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.

[vmsbass]

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

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).

I have conclusively shown that as the game currently is on the live servers, smites only result in one attack. This is, of course, a pally smite; but I am just mentioning this to see if the Shintao smite works the same. So, no this has nothing to do with TWF changes, as they are not in place yet.

See my post here if you care for the screenshots:

http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=252146

I am very interested to see how this works on the test server, since my hope is that they will make monk smites work like smites do for all other two weapon fighters, which might then result in my pally smites and divine sacrifices doing so as well. I would test it myself, but the Llamania client did install correctly when I tried. Maybe I will try again tomorrow.

[Deamus]

The pre is too weak and expensive. I doesn't make sense to be a light monk anymore imo .
Shintao I smite evil counter is too big , if it was 15 it would make sense.
Shintao II is weaker that shintao I . Consider how many mobs can you banish in the game atm .
Not savarath, Not Epic then only vale ?
Seriously can someone tell me is there any reason anymore to go light except ToD raid and solo ?
Devs must rethink this .......

[Brother_Solar]

I have conclusively shown that as the game currently is on the live servers, smites only result in one attack. This is, of course, a pally smite; but I am just mentioning this to see if the Shintao smite works the same. So, no this has nothing to do with TWF changes, as they are not in place yet.

See my post here if you care for the screenshots:

http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=252146

I am very interested to see how this works on the test server, since my hope is that they will make monk smites work like smites do for all other two weapon fighters, which might then result in my pally smites and divine sacrifices doing so as well. I would test it myself, but the Llamania client did install correctly when I tried. Maybe I will try again tomorrow.

Ah, my apologies, I though your comment was regarding testing done on Lamannia. I don't have a paladin, or I'd check it out for you.

[Brother_Solar]

The pre is too weak and expensive. I doesn't make sense to be a light monk anymore imo .
Shintao I smite evil counter is too big , if it was 15 it would make sense.
Shintao II is weaker that shintao I . Consider how many mobs can you banish in the game atm .
Not savarath, Not Epic then only vale ?
Seriously can someone tell me is there any reason anymore to go light except ToD raid and solo ?
Devs must rethink this .......

I'm pretty disappointed myself, although I might have said that already.

The 30 second cooldown on Smite MUST change for the ability to be of any use. I'd say increase the ki cost (if necessary) and shorten the cooldown to 6 seconds like Stunning Fist and Quivering Palm. It could be a good combination with Stunning Fist, but currently you can stun five creatures in the time it takes to wait for the cooldown of ONE Smite. I was running around in The Subterrane stunning demons and I kept thinking "Huh, it would be really nice if my Smite were off cooldown right now, but look at that, another 20 seconds to go. Lame."

As for the Dismissal ability, there are a ton of mobs you can banish in the game... just not at end game. Having another ability that isn't beneficial at end game really doesn't have a lot of appeal. I'd say tack something else onto it... maybe an Exalted Smite type component (and leave the cooldown at 15 seconds, that's fine).

If the PrE remains this way, I don't foresee it getting a lot of use after Update 5 goes live. As it is now, I certainly won't be resetting my action points for it.

[Deamus]

Im realy disapointed ......but I have just noticed this Shintao Monk: Protection from Evil........
Why? is there any reason for such a useless ability ? So Ninja monks get pasive ki regeneration in TR 1 , + to skills and 1d6 sneak atack on top tod ability and shintao monks get this useless spell ?
I suggest to give more bonus to ac and resistances that would make sense or completely change it.

In conclusion imo this PRE is totally useless as it is now it has to be redesigned.....

[Coldin]

I agree with the other people here. After knowing what Shintao II does, it is underwhelming.

The smite itself isn't bad. The cooldown on it is. Leave it at 15 Ki (or raise it if need be), but please please please, lower the cooldown. 15 seconds at the most.

Also, smiting with handwraps needs to be fixed. From my brief testing, only one smite ever went off, and that's with GTWF and Windstance IV on.

Shintao II really needs some additional things going for it. Maybe +% of healing? Extra bonuses to Concentration? So far it's looking like a much more expensive PRE than Ninja Spy with nothing really to say 'Ooo' about.

I was excited about this PRE until I found out how long the cooldown on the smite evil is. It just feels way too long.

[Quijonsith]

I was actually excited about shintao monk until now. Ever since it was announced I was saying 'when U5 hits I'm gonna buy a lesser heart of wood and LR baaldon to Shintao. I'll have to sacrifice my dragon marks for it, but I think it'll be worth it if tier 2 is cold iron and silver"

Yeah shintao 2 is a massive disappointment. Why just cold iron? Per PnP rules demons and devils are equal. devils are not more powerful than demons so it makes no sense to delay silver and only give cold iron at 12. Especially when shintao 3 won't be out in this update.

Smites are cool, but seriously, 30 second cool down? For some 200 damage? Dark monks get touch of death every 15 seconds for 500 untyped damage and us light side monks get a less than half that AND half as often?

Shintao Monk: Epic Fail


hensin mystic better be awesome or there won't be many light monks anymore (and even then it can be taken by dark monks too). And that's coming from a player who loves playing his light monk to support the party.

[SolarDawning]

Yeah shintao 2 is a massive disappointment. Why just cold iron? Per PnP rules demons and devils are equal. devils are not more powerful than demons so it makes no sense to delay silver and only give cold iron at 12.

Because monks are lawful.

Demons are chaotic.
Devils are lawful.

Which one's damage reduction should a lawful class be more easily able to bypass? (Hypothetical question, the answer should be apparent.)