Hardcore Monk III – Less Paranoid and More Prepared

Since last writing, my Hardcore level 6 starthrower, Stelacletica, got one-shotted in the Crypt of Gerard Dryden, likely by a champ with very energized magic missiles. I had just got her gear and most other effects working except one, which was a big sad.

Of course, a dead character takes their inventory and equipped gear to the grave, which is problematic when you farm for something nice, only to find it buried for the duration of the season.

But unlike the last death I experienced, I felt more determined than depressed about it. And I really wanted a ranged character in Hardcore.

I revised and revisited my Zen Friar build. My original build (which will be in the revised Monk guide–its updates are about 1/4 done!) used a Wood Elf’s racial skills as a central tenet. In my first archer on Hardcore, the late Loreicletica was an Half-Elf instead to add Cleric dilettante abilities for self- and party heal and buff options. I still think that’s a good idea, although the lack of innate longbow proficiency cost me an extra feat over other builds, making development of the build slower.

So Dianacletica was born in the Zen Friar’s original design, a Wood Elf to take advantage of ranged power, incorporeality and missile deflection enhancements. Dominantly an archer, this Light Monk build can also wield a quarterstaff, mostly to build up ki for buffs if needed. It’s still a work in refinement for reasons stated in a moment.

So far, Dianacletica was rather inexpensive to build and is at full basic form at Level 6, thanks primarily to fixing an oversight in the original build.

As you know, I am a big fan of the Falconry tree, which uses a summoned bird to support you with trips, blinding, fortification bypass, and other ranged or melee damage. Falconry adds some ranged power but, more importantly, allows uses of WIS as your to-hit and damage stat, just as Harper Agent allowed INT for this, Ninja Spy allowed DEX for it, and now Feydark Illusionist does for CHA.

There were two Killer Instinct enhancements, one that gave to-hit by WIS, and the second for damage by WIS. In my original build I took both for my Monk. But that wasn’t necessary at all, thanks to the one feat that allows a Monk to use a bow as a ki weapon in the first place.

That’s Zen Archery. It’s description: “You can use your Wisdom bonus instead of Dexterity bonus to determine bonus to attack with ranged missile weapons if it is higher.” That’s what Killer Instinct I does.

So I saved 2 AP that I could apply to something else, only requiring Killer Instinct II for WIS for damage. That “something” was in getting the Henshin Mystic tree completed enough to add Lighting the Candle, which adds Fire/Force damage to all weapons–a bit less on non-quarterstaff weapons, but a very helpful addition.

Dianacletica is also now a bit more paranoid about champions. Priority on building will be increasing HP first over damage through any enhancement and gear available, since the most dangerous problem is getting one-shotted by a champion (twice for me now) by some effect. Naturally, the more hit points you have, the less likely you’ll die.

She carries and more proactively uses several Shield clickies before engaging many mages that might have magic missile. And since she doesn’t have any enhancements to avoid getting Feared, she does carry a lot of Remove Fear potions to ward off the killing fear debuff of the Valaara’s Leg champion.

I will likely try to run the Attack on Splinterskull chain at least twice at Normal to carry at least two Visors of the Flesh Render Guards for Death Ward from the chain reward, along with having a player party member or hireling with the spell when at all possible.

Through some lengthy farming runs on my HC Mystic, I got a useful Greatbow of the Scrag for Diana, with its good blunted ammunition and higher base damage, along with a Giant’s Roar bow to vary things up.

So I get all of this running happily for Dianacletica and then Wednesday 4/21 shows up.

It’s Update 49 time, and this is a big big change that hopefully will improve something that players have cried about forever to fix–and that’s lag.

Even the release notes for Update 49 read like a light novel, as it details what is being changed to reduce the cumulative effects of game servers calculating every single little damage calculation, which slowed down the server performance for you or others, no matter where you were.

Effectively, the amount of floaty-text damage will reduce as the server takes a different and more efficient way to show your doublestrikes and doubleshots or other mass-effect damages.

Bows were specifically targeted in this update, with new animations to support changes that add more damage, slightly faster animations, an inherent use of DEX to-hit and to-damage for bows (which I assume is overridden by other enhancements) as well the change of Manyshot from a slow high-burst damage feat to a pulsed, more efficient feat.

There’s more, but what interests me, and what was not directly answered in the release notes, is how the Ten Thousand Stars feat changes with this update. Like Manyshot, TTS was a burst damage effect, primarily for shuriken, but useable with bows or any other throwing weapon that you can make a ki weapon. It added doubleshot and ranged power effects based on your WIS ability.

There is no information on if, or how, TTS has been adjusted in reflection to the changes to the bow-based Manyshot feat.

What was also noted that the update does nerf, for now, non-bow attacks, as the update changes the relative attack speed bonuses of certain feats but without changing how thrower animations work. I will have to visit my Astracletica starthrower on my home server of Ghallanda to see what’s changed there.

But for Dianacletica, I’m concerned about general damage, her exclusive use of TTS for burst damage, but also an aesthetic: The Wood Elf already looked great in carrying a bow as they ran. Sounds like I’ll get a different appearance, which is sad.

I have seen bow work on Lammania from a popular DDO YouTuber which looked promising for the standard non-Monk archer. Perhaps now I can revisit the original Zen Archer again (as well as other Zen Archer variants I made) and save feats or AP since DEX to-hit and damage is already present on bows to make them more useful and fun.

I can feel optimistic about one thing overall, as we all should everywhere but especially on Hardcore: The risk of lag death should become much less. Less risk for movement lag which “pushes” you into a trap, or that perhaps causes you to not be able to react to distant mage’s missile attack.

I would happily own the cause of death from my own mistakes rather than feel depressed that the game killed me because it simply was too overburdened.