Monk AC after the expansion

[CrankVulcan]

Is this a lost cause or is it actually possible to obtain a usable AC on a monk? I can't figure out how to break 100 ac on a monk without sacrificing everything else. No shield and no armor makes this very difficult. When does AC start to become useful at the new endgame. I've heard that 130-150 works well in lvl 25 content. I'd love feedback on this.

I'm sorry if this question has been answered before. I have limited computer access at the moment and can't spend too long on the forums.



EDIT: One more question... Can the Demon Queen still hit everything all the time like she used to?

[Faent]

Is this a lost cause or is it actually possible to obtain a usable AC on a monk? I can't figure out how to break 100 ac on a monk without sacrificing everything else. No shield and no armor makes this very difficult. When does AC start to become useful at the new endgame. I've heard that 130-150 works well in lvl 25 content. I'd love feedback on this.

You're going to have to focus on Dodge + AC to get to some kind of moderately useful mischance. AC alone isn't going to cut it for you. Look to Dodge if you want to go this route, and see what you can do to hit 25% Dodge (the Dodge cap).

[OliviaCrowley]

You want to aim for ~50% miss chance at 25. This is, from what I've been told, mid-upper 70s. On top of this, you'll want to layer:

- 10-25% incorporeal, either from Mabar cloak or being a dark monk.
- 20% from Blur/a blurry item (or Cloudkill for True-Seeing mobs)
- Whatever dodge you can get your hands on.
- Displacement, if you're feeling up for farming clickies.

For example, my light monk before I TR'd had about 75ish AC with ship buffs. She was level 23 and had roughly 55% defense from AC. She was wearing the Mabar cloak, and had 8% dodge. In other words, she had 0.45 * 0.90 * 0.92 = 0.37, or a 37% chance to be hit by an attack.

A moderately geared Dark monk at 25 may have something like 50% defense from AC, shadow fade, 15%ish dodge and a blurry item. This would be more like: 0.5 * 0.75 * 0.85 * 0.80 = 0.255, or a 25.5% chance to be hit by an attack.

With buffs and good gear as a dark monk it shouldn't be unreasonable to cut out 80%+ of attacks directed at you.

Of course, if you are subscribing to the theory of others that AC is useless unless you're only getting hit on a 20, then you will be sorely disappointed. But if you weren't some super-amazing-only-hit-on-a-20-in-non-epics character pre-U14, you will see a marked increase in survivability.

[Faent]

But if you weren't some super-amazing-only-hit-on-a-20-in-non-epics character pre-U14, you will see a marked increase in survivability.

Yes, the survivability of every pre-U14 gimp has gone up. A lot.

[RadioactivePiranha]

You don't need to break 100 AC. Around 80 AC is reasonable for a monk now and is quite useful in epic normal Faerun content up to the still closed raid. I haven't played much epic hard and epic elite in Faerun, but I would assume that while less effective it doesn't go from 50% miss chance to 5% miss chance. If someone knows the 50% miss benchmark in Faerun epic hard and elite I would love to know that.

You can break 100 AC without sacrificing everything though. Grandmaster mountain stance helps a lot with the 20% increase to AC. Shield clickies (AC part lasts 5 minutes now) and barkskin potions(If you don't have room for a natural armor item) also help with minimal cost. A greensteel hp min II item is an excellent piece of equipment for pretty much any build and provides protection+5. Sun soul bracers cover insight AC and are good in other regards. There are several good robes that cover the armor bonus (spider-spun caparison being the best). Walking with waves in grandmaster of flowers provides 6 AC. Depending on your build you might not be able to quite break 100, but it is definitely doable.

My monk (2nd life) uses combat expertise and I find it helpful, but I suspect this is more controversial than the other things I have said in this post.

[AylinIsAwesome]

My WF FvS has 50 AC (55 with my friend's Paladin Aura on me), and in Epic Normal and Epic Hard quests in Evenstar I'm seeing ~35% misses from AC.

If you can get to ~80, you should be fine.

[Uska]

I think once I hit grandmaster of flowers I will be in the 80's on my monk so you can get pretty good ac without giving up a lot.