Azuris Treten's Monk Guide

(REALISTIC P99 DISCLAIMER: This guide is somewhere between laughably bad and horribly wrong.) (Author's note: Sorry, I was 12 when I wrote this. There's really no reason to have kept it for the wiki.)

Monks are in the long run, the most effective pure melee class available, though many players aren’t in it for the long run, so they may go for pure warriors or paladins who can dish out much more damage earlier in level than a monk can. The use of your body as a weapon can be an advantage at earlier and especially later levels as you need no fancy 2 handed monstrous blade to damage enemies, although you will be outdamaged for most of your levels in one stroke. This doesn’t mean that you are completely under hitting, it means that it takes a very high level monk to pull off hits for double 60s like big swords are known for; however, instead of 2 hits a round for massive damage you get in 4 or 5 attacks in a round for respectable hits that may not inspire awe like a slash for 80 does - but it adds up very quickly.

Monks are also badly hindered in armor choices that limits us greatly in lower levels especially. Cloth armor is lightweight and will give you some ac before you seek out some pieces of leather or woven and then mesh. Mesh is a staple of monks for standard armor, and then the magical pieces of special armor that higher levels will eventually begin to gather themselves in.

Our class is decked out with many special skills and the special attack that is used together with our typical punches and jabs.

Skills and Stats

• Level 1 - Dual Wield

The skill that allows us even at low levels to get more than the one punch in a round. It will not work very well until around level 15, which is when warriors get Dual Wield anyway, but it is a nice skill to start training before it gets very useful.

• Mend

A monks only way of healing themselves besides bind wound. It will give about 25% or 1 bubble of health on a success no matter what you are doing at the time when you use it. It is a risky skill to use at lower levels in a fight because it tends to backfire and hurt you occasionally, though after the low 20’s it works very reliably and I haven’t failed once for about 10 levels .

• Bind Wound

Just like every other class’s skill, it reduces down time like mend does but cannot be used efficiently in a battle.

• Dodge

This is an impressive skill when it is later in levels, at lower levels you will barely ever get a dodge off, but still nice to have.

• Kick

Your starting special attack like the one used by warriors.

Minimal damage but still good to have until level 5 with round kick. This starts off the series of special attacks used by monks to dump extra damage during a fight throughout all levels.

• Level 3 - Safe Fall

Now this is a GREAT skill now that they have fixed it and the skill works properly. From high distances a monk can just glide over rocks and dunes and mountains and not worry about damage at all.

• Level 5 - Round Kick

This is your first special attack in a series that starts with Round Kick and ends with the impressive Flying Kick. It is very useful as it adds another attack to your arsenal, though it has a slower cycle rate to use it during a battle. Your special will almost always do more damage than a punch when landed correctly.

• Level 8 - Sneak

I actually never even picked this skill up, it seems like a waste of points to me, but it is supposed to let you get through areas undetected. I am a little less cautious than that and prefer to barge in and use Feign Death (One of the BEST skills we ever get) to get through mobs of creatures basically unhurt. Basically.

• Level 10 - Tiger Claw

This is the second special attack of yours that will replace Round Kick. It is MUCH better as it recycles about twice as fast as Round Kick and does as much or better damage when trained.

• Level 12 - Block

Used to block attacks and it is gotten at around the same time as Dodge begins to work. Block however is a much more useful skill and works to avoid attacks more often than Dodge will.

• Level 15 - Double attack

At level 15 the monk’s whole concept changes to as intended. You don’t do as much damage a hit but you start getting off 4 hit combos and avoiding hits at the same time. Double attack will help you get in another hit or hits after your Dual Wielded punches and Tiger Claw strike.

• Level 17 - Feign Death

Oh yeah, now this is a SKILL. It won’t work much before you practice it constantly, so practice it CONSTANTLY. As your skill goes up you can begin to pull and avoid mobs you don’t want to pull with FD. It can also drop you in the middle of a fight to wait for a heal instead of running about panicked and probably dying. It may seem cowardly to stop helping the group when you are about to die, but waiting for a heal helps them more than just dying and not being there for them. Section at the end of guide about all the uses I have found for FD.

• Level 20 - Eagle Strike

Your next attack to take the place of Tiger Claw. It recycles at the same rate but does more damage and hits more often, more like an upgrade then a new skill.

• Level 25 - Dragon Punch

Yet another upgrade on the strike series of attacks. This works so much better than Eagle Strike it is truly something to look forward to. Max damage on this changes with strength obviously but I can expect a hit for 40 with it occasionally.

• Level 27 - Disarm

What a neat little skill, it is quite useful because all of the mobs for levels to come do not use magic weapons typically, so disarming that fine steel scimitar can tip odds in your favor because a mob will hit for less damage without a weapon. Unlike monks.

• Level 30 - Flying Kick

This is the awe inspiring final manually used special attack to take the place of Dragon Punch yet again. After this you will keep this to 50 so no more hassle in training a new attack every 5 levels that doesn’t hit well at all at first. I recommend keeping a LOT of practice points open for this when you hit 30, it is a very difficult skill to use properly until it is a higher skill. It is a damn spiffy looking attack and hits for massive amounts of damage then you are used to doing. The only drawback is that it recycles as fast as Round Kick did, so much slower than the strikes would, but still a great skill when you see how much those level 50 monks do with it.

• Level 35 - Riposte

Another automatic used skill like Dodge and Block. It has you avoid an attack but with a catch, it allows you another attack as a counter strike even as you don’t take damage. Nifty.

Those are the monk’s impressive array of skills, now PRACTICE them as much as you can.

• Strength - It involves how much you can hold without being encumbered, although this does not matter to a monk as even over 15-17 pounds is about as encumbered as you want to get ever. It also deals with max damage for hits, which is a good thing to have, but not as important for monks as it is for other melee classes.

• Stamina - Deals with the amount of hit points gained each level, it is roughly 1 hit point a level for every 5 points you have in stamina. Nice to have as well, but not important especially as you are avoiding hits instead of merely having more hit points to be able to take it.

• Agility - Now here is where you drop a lot of effort on. Agility is what the monk does best, avoid damage. It directly relates to ac and the chance to dodge, block, riposte, dual wield and double attack successfully. So, this is one of the PRIME requisites for a monk to have.

• Dexterity - Here is the other most important statistic for a monk. This stat helps you hit more often, hit better ac, and the amount of attacks you get in as well. You miss less often with Dexterity, and with Agility they miss more.

• Wisdom - Eck.

• Intelligence - Eck.

• Charisma - I would say it is completely useless but you penny pinchers may want items to help reduce item costs from merchants. The only thing I ever buy or bought is food and drink though.

Also, as a monk the human screen will dictate how much points you get to spend besides your base stats. It is always 20 points that I recommend be split between Dex and Agi depending on what you want more out of your character. I think 10 10 is good for both though, and seeking out new agility and dexterity increasing items are a favorite pastime of monkeys.

And now to how to play a monk. As if you didnt know already.

A monk is a tank. Pure and simple, though albeit not as brute as a buff warrior or a paladin. We have and get no mana or spells. We do however pick up all these skills and magic attacks to compensate. We specialize in smaller attack damage that adds up (until a higher level when we really start to DISH damage instead of nibbling at hit points really fast). A weakness however, is that they decided to not give us taunt whatsoever. The best we can do to get a mob off a spell caster or healer is to smack it around as hard as we can until it turns to us. Flying kick is also a skill that works just as well as taunt when used right. If you take into account when a mob is casting or turning and then interrupt it with a well timed flying kick for 70 damage they tend to get a bit pissed off.

We average less hit points a level then a warrior or any ogres or trolls as well naturally. Our style is not to get more hp’s to take more damage, but to take less damage overall. A monk's special skills and abilities need to be practiced and learned so they can hit harder, more effectively, or save your life in a pinch. Like when to use mend, when to use feign death, how to pull a single mob out of a cluster conveniently.

I tend to get some weapon envy - for me it is 2h slashers that hit so nicely - that nice shiny Gigantic Zwiehander or Dark Reaver that swipes mob’s heads off so cleanly. Weapons are to be envied naturally - that’s why I play a little Sk just so he can wear plate mail and slash things in half for fun. But even though we CAN use 1h and 2h blunt weapons, it isn’t worth it at all. Our weight is an important factor, and I guess you could dual wield 2 screamers if you wanted to your attack would be down and damage as well as your dodge block riposte skills from how heavy they are. As long as you keep your hand to hand and dual wield skills maxed out, it’s fine to try out maces and stuff until you decide that they just really suck. Truly.

Basically though, you need to learn how to play a monk for yourself - I can say though, that in the long run, a monk is the smack down pure melee class. Sorry guys. ,

Fun with Feign Death

FD is really a very good skill that so many are envious of. It can save your life so much that it can seem like your best skill, and it may be - besides your attacks. Feign Death is just a skill that makes mobs think that you are dead, thus avoiding you - it has limits though as all skills do. First, feign will NEVER work if it says ‘Azuris has fallen to the ground’ or whatever your name is. That means you failed and you might as well get up and run like hell again until you can try again. Also, if you feign when your melee attack is on, even though it says it turns your attack off, it automatically fails you - so you need to go through a quick process of turning off attacks to FD reliably. Now, I am not sure if this is a myth or not, but it really seems to work more often if you turn your back and your attack has been off for more than just an instant. Soo, turning off attack and running away a little ways seems to help odds of them believing it.

I have also come to believe they use a saving throw a la AD&D systems, to make sure the mob doesn’t think you are faking it. I see a difference also in how smart the mob is, obviously none of them are very smart, but the casters, and more intelligent of creatures like an Inferno Goblin Priest will just go about nuking you while you lay there, though a same level Inferno Goblin Champion - which is just a melee mob - will believe it almost always. So it deals with casters and levels most noticeably.

Feign Death Pulling

This trick deals with when there is that annoying cluster of mobs that you can’t take all of at once, so here is a way you can get them one at a time if you are careful. Have your pull spot reasonably far away, like around a few corners and far enough away that they don’t sense you automatically. Determine a target you want and have everyone else assist on it, then run off from your group - or if you’re solo - and smack it around for a few hits and immediately run back. DO NOT get all of them to your pull spot where your group is, just enough space so they won’t know when you get up again. Sooo, while they are all clambering after you trying their best to eat you, you simply fall down, and they will confusedly stand there for a little while. This takes some patience, but soon after, they will climb over your body and move back to their spot, and here’s the best part, ONE AT A TIME. So, when the last is still standing on you, wait for it to walk back a ways and then nab it before it’s comrade’s notice at all. You can take them best one at a time, but I think it is possible to get 2 3 at a time if you want as well - just be careful, because it isn’t often that your party members can FD with you - so don’t get them killed.

Feign Death Kiting

This is a very difficult maneuver that takes a lot of practice and it doesn’t work on many types of mobs. It works very well on giants and other extremely slow stupid types. This isn’t pure kiting as you aren’t leading the mob around stupidly, but I couldn’t come up with a better term for it, so…

The trick is to spot a large preferably red mob alone that you can pull to a spot near a zone. I like the spot in oasis next to the south ro zone for sand giant killing, myself. So if you can spot one, hit it and run (Sowed ALWAYS) and get back to your spot as quick as you can, then feign. As soon as your FD pops back up stand and whack it in the back as it starts to meander away and fall down as fast as possible, like instantly. At first if you aren’t used to doing this and can’t try fast enough they will get a very painful round in on you and it won’t work if you can’t hit it without being hit, so buffs and Sow are a MUST. You can keep trying until you have gotten the rhythm and if you get good at it, the kiting gets very easy and basically boring. And by the way, solo exp for red mobs is really nice exp .

Feign Death Passthroughs

Often, mobs around your level as you do this and not really high (and not casters a lot of times) have no idea that you are still alive after you have FD’ed and gotten away if you do it out of their sense range. So, if you have just run really quickly through an area full of spawns of creatures around your level and then feigned with all of them over you, as they return to their spots, often they still think you are dead and leave you alone since you are away from them still. Needing to get past an area of spawns this is an option, to just run through, take the damage and then wait for them to leave as you lie there.

This does NOT work on everything, for example giants, guards, griffins, and other higher level mobs always know when you have gotten up, so if you let them run off for a while you can run and then feign again before they get to you.

Azuris Trenten

The Rathe , Drakna's man.