Monk

A monk you want to be, grasshopper? Life is hard and the Way of the Monk more so. In all of Norrath, it is you who is the humblest of creatures, forever ignored by gods, and perhaps the weakest of all classes, when all is said and done as a player.

Monks receive 20 points to distribute during character creation. It is advisable that you spend all your points on agility, save 5, taking it up to 100, or past that mark, if so inclined. Monks with greater than 100 base agility receive an AC bonus as their defense skill increases, greater than that possible without under 100 base agility, at any rate. This is useful, as at level 50, it will be rare to find a warrior within 50 AC points of you.

You may only be a human, though there are rumors of an Iksar monk guild. The two cities you may start in are Qeynos and Freeport. The Freeport Monk Guild is by the Theatre of the Tranquil, and you can train and quest for various magical sashes there, yellow through black. The Qeynos Monk guild likewise allows you to train, and quest for headbands, again yellow through black. The headbands and sashes are not much .. in fact it is possible to attain items that are much superior for much less effort .. but I still wear a sash, as a symbol of achievement.

The gods have not have completely forgetten us though. By the grace of Quellious, we are granted dual wield at level 1, and that miraculous ability, mend, which at high levels almost guarantees you a fourth of your health, and cycles every 6 minutes in real time. Monks like other melee classes also receive bind wound at level 1. As with all skills, they only prove really handy when one has mastered them, by level 19 or so. A level 19 monk who has mastered bind wound and mend can move from near death to four fifths of health in 5 minutes. Mend is still useful at lower levels but there is a possibility of it failing, or worse, hurting you at lower levels. To avoid this possibility, I would simply mend at 3 bubbles of health. That would leave me some hps to run, if in the worst case, it hurt me instead of helping. A monk also receives dodge, a useful skill to have, as it allows you avoid blows on occasion.

The choice of the Deity one chooses is of little importance, one may choose Quellious, or be Agnostic. Unlike in the case of say Dark Elf Necromancers being either Agnostic or choosing Innoruuk, this is of little import. The first few levels as always are spent gathering exp near the city gates, within earshot of the guards.

Freeport is perhaps the better of the two cities for monks, early on. To the east and south of Freeport is the Desert of Ro. North Ro offers some truly wondrous creatures for the monk to batter. There are armadillos and coyotes which drop absolutely nothing, of which the armadillo offers better exp. There are also spiderlings and fire beetles, which drop silk and fire beetle eyes, which will help your nightvision. These two must be tackled when at least level 3, be wary, for they will train on you easily. However, the guards are near in this zone. This is perhaps the easiest way to get from 3 to 5.

At 5, you get one of the monks special moves, the round kick. This nifty looking move allows you to hit a creature for as much as 10-12 hps by level 10, at which point you receive the tiger claw attack. This superior attack allows you to strike a creature for as much damage as a round kick, perhaps more, but in substantially less time. Earlier, at level 8, we receive sneak, a not very useful skill which when used is easily picked up by creatures and caps at 113 skill.

Level 10 is easily acquired by attacking creatures in the low level zones of, for example, North Ro, ButcherBlock, Misty Thickets etc. At level 10 the world opens up somewhat and one can begin tackling harder creatures and humanoids and even the lower level dungeons such as Befallen. Befallen is critical to monks questing for the sash and headband quests, as important items are found there. Before even thinking of going into a dungeon, make sure you acquire a greater lightstone, since humans have limited night vision. These are rare drops from willow-o-wisps and improve nightvision immensely.

Level 12, comes around and the budding monk receives block, a more useful skill than dodge, as it comes into effect more often. At level 15, we receive the important Double Attack skill, which as the name suggests, gives you a chance of attacking a creature twice in one round, in addition to Dual Wield, which gives you four possible strikes.

Truly, the most important skill for a monk is feign death, at level 17. This most important of skills for a monk allows a monk to fetch one creature at a time for his group, to escape near certain death at a time when a warrior will be praying to the Warlord for an unlikely miracle. It is best affected by the monk stopping his attacks and turning away or backing away as though to flee, then feigning. This may spare the monk death, or may allow him or her to fetch a single creature as groups of creatures will turn back one by one, allowing the monk to strike the last one as it returns to its location. The gods have however deemed that this skill be more effective for creatures under level 35, and less so after that. A successful feign against a creature under level 35 results in the creature losing all memory of you. After 35, it is possible that the creature may 'remember' you and return. This may result in the creation of unfortunate trains, and one must be careful in this. F!

By level 17 you will notice the lack of specialized gear for monks, though there is cured silk armor, made by master tailors and has the same AC as mesh(an armor type obtained from upper Guk) for less weight. This is a source of envy for low-mid level monks who watch warriors prance around with Mithril 2 handers and Executioner axes while garbed in full crafted armor and sporting an Enamelled Mithril Breastplate. Given the fact that monks number a smaller percentage of players than any class save rogues, enchanter and perhaps bards, Verant has understandably accorded us low priority and there are an incredibly limited number of monk specific equipment pieces in the game. Even rogues, another uncommon class, receive ravenscale armor, an excellent armor type for this much ignored class. Even the items that a monk may use, are heavily camped since all the other classes that need them want them as well .. and the monk is often left empty-handed as a result.

However, budding monk, never fear! Even though a Barbarian or an Ogre warrior at your level in the late teens and all the way to level 40 may have have 100 more Attack and AC than you .. we closely match them beyond 40, since our Dual Wield and Strike are capped at 255.

At level 20 we receive the nifty eagle strike move which does twice the damage of tiger claw, and at 25 we receive the efficient dragon claw, which by level 30 does more than 35 hps damage a strike. At level 27 we are able to disarm opponents, a very very handy skill in pvp, as surely an ogre warriors puffy fists hurt a lot less than that Executioners Axe. The second to last of the special skills we receive is the awesome Flying Kick! This skill when mastered and raised to 165 skill by level 33 will do upto 75 hps of damage and is a formidable addition to your arsenal. It recharges at a slow two and a half rounds, but it is very useful still.At level 50 it is not unusual to see a monk kick for 115 hit points ..

By now, the mid level monk should have acquired the best jewelry and equipment that money can buy and should strive to bring both his Agility and Dexterity to at least 130, and his Strength to 120. Strength and skill in hand to hand determine whether you hit a creature, while Dexterity allows you a greater chance of hitting close to your theoretical maximum. A note here: Agility and how much a monk is carrying directly effect how often a monk will dodge, block and riposte, and simply cause the creature to miss. Attempt to carry less than 15 pounds of equipment and baggage at all times, carrying more will cause you to lose AC, and will cause the above mentioned skills to work less often. Though Agility is a very useful attribute, the law of diminishing returns applies and it not possible to 'min-max' agility and the other attributes beyond a certain point. All high level monks will invariably have well rounded stats in these three major attribute classes, AGI, DEX and STR.

By level 40 and higher, one may begin to venture deep into the dungeons and in the outdoors it will be the rare Griffin or Hill Giant that will dare to cross your path. Your Dual Wield will be inching up to 230 and your Dual Strike will have hit 200. In this respect alone you are as powerful as a level 50 warrior.

By level 46 one may walk the planes with the gods. Their wrath is terrible however and one may die often in their realms. The rewards for daring their wrath are immense, however. The Plane of Fear, the realm of Cazic Thule the feared Faceless One, is home to a powerful species of Gorilla, the Shiverback. These beings carry the most sought out after monk armor, having moderate AC, and excellent resistance bonuses and amazing additional attribute points. One may require two full groups of high level characters to acquire this wonderful armor however, and as always, it is the monk who must fetch them ..

On Norrath, there are beings of almost god-like power, the Dragons, the creators of the Fire Giants and the brethren of Veeshan herself. These mighty beings possess incredible magiks and carry perhaps the most sought out after monk item.. The Cloak of flames. This is one of the best haste items in the game, and though as usual the monk must vie for it with other classes, it is a must have as it can reduce your attack delay from 36 to 27 or so ..

The gods have deemed that we be unarmed warriors, for our forte is unarmed combat. We may use blunt weapons but they remain too heavy and are tailored to clerics. In any case we do not require weapons, we can train ourselves in unarmed combat to 255. We may also raise dual wield to 255. This, no other class may do. Warriors and other melee classes however make up for this with their superior weaponry and armor and hit points, and in the case of non-warrior melee types, with their spells.

In a battle between a fully accouterred warrior wielding a Bloodmoon, and with high dexterity, and a fully accoutered monk, both with Plane and Dragon gear, the outcome is almost always in the warriors favor, if both are unbuffed prior to combat. Similarly, in combat with other melee classes the monk is almost always the loser. Any melee class with their 'dream' gear can vanquish a monk .. since we really dont have dream weapons, other than our fists .. However, having said that, monks are perhaps the most fun to play since one dies less, due to feign death, spends far less time camping that 'must have' item and can match the best warrior almost blow for blow, if not actually take that much damage, and all this without a weapon! We are very necessary for groups in the Planes or in Dragon raids and yet we earn little in the way of rewards.

I fervently hope that Verant rewards monks, as the new race, and our new Brethren monks from the Iksar, grace the scene and more monk characters grace Norrath. Many have toiled through the levels for the most important of reasons, friendship, as we partnered our friends and comrades as they garned wonderful item after item, only to watch in vain as Verant ignored the monk. Still, to be a monk is to be unique on Norrath. No meleer can match the damage we do except with the best weapons available in Norrath, and that too through magical means. If wizards are the heavy artillery .. we are the Aden cannons :)


	The Sterling \| home Bard \| Cleric \| Druid \| Enchanter \| Magician \| Monk \| Necromancer \| Paladin \| Ranger \| Rogue \| Shadowknight \| Shaman \| Warrior \| Wizard Monk A monk you want to be, grasshopper? Life is hard and the Way of the Monk more so. In all of Norrath, it is you who is the humblest of creatures, forever ignored by gods, and perhaps the weakest of all classes, when all is said and done as a player. Monks receive 20 points to distribute during character creation. It is advisable that you spend all your points on agility, save 5, taking it up to 100, or past that mark, if so inclined. Monks with greater than 100 base agility receive an AC bonus as their defense skill increases, greater than that possible without under 100 base agility, at any rate. This is useful, as at level 50, it will be rare to find a warrior within 50 AC points of you. You may only be a human, though there are rumors of an Iksar monk guild. The two cities you may start in are Qeynos and Freeport. The Freeport Monk Guild is by the Theatre of the Tranquil, and you can train and quest for various magical sashes there, yellow through black. The Qeynos Monk guild likewise allows you to train, and quest for headbands, again yellow through black. The headbands and sashes are not much .. in fact it is possible to attain items that are much superior for much less effort .. but I still wear a sash, as a symbol of achievement. The gods have not have completely forgetten us though. By the grace of Quellious, we are granted dual wield at level 1, and that miraculous ability, mend, which at high levels almost guarantees you a fourth of your health, and cycles every 6 minutes in real time. Monks like other melee classes also receive bind wound at level 1. As with all skills, they only prove really handy when one has mastered them, by level 19 or so. A level 19 monk who has mastered bind wound and mend can move from near death to four fifths of health in 5 minutes. Mend is still useful at lower levels but there is a possibility of it failing, or worse, hurting you at lower levels. To avoid this possibility, I would simply mend at 3 bubbles of health. That would leave me some hps to run, if in the worst case, it hurt me instead of helping. A monk also receives dodge, a useful skill to have, as it allows you avoid blows on occasion. The choice of the Deity one chooses is of little importance, one may choose Quellious, or be Agnostic. Unlike in the case of say Dark Elf Necromancers being either Agnostic or choosing Innoruuk, this is of little import. The first few levels as always are spent gathering exp near the city gates, within earshot of the guards. Freeport is perhaps the better of the two cities for monks, early on. To the east and south of Freeport is the Desert of Ro. North Ro offers some truly wondrous creatures for the monk to batter. There are armadillos and coyotes which drop absolutely nothing, of which the armadillo offers better exp. There are also spiderlings and fire beetles, which drop silk and fire beetle eyes, which will help your nightvision. These two must be tackled when at least level 3, be wary, for they will train on you easily. However, the guards are near in this zone. This is perhaps the easiest way to get from 3 to 5. At 5, you get one of the monks special moves, the round kick. This nifty looking move allows you to hit a creature for as much as 10-12 hps by level 10, at which point you receive the tiger claw attack. This superior attack allows you to strike a creature for as much damage as a round kick, perhaps more, but in substantially less time. Earlier, at level 8, we receive sneak, a not very useful skill which when used is easily picked up by creatures and caps at 113 skill. Level 10 is easily acquired by attacking creatures in the low level zones of, for example, North Ro, ButcherBlock, Misty Thickets etc. At level 10 the world opens up somewhat and one can begin tackling harder creatures and humanoids and even the lower level dungeons such as Befallen. Befallen is critical to monks questing for the sash and headband quests, as important items are found there. Before even thinking of going into a dungeon, make sure you acquire a greater lightstone, since humans have limited night vision. These are rare drops from willow-o-wisps and improve nightvision immensely. Level 12, comes around and the budding monk receives block, a more useful skill than dodge, as it comes into effect more often. At level 15, we receive the important Double Attack skill, which as the name suggests, gives you a chance of attacking a creature twice in one round, in addition to Dual Wield, which gives you four possible strikes. Truly, the most important skill for a monk is feign death, at level 17. This most important of skills for a monk allows a monk to fetch one creature at a time for his group, to escape near certain death at a time when a warrior will be praying to the Warlord for an unlikely miracle. It is best affected by the monk stopping his attacks and turning away or backing away as though to flee, then feigning. This may spare the monk death, or may allow him or her to fetch a single creature as groups of creatures will turn back one by one, allowing the monk to strike the last one as it returns to its location. The gods have however deemed that this skill be more effective for creatures under level 35, and less so after that. A successful feign against a creature under level 35 results in the creature losing all memory of you. After 35, it is possible that the creature may 'remember' you and return. This may result in the creation of unfortunate trains, and one must be careful in this. F! eign pulling after level 35(and with creatures higher than level 35) is most effective if indeed your group or groups can fight all the creatures, albeit with some what of a seperation. By level 17 you will notice the lack of specialized gear for monks, though there is cured silk armor, made by master tailors and has the same AC as mesh(an armor type obtained from upper Guk) for less weight. This is a source of envy for low-mid level monks who watch warriors prance around with Mithril 2 handers and Executioner axes while garbed in full crafted armor and sporting an Enamelled Mithril Breastplate. Given the fact that monks number a smaller percentage of players than any class save rogues, enchanter and perhaps bards, Verant has understandably accorded us low priority and there are an incredibly limited number of monk specific equipment pieces in the game. Even rogues, another uncommon class, receive ravenscale armor, an excellent armor type for this much ignored class. Even the items that a monk may use, are heavily camped since all the other classes that need them want them as well .. and the monk is often left empty-handed as a result. However, budding monk, never fear! Even though a Barbarian or an Ogre warrior at your level in the late teens and all the way to level 40 may have have 100 more Attack and AC than you .. we closely match them beyond 40, since our Dual Wield and Strike are capped at 255. At level 20 we receive the nifty eagle strike move which does twice the damage of tiger claw, and at 25 we receive the efficient dragon claw, which by level 30 does more than 35 hps damage a strike. At level 27 we are able to disarm opponents, a very very handy skill in pvp, as surely an ogre warriors puffy fists hurt a lot less than that Executioners Axe. The second to last of the special skills we receive is the awesome Flying Kick! This skill when mastered and raised to 165 skill by level 33 will do upto 75 hps of damage and is a formidable addition to your arsenal. It recharges at a slow two and a half rounds, but it is very useful still.At level 50 it is not unusual to see a monk kick for 115 hit points .. (I have not included instill doubt, a fairly useless skill which makes creatures run away, it seems to work only on low greens even at high levels) At level 35 monks receive their last important skill, Riposte, this can be handy in a fight as this does an attackers damage, TO the attacker .. When it works, its a charm. By now, the mid level monk should have acquired the best jewelry and equipment that money can buy and should strive to bring both his Agility and Dexterity to at least 130, and his Strength to 120. Strength and skill in hand to hand determine whether you hit a creature, while Dexterity allows you a greater chance of hitting close to your theoretical maximum. A note here: Agility and how much a monk is carrying directly effect how often a monk will dodge, block and riposte, and simply cause the creature to miss. Attempt to carry less than 15 pounds of equipment and baggage at all times, carrying more will cause you to lose AC, and will cause the above mentioned skills to work less often. Though Agility is a very useful attribute, the law of diminishing returns applies and it not possible to 'min-max' agility and the other attributes beyond a certain point. All high level monks will invariably have well rounded stats in these three major attribute classes, AGI, DEX and STR. By level 40 and higher, one may begin to venture deep into the dungeons and in the outdoors it will be the rare Griffin or Hill Giant that will dare to cross your path. Your Dual Wield will be inching up to 230 and your Dual Strike will have hit 200. In this respect alone you are as powerful as a level 50 warrior. By level 46 one may walk the planes with the gods. Their wrath is terrible however and one may die often in their realms. The rewards for daring their wrath are immense, however. The Plane of Fear, the realm of Cazic Thule the feared Faceless One, is home to a powerful species of Gorilla, the Shiverback. These beings carry the most sought out after monk armor, having moderate AC, and excellent resistance bonuses and amazing additional attribute points. One may require two full groups of high level characters to acquire this wonderful armor however, and as always, it is the monk who must fetch them .. On Norrath, there are beings of almost god-like power, the Dragons, the creators of the Fire Giants and the brethren of Veeshan herself. These mighty beings possess incredible magiks and carry perhaps the most sought out after monk item.. The Cloak of flames. This is one of the best haste items in the game, and though as usual the monk must vie for it with other classes, it is a must have as it can reduce your attack delay from 36 to 27 or so .. The gods have deemed that we be unarmed warriors, for our forte is unarmed combat. We may use blunt weapons but they remain too heavy and are tailored to clerics. In any case we do not require weapons, we can train ourselves in unarmed combat to 255. We may also raise dual wield to 255. This, no other class may do. Warriors and other melee classes however make up for this with their superior weaponry and armor and hit points, and in the case of non-warrior melee types, with their spells. In a battle between a fully accouterred warrior wielding a Bloodmoon, and with high dexterity, and a fully accoutered monk, both with Plane and Dragon gear, the outcome is almost always in the warriors favor, if both are unbuffed prior to combat. Similarly, in combat with other melee classes the monk is almost always the loser. Any melee class with their 'dream' gear can vanquish a monk .. since we really dont have dream weapons, other than our fists .. However, having said that, monks are perhaps the most fun to play since one dies less, due to feign death, spends far less time camping that 'must have' item and can match the best warrior almost blow for blow, if not actually take that much damage, and all this without a weapon! We are very necessary for groups in the Planes or in Dragon raids and yet we earn little in the way of rewards. I fervently hope that Verant rewards monks, as the new race, and our new Brethren monks from the Iksar, grace the scene and more monk characters grace Norrath. Many have toiled through the levels for the most important of reasons, friendship, as we partnered our friends and comrades as they garned wonderful item after item, only to watch in vain as Verant ignored the monk. Still, to be a monk is to be unique on Norrath. No meleer can match the damage we do except with the best weapons available in Norrath, and that too through magical means. If wizards are the heavy artillery .. we are the Aden cannons :) And on that pithy note .. Go forth grasshopper! Norrath awaits!