Monk past life feat rip off

[zeonardo]

Importance of Past Lives for a Monk

[Uska]

Its not a rip off but the active feat could be tweaked a bit possibly to make it a better choice for non monks

[Angelz_Fire]

Odd.. reading the post the first traps I thought of that evasion could be useful and would need to be longer didn't seem to make any of the lists here. Grey-moon series trap on main bridge and von traps (a few of note including the end of part 4 elite). I know playing my pure arti those pretty much killed me (disabling isn't the problem its getting through them, I know from experience on my pure rogue that elite von 5 would be almost impossible. At level on elite these are pretty rough!

[Uska]

Odd.. reading the post the first traps I thought of that evasion could be useful and would need to be longer didn't seem to make any of the lists here. Grey-moon series trap on main bridge and von traps (a few of note including the end of part 4 elite). I know playing my pure arti those pretty much killed me (disabling isn't the problem its getting through them, I know from experience on my pure rogue that elite von 5 would be almost impossible. At level on elite these are pretty rough!

Grey moon traps are very avoidable as are the traps in von 4 but the von 5 traps can be a issue

[goodspeed]

only quests I can really think of that need evasion would be made to order, von 5 without a doubt on elite, and crucible.

Though for crucible i'd want someone with alot and I mean alot of reflex and improved evasion fully buffed every which way to go for the swim.

Everything else can usually be easily timed. Even the von 3 force trap has a 2 second gap in between the shots once you let it fire about 4 times I think.

tides is easy if you know where to stand. vons are easy, pretty much everything is easy enough. Though for my arti I just tossed 2 monk levels on. Got 2 free feats and evasion.

The extension of buffs is missed but idk I figure I can cast them by the dozens anyway. a couple toughness and evasion tends to save my ass when I screw up the steps.

[inggold]

only quests I can really think of that need evasion would be made to order, von 5 without a doubt on elite, and crucible.

Though for crucible i'd want someone with alot and I mean alot of reflex and improved evasion fully buffed every which way to go for the swim.

Everything else can usually be easily timed. Even the von 3 force trap has a 2 second gap in between the shots once you let it fire about 4 times I think.

tides is easy if you know where to stand. vons are easy, pretty much everything is easy enough. Though for my arti I just tossed 2 monk levels on. Got 2 free feats and evasion.

The extension of buffs is missed but idk I figure I can cast them by the dozens anyway. a couple toughness and evasion tends to save my ass when I screw up the steps.

Correction. You got one feat. You gave up the final Arti bonus feat by splashing.

Cry for Help got my Arti while levelling... and I know I couldn't do Von 5. I got dumb on the sonic trapped shrine in the Von Series as well once. Other than that, I was able to either avoid and get to the other side, buff/run through and self heal on the other side....

Almost all that require passing to disarm are avoidable, and I'm not even very good at avoiding them - I tend to buff up and bumrush 'em if I know I can live to the other side, whee!

(I would like to know how to avoid the spike traps for the lever in Von4... I usually sacrifice a hireling when running non-trapper toons.)

[Ungood]

good or bad, they tell you upfront what the deal is. If that was not enough or not worth the feat, you should have just passed on it.

Such is fate in most MMO's. where something looks good in theory, and not so great in execution, and vice-verse.

[Caliban]

only quests I can really think of that need evasion would be made to order, von 5 without a doubt on elite, and crucible.

Though for crucible i'd want someone with alot and I mean alot of reflex and improved evasion fully buffed every which way to go for the swim.

Not even needed for Crucible, if you know the swim well you won't need to make any reflex saves. I do it on my wizard, who has no evasion.

[Deathdefy]

To OP: Yep. It sucks. /signed to any improvements to make it also useful to non-monks.

To the intriguing de-rail:

Getting to the very first box in the trap corridor of Von 5 is still something I've never done without having to make a save. That said, I've heard it can be done.

I think maybe the trick is setting off the blade traps, then quickly running back out of their range, then going just as they are descending again (whilst navigating the lightning)? I also thought maybe you could select the rune / lever at the end of the corridor and send the dog in to set them off. Bah. Theories. Will test some day.

Anyway, just copping the death and taking a raise dead at the box is a solution that has the perk of removing the first death pressure from everyone else!

What interest me now are the new quests. Specifically Lords of Dust; I know the vertical slash traps are avoidable with timing (read 'luck'), but haven't dodged the horizontal slashing blade yet - if it's even possible. I'm curious to see if these 'very difficult to dodge - have evasion, seriously' traps are mostly what we'll be seeing trap-wise in the expansion.

[deahamlet]

Deathdefy:

Lords of Dust:
blade parallel to ground = cannith boots of propulsion (jump up high, press boots, you have to do this as close-ish to the blade as you can)
3 blades perpendicular to ground = jump up, and FF -forward. I have been "lucky" most times. Most times had divine at the top ready to spam me with heals, but wasn't needed. Arrived at bottom at 40% HP, heal scroll fixed my boo-boo and then I disarmed. I have tried to test timing but I don't trust trying to find the safe spot to wait in between blades, I simply haven't really found a spot that's 100% sure not to hit me at all. I test on normal and shall test some more in the future. For now, jumping and FFing seem to work. It's also good to not shrine until after just in case you die. Take rez at the other side of trap.
Considering all the fancy shmancy "I don't do epic traps" rogues I've stumbled into lately, I think the group can be a tad patient with my methods since most times I join on my artificer is because some epic group has been waiting a while for a trapper and I decided to go help out (I farm that epic so completing it kind of postpones my farming hehe).

[Sigava]

Ummm, almost all of the active/tier 2/pay-a-feat-slot-for-them past life feats are either complete garbage, extremely situational, or made completely irrelevant by most raid group party compositions.

Let's break them down:
Artificer: 15% chance to retain charges on wands (wands basically come with 57 charges instead of 58), and you can give a weapon or armor +1 to hit/damage or AC respectively 10 times per day. Most builds don't live or die by how many charges are left in a wand, though the +1 to hit and damage 10 times a day is nice, unless there happens to be an artificer in the party in which case it's either irrelevant OR it's knocking off a more important buff like deadly weapons, silver, good or adamantine. More or less garbage.

Barbarian: 20 Hitpoints (2 less than Toughness), +2 Intimidate and a 30 second once-per-day clicky that give +4 Strength and Constitution and leaves you fatigued afterwards. The clicky is very nearly worthless, lasting only 30 seconds and usable only once per day it's worth less than a damage or haste boost 1 enhancement point action boost, plus unless you're warforged the fatigue needs to be removed. If your build uses intimidate extensively, this is a great feat, it's essentially Toughness with a not-quite skill focus in Intimidate that stacks with actual Skill Focus. If your build DOESN'T use intimidate, as the VAST majority of builds do not, this feat is garbage, it's Toughness with 2 fewer hit points that doesn't even count as toughness for purposes of Pale Master form qualifications. Just take Toughness instead.

Bard: +1 Enchantment DCs, +1 to Charisma Skills, level 1 un-enhancable Inspire Courage thrice per day. If you're going for a Max-Enchantment-DCs archmage build this is decent. If you REALLY need that extra +1 to UMD or Intimidate and have already taken skill focus this is okay. Otherwise it's complete garbage, it's a +1 to attack and damage that doesn't stack with Heroism, Bless, Aid, Good Hope or Greater Heroism, so essentially it's a +1 to damage, unless there's a bard or bard splash present, in which case it's worth absolutely nothing.

Cleric: Quite possibly the worst of the lot. +2 to Heal skill (read: 2 more hit points for fleshies who shrine nearby you, quite possibly the worst skill in the game), and a 10d4 at level 20 healing clicky usable 5 times per day. Cure Serious Pot = 22 average points of healing per drink. Cleric Past Life clicky at level 20 = 25 average points of healing per use. So you get a clicky you can use 5 times per day that is WORSE than a Cure Serious Wounds potion until level 17 and higher. Awful, simply awful.

Favored Soul: +2 to Diplomacy, for, uh, an at-level-elite-Black-Anvil-Mines-Get-The-Optional-2k-XP-On-A-Non Charisma-Toon Build? Plus 10 times per rest you can blast out a light beam that deals 7d8 damage at 20th level. The light beam wouldn't be terrible as an extra spot of burst damage for an actual Favored Soul who has enhanced his or her light damage and is shooting at a boss debuffed with the take-more-light-damage debuff. So, I guess this is sort of useful for a Favored Soul, only too bad Favored Souls are feat starved as is.

Fighter: +2 to Intimidate, +1 to Max Dex of armor and shields, 3 per day Divine Power style clicky that also gives another +4 to-hit. This is one of the few decent past life feats. If you're a non-monk AC tank or Intim Tank (and most AC tanks also have Intim) it's fantastic for the one-two punch of higher Dex for both armor and shields WITH the extra Intim for tanking. The clicky is also decent for melee builds that splashed a lot of 3/4 BAB progression levels in that it gives you a full +20 BAB and throws in another +4 to hit to boot. Most builds with a +20 BAB to start with don't need the extra +4 occasional hit buff though. So basically this feat is solid for AC/Intim tanks and melee builds that are whiffing a ton.

Paladin: +2 Heal (still just as terrible as before), but also comes with a 3/day Divine Favor clicky. So after level 9 that's +3 to attack and damage for 3 to 7 minutes per rest (3 at level 10, a little under 7 at level 20). Since it's a Luck Bonus it stacks with just about everything except Prayer and Divine Favor, so if your cleric/favored soul in party is doing their job that +3 becomes a +2 to attack and damage. Still solid for a physical DPS toon that is NOT a cleric, favored soul, paladin or artificer. One of the few Past Life clickies that provides a substantive benefit and is available for enough time per rest that it will both be used and be treasured.

Ranger: +2 to Spot (awful), Barkskin 3/day. So at 12th level onward you've got a clicky thrice per day that gives 2 more armor class than a buy-at-the-vendor Barkskin potion. A lot of people enjoy this feat while leveling up on a monk AC build. In raids it's not too useful as there will frequently be a ranger, and raids that are actually challenging usually make the extra +2 AC irrelevant. Builds that would benefit from the extra AC usually make sure they have it reliably via gear. So basically nice for leveling monks/monk splashes, and that's about it.

Rogue: +1 to all skills is nice for skills builds, though a bit pricey since actual rogues are feat starved and Artificers don't actually need to waste a feat on +1 to skills. Hide and Move Silently are garbage in most high end content, so the 3/day clicky basically translates to +10 sneak attack damage for 3 minutes at level 20. Giving raid bosses an average Fortification of 50% (some are higher, some are lower), that's basically +5 damage per swing for 3 minutes per rest. Not terrible if you never pull aggro, but many have a hard time giving up the feat.

Sorcerer: Mental Toughness plus a 10/day 7d12-at-20 elemental damage clicky, save for half. Good for any build that would take Mental Toughness, EXCEPT builds that take Mental Toughness to qualify for Wraith Form in the Pale Master prestige enhancement line. DOES allow one to qualify for the Arcane Archer racial prestige enhancement line for elves and half elves. Solid choice for those planning on taking mental toughness anyway or wonky non-ranger arcane archers.

Wizard: Here's the good stuff. This is what all the past life spend-a-feat-slot feats should look like. +1 to ALL spell DCs, stacking with spell focuses of course, with a 10/day clicky that deals 10d4+10 damage at level 20, no save, non-elemental damage. It provides a benefit useful to most casters that's better than existing feats, plus a clicky that does a respectable amount of almost unavoidable damage.



With all those examined, let's look at the Monk past life feat:
+2 to Concentration skill, a nice perk for Monks and Monk splashes, also a handy boost for any scroll-user since concentration checks are a fact of life for scroll users.
Unarmed Damage increases 1 die step: This averages out to +1 damage per swing for any build with less than 12 levels of monk, or +2 damage per swing to any build with 12 or more levels per monk. It's basically weapon specialization for any 12th+ level monk. Not terrible.
Once per day Evasion Clicky: As has been pointed out ad nauseum in this thread, there are only a tiny handful of quests where getting to a trap box requires an unavoidable exposure to the trap's damage. When one considers that most builds that can disable traps but CANNOT evade also have a ****-poor reflex save compared to the save DC of actually dangerous elite unavoidable traps, this clicky is almost useless.

So basically the feat boils down to +2 Concentration which is nice for monks and casters, and more damage for monks/monk splashes. It's a solid choice for most builds that have monk in them, but not so much for pure casters. So let's see the break down of all the classes' active past life feats from approximate most useful to least useful:

1st Place: Wizard - Every caster with a spare feat can use a +1 stacking bonus to all DCs.
Runner Up (or 1st place for melee): Paladin - Every melee that isn't a paladin can use an extra +2 to attack and damage.
3rd: Sorcerer - Almost anyone taking Mental Toughness can happily replace it with this feat.
4th: Monk - Hands down the best Past Life feat for an actual monk DPS build, but only gets 4th place because one has to be an actual Monk to benefit from it, though there are an AWFUL lot of those monks running around and monks DO tend to be among the few classes with feats to spare.
5th: Fighter - Provides a pair of stacking and effective benefits to the specific builds that benefit from what this feat has to offer. Excellent choice for the builds that can use it, but those builds are rare enough that this doesn't score higher.
6th: Rogue - 3 minutes of +5 average damage for non-tanks, and +1 to skills. Not awful, not awesome.

Just about all the rest are SO situational or super build-specific that they're almost not worth mentioning.

7th: Barbarian - Getting to the bottom of the barrel for beneficial past life feats here, you basically trade 2 hit points for a +2 to intimidate, so it's good for intim builds and that's it.
8th: Ranger - A convenience while leveling a monk/splash solo, largely irrelevant in end game content, invalidated by an actual Ranger.
9th: Artificer - Does provide a tiny bonus to damage, but is completely wiped out in the presence of an actual artificer. It WOULD place higher than Ranger except for the fact that the current bug with buff icons not disappearing if one received an artificer weapon/armor buff this clicky is currently more annoying than it is useful.
10th: Bard - Nice for enchanters, the +1 to weapon damage is okay but made irrelevant by a bard.
11th: Favored Soul - Only Favored Souls can benefit from this feat, but Favored Souls never really have the feats to spare on it.
12th: Cleric - Absolute garbage. Worse than a potion till 17th level, at which point it's irrelevant anyway.

These rankings are, of course, subjective. If there's a trend to be observed though, it's that past life active feats are, by-and-large, complete and total garbage. There's 1 or 2 worth taking for either melee or spellcasters, with 1 or 2 more that MIGHT be useful to certain specialized builds like tanks or pure monks. All things considered though, the Monk past life stacks up pretty well compared to the half that are completely worthless.

[MaXimillionZero]

Barbarian: 20 Hitpoints (2 less than Toughness)

2 less hitpoints at L20, 17 more at L1. It's a good feat for builds that are going to TR as soon as they hit 20.

As for unavoidable traps, the one that gave my Arty the most trouble at level was in Ghola-Fan, which I ended up running through as a ghost. It sure didn't seem possible to avoid just with good jumping skills.

[Sigava]

2 less hitpoints at L20, 17 more at L1. It's a good feat for builds that are going to TR as soon as they hit 20.

As for unavoidable traps, the one that gave my Arty the most trouble at level was in Ghola-Fan, which I ended up running through as a ghost. It sure didn't seem possible to avoid just with good jumping skills.

Good point on the Barbarian Past life. It is kind of humorous getting that +20 hit points at level 3 instead of +5. For a character that hangs at level 18 then trains level 20 5 minutes before TRing again it trumps Toughness.