Dear Epic Monkeys

[Rawel_San]

Sounds like you need to take a look at your attack score.

Interesting idea. My self buffed to hit is between 46-54 depending on wraps/pa. I have a 42 wisdom outside
of GMoF and a 71 concentration. I could grab extra to-hit by wearing epic spectrals again but I can't help
feeling that would be an overall dps decrease on most mobs vs. claw set. What to-hit do you think I should
be getting to then?

[conanj77]

On my halfling monk I use Wind and Water, mostly water, but wind for when I am not tanking.
On my Halfelf monk I use Fire and Earth, mostly fire, but I will use earth as I get into epic levels(she is only level 7atm, I TR'd her from a halfling right before xpack)

What are your thoughts on halfling monks? I have been getting alot of aggro from Human light monks telling me that my finesse Ninja-spy is a "Dead build" when I hit for 40-50points(110-120 crits) with out power attack on, and I get an additional 3d6+8 SA damage, So I think the build is still alive and functioning...

CJ out!

[Potta]

The finesse build is behind both STR and Wis builds atm. Contrary to popular belief, and contrary even to my own expectations, +hit is almost totally irrelevant now. The concern pre-expansion here was that +hit would be devalued and melee would start missing a lot more because we wouldn't be able to obtain enough +hit after the change to land attacks on all but a 1. That didn't happen really. +hit was devalued, but only because it was basically a given that you'd hit on all but a 1.

There was only one reason to go dex based in the past. +hit maximisation while short on build resources. By that I mean, you were missing most of the things that would let you get your Str high enough while still maintaining the baseline dex required for GM Air, the best DPS stance, and GTWF. That can be hard to do on a 28/32 point build with no tomes.

Now however, +hit really doesn't matter much at all. You're paying a feat for the privilege of doing less damage. This may change in the future with the enhancement revamp. We've heard there is some finesse boosts coming with it, but currently even as a halfling, you'd be better off being Str or Wis based. Your +hit will drop, but it won't matter at all. Use that feat for something else.

[Rawel_San]

<snip>. That didn't happen really. +hit was devalued, but only because it was basically a given that you'd hit on all but a 1.
<snip>

This is completely and utterly wrong. Probably no build now hits everything on a 1. And most builds will
very often miss on a 2 or even 5 especially without a bard in the party. Sahuagin in epic hard (i.e. the trivial
difficulty) get missed on a 2 with a 53 to hit which if you have aggro (i.e. without sneak bonus) is not that easy to get.
When you move to actual high AC mobs the numbers needed to hit on a 2 go up drastically.

The reason that to-hit was devalued is that you always graze now and more importantly the effect of raising to
hit is tiny. On most mobs +1 to hit is worth between 0.7-1.2% chance to land a hit.

[Potta]

This is completely and utterly wrong. Probably no build now hits everything on a 1. And most builds will
very often miss on a 2 or even 5 especially without a bard in the party. Sahuagin in epic hard (i.e. the trivial
difficulty) get missed on a 2 with a 53 to hit which if you have aggro (i.e. without sneak bonus) is not that easy to get.
When you move to actual high AC mobs the numbers needed to hit on a 2 go up drastically.

The reason that to-hit was devalued is that you always graze now and more importantly the effect of raising to
hit is tiny. On most mobs +1 to hit is worth between 0.7-1.2% chance to land a hit.

53 is stupidly easy to get. What a ridiculous example. I'm standing with nothing but self buffs right now at 55. And I'm entirely wisdom based. No levelups in Str, no Exceptional Str, no Insightful Str. Not even with Madstone active, I rarely use that anymore since GMoF came along. No Weapon Focus feats, no Shintao or Sun Soul set bonuses to +hit. Nothing. You could easily push above 60ab self buffed. This goes up even further when you start adding things like, Inspire Courage, Inspire Excellence: Strength, Recitation, Primal Scream, etc.

Also, do your calculations also include Precision? For Dark Monks at least, it's generally preferable to Power Attack, allowing us much better use of our sneak dice on bosses. The +5% hit from Precision is equivalent to about +10 hit.

Furthermore, on top of this ridiculous example you've placed even more ridiculous constraints. No sneak bonus? That's crazy. +5 sneak, +3 exceptional sneak, +2 flanking bonus and +3 hound flanking bonus if applicable - which it is to me. That's another +13 to hit. This thread is about DPS, and not factoring in sneak bonuses to hit on a thread about DPS is stupid. Deliberately omitting them for the sake of making a nonsensical poorly exampled point is dumbfounding. Because even if you are pulling aggro, you can keep trash stunned nearly 100% of the time. Guess what that means. You get your sneak bonus back.

Pre U14, I was Str based. Now I'm Wis based and I have no problems hitting at all while putting absolutely no investment in +hit. On any difficulty setting.

[Potta]

I've just gone back over the spreadsheet I made for myself pre-U14 to determine AC thresholds. Reasonably well buffed, while dps'ing - not tanking - and therefore in possession of my sneak attack bonus I could fairly easily get to +75 hit on the first two attacks of the attack sequence. For me to start missing on a 2 on those attacks, the mob would have to have 64ac.

Lets put 64ac in perspective. That's about how much Epic LoB had before U14. The hardest raid content. It's also about the same as Razor Arm and Blood Plate on epic. It's only a few points behind Malicia, who had one of the highest ACs in the game.

You'd have a hard job convincing me that the trash mobs in the joke of EH have higher ACs than bosses in the old Epic difficulty did.

Oh but wait, I didn't even include Precision. That brings it up to 69ac before I start missing on a 1. Higher than Malicia and eLoB.

[Rawel_San]

Hmm ok you're standing at 55 to hit with nothing but self buffs and no investment in str? Care to give me a
break down? My monk is also a wis build though with one level up in str to hit 18 for stance. I find myself sitting
at 46 normally without sneak attack.

23 base
2 kyoshos
4 heroism
2 boat
13 36 str
6 wraps
-5 PA
1 halfling
1 litany (not sure this stacks)
-----
47 to-hit
4 epic spectrals
------
51
2 new set if you can fit it in
-----
53

If I'm soloing I tend to have aggro. If you are not soloing the idea that someone else always has aggro
is completely preposterous and while stunning helps a ton with that it's not foolproof.

also for +5% chance to hit to be equivalent to +10 to hit you would need to be attacking a mob with an AC of 100.

[Potta]

Turn off power attack.

There, you're done!

If you're missing at all on a 2, Power Attack should not be on.

You're forgetting Rage and Yugo pots.

[Rawel_San]

Turn off power attack.

There, you're done!

If you're missing at all on a 2, Power Attack should not be on.

You're forgetting Rage and Yugo pots.

I think 36 str is with yugo pot. The litany does actually not stack.

Whether it's worth turning power attack off if you're missing on a 2 is not obvious anymore. If you would want
to do the math on that I'd love to see it. I got bored after about 2 pages but I will finish it up at some point.

Btw I'm still waiting for your breakdown.

53 (which btw in my breakdown needs a lot of gear) does not get you hit on a 2 even on epic hard sahuagin. Ofcourse it's possible that
the ac of epic hard sahuagin is almost the same as the AC of epic elite drow blademasters so another 5 to-hit gets me the hit on a 2.

[Potta]

23 base
4 heroism
3 boat
12 33 str
6 wraps
1 fighter past life
3 dancing with flame
4 goggles of accuracy

= 56

Don't know why you're so insistent that I do this breakdown, yours was close enough to it that it should have been obvious I wasn't exaggerating.

Also, Litany shouldn't interfere with Yugo pots as far as I'm aware. Wouldn't know for sure though, gave up farming that thing a long time ago. The +1 profane to attack will not however stack with the +1 profane to attack on the ship.

And it's fairly easy to do the math on Power Attack vs not missing. Consider 100 attacks. 50 are done at your normal unmodified AB, so out of those 50, we'd expect to see 5% of them missed thanks to rolling a 2. That's 2.5 attacks. With TWF and a decent doublestrike percentage, each attack missed is the equivalent of two strikes on the mob. Our 2.5 swings missed are actually 5 swings. I'm doing about 200 per swing currently on mobs that aren't stunned. 200x5 = 1000 damage lost. Compare this to the gain from PA. 90% of attacks will hit, so that's 90. 180 strikes after TWF/Doublestrike. 180x5 damage per attack = 900 damage gained. You lose 100 damage from PA on basic melee damage.

Not a huge amount, no. But this very simplistic model also fails to account for strikes that are missed because of a 2. If you miss a +16 GMoEarth strike, that's 32 more damage lost. If you miss a ToD, that's anywhere from 250-3000 damage lost. It doesn't consider stuns that are missed on a two, losing damage from yourself and your whole party. It doesn't consider the reduced Ki gen from missing on a 2. There's just no way PA is a good bet if it makes you start missing.

Oh, and this is the best of a possible set of worst case scenario's for PA. Imagine it it made you miss on a 3. Or a 4.

If it weren't for Improved Sunder and how extremely important that feat is for monks, I wouldn't take PA at all. Precision is always on for me.

Edit: Actually, its 190 attacks, not 180. Forgot to include the attack sequence. Even so, result doesn't change much. 190x5 = 950. Still less damage.

[Rawel_San]

So 56 is no PA, a fighter past life and a slot taken up with a +4 to hit item, dancing with flames is so good
that I agree that's a keeper if you get lucky enough to be in that destiny at the time.
On an epic hard sahuagin soldier it gives you a .94% chance to hit. I suppose that gets rounded up to a hit
on a 2 but this is a mob with at best average AC (48). I haven't actually tested the AC on the epic hard
blademasters in sschyn but I'm guessing their AC is at least in the low 50's possibly higher and this
is still epic hard.

If you say you always hit on a 2 that should mean ALWAYS not when I have a bard, no aggro, the target has
no fort (i.e. you get all sneaks) and I'm running an epic hard.

To respond to whether or not PA on is good.

Your count completely ignores the fact that how many attacks you miss now depends on the mobs ac. It also
ignores the fact that you are not losing criticals, but normal attacks, it further ignores the fact that
you now get glancing blows on misses instead of getting proper misses. I'm afraid my monks damage is also
definitely not even remotely close to being 200 on a normal attack (are you counting sneak damage again?).
If I add up tod rings shintao set and AML 20 wraps with proper banes I might hit for 120 on non stunned mobs
but probably even less then that.

I think there's a good chance that turning off PA is the way to go but it's very far from obvious at the moment.
It definitely depends on the number of misses you get without it and what your actual dps per hit is.

[Will_Ferrer]

I play a Str/Wis human Hamp Shintao monk with Void IV and I fight in the Fire stance 95% of the time. I dont do massive damage but I have fun healing myself for 200+ healing ki every 15 seconds. This is mostly due to melee alacrity devotion trinket I crafted. Still has a few tweaks tho.

I have a monstrous Ki addiction and even with Fire IV crane II and enhanced Ki and still run out of Ki. My fingers tend to get bored with any other stance /shrug. Nearly every strike uses Ki and all my movement begins with a leap. In between fights I charge up my finisher to healing Ki and heal myself and sometimes others around me. Thru most fights I spam Void IV Earth Wind Eagle Claw and its finisher Shinning Star. I use Unbalancing Strike,
Fist of light(4-8 HP), Ku kan do(when applicable) and Quivering Palm(if success is greater then 20%) oh and of course stunning fist. i

I SPEND/NEED A LOT OF KI and waste a lot of it frivolously. I almost never cast the spells. And I too have discovered Precision. Now I'm not good with math(or spelling/grammer), I can't follow a string of numbers and words that lead to a conclusion and understand the journey I just took, but it fits my play style better then Combat Expertise did and it still lets me meet the Shintao Prereq. I use it a lot more too, but I agree its a lot tougher to tell if hitting or grazing, so many tall mobs. Plus I dont think grazes generate Ki and as I stated B4 I SPEND/NEED A LOT OF KI. I have Power Attack and Improved Sunder as well so I get plenty of fun things to spam. Strange thing is I don't even use the GMoF very often, when I do start really using it I have no idea how Im gonna be able to keep up with that kinda Ki consumption.

I have been considering changing my build to a Wisdom based monk or even a Dark Monk thats a pretty big swing in a different direction and right now I have more pressing builds to work on even still on paper I would still be a Fire Stance monk.

from all that Ive read I'm an outsider build with most monks falling into Wind/Earth builds. I dont mind being a GIMP

[Potta]

So 56 is no PA, a fighter past life and a slot taken up with a +4 to hit item, dancing with flames is so good
that I agree that's a keeper if you get lucky enough to be in that destiny at the time.

An item I mostly wear for the Large Augment Slot on it. +20hp is very helpful. My character is squishy enough as it is. When I get my crafting higher, I'll also put a Flexible Shard on it. Not having PA isn't a loss because I have Precision on instead, and the two are mutually exclusive. And there's no luck about being in GMoF. It's a choice, one that I make all the time because I have finished grinding the fate points I need.

I suppose that gets rounded up to a hit
on a 2 but this is a mob with at best average AC (48). I haven't actually tested the AC on the epic hard
blademasters in sschyn but I'm guessing their AC is at least in the low 50's possibly higher and this
is still epic hard.

It does get rounded up. And yeah, their AC is average. But so is my AB if you force it into the constraints of no outside buffs and no sneak attack bonus. EE mobs do have higher AC, and you know what, it doesn't matter in the slightest. Because I don't solo EE. In those harder areas, I'll be with a party that usually offers more buffs. I'll get a Primal Scream, or a Recitation, or songs. I'll get 5 other people who are also targets for the mobs to focus on. I don't play my monk as a tank. I have barely 600hp self buffed. No way am I tanking anything in EE. I wait for others to engage. I go after mobs making a beeline for casters. If anything does start aggro'ing on me, I stun it, knock it down or blind it. All of which give me my sneak attack bonus back while simultaneously reducing the damage I take. It's not something I even do to enable sneak attacks, it's something I do to stay alive - because like I said earlier, I'm not tanking with my build. No way. If I've pulled aggro on something that I can't stop from hurting me, not getting my sneak attack bonus to damage or AB is the absolute last of my concerns. I stop attacking to get into GM Earth, swap in a displace clicky, block and chug down Silver Flame pots until the pain has stopped.

If you say you always hit on a 2 that should mean ALWAYS not when I have a bard, no aggro, the target has
no fort (i.e. you get all sneaks) and I'm running an epic hard.

I've already proven the fact this is true. 56ab self buffed + precision. That means I'll hit anything up to ~53-54ac on a 2 every time. I've given you the figures for this to prove it's the case, so I don't really see what you're getting at here. I not only hit the AC figure you've given, I hit ~15% above it. That's plenty of room for higher AC mobs in EH. Enough room even to do the same to a lot of EE mobs with no increase in AB.

I'm afraid my monks damage is also
definitely not even remotely close to being 200 on a normal attack (are you counting sneak damage again?).
If I add up tod rings shintao set and AML 20 wraps with proper banes I might hit for 120 on non stunned mobs
but probably even less then that.

I am counting sneak attack damage, yes. Because not counting it is not at all representative of how the game plays. I'm also counting Tunnel Vision and Henshin Mystic set and Brawling Gloves and Sense Weakness.

I don't understand how on the one hand you can be so insistent that AB is still relevant, but on the other gladly accept a -5 penalty to it for PA when a better alternative exists. I accept that AB is so irrelevant on easy content like EH that I could often swap to PA, not take any extra misses and do a bit more damage. I don't do that however, because micro'ing PA and Precision has no appeal for me on top of what I'm already doing.

Before this thread, I often wondered just what other monks in my party were doing to always be ending up to 1/3 to 1/2 my kills. From the answers in this thread so far, I've begun to understand.

[Carpone]

You'll spend a considerable amount of time collecting fate points in other destinies. Wind Stance works superbly well regardless of the destiny you're in.

[Dalsheel]

I see many people here claiming that wind stance is the best.

How do you manage to keep up with Ki and your Ki strikes?

I use fire stance and often find myself with 0 Ki. I often equip Frozen Tunic instead of my Epic Red Robe just for the extra Ki generation while in fire stance.
Since you mentioned something about maximizing DPS, I'll remind you that having ToD off cooldown and not being able to use it even for 1second is a serious DPS loss.
I would also like to remind you that Ki strikes in between ToDs are equally important. Not using them because you want your Ki for the next ToD is a major DPS loss.
Not using Ki strikes on the next mob is -obviously- a major DPS loss (especially on EE and/or raid bosses)
GMoF makes Ki generation even more important since it requires large amounts of Ki to use the various abilities it offers.

I know for a fact that a simple +1Ki item is simply NOT ENOUGH. Passive Ki generation is a joke during combat even if you hit the maximum amount that is 4ki/6seconds.
I am not making this up, this is my experience after playing a monk for a long time. Playing a monk is about hitting Ki strikes as often as possible. If your play style is *Lock the target and auto-attack* then you're better off playing a barbarian cause even the fighter has clicks you have to keep up with. As soon as you understand this you will be playing a better monk.

I am really curious about what your opinion is on the matter

[Arlathen]

I see many people here claiming that wind stance is the best.

How do you manage to keep up with Ki and your Ki strikes?

I use fire stance and often find myself with 0 Ki. I often equip Frozen Tunic instead of my Epic Red Robe just for the extra Ki generation while in fire stance.
Since you mentioned something about maximizing DPS, I'll remind you that having ToD off cooldown and not being able to use it even for 1second is a serious DPS loss.
I would also like to remind you that Ki strikes in between ToDs are equally important. Not using them because you want your Ki for the next ToD is a major DPS loss.
Not using Ki strikes on the next mob is -obviously- a major DPS loss (especially on EE and/or raid bosses)
GMoF makes Ki generation even more important since it requires large amounts of Ki to use the various abilities it offers.

I know for a fact that a simple +1Ki item is simply NOT ENOUGH. Passive Ki generation is a joke during combat even if you hit the maximum amount that is 4ki/6seconds.
I am not making this up, this is my experience after playing a monk for a long time. Playing a monk is about hitting Ki strikes as often as possible. If your play style is *Lock the target and auto-attack* then you're better off playing a barbarian cause even the fighter has clicks you have to keep up with. As soon as you understand this you will be playing a better monk.

I am really curious about what your opinion is on the matter

Simply that my main Ki-life-sucking Monk is a WSS based building dual wielding Oathblades, in GM Fire stance and wearing a +1 Ki item.

It's thanks to the critical effect portion of my GM Fire Stance and my Oathblades (Crit range of 15-20) that I'm sucking large portions of Ki up to keep all my Ki abilities used.

I additionally have Cleave & Great Cleave on spam when in packs of mobs, which really helps pump up the Ki bar.