Begginner with MONK/Looking for a build

[TheTigerTwin]

I like the monk style but im 28 point build and i have no idea how to build
a monk.I would love to mix it up with a cleric or somth because i love to
heal myself up and be ready to roll with no time but same time im hunting
for the dmg and reflex. Any Help Would Be Good!

[Rhysem]

If you really want to heal, do half-elf monk, cleric dilly. You'll pay for half-elf, but you presumably paid for monk (vip or otherwise). Dilly will let you wand whip and eventually throw heal scrolls.

This said, I have a helf-monk and were I to do it again I'd go straight up human light monk 20. Get a devotion item, sink what points you can into cross-class heal skill to help boost your fists of light finisher and you should be good. Being able to finisher heal myself for north of 200 is pretty good for keeping myself up in relatively non-hardcore epic play. It'd be more with the human's better healing amp and if I had a better devotion item.

[TeacherSyn]

I like the monk style but im 28 point build and i have no idea how to build
a monk.I would love to mix it up with a cleric or somth because i love to
heal myself up and be ready to roll with no time but same time im hunting
for the dmg and reflex. Any Help Would Be Good!

If you're very new to Monks, take a look at the guide (link below). It won't point to a build, but tell you the fundamentals of each class and how Monks work.

If you're serious on learning a Monk, don't multiclass it yet. Many play them "pure" because they are that powerful. Once you get a grip on the class, multiclasses such as the Kensei, "monkcher" and other classes may be interesting.

[unbongwah]

If you really want to heal, do half-elf monk, cleric dilly. You'll pay for half-elf, but you presumably paid for monk (vip or otherwise). Dilly will let you wand whip and eventually throw heal scrolls.

While that's still doable, you have to invest at least 17 APs into HE tree to hit 95% success chance w/Heal scrolls; 19 APs if you also want 20% heal amp. I consider the HE tree as a whole to be fairly weak. Plus as you said, light monk w/decent Devotion and heal amp has plenty of self-healing to begin with.

[TeacherSyn]

While that's still doable, you have to invest at least 17 APs into HE tree to hit 95% success chance w/Heal scrolls; 19 APs if you also want 20% heal amp. I consider the HE tree as a whole to be fairly weak. Plus as you said, light monk w/decent Devotion and heal amp has plenty of self-healing to begin with.

I'd choose the Shintao Monk tree predominantly, as a human, to start off as a Monk.

A Ninja Spy is better suited as a Half-Elf with a Cleric dilettante for healing and buffing options not possible anywhere else. It might be expensive to some, but the investment doesn't pull needed skill points from needed spots. And 95% success of a Heal is better than 100% chance from a much weaker or no battle healing option.

[Kodwraith]

At 21.elcome to the world of monkdom. Were a pretty friendly crowd.

I'd go human lightside shintao. It's a very solid platform on which to learn and is still quite viable in groups. I'm still playing one after 5 years.

You can get exotic monk builds that min max stats, but honestly you're best off putting a mix is wish str con and dex,. You can dump cha and int. Great self healing and rise of the phoenix is astounding if you solo everything like I do.

28 point builds you basically want 15s in str Dex con wis. All level ups go into wis if you want vorpal strikes A(which you do)

The basic feats you're going to want on any monk that's pure:
Stunning fist
Toughness
Power attack
Two weapon fighting
Imp two weapon fighting
Greater twf
Imp crit bludgeon

Note that the way a monks base stack bonus works you always take imp twf at 9, improved crit at 12 and gtwf at 15.
Always. This means most of your choices are actually at the lowest levels with one free feat at 18.

On a human this leaves you with 4 extra feats to play with. Good choices are:
The spring attack line: dodge, mobility, spring attack
The overwhelming crit line:Cleave, greater cleave
The shuriken line: quick draw, shuriken expertise, ten thousand stars

Or you can always take more toughness. Note that also in all these lines the first and intermediate feats are also useful. So mix and match.
Skills: put a point per level into: concentration, balance tumble And
jump. Umd is great but requires some specialized knowledge and gear to really shine. Yore basically going to be stunning things, then beating them down with your healing fist attack and finishers.


On my monk main I took the spring attack line and magical training (because of my epic level twist, but that's another post.)

[Maelodic]

I know this opinion has become unpopular as of late, but if you'd like some intense self healing, I would recommend a Halfling Dragonmarked build- especially if you're planning on reincarnating at 20 instead of going through the epic levels, which is what a lot of people do.

To offset the AP cost, I would recommend taking the Halfling Guile tree as well as the ninja spy +sneak attack tree, and spamming unbalancing strike (which works on everything susceptible to sneak attacks) to get all of your delicious sneak attacks in. Going light will give you a nice burst of heals already (I've solo healed many a party with dragonmarks and my light finisher) and the final dragonmarks will heal your bar all the way should you have enough devotion. My healy-sneak attack halfling monk is level 18 at the moment, and without changing any equipment around, the heal finisher will do 80-100 HP, and I can use it often.

You could also take advantage of the anti-dark henshin tier 5, which gives a nice burst of heals as long as you know how to use it. This can work with any race and does well- you'll miss out on the other tier 5s but in my opinion, the Henshin tier 5s are arguably the best unless you're going pure Shintao to take advantage of Meditation of War post 20.

[TeacherSyn]

I know this opinion has become unpopular as of late, but if you'd like some intense self healing, I would recommend a Halfling Dragonmarked build- especially if you're planning on reincarnating at 20 instead of going through the epic levels, which is what a lot of people do.

To offset the AP cost, I would recommend taking the Halfling Guile tree as well as the ninja spy +sneak attack tree, and spamming unbalancing strike (which works on everything susceptible to sneak attacks) to get all of your delicious sneak attacks in. Going light will give you a nice burst of heals already (I've solo healed many a party with dragonmarks and my light finisher) and the final dragonmarks will heal your bar all the way should you have enough devotion. My healy-sneak attack halfling monk is level 18 at the moment, and without changing any equipment around, the heal finisher will do 80-100 HP, and I can use it often.

You could also take advantage of the anti-dark henshin tier 5, which gives a nice burst of heals as long as you know how to use it. This can work with any race and does well- you'll miss out on the other tier 5s but in my opinion, the Henshin tier 5s are arguably the best unless you're going pure Shintao to take advantage of Meditation of War post 20.

It's not too unpopular. Good advice on Unbalancing Strike; combine it as the Water strike with a Dark strike and you get the paralyzing finisher, Freezing the Lifeblood, very powerful to have at level 3. It's a bit specialist to work the Dragonmarks in but it's not a bad idea at all. That's great healing on that halfling.

[GMoneyMackDaddy]

I went pure light human shintao line

Maxed human healing amp, with full shintao line to capstone.

Slotted devotion item and FOL finisher, hits for 250+ at lvl 28.

With guantlets of immortality, and a few points into heal skill, its even better.

Even when not using the guantlets, the only time I shrine is to get clickies back.

Cocoon is over 100+ per tick.

No umd needed, for scrolls and such.

Just my .02 cents.

[Munkenmo]

I like the monk style but im 28 point build and i have no idea how to build
a monk.I would love to mix it up with a cleric or somth because i love to
heal myself up and be ready to roll with no time but same time im hunting
for the dmg and reflex. Any Help Would Be Good!

There's basically 3 monk builds that new players should be considering:

Unarmed, 1/4 staff, and two weapon fighting Ninja spy.

Given that you like the monk style, I'm assuming you mean you like unarmed, as 1/4 staves and 2wf are hardly unique to the monk class.

As you're new and haven't experienced the class yet, I'd advise only small splashes to allow you a good feel for the monk class.

The problem you've got as a new player, it's not possible to use dex for damage unarmed. This means if you're really looking at trying to min/max your damage you'd have to sacrifice reflex saves somewhat. Given your 28point build limitation though, and the fact that monks do want for a lot of build points I would suggest that perhaps an unarmed monk is not going to be your best play experience on a brand new character.

In order to viably fight unarmed you will want at least 17dexterity, given your 28 point build limitation I think it's rather likely you won't be able to consider using tomes to boost this score. So reaching 17dex would use up 13 of your build points.

Instead of using almost half your points at character creation I would instead suggest (assuming human):
To invest in only 16 dexterity, using up only 10 build points (10/28)
Next you'd want to invest in some wisdom for stunning fist and AC boosts, we'll use a tentative number like 14base, that's 6 build points (16/28 consumed)
Next as a new player you'll want a decent HP score, given your gear will be lacking you will need a decent con, so 14base again, 6 more build points, (22/28 consumed)
That leaves you just 6 points to invest into a strength score, so your strength will also be 14base.


This would leave you with fairly acceptable looking starting stats of 14str, 16dex, 14con, 8int, 14wis, 8cha. As I mentioned earlier you will need 17 dexterity to qualify for the improved & greater two weapon fighting feats.
As you level up, every 4th level you get to choose one stat to improve by 1 point. So at levels:
4 +1 str
8 +1 dex
12 +1 str
16 +1 str
20 +1 str

As for a build with some self healing options.
1. at level 3 monks can choose the light path which will allow them an attack called "fists of light" this will give you 1-2 points of healing per attack on enemies.
2. at level 7 monks qualify for the feat Wholeness of Body, this will allow before or after a fight to sit down and heal ~100hp over 30 seconds (as you level up the amount you heal will increase)

Those 2 abilities are actually quite useful and once you get good enough they will be the majority of the healing you need. However if you'd like more, I'd suggest splashing 1 cleric level.
Wands don't require umd if you have any levels in a class that casts that spell, so once you reach appropriate character level, 1 cleric level allows you to use any cleric wand. (ie. Cure wands)

As for a build Human:
lvl, class : Feats
1 Monk : Cleave, dragon mark of passage, power attack
2 Monk : Two Weapon fighting
3 Monk : Stunning fist, Light path
4 Monk
5 Monk
6 Monk : Great Cleave, Dodge
7 Monk
8 This is a crucial Level, if you don't feel that your self healing is good enough, this is where you splash cleric (cleric bonus feat silver flame), if your healing is good enough stay monk
9 Monk : Improved two weapon fighting
10 Monk
11 Monk:
12 Monk: Improved Critical Bludgeoning
14 Monk
15 Monk: if you took cleric @ 8, empower heal, If you are pure monk Greater two weapon fighting
16 Monk
17 Monk
18 Monk: if you took cleric @ 8 Greater two weapon fighting, If you are pure get magical Training (it will be a useless feat for now, but once you reach epic levels it will become useful)
19 Monk
20 Monk

Your reflex saves won't be as good as a finesse based character, but they'll be acceptable, especially when coupled with your freely granted improved evasion.
Your damage won't be as good as someone with multiple pastlives, but it will be about as good as possible for a first life 28point character
The skill points you should invest in are Concentration, Spot, Heal, Umd. (at level 1 give up one point of spot for one point in tumble)
Make sure to pick up the Ninja spy core 3 ability at level 6.
Pick up dimension door and 1 rank in healing amp from the human enhancements
Shintao should be your primary tree to focus on from level 6 onwards, the healing amp and dr bypasses are exceptionally useful
If you do invest in the cleric level, spend 4points in the radiant servant tree to get Wand Mastery, this will make your wands 75% more effective.

[Kodwraith]

There's basically 3 monk builds that new players should be considering:

Unarmed, 1/4 staff, and two weapon fighting Ninja spy.

Omen: Your post is useful enough you should consider moving it into its own thread. I've been thinking about posting some good beginner reference builds for new monks with fewer tomes.

[Sunnie]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but don't you get a free lesser heart when you create a 28-pt character nowadays that lets you LTR into a 32-pt build immediately if you wish?

I'm quite sure I got one when I created a character to earn some favour on another server than Sarlona where I usually hang out.

[john_yaya]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but don't you get a free lesser heart when you create a 28-pt character nowadays that lets you LTR into a 32-pt build immediately if you wish?

I'm quite sure I got one when I created a character to earn some favour on another server than Sarlona where I usually hang out.

Only if you have 32 point builds unlocked. So if you rolled up a 28 pt character, then unlocked 32 pt builds, you can use the free lesser heart to LTR into the 32 pt build.