Monk _ Fists?

[Brimsurfer]

Hi, so this may be my first time in PoE as a Monk.....I was wondering should I just rely on my fists or is it better to use weapons? (Or Shield for tanking purpose) Or are they good enough frontliners without the help of weapons and shields?

 

Thanks

[Climhazzard]

Fists are as fast as fast speed weapons, and do as much damage as average speed weapons.  They gain bonuses as you level up so they stay viable through the game.  By endgame they are about equal to superb weapons with a lash enchant, but lack additional unique enchants like endurance drain and crit multiplier so are ultimately not as strong as some unique weapon options.

 

In my opinion the main advantage of fists is that you never have to enchant them, of course the main downside to fists is that you can't.  What I mean is, is that your fists are equal to a superb weapon by level 9 or 10, you don't have to find any weapon and equip it.  You can save your enchanting materials for other characters, and you can save any weapons you find for other characters.  There's only enough materials available in the game to enchant one or two unique weapons up to superb status.

 

The strongest option for a torment's reach dps build by endgame is probably dual sabers, using resolution and purgatory sabers, I used it to endgame with one of my monks and it was a bit stronger than fists for sure.  But didn't really get better than fists until the end of the game. If you are using other builds, like tank or CC, then I'm not sure what the best route is, but fists are definitely viable in most cases.  One of the PotD solo videos of the final boss was a monk using fists and spears. 

Edited April 19, 2015 by Climhazzard

[Brimsurfer]

how about tanking? would i need a shield or an armor?

 

......anyone?

[Tigranes]

I'm soloing with a monk (Hard) and I find fists are good enough for pretty much anything in Act 2. As Climhazzard says, I expect it will eventually fall behind with weapons with the best enchantments. 

 

Unarmoured works well for Act 1 and possibly longer if you use a party, but it seems more pragmatic to use some kind of light armour, which can get you up to 5/7DR early on and more later. Just decent (12-15) DEX and a decent light armour (under -30% recovery penalty) and you're still getting off Torment's Reach almost continuously. 

 

Shield? I can't imagine how that would ever be good.

[Enexemander]

how about tanking? would i need a shield or an armor?

 

......anyone?

 

Would you need armor? Yes. You'd just get obliterated without it.

 

Would you need a shield? Not really. You can get your deflection up high enough without one to not worry about it too much. If you dual wield hatchets, you can get +10 deflection from that and I believe hatchets share the same weapon focus as unarmed (peasant).

[KDubya]

how about tanking? would i need a shield or an armor?

 

......anyone?

 

 

What level are you playing at?

 

Who else is in your team? Are you solo?

 

Tanking can mean different things to different people.

 

1.) Deflection tanking - you have so much deflection that enemies just can't hit  you, 120+. Shields help/required to get to this level. Fighters and Paladins have the most class specific talents to assist in reaching this plateau. Others require more gear. This type of tanking requires the other members of the team to do all the killing. One super tank might be enough to hold the front while the five glass cannons obliterate the crowd.

 

2.) DR (Damage Reduction) tanking - you get the heaviest armor and just eat the incoming hits. Anyone can do this style. Works best when combined with deflection tanking as the number of hits are small and those are mitigated by your DR. I'd recommend this approach for anyone who will be in melee on the front lines.

 

3.) Offensive (or good enough for long enough) tanking - Here your frontline melee tries to get as much DR as possible and as much deflection while trying for maximum damage. Two handed fighters in heavy armor, spec'd for damage while still running defender modal. Deflection 95+, 40+ damage per swing. With this you can not hold back the hordes for ever like the deflection tank but you can hold them long enough for your higher damage output to put the crowd down. The crowd killing is more spread amongst your team and might need more than one frontline melee. A monk could perform well in this role, would have less engagements than a fighter but would output some good damage with nice AoE cones, would probably need heavy armor to take the brunt of the enemy horde.

 

Monks are unique in that they need to take damage in order to generate wounds that are then turned into large bursts of damage via torments and FoA. A super high deflection would preclude generating wounds but if you are not taking damage you can tank forever and just auto-attack beat down the mob.

 

A monk using fists has two additional empty weapon slots. You could put a shield in one for when you want to slow down the rate of incoming damage.

 

You could put him in heavy plate with a shield on switch, maybe a endurance drain weapon on the other, and have him stand in the middle of the fray. Or put him in padded and use him like a rogue flanking the frontline. They are pretty flexible and durable.

[Matt516]

I've run a Monk with some success. Fists are amazing - they're actually considerably better than Superb weapons by the end of the game - they gain up to +8 damage by the end, which is a lot more than 45% of their base damage. 4 less Accuracy than Superb, but it's whatever.

 

You don't want to use them as straight-up tanks, they aren't built for that. Better to use a Fighter or Paladin. Monks are strictly tanky dps - you'll have to experiment to find the best armor for your playstyle, but with Monks you basically want to use the lightest armor you can wear while remaining alive. I use Hide, personally.

[Climhazzard]

Nah they get +12 accuracy it's the same as superb.  

 

If you want to tank with your monk then a shield and heavy armor is probably necessary, if you have other melee in the party then you can get away with just your fists and medium armor.  I've actually played through the whole game on hard with a monk in nothing but her clothes (not solo of course),  but it's harder than if you put some armor on.

Edited April 19, 2015 by Climhazzard

[gkathellar]

how about tanking? would i need a shield or an armor?

 

......anyone?

Heavily armored, sword-and-shield monks make for fantastic tanks, yes.