Dark Monks

[gamj]

Not going to create a new thread regarding monks getting shafted by U9 due to changes to stun, since there's already one and I completely agree.

What I want to ask here is : Can you fix Dark Monks in U9 ?

- Nyoko's Ring/Necklace is **** compared to Shintao's kit. (Sneak attack bonus? Meh.. there are so many other options like Tharne's, new gauntlets from Cove, cove hat, etc) And it doesn't have a special bonus if you have Ninja Spy PrE.

- Ninja Spy PrE is pretty Meh now compared to the upgrade to Shintao. (You get 3d6 sneak + small Ki increase while sneaking) compared to all the nice stuff Shintao got like bypassing every DR, Jade prison, ranged stun, etc.

- Dark move finishers are complete **** and useless against the mobs you'd like it to work on.

All Bosses are immune to Dark finishers, and most are also immune to elemental vulnerability enhancements (required for Touch of Death). And the mobs not immune to the finishers are usually dead before you can pull it.

I have to admit I'm not a expert at Finishers, but when most of the time it doesn't work I'm not trying to improve at something useless... Then again, I might be doing something wrong here, but that doesn't change the fact that they don't work on most Red and not at all with Purple.

Compared to light moves, while being more defensive in nature, have their uses (remove curse, restoration, etc). Healing curse works on everything, and I heard a light monk rescently saying one of their debuff (dont remember which) worked on Harry in Shroud...

[efreet5]

On my darkmonk I use the 3x earth finisher against casters to end spellcasting, the earth/dark/earth to render mobs helpless for an entire minute (nausea), water/dark/water to paralyze mobs, Shining Star (Earth/Wind/Fire), and I stun them.

-Don't EVER use fire/dark/fire...who the hell thought that was a good idea for an ability??

Between all of those I'm spamming earth strikes, Fists of Iron, and ToD. You want more....? I don't think all that's off timer before I could go through it all. If you completely dumped Wisdom, then yeah your finishers will suck, but my finishers land in epics well over 80% of the time. Dark monks have plenty to work with and far too many people don't fully appreciate the power of shadow fade's 25% incorporeal bonus. I'll take our 25% chance to evade any physical attack over some ranged stun any day.

[Therigar]

I would still prefer to be dark path monk to light path. I've done both. Jiu Jit Su is TR from dark path. Therigar is currently L19 on light path.

The two are different. But for shear fun dark path is so far ahead that there's no comparison IMO. The only thing that kept Therigar from being dark path was lack of ToD rings. Had to go light path for silver DR breaker.

I'm waiting on U9's crafting system to see what that might bring. If I can deconstruct metalline out of a weapon and put it into holy/good wraps (or deconstruct holy/good and put it into metalline wraps) then I'll be hard pressed to choose light path for future monk builds.

Rumored changes to stun and hold effects along with what I've heard about vorpal changes could actually mean that dark path comes out ahead with U9. If instant kill effects are possible (or capped at 1k hp but still proc) then there is every reason to hold out hope that touch of death will have usefulness in higher level content. If the cool down beats the 1 in 20 hits speed of vorpals then it could prove to be on par with vorpals as a big HP drain. If mobs are not taking autocrit when stunned/held then any big HP drain is a plus if it procs.

So, I'm in more of a let's wait and see what it is really like state of mind.

[lazylaz]

On my darkmonk I use the 3x earth finisher against casters to end spellcasting, the earth/dark/earth to render mobs helpless for an entire minute (nausea), water/dark/water to paralyze mobs, Shining Star (Earth/Wind/Fire), and I stun them.

-Don't EVER use fire/dark/fire...who the hell thought that was a good idea for an ability??

Between all of those I'm spamming earth strikes, Fists of Iron, and ToD. You want more....? I don't think all that's off timer before I could go through it all. If you completely dumped Wisdom, then yeah your finishers will suck, but my finishers land in epics well over 80% of the time. Dark monks have plenty to work with and far too many people don't fully appreciate the power of shadow fade's 25% incorporeal bonus. I'll take our 25% chance to evade any physical attack over some ranged stun any day.

Well this has made me want to try rolling a monk again. Thank you efreet5.

[Therigar]

Dark monks have plenty to work with and far too many people don't fully appreciate the power of shadow fade's 25% incorporeal bonus. I'll take our 25% chance to evade any physical attack over some ranged stun any day.

Well, light monks do have Dance of Clouds for 1 minute of 20% concealment so I wouldn't over appreciate the value of Shadow Fade either.

[efreet5]

Dance of the clouds doesn't work against raid bosses, shadow fade does. Dance of the clouds is a crappy 1 minute blur. Any dark monk that uses shadow fade AND gets blur from a caster/wears an item that grants blur gets ~33% chance to avoid the physical attacks of any mob without true seeing. If you use a displacement clicky that chance is about 63% and, like I said before, light monks don't have much that's useful against raid bosses.

[Eladrin]

-Don't EVER use fire/dark/fire...who the hell thought that was a good idea for an ability??

We weren't very happy with it, so in Update 9:

The Karmic Strike finisher no longer leaves the monk helpless. The effect has changed to "Fire-Dark-Fire Finisher - You have learned to strike at the moment your opponent is most vulnerable - the same moment your opponent strikes you. This attack is guaranteed to produce critical threat if it hits, but costs 20 hit points to perform."

Thematically similar, but much more usable.

[sephiroth1084]

We weren't very happy with it, so in Update 9:

The Karmic Strike finisher no longer leaves the monk helpless. The effect has changed to "Fire-Dark-Fire Finisher - You have learned to strike at the moment your opponent is most vulnerable - the same moment your opponent strikes you. This attack is guaranteed to produce critical threat if it hits, but costs 20 hit points to perform."

Thematically similar, but much more usable.

Intereting!

[KreepyKritter]

So, I only just started dabbling in Monks, so I'll ask it here...

Blur and Dusk stack, Displacement, blur and dusk stack,


So, would blur/dusk/displacement/shadow fade stack together?

Alternately, would the 20% dusk granted by the Greater Nimble Trinket stack with the above, and could one then add Dance of the Clouds to the above?

To my mind, that would come out to 20% Dusk/20% Blur/50% Displacement + Dance + Shadowfade... would this combination make you temporarily untouchable?

Trying to decide whether or not to respec my Enhancements for Ninja Spy vs Shintao

[sephiroth1084]

Blur and Dusk don't stack.

Dance of Clouds is just Blur as handed out by a monk.

[KreepyKritter]

Even so, Dusk + Shadow Fade + Displacement = ~83% miss chance... hmmm... pretty substantial, all the same.

[sephiroth1084]

Even so, Dusk + Shadow Fade + Displacement = ~83% miss chance... hmmm... pretty substantial, all the same.

Displacement doesn't stack with Blur or Dusk.

The best you could hope for would be Shadow Fade + Displacement.

[KreepyKritter]

You know, you're doing a really lousy job of selling me on the idea of a respec...

Thanks for clarifying the crunchy stuff for me though.

[sephiroth1084]

I don't think it should come down to just the miss chance, but it's still a 25% miss chance a light monk won't have that applies even vs. raid bosses.

[DrakmireTS]

I'm a big fan of shadow fade. I've had so many fights where I've squeaked by because I've been incorporeal that would have most likely meant my death that, as much as I like some of the light monk abilities, I don't think I could ever give up the fade.

[efreet5]

So, I only just started dabbling in Monks, so I'll ask it here...

Blur and Dusk stack, Displacement, blur and dusk stack,


So, would blur/dusk/displacement/shadow fade stack together?

1) Blur, Displacement, and Dusk don't stack. They're concealment bonuses, so the game applies the highest of the three to your character. Blur is 20%, Displacement is 50%, and Dusk is X% (is it 10% or is it like some other effects that say 10, but are really 20%?).

2) Shadow Fade provides a 25% Incorporeal bonus to avoid incoming attacks. This means that any mob that doesn't have a ghost touch weapon (none do) will be unable to bypass this miss chance.

3) The Greater Nimble Trinket would be an example of an item that grants the Blur effect. If you wear this item, then you'll notice that someone casting the spell on you appears to have no effect (it won't show up visually or even on your buff bar). This is because the item grants the same effect and overrides the spell. With that trinket and shadow fade going you'd have a ~33% chance for enemy attacks to be evaded and that's not taking your ac into consideration; though your ac won't matter in epics, so I generally don't count on ac at all.

As far as which one is better for you, that all depends. Ninja Spy allows you to do a lot of quests with stealth or flat out zerging through them invisible (via shadow fade). I believe their finishers are much better than light monk finishers because they actually apply in combat. I tend to zerg a lot and I dislike playing characters that are built around making others stronger, so I like to have abilities that help me kill things faster or keep me alive longer, dark monks have those abilities. The downside is that dark monks will have a harder time getting good wraps to bypass raid boss dr, so that can put a huge wrench into the plans of a newer player.

Light monks offer a different play style. They have superior self healing with the healing curse, which can often carry you through early to mid level content without needing much healing at all. The ranged stun and jade abilities are quite useful for crowd control. When used in conjunction with shining star and stunning fist a light monk can bring quite a bit of cc to the table. Light monks also have little to worry about in terms of bypassing raid boss dr. By the time you get Shintao III you can bypass the dr of every raid boss in the game, except for maybe the Reaver (did they add mithril to metalline yet? We always put someone squishy as the "tank" for reaver and pike, so I haven't really hit the reaver in quite a while). This makes the equipment part much more forgiving. You get a pair of pure good or holy handwraps and you can hit raid bosses.

I don't want to make the choice for you. I prefer to kill things and get stuff done as fast as possible, so the free invis (shadow fade) and the ability to avoid the incoming damage from the mobs I'm trying to run past is the deal breaker for me. I could just as easily see myself stunning and beating down those mobs with a light monk (healing myself while doing it too!). My tips are:

1) Don't completely dump wisdom

2) Learn your finishers and what they do. Certain finishers and abilities are better against different types of mobs and you'll need to think about this when using them. For instance, I never used the water/dark/water until a guild member told me I was being an idiot for not using it to paralyze mobs, but it works best against mobs with low fort saves (casters). He was right!

3) You are NOT a tank. Move around in combat and use your CC abilities to control aggro, you don't have the hps to stand there and take it. (This should probably be tip #1)

4) Gear-wise, ToD is to a Monk what the Shroud is to any other kind of toon. Get in there, get a ****** ring, and put holy burst on it ASAP!!

5) Enjoy! ...but you may have to turn up your music and turn off sound if you're halfling due to the sound of 'Squeek-fu.'

[jmonty]

3) You are NOT a tank. Move around in combat and use your CC abilities to control aggro, you don't have the hps to stand there and take it. (This should probably be tip #1)

well, unless you build for it. my wf monk's hp can hit high 600s-low 700s

generally it is high 500s in fire stance without using yugo or ddo store pots

[Vissarion]

well, unless you build for it. my wf monk's hp can hit high 600s-low 700s

generally it is high 500s in fire stance without using yugo or ddo store pots

Yeah, this. All three of my monks can tank, though Horoth would be pretty dicey on two of them.

[wiglin]

We weren't very happy with it, so in Update 9:

The Karmic Strike finisher no longer leaves the monk helpless. The effect has changed to "Fire-Dark-Fire Finisher - You have learned to strike at the moment your opponent is most vulnerable - the same moment your opponent strikes you. This attack is guaranteed to produce critical threat if it hits, but costs 20 hit points to perform."

Thematically similar, but much more usable.

I liked the older version better since it produced the critical hit with my acrobat ninja using quarterstaffs without leaving you helpless like it did with unarmed. Sure it might of been a little broke, but having a guaranteed critical hit every 6 seconds with the quarterstaff was a nice dps boost to an already low dps weapon.

[bobbryan2]

We weren't very happy with it, so in Update 9:

The Karmic Strike finisher no longer leaves the monk helpless. The effect has changed to "Fire-Dark-Fire Finisher - You have learned to strike at the moment your opponent is most vulnerable - the same moment your opponent strikes you. This attack is guaranteed to produce critical threat if it hits, but costs 20 hit points to perform."

Thematically similar, but much more usable.

While I'm all for looking at dark finishers... They could use a lot of work. Consider having each one do 1d6 damage per level of the corresponding element type in addition to the other affects. Against bosses and raid bosses are the times you actually have the ability to use finishers... and none of the dark monk finishers actually do anything to most of these.

It's way too hard to actually use finishers in combat against trash mobs.