Have i made a mistake going Monk?

[kriscorrie]

thanks for all the help guys, looks like ill stick with monk now.

im not noticing any high damage output yet, but hopefully after a couple of levels.

 

i just done eothas tomb with eder, my monk and aloth. it was slow going, even on normal but im still learning the mechanics i guess.

 

loving the lore though!

[daammyy]

are you guys serious?

 

i'm playing a solo monk on the highest difficulty and just wrecking the crap out of nearly everything

seems more like wrong distribution of attributes, skills and race selection

 

and sensuki's guide is off

 

you max out might and con not dex, use fire godlike race

get the attack speed ability, and the one that add fire damage on wound and lightning when attack speed ability is active

 

Did you have to go for weapons in the later part of the game?

[Theorycrafter]

I admit, Fiery Godlike + retaliation ability + wound threshhold passive is pretty damn strong.

[Falkon Swiftblade]

I made an orlan monk with high dex and I think the skill under dex, and should have done high might because the orlan racial gives him extra crits when attacking same enemies. Though im so surprised how well he does vs the other monk I hired that's fire godlike max dex and might. Both are only lvl 2-3 so I haven't got some of the higher skills, but I expected the fire monk to be way better and it's not, even though she basically has same stats as my guy a lvl higher, she's too dang squishy even with dr7 armor.

[Chilloutman]

Monk is just great, at start he is little too squishy and doesnt have that damage, but man once you start leveling up he is a beast. Just put some armor on on lower levels and you are set. I am lvl 8 and still using exceptional leather armor because I dont want to go down too fast

[tnc]

I think monk becomes its best when you build him towards cc abilities and also high single target dmg. That means you need to get swift strikes, force of anguish(10 sec+ disable), stunning blows. Keep in mind stunning blows costs no wounds so you can just use it to lockdown enemy and win some fights without a scratch on monk and even on your tank coz fighters also have knockdown and its hillarious in some fights they cant even attack you once. The amount of cc this class has is just insane. I think for race godlike with healing passive might be the best choice coz you get wound, disable everyone around you get healed and disable again with more wounds. At the same time you can focus a single target with swift strikes and deal huge damage especially in mid and late game. Attack speed becomes more important later on because theres very few ways to increase it but lots of ways to increase acc. And damage.

Max offensive stats if you want monk dps and use him as offtank. Tank 3-4 ppl with your fighter and 1 person with monk to get the best results. Debuff fortitude with a caster or barbarian and you can hit all the knockdowns. Enjoy your easy difficulty on hard.

[Pekachon]

Until enchantable gloves are in the game there is no reason to play a monk. I mean, you have to wear armor and use weapons, how different is this from just going pure fighter? And what's even the point of the increased unarmed damage if by midgame you will have to use a weapon anyway, unless you wanna gimp yourself.

The implementation of monk in Pillars disappointed me. And its not like adding gloves is that much work even.

[Parsalian]

 Im playing on hard as a Cypher right now, but Im already planing play a Monk in PoTD.  So, probably I want a tank'sh build, can someone help me? Im trying to figure out if I dump Int or not. Also, Im trying to convince myself of just forget the "dialogue attributes" and max Mig, Con and dex. Something like Might 18, Con 18, Dex 18, Per 10 Int 6, Resolve 8. Will this work?

Edited April 2, 2015 by Parsalian

[Ceranai]

are you guys serious?

 

i'm playing a solo monk on the highest difficulty and just wrecking the crap out of nearly everything

seems more like wrong distribution of attributes, skills and race selection

 

and sensuki's guide is off

 

you max out might and con not dex, use fire godlike race

get the attack speed ability, and the one that add fire damage on wound and lightning when attack speed ability is active

DO you mean hard or PoTD, in PoTD im having a lot of trouble so Id apprecate as much info on your build as possible.also are you sure fire godlike is the best choice? The dmg reduction and retaliate on hit seems far less useful than 3 heals that heal for about 1.25 of your total endurance, that bacically double endurance every encounter

[Aqvamare]

Your fists have no life leech, in solo runs you need the life leech on weapon. simply. in party runs, oyu can go with fists

Edited April 2, 2015 by Aqvamare

[Ashlane]

How randomized is loot?  I ask because I found some monk specific gloves that increase your damage based on how many wounds you have.  I'm well into act 3 though and that's the first time I've at least taken notice of that type of item/mechanic being in the game.

[Chilloutman]

Your fists have no life leech, in solo runs you need the life leech on weapon. simply. in party runs, oyu can go with fists

 

Well, game is not ment to be played solo, so you are gimping yourself on your own decision - not a problem of a game

[Chilloutman]

 Im playing on hard as a Cypher right now, but Im already planing play a Monk in PoTD.  So, probably I want a tank'sh build, can someone help me? Im trying to figure out if I dump Int or not. Also, Im trying to convince myself of just forget the "dialogue attributes" and max Mig, Con and dex. Something like Might 18, Con 18, Dex 18, Per 10 Int 6, Resolve 8. Will this work?

 

Well, first off, if you want to be tankish, you have to take tankish stats - preception and resolve. And yes, inteligence is least usefull talent on monk

[Ceranai]

 

Your fists have no life leech, in solo runs you need the life leech on weapon. simply. in party runs, oyu can go with fists

 

Well, game is not ment to be played solo, so you are gimping yourself on your own decision - not a problem of a game

 

There is an achievement for solo and besides which at some point the game becomes easy even on PoTD if you are running a full party that is half decently put together, aside from one or two fights in the entire game Ive never been at risk from a wipe playing with a full party

[Parsalian]

 

 Im playing on hard as a Cypher right now, but Im already planing play a Monk in PoTD.  So, probably I want a tank'sh build, can someone help me? Im trying to figure out if I dump Int or not. Also, Im trying to convince myself of just forget the "dialogue attributes" and max Mig, Con and dex. Something like Might 18, Con 18, Dex 18, Per 10 Int 6, Resolve 8. Will this work?

 

Well, first off, if you want to be tankish, you have to take tankish stats - preception and resolve. And yes, inteligence is least usefull talent on monk

 

 

But, from what I understood high Per and Res increases deflection, and you, as a monk, want to get hit. So, its not better have high Con and be a meat shield? 

[Ceranai]

 

 

 Im playing on hard as a Cypher right now, but Im already planing play a Monk in PoTD.  So, probably I want a tank'sh build, can someone help me? Im trying to figure out if I dump Int or not. Also, Im trying to convince myself of just forget the "dialogue attributes" and max Mig, Con and dex. Something like Might 18, Con 18, Dex 18, Per 10 Int 6, Resolve 8. Will this work?

 

Well, first off, if you want to be tankish, you have to take tankish stats - preception and resolve. And yes, inteligence is least usefull talent on monk

 

 

But, from what I understood high Per and Res increases deflection, and you, as a monk, want to get hit. So, its not better have high Con and be a meat shield? 

 

correct you want max constitution as your no. 1 priority, however especially on harder difficulty you need to slow down the rate you gain wound in order to spend them as a decent rate and to survive long enough to cast all of your wounds to take an extereme example imagine a 100 endurance monk, you could either get hit for 10 10 times and get 10 wounds to spend gradually or you could get hit for 50 twice and barely have time to spend your wounds before you die, thats why as monk stands they are much better when played tanky, you will also notice that most of your damage comes from wound based attacks so dexterity is actually less important than the game implies

[Chilloutman]

Well it really depends on your play style, if you get weapon with 'lifesteal' you really dont need to pump con

[Ceranai]

Well it really depends on your play style, if you get weapon with 'lifesteal' you really dont need to pump con

true, i guess im stuck in the mindset of a soloer still with a high base endurance con is more effective on a monk than a cipher

[Whipstitch]

I think people overrate the importance of wounds as a source of damage for dual wielder monks. Yes, monk damage is strictly vanilla without wounds, but properly talented dual wielding is one of the strongest attack styles, so it's not like their damage is actually outright bad. Meanwhile, monks are admirably suited to wearing enchanted clothing instead of heavy armor because they're not crit bait like barbarians and because they can disengage or stunlock things via Stunning Blow and Force of Anguish. A cloth monk has no business trying to tank entire crowds but off-tanking and murdering single strong opponents like bears via stuns and sheer attack speed is definitely on the table. Such monks won't always top the party damage chart but they bring enough utility via renewable CC and a big health pool that hanging out at 2nd or 3rd place isn't so bad.

Edited April 2, 2015 by Whipstitch

[Smorensky]

It all depends on how you plan to play. I play on hard and so far I didn't run into any specific problems. The dps output of a monk is insane, offcourse you can just go for "no wounds" standard DW dps, but IMHO that's a waste, as generating wounds fast enough increases your DPS immensly.

 

I personally run with 19, 8, 10, 15, 8, 18 as I find Constitution is far less important than resolve and perc. As a rule of thumb, deflection wins over extra HP. The reason for this lies in the way hits and crits are calculated. Low deflection means monsters will not only hit you more often, but will also crit you more often as well. At max lvl constituton of 18 will net you around 60 more HP compared to having just 10 con. Early game crits can easily hit for 20+ dmg on a low DR character and later mobs hit even harder, so by maxing out constitution you will be able to take up to 4-5 more hits at best, but will be loosing HP at a faster rate since most of those hits will be crits.

 

On the other hand dropping con in favor of perc or resolve gets you more survivability even if you have less HP, as you get hit less and don't take too many crits, allowing you to drop hvy armor for that extra attack speed.

 

Keep in mind that even with high deflection you WILL STILL GET HIT, so you will still reliably generate wounds, but you will be able to run into the fray right along side Eder or Pallegina, keeping more mobs of your squishees, while also doing incredible dps.

 

Later in the game, you will want to have a ton of mobs around you to maximize the effects of rooting pain, flagelant's path and (if you took fire goodlike) battle-forged fire dmg.

 

Early game survival is a pain, I can tell you that right away, but once you get to around lvl 5 you start to shine with a monk, as you will have access to a wider selection of gear.

 

Unarmed vs Armed: Untill you get access to late game wpn enchants, unarmed is your best friend as it will consistently outdmg any weapons you find or make. Once you gain access to late game enchantments you can switch to hatchets or spears. The only thing you will get from this is life-drain and mby a bit extra accuracy if you go with slaying ench.

 

As for armor, something with DR 5-6 will get you through the early game. Later on you want to use enchanted robes to maximize on the dw unarmed attack speed.

 

Might vs Dex: unless you are going for a "high interrupt build" (redundant as you allready have access to some of the best cc skills in game) might beets dex hands down. Dex lets you attack faster, while might gives you more dmg per strike. Since both skills add the same %bonus hitting harder is better than hitting faster, simply because DR reduces all incomming dmg by a fixed ammount. so it's better to hit 10 times for 13 dmg than 13 times for 10 dmg.

[Lasci]

 Im playing on hard as a Cypher right now, but Im already planing play a Monk in PoTD.  So, probably I want a tank'sh build, can someone help me? Im trying to figure out if I dump Int or not. Also, Im trying to convince myself of just forget the "dialogue attributes" and max Mig, Con and dex. Something like Might 18, Con 18, Dex 18, Per 10 Int 6, Resolve 8. Will this work?

 

If you're going to allow your deflection to suffer, you need to wear heavier armor to reduce the damage you're taking. Otherwise you're just going to be getting hit constantly and your endurance is going to plummet in higher difficulties. Be an aumaua for higher might, or some other race for their racial ability if you so choose.

[Fimconte]

Might vs Dex: unless you are going for a "high interrupt build" (redundant as you allready have access to some of the best cc skills in game) might beets dex hands down. Dex lets you attack faster, while might gives you more dmg per strike. Since both skills add the same %bonus hitting harder is better than hitting faster, simply because DR reduces all incomming dmg by a fixed ammount. so it's better to hit 10 times for 13 dmg than 13 times for 10 dmg.

This doesn't take into account misses.  

That is one of the reasons why Dex > Mig.

Another aspect is that Dex also reduces all animation time and more crucially, recovery time.

DR also doesn't reduce 100% dmg if you do less dmg than DR value. 

 

 

[Smorensky]

 

Might vs Dex: unless you are going for a "high interrupt build" (redundant as you allready have access to some of the best cc skills in game) might beets dex hands down. Dex lets you attack faster, while might gives you more dmg per strike. Since both skills add the same %bonus hitting harder is better than hitting faster, simply because DR reduces all incomming dmg by a fixed ammount. so it's better to hit 10 times for 13 dmg than 13 times for 10 dmg.

 

This doesn't take into account misses.  

That is one of the reasons why Dex > Mig.

Another aspect is that Dex also reduces all animation time and more crucially, recovery time.

DR also doesn't reduce 100% dmg if you do less dmg than DR value.

True, DR can't reduce dmg completely, but it does it considerably. As far as misses go, that woul probably be a lot bigger issue on some other class as monk accuracy is top notch among all classes. At least on hard dif, once you pick up weapon focus: peasant and hit lvl 4 to get Transcendent suffering 2 your unarmed attacks will hit almost 100% of the time.

 

As far as recovery time goes, it is a valid point, but mostly if you plan to go low def high constitution and wear hvy armor.

 

As I said: It depands on the build and prefered playstyle. I just like to hit hard

[Creslin321]

 

Might vs Dex: unless you are going for a "high interrupt build" (redundant as you allready have access to some of the best cc skills in game) might beets dex hands down. Dex lets you attack faster, while might gives you more dmg per strike. Since both skills add the same %bonus hitting harder is better than hitting faster, simply because DR reduces all incomming dmg by a fixed ammount. so it's better to hit 10 times for 13 dmg than 13 times for 10 dmg.

This doesn't take into account misses.  

That is one of the reasons why Dex > Mig.

Another aspect is that Dex also reduces all animation time and more crucially, recovery time.

DR also doesn't reduce 100% dmg if you do less dmg than DR value. 

 

 

 

 

Does Dex effect accuracy?  It doesn't say it does in the attrib description...

[Ninjerk]

 

 

Might vs Dex: unless you are going for a "high interrupt build" (redundant as you allready have access to some of the best cc skills in game) might beets dex hands down. Dex lets you attack faster, while might gives you more dmg per strike. Since both skills add the same %bonus hitting harder is better than hitting faster, simply because DR reduces all incomming dmg by a fixed ammount. so it's better to hit 10 times for 13 dmg than 13 times for 10 dmg.

This doesn't take into account misses.  

That is one of the reasons why Dex > Mig.

Another aspect is that Dex also reduces all animation time and more crucially, recovery time.

DR also doesn't reduce 100% dmg if you do less dmg than DR value. 

 

 

 

 

Does Dex effect accuracy?  It doesn't say it does in the attrib description...

 

Not directly, but attacking more times in a given time span means more hits at the same accuracy.