I used to play DDO a lot, but quit back when the Forgotten Realms stuff started coming out. I want to get back into things, and need a good build. I really love monk, and apparently they got an overhaul recently, so let's see what you've got for that.
Posted Dec 14, 2016, 8:47 AM UTC
Hey Schoolmonkey, I guess it really depends on what you want to do with your build.
Unarmed Light Monks - These guys have good damage, cc, survivalibility, and are probably the most iconic looking monks out there.
You'll want to go human/dwarf/half orc/half elf and get all the cores in the Shinto enhancement tree. I think the best would be 11 in ninja spy for shadowveil, 41 in shinto, 21 in henyshin, and 7 left for either know the angles in harper or on your racial tree if you don't have harper or don't want know the angles.
For feats grab two weapon fighting, power attack, improved critical Blugeon, and stunning fist as well as the prereqs for Whirlwind attack, and of course WA itself, or the cleaves and weapon focus feats if you do not want WA. Epic feats are a bit more subjective but get power critical and the two monk only feats for sure. If you want I can also post a breakdown of equipment, for weapons just use thunderforged wraps/storms harness at endgame and whatever you can get your hands on before.
Ninja Spy - These monks have amazing damage, much worse cc (although once you pick up dire charge at lvl 29 it can be fairly good), and slightly less survivability in my experience.
For race I would choose human/drow/elf, I have seen a few different builds for how this one should go, but go dark monk and duel wield shortswords, really abusing shadow double to have almost 100% doublestrike at all times.
Mix in the same amount of henyshin as above for melee power, and know the angles for weapon damage. You may want to invest in shinto enough for iron skin, but it is not neccesary if you feel you have enough prr elsewhere. Its very effective at taking down single targets fast. You may want to pick up whirlwhind attack as well, as I find that monks tend to struggle vs large groups of enemies until later levels where they have dire charge to help mitigate this.
For weapons, thunderforged/legendary greensteel are popular, but I don't know for sure what's considered the "best in slot" for endgame.
Monkchers/Throwers - I don't know much about these but they are also quite popular. I will say that I have ran with many, and been impressed by many.
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I recently played a life of unarmed Light Monk using the Deep Gnome Iconic race. I leveled up Monk then, used a +1 Lesser Heart of Wood to swap out the first level to go pure Monk. I tend to use a "speed Monk" style and the Deep Gnome racial enhancement tree seems to have a good synergy with the Monk, in general. I really enjoyed it and am considering using it as another life in the future.
That sounds really cool! What enhancements did you end up taking?
I assume you're asking specifically about the Deep Gnome racial Enhancement Tree.
I took all the Core; total: +4 to dodge, +2 to Wisdom, and +6 to Magical Resistance Rating.
Tier 1: Underdark Experience; +3 to all saves.
Tier 2: Hardy Nature; +6 shield bonus to AC, +3 Physical Resistance Rating.
Tier 2: Permanant Blur.
I'm big into the avoiding damage before it occurs and so, load up on things like AC, dodge, blur, concealment, anything like that. I ran him as a Dex-based Monk for To-Hit and Damage. This is also handy with adding to AC and keeping the Evasion ability as useful as possible. Of course, for Monks, extra Wisdom also translates to extra AC as well as being the main basis for saves vs most Monk abilities.
I also make sure I have the Grandmaster of Flowers Epic Destiny, Tier 5, "Protection of Soul", which then makes it so I don't automatically fail a Reflex on a roll of 1. With decent Reflex saves (in the 60's) I could literally walk back and forth through, and on, traps and take zero damage, not to mention any Reflex-based spells/abilities lobbed at me.
I ran at at just over a 120 AC (not tanky, but serviceable), mid-60's Reflex, and 30% dodge, along with the aforementioned Permanent Blur and other assorted "no damage" protections. I had a frigging blast.
Whats your opinion on multi-classing? I ran an old fashioned 8/6/6 build mixing rogue, monk, and paladin using quarterstaves and with a little gear optimization its stats were amazing for a robe wearer. It was one of my most fun lives yet.
It had less focus on the "no damage" protections and more on mitigation. Mid 80's to 90's on all saves, over 200 AC, over 150 PRR, 50 MRR, and 1.5k hp. Damage output could have been better, but I chose survivability.
And something that I recommend to just about anyone with decent heal amp, is if you have a gear slot that is not offering much, like for me it used to be the necklace, to fill the slot with an hp regen LGS of tier 1 and 2 since those are relatively easy to build. Healing for 60+ every 10 seconds isn't a ton but it can help so much on non EE stuff.
I still cannot wait to TR back into being a pure monk and going back to unarmed, I am just waiting to get a few more heroic lives done since I already have all 3 monk past lives (it was the class that made DDO enjoyable for me way back when Epic content was simply Epic and fairly challenging, and I ended up playing it 4 lives in a row, using a +20 heart that was provided when I came back from a several year break to grab a pally life)
I too am a returning player who started a brand spanking new monk. After some reddit searching and google-fu I came across The book of Syncletica. It has been extreamly helpful. I'm very much a novice but this is really helping me learn to love playing a monk.
I love playing monks and I love that site.
I've been studying that too.