The Monster

Not the DDO kind of monster. No, no.

It’s the kind of monster that is more ravenous and difficult to satiate but virtually impossible to kill.

It’s the monster called creativity.

And creativity is continually buffed by the demon called progress.

So, as noted in my last post, I am updating my Monk guide. I greatly appreciate how it has been helpful, even in its very outdated state, during my absence.

Life had a way of pushing me out of DDO for a time. That stuff happens. As a result, I’ve found myself looking at my own guide from the outside in. I was rather surprised how still useful it was.

I was planning on completely starting from scratch.

But I ran into some problems right away with my desire to update it. Over the 5 years or so as I updated and added, it grew to a tremendous size. That’s not bad except if major changes in the game came along. You can imagine how much has changed between its last revision at game Update 33 and now (46).

Gameplay has told me that, as far as the class goes, the Monk is really the same. Some improvements and changes on game mechanics were done, such as stealth in the last recent update, and that nerfed the monster’s ability, not the player. Some new enhancement tress appeared which are pretty nice, and a butt-ton of new gear and quests, of which I will need to consider as far as how to guide someone in play.

So, to make a long story short, the new site (which will be hosted here on WordPress) will be more of a very major revision than a rewrite.

My hope is to have it ready before July ends.

That’s because it will be accompanied by a special announcement that may be an additional aid to new players to the Monk.

I treat the guide, this blog, and my unnamed project seriously. Unlike most other classes and races (where favor can unlock them), you have to plop down real national currency in DDO to unlock the class.

Time for the lot of you that’s joined the game in the era of Killer Cooties to get your money’s worth, right?

In related news, the original guide was hosted on the old Google Sites. They have also made a major upgrade so I was forced to move the book to a new version of Google Sites. Actually, it reads and looks better, although I liked the old book theme.

You may still be able to reach the original guide at its usual link:

https://sites.google.com/site/bookofsyn/

But I recommend that you go to the new site and its slightly different link, because Google says that the original site will eventually be deleted. Besides, aside from coming here when it’s ready, you’ll eventually find the link to the totally updated guide there. Here’s the recommended site until the new one’s ready:

https://sites.google.com/view/ddobookofsyncletica/home

Birds Make Everything Interesting

Catching up on the game (happily–there have been so many new updates), I’ve gravitated to three builds that are less punchy and more specialized in regards to Monks.

Became immediately interested in two new universal enhancement trees. A halfling Rogue I made (creating yet again a new alt) started work with the Visani Fighting tree and absolutely loved the DPS and backward blade handling appearance. One Ranger decided to play with the Falconry tree, which is what I’ll touch on more now.

Falconry is a curious tree. You get an indestructible bird (the appearance you choose doesn’t matter) that is undetectable by enemies if you’re sneaking or invisible. But what the tree does with the bird is provide first-strike tools that have begun to enhance the one-trick limits of two builds of mine.

Laylacletica and the Improved Zen Archer

Laylacleta’s ability to knockdown and blind enemies greatly assists in crowd control.

Layla is a Zen Archer. As others may recall from past posts of Pynthetica, the Zen Archer build I developed emphasized a simple pew-pew all-Monk Elf archer with no other ranged enhancements (no Arcane Archer or Deepwood Sniper). What Zen Archers lack in variations of attack they compensate for by high passive defenses with Dodge, concealment and incorporeality, making them so hard to hit that they down others before they could have a chance. Zen Archers used portions of the Ninja Spy tree to gain advanced Sneak and passive ki regeneration so they could use their Ten Thousand Stars many-shot effect every 1 minute as needed.

But on attack with a Zen Archer, things start charging at you, and there is only so much one can passively avoid in attack when 5 enemies or more begin to target you. As with Rangers and Arcane Archers, there has to be something more to slow or stop enemies to give an advantage.

For previous Zen Archers, I relied on the effects of my equipment, such as fortification bypass, hamstring/tendon slice, and more, to aid in taking things down before they got too close. Doubleshot was also dramatically raised as well as Ranged Power since most of the action points went into Harper Agent for increasing passive Ranged Power and general bow damage.

But such effects can only go so far, so you either had to attack smarter or not at all, lest you get several axes, blades and spells to your face all at once.

With Layla, I thought to give Falconry a try. I would lose a little Ranged Power in sacrificing the Harper Agent tree, but I would get sizable potent first-strike attacks that gave damage but also some crowd control. The first, Diving Attack, is effectively a stunning knockdown that works (for Layla) on just about all but red-named monsters. The second, Strike for the Eyes, blinds most enemies. The third, Coordinated Strike, is a mass blinding and bleeding effect on mobs.

Now Layla could stop enemies in an improved capacity, downing things faster with less damage. Using the attacks cost no ki, no spell points and had very fast cooldowns. But there were other benefits that saved action points throughout her build with this tree change.

Falconry has some Sheltering and healing amplification benefits found in other trees. So I didn’t have to pump lots of points into the racial and Ninja Spy trees to get similar effects. Layla’s Elf tree has the same points for improved bow damage and Dex-to-Damage and Dex-to-Hit benefits, but there’s more, so much more to Falconry that benefits Monks to the point where I could save more points.

Falconry adds Killer Instinct to the mix. Like Harper’s Know the Angles and Ninja Spy’s similar core abilities, rather than using STR for damage or attack, Falconry lets you use WIS for both. For a Monk, that’s awesome. WIS boosts so much on a Monk that there are savings afoot. In the case of Layla, I could now just pump WIS and put less points in DEX save to improve Dodge and Reflex. For now, she sticks with DEX-to-hit and damage as I experiment.

I’m still in work as to Layla’s new level of rampaging with this variation. I should mention that Falconry has No Mercy, the same Ninja Spy enhancement which pummels helpless enemies with extra damage. Normally, without Epic Destinies, Pynthetica couldn’t really use this unless she got off a lucky shot from a bow effect. But with Falconry, blinding and knockdown mean that a Zen Archer smacks down things far more effectively to helplessness and so can kill faster.

The only downside to Falconry for the Zen Archer is increasing the aggro to a build that doesn’t want it. I may toy more with maximizing a Ninja Spy enhancement, Subtlety, as well as equipment bonuses which lower threat level so enemies are less likely to turn around on me and keep to my meat-shield Clerics, Rogue or Fighters that I deploy on attack when there are more than 3 or 4 enemies.

Annithetica and an improved Mystic

And then, I had a yen to play again with the Henshin Mystic.

So with Falconry’s WIS-to-attack and WIS-to-Damage ideas in mind, Annithetica was born. But here, I take Falconry to a deeper use.

Like the Zen Archer, the Mystic can generate aggro. In fact, they make far more of it than any Monk with its ki-based Fire and Force attacks. But Mystics lack in defense, as my previous posts about Quintessica note. So, like the Zen Archer, the Mystic could use an edge to stop or slow some enemies enough to give it an edge to reduce damage if the build couldn’t pump up its miss-chance, armor or sheltering effects (which are still necessary).

So this young Mystic has a falcon floating over its head now. By level 10, I moved to Killer Instinct’s WIS for damage and attack rolls and I needed to only add further STR points beyond reducing changes for enfeeblement. Took care of that cheaply enough with my +2 Tome from 1750 Favor. A bit of DEX and CON, but WIS will do wonders for constant ki and other Monk abilities.

She’s been tearing through most dungeons by outright incineration of enemies in mass. Built similarly to Quintessica, the Mystic needs the Cleave and Great Cleave feats to spin up that mass damage. But with very high WIS for her level and all of her Mystic abilities amped by the WIS modifier, I see very significant fire and force damage to the point that Incinerating Wave firewall can destroy mobs in one strike.

Something new got added: Two Handed Fighting, which apparently got an insane Strikethrough bonus that is effectively the melee version of Improved Precise Shot’s multiple-strike feature. Also, the feat Spring Attack now includes an actual spring attack that can help start a fight faster by leaping at a target and smacking things right away. So the Two-Handed Fighting feats will keep pouring into this build.

What I hope with Anni here is to add the falcon’s helpless effects to blind en masse, combined with No Mercy, to burn the ashes of the ashes of many more enemies before they can become effective. Being able to knockdown something and then slam it from existence is one goal. All that Anni needs now is the right attack after knockdown. Probably one of the Elemental Ki Strikes, like Fists of Iron, to make a killer 3W hit with extra weapon damage modifiers, uprated by No Mercy and helplessness.

Defense was still an issue early on, as Mystics are a little squishy, and Anni’s gear was less than optimal for Dodge and Sheltering until level 12. As she hit the Ravenloft quests, she’ll got the wonderful Bavarian Quarterstaff, which has been awesome throughout the game with its absolutely lethal damage output (Layla uses her Barvarian Longbow as her ultimate kick-everyone’s-ass bow, not just undead). Since WIS activates so much, some additional gear leaves Anni at level 13 with 50 AC, max Dodge of 32% and about 32 PRR. Time to look for a metalline boss-beater as she moves forward.

Anni has even encouraged me to work through the Necropolis quests, of which I’ve never been a fan, mostly because it felt like a grind and required parties for mandatory levers. I just love incinerating undead now.

More to come on this. These experiments to the builds will, I hope, become part of an updated, all-new Monk guide.

Light Returns to the Monastery

I will admit to becoming a little burnt out on DDO. What seemed to be a somewhat short break turned out to be a over two-year hiatus. Perhaps I’ll detail what I was doing, gaming-wise, in that off-time on another day.

But I kept my DDO account active. And on returning to the game recently noticed so many fresh and new things to be and to do, especially about my favorite class.

Looking at the new enhancement trees, I rolled up a halfling Rogue to try out the Vistani Fighter enhancements. Dang, that’s a DPS build if ever there was one.

Then I dusted off my Zen Archer build. It still has gas. I was hoping to work in the new effect Missile Deflection to aid in overall defense, but it’s limited to certain races/enhancements, so I’ll have to come back to that.

So much fresh content. The secondary Keep on the Borderlands starter quests were lovely. And Mists of Ravenloft — wow. I am blown away every time I enter that one, and there’s still so much left to do.

There are many tweaks in the game which are nice. The best news for me so far is that none of them have invalidated any of my builds thus far. This might be one benefit of my tendency not to create multiclassed characters. But I am far more open to the idea. We’ll see where that goes.

When I last left off, I had some things in mind to share with other players. Thanks to one friend (who seems to have sadly left the game or has moved her players elsewhere, understandably due to real-life developments) I have a small guild with precisely one player: Me.

I will be seeking additional members in my little guild once I flesh out some details on why it could be useful to others.

And as waited as Update 46 Patch 2 was being implemented in downtime, I had a new build idea.

Without getting anybody’s hopes up, let me finish this return post with some goals I have as I return to play:

• A new, updated Monk guide. This will be hosted in another spot, simplify reading, and have more build suggestions. It’ll also rid itself of cruft that’s not only outdated but available otherwise on DDO Wiki so it’ll make things easier to keep updated. I will keep the original guide in its place with pointers to the new guide once I have enough of the new guide running.
• A new Monk build, as noted. As I have in the past, development and gameplay about it will be posted here.

See you soon. Like everyone else in the world, the COVID-19 outbreak has left me with a bit more home-time but also provides more opportunity to play.