So I'm considering a change back to monk. As much as I think the aquamancer's skills are awesome, I just can't STAND being squishy, or being one of the first targets in group combat. I will admit, I found monk combat kind of boring (the primary reason I left), but I can now value their sturdiness.

Thing is, I was a kephera psymet tahtetso earlier. I was somewhat tanky, but will this be radically different if I stay Human? (a no won't necessarily change my mind, I just want to have a good idea of what I'm getting into).

Along those lines, which is the better tertiary to have? Most people seem to like acro over psymet; why is that? Are there any instances when psymet is better? (aside from the fact it'll save me credits, which I don't have enough of to trans three new guildskills anyways)

I also want to get an idea if others think, as I do, that monk combat is boring (for me, it was the fact that harmony and psymet were set-up-and-go, and had few active skills to use).

Finally, do you think that monks need some more skills to help allies? In the sense that aquamancers can set up healspring, celestines can heal/sacraments stuff, cantors have their songs, and paladins can take sacraments? And no, helping kill an enemy faster is not an example of helping an ally in this sense.

1. Yes, you will be much less tankier as a human than as a keph. Not sure I'd recommend that at all. Male kephs are good monks.
2. Most people like acro over psymet since you're not killing anyone competent without hyper or rushing (and you don't get rushing.) Do not expect this to remain the same. Psymet is better for bashing and has situational good uses in combat too. It's not a bad skill. Nor is acro. I think both are viable.
3. Monks do not need skills specifically to help allies, but they sure as hell need something useful they can do that others can't: see Lokin's Rant Thread a while back (and I've complained about the imbalance in utility and "being useful" setups between guilds already several times!)

Male Kephera monks are pretty tanky vs physical damage. Psymet harmony kephera monks would be pretty tough.

Acro just has a lot of nice stuff for monks like tripleflash, avoid, hyperactive, somersault, limber. Psymet isn't bad, but I'd say it's not quite as good as acrobatics.

Monk combat is boring. You can't get around it. It's also insultingly easy. You are a glorified combat robot. PPK PPK PPK. Some monks love it, some think it's ridiculously stupid and OP...they all use it, and it's really the only thing they do.

No. Monks do not need any ally buffing skills. They need to suck at something. They are the charge into a fight and beat the snot out of people type guild. They work like warriors in a lot of ways, only their stun/prone/grappled/paralysed crap can get ridiculous.

Oh, and the bashing is nuts.

Bzzt!

Ally buffing is one thing, but we don't need to "suck at something" more than we already do. Our usefulness should not consist ONLY of what we can do in what is basically solo combat with a warrior getting wounds for us. And apart from ppk stun warriors are scarier in groups. They don't need room attacks or bard songs or anything, but they do need -something.-

1 Acro, contort is basicly required now, and springup is vary nice as well, those alone basicly sold me.

2. boring as hell actually I think its alot like those other muds where you just type KILL GNOME and go at it as your sit there. I was vary upset when that sort of combat was introduced. Almost feel as if it stole my favorite part of the game away.

3. I think monks do need alot of work, I would love to see our katas worked out but I think the kata system itself is vary broken and anything added should be added around fixing that.
On another thought I would like to see a monk only trade skill, Maybe some form of tattoos.

The automated part of monk combat is going to poof soon. I actually think it can be quite intriguing if played correctly, but then it'll also depend on how the new monk system will work out.

Personally, I think what we have is pretty far removed from KILL BADDIE

I spend a lot of time designing kata forms, I spend a lot more finding out how and where they don't hold up, more time redesigning, and then I go into real combat and have to switch forms around on the fly anyway because of dodging/parrying/afflictions.

It isn't KILL BADDIE

I do wish Psychometabolism and Harmony were revamped, though. There are some absolutely cool abilities in both, but come on. My Psymet/Harmony defenses for bashing are completely different from those for combat, and necessarily so. This means that if I'm out doing anything besides fighting(Influencing, bashing, etc) and I get jumped, my relatively non-tanky warrior-ish character has to spend five, six rounds switching to combat mode. Silliness.

And the lack of direct abilities is boring. Also, actually viable insta-kills would be nice.

HEY! We have..... deathtouch!! *shifty*

And crunch, which is so utterly AWESOME in solo. (about as awesome as deathtouch in general is)


PS: For those that didn't get it: /sarcasm

Still think you guys are underrating psymet...ehhh.

Not at all. It has cool stuff, like I said. Boom, here I am immune to broken limbs. Boom, I zap everyone who touches or sense me. Hefty regeneration, lifedraining effects, wounding defences...hey, it's nice stuff.


But it's almost all background stuff, and it has to be preset, thus boring.

You just named some of the iffy ones. Lifedrain is like 50 per combo, the limbs are resistant rather than immune, and the wounding thing isn't a defence at all.

But I see your point, it's just that...hm. Most guilds have a bunch of def skills, ours just happen to be all compressed into psymet and to some extent harmony. Look at totems, for example. Great skillset. I dunno, I just enjoy psymet for some reason even though I strongly dislike harmony.

EDIT: Btw, about the monk combat, it'll be more interesting later at least.

You know.. dodging + tripleflash + (hyperactive + bullrage ) > all that.

Not even going to go against that one. Not getting hit > conditionally resisting some effects of being hit.

Yea, at least acro has some active skills going for it. Psymet is the flavor skillset really; having it makes it easy to forget one even has a tertiary skillset at all...

But in regards to human vs. keph...I've noticed that there aren't that many keph monks (shofangi/tahtetso), at least not as many as you would expect if they're so tanky. Krokani and Lobo seem like popular choices too...and plus, wouldn't a kephera acro monk be worse than a human acro monk, just because they can't put on leather armor? Does leather protect more or less than kephera bonuses?

I'm now torn between keph/human and to a lesser degree acro/psymet...

Edit: Good to know monk combat is going to have a major change soon...

You can wear robes; contrary to whatever taught you otherwise, dodge works fine in robes. Lobo and krokani are indeed popular and not without good reason, but kephera aren't bad.

To everyone moaning about psy met.

Some warriors have it the same way. They mostly focus with their primary. The secondary is only for buffing and some useful skills here and there. Tertiaries tend to be the same way as secondaries, with a few exceptions (LOL BONCRUSHER CRUCIFYING/LOL ANY INQUISITION/LOL TRUEHEAL) and Tracking.

I personally think most of the power in the psymet skillset are the buffs everyone has access to at all times. We tend to forget about them (Glide, Ironskin, Energycontainment) but they have some decent dmp, especially energycontainment since it covers many forms of attacks.

Still, I guess I'd like to see pymets other less used skills be given a better use.

Pheromones is very nice for fighting bard/druid/mage. Extra regeneration nevers really hurts and has good pve uses. Bloodboil makes it so you don't have to worry about bleeding and is good for pve. Lifedrain's major problem I think is that you never really are draining when you need it. Either you are dominating in a fight as a monk, or you are lossing, the middle ground is very narrow.

All said, I still believe that speed and dodging increases will usually be better than regeneration/resist.

...what? I thought acrobatics was incompatible with robes! O.o Or at least something in acrobatics was. Is it dodging against PvP attacks?

Why did I ever switching away from robes as a bard then?

The only type of armour you can wear to dodge is leather. The common misconception seems to be that great robes are considered armour, and they're not. They're just clothes.