Which Animal Path?

[Khurse]

Are most of you super ultimate monks using?

Right now I'm set up clever monkey 4, figuring resists never hurt, and the trap bonus is situationally useful, and the stance has no real drawbacks.

On seperate runs with different monks though I've been told I should switch to faithful hound for the to hit bonus, tortoise for the concentration and hp bonus, and crane for the KI.

I don't understand why crane would be good (-4 fort save for 4 more KI points on crits doesn't seem like a balance to me) but the other two seem like they might be better than monkey for the 18-20 stuff.

Any opinions/thoughts/ discussions on the above or why we should be able to get a "Get Over Here!" move are appreciated!

[REALb0r3d]

My thoughts...
Crane would be if you were Dark path and needed to spam FoD and a full hotbar of strikes and finishers. I'd say you only really need it for a split TBH.

Faithful hound would be for any build lacking in to-hit.

Both if these choices would AFAIC be heavily affected by
1) epics and elite high level quests and whether you're doing them
2) weighted wraps and whether you have them
3) your build to hit and whether you... are

If you're at the end of your build and running epics alot, you have weighted wraps, and you're a dark path monk, I'd say crane for Ki generation.
If all these apply (dark or light monk) to you and your build is having trouble landing hits, faithful hound (just make sure to flank).

Otherwise the energy resistance from monkey stacks and isn't bad.
Tortoise is a waste of AP generally as you can get alot more HP from toughness ENH for what you spend.

[Mobeius]

I personally use Clever Monkey...

[Pithrin]

I leveled using Tortoise and then when I hit cap I reset my enhancements and set up Monkey.

The HPs were nice leveling up but they were never really an issue while on the Light path.

I took PA early but didn't really start leaving it on until I hit Sands. The +hit wasn't a concern.

I like Monkey and the resists and have no desire to change it. But I'm end-game content only, I'm not running any Epics yet so I will be interested to hear from some of the Epic questing monks.

Hope this helps.