When it comes time to do another monk life

[Varmok]

This is what I am looking at. My main question is whether I should be focusing on the power attacks or whirlwind. I can always change stuff around, but the extra dodge from the whirlwind feats is nice. Thoughts?

Staff Monk
Monk 20
Lawful Neutral Half-Orc


Stats
. . . . . . . .36pt . . Tome . . Level Up
. . . . . . . .---- . . ---- . . --------
Strength. . . . 20. . . .+6. . . .4: STR
Dexterity . . . 10. . . .+6. . . .8: STR
Constitution. . 16. . . .+6. . . 12: STR
Intelligence. . 12. . . .+6. . . 16: STR
Wisdom. . . . . 10. . . .+6. . . 20: STR
Charisma. . . . .6. . . .+6. . . 24: STR
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .28: STR

Skills
. . . . . 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20
. . . . .------------------------------------------------------------
Concent . 4. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 23
Balance . 4. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 23
Tumble. . 2. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 21
Heal. . . 1. ½. ½. ½. ½. ½. ½. ½. ½. ½. ½. ½. ½. ½. ½. ½. ½. ½. ½. 1. 11
UMD . . . 2. ½. ½. ½. ½. ½. ½. ½. ½. ½. ½. ½. ½. ½. ½. ½. ½. ½. ½. . .11
Jump. . . 4. . . . . . . . .1 .1 .1 .1 .1 .1 . . . . . . . . . . . . .10
Swim. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. .8
Haggle. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ½. ½. ½. ½. ½. ½. .3
. . . . .------------------------------------------------------------
. . . . .20. 5. 5. 5. 5. 5. 6. 6. 6. 6. 6. 6. 6. 6. 7. 7. 7. 7. 7. 7


Feats

.1. . . . : Power Attack
.1 Monk . : Two Handed Fighting
.2 Monk . : Deflect Arrows
.3. . . . : Combat Expertise
.3 Monk . : Path of Inevitable Dominion
.6. . . . : Improved Trip
.6 Monk . : Improved Sunder
.9. . . . : Improved Two Handed Fighting
12. . . . : Dodge
15. . . . : Mobility
18. . . . : Spring Attack
21 Epic . : Whirlwind Attack
24 Epic . : Improved Martial Arts
26 Destiny: Perfect Two Handed Fighting
27 Epic . : Epic Damage Reduction
28 Destiny: Holy Strike
29 Destiny: First Blood
30 Epic . : Epic Reflexes
30 Legend : Scion of: Astral Plane


Enhancements (80 AP)

Henshin Mystic (52 AP)

• Riddle of Fire, Ki Bolt, Sounding Staff, Incinerating Wave, Cauldron of Flame, Serenity
  
  1. All-Consuming Flame, Henshin Staff Training, Mystic Training III, Way of the: Elegant Crane
  2. Porous Soul, Henshin Staff Training, Quick Strike III, Eagle Claw Attack, Contemplation III
  3. Static Charge, Henshin Staff Training, Lighting the Candle III, Embrace the Void III, Strength
  4. Winter's Touch, Henshin Staff Training, Focus, Strength
  5. Void Strike, Staff Specialization, Every Light Casts as Shadow

Shintao (14 AP)

• Bastion of Purity
  
  1. Reed in the Wind III, Ki Shout
  2. Iron Skin III, Conditioning III
  3. Constitution

Half-Orc (7 AP)

• Orcish Fury, Orcish Strength
  
  1. Orcish Weapon Training
  2. Orcish Weapon Training

Ninja Spy (4 AP)

• Basic Ninja Training
  
  1. Acrobatic III

Harper Agent (3 AP)

• Agent of Good I
  
  1. Harper Enchantment

[HastyPudding]

I would recommend dropping whirlwind if you're not going unarmed. It's got a terrible delay on it when using anything other than unarmed. It's not as bad as it used to be, but it's still pretty terrible: also, whirlwind attack takes advantage of offhand attacks, which is wasted on THF. You would gain more benefit from GTHF than whirlwind attack.

I would also recommend going light monk. Tier 5 henshin's 'every light casts a shadow' really isn't much healing compared to healing ki, and 'shadows cannot exist without light' is fixed: it's like a negative level machine gun, from my testing, especially in large groups on EE/LE.

Switch out deflect arrows for dodge and mobility at earlier levels. It's just not worth a feat slot. Same with Improved Sunder: monk is pretty tight on feats if you're going for whirlwind.

Don't bother with mystic training. Ki Bolt, Incinerating Wave, and Breath of the Fire Dragon are totally underwhelming in terms of damage. Those 3 AP would be better spent elsewhere.

[Drecas]

Switch out deflect arrows for dodge and mobility at earlier levels. It's just not worth a feat slot. Same with Improved Sunder: monk is pretty tight on feats if you're going for whirlwind.

Don't bother with mystic training. Ki Bolt, Incinerating Wave, and Breath of the Fire Dragon are totally underwhelming in terms of damage. Those 3 AP would be better spent elsewhere.

Those are core skills and while ki bolt is underwhelming the 10 points of melee power the cores give is not. Serenity gives 25 melee power and 15% attack speed with qstaffs. You need to pay more attention.

And deflect arrows is awesome, keep it, it can be a real life saver. Not sure about improved sunder, not worth a feat imo.

[Vish]

Only thing I can say is
10 wisdom??

Better change that to 16
And put some level ups into it

Ps
Try these numbers
18 14 14 10 16 6

[Varmok]

Thanks for looking at it. I misread the char builder, so yah, should have been heshin monk. Improved sunder was in there as filler, but swapped for mobility.
And I changed the stats around a bit, forgot wisdom went to how muchavailable ki I had.

Thought on cleave & Gcleave vs wf bludgeon & IC: bludgeon?

[HastyPudding]

Those are core skills and while ki bolt is underwhelming the 10 points of melee power the cores give is not. Serenity gives 25 melee power and 15% attack speed with qstaffs. You need to pay more attention.

And deflect arrows is awesome, keep it, it can be a real life saver. Not sure about improved sunder, not worth a feat imo.

I know those are core skills. They're still bad because they don't scale well. You need them, but you don't need to use them (although ki bolt is situationally useful as it's possibly stronger than tossing a shuriken). So, since these abilities are quite bad, why waste 3 AP on Mystic Training in getting +3 dc's to them? You need to pay a lot more attention, apparently.

Deflect Arrows is awesome...if it's an enhancement like in Vanguard or Tempest. It's not worth a feat slot, especially on a monk, which tends to be tight on feats in most of their builds.

Thanks for looking at it. I misread the char builder, so yah, should have been heshin monk. Improved sunder was in there as filler, but swapped for mobility.
And I changed the stats around a bit, forgot wisdom went to how muchavailable ki I had.

Thought on cleave & Gcleave vs wf bludgeon & IC: bludgeon?

I would switch out Improved Sunder and Deflect Arrows for cleaves, if you wanted them. Weapon Focus feats are useless unless you're a fighter or multiclass fighter, and even then only because it's required for Weapon Specialization: +1 attack and +2 melee power is hardly worth a feat slot on a non-fighter. Improved Critical is only something you should take out of your build as a very last resort.