Are monks overpowered?

[IYIyTh]

That's what I'm saying, that people don't even see issue with it. That's the only unit which supposed to counter monks and monks were not defended. What if guy sees LC sooner and he has some pikemen around? They didn't counter **** and light cav in that stage cost way more than monk.

They...were defended? Knights/units to block are a valid defense for monks, just as if you were blocking siege from being hit.

The only difference is the unit is being maligned to give players who aren't as good using them an advantage over players who are better at using them.

 

[Lokalo]

Hera isn't even close to being a top monk player. If he was, he wouldn't be complaining about them.

It would be like Hera complaining about Hussar being too OP because of DE pathing making it harder to stop hussar raiding. Not gonna happen.

I'm just curious when Hera's going to defeat the world/win tourneys with monks like he said since they're "broken/so op."

Well this argument is quite stupid to begin with. You can win with only monks, well not counting few other units or siege only if you full clowning. Otherwise monks are OP and ridiculous only in certain situations, which not neccessary win you games, but put you into amazing position. Any knight raiding becomes useless if you have few monks in base, unless it's 20 vs 3 etc. Almost every game I watch top players play, maybe except viper, though i rarely watch him, but don't remember him doing it, but i would say literally every game I watch Yo or heart plays they get blockprinting even for 3 monks, cuz even in early imp they give huge value. Sure, later on if you can get eco to spam light cav or hussars monks become quite trash. But the stronger units(knights usually) and the lower amount of them are on field the more value monks give. Worst part is, that monk is even cheaper to get than light cavalry early on, i mean its easier to mine 100 gold than 80 food and not even talking about upgrades.

They...were defended? Knights/units to block are a valid defense for monks, just as if you were blocking siege from being hit.

He didn't really block them, nor 2 knights can kill light cav fast enough, so no, they were not really protected hence it was stupid to run away, however it doesn't change fact, that even without blocking and if you start converting light cav right away it's in range you have like 50/50% chance to convert it. Which should never be an option versus counter unit.

 

[IYIyTh]

Well this argument is quite stupid to begin with. You can win with only monks, well not counting few other units or siege only if you full clowning. Otherwise monks are OP and ridiculous only in certain situations, which not neccessary win you games, but put you into amazing position. Any knight raiding becomes useless if you have few monks in base, unless it's 20 vs 3 etc. Almost every game I watch top players play, maybe except viper, though i rarely watch him, but don't remember him doing it, but i would say literally every game I watch Yo or heart plays they get blockprinting even for 3 monks, cuz even in early imp they give huge value. Sure, later on if you can get eco to spam light cav or hussars monks become quite trash. But the stronger units(knights usually) and the lower amount of them are on field the more value monks give. Worst part is, that monk is even cheaper to get than light cavalry early on, i mean its easier to mine 100 gold than 80 food and not even talking about upgrades.


He didn't really block them, nor 2 knights can kill light cav fast enough, so no, they were not really protected hence it was stupid to run away, however it doesn't change fact, that even without blocking and if you start converting light cav right away it's in range you have like 50/50% chance to convert it. Which should never be an option versus counter unit.

Nothing you said makes monks OP. Monks are not cheaper to get. Where are these games you're talking about in tournaments in non-arena settings where monks are just obliterating people?

Crossbows also kill skirms. Are crossbows op because they kill their counter occasionally?

It's not like it's a teutonic knight vs a militia. If you take a bad engagement and the monk player properly defends you can end up with a lot of LC converted, assuming you're just playing one unit comps for whatever reason. Block printing is an imperial technology. If you are in imp and your opponent is only using LC against monks and only has a handful, that's a tech disadvantage and macro/unit comp disadvantage.

The idea that monks are "OP," is just wrong, and another attempt to water down the game by pro players who are lesser than if they remain the same.

 

[kalpit00]

It's so ridiculous that players are used to this nonsense so much that they think this is normal and that says a lot. And sure perhaps he could have killed them all, but thats a freaking counter unit and monks have zero protection, if you get even few spearmen there, good luck doing anything. Also he not only lost light cav, now opponent has light cav and can snipe opponents monks 11

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Lokalo as they said

what's wrong with this clip?
Conversions start at 28:39 and units get converted at 28:52 that's 13 seconds in game. If anything red was unlucky with conversions

13 seconds is your number, and keep in mind there were 2 (3 in the beginning) monks converting

How monks really work v.2 - all the details.

Edit: If you just want to read a summary of the most important aspects, scroll down to my second post I feel like monks are one of the rare mechanics in AoE that few people know much about and no one seems to know everything. The only info available seems to be this Article as far as I'm aware...

www.aoezone.net

If you check the summary post, you will know that a unit must always be converted after 12 seconds (or 10 monk seconds/ CI = conversion intervals)

The minimum conversion time is 4 CIs and maximum conversion time is 10 CIs (although i feel the min time is soo iffy because I have seen knights get insta converted after 3 wololos, which could be like 4 CI or ~5 seconds but you never know the exact decimals on the in-game time)

But in this case, the in-game time was clearly atleast 13 seconds, which should correspond to a guaranteed conversion for any unit without faith or the teuton/first crusade extra resistance

On top of that, as i mentioned, there were 2 or 3 monks converting a unit which does add up the probability of conversion during the initial seconds, so we can't know exactly at what point the light cavs will get converted. but if i had to make an educated guess, seeing how both the lcavs got converted together towards the end, i think it is fair to assume the max time of conversion was reached (so we could basically ignore all the math behind the multiple monks converting in the beginning before he switches 1 monk per lcav)

It's just the way monks work man, I know you are saying that this was versus a counter unit, but not the best video to showcase the problem with monks 11 (As the light cavs weren't converted by the probability chance within the first few seconds, but rather after the max time had passed - to which I would say when a light cav get's insta converted after 4 seconds due to that slight percent chance, the main issue with monks can arise) RNG

 

[Liamsmalley7]

It would be like Hera complaining about Hussar being too OP because of DE pathing making it harder to stop hussar raiding. Not gonna happen.

Hera pretty regularly says Hussars are "broken" , "best unit in the game" etc...

 

[kalpit00]

Hera pretty regularly says Hussars are "broken" , "best unit in the game" etc...

Yeah just have 100 farmers and 25 stables to spam a fast 80 food unit, whereas its counter is slower and costs 35 food + 25 wood, so you can reproduce your unit faster than enemy can Kappa (and you get the added benefit of raiding, controlling the game with speed, picking your fights, sniping siege)

 

[Kroc]

Hera pretty regularly says Hussars are "broken" , "best unit in the game" etc...

He says the same thing about halbs and monks. I guess everything is OP and should be nerfed.

 

[Potkeny]

He says the same thing about halbs and monks. I guess everything is OP and should be nerfed.

Xbows are fine, no tournament is dominated by them! /s

 

[Lokalo]

It's just the way monks work man, I know you are saying that this was versus a counter unit, but not the best video to showcase the problem with monks 11 (As the light cavs weren't converted by the probability chance within the first few seconds, but rather after the max time had passed - to which I would say when a light cav get's insta converted after 4 seconds due to that slight percent chance, the main issue with monks can arise) RNG

And that's my point and I actually completely disagree, that's a good clip to showcase, as that's best scenario as you can get with light cavs (conversion wise). And I understand your calculations about max time and stuff, but in my opinion somewhat what happened here should be minimum conversion time vs counter unit, not maximum. So monks actually would need protection, not just wandering around like in this game pretty much alone not even close to some proper safe place, there should never be a case in such fight where monks come on top.

As for the tournaments, well that was 10 times already explained, in many games pro players don't go kts right away because of monks, you just won't do damage/be able to raid anything or then have to invest tons to have both kts and light cavs to try sniping monks.

Nothing you said makes monks OP. Monks are not cheaper to get. Where are these games you're talking about in tournaments in non-arena settings where monks are just obliterating people?

Crossbows also kill skirms. Are crossbows op because they kill their counter occasionally?

Huh? When does xbow kill skirms? You mean 10 xbow vs 1 skirm or when they have no defence or what you are talking about? And also that's another quite good example, xbow will never win vs skirms with upgrades unless highly outnumbered, so you can judge fights quite easily, with monks it all depends on how lucky or unlucky you get, in this video scenario if he didn't try to run he could have killed all monks perhaps, but if been less lucky and it didn't take max conversion time monks could survived even if played correctly.

 

[kalpit00]

And that's my point and I actually completely disagree, that's a good clip to showcase, as that's best scenario as you can get with light cavs (conversion wise). And I understand your calculations about max time and stuff, but in my opinion somewhat what happened here should be minimum conversion time vs counter unit, not maximum. So monks actually would need protection, not just wandering around like in this game pretty much alone not even close to some proper safe place, there should never be a case in such fight where monks come on top.

As for the tournaments, well that was 10 times already explained, in many games pro players don't go kts right away because of monks, you just won't do damage/be able to raid anything or then have to invest tons to have both kts and light cavs to try sniping monks.


Huh? When does xbow kill skirms? You mean 10 xbow vs 1 skirm or when they have no defence or what you are talking about? And also that's another quite good example, xbow will never win vs skirms with upgrades unless highly outnumbered, so you can judge fights quite easily, with monks it all depends on how lucky or unlucky you get, in this video scenario if he didn't try to run he could have killed all monks perhaps, but if been less lucky and it didn't take max conversion time monks could survived even if played correctly.

its safe to say monks give too much value in early castle age, especially in defense. and in this particular case, he largely miscalculated the time (its like if you are going to dive in for a group of monks, either commit or run back immediately, cant do both because there's just not going to be enough time to do both if the monks are relatively together) i get that its light cav and you'd expect to swoop in and swoop out picking a monk, but as we saw, it passed the 12 second mark. (Imagine if it is knights or any other unit, you must always delete them else they are guaranteed to be converted with an even higher probability the longer you stay in the monk range)

Which brings another issue of Monk Charge. Like monks keeping their conversion going and being able to instant convert a unit even after it goes out of range, makes them a unit which guarantees a kill. Its like you are investing 100 gold for a unit which provides very very good defense behind walls (cough cough, no wonder monks seem even more OP in this wall meta), but even in an open field, you are guaranteed a conversion 1v1 vs any other unit except for their two counters : scout and eagles. This, on top of the fact that if you see a unit and trigger a conversion, they will keep the charge and continue following the unit and instantly convert any other that they may see before being retasked

But that's a different topic. I think T90 is pushing for a nerf/change regarding Monk Charging so we should be able to see some balance patch in the near future. The bigger issue however still lies in the RNG aspect of it, and it has been 20 solid years since people have complained and complained about the unfairness it brings to the game. I don't want to spend more energy ranting about it 11 but it is what it is

The best thing i have done lately and i advise everyone else to do is add light cavs more often. Doesn't matter the civ (it starts with a D), doesn't matter the player (looking at you, Mr Yo), just add light cavs. It tilts me watching some players who are just negligent to adding light cavs and die to monk clownery, even in the most recent tourneys because they just either feel the civ have weak stable or "thats now how the civ matchup is played". Yes it's not optimal, but its safe. It is the same idea as pre walling your base with palisades vs a drush, you know its coming, and instead of trying to be greedy and quickwalling to save few wood, you just wall before. Similarly, if you see enemy making monks on top of their army, just add light cavs as it just makes the game that much harder for them. So often or not, monks will rule a fight because the wololo sound scares the player and makes the fight unpredictable. But if you snoop in with 3 light cav, not only will the monk player panic and mis-micro, the units get out of control for him a lot more than they get for you (then you can use your siege more confidently vs xbows if they have redemption, etc etc)