40 replies to this topic

[Rukaroa]

None such luck. It's STR or INT.

[Skygrinder]

That blows, like, seriously... -.- I cannot catch a break. I guess I'll have to run with str+agi for the accessories...I'm not very happy about that, but what can you do.

 

Anyway, wanted to show my progress over 3 days (This being the 3rd day).

 

As I've said, I will be going straight up int/str, forsaking agi completely, and keep doing that until I get to 50, and get really great gear that will focus on this, once I get that, and if I feel like it's not strong at this point, I'll respec.

 

So anyway, I've leveled up to level 30. Currently, I have full blue gear for level 25, and I have Cornutus Card (5 str, 5 int, 1 vit), 2x Mermaid Warrior Card (5 str, 5 int) and Truffle card (5 str, 5 int, 2 vit), +31 bonus str and +16 bonus int (currently getting int up, because str is starting to cost a lot of points, so I benifit more from rising int at the moment), and using Vador Hunter title (+6 int and str + other stats)

 

With this I stand at 513 (461 with SB on) Attack power, and 27,09% parry (mentioning parry because it benefits the most from this build out of the defensive stats). With steel body on (rank 4 at the moment), I'm going through solo PvE content without making any effort, at all. Waiting for level 31 to max steel body, before I join the next dungeon and (attempt to) update my gear.

Edited by Skygrinder, 30 July 2013 - 12:20 PM.

[Qtpiegumdrops]

Hit rate from the accessories add up to only +0.73% increase. If you want get a decent hit rate, I suggest DPS Colo weap + the DPS accessories.

 

I can vouch for this. I've gone with DPS colo weapon + DPS accessories with dodge/parry armor on both my warrior and monk. Both are capable of tanking any of the current raid content just fine.

 

The extra hit is especially nice in CoA where the mobs level range from 51-53, so you are bound to miss much more often.
 

[Qtpiegumdrops]

That blows, like, seriously... -.- I cannot catch a break. I guess I'll have to run with str+agi for the accessories...I'm not very happy about that, but what can you do.

 

Anyway, wanted to show my progress over 3 days (This being the 3rd day).

 

As I've said, I will be going straight up int/str, forsaking agi completely, and keep doing that until I get to 50, and get really great gear that will focus on this, once I get that, and if I feel like it's not strong at this point, I'll respec.

 

So anyway, I've leveled up to level 30. Currently, I have full blue gear for level 25, and I have Cornutus Card (5 str, 5 int, 1 vit), 2x Mermaid Warrior Card (5 str, 5 int) and Truffle card (5 str, 5 int, 2 vit), +31 bonus str and +16 bonus int (currently getting int up, because str is starting to cost a lot of points, so I benifit more from rising int at the moment), and using Vador Hunter title (+6 int and str + other stats)

 

With this I stand at 513 (461 with SB on) Attack power, and 27,09% parry (mentioning parry because it benefits the most from this build out of the defensive stats). With steel body on (rank 4 at the moment), I'm going through solo PvE content without making any effort, at all. Waiting for level 31 to max steel body, before I join the next dungeon and (attempt to) update my gear.

 

I really suggest you go with a 36/36/25 str/int/agi build over a 41/41 str/int build. As I said in a previous post, you'll be gaining roughly 2% crit rate at the expense of 20 attack power and minor parry. It's very hard to monks to get agility as it currently stands, so that's why I think getting every little bit you can helps.

 

Skill resets can be quite costly. I think they are around 1k-1.5k currently. That money would be better spent on +9/10 runes, costumes, and the rare cards that you will need to complete your dps monk.

 

I'd suggest just raise both of your str/int to 36 first (as you seem to be doing) and once you get there, start pumping agi. As you won't be gaining much crit until end game gear (when you rune/card for it).

 

In the end the choice is ultimately yours, and this is just an opinion I strongly urge. I myself went 41/41 str/int and wish I would have went 36/36/25 str/int/agi instead.

 

Also... in coloseum which is where the best gear is currently found, none of your gear and cards will benefit you. (outside of % bonuses on colo gear) Your stat build, and your title will however benefit you. So if you opt to go with a 36/36/25 build, you will have more crit in colo.

 

Anyways, whatever choice you make, good luck. The road ahead will be long and hard, but shall be worthwhile in the end!

[Rukaroa]

I don't remember who first made this, but I modded the spreadsheet a little bit to help decide with stats.

 

https://docs.google....R1E&usp=sharing

 

Areas in orange are what you can change. Areas in green and blue are there to help you compare. What you want to do is combine base stats (stat points, points from equips, and stats from titles) and place them in the field left of the barrier. Make sure to say "yes" to the monk field. Then in Builds 1 and 2 is where you put your stats from runes and cards, taking note of trade offs you may have from slots.

 

The spreadsheet isn't clean, but I'm not willing to mod it any further due to time. Anyway, maybe this will help.

 

Edit:

Whoops, accidentally set the doc to private. Everybody should be able to see it now.

Edited by Rukaroa, 30 July 2013 - 05:14 PM.

[Skygrinder]

I really suggest you go with a 36/36/25 str/int/agi build over a 41/41 str/int build. As I said in a previous post, you'll be gaining roughly 2% crit rate at the expense of 20 attack power and minor parry. It's very hard to monks to get agility as it currently stands, so that's why I think getting every little bit you can helps.

 

Skill resets can be quite costly. I think they are around 1k-1.5k currently. That money would be better spent on +9/10 runes, costumes, and the rare cards that you will need to complete your dps monk.

 

I'd suggest just raise both of your str/int to 36 first (as you seem to be doing) and once you get there, start pumping agi. As you won't be gaining much crit until end game gear (when you rune/card for it).

 

In the end the choice is ultimately yours, and this is just an opinion I strongly urge. I myself went 41/41 str/int and wish I would have went 36/36/25 str/int/agi instead.

 

Also... in coloseum which is where the best gear is currently found, none of your gear and cards will benefit you. (outside of % bonuses on colo gear) Your stat build, and your title will however benefit you. So if you opt to go with a 36/36/25 build, you will have more crit in colo.

 

Anyways, whatever choice you make, good luck. The road ahead will be long and hard, but shall be worthwhile in the end!

 

The reason why I want to ditch agility altogether is because in my opinion, it's not worth it, if you don't get agility on all the equipment. If I went agility, I would have so much less attack power, and still not even mediocre critical chance, it just doesn't seem worth it to me. If all the gear gave agility, I wouldn't be thinking twice, I would go agility. However, I have 2% critical chance at the moment and 2% on top of that is nothing.

 

For something to be effective, you need to have a lot of it, especially when it's a chance, and I don't want to rely on 15% for my dps, I would rather want to have more consistent damage.

 

As I've written before, IF I can do 75% damage constantly, of the the damage that I would be able to do with a critical (If I had higher agility and less attack damage, with agility focused monk), then I would be happy. Because doing 75% (even 65% - 70%) damage of those criticals constantly, is in my opinion much better than occasionally doing higher damage, if I'm lucky to land a critical, with critical being at maybe 15%.

 

From my experience (I've played...a lot of mmmorpgs, like...I couldn't make a list even if I wanted to, because I've forgotten about half of them), the critical chance starts paying off at about 30% critical chance, and this is only for classes that have high base damage on skills, and have very fast attacking speed (assassins, ranged dps, dual wielding warrior type classes...etc)

 

Getting 30% critical chance on a monk is probably only obtainable by sacrificing ALL the raw damage, if even then, I kinda doubt that you can even get close to 30%.

 

Also, if I don't do completely int/str monk to the end, I will probably be hating myself in the end for not trying it. I would rather go full int/str, and then if it fails as dps, I can change into a tank, because with int/str, I'd already have high parry, I probably won't even have to reset my build for that.

 

According to ro2base calculator, you get only 1% crit chance from stats, if I go 36/36/25, and with the build I'm going for, it won't benefit much from 1% crit. You know, it's 1% crit on maybe 8% - 10% crit from accessories (I guess? I don't even know how much crit I can get from accessories) and that is IT. I don't plan on stacking cards with agility, or getting agility runes. It is all going to be str/int. Cards, runes, and everything else I can find, just going to play on the strength of Spiritual Cadence, and getting maximized pure damage with those two stats.

 

If there's anything I've learned while playing mmorpgs, is that you should focus on your strengths, rather than trying to cover up something that is bad on a certain class. With no agility on gear, trying to raise critical is just silly to me, because the best critical chance you can get is mediocre, at a cost of a lot of consistent damage (Probably over 500 attack power, maybe even more (runes and accessories are still unknown to me) loss with crit focused monk)

 

That's my opinion of it at the moment. I don't mind struggling to restart my build, tough. It's for the testing purposes, and until you see it in practice, you can't say anything, theory can only get you so far. So, If I continue playing this game for a long time, I will eventually be able to come here and say: "Stacking Int/str just doesn't do it for the damage, forget about it", which is enough of a reward for me.

 

So don't worry about me "screwing up" my build, it's not an issue for me.

 

@Rukaroa

 

I still can't edit anything in there .__.

 

Also, could you please take a screenshot of a high level fist weapon? I can't find anything online, and I'm really hating on the level 25/30 fist weapons that I have now, they look horrible.

Edited by Skygrinder, 30 July 2013 - 08:27 PM.

[Rukaroa]

@Rukaroa

 

I still can't edit anything in there .__.

 

Also, could you please take a screenshot of a high level fist weapon? I can't find anything online, and I'm really hating on the level 25/30 fist weapons that I have now, they look horrible.

 

 

Still not used to this google docs thing. Anyway, should work now.

 

Also, fists don't look any better.

 

[Skygrinder]

*Sadface* About the fist weapon designs -.-

[Qtpiegumdrops]

According to ro2base calculator, you get only 1% crit chance from stats, if I go 36/36/25, and with the build I'm going for, it won't benefit much from 1% crit. You know, it's 1% crit on maybe 8% - 10% crit from accessories (I guess? I don't even know how much crit I can get from accessories) and that is IT. I don't plan on stacking cards with agility, or getting agility runes. It is all going to be str/int. Cards, runes, and everything else I can find, just going to play on the strength of Spiritual Cadence, and getting maximized pure damage with those two stats.
 

 

Fair enough, but I'd just like to take this moment to point out that the ro2base calculator is wrong. Something I've observed from actual gameplay is that 1% crit chance is equal to roughly 11 agility at level 50. So you would be getting 2% ish crit chance from that build.

 

 

[DatMONKey]

 

 

If you want better or optimal damage potential for Monk then you will need to supplement the lack of AGI in Monk gears. You can not get around this. Lack of crits will hurt the further you go and you will fall behind other players that don't do anything other than just get new pieces of gear. This does not mean you have to sacrifice STR and INT for AGI. A stat build is not limited to how you distribute your points when you level. Your cards, runes and title are included since they are all options left to your preference. As a matter of fact your stat distribution is the smallest factor in your stat build, except when adding a stat that is missing from your gear (INT for Knight/Warrior and AGI for Monks)

 

Your crit numbers seem a bit odd to me. Right now I have 153 AGI from my stat spread, cards, runes and title. That gives me a flat 14% critical rate against level 50 enemies. A Master AGI potion (22 AGI increase) raises it to 16.02% Since I have all Colo pieces but Pants I opt for AGI runes instead of VIT runes. I did not sacrifice any damage to get that much crit. My cards are STC, nothing special. If I were to get some good monk cards my damage and crit would increases by a nice amount.

 

The thing you need to consider is that Monk does not need a lot of crit to see a significant increase in damage. Our rotations are simple, we have what I believe to be the best base stats of all the classes in the game and Heavy Tackle is a ridiculously strong skill. Critting on HT is almost like landing a Guillotine Fist. Critting a GF feels as good as winning the lotto. These crits are important for generating and maintaining threat in end game. I raid regularly with a full colo DPS that are min maxing as well as Near full colo Wars/Knights with BT as my OTs. With their equipment upgrades they were encroaching on my threat and occasionally over take it. Just by swapping to AGI runes I gained 37 AGI and 3.5X% crit I leave everyone in the dust for threat gen and damage amongst tanks. I assure you that going full STR and INT will get you a slightly higher over all damage but it will never compare to a build that supplements AGI. Just how many non crit HTs do you need to match 1 GF crit?

 

My build still has much room to approve since I can get better runes and better cards and I even slightly butchered my stat spread but I still get favorable results. I think anything that gets a Monk over 20% will be a successful build. If they ever implement AGI to our gear and do so properly then our AGI stat would be right around the STR/INT of a slot piece, which would be a significant boost.

 

 

For 3 stat classes a safe and effective stat spread is 33/33/32. For us that's STR/INT/AGI.

 

 

 

[Rukaroa]

I don't want to get in the way of this guy's STR/INT dream, but I'll put my two cents here.

 

Disclaimer like any good scientist should do: These values are theory. Practice and actual outcome may vary.

 

The way I see it, Damage (STR/INT) and Crit (AGI focus) monks have the same goal in the end whether or not they tank, higher DPS. DPS means higher damage overall, and if you tank, higher Threat to keep the DPS in check so they can do more DPS. The question is how to get there.

 

These are the stats of a Colo gear monk + INT accessories + Founder's title (subtract 6 STR/INT/AGI to get Goblin Leader/Wanderer/Robo title).

 

 

These next two sets are a Crit Monk vs Damage Monk using items that are currently available in the game (I won't mention what these are). We'll use Raging Blow as the example.

 

 

As you can see, the Damage monk will have a higher a sustained DPS over time. The Crit monk on the other hand will have to rely on crits to do DPS. So does this mean Damage monks are superior? No, because it's just two answers to the same problem.

 

The advantage of Damage monks is that their DPS is sustained and have a higher parry. The downside is lower dodge and overtime will take more damage since it takes 2 parries to equal 1 dodge (-50% damage vs complete evasion).

 

The advantage of Crit monks are large bursts of damage in a relatively short amount of time (subject to crit% rng) and possibly evading the most devastating attacks if the dodge kicks in. The downside is lower sustained damage.

 

As you can see from the two builds, the damage difference is a measly 1%. If we were talking 5%+, it may be worth consideration if the raw damage difference is 40+. That would mean higher DPS over time which also means higher Threat over time for tanks. Could you hybridize? Of course. I'm just not convinced yet that it will be as strong as an AGI focused monk or a Damage monk.

 

One point to consider is that the burst damage from Crits help distance the tank from the DPS in a raid situation faster because the DPS WILL CRIT. Crits also mean that if you miss an attack, you can gain damage back a little faster because of crits. If you were a raw damage monk, missing is going to hurt you badly because it will take a while to make up that lost DPS. How well does a Damage monk do in a raid situation should they tank? I have no idea. My guess is that the DPS will over take them quickly because they lack the burst needed to distance themselves from the DPS. Yes a Damage monk has higher DPS overall, but it takes time to get there that a Crit monk can close the distance in bursts.

 

I am not saying that one is better than the other, and I realize I am talking from a tank perspective. Both have their advantage and disadvantage. As the situation currently stands, this is what I see. The future may change.

Edited by Rukaroa, 31 July 2013 - 12:00 PM.

[Skygrinder]

You also have to take in consideration that critical is after all, a chance, luck. You can as easily miss with AGI monk + be unlucky with criticals, and in turn be punished WAY more than STR+INT monk would, in terms of threat level. Also, while as STR+INT monk you would have low critical chance, you would still have a chance, most likely around 5% (I'm still not sure how much agi the accessories provide). You also need to take in consideration that the amount of dodge you will have will be pathetic, because we have no agility on the main gear. While the parry chance with full int+str monk will be insane, like, I believe you can get to 50% perhaps even over it (unless there's a cap or something), I'm almost at 30% right now (Level 34, with level 30/25 mixed gear). You would have lower dodge as an agi monk, nothing really special probably

 

With my build, my plan is to have 50% more attack power than an agi monk would. So, if an agi monk had 2000 ap, my goal would be 2800 ap (minimal) - 3000 ap (Ideal), this is what drives me right now the most, this is what I want to accomplish through runes and cards.

 

This way, I would be constantly doing 75% damage of agi monk's crit, while he would have those crits just maybe, once in five hits, if even that many, after all, it depends on a chance, and the chance is pretty low for this class, even if you focused everything on agility, best you can get is probably around 20%-ish critical chance.

 

So, I just believe that focusing completely on int and str, that you would do much better in all aspects of the game right now as a monk. However, It's just what I THINK, I still need to go through it, test it and see the results. Doubt that anyone is doing this (other than theory) and without real testing, I'm not accepting anything, which is why I'm not listening to people (Already a bunch of people in-game, in the guild...etc) that think that I'm wasting my time, even tough they never even leveled a monk up to level 50, but are just spouting stuff based on what majority of level 50 monks are playing (From which again, majority didn't even theory craft, let alone truly test it)

 

Once I'm done with this, I think we will have a better understanding of the monk class, and some real results to compare to an agility focused monk (which most, if not all, are).

Edited by Skygrinder, 31 July 2013 - 12:44 PM.

[Rukaroa]

Yeah, come find me when you're ready. I want to test it out.

[Skygrinder]

Of course, and thank you, your inputs have been very helpful throughout this thread.

 

I've just hit level 35, and I'm about to go to sleep, and hoping to get to 40 tomorrow.

Edited by Skygrinder, 31 July 2013 - 01:29 PM.

[DatMONKey]

Please...tell me that there's str + int accessories...come on, say it.

 

No. Mix and match the Mage, Rush and Defend accessories from Colo.

[Skygrinder]

I've reached alberta, and got to see some end game gear. I'm kinda disappointed that there's no hit rating + parry gear, but I guess I'll just have to mix it up. But hey, if it didn't make my life harder, I wouldn't be playing it.