Spirit of the Law recently produced a video demonstrating that mass Monks aren’t really worth it for healing:
The easiest fix could involve any of these:
Increase base healing rate
Decrease delay before switching to another unit to heal
Or, heal all units within range, but maybe at a slower rate that is still better than individual healing
But, it would be refreshing to see value in having monks on the field other than classic healing/conversion. Here are some ideas that could even be unique techs or team bonuses:
Bless - Having a monk within healing range adds +1 to attack or defense. Maybe those units glow.
Loaves and Fishes - Ungarisoned monks generate food, similar to a farm rate, but without wood or farm space.
Multiply - Civ bonus. Monks available in dark age, but only have the ability to heal, as well as a new ability to duplicate herdables (using conversion w/cooldown) until Castle Age. So, it would cost you 100 early gold and wood but you could generate more food and be ready for relic pick up at Castle Age. I like this one because it involves trade-offs / build order changes.
Repent - When a monk is killed, the attacking unit changes sides (monk still dies though) even if the monk was still cooling down from a previous conversion. This would slightly adjust the Arena meta when players sit scouts at relics.
Divine Reading - Each monk decreases research time by 5%, up to a maximum of 20%.
Jericho - Monk can completely destroy a wall segment in exchange for its life. Does not work on buildings. Helps against turtles.
Yeah not really a fan of these ideas for all monks/civs as that would change the game significantly. But I’d be cool with a new civ, or an existing civ having an extra monk bonus (like lithuanians with relics) and maybe one of these could be interesting for that. The repent idea specifically sounds cool for a civ specific bonus, that also wouldn’t be broken.
I can respect every balance change including OP ones or a civ directly winning game like “I r winner” cheat. But this thing… annoying me. No-one going to make monastery (175 wood) and monks in Dark Age, but they could do in Feudal Age.
And also I want to add Less-Known Mechanic; if you are in Feudal Age and have a monk (scenarios) when you pick a relic and drop it manually, your conversion countdown re-starts from 0 even you didn’t converted any units.
I have seen a lot of people use SOTL videos for suggesting buffs and nerfs. I think SOTL videos are more for learning those are not complaints. He never says this ought to change. It is just stats which will help you in your games Strategize/plan better. Thats what I think is great about them.
On monks I think they are fine. Very useful against Knights especially aztecs ones.
Healing can be not that strong, but Monks arent in the game for just healing. The can convert enemy units (which can easily turn around a battle) and pick up relics (to get a passive gold income).
All together Monks are pretty useful. You most likely make monks in almost every game. That cant be said about many other units. So they dont really need a buff.
Did you watch the video ? He lists how much villagers a monk can replace by healing specific units. Its totally worth it. “The value is definitely there to heal up your damaged army…”
Agreed, monks are very useful. I think the issue with then is that they’re pretty micro intensive to get their full use, so at lower ELO they feel like a bit of a waste of gold for anything more then grabbing relics Haha.
But I dont think that’s a bad thing, I like that certain units like mangonels and monks become significantly more useful as you improve multi tasking and micro skill. It’s part of what makes this game fun for beginners, intermediates, and experts. Easy to learn, hard to master.
