Ki Bolt, Magic Missiles, and Ruin Make Muggle Monks Moan

Tilomere

Well-known member
I'm pretty sure it does, but Primal Mantle is impractical for ki-bolt:
  • Triggers on melee+ranged+spell; ie. must mantle-dance to ensure a bolt proc
  • Requires matching spell type; ki-bolt is fire? so only fire mantle will proc
  • Only fires once per spell; so, 1/4 the dps of Draconic
IIRC, EA mantle will also proc with similar scale-stacking on ki-bolt, which in it's AE pulse form could be amazing for a monk tank. It won't trigger on melee, BUT it will trigger on light or positive spells, too (eg. renewal and cocoon), which complicates triggering it ONLY on bolt.
Primal has independent melee and caster procs as far as I know, in that you can proc both physical and magical independently. It's good for elite favor leveling to cap.
Hand of Harm procs on strikethrough, making me sortof want to take it and kata of ice and spam CC on everything since I was already using renewal for healing.
Kindof want to retest EA, I thought it didn't work that way.
 

SpartanKiller13

Why do I have 522 ddo build files
There's a note on the wiki SF tree that T4 SF grants 3xMP scaling like monk. It gives base SF ki-bolt scaling as 2xMP. You might need to pump a lot of AP into SF to make it pay.
I think we might have tested that but I don't remember for certain, sorry. Or maybe just the imbue? Still, 32 RS + 24ish SF leaves 24ish for SaD, so Aasimar for Sacred HP? Or ditch the RS idea lol. 41+ SaD 25ish SF seems fine.

My understanding of current threat problems is that modifiers don't apply to mantle procs, which is why ki-bolt dps pulls so much agro. This would be an issue for tanks that want to use it to hold agro as well (can't apply +threat to it either); ie. making it threat-worthy may mean giving up necessary tankiness and essentially turning the build into a dps.
I don't think that can be correct, we had 3-5 people run various ki bolt builds across a few months (some push raids, many normal raids) and AFAIK none were pulling (with -95% or higher spell threat reduction on all of those variants AFAIK). I even brought my Intim swaps so I could grab aggro in chill raids (LH/R1 LVoD grabbing Orthons mainly) because I couldn't hold consistently otherwise. -Threat was definitely something we were building for, and I'd expect to have noticed if it wasn't helping?

My current suspect is procs like DWM, but if mantle procs weren't reduced you'd pull every 2s against an Intim tank (130 Intim = 26k hate, that's a low bar for a Ki Bolt build to hit for more than that every proc especially with raid debuffs going). Our guild has 2ish hate tanks, but we have like 4+ Intim tanks depending on the month so I'm sure it'd have been a frequent issue.
 

Bjond

Well-known member
My current suspect is procs like DWM, but if mantle procs weren't reduced you'd pull every 2s against an Intim tank (130 Intim = 26k hate, that's a low bar for a Ki Bolt build
Heh, 26k is a low bar for anything -- my twf dl/sin does about 10k/line base and 25~30k crit, but iirc it has about threat-80.

There is something out there messing with hate. About the only commonality I've seen is the ones that pull regularly are usually non-standard damage builds (not including newbies in defender stance in that list -- we know why on those ;)).
 

SpartanKiller13

Why do I have 522 ddo build files
Heh, 26k is a low bar for anything -- my twf dl/sin does about 10k/line base and 25~30k crit, but iirc it has about threat-80.

There is something out there messing with hate. About the only commonality I've seen is the ones that pull regularly are usually non-standard damage builds (not including newbies in defender stance in that list -- we know why on those ;)).
Yeah, 26k every 6s = 4.3k Intim eDPS; with -80% threat you're good up til ~21k DPS (presuming no long CC on the tank). Intim just doesn't scale super well by itself. Even 200 Intim = 6.7k eDPS, it's just not worth the investment IMO...

Just saying if mantle procs weren't taking -spell threat one 30k proc would immediately pull after an Intim, let alone 3 of them landing between Intim CD's. Shield throw covers a portion, but not enough.

I could see having >4.5k DPS of like DWM/Acid etc procs with enough doubleshot/debuffs? Biggest commonality I've seen is DXB builds, one of my guildies was pulling yesterday with -150% threat XD but they have lots of procs so I wonder.

Personally I aim for -100% relevant threat and it works pretty well, although I'll settle for -95% XD also means you can go ham immediately and also if the tank gets chain CC'ed you don't have to stop (like THTH or LLoB).
 

mpareto

Member
Hey tilo! I ve looking at your build and was about to ask If a pure dragon disciple could use similar build, but using breath weapon spells + orchid blossom and ruins on a spell rotation, making it a Full caster with some melee backup using collision as weapon
 

saekee

long live ROGUE
Hey tilo! I ve looking at your build and was about to ask If a pure dragon disciple could use similar build, but using breath weapon spells + orchid blossom and ruins on a spell rotation, making it a Full caster with some melee backup using collision as weapon
Well DD does not get ki bolt as you know; the synergy would have been great. I am not sure the scaling is as strong but essentially that is the dev intent that you describe with DD.
 

SpartanKiller13

Why do I have 522 ddo build files
Hey tilo! I ve looking at your build and was about to ask If a pure dragon disciple could use similar build, but using breath weapon spells + orchid blossom and ruins on a spell rotation, making it a Full caster with some melee backup using collision as weapon
You can absolutely play Dragon Disciple as a caster build and I've even heard it's good/great leveling, but Ki Bolt + Draconic Mantle is the interaction that makes these builds strong for endgame and AFAIK DD doesn't get Ki Bolt. (and SF one doesn't scale well even with a /SF/WM split) Also if playing as a Full caster your melee stats will be a lot behind.

You could definitely load Ruin/GRuin on a DD played as a caster, but you'd be missing 2/3 of the pillars holding this build up (Adrenaline + BM & Ki Bolt). I'd recommend Quick Cutter if you want off-melee DPS, and it's good - but at that point your build is a sorta generic AoE DPS thing, using DD spells + Quick Cutter and with GRuin for Reaper/Boss/Champ DPS?
 

SpartanKiller13

Why do I have 522 ddo build files
Haven't tested it, but T4 SF "Light of Glory" looks like it fixes SF's issue with Ki Bolt scaling; that's a LOT of AP to drop in a tree for one node, though.
I also haven't tested, the SF I knew who did testing tried and TR'ed before letting me know so I couldn't push a bunch of tests :p

But if SF works, there's a ton of options that suddenly become available; like T5 RS, T4 SF, T4 SaD seems pretty easy as an everything bagel sort of build.
 

Terranigma

Well-known member
Sacred Fist's Ki bolt doesn't change its Melee Power scaling to match or exceed the Henshin Mystic Ki bolt Melee Power scaling, even with the Light of Glory enhancement taken. Thankfully, I have a character who makes this easy to test (15 Sacred Fist/3 Monk/2 Warlock). I was using Alchemical Earth Attunement being it is a 100% proc that doesn't use Caster Level, but can ride on Ki Bolt's scaling.

Alchemical Earth Attunement from Bound Elemental Ring of Acid
Average Damage at 5 stacks should be 265 acid damage
Done with 250 Melee Power (and 453 Acid Spellpower for the curious)

Average damage when using Otto's Resistible Dance (for a baseline) - 270
Average damage when using Sacred Fist Ki Bolt with Light of Glory - 950
Average damage when using Henshin Mystic's Ki Bolt - 2300

The Otto's Resistible Dance had no scaling, as expected.
The Sacred Fist Ki Bolt looked to attach Melee Power at an x1 scalar; 265 * (2.5 * 1 + 1) = 927.5 which is close to my 950
The Henshin Mystic Ki Bolt looked to attach Melee Power at an x3 scalar; 265 * (2.5 * 3 + 1) = 2252.5 which is close to my 2300
 
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Terranigma

Well-known member
I edited the post to note my ~450 Acid Spellpower. I think it still is Melee Power because I can get the numbers to vary pretty easily when I fluctuate my Melee Power and keep my Spellpower stable.

At 1 stack of Alchemical Earth Attunement, expecting 55 average damage
418 Acid Spellpower

Sacred Fist Ki Bolt (x1 Melee Power)
At 215 Melee Power, average 1-stack acid damage was around 175 (Expected would be about 173 with x3.15 scaling)
At 267 Melee Power, average 1-stack acid damage was around 205 (Expected would be about 202 with x3.67 scaling)

Henshin Mystic Ki Bolt (x3 Melee Power)
At 215 Melee Power, average 1-stack acid damage was around 405 (Expected would be about 410 with x7.45 scaling)
At 267 Melee Power, average 1-stack acid damage was around 480 (Expected would be about 495 with x9.01 scaling)
 
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