first time monk help!!

[brolios]

Hi!
i have been playing this game for some time now, and decioded it was time to play a monk.

first thing i see, i have ALOT of punchs that need to be enabled when used.

and special punchs that talk about combos, and finishing punches. searching ddo wiki i cannot find any description or help on how to use that.

besides the "placing the icon in the bar and pressing the number"
im basicly, overwhelm by the many things i can do. do i specialise in one and simple forget about the others?
do i have them all in secondary bars and drag the ones im gona need to the main bar in a per quest basis?

whats even more confusing is the ligth and dark paths. i created a lvl 4 monk to test a few things and learning, basicly a test toon, so i can enter the lvl1 monk more prepared, and i have both paths there, the main icon says its only available to lvl16 monks, but i have all the ones that hang from that icon...

hope someone can give me tips, urls, blogs, whatever can help me a little here

thanks!

PS: sorry about grammar, my english is worse than my spanish

[TPICKRELL]

You may have already seen this, but here is a basic guide on monks that may have some answers to your questions:

http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=214991

Here are some rambling answers to some specifics you raised:

Some of the things you ask about you just have to work out for yourself. A monk is best played by bringing the right tool (attack/finisher/weapon/stance...) to the situation. That means you need to find a way to efficiently change/use any and all of those things.

I personally drive most of my in fight behavior off the keyboard, with a fixed key layouts. I'm left handed, so the numpad is very convenient for me. So num pad 0 is my Fist of Light/ Dark, 1 Is my Air strike, 2 is my fire strike, 3 is my water strike, 4 is my earth strike, 5 is my finisher, 6 is stunning blow, 7 is touch of death or jade tomb strike...

That's the configuration that makes me best able to quickly hit the right strike at the right time. Other monks I know have different set ups.

As to path, you choose a path at level 3 with a special feat that only lets you select light or dark. Once you choose path, you have a strike called either fists of light or fists of darkness.

Finishers are a bit complicated. Your finisher icon will change to show a specific finisher when you have one prepped. Prepping a finisher is a bit finicky. You have to do three special strikes in order to prep a finisher, and which strikes you do determine which finiser you set up. For example if you do 3 Fists of Light stikes in a a row, your finisher icon will change and you will be able to throw the Area Heal finisher. A strike combo of Air-Fist of Light - Air will give you a 1:00 minute area of effect blur effect... The finishers can be found in the document I linked above or in the ddowiki site.

Note that several common actions can break your finisher prep sequence including climbing anything, opening doors or chests, throwing a special strike that is not in the sequence...

You need enough ki to do all the strikes... Attempting to fire off the finisher with insufficient ki will break the sequence as well.

[brolios]

Your reply helped me alot!!!!

I have advanced to lvl 3 and really loving the clas!!


A question tho, is it posible to fully advance all the "stances"??
I might not like all, but the punches they give (and combos) are certanly usefull
But i dont think you can get enough AP to fullfill the requirements...


Thanks

[Lil'man]

even if it is possible you don't want to do it because i have a lvl 14 monk and could DEFINATELY use some more action points to get the extra dex lvl or whatever, the most popular stance is the storm stance (also my fav) because eventually its like a permenant haste boost and adding that with regular haste you'll do some NICE damage, and also with that it allows you to be a not as hard hitting but crazy tank and wisdom for instakill and stun (like me again) and still hit decently since you make up the lack of hard hits with many hits, think of it this way, would you rather have a plus 3 bonus on hit from an advanced fire stance or an extra 3 hits from ur advanced storm stance, only problem tho is a loss of constitution but that can be replaced by a couple of quick buffs

[FuzzyDuck81]

monks are tricky to play until you get the hang of it as with the amount of different strikes & abilities you get, you'll need some quick hotkey action to make the most of it - i have a sneaking suspicion that many of the real masters of playing monks are also awesome keyboard players

to begin with though, just sticking with 2 or 3 attacks will serve well for most things - earth & void strike will let you do extra damage to almost anything, and most things except some raid bosses & maybe a couple others can have the healing curse put on them by Fists of Light (and you can use its associated Healing Ki finisher) to help you & your party regain some HP - it can make a noticeable difference.

Stance-wise, they all have their strong points - if you're coming up to a particularly nasty trap (especially on elite difficulty or just a quest thats higher level than you), switch to water for the save bonuses, if you're getting hit a lot maybe go with earth for some DR & extra Ki generation... wind is generally the best at high levels for the sheer attack speed (useful trick - if you get incapped you can switch OUT of the stance.. which will restore the lost CON & get you back on your feet straight away) but at lower levels fire stance will probably serve you best to help you gain Ki at a faster rate to power more strikes.

One last thing - i'd advise looking into the named bracers from the Sentinels pack - they're awesome for monks, and give extra bonuses depending which stance you're in.