Haven't played since update 30 or 31. Some Questions

[Xyzima]

A list of questions.

Background: Played off and on since 2009, stopped because of college. Main character is a completionist with triple lives in most classes(not clear, bard, barb, wiz, or fvs.) iconic races (only 2 in gnome and warforged), and epic completionist, (tripple brace, doublestrike, enchant weapon, doubleshot, and quick healing).

Are monks super squishy again? or tanky again? I think it leaned towards squishy last I checked.

Is Monk QP viable again? I remember it got nerfed hard with the removal of the Sundering and tactics DC bonuses to it to bring it in line with spells, and then never got restrengthened. (Meanwhile, spell DC's continued to grow).

Any good Monk/Cleric builds? With the Luck cleric displacement, I was thinking of trying one out. How viable is this?

The last monk I remember trying was a shortsword monk PDK with the Harper tactics divine might parrallel. Primarily Cha, Wis, Con and Int.

Other than Fvs and the druid spell, is there wis to attack or damage yet?

Should I bother going past 12 monk?(always considered anything less than 12 to not really be a monk, abundant step is just too fun).

Alternatively I was thinking of trying a Pally/Cleric. That displacement SLA is very tantalizing.

[DrawingGuy]

Will go down the line of your questions:


Are monks super squishy again? or tanky again? I think it leaned towards squishy last I checked.
Personally I never found Monks to be "squishy". You can build a Monk to be quite tanky, with the lack of MRR being their real weakness as Evasion does not protect against as much as MRR does. The only problem lies in high level Reaper - there is no tanking that. It's either CC or kiting. Kiting is only for ranged (unless you're a 0 damage taunter for raids), and CC means you don't really need to tank... but the concerns of high level reaper aside, you can build
yourself to tank all EE/LE content easily and up to mid Reaper easily enough.

Is Monk QP viable again? I remember it got nerfed hard with the removal of the Sundering and tactics DC bonuses to it to bring it in line with spells, and then never got restrengthened. (Meanwhile, spell DC's continued to grow).
QP was viable post nerf as well, but took heavy investment. It has not changed, though the addition of Divine Will gives a stronger DC boost option for those willing to give up Pure Monk builds. I've not done any recent number crunching, but you can break 100 QP DC with either KtA or Divine Will (can't use both).

Any good Monk/Cleric builds? With the Luck cleric displacement, I was thinking of trying one out. How viable is this?
Clonk builds got a boost with both the Monk and the Cleric passes. They are certainly viable and better than they were before, but I don't really see them entering the meta outside of Tree builds (and even those have slipped out of meta with Reaper). If your goal is Displacement, I do think farming GS clickies is the better method as those have no class dependency. Feel free to post build ideas though, and we'll help point out improvements where we can. You'll be fine no matter what you do.

The last monk I remember trying was a shortsword monk PDK with the Harper tactics divine might parrallel. Primarily Cha, Wis, Con and Int.
I never found PDK to have enough synergy with Monk as they already struggled with MAD issues, and adding CHA to their burden is heavy. You can get all skills to no-fail without PDK, and if an instakill is important enough to you to make the sacrifices of investing in CHA, there's always Bard...

Other than Fvs and the druid spell, is there wis to attack or damage yet?
Nope. Whether you call them promises or they were just considerations, they were broken and it did not happen. I admit I'm peeved with them saying that they didn't give Monk the option as they said it shouldn't be tied to class and turn around and give it to FvS... but it is what it is. Note if you want to take advantage of the FvS WIS to attack/damage, you'll need at least 10 FvS levels.

Should I bother going past 12 monk?(always considered anything less than 12 to not really be a monk, abundant step is just too fun).
They seriously boosted the 18/20 cores of Monk, giving very good reasons to stay pure. Handwrap builds get 35mp and +3[W] from their 18/20, and not many splash options out there can compete with that - especially since Ranger pass nixed Tempest abilities working with Handwrap. Weaponized builds get 10 SA die, which is huge, though still bettered by Tempest and some other build options. The new Vistani tree has some interest, and they designed it to be compatible with Monks... though Vistani capstone negates the need of needing to stay pure Monk. Stick (Henshin) builds also got a nice boost, with MP in every core so every melee build wants it, but not enough to out-do the stronger utility of Thief-Acrobat. Mixes for stick builds are here to stay, though at least a pure Henshin is not nearly as bad as it used to be.


Really, what makes me love DDO is the billions of combinations means you don't need to play the game in some meta way, but rather mold the game the way you want to play. Want to melee? Range? Nuke with spells? CC/Instakill? Mix of whatever? Just make a goal and then build for it.

[Vish]

A list of questions.

Background: Played off and on since 2009, stopped because of college. Main character is a completionist with triple lives in most classes(not clear, bard, barb, wiz, or fvs.) iconic races (only 2 in gnome and warforged), and epic completionist, (tripple brace, doublestrike, enchant weapon, doubleshot, and quick healing).

Are monks super squishy again? or tanky again? I think it leaned towards squishy last I checked.

Is Monk QP viable again? I remember it got nerfed hard with the removal of the Sundering and tactics DC bonuses to it to bring it in line with spells, and then never got restrengthened. (Meanwhile, spell DC's continued to grow).

Any good Monk/Cleric builds? With the Luck cleric displacement, I was thinking of trying one out. How viable is this?

The last monk I remember trying was a shortsword monk PDK with the Harper tactics divine might parrallel. Primarily Cha, Wis, Con and Int.

Other than Fvs and the druid spell, is there wis to attack or damage yet?

Should I bother going past 12 monk?(always considered anything less than 12 to not really be a monk, abundant step is just too fun).

Alternatively I was thinking of trying a Pally/Cleric. That displacement SLA is very tantalizing.

Monks are super defensive. High AC high dodge imp evasion. They can be squishy but you got to play them smart. Shintao are wis dex builds. Henshin dex usually too. Ninjas not to be seen.
Quivering palm works. Can hit trash mobs. Some mobs tough, need kta helps.
You could run a 15/5 monk cleric in heroic. Wouldnt really get the qp tho, since heroic is like 2-18.
Fvs got wisdom conversion, so I'm not holding out anymore. I got a fvs monk build I'm working on but it's more epic build. Saw someone did a heroic version. Check out theory crafting the celestial monk in fvs forum.
12 monk is prob best for multiclassing. Otherwise pure is strongest.
You could prob do a 15/5 pally cleric. Just realize you give up the last 2 levels in heroic so you wouldn't get holy sword or zeal. But for epic, if you really want that displace SLA, it's there.
Pure monks are great now. I would suggest one to get used to new trees etc. there are plenty of builds in monk forum, but most are same template, wis dex con.

Welcome back

[Saekee]

handwrap monks are very powerful—huge buffs there and incorp from ninja spy plus sick amounts of MP from henshin.

Weaponized monks are still struggling. Ninjas still get the best crit profile with brush hooks and they are more interesting multiclassed. Henshin—I did a SWF void striker multiclass that was insanely fun—with PSWF you ‘erase’ mobs very often (even on DS of void attack) and LCEWS weakens whole packs.

I like stealth builds and faster sneaking stacks from multiple trees. Finally with Vistani you can multi monk with rogue and use daggers so I plan to make a 15/4/1 monk/rogue/fighter split for fast movement, trapping, etc.