Phetlee's Monk Tips

Phetlee's Monk Tips

After reading the Azuris guide for the monk class I decided to put together a few additional tips about monks. I'm not in any means trying to bash the Azuris guide but I do believe he fell short on many ideas.

This guide is not ment to be a one stop shop of monk info. I simply want young monks to take what they can and

shape their own monk way of life. These tips are going to be pretty straight forward. If there any corrections

that need to be made please feel free to /t phetlee on p1999 in game.

• A little about me. I played on the Veeshan sever from the start of Kunark to around 2003 and left after the Planes

of Power expansion. My first class was a necro but I wanted to do more for my guild, Ixtlan, so I made a monk and

never looked back. I became the main puller of my guild and easily pulled the planes, temple of veeshan, kael, and

a whole bunch of luclin zones that are hard to spell. ToV and Kael were by far my most favorite places.

so let us begin.

Group and Combat Tips

1. Know Your Role - Monks can damage, pull, and sometimes tank. Although I would not recommend tanking, it is an

option till a plate wearer shows up.

• Puller - more often then not you will be the designated puller since we get FD. This is an easy job but you have

to pay attention. Do not offer to pull unless you have Throwing stars or knives. Also grab a sow first if

possible. There is no point pulling and coming back half dead. It is a waste of mana for the healer.

• Damage Dealer - Option 2 if you're not pulling then sit back wait for stuff to be servered to you and hit your

attack when you see a mob. If you have a good tank that can hold threat then don't be so hung up on your weight.

Why worry about your AC penalty if you're not taking damage.

• Tanking - And I use this term very loosely. Yes it is true that monks get an armor class bonus along with dodge

and block but Monks were not designed to take damage. They were designed to Avoid damage. I highly advise you to not

be a hero and let someone else take the hits. That being said if you are tasked to "Tank" then remember to keep your

weight low and your AC as high as possible. If you having to tank alot then I suggest you begin to carry around a few

swap out items with higher AC. When you go back to doing damage then you can swap back in your stat gear.

2. Watch Your Threat Levels - This is a lot harder to do before we get Feign Death but after that if you find

yourself pulling the mob off the tank then of course you can start FDing after the pull or just wait for a few

seconds and let the tank build agro. Be respectful to your tanks and try to make their job easier.

3. First In/Last Out - Be the first in a room and FD to survey the area. Assess and build a strategy to pulling the

room. If everything starts to go to hell in a hand basket then remember the EQ golden rule. Save the Cleric!!

Don't be afraid to soak up the hits while your group head for the door. As monks we avoid death so many times that

it is almost unfair. So don't get all bent out of shape if you have to eat a death to save your group.

Skill Tips

1. Bind Wound - If you plan to solo then learn it, us it. At one point you can BW up to 75% health. Combine that

with a good mend and you're back to full. If possible make friends with a Mage and have them summon you up

bandages.

2. Mend - At lower levels this is tricky to trust but every skill point that you get should be applied to this. A

level 1 monk will put 5 points into 1hb if he wants to be good. Another level 1 monk will put his first 5 skill

points into mend if he plans on being great.

3. Sneak - Azuris talked about this skill as being useless. No monk skill is useless. We don't get invis we get

sneak. Here is a little story from back when I played EQ live. A few guildies and I were hunting giants in Kael

for quest armor drops and what not when I ran out of throwing stars. For those not familiar with Kael it is a city

for giants and if you kill dragons you can quest with giants and if you kill giants you can quest with

dragons...Basically. There I was in the middle of killing giants and out of stars. So I ran down to the Giant

merchants FD'd behind them and used my sneak skill to become "indifferent" to them so I could buy and sell. Then

after that I made a trip over to the bank where I was also KoS and used my FD/Sneak skills to lighten my load.

4. H2H vs Blunts - This all depends on your play style.

• Fists - Slow and should be used against mobs with a damage shield. Kinda crappy untill you get into the Mid 20's

range but crazy damage after that.

• 1 hand blunts- Great for starting out monks but will weigh you down. It is really easy to twink out a monk with a

couple of good 1 handers.

• 2 hand blunts - Heavy, Slow and I have never been a fan of them but I kept a tranquil staff in my back pocket for

special occasions.

5. Combat Skills - As monks we get many different combat abilities and not a single one stacks with another. Learn

your best one and just keep hitting that button. Remember that these are high agro attacks and can easily pull mobs

from the tank. A test of a monk's skill will never be his ability to spam his Flying Kick button. Only in the way

he pulls.

Pulling Tips

1. Know Your Group - You should do your best to scale your group's strength and class make up. This will determin

how you should pull. A few things to keep in mind when sizing up your group are twinks, amount of healers, if there

is an enchanter in the group, and how much dps will be put out.

• Twinks - At lower levels when you walk into a group of exp hungry twinks they are going to demand that you keep

the mob flow steady. This also applies to higher end groups.

• Healers - If you're low on healers or have a lack support classes to slow/clarity/off heal then your pulling will

be dictated by the mana consumption of the healer. Also if the tank's armor blows or if you are not SoW'd and need

to be healed back to full on every pull prior to doing any damage then you need to rethink your pulling strategy.

• Enchanters - a good enchanter can clean up a dirty monk pull in no time. If you have one that can play their

class well then don't worry about single pulling and just keep the creatures coming.

• Overall DPS - Don't expect to be swimming in EXP if your group for some reason has 3 clerics or is full of

overlapping support classes. A good group should be balanced enough to support a steady stream of pulls. Also if

you're the main DPS of the group but are also in charge of pulling then expect kills to be slow.

2. Breaking Mobs - Every monk should learn his or her own pull style but here are a few heads up on breaking groups

of mobs or pulling from a room.

• You were not Born in a Barn - When pulling from a room with a closed door try to pull creatures out, let the door

close, and pick off mobs before they "Pop" back into the room. Mobs can't open doors and more often then not after

a good FD mobs will walk back to their spawn point and get caught up at the door. If luck is on your side then one

at a time they were begin to pop back and hopefully one or two will be left for you to get up and shoot a quick star

at them.

• A little help from your friends - If possible let the clerics lull and the druids harmony.

3. Pulling Casters - When Azuris talked about casters seeing through your FD he was mistaken. When pulling a group

with a known caster in it you have to read the NPC dialogue and spell emotes. If you FD during the "XXX has begun

to cast a spell" then you will get nuked out of your FD. That is pulling 101. This is were you have to soak up

hits and wait for that nuke to blast you before you can land that FD. There is no secret NPC caster conspiracy out

to get monks, you just need to pay attention to what you're doing.

4. Chain Pulling - A good chain puller is the holy grail to an exp hungry group. This is one of those easy to learn

hard to master skills. Basically

• Run out and pull something
• FD when you get back to group and let the tank pick it up
• If DPS is good then do even bother attacking just run out and grab another mob.
• If DPS is crappy to decent then stay back and help till about 25-40% mob health then go grab another.
• Do frequent mana checks
• ASk for permission to chain pull. You don't want to start chain pulling on a group that is playing Gems.
• Ask that no one else pulls while you're out and if they do then you're not doing a good job.

Monk Life Tips

1. Keep it Light - If this is your first char then don't expect to be rich. Or even poor for that matter. As a monk

leveling up you have to work your way up to being poor. It is not uncommon to destroy silver and copper to keep the weight

stable. If you want that AC bonus (especially if you're soloing) then you gotta dump/destroy/sell off and bank

frequently. Most people understand the monk plight and will gladly offer to trade your GP for plat.

2. Birds of a Feather - Back when I was a high level monk I did a /friends check and noticed that 8 out of 10

friends on my list were all monks. Because those are the people who I used to grade my self by. We would bounce

ideas off each other and talk about pulling strats, gearing up, and which items were better then others. It's not

called a brotherhood for nothing.

3. Two of a Kind - Find a partner in crime and duo. Espeically with a shaman partner.

4. The Lone Wolf - Monks are great solo artists but don't get in over your head. Always have an exit strategy and try not to FD your mobs on people.

5. Never Too Early - To start your monk epic quest. This is by far one of the longer quests in the game due to the

fact that it can be started at level 1.

6. Gearing - If possible build a DPS set for groups and a AC/AGI set for soloing and just bank one or the other. If

you know you're hunting with a good tank then don't stack on the AC/AGI.

• Please feel free to make changes as needed and /t Phetlee on p1999 if you want to comment or suggest something.

Hope this helps my brothers starting out. good luck.