LVL 30 feat? handwrap monk

[Irongutz2000]

So what feat r u guys taking at 30 on ur unarmed monk? Was thinking the sneakattack one , the 20 MP one or the tactics one ( whick idk if actually needed? Thoughts?

[leesun]

scion of the astral plane
the assassinate dc is useless, but +4 to reflex save, +4 to tactical feats, +4 to dodge cap, +4 to dodge, +4 to double strike (monks get +8 as long as they are centered) is very useful

scion of the ethereal plane gives perma blur, perma invisibility guard, +4 to all skills and +1 sneak attack damage for every point invested in hide

scion of arborea gives +20 to mp, rp, force sp, universal sp, +4 fort and +2 to weapon enhancement

the arborea sounds nice, but unarmed monk damage comes from attack speed and doublestrike and astral gives +4 (8 as long as you're centered) so it would come down to damage per hit vs damage per second

ethereal plane maybe for a ninja spy rogue build?

i personally would take the astral plane

[HastyPudding]

Definitely Scion of the Astral Plane. It's made for monk and works perfectly for monk. More dodge is never bad and tactics and doublestike are at the core of almost every monk build. It gives monk what they need and in all the right places.

Scion of the Ethereal Plane: not bad, especially for a stealth-oriented ninja spy or a henshin/acrobat multiclass build.

Scion of Arborea: can't go wrong with more melee power. Probably more useful to a henshin than an unarmed monk.

Scion of Celestia: while the light damage is not useful, this would make an interesting feat for light monks that like to spam healing ki.

[Eth]

Etheral is easily the most DPS given how much melee power is in the monk trees now. Moar dips is never wrong.

Also don't ignore the elemental stuff (scion of the plane of air or earth). It has nice synergy with the 10% debuff from henshin, might be a pain to build spellpower in though.
Less DPS than etheral (especially in actual gameplay, elemental resistances on LE mobs are no joke), but PRR from earth is quite nice since it can compensate one of monks weaker spots.

[HastyPudding]

Etheral is easily the most DPS given how much melee power is in the monk trees now. Moar dips is never wrong.

Also don't ignore the elemental stuff (scion of the plane of air or earth). It has nice synergy with the 10% debuff from henshin, might be a pain to build spellpower in though.
Less DPS than etheral (especially in actual gameplay, elemental resistances on LE mobs are no joke), but PRR from earth is quite nice since it can compensate one of monks weaker spots.

I think you mean Arborea is the most dps, as it gives melee power and a weapon enhancement bonus. Ethereal is the stealth/invisibility/blur feat: unless you rely on sneak attacks, it's not going to be a huge dps boost.

Air isn't bad, as it gives dodge and electric damage isn't that widely resisted. Water isn't too bad, either, if you're a monk that uses SP, and more MRR is never a bad thing as it's a bit of a monk weakness.

[LavidDynch]

I think you mean Arborea is the most dps, as it gives melee power and a weapon enhancement bonus. Ethereal is the stealth/invisibility/blur feat: unless you rely on sneak attacks, it's not going to be a huge dps boost.

Air isn't bad, as it gives dodge and electric damage isn't that widely resisted. Water isn't too bad, either, if you're a monk that uses SP, and more MRR is never a bad thing as it's a bit of a monk weakness.

300-700 dmg (depending on variables) / hit. For some, I'd assume; judging from ingame play, it's more than most monks base dmg. It also bypasses most kinds of DR (helps in LE-shroud) and monk can apply SA on pretty much every encounter.

Arborea is Bud-light. Ethereal is IPA. Some people just have bad taste.

[Mr_Helmet]

I think you mean Arborea is the most dps, as it gives melee power and a weapon enhancement bonus. Ethereal is the stealth/invisibility/blur feat: unless you rely on sneak attacks, it's not going to be a huge dps boost.

If you aren't getting sneak attack 90% of the time, even if you have aggro, you're doing it wrong.

Ethereal isn't just more DPS, it's a metric S-ton more DPS.

[Kebtid]

Il say it depends on build.
IF you play a unarmed speed focused monk then go with etheral, if you play a cleave reset unarmed tree monk then arborea, if you play a sneak rogue/ranger splash monk then also etheral.

You can take i guess astral if you want more survival and have issues with tacticals, also had nice synergy with wolf monks using wraps.

Really depends, there are so many variations of builds with hwraps we can make that there is no 1 defacto option.

I take arborea for example since it gives my build the most dps ( i have literally no sneak on my build beside 3 rogue plifes) and guess what, im not wrong!
So you cant go wrong either depending on your builds focus, take the most synergetic one.

[str8nger]

I took Scion of Fire on my pure monk and picked up some combustion (somewhere in the 200's I think) and see 300-700 fire damage all the time...of course healing some mobs too, but whatever...also did lighting the candle with triple fire wraps...and it's a fire all day everyday...

I dropped astral plane, yeah it's made for a monk, but I likes me some fire!

just my mileage...yours may vary

[Mr_Helmet]

I take arborea for example since it gives my build the most dps ( i have literally no sneak on my build beside 3 rogue plifes) and guess what, im not wrong!

Yes you are :P

[Irongutz2000]

Yes you are :P

LOL I think i will stick with the sneak attack feat , 4 tactics and 8 double strike isn't as nice as all those pretty sneak attack numbers, Sides with unbalancing strike u can almost always get sneak attack.

I feel like the so called monk one is a noob trap . Ty all for the replys.

[Kebtid]

Yes you are :P

Prove me mathematically that im wrong xD

[Mr_Helmet]

Prove me mathematically that im wrong xD

Silly monk, don't you know that math never solves anything?

[Kebtid]

Silly monk, don't you know that math never solves anything?

I forgot that the path to true wisdom shall not be tainted by numbers.
I will learn from this mistake.

To be a future wise-monk.
For ultimate enlightenment

[BigErkyKid]

Silly monk, don't you know that math never solves anything?

If you care about dps, then ethereal without any doubt.

- it had great synergy with the huge MP monks have
- you can do dex to damage monk, which again is great synergy
- most importantly, sneak attack is unaffected by grazing hits. Grazing hits are very frequent in top end content, and even more if you are not all out on damaging stat (say a wise based monk).
- it ignores prr and dr . Again lots of it nowadays.
- you can sneak attack everything. Trash should be helpless, and you can unbalance bosses.
- current relevant content does not have many sneak immune mobs. But even if it comes, a rogue can lift the immunity for you. I bet rogues would be one popular.,,

It is very possible to get super high tactical D.C. nowadays, so astral is for dodge and dbs. However, giving grazing and the rest, I'd say sneak beats it by far.

Having tried both, I can say that one has gone crazy choosing astral. Of course, unless you have done abnormal fixation for dcs as a build flavor choice or specialty toon.

Then I also recommend the pl sneak from rogue for much needed burst dps.

Seriously, as someone said you end up getting more from sneak than from base damage on non Crits.

I'm not optimized for sneak yet and I hit ~200-300 without pl on, and upwards of 400 boosting.

[Eth]

Here's some math:

Pure Monk enhancement MP: 75 (41 shintao / 21 henshin)
Pure Rogue Assassin enhancement MP: 15

Pure Monk sneak die: 3 (Ninja Spy)
Pure Rogue Assassin sneak die: 22 (10 base, 8 assassin tree, 4 epic feat)

Item sneak damage: 22 + 11
Etheral Plane: Hide score/2, so 60ish

Generic MP (LD): 18 cores, 30 epic levels, 70 blitz, 10ish mythic stuff = 128


Pure Monk sneak attack damage: (3 x 3.5 + 22 + 11 + 60) x (3.03 x 1.5) = 470.4075
Pure Rogue sneak attack damage: (22 x 3.5 + 22 + 11 + 60) x (2.43 x 1.5) = 619.65

Pure Monk sneak attack damage with Arborea instead of etheral: (3 x 3.5 + 22 + 11) x (3.23 x 1.5) = 210.7575

[BigErkyKid]

Here's some math:

Pure Monk enhancement MP: 75 (41 shintao / 21 henshin)
Pure Rogue Assassin enhancement MP: 15

Pure Monk sneak die: 3 (Ninja Spy)
Pure Rogue Assassin sneak die: 22 (10 base, 8 assassin tree, 4 epic feat)

Item sneak damage: 22 + 11
Etheral Plane: Hide score/2, so 60ish

Generic MP (LD): 18 cores, 30 epic levels, 70 blitz, 10ish mythic stuff = 128


Pure Monk sneak attack damage: (3 x 3.5 + 22 + 11 + 60) x (3.03 x 1.5) = 470.4075
Pure Rogue sneak attack damage: (22 x 3.5 + 22 + 11 + 60) x (2.43 x 1.5) = 619.65

Pure Monk sneak attack damage with Arborea instead of etheral: (3 x 3.5 + 22 + 11) x (3.23 x 1.5) = 210.7575

I am not sure those computations are accurate. I wanted to double test so I took my monk for a stroll on live.

I am doing 180-200 damage with a hide skill of 67.5 (no item on), a deception item and insightful deception. No blitz. Melee power is 123 and I took 1 sneak attack dice from ninja. 2 rogue PL.

(1*3.5 + 22 + 11+ (67.5/2)+2)*(2.23 * 1.5)=241.6762

Instead, the correct formula seems to be hide/3

(1*3.5 + 22 + 11+ (67.5/3)+2)*(2.23 * 1.5)=204.045

Matching a lot better what I am finding.

Now blitzing it should be:

(1*3.5 + 22 + 11+ (67.5/3)+2)*(2.93 * 1.5)=268

With every additional sneak attack dice you fit in adding 15 damage per hit.

"Easy" sources of hide would add be: 22 hide from SLC, 4 GH, 10 camouflage scroll new hide should be: 67.5+36=103

(1*3.5 + 22 + 11+ (103/3)+2)*(2.93 * 1.5)=320.

With every additional sneak attack dice you fit in adding 15 damage per hit.

This means that in your original comparison, you would have:

(22*3.5 + 22 + 11+ (120/3)+2)*(2.43 * 1.5)

Pure Monk sneak attack damage: (3*3.5 + 22 + 11+ (120/3)+2)*(3.03 * 1.5) = 388.5975
Pure Rogue sneak attack damage: (22 x 3.5 + 22 + 11 + 60) x (2.43 x 1.5) = 554.04

Or in other words, rogue deals 554.04/388.5975=1.42 that is 42% more sneak attack damage.

In your original comparison (which is wrong, me thinks) this was 619.65/470.4075=1.31 only 31% sneak attack damage.

On that note, I see that you guys went with sneak attack damage focus over KTA. Is this the best way to do it? In my set up I have:

-10 MP
-2 SA dice
+10 Base damage (int score 50, could be higher)

So I am losing 43 sneak attack damage.

(1*3.5 + 22 + 11+ (120/3)+2)*(2.93 * 1.5) -(3*3.5 + 22 + 11+ (120/3)+2)*(3.03 * 1.5) = 43

Now 10 base damage is worth:

10*Crit multiplier*MP multiplier = 10*1.55*2.93 = 45 damage.

I guess that it depends on your to hit, the content you run, etc.

[Eth]

snip

Thanks for testing.
I haven't yet played a toon with etheral (but currently working on one ), so I was going from what I gathered, which was that it currently gives hidescore/2 instead of /3. If it's actually rather working as described (hidescore/3) that'd be a good thing in my book.
You're right on the AP setup, KTA makes more sense, but 41/21/8/7/1 (shi/hen/har/NiS/Rac) is 78, which would only lose 1 sneak die over what I calculated with.

[Vanhooger]

I am using astral plane as DC are the core of Shintao. I don't think going full dps is the way to go if you look forward to reaper. I prefer to land my cc reliably instead of getting killed and 0 dps.

[BigErkyKid]

Thanks for testing.
I haven't yet played a toon with etheral (but currently working on one ), so I was going from what I gathered, which was that it currently gives hidescore/2 instead of /3. If it's actually rather working as described (hidescore/3) that'd be a good thing in my book.
You're right on the AP setup, KTA makes more sense, but 41/21/8/7/1 (shi/hen/har/NiS/Rac) is 78, which would only lose 1 sneak die over what I calculated with.

I took 44 shintao for violence begets violence. You can have great AC/dodge/etc. so it seems basically a permanent +1 range. However, I understand that in places like reaper this is silly. Or anywhere where you are not likely to get hit (or not desired).

And then I am stupid and I went full WIS. It is silly because you can reach awesome tactics and WIS score without it. For example, I could reach 64 WIS with 1 level up, and then using 6 level ups on DEX. Or you could just have a good INT swap item instead of the RNG I have with 13/6.

I don't know what DCs are needed though. I guess we could reverse engineer the optimal monk that way. Set the DC of tactics needed, then put everything else into DEX.


Unbalancing strike : DC 10 + Half Monk Level + Wisdom modifier + Trip modifiers
Jade strike: DC = 10 + Wisdom modifier + your monk level + stunning DC boosts
Kukan do: DC 10 + Wisdom modifier + Monk level+ stunning DC boosts
Shining star: DC 10 + Wisdom modifier + Monk level+ stunning DC boosts
Dire charge: 20 + highest ability modifier + bonus to stun attacks

Basic tactical DC: 52

3 PL
1 Ship
20 Slavers
4 Quality helm
6 Insightful QM
6 LD
2 Tactics feat
10 KTA (50 INT, can do better)
3+1+20+4+6+6+2+10=52


Unbalancing strike (reflex) : 10+52 +15+ Wisdom modifier= 77
Jade strike (will): = 10 + 52 + 20+ Wisdom modifier = 82
Kukan do(will): 10 + 52 + 20+ Wisdom modifier =82
Shining star(will): 10 + 52 + 20 + Wisdom modifier = 82
Dire charge(fortitude): 20 + 52+ highest ability modifier= 72

Now for the WIS based, suppose target is 100 minimum. This would mean 23 modifier to WIS, or 56 WIS. This is super easy to get, one can do that with 13 base WIS (using Yugo and top of the line gear, but no consumables).

I might actually LR into it.

Although at some point they will release the new WIS tree, and then everything will need to be reworked. I hate when they keep changing basic mechanics like that.