So, how do you actually play?

[Lumpsack]

Hi,

I've seen all sorts of thread on builds, gear etc etc...

But how do you actually play?

By that I mean what stance do you use, which strikes/finishers, how do you actually manage to hit the **** keys and know you're in a sequence?

I have my abilities hotkeyed 1-0, but its not working too well due to having the mouse button held for attack which occupies one hand while moving around with the other - I need a third to do the flippin' attacks

Any suggestions welcomed.

Ta...

[Angelus_dead]

By that I mean what stance do you use, which strikes/finishers, how do you actually manage to hit the **** keys and know you're in a sequence?

If by "sequence" you mean performing a series of three moves to prepare a finisher, you mostly don't bother because they're probably not worth thinking about during combat.

I have my abilities hotkeyed 1-0, but its not working too well due to having the mouse button held for attack which occupies one hand while moving around with the other - I need a third to do the flippin' attacks

Generally you bind keys around WASD to your elemental damage attacks, like QEFV etc.

[googatron]

If by "sequence" you mean performing a series of three moves to prepare a finisher, you mostly don't bother because they're probably not worth thinking about during combat.



Generally you bind keys around WASD to your elemental damage attacks, like QEFV etc.

generaly on my monk, if i'm not fighting a boss or named mob i'm generaly focusing on stunning things and pumping out the most beneficial finishers.

[Nevthial]

By that I mean what stance do you use, which strikes/finishers, how do you actually manage to hit the **** keys and know you're in a sequence?

I have my abilities hotkeyed 1-0, but its not working too well due to having the mouse button held for attack which occupies one hand while moving around with the other - I need a third to do the flippin' attacks

Any suggestions welcomed.

Ta...

I have almost all my keys mapped for hotbar usage. I even have movement controls and attack/targeting set up on both sides of my keyboard to facilitate switching which hand controls what. ( I set it up so that my mouse isn't needed for fighting, that's too slow with so many abilities,clickies,ect. The loss of .25 seconds can mean death or damage. ) Playing a Monk is almost like playing a twitch caster for me. I use Wind 80% for attacking and Mountain 20% for full defense. ( Or thereabouts) Mine's dark so, for living targets I always lead off with: Fist of Darkness for the -2 to saves effect of the target being shaken. Then I pop a Stunning Fist. Then I cycle through: Fist of Iron/Fist of Darkness/Earth Strike IV and land Pain Touch Finisher next ( the target can't act even if stun breaks). I'll cycle through Storm IV/Touch of Darkness/Storm III and land a Falling Star Finisher on orange named or tough trash for the Blindness, gaining auto- sneak attacks and a miss chance for the target to attack me. ( This helps if nausea or stunning is saved against as well, everything can roll a 20) Touch of Despair I typically only use for red named to boost my Touch of Death damage. Sometimes it's used on other things if it actually survives the stun/nausea/blind cycle. I used Freezing the Lifeblood in the past, but with stunning fist now working so well, I rarely use it.

So..
Fist of Darkness / Stunning Fist as lead attack combo ( Shaken & Stunned )
Fist of Iron / Fist of Darkness / Earth Strike / Pain Touch Finisher ( Nauseated )
Storm IV / Fist of Darkness / Storm III / Falling Star ( Blind )
Touch of Death ( Bosses or tough creatures, or just being lazy )

For weaker trash, a Touch of Darkness / Stunning Fist / Fist of Iron combo can render the target destroyed before anything else is needed as there will be multiple proc's in Wind stance adding up the damage quickly.

Not using finishers can reduce a Monk's effectiveness by about 30 to 90% depending on who or what. Killing faster/efficiently is the goal.

[t0r012]

Hi,

I've seen all sorts of thread on builds, gear etc etc...

But how do you actually play?

By that I mean what stance do you use, which strikes/finishers, how do you actually manage to hit the **** keys and know you're in a sequence?

I have my abilities hotkeyed 1-0, but its not working too well due to having the mouse button held for attack which occupies one hand while moving around with the other - I need a third to do the flippin' attacks

Any suggestions welcomed.

Ta...

Short answer , you have to find your own method.
You need to mess around and test what works and don't be afraid to make changes as you go.
In many cases your going to have to change things up.

For me I started with my elemental strikes on keys 1-4 cause they are easy to reach from the WASD movement. 5 I would use for healing pots and 6-9 were various handwraps a little far out but only needing to be switched occasionally.

At level 3 you get your path move (light for me) Well that moved 1 to my finishing move light went to 2 and pushed everything else down a key. So you start another bar and slide the handwraps down (the lest used pairs).

oops level 6 time for stunning fist which is your easy button so that naturally moved to slot #1 moving eveything else down. Oh time for some haste pots that are 30 sec so I need that to be in a convenient place. move that to #6. so drop the lesser used ki strikes somewhere else leaving earth , and wind on the main bar.

Whats this level 12? time to get Shianto , great now I have to fit all that stuff in. somewhere. But wait I want to get more of my elemental strikes in cause at 14 even stunned mobs take a while when not running on normal, plus need more damage for the bosses. So I'll map finisher to F and lets make, R banish , oops mapped T to push to talk way back when. Hmm want to leave Q open for quivering palm.

So find "your" system and play around with it. I have been considering getting a mouse with a couple extra buttons just to help reduce the finger strain/ carpel tunnel from being a monk.

Some say they can play their monk with a game pad/ x box controller and I have no idea how. I need tons of buttons to play my monks their best.

[twoton]

Well for me I stay in fire stance (never have enough ki). I am a keyboard and mouse player but I am used to using the arrow keys for movement and I keep mouse look on so I dont have to hold down my left mouse button. On that note I have my main hot bar set up with my most important ki strikes to least (being finisher) from 0-1.

ki strike bar is setup like so. 0 stunning fist, 9 quivering palm, 8 kukan-do, 7 dismissing fist, 6 jade tomb strike, 5 smite, 4 earthIV, 3 earthIII, 2 fist of iron, 1 finisher. This way I dont have far to reach from my arrow keys to my main ki strikes.

I also use , . / ; ' [ ] as my hot keys to switch hot bars. So I am still close to my arrow keys. If your not on a game pad you need to reduce how far you have to reach from whatever keys you use for movement.

my biggest problem that I need to fix is that I have is - key is so close to the 0 key that I end up switching to a hot bar that has nothing on it which I quickly have to quickly switch back to my main hot bar again. All I need to do there is take time to make the - key something else maybe my focus key would help :P

Anyways like the others said it is really what you get used to or how you play. Keep playing with the key setup till you find something that works for you.

I hope this helped a little.

[Lumpsack]

Thanks for the advice everyone.

I'm now mapped the numeric pad to 1-0 using enter as attack, so have abandoned the mouse.

I gave it a quick try and in static combat it works very well, but loosing the freedom of movement/direction the mouse affords does mean I switch back for running and entering combat as turning using the keyboard is slow to say the least.

[Logicman69]

For me it's all about the keyboard/mouse setup. I have a Logitech mouse with 2 extra buttons on the left side (used for page foward/back in conventional apps). I mapped the top button to be Slot #1 on my first hotbar, where I have stunning fist. The bottom button on the mouse I have mapped as #0, where I have the finishing move tied. This allows me to quickly fire off a stunning fist or a finisher without hitting the wrong key by accedent (which can make you loose your finishing move). So my hotbar looks like this:

1) Stunning Fist
2) Smite Tainted Creature (shinto monk move)
3) Fist of light
4) Lightning Strike
5) Earth Strike
6) Fire Strike
7) Water Strike
8) Void Strike
9) Dismissing Strike
0) Finishing Move

So if I want the Grasp of the Earth Dragon finisher I hit 5-3-5 and then click my mouse thumb button.

For stances I am in Wind most of the time, switching to Earth stance when fighting bosses (for the extra DR and added Damage from the Sentinal Bracers). I usually spam Lightning, Earth, and Void strikes on general mobs. I add in the Smite on most bosses (Double wisdom moddifier added to damage). Most finishers are situational and you have to pay attention to see what is needed. If the party is getting hit alot, use the Lightning/FOL/Lightning for a mass Blur buff. Casters blowing through SP? Water/FOL/Water for 25% reduction in SP cost. Intimitanks and Rouges love the Fire/FOL/Fire finishing move with the +2 to skill checks and attacks. The only one I never use is the Void finisher. 10 seconds is just too short.

[Lumpsack]

Thats a good idea with the mouse buttons, if I could get the mouse to move forward (as in some other MMOs by clicking both left and right mice buttons at the same time I would be set).

I can see how the light path buffs could come in handy too - but I went dark, that said the suggestions still apply.

[Gulnar13]

I use nearly only the buttons from 1 to 6, and all shifts/alt/ctrl.

1 = stun
2 = tod
3,4 = earth strikes
5 = Fist of iron
6 = finisher

alt+1 = sunder
alt+2 = trip
alt+3 = quivering palm
alt+4 = abundant step
alt+5 = meditation
alt+6 = wholeness of body

Ctrl + wheel down = same bar as the non-alt one, but with fire strikes

This way, i can acces to all the skills i need, while i can use the mouse in the same time.

[QuantumFX]

You need to map your keyboard out. Make sure you can adapt it to something your other characters can use.

1 - Abundant Step (aka Hotbar #1; Space 1)
2 - Dismissing Strike (aka Hotbar #1; Space 2)
3 - Finisher (aka Hotbar #1; Space 3)
4 - Quivering Palm (aka Hotbar #1; Space 4)
5 - Jade Strike (aka Hotbar #1; Space 5)
6 - Kukan-do (aka Hotbar #1; Space 6)
7 - Tomb of Jade (aka Hotbar #1; Space 7)
8 - Unbalancing Strike (aka Hotbar #1; Space 8)
E - Toggle Mouse Look
R - Wind Strike 4 (aka Hotbar #2; Space 1)
T - Earth Strike 3 (aka Hotbar #3; Space 1)
Y - Voice Chat
F - Stunning Fist (aka Hotbar #7; Space 1)
G - Smite Taint (aka Hotbar #7; Space 2)
H - Fists of Light (aka Hotbar #8; Space 1)
C - Sun Strike II (aka Hotbar #4; Space 1)
V - Water Strike (aka Hotbar #5; Space 1)
B - Fists of Iron (aka Hotbar #6; Space 1)

[AzraelDB]

But how do you actually play?

I use an N52te and a Logitech Marble Mouse. I only switch to my keyboard when I have to type. Like now.

By that I mean what stance do you use, which strikes/finishers, how do you actually manage to hit the **** keys and know you're in a sequence?

Well, I play a LS Shintao III/Void IV/GMWind Drow Monk. My main bar for strikes runs like so:
1 - Fist of Light
2 - Strike of Enduring III
3 - Stunning Fist (FTW!)
4 - Trip
5 - Kukan-Do
6 - Smite Tainted Creature
7 - Void Strike IV
8 - Tomb of Jade
9 - Finishing Moves (the Shaolin Salute button)
0 - Abundant Step

Other bars hold stances (including Power Attack and Defensive Stance), unused strikes, clickies, gear, Meditation, Wholeness of Body, sneak (for shadow humping), and w/e else I feel like putting there.

If I need to pull other strikes, I either swap a strike out from an alt bar to my main bar or I use the CTRL + # combo to switch bars. My controller layout is very funky and I only have 1 bar on the screen at a time (CRAZY I know). I'm very much in-tune with my N52TE (having used the older Nostromo Controller in the past with other games) and can switch between bars on the fly.

Because the nature of my controller, I don't have to move my hand very much to reach the button I need at the time. As far as finishers, most finishers are either 3Xstrike to Finisher or Strike Light/Dark Strike to Finisher. The only exception is the Shining Star Strike.

Mind you, I am probably the exception rather than the rule, so YMMV. The best advice I have for you is to find 3-4 strikes you are comfortable with (since 1-4 is right above the WASD), a good place for your finisher button (Q, E, Z, X, and C are good choices since they are next to/right below the WASD), and practicePracticePRACTICE! A little bit of time set aside to better understand your game mechanics will save you HOURS of frustration from not being able to do what you want to do.

[Resilian]

Fire Stance for DPS, Earth Stance for Tanking.

1 - TOD
2 - Shadow Fade
3 - Earth 4
4 - Earth 3
5 - Fist of Iron
6 - Finisher
F - Stunning Fist
T - Trip
9 - Abundant Step

When I'm fighting trash I use stun wraps w/ stunning fist, and just pelt them. TOD when it's not on cooldown.

On bosses I TOD -> earthx3 -> earth finisher -> repeat earth sequence til TOD is up -> TOD

The Darkx3 Finisher is nice, but on trash it's worthless because stuff dies too fast, and on bosses most of them have such high saves coupled with the fact that you can't tell if you landed it..trying to keep it up on them decreases your DPS since you're only focusing on your dark attack when TOD is down.

In epics depending on the DPS of the group I just keep my stun wraps on and stun and dance mobs effectively playing an sp-free CC character.

[Jamma]

After many levels of fumble-fingering the wrong key to setup finishers from a single hotbar, I programmed my mouse to use the side buttons to scroll the 'hidden' hotbars up and down and setup the ki strikes for each finisher from there. I found I could scroll to the correct hotbar very fast, then 2/3/4/1 to fire off the appropriate finisher. Thats as light path. I imagine dark path is much easier, as most of their finishers really suck (as opposed to just suck for light paths, I've grown to despise 1 minute buffs).

[winsom]

I play a dark monk 12th. Past life ranger 34 point.

I am almost-always in Ocean stance for the extra Wisdom (30 total) and saves. This gives me very reliable special attacks and finishers. My favorites are unbalancing strike, stunning attack and touch of death.

Due to high Wisdom I frequently land stuns with +4 acid of stunning +4, or +1 holy burst of stunning +4.

hot bar #1 is 1. unbalancing strike, 2. fists of darkness, 3. earth strike II, 4. earth strike III, 5. cure serious wounds potion, 6-0. I do not hit very often; these are my other elemental strikes, my barkskin ability and something else I forget. I use Mouse Button 3 & 4 for Stunning Fist and Finishing Move. I mapped Touch of Death to C and Shadow Fade to H (I don't hit those button too often at my level). I am only hitting (remembering) a few buttons so I can manage this pretty easily. My key mapping is a personal theme I use on all my characters. 5. is always potion. C = a big damage. H = a defence or buff, and so on.

My most typical attack strategy is to build up enough KI for Stunning Fist and then sometimes follow up with an earth strike, or two, to score extra damage during the stun-crit. This extra earth damage is not often needed at my level so I save the Ki for future stunning attacks or Touch of Death. Sometimes I am using earth + stuns often enough that the earth x3 finisher will come up. I have used this to disable spell-casters as it costs me 10 ki finisher rather than 15 ki to stun the caster. That is more of a flavor move for me as stunning is clearly superior.

I regularly activate the Shadow Hide ability, which counts as a Dark Move. This can work well in combination with water strikes as water + dark + water = paralyze humanoid finisher. I usually use Unbalancing Strike as the water component against two different opponents (sneak attacking them) and then use the finisher to ruin a third opponent.

Against non-humanoids I will occasionally do air + dark + air for the blindness finisher. The 50% blindness miss chance combines with the 25% shadow fade incorporeality for a bit less than 70% that a monster will miss me. Very nice for very hard-hitters like elite Ogres and Trolls. I usually do not need that kind of protection due to very high Armor Class. I more typically use Unbalancing Strike to enable my halfling ninja sneak attacks so the blindness enabler of this finisher is not needed.

As much as I use Unbalancing Strike, the water x3 finisher comes up on occasion. I have been letting it go unused. Should I reconsider using it ?

When fighting against non-humanoids or creatures that are impossible to stun I tend to save up my Ki for Touch of Death. I will switch to Sun stance for greater Ki generation. My ToD DC drops by 2 compared to Ocean Stance but I still get 500 damage almost-every time at my level.

If I am fighting a lot of relatively weak stun-immune opponents (undead) they do not deserve 50 ki worth of ToD so I may hit them with fire-damage strikes building to the fire x3 Breath of Dragon finisher (AoE damage fire). This is often done for my amusement rather than real need. I don't have enhancers to the fire damage component so I see lots of numbers in the 20s. I aim to blast several foes at once, gathering them up myself if I am soloing.

Then I pop a Stunning Fist. Then I cycle through: Fist of Iron/Fist of Darkness/Earth Strike IV and land Pain Touch Finisher next ( the target can't act even if stun breaks). .

I am going to try this more often. That should work great as monsters continue to increase in deadlieness. At my level 12 I have not yet invested in Fist of Iron or Earth IV, having spent those points on Ninja II and Touch of Death requirements. I could do earth II + dark + earth III.

[voodoogroves]

My general purpose bar is as follows:

1 - Repair Serious Pot
2 - Abundant Step
3 - Stunning Fist
4 - Stunning Blow
5 - Elemental strike
6 - Elemental strike
7 - Elemental strike
8 - Elemental strike
9 - Touch of Death
10 - Finisher / Quivering Palm


I have different bars set up with different ... "themes" but the slots are largely the same - 1 is always the emergency heal, etc. One with elec & earth. One with fire. Etc. Boss bar has finisher instead of quivering palm and some additional strikes instead of the stunners.

I'm nearly always in fire stance.

[Nevthial]

I gave it a quick try and in static combat it works very well, but loosing the freedom of movement/direction the mouse affords does mean I switch back for running and entering combat as turning using the keyboard is slow to say the least.

I tweak my turn speed settings under the options screen. You can turn it up pretty fast. It takes a bit to get used to it at maximum setting , but you can spin mid-air and such. Hope this helps.

Nev

[Talon_Moonshadow]

I have had a real problem with this on my Monk. And it has been the one factor keeping me from really liking Monks in DDO.

Recently I did some changes to my monks and keyboard.

I simplified his enhancments, so he only has minimal special attacks for Shintao III and maybe a couple things I really wanted.

I set up my keymapping to use my number pad keys and alt-number pad keys.

This isn't perfect, as I have hit Jump many times instead of alt, and I hit the "Windows" key once and minimised my game at a critical moment.


Also, I have found that Epic quests, actually give me more fun with my Monk, as things don't die too fast, ad the typical player tactics are to find ways to make things stand still while you beat on them for awhile.

Both of these allow me to push more buttons without the monster dying or running out of reach while I do so.

[Azonalanthious]

I've 2 extra buttons on my mouse as well, so going from there -

A few things are common to all my characters - hotbar 3 is always emergency heal (for whatever reason, this is the most natural for me to hit) and the mouse buttons are always attacks. On my halfling monk, my main setup is currently as follows:

1: stunning blow
2: finisher
3: dragonmark heal
4: light strike
5: dragonmark cure major
6: main wraps
7: mabar wraps
8: ghost touch wraps (haven't gotten around to picking up a ghosty/ethereal item yet)
9: power attack
0: abundent step
Mouse 1: void strike
Mouse 2: earth strike

Generally that covers everything I find I might need to hit mid battle, with the left of the board options being the most common (other then abundent step, but if I'm hitting that I find I generally don't need a hand on the mouse to be attacking anyways). Most everything else I find I have time to chance when I'm not swinging away, so doesn't go on the main hotbar.

[dredre9987]

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