WARNING: BIG WALL OF TEXT AHEAD.
If you are interested in making a Monk, I highly recommend to go through the whole thing.
If you already have a Monk but have doubts on its power, then I also recommend you to look through it.
If you have a Monk and you’re quite happy with it, then feel free to either skip the whole thing and defend the class f you’d like, but I recommend at least going through some points and finding points to make him/her better than he/she already is, for you.
There doesn’t seem to be any point in going Monk. Convince me otherwise, but only after you go through the points I’ve made first.
Before we start, let’s go over the strengths of the Monk, as stated multiple times in the replies:
- Possesses a hybrid DPS support role, allowing a flexible function in the party as a decent support or decent DPS.
- Great constant DPS.
- Large list of available debuffs and DOT damage.
- Energy Blast. Nuff said.
So now let’s go over the cons:
- Not a worthy full support nor full DPS. Essentially, you cannot replace either, and you’ll lose priority over other classes with specialized roles.
- Melee DPS aka Swordsman Syndrome.
- No physical based foundation that completely supports Monk potential from Ranks 1~4. Your choices here before you go to Monk c3 is Krivis, Priest, Dievdirbys, and Bokor, which are all classes that shine with either INT or SPR, and possess magical attacks (except for Carve Attack, but it’s just one skill…).
- Lack of a cohesive kit (see below for details)
- Really bad AoE.
The cons outweigh the Monk’s overall positive identity and as such, the Monk is one that is stuck in a sad limbo where he doesn’t shine anywhere, and the only appeal of the class comes from it’s overall theme, but that’s mostly at an aesthetic standpoint.
So you may ask, why is there no point in going Monk? This is because the rest of the Int-based DPS based Cleric classes (Krivis, Druid, Dievdirbys, Bokor) beat him out in DPS in almost every way at rank 7. Chaplain is a different story here as Chaplains are more focused supports, and can function fairly well as a full support instead of DPS on his/her own. This paragraph detailed the main point I want to make.
And to add more disappointment and more reason as to why the Monk is just bad, there’s also this lack of cohesive kit that I want to emphasize.
Unlike other classes, Monk is given the skill “Double Punch” which is a 0 CD, 0 SP ability that requires stamina. It’s the most unique part of the Monk’s kit as it allows him/her to deal consistent damage, allowing you to deal small, decent skill based damage consistently. However, it suffers from two terrible problems just so it could be on par with other powerful DPS abilities:
- Requires point blank melee range
- Requires consistent casting
Yes, this can be solved with defensive skills such as Safety Zone and Stone Skin. However, it falls off quite badly in terms of how the rest of the Monk kit works.
Let’s go over the Monk abilities:
- Palm Strike - pushes back enemies (can be removed via attribute in the future), bleed.
- Hand Knife - knocks up enemies (can be removed via attribute in the future), armor break
- One Inch Punch - Silences enemies, DoT and massive SP drain.
- Iron Skin - reflect, stationary, immobile
- Golden Bell Shield - invulnerability, stationary, immobile
- God Finger Flick - Just a load of crap. (well, not much when it gets its future debuff)
- Energy Blast - Immobile, stationary, decent AoE, decent burst, knockback (can be removed via attribute)
The whole kit shows us that it doesn’t really mesh well together with the main unique point of a Monk which is Double Punch. I believe only Hand Knife, One Inch Punch (against normal mobs, due to silence) and future God Finger Flick would be able to support it well. Others are noticeable something you utilize to support, or deal damage in a different way.
Too many of the Monk’s abilities leave you immobile and unable to do anything else: Energy Blast, Iron Skin, and Golden Bell Shield.
Iron Skin and Golden Bell Shield gives us an idea that Monk can tank. But no, they are not tanks, if they are, then the essence of the best part of the Monk (Double Punch) is lost. These two skills are basically useless and does not have a definitive role in a Monk’s kit.
Energy Blast is great. It deals decent burst at max level, and provides a very long range and linear AoE that can hit anything and everything in its range. But again, it goes directly against a Monk’s kit because you are rendered immobile while using it. As it gets to higher levels, casting time and skill duration also lengthens, which is also against the Monk’s most unique aspect. All in all, it’s great, but the contradictory nature of it with Double Punch is quite disappointing.
Overall, the Monk doesn’t seem to have a natural place in the current class system. The Monk isn’t even niche; it’s just a worse version of DPS based Cleric classes which just makes the class even more pointless as it already is.
What should the developers do for the Monk? So far they’ve only been increasing damage values and granting him more debuffs, as well as attributes to remove annoying crowd control on a bunch of skills. But still, the overall kit is lacking and will not give the Monk the best change.
In any case, the only way I could see how the Monk can finally work is to give it an entire rework.
What kind of reworks could be made? Well, here’s a bunch I’ve thought about, feel free to suggest more:
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Rework both Iron Skin and Golden Bell Shield, or replace them completely with two new abilities. This is perhaps the biggest priority they should make first, especially with Golden Bell Shield as it’s an extremely underpowered c3 ability.
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Change the Monk’s unique aspect. Instead of just giving it a CD-less ability, why not just give the Monk something else that fits the melee martial artist style theme that it already has? I figured that a fitting and unique class aspect for this class could be some sort of a combo based class. By utilizing different combinations of the Monk’s skills, you get different end results and/or combo finishers. By effectively utilizing combos you deal different, multiple debuffs, or deal out unique or high damage attacks/finishers. In line with this, the Monk should be a class that can fight in the fray and dodge or block attacks consistently, perhaps through a special ability that when timed right can allow you to block attacks similar to Peltasta shield blocking. Successfully timing these blocks could allow the Monk to counter and deal even more bonus damage. However, overall I would really love it if the developers could establish the Monk’s role effectively where he can either provide a unique role, or be on par with other DPS based cleric classes that can effectively support and deal a lot of damage at the same time.
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Overall boost physical attack (especially melee) utility in the game. So far magic just completely dominates over physical attacks, which is why something should be done - it’s either buff physical based attacks to magic damage level, or nerf magic damage to even them out. Various ways can be done to do this, such as making all of the wizard abilities scale with INT as it is supposed to, etc. It’s up to the developers to decide what route they could take with this.
So far we can only wait for what future level caps and ranks would bring us. The upcoming Lama class might be the c4 Monk that we’re looking for, but with no idea about the Lama class’ kit, we’ll still be unsure oh how the Monk will be in the future. Here’s to hoping it’ll be better.
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