The Death of the Zen Archer

With Update 49, the major changes in bow feats and power brought a sudden hiatus to my love of archery.

None of my Zen Archers have a true monastic connection now.

I know Standing Stone Game’s devs are hard at work at reducing lag while keeping performance and weapon effectiveness going. Early in U49 development I put in my two cents on the forum threads on not screwing with the Ten Thousand Stars feat (commonly used by “monkchers” to add a 2nd classic Manyshot option) by at leaving that feat effectively unchanged for Monks and for the use of stars.

I got my request. Ten Thousand Stars still does what it has for shuriken.

But TTS no longer works at all for bows.

This broke the effective use of bows for my Zen Archers, which were all single-class Monks.

That doesn’t mean I couldn’t play any of them. Far from that. The U49 changes actually improved a few bits. For starters, one of the changes made all bows inherently DEX to-damage for any class unless you add another feat or enhancement with higher ability stats (such as a Ranger and its Bow Strength feat, or the universal tree’s special INT, WIS or CHA to-hit and to-damage enhancements).

So that meant that the being an Elf of some sort was not required to gain the Grace racial enhancement to add DEX-to-hit later if that build needed it.

Using TTS allowed my archers to use their ki for their Manyshot-like feature, which had a smaller cooldown of 60 seconds. TTS also saved a feat–Manyshot itself. It took longer for the Zen Archers to qualify for that feat, anyway, based on Monk BAB.

My problem is that there’s no ki connection to the use of bows.

That is, bows cannot use any of the melee-based ki strikes. Likewise, finishers cannot work with ranged weapons. A Zen Archer can switch to handwraps or other melee weapon to activate light or dark finishers, but there’s not a lot of point to that as that removes the bow from the equation and perhaps more vulnerable.

There is still the benefit of the miss-chance powers (Dodge, Incorporeality, Concealment) and monastic evasive powers inherent in many Monks that can make the current builds work fine. And adding the new Manyshot feature works just fine as well.

And when I don’t play my Monks, I love love love my Rangers. If I ever quit my love of Monks, you’ll see me fawning over the Ranger.

There’s also my starthrowers, which are now just as deadly (if not more so) with new flavors, thanks to variations from the universal trees. The performance changes to Doubleshot is still up in the air for me in terms of effects per apparent throw with stars, but it’s not a showstopper.

So what’s the future for my Zen builds?

The answer comes from the devs. In the near future, there are plans to add more trees or feats to expand the use of bows for other classes.

Maybe, just maybe, options might arrive to add true support for Zen Archery feat users so that Monks:

• Could integrate ki for special bow-only abilities
• Give bow Weapon Proficiency as part of such enhancements. That means you don’t have to be an Elf to use a bow without a harsh feat deficit.
• A weak Arcane Archer-like use of ki to imbue bows or ammo or provide extra offensive and defensive things while adding a flair that no other archer class possesses (reading up from other D&D designs might be nice here)
• Bonus points for enhancements that give one thing for dark Monks and other for light ones in archery

Such feats and enhancements would require specific Monk levels and might be anti-prerequisites to the Arcane Archer, Elf or Ranger abilities to avoid performance or overpowered class issues.

Until that day, there’s not a lot of reason to play Pynthetica or any of the new ones. But, as they say, Soon.

Hardcore Monk V: Victory

For my goals, at least, I “won” in the Hardcore IV season.

There were several goals a player could aspire to meet. Since I was new to Hardcore play, I chose only two: 1) Reach 1750 favor, and 2) Reach level 20.

I did both, and using the very first Hardcore character I created: Petracletica, the Ninja Spy.

It wasn’t easy, but it was fun. I’d like to say I survived and succeeded by skill alone. But as many of my friends (most also in my Ghallanda guild) would say, luck played a big factor.

As noted in past posts, the greatest challenge in HC IV was surviving the special Monster Champions present there. They were even color-coded for your convenience if you had a good Spot score. Some you knew to be careful not to attack too harshly in melee or get a stacking disease effect that could kill you faster than you could remove it. Another champ was the spellcasters’ bane with their Rage spell that left players Silenced. Another would have Poison attacks that often weren’t a big problem unless the champ was also a caster that also added their own nasty elemental spells.

It was that Poison-armed one, the Disciple of Avassh champions-as-casters, which often killed my party members with a single attack.

But why did Petracletica survive caster after caster, enemy after enemy?

She was the Master of Hide and Seek, I think.

A newer guildie on the HC server was dismissing the use of Sneaking while Petra was clearing level 10 quests while banking Level 15 at the time. One of his builds was a caster, like a Pale Master build that is admittedly quite good at clearing and soloing.

But because this new guildie is joining my Ghallanda guild (where Monks are the dominant class) I had to school him with some information–the reason why Petra likely survived to Level 20.

The Hide and Move Silently skills were, in my opinion, the most powerful abilities that Petra possessed. As I told the guildie in chat:

• NO enemies would know I was present unless they possessed tremor-sense (bats, spiders), life-sense (some undead), or were some bosses that would know of any enemy in range (rare). True Seeing does not reveal a hidden player. A good Listen or Spot skill would–but most enemies don’t possess this.
• The H/MS skills, together, allowed me to control when and how to strike an enemy. This was particularly useful since I could slay some champions before they became a threat to my party, flanking them and ending them with the Ninja Spy’s sneak attack combined with her weapon effects and enhancements.
• H/MS likely saved me many, many times from enemy casters that would attack you from long range.

As noted previously, Petra was a Halfing with the Dragonmark of Healing to make her somewhat self-sufficient to cast Heal and related spell-like abilities limited times for myself or others. The added sneak-attack dies from the Halfling tree combined with the Ninja Spy versions for powerful first strikes.

Lastly, the Feydark Illusionist tree was a godsend. Just a few points invested and I had Shadowblades: Force DR weapons that bypassed almost every DR, including incorporeal. But their power really came to the fore by levels 12 and higher. They gained Phantasmal Killer, snuffing out enemies very, very fast. While each blade would not proc very often, carrying two blades as a two-weapon fighter made Petra quite the room-clearing Monk.

Other tricks were standard monastic fare to help: Flash Bangs to momentarily stun and blind to make removing most of a mob quick and easy. Subtlety enhancement to reduce the aggro level from melee attacks. The list goes on.

There wasn’t anything very special in surviving, as far as I say otherwise, except that I realized a few critical points to remember in clearing quests:

• Avoid most quests that had beholders. While I would be far more equipped to silence and slay those oversized eyeballs than other melee classes, I didn’t want to take the chance. I made one exception: The Threnal quests, where I would be required to encounter two or three in the course of the quest chain. And then, I sent the hirelings in the party at the monster first.
• No Xoriat quests such as the Harbinger of Madness chain. Same reason as the first, but Thaarak Hounds were a greater threat to me since they sense sneaking with their blind-sense and their own brand of Phantasmal Killer.
• Run Elite only to reach 1750 favor. After that, I ran no quest higher than Hard difficulty. This helped survival for sure.

But before you think that Hard reduced the chance of death significantly, I will tell the story of the late Lamai, a powerfully great Bard at level 12 who explored Castle Ravenloft with me (on a different ninja, the star-thrower Rubycletica) on Hard.

The run in “An Invitation to Dinner” was going just fine. As we approached the Chapel on level 2 of the castle, there’s a spot I know will be filled with wights and ghosts, with 1 or 2 Wight Priests certainly there.

Ruby, as a ninja, was sneaking. I spotted a priest. It was a Disciple of Avassh champion. I had prepared to use my raven and Falconry’s trip attack to take it out. But before my shot had hit its mark, the caster saw Lemai and fired off two attacks. His Bard songs helped blunt one element of the attack, along with a timely heal by my Favored Soul hireling, but another part of the attack caused the dreaded “ding” in my headphones as Lemai melted from poison.

Hard difficulty could and would be happy to kill you. I stayed that course to level 20.

Of course, the chance for a mimic spawning with any chest opened increased in potency. By level 16 I could definitely see how the mimic’s CR increase made it harder to kill them off than earlier. Their acid damage increased as well. Myself and others running with me did not hesitate in breaking off a quest chain to get “P-Buffs” from House Phiarlan before entering another quest as we leveled beyond 10.

By Petra’s arrival at level 17 or so, she had Gianthold quests and later, those in Sharn. But in recalling how nasty the halflings in Sharn could be, especially with their artificers’ hard-to-see exploding construct spiders, I concentrated on all of Gianthold. With completing “Gianthold Tor” (after playing all but “The Crucible”) I reached “maximum heroic XP.”

I’m happy to complete Hardcore, and grateful to get my cosmetic awards.

But why oh why, SSG, are these cosmetics so butt-freaking-UGLY in comparison to the previous HC cosmetic rewards?

I mean, I know these are in theme with the season of Xoriat-based monster champions. But this design? I don’t ever want to wear these with anything, much less proudly wear them as a HC survivor.

Congratulations! You get to wear…clawed squidskin.

Anyway….Petra was immediately retired from play to complete HC. I don’t expect a high score on the leaderboards; not my goal. Rubycletica and two others continue play to gather gear and aid other friends to level them up and meet their goals. Since HC rewards are by-account, it’s not necessary for any other of my characters to survive, so I can be a little more aggressive.

Now to plan the final HC strategy: What comes over from the HC server to Ghallanda at season’s end with the free transfers. I have gathered a lot of good gear. But I already have 29 character slots on Ghallanda! Somebody there has to leave before I must buy more slots. I think only 2 characters are coming over.