HOW DO I MONK?

[Blades of Vanatar]

I am using a monk with a balanced stat profile. Not comitting to tank duty or DPS. He is doing quite well so far. At level six. With help from Kana and Durance, Eder tanking and my hired Wood Elf Ranger most fight have been a breeze. Aloth is for spell support. Is this viable late game? I sure hope this game should be beatable with most build types.

[Raven Darkholme]

The Monk is really awesome early game...

Since PotD didn't challenge me enough with a full custom party anymore I started two solo attempts. First one with a cipher didn't go so well, due to lack of accuracy (got to level 4 and sadly didn't go for the figurine by not selling the preorder item.).

Yesterday I did a monk and absolutely teared through the beginning of the game. I got Level 5 before I went to Caed Nua, by doing ALL quests. (Only killed Raedrics Cousin though, but I didn't even try Radric himself.) I had 4k gold on me, when I went to Caed, had 4 scrolls of fan, only burned 3 of them on the second attempt, drinking Eldritch aim and having maxed out might helps...

Maerwald was easy I didn't even pull any enemies to him, just summoned my summon at start of combat, let him attack the summons of Maerwald and went right outside of the room. Summon killed one blight, the other two were at 2 stars endurance, when my monk came into the room. Maerwald spent most of his strong attacks on my summon, so I killed his two remaining blights while only drinking one health potion (I'm Moon godlike...).

 

Gonna go to Defiance today and try to get the retribution shield, I think the Sanguine armor will not be possible right away.

That means no more wielding of Gauns in offhand though, bye bye high accuracy.

[sucinum]

I'll choose Stunning Blows or Rooting Pain over Long Stride. There are items in the game that boosts move speed.

 

Doesn't that stack? Not sure, since the boots stop working all the time... Either way, when I rolled the monk, I had a single item with move speed and didn't know that I'll find plenty in the endgame.

[Odd Hermit]

Running a tanky monk with fists and stupid amounts of haste.  Dunno why i'd waste investing in weapons.  People keep forgetting that DR can only ever block 80% of the damage, max, which means depending on resist types and weapon types you may end up hitting for the same amount as fists despite having better stats on paper... except you'll be hitting much slower.  Also fists got +1dmg at the top end.  He just machine guns things down with strings of low damage hits that add up to him being my 2nd or 3rd source of damage inspite of the fact that I only gave him 10Might.  He also has good interrupt, which synergies with the rapid fire attacks.  He'd do even more damage if I took the talent that conversts wounds into bonus damage, but knocking things all over the screen is too much fun right now so I do spend those wounds enough that its not worth it.  Maybe on another playthrough, with a different monk. 

 

Because you can't put special enchants or +12 accuracy on fists.

 

Sorry but weapons are the no brainer choice right now.

[Climhazzard]

One question regarding monk fists

 

i keep reading that two weapon style(2 weapons) improve fists while others writing its two handed weapon style (1 big weapon)

 

my guess is its 2 weapon style but can anyone confirm this for me?

 

 

It's two weapon style, for fist monks I recommend using two weapon style, peasant weapon focus, and vulnerable attack.

[Infares]

 

One question regarding monk fists

 

i keep reading that two weapon style(2 weapons) improve fists while others writing its two handed weapon style (1 big weapon)

 

my guess is its 2 weapon style but can anyone confirm this for me?

 

 

It's two weapon style, for fist monks I recommend using two weapon style, peasant weapon focus, and vulnerable attack.

I read somewhere that two weapon style doesn't work properly with fists, because you're not actually using weapons. 

 

Also fists are already stupid fast, even compared to dual wielding, so it's practically like the two weapon style is baked in already just on principle.

Edited April 12, 2015 by Infares

[Climhazzard]

Oh it works, I tested it.  Basically I just set the game in slow mode then timed how long it took to do 10 attacks, then leveled up and took the trait and did it again.  It definitely works for fists, and it's nice since it cancels out the penalty for using vulnerable attack.  If you really want to be reassured you can just check it yourself the same way.

[justicar347]

I have been thinking about a wild orlan monk build. Just max out his perception and resolve. He would have a Deflection that was through the roof. I think it would be about 43 before adding in bonuses for say a shield. Damage would be low, but if anyone hit him, boom, he has the wound for a special.

[Raven Darkholme]

If you wanna get hit, don't max reflection, but CO and take a moon godlike for heal.

[Casildar]

 

Running a tanky monk with fists and stupid amounts of haste.  Dunno why i'd waste investing in weapons.  People keep forgetting that DR can only ever block 80% of the damage, max, which means depending on resist types and weapon types you may end up hitting for the same amount as fists despite having better stats on paper... except you'll be hitting much slower.  Also fists got +1dmg at the top end.  He just machine guns things down with strings of low damage hits that add up to him being my 2nd or 3rd source of damage inspite of the fact that I only gave him 10Might.  He also has good interrupt, which synergies with the rapid fire attacks.  He'd do even more damage if I took the talent that conversts wounds into bonus damage, but knocking things all over the screen is too much fun right now so I do spend those wounds enough that its not worth it.  Maybe on another playthrough, with a different monk. 

 

Because you can't put special enchants or +12 accuracy on fists.

 

Sorry but weapons are the no brainer choice right now.

 

 

Well, you get the accuracy from Transcendent Suffering and you're doing roughly the same damage of an average speed weapon with the attack speed of a fast weapon, which might make up for (or at least get close to) a lash enchant.  But that still leaves you being unable to enchant Slaying, which could still be a pretty big negative for specific fights if you wanted to specifically enchant slaying for them.

[The Josip]

Is there any consensus on monk weapons?

 

Do fists become obsolete and at what point?

What is the weapon of choice for a monk in that case?

When should you use high dmg weapons and when high speed?

What are the best enchants not counting 50k one because I'm not sure if you get that much money in the game (well, not for 6 characters at least)?

 

 

What is the consensus on (dps, non-monk specific) monk talents?

 

Is Peasant mastery the best, or not really because one uses weapons later on? In which case, what mastery is advisable and why?

What of the other offensive talents? Some give + and - effects, does it still pay off or only marginally?

 

 

 

If I use fist+offhand weapon then I don't get two weapons talent speed bonus right? Which means this is what I use when I need more accuracy at the expense of speed and thus damage?

[Climhazzard]

Basically fists have the same speed as fast speed weapons and the same damage as average speed weapons.  They are viable until endgame.  Probably their main advantage is that they upgrade without you finding any weapons, so you can save your upgrade materials for other characters.  If you want endurance drain though you'll want to look elsewhere, and certain builds will benefit quite a bit from endurance drain, it synergizes well with monks. I actually think dual sabers has better potential than dual fists if you like to use torments reach, they give you a higher full attack potential plus the resolution and purgatory sabers both have +0.5 crit bonus, purgatory also happens to come with endurance drain.  

 

I don't really know to much about fist+offhand.  I have read that basically the fist isn't used for normal attacks but is added into your full attack calculations, and that any bonus from the offhand will apply.  The only situation I can think of where you'd want to do this is if you wanted a higher accuracy for torment's reach, but since you would be losing auto attack damage potential, i'm not sure if it's worth it.

 

If you wanted higher accuracy but less damage, for say force of anguish, you'd probably just be better off using a spear/buckler combination, though I guess you'd get less wounds that way.

Edited April 14, 2015 by Climhazzard

[The Josip]

How good would Spears be in comparison? I intend to run minimum Resolve so want to avoid the effect of being interrupted by maintaining high attack speed. Plus, obvious reason is: mastery peasant. For sabres it means another mastery which I don't mind if it's better but I do need to plan in advance.

[Casildar]

If you wanted higher accuracy but less damage, for say force of anguish, you'd probably just be better off using a spear/buckler combination, though I guess you'd get less wounds that way.

 

You lose a chunk of accuracy putting the shield on.  Not from the shield accuracy penalty, obviously, because buckler doesn't have one, but from the bonus accuracy you get for wielding only a single 1h weapon.  Fist+offhand is the same accuracy as single 1h and that's the highest you're going to get.  It just has the added bug/feature of giving you dual wield damage on Full Attack abilities.

 

I don't know for certain whether you lose the two weapon style bonus, but I think you do.

 

@Josip:  The consensus was (maybe still is) that fists aren't as good as weapons because no enchanting, but personally I think Climhazzard's numbers earlier in the thread show that it's at the very least not as clear cut and that fists have plenty going for them.  I just don't know if plenty=enough.  Even if the damage/accuracy bases skewed in favor of fists enough so that fists ended up being just as good as an average speed weapon with a lash enchant, you're still missing out on a possible slayer enchant for specific fights (if you do that kind of thing) as well as the baseline bonus all the weapon types have:  accurate, DR bypass, dual damage types, etc.  Five accuracy or 3 DR bypass are nothing to scoff at.

 

The problem of when to use high damage and when to use high speed is that, like Climhazzard mentioned above, monk fists are already fast weapons and already do damage equivalent to average speed weapons (discluding sabres).  So I think you never use fast weapons unless you really need a secondary effect that one has.  If you're not using fists and other secondary effects on weapons you can't enchant yourself aren't a concern, I think it has to be sabres or spears.

 

The usual downside to sabres is that they're slashing damage only, and that's the damage type with the largest number of npcs that have high DR against.  But assuming you're running empty hands on swap, it's not a big deal for monks.  The benefit to spears is that they're both Accurate and in the Peasant category.  For solo, I'm planning to run a pair of spears in offhand (mostly for a secondary damage type vs crush resist mobs, since I can't get the drain spear) unless I can manage to get down far enough in Endless Paths to get the fireball sabre.  I'd like Purgatory, too, but the only place I've seen someone mention it drops from is an early act 3 fight and when I did that fight I didn't get the sabre.  Not sure if it's just random loot or what.

 

Edit @Josip re: above post

 

Spears are average speed.

Edited April 14, 2015 by Casildar

[b0rsuk]

Fists are faster than dual sabers, no ? There are advantages to attacking faster. Level2 wizard spell: Combusting Wounds, 5 fire damage each time the target is hit. My monk and Sagani love it. Also, my monk has 16 Perception, and Interrupting Blows. Sometimes I can stunlock enemies without really doing anything.

[Climhazzard]

Yeah they're faster, I have no idea what their interrupt potential is though, if fists have average interrupt potential then monk martial artists would be pretty great at interrupting.  

 

A stat spread like 16s-12c-16d-16p-8i-10r would have high reflexes too, so you could potentially make a pale elf interrupter that you would be able to target with wizard spells like fan of flames and fireball in order to generate wounds while frying opponents.

[Casildar]

Fists are faster than dual sabers, no ? There are advantages to attacking faster. Level2 wizard spell: Combusting Wounds, 5 fire damage each time the target is hit. My monk and Sagani love it. Also, my monk has 16 Perception, and Interrupting Blows. Sometimes I can stunlock enemies without really doing anything.

 

Yeah they are.  I was saying I don't think you ever use fast speed weapons (meaning, if you want fast speed, use fists) unless you need some secondary effect that a specific fast weapon has.  If it's a question of using 1h weapons other than fists, I mentioned spears (accuracy and synergy with Peasant Weap Focus if you have it for fists) and sabres (higher damage).

 

But really I guess a case can easily be made for ditching fists altogether and going with something like Ruffian Focus, running 2x stilettos and 2x sabres.  Assuming high end enchants, I doubt there's a big difference between stiletto and fist.  (Strictly untested supposition on my part.)

[Emptiness]

Interrupting Blows is currently broken, and does nothing.  If you want to focus on interrupts right now, the best you can do is max your perception (and accuracy, of course).

[b0rsuk]

Ah, so it's getting even better after the next patch ?

 

Compared to my first playthrough, which was Eder, Kana, Durance, Druid, Hiravius, Sagani, monk fists really do well. I'm against ogres now (10 DR) and they're fine, the best part is I'm able to stay on front line for a long time against these hard hitters. And this time it's on Hard. And if ogres don't stop me...

Edited April 14, 2015 by b0rsuk

[ibanix]

 

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

 

Random: Thanks for your videos. Am enjoying.

[The Josip]

Not to be ungrateful but my problem with these video guides is that they're just a waste of time. it's either enumeration of what I can see by myself on wiki or ingame, or it's outdated incorrect info, or it's just incorrect info. Forum offers more useful data and faster, if you filter the "I think.." "should be.." and similiar posts made by people who don't know, don't test, but still want to say something.

 

 

As for the above video, for instance:

 

1. Stats are not min maxed. This for me is a dead giveaway of a lack of expertise even though the person may know something, but that something is just not enough for me. For example, is interrupting worth it or not? If not, why Perception? Are monk utility skills more useful than occasionally interrupting an enemy for 1/3 of a second? If yes, why not Int over Per? Are you going to be a frequent target of enemy attack? If not, why Resolve? If yes, why not max Resolve and Perception and go with the tank build? Is this the build for jack of all trades monk or dps monk? If it's for dps monk why is the title wrong? If it's for jack of all trades monk then why play monk and not chanter? And is there a need for jack of all trades guide? Because you can randomize stats in that case, in any way you want. Not min maxing didn't make sense to me even when I just got the game, and it does less now when I saw that mediocre Per and Res has near-zero impact deflection-wise in any battle that matters, at least on the level I'm currently at (with no reason to believe otherwise). I'm talking about 1 miss that 5 enemies had combined in entire battle. Is it worth 15 points? No. These kind of things make me wonder what else is incorrect / not optimized.

 

2. Race and background are suboptimal which can be RP choice but when you're making a guide you should choose what works best, or at least tell people what each choice does.

 

3. I for the love of me can't see why anyone would link that video above as it provides no useful info, and half of it is just killing wolves in the beginning which everyone can experience. And then it tells you what you can choose at level 4 (which is outdated anyway, should be level 3 for FoA). There are numerous posts in this forum, single posts, that are ten times more useful.

[Gromnir]

 

As for the above video, for instance:

 

1. Stats are not min maxed. This for me is a dead giveaway of a lack of expertise even though the person may know something, but that something is just not enough for me. 

 

...

 

we got a bit o' a chuckle.  am not a fan o' sensuki but even Gromnir would hesitate to criticize him for paucity o' knowledge regarding poe.

 

HA! Good Fun!

[Maximvs]

People claiming that monk fist weapons does not do well in end game should be reminded that monks can equip weapons like everyone else.

[Maximvs]

Not to be ungrateful but my problem with these video guides is that they're just a waste of time. it's either enumeration of what I can see by myself on wiki or ingame, or it's outdated incorrect info, or it's just incorrect info. Forum offers more useful data and faster, if you filter the "I think.." "should be.." and similiar posts made by people who don't know, don't test, but still want to say something.

The problem with these is indeed the waste of time. Something that can be explained in 2 minutes often end up being 10 minute videos, sometimes up to an hour! Not to mention those that tries to get as many views from the kids and starts acting stupid.

[Raven Darkholme]

I didn't get much help from those videos either, but I wouldn't claim the dude doesn't know what he's saying.