Stats and AA

[Runestone]

I am having trouble nailing down what stats I should be focusing on. It took long enough (research) to find the AA line I wanted to take. I ended up deciding to go with STR/AGI/INT. I am going barehanded for 2 reasons. 1) I am a new player.. I do not have unlimited funds (hell, I don't have any), not buying weapons.. saves me money. The way I understand it, until I actually start finding end game weapons (raiding) the damage output is roughly the same. 2) It's a Monk... Barehanded appeals to me. If you run into a Monk in a dark ally.. 9x out of 10.. he's gonna slap the crap out of you rather then use clubs. I have just always pictured them sans weapons (staff.. maybe). Anyways, I digress. The thing I haven't been able to find out reliably is what stats I should focus on for the Barehand DPS. Right now I believe both my STR and AGI are roughly the same [125] and [112] respectively. I do solo most of time.. So I am unsure of what I need more.. avoidance or damage.. or am I playing it correctly by keeping a balance of the two? I do apologize if this has been asked before.. I just haven't found anything direct regarding this in the Monk forums. edit: I should add that I am a level 24 Monk I have 4/4/8 in STR already and 2 in INT.

[MadBarman]

Unless you have top of the range weaopns then the strength line is a very good choice. It might be being changed though so watch out for that. The intelligence line for critical hits is also a good choice (and a pretty standard choice most monks and bruisers take). The agility line is nice for reuse speed but I would suggest taking the stamia line. More health is very important and the single targate proc adds a noticable amount of damage. For the actual stats you want from equipment etc. you should concentrate on strength and stamina with stamina being slightly more important.

[Deathspell]

To each his own, but I would never go barehanded, I think monks can use weapons. Maybe no clubs, but I see no problem with sticks and shiny blades. I do care about my stats, but I also like the way how my toon looks and moves. When I levelled up (there were no AA lines and life was simple hehe), but I used whatever weapons dropped, till I got my hands on a 1.6s 2H, I liked the moves, the spins, the whole Bruce Lee thing with the stick... I had a lot fun just seeing my character fight. For that alone I wouldn't go STR <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> but you have to find your own style. As for the funds, just harvest while LFG and kill the occasional mob standing in your way, and sell the raws/rares <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> Get friendly with a nice tradeskiller and get yourself some armor/weapons made!

[Fleaba]

<cite>MadBarman wrote:</cite><blockquote>Unless you have top of the range weaopns then the strength line is a very good choice. It might be being changed though so watch out for that. The intelligence line for critical hits is also a good choice (and a pretty standard choice most monks and bruisers take). The agility line is nice for reuse speed but I would suggest taking the stamia line. More health is very important and the single targate proc adds a noticable amount of damage. For the actual stats you want from equipment etc. you should concentrate on strength and stamina with stamina being slightly more important. </blockquote>Yar, str line is a good noob line IMHO. If you go for max health, the wisdom line will give you more max health in the long run then the stam line, especially once you get to the higher lvls where 2.5% of 8000k health is 200 health. I can't remember the formula for the stamina vs. health gain ratio but I do know that it takes a way more stamina then the 64 maximum you can get from the stamina line to equal 200 health. Plus the extra wisdom increases your vs. (caster) resists. Casters where my bane back in the low lvls with my Master Crafted armor.... I haven't been low lvl with my monk for probably 2 years now but I do recall back in the days that high avoidance for a lvl 24 made you god like. Once you get into the higher lvls it doesn't come into play so much unfortunately. Soooo, I'll give up 20 agility in a heart beat for a +60 vs. crush, +60 vs. slash, +60 vs. pierce piece of gear. As for money, take your lil monkey to Stormhold and farm all the named and collect shinies till your packs are full, then go sell them on the broker. It'll take a bit of testing to see what shinies are worth keeping out of there, but a lot of peeps trying to get easy AA's will be looking for the oddballs that you find in there. The named, at lvl 27ish or so you should have most of the named on the first lvl of stormhold green to you. Right click the chains as you walk through the first hallway and pull on the chains if it gives you a choice. You can pop a total of 3 named blobs with those chains. Dang near every room on that first lvl has named except for a couple....FD your way around, killing placeholders and farm, farm, farm. The master's you get might not be worth a gaggillion plat anymore...but some go for a reasonable price, like Rescue. Treasured anything is worth a few gold per too now that we have all the transmuters trying to lvl up.

[Runestone]

Yeah, granted swinging a Staff looks cool.. picked one up thought I'd check it out. What I want to know though is am I gimping myself for damage? I have grouped a few times now and as of yet no one has topped me on the damage meter. Would redoing my AAs and getting a mastercrafted staff give me even better dps?  Also, if I did respec with a bo/staff.. what AA line would everyone recommend?

[saliorboy]

<p>STR should always be your first and primary concern. Here is why, 1. it directly affects melee damage and thats mostly how you will keep aggro when tanking and faster mob deaths makes soloing easier. 2. it directly affects your power pool and when u are in a dps spot u can quickly run through power. Beyond that I would say focus on AGI and STA evenly.</p><p>As far as AA go I say go AGI, STA, & WIS if your Actual weapon delay is under 1.0 sec. (type /weapon to find this stat, if you didnt already know) and STA WIS INT if you are at or above 1.0 sec. I say go AGI becuase it is possible w/ the right weapons and 5 points in Baton Flury and 8 points in Ambidextry(sp?) you can lower your refresh rate from 1.0 sec to .5 sec.</p>

[Runestone]

At level 27 I haven't seen any weapon slower then 1.6. I don't have enough AA to fill out 3 trees yet. I have enough for 4/4/8  4/4/2 (at this moment).. any advice for a leveling monk with these things in mind? I really do seem to be hitting pretty good barehanded.. Would I really see much of an increase in using 2 Batons (mastercrafted)?

[Dorieon]

<cite>DamnLag wrote:</cite><blockquote>At level 27 I haven't seen any weapon slower then 1.6. I don't have enough AA to fill out 3 trees yet. I have enough for 4/4/8  4/4/2 (at this moment).. any advice for a leveling monk with these things in mind? I really do seem to be hitting pretty good barehanded.. Would I really see much of an increase in using 2 Batons (mastercrafted)? </blockquote> I would stick with 4/4/8 in the str line (until you get in the 60's and get some nice weapons) and then focus on getting 4/4/8 in the int line(crits). When you have those, it is kinda your call which line to choose next. Sta has a nice proc but the proc in the wis line is an AE and the agi line will reduce your reuse timers. All three give a decent boost to dps but I would probably go with the wis line myself.

[Runestone]

Thanks for that advice. I will most likely go with WIS as you suggest.. I always seem to pull that extra patrol >< so AE damage would be a plus.

[Ifandb]

This thread has answered alot of my questions about AAs, but I have one more and it should be a quick answer. In order to use Pressure Point and Relentless Punches you can not even have fist wraps on correct? Also, say I just got a 2h staff from a quest return. To see if useing the staff or going bare fisted would be better (disreguarding stats on the staff) I should look at the attack number in my Persona page correct? Relentless Punches says it increasses the DPS, does that get factored into the Attack number on the Persona page? Thanks for the help, -Ifandbut

[Bewts]

<cite>Ifandbut wrote:</cite><blockquote>This thread has answered alot of my questions about AAs, but I have one more and it should be a quick answer. In order to use Pressure Point and Relentless Punches you can not even have fist wraps on correct? Also, say I just got a 2h staff from a quest return. To see if useing the staff or going bare fisted would be better (disreguarding stats on the staff) I should look at the attack number in my Persona page correct? Relentless Punches says it increasses the DPS, does that get factored into the Attack number on the Persona page? Thanks for the help, -Ifandbut </blockquote><p> To use Relentless Punches, you cannot have anything equipped in your primary or secondary slots.  That includes fist wraps, batons, or any other equippable item for primary or secondary.  The monk community seems to agree that adjusting Relentless Punches to a lesser double attack chance when equipping weapons would make sense and follow suit of other fighter classes.</p><p>I wouldn't use the attack number as a good judge on which weapon is better.  I think the command is /weaponstats.  It should tell you your applied delay which takes into account haste modifiers you have, damage range which takes into consideration your str bonus and DPS modifiers, proc chance and a few other numbers.  Basically if you are going weaponless down the STR line, take the damage range it gives you and double it (to account for 96% double attack).  Equip your staff and type the command again.  If the damage range on the 2hb is greater than the sum of two attack barehanded, you can go with the 2hb.  Otherwise stick with HtH.  Typically HtH wins unless you have a really good fabled weapon (at least while leveling).</p><p>The drawback to using STR line is you lose the stats and procs of using weapons, although saving cash on legendary equivalent weapons every tier adds up and you don't lose too much STR due to the first tier in the STR line.</p><p>*EDIT*</p><p>If you have an unattuned weapon that you don't want to attune to use /weaponstats you do have another option.  If you head to a vendor that sells the basic weapons, you can check out the damage range on a 1hb for your equivalent tier.  Last I read, the vendor sold weapons damage range ( X to XX damage) is what your fists swing at for your tier.  You can then compare that that value doubled to whatever weapon you are thinking of using to see which one puts out more damage without having to attune it and use /weaponstats.</p>

[Ifandb]

<span style="color: #000000"><span style="color: #ffffff">Thank you very much Bewts. I'm going to start makeing liberal use of the /weaponstats command.</span> </span>