New Monk - Many Questions!

[Riltus]

Voln is pretty cool for monks though and worth considering especially for a UAC build. One question to ask is if Voln still "penalizes" you for being low level of if favor gain is based on like level kills now.I don't know if that's changed now or not. Anyway, It gives you a lot of flexibility and access to some society benefits that Minor Mental doesn't cover, saves stamina, saves mana and self bless means never having to ask.

Favor gained = .ceil((character level/15) * creature level). Symbol use favor cost is level dependent. It is relatively more expensive to both advance and use symbols at low levels. A level 15 character killing a level 15 undead gains 15 favor ((15/15) * 15) with a symbol of return cost of 188 favor. That equals approximately 12.53 same level kills per use. A level 100 character gains 667 favor per SLK [.ceil((100/15) * 100). The sym of return cost for a capped character is 2174 units which is ~3.26 SLKs (2174/667) per use.

https://gswiki.play.net/Favor

Mark

[khorpulent]

Yeah, a bunch of enhancives aren't really necessary, but a few stamina recovery enhancives will make a BIG difference. Being able to mstrike over and over without having stamina problems makes a huge difference to a monk, since mstrike times are so low (especially with a halfling). At least put stamina recovery on your badge.

I do kind of wish I could bless my own stuff with Voln powers now that I'm close to cap and have to hung in mixed undead/living hunting areas. The annoying thing about hunting undead with UAC is that you use up a bless pretty quickly with all those jabs and stuff.

As far as soloing warcamps with UAC, I found that my monk has been about my only character who could effectively solo all the way from level 5 on up. I find that flurry of blows makes a big difference, especially if you're using fire flares against trolls (though I cheat with greater fire flares). When my monk was under 20 I could just sit there and jab every 2 seconds and could basically clear out a warcamp without a scratch that way. Even if you want to go with Krynch in the long run, I still like using flurry under 20 cause everything has so little HP.

And I think you people are crazy for learning so many spells so soon. Monks are squares, man. And considering how minimally useful everything between 108-119 is, it seems like shitton of points just for 20 TD. If you stop at 103, you'd save 646 MTP from skipping those 17 ranks. If my math is right, that works out to 71 dodging ranks. Essentially, you're trading a lot of DS for a little TD. Alternatively, you could put those 17 ranks into minor mental and still pick up some extra TD and DS, plus you're boosting your CS with 1219/1210.

It's also worth keeping in mind that every four MnM ranks over the 8th rank gives you +1 generic TD from 1208 (well, and you also get +1 MTD for every 2 ranks, for what that's worth). You also gain 1 DS for every rank above 1220 and beef up your 1207 with MnM ranks.

[Stumplicker]

I sort of agree about the minor spirit tree, but not really. 115 is very useful, and 120 gives DS in addition to TD. I stuck with 103 until 59. I could've gotten away with going just for 107 for self sufficiency, but my DS wasn't pushed over the mark even with 3x dodge at that point where I could stay full offensive and not get hit all the time, so I found going to 120 was useful. 102 also scales up the DS with more minor spirit ranks. Between that and 120, you're getting a good chunk of DS, a good chunk of TD, and the ability to roll twice on some of your warding checks. And I was back to 3x dodge by 70 after the sprint to 120 at 59. NOTE: The trade-off there is that I didn't even think about starting lores until 75 and stuck with 55 MoC ranks until around 90, when I went to 90 ranks.

[Donquix]

Yeah, a bunch of enhancives aren't really necessary, but a few stamina recovery enhancives will make a BIG difference. Being able to mstrike over and over without having stamina problems makes a huge difference to a monk, since mstrike times are so low (especially with a halfling). At least put stamina recovery on your badge.

I do kind of wish I could bless my own stuff with Voln powers now that I'm close to cap and have to hung in mixed undead/living hunting areas. The annoying thing about hunting undead with UAC is that you use up a bless pretty quickly with all those jabs and stuff.

As far as soloing warcamps with UAC, I found that my monk has been about my only character who could effectively solo all the way from level 5 on up. I find that flurry of blows makes a big difference, especially if you're using fire flares against trolls (though I cheat with greater fire flares). When my monk was under 20 I could just sit there and jab every 2 seconds and could basically clear out a warcamp without a scratch that way. Even if you want to go with Krynch in the long run, I still like using flurry under 20 cause everything has so little HP.

And I think you people are crazy for learning so many spells so soon. Monks are squares, man. And considering how minimally useful everything between 108-119 is, it seems like shitton of points just for 20 TD. If you stop at 103, you'd save 646 MTP from skipping those 17 ranks. If my math is right, that works out to 71 dodging ranks. Essentially, you're trading a lot of DS for a little TD. Alternatively, you could put those 17 ranks into minor mental and still pick up some extra TD and DS, plus you're boosting your CS with 1219/1210.

It's also worth keeping in mind that every four MnM ranks over the 8th rank gives you +1 generic TD from 1208 (well, and you also get +1 MTD for every 2 ranks, for what that's worth). You also gain 1 DS for every rank above 1220 and beef up your 1207 with MnM ranks.

Monks are squares in name only. To this day any problems the class has are a direct result of the bullshit cop out to not make a monk list.

That said, i'm not sure i'd go as magical as i was to get 120 now that MoC is a thing (i still advocate getting 1220 ASAP. All of those buffs, 1207 being more reliable, etc.). Didn't need dodging ranks. If things can't hit me in offensive I think i'm good defense wise. Its kinda fuzzy now but I may have fixskilled into 120. 1220 + 107 asap, then went all physical, and then the yearly fixskill was coming up anyway so i fixskilled to 120 when I had the points to have minimal compromise before the fixskill date. I was hunting in RR or zul or something so the convenience of having self-cast 100's was nice.

DS is a lot easier to get. TD isn't.

[wetsand]

I went really spell heavy on my monk (1220 by 20 and 120 by 45). My reasoning was the first 45 levels are way easier than the last 55 levels. So I got all my spells "done" early. I never really felt that underpowered at 1x cman, 1x PF, and 2x dodge. My end goal was to be self sustaining and be able to hunt where ever I wanted to. I picked Voln because it allows me to self bless and NOT run out of blesses mid mstrike. Not to mention seeking and return are the bees knees.

[khorpulent]

1x CM and PF? You just made my head explode.

My monk has basically just gone straight up minor mental. At 91 he now has up to 1235 and 102. It worked for me -- I've haven't had any trouble with magical creatures that I can recall.

And I agree that monks aren't quite as "square" as warriors and rogues. It does take a warrior more than 3x as many points to train in spell research than it does a monk, but it also costs monks twice as much to learn spells than rangers or bards. And of course, all the semi classes can 2x in spells, versus monks that can only 1x.

Maybe monks need a new shape. Perhaps they're hexagons?

[Stumplicker]

1x CM and PF? You just made my head explode.

My monk has basically just gone straight up minor mental. At 91 he now has up to 1235 and 102. It worked for me -- I've haven't had any trouble with magical creatures that I can recall.

!!! You gotta go for 36 man! Don't stop at 35! You cray! 36 is a breakpoint for an extra GTD from Mindward!

[khorpulent]

I'll get there, my monk is only 91! I may actually keep going up the MnM circle from there because I care more about the extra CS for 1219 than the TD from 120. That might change one of these days if I ever start hunting in actual hunting areas instead of warcamps.

My training plan is generally skewed toward warcamping and bandits, so I tend to value crowd control more than I do TD. It seems like I ward like-level creatures fairly well with 35 ranks, but I'd like to add to that margin a little more if I can.

I did get into some trouble from spells when I made my first foray into Nelemar, but I reckon the extra 27 TD I'll pick up from those last 9 levels should help until I eventually get 120 down the line.

[audioserf]

Up to level 7 on my little dude, and about to do the rank 10 GOS task. I've razed 9 camps solo. 15 ranks of MOC plus rank 1 of Flurry of Blows is ridiculously fun on a room of 3 Grim. I'll have to do some reading to understand the full workings of Krynch because right now I can't think why I'd use that instead of Flurry. While GOS has been fun so far I don't plan to do a whole ton of warcamping after mastering because I like the variety of hunting in different areas and I'm an Adventurer's Guild slave in my heart of hearts.

Right now I'm set up with:

2x Brawl
2x PF
2x CM
2x Dodge
15 MOC
1x Perception
5 HP
3 MnM

I could go whole hog 3x PF/Dodge for now because I'm almost always Dreaven'd but I'm trying to get a feel for how playing a more spell heavy (1220 and 103 by 30) build would feel.

[Stumplicker]

Krynch is demonstrated in my guide under the "How to punch stuff good" section, with the combat logs. I think it's also demonstrated in the comprehensive monk guide because some douchebag just copied and pasted sections of my guide into a different page for that like a freshman passing a wikipedia entry off as an essay by changing just enough words. Essentially it's just a chance to start back over at your previous kill's positioning. If you're at excellent tier on a critter and kill it, on the next critter you hit, Krynch can fire and set your kill automatically at excellent tier, or good, or whatever you were at on the last critter.