Which feat should I take?

[Tirisha]

Current build: Elf 18 monk/fighter 2. Wisdom based, Wpn finesse, 14 starting str.

In light of the new changes to earth stance come U12 I'm gonna be forced to squeeze it into my build and that got me thinking:

should I drop either the active Monk PL feat or Rogue past life feat for the Improved critical Feat? Without the Earth stance it's pretty clear that IC is too weak of a feat on a dex build monk but with a x3 crit multiplier I'm on the fence on whether that will be worth dropping one of my past life feats......

your thoughts plz....

[HettarDDO]

Drop the rogue past life feat for Imp Crit.

[edgarallanpoe]

should I drop either the active Monk PL feat or Rogue past life feat for the Improved critical Feat? Without the Earth stance it's pretty clear that IC is too weak of a feat on a dex build monk but with a x3 crit multiplier I'm on the fence on whether that will be worth dropping one of my past life feats......

IMHO Improved crit is *the* must have feat for a monk. The hit to DPS you take without this feat makes no sense to me. Why would you not want to double your crit range?

[FuzzyDuck81]

Without the Earth stance it's pretty clear that IC is too weak of a feat on a dex build monk but with a x3 crit multiplier I'm on the fence on whether that will be worth dropping one of my past life feats......

your thoughts plz....

my thought that is regardless of the stance & stats involved, why wouldnt you want to take something that doubles the number of crits you do?

[wax_on_wax_off]

my thought that is regardless of the stance & stats involved, why wouldnt you want to take something that doubles the number of crits you do?

IC:B does less for monks than any other melee class. More or less, it only increases DPS by 5% against 0% fort mobs. Is it worth spending a feat on? Yes, if you can afford it (and a pure monk should be able to).

[Calebro]

I'm curious what your feat list looks like that you have two extra feats.... but can't find a way to fit IC into your build....

Toughness
Weapon Finesse
Stunning Fist
Power Attack
TWF
ITWF
GTWF
Dodge or a Shintao prereq
PL Rogue
PL Monk

That still leaves the two fighter feats open.
One was probably Stunning Blow, so if the other one wasn't IC, then what was it? And if the first one wasn't Stunning Blow, then what were the other two feats?

[elg582]

Surely you have something other than PL feats to swap? Extra toughness, 2nd stun, anything? You certainly don't want to drop the monk PL, and if you are finesse, then the rogue PL is adding quite a bit of damage.

[Calebro]

Wait a second.
Elf.
Finesse.
Wisdom build.
14 starting Str.
I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that your starting Dex was 16, +2 elf, +2 tome VS starting Str of 14 +2 tome.
The difference is +2 attack on a finesse build, which is actually using Str most of the time anyway because of buffs, which means Finesse is a waste.

Now I'm REALLY curious about your complete build. There are obviously things that could be done better.

[Tirisha]

Wait a second.
Elf.
Finesse.
Wisdom build.
14 starting Str.
I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that your starting Dex was 16, +2 elf, +2 tome VS starting Str of 14 +2 tome.
The difference is +2 attack on a finesse build, which is actually using Str most of the time anyway because of buffs, which means Finesse is a waste.

Trust me I did consider losing wpn finesse but I ruled it out cause my attack plus is already borderline on some bosses while in wind stance. Also my gear/tome set up sets the difference between str and dex a little more atm.

Feats follow:
Stunning fist
Weapon Finesse
TWFx3
Toughness
Dodge
CE
PA
Improved sunder
PL rogue
PL monk

There are obviously things that could be done better.

lol yeah I rolled an elf so I know

[Tirisha]

I'm curious what your feat list looks like that you have two extra feats.... but can't find a way to fit IC into your build....

Toughness
Weapon Finesse
Stunning Fist
Power Attack
TWF
ITWF
GTWF
Dodge or a Shintao prereq
PL Rogue
PL Monk

That still leaves the two fighter feats open.
One was probably Stunning Blow, so if the other one wasn't IC, then what was it? And if the first one wasn't Stunning Blow, then what were the other two feats?

CE and Improved Sunder. Improved Sunder is the best DPS feat for a wis build dark monk imo and CE is a staple since I am an AC build after all.

sidenote: I picked up PA and improved Sunder (for fort debuff, love sticking the epic Conjoined with the triple dark finisher the whole fight) with the 2 fighter levels after the change to improved Sunder and of coarse they are making the monk capstone semi-useful the very next U

[Tirisha]

my thought that is regardless of the stance & stats involved, why wouldnt you want to take something that doubles the number of crits you do?

cause doubling the worse possible crit range on a low str/base damage build is not as useful as any of the feats I have taken, though with a better crit profile (X3) it's more appealing hence my problem.

[Tirisha]

Drop the rogue past life feat for Imp Crit.

That's probably the one I'll do though I hate to see it go

[Calebro]

You have CE and PA. Realistically you only need one of them, because you can only be in a single combat stance at a time.
If you find yourself most often in CE, dropping PA is an option, and vice verse.
I'm not saying it's what I would do, but nothing about your build is what I would do, so I guess it's an option.

[Tirisha]

You have CE and PA. Realistically you only need one of them, because you can only be in a single combat stance at a time.
If you find yourself most often in CE, dropping PA is an option, and vice verse.
I'm not saying it's what I would do, but nothing about your build is what I would do, so I guess it's an option.

I do use both of them, PA on epics or when I don't need the AC from CE. I'd drop PA if it wasn't a Pre req for Imp Sunder.

I'll drop CE when I can AC tank LOB on elite without it (not that I can with it/haven't tried).

Basically Imp Sunder and CE are far more useful to me than a marginal increase in dps.

[Habreno]

What is your AC?

[Tirisha]

What is your AC?

Let me see, Dex is 40 and wisdom is 38 (with siren set on, 40 with time sensing goggles) with yugo pot and ship buff

base 10
dodge 1
Dex 15
wis 14
monk levels 4
icies 4
shield wand 4
NA 5
Ship buff to NA 3
chattering ring 3
cloak of night 2
epic jidtz 8
siren's set 4
CE 5
Prot +5

hmm that's 87 not sure if I'm forgetting anything atm, oh that's in Wind Stance, max earth will give me 1 AC after the lose of dex and gain of insight to NA.

[Kinerd]

If we assume 28 Strength, Ninja Spy 2, +8 SA damage item, one ToD ring (but no set), and +5 Holy of Greater Bane handwraps, I find the following figures for non-ki strike DPS increase against 0 / 50 / 100 fort:

PL Monk: 2.6% / 2.9% / 3.3%
PL Rogue: 3.6% / 2.1% / 0.0%
Improved Critical: 5.4% / 3.6% / 1.2%
(I assumed a 10 minute fight and 0 activation time for the PL Rogue calculation. It certainly has some activation time and you will almost certainly not fight for exactly 10 minutes.)

Looking at these figures, I would drop PL Rogue. If you have a DPS mode gearset, the case for Improved Critical is even stronger.

[Tirisha]

If we assume 28 Strength, Ninja Spy 2, +8 SA damage item, one ToD ring (but no set), and +5 Holy of Greater Bane handwraps, I find the following figures for non-ki strike DPS increase against 0 / 50 / 100 fort:

PL Monk: 2.6% / 2.9% / 3.3%
PL Rogue: 3.6% / 2.1% / 0.0%
Improved Critical: 5.4% / 3.6% / 1.2%
(I assumed a 10 minute fight and 0 activation time for the PL Rogue calculation. It certainly has some activation time and you will almost certainly not fight for exactly 10 minutes.)

Looking at these figures, I would drop PL Rogue. If you have a DPS mode gearset, the case for Improved Critical is even stronger.

thx for the calculations, just curious but is that with earth stance factored in or no?

[Dark-Star]

3 minutes of +10 sneak attack << improved crit or any of the other feats you have listed there. Drop that past life feat and never look back.

[elg582]

thx for the calculations, just curious but is that with earth stance factored in or no?

I'm not sure it matters; IC is going to have an even larger effect if the crit range goes up, and I can't believe that the monk PL feat is even under consideration.

Personally, I would ditch CE; you should be using PA most of the time, anyway, and it's not like you're going to be pulling aggro so you really shouldn't need boss-level AC.