Crooked Bee Posted August 22, 2014 Posted August 22, 2014 (edited) I wonder what other people's thoughts on the Monk class are. I've fooled around with one a bit in the current beta build until it started to crash on reload for me, and I have the following to report. First, I have to say I do like the underlying wounds mechanic, and I'm strongly considering playing a Monk in my first playthrough of the full game. However, just from my brief time with this class, I also have some concerns/complaints/questions. - Stunning Blow's description says it can only be used with a melee weapon (i.e. can't be used in unarmed combat). Why can't I stun people with the power of my fists? - Same goes for Torment's Reach. If my Monk can attack from a distance and increase his or her attacks' reach at all, he/she should be able to do the same with his/her fists too. I'd suggest making these abilities weapon-independent, since they do sound good and I don't see why an unarmed Monk should be gimped in this manner. - Which, I guess, boils down to the general problem I have with the Monk currently - namely, the (lack of) active ability variety. In particular, if I want to (role-)play an unarmed monk, I currently only have 2 or 3 active abilities, at least of which one (Clarity of Agony) sounds extremely situational. In a setting that has soul powers , I would expect much more from a Monk (who, I'd assume, must've spent years mastering the power of his or her soul). Anyone knows if they plan on adding more (and more varied) active Monk abilities later? - My Monk has 14 INT, and yet the duration of the Stunning Blow ability shows up as the ridiculous 25.5 seconds for me. Granted, this is probably something of a placeholder in the current build, so I expect this to be fixed eventually. - Finally, I am a bit concerned about the relative speed of combat/damage/healing vs. the speed at which you get wounds. I just worry the combat might be fast enough (not in real-time I mean, but relative to the attack and damage speed) that you just wouldn't have enough time to reliably use the more powerful abilities that require having several wounds at once. Anyway, I'm curious to hear other people's thoughts on this class. Edited August 22, 2014 by Crooked Bee 2
Matt516 Posted August 22, 2014 Posted August 22, 2014 Seconded on not limiting as many (or any) monk abilities to weapons. It's the unarmed specialist class, for goodness' sake. You're already giving up weapon enchantments by going unarmed - why should you have to give up your bread and butter abilities (i.e. Stunning Blow) as well?
WorstUsernameEver Posted August 22, 2014 Posted August 22, 2014 I actually think the fists might be categorized as a melee weapon, because I could definitely use those abilities in combat with the monk. Right now I feel it's a pretty bad class though, there's almost 0 feedback on when you get wounds, and (and I guess this might be just down to how damage is tuned in the current beta build) the spikey-ness of combat made me feel like I never got to properly pace out my ability usage. It's always either "no wounds, I guess I can't use anything" or "oh god, I have to use my wounds FAST, but none of these options sound appealing!" There's promise, but right now it's not working very well for me.
Crooked Bee Posted August 22, 2014 Author Posted August 22, 2014 (edited) Yeah, the relative speed of combat/damage/healing vs. the speed at which you get wounds is a concern of mine too, which I mentioned in the Codex thread but forgot to mention in the OP. Gonna edit that in now. Agreed about the lack of wound feedback, too. Edited August 22, 2014 by Crooked Bee
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