Monks still need help!

[Azmode]

[QUOTE=Credinus;2609633]There sure are a lot of "I don't use it, so I don't see a problem with it" types of replies here, which pretty much verifies that the stuff mention needs a boost if most people don't find them useful enough to even bother with.

You my friend are right on. Time after time I see people having that attitude. It's the whole entire problem with the Monk class as there are so many available options but only a few are actually viable without making a gimped character.

I do like Faithful Hound at lower levels. Definitely helps when fighting enemies of higher CR on elite. Sort of balances out everything when I have power attack on. Maybe you meant Tenacious Badger? Know THAT animal path is worthless.

For some of the above posters, I agree - except with one issue. Your main line of handwrap aquisition should come from the AH or a Broker/Pawn dealer if you are extremely lucky. I'm sorry but I've never gotten any handwraps worth using even while doing hard quests on elite when I shouldn't even be doing them on normal. I mean, I doubt you'll find any +1 Holy handwraps of Pure Good/Bleeding level 6 in Gwylans Stand, but defintiely possible in the AH. (give me a tell, I'm on Khyber if you do hehe).

Also - when my Monk hits 4-8, then 10-12 he can out DPS almost most, and definitely usually always tops the kill charts. At level 4 he has "Shock of Bleeding handwraps", and a pair of Holy Handwraps. Then at level 10 he has +4 Holy Handwraps of Bleeding. Once I get him a pair of Holy of Bleeding/Pure good level 4 I'm sure he could do superb DPS in the level ranges of 4-12.

IMO, screw weighted handwraps until they effect the DC of stunning blow. The strength of a Monks DPS comes from the massive amount of attacks they get - so obviously gaining any weapons early on like Holy of Pure Good(3d6 total) is nice. Bleeding I find is definitely very nice, and works against almost anything - in fact I find it works on more enemies then pure good with adding +1d8 damage instead of +1d6. Construct, skeletons, and anything that obviously doesn't bleed kind of sucks - but that's why you should be carrying some acid of "insert here".

[TheBlueFox]

Weighted handwraps are one of the BEST ways to get DPS out of a monk I would say. Bursters of weighted allow monks to stun and destroy an enemy quickly, sometimes from the first hit with a lucky Stunning fist. Having used straight damage, Stat damage, and weighted, Weighted seems to be the best for me once you can get 4% or 5%. anything below that, stick with damage.

there is absolutely NO reason why a mace of weighted adds to my stunning fist, while wraps dont. Yes, a weapon that does not allow you to use stunning fist, adds to it's DC. Handwraps are broken in this regard, fix them now.

I personally dont care if they bring the servers down for an hour to apply this SINGLE patch to this single weapon type rather than waiting for a patch for multiple things.

[Credinus]

Admittedly, I exaggerated about the Faithful Hound path. It does have a use, but compared to the others, it's not that great. Tenacious Badger is fairly weak, as well, but it can do a support/healing monk wonders if they have a high max health at least. Hound and badger paths are in the same boat as any stance besides wind stance: they have their uses, but as a whole, are vastly inferior in the long run.

As far as handwraps go, I agree that the AH is pretty useful. Unfortunately, I've never been able to find any decent handwraps on any of the brokers (Cannith server), and I check about every other day. 4-5% weighted handwraps are quite useful since we can string so many attacks together so fast that it procs often enough to be worthwhile. But still, it needs to add to the stunning fist DC.

Personally, I wouldn't mind if the next update after the current planned one introduced a short quest chain pitting players against a bunch of chaotic monks of the Mockery and bringing out a handful of new monk-oriented named items to the game. Sure, everyone that doesn't have a monk is going to cry out, "That's a terrible idea, don't make a quest chain with items mainly oriented to one class." And to them I say: "You have every other quest in the game oriented towards you, so you go back in your hole and stay out of our monk forum, jerk." Seriously, going by weapons and armor only, we don't have many named items at all. 1, maybe 2, named kamas; 2 named shurikens (neither of which is particularly useful); 1 named quarterstaff (could be more, most of the named staves I can think of are caster-oriented or summon clickies); 2 named handwraps (one of which is pretty useless); and 3 or 4 named armors.

Also, it'd be nice to see a 25% item defense enhancement made available to monks; I personally think every class should have that, though. Wear and tear isn't a problem in the mid-late levels since you have plenty of money for repairs and probably have all of your gear bound and attuned, but those low levels can get expensive. Especially if you make a veteran character, which for whatever reason starts with absolutely no money. Run into some bad luck in your first couple of quests, and you might not be able to afford repairs on those somewhat pricey starting items.

[QuantumFX]

I would love to see some “Must have” named handwraps (ala Radiance II for rogues) that aren’t disappointingly bad in comparison to random loot.

Examples:

Handwraps of Might: +5 Force Burst, Weighted 5%, handwraps of Improved Destruction. (Contrast this to dual Radience II's or dual Tenderizers

The 3 Disciplines: +5 Metalline Handwraps, +1 Exceptional DEX, +1 Exceptional STR, +1 Exceptional CON, +2 Exceptional WIS, Insight AC bonus +4, Henshin Mystic, Ninja Spy, Shintao Monk, Superior Potency I (Contrast this to Min II wraps)

[AylinIsAwesome]

I just wanted to respond to something RobinB said:

Monk rewards list are saturated with handwraps, quarterstaffs, kamas, and vestments. IMO obtaining the optimal weapons is easier on a pure-class monk than any other class.

Earlier today I ran a quest, and my end rewards were:

+2 Handwraps
+1 Handwraps of Reptillian Bane
+1 Quarterstaff of Power 3
+1 Vicious Kama of Righteousness
Sacred Outfit
Fire Guard Outfit of Stability
Robe of Power 3


So yeah, some really good reward loot for me there... Only the handwraps even look useful for me at first glance, then take into account I carry a +1 Pure Good Q-stave, +2 Axiomatic Handwraps and +1 Weighted 2% Handwraps, and yeah...

[AylinIsAwesome]

*Snip*

Handwraps of Might: +5 Force Burst, Weighted 5%, handwraps of Improved Destruction. (Contrast this to dual Radience II's or dual Tenderizers

*Snip*

ZOMG give me these handwraps already Turbine!

[NXPlasmid]

meh.

[Azmode]

Weighted handwraps are one of the BEST ways to get DPS out of a monk I would say. Bursters of weighted allow monks to stun and destroy an enemy quickly, sometimes from the first hit with a lucky Stunning fist. Having used straight damage, Stat damage, and weighted, Weighted seems to be the best for me once you can get 4% or 5%. anything below that, stick with damage.

there is absolutely NO reason why a mace of weighted adds to my stunning fist, while wraps dont. Yes, a weapon that does not allow you to use stunning fist, adds to it's DC. Handwraps are broken in this regard, fix them now.

I personally dont care if they bring the servers down for an hour to apply this SINGLE patch to this single weapon type rather than waiting for a patch for multiple things.

I'm sorry but until you can receive the higher level Weighted it's really not worth it IMO. I STILL feel you do more damage having Holy of Pure Good/Bleeding, depending on what you are fighting.

Once Weighted effects the DC of Stunning Fist I'll change my mind.

I did have a dream the other night of having a + Weighted Thundering Handwraps of Maiming. With Holy Burst ToD rings hehe...

[Junts]

I'm sorry but until you can receive the higher level Weighted it's really not worth it IMO. I STILL feel you do more damage having Holy of Pure Good/Bleeding, depending on what you are fighting.

Once Weighted effects the DC of Stunning Fist I'll change my mind.

I did have a dream the other night of having a + Weighted Thundering Handwraps of Maiming. With Holy Burst ToD rings hehe...

At very high levels weighted 5% is significantly faster as long as you are breaking the mob's dr as well, especially for epics, but really for hard/elite amrath quests too.

[DankTallstag]

if everyone quits trying to build monks with super high ac and designs them for dps they will ddo damage with any class in game. they do not need help.

I agree with this. People must not understand how to use their feats. Im not getting into it, but monks absolutely kick ass right now lol.

Having said that, I agree we should have greensteel wraps.

[Blagrak]

Maybe it's just me, but I'd like to see more ki generated during meditation. I only get two per rest at L13 and each generates like 24-30 ki maybe out of a 160+ bar. *** is up with that? Why can't they generate like half a bar or more? Would it really be that overpowered?

[JimmyHoffa1]

So, this thread made me want to make a rare post on this forum.

I currently run a 16 pure human monk, and love the versatility of him. From what I've seen, monks are not meant to be pure DPS, they tend to focus more on "utility" DPS and survivability. My monk can scout ahead with superior speed, engage the enemy with a variety of stunning, paralyzing, cursespewing, destruction, disruption, vorpal, banishing, Fists of Light, etc. effects, leaving those mobs for the slow melees. While they are cleaning up, my monk can spot and spring multiple traps on the path, lowering the chances that people unfamiliar with the quest will run into the giant spinny spikey death trap that awaits around the corner.

Couple that with decent self-healing abilities and he turns into a great Survivor type character. As far as the buff duration is concerned, I think that they are pretty well designed. Any decent monk SHOULD be able to manage their Ki in a manner that allows them to keep multiple buffs going. IMHO it's not my job to keep you buffed but I AM able to contribute to any particularly hard fights that may be encountered. Aligning the heavens is used at the beginning of quests to help with buffing, after that it's up to the caster to manage his own blue bar. Dance of Clouds is nice, but you better be close when I drop it, cause I am not slowing down just so you can mooch my abilities.

The constant focus on DPS distresses me, because I believe that many ppl dismiss monk as a class choice, or relegate them to a splash, due to all the negativity surrounding their damage capabilities. So far, I have not been disappointed by the damage output of my monk. I rarely LEAD the kill count, but anyone concerned by trivialities such as that need to refocus their priorities. I run PUGS almost exclusively, ranging from new people, to full groups of TR's, and have almost never received any complaint as to the effectiveness of my monk. Do I wish he was an uber damage dealer? Of course, but I refuse to give up all the other advantages they have to meet that end.

Apologies in advance for any grammatical errors contained in this post, it has been awhile since I've had to write anything this long

tl;dr: Monks are great Survivors/Utility Melees, Quit focusing on DPS alone

[thewildunknown]

Honestly, I think playing as a level 20 monk is boring. There's very little to do and the character reward for reaching level 20 is hardly worth it.

[Letrii]

Maybe it's just me, but I'd like to see more ki generated during meditation. I only get two per rest at L13 and each generates like 24-30 ki maybe out of a 160+ bar. *** is up with that? Why can't they generate like half a bar or more? Would it really be that overpowered?

Max ki generated from meditation is a function of your concentration.

[ezgoezit]

Max ki generated from meditation is a function of your concentration.

As a lvl 15 monk I find the ki generated from meditation lacking also. I have maxed concentration and some of the best +concentration items avalable in the game. At best 1 meditation will allow you to perform a couple/few ki actions if you get caught low for some reason.

As far as monks still needing more help; I really look forward to the changes coming in update 3, but even if those changes help out monks I really, really, really would like to see weighted wraps fixed before I will consider monks "good to go".

Ez

[Aganthor]

I'm also new to the monk class, but it seems that it would be great if you could wear two separate handwraps for each hand when taking the TWF line of feats.

I don't know if that could be possible but it would help a lot in the dps department!

[Credinus]

As a lvl 15 monk I find the ki generated from meditation lacking also. I have maxed concentration and some of the best +concentration items avalable in the game. At best 1 meditation will allow you to perform a couple/few ki actions if you get caught low for some reason.

Fully agreed. I found myself essentially never using meditation after about level 6 unless I happened to be under 10 Ki and needed a wholeness of body, or for sitting in the brawling pit at the Wayward Lobster. There really needs to be a modifier added to meditation based on your level. I've got 31 concentration (with a +10 item, of course) at level 11, and it's a waste of time for me to sit there and meditate to gain about 15-30 Ki.

[Mobeius]

I used meditation either at the begining of a tough adventure where buffs count or when I had Rise of the Phoenix, sometimes meditation was needed to rez.