unarmed Monk/unarmed Bruiser

[nam]

<DIV>Is there a huge difference between the unarmed Monk and unarmed Bruiser?</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>When scanning the threads on both forums, it appears that the Bruisers are in love with the STR line for DPS mode, while the Monks are just so-so about it. Am I missing something? (New brawler here).</DIV>

[Zabjade]

<font color="#66ff00"><font size="2"><font face="Comic Sans MS">All I know is that Monks don't have <b>as much</b> in the way of resist buffs, so we are mostly dependant on gear to keep us from dropping like flies against AoE's </font></font></font><div></div>

[Supp]

<DIV>I can field that one. </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>I would have to say bare handed is better monks over bruisers.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>I say that because monks have much better haste buffs. That means monks will utilize the STR line more since haste is strictly for autoattacks. Bare handed fighting is equivalent to swinging a 2 hander (106 DR) every 2.5 seconds (barehanded strikes once, not twice). The STR line turns that into two attacks every 2.5 seconds. 100% haste makes that two attacks every 1.3 seconds. </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>So, barehanding fighting gives a monk the ability to swing two twohanders with a very low delay if you put all that together. The bruiser gets shorted in this only due to the lesser overall haste. For example, I can selfbuff 100% haste in medium stance. So, a monk is better, but not too much. </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>And remember, this means the monk sacrifices weapon slots stat & proc bonuses, as well as consumed AA's that would no longer matter if you equipped weapons. I do this myself, and the dmg is absolutely disgusting. I'm happy to make these sacrifices. Hope that helps you out. <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></DIV><p>Message Edited by Supple on <span class=date_text>08-03-2006</span> <span class=time_text>09:19 AM</span>

[laatikko]

Doubleattacks from str line also gives doubles in ranged attack. But yes, monks get more out of barehanded fighting. haste selfcapped with small delay dw's makes u loose few autoattack swings each ca u use. bruisers dont loose so much autoattacks (with dw's) when using ca's as they selfbuff dps%. And having a longer delay wep/s makes u avoid mob melee better too. A monk should prolly go for long delay dw's or even a 2hander to drop off from the str line but then again it comes down to what ewery1 prefers. Pauzze <div></div>

[V3g3t]

You also forgot to mention, aswell as the self buffed Haste and double attack from STR line (which can strike upto 96% of the time), we also get the barehanded DPS increase from same AA STR skill (which i assume goes upto 100%).So when fighting barehand, lets say for me its 60-180 dmg (/weaponstat) every 2+ secs, i can add 70-100% haste, 100% DPS increase and double attacking 96% of the time to that, providing i have the AA skill line.Downside is as you said the loss of weapon stats and the procs, but i think i'll enjoy the playstyle.I haven't got the AA points needed yet, but when i do, i'll never want for a weapon again <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /><div></div>

[Kainsei]

<blockquote><hr>V3g3tto wrote:You also forgot to mention, aswell as the self buffed Haste and double attack from STR line (which can strike upto 96% of the time), we also get the barehanded DPS increase from same AA STR skill <b>(which i assume goes upto 100%)</b>.<div></div><hr></blockquote>No. Either with 1 or 8 points in Tiger-claw-something (forgot the name), the dps increase is only 20%. I guess if it was 100 % it would be a little (a lot, in fact <span>:smileyvery-happy: ) overpowered. </span>Anyway, by using the str/int AA combo, you can do some serious damage, and the loss of stats, (hp for example) can be make up by putting some points in the sta line. <div></div>

[Bladewind]

I'm a monk who is 4-4-8-8-0 in str, and I love it so far.  I'll eventually switch out of it once I get the claymore finished, but, for now, it is wonderful.  I do great damaga in raids, and, thanks to all of that extra damage and the ripostes from box 4, I have an even easier time holding aggro without really sacrificing avoidance when tanking.  I probably lose about 1% avoid overall from leaving my weapon slots empty, but having 5% of my avoid be turned from parry into ripostes makes up for it nicely.

[Supp]

<P>I dont know of a STR line DPS boost. But for INT, there is one that caps at 18.1% (was recently nerfed). With the Mark, you can get a 20% total dps boost. If you put an acrylia STR ring on, you get a 3% chance for a 26% DPS boost that lasts for 45 seconds. If you're barehanded and doubleattacking through the STR line (8 AA), this goes off all the freakin time.</P> <P>If you are referring to Chi (STR line) for that DPS boost, that's not passive. It has a high recast, and has nasty negatives. I wouldnt figure that into my overall dps.</P>

[Kainsei]

<blockquote><hr>Supple wrote:<div></div> <p>I dont know of a STR line DPS boost. But for INT, there is one that caps at 18.1% (was recently nerfed). With the Mark, you can get a 20% total dps boost. If you put an acrylia STR ring on, you get a 3% chance for a 26% DPS boost that lasts for 45 seconds. If you're barehanded and doubleattacking through the STR line (8 AA), this goes off all the freakin time.</p><hr></blockquote>The ability of the INT line is not a dps boost, it increases the chance of doing critical hits. The best thing is, not only it works for autoattack, but for CA's too !!<div></div>

[V3g3t]

Hmm caps at 20%, thats a bummer.The skill i was referring to for the subsequent posters was the 3rd skill in STR line after Pressure point, repeating blows or soemthing along those lines. I still think the 96% chance to double attack bare fisted, i.e. double DPS is worth it. I dont have many AA's as i only got KoS recently but here's how i see it (Via /weaponstat):Atm, My Cedar Batons do 30-90 actual damage, 1.0 speed. (This is with a haste buff obviously, but it made it easier to compare) x 2 Baton'sBare Fisted i do 60-180 damage, 1.5 Speed. As mentioned earlier, this is x1, as it acts as a 2h weapon.So:   Cedat Batons =: Max Damage every 3 seconds  = 270 + 270 = 540 Bare Fists = Max damage every 3 seconds = 360Thats a 50% loss in DPS, plus the proc's,etc right.As far as i see it, add 96% chance to double attack on every attack to bare fists, which would equal roughly ~700+ damage per 3 seconds. We are already beating batons now. Add the 20% DPS from same skill, which is what its claimed to be capped at (Assuming its 20% DPS on base dmg) , we're in 800 damage per 3 seconds country.The attacks would be going off faster, so haste buffs and such would apply more. We can remove the stats we lost, procs etc and still end up with DPS that's gotta be near 50% more than we'd normally get with weapons. As with all DPS questions regarding this game, it's never simple, but thats the best i can comprehend it atm. Putting max points into this 3rd STR skill, then some into the INT crit % skill, then you got soem scary DPS, which is what i prefer using my monk for. Ive tried Tanking epics in a raid and it doesnt work, hence im not a tank <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /><div></div>

[Supp]

<DIV><BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> Kainsei wrote:<BR><BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> Supple wrote:<BR> <P>I dont know of a STR line DPS boost. But for INT, there is one that caps at 18.1% (was recently nerfed). With the Mark, you can get a 20% total dps boost. If you put an acrylia STR ring on, you get a 3% chance for a 26% DPS boost that lasts for 45 seconds. If you're barehanded and doubleattacking through the STR line (8 AA), this goes off all the freakin time.</P> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE>The ability of the INT line is not a dps boost, it increases the chance of doing critical hits.<BR>The best thing is, not only it works for autoattack, but for CA's too !!<BR> <BR> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE><BR></DIV> <DIV>Ah yes. Right you are. I keep looking at the old brawler AA chart shown in the forum. It's lacking that info.</DIV>

[Raidi Sovin'faile]

<P>This topic has been hashed out quite a bit over on the Bruiser forum. A good thread that has most of the information you'd need would be <A href="http://eqiiforums.station.sony.com/eq2/board/message?board.id=7&message.id=19884" target=_blank>here</A>.</P> <P> </P> <P>I'll clear up some stuff here though.</P> <P>I have the third ability in Strength line maxed, and it is 20% DPS with 96% Double Attack.</P> <P>A lvl 70, unarmed damage without any modifiers is 33.33 - 100 base damage, at 2.5 delay. This is effectively a DR of ~54.</P> <P>With the 96% double attack, you can expect a DR of ~106 (if you round).</P> <P>Which means, before any other modifiers (before the 20% DPS, or any haste, or anything at all), you are looking at equaling such weapons as the Staff of the Flapping Wing or having <EM>both </EM>fabled Twin Calamities. These weapons are only <EM>slightly</EM> higher in autoattack damage + proc than your bare hands with this AA maxed out.</P> <P>This means you also get an additional 20% DPS modifier. This would be compared to what you'd choose for DPS if you had weapons instead. Someone going down the total DPS path would normally choose Stamina, Intelligence at 4, 4, 8.. and then either Wisdom or Strength, depending on if they were unarmed or with weapons.</P> <P>This means that you would compare the damage you'd get from an extra 20% damage on all autoattacks, or an 8% AE proc. One will always be effective (as long as you aren't being buffed 100% without it), while the other has potential to do a lot of damage, but low low chance to proc and lower damage if only 2 targets or lower are in the area. Not to mention the situations where you might be asked not to use it to not aggro things by accident or break mez.</P> <P>The other benefit is that the unarmed is available NOW, while you have to go do Labs 50 times or find someone willing to take you to Ascent of Awakened or pay out for the Staff. I've actually not seen a staff up on broker for 2 months now... no one seems to be going to AoA, or they nerfed the drop on my server...</P>

[nam]

<DIV>Thanks a ton for the responses...this is good news indeed!</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>But I have a related question. If the 20% DPS increase only applies to auto-attacks, does that imply that an unarmed monk going down the STR line should refrain from spamming his CA's and/or HO's and primarily reply upon auto-attack for max dmg? If so, then this is actually an even greater boon, because it means a huge power savings for long fights. Is this correct or not?</DIV>

[Bladewind]

<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> namah wrote:<BR> <DIV>Thanks a ton for the responses...this is good news indeed!</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>But I have a related question. If the 20% DPS increase only applies to auto-attacks, does that imply that an unarmed monk going down the STR line should refrain from spamming his CA's and/or HO's and primarily reply upon auto-attack for max dmg? If so, then this is actually an even greater boon, because it means a huge power savings for long fights. Is this correct or not?</DIV><BR> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE> <P><BR>In a word, yes.</P> <P>In any fight that lasts longer than 30 seconds you should not spam your CAs.  Allow for at least one auto attack between every CA use.  this will stabilize your damage output, which will make it easier for the MT to hold aggro (or you to hold constant aggro if you are the MT) and will also let you use your power more efficiently.  The longer the fight, the more auto attack dominates your damage.  This is why people who raid are usually much more concerned with increasing their auto attack damage than those who only do solo/single group content.</P>

[Kainsei]

<div></div><div></div>Also, if you're grouped with other class that can buff up your dps mod (coercer,bruiser, zerker, inquis, furies, dirges etc...) some CA's will do less damage than your autoattack. Especially those on a 10 sec reuse tumer like rumbling wyrm (thx cirth for ripping me off <span>:smileytongue:</span>) and the other crappy kick (forgot the name sry). With a coercer, when I'm hitting for 2x 450-600 autoattack only, I use rumbling wyrm only for heroic opportunities. I don't know if the 0.5 casting time is really slowing down my autoattack, but I simply don't use them. <div></div><p>Message Edited by Kainsei on <span class="date_text">08-04-2006</span> <span class="time_text">12:45 PM</span></p><p>Message Edited by Kainsei on <span class=date_text>08-04-2006</span> <span class=time_text>12:45 PM</span>

[Raidi Sovin'faile]

<P>Yes, it's the same for Bruisers.. if autoattack is at 100% Haste and DPS, it will do more damage in that 0.5s than doing that CA.</P> <P>I made a little excel file to figure out how much damage autoattack would do in 0.1s (basically cut it down to that), and then compared it to entries with my CA information (so I could compare average autoattack damage in a 0.5s time length compared to the CA in that 0.5s).</P> <P> </P> <P>I entered the info for if I used one of those 98.1 DR throwing weapons with double attack.. and found out that only about 4 of my CAs would still be worth using. And one of them was my AoE, and another was a DoT.</P> <P>Basically.. if I ever got my hands on that thing, I'd use the 2-3 Combat Arts that did the most damage, then back up a few feet to do ranged autoattack. As it is right now, the 70.4 DR ranged weapon I have will only exclude about half my CAs, which means I have to spend a lot of time jousting (which can screw up autoattack a bit, so it's not perfect). Costs a lot in ammo too.</P>

[RPZip]

Of course, you can always, y'know, use CA's in between autoattacks... especially since the Unarmed AA is at a base of 2.5 speed, it's pretty trivial to weave in CAs so you don't miss your autoattack chances.<div></div>

[Raidi Sovin'faile]

<P>Between button lag and 100% haste, it's not as easy as you make it sound. I'd say, more often than not, with the kind of lag I get on raids (button lag, coming from the server, my system is fine), I'm interfering with my autoattack if I cast a CA. Since 0.5 doesn't interfere much, it's usually not a problem... until you hit 100% DPS and Haste, with high damage weapons/Str AA unarmed.</P> <P>This isn't only theoretical either. I've actually noticed direct increases in DPS from leaving out some of the more inefficient CAs.</P>