Precision kills Power Attack, so is Imp Sunder worth it?

[Potta]

For those who are unaware, Precision no longer halves your damage, and instead of +4 ab, now gives +5% chance to hit and -25% fortification to your target. No, I know that second part isn't listed on the feat. It's on the wiki though, and it works. I was critting a combat dummy with no debuffs.

Precision is so much better than Power Attack now that I cannot see any reason to ever activate it, since the two stances are mutually exclusive. Precision also comes at the cost of a feat, and the only one I could stand to part with for it was the Monk Past Life. I could drop Power Attack and Imp Sunder, pick up the Monk Past Life and have an extra feat to spare, but I think I'd really miss that stacking fort debuff. Thoughts anyone?

[Taimasan]

I used my LR to to take quis from a end game build back to mid range/leveling build and that involved dropping IS for now, you can always switch it out later.

[FuzzyDuck81]

I'd ditch IS & keep PA, but then i like to have cleave on my monks and one of my monks (multiclass build) is taking the legendary dreadnought destiny which requires cleave & PA to be active for the strikes you can get there.

If you're going grandmaster of flowers though, theres a line in that which bypasses a % of fort too, so having all of those sources stacking up can only be a good thing.

[Potta]

I'd ditch IS & keep PA, but then i like to have cleave on my monks and one of my monks (multiclass build) is taking the legendary dreadnought destiny which requires cleave & PA to be active for the strikes you can get there.

If you're going grandmaster of flowers though, theres a line in that which bypasses a % of fort too, so having all of those sources stacking up can only be a good thing.

Oh yeah, I have that in mind. And the Barb Destiny with Insult, which is available as a twist with -20% fort.

25% + 20% + 10% = 55% fort debuff. That's without considering Touch of Despair, and if I do keep Imp Sunder, another 10%. Getting near 100% fort bypass. Maybe Imp Sunder would be worth keeping just for that.

[Ap0k]

Its a tough choice Im thinking about as well....but seeing as my monks main attraction is stunning fist I just dont see myself parting with imp sunder.

maybe switch to human for the extra feat...idk.

Though even as a helf rog dilly ninja spy I ...I dont think its gonna be that great for a monk

I will wait and see what the fortification looks like on epic elite mobs once Ill get to it

[voodoogroves]

I've got a rogue. An old-school gimp DEX finesse rogue. I'm only marginally considering Precision because for most of the content I run her through, there are really not huge amounts of high-fort foes.

Remember that PA works on everything. It doesn't have to be better on ever target than Precision, because it adds damage to 100% fort and 0% fort mobs.

[Munkenmo]

I've got a rogue. An old-school gimp DEX finesse rogue. I'm only marginally considering Precision because for most of the content I run her through, there are really not huge amounts of high-fort foes.

Remember that PA works on everything. It doesn't have to be better on ever target than Precision, because it adds damage to 100% fort and 0% fort mobs.

lets also remember that there's a 10% to hit difference between precision and power attack.

given the ac changes, you're not going to get to a 95% chance to hit anymore.

[sephiroth1084]

Remember that Improved Sunder increases the whole party's DPS, and increases the odds of your landing Stunnin Fist, Touch of Despair, Quivering Palm and Touch of Death (for full damage).

[whomhead]

Once feat swaps are possible I intend to drop the monk past life for precision. I will be keeping PA and Improved Sunder as well for the time being, but I am considering using my free respec to pick up overwhelming critical just to see it in action while in earth stance.

[sephiroth1084]

Once feat swaps are possible I intend to drop the monk past life for precision. I will be keeping PA and Improved Sunder as well for the time being, but I am considering using my free respec to pick up overwhelming critical just to see it in action while in earth stance.

I'm inclined to say that the monk PL is more worthwhile than PA in the new system...+5 damage is better than +3.5 average, yes, but the penalty on attack rolls is probably going to be meaningful in a lot of places and you can have the extra unarmed damage when Precision is active, but you can't have PA's damage while Precision is up.

It's a tough call. As for OC...it looks attractive, but I don't think it's worth wasting 3 feats (Weapon Focus, Cleave and Great Cleave) on.

I've got:
Dodge
TWF
ITWF
GTWF
Improved Critical
Toughness
PA
Improved Sunder
Past Life
With one feat to swing on my human monk (forget what I picked up in its place...maybe a second Toughness)? I had been intending to see how the AC system shakes out in regards to monks, and then respec for Combat Expertise if it seems worthwhile. Not sure on that account at present, but I could skip that and pick up Precision.

No clue what I would drop for OC. Sure, we have the extra epic feat, but that's still a tough call, and the two monk-themed epic feats look to be very worthwhile, although a 23 Wis requirement is rather ridiculous.

[sirgog]

Remember Imp Sunder is -5 AC to the monster as well as the -10% Fortification (and also -15 Fortitude Save).

If you are +60 To-Hit with a proficient weapon and a monster has 60 AC, that 5AC debuff from a successful Imp Sunder is the difference between hitting 83.5%* of the time and 89%*.


* - These actually round off to the nearest 5%. However in practice our To-Hit changes enough in combat (as short buffs such as Recitation end and aren't renewed promptly) that this rounding should generally average out over time.

[wax_on_wax_off]

If you're going grandmaster of flowers though, theres a line in that which bypasses a % of fort too, so having all of those sources stacking up can only be a good thing.

How much is too much though?

Depends on enemy ...
Warforged usually have 25% fort?
Elite bosses have 80% fort?
Undead/Constructs have 100% fort?

I've not ever figured out how many stacks of AoV Aura is reasonable to expect but at least 1 so that is 20% right there (assuming that any challenging raid you go into will have at least 1 FvS which is generally reasonable I think). Same goes for IS, that's 10% (whether you have it or not).

I think I'll aim for -50% via personal buffs/debuffs and let everyone else take care of the other 30%. For undead/constructs there is weaken undead/construct items to get that last 20%.

[whomhead]

I'm inclined to say that the monk PL is more worthwhile than PA in the new system...+5 damage is better than +3.5 average, yes, but the penalty on attack rolls is probably going to be meaningful in a lot of places and you can have the extra unarmed damage when Precision is active, but you can't have PA's damage while Precision is up.

I think you're right here from a pure damage perspective, that precision + monk PL is the better way to go, but my keeping PA is primarily to have improved sunder.

Now, I can't claim that IS is worth the 2-feat opportunity cost, but that stacking fort debuff is soooooo very nice. Probably the best bet is to drop both PA and IS for Precision and maybe Mobility or Combat Expertise, if you have the INT. A little bit more survivability would feel like a good thing for soloing, though my monk has been doing just fine in groups on epic hard so far even at just level 20.

No clue what I would drop for OC. Sure, we have the extra epic feat, but that's still a tough call, and the two monk-themed epic feats look to be very worthwhile, although a 23 Wis requirement is rather ridiculous.

With regards to OC, I just keep thinking how awesome an earth 4 monk with, depending on your EpiDes, something along the lines of 5-10[W] with a 4-6X crit multiplier. I'm thinking that 500+ point crits should be possible with that setup. And that would be awesome.

Sadly you have to drop basically everything else to pull it off, and even then only really feasible on a human monk. My best effort at a max-crit monk would be pure human light monk with legendary dreadnaught (alternatively you could go 18/2 monk/fighter and still go dark monk). Human monk gets 10 heroic feats and 2 epic.

Toughness
Power Attack
TWF
iTWF
gTWF
IC:B
Monk past life
cleave
great cleave
Weapon focus bludgeon

Overwhelming critical
Improved Martial Arts

In the LD destiny take devastating critical and, while using a momentum swing, you should have x6 crit multiplier on an at least 10[W] damage attack. Assuming +50 damage, that is 10d6 + 50, or 85 average damage X6 = 510 base damage on a natural 19-20 roll. Pretty sick, if you ask me. And that's the equivalent of a ToD on 10% of your attacks, so maybe you don't lose that much by going light monk instead of dark (though you could go full DPS and drop toughness for Dodge and still be human dark monk).