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

[Tilomere]

I tried out some adrenaline strikes and was underwhelmed at least for leveling.

I've been thinking about what to use for strike, and also how to tank better, with better access to AoE stun.

I've been thinking of using Orchid Blossom and Inner Focus for ki to use ki bolt, and spending extra feats on light, medium, heavy armor, and master's touching a shield.

Being uncentered puts you at -4 ki regen (per 5+ or so seconds). Which is bugged because it isn't taking into account ki regen abilities, but is still fine, because GMOF still generates enough Ki.

Thinking of halfing dex + con based, with VKF as a thrower, and throwing shield for AoE stun/taunt and better US synergy. Melee power to throwing dagger. Will boost MRR to 200 or so then double it with shield vs. reflex. Lose water stance, gain 150 MRR or so, doubled vs. reflex for tanking.

Or maybe a fat raged dwarf dwarven axe/shield/plate build. Draconic let's you cast while raged, and a fighter and dark apostate or 3 paladin levels would give all the feats/trance/imbue to do so.

Enhancement sample, but really you just need ki bolt.

When I said in the OP this works with any tree a monk has access to, I didn't just mean usual suspects. I meant any tree a monk has access to, including ones that don't involve being centered to use, like the dwarven axe/plate enhancements in racial dwarf tree.

 

[Aerendil]

Shows you the state of Monk when the most powerful Monk is to... not be a Monk, lol.

 

[Mokune]

I hit 29 and put on my Autumn Caster Set, dropped PA mantle and tree down to 7pts. Kept US as is. Dropped all the SD and went heavy into DI Acid with Energy Burst Dot and Mantle. I havn't played yet but eager to see how it performs. I usually jump cast GCS and w/e but hoping there is some benefit from the mobile casting thing in Tier4. I miss Quicken with GCS but w/e.

My play style, goals and challenge level are different but it's fun to play a monk as a magic-user. Crazy Taoist Wizard, Wu Jen w/e.

 

[Mokune]

All I can say is much of 23-29 would have been smoother with DI Mantle and Ki Bolt dot proc...

Also, a Tiefling HeM with the Scorch debuff and DI Fire Dot etc etc is in my future me thinks.

 

[Tilomere]

Shows you the state of Monk when the most powerful Monk is to... not be a Monk, lol.

Just because it is raged, wearing plate, con based dwarf dwarven axe, with a tower shield doesn't make it not a monk.

Its still a monk, with tradeoffs. It's fat and slow, but hearty, and magic reflex damage bounces off of its shield, but it evades like a barn. Regardless, it still ustilizes Ki management and abilities.

Regardless of your build, you will find this to be a lot more monk than a razorclaw fighter, the other alternative for most powerful monk. Updated OP for clarity on uncentered builds and touched it up overall for better readibility.

 

[kemton]

Saw a 14 ranger / 6 monk tank r10s with a healer. Was dodge tanking decently well. Occasionally had to slow down for dodge CDs because he was using GMoF/Vistani/Tempest. It made me think about trying SD post 66.

 

[saekee]

IoD mats extra for trappers and lockpicks:

Whispers of return: secret door with traps chest; go around and kill ooze opt. 2 fast chests
Wild Thing: Copru opt and water thingy, very fast. If you have a way to reset the quest with another person, or dual box, you can hit all three with end chest. Stealth to end chest makes an easy farm.
Spiders and flies: Three chests—spider, sneak to secret door locked chest, then end fight—quest will not be complete so repeat. If you sneak, many mobs will remain inactive.

For bollywogs one, I would do te secret door only and repeat, although making my way to the first named one was not too much longer.
Plundering Pirates has two chests if desperate; the underwater and the animal tamer. Not super fast but doable.

 

[saekee]

Does Fan of Knives proc this stuff? If so, is it Force spell power/lore the one needed? Just thinking of options for my assassin.

 

[Tilomere]

Does Fan of Knives proc this stuff? If so, is it Force spell power/lore the one needed? Just thinking of options for my assassin.

The answer is complex and I'm going to leave rogue design to you!

To be honest, I'm half surprised you say the dagger throw doesn't work, which indicates the ability DC is bugged and not per level of rogue, and that the ability doesn't have caster leveling. But could we really go years without people knowing how an ability works or noticing that its DC is bugged? Don't answer that, it's rhetorical.

 

[saekee]

The answer is complex and I'm going to leave rogue design to you!

To be honest, I'm half surprised you say the dagger throw doesn't work, which indicates the ability DC is bugged and not per level of rogue, and that the ability doesn't have caster leveling. But could we really go years without people knowing how an ability works or noticing that its DC is bugged? Don't answer that, it's rhetorical.

hah! honestly Rogues never use the dagger throw. Devs have been obsessedly concerned with blindness procs and forever convinced that they are the ultimate power for rogues—see Legendary GS, Shadowdancer occasional buffs, etc. I use a radiance kukri in heroics but stuff is usually dead before the blindess matters—and bosses are ofc unaffected.

Which means that it would be funny if the dagger throw had some crazy scaling like you have found with ki bolt.

 

[BiggerTrolls]

How did ki bolt spell power plus melee power testing shake out? 3x spell power? Melee power as a factor? I'm hesitant to TR without understanding the mechanic a bit more.

 

[peng]

My testing seemed to show that a draconic mantle proc off ki bolt has 3x *spellpower* scaling, and no melee power scaling.

 

[BiggerTrolls]

I read that too, but I didnt know if it was the way and the troof.

 

[Mokune]

The damage from the Ki Bolt wasn't that impressive in and of itself but the Acid Dot from DI Mantle would do 4-6k a tick with numbers as high as 13k on a crit. This is on a 20 HeM Tabaxi Monk using Autumn Feywild Set and Ring of Falls Decay for Acid SP and Crit. Legendary non-Sentient Moonbeam in main hand. Even not ideally geared Ki Bolt is a near insta-kill in R1

 

[BiggerTrolls]

Thanks for the clarity from you both!
One more dumb question from me, any reason to include half elf dragon mark lighting thing with muggle monk? The dex save seems like a bit of a build cost, but the new augments give plenty of dragonmark charges...

I have the lives and most of the gears to wade into the monkly world of wiztarding.

 

[Mokune]

Thanks for the clarity from you both!
One more dumb question from me, any reason to include half elf dragon mark lighting thing with muggle monk? The dex save seems like a bit of a build cost, but the new augments give plenty of dragonmark charges...

I have the lives and most of the gears to wade into the monkly world of wiztarding.

I couldn't find any reference to what stat the DC for electric loop and call lightning storm is based on. They might have some utility in heroics. If you have max/empower/intensify metas turned on then the proc from DI will be affected. Even if it triggers on something like Greater Color Spray which I am using on this pure Monk build so no meta magics and the DoT is pretty weak when triggered off GSC, or Solid Fog from a clicky for instance.

So, with no meta magics the Dragon mark spell triggered DI procs will be lower than optimal I would guess.

The DI proc from Ki Bolt scaling with melee power and SP appears to fuel the extra damage.

Other attacks that scale with melee power or ranged power may also work this way but I can't think of any at the moment.

If you did something like 1Wiz/1War/18Monk or really any flavor as long as you qualify for metas and you wanted to spend the Feats you could get Max/Empower/Intesify. Of course going this route locks you out of Cauldron of Fire and Earth Wind and Fire Dance Finisher which is fun af and can strike through. But it could be worth sacrificing the capstone to pick up the Lock Aura for Arcane Warrior and 1 Wiz nets a Feat and 1 point in EK nets a Cleave. 1 point in AM Evoker gives a MM SLA with free metas.



I was intrigued by Tilos build idea and had never played a pure Henshin Mystic. It was really fun.

 

[Mokune]

I've been thinking about what to use for strike, and also how to tank better, with better access to AoE stun.

I've been thinking of using Orchid Blossom and Inner Focus for ki to use ki bolt, and spending extra feats on light, medium, heavy armor, and master's touching a shield.

Being uncentered puts you at -4 ki regen (per 5+ or so seconds). Which is bugged because it isn't taking into account ki regen abilities, but is still fine, because GMOF still generates enough Ki.

Thinking of halfing dex + con based, with VKF as a thrower, and throwing shield for AoE stun/taunt and better US synergy. Melee power to throwing dagger. Will boost MRR to 200 or so then double it with shield vs. reflex. Lose water stance, gain 150 MRR or so, doubled vs. reflex for tanking.

Or maybe a fat raged dwarf dwarven axe/shield/plate build. Draconic let's you cast while raged, and a fighter and dark apostate or 3 paladin levels would give all the feats/trance/imbue to do so.



When I said in the OP this works with any tree a monk has access to, I didn't just mean usual suspects. I meant any tree a monk has access to, including ones that don't involve being centered to use, like the dwarven axe/plate enhancements in racial dwarf tree.

Tankenstein... but also got me thinking about Dragonlord Fighter Sunder Elemental Bypass effect or Tiefling Improved Scorch in between Ki Bolt CDs followed by a fully meta'd Ki Bolt. With 3+ Levels Monk, 1 Warlock level and the rest Dragonlord Fighter maybe? So many Feats seems super tasty. Wondering if the RP from 10K stars would apply to Fan of Knives if wielding a Shuriken...

 

[BiggerTrolls]

I did a tiny round of testing on a no life monk at level 23. The draconic mantle scaling was pretty wild to see in action with only 125~ spell power. I tried cold DI and fire DI. The difference between the two is hard to quantify because of the inherent monk lowering of fire resist. Problem for me was I grabbed the sharn fire caster stick(item lvl 15) and didnt realize til the end. So my fire power was closer to double my cold, 130~ vs 250~... Now I can't wait to pull the trigger on a TR. I experienced mantle waste with color spray, not fun.

I'm leaning on an EK wiz build that focuses on spell power and imbues for lower reaper, with ruins ofc. Looks wild, if the scaling on t5 ek cleave holds up.

 

[Mokune]

I am wrapping up IPLs on my main and concurrently getting archetype PLs because why not...
Currently on Bladeforged 3Pal/5DA/12DH making it work.

I have one more Bladeforged life and want to get a 2nd DH life as well and this thread got me thinking.

However/Whenever I ITR I believe I will try BF with 3Pal/6Monk/11DH,Ranger Cha Build with Divine Might, FI GCS and Ki Bolt, HW or Daggers with Dodge, Mobility, Spring Attack, WW Attack, Quicken, Max, Emp, Precision and Possibly Stunning Fist or ImpCrit Piercing if using VKF

Too many great Enhancement Trees available to support this build. But 16 in BF tree for Power of the Forge, 12 in FI, 5 HeM for Ki Bolt and 8 for 2 min Divine Might. I have all the racial points but cannot recall how many that is I think I had to put maybe 2 of the regular 80 into BF. So that's about 27 min spent leaving 53 which could be split a number ways. I could put 11 more into FI for Fan of Shadow Knives leaving 42 that I could dump into VKF for capstone and put the last point where ever. Which would net some tasty melee power from Power of the Forge and VKF Capstone for Fan of Knives in VKF, Ki Bolt (ofc), and Fan of Shadow Knives. With the added benefit of Metas and SP to effects that are affected by such things.
I feel Arcane Warrior could stay stacked fairly nicely too w/o Warlock.

 

[saekee]

I am wrapping up IPLs on my main and concurrently getting archetype PLs because why not...
Currently on Bladeforged 3Pal/5DA/12DH making it work.

I have one more Bladeforged life and want to get a 2nd DH life as well and this thread got me thinking.

However/Whenever I ITR I believe I will try BF with 3Pal/6Monk/11DH,Ranger Cha Build with Divine Might, FI GCS and Ki Bolt, HW or Daggers with Dodge, Mobility, Spring Attack, WW Attack, Quicken, Max, Emp, Precision and Possibly Stunning Fist or ImpCrit Piercing if using VKF

Too many great Enhancement Trees available to support this build. But 16 in BF tree for Power of the Forge, 12 in FI, 5 HeM for Ki Bolt and 8 for 2 min Divine Might. I have all the racial points but cannot recall how many that is I think I had to put maybe 2 of the regular 80 into BF. So that's about 27 min spent leaving 53 which could be split a number ways. I could put 11 more into FI for Fan of Shadow Knives leaving 42 that I could dump into VKF for capstone and put the last point where ever. Which would net some tasty melee power from Power of the Forge and VKF Capstone for Fan of Knives in VKF, Ki Bolt (ofc), and Fan of Shadow Knives. With the added benefit of Metas and SP to effects that are affected by such things.
I feel Arcane Warrior could stay stacked fairly nicely too w/o Warlock.

If you can do SWF too from VkF you get another 20MP