OMG, how in the world do you play a monk? So many moves...

[cmecu]

I have been playing the game for years, but I never played a monk. I have ot say I am very much over whelmed right now with not understanding how to organize their moves when fighting.

I am going to play the Victory Lap build.

1) What I dont understand is all of these "Stances", along with their "Way of (earth, fire, air, water)" attacks.
What stance will I play in?

2) Then i see "Finishing Moves" like ( Breath of Fire Dragon, Gathering Storm, raging sea, trembling earth)
What I dont understand is how you use them, it always says "you missed your opportunity..."

3) Then there are more finishing moves "Path of Harmonious Balance" with a list of 5 different things
How and when do these get used, which ones?

4) then there are finishing moves " path of inevitable dominion"
How and when do these get used, which ones?

5) How does one go about attack order when fighting things?

My next question would be as I am leveling from ( im level 3 now) to 20 ..

what heroic gear should I get ( some key pieces for this monk build) that will benefit me. I have tons of heroic named gear that I collected over the years, just dont know what is good for this monk.
Also crafted gear I could make through the levels, stats to focus on.. that kind of thing..

Thank you.

[Nightmanis]

I have been playing the game for years, but I never played a monk. I have ot say I am very much over whelmed right now with not understanding how to organize their moves when fighting.

I am going to play the Victory Lap build.

1) What I dont understand is all of these "Stances", along with their "Way of (earth, fire, air, water)" attacks.
What stance will I play in? This depends on the build. It might be covered in the victory lap thread, but I'd personally think wind would be the one to do for a while. It's the purple inactive feat with a dropdown option in your feats, and is an active stance just like power attack. Put it on your hotbar along with all the rest of the stances.

2) Then i see "Finishing Moves" like ( Breath of Fire Dragon, Gathering Storm, raging sea, trembling earth)
What I dont understand is how you use them, it always says "you missed your opportunity..." Again, in your feats there is an option for finishing moves. Place this on your hotbar and click it when it changes. You'll see elsewhere in your feats what combinations of special attacks you'll use to get these finishers.

3) Then there are more finishing moves "Path of Harmonious Balance" with a list of 5 different things
How and when do these get used, which ones?

4) then there are finishing moves " path of inevitable dominion"
How and when do these get used, which ones?

Balance and dominion are the light and dark paths a monk can take. You'll choose one and totally ignore the other.

5) How does one go about attack order when fighting things?

depends on what finisher you want. All the finishers state what combo you need to use them such as "fire, fire, fire" will be 3 fire attacks in a row and then the fire finisher. The finisher icon will change and you can tap on it to use it.

My next question would be as I am leveling from ( im level 3 now) to 20 ..

what heroic gear should I get ( some key pieces for this monk build) that will benefit me. I have tons of heroic named gear that I collected over the years, just dont know what is good for this monk.
Also crafted gear I could make through the levels, stats to focus on.. that kind of thing..
I'll let someone more knowledgeable answer here
Thank you.

In red

[Vish]

I have been playing the game for years, but I never played a monk. I have ot say I am very much over whelmed right now with not understanding how to organize their moves when fighting.

I am going to play the Victory Lap build.

1) What I dont understand is all of these "Stances", along with their "Way of (earth, fire, air, water)" attacks.
What stance will I play in?

2) Then i see "Finishing Moves" like ( Breath of Fire Dragon, Gathering Storm, raging sea, trembling earth)
What I dont understand is how you use them, it always says "you missed your opportunity..."

3) Then there are more finishing moves "Path of Harmonious Balance" with a list of 5 different things
How and when do these get used, which ones?

4) then there are finishing moves " path of inevitable dominion"
How and when do these get used, which ones?

5) How does one go about attack order when fighting things?

My next question would be as I am leveling from ( im level 3 now) to 20 ..

what heroic gear should I get ( some key pieces for this monk build) that will benefit me. I have tons of heroic named gear that I collected over the years, just dont know what is good for this monk.
Also crafted gear I could make through the levels, stats to focus on.. that kind of thing..

Thank you.

Victory lap build
That horc str based
But a light fist stunner build

Use your moves one at a time, grasshopper

Put your stances on a hotbar, where you can change them
Most melee monks run mountain
For better defenses
Otherwise wind and fire for dps
And water for dodge and saves, or defense

You need three ki strikes to charge a finisher
Three of one kind, say earth,
Charge up to earth finisher
These have dc
Put your finisher icon on hotbar,
you will be using that a lot
It looks like fists icon

Victory is fists of light
You get one special attack, fist of light
And it produces 5 different finishers
Three light make a healing ki finisher
This heals you
You will use it a lot
The others have to be cycled in with ki strikes
Experiment to find out.

Sice you are just starting out on the path,
Take stunning fist early
This will be your goto attack
Stunned mobs take double damage
Equip yourself with a stunning item, a dodge item, and doublestrike
Plus str, con, and wis. dex is important too.

Good luck grasshopper

[Melkazar]

I understand completely where you are coming from. I hated my first attempt at monk. Now I've decided to do a completionist run and started in the hated monk.

I'm actually enjoying it.

First thing I did was remove most of the clickies from my hotbar. I concentrate on having light to heal and fire because it seems the best crow control. Otherwise I am in Henshin using a staff. I put out the feats to use a 10k stars with a bow but find it underwhelming. Since this is temporary life I'm not worrying too much about it but if I try another monk I'll probably splash fighter to get the martial feats or rogue to get the acrobat tree. Many would say I am not playing my monk right, but as long as I enjoy it, that's the point.

[Bobmj]

I love playing monks but there was definitely a learning curve for me when I moved from other melee classes. I think Vish gave some good advise to start with. I would emphasize taking your time and just trying each of the stances and moves out one-by-one to find what works best for your playstyle. Check out the Book of Syncletica at the link below. TeacherSyn put together some great info on monks that I've referred to for several years:

https://sites.google.com/site/bookofsyn/

Also, if you read through some of the different builds in the monk section here in the forums you'll see some different approaches to stats and gears. I think the main thing is to just take your time and have fun with it.

Good luck!

[TDarkchylde]

Typically I only rotate through a few attacks that I know I'll use most often and keep the rest on other bars to slide into the main when I need them. Don't get overwhelmed. Stick to the basics.

[Taimasan]

double post

[Taimasan]

Check out this video too, it should help with keybinding. Its by Gingerspyce

[goodspeed]

Id say about 2 bars fill up a monks moves. I'll usually have the stances lines up with one another pending on what im doing. For instance water comes on when Ive got to jump through some traps.

Earth was usually always on for the critical and the extra con and prr, until turbine screwed it up and slapped everything on fire... not gonna lie kinda ticked me off with that dwarf con build I had.

Then theirs the alignment move along with the element moves and the finisher move (in feats section) on the bar to make the various finishers to buff or murder stuff pending which way you go (I always liked darkness) Then theirs also the various ki attacks from the tree's that get set up as well.

It seems like alot but its kinda like playing a mage. You have your nukes, but then you also have your debuffs like mists and clouds to use before you whip a reflex aoe or an otto ball with will save. Eventually it just all gets stored up there in your brain and you click the stuff without thinking.

[cmecu]

I played to level 6 trying to get used to the class. It wasnt for me. Too many things to keep track of. I ended up using my heroic XP stone to 3 bubbles into 19.. I did the last two bubbles doing Eveningstar quests.. wheelon prison. I was having difficulty playing those on elite. I got 20 and now TR into something else. Its just not a class for my play style.
Thanks for the input and help. Maybe I will try it again some day.

[Engoril]

I have been playing a pure handwrap using light monk since monk was introduced.

My conclusion after all this time is most of the finishing moves are not worth using. I only used two finishers: light+light+light for the AOE heal (at level 30 I am getting healed for 700) and earth-light-earth for 1 minute of stun immunity in the few places it is needed. Since they added damage to the light strike, I removed the elemental strikes from my bar. I use Fist of Iron to do the earth strike when I need it.

The main reason I don't use the other finishers is they get in the way of the healing finisher. It takes way to long to set one up, so I am always trying to build one early. That way it is available when I actually need it. Doing some other elemental strike would just wreck the waiting heal and I'd have to start again.

My monk's bars have the finisher button, light strike, fist of iron, jade strike, tomb of jade, unbalancing strike, stunning fist, quivering palm, dismissing strike, shadow veil, cleave and great cleave, action boost: melee/ranged power, ki shout, touch the void dragon and know the angles. At level 30 I add Dire Charge and whatever extra buttons my ED and twists provide.

These are more than enough to over occupy my attention with.

[Ryan220]

I think you either love or hate melee Monks - Im in the hate camp.

It did a melee Monk on sn alts life and hated it - too many buttons to press. I ended up just mashing my thumb grid randomly hoping to get a finisher. I binned that alt.

When it came to Monk life on my main I decided to try Henshin - that was garbage as well. At this point I always said Id never get triple H as I would never, ever run another Monk life.


Now Im on Monk life two for my main as a Monkcher Parashuribower because I really enjoyed my 3rd Ranger life as a Whitefeather Sniper.


I guess my point is, if youre just after a PL and dont like the thought of all those button combos, then there is another option.

[Robbenklopper]

I have been playing the game for years, but I never played a monk. I have ot say I am very much over whelmed right now with not understanding how to organize their moves when fighting. ... .

Amazing, right?

Strong recommendation: Get yourself a MMO mouse. (I consider the Logitech G300S for best, coz it´s the only one i know that includes your middle-finger for best multiple finger Action.)

I have a 9 Button one, with meta bindings to them. Besides those, there are 4 more keys that are metaed too. This is on my shintao light and quite easy once you automized your practice, I Play him for 5 years now. On my henhin, it´s a real Horror Close to going nuts with moar Buttons due to what i specced him.

There´re only some finishers important to me: shining star in combat and healing ki off-combat. On and off Aligning the Heavens to reduce spell costs at quest start or after shrining when in Party, Grasp the Earth Dragon or Walk of the Sun situationally depended. Any others finishers are forgettable, a loss to attackspeed and dps.

Monk is definetly not an easy (2-) Button class, but i love the complexity and challenge to Play him.