Need some help with a Void/Shintao build

[Darkrok]

Nevermind the viability of Shintao...I like the ability to trigger the light finisher more quickly, don't mind losing one toughness feat, would have taken Stunning Fist anyways now, already take monk imp. recovery, and would have to take +2 to one skill and +1 to another if I don't take the 2 ap cures this time around so Shintao I isn't really costing me anything other than 4ap's early in the build which really bridges me to the end as opposed to costing me in this specific layout.

I'll post the actual AP's spent in a bit but I had some general questions about the build in the meantime.

1. Can anyone confirm that the Protection from Evil and Smite Evil strikes are advancing finishing chains correctly? I've got no reason to redo my build if they haven't fixed that yet.

2. On a str-based light monk with void strikes and stunning fist which two stances would you go GM if you could only take two? Air is obviously still choice #1 thanks to the double-strikes and the ability to go without haste. #2 is tougher for me to choose. Str gives an even number bonus to damage/hit, is more viable for dps now that air is just 10% double-strike, and allows me to boost my natural healing amp of 40 or 50% even higher. Earth though does give that outstanding earth IV strike (though I'll have void IV/III now as well).

3. If I'm able to start using stunning fist reliably and also able to spam healing finishers more quickly ki is probably going to be an issue even with Oremi's. I hate even contemplating losing monkey - that 8 elemental dr across the board is one of my favorite parts of the character - but would crane make more sense here? Going crane would also buy my some extra ap's since crane II would be good enough...I'd spend them on Monk Imp. Recovery III, Shintao II (had 2 points left over to spend in my first build), and probably unbalancing strike (not many other places to spend that one AP).

I think that's it for now on my questions but just to give you some build highlights before I get the time to post something more detailed:
Human 32-point build
14str (+all level-ups), 16dex, 16con, 8int, 14wis, 8cha with +2 tomes everywhere but int.
I know the 14str is a bit low but it's just about the only way to fit in the stats needed here. I guess if I didn't take earth IV I could drop the con to raise the str so I guess that would be question number 4.

Required Feats: 8/11 total - 3 in twf, power attack, icrit bludgeoning, toughness, stunning fist, cleave (or some other shintao pre-req)
Options for last 3 feats: More toughness, dodge (to reduce the feat swaps to go ninja spy to 1...not sure if I'd do this since I'd probably just TR if I wanted to go ninja spy), skill focus: UMD, weapon focus: bludgeoning
Not sure if I missed a feat but I think that covers it.

Key Enhancements: Shintao I or II (depends on animal path), Void IV, Wind IV, Fire III or IV, Earth III or IV, Water III or IV (only one of the three will be IV - the other two will be III), Clever Monkey IV or Elegant Crane II (crane means shinto II and monk imp recovery III), Human Imp Recovery II, Monk Imp Recover II or III (depends on animal path). That's pretty much it which is why the enhancements are so tight. There are big gaps at the beginning and at several points throughout. I've made it work and will post it later but those are the enhancements that I'm building around.

Full Enhancement Build-Outs:
Here's some better details on both of the paths I'm working up. You can click a link to get to a formatted version of each build with the details.

20% Human Amp, 20% Monk Amp, Animal Path (Monkey) IV, Shintao I
Human Versatility I
Monk Balance I
Monk Concentration I
Human Improved Recovery I
Monk Wisdom I
Void Strike I
Way of the Clever Monkey I
Monk Improved Recovery I
Racial Toughness I
Monk Concentration II
Human Adaptability Strength I
Way of the Clever Monkey II
Human Improved Recovery II
Shintao Monk I
Adept of Flame
Adept of Rain
Adept of Rock
Adept of Wind
Racial Toughness II
Monk Improved Recovery II
Void Strike II
Way of the Clever Monkey III
Master of Bonfires
Master of Stone
Master of the Sea
Master of Thunder
Void Strike III
Way of the Clever Monkey IV
Grandmaster of Mountains
Grandmaster of Storms
Void Strike IV
Monk Serenity

20% Human Amp, 30% Monk Amp, Animal Path (Crane) II, Shintao II (Because I couldn't think of anything better to do with those two points)
Human Versatility I
Monk Balance I
Monk Concentration I
Human Improved Recovery I
Monk Wisdom I
Void Strike I
Way of the Elegant Crane I
Monk Improved Recovery I
Racial Toughness I
Monk Concentration II
Human Adaptability Strength I
Way of the Elegant Crane II
Human Improved Recovery II
Shintao Monk I
Adept of Flame
Adept of Rain
Adept of Rock
Adept of Wind
Racial Toughness II
Monk Improved Recovery II
Void Strike II
Monk Improved Recovery III
Master of Bonfires
Master of Stone
Master of the Sea
Master of Thunder
Shintao Monk II
Void Strike III
Grandmaster of Mountains
Grandmaster of Storms
Void Strike IV
Monk Serenity

Full build-out for path #2:

Character Plan by DDO Character Planner Version 3.34
DDO Character Planner Home Page

Tajawuka Shiro
Level 20 Lawful Good Human Male
(20 Monk) 
Hit Points: 346
Spell Points: 0 
BAB: 15\15\20\25\25
Fortitude: 16
Reflex: 16
Will: 15

                  Starting          Feat/Enhancement
Abilities        Base Stats          Modified Stats
(32 Point)       (Level 1)             (Level 20)
Strength             14                    22
Dexterity            16                    18
Constitution         16                    18
Intelligence          8                     8
Wisdom               14                    17
Charisma              8                    10

Tomes Used
+2 Tome of Strength used at level 7
+2 Tome of Dexterity used at level 7
+2 Tome of Constitution used at level 7
+2 Tome of Wisdom used at level 7
+2 Tome of Charisma used at level 7

                  Starting          Feat/Enhancement
                 Base Skills         Modified Skills
Skills           (Level 1)            (Level 20)
Balance               7                    31
Bluff                -1                     0
Concentration         7                    39
Diplomacy            -1                     2
Disable Device       n/a                   n/a
Haggle               -1                     0
Heal                  2                     3
Hide                  3                     4
Intimidate           -1                     0
Jump                  5                    29
Listen                2                     3
Move Silently         3                     4
Open Lock             n/a                   n/a
Perform              n/a                    n/a
Repair               -1                    -1
Search               -1                    -1
Spot                  2                     3
Swim                  2                     6
Tumble                4                     5
Use Magic Device      1                    14

Level 1 (Monk)
Feat: (Monk Bonus) Power Attack
Feat: (Human Bonus) Toughness
Feat: (Selected) Two Weapon Fighting


Level 2 (Monk)
Feat: (Monk Bonus) Stunning Fist


Level 3 (Monk)
Feat: (Monk Path) Path of Harmonious Balance: Fists of Light
Feat: (Selected) Skill Focus: Use Magic Device


Level 4 (Monk)
Ability Raise: STR


Level 5 (Monk)


Level 6 (Monk)
Feat: (Selected) Cleave
Feat: (Monk Bonus) Toughness


Level 7 (Monk)


Level 8 (Monk)
Ability Raise: STR


Level 9 (Monk)
Feat: (Selected) Improved Two Weapon Fighting


Level 10 (Monk)


Level 11 (Monk)


Level 12 (Monk)
Ability Raise: STR
Feat: (Selected) Improved Critical: Bludgeoning Weapons


Level 13 (Monk)


Level 14 (Monk)


Level 15 (Monk)
Feat: (Selected) Greater Two Weapon Fighting


Level 16 (Monk)
Ability Raise: STR


Level 17 (Monk)


Level 18 (Monk)
Feat: (Selected) Toughness


Level 19 (Monk)


Level 20 (Monk)
Ability Raise: STR
Enhancement: Monk Serenity
Enhancement: Human Adaptability Strength I
Enhancement: Human Improved Recovery I
Enhancement: Human Improved Recovery II
Enhancement: Human Versatility I
Enhancement: Way of the Elegant Crane I
Enhancement: Way of the Elegant Crane II
Enhancement: Fists of Iron
Enhancement: Monk Improved Recovery I
Enhancement: Monk Improved Recovery II
Enhancement: Monk Improved Recovery III
Enhancement: Void Strike I
Enhancement: Void Strike II
Enhancement: Void Strike III
Enhancement: Void Strike IV
Enhancement: Adept of Wind
Enhancement: Grandmaster of Storms
Enhancement: Master of Thunder
Enhancement: Adept of Rock
Enhancement: Grandmaster of Mountains
Enhancement: Master of Stone
Enhancement: Adept of Flame
Enhancement: Master of Bonfires
Enhancement: Adept of Rain
Enhancement: Master of Sea
Enhancement: Racial Toughness I
Enhancement: Racial Toughness II
Enhancement: Monk Balance I
Enhancement: Monk Concentration I
Enhancement: Monk Concentration II
Enhancement: Monk Wisdom I
Enhancement: Shintao Monk I
Enhancement: Shintao Monk II

[Jamma]

Given the Turbine instigated stampede from Light to Dark, you'll probably be the one reporting on whether they ever fixed the light finisher bugs encountered on Lamna.

[Mobeius]

I can say this... I tried to PRE in to Shintao I with Void 4 and while it MAY be possible, I just dont like how it works against the monks too much. Unless they give Shintao monks some uber stuff other than DR bypass (even if they gave silver) I cant see a reason I would waste the AP's for Shintao I, II and III (when 3 is released that is). I'd rather just stick to my metalline HW with my holyburst TOD ring and spam force damage along with everything else.


Is it possible for a monk to get Shintao and void 4, but you can only GM in ONE stance, its all about the level and AP expenditure to even select GM stances, Void 4 AND monks capstone enhancer and more than likely drop another area to obtain it, hence the AP cost being to restrictive and hamstringing players. Some point Turbine is going to be right back going, why are so few monks taking X or Y? Answer: because it lacks any Synergy and some things are just more desireable or practical.

For example, I would about consider any monk with RotP completely gimped and more like a mercy tag along than a serious addition to the party. Completely more so now with the release of void strikes. Exception would be the monk that runs with a mediocre party and actually needs the RotP to save them. I expect to see monks with RotP become rare or almost non-existant.

Like I said, Turbine is going to hamstring light side monks and pretty much make them, going void 4 and 2 GM stances, which I think Fire and Air are the best two.

[Darkrok]

I actually pulled off two GM stances, Shintao I, and Void IV in this first enhancement list I'll post:

Human Versatility I
Monk Balance I
Monk Concentration I
Human Improved Recovery I
Monk Wisdom I
Void Strike I
Way of the Clever Monkey I
Monk Improved Recovery I
Racial Toughness I
Monk Concentration II
Human Adaptability Strength I
Way of the Clever Monkey II
Human Improved Recovery II
Shintao Monk I
Adept of Flame
Adept of Rain
Adept of Rock
Adept of Wind
Racial Toughness II
Monk Improved Recovery II
Void Strike II
Way of the Clever Monkey III
Master of Bonfires
Master of Stone
Master of the Sea
Master of Thunder
Void Strike III
Way of the Clever Monkey IV
Grandmaster of Mountains
Grandmaster of Storms
Void Strike IV
Monk Serenity

[Darkrok]

This took a good hour to come up with by the way. The enhancements are crazy tight and you have to be willing to take these EXACT enhancements or ones that are awfully close to them to make it work. Given the stats I posted above you could actually take GM fire OR GM earth. If you dropped con to 14 to raise str to 16 then you're locked into GM fire and only master on earth.

[Mobeius]

This took a good hour to come up with by the way. The enhancements are crazy tight and you have to be willing to take these EXACT enhancements or ones that are awfully close to them to make it work. Given the stats I posted above you could actually take GM fire OR GM earth. If you dropped con to 14 to raise str to 16 then you're locked into GM fire and only master on earth.

Ok If I dropped to racial toughness to II, dropped healers friend I, WF con I, Wisdom Monk I I get all that... Too great of cost still IMHO. Im curious how you can 3 GM stances at 3 AP's Each, Void 4 which is 4 ap, and Monk Serinty which is 2 considering they are all 18+ abilities and Animal Path 4? You sure that works as I tried playing with it last night and couldnt get it to path out right for me. The best I could do is have 3 AP's left over with GM in two stances master in the other two, void 4, shintao I, animal 3 and Monk Serinty. Dont forget that for void 4 you HAVE to have GM in one stance and Master in the remaining three. I had to drop Shintao I to make things work, which freed up points for elsewhere. Which even now I only have GM in two stances. I might try to play with it again to see if I can get it to work...

+1 Rep for you trying anyway.

[Darkrok]

Ok If I dropped to racial toughness to II, dropped healers friend I, WF con I, Wisdom Monk I I get all that... Too great of cost still IMHO. Im curious how you can 3 GM stances at 3 AP's Each, Void 4 which is 4 ap, and Monk Serinty which is 2 considering they are all 18+ abilities and Animal Path 4? You sure that works as I tried playing with it last night and couldnt get it to path out right for me. The best I could do is have 3 AP's left over with GM in two stances master in the other two, void 4, shintao I, animal 3 and Monk Serinty. Dont forget that for void 4 you HAVE to have GM in one stance and Master in the remaining three. I had to drop Shintao I to make things work, which freed up points for elsewhere. Which even now I only have GM in two stances. I might try to play with it again to see if I can get it to work...

+1 Rep for you trying anyway.

4 master stances...only 2 GM stances. I've got the layout in Excel right now for the first path if you'd like it to play around with. I put in the minimum expenditures and min level for each one of them, sorted them by min AP, and then set a flag that would show me if the AP's were spent out of order. This is very much a build though that would either require multiple enhancement respecs throughout its life or one at the very end at the very least to make it playable throughout. Just way too big of gaps in there.

[Darkrok]

Moved the build-outs to the OP.

[Mobeius]

You know the first one has both Crane and Monkey in the Enhancements...

[Darkrok]

Just to add to the discussion here as to the concept of these builds...

I really like short-manning stuff and soloing but I wanted a build that could (a) bring light buffs to the table and (b) do decent dps while doing that while still retaining as much short-manning ability as possible while maximizing healing ki (since I often act as the 'healer' for guild groups that are short-manning stuff).

With the changes to weighted and the ascendancy of ToD I felt that just sticking with Rise of the Phoenix (which does come in handy) wouldn't cut it anymore. Also, Shintao I brings a lot to the table for short-manning stuff since you can really dump ki into healing quickly. But all that you give up to get Shintao I does gimp your traditional DPS a bit. However, if you can get a reasonable number of paralyzing/erasing blows from your void strikes that would make up for a lot of the lost dps. Toss in stunning fist and you've got a character that could perform well in Epics (since all reports are Void IV and Stunning Fist are both performing well there), short-manning stuff (since we can toss out decent healing), and still do some nice dps in raids mixing in two GM strikes (one of which will be lightning and one which might be earth), void IV, void III, and can also easily throw moment of clarity when it's worthwhile (most likely with a void IV/healing ki/void III/finisher/void IV/PFE or smite/void III rotation).

It's certainly not the most powerful build out there but I think it gets closest to what my current build does without being gimped. And if I stick with Skill Focus: UMD it really meshes well with moment of clarity for throwing some of the higher level scrolls and/or throwing a scroll without swapping gear.

[Darkrok]

You know the first one has both Crane and Monkey in the Enhancements...

Thanks...that's a typo when I redid things. I'll fix that and edit the posts.

[Potvin]

Re: the ki generation

I did the new epics last night, and without an oremi necklace ki generation was a non-factor for me. You get so much ki whaling away on stunned trash its not funny. Even beating on bosses like Crateros again I was dumping mountain III and IV strikes into him as fast as I could and again, no loss of ki. I had more ki then I knew what to do with. Granted, I was light and I had NOT reset enhancements into a PrE of any type.

BTW, for those of you reading who are not super elite monks, and are just above average like me, rest easy - stunning fist with DC 41 was consistently stunning all types of elite trash last night, even the fighter types.

[Darkrok]

Wow, lots of mistakes in my editing to put the two different paths up...they should all be fixed now though.

[Darkrok]

Re: the ki generation

I did the new epics last night, and without an oremi necklace ki generation was a non-factor for me. You get so much ki whaling away on stunned trash its not funny. Even beating on bosses like Crateros again I was dumping mountain III and IV strikes into him as fast as I could and again, no loss of ki. I had more ki then I knew what to do with. Granted, I was light and I had NOT reset enhancements into a PrE of any type.

BTW, for those of you reading who are not super elite monks, and are just above average like me, rest easy - stunning fist with DC 41 was consistently stunning all types of elite trash last night, even the fighter types.

I didn't notice much of a difference in ki generation. I run wind IV with Oremi's and on portals dump earth IV-III-II-Light-earth IV-III-II then repeat the 7 strikes. I'll often have to slow down a bit on that rotation and this was no difference. Might have been a tad worse but I'll chalk that up to less lag = better job of hitting the moves.

On ToD part II I ran low on ki but I do Earth IV-Earth III-Fists of Stone-Earth Finisher-Lightning IV and then repeat there. I've often run short of ki in the past and had to drop out the Lightning IV part of the finisher and last night was in line with that with the slightly quicker depletion easily chalked up to less lag.

I haven't done any epic/group content yet but once I do I'd expect my results to be similar if I stay with my current build. These Shintao builds though will have lots more ways to spend ki which is why I'm thinking I'll want (a) fire stance IV instead of earth IV and (b) crane II instead of monkey IV (although subbing crane IV into the monkey IV build would be an option as well).

[Potvin]

I'm not sure you want fire IV over mountain IV.

Lots of bosses immune to fire strikes. mountain strike damage as afar as I understand applies like untyped damage. Correct me if I'm misunderstanding though. I tend to not even bother with fire/water strikes. I'll just cycle through 3 or 4 mountain and lightning strikes (assuming lightning does elemental damage to the target). I'm currently set up with GM Wind and Mountain.

[Darkrok]

I've moved the enhancement build-outs to the original post.

The more I think about it the more I think you almost have to dump monkey for crane. I think that crane II would probably be good enough though so I'd lean toward the second path. If you felt like protesting the general lameness of Shintao II you could use the extra point there to take Crane III and dump Shintao II. I'd probably take Shintao II on the off-chance that the cold iron ever did anything useful for me (especially after getting a holy burst ToD ring) but I wouldn't fault someone for swapping in Crane III there.

I'll see what I can do about working up a more tradition build once I make up my mind about some of these build choices. I wish I could give people feedback about it but I'm waiting on some birthday money to buy a big point package so I can LR to this one (sort of hoping someone else will take the plunge and post some feedback in the meantime). Also wouldn't hurt if Turbine had given free respecs for Update 5 like any other company I've dealt with has in the past or if they decide to put either the points or the LR on sale sometime soon.

[Darkrok]

I'm not sure you want fire IV over mountain IV.

Lots of bosses immune to fire strikes. mountain strike damage as afar as I understand applies like untyped damage. Correct me if I'm misunderstanding though. I tend to not even bother with fire/water strikes. I'll just cycle through 3 or 4 mountain and lightning strikes (assuming lightning does elemental damage to the target). I'm currently set up with GM Wind and Mountain.

I would be taking fire IV for the stance. That's +1 damage/to-hit with this build if I decide to go into fire stance. I could see that happening more often if I'm tanking for a small group and healing as well - I'd get the extra ki I need to dump heals as well as 25% more healing amp from Jidz'tetka. That said, I could easily go into the fire master stance and only be losing that +1 damage/to-hit and 1 ki on a crit. The only other argument in this build that could point toward wanting GM Fire is that I could go 16str/14con at the start then instead of 14str/16con and in that build fire stance would yield us a +2 damage/to-hit over wind stance with an Earth IV build. It's one of the main questions I need to settle before I'm ready for the LR here and there's strong arguments for both.

[Darkrok]

I've posted the build in the original post. Had to do some jimmying around in rjcyberware's planner but I was able to fake a build for number 2. You can push hp's over 500 with just a +45 hp gs item, minos (+20), +6 con item (+60), and GFL item (+30) for a total of 501hp's if we go fire stance (which is where we'd likely be if we cared about 481hp's versus 501hp's). We've got a natural 20% healing amp from human and 30% healing amp from monk. We can add more to that in fire stance (25%) and also get healing amp gear to pump that up even more. And we can pop healing finishers every 4 seconds if the ki is there. We can toss out the void finisher and can even utilize it as part of a natural trash rotation (void IV-light-void III-void IV-void III-earth IV-earth III on something that's not stunned with our stunning fist). We can stick with our stunning fist boost against things that require cold iron or byeshk dr once we've gotten a ToD holy burst ring. Basically we just have a nice multi-purpose light monk that can do decent dps, has the best healing we can eek out of a pure 20 monk, has great healing amp, can provide utility (stunning fist/void IV/void III) in epics...basically the best all-purpose monk I could come up with for Update 5. It's not the best dps. It's not the best utility. It's not the best solo. It's not the best short-man. But it *can* do anything off that list decently well.

[Mobeius]

Eaarth strike does ACID damage, if you CRITICAL, it does additional Untyped damage.

[Darkrok]

Eaarth strike does ACID damage, if you CRITICAL, it does additional Untyped damage.

For the tier IV you get 16 additional damage on the strike as well as 2d10 acid damage on a critical. The question is whether we would spend enough time in fire stance and get enough use out of our other tIV/tIII stances (lightning/void primarily) to make it worth giving up earth strike IV for gm fire stance and the +1 hit/damage it would give us on top of master fire stance. I'm leaning toward no but it's an interesting discussion to have on this build.

The best part to me about all of these decisions (earth/fire, monkey/crane, shintaoI+animalIV/shintaoII+monkimprecIII+animalII) is that as long as I stick with the 16 starting con I can change my mind every 3 days for the cost of an enhancement respec. I could even dump shintao and the only thing being 'wasted' in the build would be cleave - and even that's situationaly useful. Yes, the str is 2 points lower than I'd normally start with. Those two points actually do something for us though - they let us get GM air/earth while still maxing out the point-for-point buy in wisdom. That seems like a good trade-off in U5 regardless of what I do build-wise.

Now for the points or the LR to go on sale...