Category:Monks

There is a group of monks who originally worshipped the god, Gorn. Gorn's prescripts prohibited the drawing of blood of thy fellow creatures, it did not prohibit the use of body to bring people into the light which is the Almighty Blessed Gorn. These monks developed a series of skills based upon a bare-handed fighting style. Through speed and skill these fierce and faithful followers fight with purity of body and soul for the glory of Gorn. Since that time, there have been factions which have split off and started worshipping their own gods. They have, however, maintained the practices that have existed for the past 2000 years.

Abbreviation: Mon.

Prime Requisite: Dexterity.

Monks in General

While monks (and shadowfists) are better tanks than hitters they can do ok hitting with the right gear, particularly with a gorn worship. Hit (hr) is more important than damage (dr) on gear since you want as many of the monks multiple open hand attacks to hit as possible. However, dr gear is also good and definitely helps, unlike archer for example where +dr is irrelevant. For hero gear I'd pick mostly from the hit gear list and favor items with +hr, perhaps comparing with an item for the same spot from the Archer gear list, although most archer list items don't have any +dr. The best items are those which have +hr, +dr, and armor (-ac). From my own experiments I got two more damage verbs in full hit over full tank, but I got hit so much more that it wasn't worth it at all when soloing.

Monk Creation

Good creatable races for monks are orc (good hp, dex), ogr (much better hp, lower dex), kzn (much better dex, lower hp), gar (armorstone, orc-ish hp). Good remort races are trl (revival makes trl monk a super tank), drg (if you can handle the tnl), grf, gol, min. Despite the appearance of being a dex-based class, dex has little impact on a monk's ability to crane style and therefore counterattack, so for the time being, brute races are preferred, and delicately-built dex-heavy races are generally avoided.

Imps are also a great choice for monk, but as usual they are terrible until later evolutions. Also, they cannot worship until lord, but this isn't a big deal for a monk anyway.

Monks at Lowmort Tier

Depending on race and the way you level your monk, it is easiest to use weapons instead of fighting open-handed. At level 10 you get inner balance and at level 15 you get scorpion style, either of which could be a turnpoint for your race. If it's not (you'll have to experiment and see), it's wise to wait until level 25 where you get your open hand third attack.

Training

Recommended stat training order is: wis, con, int, dex, str. You can reverse str and dex, or maybe mix em up a bit, it doesn't matter much. The first three are best trained in the mentioned order though.

Practicing

Since gorn gives such a nice practice cost decrease, I'd say wait until level 10 before you practice, or maybe practice dodge (and maybe fast healing). Unless you decide to open hand early on, then that is a must (but not recommended). It's best to practice open hand as soon as you stop using weapons.

Worshipping

Monks "normally" worship Gorn for his bonus to open hand damage and other monk related activities. Werredan is also popular, for the hp bonus and the xp bonus. Your open hand dmg will be somewhat nerfed, you'll rarely counter, but damn, you get a big hp boost. Quixoltan gives good stats and also helps a bit with monk damage, but increases lag on skills and spells.

Fighting

Soloing:

Tanking:

Hitting:

Monk Prestige Options

Those Monks who have more sinister desires may opt to become Shadowfists at any time from Mortal level 50 to Hero level 100.

Monks at Hero Tier

Monks usually serve as tanks at all tiers.

Training

Practicing

Devoting

Fighting

Soloing: Soloing is possible, especially with a gorn worship. When soloing spelled, go for as much AC gear as you need... that's general advice, but it is mostly dependent on how much hp you have. Unspelled soloing is a lot harder, but not impossible. You'll need a mix of ac and hit roll gear for that (without losing too much ac), and lots of patience.

Tanking: Monks are great tanks. Remember to keep your hands free (no shields, no swords) for using your monk abilities. Your ac is going to be less than you're use to, but you should be fine with around -650 (-1200 with spells). Monks are a versatile tank, they have good enough hp, plenty of mana, and inclass rescue and trip. Like always, try to trip if you are just fighting one mob so you don't get the rescue penalty to ac. If you don't have a basher in the group and you want to keep a mob in place, try Tiger Stance; it lands a hit after every toss or trip, so you'll always be the first person to hit the mob while on the ground, keeping your groupies safe.

Hitting: Right now, people are of the opinion that monks shouldn't be hitting. Their hitting depends on hit roll, and a decent monk can hit about as hard when he's hitting as when he's tanking. Emu Stance will probably be a monk's best friend while hitting, as it raises maximum kick damage by about one damage verb, however it doesn't increase minimum damage so you will still occasionally miss or hit poorly.

Monks at Lord Tier

Monks are very nice at the lord tier, and some of the remort options, such as grf and drg, are appealing to monks.

Monks are very useful at lord. Their counterpush skill is very useful since lord fights are much longer than hero and a bashed mob gets hit significantly more. They also do an appreciable amount of damage (nothing close to a caster though) with counterkick and emu stance. Also, with good tank gear, monks rarely get hit by normal lord mobs.

Monk Remort Options

Monks can remort to paladin at lord 100 (200 to keep race) and priest at lord 150 (300 to keep race).