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| I know kung fu! A guide to monks (in multiple parts) [message #53368] |
Sun, 16 May 2010 21:39  |
Nyrian
Messages: 17
Registered: May 2010 |
the Master of War
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So you want to be a kung fu fighter.. great choice! Monks are essentially a middle weight melee class, that trades top end offense potential for a big dose of self sufficiency. As such monks are a fantastic choice for new players, as well as being a fun option for vets.
Monk Basics:
Encumbrance:
Monks can only wear a certain weight before they become encumbered (detrimentally weighed down). When you go past the weight cap you will get a message saying that you are encumbered.
Being encumbered detrimentally affects most of your skills making them work less often. There are levels of encumbrance, the lowest having only a small penalty and going up from there. Try to avoid being encumbered, but if you really need to be there is a skill that will help with it.
Stats:
Dex Dex Dex! Seriously the primary attribute of monks is dex. It's so important that all monk races (except halflings) gain a +2 to their racial dex maximum, up to the 25 dex cap. For most races this is set, and you want to make sure to raise your dex to the racial cap, however humans offer a bit of flexibility. Human monks can have a dex that ranges from 22 (same as gnomes) to 25 depending on how you allocate your stat points at creation. In most cases spending the stat points on Dex is considered the best way to spend them (25 dex is really really nice), however in certain cases you may want to consider raising strength instead.
Strength: Monks have a really interesting relationship to strength. Standard monk melee damage (1st through 5th attack) makes use of strength to modify the damage. However monk fist attacks (fist of fire/frost/divinity/ etc..) actually ignore strength modifiers. So while a high strength is beneficial, being weaker, or even weakened is not as big of a detriment to monks as it is to other classes as probably 1/3 to 1/2 of your attacks at higher level will be 'fists of x' attacks.
Intelligence: Intelligence affects how many practices it takes to learn a skill, how fast you master your skills, and how much mana you get each level. Generally speaking int is a good stat while leveling, but doesn't really benefit you at high levels after mastery. Some key points to consider: 25 int (elves) learn every skill with 1 practice, which over the course of your leveling adds up to a big savings of practices which can be converted to trains, 24 int (grey elves) learn most skills in 1 practice again netting a huge savings in practices which can be converted to trains. If you are an elf or grey elf, consider only practicing the skills you absolutely need until you either max your int(trains) or hit your max int with gear.
Wisdom: For monks wisdom boils down to 1 major thing, how many practices you get each level. At 18 wis you get 3 practices per level, at 22 wis you get 4 practices per level, at 25 you get 5 practices per level. Shoot for these stat points, unless you really want to max your stats on principle. On those races with high wisdom (22+ gnomes, grey elves, and halflings) I recommend you make wisdom your priority stat until you get it to the max stat point (22 or 25 respectively) as the extra pracs every level add up quickly.
Constitution: Con is actually one stat that you really want to max, however I can't really say just how beneficial it is to monks overall. Con affects your hp rolls everytime you level, higher con generally equals better hp rolls, lower con vice versa. However with monks I have never really noticed con having a huge influence except with grey elves who really do tend to have noticeably lower rolls on average. I've had halflings (18 con) that average 19hp/level and humans (20 con) that average 16hp/level. Simply put, max it, but realize its not a great stat for monks (meaning humans should probably not spend the 3 human stat points on con).
Health(hp): Monks get a range between 14-20hp on each level gain.
Maximized base hp at hero would be 1020 before spending trains on hp. Hp is obviously one of the most important stats, so get it as high as you can.
Mana: I'm not actually sure what the range for mana gains per level are on a monk, but generally monks will have somewhere between 450-600 base mana at hero.
Standard abilities:
All monks have a pool of common abilities that they draw from before specialization.
Hand to hand: This is your weapon, it scales really well, but you cannot choose to use a specific attack type on all attacks except for blunt. This is somewhat of a liability as resistance to blunt is actually fairly common, and you can't fully take advantage of racial vulnerabilities, except in the case of gnomes who are vulnerable to blunt damage. On the plus side, you never have to worry about finding a good weapon, you are always armed. Something to note, if you are holding something in your hands, you will suffer a penalty to your hand to hand attacks.
At higher levels you will get advanced hand to hand which improves your ability to hit and slightly improves damage.
Kick/follow through: A highly under rated mid round attack. Kick doesn't do a lot of damage, but it is fast (1 round lag), allowing you to react to your opponent more quickly than most other mid round attacks. In PK that can mean the difference between success and failure. At higher levels you get the follow through skill, which sometimes gives you an extra kick on any kick attack (effectively 2x damage about 33% of the time when mastered).
Throw/ground control: Probably the most overused mid round attack, because it lags the target if it hits. This attack lags the monk for 2 rounds, but if it hits, it lags the target for one round, making it more difficult for them to flee or use their own mid round abilities efficiently. When used to slow down your opponents mid round attacks it is best to use this after their attack thereby increasing the lag costs of their abilities by one round. So against most offensive spells, use it after the spell has been cast at you, so that the spell effectively costs 2 rounds of lag, slowing down the rate at which you are damaged. At higher levels you also get ground control, which is throws version of follow through.
Healing trance: This skill is why Con is not as useful to monks as it is to other classes. Con affects how much you heal every tick, standing, resting, or sleeping, which is further benefited by fast healing. However with healing trance a monk can gain a huge regeneration bonus. Regeneration functions on each pulse, so if you have a regeneration of 3, every combat round you gain 3 hps. Healing trance gives a very high regeneration bonus while it is active, making you heal very fast while resting or sleeping so long as it is active.
Palm: Palm is a hand to hand damage multiplier. I do not remember whether or not simple palm hits ignore strength or not but I think they do ignore strength (which is a good thing for monks). Something to keep an eye on. Palm can be activated in or out of combat.
Rugged training: Remember encumbrance, well rugged training will allow you to perform as if you were unencumbered (assuming you are encumbered) for its relatively short duration, thereby saving you from the penalties. Personally I just avoid being encumbered but if you find some very special gear it might be more beneficial to be encumbered and rely on rugged training.
Harmony: This is a fantastic skill when used well and it will likely get you killed if you aren't careful. What it does is simple, it attempts to remove ALL affects on you, both beneficial and detrimental. However it is not always perfect, it has a high mana cost (for monks at least) and it has a fairly long lag (3 rounds or so). So if you are affected by any detrimental affect you can get rid of it, and loose everything else in the bargain, which can be costly in terms of mana and time to bring yourself back up(reactivating all your beneficial powers,spells and abilities.) Just make sure if you use this in a pk situation to buy yourself as much time as possible in a fairly secure location as you can.
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| Re: I know kung fu! A guide to monks (in multiple parts) [message #53369] |
Sun, 16 May 2010 21:40  |
Nyrian
Messages: 17
Registered: May 2010 |
the Master of War
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Specializations/schools:
The nuts and bolts of kung-fu, the schools provide the skills that will give you an edge and a niche. All schools provide 4 unique skills, 2 hand to hand fist modifiers, and upon attaining black belt one can earn the schools special skill. Understand that the descriptions here are my opinions only.
Dragon: Dragon monks are the most resilient monks around, and in fact are uniquely suited to dealing with direct spell casters more so than any of the other schools. Dragon monks receive:
Fists of fire/sound: some hand to hand attacks will do sonic or fire type damage, receive a damage multiplier and ignore strength in determining damage. All monk fists can be toggled on or off at will, so if you are fighting someone that is immune to one or both of your fist types toggle them off.
Iron Scales of the Dragon: Iron scales of the dragon does two things, first it gives a blanket protection from fire/cold attacks in the form of a damage reduction. Secondly and more importantly it functions somewhat like a dodge that works on any damage received by the monk, and instead of avoiding the damage it reduces the damage taken by 90%. This is the only monk "avoidance" that works on damaging spells, heck it even works on starvation.
Iron Palm: A great mid round attack, though it does cost mana so be very aware of how often you are using it. If it hits, it costs 2 rounds of lag and 25 mana. It does good damage, occasionally critically hits for extra damage and lags the opponent. However every application of iron palm decreases the victims AC by a random amount, which means a few good iron palms and suddenly all your attacks are hitting harder due to the ac drop on the opponent. Even better is that if you miss, it only costs 1 round of lag and half the mana.
Counter: A neat skill, it has a chance to reverse any opening melee attack back upon the attacker. You need to be awake for it to work, possibly standing though I haven't tested that. While it may not sound like much, I've countered crusader deathblow-crushing blow-ambushes before effectively making the crusader kill himself with his own opening attack.
Dragon chant: It grants 3x the dragon monks level in AC, which when combined with chant translates into a very high AC even when naked, which functions as melee damage resistance.
Dragon Spirit: This is the schools special skill, which while kind of lackluster, is actually exceptionally beneficial to dragon monks. The dragon monk gains hps and flying while it is active.
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| Re: I know kung fu! A guide to monks (in multiple parts) [message #53370] |
Sun, 16 May 2010 21:40 |
Nyrian
Messages: 17
Registered: May 2010 |
the Master of War
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Specializations/schools:
The nuts and bolts of kung-fu, the schools provide the skills that will give you an edge and a niche. All schools provide 4 unique skills, 2 hand to hand fist modifiers, and upon attaining black belt one can earn the schools special skill. Understand that the descriptions here are my opinions only.
Mantis: Mantis monks are probably the most capable anti-melee class monks. Most mantis skills are automatic, which while not very exciting, make mantis monks very efficient. Mantis monks utilize holy and negative fist modifiers.
Escape: Escape is a fantastic PK skill, it lets you choose the direction in which you flee, as long as it is successful. When combined with a race that has autosneak, your opponents will not see which direction you fled in, which gives you a momentary advantage.
Counter defense: This is what makes mantis monks scary, when this skill works, it bypasses dodging skills, which means you hit successfully far more often than other monks.
Tai chi: This is one of the best additional dodges monks can get, as it not only avoids the attack but it returns a portion of the damage back on the attacker. Generally speaking its a small portion, and that is because it double dips in damage reductions. The damage you would have received is reduced by your damage reductions (sanc/pro/ac/res/etc) and then returned only to be reduced again by the attackers damage reductions making the damage returned very low. However if you want to gamble, you can always minimize your own damage reductions thereby increasing the amount of damage returned on the attacker. Generally not a great idea as mid round attacks will really hurt, but its something to keep in mind if you get dispelled in combat.
Knockdown: Knockdown is the mantis mid round attack. And despite it's name and the fact that it works with ground control, it does not lag the victim. Instead it just does more damage than throw, and can occasionally crit for a lot of damage. Crit damage is applied to both the knockdown and the ground control damage.
Blindfighting: The mantis schools special skill is blind fighting and primarily it removes all penalties to your attacks and defenses while blinded, which is a huge bonus. Secondly it lets you see somewhat while blinded being able to make out exits, and generally see how many and relative size of creatures in any room without revealing their identity.
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| Re: I know kung fu! A guide to monks (in multiple parts) [message #53371] |
Sun, 16 May 2010 21:41 |
Nyrian
Messages: 17
Registered: May 2010 |
the Master of War
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Specializations/schools:
The nuts and bolts of kung-fu, the schools provide the skills that will give you an edge and a niche. All schools provide 4 unique skills, 2 hand to hand fist modifiers, and upon attaining black belt one can earn the schools special skill. Understand that the descriptions here are my opinions only.
Cranes: Crane monks are the odd ones out of the monk world. Great looking on paper, cranes actually don't perform as well as one would think. This is not to say cranes are bad, but they don't have the synergy the other school skills have. Instead they give some offense, some defense, arguably the worst fist modifiers of all monks and a bit of utility to boot.
Fists of frost/flood: While frost fists are not horrible, they do tend to be resisted by quite a few things. However fists of flood are horrible in that anyone can easily acquire complete immunity for next to nothing. Beyond the nonsense ramifications of fists of flood, the interrelatedness of the two attack types make this combo pretty bad.
Acrobatics: A fourth dodge skill, which is pretty nice overall, though not as nice as tai chi.
Evasive dodge: Evasive dodge sounds fantastic, an extra dodge against multiple opponents that makes them hit each other. And actually it works pretty darn well, except that it requires that you be at a tactical disadvantage for it to be active. That said, it works well enough that small groups or charmed armies lose some of their oomph when fighting a crane.
Chi attack: Again a great idea, and actually a decent attack. 2 rounds of lag for a high damage mental attack. However it is expensive on the mana side (60 mana hit or miss), making it difficult to use enough in any fight without going out of mana.
Jump kick: Fantastic skill when it works! It essentially functions like a critical strike for kick, when it happens you do significantly more damage than a normal kick and can do a small amount of lag (trip) to your opponent. However it shares the kick command and not all kicks will be jump kicks, you have no control. That being said this is still one of my favorite monk offensive skills in that it is fast, efficient and can often suprise an opponent because it doesn't look big, but the damage actually adds up quickly.
Chi healing: This is a good skill, essentially it heals for a good amount on any target, and leaves them with a long timer before they can be affected by another chi healing, much like lay on hands for paladins. In a recent meet the coder session an improvement was made for this in that it would also grant the recipient an increased regeneration rate for the duration of the timer however I am unsure if it has been fully implemented or not.
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| Re: I know kung fu! A guide to monks (in multiple parts) [message #53372] |
Sun, 16 May 2010 21:42 |
Nyrian
Messages: 17
Registered: May 2010 |
the Master of War
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Specializations/schools:
The nuts and bolts of kung-fu, the schools provide the skills that will give you an edge and a niche. All schools provide 4 unique skills, 2 hand to hand fist modifiers, and upon attaining black belt one can earn the schools special skill. Understand that the descriptions here are my opinions only.
Snakes:Snake monks are probably the best at dealing with multiple opponents, and can be absolutely lethal when operating at their peak. Snake monks combine some great utility, with offensive burst, and the ability to destroy their opponents strength. Snake fist modifiers are acid and fang fist which can poison the opponent. (I am actually unsure of fang fists damage type, it could be blunt, piercing, poison or something else.) Snake monks benefit the most from their school special skill, the difference being night and day, so if you are choose the snake school do what ever you can to learn the special skill.
Poison dust: Poison dust is the only skill based area blind, meaning you can blind multiple opponents simultaneously with each application. In addition to blinding it also has a chance to poison the victims, weakening them. It's a fantastic skill, just be aware that immunity to poison will make a target immune to poison dust, and as an area attack it will draw people into combat if you aren't careful about where you use it.
Stunning strike: My personal favorite knock out skill. It seems to have a flat success rate unaffected by haste, but that could just be my perception. It succeeds often, and unlike the other knockout skills does not care if you are in combat, it only check to see if your target is in combat. So if you are fighting Bob and his buddy Mike walks in the room, if you are fast you can stun Mike before he joins the combat taking him out of the equation. Fantastic skill.
Sixth attack: An extra potential attack each round.
Dance of venom: This skill when it activates will double your attacks for that round, much like a mirror. So say you throw three attacks and a kung-fu strike, then dance of venom activates, you will get three more attacks and one more kung-fu strike. Combined with haste on a lucky round (6+ attacks) and you can devastate an opponent in a short time.
Dim Mak: The ultimate special skill, Dim mak is a mid round damage skill that does good damage, can crit for extra damage and costs 2 rounds of lag. But even better, the first strike will decrease the targets Strength, Int and Dex by up to -10 each. Coupled with nerve, poison dust, and poison from fists, this can completely destroy an opponents strength.
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| Re: I know kung fu! A guide to monks (in multiple parts) [message #53373] |
Sun, 16 May 2010 21:54 |
Nyrian
Messages: 17
Registered: May 2010 |
the Master of War
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Specializations/schools:
The nuts and bolts of kung-fu, the schools provide the skills that will give you an edge and a niche. All schools provide 4 unique skills, 2 hand to hand fist modifiers, and upon attaining black belt one can earn the schools special skill. Understand that the descriptions here are my opinions only.
Tigers: Tiger monks are simply the most offensively oriented monk sub in the game. They have the tools to dish out lots of high damage attacks, and deal with multiple enemies through the only monk area attack. They also have the only monk skill that disarms, and the only monk death skill.
Fists of Fury: Fists of fury is skill that gives you hit and dam, up to 10/10 at hero. It stacks with frenzy, so if you have a friend that can holy word use it. This skill makes tiger potential dam roll the highest of any monk in the game.
Open Claw/Fists of Rending: Open claw is a slashing attack making it one of the only monk fists that doesn't have a magical attack type. Unfortunately at the time of writing this I do not know what attack type fists of rending are, it may be that they too do physical damage.
Pouncing Tiger: Tiger monk version of an improved throw. This skill does good damage, can lag the opponent, and can occasionally disarm the opponent as well. 2 rounds lag.
Spin kick: The only monk damage dealing area attack. This skill does great damage to every enemy in the area. 2 rounds lag.
Death strike: The only monk insta kill skill in the game. Requires that the target is unhurt to use it. Great for ranking, and a good opener. Also can be used effectively against charmed armies.
Eyes of the Tiger: The tiger black belt skill, this skill when active gives the tiger monk the chance to see anyone hiding in the room by any means barring immortal powers. It essentially makes all possible hide skills and spells (hide,invis,earthfade,camo,etc) about as effective as blending so even if you don't see the identity of who is in the room, you often see that someone is there. Very useful for dealing with earth faded or camo'd opponents.
Special note: Tiger monks, because of the boost granted by fists of fury can attain the highest possible monk dam roll. As such, this is one monk sub where I actually advocate going with 23 strength as a human. Before the recent monk improvements including advanced hth, 2nd fist attack, and base dex improvements I had a 23 strength 20 dex human tiger monk. With the alchemy of the time I managed unhoused to have a 90+ dam roll without any other spells, frenzy put me over 100. At that point, my standard hand to hand attacks were doing as much damage as my open claw attacks, occasionally as high as OBLITERATES and ERRADICATES on unsanced opponents, and ***DEMOLISH/DEVASTATES*** on res + pro (no sanc) opponents (troll ap with pro good). At this point this combo will only be better with the overall monk improvements.. yes you pay a bit in your ability to dodge (22 dex) but you can really put the hurt on people in return once you hit the 80+ damroll range.. housed this combo just becomes frightening.
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| Re: I know kung fu! A guide to monks (in multiple parts) [message #54602] |
Wed, 23 June 2010 06:09 |
Shirotaka
Messages: 5
Registered: May 2010 |
the Transcendant
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That would be easy, change fists of flood into fists of chi.. make its damage type like force of nature. Then modify chi attack by either bringing the cost down to a functional level or change it to an inverted chi healing, where it does damage, and puts a high negative regen on the victim for a medium duration during which they can't be affected by any more chi attacks. That would bring crane in line with its chi mastery niche, close up the gaping hole that is fists of flood, and make chi attack usable.
Crane monks by the skills given should be the arrow/spear of the monk schools.. able to go into the thick of the melee long enough to focus on a single individual and if all goes well finish them. The problem in my estimation is that the design requires crane monks to fight at a disadvantage in order to perform at their peak (must be outnumbered and focused on in order to get any benefit from evasive dodge) but currently the tools they are given are too weak to give them the edge to fight the way they are designed. Fist types are way to easily overcome by immunity and chi attack doesn't come close to delivering for its cost.
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| Re: I know kung fu! A guide to monks (in multiple parts) [message #54605] |
Thu, 24 June 2010 01:43 |
Surez
Messages: 397
Registered: September 2009 |
the Skull Cracker
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Cosign Shiro
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| Re: I know kung fu! A guide to monks (in multiple parts) [message #54606] |
Thu, 24 June 2010 02:06 |
Thurinir
Messages: 7
Registered: May 2010 |
the Craftsman
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That actually does sound like a good adjustment to make it a more playable monk school.
*cheers for Shirotaka's ideas*
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| Re: I know kung fu! A guide to monks (in multiple parts) [message #55745] |
Sun, 08 August 2010 08:12 |
Faerolil (retired)
Messages: 55
Registered: May 2010 |
the Anti-Hero of Famine, Sheep Slaughterer
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Fist of rending was devised by Riallus and myself to give
tiger monks balance with the other monk subs. It is very
similar to open claw fighting but with a very nice twist.
I was partial to the old ancient skill known as cripple.
Suffice to say, fist of rending has a mini-cripple encoded
into it where you can do a leg/arm/eye/throat/head shot
at times if your enemy is foolish enough to stick around
long enough to dance with you.
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Re: I know kung fu! A guide to monks (in multiple parts)
Re: I know kung fu! A guide to monks (in multiple parts)