Shintao Monk

[Brother_Solar]

First I'll post the useful information without my opinion:

Shintao Monk I
Prerequisites: 16 Action Points spent, Monk level 6, Path of Harmonious Balance: Fists of Light, Stunning Fist, Monk Concentration II, Monk Improved Recovery I, and one of: Cleave, Combat Expertise, Diehard, Discipline, Luck of Heroes, Precision, Resilience, or Self Sufficient
You guide others on the path of enlightenment, leading by example. You gain the ability to expend ki to smite evil creatures, and can create a Protection from Evil effect, warding allies from domination and improving defenses against evil opponents. You unarmed attacks now bypass Byeshk damage reduction

Shintao Monk: Smite Evil
Ki Cost: 15
Target: Foe, Directional, Breakable
Cooldown: 30 seconds
You have the ability to expend ki to deal devistating blows in melee against evil creatures. You gain twice your Wisdom modifier to your attack roll and a damage bonus based on your monk level. This ability counts as a Light move

Shintao Monk: Protection from Evil
Ki Cost: 5
Target: Friend, Self
Cooldown: 3 seconds
Duration: 1 minute per (monk?) level
At your touch, a magical barrier is created that wards a target from attacks by evil creatures, granting a +2 deflection bonus to AC and a +2 resistance bonus to saves against attacks from evil creatures. The target is also warded from magical and mental control and compulsions. This ability counts as a Light move.


Shintao Monk II
Prerequisites: 42 Action Points spent, Monk level 12, Shintao Monk I, and one of: Rise of the Phoenix or Monk Improved Recovery III
Invaders from other realities have learned to fear your prowess. You gain the ability to expend ki to dismiss outsiders, and your unarmed attacks now bypass Cold Iron damage reduction.

Shintao Monk: Dismissal
Ki Cost: 25
Target: Foe, Directional, Breakable
Save: 10 + Wisdom Modifier + Monk Level (Will)
Cooldown: 15 seconds
You perform a melee attack that attempts to force an extra planar enemy back to its proper plane. A successful Will save negates this effect. (DC = 10 + Wisdom Modifier + your monk level). This ability counts as a Light move.

[QuantumFX]

Thank You! Stuck at work and was dying to see this info!

[Brother_Solar]

Now I'll post my opinion (which is largely disgruntled).

Shintao I was mostly not worthwhile. Shintao II is the same. Monk Improved Healing III I'm willing to take, but Rise of the Phoenix is definitely not worth the AP expense.

Cold Iron bypass is nice, but not nice enough to bother meeting the requirements of Shintao I. The Dismissal strike ability is nice (it has a good DC and could be quite useful in many quests), but again, not enough for me to force a spec into Shintao I.

That's it. There's nothing else for me to even type about. Shintao II got two abilities: a Dismissal strike on a 15 second timer, and Cold Iron bypass.


Oh, I will comment that the 30 second timer on the Smite make the ability worthless. It's not even worth the bar space. Sure, I crit for well over 200 on a stunned evil mob, but once every 30 seconds? No, Earth IV is much, much better, and I can't have both.

[J1NG]

Now I'll post my opinion (which is largely disgruntled).

Shintao I was mostly not worthwhile. Shintao II is the same. Monk Improved Healing III I'm willing to take, but Rise of the Phoenix is definitely not worth the AP expense.

Cold Iron bypass is nice, but not nice enough to bother meeting the requirements of Shintao I. The Dismissal strike ability is nice (it has a good DC and could be quite useful in many quests), but again, not enough for me to force a spec into Shintao I.

That's it. There's nothing else for me to even type about. Shintao II got two abilities: a Dismissal strike on a 15 second timer, and Cold Iron bypass.


Oh, I will comment that the 30 second timer on the Smite make the ability worthless. It's not even worth the bar space. Sure, I crit for well over 200 on a stunned evil mob, but once very 30 seconds? No, Earth IV is much, much better, and I can't have both.

My thoughts are pretty much the same. Hence the phrase I've been saying "It's died a premature death".

Or maybe I should just say

"It's dead Jim"?

J1NG

[Aerendil]

This is when Eladrin will probably bust out Shintao III - all unarmed strikes are treated as metalline of pure good, and introduce exalted smites as the ki-fueled ability for that tier.

Right? Right?

/nudge nudge.

Work with me.

[Brother_Solar]

There's life Jim... but not as we know it.

[QuantumFX]

My Thoughts:

1) Whirling Steel Strike should be added to the list of “and one of:” feats. The Order of the Broken Blade is so in line with this PrE thematically that it’s not funny.

2) The Smite Evil effect should drop in Ki cost and cooldown timer at each tier. No need to do exalted smite like effects (so we don’t start stepping too far into paladin territory). But it has to be something that players will be willing to use often in combat.

3) The Dismissal ability is nice, against trash, but lacks majorly against boss creature. Turbine should add in a “If creature is not banished it takes 600 points of damage” effect to the strike. This brings Harmonious Balance monks more inline with Inevitable Dominion monks without neutering the ID monks. (Dismissal will only do it’s damage effect against extraplanars while Touch of Death will continue to affect everything.)

[Arkat]

Shintao I was mostly not worthwhile. Shintao II is the same. Monk Improved Healing III I'm willing to take, but Rise of the Phoenix is definitely not worth the AP expense.

Well, you don't have to take both. You can take one or the other. Guess which one practically ALL Shintao Monks will take???

[J1NG]

Well, you don't have to take both. You can take one or the other. Guess which one practically ALL Shintao Monks will take???

*excitedly* Oooh! Oooh! Let me guess!

Er... Is it... C?



Hey Turbine treats Monk players as dumb, might as well act like it.

Really, Turbine, want to know what wasted time, money and effort is? The Shintao Monk PrE. (Purely my opinion here, but hey it needs to be voiced. So many reasons why, but just look up the Monk threads on why. Don't want to derail too much here)

I know this is really beating the same horse all over again, so I'll just re-adjust that phrase...

"It's dead J1NG"

Hoping the Henshin Mystic doesn't die as quickly.

J1NG

[Brother_Solar]

Well, you don't have to take both. You can take one or the other. Guess which one practically ALL Shintao Monks will take???

Yep, I was just noting how lopsided the "options" were.


Oh, I should mention: although the Shintao Monk: Protection from Evil ability is supposed to count as a "Light" move, currently it does not. Casting it three times in a row did not bring up my Light:Light:Light finisher. The Smite and Dismissal abilities are working as advertised.

[vmsbass]

Don't forget to make sure that your smites are not robbing you of an attack. I did some testing with my pally unarmed smites and only one attack fires off when performing a smite. That is, no off hand attacks occur when a smite is fired. One more strike against this so far useless ability.

[Brother_Solar]

Don't forget to make sure that your smites are not robbing you of an attack. I did some testing with my pally unarmed smites and only one attack fires off when performing a smite. That is, no off hand attacks occur when a smite is fired. One more strike against this so far useless ability.

Are you certain this isn't just because of the changes to the Two Weapon Fighting feat line?

[WRONG]At any rate, the monk smites can go off once or twice, depending on if you get an off-hand proc. It could potentially go off 3 times if you are in Wind stance (one normal, one double-strike, and one off-hand).[/WRONG]

Further testing shows that the monk smites remove the chance for off hand attacks. Definitely just went down in value. A lot.

[Angelus_dead]

Shintao Monk II
Prerequisites: 42 Action Points spent, Monk level 12, Shintao Monk I, and one of: Rise of the Phoenix or Monk Improved Recovery III
Invaders from other realities have learned to fear your prowess. You gain the ability to expend ki to dismiss outsiders, and your unarmed attacks now bypass Cold Iron damage reduction.

Shintao II (and III) really needs Smite Evil to continue improving like it does for Paladins. The devs should remember that giving Paladins Exalted Smite was crucial to making those players feel like Smite Evil was worthwhile.

Shintao Smite Evil II should have +1 crit multiplier, +1 critical threat, and 25 second cooldown (5 less). The Ki cost should only increase by 0-1.
Shintao Smite Evil III would bring it to a total of +2 multiplier, threat, and 20 second cooldown.

That means the unarmed smite is like a 17-20/x4 weapon. That brings the extra damage from Smite Evil to a 75% chance of +67, a 10% chance of +418, and a 10% chance of +367 (assuming regular hit is 50). That's an average total of +128 damage, or 25% of what dark monks have been doing with TOD since level 9. If the devs feel an x4 attack with +67 damage is too good at killing a stunned monster, they could instead swap the +multiplier for more +threat, making it a 12-20/x2 attack instead.


PS. In addition, Shintao monks should get +1 use of Paladin Smite Evil, and stack Monk+Paladin levels for the purpose of Smite Evil damage from either class. They should probably also get an AC aura like paladins, but weaker.

[Aerendil]

^^ Yep, an improvement with the smite evil line would definitely be nice. As A_D mentioned, the light side definitely needs some form of ability to mirror the dark side's ToD.
Rise of the Phoenix doesn't even come close to being an equal to ToD. Especially given the fact that it's a readily available spell to 2 classes, and available to everyone in game via certain items (ring of the ancestors, cakes, etc.).

On a side note re: Monks, how have the new void strikes panned out? what is the damage on them, and is there a void X 3 finisher?
Has anyone tested out the void-dark-void charm, or the void-light-void buff?

Curious about those.

Also, has the dps loss been noticeable with 80% offhand attacks? Has lag been reduced at all?
Is doublestrike noticeable?

[Brother_Solar]

On a side note re: Monks, how have the new void strikes panned out? what is the damage on them, and is there a void X 3 finisher?
Has anyone tested out the void-dark-void charm, or the void-light-void buff?

Curious about those.

For the answer to some of these, you could check the other thread:

http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=252314

I split out the info so that we could discuss (i.e., QQ about) Shintao by itself.
There is no Void:Void:Void finisher currently.

[vmsbass]

Shintao II (and III) really needs Smite Evil to continue improving like it does for Paladins. The devs should remember that giving Paladins Exalted Smite was crucial to making those players feel like Smite Evil was worthwhile.

Shintao Smite Evil II should have +1 crit multiplier, +1 critical threat, and 25 second cooldown (5 less). The Ki cost should only increase by 0-1.
Shintao Smite Evil III would bring it to a total of +2 multiplier, threat, and 20 second cooldown.

That means the unarmed smite is like a 17-20/x4 weapon. That brings the extra damage from Smite Evil to a 75% chance of +67, a 10% chance of +418, and a 10% chance of +367 (assuming regular hit is 50). That's an average total of +128 damage, or 25% of what dark monks have been doing with TOD since level 9. If the devs feel an x4 attack with +67 damage is too good at killing a stunned monster, they could instead swap the +multiplier for more +threat, making it a 12-20/x2 attack instead.


PS. In addition, Shintao monks should get +1 use of Paladin Smite Evil, and stack Monk+Paladin levels for the purpose of Smite Evil damage from either class. They should probably also get an AC aura like paladins, but weaker.

Good suggestions, but I think the priority still should be ensuring that the Smite attack no longer eliminates the off hand attack, and that the extra damage is applied to this off hand attack they way it is for all other two weapon fighters. This of course only applies to those monks that use handwraps; which is massive majority I believe.

[Brother_Solar]

Nevermind, further testing shows that I was not observant enough with my initial testing. Using the Shintao Monk Smite does indeed eliminate your offhand attack proc chance.

[Coldin]

Smite was working on unarmed off-hand procs the same way that the elemental strikes do. There was only an 80% chance that it would work (GTWF), but I definitely saw some double 200+ hits against stunned critters.

But unfortunately, unarmed smites don't seem to trigger the off-hand attack.

[cforce]

But unfortunately, unarmed smites don't seem to trigger the off-hand attack.

Disappointing. This makes this "bonus" ability basically:

"Pay 15 ki: reduce the amount of damage on your next attack by suppressing your offhand hook."

Whereas the unarmed/Pally Smite bug could arguably be "working as intended", having the Shintao PrE ability not work with unarmed (or, more precisely, be a *net penalty* when used) is clearly a bug.