Blah, Blah, Blah

[Xaxyx]

As a new player, I found it *tremendously* difficult to satisfy the quest to defeat Count Blahblah as a monk. With such low hit points, engaging the boss in melee with this class is largely unfeasible. Fireballs are just as problematic, as Blahblah "count"-ers them -- pun intended? Thus, barring subtleties that as of yet still escape me, I found myself resorting to Push damage. Of course, this only works out if (a) Push actually shows up as a spell in the dungeon and (b) Blahblah spawns in a push-damage-friendly locale.

Eventually, after rolling the dice enough times, this combination of fortuitous circumstances occurred, and I was able to beat the Blah out of him. But I found the whole experience rather frustrating for what's seemingly supposed to be a relatively simple quest in the chain.

[Nandrew]

Monk Blahblah has recently been the sore point of the directional dungeons, and the scenario has been nerfed to accomodate this specific class a little better.

But in general, the Monk requires a paradigm shift in playstyle and represents a big learning obstacle for new players. And once you actually master the Monk's method of fighting, you'll actually notice yourself improving your game with ALL of the other classes. I think he's basically most people's first proper live-fire introduction to the concept of regen fights, right?

We'll also be inserting the appropriate messages warning players that the East is the hardest direction to pursue in early game.

[Darvin]

BlahBlah counters fireball now? When did that change happen?

Anyways, BlahBlah was moved to physical-type damage some time ago, and monks take half-damage from physical, so you should totally be able to beat him in a straight slug-fest.

[Lujo]

Not if he's new. Go watch "Let's plays" of newbies and casuals on You Tube and see what the game looks like to them, it really opened my eyes to stuff, and I'm the most casual vet out there, probably. Level catapults seem to be a really tricky concept to grasp, and some other powerfull stuff turns out to be quite unintuiteve. I remember that my ability do to anything in the alpha appeared when I stumbled onto the wiki, and for a while I had to resort to it for every run I did. Sometimes I followed advice mechanicaly without understanding why I'm supposed to do it untill afterwards, and there were times, I think, when I couldn't follow advice at all because I couldn't understand it. As a player, not as an english speaker.

As for X, a hint is to use the PISSORF glyph or, even better, a WHEYTWUT glyph to position Blah Blah accordingly. Since PISSOR has recently been changed, simply pushing him against another monster could also work, so less positioning trouble there. Don't pick it up immediately if you find it, save it for when you need it, and in case of WHEYTWUT you can convert it if you're happy with where you've put Blah Blah.

[The Avatar]

Err... Devs, you should probably make a puzzle pack for regen fighting. It is very tricky for new players to grasp.

[Darvin]

Probably a puzzle pack for combat concepts. A puzzle for regen fighting, level-up catapults, exploration top-offs, damage spiking, etc...

[Nandrew]

Yeah.

I still wanna see if I can rework the Monk Bronze challenge to get this across more appropriately. I've actually got a waaay better idea for it that I just need to get around to.

[Bloggorus]

@Xaxyx you might want to have a look at Sidestepper's stickied thread of annotated walkthroughs, he just posted a monk run demonstrating how to maximise their strengths. It's pretty fireball-heavy for a monk, but its also handy to show how versatile regen fighting can be.

Can be found on the wiki along with a whole lot of others here --> http://www.qcfdesign.com/wiki/DesktopDu ... _Cave_Monk

These playthroughs are one of the best ways to learn advanced techniques and strategies for each class and dungeon.

Altyhough the fact that we 'always' seem to recommend them might lend credence to the idea that the progression is requires a few too many leaps of intuition for new players.

[Xaxyx]

That's a very nice walkthru and all. But at no time in the entire post does he actually explain what regen fighting is or why monks happen to be particularly good at it.

[Darvin]

Well, you can probably figure out that regen-fighting probably has something to do with regeneration, and monk gets x2 healing from exploration as a class feature