Bye Bye Dark Monks

[SensaiRyu]

Touch of Death - 50ki to one opponent. 500 neg dmg. No cool down. Save for half.

Lilly Petal - 10 ki to one opponent. Ranged 300ish dmg. 6 second cool down. Save for half.
Orchid Blossom - 20 ki to an area. Ranged 300ish dmg. 12 second cool down. Save for half.
Drifting Lotus - 25 ki to an area. 300ish dmg and knocked down. 15 second cool down. Save for half.
Scattering of Petals - 30 ki to an area. 25% dodge for 12 seconds. Blindness or save. 60 second cool down.

Lily Petal and Orchid Blossom work very well on Shroud crystals!

Touch of Death at monk level 9. The others at 20+.

Let's review the arguments:

• Light monks bypass metal. Dark monks require metalline or a pet Arti.

• Dark monks have 25% incorporeality on demand. Light monks have a mass Blur finishing move.

• Dark monks can run on water. Light monks throw boulders in LotD.

• Light monks have a nicely effective ranged stun.

• Light monks can add +7 to hit to the group. Good luck finding a light monk using that combo with all the GoF abilities they'll have on their quickbars.

• Speaking of quickbars... Dark monks can get by with 2 quickbars of abilities. Light monks require

• Dark monks can use short swords. Uh... Who uses short swords? Halflings? Nevermind...

• Dark monks have a kewl martial arts name - Ninja. Give me a break! Shintao!?! What's a Shintao? I mean face it, if light monks had the name Ninja, they'd be really pro! I'd take Kung Fu Panda over Shintao!

Jade Tomb on Jarilith's and Air Eles? Nuff said!

I had a nagging desire to go back to a Dark Monk. Grandmaster of Flowers changed that.

[goodspeed]

did they finally make monk finishers more then 1 minute? Is that light dark light finisher finally more then like 5 or 10 seconds? Didn't know they changed anything to the light support.

Even still the 25% (incorp) is the real bread and butter. Especially now that armors going off a %. Have to look at some more notes.

ah ok I see http://ddowiki.com/page/Grandmaster_of_Flowers bah I was really hoping for extended time of those group buffs though.

[wax_on_wax_off]

did they finally make monk finishers more then 1 minute? Is that light dark light finisher finally more then like 5 or 10 seconds? Didn't know they changed anything to the light support.

Even still the 25% (incorp) is the real bread and butter. Especially now that armors going off a %. Have to look at some more notes.

ah ok I see http://ddowiki.com/page/Grandmaster_of_Flowers bah I was really hoping for extended time of those group buffs though.

Can get 10% incorp on ghostly item now that doesn't stack with Shadow Fade, I think light monk is the way to go at the moment.

[Masadique]

...what about monks who aren't going grand flowery mode? Ki blasts are cool and all, but the tree is meh at best for tanking.

[sirgog]

If Dark gave you nothing at all save the 25% Incorp, it would still be very much viable.

[zarthak]

i like dark monk becasue when i do abbot i get to stay out of roids/goggles

[Jaid314]

if you choose the right short swords, dark monk will give you a crazy amount of ki to spam into those GMoF abilities. but that supposes you want to use short swords (though i wouldn't be surprised if short swords are actually going to be quite a bit closer to handwraps for DPS in the future, with what seems like an abundance of new named short swords coming out and all the bonus multiples of weapon damage high level weapons seem to be getting lately).

[Vissarion]

If Dark gave you nothing at all save the 25% Incorp, it would still be very much viable.

This. Plus 3d6 sneak and ToD which can easily be used alongside the GMoF attacks.

My TR Monk was Light Path until the free LR, at which point I went over to Dark. With metal-type handwraps being more readily available, I'm not too concerned about DR-bypassing. All I find I'm missing is Kukan-Do and the Jade stuff, but I like the extra survivability from Ninja Fade more.

[Potta]

Nobody should listen to anything SensaiRyu is saying, because he is either wrong or misrepresenting every "point" he makes while flat out ignoring others that don't fit in with his absurd narrative that Dark Monks are weaker than Light monks now. Going to pick apart this nonsense now.

Touch of Death - 50ki to one opponent. 500 neg dmg. No cool down. Save for half.

Fort save for half. This is important. You also ignored the fact that it procs 2-3 times per use.

Lilly Petal - 10 ki to one opponent. Ranged 300ish dmg. 6 second cool down. Save for half.
Orchid Blossom - 20 ki to an area. Ranged 300ish dmg. 12 second cool down. Save for half.
Drifting Lotus - 25 ki to an area. 300ish dmg and knocked down. 15 second cool down. Save for half.

Reflex saves for half. You left that out too. Why is this important? Because reflex half saves are screwed by Evasion. Fort saves are not. Because Monks do not have Imp Sunder for Reflex saves.

You also ignored the fact that these attacks do not multi-proc like ToD and interrupt you from attacking for up to a second. Depending on how many mobs are around you, these abilities could easily lead to you doing less damage than auto-attacking.

Scattering of Petals - 30 ki to an area. 25% dodge for 12 seconds. Blindness or save. 60 second cool down.

Completely irrelevant to the obvious comparison you're trying to make with ToD here. This ability does not even do damage. So why exactly is it here? Oh right, because when you fail to make a quality "point" of any kind, quantity has to suffice.

Lily Petal and Orchid Blossom work very well on Shroud crystals!

So does any caster or ranged character in your 12 person group. And why exactly is a level 17 trivial raid a factor in this?

Let's review the arguments:

• Light monks bypass metal. Dark monks require metalline or a pet Arti.

Or you know, silver/cold iron/byeshk type wraps. They were moderately rare before the patch when you could only get them from eDA, but now they come as reward options. I've pulled two sets of Cold Iron and one set of Byeshk wraps in the past week.

• Dark monks have 25% incorporeality on demand. Light monks have a mass Blur finishing move.

One of which is better than anything else anyone can get, the other is a pathetic 1 minute buff that is available for much longer durations from any Wizard, Sorc or Bard. Or even as a Blurry enchantment on an item.

• Light monks have a nicely effective ranged stun.

Stunning Fist has a 6 second cooldown and we can get absurdly high DCs. Another stun is totally surplus to requirements.

• Light monks can add +7 to hit to the group. Good luck finding a light monk using that combo with all the GoF abilities they'll have on their quickbars.

No-one will keep up Moment of Clarity. Most light monks I party with hardly keep up the Walk of the Sun.

I had a nagging desire to go back to a Dark Monk. Grandmaster of Flowers changed that.

If this change of heart of yours was done with the assumption that ToD - and by extension Dark Monks - had become obselete, you're wrong. ToD is potentially more powerful now than it ever was, thanks to Sense Weakness, a greater incentive to be Wisdom based and additional doublestrike modifiers. The new GMoF abilities do not come close to the effectiveness of ToD as I have already told you in the last thread you made this claim in.

You've also completely neglected to mention the 3d6 sneak attack that Dark gets, which is also more powerful than ever now that we have Precision and even more fort bypass available in GMoF. I can bypass 68% fort all by myself. Dark is in a great position now, better than ever.

[sirgog]

if you choose the right short swords, dark monk will give you a crazy amount of ki to spam into those GMoF abilities. but that supposes you want to use short swords (though i wouldn't be surprised if short swords are actually going to be quite a bit closer to handwraps for DPS in the future, with what seems like an abundance of new named short swords coming out and all the bonus multiples of weapon damage high level weapons seem to be getting lately).

Epic Sting is 2[1d12] right? That's some pretty sick synergy with the Flowersniffer ability that adds +1.5[W].

[Dartwick]

If Dark gave you nothing at all save the 25% Incorp, it would still be very much viable.

Do 20% incorp items stack with the 25% from the ninja spy? Or did they remove 20%$ from all ghostly stuff?

[Jaid314]

Do 20% incorp items stack with the 25% from the ninja spy? Or did they remove 20%$ from all ghostly stuff?

there are no 20% incorporeal items. there are 10% incorporeal items, however, and they don't stack.

[slimkj]

Can get 10% incorp on ghostly item now that doesn't stack with Shadow Fade, I think light monk is the way to go at the moment.

I wouldn't say that's a good enough reason to drop Dark, for some builds anyway. I've kept it because, well 25% > 10% and lovely sneak attack is lovely.
--
OP, since when did ToD have no cooldown? Me confused.

[sephiroth1084]

Dark monk is still adding 3d6 SA damage, which is pretty nice.

And what you failed to provide for in your comparison of Touch of Death to the new GMoF abilities is that ToD can proc on TWF and doublestrikes, so it can do as much as 750 on one hit, but it also benefits from making an enemy susceptible to negative energy...hmm...who do we know of that can do that? Oh yeah! Dark Monks!

Touch of Despair is -25% incoming healing (for self-healing monsters), -25% Fortification, +25% vulnerability to negative energy.

That gives us a range on ToDeath of 250 (successful save, no vulnerability) to 1875 damage a hit. And it's not like ToD is mutually exclusive with the GMoF moves--you can use both sets of moves.

I think dark and light monks are closer than they have been, but don't believe there is a significant push to switch to the light side. I will say, however, that I think all of this finally ups the stock of Sun stance monks finally as that's a lot of Ki to keep up on rotation.

[MsEricka]

Half truths, unsupported claims and a lack of information do not make a good post.

Dark monks are still as viable now as they have been. Both types of monks have their benefits.

You also failed to mention any dark monk finishing moves, almost sounding like dark monks don't even get any. You also neglected to mention dark monk sneak attack bonuses which others have pointed out as well.

Now tell me, do you not know anything about dark monks and were just making stuff up to sound cool or did you just want people to pick apart your post line by line?

[Schmackdown]

I don't think it's as simple as "Touch of Death and Shadow Fade vs. extra stuns and DR bypass". One of the great things about Turbine's development of the class is that there are still viable reasons to go with either philosophy based on how you prefer to play your monk.

I usually try to arrange my two monks on either side of the Light/Dark fence, but typically find myself preferring Dark just for the finishers. I find to make the best use of my ki flow I'll arrange elemental or utility strikes in combinations, and while I really only use Heavens on the Lightside, I leverage Earth, Void, Water and Air finishers frequently on the Dark.

imo outside of Ninja Spy III's absence the most disappointing aspect of the current Dark path is the 10% elemental amp strikes sharing a cooldown timer with Touch of Death. I don't think it would break the game if they were on short, independent timers, and they could then be used as ingredients for finishing moves as well. As it is now, they really only take up space and 8AP on the way to qualifying for ToD.

[Chette]

With incorporeal being available (and not stacking) on a variety of items now, and many new sources for ki, dark monk is certainly less attractive than before, but it is still insanely powerful. The 3x dark finisher alone is worth bring a high DC dark monk for any raid with a high fort or regenerating boss.

[elg582]

]Dark monks can use short swords. Uh... Who uses short swords?

My Drow 14 Paladin/6 Monk.

[whereispowderedsilve]

With incorporeal being available (and not stacking) on a variety of items now, and many new sources for ki, dark monk is certainly less attractive than before, but it is still insanely powerful. The 3x dark finisher alone is worth bring a high DC dark monk for any raid with a high fort or regenerating boss.

Question on that Dark/Dark/Dark finisher Touch of Despair:

I always try to spam this on all red named mobs/bosses etc. Does it always work or?

Can I check my combat log to see if the debuffs are being applied to the enemy or?

Thanks so much in advance sorry for the slight derail! :P! !

[Taimasan]

With incorporeal being available (and not stacking) on a variety of items now, and many new sources for ki, dark monk is certainly less attractive than before, but it is still insanely powerful. The 3x dark finisher alone is worth bring a high DC dark monk for any raid with a high fort or regenerating boss.

An Incorporal Item will not stack with a blur item. But monk shadowfade will stack with a blur item.

Question on that Dark/Dark/Dark finisher Touch of Despair:

I always try to spam this on all red named mobs/bosses etc. Does it always work or?

Can I check my combat log to see if the debuffs are being applied to the enemy or?

Thanks so much in advance sorry for the slight derail! :P! !

Pro-Tip: The dark finisher's that de-buff's are curses. If a mob can be cursed, it can be hit by the finisher regardless of the color.