How do the way of the Astral self and way of mercy compare? Which is best at high lv?

[Rfkannen]

I have heard a lot of great things about both the way of the astral self and the way of mercy monk. What do you think of those two subclasses? How do they compare? Which one scales better into high level?

[Unoriginal]

I have heard a lot of great things about both the way of the astral self and the way of mercy monk. What do you think of those two subclasses? How do they compare? Which one scales better into high level?

They're very different in purpose and effect, it's hard to compare them.

The Way of Mercy adds damage, healing and a poison AoE to your toolset, with interesting choices in action and ki economy. Still it plays mostly to what you'd expect from a Monk, in the thick of things and using your moves to hinder the enemies and assist fellow frontliners, only in a slightly different way.

The Way of the Astral Self let you focus on WIS more, and encourage you to stay further away from the enemies than usual for a Monk.

Both are good at what they do, from what I can tell, but choosing either is more a question of choosing what you want to do rather than how well you want to it.

[LordShade]

I have seen Way of Mercy praised everywhere I've seen it discussed, from a pure power perspective.

Astral Self seems to have more mixed reviews.

[Rfkannen]

They're very different in purpose and effect, it's hard to compare them.

The Way of Mercy adds damage, healing and a poison AoE to your toolset, with interesting choices in action and ki economy. Still it plays mostly to what you'd expect from a Monk, in the thick of things and using your moves to hinder the enemies and assist fellow frontliners, only in a slightly different way.

The Way of the Astral Self let you focus on WIS more, and encourage you to stay further away from the enemies than usual for a Monk.

Both are good at what they do, from what I can tell, but choosing either is more a question of choosing what you want to do rather than how well you want to it.

Thats fair! Other than both seeming pretty powerful for a monk subclass they aren't that similar. I am curius about scaling though, I have heard that in general monks don't scale great into high levels, I am curius if either subclass scales better.


I have seen Way of Mercy praised everywhere I've seen it discussed, from a pure power perspective.

Astral Self seems to have more mixed reviews.


Yeah way of mercy seems amazing, it honestly looks like one of the most fun play experiences in 5e. My one problem with it is that I can't think of any characters that fit it (The plague doctor thing feels kinda unsupported, and I can't think of any fictional characters that I would stat as a way of mercy monk. I guess theres the one arc in god of highschool where mori jin uses acupuncture? Or kenshie ma from kenichi strongest disciple? but neither of those seem to be what the subclass is going for. Awesome mechanics though.

what negative things have you heard about astral self?

[stoutstien]

Thats fair! Other than both seeming pretty powerful for a monk subclass they aren't that similar. I am curius about scaling though, I have heard that in general monks don't scale great into high levels, I am curius if either subclass scales better.




Yeah way of mercy seems amazing, it honestly looks like one of the most fun play experiences in 5e. My one problem with it is that I can't think of any characters that fit it (The plague doctor thing feels kinda unsupported, and I can't think of any fictional characters that I would stat as a way of mercy monk. I guess theres the one arc in god of highschool where mori jin uses acupuncture? Or kenshie ma from kenichi strongest disciple? but neither of those seem to be what the subclass is going for. Awesome mechanics though.

what negative things have you heard about astral self?

Monks scale fine they just have very few drastic jumps in power like some classes so it's easy to overlook the granular progress monks have.

Mercy is an interesting option in that it allows the monk to dip into the one area of play they couldn't with recovery. They scale well with both ki and action economy. No bad features is a rarity for any subclass. 11 is a high point with 1ki for a mix of any 2 of hands of healing, unarmed strikes, or hand of harm*. Once per turn limit for harm still applies.

Astral self is probably the most straight forward of all the monks in the striker concept. It's good at what it does but might feel bland past the flavor on top. Hard to call it anything but good though.

[AttilatheYeon]

Yeah way of mercy seems amazing, it honestly looks like one of the most fun play experiences in 5e. My one problem with it is that I can't think of any characters that fit it (The plague doctor thing feels kinda unsupported, and I can't think of any fictional characters that I would stat as a way of mercy monk. I guess theres the one arc in god of highschool where mori jin uses acupuncture? Or kenshie ma from kenichi strongest disciple? but neither of those seem to be what the subclass is going for. Awesome mechanics though.

what negative things have you heard about astral self?

My mercy monk is a kenku named Steven Seagull.

[stoutstien]

My mercy monk is a kenku named Steven Seagull.

Can kenku squint unnecessary? Wait can they squint at all....

[Hael]

I have seen Way of Mercy praised everywhere I've seen it discussed, from a pure power perspective.

Astral Self seems to have more mixed reviews.

I feel like some of those reviews miss the utility of grappling, underestimate what advantage from party darkness can do, underestimate reach, and do not take into account the effective feat gains from Sadness.

Astral self is actually a perfectly adequate striker (monks aren’t great strikers usually), it just has some rather nasty levels (which is the usual monk problem tbh) that’s helped by proper builds.

Fighting initiate really helps this class in the early levels for instance.

The only unfortunate part of this class IMO is that you can’t get Crusher bc of the force component.

[Unoriginal]

Yeah way of mercy seems amazing, it honestly looks like one of the most fun play experiences in 5e. My one problem with it is that I can't think of any characters that fit it (The plague doctor thing feels kinda unsupported, and I can't think of any fictional characters that I would stat as a way of mercy monk.

You know the fake dojo masters who pretend they can teach you the "death touch" or "poison hand" or the like?

You could have the Mercy Monk be one of those guys, except they are legit.

[AttilatheYeon]

Can kenku squint unnecessary? Wait can they squint at all....

They can blink, which is sorta like squinting. More important tho, has someone said "based on my many years as a martial arts master" around him? 😃

[Scarytincan]

The Way of Mercy adds (...) and a poison AoE to your toolset,.

Mmm, that was the UA version, a moderate amount has changed. But yes overall it's solid and an interesting theme.