary is made with untouched stats and can garrison into TC/Tower, it wouldn't be a "meme" unit as it is now)

[@CptSquirrel]

Most reagált a Viper a videódra ^^

[@meninbike1602]

Really nice video

[@OutOfCharacters]

really excellent video!

[@budphone]

All good points when taken on their own, but the problem is that Monks are typically used to defend/Boom, and most of your arguments go out the window in this scenario. Doesn't matter they are slow when beside TC's, enemy units are coming to them, they can Garrison if things get hairy, low hp, np Just jump in a tc etc. Scales poorly, doesn't matter if used to defend a boom you only need 2 - 3, you are not going for a monk army, same with slow production, not such a big deal if you only want 2-3. I could go on. I gotta say though i'm an aggressive player, so it annoys me, as I dont typically make them, only to grab a relic or two. The problem I see it overall is that they stop aggro, and this = boring games.

[@ottomanpapyrus9365]

ha ha I prefere city builder making a tonne of units and aggression is boring

[@nicolairomanowski8832]

+

[@ramsrock39]

Disliked, Unsubscribed, Unfollowed, Undonated, Friend Request Revoked

[@Lodit24]

/s I guess?

[@ramsrock39]

@@Lodit24 Clearly yes

[@ottomanpapyrus9365]

ok

[@gnoomlord]

na monks are broken af

[@MartinMartenot]

Who are you anyway.

[@OytheGreat]

One of the top players in the game who's clearly able to voice his opinion concisely and clearly.

[@heldersilvestre5729]

what a troll, saying monks are not op and that they die to mangudai while showing the dominatig mangudai an winning a game. the charging on buildings was broken. good fix.

[@dave_hun9682]

In literally the first minute of the video I say that monks are good vs high value units in low numbers, from 0:40 to 1:10 I even specifically mention mangudai in the examples, so the only troll here is you

[@heldersilvestre5729]

Sorry, dave

[@ottomanpapyrus9365]

Lol you missing a screw or two

[@heldersilvestre5729]

​@@ottomanpapyrus9365Nice argument, pal. Do you think with that brain?