Henshin Mystic

[HastyPudding]

I've had my eye on this PrE since I first heard about it. I decided that, when the enhancement pass finally came, I'd TR my acrobat into a mystic (because I already have plenty of staves and such) and test it out as a pure 20 monk build and see how it flies.

I'm just not entirely sure how to play it...

1 - Is it a melee dps? Is it a clicky-based spellcasting monk? Both? There's plenty of force/fire abilities and they do gain plenty of fire/force spellpower via the core abilities, but they also have the line of enhancements for quarterstaves. So, attack in melee while spamming your fire/force abilities for more damage?

2 - Sun or Ocean? I can't decide on which build/stance to really focus on. Going the strength/sun route would give you dps and lots of ki gain while fighting. Going the wisdom/ocean way would give you lots of ki regeneration, saves, and dodge, but take a -2 penalty to strength. I had thought of going with lots of wisdom and staying in ocean stance, getting high dodge and saves, decent AC, and trying to see if you can make mystic into a hybrid caster/melee rather than a melee that uses a few ki abilities; this would, however, lower damage output because of lower strength.

3 - Cleave and great cleave...I'm not sure about these, now. I've been playing with my acrobat and it just seems these two abilities aren't as useful as before, as they can sometimes lower your damage output due to your quickstrike ability's amazing doublestrike bonus which, if timed right, can be on you 100% of the time. Mystic has quickstrike, as well. So would it be worth going into cleave/great cleave? Stick to the THF line? TWF line seems out of place if you're going mystic. Monks (and acrobats) have plenty of attacks now without worrying about having two more that take up feat slots (and mystic gets another slot opened due to not using stunning fist).

[Brother_Solar]

Just from taking a gander at the enhancements, I'm going to venture the guess that it will primarily be played as a melee DPS. You do gain some castery abilities, but they will be weak compared to a real caster, and won't be worth much in elite quests. You can buff your fire and force damage "spells" by gearing for spell power, but even so I don't think they'll do enough damage to make much of a dent in an epic elite monster.

Henshin is probably going to be run as a THF crit machine. Crits on a quarterstaff, you say? That's crazy talk! But not so! After you get to the top tier of Henshin and pick up the +1 critical threat range and +1 critical damage multiplier, you start getting into some interesting territory. For your stance, you'll want Earth for another bonus to critical multiplier. With Improved Critical: Bludgeoning, on a normal quarterstaff, you'll be running 18-20 crit range with x4 crit damage. That's before figuring in an epic destiny or Overwhelming Critical (and yes, for that matter, do pick up Cleave and Great Cleave). Get yourself a bigger badder quarterstaff at high levels with an inherently better crit range, and crit even more!

If you haven't picked out a race yet, I'd go with Half-Orc and pump up the Two-Handed hit and damage line as well.

Essentially, you'd be turning a monk into a low HP barbarian with Improved Evasion and Quivering Palm. I'm not sure that I'd go that way myself, but I've at least toyed with the idea. You'd lose out on Stunning Fist, which is one of my favorite things about a monk. Also, being crit reliant for big numbers, fighting undead and constructs could be more of a chore.

[HatsuharuZ]

I haven't tried it myself, but being able to put out good damage with a q-staff to fill up your ki bar, then start blasting away with your fire-based ki abilities. Due to the nature of ki generation, it doesn't seem feasible to do only fire or only q-staff fighting.

Are you up against fire-immune enemies? Beat them down with your q-staff.

Are you up against enemies that are immune to critical hits? Kill them with fire.

Also, I would suggest going the light path at level 3, and then putting some points into Shintao. It's a bare-handed tree, but it does provide some bonuses that Henshin lacks, along with the anti-tainted creatures and banishing abilities. Also, there is an enhancement in Shintao that increases the benefits from Earth Stance, which Brother_Solar recommended in his post.

I would also suggest using fire stance when generating ki, water stance when DCs are casting, and earth stance when taking agro. You'll find it useful to switch stances depending on the situation.

[HastyPudding]

Sadly, the more I review the mystic tree, the more it just looks like a quarterstaff monk with a few semi-useful, flashy ki abilities. It's very gimmicky. If they wanted to be serious, the ki abilities would be much stronger, making up for the lack of monk-friendly spellpower items and lack of DC's.

I rapidly feel my hopes for the mystic dwindling. ._.

[oliocean]

If you haven't picked out a race yet, I'd go with Half-Orc and pump up the Two-Handed hit and damage line as well.


I also like the idea of a Quarterstaff swinging Half-Orc monk.
Maybe not for epic end game, but at least to grab a Monk past life.
The major problem I see (with my very limited Monk knowledge) is self sufficiency.

Has anybody an idea, how this toon could get enough self healing capabilities?

[Maelodic]

I have done some extensive testing with the Henshin.

A few random tidbits, and then some strategies for soloing and being in a party:
Essentially the only move you get worth using is Cauldron of Fire, which is great DPS when fighting a boss as long as you stay still. Don't worry if you get displaced, the Cauldron will stay up as long as you do not move.

Henshin also makes a pure monk's fire-fire-fire finisher really good, especially paired with some extra fire spell power. 20d6 with spell power is nothing to sneeze at. Don't do this when facing a single enemy, but with multiple enemies it's much like a rune arm charge.

Do note you can take the Henshin Tier 5 abilities and still take the Ninja Spy capstone/DEX to-hit/damage enhancements and this will effect Sireth, which will give you quite an edge endgame for the extra critical threat/multiplier. Going STR based and going for overwhelming critical helps this quite a bit, especially when paired with Earth Stance, but you're sacrificing (in my opinion) far too much to do that, namely Quivering Palm/EiN DC, if you decide to go that route, though your Void Strike will still hit for a ton and occasionally wipe people off the earth.

You'll most likely want Cleave and Great Cleave. Power attack works really well with two handers and Cleave and Great Cleave are huge aoes (with quarterstaff) and hit a whole lot of people for a whole lot of damage, and can crit. There's not a lot of worth in the THF line, so you should be abundant in feats anyway.


I've found a few strategies that work:
Soloing you'll want to pick the Anti-Dark (healing) move and spam the **** out of that. It will keep you very alive, and allows you to solo most things with ease, but bosses tend to be a pain with this strategy. Monks do have a lot of self healing options, however, and while in specific stances can be very tanky. I believe Henshins to be more geared toward team play as they don't have any way to solo bosses nearly as well as the other monks do apart from spamming void strike (Ninjas have ToD and a large amount of poison DoT options, Shintaos have tons of self healing and tankiness and can usually win through patience)
Cauldron of Fire doesn't usually make up for this as you lose a lot of DPS in the inability to move.
As most of the goodies in Henshin come from both the tier 5 abilities, and being very invested in the tree, there's not a whole lot you can do from that.

In a party, I truly believe Henshins shine, especially with a team that is self sufficient and does a whole lot of damage. Why?

This is what you do:
Grab 3/3 Embrace the Void
Grab 1/1 Focus
And grab Cauldron of Fire and as much fire spell power and (this may not be possible) spell incite as you can get

Sit in the middle of the room near the boss, make sure your team-mates know to stand next to you. Place down your cauldron and constantly meditate. This will increase the team's damage by a massive amount and will allow you to both tank a ton of damage (100 every 3 seconds) and deal damage via Cauldron. The damage you give to your team members will be huge, and if you can manage to take agro, which is unlikely but possible, nobody will be taking much damage at all.


I was disappointed overall with Henshin, and was super excited for it, but don't let that stop you from making one really, really BA Monk.

[FuzzyDuck81]

My own is a 12monk/6fighter/2arty dragonmarked elf, purely a stick-user DPS build
Feats:
Toughness
PA
Cleave
Great cleave
2hf
i2hf
g2hf
IC:B
Dragonmark
dodge
mobility
spring attack
extend
dark path
overwhelming criticals
...cant remember what the 2nd epic feat was :)

Enhancements-wise: (i think i remember most of them)
Racial: 1st 4 core enhancements, dragonmarks (but not binding shadows).
Henshin: All the stick ones, fists of iron, monkey path, lighting the candle, embrace the void & balance in dawn (shadows cannot exist without light).
Ninja: core up to shadow veil, some sneak attack, acrobatic for the dodge & agility to increase dodge cap
Kensai: martial arts, reed in the wind, improved dodge
Shintao: core one, ki shout
Defender: +PRR & +Saves stance boost, item defence (just enough to qualify for the stance)

It hits hard & fast, and is hard to hit with some PRR... destiny-wise i havent actually tried going back into dreadnaught (the main one) yet since I'm busy levelling other ones, but it already hits harder & is more durable than pre-U19 so I'm loving it even more than before :)

[Pewf]

I play mine like a thief acrobat, granted - I was going for the gimpest build possible just for the fun of it. It's actually really fun so far.

12 Monk/7 Cleric/1 Rogue - Warforged

Henshin Mystic, with thief acrobat Qstaff speed, and Divine Might is really fun.

[HastyPudding]

I have done some extensive testing with the Henshin.

A few random tidbits, and then some strategies for soloing and being in a party:
Essentially the only move you get worth using is Cauldron of Fire, which is great DPS when fighting a boss as long as you stay still. Don't worry if you get displaced, the Cauldron will stay up as long as you do not move.

Henshin also makes a pure monk's fire-fire-fire finisher really good, especially paired with some extra fire spell power. 20d6 with spell power is nothing to sneeze at. Don't do this when facing a single enemy, but with multiple enemies it's much like a rune arm charge.

Do note you can take the Henshin Tier 5 abilities and still take the Ninja Spy capstone/DEX to-hit/damage enhancements and this will effect Sireth, which will give you quite an edge endgame for the extra critical threat/multiplier. Going STR based and going for overwhelming critical helps this quite a bit, especially when paired with Earth Stance, but you're sacrificing (in my opinion) far too much to do that, namely Quivering Palm/EiN DC, if you decide to go that route, though your Void Strike will still hit for a ton and occasionally wipe people off the earth.

You'll most likely want Cleave and Great Cleave. Power attack works really well with two handers and Cleave and Great Cleave are huge aoes (with quarterstaff) and hit a whole lot of people for a whole lot of damage, and can crit. There's not a lot of worth in the THF line, so you should be abundant in feats anyway.


I've found a few strategies that work:
Soloing you'll want to pick the Anti-Dark (healing) move and spam the **** out of that. It will keep you very alive, and allows you to solo most things with ease, but bosses tend to be a pain with this strategy. Monks do have a lot of self healing options, however, and while in specific stances can be very tanky. I believe Henshins to be more geared toward team play as they don't have any way to solo bosses nearly as well as the other monks do apart from spamming void strike (Ninjas have ToD and a large amount of poison DoT options, Shintaos have tons of self healing and tankiness and can usually win through patience)
Cauldron of Fire doesn't usually make up for this as you lose a lot of DPS in the inability to move.
As most of the goodies in Henshin come from both the tier 5 abilities, and being very invested in the tree, there's not a whole lot you can do from that.

In a party, I truly believe Henshins shine, especially with a team that is self sufficient and does a whole lot of damage. Why?

This is what you do:
Grab 3/3 Embrace the Void
Grab 1/1 Focus
And grab Cauldron of Fire and as much fire spell power and (this may not be possible) spell incite as you can get

Sit in the middle of the room near the boss, make sure your team-mates know to stand next to you. Place down your cauldron and constantly meditate. This will increase the team's damage by a massive amount and will allow you to both tank a ton of damage (100 every 3 seconds) and deal damage via Cauldron. The damage you give to your team members will be huge, and if you can manage to take agro, which is unlikely but possible, nobody will be taking much damage at all.


I was disappointed overall with Henshin, and was super excited for it, but don't let that stop you from making one really, really BA Monk.


That actually sounds...fun. I wasn't looking for a powerhouse dps monk, just something fun that isn't Shintao (I have a light monk already and LOVE his new stuff) or Ninja Spy (just not my cup of tea).