Help with a Ninja Spy Build

[Bacab]

I need 2 Monk lives and I have a lot of nice Shortswords from Swashbuckler lives...

Is there a pure Ninja Spy build that anyone can recommend?

Also, I kept reading about how monks were nerfed. Can someone elaborate on that?

Oh, I was looking mainly at a melee build, not a thrower build.

Thanks!

EDIT: and if there is anyway it could be Warforged and it not cripple the build, that would be a cool bonus as well.

[Vish]

Heyas b,
I put up a Strahd killer build,
Over in theory crafting the celestial monk
Buried somewhere in the middle I think
Idea was to be sunsword bearer in raid

[unbongwah]

Also, I kept reading about how monks were nerfed. Can someone elaborate on that?
The short snarky response: the devs felt endgame Shintao builds were overperforming, so they nerfed the Henshin tree by greatly reducing its Melee Power in Update 38 (http://ddowiki.com/page/Update_38_Release_Notes).




Henshin Mystic core Melee Power has been adjusted from (10/10/10/10/10/25) to (3/3/3/3/3/15) to bring it closer to other Enhancement trees.
Monk Shintao's Touch of the Void Dragon now gives +5 Melee Power.
Monk Shintao's To Seek Perfection now gives +15 Melee Power.


I mean yeah they also nerfed Shintao, but the net effect is Henshin staff builds (already the lower DPS option) got a lot worse (net loss of 45 MP) while the unarmed Shintao builds lost some DPS but are still the best pure monk option. The Henshin nerfs also affected Ninja builds which went heavy into Henshin for extra MP, of course.

My drow ninja build should still work fine. But if you just want a monk PL, I'd probably do a monk / fighter hybrid just so you can take Strike w/No Thought and gain +1 crit multiplier a lot sooner than lvl 20 (Ninja cap).

[Selvera]

I've run quite a few "ninja spy" lives of various builds; however unfortunately they don't meet your requirements, since they're all multi classed and only one of them uses shortswords at all levels.

For example; my "speedster" build, which I made to overperform as a melee levels 1-20 (mildly successful at that), utilizes the tiefling's assassin blade and the ninja spy tree to get to level 12 quickly/effectively. Then swaps over to heavy investment in the kensai tree to be centered while dual wielding khopeshes from levels 12-19. The final level split being 6 monk/ 6 fighter/ 8 any class.

But more pertinent to you is likely my Ninja Healer (https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/493977-Ninja-Healer) build, which was my creation when I decided the state of the game had left orb-based swashbuckler healers so far behind in the dust that I needed to find a different build for my shortsword-based swashbuckler/healer. So I came up with a ninja build which let me utilize my array of shortswords in a fun build. Unfortunately, not a monk pastlife build. However most of the AP split is in monk, so you could consider something like that as a basis for your build. (warpiest AP could be shifted into warforged racial AP)