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View Full Version : The 4e Monk Makeover -- Has It Stopped Sucking?



Shatteredtower
2010-07-29, 02:00 AM
That was the general complaint in 3e, that the class was all glitter, no gold. Is that still true in 4e? If not, has it gone too far the other way?

In discussion tonight, I heard it argued that its focus on defences other than AC let it outperform the ranger. Is that accurate or wild exaggeration?

Kaun
2010-07-29, 02:07 AM
well its a decent class in 4e thats for sure.

As to putting to against the ranger i cant answer for sure.

Krazddndfreek
2010-07-29, 02:10 AM
I haven't looked at it enough to say for sure, but it looks that way to me. The monk is much more balanced and useful compared to its 3.5 counterpart. It doesn't do quite as much damage as other strikers, nevermind the ranger, but as you said, I believe it gets pluses for targeting other defenses more often, on top of adding status effects, such as dazing or prone. Because of that, the monk can act as somewhat of a controller as well.

EDIT: Also, in 4e, I don't think we have to really worry about any class "sucking" because the whole system is very balanced and formulaic, and was created with that goal in mind.

Kurald Galain
2010-07-29, 03:16 AM
In discussion tonight, I heard it argued that its focus on defences other than AC let it outperform the ranger. Is that accurate or wild exaggeration?
That's a wild exaggeration. The ranger's multiattack ability easily makes up for the difference. Even without that, the rogue tends to hit enemies on a 4+. More to the point, ranger and rogue have a much bigger power selection, and better damage boosts, than the monk.

General opinion on the charop boards is that the monk is one of the weaker classes in the game.



EDIT: Also, in 4e, I don't think we have to really worry about any class "sucking" because the whole system is very balanced and formulaic, and was created with that goal in mind.
No class sucks in the sense that it is unplayable, but then this was never the case for earlier editions either. Certain classes or builds suck in the sense that they are seriously upstaged by another class.

For instance, PHB-only paladins are rather sucky and required the Divine Power book to become balanced. The ensnaring swordmage is generally considered weak. And after recent errata, the sorcerer can be outdone at his own game by a wizard. Not that this should stop you from playing any of that, of course.

Morph Bark
2010-07-29, 03:34 AM
No class sucks in the sense that it is unplayable, but then this was never the case for earlier editions either.

Truenamer is pretty close on the edge there, though.

Bayar
2010-07-29, 03:54 AM
Truenamer is pretty close on the edge there, though.

Truenamer is a broken class. Not overpowered, it is broken on a mechanical level.

Of course, you could always make a truenamer that spams Gate...

The_Pyre
2010-07-29, 08:55 AM
I'm playing a L9 monk in a campaign right now, and so far it's been fun. Never mind that you get to do martial arts moves for your attacks, I've also been able to deal a lot of damage consistently using FoB. Of course, that might have something to do with having higher than normal ability scores, but then again the whole party has those.

The monk's difference vs the ranger or the rogue, IMO, is that it's more controller than either.

Erom
2010-07-29, 09:07 AM
Yes, it's stopped sucking.

Yes, it's still on the lower side of class power, but with the much lower variance in class power overall in 4e it's very playable.

Snowstorm
2010-07-29, 09:12 AM
Monks tend to spread the damage around, rather then picking one target and cutting it down. I'm certainly a fan of the Stone Fist Flurry of Blows, along with the feat that lets you include an additional target within 5 squares at the cost of a shurikin.

Hyozo
2010-07-29, 09:41 AM
In discussion tonight, I heard it argued that its focus on defences other than AC let it outperform the ranger. Is that accurate or wild exaggeration?

Ranger has two years of dragon magazine and two power supplements supporting it as opposed to the monk's zero in both categories. Add in that, at least from what I've seen, Ranger has fairly consistently been seen as 4e's most powerful class since the beginning and it seems likely that the argument you cited is indeed an exaggeration.

Eorran
2010-07-29, 11:48 AM
I've been playing a lvl 11 monk for a few sessions now, and I've noticed a few things:

1. Movement is the Monk's strong suit. I've got plenty of powers that allow me to move around, over, or through enemies & difficult terrain.

2. Hitting enemies is almost as easy for the Monk as it is for the Rogue; not quite, but close. My attacks usually do pretty decent damage.

3. I wish, I wish, I wish I had more HP/healing surges/healing ability.

Because of what I'm good at, my usual strategy is to let the Paladin tie up the front line, then slip behind the brutes or soldiers to attack the artillery, lurkers, and controllers. It works, but it costs me. Haven't died yet, but it's not unusual for me to be at 1/4 HP at the end of a fight, while the Paladin's almost untouched and no one even closed to range with the Wizard.

Comparing that to my experience playing a monk in 3.0 (before joining these forums), the 4e monk rocks. My 3e monk couldn't hit, had crappy AC, and did paltry damage when he did hit. It was an exercise in frustration and I ditched the character after 2 sessions.

Erom
2010-07-29, 12:11 PM
3. I wish, I wish, I wish I had more HP/healing surges/healing ability.

Because of what I'm good at, my usual strategy is to let the Paladin tie up the front line, then slip behind the brutes or soldiers to attack the artillery, lurkers, and controllers. It works, but it costs me. Haven't died yet, but it's not unusual for me to be at 1/4 HP at the end of a fight, while the Paladin's almost untouched and no one even closed to range with the Wizard.
Assassin plays much the same way in 4e. Let the tank tie up the heavies, and then use movement powers to get into "harm's way" taking out their backline. My assassins also tend to get wailed on pretty heavily - where I can usually go several combats without blowing a healing surge on a defender, as an assassin I'm using one every combat. I think it's sort of "by design" for this style of play.

Hzurr
2010-07-29, 12:13 PM
A few thoughts:

- Monks definately have sub-controller roll, and as a striker/controller, they perform very well.

- No one has as much mobility on the battlefield as a monk. Possibly a twinked out teleporting swordmage, but by default you'll see the monk flying across the battlefield with ease.

- As was said before, they can dish damage out to multiple people, which makes it really easy to focus on the big baddy in front of you, and still be able to take care of the minions that may be trying to swarm or flank you.

- They do target a lot of different defenses, which can be very handy depending on the fight. When you've got that soldier with ridiculous AC and fort, it's nice to be able to go after his will or his reflex. Similarly, when going up against a caster, it's nice to say "Hmm...your fort is going to be crap, isn't it? Let's go for that"

- On a pure damage scale, they fall behind the rogue/ranger/barbarian/assassin; but i feel that they're on par with avengers. The best comparison would be a warlock, because Warlocks are definately further behind on the damage scale, but can do awesome status effects.


Anyway, the long and short of it is: Monks are fun, and adding one isn't a bad choice. I don't think that you'll ever feel like you're dragging behind the party if you're playing one. I might suggest making a monk the 5th or 6th member of the party, rather than the primary striker, just so that you can still have someone like a rogue or a ranger to deal out the heavy damage, but you'll be a fantastic addition.

Zaydos
2010-07-29, 12:35 PM
I played a game for a few months with a party consisting of a Bard, Assassin, Sorcerer, Monk, and Swordmage (me). A few weeks in we got a Ranger.

We dealt with a lot of low will minions so the sorcerer would quickly wipe the floor with them. Definitely had the most kills in the party.
The ranger had the most damage; in the final adventurer she did half the boss's health in one round. Took some figuring out to do but we did it.
The bard was quite unsatisfied with playing a bard and wants to play a meat-shield next time. They were the party skill monkey but that wasn't the most valuable role and the two most used skills were ones they weren't the best in.
The assassin could deal some good damage from time to time, but of the four strikers probably contributed the least.
My role was to keep the assassin and monk alive a lot of times, but I started getting the hang of a defending swordmage as time went by and it was fun. I started specializing in teleportation for RP reasons.

Now for the actually meat of the answer, the monk.
He dealt good damage, although not as much as the Ranger. He had some good battlefield control and when the Sorcerer had not already cleared the board of minions could strike them pretty easily. We fought a lot of non-standard enemies so he'd often attack the wrong defense so I can't say much as to how useful the multi-defense targeting abilities are. He had one daily that did a ridiculous amount of ongoing damage which was pretty good. His defenses were the second best in the party, but that still left them on the low side do to our party's equipment being subpar (save the last adventure where we were still on average slightly subpar, but do to succeeding at skill checks the DM didn't expect me to I got a sword ten levels above any other item in the party). I was a swordmage that loved hopping around with teleportation (would have been better at it if I wasn't a shielding swordmage) and he was still the most maneuverable member of the party, no one else even came close. He got into melee fast, and dealt some pretty heavy hits into the heart of the enemy. Unfortunately this tended to get him swarmed which was where I came in with various marks and defensive powers. The ranger out did him on damage and survivability due to well being a ranged ranger that just never got close to melee and the sorcerer was the mook slayer. Of the four strikers I'd say the monk was the best rounded and in boss battles generally the most useful; I'd also say probably the most fun to play.

In my opinion if you want a fun versatile character monk would be a good choice a highly maneuverable striker with controller elements decent defense and decent attack. If you just want raw combat power I'd probably say ranger is still the likely choice.

Shatteredtower
2010-07-29, 10:39 PM
This has been very informative and a little reassuring. Thank you for all your comments and insights.

Anasazi
2010-07-31, 07:20 PM
I'm joining this discussion a bit late but I felt my two cents would be worth hearing since nobody mentioned the monk as a hybrid class.

While we dont always think of hybrids, considering that most people view them as weaker than a basic class (a false assumption if you know how to actually build characters), they can become extremely powerful beasts. A Monk|Rogue for example can focus in both str and dex and gain bonus' from both classes, you maintain ruthless ruffian build with single target damage, and use stone fist for your multitargeting and non-combat advantage moments. This bonus is also benefited by the monks movement techniques, allowing you to position your character where it needs to be without much effort. Open the Gates to Battle (i believe thats what its called) is a great how-do-you-do at lower levels.

Even with that said, too often we think of having to balance hybrids with making both classes usable. Its this act that makes them 'more rounded' but really you could just focus on combining the abilities (innate and otherwise) or one class that could greatly benefit another. a monks movement techniques is a great bonus to light weight tanks, of which you get without taking the hybrid talent feat.

orionreyzak
2010-08-01, 06:54 AM
Personally, I think the monk is one of the better classes, they should be the most maneuverable, they should hit probably second hardest in the group (There is always that one warlock in the back) and should be one of the hardest to hit..... If you build them right. You really have to look through all of your options and know from the get-go exactly what you want to do end-game. My monk is built for speed, [dragonmark] Mark of Passage helps with that (You can shift 7 squares as a non-elf/dwarf with almost all of your encounter powers.) As far as hitting goes, there is not much to be said, most of your starting abilities start with d10s, So max your dex for power damage and your wis for the fury of blows you'll be using every single round. As for AC take unarmored agility, with +1 robes 20 Dex and your ability modifiers, at level one you'll have a 21 or 22 AC with an 18 or 19 in reflex. your Will save will be one less than that, but your fortitude might be kind of low until you can get your Con up (strength has some, but not much, use.... unless your not going centered breath.) If your going to multiclass, go avenger, Dex and Wis are primary avenger attributes, you get an encounter power that allows you to roll to hit dice and pick the highest, and you regain use of it when you kill your opponent! As a side bonus you'll get access to the perception skill, which combined with your wisdom, will be pretty awesome. Rogue isn't bad for hybrid, but you need points in Strength to make use of most your rogue abilities, and having 3 primary Stats isn't super effective, it makes you versatile at the cost of being efficient.

Swordmage is an amazing class, like a fantasy jedi-knight. I don't know the specific reasons why your DM has been skimping out on good items, but I think a wishlist might help. Most of the Mods have items that are more or less class specific (ie. mark enhancing armor, spell caster oriented headgear, or any given magic shield), so you find one item that is within a level of yourself, tell him that's what your looking for and generally they can replace that +1 Duelists blade you find at the bottom of the dungeon with a ki-focus of your choice, in other words replace like with like.

Tengu_temp
2010-08-01, 06:56 AM
Rogue isn't bad for hybrid, but you need points in Strength to make use of most your rogue abilities, and having 3 primary Stats isn't super effective, it makes you versatile at the cost of being efficient.


You know you can go for a dexterity/strength monk instead of a dexterity/wisdom one, right?

orionreyzak
2010-08-01, 07:06 AM
Yes the Stone Monk, but you sacrifice a lot of movement abilities in the end for an extra bit of damage at the beginning. If you want a heavy hitter with a bit more movement than make a ranger or a rogue. But that's only my point of view. I've never used stone fist style, so I know only what I read from it. Personally I wouldn't mind trying it out, but I'm still skeptical.

orionreyzak
2010-08-01, 07:09 AM
On a random note, 3 of us have the same signature. Lol in the words of stephen king that screams 19.

Zaydos
2010-08-01, 07:41 AM
Swordmage is an amazing class, like a fantasy jedi-knight. I don't know the specific reasons why your DM has been skimping out on good items, but I think a wishlist might help. Most of the Mods have items that are more or less class specific (ie. mark enhancing armor, spell caster oriented headgear, or any given magic shield), so you find one item that is within a level of yourself, tell him that's what your looking for and generally they can replace that +1 Duelists blade you find at the bottom of the dungeon with a ki-focus of your choice, in other words replace like with like.

Oh we got items we wanted, we just got a fair bit less gear than normal for our level (we had maybe one +2 item and everything else +1 until paragon) until the last adventure (where we had gear for characters one or two levels below us) where I got a Lv 25+ sword. The campaign is over now anyway but it was fun.

On topic this also reminded me that the monk in that game was built using the DDI preview for monk and therefore only had access to one of the two builds and a limited array of powers. At least till the last 1, 2 adventures when PHBIII came out.

Anasazi
2010-08-01, 08:51 AM
Specifically the str|dex monk was a reference to an option for a monk|rogue hybrid with focus on the ruthless ruffian build (which uses str for bonus damage, keep in mind the rogue still uses dex for attack rolls and damage reguardless so even if you went centered breath it still makes a decent hybrid, just not an optimized one). Also, I find the stone fist route offers better combinations with other melee classes than centered breath purely for it being str based.

Zay, i would guess that your question stemmed entirely from the half thought out version of the monk in the preview, I too first looked at it in the preview portion before the phb3 came out and now that the class is actually more flushed out its alot stronger. It my opinion that the monk class is one of the best classes to hybrid with since it offers alot of benefits and you lose few things from its class that would be beneficial to other classes.

As a stand alone class the monk is decent, well rounded, and offers several unique benefits, but you wont be pulling off anything fantastic that other classes couldnt do with the right build. If you want to see its true value, start hybriding with it :)