Questions about monks

[ArnoldRimmer]

First attempt at playing a monk, a lot of abilities talk about a monk's fists. Does this mean they are pointless if using weapons? Are weapons better for monks? It seems sort of stupid to try and punch a dragon.

Edited December 26, 2019 by ArnoldRimmer

[Boeroer]

Nearly all of the monk's attack abilites work with weapons as well as fists. Only exceptions (sort of): 

• The Long Pain: is a summoned ranged fist weapon
• Forbidden Fist: is not a weapon attack. It has its own base dmg and doesn't even care if you use fists or weapons. It's like a melee spell basically.
• Inner Death: like Forbidden Fist

The last two are not considered weapon attacks and thus don't work with Swift Flurry or Heartbeat Drumming and also will not generate Focus for a Monk/Cipher.

As you can see this is not even a fist vs. weapon thing. I just wanted to show the abilites that sound like they are executed with fists or weapons but are actually melee spells that don't care what you carry.

So basically there is no attacks ability that would only work with fists and not with weapons. Feel free to pick any (melee) weapon. Ranged weapons don't work with several abilites though:

• Turning Wheel
• Force of Anguish
• Swift Flurry
• Enervating Blows
• Heartbeat Drumming
• Torment's Reach
• Instruments of Pain
• Skyward Kick

 

Edited December 26, 2019 by Boeroer

[omgFIREBALLS]

13 hours ago, ArnoldRimmer said:

It seems sort of stupid to try and punch a dragon.

You wanna say that to Theldurin?

(Admittedly this might not entertain you/anyone else here, but when I read that, I just had to :P)

[the_dog_days]

Monk fists, Might score not withstanding, have some of the highest dps in the game. In POE1 they were the best weapons in the game. The only downside to using fists is you can't enchant them.

[Boeroer]

They were only "best" in PoE1 when you're not looking at dmg types, lashes and Durgan Steel.

Not being able to enchant them was what made them fall behind at some point. Both lashes and Durgan Steel are multiplicative dps increases. Missing out is ouch. Fists were still viable though.

In Deadfire enchanting is more limited and you can't put a lash on anything as freely (also there's no Durgan Steel) so that disadvantage of fists has way less impact. Also the Power Level scaling (no other weapon has this) makes them better than in PoE since you can stack a lot of Power Levels and push them into mythic quality and beyond (impossible with weapons).

They are great weapons in both games for several reasons, but a monk is in no way bound to use them since every attack ability that works with fists also works with melee weapons.

Edited December 28, 2019 by Boeroer