A few questions about a Monk. . .

[sentry76]

I just very recently started playing Horizons and have not decided on a school to keep yet. The one that sounds most interesting to me is the Monk and some of its Disciples. What worries me is that I have read many posts on here about how broken the Monk school is. But these seem to be quite old posts.

My question is are these posts outdated or is this still a broken school?
And is it possible to level a Monk or its Disciples solo into the higher levels?
I will mostly be playing with my wifes character and she is choosing Guardian , so im hoping Monk will work well with it as a duo.


Thanks for any comments or suggestions.

[Seranthor]

yes, imo Monk and the disciples are still broken.
yes, you can probably level them solo into the higher levels, depends on how much pain your willing to endure.

good luck with your choice of classes.

[tramsan]

My main character is a L100 storm disciple. I have done the vast majority of those levels solo. While it's true you will need other classes (most importantly healer and something for strength like fitter) to be effective, I consider that to be the test of patience given each monk or disciple.

As for the actual play, I consider pure monk to be one of the most boring schools you can take. The disciples, however, (and IMO especially storm) are some of the most fun classes in the game. They really feel unique. Disciples work well in groups, both as damage dealers (with the right backup classes) and support (since they get access to almost the entire spell range for arcane or mystic magic.)

[Gremblthrg]

I would honestly recommend against going unarmed, unless you have quite a lot of patience.

Without fitter, you will need to fight things below your level, and even then may still die. With fitter (and good gear) you should be able to kill things your level, but still won't have as easy a time of it as other classes.
If you multiclass a good bit, you can make a monk/disciple viable; but probably not as effective as if you just stay in one of the other classes you level to help monk. Unarmed is lower damage, lower delay, so as long as you get strength and unarmed skill high enough to pass the armor threshold, you can get about the same DPS as other melee classes UNSTYLED. When it comes to doing crits and multistrike (monk/disciples don't get cleave, which most if not all warrior prestige/hybrid classes do), expect to do below half the damage that a two hand melee user with similar stats would get, and without the benefit of a shield that a one hand weapon user gets.

Also, monk/disciple classes get 18 health/level, lower than all the other primary melee classes, as well as lower armor - leather. Berserker is the only other melee class to get leather, but they also get 10 evade, 20 HP, 11 2hs and 10 strength per level, as well as passive abils to raise HP and armor.
You could multiclass a disciple for casting, but since their casting skills and stats are too low to be effective as a caster, you would need to multiclass to caster schools for better skills and stats - and if you are going to do that, you could just as well multi to those schools and then be a caster in plate and shield, as pally or cleric using nature/spirit/blight/life (cleric getting access to all health spell lines), or as a knoc or battlemage using fire/ice/energy/mind/summon, with 600+ more armor (480 base armor difference between 910 leather and 910 plate, and over 120 armor from a mith shield - not counting armor crystal in shield, and class abils such as Blessing of Istaria that raise armor more) and shield blocking capability.

In short? pure monk/disciples are pretty gimp, and while they can be better with multiclassing, they fall short of other classes doing the same thing.

The disciples get interesting fist buffs, so let me explain those to you...
Storm Disciple: Lightning Claws has a chance to proc a short duration stun whenever you hit with melee, and with Flurry can practically chain stun while flurry lasts - but don't expect to do much damage during this time, Flurry adds additional attacks per round but lowers the damage you do, so will drop your damage per hit most likely into the teens. Several of the high end bosses/uniques are stun immune. Ranger and Elemental Archer get a similar ability, Lightning Arrows, so can do the same thing except at bow range, and wearing chain armor.
Spirit Disciple: Vampiric Touch has a chance to heal yourself for 50% of the melee damage you do; using unarmed, this doesn't steal much life, but if you multiclass with a 2hc (two hand crush - disciples can use staves) class (guardian is good for this) you can do good damage particularly on special attacks, so it certainly has potential. ELAR gets a similar ability, Spirit Arrows, so can steal life at bow range, but cannot multiclass for significantly higher damage special attacks.
Ice Disciple: Freezing Touch has a chance to put a debuff on what you hit to lengthen its delay and recycle for 30 seconds, so if you keep meleeing a mob you will keep this debuff on them; they have long been the most broken class in the game with abils that *still* don't work, and their Ice Armor (50/100/150 armor/ethereal armor) doesn't stack with most other armor abils and spells. Very few things a player can do will lengthen a mob's attack recycle, but for delay, Dispirit Foe (level 9 cleric) is about twice as strong as the highest Freezing Touch (level 94 ice disc) and is masterable.
Flame Disciple: Fists of Flame adds flame damage with every successful melee hit, so it adds more DPS using unarmed instead of the slower 2hc option from multiclass; the flame damage hit is seperate from the melee hit itself, similar to a weapon crystal when it procs. the Fists of Flame damage is not affected by any melee modifiers - Nature's Fury, Power Style, even Melee Flurry - so with Flurry it can do a nice bit of damage. On high armor targets, it is affected even more than regular unarmed damage by armor, and can drop below the armor threshold, doing single digit or even 0 damage. Fists of Flame damage seems to be based on both Strength and your current weapon skill (unarmed if fighting unarmed, 2hc if using a staff), and is not affected by the damage of your current weapon itself.

None of these fist buffs are masterable, nor will they carry over if you cast them as a disciple and then change class.

For a more complete list of monk/disciple issues, please see the 'Monk issue List' thread started and maintained by evilcarl, in this same subforum.

Most monk/disciple mains have switched to a different main, become a primary crafter, or quit playing entirely; and a review and rebalance is still a long way off. While the classes sound good, they are in dire need of help, and I wanted to warn you so that you don't have to experience the frustration that we have gone through.

- Gremblthrg, flame disciple
level 100 flame disciple, fitter, monk, healer, mage

[AA0]

Monks are pretty poor, but the dispicles aren't as bad as many people think. There are some broken and underpowered abilities but its main fault is the lack of combat damage. With techs and training point, plus fitter for a huge boost to damage its very doable, infact you can do some nasty damage if you really tech yourself out with all those chain attacks.
Heals of course help everyone.

[HratLi]

Hehe... AAO, it's not IMPOSSIBLE, but the warning should still be that they will have to work a LOT LOT harder to get to the point they can solo the same things that others do as a straight single class, not even getting into multiclassing yet.

Levelling Fitter to 100 is no trivial feat, especially if they don't enjoy crafting.

I think that we are getting used to looking at the new Storm Disciple dogs, and might forget that they are more buff than any Spirit Disciple will ever be. That lack of combat damage is a pretty big fault, it affects your whole ADVENTURING side of the game, and at higher levels even your crafting side because it will take you 3-5 minutes to kill the same monster that someone else carying a 40burden weapon can 3 hit.

I myself LOVE being a Spirit Disciple, it's what I have always wanted to play, but it's taken me years to get to the point I can hold my own like single classed players. It took 100 fitter (STR), 100 Spirit Disciple(Main), 92 Healer (Heal and focus to land spells), 100 Guardian(2hc and misc abilities), and 92 enchanter(Was for focus/power before I took healer) plus a bunch of other little classes to get to this point. Now though, I can solo some really scary monsters, but more than one monster 30 levels under my rating and It's 50/50 if I make it out with out a /recall.

If you do take a monk type class, I suggest that you stay away from plain monk and IceD.

-HratLi

[AA0]

As a ranger I know what low damage is like, there are some mobs if you don't boost your strength that you deal single target damage to, but you can really make up for it and excel if you are good. Its not difficult at all but the strength is a must. I still haven't hit a heartseeker (critical) for over 1k even with banish armour on a mob, but I do dish it out very well over time.

Storm, and Flame dispicles aren't all that bad, storm is probably the strongest of them all with lightning fists and natural healing.

[Xarog]

I have found vampiric touch to be very useful, actually. Usually it steals enough life that I don't have to bother using heals if I'm attacking something that's lvl 90-100.

But it really does become disgustingly powerful once you get spirit form. Since getting fitter past lvl 60, and taking the trouble to get unbridled energy, my chain attacks have been doing 300+ damage. At lvl 94, vampiric touch activates 50% of the time, so it's an average of 75 health healed for every attack I make, and that's nothing to sneeze at. I'm really looking forward to seeing what I can manage once I do the last 20 fitter levels and max out my strength.

(crit strike only does 800 damage with unarmed though - kinda ridiculous considering what I can do with chain attacks. :P)

[Gremblthrg]

I rarely get a chain attack for that much (300+), and run with 1700-1900 strength in combat mode, but with power style/nature's fury/guardian's force/(ice/energy) attack V/unbridled, my regular attacks are in the 170-200 range roughly on most mobs. Even at 200 dmg a hit, the average healing from vamp touch would be about the same per second as a teched Revit V - which isn't bad, it can be enough on a regular tier V mob - but on tougher mobs, taking 50+ more damage per hit from having lighter armor pretty much cancels out the benefit of lifestealing in leathers.

an 800 crit is really good for unarmed; I have yet to break 1k on a crit. Without all the melee damage modifier abils up, crits are generally in the 300-400 range. However, a 2-hander (or Knoc with summoned sword) can get crits of 2k+. For a flame disciple, Melee Flurry makes up for it, but the other disciples don't really get a damage boost from flurry.

Even the beefed up 'storm disciple' hounds suffer from the same problem; for as hard as their regular attacks hit, their crits are still pretty weak.

For a ranger, it's not so bad having low damage, since they hit at range and can kite mobs; disciples need to fight toe to toe, and both take hits and give them.


On a side note, it is possible to get decent damage as a flame disciple, especially as a gnome - I got to fight Valkor recently, and pretty sure I was second only in damage dealing to a warrior using Heroism. (warrior, me, two nukers, two menders.) In the 1 min flurry was up, I dealt around 25k - 35k damage in 650-750 or so seperate hits.. the 'papercuts of doom.' The tradeoff is that with low armor and no TPs in evasion, I die pretty quick against most tough mobs, so I can't kill the new event mobs that dragons have an easy time with.

-Grem

[Xarog]

I rarely get a chain attack for that much (300+), and run with 1700-1900 strength in combat mode, but with power style/nature's fury/guardian's force/(ice/energy) attack V/unbridled, my regular attacks are in the 170-200 range roughly on most mobs. Even at 200 dmg a hit, the average healing from vamp touch would be about the same per second as a teched Revit V - which isn't bad, it can be enough on a regular tier V mob - but on tougher mobs, taking 50+ more damage per hit from having lighter armor pretty much cancels out the benefit of lifestealing in leathers.

an 800 crit is really good for unarmed; I have yet to break 1k on a crit. Without all the melee damage modifier abils up, crits are generally in the 300-400 range. However, a 2-hander (or Knoc with summoned sword) can get crits of 2k+. For a flame disciple, Melee Flurry makes up for it, but the other disciples don't really get a damage boost from flurry.

the 800 crit and the 300+ damage chain attacks are while in spirit form.

[Gremblthrg]

What is spirit form? I thought that it just gave +1k evasion or some such.
Which is still quite nice, mind you.
-Grem

[tramsan]

L80 SPRD ability, gives +2k evasion (iirc) and damage becomes ethereal.

[Gremblthrg]

+2k evasion *and* ethereal damage?
Trade ya! Flame disc gets a broken damage shield aura at 78 that spams feedback constantly.
-Grem

[Xarog]

It *was* 2k armour, but it's now 1k evasion. And yes, all damage is ethereal. Recharge is 10 minutes, lasts 1 minute. Stacks with Iron body and evasive style, btw.

[Ijs]

I'm considering spirit disciple for an alt? Any significant changes to the above info in the past couple of months?

[Ijs]

Seems I can't edit that post. Went with SPRD! Now, the next question, do monks get any specific quests after level 20? At level 30? Every 10 levels?

(Gotta admit, getting 2 measly monk quests in the first 19 levels was a major, major disappointment. Especially when dragons get, what? 5-6 adventure quests, and that's before they get to lvl 10!)

[HratLi]

No new changes, and as you probably already found, spiritD gets no other quests. They USED to get a few (kill 10 of x) just like the other adventuring schools, but they were for mobs that dissapeared during merger, so were useless anyway. I eventually bugged them so much about updating it that they just removed them entirely. Since I WAS the only active SpiritD in the game for a long time, fixing it wasn't exactly high on the list. I think Monk is the only story line quest of all the monk/Disciples.

Dispite that, it's a fun class, though your spells won't do much until you get to around level 50-55 or so if I recall. But once they start landing you'll be rocking.
-HratLi

[Tigris]

Monks and Disciples are VERY FUN to play, but unlike their class definition of being a DPS class, they are not. That is how Monks/Disciples are broken. They are supposed to do massive damage over time with their constant fast punches. But instead the damage is quite weak.

Now we compensate for this weakness with HEAVY multiclassing, raising Fitter to high levels, but still... we are not what we could or should be. As one of the last pure unmulticlassed STMDs, I'm not very effective without the heavy multiclassing. Monks and Disciples are NOT standalone classes... unless your a glutton for punishment.

[Gremblthrg]

Now, the next question, do monks get any specific quests after level 20? At level 30? Every 10 levels?

I remember there being a level 5 quest for Monk's Edge (+10 to hit with unarmed attacks), a level 10 quest to kill maggots, and the level 20 quest to Visit the Disciples, that allows you to join the disciple schools and gives you a medallion (neck jewelry). Also, at level 30 monks get a quest with the reward being Spirit of the Monkey, a passive +30 dex. All these quests are for Monk itself, there are no trainer quests for the disciple classes.
-Grem

[IvyMindFlayer]

Grem... can you give more info about the +30 passive ability? I have 60 lvls of monk and I wouldn't mind going back and doing that quest. Does it start in Kion?