hand wraps

[darthmaul121783]

i'm trying to find the best hand raps to use on a monk. any one have a thought on what would be best to use ?


lets see if i can clear this up for you

Wow, that's just the most open-ended question I have seen lately. You might want to provide some information about what type of monk you're talking about as that makes a difference.

cureentaly i'm running a level 16 light monk dwarf in master wind stance with the following stats with equipment tomes and enhancments

STR 27
DEX 25
CON 20
INT 8
WIS 26
CHR 6


i'm looking to do better DPS with hand wraps

the only names ones that i have are

the stondust handwraps <-- will be making in to vamp
unstable handwraps

[sebastianosmith]

i'm trying to find the best hand raps to use on a monk. any one have a thought on what would be best to use ?

Wow, that's just the most open-ended question I have seen lately. You might want to provide some information about what type of monk you're talking about as that makes a difference.

[Kenpai]

If you're into Stunning, a _______ Handwraps of Stunning +10 might be a good investment.
______ HW of Smiting for Constructs, _______ HW of Disruption for undead, Banishing HW of ________ for outsiders, Paralyzing, (Greater) ________ Bane and Bleeding are all nice to have on wraps.

My Clonk carries 8 pairs of handwraps which I swap around as the need arises.

[sebastianosmith]

cureentaly i'm running a level 16 light monk dwarf in master wind stance with the following stats with equipment tomes and enhancments

i'm looking to do better DPS with hand wraps

the only names ones that i have are

the stondust handwraps <-- will be making in to vamp
unstable handwraps

The vamp stoney wraps are better for a dark sider but, sure they can help. Other than that, anything that breaks DR, has GB or mob specific damage on it. My monks, and I play several of every type, carry no less than 10 pair at level 16. Kenpai's suggestion are spot on. The only other I might suggest are Greater Curse-Spewing for soloing so you can save some ki debuffing

[SpearKicker]

One I use for all around DPS is a +5 Holy HW of Pure Good. Have put Icy Burst int it, from Risia Games, and Force Ritual, from Stne of Change. It is really good.

But be carefull not to invest much in Holy Burst ones, cause they will not stack with TOD ring Holy burst (but Holy HW will).

[Tembyr]

I prefer a combination of force/holy prefix with bleeding/good suffix for general killing. DR breaking handwraps are used as needed.

[Ecoski]

Handwraps which are almost a must have for later levels are metalline HW of pure good. These will break through most DR in the game, which definitely starts to be a bit of a problem in amrath. Although they are rare, and expensive on the AH, farming the shadow crypt in Necropolis gives you the chance of getting the devout handwraps in the bonus chest at the end if you find an extra one of each gear. The devout handwraps are metalline of pure good
I personally run about with a banishing set, smiting set, disrupting set, vampiric stonedust, holy burst of stunning +10 (not got ToD rings yet), force burst of pure good, unbalanced handwraps, devout handwraps and +5 silver threaded of greater evil outsider bane.

To be honest, I could probably ditch a couple of them in the bank, but I keep on finding that whenever I put one away, I suddenly wish I was carrying it, so I'm just keeping one bag full of handwraps and exchangeable armor pieces

[Tembyr]

I must disagree, Ecoski. The poster is a light monk and while he does not explicitly say so, I assume he took the Shin Tao enhancement line, giving him cold iron, silver (at 18) and byeshk attacks. This means he does not need to lose the prefix to metalline and can use something more damaging.

Edit: nevermind, I am a bad reader, he has no Prestige Enhancement and should provide another means of breaking DR.

[Therigar]

Although many replies seem to suggest that you need or want multiple handwraps my experience is that you can get by with very few of them.

Vampiric Stonedust wraps are a good all-around handwrap that you will find useful in a large number of situations. In my past life these were my main choice for wraps.

Unstable wraps are good on a light path monk as boss beaters.

In October when the Mabar event returns you will want to get Endless Night wraps.

Smiting wraps are useful in Shroud or anyplace where you are facing a lot of constructs -- including warforged. Not absolutely required or needed but still nice to have.

Greater Elemental bane wraps are another not required but nice to have item. Elementals are often problematic so a greater bane is nice.

I ended up using three wraps almost always: Stonedust, Unstable and smiting. That was enough on content from Vale onward. All the rest ended up sitting in the bank or in the backpack as they really were never needed or used.

Note that Unstable is only useful to you if you are light path and have the silver DR bypass. Otherwise you will want an alternate DR breaker for running Shroud and beyond -- metalline of PG or holy silver (or something similar).

[SpearKicker]

Handwraps which are almost a must have for later levels are metalline HW of pure good. These will break through most DR in the game, which definitely starts to be a bit of a problem in amrath. Although they are rare, and expensive on the AH, farming the shadow crypt in Necropolis gives you the chance of getting the devout handwraps in the bonus chest at the end if you find an extra one of each gear. The devout handwraps are metalline of pure good

Note that Unstable is only useful to you if you are light path and have the silver DR bypass. Otherwise you will want an alternate DR breaker for running Shroud and beyond -- metalline of PG or holy silver (or something similar).

Other less expensive option to DR breaker is to buy a metalline HW of (insert any effect here), if you already have crafted a Holy Burst TOD

[cheever77]

I find I use very few handwraps on my monk.

+3 festival ice burst force burst of PG. ( trash )

+3 shocking handwraps of smiting ( portals )

+5 Met of PG ( DR breakers )

+5 shocking handwraps of grt dragon bane ( eVon6 )

+3 icy burst Handwraps of stunning +10.

I do carry banishers and disruptors but find I rarely use them. I tend to swap between stunners and force bursts when dealing with trash and met of pg when needing to break DR

[SpearKicker]

I find I use very few handwraps on my monk.

+3 shocking handwraps of smiting ( portals )

Do portals take shock damage? Didnt know that! Its really nice! Will start my search for some shock + smiting or construct banes...

[BoBo2020]

Do portals take shock damage? Didnt know that! Its really nice! Will start my search for some shock + smiting or construct banes...

shock and smiting is not a great combination as some constructs are healed by electricity damage (I suppose they are fine if you are only worried about portals).

For example, flesh golems actually heal 1 point of damage for every 3 points of damage that electricity should do. Additionally, electricity damage essentially grants the construct the benefit of a haste spell.

Also note - acid heals clay golems, fire heals iron golems, etc.

Non-elemental prefixes are a good idea; anarchic and vicious are good late game prefixes for smiters.

[SensaiRyu]

[...]
cureentaly i'm running a level 16 light monk dwarf in master wind stance with the following stats with equipment tomes and enhancments
[...]
with no Pre
[...]

Why would a light monk not take the Shintao PrE?

While you're picking out your wraps, darth, I suggest you take Shintao PrE and not worry about the metalline, cold iron and silver wraps. I use a holy/stun +10 wraps a lot in Amrath and the Vale.

[Aragan]

Portals don't take shock damage, the best portal beaters are holy/anarchic of smiting/ greater construct bane.

[riexau]

I carry 4 pairs of handwraps.

+5 anarchaic of pure good (with icy)
+1 holy of disruption
+1 true law of smiting
+2 metaline of evil outside bane

Covers most everything I do in the game, since I prefer to TR instead of epics.

[Feralthyrtiaq]

As a light monk you are selling yourself short w/o the Shintao PrE

At level 18 your FoL monk will bypass any metal based DR with the Shintao III PrE (cold iron, silver, adam, byeshk)

+

any ring from ToD with Holy Burst on it and you bypass DR of any demon or devil boss.

The Shintao ToD set Ring + Necklace gives +2 to hit and +2 damage and make your unarmed attacks bypass either good or alignment based (maybe iirc) as well.

Lots of other good advice in the above posts. With the above set up versus a devil boss the best HW you can use is +5 (or +4 w/e cannith crafting allows atm) Holy of GEOB as 2 Holy Bursts don't stack.

[darthmaul121783]

i'm looking at Shintao PrE my monk is now at 16 and i do not have any TOD or high level gear yet. all advice is welcome i'm planning on a TR to get the added unarmed attack bost from the additional feat

[Kinerd]

All you need for Shintao is a weak feat, Stunning Fist, Improved Recovery III, and a Master stance; so really the only extra you would spend would be the feat and potentially the last tier of IR. It is definitely, definitely worth it.

The best handwraps are based on a monk's strengths (attack rate) and not weaknesses (critical hits). You therefore want to load up on on-hit processes: two ToD rings (Holy Burst and Shocking Burst are popular choices), a damaging prefix (Holy or Vicious), and a damaging suffix (Greater Bane, Smiting/Banishing). Tharne's Goggles or another source of sneak attack damage is also an excellent choice. Bypassing DR is critical, but with Shintao it is trivially easy. As a result of all this, there is no one best set of handwraps. Anarchic Handwraps of Smiting are great on maruts and Holy Handwraps of Greater Lawful Outsider Bane are great on Arraetrikos, but you wouldn't want to mix them up.

There's also the important point that monks have the best melee CC in the game, but to reach their potential they need Stunning wraps. Is performing CC worth the raw DPS loss to you? Then you would go with stunners.

[Munkenmo]

Why would a light monk not take the Shintao PrE?

perhaps you wanted the void line, max healing amp, max incite enhancements and a feat spent on toughness for some extra hp?

seems like a valid reason to me.