HOW DO I MONK?

Alright, so, first off, I backed the kickstarter and I've been following it since the beginning, I love the setting and the story so far, the plot's great, and aside from being unable to get through the doors in the mad lord's keep I've not run into anything particularly glitchy.

 

The problem is, I'm playing a monk, and I have no idea how. The game told me to put a lot of points in Dexterity and Constitution, which I did, then suggested Might. So I put those points in, and the problem I've run into is that a standard combat is thus:

 

Walk into room

Get seen by Xaurip Skirmisher

Get hit by single, unbuffed arrow

Take 102 points of damage, fall over and die

Rest of party wipes the floor with the encounter

Rinse and repeat, replacing "Xaurip Skirmisher" with any archer, mage or priest.

 

What am I doing wrong? If I use the fighters to aggro the enemies, I don't take any damage, meaning I don't take wounds, meaning I can't deal damage. If I charge in ahead, every enemy in the room gangbangs me to death or an archer/gunner blows me away before I even reach combat. I'm level six at this point, so I'd really appreciate the help.

Alright, so, first off, I backed the kickstarter and I've been following it since the beginning, I love the setting and the story so far, the plot's great, and aside from being unable to get through the doors in the mad lord's keep I've not run into anything particularly glitchy.

 

The problem is, I'm playing a monk, and I have no idea how. The game told me to put a lot of points in Dexterity and Constitution, which I did, then suggested Might. So I put those points in, and the problem I've run into is that a standard combat is thus:

 

Walk into room

Get seen by Xaurip Skirmisher

Get hit by single, unbuffed arrow

Take 102 points of damage, fall over and die

Rest of party wipes the floor with the encounter

Rinse and repeat, replacing "Xaurip Skirmisher" with any archer, mage or priest.

 

What am I doing wrong? If I use the fighters to aggro the enemies, I don't take any damage, meaning I don't take wounds, meaning I can't deal damage. If I charge in ahead, every enemy in the room gangbangs me to death or an archer/gunner blows me away before I even reach combat. I'm level six at this point, so I'd really appreciate the help.

I don't have the exact stats on my monk, but I put a fair amount of points in resolve for deflection bonus. I don't think I have high intellect or dexterity. You should look at the description of each class and decide if that stat is worthwhile for the build you are playing. My monk does decently well on hard. Resolve, constitution and might are the stats I think prioritized.

From what I am reading, it depends entirely upon what you want your monk to do. Do you want to be a striker, or a tank? If you want to be a striker, go Might>Dex>Con in that order. Granting you high damage, healing, health and endurance scaling, Fortitude, Reflex, attack speed boost to crank out more dmg faster.

The others, you need to sit down and consider, what else do you want? Do you want longer duration self buffs, there's a few the monk gets. Intelligence if so. If not, Resolve is good for Defense, and Perception good to interrupt the enemy. 

 

Ideally, you want to get hit, but not to take a ton of damage. You also want to just pummel the enemy with as much damage as fast as you can. As you won't be stacking Deflection to avoid being hit. You want to get hit, and then make the enemy explode. I think perhaps the issue you are running into is not utilizing Stealth properly, and not having the monk be a middle of the group character, behind your tank line. If you aren't building your monk to be a tank, they should enter *after* the Fighter/Barbarian/Paladin do, allowing the tanks to draw aggression. Then the monk charges in and kills the target. 

Dang. This would have been great to know before I made a character. Oh well. I guess I'll just wait till someone makes a character editor. Obsidian games are always the most fun when you have eighteens in every stat except for intelligence, which is 1.

Edited March 27, 2015 by Argus

Monks are a bit counter intuitive in that early on tank builds benefit most from taking "damage" powers with their first couple abilities while damage builds really benefit from Stunning Blow and Force of Anguish,  which are more along the lines of crowd control/defensive abilities. Here's a rough break down of how it tends to work out so it makes a bit more sense:

 

Case #1

You are a tank monk. You survive incoming damage the same way other tanks do: plate, deflection and high natural health. Getting knocked down to half endurance barely constitutes an emergency for you in most fights, which allows you to get maximum mileage out of Turning Wheel and Rooting pain. You are no rogue, but every bit of damage counts and overall you deal considerably more damage than the average tank build. There are situations where your damage will be sad because the enemies can't really hurt you but you will not care because you are a tank and can still obviously help win that way.

 

Case #2

 

You are a dual wield monk. You survive by not being targeted as much as possible. You do this by letting someone else tank when possible and retaliating with Stunning Blows and Force of Anguish when that isn't feasible. Your damage mostly comes from having a high Might and Dexterity plus the dual wielding style's sheer attack speed. Sometimes you won't get hurt because things aren't attacking you, but you don't mind because you can still help win that way with your decent damage output and stunning blows .

Edited March 27, 2015 by Whipstitch

Monks are a bit counter intuitive in that early on tank builds benefit most from taking "damage" powers with their first couple abilities while damage builds really benefit from Stunning Blow and Force of Anguish,  which are more along the lines of crowd control/defensive abilities. Here's a rough break down of how it tends to work out so it makes a bit more sense:

 

Case #1

 

You are a tank monk. You survive incoming damage the same way other tanks do: plate, deflection and high natural health. Getting knocked down to half endurance barely constitutes an emergency for you in most fights, which allows you to get maximum mileage out of Turning Wheel and Rooting pain. You are no rogue, but every bit of damage counts and overall you deal considerably more damage than the average tank build. There are situations where your damage will be sad because the enemies can't really hurt you but you will not care because you are a tank and can still obviously help win that way.

 

Case #2

 

You are a dual wield monk. You survive by not being targeted as much as possible. You do this by letting someone else tank when possible and retaliating with Stunning Blows and Force of Anguish when that isn't feasible. Your damage mostly comes from having a high Might and Dexterity plus the dual wielding style's sheer attack speed. Sometimes you won't get hurt because things aren't attacking you, but you don't mind because you can still help win that way with your decent damage output and stunning blows .

 

QFT. Also, bear in mind that tanky monks take a bit to really come into their own. The first level or two can be rough.

 

You also get a lot more out of Might than most tanks, so ... yeah. Wham pow.

+Stealth: Sneak up on your opponents. If you aren't building a tank monk, treat him like a melee rogue. Send him in like a squishy striker, which he is, and when someone is distracted hitting your tank, beat his skull in. 

Yeah... the stats they recommend in character creation aren't always great.... I like your thread title though(^_^)

Yeah monk is very unintuitive. It's weird to see a monk in plate armor and weapon+shield. Then again, I like that PoE twists class expectations a bit...

 

 

My build is mostly pure tank (because I'm playing PotD):

 

High PER and RES (for defense bonuses), some CON (extra endurance) and INT (debuff duration and dialogue choices), only 10 MGT and DEX (because damage is more or less the only thing that you don't need when tanking).

Plus, monk is extremely reactive due to wound mechanics. The harder the difficulty setting of the game (more incoming damage = wounds), the stronger your monk.

Edited March 27, 2015 by Zwiebelchen

 

This is the dual wield DPS monk, not the Tank monk.

Edited March 27, 2015 by Sensuki

So from what i can tell the classic unarmed, dodgy monk in robes, with only class default DT isn't a thing in this game?

 

While i find the new wound mechanic interesting, its not something I'd play as my first char. Monk and taking hits to the face for skill usage just doesn't click with me. Barely begun, so i'm still good for a quick class reroll).

I am playing monk as my main right now and I must say that fire godlike is great choice for monk, I got hit quite a lot because i got kind of dps build an once i hit half endurance +4 damage reduction kicks in and you stop loosing that endurance so fast and also stil lgot plenty of wounds to kick ass. I also got swift strikes to but I have to get on next level that anguish thing, looks really strong. I didnt pump might but i got 20 dex so he attack fast like machine gun  with two weapon style talent. Still, its good to have at least leather armor or you will be dropping low too fast. I am tempted to try scion of fire as next talent to get more from turning wheel, but dont know how goot it will be, will report later

That Sensuki build is solid and mirrors my own but I'd stress that the difference between Swift Strikes and Torment's Reach isn't a crippling one if your build is taking other ways of spending wounds. Reach hits me as the better overall power, but you won't feel outright gimped by maintaining Swift Strikes and blowing the rest of your wounds on Force of Anguish.

Yeah, swift strikes are good, what I probably screwed in my build was turning wheel pick up, because i usualy spend my wounds rather than take bonus damage from it, oh well mistakes being made

Hey guys, I've not gotten to far in yet just to the first major town/inn area (hanging tree place) on hard. 

 

However when i was looking to make my monk i went with a Wild Orlan, now I know they drop -1 might but I felt stacking const+Dex+Might would mitigate that (kept other stats at 10 or 11 at creation) plus they look different. By going wild Orlan any will attacks would 'boost' my other defences temporarily as a racial. My thoughts were to go dual wield fists only/knuckledusters if possible also.

 

 

Not sure if this is a viable option but thought I'd chip my two pence in as I'm finding it counter intuitive at times early game, am i a tank or a dps. If i don't take hits i cant use abilities. It's not hard to take the hits at this point at least.

 

I guess there is no right or wrong choice just a better or worse for certain situations. Is it feasible to start without the ability to deflect being buffed by stats however from what others have found later on? I hope it's not going to end up being 'cookie cutterish' in this requirement at least.

 

So are you guys recommending arming monks with weapons?  Dual wield, or going barefisted?  I'm using a Monk as companion with a barefisted approach - purely a DPS pummeler - and it's working fine, but I feel like I'm not getting the most out of her.

 

Thanks!

I got dual swords on one set and bare fistg on other, so I got covered most damage types, I must saz taht hands seems to be better for now, swords are not too good against most tzpes of enemies I fight so far

So from what I gather you can either focus on allowing your self to get hit, low defensive stats, and do damage or, you can focus on the defensive stats and go for a tank type build.

The defensive stats being Constitution, Perception, and  Resolve.

 

What I did is I got 12 Might, 16 Constitution, 16 Dexterity, 12 Perception, 10 Int, and 12 Resolve.

 

Did I screw my character?

So from what I gather you can either focus on allowing your self to get hit, low defensive stats, and do damage or, you can focus on the defensive stats and go for a tank type build.

The defensive stats being Constitution, Perception, and  Resolve.

 

What I did is I got 12 Might, 16 Constitution, 16 Dexterity, 12 Perception, 10 Int, and 12 Resolve.

 

Did I screw my character?

 

Nah, I dont think you screwed your character, you just to have play to its stats. I myslef got similiar stats (less con, more dex and resolve) and I am doing quite fine so far. One thing you should do with such stats is not being hit by too much enemies. Get some frontline tank and use your monk as offlane tank fighting only one or two enemies. that way you will have enough wounds to kill him before he can kill you. Also consider wearing some heavier armor (I myself using padded and laying on the ground most time ) so you dont drop low too fast and have time to heal with your priest/druid/potion

I went DPS monk, and i love it.

Moon godlike (dont know why ppl dont pick this for monk more) the healing you get from it helps the dps monk get wounds and not be low endurance, dumped perception and resolve to get max might, very high dex and int and a few points in con.

the max might helps dps and the healing from moon godlike so it's double dipping stat time!

Ones again i would recomend the moon godlike the healing you get is to good to pass on a monk.

I find that a two handed weapon is better for Monks than dual wielding/unarmed.

 

Even though the Monk gets bonus damage for their unarmed attacks, since you can't enchant your fists, enchanted weapons are way better. And there are no gloves or magical items that enchant Monk unarmed attacks.

 

If you want to go unarmed, rather than having no weapons, I would suggest putting a weapon in the offhand so you can have two types of damage and get some of the bonuses from the weapon. There's also a bug (feature?) that lets you get the bonus for using a single one handed weapon when you put a one handed weapon in your offhand.

Edited March 30, 2015 by Giantevilhead

I went DPS monk, and i love it.

Moon godlike (dont know why ppl dont pick this for monk more) the healing you get from it helps the dps monk get wounds and not be low endurance, dumped perception and resolve to get max might, very high dex and int and a few points in con.

the max might helps dps and the healing from moon godlike so it's double dipping stat time!

Ones again i would recomend the moon godlike the healing you get is to good to pass on a monk.

 

I lovie DPS monk too!

 

Was thinking about moon godlike too man, but after some thought i went a fire godlike for the extra 4 damage reduction. I figured out that i have a priest for heals and it's cool to have better damage reduction after i got some wounds!

Moon godlike (dont know why ppl dont pick this for monk more) the healing you get from it helps the dps monk get wounds and not be low endurance, dumped perception and resolve to get max might, very high dex and int and a few points in con.

the max might helps dps and the healing from moon godlike so it's double dipping stat time!

 

Good idea, I was thinking about the same thing! 

 

Wouldn't the healing offset the DR Bonus (I think it's +3) from fire godlike? It would even proc at 75/50/25 and not just after 50%

For the moon godlike it will proc every 25% besides 0%

I think this is much better then the 3 DT you get from fire godlike because even without any Con bonus, Monk got really high health and endurance.

for me at lvl 8 with 15 Con the 75% heals you full the 50% get you close to full as well, not to mention it's a really big AOE and heals every one.

The only time i need a priest heal is when the backline takes damage or every enemy wants a piece of my monk, but even then it works really well because of Rooting Pain.

So fare most of the fights are short so i can even send the monk in first and get alot of wounds and not worry much after, because Monk got sooooo much health that you are properly gonna be resting from other party members fatigue before your healths drop to 0.

For the moon godlike it will proc every 25% besides 0%

I think this is much better then the 3 DT you get from fire godlike because even without any Con bonus, Monk got really high health and endurance.

for me at lvl 8 with 15 Con the 75% heals you full the 50% get you close to full as well, not to mention it's a really big AOE and heals every one.

The only time i need a priest heal is when the backline takes damage or every enemy wants a piece of my monk, but even then it works really well because of Rooting Pain.

So fare most of the fights are short so i can even send the monk in first and get alot of wounds and not worry much after, because Monk got sooooo much health that you are properly gonna be resting from other party members fatigue before your healths drop to 0.

I am also playing monk dps as my main character and i think its the most fun class coz you can send people flying while at the same time dealing huge damage on single target with swift strike. It gets rly hillarious in some fights where enemy has low fortitude and cant resist your knockdowns. Do you know how much heal you get with that racial ? Is it percentage based or a static number ?