Monk Equipment - What to Strive For

[quantumkaos]

Hey all!

I know, I know..there are tons of these threads but some of them are outdated with all of the new things happening.

I am a long time DDO player recently coming back after a long break. I come to find out so many crafting opportunities are available that getting back into the gist of things is daunting!

I never really crafted much, I never even finished any green steel items haha.

My question is this:

I am a light monk. What are some good items to strive for crafting-wise? Also, what type of equipment stats should I devote to each slot?

For example:

Helm = Wisdom
Necklace = Blah blah
Boots = Dex

Not sure if that makes sense. But doing it this way will help my focus on what items to strive for first.

Anyways, thanks in advance for anyone who wants to help.

[Kindoki]

As a player in the exact same situation (though I've probably been away a bit longer), I can give you some advice, though not necessarily specific to monk.

1. I've found cannith crafting to be unbelievably useful for every character that isn't already capped and raid spec'd. I've filled multiple gaps in my equipment through cannith crafting, which will tide me over until finding the specific raid gear I want. So, either really work on building your crafting up (arcane especially), or make friends with a crafter (in your guild if you belong to one, for example). There are some pretty nice things that you can't make unbound, but for leveling, most everything can be made unbound.
2. Guild gear slots with cannith crafting. Very fun.
3. When looking at builds on the forums, be suspect of any build done prior to update 11 (Sept 2011) (released artificers). Be highly suspect of any build prior to Update 9 (Apr 2011) (Cannith crafting and Savant lines). Not because either update was so completely game changing, but it's the cumulative effect of the updates from there forward. And, not that builds prior to those dates are bunk, but there may be something better that catches your eye.
4. Don't freak out about your current builds that you've already played to cap. The whole shebang is going to get blown up when the expansion launches. If you haven't read the threads about possible enhancement changes, then you may be interested to do so. For example, I have an 18/1/1 halfling AC sneaky build that I was seriously considering doing a 4x+5LR into something 'not sucky'. However, halflings most likely will be picking up the assassin line in the expansion. A sneaky tempest III assassin III self buffed to AC80 may not be sucky. To me, saving 2-10k TP for a few months makes it worth the wait to find out.
5. Do spend some time playing with your enhancements, since it's really cheap to make changes, and there has been a lot of them (maybe not so much in monk, I'm not sure).
6. Nothing beats your own research to start - Ron's character builder and DDO Game Guide are both great downloads for character planning and crafting, respectively. Of course, DDOwiki takes the cake. Then, after some browsing, come to the forums and ask specific questions. You'll get better advice that way.

Specifically to your monk request, there's a lot more information forumites will want in order to give you good advice. Just based on the past week of fooling around with monks, I could put together about half a dozen different setups that would be reasonable for a "light monk"... but, race, playstyle, and current build goals would highly affect that - are you going for DCs, AC, DPS? Are you a halfling? Are you a pure monk or a hybrid? Etc. People who actually could give you the best advice (which isn't me) will need to know that. In order for you to know what you might want to ask, you'll need to take a look at what's now available.

[HGM-Chi]

Some things I can think of off the top of my head:

Wrist: Epic Jidz Teka Bracers
Eyes: Epic Raven's Sight (+2 exceoptional Wis)
Body: Epic Icy Tunic (from challenges)
Belt: Epic Spare Hand (challenges also)
Cloak: Epic Cape of the Roc (Exceptional str)
Ring: Epic ring of the Stalker
Ring: ToD Shianto or Oremi's (make them a set with the necklace from Amrath too)

When the mabar event fires up the wraps are pretty nice. I'm sure people that are actually good at equipping their characters will give you better info. My monks have almost none of this stuff, to be honest (I can't bring myself to grind epic eq).

[quantumkaos]

This was great! To both of you, thank you.