Question on monk play

[RS-Makk]

Ive yet to try a monk (other than my 1 monk level splash and doing limited unarmed fighting). My understanding is that the play style is 'click heavy' and very active. Is that accurate? I'm honestly a bit intimidated by this.

Also, at around what level do you start getting a feel for what will be representative of that play style?

Thanks

[t0r012]

yes monks are as click heavy as you can get. IMO even more so than casters.

to play your monk "well" you need to hit lots of buttons all the time.

here is a typical encounter with my monk. group of 5-7 enemies
run in kukan-do the biggest melee in the group as I jump over the front liners and throw a stunning fist on a caster turn and stunning blow another caster , quivering palm the next fool.
if there is a third caster or one of them rolled a 20 and didn't get stunned throw a trip. beat on the 1st stunned caster with elemental strikes to kill before the stun is down. repeat on the rest of the casters till done, stuns and elemental strikes.

then turn on the melee and stun lock them killing with elemental strikes.

all said and done for 7 enemies i'm probably hitting 5 different keys for each mob give or take depending on HP.

ohh and forgot I'm throwing Fist of Lights as needed to keep the health up.

so yeah , tons of buttons.
I could see playing a monk lazy with nothing more than stunning fist but it just isn't right.
----
fair warning
This is coming from the guy that never cast a spell on his Wiz with out a superior clickie running. Infreno, Impact, Repair always on (still leveling him) and acid , cold , elec as needed. most times 5-7 superiors going.

[Claransa]

If by click heavy you mean mouse click, you're gonna want to learn how to use hotkeys. Otherwise yes, I play everyclass of spell caster and the monk is far more intense.

[sirgog]

Yeah monks are very much a class where you will use a lot of active abilities.

You will get a real sense by the level where you get the second tier of elemental strikes (7 IIRC, could easily be wrong).

My unarmed melee toon (Ftr12/Mnk8) isn't played much at the moment, but generally starts combats like this:

- Run to the most dangerous mob that has low to medium Fort save, Stunning Fist.
- Turn to #2 threat, Stunning Blow
- Prepare any Light finisher that might be relevant in this combat (e.g. tier 2 Water strike/Fists of Light/Tier 1 water strike/Finisher). Spam other relevant finishers from most to least important.

On my keyboard this looks like:
1
(turn)
! (Shift 1 is my Stunning Blow)
@326 (that's the tier 2 Water strike/Fists of Light/Tier 1 water strike/Finisher combo)
$346 (Fire/+/Fire)
%256 (a mistake trying to hit Earth finisher)
%356 (got it right this time)

So yeah, lots of hitting buttons.

[thouston]

Ive yet to try a monk (other than my 1 monk level splash and doing limited unarmed fighting). My understanding is that the play style is 'click heavy' and very active. Is that accurate? I'm honestly a bit intimidated by this.

Also, at around what level do you start getting a feel for what will be representative of that play style?

Thanks

if you like jumping into the fray and killing stuff the button mashing will come naturally. granted you cant just roll your forehead across the keyboard and make it work but, dont let it scare you into not trying.

i am currently on my 1st TR as a light monk and loving it.

if you are doing a 1st life, try monk, if you dont like it delete it. if on a TR it would be a bit more difficult to undo.

[fco-karatekid]

If you mean mouse-click-heavy, no - Keyboard-heavy, yes... and it's actually one of the things that makes my monk and the monk splash so much fun.

While there are a lot of keys to bind, it's the combos that make it seem complicated.

It's not that you are mashing 37 buttons per encounter (although you could); it's that you are mashing a combination of 4 buttons - three to set up the combo, one to execute it. Even then, it's actually 3 total buttons most of the time - the combo is usually button1, button2, button 1, button4. If you want a different combo, it'd be button3, button2, button3, button4. So really, it's small combinations you actually wind up learning intuitively as you level (assuming you don't pike your way through a buncha levels, thus not getting the combos down pat). One exception to that at cap, which is button1, button2, button3, button4.

As you level, you may (if you stay in the monk class) add a handful of one-offs, such as stunning fist and ku-kan-do. If you have (not being snarky here) accessibility challenges, I could see where it'd be a bit hairy, because of the timing of the button presses. If you're just concerned about the complexity - don't be. The combos really are pretty intuitive after using each for about 10-15 minutes.

I have played everything but fighters and barbs (playing a bard now), and monks so far are the class that make me sit up and get excited about running through a quest!

[fco-karatekid]

yes monks are as click heavy as you can get. IMO even more so than casters.

to play your monk "well" you need to hit lots of buttons all the time.

here is a typical encounter with my monk. group of 5-7 enemies
run in [kukan-do] the biggest melee in the group as I jump over the front liners and throw a [stunning fist] on a caster turn and [stunning blow] another caster , [quivering palm] the next fool.
if there is a third caster or one of them rolled a 20 and didn't get stunned throw a [trip]. beat on the 1st stunned caster with [elemental] [strikes] [to] [kill] before the stun is down. repeat on the rest of the casters till done, [stuns] and elemental strikes[combo of 3 buttons, but 4 presses].

then turn on the melee and [stun] lock them [killing] [with] [elemental] [strikes] [all four of those could be 4 presses, same button] .

all said and done for 7 enemies i'm probably hitting 5 different keys for each mob give or take depending on HP.

ohh and forgot I'm throwing Fist of Lights as needed to keep the health up [1 button, 3 times; then a second button to refill health] .

so yeah , tons of buttons.
I could see playing a monk lazy with nothing more than stunning fist but it just isn't right.
----
fair warning
This is coming from the guy that never cast a spell on his Wiz with out a superior clickie running. Infreno, Impact, Repair always on (still leveling him) and acid , cold , elec as needed. most times 5-7 superiors going.

Since you've never used the combos, you have no perspective on this description (which is accurate).

I put brackets [] around where he's pressing a key above as kind of a visual. Remember, this is a higher-level monk - ku kan do and quivering palm are add-ons that come later in your monk levels (by which time the combos will have become rote muscle memory).

[JeisonBlade]

i'd recommend checking this thread out, not so much for the build, but for the fact he shows how he set up one of his hotbars with finishers, and how he chains hits, helps to make things a bit clearer.

It can be a bit intimidating but its really not that bad, the thing to remember is that while you have tons of options as a monk, at any given time you'll only be using a fraction of them

http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=264340