Brand new eq1 players here trying out the game for the first time ever. I have been fooling around on Aradune on multiple different classes and gotten a few of them to their 30's and then moved on to try others. I have been reading guides on all of them, but now I finally got the idea that I wanted to try the monk class. I've been reading guides and Ill be honest, its rather confusing compared to most other classes I have been messing with. Some posts says to use 2hb, others says use dual wield and others again tell me that going h2h is the optimal options, on TLP servers. I also read various tables with numbers that truthfully dont mean a thing to me. The pulling guides were understandable though so I dont really fear that as much as making the wrong gearing choises. So can someone spell out to me (without abbreviations and without just sending me a table that I wont be able to understand) what kind of gear setup I should be using as brand new player wishing to try monk class, without giving him twinking gear, while leveling and what you want to work on at max level. Especially the weapon setup, feet and hands.
Guess it became a wall of text so ill tldr in a second reply: What weapons do monks want to use on TLP and what hands/feet do they want while leveling and max level?
Monks really come into their own with Kunark, when you can be an Iksar monk. Their AC bonus and racial regen make a difference. Plus they look better than human monks I think you can buy a race change scroll once leezards become available...but there is that issue of being KoS everywhere. That said, having played a monk to 65 on Agnarr: - practice all your weapons skills. With the rapid advance of skills nowadays it's not so bad if you let one type go for a while, but in general you want 1hb, HTH, and 2hb. And dual wield when possible. - find some gloves that are marked "Magic" so you can hit immune mobs with your fists. - early on you will use weapons because they will do more damage than your fists. I don't recall what classic had on offer but with Kunark there's Dalnir, which drops LOTS of great monk stuff, much of it No Trade (but bring friends, the casters there will un-FD you.) Other fantastic weapons are Peacebringer, Wu's sticks, etc. The challenge at this point will be keeping your weight under 13 while carrying all those weapons. In game there are some hard to get weight reducing boxes, and in the DB store there's the Mercenary's Weapons Crate. - Get your epic! Start working on it as soon as you can. Once you get your epic, you use empty hands with the epic. The epic has a short lived clicky that hastes you for about 15 seconds. Put it on your toolbar and click it when the spell icon expires; you can probably also make a hotkey that casts it about 3 times before having to press the button again. With the epic and a worn haste item (dragon CoF, items from Velious, or the FBSS from lower guk in classic) you can get your haste up close to where bards or enchanters could get it for you. You will likely use your epic until you get PoP weapons. The Epic is not only haste, but it also makes your hands do a LOT more dmg per strike. - in Velious start working on the Eyepatch of Plunder, a nice face slot item that's also a haste clicky. It won't stack with the epic, but if you don't have the epic it will stack with a worn haste item such as the CoF or FBSS. - for armor...in classic you may be stuck at cured silk. [edit] oh wait, I'm pretty sure the hot setup in classic was mesh armor from Upper Guk. At least get the gloves; they're magic so you can hit mobs immune to non magic weaps. With Kunark you have the no drop monk armor in Dalnir, and you can upgrade to Wu's silk armor crafted by people. You can learn enough tailoring yourself to make it, but you'll need to buy the magic component of it from enchanters in game, who use pearls to make it, so save your money. Once you get to Velious other crafted armors become available. Also look for items which SHOULD be heavy for the game says has no weight. Froglok Kings helm is very nice for monks in classic, and beyond.
What @Herf said. I have mained a monk on 3 TLPs now. H2H is decent at level 30+ once your ratio reaches .4 (15/38). Before this you are better off using a Smouldering Brand and Mudman Enforcer. Keep in mind that bare fists do not have a damage bonus, so on high AC mobs your DPS will suffer greatly because of this. For armor, get a full Wu's set. Stats are meh, but the weight is low. Grab yourself an FBSS, haste is your friend. Quick summary of haste for you: Haste v1 is WORN haste Haste v2 is SPELL haste (this includes haste potions, enchanter/shaman haste spells, and most bard haste songs. Haste v3 is OVERHASTE This comes into play with some high level bard songs and eventually some rare clicky items. **Haste cap goes up with level. I believe cap in classic is 185% and goes up to 200% at level 65. This is where OVERHASTE becomes super important as you can reach 225% haste with a high end level 65 bard. All your damage is based around attack speed (including kicks and strikes). This means that a 21% haste item will increase your total damage by 21%. It is by far the most important stat. Other than that, try to get your strength as high as possible. Some people will tell you dex and agi are important, but for raw damage, nothing has a higher stat weight than strength. Here is the chart for monk bare fist damage. Keep in mind that Iksar have a 39 delay and humans are 38. Both races drop down to 26 delay with their epic. Monk fist damage is based off from SKILL LEVEL, not your personal level. This means if you are level 30, but only have 20 H2H skill, your ratio will be at your skill level, and not YOUR level. Level(skill) - Level(skill): Dmg/Dly 1(0) - 2(14): 3/38 2(15) - 3(29): 4/38 3(30) - 5(44): 5/38 5(45) - 6(59): 6/38 6(60) - 8(74): 7/38 8(75) - 9(89): 8/38 9(90) - 11(104): 9/38 11(105) - 14(119): 10/38 14(120) - 17(134): 11/38 17(135) - 20(149): 12/38 20(150) - 23(164): 13/38 23(165) - 26(179): 14/38 27(180) - 30(194): 15/38 30(195) - 34(209): 16/38 34(210) - 38(224): 17/38 38(225) - 41(239): 18/38 42(240) - 45(254): 19/38 45(255) - 50(269): 20/38 50(270) - 55(284): 21/38 55(285) - 60(299): 22/38 60(300): 23/38
Spell haste is also what you call v1. Worn stacks with buffs. "v1 haste" is SPA11, it's on items and potions and rare clickies and enc&shm&brd&bst buffs. "v2 haste" is SPA98, a second kind of haste that stacks with SPA11 hastes, such that you can have two haste buffs on (and theoretically could have two haste items on). SPA11+SPA98 are still subject to the regular attack speed cap of 200%. The second kind of haste is super rare - SPA98 is only ever in EQ's history used on Melody of Ervaj(5%) and Composition of Ervaj(10%) bard songs from Velious. Their use case in stacking with low level regular haste songs (highest is 45%, so +10 from Ervaj gets bards' groups to 55%, which along with 41% various dragon hastes is almost the whole 100) is superceded by a better regular haste song (Warsong of Zek 60%) in the very next expansion. Beastlords are still waiting for that same upgrade, they're still on 53% SPA11 at level 115 "v3 haste" (SPA119) comes into the game in Luclin. It stacks with SPA11 and SPA98 haste and can exceed the regular attack speed cap.
At 50 Whitened Treant Fists (14/28) and Wu's Fist of Mastery (16/22) are better than H2H (21/38). At 60 H2H will be 23/38. I would have thought H2H at 60 would not be as good as Wu's Fist of Mastery. Can someone explain why this is not the case?
Being level 60 implies that Kunark is open, and with it epics are available. Equipping monk epic replaces empty h2h ratio with …its ratio, which I don't recall off the top of my head, but it's good. Epic ratio > weapons ratio > empty hand ratio.
