thoughts of a dark monk from lammaland

[Hokonoso]

copied over hoko, didnt have tp so bought a heart of wood and copied over another char to xfer and LR'd from my 8wis dark monk with 721hp to a shintao monk with about 80 less hp...

jade stuff is super cool, the ranged stun is 10 + monk lvl + cha mod + stunning dc so 40 (cha mod of 0 ftw!) and is a will save which works very reliabily in epics (soloed some fens quests), my stunning blow dc is much lower but having a 3rd stun is very useful. with all my heal amp gear im pretty much unkillable, i havent figured out what stance i want to use as i can choose any 2 of the gm stances (mountain is set in stone but cant figure out if i like sun wind or water best). dps is much lower but you can pick up some anarchic burst handwraps and literally break all dr in the game without ever changing them, of course that is with the shintao tod set for evil/good dr breaking.

so far fun factor is higher, miss all the dark stuff like water walking but tod is currently dead on lammaland as they are still doing testing so no clue how it will end up but for now i think shintao has enough life to be useful, especially in epics as soloing them is now a walk in the park compared to before. and we are now the true slayers of undead as ToD currently does not work on them (or constructs) so there is a lot of potential. got some really nice seeker 6 GEOB handwraps which work well on devils (i wear litany so no bloodstone).

would like some of u number crunchers to see our potential dps and what stance we should use to achieve it as i cant seem to make heads or tails on it, for tanking mountain seems the most as it makes your hw 2d14 which is nice but otherwise in wind stance our to hit is very low being str based and there is no way im switching to dex based with all my gear so it's just not an option.

i planned to TR to half-orc but that's not gonna happen. human is great and with dark sucking i see no reason for more str/dps at this time. contemplating water/mountain stance but on the fence as with water stance ill always hit my stuns but then stunning blow becomes useless so id probably drop the feat and just keep the 2 stuns.

so basically i still have a toon that can tank bosses (will prob need some incite gear), have around 620hp which is more than enough, tons of heal amp and can destroy all epics without even a party! so will probably become my new epic farming toon (tho i like my sorcs).

[Tobril]

I’m thinking sun stance:



Higher to-hit and damage
Better ki to keep earth and void strikes running, as well as the new shintao powers
A pinch of amp from the jidz bracers
Better stunning blow (for those inclined)


This is from the perspective of a non-horoth level tank. I would imagine earth might
be better if HP is the main concern.


Regardless, since switching stances isn’t a really big deal it may just come down
to whatever is most appropriate for the situation.


@Hoko – What do you think of the void line? I figured out how to switch into it with
a mild sacrifice and it really seems to be helping DPS-wise, to say nothing of the
frequent eradicates from void IV.

[Hokonoso]

I've never tested the void line, i'm a human and the 24Ap i spend getting a good healing amp means ill never even try the void line as i tank and perfer hps to 1 single ability that may help me kill stuff a little faster.

My current stats on lammaland are
16str
15dex
16con
14wis

i have a +3 dex tome and used it to get GM wind stance, if i were to test water i would raise wis to 15 and lower dex to 14 etc... i always get gm mtn stance and always put all lvl ups into str. so far i hate the ki generation in wind stance but i get more swings in and since i dont have to waste 50 ki every 15 seconds it is more than enough ki to spam all my strikes ad infinitum so i will probably stick with wind stance for now unless i want the extra 2 to hit from sun stance and higher stunning blow dc.

like i said earlier i dunno what this means dpswise, my guess is without touch of death, wind is more dps than sun as before touch of death this was the case so im thinking all the double strikes will give more dps since im only losing 2 dmg per hand and ki is not an issue. it does suck having to use the shintao necklace instead of oremi's since as a shintao monk not using the shintao set is detrimental to your health lol. my guess is it will suck even more next update for dark monks cause they will probably have to use the crappy ninja spy set to get their final PrE boost, at least the shintao set is good lol.

current issues i have, i have no dex item, i dont have a link to my build/gear but it is on the forums and only dex item i wear are madstone boots and only occasionally and they only give a +4 so wind stance and all that dex without a dex item seems silly so i prob need to rearrange gear to get one im guessing.

im also seeing a potential for high ac, i sit at a 50 with no dex item and no ac gear at all (0 dodge item etc.. as i wear healing amp dt), but i dont care about ac so i doubt ill ever look into that avenue.

[Tobril]

Regarding human – Noted on the healing amp. I would probably
do the same in those circumstances. My monk is a halfling,
however, so I tried lowering the guile line to get void. The verdict
is still out in my mind, but I’m leaning toward void atm.


Regarding sets – I have both oremi and shintao, and greatly
prefer shintao. The only time oremi comes out is during tod
part three to keep earth grasp on everyone. Shintao is even
more important now that wearing it allows me to use my GEOB
and still break DR. (much better than crummy devouts)


Regarding wind stance – I’m curious now to time beating a portal
or perhaps the troll near bastion. It would be interesting to see
if wind stance with earth strikes is higher DPS than sun with
earth and void. I’ll have to try that out this weekend sometime.


Regarding sun vs wind – I have a hard time justifying wind stance
as I can’t keep up with ki generation using every strike in wind.

The incoming healing from fists of light also “feels” less. Certain
quests that used to be easy now require occasional potion use
as the fists healing no longer keeps up with damage.

As previously mentioned I’ll try timing how long it takes to kill
certain monsters/portals in each configuration, as well as note
general ki availability.




As a somewhat un-scientific test I tried bastion in sun stance
and constant madstone due to low AC. I beat my old record
by about 10 minutes. Portals went down without spawning
new devils, so I know that DPS was better than my previous
build where I would have to stop mid-portal to kill spawns.

I’m attributing a lot of the performance increase to higher strength
and the addition of void strikes. Void is also helping a lot where
stuns don’t land very well or against stun immune monsters.


Void also supposedly works in epic (haven’t tested yet) so
that will be a bonus, as all my monk does is run shroud, tod,
and epic.


Oh, previous version:

12
18-->all levels, finesse build
13
14 (I know, noobish but I thought I wanted skills)
13
8

GM wind only


Current lamannia version:

15-->all levels, str build
15
15 +3 con tome
8
14
8

GM Sun, Earth, and full void line

[Hokonoso]

Regarding human – Noted on the healing amp. I would probably
do the same in those circumstances. My monk is a halfling,
however, so I tried lowering the guile line to get void. The verdict
is still out in my mind, but I’m leaning toward void atm.


Regarding sets – I have both oremi and shintao, and greatly
prefer shintao. The only time oremi comes out is during tod
part three to keep earth grasp on everyone. Shintao is even
more important now that wearing it allows me to use my GEOB
and still break DR. (much better than crummy devouts)


Regarding wind stance – I’m curious now to time beating a portal
or perhaps the troll near bastion. It would be interesting to see
if wind stance with earth strikes is higher DPS than sun with
earth and void. I’ll have to try that out this weekend sometime.


Regarding sun vs wind – I have a hard time justifying wind stance
as I can’t keep up with ki generation using every strike in wind.

The incoming healing from fists of light also “feels” less. Certain
quests that used to be easy now require occasional potion use
as the fists healing no longer keeps up with damage.

As previously mentioned I’ll try timing how long it takes to kill
certain monsters/portals in each configuration, as well as note
general ki availability.




As a somewhat un-scientific test I tried bastion in sun stance
and constant madstone due to low AC. I beat my old record
by about 10 minutes. Portals went down without spawning
new devils, so I know that DPS was better than my previous
build where I would have to stop mid-portal to kill spawns.

I’m attributing a lot of the performance increase to higher strength
and the addition of void strikes. Void is also helping a lot where
stuns don’t land very well or against stun immune monsters.


Void also supposedly works in epic (haven’t tested yet) so
that will be a bonus, as all my monk does is run shroud, tod,
and epic.


Oh, previous version:

12
18-->all levels, finesse build
13
14 (I know, noobish but I thought I wanted skills)
13
8

GM wind only


Current lamannia version:

15-->all levels, str build
15
15 +3 con tome
8
14
8

GM Sun, Earth, and full void line

ill do more testing and prob end up with sun since im geared for sun (current live stats are 38str standing) and the 25% heal amp will be great with 60% from talents, 30% from epic gloves, and 10/20% from dt, so that alone should make it more desirable. also this build is just plain fun so i already know dps will be less than current live dark build but i got some nice GEOB handwraps so it should still be good.

and can you beat +5 holy holy burst shocking burst icy burst flaming burst force ritual metalline handwraps of pure good?

[Odin's_Hugin]

ill never even try the touch of death as i tank and perfer hps to 1 single ability that may help me kill stuff a little faster.

You, sir, has learned your lesson well.

[Resilian]

I'm a little confused at the title of this thread. Were you a dark monk that switched to light on lamma? I'm currently a dark monk. I switched from the metaru build back to a dex build in order to give myself more wis. Current stats are 14, 17, 17, 8, 14, 6 (WF TR). Plans are to be GM wind and GM earth using ToD/Stunning Fist. I guess I will just wait to see how ToD turns out on Lamma. Shintao seems really appealing because Shintao 3 + void strikes + my +4 Vicious Handwraps of GEOB sounds pretty tempting, but I don't know if losing ToD is detrimental to my dps in comparison. :X

[Hokonoso]

I'm a little confused at the title of this thread. Were you a dark monk that switched to light on lamma? I'm currently a dark monk. I switched from the metaru build back to a dex build in order to give myself more wis. Current stats are 14, 17, 17, 8, 14, 6 (WF TR). Plans are to be GM wind and GM earth using ToD/Stunning Fist. I guess I will just wait to see how ToD turns out on Lamma. Shintao seems really appealing because Shintao 3 + void strikes + my +4 Vicious Handwraps of GEOB sounds pretty tempting, but I don't know if losing ToD is detrimental to my dps in comparison. :X

yes a fully geared human dark monk tr on live that went to lammaland and LR'd to light monk with some wis.

[Hokonoso]

You, sir, has learned your lesson well.

funny you say this cause my current live incarnation of hoko loses about 30-50 dps by not hitting touch of death, and since im over 400 dps i dont think that is enough to care about. the abililty is nice cause it allowed me to get aggro at the start of a fight and have other dps go all out from the very beginning instead of waiting a little while before they could attack. just a minor inconvenience but still one for those at endgame that tank. im switching to shintao because it is more fun, not because my dps is lacking or im crying over the touch of death nerf. currently on live NO MONK ABILITIES get double or triple strikes anymore, this includes touch of death, all specials, smite etc... the last lammaland build broke that little thing so no idea what this means for us in the future but i do know it makes our attacks lower our dps than simple auto-attack at endgame when you got 8-10 burst effects across your screen.

[oweieie]

funny you say this cause my current live incarnation of hoko loses about 30-50 dps by not hitting touch of death, and since im over 400 dps i dont think that is enough to care about.

50 dps x 8 melee = 400 DPS lost or they pull aggro which is almost like having an entire extra melee there. I think that should be enough to care about, don't you?

As for 400 DPS while tanking... http://forums.ddo.com/showpost.php?p=2354059&postcount=1 Please show your work without sneak attack and with realistic bursts wrt mob resistance and a metalline wrap. Other classes can break 500, and monk can break 400 with sneak attack while not tanking if they have enough strength and use ToD, but breaking 400 without ToD while tanking. Hmmm.


the abililty is nice cause it allowed me to get aggro at the start of a fight and have other dps go all out from the very beginning instead of waiting a little while before they could attack.

********. They have to cut back their damage or they'll strip aggro off you easily unless their damage sucks compared to yours which would only happen if you have a top monk and they have an at best average melee.