Leafiara (prime)/Mechanical Musings/The Autumnwinds' Magical Monk Guide
By Leafiara Autumnwind, in loving memory of Saraphenia Autumnwind.
Last updated June 20, 2024.
Please note: if you're reading this sentence, you've found this guide in a third draft form not fully fit for public eyes (which is why it's not linked from my main character page yet).
I know of a few things I still need to add and change, including a conclusion section, the interaction between Kai's Strike and 1-4 ranks of Sanctify, a little more on the topic of Iron Skin, and maybe further elaboration about held unarmed combat weapons.
That said, feel free to send me feedback on anything you think is working, not working, clear, unclear, helpful, distracting, etc. within the guide.
Introduction: How to Use This Guide
This guide is for all magical monks from 0 exp to 39,000,000! (What do I mean by a magical monk? One not using Kroderine Soul. Somebody else will have to write that guide!) I'll go over monks' strengths, weaknesses, other unique qualities, things to consider, others' perspectives that I hear about, training plans, and so on.
This guide is exhaustive within its scope, or at least it can be.
- If you want an exhaustive guide, read through it in order.
- If you want the opposite of an exhaustive guide, jump to the "Cookie Cutter" section at the end.
- If you're not sure whether you want an exhaustive guide, read the "Why Play a Monk" section to see if monks sound cool, then jump to the "Cookie Cutter Monk" section at the end, then read the rest. That final section provides an overview of what to do and acts like a small window into what the rest of the guide covers, which is why to do it.
I've made each section collapsible so you can easily navigate as you wish. I do try to include nuggets of wisdom for all experience levels in each section!
Speaking of experience, what's mine? I capped my monk Tarine before the various combat modernizations of 2020 and 2021, helped Saraphenia with her training (both on paper and as a hunting duo) from level 43 to about 9 million exp between 2022 and April 2024, and am now working on my monk Sariara to fill in my knowledge gap before level 43; she just reached level 30 early on June 17, 2024.
And speaking of Saraphenia, who created many monks and enjoyed them more than any other profession, I think of this guide like our joint project. She would have had the passion and interest to create it, but not the knowledge and time. I have the knowledge and time, but wouldn't have had the passion or interest--at least on my own. When I say I've written this guide in loving memory, I truly mean that. If even a few more players find monks even half as exciting as Phenia did because of this guide, I'll call it a job well done!
No further ado. Let's get on with it!
Why Play a Monk or Why Not Play a Monk?
Unarmed Combat
Monks specialize at unarmed combat (UC), which is the most unique form of combat GemStone IV has to offer! It features four primary commands: JAB, GRAPPLE, KICK, and PUNCH. Making the most of these revolves primarily around two things:
- "Tiering up," AKA improving positioning from decent to good, then from good to excellent, by sequencing your attacks correctly based on your training and following the combat messaging prompts.
- Improving your multiplier modifier primarily through things like forcing a creature's stance down or inflicting status conditions.
Unlike the other traditional physical systems based on attack strength (AS) and defensive strength (DS), UC's equivalents of unarmed attack factor (UAF) and unarmed defense factor (UDF) take a backseat to a third number, the multiplier modifier (MM).
I'll elaborate further on UAF, UDF, and MM during the Unarmed Combat Primer section. For now, I'll mention that unarmed combat has a drastically higher floor, albeit also a lower ceiling, than other forms of combat. Monks are much less likely to one-shot anything than their melee counterparts, but monks are also much less likely to run into situations where they have no chance of hitting their foe.
Bonus Tip!
Another major difference between unarmed combat and AS-based combat is that creatures can never outright evade, block, or parry a UC attack. Unarmed combat can still miss by getting a low endroll, but if you've played other physical characters and just can't stand it when a creature's shield or dodging ability comes into play, give a monk a try!
Gear Indifference
Another big reason to play a monk is low dependence on good gear.
While GSIV is technically balanced around vanilla +20 gear, most people would say there's a difference between a viable way to play the game and an enjoyable way to play the game. Pure casters are commonly considered the best at offering an enjoyable experience even when they put little to no resources into buying good gear. However, I'd put monks right behind them and easily ahead of warriors, rogues, paladins, and rangers.
Because of the unique qualities of unarmed combat, enchanting, ensorcelling, sanctifying, or weighting your offensive gear is much more luxury than necessity. If you don't want to or aren't able to spend heavily on a new character, monks are an excellent low investment profession to try. (And there are smooth upgrade paths if you decide to invest later, but more on that later in this guide!)
Fun Sidebar!
Players have taken notice that monks can hunt and succeed in the Hinterwilds, arguably the game's most challenging area, on par with other professions even if the monk has a third of the experience points and a tenth of the gear caliber of those other professions. At this top end of difficult content, I'd say monks are the best at not depending on gear nor even exp!
Simplicity
Monks have a very low learning curve, at least by GS standards.
This is a game world with a lot of convoluted training plans, tradeoffs, options, breakpoints to shoot for, tight training point constraints, and too many desirable skills to train them all. Monks mostly dispense with that and are a very straightforward, low pressure profession that it's difficult to get wrong.
(If you want to take monks in a stranger direction, then I have more on that later in this guide too!)
Fun Factor
Once monks really hit their stride in combat by level 40 and on--maybe even level 30 and on--they're great at screen scroll shenanigans. With free bonus jabs in their mstrikes or free knockdowns in their Fury, the speed of unarmed combat, UC's myriad status conditions, and plenty of messaging prompts about tiering up or when you can Spin Kick, combat can be an engaging and chaotic experience!
Even on the roleplaying side of things, Shroud of Deception is one of the game's coolest tools. It allows you to customize your appearance for up to three saved illusionary projections of yourself and is as close as you can get to playing multiple characters in one!
Might and Magic
If you long for the raw power of a physical profession like a warrior, but still want the option to use magic both in and out of combat even from the earliest levels, monks are for you. The Minor Mental spell circle is such an integral part of the monk toolkit that the dev staff had to make provision so that even Kroderine Soul monks could still cast spells from level 30 on!
Downsides or Lack Thereof
Some players feel that monks are pigeonholed into unarmed combat. I would have agreed before I wrote this guide, but during the Odds and Ends section, I did a deep dive into the math and now I believe a weapon build is absolutely on the table and monks can operate very much like warriors who have more DS but don't wear heavy armor, are better at evading but worse at parrying, have a universal stat bonus from level 50 on but don't have guild skills, and a few other tradeoffs. If your character concept is a lightly armored swashbuckler type who's light on their feet, there's a very real case that a monk can be a better choice than a warrior.
Target defense (TD) is widely regarded as a monk weakness and was a major discussion point in Flimbo's Monk Guide, which was extensive in its time but has become outdated after years of major game developments since then. TD certainly is a weakness, but not nearly as much of one now as it used to be. Monks' offensive toolkit has grown to the degree that keeping enemies knocked down and under control to stop them from casting at all is easier than ever. Even when creatures do manage to fire off a spell, non-Kroderine Soul monks have access to a new warding defense booster called Dragonscale Skin while Kroderine Soul monks have magic redux and can absorb (negate) an offensive spell once every 30 seconds.
About the best I can muster for actual downsides to monks is that they can't obliterate an entire swarm of creatures in six seconds or less (that's the domain of post-cap bards and wizards) and that their profession service needs improvement (but improvement is already planned for the future).
Character Creation
If making a monk sounds good, then it's time to get started! Let's figure out what to do!
Choosing a Race
Over the long haul, monks arguably have more leeway to be any race with minimal drawbacks than any other profession due to Perfect Self kicking in at level 50 and basically eliminating stat deficiencies. Rather than any race being bad at anything monks do, it's more a question of which ones are slightly better at any given thing. I don't think you can truly go wrong, which isn't something I say about other professions, so my honest suggestion is to pick whatever sounds interesting to you.
If you're not sure what's interesting or are torn between options, then my next suggestion would be to look into race-specific verbs and see if anything strikes your fancy. Even though Shroud of Deception can make your monk appear like other races, they'd still need to actually be a halfling to perform halfling-specific verbs--and so on. Get the verbs you like!
If none of that sounds compelling either, here's roughly how I'd rank monk races mechanically if I really had to:
- Elves: What I made my first monk, Tarine. They're tied with burghal gnomes as the second best race for combined Agility and Dexterity ("Agidex"), which means faster mstrikes and. At least one of those will be a huge part of your arsenal starting in the level 30s, if not even earlier. Elves have no particular disadvantages like height or size; they're slightly below average on encumbrance, but it's not a big deal.
- Halflings: The best race for combined Agidex, so they're even faster with mstrikes and assaults than elves. Halflings also have an enormous bonus to defend against elemental warding spells, which monks would normally be weak against. (However, elemental warding spells are sort of rare among creatures.) They have a Logic bonus, which means that Vertigo is slightly more reliable, though that's a minor point. Their primary disadvantages are encumbrance and height that will require keeping average-sized creatures knocked down or training niche combat maneuvers like Acrobat's Leap if you want to target enemy heads as a finisher.
- Aelotoi, Dark Elves, Half-Elves, and Sylvans: All four of these races are in third place for Agidex. They can still get to minimum speed attacks, but will need to put a little more experience or enhancive items into that than elves or halflings would. These four races all have much more carrying capacity (less encumbrance) than halflings, all but aelotoi have more carrying capacity than elves, and none have problems height-wise. Mechanical differences between the four are pretty minimal as far as monks go, but if we compare to elves as a baseline...
- Aelotoi's Logic bonus, like for halflings, means they gain exp slightly faster and Vertigo is slightly more reliable.
- Dark elves' Aura and Wisdom bonuses offer a small amount of defense against elemental and spiritual warding spells.
- Half-elves have the best carrying capacity of these top six options.
- Sylvans' Aura bonus offers a small amount of defense against elemental warding spells. Dark elves are mechanically better at the same thing, but, again, the differences are really minimal in practice.
- Forest Gnomes and Burghal Gnomes: These are in the top 3 and top 2 speed tiers, respectively. Forest gnomes can handle encumbrance slightly better than halflings while burghal gnomes actually handle it even worse than halflings. I give halflings the advantage over gnomes due to their huge innate defense against elemental TD, but the differences are minor enough and infrequent enough that I don't think anyone should sweat it.
- Dwarves: Like halflings, they have excellent defense against elemental TD (but slightly less than halflings), but instead of having major encumbrance issues, they can hold a surprising amount for their size due to their Strength and Constitution bonuses. Dwarves do face the same issues as other short races of not being able to target the heads of non-prone foes--and, unlike the other short races, dwarves rank second to last in Agidex instead of being among the fastest. Still, I look at it this way: if you wanted the fastest attacks, you would have picked one of the races above, so the fact that you're okay with having slower attacks means you're thinking about other factors. Elemental TD is difficult to come by, so I rank dwarven monks the best of the slower races.
- Half-krolvin: The fourth best race for Agidex, though there's as much of a speed gap better third best and fourth best as there is between best and third best. Half-krolvin and dwarves alike have access to some great verbs, but from a mechanical perspective, I don't see much reason to go with a half-krolvin over the previous nine races.
- Giantmen: This is the slowest race, but giants can carry near endless amounts of things without getting encumbered. A sufficient amount of encumbrance on other races does essentially slow them down and in some ways gets even worse because the slowdown will affect even their single-target attacks. That said, the lower carrying capacity races can just return to town to quickly drop off boxes and silver, then go back to hunting. The question is whether that sounds too aggravating--and if it is, then giants might still be for you.
- Erithians and Humans: These are the third slowest races while giants are the slowest. Erithians and humans have no particular mechanical disadvantages that push them away from being monks, but also no particular advantages that push them toward being monks. Erithians do have some excellent verbs that go well with monks roleplaying-wise, though!
Everything from dwarves up is close enough that I wouldn't quibble about any of them being seriously better than the others. I can understand people's case for giants too, even though I personally don't agree. With half-krolvin, erithians, and humans, though, I'm really dubious from a mechanical perspective. Perfect Self will make up for a lot, like I said, so it's not a matter of going wrong--but there are better mechanical options. After all, Perfect Self can bring up the low, but it also makes the rich richer, as it were.
Placing Your Stats
Before level 20, you can change your stats up to five times by checking in at your local inn. Power through the early levels by setting Strength, Dexterity, and Agility high so you're at your best in combat and setting Logic high so you level faster.
At level 19.5 or so, check in to finalize your "real" stat placement. (Since you finalize stats (and skills) at level 20, the game will stop your exp growth around level 19.9 and force you to confirm that your character is configured the way you want. If you've forgotten to adjust your stats, this will be your cue!)
Here are my recommendations for each race. Since Flimbo's guide included tables, I'll follow suit! The major difference is that he was on the side of tanking Influence while I'm on the side of tanking Intuition, which I'll explain shortly.
Race Strength Constitution Dexterity Agility Discipline Aura Logic Intuition Wisdom Influence Aelotoi 62 68 68 33 59 82 73 41 82 92 Burghal gnome 73 62 68 33 70 85 62 37 82 88 Dark elf 62 68 62 30 68 82 73 44 82 89 Dwarf 49 49 78 62 58 82 73 39 79 91 Elf 62 73 62 33 70 70 73 50 82 85 Erithian 68 62 73 49 58 82 71 29 83 85 Forest gnome 70 59 70 33 59 82 73 44 82 88 Giantman 49 58 77 58 62 82 73 31 82 88 Half-elf 59 62 70 39 68 82 73 39 82 86 Half-krolvin 58 49 70 39 62 85 77 46 83 91 Halfling 73 49 62 30 68 82 70 56 82 88 Human 59 59 73 49 62 82 73 31 83 89 Sylvankind 70 68 62 30 70 77 73 43 82 85
My methodology was as follows:
- Set stats to max out at cap.
- Max everything except Intuition if possible. If not possible, then take a small number out of either Constitution, Discipline, or Influence.
- If there are spare points, meaning that all stats have gotten as high as they can get by cap and there are still more points to allocate, then favor the configuration that gives the most mental TPs. If multiple configurations give the same amount of mental TPs, then favor the one with stats that grow most slowly. (As a real example, aelotoi monks have one spare point that can go into either Logic, Wisdom, or Influence for the same 4 mental TPs. I chose Influence.)
Optional Deep Dive Sidebar #1!
While there's endless debate across all professions about whether to set stats for cap or early power, it applies less to monks than others. Due to Perfect Self, monks will be good across the board from level 50 on almost regardless of what they do. Single strikes in unarmed combat are also naturally quick and don't demand or even ask that players have good Agidex even at the lowest levels like heavy, hard-hitting melee weapons would.
Once mstrikes and weapon techniques are a constant part of the monk's arsenal, which can happen by the early 30s if not slightly sooner, Agidex does become more important. However, fast race monks who set stats for cap will still be perfectly fine on Agidex due to innate bonuses. For example, my level 30 monk, Sariara, has 19 Dexterity bonus and 16 Agility bonus, which is the -2 RT tier. She'll reach -3 RT by level 33, then -4 RT by level 50 thanks to Perfect Self. -5 RT is her peak without enhancives or Ascension, and she'll reach that peak at level 84.
That high degree of RT reduction only matters for the purposes of mstrikes or assault techniques, which aren't the majority of your battle commands, so there's a pretty negligible difference between setting stats for cap (-4 RT by level 50) and setting stats for early power (-5 RT by level 50).
Optional Deep Dive Sidebar #2!
There's also endless debate across most professions on whether Intuition or Influence is the stat to tank. The majority usually say tank Influence, but I disagree because Voln is the mechanically strongest society (a point that I do concur with the majority on) and Influence improves the success rate of what's arguably Voln's strongest ability, Symbol of Sleep, along with a couple of its other abilities. (For more on Voln, see the next section!)
So I'm on the side of tanking Intuition unless there's strong reason not to, like not being in Voln or being a sorcerer or wizard (whose profession services care about Intuition and will take as much of it as they can get). The argument in favor of maxing Intuition revolves around eking out an extra chance of dodging enemy maneuvers, which isn't compelling on a profession like monks that will have extraordinary ability to dodge enemy maneuvers either way due to high caps and cheap training costs for Physical Fitness and Dodging.
To put that into perspective, my capped monk Tarine, who tanked Intuition, has a -3% chance to be hit by a maneuver from a same-level foe in offensive stance and a -18% chance in defensive stance. If she maxed Intuition instead of tanking it, those numbers jump to... -4% and -19%. Not impressed!
But you might think that looking at a super-capped character is an unfair example, so how about my level 30 monk Sariara? She also tanked Intuition, hasn't maxed all her stats yet, doesn't have Perfect Self yet, is an aelotoi instead of an elf (so her stat bonuses are a bit worse for avoiding maneuvers), has a little over 1 million experience points instead of 39 million, doesn't have Ascension points going toward avoiding maneuvers, and only has 2x Physical Fitness, 2x Dodging, and 1x Perception instead of 3x, 3x, and 2x.
For all those drawbacks, Saria still only has a 12% chance to be hit by a maneuver in offensive and a -2% chance in defensive. Bumping those numbers to 11% and -3% is, again, not compelling to me compared to the benefits I get from Influence.
If you're wondering what relevant things each stat does, I'll go over them quickly:
- Strength: Reduced encumbrance (more carrying capacity). +1 UAF for every 2 bonus.
- Constitution: Slightly reduced encumbrance. Slightly more max health. +1 crit padding for every 5 bonus against AS-based attacks only.
- Dexterity: Reduced roundtime (RT). Slightly increased defense against enemy maneuvers. Improves tattooing ability. Adds crit weighting, but only if using melee weapons.
- Agility: Reduced RT. Twice as much defense against enemy maneuvers as Dexterity. +0.75 DS in offensive stance for every 1 bonus, assuming you're in robes.
- Discipline: +1 exp pool size per every 1 base stat (not bonus). Increased resistance to some attacks like warcries. Improves tattooing ability.
- Aura: +1 TD against elemental spells for every 1 bonus. +1 max spirit for every 10 base stat, rounded up.
- Logic: +1 exp absorbed per minute per 5 bonus (on a node, e.g a safe place) or per 7 bonus (off a note, e.g. while hunting). +1 exp pool size per every 1 base stat (not bonus). +1 CS for Minor Mental spells. Potentially +1 starting mana for every 4 bonus.
- Intuition: Slightly increased defense against enemy maneuvers. +0.1875 DS in offensive stance for every 1 bonus, assuming you're in robes.
- Wisdom: +1 TD against spiritual spells for every 1 bonus. Potentially +1 starting mana for every 4 bonus.
- Influence: Increased success for Standard Success Resolution (SSR) attacks. +1% silver from selling to NPC shops for every 12 bonus.
Selecting a Society
Almost all characters eventually enter one of the three societies since there's no mechanical incentive not to, but numerous mechanical incentives to join one and become a master.
This technically isn't part of character creation since you can't join a society until level 3, but I'm including it in this section because it can be part of character concept creation and, like I said above, being in Voln creates incentive to set Influence high. But is Voln right for your monk--and, if not, then which society is?
Mechanically, this society is very good at exactly two things: offering way, way more mana than other societies (with the possible exception of empaths in Sunfist) and offering slightly more UAF and UDF than other societies, as it caps out at 35 instead of 30 (Sunfist) or 26 against the living (Voln, but Voln does get to 39 UAF against the undead).
Neither mana, UAF, nor UDF matter to monks other than in the tiniest regard, so if you're interested in CoL, it's probably for roleplaying reasons like the other two options being a no-go based on their lore, so you don't need this guide to tell you that!
This society has a bit more mechanical appeal. Sunfist is a somewhat difficult society to work with for the other physical professions, warriors and rogues, because its abilities consume small amounts of mana and stamina; the former isn't an issue, but they need the latter in droves and diverting some toward Sunfist sigils is a tough sell.
Monks do make heavy use of stamina, but they can reduce their own stamina costs--including sigils--by 20-35% with their Mind Over Body spell! In other words, monks have more freedom to use Sunfist's powerful short-term buffs like heavy crit padding or heavy crit weighting (against sworn enemies) that other professions might find themselves reserving for emergencies or skipping entirely.
Sunfist also offers the best target defense (TD) bonus of the societies, which is a weak point for magical monks, and a surprisingly underrated ability to ignore penalties from moderate wounds for the purposes of things like casting spells and attacking.
Lastly, Sunfist is unique among societies in offering access to warcamps, a unique type of hunting ground suitable for the level of the characters who enter. It's more or less a means to find private hunting grounds for you and/or your friends whenever you wish! Characters not in Sunfist can accomplish something similar via Open Sea Adventures, which plays with the same general concept, but that requires millions of silver to buy in to. Warcamps remain an appealing aspect of Sunfist that offers an alternative and can be especially helpful to help power through level ranges where you might find traditional hunting grounds unappealing.
This is widely regarded as the mechanical best society for most or possibly all professions. I'd argue that that's even more true for monks in some ways and less true for monks in others.
Like all professions, monks can get extreme utility out of Voln's teleportation to hunting grounds and back from them, restoring lost spells after being resurrected, swifter recovery from stat loss after being resurrected, and an emergency button to go noncorporeal. In battle, Voln offers a way to put foes to sleep and a way to force undead foes into an offensive stance, both of which are even better for unarmed combat than for other forms of combat.
Voln also offers two UC-specific abilities in Kai's Strike and Kai's Smite. Kai's Smite is its own UC attack that allows you to temporarily turn noncorporeal undead corporeal. Needless to say, being able to inflict physical wounds on things that normally don't have bodies--and so usually have light armor, if any!--is really powerful and a major draw for brawling monks.
Kai's Strike, on the other hand, can be awkward. Undead creatures have 25% resistance to physical attacks from unblessed gear, so the idea behind Kai's Smite is to help with this by treating your hands and feet as always blessed. When you've learned Kai's Strike, but the blessings on your unarmed combat gear has run out, the game will basically act like you're not wearing your UC gear at all, which means you still get to ignore the undead damage resistance. However, since the game's ignoring your UC gear, that also means you don't get any flares, scripts, weighting, or other properties that your gear would normally have.
For beginners or anyone with fairly basic gear, the way Kai's Strike defaults to "blessed" bare hands and feet is probably helpful. Higher end gear, on the other hand, can have powerful enough properties that a player would actually prefer to keep their buffs even though it would mean the undead keep their resistance. The inability to turn off Kai's Strike has been an unfortunate side effect of blessing changes a couple years back as Sanctify got released. Still, it's sort of a mountain out of a molehill situation: tedious and something to be aware of, but not a dealbreaker. Monks in Voln can work around it by filling in with their own Symbol of Blessing until they can track down a cleric for a "real" blessing.
Overall, Voln offers the greatest diversity of useful abilities for monks from a mechanical perspective.
Unarmed Combat Primer
Let's go over the unarmed combat system in more detail! If you're familiar with more conventional melee combat, put that knowledge aside because a great deal of it won't apply and might even interfere with understanding!
Beginner Basics
JAB, GRAPPLE, KICK, and PUNCH are your tools of the trade. What's the difference? Have a look at this table from the unarmed combat system page.
| Attack Type | AG | Cloth | Leather | Scale | Chain | Plate | Base RT | Min RT | Damage Type |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jab | DF | .100 | .075 | .060 | .050 | .040 | 2 | 2 | Jab |
| Punch | DF | .275 | .250 | .200 | .170 | .140 | 3 | 3 | Punch |
| Grapple | DF | .250 | .200 | .160 | .120 | .100 | 3 | 3 | Grapple |
| Kick | DF | .400 | .350 | .300 | .250 | .200 | 4 | 4 | Kick |
The higher the decimal numbers, the stronger the attack, but the lower the RT numbers, the faster the attack. Summarizing:
- Jabs: Weak, but fast.
- Punches: Moderate speed and moderate power.
- Grapples: Moderate speed and moderate power, but less of the latter than punches.
- Kicks: Powerful, but slow (at least by UC standards).
The use case for punches and kicks seems clear, but why jab if jabbing is so weak and why grapple if punches are the same speed with more strength?
Here we get into the other major component of unarmed combat: positioning. There are three positions: Decent, Good, and Excellent. As you improve them, it drastically increases the power of your attacks--all four types.
To improve your monk's position, follow the combat prompts. Here's an example:
You attempt to jab a mezic! As you strike, a deep golden light surrounds your hands! You have decent positioning against a mezic. UAF: 244 vs UDF: 210 = 1.161 * MM: 85 + d100: 39 = 137 ... and hit for 4 points of damage! Fast slap only reddens the cheek. Strike leaves foe vulnerable to a followup grapple attack! Roundtime: 2 sec.
This is my cue to grapple, so let's do that:
You attempt to grapple a mezic! You have good positioning against a mezic. UAF: 244 vs UDF: 269 = 0.907 * MM: 100 + d100: 60 = 150 ... and hit for 41 points of damage! Repeated blows to both sides of the head dizzies foe! The mezic is stunned! The mezic's movements slow to a crawl! A mezic appears dazed and unsure.
As you can see, the followup was over ten times more powerful. That's partly because the endroll is higher, partly because grapples are stronger than jabs, and partly because good positioning is much better than decent positioning. Here's one more example, this time going from good to excellent:
You attempt to jab a mezic! You exploit the momentum of your previous strike to make a stronger attack against a mezic! You have good positioning against a mezic. UAF: 244 vs UDF: 223 = 1.094 * MM: 87 + d100: 51 = 146 ... and hit for 15 points of damage! Blow to kidney! The mezic is stunned! Strike leaves foe vulnerable to a followup grapple attack! Roundtime: 2 sec. [2 seconds later...]
You attempt to grapple a mezic! You have excellent positioning against a mezic. UAF: 244 vs UDF: 223 = 1.094 * MM: 106 + d100: 43 = 158 ... and hit for 48 points of damage! Powerful tug pulls right hip, and leg, free of the socket! A mezic falls to the ground grasping her mangled right leg! Roundtime: 3 sec.
This time the jab started at good positioning because of Rolling Krynch Stance (more on that in the Martial Stances section), but the followup grapple was still more than three times as powerful. Tiering up is crucial!
Bonus Tip!
Setting highlights can help! Since the text prompt is...
Strike leaves foe vulnerable to a followup [jab/grapple/kick/punch] attack!
...you can either create four highlights for each individual message or create a highlight for Strike leaves foe vulnerable to a followup, then four more highlights for jab attack! and the others.
So, in unarmed combat's most basic form at the lowest levels, before mstrikes and techniques throw all kinds of rules out the window, the use cases for each attack type are as follows:
- Jabs: Dig for tier up opportunities to get away from decent positioning or even good positioning as quickly as possible.
- Punches: A half-and-half option during good positioning, in which they have some potential to kill but are also reasonably fast at digging for tier up opportunities toward excellent positioning.
- Grapples: Only when needed to tier up.
- Kicks: Deliver the finishing blow during excellent positioning.
Grapple will have its day, by the way--just wait until the Combat Maneuvers section. For now, though, let's keep exploring the basics.
UAF, UDF, and MM
If you're used to AS-based attacks in GemStone, you probably noticed how different the combat messaging looks for unarmed combat. You might also have noticed that my monk Sariara hit a creature that had higher UDF than her UAF with relative ease:
You attempt to grapple a mezic! You have good positioning against a mezic. UAF: 244 vs UDF: 269 = 0.907 * MM: 100 + d100: 60 = 150 ... and hit for 41 points of damage! Repeated blows to both sides of the head dizzies foe! The mezic is stunned! The mezic's movements slow to a crawl! A mezic appears dazed and unsure.
Let's look at an even more extreme example that doesn't go as well:
You attempt to grapple a spectral shade! You have good positioning against a spectral shade. UAF: 244 vs UDF: 357 = 0.683 * MM: 85 + d100: 44 = 102 ... and hit for 1 point of damage! The spectral shade shakes off a weak arm grab.
This is why you almost have to unlearn what you know about AS-based combat to understand unarmed combat.
UAF and UDF aren't irrelevant, but the most important number is the multiplier modifier, or MM. While melee weapons, ranged weapons, and bolts calculate outcomes by subtraction and addition, unarmed combat calculates outcomes by division, multiplication, and addition.
In short, unarmed combat is primarily multiplicative instead of additive! What does that mean in practice? Higher lows and lower highs.
It's a rare time when a monk outright couldn't possibly hit an enemy creature. Even in my spectral shade example, improving my MM or getting a higher d100 roll could have easily turned that into a powerful hit. On the flip side, improving UAF means comparatively much less than improving AS since UAF ends up getting divided by enemy UDF.
The primary means to increase your MM are reducing your foes' stances and decreasing their EBP ability by reducing stats or inflicting conditions such as stunning them, blinding them, knocking them prone, and so on.
Fun Sidebar!
Monks and unarmed combat have been around for almost twelve years, but only a single hunting ground (the Atoll for capped characters) has dared to release enemy creatures capable of using UC attacks. Why? Probably because no attainable UDF number--not even 500 more UDF than their UAF--can save you if those creatures get to a high MM number.
Mstrikes
As you train Multi-Opponent Combat and Brawling (more on that in the Skills section), you'll eventually be able to use mstrikes or weapon techniques. (I'll refer to these as just "techniques" from here on out because, despite the name, the brawling-oriented weapon techniques don't require held weapons. You could think of your monk's hands and feet as weapons, though!) Mstrikes, assault techniques, and Area of Effect (AoE) techniques are basically a means to fit more attacks into less time. Covering mstrikes first!
Mstrikes with no target specified, AKA unfocused mstrikes, can attack two opponents in one command at 5 Multi-Opponent combat ranks, then adds more opponents at 15, 35, 60, 100, and 155. Mstrikes with a target specified, AKA focused mstrikes, can attack a single opponent twice in one command at 30 MOC ranks, then adds more attacks at 55, 90, 135, and 190.
In the specific context of unarmed combat, mstrikes also throw a bonus jab at enemies when the monk is only at decent positioning against them. Once you're into good positioning, mstrikes are smart commands and will either use the attack type that you specify in the command (e.g. MSTRIKE KICK) or, if you have an opportunity to tier up, your mstrike will know that and automatically switch to the appropriate type.
Mstrikes enter a cooldown of 15-20 seconds (depending on training) after use. When not on cooldown, mstrikes cost no stamina at all! When on cooldown, you can still mstrike, but they'll consume a great deal of stamina if used on cooldown. I can't give an exact number because it depends on how many hits are in your mstrike and which attack types are used. Focused and unfocused mstrikes share the same cooldown timer.
Mstrike RT is frontloaded into a single burst and all attacks fire off at once. It can reach times of 8 seconds or more early on in life, especially if you're a low Agidex race, so be aware! How much RT depends on the number of attacks and which attack types are used, but it'll be more attacks than throwing single strikes in that same amount of time would have been. As an odd quirk of mechanics, mstrike RT doesn't increase no matter how encumbered you get.
Fury and Clash
The unarmed combat assault technique is Fury, which you learn with 25 ranks of Brawling. It attacks a single foe twice at 10 ranks of MOC, then adds one more attack at 24, 50, 100, 150, and 200. There's no bonus jab, however. Like with mstrikes, Fury is smart: you can specify an attack type via your command (e.g. WEAPON FURY KICK) and, once at good positioning or better, Fury will do what you said or switch as needed for a tier up. Using Fury also grants the monk and their party members a +10 Constitution effect for two minutes after being used, though it's not a major selling point.
The AoE unarmed combat technique is Clash, which you learn with 50 ranks of Brawling. It has the same thresholds as unfocused mstrikes, so it attacks two foes at 5 ranks, then adds more at 15, 35, 60, 100, and 155. However, like Fury, Clash doesn't include a bonus jab. It does still use your specified UC attack type or switch to the appropriate tier type. However, since Clash only throws one attack per creature, the tier up opportunity would have needed to exist before Clash was used. (Fury and mstrikes, on the other hand, can find tier ups and then seize the opportunity within their own string of attacks.)
Techniques always cost a small, flat amount of stamina (15 for Fury and 20 for Clash), then enter a cooldown period of 15 seconds. Unlike mstrikes, Fury and Clash can't be used while they're on cooldown. They do have separate cooldown timers, though, so you can alternate if you want.
What you can't alternate, however, is mstrikes with Fury and Clash. Using an mstrike will lock you out of Fury and Clash for 60 seconds. That's because former GM Naijin, the creator of techniques, didn't intend for players to insert mstrikes--with their zero stamina cost while off cooldown--into their rotation as a means to dodge around technique cooldowns. For this reason, many players pick whichever they prefer out of mstrikes or assault and AoE weapon techniques and ignore the other. (I'm not one of these people, though, and will explain in the Training Plan section!)
RT-wise, like mstrikes, Fury and Clash are difficult to nail down exact numbers on. However, while Fury uses at least similar RT logic to a focused mstrike, it divides that RT over individual strikes instead of all at once. For example, if Fury has 5 RT worth of attacks and enough MOC to use three strikes, it'll execute them as 2 RT, 2 RT, 1 RT. This has its upsides and downsides. On one hand, if an emergency comes up mid-Fury, you can interrupt your own attack to leave the room, target a different foe, etc. On the other hand, enemy creatures can also interrupt your Fury by leaving the room, stunning you mid-Fury, etc. They wouldn't have that window of opportunity against a focused mstrike.
Twin Hammerfists and Spin Kick
The other two UC techniques are ;Twin Hammerfists and Spin Kick, respectively learned at 10 and 75 ranks of Brawling. Unlike Fury and Clash, using mstrikes won't lock you out of them.
Twin Hammerfists is a Standard Maneuver Roll (SMR) style attack and an incredible setup that tries to knock down the foe, put it in RT, stun it, and add the Vulnerable status condition--all in one technique! It's a staple in monks' arsenal that can serve them well from level 4 onward and potentially even for the rest of their lives.
Spin Kick is a retaliation maneuver that can kick a foe after your monk evades an attack. It has 2 RT, costs no stamina, and can even be used while in RT, so it has the potential to save you in a tough situation. Like Twin Hammerfists, it's an SMR-based attack. Unlike Twin Hammerfists, Spin Kick isn't a setup, but has real killing power if it rolls high. Spin Kick is at its best against enemies with poor maneuver defense, like lumbering tanky creatures or magic-wielding creatures. Spin Kick is at its worst against enemies with excellent maneuver defense, like speedy four-legged animals or creatures patterned after warriors.
Bonus Tip!
If highlighting tier up opportunities goes well for you, then You could use this opportunity to Spin Kick! is another message you might consider highlighting from level 37 on!
Training Plan: Skills
Core Skills
These are skills you consistently train with little to no deviation.
- Brawling: Max every level.
- Physical Fitness: At least twice per level. It'll get to thrice per level later in life or if you just really want more stamina early on.
- Dodging: At least twice per level. It'll get to thrice per level later in life or if you just really want more DS early on.
- Perception: Once per level.
Bonus Tip!
As a reminder, before level 20, you can flip your skills around any time and into any configuration. The game will adjust to your new training plan within a few minutes at most. I recommend taking advantage of this early period to experiment and find what you like! The above core skills cost little and will leave you with a lot of leeway to decide what to do with skills mentioned in the following sections.
Skill Training Sidebar #1: Combat Maneuvers as Core Skills?
Many players would probably consider Combat Maneuvers a core skill. I sort of agree in the sense that I'd say roughly 1x minimum is mandatory. However, philosophically, I don't consider it in the same category as Brawling, Physical Fitness, Dodging, and Perception. All of those are inexpensive and offer noticeable incremental value with every single rank, but 2x Combat Maneuvers has more opportunity cost and it's value isn't incremental, but comes at discrete thresholds. That's why it's in the Breakpoint Skills section below!
Breakpoint Skills
These are skills you train to specific thresholds, which have little to no merit for the ranks between those points.
- Two Weapon Combat: One rank gives 5 extra DS to barehanded monks, which is most of them, so it can be worth picking up early. Other than that, getting additional DS via TWC is slow (+1 per 10 ranks, plus a +10 bump at 0.5x level) and not worth prioritizing until later.
- Combat Maneuvers: Train at least 1x, but be very intentional and reach benchmarks where you have enough Combat Maneuver Points to learn new maneuvers. (Which maneuvers? See the Combat Maneuvers section later in this guide!) Like I explained in the unarmed combat section, the UAF bonus from CM ranks isn't especially important on its own, so learning new maneuvers is the focus. You can push CM all the way to 2x if you want, but 2x that's expensive enough that it's also reasonable to prioritize other things like getting more spells sooner or getting 3x Dodging sooner.
- Multi-Opponent Combat: These numbers are for pre-cap. If you're mstriking, the thresholds are 5, 15, 30, 35, 55, 60, and possibly 90 or 100 (before cap). If you're using techniques, the thresholds are 10, 24, 50, and possibly 100. If you're switching between mstrikes and techniques contextually, then use both sets of thresholds. (See the sidebars at the end of this section!)
- Harness Power: Ten ranks or twenty ranks fairly early on will be extremely helpful, giving +50 or +90 mana, respectively, and that should suffice for a while. Just sink spare points in as needed afterward.
- Minor Mental up to 13 or 16 ranks: Iron Skin at 2 ranks, Foresight at 4 ranks, Force Projection, Mindward at 8 ranks, Dragonclaw at 9 ranks, and the Mind Over Body focus spell at 13 ranks are all major benchmarks. Beyond that point, the Focus Barrier focus spell is a reasonable stopping point if you prefer more DS over stamina cost reduction from Mind Over Body, since they're mutually exclusive. You can slack off with Minor Mental training past whichever of the two focus spells you prefer.
- Telepathy or Transformation lore: If more offense is your priority, pick up Telepathy lore at thresholds of 6, 15, and eventually 30 for extra stamina cost reduction in Mind Over Body. If more defense is your priority, pick up Transformation lore at thresholds of 5, 15, and eventually 30 for improved resilience in Iron Skin. If giving others Mystic Tattoos is your priority, the first 30 to 40 ranks of Telepathy can rocket your skill ahead of other monks in your level range. You can also split differences and diversify!
- Climbing and Swimming: 10 ranks of each will suffice for most places before the mid levels, at which point you'll be able to identify when you need more of one of these skills. Specific areas can change priorities slightly, like needing more Climbing earlier for the Icemule mountains or needing more Swimming for the Landing monastery. 60 Climbing and 40 Swimming handles basically everything at cap, but going up to 101 certainly can't hurt for the tougher areas if you need to enter and exit encumbered.
Skill Training Sidebar #2: Mstrikes and Techniques are a Contextual Preference!
Why would anyone train to account for the mstrike MOC thresholds and the technique MOC thresholds is a good question since mstrikes lock out usage of Fury and Clash for 60 seconds. However, I find value in both mstrikes and Fury depending on the situation.
My monk, Sariara, prefers Fury in most hunts, which revolve heavily around one-on-one combat. Fury scales up more quickly than focused mstrikes in the very early game, as it's firing off two attacks by 10 MOC and three attacks by 24 MOC while focused mstrikes don't even get started until 30 MOC.
However, in hunts that are likely to feature a lot of swarms, unfocused mstrikes are significantly stronger than Clash because the free jab component basically allows double the number of attacks--and, of course, that also means more tier up opportunities. During those hunts, Saria can forego Fury and use the weaker-than-Fury focused mstrikes for single targets while leaving the much-stronger-than-Clash unfocused mstrike option open to battle the hordes.
I'll elaborate even further on mstrikes vs. techniques during the Offensive Specialization section, but know that it doesn't have to be an either/or situation!
Niche Skills
Niche isn't a bad thing and several of these skills can be prioritized over breakpoint skills. The key is making sure you're training them with a plan and a purpose!
- Spiritual Mana Control and Mental Mana Control: These are very slow ways to supplement mana compared to just training more Harness Power. Leave them alone until mid-levels unless you're surrounded by friends or alts who can send mana, in which case tailor your SMC and MMC to those friends. (See the tip below!)
- First Aid: Helps with skinning and Mystic Tattoos, though only barely in the latter case. I do recommend having it during the first 19 levels, which you can read about in the Trade Secrets section. From level 20 on, though, train First Aid if you want skinning bounties and avoid it if you don't.
- Trading: I have an entire section about this for a reason later on!
- Survival: Helps with skinning, but it's more expensive than First Aid. Slightly reduces duration of stuns, but monks don't get stunned that often due to great defense and speedy offense. Like First Aid, I recommend it during the first 19 levels. Afterward, train it only if you want skinning bounties and have already trained First Aid.
Bonus Tip!
5 Spiritual Mana Control can share mana perfectly with capped clerics who have maxed mana control. 7 SMC or Mental Mana Control can share perfectly with capped empaths and sorcerers with maxed mana control of that type (or clerics who only have 2x mana control). 10 SMC or MMC can share perfectly with capped bards, paladins, or rangers with maxed mana control of that type. 24 SMC or MMC can share with perfectly with anybody else who has 24 or more mana control of that type.
5, 7, 10, and 24 are good mana sharing breakpoints to remember!
Bonus Tip!
If you do go to 24 in your mana control, then consider going to 25, which unlocks the MANA SPELLUP ability once a day for a mana-free cast of each of your defensive spells. It's a nice quality of life ability!
Skill Training Sidebar #3: The Skinning Deluxe Special!
To elaborate on First Aid and Survival, the Adventurer's Guild bounty system won't assign skinning bounties to you unless you have at least half your level in those two skills combined. (So, for example, if a level 20 character has 8 First Aid and 2 Survival, they're eligible for skinning bounties.)
Some players purposely avoid reaching that threshold to dodge those bounties because they can have comparatively low exp payouts, but other players might lean into training these skills because adding skinning into their pool of possible bounty reduces the odds of getting other bounties like escorts or gems that they might not want to do.
The experience paid out by skinning bounties depends on the quality of skins the furrier asks for; and the range of qualities the furrier can ask for depends on your skill. This can be a double-edged sword! If you intentionally keep your skinning ability low while still qualifying for skinning bounties, the furrier will only ask for fair quality skins and it'll be relatively easy to complete, but that means the exp reward will always be low at 600. On the other hand, if you heavily push your skinning ability, the furrier can (but won't always) ask for fine or exceptional skins. These will pay out 650 or 700 exp, but be more difficult to complete.
What isn't a double-edged sword about pushing skinning ability is that the bounty point payout from skinning is detached from the exp payout and depends on the quality and value of the skins actually sold to the furrier for the task. Even if the furrier only asks for fair quality skins, the bounty point part of your reward can still be at the high end if you sell magnificent skins.
Midgame and Later Skills
- Two Weapon Combat at half your level: After you're finished with 3x Dodging, getting 10 extra DS by bumping TWC from one rank to half your level is a reasonable enough idea if you're not feeling hardy enough.
- Minor Spiritual up to 2, 3, or 7 ranks: I'd ignore this for quite a long time in life, other than possibly picking up Spirit Barrier in the midgame. Other Minor Spiritual spells before Lesser Shroud all the way at 20 ranks are really easy to get from others. If you don't want to rely on others, though, then I'd say get to Spirit Warding II at 7 ranks somewhere near the midgame, then hold off pushing further until the late game.
- Minor Mental up to 20 or 25 ranks: Premonition gives extra DS at 20 ranks, but, training point-wise, that's not worth doing until after you've fully maxed Dodging, so I prefer holding off until that point. The other compelling reasons to move beyond the 13 or 16 thresholds are Vertigo and Mindwipe at 19 and 25 ranks, which are CS-based disablers and will benefit from pushing Minor Mental heavily.
Skill Training Sidebar #4: The Spirit Barrier Irony!
Like I've said throughout this guide, the mechanics of unarmed combat make pushing your UAF higher more a luxury than a necessity. Of course, that also means that lowering your UAF in exchange for increasing your DS via Spirit Barrier isn't nearly as damaging as it would be for conventional AS-based melee attacks.
Whether it's actually desirable to trade some UAF for DS will depend on your playstyle, preferences, and hunting grounds, but monks aren't like paladins or (physical combat-capable) rangers who have Spirit Barrier and would simply never cast it because trading AS for DS is untenable. This spell is worth a second look in some situations!
Late Game and Post-Cap Skills
Eventually you can just train everything if you play long enough, but here are some of the more complex considerations for what to prioritize post-cap if and when you get there.
There's merit to diversifying your offense eventually. Training edged weapons allows monks to use katars, which are fast and powerful melee weapons that have niche uses against creatures with especially low DS creatures. These represent a rare case where AS-based attacks can blow UAF-based attacks out of the water instead of being fairly even or losing to UAF. Edged Weapons also opens up the possibility of using Hamstring, one of the rare combat maneuvers that's powerful enough to warrant looking into even though monks already have the also-very-strong Twin Hammerfists that doesn't need them to spend combat maneuver points.
Ranged Weapons: Archery is another possibility for diversifying. Unlike edged weapons, this isn't necessarily because of conventional AS-based ranged attacks, though those can help, but because Volley is an exceptional crowd control tool. Monks aren't exactly poor at crowd control--they do have a high target limit for their mstrikes, Bull Rush, and potentially Vertigo against low TD targets--but they don't excel at crowd control either. Adding Volley into the mix can up their game.
As it goes for everyone, supplementing DS with small statues will eventually be a good idea and MIU bolsters their duration. MIU is also among the most cost-efficient means to improve protection against spellburst, behind only Harness Power and Arcane Symbols. Harness Power is probably more generally useful and a higher priority for those purposes, but MIU in term has much broader utility than AS.
Minor Spiritual up to 20 or 40 ranks:
Eventually the spiritual TD from Lesser Shroud will be important, likely closer to cap. It'll probably become apparent enough when that's the case! Going beyond 20 Minor Spiritual to potentially learn Spirit Guide or Wall of Force at 30 or 40 ranks is an option to consider for post-cap monks. My first monk Tarine did learn those two spells, but I'm fairly certain that my second monk Sariara will ignore them when the time comes. Voln already offers a fine substitute for fogging, Wall of Force isn't what it used to be when it had no cooldown, and having fewer spell ranks allows for extra redux.
Minor Mental up to 48 or 50 ranks (or beyond):
Provoke at 35 ranks is the kind of spell that sounds a lot better than it plays out, so I wouldn't emphasize it. Working on Minor Mental is primarily for slightly improving DS, slightly improving mental TD, and improving mental CS if you cast Vertigo, Mindwipe, or even Thought Lash. 48 Minor Mental ranks max out defensive benefits from Minor Mental spells. 50 ranks unlocks a few fancy new Shroud of Deception options while still leaving open the possibility of reaching a 25% redux threshold even with 50 Minor Mental and 40 Minor Spiritual by training a second weapon type. Pushing beyond 50 would mainly be for the CS spells if you really like them, but they're more for hunting things like bandits and pirates than most "real" hunting grounds.
Illustrative Training Snapshots
In case it helps visualize, here are some early snapshots of my most recent monk that we can discuss. I've worked on enough monk training plans that, by this point, I've intentionally made some questionable decisions to experiment and push boundaries of reasonability just to see what happens, but I'll explain which things you (probably) shouldn't do!
Sariara (at level 20), your current skill bonuses and ranks (including all modifiers) are:
Skill Name | Current Current
| Bonus Ranks
Combat Maneuvers...................| 102 24
Brawling...........................| 144 44
Multi Opponent Combat..............| 102 24
Physical Fitness...................| 144 44
Dodging............................| 144 44
Harness Power......................| 50 10
Spirit Mana Control................| 25 5
Perception.........................| 90 20
Climbing...........................| 50 10
Swimming...........................| 50 10
First Aid..........................| 90 20
Trading............................| 140 40
Spell Lists
Minor Mental.......................| 12
Here's Saria fresh off her skill finalization as a new level 20 monk. 24 MOC threshold because she uses Fury. 5 SMC threshold so she can share mana perfectly with my cleric Leafiara. She very heavily pushed Trading and spells early on for reasons that I explain near the end of the guide in the Sneaky Monk Merchants section. 24 Combat Maneuvers ranks were enough for three ranks of Grapple Specialization and two ranks of Evade Specialization.
What would I change in hindsight and/or what should you do differently?
Going to 25 CM for two ranks of Rolling Krynch instead of Evade Specialization would have been better. 40 Trading is a bit high for this early on and I probably could have stopped at 20 or 30 to take CM a bit higher. Otherwise, I'm content with this.
Sariara (at level 30), your current skill bonuses and ranks (including all modifiers) are:
Skill Name | Current Current
| Bonus Ranks
Combat Maneuvers...................| 126 33
Brawling...........................| 165 65
Multi Opponent Combat..............| 130 35
Physical Fitness...................| 164 64
Dodging............................| 164 64
Harness Power......................| 50 10
Spirit Mana Control................| 25 5
Mental Lore - Telepathy............| 120 30
Perception.........................| 120 30
Climbing...........................| 50 10
Swimming...........................| 50 10
First Aid..........................| 120 30
Trading............................| 143 43
Spell Lists
Minor Mental.......................| 13
And here's Saria ten levels later. Her early Trading and spell push has frozen in time to focus elsewhere, pushing MOC to the 35 breakpoint for mstrikes. Telepathy lore has joined the fray and I pushed it aggressively, partly for the stamina cost reduction on Mind Over Body and partly because I was curious how quickly I could have a monk capable of doing T2 tattoos with a 90% or higher success rate. (If I remember correctly, the answer was level 26.)
By the mid-20s, you're past the stage where creatures all have paper defenses and/or low enough amounts of health that they get killed via sheer damage, so tiering up becomes more important and Rolling Krynch Stance becomes a priority. Saria actually untrained Evade Specialization for now to pick it up sooner.
What would I change in hindsight and/or what should you do differently?
I can now say with certainty that stopping at 15 Telepathy for a long while (like I did on my first monk) is a much, much more sensible breakpoint than pushing to 30, especially by level 30. Even though I built to allow for using mstrikes on cooldown every now and then, the difference between Mind Over Body reducing stamina costs by 35% (30 Telepathy) or 30% (15 Telepathy) isn't nearly significant enough to justify giving up all those training points that could have pushed Combat Maneuvers or Dodging higher. Thankfully, this will all work itself out by level 40 (or, honestly, probably even by level 34-35), but I'll update the guide with Saria's level 40 and 50 snapshots when she gets there.
Training Plan: Exclusive Choices
Meditation Resistance
One neat monk perk I haven't covered or even mentioned yet is that their MEDITATE verb, which allows them to gain resistance to one selected damage type! It offers 10% resistance at its base, then improves by 2% each at thresholds of 1, 3, 6, 10, 15, 21, 28, 36, 45, 55, 66, 78, and 91 Transformation lore. (It can can go even higher if you're working with enhancives or Ascension.)
The 15 and 36 Transformation thresholds are particularly notable because they respectively 20% and 26% (translation: "25% or more") resistance. This is where I could elaborate in detail, but the number of rows or charts that I'd need to expose the math on the hidden formula known as Damage Severity Weighting and explain how that translates to GSIV's crit system would probably bore people who aren't Whirlin and me to tears.
Suffice it to say that, because of rounding and the nature of GSIV crits, believing that (for example) 20% resistance is twice as effective as 10% resistance would be not merely underestimating 20% resistance, but downplaying by orders of magnitude how much of an upgrade that is.
All that said, which damage type should you resist? You can change your chosen damage type any time, but here are some that jump out:
- Cold: Useful for Icemule-based hunting at various levels.
- Crush: A very common damage type, as all physical damage types are. Particularly helpful for gigantic creatures that fall on you as they die.
- Electrical: The most lethal damage type, albeit somewhat rare. If you're hunting creatures that use it, though, protect yourself!
- Fire: Useful for Teras Isle, among other specific locations.
- Impact: Great against various rock-themed creatures or shield-using creatures, among some others.
- Puncture: Another common physical damage type. Very deadly if it hits the eyes even on a fairly tame enemy attack, so 20% or 25% resistance will help immensely.
- Slash: The last of the common physical damage types.
Those are among the more common types, but pretty much can anything can be good and it's contextual to the hunting ground. If you find yourself in a place where everything spews Acid or uses Disruption spells, then by all means meditate to resist those!
The only damage types I'd generally advocate against are Grapple and Unbalance. Those two are fairly unique; the wounds they cause are minimal compared to other damage types, but even weak hits will frequently knock you down. Resistance is mostly for reducing the severity of wounds, not knockdowns. Still, if you're in a hunting ground absolutely replete with Grapple or Unbalance effects, then resisting them might save you rounds of stun.
Offensive Specialization
Monks can only train one out of Grapple Specialization, Kick Specialization, and Punch Specialization, which each improve their respective attacks, but which is right for you? I'll write about each one as if it's maxed, but while you're leveling, these will ramp up and gain 20% of their max effectiveness per rank.
Grapple Specialization:
- Deals bonus heavy grapple damage before each round of Fury against non-prone foes. "Before" is the key word since grapple damage will usually knock foes down before your UAF attack connects, which saves you time of not needing to lead with Twin Hammerfists.
- Against creatures that are immune to being knocked down, every hit of Fury racks up additional damage since the foe is never prone.
- If you love Fury or hate setups, this could be the specialization for you!
- Grapples as a base attack are faster than kicks and the same speed as punches, but weaker than them. Grapples aren't ideal when not using Fury nor mstrikes, since they're less likely to have killing power at good positioning than punches or especially kicks. (At excellent positioning, pretty much anything goes.)
- Grapple Specialization has little to offer if you exclusively use mstrikes. "Exclusively" is the key word this time. If you use Fury sometimes and mstrikes other times, then Grapple Specialization still pays off!
Kick Specialization:
- Turns your Spin Kick into two Spin Kicks!
- Many a monk has happily shared tales of getting stuck in 20 seconds of RT only for Combat Mobility to stand them up, then they go on to dodge everything and double Spin Kick their way to victory against a slew of foes before even getting out of RT. It's great fun and can save you in situations where the other two specializations couldn't.
- Kicks as a base attack are the most powerful of the unarmed combat attacks, but the slowest, which is a double-edged sword. Higher Agidex races can eventually get even MSTRIKE KICK or WEAPON FURY KICK to the same speed as their grapple and punch counterparts, in which case going with kicks is outright better than the alternatives since they're much more likely to kill at good and excellent positioning.
- Slower races might be better off with Grapple or Punch. Grapple or Punch also might be better at lower levels when mstrikes and Fury haven't become as fast as they'll eventually be.
- While Spin Kick performs exceptionally well against like-level foes, it's not nearly as good against overleveled ones for two reasons: it's less likely to succeed and you're much more incentivized to disable those foes immediately--which means they don't attack, which means you don't evade, which means you don't Spin Kick.
- By its nature, Kick Specialization wants you to prioritize improving your UC shoes or footwraps, which is at odds with the fact that UC in general wants you to prioritize improving your UC gloves or handwraps since more of your attacks than not will be hand-based.
Punch Specialization:
- Punches as a base attack are faster than kicks and more powerful than grapples. Jabs remain the ideal for tiering up from default decent positioning because they're the fastest and will get you to good positioning, but once you're already at good positioning, UC attacks have a chance to kill, punches are arguably the best option while you press toward excellent positioning.
- Maxed Punch Specialization has a 25% chance to add minor impact damage to each target hit by Clash. A 25% chance isn't exactly a shining endorsement considering that maxed Grapple Specialization and Kick Specialization have a 100% chance of adding heavy grapple damage or a second spin kick to their respective techniques, The disparity is exacerbated by Clash being nowhere near as good as unfocused mstrikes, which can add in one free jab per foe. In other words, mstrikes have double the tier up opportunities, chances for flares, and so on that Clash does.
- Despite the above, the buff to Clash being so minor is immaterial if the monk isn't using Clash anyway. Punch Specialization can shine for lower level characters or slower races who primarily prefer mstrikes over weapon techniques, but also can't bring MSTRIKE KICK down to the speed of MSTRIKE PUNCH.
Specialization Sidebar: Mstrikes with Specified Attack Types!
In case it isn't clear or in case going into math would be helpful...
MSTRIKE KICK becomes the mechanical best option for high Agidex races at high levels regardless of which specialization you pick. Kicks are 140-150% as strong as punches and 160-200% as powerful as grapples (depending on how armored the opponent is). That power gap is so huge that even if your punches or grapples have a higher multiplier modifier because you picked Punch or Grapple Specialization, kicks are most likely stronger anyway and more likely to kill at excellent or good positioning. Punches or grapples would be more likely to tier up from good to excellent than kicks if you're not trained in Kick Specialization--but if you are trained in Kick Specialization, then your fast race monk can have the best of every world!
MSTRIKE PUNCH can be the best for lower Agidex races, lower levels, or both. Kicks are stronger hit for hit, but if they're slower because your Agidex isn't up to par, punches can still win overall.
MSTRIKE GRAPPLE is worse than MSTRIKE PUNCH in a vacuum because the latter has the same speed while packing 110% to 141.67% as much power. Against foes in chain or plate armor, which represent the high end of that power difference, MSTRIKE PUNCH is probably better than MSTRIKE GRAPPLE even if you trained Grapple Specialization. However, against foes in cloth, leather, or scale armor, the gap is 110%-125%, so MSTRIKE GRAPPLE can still win out if you trained Grapple Specialization, due to the multiplier modifier bonus and higher tier up chance.
In short...
Use MSTRIKE KICK if you're a high Agidex race who's at or close to the peak of your Agidex growth.
Use MSTRIKE GRAPPLE if all of the following apply: you're a moderate Agidex race or a high Agidex race not yet near your peak, you're against foes in armor lighter than chain, and you trained Grapple Specialization, but you're in a situation where you want to mstrike instead of using Fury. (Like, say, unfocused mstrikes.)
Use MSTRIKE PUNCH if neither of the above applies.
The Leafi verdict:
Kick Specialization is the flashiest and arguably the most fun specialization, and I stand behind MSTRIKE KICK being easily the best mstrike for fast races in a vacuum. However, the Fury technique backed by Grapple Specialization arguably has the highest ceiling. Its high knockdown potential works wonders against very high level creatures who make tiering up difficult. I've been very happy with these two specializations, using Kick for Tarine and Grapple for Sariara (as well as for Saraphenia before her).
As for Punch Specialization, I wouldn't honestly recommend it to anybody other than the slowest races. GemStone, like many games, rewards being exceptional at something instead of pretty good at everything. "Pretty good" isn't much to aspire to, but that's punches for you.
Defensive Specialization
Monks can only train one out of Block Specialization, Evade Specialization, and Parry Specialization, which each improve their respective defenses, but which is right for you? ...well, this one's a lot easier than the last!
Block Specialization:
At max, it gives you a +15% chance to block melee or ranged attacks with a shield. Shields are a bad idea for monks. They're expensive to train, monks can't learn shield skills, and shields reduce the effectiveness of unarmed combat.
Parry Specialization:
At max, it gives you a +15% chance to parry melee or ranged attacks--assuming you have Brace active. After you parry, it gives a 25% chance of gaining the Counter effect, which means your next attack has 1 less RT and costs 25% less stamina (if applicable). This all might sound neat until it's compared to...
Evade Specialization:
At max, it gives you a +15% chance to evade melee, ranged, or magical bolt attacks. After you evade, it gives a 25% of gaining the Evasiveness effect, which will automatically avoid the next attack (of any kind, including CS-based or maneuver-based) thrown your way with 100% success. Also, evasions are the triggers that allow Spin Kick followups 100% of the time.
The Leafi verdict:
Even without Kick Specialization, Evade Specialization is the only one that adds offensive power via a defensive specialization. I universally recommend it to all Brawling-oriented monks without exception. (I say "Brawling" because I'm not even limiting this to unarmed combat. Even if you're using brawling weapons like fist-scythes or katars, you can Spin Kick and so Evade Specialization still wins.)
Martial Stances
Monks can technically learn as many martial stances as they have points for, but can only have one active at a time, so the large majority will only learn one in the first place. Which one? Let's dig in.
The most flavorful martial stance.
Gives you a chance to redirect enemy melee attacks that you evade, making enemies hit other enemies in the room. This is a super cool and fun idea, but also isn't nearly as practical as it might sound since there's a large number of hoops to jump through: you need to be in a room with multiple creatures, they need to be attacking you specifically with melee, you need to evade, you need to trigger the chance that Duck and Weave even works, and then the attacking creature's AS has to be high enough relative to the defending creature's DS to do meaningful damage.
The Leafi verdict: Delightful, but not recommended.
The screen scrolliest martial stance.
Yo dawg, I heard you like jabs, so I put jabs in your jabs so you can jab while you jab. That's this martial stance!
Whenever you jab, Flurry of Blows can simultaneously jab other foes in the room. The trouble is that jabs aren't good on their own for anything other than getting the initial tiering up going at decent positioning, so bringing the best out of this martial stance requires some heavy investment. It can be done, but unless your attacks can potentially fire off at least five damaging flares (...and the current max for a monk is nine while grouped with a paladin or eight otherwise, but even getting to five requires grouping with a paladin or having really high end gear), I wouldn't say it comes close to being worthwhile.
The Leafi verdict: Again, another one that's great fun, but not recommended.
The most wasted potential of martial stances.
At rank 1 and 2, it's a passive ability to shake off negative spell effects. Rank 3 is where it becomes more appealing since assuming the stance will remove the effect on demand with a 20 second cooldown. Even then, though, the kinds of effects you'd most want to remove are exactly the ones you can't use Inner Harmony during because you're bound or RT-locked.
The Leafi verdict: I appreciate the idea of this stance, but I'd say it doesn't have much appeal in practice.
Almost surely the best martial stance for UC monks.
This stance gives you a chance of carrying over your excellent positioning or good positioning from one foe to the next, which is a massive time savings and power increase at once. You're never killing anything like-level while stuck at decent positioning unless you have extreme flaring gear or run through a large slew of hits. Good positioning is where things get, well, good; you at least might kill creatures via crits and can pretty easily kill them with several hits through sheer health damage. Excellent positioning is where you're extremely to kill creatures via crits even via a light tap.
The Leafi verdict: Rolling Krynch is everything a traditional UC monk wants. The bottom line is that the less time you spend in decent positioning, the better off you are--and that's exactly what this offers.
The most defensive martial stance.
When maxed, this one gives you a 27% chance to avoid CS-based attack spells--and then, if you do avoid it, Slippery Mind also has a 75% chance of redirecting the spell to either the caster or a different target. Even if don't avoid the CS spell, you still also have a 27% chance to buff your TD for 15 seconds and possibly save yourself from subsequent attacks anyway.
The Leafi verdict: This stance is good, offering two lines of defense against a monk's biggest weakness while also preserving one of the most fun aspects of Duck and Weave and arguably even improving upon it. I prefer improving offense and simply being quicker on the draw--or quicker on the retreat--than the enemy, but this is one of the best options. If you're not using conventional unarmed combat, this is what I'd recommend.
The most "almost got there" martial stance.
This martial stance lets you automatically retaliate after you parry. Even assuming the most wildly niche builds, like you're running a dual handaxe Kroderine Soul monk with Parry Specialization (and if you're doing that, thank you for making it this far into the guide for reasons I don't remotely understand!), my problem with this martial stance is that it takes agency away from the player by attacking and adding more RT into your combat--3 seconds in this example--when you might not have wanted it.
If you're a more typical unarmed combat monk, the good news is that Stance of the Mongoose will only add 1-2 seconds of RT through its retaliation attack--but the bad news is that that RT is so low because it's always going to jab (and therefore do very little damage) unless you currently have a tier up opportunity against that foe, in which case it'll pick the ncessary attack for that tier up opportunity.
That last bit might sound good--and, truthfully, it is good when it lines up, but how often does that happen? Unlike the perfect storm that Duck and Weave needs, at least maxed Stance of the Mongoose triggers 100% of the time when it's not on its 3 second cooldown. However, you still need to have been on the offensive to create the tier up opportunity, you need to not yet have manually seized on that opportunity (which is a 4 second window at most if you created the opportunity by kicking), your offensive needs to not have disabled the foe so that it could attack you, it needed to attack you with something you could parry, and then you needed to actually parry it.
The Leafi verdict: Despite its problems, I think this makes a serious case of being the third best martial stance a UC-oriented monk can learn--but that's also not saying much, as Stance of the Mongoose and its other competitor Flurry of Blows are very distantly behind Rolling Krynch Stance and even Slippery Mind.
Fun time sidebar!
I'm not knocking wildly niche monks. Many of my characters who aren't monks are wildly niche builds like a dual wielding melee cleric in chain mail, a dual wielding paladin, a warrior in robes who casts e-waves with no hindrance, and a maul wizard in leather breastplate.
That's one reason I'm writing a guide for one of the only professions I play conventionally, though: more people might actually find it useful!
Bonus Tip!
Most characters go on the attack dozens of times more often than enemies go on the attack against them. I lean heavily on this whenever I find myself torn on a choice between offense or defense on any profession. The defensive one will have trouble winning out unless either the defensive gain is immense, the offensive opportunity cost is minimal, or both.
(For example, the Spirit Barrier Irony I described earlier has low offensive opportunity cost and can have immense defensive gain in the right hunting ground!)
This is one reason I hold Rolling Krynch Stance in so much higher regard than Stance of the Mongoose or even Slippery Mind. Rolling Krynch powers up something that you're doing in combat against every creature you fight, often several times per creature. Mongoose and Slippery Mind apply to things that the creatures do--things that you're actively trying to prevent them from doing, by the way--and things that only some of them do, which they only do some of the time.
The best... uh... PvP martial stance?
QSTRIKE is a fairly rarely used ability available to all professions that lets you consume stamina to reduce the RT of your next attack. Striking Asp reduces that stamina cost for the first single-target qstrike used every minute.
Whoever else this stance might be good for--if anyone, because I'm not convinced it's worthwhile in any context other than PvP duels--it's not good for monks. Since Striking Asp only does anything once per minute, Rolling Krynch is better at Asp's own claim to fame. Even if you use Asp to reduce a 5-second focused mstrike to 1 second, all Krynch has to do is save you two jabs' worth of RT in an entire minute worth of speedy monk attacks. Krynch will almost always do that and more unless you're at the very lowest levels (when monks haven't become the whirlwinds of combat they grow into) and, unlike Asp, since you're not even using qstrike, there's no stamina cost in this time saving instead of just a reduced stamina cost.
The Leafi verdict: No.
Combat Maneuvers
I won't go over every combat maneuver because they're not all worth considering, but here are some quick takes on the more relevant ones.
Useful for short races to make up the height gap if you're willing and able to spare the points.
A shockingly good supplement to unarmed combat. UAF attacks can overcome just about any defenses, but among creatures that are so good at turtling up that even UC struggles to punch through, a large percentage of them are casters who easily get hit by combat maneuvers. Most combat maneuvers are used for setup purposes, but Bearhug is a major exception and can have killing power in its own right.
As a caution, I don't necessarily recommend using Bearhug until you can train at least three ranks of it since its cooldown can be quite long at lower ranks. Either way, know that Bearhug has great synergy with the Vulnerable status effect, which speeds up its damage rounds (not its cooldown). Brawling monks can easily inflict Vulnerable with Twin Hammerfists, so it's a nice one-two!
Speaking of Vulnerable, Bull Rush is another way to inflict it and can knock down a whole room of creatures. It does pretty minimal damage, but is a widely used staple combat maneuver for monks that fills a niche need by controlling the enemy hordes while you systematically pick them off.
You needed this in the days of old to learn Perfect Self, but no longer. If you hear about that, it's outdated information.
If your monk is a slow race, you might consider learning Burst anyway to bring your MSTRIKE KICK up to speed--literally! I don't recommend using it until you have at least 4 ranks, though, as the cooldown is very long before then.
If your monk is a fast race, there's still a use case for Burst, but mostly for obscure builds at the top end; my super-capped monk Tarine, who's an elf, has Burst of Swiftness exclusively for Duskruin Arena because it can push her all the way into the vaunted -8 RT tier of 113 or more Agidex bonus, which allows her to do absurd 12-attacks-in-4-seconds shenanigans with Fury and Flurry while wielding two katars.
I love this entire suite of disabling skills on rogues and bards, but I don't think unarmed combat-centric monks benefit all that much despite the various Cheapshots maneuvers' wide variety of applications. UC can just power through most things and, what it can't, Cheapshots won't either and things like Bearhug or Hamstring are better ideas.
Cheapshots can still be worth considering for weapon builds, though.
I like two or three ranks to slightly shore up TD weaknesses if you can spare the points, but it's not mandatory by any means.
Easily one of the best and most universal monk maneuvers. Automatically standing up while prone is amazing with Spin Kick and, frankly, even without. 10 Combat Maneuver Points are a lot, so I do recommend building up offense first during the early game and possibly even into the midgame when the enemies aren't all that threatening anyway, but by the level 60s at latest, most monks will love this.
A finisher that can insta-kill incapacitated foes at 50% health or less (at max Coup ranks) and provides a 90-second buff to AS/UAF depending how hard you killed them.
The AS/UAF buff isn't the part that matters (at least not for UC-oriented monks; it's amazing for weapon-using monks). Unarmed combat is absolutely riddled with incapacitating effects tacked on to its normal attacks, so opportunities to deliver the Coup de Grace are frequent. Also, even foes that can't be crit killed, like various golems, noncorporeal undead, oozes, and so on are still susceptible to Coup's insta-kill effect, so it adds another helpful option to the toolbox.
Even though UAF attacks can just power through turtled creatures, lowering their stance is a prime way to increase the multiplier modifier and help turn that "can" into "most likely will." Feint is the premier combat maneuver for that.
I mention this for the katar builds. Hamstring is usable only by characters with access to edged weapons, but for those who fall into that category, it's a devastatingly powerful setup-and-damage maneuver all in one and is exceptional in the realm of two weapon combat.
Increases the odds of having a higher tier than you otherwise would have on your next UC attack. The strategy section of this maneuver's wiki page recommends this if you aren't using Rolling Krynch Stance, but I think it's even better if you are using Rolling Krynch Stance. Ki Focus offers another way to more consistently keep the train of good-or-excellent positioning rolling.
That said, I'd say give Ki Focus a shot in the pre-level-20 experiment period, when monks definitely haven't come into their own yet and could use the boost, but untrain it before level 20 and hold off getting it again until higher levels. The stamina cost to use it too often is real, even factoring in Mind Over Body, so you'll need heavy Physical Fitness training.
Finally, monks who use only mstrikes might benefit from Ki Focus more than monks who use weapon techniques. Since mstrikes don't cost stamina while they're off their cooldown period, there's more leeway to keep a high stamina maneuver in your rotation.
You needed this in the days of old to learn Perfect Self, but no longer. If you hear about that, it's outdated information.
I'd consider Surge for halflings and gnomes only. Between Perfect Self and a max rank Surge, they can carry things more like an average-sized race. Still, Surge's cooldown is very long before at least rank 4. Even at rank 5, you can only have 75% uptime (a 90 second ability with a 120 second cooldown) unless you're willing to use it while in cooldown, which doubles its already high stamina cost from 30 to 60. Mind Over Body can only do so much!
Further Character Progression
Feats
Monks gain new abilities called Feats at various levels, which are as follows:
Level 0 Monk Feat - Kroderine Soul:
Kroderine Soul is an opt-in feat that I'm not going to cover in detail, but suffice it to say that you gain additional physical redux (resistance to physical attacks, which is increased through training physically-oriented skills), redux now applies to magical attacks, magical disablers have decreased duration, and you have access to the Absorb Magic and Dispel Magic abilities, all in exchange for...
...well, before level 30, the exchange is that you can't learn spells, cast spells, or have spells cast on you other than a few exceptions like disks, empath healing, and resurrection. From level 30 on is a different story, so I'll explain in the level 30 feat section.
Level 0 Monk Feat - Martial Mastery:
After you've maxed one weapon skill relative to your level, Martial Mastery grants +1 AS or UAF for every eight total ranks you train in up to two additional weapon skills. However, the extra attack power is also penalized by 5% for every spell you learn beyond five ranks--which means that by the time you have 25 total spell ranks, Martial Mastery can no longer apply. Monks have a way to ignore the first 20 of those spell ranks, but I'll explain that too in the level 30 feat section.
While Martial Mastery is technically learned automatically from level 0, most monks won't make much use of it for a while--and some, like mine, will never make use of it since they'll have too many spell ranks. I'll speak more about that in the Odds and Ends section discussing builds off the beaten path.
Level 20 Monk Feat - Mystic Tattoo:
Monks can tattoo themselves or other characters by using a needle and ink from the local alchemist shop with nearly 1000 different options from a stock tattoo list. These are called mundane tattoos.
From level 20 on, monks can upgrade characters' existing tattoos--including tattoos for which the monk wasn't the artist--by turning them into Mystic Tattoos, which is a profession service that gives the tattoo an enhancive quality of improving one stat of the patron's choice. Mystic Tattoos have five tiers, each getting more difficult.
For full detail on Mystic Tattoos, see their wiki page. The simplified version is that monks can eventually create or recharge an enhancive tattoo of up to +5 bonus for a stat.
As profession services go--so I'm comparing Mystic Tattoos to battle standards, enchanting, ensorcelling, Lucky Items, ranger resistance, sanctifying, and warrior weighting--this can be a decently high impact one for situations like CS casters who benefit heavily from boosting Aura or Wisdom or anyone close to specific Agidex thresholds who a Mystic Tattoo can push over the finish line. However, it's definitely on the lower end of profession service value overall, so don't create a monk expecting to start rolling in silver. (...at least not via tattooing, but more on the silver-making secrets of monks later!)
GM Estild, the head of dev, has acknowledged that Mystic Tattoos (and warrior weighting) need further improvement at some point in the future, but that it'll have to wait until empaths and rogues even have services at all.
Level 25 Monk Feat - Mystic Strike:
A weird one, to say the least. FEAT MYSTICSTRIKE allows a monk to use a small amount of stamina to infuse their next physical UC or melee attack with an effect that debuffs a foe's defense against warding spells after it lands. While monks do have a few warding spells like Thought Lash, Vertigo, and Mindwipe, those spells are normally better off as setups--if they're even used at all--than something to set up toward.
Level 30 Monk Feat - Dragonscale Skin or Mental Acuity
At level 30 (and any time a fixskill is used after that point), monks will have to manually decide between these two feats by using FEAT LEARN DRAGONSCALESKIN or FEAT LEARN MENTALACUITY.
Dragonscale Skin is a straightforward buff that operates on monks' Iron Skin spell. Reviewing the basics of Iron Skin first, it normally improves a monk's robes to have the defensive power of full leather at bare minimum (level 2) and can get all the way to the durability of half plate on a truly outlandish, mega-capped character with an incredible enhancive set. However, this boost to defensive power only counts for the purposes of taking physical damage. Enter Dragonscale Skin, which makes the armor-mimicking aspect of Iron Skin also reflect itself in CvA (defense against warding spells).
For illustration's sake, my monk Sariara has leather breastplate caliber robes at level 30 (equivalent of +10 TD compared to robes), will reach cuirbouilli leather at level 33 (+11 TD), studded leather around level 43-45 (+12 TD), brigandine at 50 (+13 TD), chain mail likely around 60 (+21 TD), and double chain at 75 (+22 TD), where she'll pause for a long while. My super capped monk Tarine actually had a less Transformation-focused build and is still only at chain mail caliber now, but will push to chain hauberk (+24 TD) in the near future, then stop at metal breastplate (+33 TD) over the very long haul.
(To be clear, Dragonscale Skin reduces the odds of getting hit by spells at all and, if the monk does get hit, essentially reduces the endroll result. However, the same endroll against real chain armor, plate armor, etc. would do significantly less damage than it does against the robes that are actually what the monk's wearing.)
Mental Acuity is a much more complex beast. It basically forces redux, Martial Mastery (the level 0 feat), and Kroderine Soul (the other level 0 feat) to act as if a monk's first 20 learned Minor Mental spells don't count--with the tradeoff being that now, instead of a monk's first 20 Minor Mental spells costing mana, they cost stamina at twice the mana cost. (Mind Over Body does bring down the stamina/mana cost, though.)
The most striking of these exceptions is definitely Kroderine Soul because it creates the entirely unique path for monks of being able to continue casting spells despite training a feat that prevents their warrior and rogue counterparts--and pre-level-30 monks themselves, for that matter--from using magic at all. I can see the appeal even though it's not a route I have any interest in.
In practice, the only monks I know who chose Mental Acuity instead of Dragonscale Skin were also using Kroderine Soul. Having spells cost stamina instead of mana is a hefty ask. That said, nothing stops a character from avoiding KS and using Mental Acuity anyway and there are still reasons to do it. Saving 20 spell ranks' worth of redux remains a Mental Acuity benefit even for the non-KS monk. Saving 20 spell ranks' worth of Martial Mastery penalty means that a monk trained in three weapon skills could still max out the AS/UAF bonus even while training, for example, 20 Minor Mental spells plus 3-5 ranks of Minor Spiritual.
Are these compelling enough reasons to take Mental Acuity over Dragonscale Skin on a non-KS monk? Obviously not to me since my monks both went Dragonscale, but they're on the table for anyone who wants to take a walk on the wild side. As for KS monks, Mental Acuity is the only option; Dragonscale Skin does literally nothing for them because KS monks can't cast Iron Skin at all unless they have Mental Acuity.
Level 40 Monk Feat - Martial Arts Mastery
Now we're talking! Not to be confused with the level 0 Martial Mastery feat, Martial Arts Mastery just uniformly adds +10 to the multiplier modifier of your UC attacks, adds a flat +10% tier up chances to your UC, and adds a flat +10% evasion rate (which also helps fire off more Spin Kicks).
If you play an unarmed combat monk through low levels and ever find yourself wondering when it really gets good, level 40 is the latest possible answer (unless you heavily neglect Multi-Opponent Combat training to the point of not having at least 35). I said near the top of this guide that monks hit their stride at level 40 and this is why. Before that point, something like a brawling warrior in robes might feel like basically the same thing in combat as a monk, but with different training point costs for various skills.
Level 40 draws the line in the sand, though, to establish that unarmed combat is the monk's wheelhouse because Martial Arts Mastery is the monk's premiere feat. To put it in perspective, this level of power is the equivalent of maxing Grapple Specialization, Kick Specialization, and Punch Specialization all at once, minus the Fury/Spin Kick/Clash perks but plus a new Jab Specialization that no other profession even has. Oh yeah, and you already trained one of Grapple/Kick/Punch Specialization the normal way, so now Martial Arts Mastery has double-maxed it.
Unleash the power and never look back.
Level 50 Monk Feat - Perfect Self
Perfect Self raises all your stats by +10 (or +5 bonus). That's it! Your monk hits level 50 and great power just drops on your head.
Like I've said, there's pretty much no such thing as a bad monk stat split from level 50 on because of this feat. It's also the driving force behind why even moderately fast races (along the lines of half-elves and aelotoi), never mind the really fast races, just have so much potential as monks. If you're using mstrikes and weapon techniques at all, you'll notice the power increase via the speed increase!
Gear Progression: Armor
Like I said near the start of the guide, fancy gear is more a luxury than a necessity for monks, but if you enjoy playing your monk, then you might as well go for upgrades at some point! But what type?
For armor, I think the answer is to keep it really simple. Most of the expensive armor you can pick up doesn't do all that much for monks. (...at least not magical non-Kroderine Soul monks, the subject of this guide. I assume expensive armor does way more for KS monks who are tanking more hits.)
- Animalistic Spirit Armor? Gives extra stamina regen and can flare to knock down creatures when you evade, but you're a monk. You already reduce your stamina costs by 35% and you already keep everything knocked down constantly.
- Ethereal armor? If you happen to have boatloads of ethereal scrip from frequent Reim hunts, then sure, go for it, but more DS and a flare chance for crit padding isn't really what a monk is screaming for.
- Forest Armor? Monks don't need a tiny boost to UAF and CS.
- Ithzir Armor? Cool abilities, to be sure. 500k bloodscrip cool? Nah.
- Mana-Infused Armor? Mana, damage padding, crit padding, UAF and CS, and an emergency button to drive creatures out of the toom. Not exactly what a monk's seeking.
- Parasite Armor? Well, it can give a 90 second buff to TD, so that's good--but it's once every five minutes and costs 150k bloodscrip. Pass.
- Sprite Armor? Extra DS, maneuver defense, and mana. Nope, not for a monk! Valence Armor? Health, mana, and reactive flares. Skip.
- Voln armor? Extra DS, sheer fear protection, crit padding, and an emergency escape button. There was a time when this was a reasonable value despite its high cost, despite the DS and crit padding not being too meaningful to a monk. However, that time was before Sanctify and Battle Standard existed. You can get the sheer fear protection for cheaper and you can emergency escape with a battle standard after death instead of before death. You'll have to die several thousand times before the cost of your deed and chrism outweigh cost of your Voln armor.
And so my actual answer to the armor question is:
Go to playershops, spend 1-5 million silver on robes with either +7 to +9 TD or some cool damage resistance, get them upgraded by wizards, clerics, and sorcerers over time, and call it a day.
Yes, this is what I actually do! 16% slash resistant robes, +8 TD robes, more +8 TD robes, and +7 TD robes are all things that some of my characters--two monks, a warrior, and a cleric--actually wear. If they ever come out with an armor script that I think is a must-have for monks, I'll come back and update the guide at that point!
Gear Progression: Weapons
I wrote a guide on this topic, but a lot of the weapon scripts it discusses aren't options for unarmed combat, so I'll go over the few that I think are worth looking into depending on your budget.
Incredible variety of flavor messaging makes this script fun and very popular among all professions. For monks, specifically, Revenge Flares are a very appealing unlockable feature that will fire off many damaging flares as monks evade. On the other hand, the default grapple damage type isn't necessarily the best since grapple is mainly good for knockdowns and monks are already very adept at that on their own. Animalistic Spirit gloves and boots with their damage type converted to lightning are what my monk Tarine uses.
The entry point is only 10k bloodscrip per item and the a la carte unlocking paths make upgrading in the future easy if you really like your gloves and shoes. Overall, these are the top pick of monks for very good reason.
For unarmed combat, Energy Weapons are only available in the form of held weapons like a cestus, not handwear and footwear. That's immediately anathema to some people. I'd agree with them when talking about a -10 or -15 MM weapons, but I'm actually not very down on the -5 MM held UC weapons as most others who've looked into the math.
Held UC weapons slightly improve damage factor and UAF at the cost of taking hit to the multiplier modifier. That is an overall loss in a vacuum, so the held weapon needs something else significant to compensate. Energy Weapons can do that with supercharged lightning flares, so I do have a cestus and even use it against foes where MM is so high that I can live with the drop. If the margins are at all close, I don't use it. Easy enough.
The entry point for an Energy Weapon is 10k bloodscrip. The higher unlock tiers aren't very useful to monks, so I just called it a one and done.
Obscure Trivia Sidenote!
When you're wearing flaring gloves while also using a flaring held unarmed combat weapon, the flare rate of each item--gloves and weapon--is halved, ending up at the same overall flare rate. So how can I be talking about an Energy Weapon's flares as a perk that helps compensate for the MM drop in any way if that perk is counterbalanced by hurting the flare rate of your gloves?
Well, for example, let's say that my Animalistic Spirit gloves had their default grapple flares, which I don't value highly because I usually have foes knocked down anyway. In that case, essentially trading off half of a normal grapple flare rate to replace it with half of a normal lightning flare rate is a win.
This logic breaks down as gloves get more upgraded and you're either trading off worse things or spending on both gloves and a cestus. Still, I stand behind it if your stopping point is along the lines of a flare and a script flare.
These are a gold standard of midrange weapon scripts, at least if you'd consider 40k bloodscrip per item midrange. Offering triple lightning flares is a pretty crazy thing! However, you do need to track down handwear and footwear that was already flaring or else the prices jump to 55k bloodscrip.
Cheaper options or more expensive options can be more efficient bang for your buck, though. Basically, Animalistic Spirit is better at nearly every point along the spending curve except exactly 40k bloodscrip.
Easily some of the best flare messaging in the game and they always hit heads, which, needless to say, can be very deadly. I've used knockout flaring UC gear on non-monk characters and had a blast with them. One of my favorite moments was the happy accident of accidentally channeling Mario with the "You leap up, bringing your pure white sandals down across the head of the human mugger with a sickening thud!" messaging.
That said, the entry point--and only point--for knockout flares is 100k bloodscrip per item, which is a very tall ask for most people. It used to be a lot cheaper in the days of Ebon Gate on Caligos Isle, albeit done in limited quantities to compensate. That and a win in a silver-based auction are the only reasons I've been able to toy around with knockout UC attacks to the degree that I have.
No script, just basic elemental flares (especially lightning):
This is where I think you should begin if you're uncertain or just dipping your toe in the water.
You can find flaring UC handwear and footwear for under a million silver each at a fair number of events--sometimes pay events and sometimes even free events. Basic lightning flaring gear will match the power of off-the-shelf pay event gear. Pay event gear pulls ahead when you double down and stack lightning flares on top of it, but that means even heavier investment.
In short, start small while you're getting your bearings and save the bigger decisions for later!
Odds and Ends
I'll wrap this guide up with miscellaneous topics like off-the-beaten-path things monks can do or advantages they have that you might not have thought about.
Monk Magic After Dark
...wait, I can't write about that on the wiki! Moving on.
Trade Secrets of the Sneaky Monk Merchants
I'm one of the bigger advocates of training Trading in the GS community, but that's more true with monks than any other profession.
Monks have easier and more universal means to make more silvers per item sold than any other profession--and they can do it almost anywhere in Elanthia.
Other than Mist Harbor and Kraken's Fall, every town's NPCs will pay +5% extra silver to at least one race when players sell to their NPC shops. (See the chart of favored races here!)
Monks have a secret weapon in the profit wear, though: Shroud of Deception! Even if they live in an area where their actual race can't get a bonus, they can just configure their Shroud profile to appear as some other race and get the bonus anyway! It's that easy!
But wait, it gets better! Monks also have Glamour', which grants an enhancive boost of 20 Trading ranks--or 50 Trading skill, whichever is lower. (50 Trading skill will be lower unless you have at least 20 Trading ranks on your own, so train those to get the max benefits out of Glamour.)
What does Trading even do? You get an extra 1% silver for every combined 12 bonus between your Influence bonus and Trading bonus. That's Trading bonus, not ranks! So, for example, if you had 44 Trading ranks, which is 144 Trading bonus, you make 12% more silver for items sold to NPCs than if you had 0 Trading ranks.
Sly Comment!
Yes, extra silver is another reason I tank Intuition instead of tanking Influence.
You'll also be casting Shroud of Deception, so your 12% becomes 17%. And then you'll be casting Glamour, so your 17% becomes 18%--and 8/12ths of the way to 19%. And if you took my advice and set Influence high from the start, that'll get you to 19% if not 20%.
My monk, Sariara, had made 2,509,473 million silver by the time she'd existed for a week. By now she's existed for about three and a half weeks and is up to 19,262,392 silver. (She hasn't even sold a Mystic Tattoo yet, either!) How do these things happen?
- Don't hunt overcrowded Landing areas. Instead, find the rich lower level creatures. There are plenty of them because characters don't stay low level for long, so hunting pressure is low.
- Once you've found the rich creatures, use your spells take advantage of Glamour and Shroud of Deception to get a percentage boost to their already valuable loot. Reap the reward of being a monk!
- Between level 0 and 19, when skills migrate near instantly, max out Trading every time you're about to sell things.
- Between level 0 and 19, push First Aid and Survival up when you're out hunting so you can get value from skinning. Unlearn it afterward so you can...
- Between level 5 and 19, learn Glamour and cast it before selling. (Afterward, unlearn it so you can get skinning skills back!)
- Between level 12 and 19, learn Shroud of Deception and cast it before selling. (Afterward, unlearn it so you can get skinning skills back!)
- For your final level 19.9 build before you're forced to commit to your skills as you head into level 20, have at least 20 ranks of Trading (I went all the way up to 43) and know at least your first 12 Minor Mental spells.
Yes, this is what I did. It's why I get to see delightful lines in my SKILL command like:
You started this migration period on Saturday, 5/25/2024 at 01:55:18 EDT. You have 4 days, 20 hours, 8 minutes remaining in your current 30 day migration period. You're currently migrating at a rate of .001 skill points per pulse, and have converted 25580.00 training points this migration period.
Even if you don't go to this extreme, though, just remember that monks are the best in the game at selling to NPC merchants. Even at extremely low levels, they can skyrocket straight toward high sales value. At the top end of the post-cap world, they're also the only profession that can reach the maximum sale bonus in almost every town.
Bonus Tip!
I know "maximum sale bonus" is a bit vague, but, basically, it's 28% from Trading and Influence, then another 5% from race bonus. The mechanics are a little weird since, even though this sort of means that 33% is the max, the two bonuses are treated separately. If you're an elf selling in Solhaven, for example, you can't just push your Trading and Influence so high that you'd make 33% from that alone; it's still capped at 28% and you have to use Shroud of Deception to wrangle out the other 5%.
My monk Tarine was the key to my figuring this out. Far enough post-cap, I noticed that Glamour wasn't doing anything anymore, which led me down the rabbit trail of investigating why! I found the Trading and Influence hard cap, then isolated that race bonuses could still surpass it.
When Robes Aren't Robes
For simplicity's sake, I've been talking about "robes" throughout this guide because that's the convention when talking about that armor type.
However, robes don't have to remain "robes" at all; they have the same leeway for alterations as other chest-worn clothing! Just to give an idea, here are examples of post-alteration "robes" that my various characters (monks or otherwise) have worn or that I plan to create:
- An airy white starsilk sundress sporting an asymmetrical knee-length skirt
- A sleeveless lily white tunic with a jet black silk sash
- A knee-length midnight blue silk dress aglisten with a constellation of stars
- A sleeveless white tunic splashed with an autumn-hued music motif
- A sleeveless white starsilk tunic spangled with sunset orange musical notes
- A midnight black silk tunic marked with a silver eight-pointed star
- A sleeveless sunlight gold tunic accented by bright white edges
- A royal purple silk tunic embroidered with a golden rose
- A sleeveless emerald green dress showcasing a heart-framed pink sapphire fairy centerpiece (this one is cheating a little because it has the Joola fluff script, so it can break character limits)
- A snowy off-shoulder dress sporting white pearl accents along a wavy aqua skirt (also a Joola)
- An ivory-edged scarlet starsilk dress showcasing elegant thigh slits
- A sleeveless star-patterned white kimono sporting golden threading
- A ribbon-sashed cherry red elesine blouse with vanilla-hued ruffled sleeves
- A sleeveless gold feather-patterned tunic tied at the waist
Mine are mostly feminine designs, but even for a male character, you can turn your robes into shirts, vests, jackets, and more. Get your creativity on!
Bonus Tip!
Likewise to robes, unarmed combat footwear isn't limited to boots or footwraps even though that's how people usually refer to items in that inventory slot. Have a merchant make you shoes, sandals, slippers, flats, moccasins, or anything else you like and wear them into battle anyway!
The Weapon-Wielding Melee Monk
Let's talk more about Martial Mastery, the level 0 feat. Although monks have access to it, it was primarily invented for warriors and rogues as an alternative to learning Elemental Targeting, a Minor Elemental spell that increases AS. (That's why Martial Mastery no longer does anything once a character has learned 25 spell ranks, the minimum to learn Elemental Targeting.)
Far enough post-cap, magical warriors or magical rogues have the same AS ceiling as their non-magical counterparts. However, their non-magical counterparts do get there more quickly; maxing out three weapon skills, while still an expensive post-cap endeavor, saves many millions of experience points compared to learning 75 spell ranks to max out Elemental Targeting.
Monks, on the other hand, don't have Elemental Targeting. That means that a monk maximizing Martial Mastery can have up to 50 more AS and UAF than a monk not maximizing it! Of course, like I've said repeatedly, UAF doesn't matter nearly as much as AS--and the entire monk profession is built around unarmed combat. So I ask:
Is there merit to a weapon-wielding, AS-based monk?
Let me first acknowledge that I think people should make whatever kind of character they find fun and that I personally like wacky builds, but I'm not convinced that a melee monk even is a wacky build. When people consider making a melee-only character who isn't stealth-based, a warrior is probably their first thought, but let's seriously compare these options.
The Training Cost Factor:
I'll use my monk and warrior for the sake of illustration since they're both elves. At level 50, my warrior had a total pool of 2568 PTPs and 2242 MTPs while my monk had a total pool of 2319 PTPs and 2259 MTPs. You might think the warrior is hugely ahead, but no, not at all. I could show you paragraphs upon paragraphs of math, but let's just cut to the chase.
Let's say my monk and warrior both wanted dual katar builds that shared nearly identical training plans. 2x Brawling, 2x Edged Weapons, 1x Thrown Weapons (to buff up Martial Mastery), 2x Two Weapon Combat, 2x Combat Maneuvers, 2x Physical Fitness, 50 Multi-Opponent Combat, and 1x Perception were all in common.
From there, my warrior took 70 Armor Use to get metal breastplate, then trained as many Dodging ranks as possible with her remaining points. My monk learned Iron Skin, took 30 Transformation to buff up Iron Skin, and took 10 Harness Power, then trained as many Dodging ranks as possible with her remaining points. Their skills would be identical in most ways, but here's where they'd differ:
- Monk in robes that act like chain mail: 153 ranks of Dodging and 102 MTPs spare
- Warrior in metal breastplate: 109 ranks of Dodging and 21 MTPs spare
I'm not going to claim that the monk is basically just better. There are too many factors to say that. Warriors have their guild skills. Monks have Perfect Self. Warriors have a higher parry chance because of their level 40 feat. Monks have a higher evade chance because of their level 40 feat. Warriors have Whirling Dervish. Monks have more DS, at least at this stage of the game. Warriors have Weapon Specialization. Monks have Burst of Swiftness. Warriors have Weapon Bonding.
My point, though, is drawing attention to the fact that a melee monk is comparable--better in some ways and worse in others--to a warrior with the exact same build even when you're ignoring so much of what the monk skillset is tailored toward.
The Mental Acuity Possibility:
Like I said in the Feats section, there's technically nothing stopping a monk from learning Mental Acuity even if they aren't using Kroderine Soul. My above training cost example illustrated my monk stopping at two Minor Mental spells because five ranks is normally the max while keeping the full power of Martial Mastery, but another alternative (though this would be during later levels) would be taking Mental Acuity to retain access to the first 20 Minor Mental spells and still even allowing room for Spirit Warding I and Spirit Defense. (In theory, if you were okay with Martial Mastery capping out at +45 AS instead of 50, you could even learn Spirit Warding II!)
The theoretical Martial Mastery and Mental Acuity monk has almost the same AS as a Martial Mastery warrior, but her spells would pull her far ahead in DS while keeping all the silver selling benefits of Glamour and Shroud of Deception, plus saving tons of stamina via Mind Over Body. The tradeoff is making spelling up more of a hassle, but that might be worth the payoff of having a light armored warrior-like character whose combat maneuvers and weapon techniques have 35% stamina cost reduction!
The Doubly Perfect Self:
As great as Perfect Self is for unarmed combat, it's arguably even better for a melee monk. For UC purposes, it's mainly RT reduction for your mstrikes or your singular assault technique, Fury. For a katar monk, on the other hand, you're getting AS--more useful than UAF--and RT reduction for two types of assault techniques: Brawling's Fury and Edged Weapons' Flurry. Rotating weapon techniques to work around cooldowns is a very powerful thing available for hybrid weapons like katars! This can eat a lot of stamina on a warrior or rogue, but monks don't sweat it as much due to Mind Over Body.
Conclusion:
Ironically, I wrote the above Mental Acuity subsection mostly to acknowledge that it's a possibility even while thinking nobody would do it without Kroderine Soul. I just like to encourage weird builds in most professions, so I figured I'd bring it up.
Instead, after systematically considering all the math and angles that I did while writing this, it's made such a strong case for a bizarrely appealing build that I've talked myself into trying it with Sariara much later in her life as I type this. My mind's swirling and it seems clear that the melee monk is a very, very real idea that's gone unexplored because it's not an intuitive or obvious idea with just a glance over the monk skillset.
TL;DR: Making Cookie Cutter Monks
(...by my wacky definition of "cookie cutter.")
"Leafi, I love you and all, but I expanded every section, noticed my scroll bar is tiny, noticed your guide is crazy long, and ain't nobody got time for that. Please tl;dr this nonsense?"
Okay, okay, I hear you.
Some of you never wanted the Leafiara treatment where we seek to become real life monks with advanced spiritual and mental understanding by thoroughly exploring the unfathomable mysteries of reality. Some of you instead wanted the Saraphenia treatment where I tell you how to have fun in an online text-based multiplayer video game and then you embark on your journey.
So I included this section for you!
Race:
Aelotoi, burghal gnomes, dark elves, elves, forest gnomes, half-elves, halflings, and sylvankind are all basically the same power for monks. Faster is better, but more encumbrance is worse, so find your balance.
Society:
Voln.
Stats:
See the "Placing Your Stats" section above.
Core skills to train every level:
2x Brawling, 2x Physical Fitness (eventually 3x), 2x Dodging (eventually 3x), 1x Perception.
Core skills with breakpoints:
1 rank of Two Weapon Combat. Multi-Opponent Combat in bursts to 5, 10, 24, 30, 35, 55, 60, 90, and 100 ranks. 10 Harness Power early, 20-30 mid-game, then really push near cap.
Minor Mental to 16 so you have both focus spells (1213 and 1216) as options, then slack off with spells until the midgame.
Telepathy lore in bursts to 6, 15, and 30. Transformation lore in bursts to 5, 15, and 30. 10 Climbing and Swimming until the midgame or as needs arise.
Tertiary skills:
Spiritual/Mental Mana Control if sharing mana with friends and alts. First Aid and Survival if you want skinning. 20-40 Trading by level 20 because monks make silver via 1205 and 1212.
Midgame skills:
Minor Spiritual to 2, 3, or 7 ranks, but only after 3x Dodging.
Combat maneuvers and feats:
Grapple Specialization if you want to hunt Ascension areas one day and Kick Specialization if you don't. Evade Specialization always. Rolling Krynch Stance (unless you're not using unarmed combat, but if you're asking for a cookie cutter build, I'm telling you to use unarmed combat).
Bearhug. Bull Rush. Combat Mobility. Feint. Ki Focus.
Dragonscale Skin for your level 30 feat.
Armor upgrade path when ready:
Buy TD-boosting armor of +7 or more from a playershop. It'll cost 1-5 million silver and serve you better than anything you could get out of pay event armor without spending the equivalent of 500 million silver. Add services of Enchant, Ensorcell, Sanctify, and padding over time.
Weapon upgrade path when ready:
- Spending almost nothing (~1 million silver or equivalent): Buy basic lightning flaring handwear and footwear.
- Spending moderately (~35 million): Buy off-the-shelf Animalistic Spirit from Duskruin. Add lightning flares at Rumor Woods or Ebon Gate.
- Spending heavily (~81 million): Buy basic lightning flaring handwear and footwear. Add Greater Elemental Flares at Duskruin.
- Spending a ton (~150 million): Buy Animalistic Spirit handwear from Duskruin. Add a slew of Animalistic Spirit upgrades and unlocks at Duskruin. Add lightning flares at Rumor Woods or Ebon Gate. For footwear, same steps except skip the Animalistic Spirit upgrades and unlocks.
- Spending a super ton (~265 million): Same as spending a ton, except don't skip the Animalistic Spirit upgrades and unlocks for your footwear.
Conclusion:
Monks are easy! Go have fun!