Definitely my favorite so far. I love the pacing, the ebb and flow of combat. I'll be leveling my Bard and Rogue next and eventually, when I scrounge a few bucks together to pick up some more character slots, I'm pretty interested in checking out Ranger, Warrior and Wizard. If I had the money I'd probably just roll everything to try them all. I think you've done a very impressive job making each class unique as well as pretty interesting and balanced. Keep this coming!

More of my unsolicited opinions :

I would agree its a fun class. Combat is much more varied/interesting then with a fighter, who only has 1-2 things going for him. Its a very slow start though, those first 40 levels are a real grind. I probably wouldn't change anything.

Yeah, I pretty much have everything but some of my defensives on cooldown at all times. Feels very active and I like that.

It's fun indeed! I've been levelling a Monk the last few days, nice talents and synergies!


...if you have a nice pair of rare elite boots with good armor, it's a breeze

I didn't have any other Hardcore characters to twink from........

Eh, good enough I guess. I keep accidentally killing the last dude

Updated with some more recommended items.

So yeah. Enhanced armor was getting applied twice. Hold on to those rare items. They'll be worth over 9000 later.

Interesting, lol.

Yup. This has been flying below the radar for years... probably.

Here is what I got so far on my monk:

http://nevergrind.com/nevergrounds/inde ... ter=Ryujin

I'm using the dagger for attack haste and MF, and for some reason it gives a larger damage boost than the 1hb weapons I got. I suspect it has something to do with dagger's fast attack speed over 1hb weapons, because that's the only stat I see that would explain it. I'm probably gonna swap it out for a ragestriker or bloodletter's lancet once I get them off my rogue.

Gravelord's Cozen is a pretty awesome armor all around, and its well worth the slight penalty. Unless you got access to grandmaster's set or something.

I don't know why a dagger would yield those results as you can't gain any skill with piercers. I plan on testing a lot of weapons in a bit though so I'll look into it as I have pretty much every weapon in the game.

And chest is an interesting slot for us and I know most of our leather chests aren't that good so there's a lot of room to wiggle around there. This guide will be updated a bit as soon as I finish some other stuff I'm working on.

Yeah, a dagger gave me a few thousand damage with flying kick, and a couple hundred with crane kick over the best 1hb I had. Maybe Maelfyn can shed some light on why that is?

And yeah, I highly recommend this armor for Monk if you got it:



Its got most everything a Monk would want - stats, resists, HP, damage reduction, and 2 skills a monk uses, and high armor. This is actually the best plate armor I've seen in the game. It might very well be the BiS plate armor for most classes who'd want plate armor. Its a superior slot choice to the Fungus Covered Tunic. Can't wait to find the rest of the set that goes with this beastly armor. Its supposed to be the SK's elite set I believe.

What 1hb were you using? I can't think of or see a reason the Baron dagger especially would be in any way better than something like Fists of Qiromir or almost any other 1hb for that matter. If you were to go with a dagger at all I'd imagine that something like the ones you mentioned or Orcish Croaking/Nightfall would be superior if anything were to be. This would also lend a strong case to taking a look at 1hs weapons as well, which I will likely do.

As far as chests are concerned I agree that Gravelord's is a superior option to the Fungus Covered one but I'm currently using it for XP as I make my push for 99. I think, however that the warrior chest is actually better than Gravelord's and that there may be a few other strong contenders, including the Friar's one which has immense Strength which is our strongest stat by far, and is another plus on the side of the Warlord's chest as well. I plan on taking a focus on sifting through all the gearing options as soon as I finish up leveling here in the next few days.

Hailrend > qiromir. For me at least. By about 6k dps.

Still saying friar's chest is BiS. Strength and attack haste. Seriously. Attack haste is way way way more important than its getting credit for.

Kick damage is based on primary ratio. Haste helps primary ratio. Haste helps kicks. Lots and lots.

Plus more haste = more attacks = more crits = more kicks.

Grandmaster set makes me want to cry though. No crit. No crit bonus. No attack haste. Boots that are bad (fear reduction is lol) a set bonus that gives a stun every 24 seconds even though I pass on the talent that gives you a stun every 12 seconds. Life leech is kindve cool but honestly nothing that will help ever.

Its counter intuitive but my monk has been using that dagger for a while as well. The random stun it procs is pretty useful in hardcore and its a net damage boost through haste. I've not found a better 1 hb yet.

Using shield of the clawed guardian I'm sitting about the same dps as using 1hb.

I mean I have to tiger strike for spirit sometimes and thats annoying but still, about the same dps.

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I love that you two-shotted the guardian of strife in 1.25 seconds. Incoming monk nerfs. 150k dps, lol.

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He has borked boots. I don't think anyone else does so most of us won't reach that dps lol. And speaking of boots, the Grandmaster ones are actually really nice, under the assumption that you DON'T have a pair of the broken ones.

except store bought are way way way better.. And friars are mostly better for non-monks.

That completely ignores the fact that DPS isn't everything. In my current set up I have maxed Resistances and all the CC reducs that matter, though the boots don't help in the CC reducs that matter area, they do help round the character out. You guys are 100% correct with AH though, I'm realizing through trying different things out. Didn't realize the ratio played such a big part in the damage calculation. I think to that end that Axe of the Phased Dragon might be a strong contender, maybe even Artremian Blade. Also Ragestriker, though it's lower AS than AotPD and Baron's, it has really nice other stats. I wish Nightfall had some AH on it.

At any rate, now begins the testing phase of my monk so I can figure out BiS over all. 1hb are much weaker with this info coming to light, as very few have much, if any AH. Baron's might actually be the best weapon you can get at the time, if you can get it, as it can be equipped at 38, lol.

Fair point about the boots. I'd totally drop down to grandmasters if the set bonus was crit/crit dmg/attack haste in a heartbeat though.

I used barons for a long long ass time. I may need to go back since I've dropped so much haste every where else.

Using hailrend lately. Pretty much all the stuff I like. AH, crit, and crit damage.

Check out Axe of the Phased Dragon, it's only got 2 less AH than Baron's and it has better stats over all. Our 6set bonus is really bad besides the life leech, though Leech isn't really a weak spot in our gear over all. I still need to find a pair of GM pants and a garrote . I think I'd be pretty close to BiS then if what I'm thinking is correct.