Monk - Low Reflex Better?

[draek]

I was wondering since monks main power is from getting damaged. Isn't the most ideal monk build a low reflex so he or she gets hit more often? 

That would allow the monk to use his or her powers more?

[Odd Hermit]

Not necessarily as some things target reflex to CC a character.

 

It's true that you may want to slack a little on deflection for monks depending on difficulty though.

[gkathellar]

That said, if your monk tank is taking so little damage that they're not getting any wounds, then, uh ... yeah, that's fine. Sounds good.

[Ceranai]

I was wondering since monks main power is from getting damaged. Isn't the most ideal monk build a low reflex so he or she gets hit more often? 

That would allow the monk to use his or her powers more?

The big mistake i think a lot of people who are complaining that monks suck is building them too flimsy, and i think this is because people think more damage taken=more wounds=more damage given.

 

This is actually not very good in practice because the rate you gain wounds is often faster than you can spend them, if it takes 8 damage to get a wound with lesser wounds that means that at 100 endurance you will have 10 wounds to spend assuming no heals or anything, until you get acess to the high level monk spells IE more than halfway through the game you only have only two ways to spend wounds, use either one or two wounds. The problem is that if you are being attacked by pretty much anything you will be gaining wounds faster than you can spend them, this is why its actually very advantageous to get high DR and deflaction so that you ensure that each wound gets used to power a spell.

 

 

Using the 100 hp example-

Get hit twice for 40 gives you 10 wounds to spend in about 5 seconds, even spamming the hell out of your spells this is hard to do, also one more hit and you are dead.

Now put some heavy armour on that same guy and your DR jumps up to 12 lets say up from 2 DR, this should mean the same two attacks hit you for 30 each, giving you 6 wounds to spend in about 5 seconds, it is now easier to spend it and therefore get the most out of the HP that you lost, you also have the added bonus that the next hit will not kill you.

 

The way the numbers are set up right now tanky monks are clearly superior to dps monks because the loss in dps is so minimal compared to the gain in survivability.

 

The second point is in team management, if you are building 2 tanks 1 priest and 3 others or any standard build it makes more sense toput your monk to the front, after all he is the only class that actually benefits from being hit, and if you dont think he is gaining wounds fast enough just downgrade his armor  but seriously if you put him on the front line there wont be any shortage of wounds and as a monk he has more utility and damage than a fighter and from my experience more dps than a barbarian

Edited April 2, 2015 by Ceranai

[draek]

Thanks everyone