stunning fist DC and crit handwraps.

[Therigar]

While I don't know any monks that start with 18 Wis, it is definitely not an unlikely situation for monks to put stat increases into wisdom on level ups. There are many builds that do this.

I would not put stat increases into WIS and can see no value in doing so for monks that are damage oriented. Because the game is all about DPS for melee characters it seems counterproductive to put stat increases anywhere other than STR.

But....

Not all players are focused on the DPS aspect and some even still work on silly things like AC.

A build that is gearing towards Epic with a focus on Stunning Fist it might make good sense to boost WIS with stat increases. That it has the added benefit of also impacting AC would be a bonus.

I would think that if this is the direction a build is taking that it would be beneficial to get the 18 WIS if the build points are there. That could be tricky since I'd presume that STR is no longer a primary focus. That almost implies that to hit has to be coming from DEX and Weapon Finesse.

A build that is all DEX, CON and WIS would seem to have too few build points to really go for 18 WIS. Even if DEX were held down to just enough to qualify TWF feat chain and there was a STR investment I think pushing WIS wouldn't work.

The issue really is the to hit numbers I think.

Since it is counterintuitive to me to think that to hit can be high enough without stat increases going into either STR or DEX I can't imagine a build putting stat increases into WIS.

What I can see is the situation where 1 of the 5 increases might go into WIS. But all 5 or even splitting them in some bigger way....

Well, I can't see that as being smart in any way. So, if it isn't unlikely for stat increases in WIS then it just means that a lot of monks don't really know what they're doing with their stat increases.

Build point wise I think 16 is the max most builds can afford and that is pushing the top limit. In some rare cases 17 might get used to go with the 3 enhancements to reach an even number. But, I think that is unusual.

Stat increase wise I think it is only asking to roll a lot of misses by investing in WIS rather than the primary to hit stat (STR or DEX, depending). Having a high stun DC is meaningless if you roll miss, miss, miss.

[AMDarkwolf]

No offense, but your all sorts of wrong there assuming 'wis won't be a monks main stat'

Sorry, but wis IS a monks main stat, and 5 level ups into wis, in fire(yes its -2 wis) u can still 'quite easily' hit 30 str and 34 wis(After all penalties, bonuses, items, not counting ship buffs and yugo pots or any other lame crutch)

This is a easy to hit 42 dc(with stunner 10s) which is MORE than enough for epics. If shintao and with 8 starting cha, this also places your kukan at 42 dc. A 'SMART' player knows which stun to use on what targets.


The whole idea that you need to go full out str for dps is silly, since at most your only getting +4-5 hit/dmg over all the candy u get from wis.

Oh and Idk if u realized it, but u get autocrit on stunned mobs, so a 'stun speced' monk in NON epics will freaking dominate ANYTHING not ooze/skelly, and most oozes/skellies are just laughable when faced by a monk.


The whole 'gotta go max dps cuz nothing else matters' is along the same lines as that guy making the 'wis based barb to help me kill mages' build. Yup, Thats right, I mean its silly.

Before u knock monks (and the vast majority of monks) who get wis, why not try it. You'll cry after u see how sweet it is and regret ever going 'full out str'

(Don't get me wrong, str based monks can be good dps, but that 'good dps' build, which really is at MOST 5-6 more dmg than a wis based monk, all other starting stats equal, is sacrificing a great deal just for a tiny bit of extra dmg)


Truth is, if u really want to be dps, make a barb or a fighter.

[Impatiens]

Well, I can't see that as being smart in any way. So, if it isn't unlikely for stat increases in WIS then it just means that a lot of monks don't really know what they're doing with their stat increases.

Hm, I guess being on my 4th monk (A 28 point build where I really didn't know what I was doing and a 32 build that has now been TRed twice) I still don't know what I'm doing

I'd say more, but AMDarkwolf covered it all very well already.

[Ttip]

Another reason I love monks. There seems to be no wrong way to build a good Monk unless you are intentionally trying to gimp them. I have ran with Dex/wis based, str/dex based, str/wis based and con/wis based Monks and have seen each of them used effectively. Granted, the con/wis is most effective as a CC tank type play style with a good party and plays more of a support roll than a primary Melee, but all are great when used by good players. The STR based with base wis and dex, just enough to meet requirements, is undoubtedly the most effecient soloist I have seen yet...but that could have something to do with the player's ability and gear.

Therigar and Clay can run in my groups any day of the week.

And to the sarcastic poster, it is unbecoming and although you made a couple good points (wis is A main stat for Monks, but not THE main stat for monks), your sarcastic wit lessens their value.

No offense is intended, and no names included or quoted, just recommending some civility when stating your case (even when you are both right and just on opposing sides of an unwinnable argument). Very much like me saying that Dwarves are the best race and anyone running an Elf is stupid. (I have seen one or two elves that were actually ok, so my remark would be not entirely correct.)

[Darkrok]

No offense, but your all sorts of wrong there assuming 'wis won't be a monks main stat'

Sorry, but wis IS a monks main stat, and 5 level ups into wis, in fire(yes its -2 wis) u can still 'quite easily' hit 30 str and 34 wis(After all penalties, bonuses, items, not counting ship buffs and yugo pots or any other lame crutch)

This is a easy to hit 42 dc(with stunner 10s) which is MORE than enough for epics. If shintao and with 8 starting cha, this also places your kukan at 42 dc. A 'SMART' player knows which stun to use on what targets.


The whole idea that you need to go full out str for dps is silly, since at most your only getting +4-5 hit/dmg over all the candy u get from wis.

Oh and Idk if u realized it, but u get autocrit on stunned mobs, so a 'stun speced' monk in NON epics will freaking dominate ANYTHING not ooze/skelly, and most oozes/skellies are just laughable when faced by a monk.


The whole 'gotta go max dps cuz nothing else matters' is along the same lines as that guy making the 'wis based barb to help me kill mages' build. Yup, Thats right, I mean its silly.

Before u knock monks (and the vast majority of monks) who get wis, why not try it. You'll cry after u see how sweet it is and regret ever going 'full out str'

(Don't get me wrong, str based monks can be good dps, but that 'good dps' build, which really is at MOST 5-6 more dmg than a wis based monk, all other starting stats equal, is sacrificing a great deal just for a tiny bit of extra dmg)


Truth is, if u really want to be dps, make a barb or a fighter.

What I wonder is how you deal with the to-hit issues in epics. I'm not criticizing...I'm honestly curious as I'm getting ready to LR my monk right now and want to have a usable stun even after the coming changes. I'm just worried that 30str won't cut it on getting the necessary to-hit. I know that's where I'm sitting right now running wind stance and I don't hit on a 2.

Oh, and completely agree on the Kukan Do/Stunning Fist or Blow choice. Toss in Tomb of Jade as well. If you use the correct one on the correct mobs you can do really well. I had no problem with my 37dc on Stunning Fist in locking down enemy casters. Meanwhile, my 42dc Kukan Do never got a resist against the melee mobs. I'll definitely be interested to see how things go though with the upcoming removal of the minion debuff.

[Impatiens]

And to the sarcastic poster, it is unbecoming and although you made a couple good points (wis is A main stat for Monks, but not THE main stat for monks), your sarcastic wit lessens their value.

I'm not sure if you are referring to me or AMDarkwolf with this comment. Mine was indeed a little sarcastic, but mostly in a light-hearted "it's silly to say that a monk who puts level ups in Wis doesn't know what they are doing" way. And I didn't really feel more needed to be said since it was covered so well already. I didn't really read AMDarkwolf's as sarcastic at all and I certainly didn't think either of us were uncivil.

Neither of us have said that strength based monks are bad (because they certainly aren't!) but the idea that a more Wis based monk doesn't know what he or she is doing is rather silly and I think that was the main point of it all. It is also possible that with the changes to epics SF DCs will be unreachably high, at which point a more strength based build would probably be wise. We'll just have to wait and see on that one though.

[DevHead]

I've got a Dark monk that put as much into Wis as possible. Started with 18, all level-ups, +3 enhancement, all that stuff. Then I put in enough base Dex to get GMast of Storms and GTWF, then extra points in Con, then some in Str. 42DC Stunning Fist in Epics with good DPS from sneaking and auto-crits. By the sounds of the changes to Epic, my monk will probably be doing even *more* damage (assuming helplessness, good SA bonuses, etc.).

If I ever manage to find a +4 Dex tome (or any but Int or Cha, for that matter), then my build will become very painful since that'll either let me take GMast of Earth, or add to STR for more base DPS.

*sigh* I can dream, can't I?

[DevHead]

Oh, and I'd suggest +10 stunners with any sort of burst you can find (force, holy, and shock preferred). And add a Force Crit ritual; it's cheaper than Force damage which is per hit, and these wraps are meant for auto-critting, anyway, so the overall DPS is much better on stunnable creatures. They'd more or less suck on bosses.

Edit: forgot a couple words; corrected.

[Darkrok]

Oh, and I'd suggest +10 stunners with any sort of burst you can find (force, holy, and shock preferred). And add a Force Crit ritual; it's cheaper than Force damage which is per hit, and these wraps are meant for auto-critting, anyway, so the overall DPS is much better on stunnable creatures. They'd more or less suck on bosses.

Edit: forgot a couple words; corrected.

Force crit and other burst damage goes down in value here since you will no longer be getting guaranteed crits. Even when you stun it will still only be a 10% chance (assuming improved crit: bludgeoning) of getting burst damage. Higher non-crit damage becomes more important.

[DrakmireTS]

Oh, and I'd suggest +10 stunners with any sort of burst you can find (force, holy, and shock preferred). And add a Force Crit ritual; it's cheaper than Force damage which is per hit, and these wraps are meant for auto-critting, anyway, so the overall DPS is much better on stunnable creatures. They'd more or less suck on bosses.

Edit: forgot a couple words; corrected.

You aren't going to want holy burst and, most likely, shocking burst on your wraps, as those will be the best choices to go on your ToD rings and the effects don't stack.

[AMDarkwolf]

What I wonder is how you deal with the to-hit issues in epics. I'm not criticizing...I'm honestly curious as I'm getting ready to LR my monk right now and want to have a usable stun even after the coming changes. I'm just worried that 30str won't cut it on getting the necessary to-hit. I know that's where I'm sitting right now running wind stance and I don't hit on a 2.

Oh, and completely agree on the Kukan Do/Stunning Fist or Blow choice. Toss in Tomb of Jade as well. If you use the correct one on the correct mobs you can do really well. I had no problem with my 37dc on Stunning Fist in locking down enemy casters. Meanwhile, my 42dc Kukan Do never got a resist against the melee mobs. I'll definitely be interested to see how things go though with the upcoming removal of the minion debuff.

As a monk, your to-hit IS an issue in epics. Even with those 5 level ups into str it would be (that's +2/3 more to hit)

How to deal with it? GH clickies when no caster nearby, Ravens sight set, spectral gloves, +to hit tod sets, destruction/imp.destruction wraps, etc. As a monk you will find u will need to utilize more of these than most other melees would(where a rog would only use 2-3, and a fighter or barb none, you will switch wraps when fighting malicia, to make sure u get her destructed/imp destructed before u feel u can hit her ok)

Also too, once stunned, and vs a singular mob, your to-hit is pointless. As long as u reapply the stun as soon as it wears off, your golden(My monk was my solo-scroll farmer for many epics, as long as u only face 1 or 2 mobs at a time, your usually fine)

DC 42 is plenty in epic content. Yes there some mobs that stunning fist wont land so well with that dc(DUH then u use kukan ) and vice versa vs spellcasters. Ranger-type mobs i find resist both types of stuns about the same.

Remember for the to-hit issues its not the lack of str(since that will only be 5-8 TOTAL difference due to original build and level ups either way, so 2-4 more/less to hit) but the fact your a monk, and lack much of the "+ to hit" or others that fighters and barbs get, and lack of + str barbs would get from rages and such.


(IMO I have always felt that monks deserved a 'weapon finesse' type feat that used wisdom for to-hit purposes, but i guess this could result in an unbalance issue later on)

[Impatiens]

(IMO I have always felt that monks deserved a 'weapon finesse' type feat that used wisdom for to-hit purposes, but i guess this could result in an unbalance issue later on)

I've always wanted this as well. But, unfortunately, I doubt it will ever happen.

[Therigar]

Well, seems like I hurt people's feelings.

I'd apologize but I'm not really sorry.

The issue is the ability to hit the mob. If you can't hit it you can't stun it.

Yes, I know about the Kukan-do which is a ranged stun. That is a different ability to what I'm trying to discuss. But, take a look at Therigar. He's L18 light path Shintao III.

Here are some things that I know from playing him.

1. Stuns don't always land.
2. There is a cool down on stun attacks.
3. Even after being stunned some mobs have time to recover.

You do not have to be able to deal with combat during the time when mobs are not stunned. But, I find that it helps and I think you really should.

I would much rather be landing a flurry of blows doing ~35 points of damage on average and knowing that my only miss is going to come when I roll a 1. Every point I take away from STR increases the number of times that I miss and reduces the damage I do with each hit.

Now, I could drop my STR and still hit on 2+ in most content. But then I couldn't run with Power Attack always on and I'd see my damage drop to ~25 on average. Instead of being able to help party DPS I'd be pulling on party resources.

Boosting my WIS doesn't really save resources. You can only stun so many mobs and only so fast. So the rest of the fighting is still going on regardless.

And, unless you are getting into the unhittable ACs you are still pulling on the group for heals. So you don't reduce your dependance on the group at all and you contribute less to killing the enemy.

That doesn't make sense.

I can so no rationale case that can be made for reducing your chances to hit and reducing your damage on the hopes that you'll stun the mob IF you hit.

I do suspect lots of people are building monks and putting their build points and stat increases into WIS. After all, WIS is the monk stat and you even gain enhancements in it.

But that doesn't make it the right or even a smart thing to be doing.

[Trillea]

best i've seen is seeker 8/stunning 8, and i think that was an RR quarterstaff ML 18. you may be waiting a long time...

I have a pair of seeker 8/stunning 8 wraps, and LOVE them! Only beaten out by my icy-bursted force wraps of stunning 10.

[DrakmireTS]

Re: Therigar (since I didn't want a massive quote wall of text)

As with most monk builds, it's just going to be one of those things that's dependent on how you want to play your monk. Is it always the right choice to put points into Wis? Of course not. But it sometimes is, it just depends. A lot of epics I've run take me specifically because of the stunning fist DC, even when we have an archmage in the group. Being able to stun caster mobs with their inherently higher will saves makes epic Tides just that much faster and smoother.

Regarding your chance to hit, in the current iteration of epics, there's very rarely a case where I need to prep a target with imp destruction. Almost always, it's just a quick jump behind the target, stunning fist, then watch all the barbs sprint over when they see the stun crown over my target's head. Contribution to the group can take a form of more than just damage, as any archmage will tell you.

[Impatiens]

I'm not going to bother arguing with you on this point much more Therigar, because I don't think we'll agree no matter what. But please remember there are a lot of viable ways to build a monk. Certainly a strength based build like you have is one of those ways, but Wisdom based builds also have their place whether you can see it or not.

The fact that you are arguing for strength builds isn't the problem. However, you are telling people who have wisdom builds that they aren't smart and don't know what they are doing, when I'm pretty sure that a great deal of them do know and have just as much or more experience playing a monk as you do. They have found a different build that works for them. Just because it is not the same build that works well for you and your play style doesn't mean it is wrong. That's one really nice thing about this game compared to some others. Most classes do not have one ideal build.

Now, the changes to epics may mean that a Wisdom based build isn't as ideal anymore. It depends on what the DCs on trash are being changed to and whether they are reasonable to obtain. We will have to take a wait-and-see approach to that. But stunning mobs is a hugely important part of epics at the moment and if your strength build is dolling out the damage but can't reliably stun that could be a problem in the same way that it could be a problem if a wisdom build doesn't have enough strength (or dex for a finesse build) to reliably hit. Many Wisdom focused builds are Dark path, so they do not have Kukan-do as another possible stun if their stunning fist gets resisted. Having a high stun DC, which necessitates high wisdom, is hugely important for Dark builds.

[DevHead]

Force crit and other burst damage goes down in value here since you will no longer be getting guaranteed crits. Even when you stun it will still only be a 10% chance (assuming improved crit: bludgeoning) of getting burst damage. Higher non-crit damage becomes more important.

Fair point. You just made me realize the my build that focuses on stunning and gets tons of ki for ToD that way just totally got gimped with Update 9 coming out. Ah, ****. I'll need to totally rethink my build.

Wait...stunning was the purpose of this monk for DPS via auto-critting. With this new Update, that purpose will be gone. I'll have to switch to straight DPS with no focus in Wis. ****. The Metaru build just got better.

EDIT: Was just thinking about U9 more, and realized that the 50% damage boost to helpless creatures includes SA. I'll probably just make some small adjustments to maximize SA damage instead, and probably get as good of damage as auto-critting, if not more. The only problem lies with tons of ki. A change in animal path, probably (currently using Crane).

You aren't going to want holy burst and, most likely, shocking burst on your wraps, as those will be the best choices to go on your ToD rings and the effects don't stack.

Not all of us have ToD rings. I don't have any, in fact. Not even flagged; been running solo for so long, but now that I'm in an active guild, perhaps I'll be able to soon. Perhaps I should adjust my statement to: HolyB, ShockingB, ForceB if no ToD rings, otherwise Force Burst.

[DevHead]

I didn't realize a word as innocent as cr ap would be censored. -_-

[ElrosOronar]

Yeah my seeker6/stunning10 wraps seem to get the job done for most everything on my dark build. I am seriously thinking of TRing to light though for more stuns but will probably wait to see how U9 shakes out.