All bout dat Henshin Mystic / Ideas to fix the tree

[SoVeryBelgian]

Hullo everyone, just a Monk fan here, inquiring about your Henshin Mystic builds and possible ideas to improve the tree.

It's my favorite out of all the Monk trees, but as a perma-gimp I'm not some min-maxer with crazy good equips and super efficient knowledge of ability pt allotment and skill point usage.
This has lead to me doing things like dumping DEX to accomodate a higher WIS for Monk abilities and relying on STR to carry the Qstaff build since you can't take DEX to hit unless you splash Rogue (Or INT w/ Harper Tree) and as a result your reflex gets **** on. Wep Finesse also doesn't really sit well with me because I like my feats (more for Ninja). My dodge isn't awful, but I also had to drop some CON to bolster my STR even as a 21st life 36 pt build.

Horc Qstaff Henshin is my favorite because of the Horc tree 2HW bonuses and no WIS penalty but as someone who enjoys all the henshin core abilities, I feel like Cauldron of Flame doesn't get much use since it's centered on a single location and disrupted by movement. It also (along with Ki Blast and Incinerating Wave) quickly becomes useless in epics unless you have a good Combustion / Potency item which takes up extra slottage. I tried 18 mnk 1 ftr 1 wis to make up for lost feats since between 9 and 17 monk is kinda starved on those with the hope that Maximize spell would bolster the Ki Moves and I have yet to see it work effectively. Also, the fact that Cauldron is tied to level 18 also limits multiclassing (not that I multi much, I prefer pures cuz I'm simple).

As for the trees, I know Monk used be a path multiselector --http://ddowiki.com/page/Monk_enhancements_%28history%29-- but the fact that force based damage was relegated to the 30 point tier 5 void strike at the cost of 4 goosecrap abilities in the Henshin mystic tree is silly. Elemental words are useless unless maybe you're an EK or caster who wants 10% of additional elemental damage on a single target. If Void Strike is tier 5, then tie it to the Force / Fire theme in the Henshin style and have progressing skills in the ability like a fire strike to complement it.

Incinerating wave could be attached to level 6 (stay the same functionally) and cauldron moves to 12 and is centered on the user while mobile, and maybe change the damage calculation so it's not op. The 18 Core could be changed for survivability. And the Ki Blast could instead become a tier 1 skill choice (Choose either fire or force damage) and progress two times to Tier 3 in that damage type (Like the Monk ED) so the range gets bigger and it hits more targets. Like arcane blast for wizzy. Then void strike could stay where it is.


I'm just spitballing at the moment and looking to see what others thought. Do reply.

[Vrax_Artifice]

I've been wanting a monk overhaul for some time now as well. The Henshin tree is so terribly gimp it hurts, I posted something similar a long time ago, and the majority response was basically just suck it up and multiclass. If you don't monkcher, you don't matter.

I hope the Devs read this, and even if they do something completely different, I hope they make some kind of change to make monks viable again.

[Vrax_Artifice]

https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthrea...verything-else