Leafiara (prime)/Mechanical Musings/The Autumnwinds' Magical Monk Guide
By Leafiara Autumnwind, in loving memory of Saraphenia Autumnwind.
Last updated September 13, 2024.
Feel free to message me on Discord, send a thought, send player mail, or otherwise get feedback to me.
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 "tl;dr Recap: 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 section at the end, then read the rest if you're intrigued afterward. The Cookie Cutter section provides an overview of what to do and gives a small window into what the rest of the guide covers, which is why to do it.
I've made each section collapsible for easy navigation, but I try to scatter nuggets of wisdom for all experience levels all throughout!
Speaking of experience, what's mine? I capped my monk Tarine before the 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 I'm now working on my monk Sariara to fill in my knowledge gap before level 43; she 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 it. If even a few more players find monks even half as exciting as Phenia did because of what they read here, 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), 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 them 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 physical systems based on attack strength (AS) and defensive strength (DS), UC's equivalents of unarmed attack factor (UAF) and unarmed defense factor (UDF) are joined by a third number worth keeping your eye on, the multiplier modifier (MM). Another dissimilarity is that while increasing your AS or decreasing enemy DS by the same amount would have the same effect in combat, lowering enemy UDF is multiplicatively better than increasing your UDF. Meanwhile, increasing your MM is possibly even more paramount!
I'll elaborate further during the Unarmed Combat Primer section. For now, know 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 have no chance of hitting their foe.
Bonus Tip!
Another standout difference of unarmed combat is that creatures can never outright evade, block, or parry a UC attack. UC attacks can still miss via low endrolls, but if you've played other physical characters and can't stand seeing a creature avoid an attack before it even gets to the roll, try a monk!
Gear Indifference
Monks have extremely low dependence on good gear.
While GSIV is technically balanced around vanilla +20 gear, most people would agree 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 remaining enjoyable even with little to nothing spent on 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, improvements like enchanting, ensorcelling, sanctifying, or weighting your offensive gear are much more luxury than necessity. If you're unable or unwilling to spend heavily on a new character, monks are an excellent low investment profession. (And smooth upgrade paths exist if you eventually want them, but more on that later in this guide!)
Fun time sidebar!
Players have noticed that monks can hunt and succeed in the Hinterwilds, arguably the game's most challenging area, on par with other professions even when monks have a third of the experience points and a tenth of the gear caliber. At that top end of difficult content, I'd say monks are the best at not depending on gear nor even exp! More on that in the Ascension section.
Simplicity
Monks have a very low learning curve, at least by GS standards. This game world has a lot of convoluted training plans, tradeoffs, options, breakpoints, tight training point constraints, and too many desirable skills to train them all, but monks present you with a very straightforward, low pressure profession that it's difficult to get wrong. If you stick to unarmed combat, I'd go so far as extremely difficult to get wrong.
(If you want to do unusual things that don't involve UC, then read on in Odds and Ends!)
Fun Factor
Once monks hit their stride by level 40--maybe even level 30--they're great at screen scroll shenanigans. With the general speed of unarmed combat, its myriad status conditions, free bonus jabs in mstrikes or free knockdowns in Fury, and plenty of messaging prompts about tiering up or when to Spin Kick, combat can be an engaging and chaotic experience!
Even from a roleplaying perspective, Shroud of Deception is one of the game's coolest tools. It allows you to customize your appearance and save up to three illusionary projections, which 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 in and out of combat even from early levels, monks are for you. The Minor Mental spell circle is so integral to the monk toolkit that dev had to make provision so 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 a week ago, but while writing Odds and Ends, I did a deep dive into the math and now believe a weapon build is absolutely on the table; monks can, if they want, operate 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 Dread Pirate type quick 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. TD certainly is a weakness, but not nearly as much of one now. Monks' offensive toolkit has grown, making it easier than ever to keep enemies under control and stop them from casting at all. Even when creatures do fire off spells, non-Kroderine Soul monks have 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.
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 their profession service needs improvement (but improvement is already planned for the future).
Character Creation
If making a monk sounds intriguing, let's get started!
Choosing a Race
From level 50 on, monks arguably have more leeway than any other profession to be any race with minimal drawbacks due to Perfect Self basically eliminating stat deficiencies. Instead of any race being bad at anything, it's more a question of which ones are slightly better at any given thing. I don't think you can go wrong, which I don't say about other professions, so my honest suggestion is to pick whatever sounds interesting.
If you're not sure what's interesting or are torn between options, my next suggestion is to see if any race-specific verbs strike your fancy. Even though Shroud of Deception can make your monk appear like other races, they can't perform (for example) halfling-specific verbs without actually being a halfling. Get the verbs you like!
If verbs don't sound compelling either, then here's how I'd rank monk races mechanically if I really had to:
- Elves: What I made my first monk, Tarine. Elves tie with burghal gnomes as the second best race for combined Agility and Dexterity ("Agidex"), which means faster mstrikes and--key parts of the monk arsenal. Elves have no particular disadvantages like height or size, though they're slightly below average on encumbrance.
- Halflings: Halflings are the best race for combined Agidex, having the fastest mstrikes and assaults. They also have an enormous bonus to defend against elemental warding spells, which monks would normally be weak against. (Enemy elemental warding spells are sort of rare, though.) They have a Logic bonus, so they gain exp slightly faster and Vertigo is slightly more reliable, though these are minor points. Halflings' primary disadvantages are severe encumbrance issues and their height requires keeping most creatures knocked down or training niche combat maneuvers like Acrobat's Leap to target heads as a finisher.
- Aelotoi, Dark Elves, Half-Elves, and Sylvans: All of these races tie for third place at Agidex. They can still get to minimum speed attacks, but need a little more experience or enhancive items than elves, halflings, or gnomes would. They have much more carrying capacity (less encumbrance) than halflings and gnomes, all but aelotoi have more carrying capacity than elves, and none have problems height-wise. Mechanical differences between the four are pretty minimal for monks, but compared to elves as a baseline...
- Aelotoi have a Logic bonus, like halflings, so more exp and better Vertigo.
- 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 my top six picks.
- 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 very minimal in practice.
- Forest Gnomes and Burghal Gnomes: These are in the top 3 and top 2 speed tiers, respectively. Forest gnomes handle encumbrance slightly better than halflings while burghal gnomes handle it even worse than halflings. I give halflings the advantage over gnomes mainly due to their huge elemental TD bonus, but the differences are still minor enough that I don't think anyone should sweat it.
- Dwarves: Like halflings, dwarves have excellent defense against elemental TD (albeit +30 vs. +40). Dwarves face the short race issue of not being able to target the heads of standing foes--and, unlike the swifter short races, dwarves rank second to last in Agidex. Still, if you wanted the fastest attacks, I figure you would have picked one of the races above. If you're okay with slower attacks, then other selling points come into play; elemental TD is a rare and valuable one. Unlike other short races that have major encumbrance issues, dwarves also hold a surprising amount due to their Strength and Constitution bonuses. 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 between third best and fourth best as between best and third best. Half-krolvin and dwarves have amazing verbs, but I don't see much purely mechanical reason to choose a half-krolvin over the previous nine races.
- Giantmen: Giants are the slowest race, but can carry near endless amounts of things without getting encumbered. Encumbrance reduces DS and slows down single-target UC attacks, assault techniques, and AoE techniques--but encumbrance doesn't slow down mstrikes nor Twin Hammerfists, which are key in the monk arsenal. Giants are the worst at mstrikes. Agidex-boosting enhancives to fix that get more expensive than encumbrance-reducing items like silvery blue potions and especially blue feather-shaped charms, so I personally wouldn't take the trade. Even when lower carrying capacity races get encumbered, most hunting grounds allow a quick return to town to drop off boxes and silver, then a quick return to hunting, so they can just do that as they become encumbered. (Halflings and gnomes probably also need charms or potions.) Still, there's a reason that some players choose giants near exclusively. If item upkeep or returning to town sounds aggravating or if you want to maximize the amount of time you can spend acquiring loot (staying out hunting) instead of exp (ending the hunt as quickly as possible), giants might be for you.
- Erithians and Humans: These are the third slowest races. 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 excellent verbs that go well with monks roleplaying-wise!
Races from dwarves up are close enough that I wouldn't quibble about any of them being seriously better than the others. I understand people's case for giants too, even though they're not my style. (I'm okay with returning to town every four boxes or so!) I find half-krolvin, erithians, and humans really dubious from a mechanical perspective, though. Perfect Self does bring up the low and you can't go wrong, exactly, but Perfect Self also makes the rich richer.
Encumbrance Sidebar!
If you're used to playing a halfling or gnome who wears full plate, don't expect your encumbrance life to be similar on a halfling or gnome in robes. For one thing, max rank armor support gives plate armor 35 pounds encumbrance reduction, but gives robes 15 pounds. For another, let's talk about GS' encumbrance paradox!
Base weight (unlightened) armor has no encumbrance while worn. Yes, really. 75 pound full plate weighs 75 in your hands and 0 on your body! However, if you lighten full plate down to its minimum 38 pounds, wearing it counts as -37 pounds multiplied by a number that depends on your race. That number is 0.5 for a halfling or burghal gnome and 0.6 for a forest gnome, so, after rounding, max light full plate gives -18 or -22 pounds encumbrance. Robes have a modest base weight of 8 and minimum weight of 4 pounds, so max light robes give -2 pounds encumbrance for halflings or gnomes.
Between armor encumbrance mechanics and armor support, a halfling or gnome in full plate has a 36-40 pound encumbrance advantage over a halfling or gnome monk in robes. Perfect Self will make up some pounds, but not nearly that much of the gap, so be warned!
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.
Since you finalize stats (and skills) at level 20, the game stops your exp growth around 95% of the way through level 19 and forces you to confirm that your character is configured the way you want. That's your cue to check in and decide your "real" stat placement!
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.
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 all stats have gotten as high as they can get by cap and there are spare points to allocate, then favor the configuration that gives the most mental TPs. If multiple configurations give the same mental TPs, then favor the one with stats that grow most slowly.
Deep Dive Stat 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. Perfect Self makes monks good across the board from level 50 on almost regardless of what they do. Single strikes in unarmed combat are also naturally quick and, even at low levels, don't require good Agidex like hard-hitting melee weapons.
Once mstrikes and weapon techniques are a regular part of your monk's arsenal by the early 30s--if not sooner--Agidex does become more important. However, fast races who set stats for cap will be perfectly fine on Agidex due to innate bonuses. For example, at level 30, my monk Sariara had 19 Dexterity bonus and 16 Agility bonus, which is the -2 RT tier. She reached -3 RT by level 33 and will reach -4 RT by level 50 thanks to stat growth and Perfect Self. -5 RT is her peak without enhancives or Ascension, which she'll reach at level 84. Reaching -5 RT only matters for mstrikes and assault techniques, which, despite being very important, aren't the majority of battle commands.
Overall, in my example, 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); she only really feels the difference from level 19 to 32. On the flip side, her TD was good from the start (for a monk) since setting stats for cap means that slow-growing stats like Aura and Wisdom start off high.
Deep Dive Stat Sidebar #2!
There's also endless debate across most professions on whether to tank Intuition or Influence. The majority usually say tank Influence, but I disagree. Voln is the mechanically strongest society (a point that I do concur with the majority on) and Influence improves the success rate of Symbol of Sleep, arguably Voln's strongest ability, along with a couple of its others. (More on Voln in the next section!)
So I'm on the side of tanking Intuition unless you're not in Voln or you play a sorcerer or wizard (whose profession services care about Intuition). If you are in Voln, the only argument for maxing Intuition is that it ekes out a tiny extra chance to dodge enemy maneuvers. That can make sense for pures, but it's much less compelling to monks, who already have extraordinary ability to dodge enemy maneuvers due to high rank caps and low training costs for Physical Fitness and Dodging.
To put it into perspective, my capped monk Tarine, who tanked Intuition, has a -3% chance for a same-level maneuver to hit her in offensive stance and a -18% chance in defensive stance. If she maxed Intuition, those numbers would jump to... -4% and -19%. Not very impressive!
But you might think that a super-capped character is an unfair example, so how about Sariara at level 30? She tanked Intuition, obviously hadn't maxed her stats yet, didn't have Perfect Self, is an aelotoi instead of an elf (a bit worse at avoiding maneuvers), had a little over 1 million experience points instead of 39 million, hadn't sunk Ascension points into avoiding maneuvers, and only had 2x Physical Fitness, 2x Dodging, 1.1x Combat Maneuvers, and 1x Perception instead of 3x, 3x, 2x, and 2x. For all that, like-level maneuvers still only had a 12% chance to hit her in offensive and a -2% chance in defensive. Improving those numbers doesn't appeal to me like improving the success of the absurdly powerful Symbol of Sleep.
If you're wondering what relevant things each stat does, I'll go over them quickly:
- Strength: Reduced encumbrance. +1 UAF for every 2 bonus.
- Constitution: Slightly reduced encumbrance. Slightly more max health. +1 crit padding (AS-based attacks only) for every 5 bonus.
- Dexterity: Reduced roundtime (RT). Slightly increased maneuver defense. Improves tattooing ability. Adds crit weighting, but only if using melee weapons.
- Agility: Reduced RT. As much increased maneuver defense as Dexterity and Intuition combined. +1 UAF for every 2 bonus. +0.75 DS in offensive stance for every 1 bonus, assuming you're in robes.
- Discipline: +1 exp pool size for every 1 base stat (not bonus). Increased resistance to enemy 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 (safe place) or per 7 bonus off a node (e.g. hunting). +1 exp pool size for every 1 base stat (not bonus). +1 CS for Minor Mental spells for every 1 bonus. Potentially +1 starting mana for every 4 bonus of initial stat placement only.
- Intuition: Slightly increased maneuver defense. +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 of initial stat placement only.
- 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 join and master a society since there are numerous mechanical incentives to do so and none not to. This isn't part of character creation since you can't join a society until level 3, but it can be part of character concept creation. Also, like I said in stats, Voln makes Influence very relevant, so it's worth considering right away. Which society is right for your monk?
Mechanically, this society excels at exactly three things:
- Offering way, way more mana than other societies (with the possible exception of empaths in Sunfist)
- Offering slightly more UAF and DS than other societies, as it caps out at 35 instead of 30 (Sunfist) or 26 against the living (Voln, but Voln does get 39 UAF against the undead)
- Being the easiest and fastest to master
Neither mana, UAF, nor DS matter to monks other than in the tiniest regard, so if you're interested in CoL, it's probably either for reasons of ease or for roleplaying reasons like the other two options being a no-go based on their lore.
This society has a bit more mechanical appeal for monks.
Sunfist's sigils (abilities) consume small amounts of mana and stamina. Warriors and rogues need their stamina in droves, so they might find Sunfist tricky to work with or build stamina regeneration enhancives because of it. Monks, on the other hand, can already reduce their stamina costs--including sigils--by 20-35% with their Mind Over Body spell! They 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 features the best (TD) bonus of the societies by a small margin and a surprisingly underrated ability to ignore penalties from moderate wounds for combat purposes.
Sunfist uniquely offers access to warcamps, a 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 explores the same general concept, but that requires millions of silver to buy in to. Warcamp loot is rather poor, but warcamps remain an appealing aspect of Sunfist and can be a helpful alternative to 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.
Like all professions, monks get extreme utility out of Voln's teleportation to hunting grounds and back from them, restoring spells after being resurrected, and swifter recovery from stat loss after being resurrected. 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 other forms of combat, along with an emergency button to go noncorporeal
Voln also features 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. Inflicting physical wounds on things that normally don't have bodies--and usually wear light armor, if any!--is a powerful draw for brawling monks.
Kai's Strike can be a mixed bag. It treats your hands and feet as blessed even when your UC gear isn't. This used to be immensely valuable when undead creatures completely negated attacks from unblessed gear, making it arguably the top reason for a UC monk to join Voln. These days aren't those days, though. As of a few years ago, undead only have 25% resistance to physical attacks from unblessed gear.
The idea of Kai's Strike is removing the pain point of blessings running out mid-hunt. However, it accomplishes that by acting like you're not wearing your unblessed UC gear at all. That means you ignore undead damage resistance, but also don't benefit from your normal gear properties like flares, scripts, or weighting. That tradeoff is probably still a net win for anyone with basic gear, but I'd say it's a net loss for anyone with at least two flares.
The inability to turn off Kai's Strike after learning it has been an unfortunate side effect of the changes to blessings and undead a few years ago. Still, Voln monks can work around it by filling in with their own Symbol of Blessing until they can track down a cleric for a real blessing that lasts longer, has holy water flares, and stops fast-disappearing undead from vanishing as quickly.
Alternatively, adding a single tier of Sanctify to your gear overrides Kai's Strike. Sanctify takes off 5% resistance per tier, so you'd get 20% resistance while keeping your flares between blesses. While Kai's Strike is something to be aware of and can be tedious (if you self-bless) or cost a little bit (getting one cast of Sanctify), it's not a dealbreaker.
Overall, Voln offers the greatest diversity of mechanically useful abilities for monks.
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--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 when it's so weak and why grapple if punches are the same speed with more strength?
Because of the other major component of unarmed combat: positioning. There are three positions: Decent, Good, and Excellent. Going up the ladder drastically increases the power of all four attack types. To improve your monk's position, follow the combat prompts as they appear. 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.
Let's take the cue to grapple:
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 significantly 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 far more 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 generalizations out the window, the use cases for each attack type are:
- 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 punches have minor 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 a finishing blow during excellent positioning.
Grapple will have its day in the Combat Maneuvers section. If you really want to dig deep into mechanics, it's also generally better at inflicting RT on foes than punches, which can be helpful sometimes. For now, let's keep exploring the basics.
UAF, UDF, and MM
If you're used to GemStone's AS-based attacks, you probably noticed how different the combat messaging looks for unarmed combat. You might also have noticed that my monk Sariara hit a creature with higher UDF than her UAF:
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 I say you have to ignore what you know about AS-based combat.
UAF isn't irrelevant, but the more important numbers are UDF and the multiplier modifier (MM). While melee weapons, ranged weapons, and bolts calculate endrolls by subtraction and addition, unarmed combat calculates outcomes by division, multiplication, and addition.
What does that mean in practice? Higher lows and lower highs. It's rare that 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, since your UAF gets divided by enemy UDF, increasing your UAF additively (e.g. training more ranks of Brawling) means much less than decreasing enemy UDF by the same amount.
The primary means to decrease enemy UDF and increase your MM are generally the same: reducing your foes' stances and decreasing their EBP ability by reducing stats or inflicting conditions like stunning, immobilizing, or blinding them.
Bonus Tip!
Unlike AS-based melee attacks, UC attacks have the same UAF in offensive or defensive stance. Instead, MM is what drops so low in defensive that it can even become a negative number! This used to occasionally trip up Phenia's player, who was used to looking at the first number in a combat equation. Even when you do know what to look for, MM is deep enough into the visible formula that it's often easier to figure out that you're in the wrong stance because everything's failing to hit; that was how I'd take notice and Leafi would tell her to fix up her stance.
Also unlike AS-based melee attacks, lying down not only doesn't reduce your UAF, but also doesn't even reduce your MM! Jabs, grapples, and punches can all be thrown at full power from the ground, so if you're not paying attention, you could be fighting from your back and not even know it! You'd find out once you tried to throw a kick or use an ability such as Twin Hammerfists or Fury, though.
Fun Sidebar!
Monks and unarmed combat have existed for almost twelve years, but only a single hunting ground--the Atoll, for capped characters--has dared to release enemy creatures who use UC attacks. Why? Probably because no attainable UDF number can save you if they get to a high MM against you. UC is a dangerous tool in the hands--and feet--of enemy creatures and players alike!
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 "techniques" from here on; despite the name, the brawling "weapon techniques" don't require weapons--unless you're thinking of your monk's hands and feet as weapons!) Mstrikes, assault techniques, and Area of Effect (AoE) techniques are your 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 add more opponents at 15, 35, 60, 100, and 155 MOC ranks. Mstrikes with a target specified, AKA focused mstrikes, can attack a single opponent twice in one command at 30 MOC ranks, then add more attacks at 55, 90, 135, and 190.
For unarmed combat only, mstrikes also throw a bonus jab at enemies when you're at decent positioning against them. Once you're into good positioning, mstrikes either use an attack type that you specify (e.g. MSTRIKE KICK) or, if you have an opportunity to tier up, your mstrike will switch to the appropriate type as needed. At decent positioning, mstrike will always jab (bonus or otherwise) until it finds a tier up.
Mstrikes sort of have a cooldown after use, which is 15-20 seconds or so (depending on training). When on "cooldown," you can still mstrike, but they'll consume a good chunk of stamina. (I can't give an exact number because it depends on how many hits are in your mstrike and which attack types are used.) When not on cooldown, mstrikes cost no stamina! Focused and unfocused mstrikes share the same cooldown timer.
Mstrike RT is frontloaded into a single burst and all attacks fire off at once. How much RT depends on the number of attacks and which attack types, but it'll be more attacks per RT than throwing single strikes would have been. However, be aware that it can reach times of 8 seconds or more early in a monk's life, especially if you're a low Agidex race or have made a hard push for high MOC ranks to have more attacks early! As an odd quirk, encumbrance doesn't increase mstrike RT.
Fury and Clash
The unarmed combat assault technique is Fury, which you learn with 25 ranks of Brawling (level 11). 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, you can specify an attack type (e.g. WEAPON FURY GRAPPLE) and, at good positioning or better, Fury will do what you said or switch as needed for a tier up. At decent positioning, Fury will only jab until it finds the 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 (level 23). It begins with three foes, then adds one more at the same thresholds as Fury: 10, 24, 50, 100, 150, and 200. Like Fury, Clash doesn't include a bonus jab. At good positioning or better, it uses your specified UC attack type or switches to the appropriate tier up type; however, since Clash only throws one attack per creature, a tier up opportunity would have needed to exist before Clash was used. (Fury and mstrikes, on the other hand, can find tier up opportunities and seize on them within their own self-contained string of attacks.) At decent positioning, Clash can only throw jabs.
Techniques cost a small, flat amount of stamina (15 for Fury and 20 for Clash), then enter a cooldown period of 15-20 seconds or so )(depending on training). Unlike mstrikes, Fury and Clash can't be used while they're on cooldown. They do have separate cooldown timers, so you can alternate between them.
What you can't alternate is mstrikes with Fury and Clash. Using an mstrike locks you out of Fury and Clash for 60 seconds. On the flip side, you can use an mstrike right after Fury or Clash if needed, but those techniques activate the mstrike cooldown, so it'll cost stamina. All of this is because former GM Naijin, the creator of techniques, didn't intend for players to insert mstrikes 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 use both, though, as I explain in the Training Plan section!)
RT-wise, much like mstrikes, Fury and Clash are difficult to nail down exact numbers on. However, they both seem to have lower max RT (unless encumbered; encumbrance affects techniques) and Fury definitely has lower minimum RT. Fury divides its RT over individual strikes instead of all at once. For example, if Fury has 5 RT worth of attacks, enough MOC to strike three times, and a certain amount of Agidex (again, difficult to pin down an exact amount), it'll execute them as 2 RT, 2 RT, and 1 RT.
Fury's structure has upsides and downsides. You'll have less RT overall if the early rounds kill the creature. If an emergency comes up mid-Fury, you can interrupt your own attack to leave the room, cast a spell, disable a different foe, etc. On the other hand, enemy creatures can also interrupt your Fury by leaving the room, stunning you mid-Fury, etc. It's also less likely that your target will be dead the moment your command gets sent to the server since attacks don't happen all at once.
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 (level 3 and 36 (or level 35 if you use your first Ascension Milestone point on Brawling)). Unlike Fury and Clash, using mstrikes won't lock you out of them.
Twin Hammerfists is an 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 that can serve monks well from level 4 onward and potentially even for the rest of their lives.
Spin Kick is a reaction technique--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 can save you in a tough situation. Like Twin Hammerfists, it's an SMR-based attack. Unlike Twin Hammerfists, Spin Kick isn't a setup; it has real killing power if it rolls high. Spin Kick performs best against enemies with poor maneuver defense, like lumbering tanky creatures or magic users, and performs 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 to consider highlighting from level 35-36 on!
Macros and Aliases
If you're playing even somewhat manually, I recommend creating aliases (if using Lich) or macros (if not) for the various unarmed combat attacks. Most specifically:
- Jab
- Grapple
- Punch
- Kick
- Weapon Twinhammer
- Weapon Fury [Grapple/Punch/Kick (depending on your level, training, specialization, and preference)]
- Weapon Spinkick
- Mstrike Grapple
- Mstrike Punch
- Mstrike Kick
- Mstrike Grapple Target
- Mstrike Punch Target
- Mstrike Kick Target
For macros, this just means tying each one you care about to a single key press. You can configure them in Options -> Macros if using Wrayth.
For Lich aliases, I've set mine as jj for jab, gg for grapple, pp for punch, kk for kick, twin for Twin Hammerfists, utf for Fury Grapple (stands for "unarmed technique Fury"), uts for Spin Kick, mg for mstrike grapple, mp for mstrike punch, and mk for mstrike kick. I could create things like an mkt alias for mstrike kick target, but in that case I just type out "mk target" or "mk [target noun]."
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. Thrice per level later in life or if you really want more stamina early on.
- Dodging: At least twice per level. Thrice per level later in life or if you really want more DS early on.
- Perception: Once per level.
Bonus Tip!
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, so you'll have 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 and you'll almost certainly want far more than that early on. However, philosophically, I don't consider CM in the same category as Brawling, Physical Fitness, Dodging, and Perception. All of those are inexpensive and offer noticeable incremental value with every rank, but 2x Combat Maneuvers has more opportunity cost and the skill provides value at discrete breakpoints. That's why it's in the Breakpoint Skills section below!
Breakpoint Skills
Train these skills to specific thresholds because most have little to no merit for the in-between ranks.
- Two Weapon Combat: One rank gives 5 extra DS to barehanded monks, so it can be worth picking up early. Getting additional DS via TWC is slow (+1 per 10 ranks, plus a +10 bump at 0.5x level) and not worth prioritizing until much later, after maxing Dodging.
- Combat Maneuvers: Train at least 1x--probably much more than that early on--but be intentional and reach benchmarks of Combat Maneuver Points to learn new maneuvers. (Which maneuvers? See the Combat Maneuvers section later or even jump to the tl;dr Recap section!) The UAF bonus from CM ranks isn't that important on its own, so learning new maneuvers is the focus. After getting your core maneuvers, you can push CM to 2x, but it's also reasonable to prioritize other things like getting more spells sooner or getting 3x Dodging sooner, especially if you're going self-spelled. Up to you!
- Multi-Opponent Combat: Before cap, the good mstriking breakpoints are 5, 15, 30, 35, 55, 60, and possibly 90 or 100 while the good technique breakpoints are 10, 24, 50, and possibly 100. If you're using mstrikes and techniques, then use both sets of breakpoints. (See the sidebars at the end of this section!)
- Harness Power: Ten to twenty ranks early will be extremely helpful, giving respectively +60 or +110 mana, but I like waiting until the midgame or late game to go past twenty.
- 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, Brace at 14 ranks is good, though I'm not quite as high on it as many players since evasions come before parrying in the order of operations. The Focus Barrier focus spell is also a good stopping point if you prefer more DS--or at least the option of it--over Mind Over Body's stamina cost reduction. You can ease up on Minor Mental training for a while after the focus spells.
- Telepathy or Transformation lore: To prioritize more offense, pick up Telepathy lore at thresholds of 6, 15, and eventually (midgame or late game) 30 for extra stamina cost reduction in Mind Over Body. To prioritize more defense, pick up Transformation lore at thresholds of 5, 15, and eventually (midgame or late game) 30 for improved resilience in Iron Skin. To prioritize giving others Mystic Tattoos, the first 30 to 40 ranks of Telepathy can rocket your skill up. You can also diversify! For more on lores, see the Secret Sauce of Lores section.
- Climbing and Swimming: 10 ranks of each suffice for most places before the mid levels. Specific areas can change priorities, like the Icemule mountains or the Landing monastery. You'll generally know if you need more Climbing or Swimming, though. At cap, 60 ranks handle basically everything, but eventually 101 helps when you need to leave encumbered.
Skill Training Sidebar #2: Mstrikes and Techniques are a Contextual Preference!
Why anyone would train to account for the mstrike MOC thresholds and the technique MOC thresholds is a good question since mstrikes lock out Fury and Clash for 60 seconds, but I find value in mstrikes and Fury depending on the situation.
My monk, Sariara, prefers Fury in most hunts, which mostly feature one-on-one combat. Fury scales up more quickly than focused mstrikes in the early game, firing off two attacks by 10 MOC and three attacks by 24 MOC while focused mstrikes don't get started until 30 MOC. Fury also has excellent synergy with Grapple Specialization, which I'll discuss in the Offensive Specialization section.
However, Clash is a very weak technique compared to unfocused mstrikes, whose bonus jab allows double the number of attacks, which means more tier up opportunities and more flare opportunities. During hunts that feature a lot of swarms, she can use focused mstrikes for single targets, even though they're slightly weaker than Fury because of her Grapple Specialization, while leaving the unfocused mstrike option open for battling the hordes.
Your MOC training plan doesn't need to assume that mstrikes or techniques are either/or!
Niche Skills
Niche isn't a bad thing and several of these skills can be prioritized over breakpoint skills. Just make sure you're training with a plan and a purpose!
- Spiritual Mana Control and Mental Mana Control: Harness Power gives much better mana improvement in a vacuum, so leave these alone until the late game unless you're surrounded by friends or alts who can send mana. In that case, tailor your SMC and MMC for sharing breakpoints. (See the tip below!)
- First Aid: Helps with skinning and Mystic Tattoos, though only barely in the latter case. I recommend it during the first 19 levels, which you can read about in the Trade Secrets section. From level 20 on, train First Aid if you want skinning bounties and avoid it if you don't.
- Trading: Monks get huge value out of at least the first 20 ranks. See the Trade Secrets section!
- Survival: Helps with skinning, but it's more expensive than First Aid. Slightly reduces duration of stuns, but monks don't get stunned very often. Like First Aid, I recommend it during the first 19 levels. Afterward, train it only if you want to excel at skinning bounties and have already trained First Aid.
Bonus Tip!
Let's talk mana sharing breakpoints!
5 Spiritual Mana Control shares perfectly with capped clerics who have maxed SMC. 7 SMC or Mental Mana Control shares perfectly with capped clerics who only have 2x SMC or capped empaths and sorcerers who maxed the respective mana control. 10 SMC or MMC shares perfectly with capped bards, paladins, or rangers with maxed mana control of that type or capped clerics, empaths, and sorcerers who only have 1x of that mana control. 24 SMC or MMC shares perfectly with anybody else who has 24 or more mana control of that type.
Just remember: 5, 7, 10, 24!
Bonus Tip!
If you're at 24 mana control, 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 nice quality of life!
Skill Training Sidebar #3: The Skinning Deluxe Special!
The Adventurer's Guild bounty system won't assign skinning bounties unless you have at least half your level in First Aid and Survival combined. For example, a level 20 character with 8 First Aid and 2 Survival is eligible for skinning bounties.
Some players purposely remain below the threshold because skinning bounties have comparatively low exp payouts. Other players lean into training these skills because adding skinning into their pool of bounty types reduces the odds of getting other types like escorts or gems that they might want to avoid.
Experience points paid out by skinning bounties depend on the quality of skins the furrier asks for; in turn, the range of qualities the furrier can ask for depends on your skill. It's a double-edged sword! If you keep your skinning ability low, the furrier will only ask for fair quality skins and it'll be relatively easy to complete, but the exp reward will always be 600. If you heavily push your skinning ability, the furrier can (but won't always) ask for fine or exceptional skins. These pay out 650 or 700 exp, but will be more difficult to complete.
What isn't a double-edged sword is that the skinning bounty point payout only depends on the quality and value of the skins sold to the furrier, regardless of what they asked for. The bounty point part of your reward can still be top notch 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 idea if you're still not feeling hardy enough.
- Minor Spiritual up to 2 or 7 ranks: I'd ignore this for quite a long time, other than maybe picking up Spirit Barrier in the midgame. It's very easy to get most Minor Spiritual buffs from the invoker if you're a premium subscriber or from other players since so many professions learn it. (Lesser Shroud is a self-cast-only Minor Spiritual buff, but that's all the way at 20 ranks.) If you don't want to rely on the invoker or others, I'd say learn Spirit Warding II at 7 ranks somewhere in the midgame, then hold off until the late game.
- Minor Mental up to 20 or 25 ranks: Premonition gives extra DS at 20 ranks, but, training point-wise, fully maxing Dodging first is more efficient. Other compelling reasons to push Minor Mental are Vertigo and maybe Mindwipe at 19 and 25 ranks, which are CS-based disablers that benefit from training more ranks. You need to find low TD targets, though.
Skill Training Sidebar #4: The Spirit Barrier Irony!
Like I keep saying, pushing your UAF higher is more luxury than necessity--but that means the opposite is also true! Lowering your UAF in exchange for increasing your DS via Spirit Barrier isn't nearly as damaging to unarmed combat as for melee weapons. Whether you want to trade UAF for DS depends on your playstyle, preferences, and hunting grounds, but monks aren't like (weapon-using) rangers who would find trading AS for DS completely untenable. This spell can be worth a second look!
Post-Cap Skills
Eventually you can train everything if you play long enough, but here are some considerations for what to prioritize if or when you reach post-cap.
There's merit to diversifying your offense eventually! Training edged weapons allows monks to use katars, which are fast and powerful melee weapons. While unarmed combat can defeat basically everything and is usually fairly even with or advantaged over weapon-based combat in most situations, that's not universally true. AS-based attacks can blow UAF-based attacks out of the water in scenarios against creatures who can't be crit killed while also having any combination out of very low DS, very high health, and high level, which makes it harder to tier up. Edged Weapons training also opens up the possibility of using the very powerful Hamstring.
Archery is another possibility for diversifying. Unlike with katars, AS-based ranged attacks don't necessarily add much when you already know how to use UC, but Volley is an exceptional crowd control tool that does AoE damage over time. Monks aren't exactly poor at crowd control--they have a high target limit, Bull Rush, and potentially Vertigo against low TD targets--but adding Volley can really up their game to excel at it.
Supplementing DS with small statues is eventually a good idea for every (non-Kroderine Soul) profession and MIU bolsters their duration. MIU is also among the most cost-efficient means to improve protection against spellburst in areas like Old Ta'Faendryl, the Ruined Temple, or the Sanctum of Scales. Harness Power is more efficient than MIU for spellburst protection and arguably more generally useful, so prioritize that first. Arcane Symbols is more of efficient, but much less generally useful, so favor MIU.
Minor Spiritual up to 20 or 40 ranks:
Eventually the spiritual TD from Lesser Shroud will be important, likely closer to cap. It'll 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 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 means more redux.
Minor Mental up to 48 or 50 ranks (or beyond):
Working on Minor Mental is primarily for slightly improving DS, slightly improving mental TD, and improving mental CS if you cast Vertigo or even Mindwipe and Thought Lash. 48 Minor Mental ranks max out defensive benefits from Minor Mental spells. 50 ranks unlocks a few fancy Shroud of Deception options. 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 or just messing around than for casting in "real" hunting grounds.
Redux Sidenote!
Even if you do want 50 Minor Spiritual and 40 Minor Mental, you can still reach 25% redux--a great threshold--by training a second weapon type and maxing Physical Fitness and Dodging.
For the extreme post-cap, namely training Ascension skills, see the Ascension section toward the end of this guide.
Secret Sauce of Lores
This section contains tables to visualize lore thresholds.
Telepathy Ranks 0 6 15 30 80 150 Mind Over Body Stamina Reduction 20% 25% 30% 35% 40% 45%
Green: The 30% and 35% marks are good stopping points for most monks!
Aside from Mind Over Body, a couple of Telepathy's more minor claims to fame for monks include:
- 25 ranks allow Soothing Word to remove sheer fear and grant 30 seconds of immunity to it
- 15, 45, and 90 ranks improve the spawn rate of Provoke
You can work around sheer fear in other ways by being in Voln or getting your robes sanctified, but the Soothing Word option exists.
Provoke is an interesting niche, but not a major selling point in my eyes. Training 35 Minor Mental ranks asks a ton pre-cap and Provoke becomes less effective the more people are hunting in an area. Most capped hunting grounds are either very crowded, so Provoke does little, or they're not crowded because they're extremely dangerous, which makes Provoke a bad idea.
Iron Skin Breakpoints Level 2 Level 5 Level 15 Level 30 Level 50 Level 75 to 100 0 Transformation Full leather Reinforced leather Double leather Leather breastplate Cuirbouilli leather Studded leather 5 Transformation Double leather Leather breastplate Cuirbouilli leather Studded leather Brigandine 15 Transformation Cuirbouilli leather Studded leather Brigandine Chain mail 30 Transformation Brigandine Chain mail Double chain 50 Transformation Double chain Augmented chain 75 Transformation Chain hauberk 105 Transformation Metal breastplate 140 Transformation Augmented breastplate 180 Transformation Half plate
Blue: You'll need heavy help from enhancives and/or Ascension to reach 105 or more Transformation lore.
Pink: My recommendations for which levels to meet which Iron Skin thresholds if you're undecided. You have more leeway at level 50 on to push lores higher, so I've highlighted two rows each for those, but maxing or near-maxing lores before then has a very heavy training point opportunity cost.
Iron Skin aside, Transformation lore improves Dragonclaw and Brace as follows. After the first row, the cells are only filled in if the spell's effect has improved over the previous breakpoint.
Transformation Ranks Dragonclaw UAF Bonus Brace Disarm Rate 0 10 25% 1 11 3 12 27% 6 13 7 29% 10 14 12 31% 15 15 18 33% 21 16 25 35% 28 17 33 37% 36 18 42 39% 45 19 52 41% 55 20 63 43% 66 21 75 45% 78 22 88 47% 91 23
It does continue past there if you wish to use Ascension or enhancives. As ever, slightly increasing UAF doesn't make a huge difference. Brace, on the other hand, can be impactful if you're getting hit by physical attacks. I wouldn't go out of my way to push Transformation for Brace alone, but if you're already at 15 or 30 ranks for Iron Skin, pushing to 18 or 33 for Brace can be a nice bump for minimal training point costs. 36 is also a great stopping point on Transformation for reasons we'll look at in the Meditation Resistance section.
Illustrative Training Snapshots
For illustration and discussion purposes, here's what my most recent monk Sariara has looked like at various level thresholds--or, in the case of level 30, what she should have looked like since I was messing around experimenting and pushing beyond the boundaries of reasonability.
Level 20 Level 30 Level 40 Level 50 Level 60 Level 70 Combat Maneuvers 24 48 74 100 114 134 Brawling 44 65 85 105 125 149 Multi-Opponent Combat 24 35 55 55 55 55 Physical Fitness 44 64 84 156 186 216 Dodging 44 64 125 156 186 216 Harness Power 10 10 10 10 20 20 Spiritual Mana Control 5 5 5 5 5 5 Mental Lore - Telepathy 0 15 15 15 15 15 Perception 20 30 40 50 60 72 Climbing 10 10 10 20 20 40 Swimming 10 10 10 10 10 10 First Aid 20 30 20 25 30 35 Trading 40 43 42 48 60 72 Minor Spiritual 0 0 0 0 3 3 Minor Mental 12 13 14 16 20 20 (spare TPs) 3/0 86/0 11/0 2/0 34/0 306/128
Let's break this down!
Early on, Saria heavily pushed Trading and got to 12 Minor Mental ASAP for reasons that I explain in the Sneaky Monk Merchants section, but then almost completely let up on the gas for the next 30 levels. First Aid event went backwards at points--but still within range to be eligible for skinning bounties--once the available skinnable creatures where she was hunting became less lucrative. Dropping a Trading rank between level 30 and 40 is no accident either; Influence stat growth compensated for it.
Max Brawling, of course; I stuck one Ascension Training point into it at level 25 to have Spin Kick one level in advance. I could probably have untrained it later, but it wasn't hurting much to have it there instead of in Stamina Regeneration either. Further Ascension points moved into various spots as she got more of them, hitting Logic thresholds and then untraining Logic to go into Brawling as her stats grew to reach those exp gain thresholds naturally. (Stamina Regeneration is still a great pick for any physical build's Ascension points while leveling, but since I chose the max Physical Fitness route fairly early, she never really felt at a loss for stamina.) Her Multi-Opponent Combat thresholds allow flexibility between Fury or mstrikes, depending on what the hunting grounds call for.
Harness Power, Spiritual Mana Control, and Telepathy all hit thresholds that served my ends, then stagnated for a while so I could commence the hyper push of 3x Dodging for more DS, then 3x Physical Fitness for more stamina and redux. These things are more important than they used to be since spell sever comes into play by the mid-50s! She was actually hunting them from 45 on, which is why her spells also noticeably picked up by the time she reached level 60--and, of course, more mana went right along with that.
Combat Maneuvers are definitely where I diverge from most players, as you can tell how little I think of any perceived need for 2xing it. Only 1.2x at level 20 was enough for 3 Rolling Krynch Stance and 2 Grapple Specialization, which can power through the simplest early creatures. After that, more of a push began, leading to 1.6x CM at level 30 for the versatility of 3 Krynch, 3 Grapple Spec, 3 Bearhug, and 2 Feint. (More on Combat Maneuver choices coming up in its own section!)
Level 40 reached 1.85x CM and could go in a variety of directions, but I chose 3 Krynch, 4 Grapple Spec, 4 Bearhug, 3 Feint, and 1 Evade Specialization. By that point, the alternative attack option of Bearhug becomes progressively more valuable against enemies with particularly good UDF, as does Feint to drop that UDF.
At level 50, she made more of a push in Combat Maneuvers. Her priority was maxing Physical Fitness and Dodging, so only after those finished was I content to train CM even without reaching specific CM point thresholds. She had six points spare after learning 5 Bearhug, 1 Combat Mobility, 1 Evade Spec, 3 Feint, 4 Grapple Spec, and 3 Krynch. However, ten levels later, Sariara at 60 had only maxed Evade Specialization and then put Combat Maneuvers back on hold to focus on magic.
By level 70, she picked up another 20 CM for four ranks of Coup de Grace, but you'll notice she has boatloads of spare TPs lying around by then. Rather than maxing CM, I worked out that I wanted her to know--and she could know--Lesser Shroud by level 76, when she'd start getting Illoke elder bounties and might occasionally have Illoke jarls casting at her. However, there's little value in pushing Minor Spiritual past 3 ranks before then; the only thing of note between 3 and 20 (the Lesser Shroud threshold) is Spirit Defense II. If I were playing solo, I would have learned it, but since I'm not, no reason to cut into her redux until ready to jump to the Lesser Shroud mark all at once.
Training Plan: Exclusive Choices
Meditation Resistance
One neat monk perk I haven't mentioned yet is that their MEDITATE verb allows them to gain resistance to one selected damage type! It offers 10% resistance to start, then improves at these thresholds:
Transformation Ranks 0 1 3 6 10 15 21 28 36 45 55 66 78 91 Damage Resistance 10% 12% 14% 16% 18% 20% 22% 24% 26% 28% 30% 32% 34% 36%
And if you decide to go ham post-cap with Ascension and enhancives:
Transformation Ranks 105 120 136 153 171 190 Damage Resistance 38% 40% 42% 44% 46% 48%
I've highlighted 15 and 36 Transformation because 20% and 26% (translation: "25% or more") are extremely notable benchmarks. I could fully elaborate, but people who aren't Whirlin and me would probably get bored to tears by the rows and charts I'd need to detail the math on the hidden Damage Severity Weighting mechanics, how they translate to GSIV's crit system, and how it relates to order of operations with redux and crit padding.
Suffice it to say this:
Because of rounding and the nature of GSIV crits, it wouldn't be merely underestimating 20% and 25% resistance to say that they're twice as effective or two and a half times as effective as 10% resistance, but completely off base by orders of magnitude. The upgrade is huge.
That said, which damage type should you resist? You can change your type any time, but these jump out:
- Cold: Useful for Icemule-based hunting at various levels.
- Crush: A very common damage type, like all physical damage types. 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 areas.
- 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. Probably the least impressive in a vacuum, but it is very common.
Of course, what you should use depends on the hunting ground. If your monk is in a place where everything spews Acid or uses Disruption spells, then meditate to resist those!
The only damage types I'd generally advocate against are Grapple and Unbalance, which are fairly unique. They cause minimal wounds compared to other damage types, but even weak hits frequently knock you down--and resistance doesn't stop that aspect. Still, if you're in a hunting ground replete with Grapple or Unbalance effects, resisting them might save you rounds of stun, so anything's worth considering in the right context.
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 during the earliest levels, these ramp up by gaining 20% of their max effectiveness per rank.
Grapple Specialization:
- Deals bonus heavy grapple damage before each round of Fury against non-prone foes, which knocks them down and inflicts Vulnerable. "Before" is the key word since that means foes are already down as your UAF attack connects, which can improve MM and/or save 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!
- In a vacuum, grapples aren't ideal when not using Fury nor mstrikes since they have the same speed as punches, but are less likely to have killing power at good positioning than punches or especially kicks.
- 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, like me, then Grapple Specialization pays off!
Kick Specialization:
- Turns your Spin Kick into two Spin Kicks!
- Many a monk has happily shared tales of being 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 a room of foes to death before even getting out of RT. It's great fun and can save you in situations where the other two specializations couldn't.
- Kicks are the most powerful of the unarmed combat attacks, but the slowest. However, higher Agidex races can eventually get even MSTRIKE KICK to the same speed as its grapple and punch counterparts, in which case it's flat out the best mstrike option.
- Slower races might be better off with Grapple or Punch Specialization. Those also might be better at lower levels, especially pre-Perfect Self, when mstrikes and Fury haven't become as fast as they'll eventually be and Spin Kick might not even be an option yet (pre-level 35-36).
- 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. If they don't attack, you don't evade, so 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 decent positioning, but at good positioning, when UC attacks have a chance to kill, punches are arguably the best option.
- Maxed Punch Specialization has a 25% chance to add minor impact damage to each target hit by Clash. A 25% chance isn't a shining endorsement, though, since 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 gets exacerbated by Clash being nowhere near as good as unfocused mstrikes.
- Despite the above, the buff to Clash being minor doesn't matter if the monk isn't using Clash anyway. Punch Specialization can shine for lower level characters or slower races if the player prefers mstrikes over weapon techniques, but 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. Depending on how armored the foe, kicks are 140-150% as strong as punches and 160-200% as powerful as grapples. That power gap is so big that even if your punches or grapples have a higher MM because you picked Punch or Grapple Specialization, kicks are most likely stronger anyway. Of course, your fast race monk could just train in Kick Specialization for 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, mstrike punch is probably better than grapple even if you trained Grapple Specialization. However, against foes in cloth, leather, or scale armor, the power gap is 110%-125%, so mstrike grapple backed by its specialization can still win out due to the MM 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 higher level creatures who make tiering up difficult. I've been very happy with these two specializations, using Kick for Tarine and Grapple for Sariara (and Grapple for Saraphenia before her).
As for Punch Specialization, I wouldn't honestly recommend it to anybody other than the slowest races. Former GM Naijin designed Grapple and Kick Specialization to have stronger technique-boosting effects than Punch Specialization because punches are the most broadly useful as a standalone attack and he wanted to balance the scales a bit. GemStone rewards being exceptional at something instead of pretty good at everything, but punches fall squarely into the latter category.
If you're training Grapple Specialization, make it your top priority after Rolling Krynch Stance (more on that in Martial Stances). Kick Specialization can potentially wait until later in life for Spin Kick at level 35-36, but training early isn't necessarily wrong either.
Defensive Specialization
Monks can only train one out of Block Specialization, Evade Specialization, and Parry Specialization, which improve their respective defenses, but which is right for you? ...well, this one's a lot easier than the last!
Block Specialization:
At max, 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 significantly decrease their MM.
Parry Specialization:
At max, a +15% chance to parry melee or ranged attacks--assuming you have Brace active. After parrying, 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 might sound neat until it's compared to...
Evade Specialization:
At max, a +15% chance to evade melee, ranged, or magical bolt attacks. After evading, 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, evasion triggers (not Evasiveness triggers) allow Spin Kick followups.
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, 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 most only learn one. Let's review them.
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 not nearly as practical as it might sound since it has to jump through so many hoops: you need to be fighting multiple creatures, they need to be attacking with melee, you need to evade, Duck and Weave needs to trigger, and the redirected attacker's AS and weapon type have to be good enough compared to the defending creature's DS and armor type to do meaningful damage.
The Leafi verdict:
Delightful, but bad. 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.
When you jab, Flurry of Blows can simultaneously jab other foes in the room. Jabs aren't good on their own, so bringing the best out of this martial stance requires heavy investment. 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 high end gear), I wouldn't say it comes close to being worthwhile.
The Leafi verdict:
Again, great fun, but bad. Not recommended.
The most wasted potential of martial stances.
At rank 1 and 2, it can passively shake off negative spell effects. At rank 3, assuming the stance also removes the effect on demand with a 20 second cooldown. However, the effects you'd most want to remove are exactly the ones you can't because you can't use Inner Harmony while bound or RT-locked. Troubadour's Rally this definitely isn't!
The Leafi verdict:
I appreciate the idea behind this stance, but it has little to no appeal in practice.
Almost surely the best martial stance for UC monks.
This stance gives you a chance of carrying over excellent positioning or good positioning from one foe to the next, which is a massive time savings and power increase. Decent position attacks won't kill unless you have extreme flaring gear or run through a large slew of hits. At good positioning, you at least might kill creatures via crits and can pretty easily kill them with several hits. At excellent positioning, you can kill creatures via crits even with a pretty light tap.
When I wrote that monks rarely one-shot creatures, that's true in a vacuum, but Rolling Krynch can at least open that door for them.
Bottom line: the less time you spend in decent positioning, the better off you are, and that's what Rolling Krynch offers.
The Leafi verdict:
Rolling Krynch is everything a traditional UC monk wants. Make at least the first two ranks your first combat maneuver.
The most defensive martial stance.
When maxed, this one gives you a 27% chance to avoid CS-based attack spells (assuming you're in robes). If you do avoid a spell, Slippery Mind also has a 75% chance of redirecting it to the caster or a different enemy target. Even if don't avoid the spell, you still have a 27% chance to buff your TD for 15 seconds and possibly save yourself from subsequent attacks.
The Leafi verdict:
This stance is simple, but really good, offering two lines of defense against a monk's biggest weakness while also preserving--and arguably even improving upon--one of the most fun aspects of Duck and Weave. I prefer improving offense to defense, but this is still the second best stance for most monks. I'd say it's the very best for a weapon-wielding monk in robes!
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 who wears metal breastplate (and if you're doing that, thank you for making it this far into the guide for reasons I don't understand!), this martial stance takes some 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's retaliation will only add 1-2 seconds of RT--but the bad news is that that RT is so low because it's always going to jab (and therefore do little damage) unless you currently have a tier up opportunity against that foe, in which case it'll pick the tier up type.
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 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. Still, you need to have attacked created a tier up opportunity, you need to not yet have manually seized that opportunity, your attack that created the tier up needs to not have disabled the foe so that it could attack you, it needs to actually attack you and specifically with something you could parry, and you need to 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. That's not necessarily saying much; I'd put it distantly behind Rolling Krynch Stance and Slippery Mind. If you're running a wacky build of a weapon-wielding monk (so no Krynch) in heavy armor (so no Slippery Mind), go with this.
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. Do whatever you have fun with in this game.
Bonus Tip!
Most characters attack dozens of times more often than enemies attack them. I lean heavily on this fact whenever I'm 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, in the right hunting ground, Spirit Barrier has low offensive opportunity cost and can have immense defensive gain!)
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 and usually several times per creature. Mongoose and Slippery Mind apply to things that the creatures do--things you're actively trying to prevent them from doing, no less!--and, for that matter, only some of them do it and only some of the time.
The best... uh... PvP martial stance?
QSTRIKE is an 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 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 works 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, Krynch only needs to save you two jabs' worth of RT per minute. It will almost always do that and more with zero stamina cost instead of Asp's reduced stamina cost.
The Leafi verdict:
No.
Combat Maneuvers
I won't go over every combat maneuver, but here are quick takes on the more standout ones.
Quick Reminder!
Like with skills, you can flip your trained combat maneuvers around as you wish before level 20. Experiment and find what suits you!
Useful for short races to make up the height gap.
Shockingly good supplement to unarmed combat. UAF attacks can overcome most defenses, but among creatures that are so good at turtling that UC struggles to punch through, most are casters who easily get hit by combat maneuvers. Bearhug is also a rare case of a maneuver with killing power in its own right. I don't necessarily recommend using learning it until you can train at least three ranks since its damage really depends on the endroll. It's also a bit worse for small races, but, since it's an SMR-based attack, even they can dish out tons of damage with the high endrolls achievable by inflicting status effects first.
Speaking of status effects, Bearhug has great synergy with Vulnerable, which speeds up its damage rounds (not its cooldown). Twin Hammerfists inflicts Vulnerable and so does the Grapple Specialization knockdown perk from Fury, so either of those make for a nice one-two if you're already using them!
Bull Rush is another way to inflict Vulnerable and can knock down a whole room of creatures. It does pretty minimal damage, but is a staple monk combat maneuver, filling a need of controlling the enemy hordes so you can systematically pick them off.
You needed this in the days of old to learn Perfect Self, but no longer. If you hear 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 four ranks since 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 elf monk Tarine has Burst of Swiftness exclusively for Duskruin Arena because it can push her into the vaunted -8 RT tier of 113 or more Agidex bonus, which allows her to do absurd shenanigans with 14 attacks in 4 seconds with Fury and Flurry while wielding two katars. (Since these are assaults, the attacks are broken up into 1-second rounds of 4, 4, 2, and 2 attacks. By contrast, TWC katar mstrikes' don't get faster than 5 seconds regardless of Agidex.)
I love this suite of disabling skills on rogues and bards, but I don't think unarmed combat-centric monks benefit much despite the wide variety of applications. UC can just power through most things and, for what it can't, Cheapshots won't either since they're all setups--and ones not necessarily better than Twin Hammerfists, at that. Cheapshots can still be worth considering for weapon builds. For UC, I'd rather get Bearhug or Coup de Grace.
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 Kick Specialization-powered Spin Kick and, frankly, even without. 10 Combat Maneuver Points are a lot, so I recommend building up offense during the early game and possibly even into the midgame. By the level 60s at latest, though, when staying prone for any extended period of time gets real dangerous, 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 what matters (at least for solo UC-oriented monks; it's amazing for weapon-using monks or group hunts). Unarmed combat is riddled with incapacitating effects tacked on to its normal attacks, offering frequent opportunities to deliver the Coup de Grace. Also, even foes that can't be crit killed, like various golems, noncorporeal undead, or oozes are susceptible to Coup's insta-kill, so it's another helpful option in your toolbox.
Even though UAF attacks can power through turtled creatures, turning that "can" into "most likely" is ideal. Feint is the premier combat maneuver for lowering enemies' stance, decreasing their UDF--often by triple digits even in the fairly early game--and increasing your multiplier modifier.
I mention this for the katar builds. Hamstring can only be used with an edged weapon, but it's a devastatingly powerful setup-and-damage maneuver all in one. Two Weapon Combat characters will find it even more exceptional.
Increases the odds of higher tier positioning or a tier up opportunity on your next UC attack. This maneuver's wiki page recommends it if you aren't using Rolling Krynch Stance, but I recommend it even if you are. Ki Focus is another means to more consistently keep the train of good-or-excellent positioning rolling, especially against overleveled foes who would normally be difficult to tier up against.
That said, the stamina cost to use it too often is real, even with Mind Over Body, so you'll need heavy Physical Fitness training. It's more of a midgame or late game skill to me.
Monks who use only mstrikes might benefit from Ki Focus more than monks who use techniques. Mstrikes don't cost stamina outside their cooldown period, giving more leeway to keep a high stamina cost maneuver in your rotation.
You needed this in the days of old to learn Perfect Self, but no longer. If you hear 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 at least slightly 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 to save you from that!
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 won't cover in detail, but suffice it to say that you gain additional physical redux (resistance to physical attacks, which is increased by training physically-oriented skills), redux now applies to magical attacks, magical disablers have decreased duration against you, and you have access to the Absorb Magic and Dispel Magic abilities.
In exchange, before level 30, 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, which I'll explain in the level 30 feat section.
Level 0 Monk Feat - Martial Mastery:
After you've maxed one weapon skill (for 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 AS/UAF boost is penalized by 5% for every spell you learn beyond five ranks--which means Martial Mastery no longer applies by the time you have 25 total spell ranks. 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. Some, like my monk Tarine, will have too many spell ranks to ever make use of it. 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. They can ink from nearly 1000 different options from a stock tattoo list! These are called mundane tattoos.
From level 20 on, monks can upgrade a character's existing tattoo--including one for which the monk wasn't the artist--by turning it into a Mystic Tattoo, which makes it enhancive. This is the monk profession service!
For full detail on Mystic Tattoos, see their wiki page. The simplified version is that Mystic Tattoos have five tiers, each requiring more training from the monk and each adding an enhancive of +1 bonus for a stat of the buyer's choice. To empower Mystic Tattoos, monks use 50000, 75000, 100000, 125000, and 150000 Motes of Tranquility (respective to each tier), which they earn via absorbing the equivalent amounts of experience points. Monks can earn up to 50,000 motes per week and save up to 200,000 total for later use. (You can see your totals with the RESOURCE command.)
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 really high impact one for CS casters, who benefit heavily from boosting Aura or Wisdom. It can also be solid for any character close to specific Agidex thresholds, and some people like simply enhancing Logic to absorb more exp.
However, Mystic Tattoos are 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 a future point, 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 can decide between these two feats by using FEAT LEARN DRAGONSCALESKIN or FEAT LEARN MENTALACUITY.
Dragonscale Skin is a straightforward buff that improves monks' Iron Skin spell.
Reviewing the basics of Iron Skin first, it 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; basically the same as TD, except done as a number subtracted from the enemy attack instead of added to your defense).
Here's a revised version of the Iron Skin table from the Secret Sauce of Lores section again, now tailored to the context of the CvA boost. The listed benefits are comparing to the baseline of robe CvA without Dragonscale Skin.
Dragonscale Skin Breakpoints Level 30 Level 50 Level 75 to 100 0 Transformation Leather breastplate (10 benefit) Cuirbouilli leather (11 benefit) Studded leather (12 benefit) 5 Transformation Cuirbouilli leather Studded leather Brigandine (13 benefit) 15 Transformation Studded leather Brigandine Chain mail (21 benefit) 30 Transformation Brigandine Chain mail Double chain (22 benefit) 50 Transformation Double chain Augmented chain (23 benefit) 75 Transformation Chain hauberk (24 benefit) 105 Transformation Metal breastplate (33 benefit) 140 Transformation Augmented breastplate (34 benefit) 180 Transformation Half plate (35 benefit)
For illustration's sake, my monk Sariara had leather breastplate caliber robes at level 30, will reach cuirbouilli leather at level 34 or 35, studded leather around level 43-45, brigandine at 50, chain mail likely around 60, and double chain at 75, where she'll pause for a long while. My monk Tarine had a less Transformation-focused build and is only at chain mail caliber even now, but will push to chain hauberk in the near future, then stop at metal breastplate 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, an identical endroll against real chain armor, plate armor, etc. would do significantly less damage than it does against robes.
The alternative to Dragonscale Skin, 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 like a monk's first 20 learned Minor Mental spells don't count. However, 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 that down, so it won't necessarily be exactly twice.)
The most striking of these exceptions is definitely Kroderine Soul because it creates the unique monk path of continuing to cast spells despite training a feat that prevents their warrior and rogue counterparts--and pre-level-30 monks--from using magic at all. I can see the appeal even though it's not a route I'm interested 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. 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? As far as I can tell, so far the community has said no, but I'll explore that later in Odds and Ends. 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 unless they have Mental Acuity.
Level 40 Monk Feat - Martial Arts Mastery
Now we're talking! Martial Arts Mastery uniformly adds +10 to the multiplier modifier of your UC attacks, adds a flat +10% tier up chance to your UC attacks, 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 find yourself wondering when it really gets good, level 40 is the latest possible answer. Before then, something like a brawling warrior in robes might feel at least similar to a monk, albeit with no Rolling Krynch Stance (a huge difference maker, admittedly) and with different training point costs for various skills.
Level 40 draws a line in the sand, though, to establish that unarmed combat is the monk's wheelhouse because Martial Arts Mastery is the monk's premier feat. To put it in perspective, Martial Arts Mastery 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 has. And since you'll already have trained one of Grapple/Kick/Punch Specialization the normal way, now Martial Arts Mastery is like double-maxing 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 drops on their head.
Like I've said, there's pretty much no 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, have so much potential as monks. If you're using mstrikes and weapon techniques at all, you'll notice the improvement!
Gear Upgrades: Armor
Even though fancy gear is more a luxury than a necessity for monks, you might as well upgrade your monk's gear eventually if you enjoy them! But how and in what way?
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 a few minutes of extra stamina regen per hunt 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 a monk isn't screaming for more DS and a flare chance for crit padding.
- Forest Armor? Monks don't need a tiny boost to UAF and CS.
- Ithzir Armor? Cool abilities involving healing and emergency escape. 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 room. Not what a monk's seeking.
- Parasite Armor? It can give a 90 second buff to TD, 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. This was a once reasonable value despite its high cost, despite the DS and crit padding not being too meaningful for a monk. That time has largely passed now that Sanctify and Battle Standard exist so you can get sheer fear protection for cheaper and emergency escape after death instead of before death. You'd have to die several thousand times before the cost of any extra deeds and chrisms outweigh the cost of fully unlocked Voln armor.
So my actual answer to the armor question is:
- Go to playershops and spend 1-5 million silver on robes with either +7 to +9 TD or some cool damage resistance of 20% or more, get them upgraded by wizards, clerics, and sorcerers over time.
Yes, this is what I actually do! +20% acid resistance robes, +8 TD robes, more +8 TD robes, and +7 TD robes are all things that some of my characters wear or have worn in the past. If GMs ever release an armor script that I think is a must-have for monks, I'll come back and update the guide at that point!
Gear Upgrades: Weapons
I wrote a guide on the topic of scripts, but unarmed combat has more limited options than other weapon types, 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 very popular among all professions! For monks, specifically, Revenge Flares are a great unlockable feature that can fire off damaging flares when they evade. On the other hand, the default grapple damage type isn't the best since it's mainly good for knockdowns and monks are very adept at that on their own. My monk uses Animalistic Spirit gloves and boots with their damage type converted to lightning, but that's an extra expense.
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, this script is monks' top pick 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 weapon, but I'm actually not down on the -5 MM held UC weapons like others.
Held UC weapons improve UAF depending on the enchant and improve damage factor at a flat rate depending on the weapon type. The flat rate aspect means the weaker the base attack, like a jab or a grapple against heavier armor, the more noticeable the improvement. On the other hand, held weapons decrease the multiplier modifier and you also lose the use of Brace parrying.
That is an overall loss in a vacuum for most attack types against most armor types, 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 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 called mine 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, let's say my Animalistic Spirit gloves had default grapple flares, which I don't value highly because unarmed combat keeps foes knocked down anyway. In that case, trading off half of a grapple flare rate to replace it with half of a lightning flare rate is a win.
This logic breaks down as gloves get more upgraded, because then either your tradeoffs aren't as favorable or you're spending currency to upgrade gloves and a cestus. Still, I stand behind it as at least an option if your stopping point is 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." Triple lightning flares are 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.
GEF flares are a solid and straightforward one-and-done option, but cheaper alternatives can be more efficient bang for your buck while more expensive alternatives can be more fun.
Easily some of the game's best flare messaging and they always hit heads, which can be very deadly, unless the head already has rank 3 wounds. 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 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, knockout flares' entry point--and exit point since there are no tiers--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 released in limited quantities via a jackpot system to compensate. If you are willing to spend to that degree or find somebody who has knockout flaring gear from older days and is willing to sell, then I say read the wiki page and see if you like the messaging more or less than Animalistic Spirit. Some people pick Animalistic Spirit for their handwear or footwear and knockout for the other.
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 even free events. Basic lightning flaring gear matches the power of off-the-shelf pay event gear. Pay event gear does pull ahead when you double down and stack lightning flares on top of it, but that means even heavier investment.
Start small while you're getting your bearings and save the bigger decisions for later!
Dispel flares:
Dispel flares trigger before a UC attack lands, either dispelling 1-5 randomly chosen buff spells (if the creature has any) or dealing SMR-based disruption damage. If they dispel two spells from different spheres of magic (spiritual, elemental, or mental), they can also deal flux damage.
You might hear dispel flares commonly cited as better than lightning flares in a weapon's ability slot and the best in class (unless you're using Flare Affinity for 400k bloodscrip, in which case lightning flares come roaring back). I generally agree with this and would say it's even more true that dispel is great for UC than for other weapon types due to three factors:
- High volume of attacks
- Dispelling a buff to decrease enemy UDF is better than decreasing enemy DS by the same amount
- Against creatures without buffs, the disruption flare can increase MM by injuring and/or stunning a creature
There is a bit of luck to dispelling since many, if not most, creatures with spell buffs have some that don't affect UDF. You can improve your odds by making it 2-dispel or 3-dispel flares, which also greatly increases the odds of flux damage so you can get increased MM even while stunning. Overall, dispel flares with at least two dispel chances are very strong.
All that said, the first three dispels cost 30k bloodscrip each while a fourth and fifth cost 50k each if you want to max them out. These aren't starter gear, but for committed and reasonably wealthy monks, and should only go onto UC gear that started with a script like Animalistic Spirit or Knockout. (GEF can't use dispel flares.)
Order of Operations Sidebar!
If you eventually want it all, you can get it, but there can be a correct order. Buying Animalistic Spirit gear and adding lightning or dispel to it later costs 240k bloodscrip less than buying lightning or dispel flaring gear and adding Animalistic Spirit to it later. Adding knockout flares costs the same 100k bloodscrip regardless of order, but does have a 90k more expensive starting point than Animalistic off the shelf.
All of this is only talking price without even considering what adding scripts and flares does to gear difficulty. Lightning flares add 100 gear difficulty, but that can be negated with pre-enchanting potions (yes, these also work with ensorcelling and sanctifying). Dispel flares add 100 for the first dispel and 50 more for each thereafter. Knockout flares add 150. Animalistic Spirit adds 200.
(What does any of that mean? Well, but that's another guide entirely, but suffice it to say that the higher the numbers get, the higher caliber of clerics, sorcerers, and wizards you'll need to improve them and the more you'll be paying for their services.)
Profession Service Priorities
Silver does no good unless it's spent somewhere, so if you're going budget on buying gear or just have a money surplus in need of a home, how about looking into profession services?
Battle Standards (the paladin service)
If there's only one service I'd recommend for a monk, it's Battle Standards. From the third tier on, Battle Standards add offensive flares to your attacks. (The flare rate goes up at the fourth and fifth tiers.)
As a general rule, offensive flares are better the more attacks per minute you use on average. This pairs extremely well with unarmed combat (especially mstriking due to bonus jabs, but even Fury) because its myriad low RT abilities churn out attacks more quickly than anything other than high level wizards, high level bards, and high level Two Weapon Combat builds.
Even while you're only throwing jabs and fishing for tier up opportunities, a battle standard flare can sneak in and potentially kill a creature. Usually not, but even a lighter hit might stun a creature--and stunning increases UC's most important offense-boosting number, MM, making every following attack better.
Fourth tier and up Battle Standards also offer a short-term buff where every attack you do for 30 seconds is guaranteed to flare. This is a burst of fun, chaotic, powerful mayhem, especially in any area that's even moderately swarmy! There's a 30-minute cooldown at the fourth tier and a 15-minute cooldown at the fifth tier, so you can use it once every two hunts or once every hunt, respectively.
Battle Standards have a few other perks, but these are the main ones making them so good for monks.
Battle Standards have charges and periodically need recharging, which will cost you. I don't believe we have hard confirmation on how the charges drain, but if (if!) it's identical to Lucky Items, charges drain depending on the amount of time you spend in combat. If so, that would be another factor making it even better for UC monks than most professions or builds due to sheer volume of attacks per minute.
The Leafi verdict:
Get a Battle Standard and love it. Even in the worst case, if you end up not loving it, you can sell it to someone else since it unattunes from you 30 days after your first use.
Covert Arts (the rogue service)
(Note: This service isn't released at the time of this writing, but it's on the test server. I've played with to an extent, but it's mostly pure numbers for easy theorycrafting anyway.)
Covert Arts are the most jack of all trades service, being sort of split into five mini-services each with five tiers of their own. Like many of the most recent profession services, they run on a charge-based system and eventually need recharging.
Sidestep helps defend against AoE maneuvers, increases evasion, and helps defend against maneuvers regardless of being AoE or single target. Keen Eye finds children for bounties, helps defend against maneuvers even more, and helps defend against ambushes. Escape Artist helps avoid bandit traps, reduces Force on Force pushdown, and reduces the duration of Rooted status. Swift Recovery decreases the RT of searches (e.g. for heirlooms or pulling bandits out of hiding), increases health regeneration, and reduces the duration of Stagger.
Poisoncraft allows applying various poisons to your gear. Poison on armor can inflict various status effects as a reactive flare. Poison on offensive gear can flare to either deal extra health damage, apply Wounded, or apply Major Poison.
But how good is any of this for monks? Most Covert Arts perks would only make monks marginally better at things they're already amazing at. (By contrast, things like FOF defense and the myriad bonuses to maneuver defense would be excellent for casters.) Escape Artist does seem reasonable to me since bandit traps and Rooted can really mess with monks.
Poisoncraft uses flares, but unlike Battle Standards, those flares don't work with jabs and don't work on the undead. Also, at least in early testing, flare rates for two of the three weapon-based poisons, Fool's Deathwort and Shatterlimb Poison, seem significantly lower than normal flares; for illustrative purposes, I hunted with them for several minutes on a TWC character and saw them so rarely that I actually believed they were bugged.
The third poison, Arachne's Bite, at least has something close to a conventional flare rate. It applies Major Poison, which is a DoT effect whose power is a combination of RNG (as is the case with all flares) and a percentage of a creature's max health. How valuable that is depends on what you're hunting; it seems great for Hinterwilds gigases and not terribly impressive for a more average creature.
The Leafi verdict:
I'm giving this one a solid "wait and see." If Poisoncraft flare rates change, then there might be something here, but if not, I'd skip. I will say that you're much more likely to be able to eventually find Covert Arts on the cheap than most other services because their unusual difficulty structure allows pretty low level rogues to get in on the action.
Enchanting (the wizard service)
Enchanting offensive gear improves UAF (or AS if you're using a weapon) while enchanting armor improves DS.
UAF offers minimal help. DS is more compelling, especially once you're hunting areas with the spell sever mechanic. Monks have the game's cheapest training costs for Dodging, so they have very good DS throughout their lives, but not untouchable since they are regularly in offensive stance. I don't go hard on improving monk DS, but it can't hurt either.
The Leafi verdict:
Bring your robes up to +30. It gets expensive afterward, but +35 is a fine long-term goal too when you have silver lying around! Poke away at improving your UC gear if you find a great deal, but otherwise it doesn't matter much.
Ensorcelling (the sorcerer service)
Ensorcelling armor improves CvA and enemy spells are a weak point, so I'd say your long term plan should include this. However, get most or all of your sanctification done first since ensorcelling first adds much more gear difficulty than sanctifying.
For unarmed combat gear, ensorcelling adds a flare chance for either a UAF boost on the next attack, stamina recovery immediately, or health recovery immediately. Stamina is strong for monks, but the flares give UAF boosts most of the time, which is very weak for monks. Ensorcell evenly scales up its UAF bonus; a fifth tier (T5) Ensorcell increases UAF by 25 while a first tier (T1) increases UAF by 5. Stamina recovery, on the other hand, is frontloaded: the average stamina return at T1 is 9 while the average at T5 is 15.
I like the "get a T1 Ensorcell on your offensive gear and call it finished" philosophy. You already have 60% of T5's average stamina return, but only bought 10% as much of a sorcerer's resource points.
The Leafi verdict:
T1 Ensorcell for your handwear and footwear whenever you get a chance. T5 Ensorcell for your robes over the long haul.
Lucky Items (the bard service)
Lucky Items are incredible. They improve virtually every offensive and defensive aspect of combat, which is like having extra enchantments, ensorcellments, weighting, and padding all attached to the same item--plus boosts to maneuver offense and maneuver defense as even more cherry on top!
For most professions and builds, I'd argue that Lucky Items are mechanically the most powerful service.
...but monks aren't most professions and builds. Yes, Lucky Items are like having extra UAF, DS, TD, weighting, and padding all at once, but I have a pretty low opinion of all of those things for monks other than TD.
Lucky Items act sort of opposite to Battle Standards; instead of favoring the low-impact attacks that UC throws out in droves, Lucky Items favor high-impact attacks that make every luck trigger proportionally more powerful. Lucky Item triggering on a jab or a decent positioning attack is a waste and you're probably firing off a lot of those. On the bright side, since Lucky Items' charges drain depending on the amount of time spent in combat, that aspect does pair well with monks' high volume of attacks.
The Leafi verdict:
If this were any other profession, I'd be singing the praises of Lucky Items and breaking down the math. Honestly, I might have to write a mini-guide on Lucky Items because they're tragically underrated. They offer amazing power to every form of combat other than the exact one that monks favor. If you're a weapon-wielding monk, definitely buy in and do it quickly. For typical UC monks, I'd recommend your silvers go elsewhere first--but only "first." Luck is powerful and you should get it eventually, just not as a high priority. I'd take it over enchanting robes beyond +30 or enchanting offensive gear beyond +20, but not necessarily before Sanctify, Ensorcell, or especially Battle Standards.
Mystic Tattoos (the monk service)
Despite Mystic Tattooing being a monk's own ability, it's not that helpful when used on themselves. The good news is that if you perform the final upgrade of your Mystic Tattoo, it won't consume charges and is basically a permanent upgrade. That said, the benefits of +5 bonus for a stat are pretty marginal for most monks. Standout options include:
- Strength to decrease encumbrance, especially for small races
- Agility to reach an Agidex threshold (this is preferred over Dexterity because it gives more maneuver defense and slightly increases UAF)
- Logic to increase exp gain
- Wisdom to slightly improve defense against spiritual magic
Logic is arguably the best since, given an enhancive with infinite charges, a benefit that works every minute maximizes value more than a benefit that only works while hunting. I can't go further than "arguably" since the others will have more impact when they do have impact. Regardless, none of the stats jump out for a monk in the way that something like improving a CS-boosting stat on a caster would.
I look forward to seeing how GMs improve Mystic Tattoos in the future since most profession services created from 2020 on have included some kind of extra perk for the profession providing the service itself.
The Leafi verdict:
Until some future update, I'd only tattoo yourself in your spare time when you can't find others willing to pay for your tattoos who would probably get more mechanical use out of them than you do. More Wisdom or Aura can be a gamechanger for CS-based casters, so sell them your tattooing services and use the silver to pay for paladins' Battle Standards. As you run out of other things to pay for, you can eventually pick up tattooing from lower level monks and make sure to handle the final tier yourself so you have infinite charges!
Resist Nature (the ranger service)
Rangers can build a bracelet, anklet, or amulet that grants up to 25% resistance against up to five damage types: cold, heat, nature, steam, and lightning.
For post-cap hunters going into Ascension areas and the Scatter, this is really good since most of those areas use at least four of those damage types. Before cap or in other hunting grounds, usually only one damage type is the scourge of the area. When you only need one resistance, monks can get that from meditating instead of needing a ranger trinket. Even pre-cap, there's some merit to a ranger trinket pre-cap since you can meditate for a general purpose physical resistance like crush and use your trinket for an elemental resistance like fire or lightning, but you'd have to know you'll be running into that damage type consistently for a while.
On an obscure note, nature resistance is unique to ranger trinkets. Monks can't meditate against it and even the Ascension system can't train to defend against it. However, an extremely small number of creatures use nature damage.
The Leafi verdict:
I'd look into ranger resistance for post-cap purposes, especially if you intend to hunt Ascension hunting grounds (which monks perform well in at lower exp amounts than any other profession). Before cap, make do with your own meditation ability.
Sanctification (the cleric service)
Sanctifying unarmed combat gear adds UAF against undead for the first five tiers and negates 5% of their damage resistance per tier if your gear is sanctified (but not blessed). The sixth tier adds a holy fire flare against undead that deals 50-100 health damage and a fire crit.
The first five tiers of Sanctify have dubious value for UC gear (unless you're buying the first tier specifically because of the Kai's Strike situation). The sixth tier of Sanctify, however, is amazing if your monk frequently hunts undead. Holy fire flares are extremely powerful for anyone, but only get better for a spammy combat type like UC. The question is whether you're willing to pay for the first five tiers' minimal value just to get to holy fire.
Sanctifying armor is a much more clear value proposition for monks. The first five tiers improve DS, TD, and, most importantly, sheer fear protection so you can hunt higher level undead without constantly getting locked in RT. The sixth tier again provides holy fire, but since the flare is armor-based, it'll only trigger for certain combat maneuvers or when the undead hit you.
The Leafi verdict:
Get the first five tiers on your robes unless you're absolutely certain you'll never have interest in hunting high-level undead. Holy fire isn't a high priority on armor, but does go well with Bearhug and Bull Rush if you want it one day. Unarmed combat gear is the opposite; either commit to seeing through the entire expensive holy fire path or don't bother sanctifying at all. Since UAF matters little, ordinary cleric blessings offer basically the same value as the first five Sanctify tiers for UC (arguably more value since blessings have holy water flares, so people usually stack blessings on top of pre-holy fire Sanctify).
Weighting and Padding (the warrior service)
Weighting has limited value to an unarmed combat monk because UC itself uses positioning to increase or decrease attack power in ways that can cap the effect of padding. Weighting could still make sense on a weapon-wielding monk. Padding is more useful, but not useful enough to justify paying warriors unless they're charging less than the automated WPS smithy that comes around every couple of months. (They probably aren't!)
Like with Mystic Tattoos, the head of dev, Estild, has acknowledged that the warrior service needs improvement at a future date. Maybe hope is on the horizon, but right now this service isn't terribly desirable for most players, monks or otherwise.
The Leafi verdict:
An easy skip unless a friend is providing it for free or something.
Bloodstone Jewelry (the future empath service)
Might as well touch on this, even if briefly, since it's been designed and is going through the coding process. Enormous caveat that numbers aren't necessarily final!
Bloodstone Jewelry will increase max health, mana, and stamina, increase regeneration for health, mana, and stamina, and will add 2-10 extra health damage (only health damage) to all attacks. After every 50 health damage it deals, the next attack inflicts Major Bleed. It does a couple of other things, but these are the big ones for applicability to monks.
Analyzing the value to a monk is like a mishmash of Battle Standards, Ensorcell, and Sanctify. Like with Ensorcell, stamina regeneration is great, but Ensorcell doesn't use a recharging system like Bloodstone Jewelry, Ensorcell's stamina regeneration is a flare chance (good with frequent UC attacks) instead of a per minute effect like conventional stamina regen enhancives or Bloodstone Jewelry, and those conventional stamina regen enhancives are plentiful and inexpensive in playershops.
Extra health damage, on the other hand, is a huge selling point. While it can't stun or crit kill like a Battle Standard flare, it affects every attack instead of 20% of attacks. On average, you'll get the Major Bleed effect after every 8.3 attacks, which is also powerful. However, Bloodstone Jewelry doesn't have this extra damage component until its fifth and final tier.
The Leafi verdict:
Like with Sanctify on offensive gear, either go all the way with this service or pass on it unless someone's offering a steal.
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 even more so for monks than others!
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.
Except for Mist Harbor and Kraken's Fall, every town's NPC shops will pay +5% extra silver to at least one race when players sell. (See the chart of favored races here!)
Monks have a secret weapon in the profit war: Shroud of Deception!
Even monks who live in a geographic region where their race can't get a bonus can configure their Shroud profile to appear as another race and get the bonus anyway! It's that easy!
But wait, it gets better! Monks also have Glamour', which gives 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.)
What does Trading do, though?
You get an extra 1% silver for every combined 12 bonus between Influence and Trading bonus. That's bonus, not ranks! So, for example, if you had 44 Trading ranks, which is 144 Trading bonus, you'd make 12% more silver for selling items than if you had 0 Trading ranks. Shroud of Deception takes that 12% to 17%, then Glamour takes that 17% to 18%--and, actually, 8/12ths of the way to 19%. If you took my advice and set Influence high from the start, Influence will also get you to 19% if not 20%!
This is a big part of how Sariara made 2,509,473 million silver within a week of existing. By now she's existed for four weeks and a day and is up to 23,108,060 silver, only 1,500,000 of which came from selling a Mystic Tattoo.
Some general tips on early silvers:
- Don't hunt overcrowded Landing areas, but 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. (For more on hunting pressure, see the treasure system page and saved posts subpage.)
- Take advantage of Glamour and Shroud of Deception to get a percentage boost to these rich creatures' 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 them 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, as you're forced to commit to your skills, have at least 20 ranks of Trading and know at least your first 12 Minor Mental spells.
Yes, this is what I did. I got 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, monks are the game's best at selling to NPC merchants. At the low end, monks skyrocket toward high sales value. At the high end in the post-cap world, monks reach the maximum sale bonus in almost every town.
Bonus Tip!
"Maximum sale bonus" is 28% from Trading and Influence plus another 5% from race bonus. To be clear, the max bonus is 33%, but only sort of; the two bonuses are treated separately. For example, if you're an elf monk selling in Solhaven (no bonus), you can't just pump your Trading and Influence so high that you'd make 33% from that alone; it's capped at 28% and the other 5% has to come from Shroud of Deception.
My monk Tarine was the key to my figuring this out. Noticing that Glamour no longer made a difference post-cap with max Trading led me down the rabbit trail of investigating why! I found the Trading and Influence hard cap, then the total hard cap counting race bonus, then isolated that they were separate things.
When Robes Aren't Robes: Alterations
For simplicity, I've been talking about "robes" throughout this guide because that's the conventional name for 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! 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 cheats; 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 masculine character, you can turn your robes into shirts, vests, jackets, and more. Get your creativity on!
Bonus Tip!
Likewise, unarmed combat footwear isn't limited to boots or footwraps. Have a merchant make you shoes, sandals, slippers, flats, moccasins, or anything else you like and wear them into battle!
The Weapon-Wielding Melee Monk
Let's talk more about Martial Mastery, the level 0 feat. Although monks have access, it was primarily invented for warriors and rogues as an alternative to learning Elemental Targeting, a Minor Elemental spell that increases AS.
Far enough post-cap, magical warriors or magical rogues have the same AS ceiling as their non-magical counterparts. (Their non-magical counterparts do get there millions of experience points sooner while the magical ones have more DS and TD, but that's outside the scope of this guide...) Monks, on the other hand, don't have Elemental Targeting, so a monk maximizing Martial Mastery can have up to 50 more AS and UAF than a monk not maximizing it! Of course, 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?
Before I explore it, I'll repeat that I think people should make whatever kind of character they find fun and that I personally like wacky builds. However, 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 (first) 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 I wrote, but let's just cut to the chase.
Let's say my monk and warrior had both done dual katar builds that shared nearly identical core training. 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 my monk would basically just be 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 is that a melee monk is even comparable--better in some ways and worse in others--to a warrior with the exact same build despite ignoring so much of what the monk skillset is tailored toward.
The Mental Acuity Possibility:
What if you learned Mental Acuity even without Kroderine Soul? My above training cost example illustrated my monk stopping at two Minor Mental spells for Iron Skin, 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. (If you were okay with Martial Mastery capping out at +45 AS instead of 50, you could even learn Spirit Warding II!)
The hypothetical 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!
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.
Specializations and Katars:
The Grapple, Kick, and Punch Specialization bonuses for their respective techniques do still apply even if you're using a brawling weapon instead of unarmed combat!
Grapple Specialization-powered Fury knocking foes down and dealing grapple damage is probably still the most powerful of these effects, letting you skip knockdown setups for your staple assault technique. Kick Specialization-powered Spin Kick is probably still the most fun of these effects, letting you fire off powerful maneuvers every so often or occasionally rip through rooms while RT locked.
Ironically, if there's anywhere that I even sort of like Punch Specialization-powered Clash, it's on a weapon-wielding monk. For unarmed combat, Clash is noticeably weaker than unfocused mstrikes. For weapon combat, however, Clash without Punch Specialization has the same power as an unfocused mstrike and Clash with Punch Specialization has a 25% chance of minor impact damage against each target. That said, the Grapple and Kick benefits for Fury and Spin Kick are 100% instead of 25%, so I still think they win out. Punch at least becomes a more serious contender, though, especially if you're regularly hunting things like bandits, pirates, warcamps, or areas that swarm.
Before I close out this section, katars are the only particularly great brawling weapon and are a hybrid weapon that requires Edged Weapons ranks. Monks do train both skills cheaply, but maxing both does have an opportunity cost, especially early on. If you can only train one weapon type, I'd make it Edged Weapons instead of Brawling. The Edged assault technique, Flurry, gives you a Slashing Strikes buff that adds slash flares to your edged weapon attacks for the next two minutes. It's also much easier to find great edged weapons for sale from other players--and often even pay event shops--than great brawling weapons.
If you're really set on a brawling-only weapon at first, then the ones I think are at least reasonable relative to their minimum RT are cestuses (good against cloth, leather, and scale), tiger-claws (good against cloth, leather, and scale), yierka-spurs (good against cloth and chain and at least dagger-powered against plate for the same RT), and fist-scythes (good against cloth, scale, and chain, and at least short sword-powered against plate for the same RT).
Bonus Tip!
If or when you train for katars, take full advantage of them being hybrid weapons. Flurry and Fury have separate cooldowns. Whirling Blade (the Edged AoE technique) and Clash have separate cooldowns. Since at least one of these four techniques will be off cooldown much more often than not, you can go into a wild frenzy with a monk's stamina cost reduction from 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 considering all the math and angles 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. 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 from a glance over the monk skillset.
Ascending Even Further Beyond
Since it's not relevant to the large majority of players, I've only vaguely implied monks' advance with post-cap experience until now.
Most professions need 30 million to 40 million exp, if not more, before they're "done enough" with normal skills that devoting all experience points toward Ascension becomes the most efficient path to continued growth. Monks, however, can get there at more like 15 to 25 million because their physical skill costs are on par with other squares, but their magical skills are much less expensive.
I did say this guide was for magical monks from 0 to 39,000,000 experience, so what should you do with Ascension Training Points (ATPs)? Here are the options I like:
- Agility: Increased maneuver defense every two ranks, increased evade chance, +1 UAF per four ranks, and +0.75 DS per two ranks. If you go the weapon route or play a slow race, it also reduces RT.
- Aura: +1 TD against CS-based elemental spells per two ranks. I like the first ten ranks decently enough.
- Brawling: +2 UAF per rank. I'm not going to knock UAF this time because, once we're talking Ascension, we're talking marginal gains almost no matter what you do. Get it if you like numbers going up!
- Combat Maneuvers: +1 UAF per two ranks and increased maneuver defense every rank (but half as much increase as Agility, so basically the same rate per two ranks).
- Dexterity: Increased maneuver defense every two ranks, but half as much increase as Agility. If you go the weapon route or play a slow race, it also reduces RT. For the weapon route, specifically, Dexterity also adds crit weighting.
- Dodging: Increased maneuver defense, increased evade chance, and +0.75 DS per rank.
- Logic: +1 TD against CS-based mental spells per two ranks. Because Logic breakpoints increase exp gain at 5 bonus on a node or 7 bonus off a node, reaching 35 Logic bonus is an especially attractive target. Neutral Logic races can reach it with 15 ATPs into Logic because Perfect Self will already have pushed them to 30 Logic bonus.
- Porter (requires training Strength and/or Physical Fitness first): Encumbrance reduction. Now I'll knock UAF again! If we're already in the realm of diminishing returns from exp, then there's a serious argument that the best path is staying out hunting longer for loot and turning the proceeds into profession services or pay event items (via event boxes and trading silver for pay event currencies on the secondary market). Enter Porter, the Ascension skill for reducing your encumbrance by 2 pounds per rank to extend your loot hunts.
- Resistances: Like I said in the Meditation Resistance section, 20% and 25% are great benchmarks. If multiple damage types that ranger trinkets can't resist are ending you frequently and you can only meditate one away, look into Ascension resistances. (If ranger trinkets can resist whatever's killing you, get those!) However, 20% and 25% resistances do respectively cost 50 and 75 ATPs (2.5 million and 3.75 million) exp.
- Stamina Regeneration: If you're firing off mstrikes on cooldown, rotating techniques with katars or Volley, using Surge of Strength on your small race, using Burst of Swiftness on your slow race, or otherwise guzzling stamina, there can come a point where Mind Over Body is no longer enough. If that's you, you'll know when to train this--or just buy stamina regen enhancives.
- Strength: Reduced encumbrance, +1 UAF per four ranks, and the first ten ranks combined of this or Physical Fitness are a prerequisite for Porter. If you go the weapon route, it's also +1 AS per two ranks.
- Wisdom: +1 TD against CS-based spiritual spells per two ranks.
Fun Sidebar!
A weapon-wielding build could spend 730 ATPs (36.5 million exp) to max out a weapon, Combat Maneuvers, and Strength for +95 AS. An unarmed combat build could spend 910 ATPs (45.5 million exp) to max out Brawling, Combat Maneuvers, Strength, and Agility for +145 UAF.
However, which of them got more per ATP spent is a matter of perspective and part of what makes analyzing Ascension improvement difficult. From practical impact, +95 AS is probably better than +145 UAF and was only ~80.2% as much exp. By the numbers, +145 UAF is ~152.6% more "feel good" of a number going up while only costing ~124.7% as much exp. In either case, looking at it that way is only what happens with crazy mega-capped characters. What if you only have a million exp worth of ATPs? Who gets more bang for their buck then--or at any other point along the curve?
I could get lost in the weeds forever, but suffice it to say I think there's a case to be made that monks not only get away with needing fewer old-school TPs for normal skills than all other professions, but arguably also have more leeway to spend ATPs in whichever way they want than other professions. It's not necessarily easy to quantify and explain, so I'll just say the simple fact is that my monk Tarine has at least 100 fewer ATPss than my cleric, paladin, empath, or wizard--and 95 fewer than my bard, for that matter--and yet feels far more drawn far more quickly toward training offbeat Ascension skills like Porter, resistances, and Logic than the others. They're all busy pumping up AS and CS combat numbers in perpetuity while Tarine doesn't care because there are no Ascension skills to reduce enemy UDF or increase her MM, the numbers that matter in her combat.
Hunting Partner Tactics and Synergy
Who do monks team up well with for group hunts and why? Let's explore!
- Warriors have Carn's Cry, an AoE immobilizer that's enormously helpful for the two things UC monks like most: increasing their MM and reducing enemies' UDF. In turn, warriors love monks' Mind Over Body stamina cost reduction, the best group buff they can get other than bards' Song of Tonis (which will probably be nerfed one day).
- Rogues have Subdue as a single-target immobilizer and love stamina cost reduction. Stealth can make grouping somewhat awkward for most professions, but monks don't necessarily mind being targeted more often since it offers more Spin Kick opportunities.
- A monk duo can keep up both Mind Over Body and Focus Barrier, but otherwise doesn't have any particular synergy.
- Paladins can give their monk partners extra flares via their Fervor aura and reduce enemy UDF via Aura of the Arkati or even simply connecting with Judgment, both being AoE spells. Paladins can make good use of Mind Over Body or Focus Barrier alike; they use stamina, but don't have as much redux as warriors and rogues nor as much DS as them, so a boost can really help.
- Rangers have Moonbeam as a single-target immobilizer, among various other disablers. Two Weapon Combat rangers should like Focus Barrier and Sunfist rangers should like Mind Over Body, but monks don't offer much to rangers otherwise.
- Bards can make a monk's attacks even faster, at least for now, since Song of Tonis is the game's best group buff. 1 second kicks are a wild thing! Monks offer Focus Barrier in return, shoring up the typical bard weakness of defense.
- Wizards possess myriad AoE abilities, whether disablers or attacks, that monks can follow up on with increased MM and decreased enemy UDF. Focus Barrier helps wizards at least somewhat, but they're already pretty durable as casters go. Monks simply being present as an additional target to split up enemies' attacks is helpful to wizards and all casters.
- Empaths are near-universally welcome hunting partners for all professions with their healing. Adrenal Surge also gives monks more leeway to go ham with mstrikes on cooldown without risking being too punished. Bind can immobilize at lower levels, but becomes less reliable later. Web is a more consistently reliable disabler. Monks' Focus Barrier can be good for situations when an empath gets stanced down. Monks being an extra body helps. An empath's Mass Interference setting up a monk's Vertigo isn't the worst idea I've ever had, but it's not an amazing one either.
- Clerics have Censure as an AoE immobilizer and Warding Sphere as a group TD buff (and DS), so they help monks on offensive and defensive fronts alike. If enemy TD is too high for Censure, Web works as an alternative. Focus Barrier is somewhat less helpful to clerics than empaths since getting stanced down is less likely due to Soul Ward, but it's still there when needed. Having a hunting partner's extra body is even more helpful to clerics than most professions because creatures usually need to focus fire on a cleric at least twice to get through Soul Ward, but the odds of that happening fall from 100% to 25% even in only a duo.
- Sorcerers have Grasp of the Grave as an AoE disabler, though it doesn't help monks as most other professions' disablers. On the other side, Focus Barrier is arguably more helpful to them than to other pures since wizards have more DS, empaths have more Physical Fitness (and so are less likely to be stanced down) and can heal when they do get, and clerics have Soul Ward.
Nearly regardless of team composition, your monk training Coup de Grace and Side by Side (which also requires two ranks of Combat Movement) can be helpful to groups.
Frequently Asked (or Imagined) Questions
This final section covers any random topics that people have asked me or that I can imagine them asking me if I feel that they're worth answering in this guide, but not worth a full tip or sidebar of their own.
- Things actually asked are red.
- Things I imagine people should ask are pink.
- Things that are both red and pink come from comments I got that weren't originally questions, but I've reframed them into questions because they're worth discussing.
Does enchanting UC handwear and footwear help with DS?
No on footwear. Yes on handwear, but each +1 enchant only grants 0.1 DS in offensive stance and 0.35 DS in defensive. Work on your armor if you want more DS!
Why do you rank half-krolvin monks so low? Flimbo's Guide and the Comprehensive Monk Guide really like them!
Flimbo's guide likes half-krolvin monks because Perfect Self normalizes their Logic penalty and they have "solid physical stats with which to punch things quite well." I agree that Perfect Self fixes something that scares some players away from half-krolvin. I even kind of agree that if you're set on playing a half-krolvin, then a monk should be among your top considerations for a profession. Still, I'd rather have a race without a Logic penalty to begin with!
I also agree with Flimbo that half-krolvin have solid physical stats with which to punch things quite well. I'd just rather have a faster Agidex race who has solid physical stats with which to also kick things quite well, meaning minimum RT for mstrike kick!
The comprehensive guide likes half-krolvin monks because of UAF and heavy crit padding against cold damage. The math says UAF doesn't matter!
Cold damage protection has some appeal if you're specifically leveling in Icemule, but monks also have meditation resistance, so, in effect, being a half-krolvin there opens up meditating to resist a different damage type. However, the outdoor environs around Icemule run out of creatures after the early 50s, so should you pick a race just for that?
The Hinterwilds are a post-cap option that also features cold damage, but they have built-in means to protect any race from cold damage. By that point, you should also be more than able to pick up a ranger resistance trinket with all the silver you could have made from Glamour, Shroud of Deception, selling your Mystic Tattoos, and needing little to nothing in the way of gear upgrades by virtue of being a monk.
Like I said, any race can do well as a monk. I'm not down on half-krolvin, exactly, but I'd rather truly excel at something than be a generalist. Play a half-krolvin if you like their excellent verbs, though!
Should I train Ambush?
The short answer is no. Now for the long, fun answer!
Flimbo's Guide and the Comprehensive Monk Guide suggested Ambush at high levels, but back then, players had no visibility into the aiming formula. Community knowledge and game mechanics alike have changed a great deal since then. Not only should you probably not train Ambush, but if you did, it would be most efficacious around the midgame and face diminishing returns to the point of very realistically doing literally nothing at cap depending on your training.
In May 2021, former GM Naijin revealed the aiming formula, which, until then, had been a mystery that players tried to estimate via self-discovery for many years. You can find it recorded here and read for full details, but we learned that:
- Enemy level has no effect on (non-stealth) aimed attacks (this was a shocking revelation!)
- Knocking creatures down helps (I don't remember if we'd known this or not)
- Combat Maneuvers bonus is as important as Ambush bonus (we knew CM helped, but I think we underestimated how much)
- The combination of CM bonus, Dexterity bonus, and Intuition bonus alone suffices to eventually max out aiming success
Intuition Sidebar!
Even with tanked Intuition like I recommended, almost every combination of UC attack and race reaches the maximum 95% aiming success rate for hitting heads of prone foes. The only exceptions are kicks (only kicks) used by erithians or giants, which still have a 94% and 92% chance. On the flip side, halflings have such overflowing success because of their absurd natural Dexterity and Intuition bonuses that they can tank Intuition and still max aiming success rate against the heads of even standing foes. Of course, they need Acrobat's Leap for that.
To be more precise, every 4 CM bonus, 4 Ambush bonus, 2 Dexterity bonus, or 4 Intuition bonus increases your likelihood of hitting the right body part by 1%. 24 Ambush ranks (102 bonus) used to be what players had figured out as a reasonable stopping point, so let's use that in an example.
With 24 Ambush, 40 Combat Maneuvers (140 bonus), 15 Dexterity, and 10 Intuition, you'd have a 69%, 64%, or 61% chance to respectively punch, grapple, or kick the head of a prone creature. Aiming adds extra RT, so, for the sake of the argument, let's say we want a 90% benchmark. What would that require? Going to 40 Ambush only brings it up to 79%, 74%, and 71%. Going to 40 Ambush plus 80 Combat Maneuvers is still only 89%, 84%, and 81%.
Of course, by the time you can have 80 Combat Maneuvers, your stats might have increased, so let's say everything had reached 91%, 86%, and 83%. Even that's not good enough because tiering up might demand a grapple or kick for your excellent positioning attack, so you'd need 108 Combat Maneuvers ranks and 40 Ambush ranks. Those 40 Ambush ranks could have been 35 Physical Fitness ranks at 3x costs or 23 Dodging ranks (that's +17 DS in offensive stance) at 3x costs!
What if you eased back to the old 24 Ambush mark? Then you'd need 148 Combat Maneuvers. Perfect Self has kicked in, so let's call it 144 Combat Maneuvers needed. Even that's already level 70. (You can kind of see why players were able to figure out that Ambush should be reserved for higher levels even before we knew the formula!)
In short, pushing Ambush only even kind of makes sense during the high mid levels--60 to 70--when you have high enough stats and CM bonus that you can reach max or near-max success rates with some Ambush, but not so high that you reach max or near-max success rates even without Ambush.
But even then, we're only looking at the training point opportunity costs. Guides recommending Ambush also predated the sweeping PSM3 combat maneuver updates. Sure, you could aim for heads after you reach excellent positioning. Alternatively, you could Bearhug things to death for 200-300 damage. Another option is using Twin Hammerfists to inflict the Vulnerable status, which means your unaimed attacks--like the ones coming from mstrikes and Fury--are more likely to hit heads, necks, and eyes than normal with no Ambush or even CM training needed.
(I'm not making up Bearhug numbers, by the way. Sariara regularly deals 200-300 damage with them to shan warriors, wizards, rangers, and clerics even though they're a base seven levels higher, she only has three ranks of Bearhug, and she's an aelotoi, the fourth worst race for Bearhug due to small size.)
Like PSM3's wiki page says, much of the point was encouraging spending stamina to improve efficiency. Monks are the best positioned for that because of Mind Over Body, so I've made my choice: forget Ambush and play to my strengths.
The TL;DR Recap: 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 and transcendent reality.
Some of you instead wanted the Saraphenia treatment where I tell you how to have a functional build that lets you have mechanical 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. Giantmen have a niche.
Stats:
See the table in the Placing Your Stats section.
Society:
Voln.
How do I fight?:
Weapon Twinhammer as your opener once you learn it.
Jab at decent position, punch at good position if you're not Grapple Specialization and grapple at good position if you are, kick at excellent position. Regardless of those general rules, follow prompts and do what it tells you when it tells you.
Against single targets, Weapon Fury until whenever you have enough Agidex for a 5-6 second mstrike kick.
Against multiple targets, mstrike grapple if you're Grapple Specialization or mstrike kick if you're Kick Specialization. In either case, not until they're 7 seconds or less. If mstrike grapple is 7 seconds or less, but you're Kick Specialization and mstrike kick is 8 seconds or more, mstrike punch for now until Kick Specialization doesn't take so long.
Core skills to train every level:
2x Brawling, 2x Physical Fitness (eventually 3x), 2x Dodging (eventually 3x), 1x Perception.
Skills with breakpoints:
1 rank of Two Weapon Combat.
Combat Maneuvers in bursts for various breakpoints to pick up specific maneuvers. (For which ones and when, see the "combat maneuvers and feats" section below.)
Multi-Opponent Combat in bursts to 5, 10, 24, 30, 35, 50, 55, 60, 90, and 100 ranks.
10 Harness Power early, 20-30 mid-game, then push near cap if you want QoL for spelling up.
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 only if sharing mana with friends and alts.
First Aid and Survival only if you want skinning.
20 Trading by level 20 because monks make silver via Glamour (1205) and Shroud of Deception (1212).
Midgame skills:
Minor Spiritual to 2, 3, or 7 ranks, but only after 3x Dodging.
Combat maneuvers and feats:
Dragonscale Skin for your level 30 feat.
Step 1 of Combat Maneuvers, making the super early game not painful:
Get 3 CM ranks ASAP for your first rank of Rolling Krynch Stance, then another 6 CM ranks (so 9 total) for your second rank ASAP.
Step 2 of Combat Maneuvers, improving the early game:
In whatever order, pick up the last rank of Krynch and first three ranks of Grapple Specialization or Kick Specialization. Grapple if you want to hunt Ascension areas one day, Kick if not. If you choose Kick, it's not necessarily an early game priority since you don't get Spin Kick until level 35-36 (for level 35, spend your first Ascension Milestone point on Brawling), so you could move to step 3 after finishing Krynch and grab Kick Specialization later.
Step 3 of Combat Maneuvers, fleshing out skills and diversifying your abilities through the midgame:
In whatever order, pick up three or more ranks of Bearhug, two or more ranks of Bull Rush, all three ranks of Evade Specialization, three or more ranks of Feint, and the remaining ranks of Grapple or Kick Specialization. If you went Kick Specialization, add Combat Mobility to the list sooner than later. If you picked a halfling or gnome, add Acrobat's Leap, but otherwise don't.
Step 4 of Combat Maneuvers, putting the last pieces in place:
Pick up Combat Mobility (if you didn't already have it) and all three ranks of Ki Focus.
Step 5 of Combat Maneuvers, player's choice:
Whatever you want. Finish Bearhug, Bull Rush, and Feint or don't, depending how you like them. You can veer off in different directions with more niche maneuver options or not. Up to you!
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 fantastically. Add services of Enchant, Sanctify, and Ensorcell over time in roughly that order while adding padding via the WPS wagons. (Enchant and Sanctify can switch places easily enough, but Ensorcell is definitely last.)
Weapon upgrade path when ready:
- Spending almost nothing (~1 million silver): Buy basic lightning flaring handwear and footwear.
- Spending moderately (~35k pay event currency (equivalent of 35 million silver)): Buy off-the-shelf Animalistic Spirit from Duskruin. Add lightning flares at Rumor Woods or Ebon Gate.
- Spending heavily (~80k pay event currency): Buy basic lightning flaring handwear and footwear. Add Greater Elemental Flares at Duskruin.
- Spending a ton (~150k pay event currency): 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 (~265k pay event currency): Same as spending a ton, except don't skip the Animalistic Spirit upgrades and unlocks for your footwear.
And if you're the top 0.5% ready to drop almost $7000 worth of pay event currency, then--well, realistically, you're probably not reading this guide. But just in case, for fun, and to entertain the other 99.5%...
- Whaling out beyond most people's imagination just because you can (~4.24 million pay event currency): Buy greater somnis handwear and footwear at Duskruin. Add the Animalistic Spirit script at Duskruin. Add a slew of Animalistic Spirit upgrades and unlocks at Duskruin. Add bane lightning flares at Duskruin. Add Flare Affinity at Duskruin. Add the second active Flourish unlock at Duskruin. Add Lore Flares at Duskruin. Add lightning flares at Rumor Woods or Ebon Gate.
(Why lightning flares? Because the flares whales would normally buy when money is no object, mind wrack and death, are disallowed on UC gear. They've never said why to my knowledge, but I think I can infer why from the fact that they sold a xazkruvrixis (death flaring metal) cestus exactly once before swiftly banning the creation of more UC gear with death flares. Said item has become sort of a legend in the community since it's still around. I'm guessing they learned the hard way that top end flares are so astonishingly powerful with UC's low RT attacks that they considered it too great a balance-destroying outlier and had to cut it off. The good news is that the next best option, Flare Affinity-backed lightning flares, only cost 407.5k pay event currency per item instead of the 500k or two million that mind wrack and death flares would have!)
Other upgrades when ready:
Buy a Battle Standard of third tier or higher to capitalize on flares going great with UC. Get it to the fifth tier eventually to max its flare rate, but the sixth tier is a more optional emergency ability. If you can't afford a Battle Standard, get silver for it over time via Glamour, Shroud of Deception, and selling your Mystic Tattoo service to others instead of tattooing your own monk.
Conclusion:
Monks are easy! Go have fun!
Denouement: An Unexpected Journey
First, thank you for reading The Autumnwinds' Magical Monk Guide.
Whether you read only the parts of it you were interested in, read every single word, or anything in between, I'm thankful for every reader.
Sometimes I write a "guide" partially or even almost entirely for myself. For example, with Ascension Considerations, I was going to do the math on efficient progression anyway, so I figured I'd take the extra time to turn what could have been private spreadsheets into wiki tables. Pre-Ascension Stopping Points (which I just noticed is really outdated) originally was a private document, but I turned it into a wiki page because sometimes people ask me if they can see my characters' skills when they want a template of where to take their post-cap training.
This one was for you guys, though. I hope it's been helpful, I hope it's gotten you thinking, and, maybe most of all, I hope you find monks more exciting or intriguing than you used to.
That said, if you were here only for mechanical informational purposes, I'm pretty much done with those. There's one more at the very end for people with multiple character slots (not multiple accounts, but character slots), but otherwise, you can head out! I wish you a good day or good night and hopefully I'll see you around the lands.
Thank you again.
For the rest of you, if you'll indulge my rambling a bit longer...
The Magical Monk Guide existing is an emergent happy accident.
The Raise Your Stout Krew (RYSK) MHO features a division for each profession, including a lead player and character who organize related events and help people with related questions. Saraphenia and her player were the monk division lead--and they sometimes said they wanted the monk division to be RYSK's strongest.
I thought, but didn't have the heart to say, that that was impossible. GemStone has been going for over three decades and monks have only been part of it for twelve years--more like ten years when RYSK started--so they don't have the history, nostalgia, momentum, or player population of other professions.
To be honest, even if I had said it was impossible, that wouldn't have stopped Phenia. Even as I type this, I can picture how I'd try to temper her expectations and she'd come back with "Well, I'm going to try anyway!" Phenia aimed high, never mind the odds.
When her player passed away, RYSK lost its monk division lead, but more importantly, we all lost a dear friend--at least her digital presence, and at least for now. During the grief spiral, I planned various things in Phenia's name and among them was making a new character, a sort of soul-daughter for Leafi and Phenia.
I made Sariara (name credit to Tairngaire) late on May 24th. As I leveled her, I did everything I talked about in the Trade Secrets section to capitalize on Glamour and Shroud of Deception, then shared my method in the RYSK Discord server on May 30th as a "Monk tip!"--plus a "Bonus tip!" about pre-level-20 fast skill migration for First Aid, Survival, and Trading. You can see how that impromptu post shaped this guide!
By coincidence, I'd also been answering a few people's questions in the main GS Discord server's monk channel that May into early June, like which out of Grapple/Kick/Punch Specialization to take, whether Grapple Specialization Fury worked with katars, and which races made good monks. So when Julenne asked me on June 17th to take over Phenia's spot as the monk division lead, I agreed. I don't think I could have declined. Over that string of seven weeks, I was basically doing what she needed already.
That morning, I decided I should write a new guide to replace Flimbo's old one.
I don't know what I expected would come out of it, but it wasn't this. With a motive like honoring my departed friend, I knew I'd put my all into it--but I didn't expect to write this much or this in-depth, I didn't expect to cover the topics I did, and, most of all, I didn't expect that I'd be learning myself, not just passing along what I knew beforehand.
I'd never thought about a non-Kroderine Soul monk without Mental Acuity. I'd barely thought about a weapon-wielding monk, even putting Mental Acuity aside. I'd barely thought about synergy between monks and other professions. I'd never investigated how one rank of Sanctify interacted with Kai's Strike. I'd never investigated how or if Stance of the Mongoose worked with unarmed combat. I'd never even investigated how or if Clash worked with a specified UC attack type.
But Saraphenia aimed high with her talent at community outreach, so I had to aim high with my talent at testing and explaining obscure mechanical interactions. Deep diving into the monk ocean sometimes turned up junk, but other times Atlantean treasures. I learned and now I hope you've learned too.
When Phenia said she wanted the monk division to be RYSK's strongest, I assumed she was talking about numbers. Maybe she was; I don't know either way. I do know that we want you monk players to be your strongest, as individuals. Not necessarily the most efficient, not necessarily the most min-maxed, but the most subjectively enjoyable version of your monk. Know your options, find the best one for you, and you'll be your strongest. Any part I might have played in helping you get there is an honor.
Now, for fun and because I can, here's one last obscure mechanical interaction for the road.
Bonus tip!
I have a couple character slots where, even though I don't play them, I briefly log them in and out every day for daily login rewards. That way, if I ever decided to start them up, they'd have a giant stockpile of benefits for a head start. Premium slots are especially useful for these purposes since, at no additional price over the base cost, you get more character slots than there are even professions. (Prime subscriptions can still get character slots at $2.50 per month each.)
What's probably less known is that when you reroll a character, the new character retains all the old one's login rewards! So I leveled Sariara very quickly early on, jumping past 1.2 million experience in just a month, because she was backed by seven years of rewards in the form of 1034 bounty boosts, 341 instant mind clearers, and 1004 long-term experience boosts (the previous character had gone beyond level 20 at some point), among other things like more than a thousand bounty task waivers to avoid escorts after she reached level 20. She also had 515 doubled experience boosts, which she's reserving for at least level 60 when, due to natural stat growth and Perfect Self by then, she'll be just 1 exp per pulse shy of her capped exp gains.
Do with the knowledge what you will, premium subscribers! Log in some extra characters or, if you already have been, get a new one going.
Farewell, have fun, and be good to one another!