Staff or Unarmed for Str build? Patient Tortoise or Tenacious Badger?

[GGProfessor]

The thread title pretty much says it all. I'm a newbie who hopes to make a DPS dark monk in the fairly distant future, and from what I've seen it seems like making Str/Fire-stance based is the way to go for that. However, I was reading up on the DDO Wiki and noticed that it said Strength-based monks would probably use the quarterstaff and two-handed fighting instead of unarmed/two weapon fighting. Is this good advice? Doesn't the monk's unarmed damage WAY surpass the quarterstaff's at higher levels?

And then there's the question about animal style. The most appealing to me initially is the Patient Tortoise, but it seemed like the Tenacious Badger was made for the more aggressive style in mind. I'm mostly just not sure how useful the bonus is for being relatively low on hit points. Should/Will I be that low on hit points very often? How much of a difference does the ki regeneration make? Is the decreased meditation rate noticeable or deterring? etc. Which one is ultimately more useful for a DPS build?

All helpful replies are appreciated.

[Carpone]

The only weapon a monk should use besides his fists are vorpal kamas when you're clearing elite trash. Otherwise it's unarmed damage 100% of the time.

Leveling up, I chose Crane for the extra kit on crits. At level 20, I swapped to Faithful Hound for the extra to-hit on mobs in epic.

Fire v. Wind stance: It all comes down to math, which is ultimately dependent on your gear.

[TPICKRELL]

The thread title pretty much says it all. I'm a newbie who hopes to make a DPS dark monk in the fairly distant future, and from what I've seen it seems like making Str/Fire-stance based is the way to go for that. However, I was reading up on the DDO Wiki and noticed that it said Strength-based monks would probably use the quarterstaff and two-handed fighting instead of unarmed/two weapon fighting. Is this good advice? Doesn't the monk's unarmed damage WAY surpass the quarterstaff's at higher levels?

And then there's the question about animal style. The most appealing to me initially is the Patient Tortoise, but it seemed like the Tenacious Badger was made for the more aggressive style in mind. I'm mostly just not sure how useful the bonus is for being relatively low on hit points. Should/Will I be that low on hit points very often? How much of a difference does the ki regeneration make? Is the decreased meditation rate noticeable or deterring? etc. Which one is ultimately more useful for a DPS build?

All helpful replies are appreciated.

Don't go THF as a monk. If you want a staff/stick build look at Rogue acrobat. Acrobats get the same sort of speed boost with quarterstaffs that monks get with unarmed combat.

At low levels a monk can use staffs, or kamas effectively. But fists always have the attack speed advantage from flurry of blows. And the base damage on your fists increases as you level. Eventually on a pure monk, the base damage on the fists is high enough that you only use something else to break a high DR or to get a specific effect that is not available on handwraps ( like vorpal ).

As for animal paths, there is much debate on which one to take. My personal pattern is to take monkey at low levels for the extra saves and to get rid of those annoying over time elemental damage spells (like melfs acid arrows) then to switch to crane or tortoise at high levels depending on whether I am more ki starved on need the extra hit points. But Tortoise, Crane and Monkey are all ok choices.

I don't usually have enough action points to allow room for more than tier II of any animal path.

[Angelus_dead]

I was reading up on the DDO Wiki and noticed that it said Strength-based monks would probably use the quarterstaff and two-handed fighting instead of unarmed/two weapon fighting. Is this good advice?

That comment is probably from an older version of DDO monks, before they were given decent unarmed ability.

And then there's the question about animal style. The most appealing to me initially is the Patient Tortoise, but it seemed like the Tenacious Badger was made for the more aggressive style in mind.

That might have been the goal for Badger, but it doesn't work: stay with Tortoise at low level, then swap to Crane at high level so you can get more Ki.