Monks - I don't get them

[Ordon Draconis]

Boy, do I suck when playing a monk. My enjoyment of the game actually petered out when I had to do several quests in a row using them. I guess I just don't know what they're good for.

All classes have 3 abilities. Most of the time its 3 bonuses. Ocasionally, they slip a penalty along with one of the bonuses.

With the monk:

Ability 1 is actually 2 penalties (-2 hp per level, -30% attack)
Ability 2 is negated in almost every dungeon where the monk is required to complete the quest. (50% phys resist, negated by curse, negated by magical attack)
Ability 3 (double regen) is useless in the early run (you're supposed to be fighting monsters that are higher level, so a level 2 mob regens just as fast as a level 1 monk, and a level 3 vs 2 is almost as bad). And its a loss mid-run when a mob is hitting for 3-4 times your attack, so double regen is a net loss. And either way you're burning alot of tiles for slight mid-battle gains.

The monk tutorial showing the class benefits is highly misleading. Sure, the monk is great if you're on a map with 20 combat powerups - but so is any class at that point. And yeah, the monk is nice on a map that only contains meatboys so you can enjoy taking amost zero damage. I've yet to see a meatboy-only dungeon in normal game play.

I guess my issue is that 50% phys resist seems to be the monk's main bonus. Yet, I've played over and over where 80% of the mobs on a map ignore it. I'm so pinned down, I often fail to reach level 5 by the end of the run. Yet, any other class on the same run nets a victory.

I get that poison and burning can help the monk out-regen, but you don't start with those. I tried playing the monk as if he were a magic-user so his low hp and attack could be ignored. But then the monk doesn't balance with the three magic-users who actually have bonuses.

Could anyone explain to me how the monk balances with the other classes?

[The Schachter]

The Monk is one of the trickier classes to use well, and I'm not especially good with him myself. But make no mistake, the class is easilly among the most powerful in the game. A few thoughts to get you started:

1. 50% physical resistances is extremely powerful, but you're severely underestimating the power of double regeneration. It's arguably the most powerful class feature in the game. (50% physical resistance would be the second strongest :P). The thing with double regeneration, however, is that it gets much stronger as you level up. It's true that it's not much early on, but by level 6 you out-regen the boss; a level 8-9 Monk has obscene regeneration powers. As you've noticed, however, it's pretty tough to get there. Playing the Monk necessitates evaluating the worth of your resources a bit differently; blackspace becomes *very* valuable, but mid-fight level ups, while nice, aren't as important as they are for, say, an elven sorcerer. In other words, wasting some popcorn to level up faster,so you can start taking on stronger enemies earlier and therefore level up while saving more blackspace, can be a good idea. Heck, sometimes I'll just fight level 1 enemies if I don't find a suitable level 2 target and there's a couple of level 3s waiting for me (don't do this too often though).

A quick note on resistances: every point of resistance you add is more effective than the preceding one. In other words, a tower shield bringing you from 0 resistances to 10% is pretty meh; that same shield bringing you from 50% to 60% resistances is *really* good. Try it out!

2. The Monk's damage penalties basically exists to balance out the incredible power of their other abilities. Thankfully, there are lots of ways to build damage. Do you have the race that converts for *base* damage? If so, they're basically the best Monks. Otherwise play as a human, and for an easier start it's good to prepare a fine sword (or the blacksmith sword). Don't hesistate to convert a couple of glyphs early on; the Monk isn't really a spellcaster, so you should almost always focus on buffing his physical damage or otherwise overcome his other weaknesses. A Monk with very well-buffed damage can sometimes take on physical damage enemies 4 levels higher than him without expending consumables, as well as some magical foes.

Of course, you don't *need* to use preparations to have an easy time with the Monk, but a few preparations can really make the begining of a dungeon smoother. Magnet:Fireball is especially good for having access to Burning from the start, makes level 1 100% easier. Whurgarbl is also good for that. And obviously, Viper Wards are amazing.

3. Taking into consideration the above, here are four Deities which are very good for Monks to worship:

-Taurog
Most straightforward by far. Get the Sword and the Armour asap. Any Monk with the +5 base damage, +10% bonus damage and 65% physical resistance will wipe the floor with most dungeons. Even with Monsters that have a magical attack, a Monk with high enough damage can take on +1 level monsters in most cases if you make good use of your glyphs (and you can get away with some spellcasting under Taurog, since he gives tons of Piety).

-Binlor
If you're facing lots of Magic attack enemies (especially with a magical-attack boss), this guy will give you tons of Magic resistances. Farm out his Piety as best as you can while leveling up on choice targets. As you gain more Magic Resist you'll start having an easier time facing a wider variety of foes. Also of note: Binlor boosts your damage a lot if you use his Stone Fist (knockback) and Stone Form (Might on wall destruction) boons well, which is very helpful for the Monk. The only danger with this Deity is that you need blackspace to fuel his Piety gain, so be careful not to overexplore early. It's a tough balancing act, but he gives a more consistantly effective Monk than Taurog (if not slightly less ridiculously powerful under ideal conditions). ALSO TAKE CARE NOT TO BE PUNISHED BY BINLOR! (a death sentence for most monks)

-Dracul
This Deity is amazing with most characters, but there are a few key factors which go really well with the Monk. The most obvious is Blood Shield: That extra 15% physical resistance, as with Taurog, is really great. The other is Blood Curse; if you've reached the point where you won't be gaining more levels, take Blood curse for an easy Piety boost which also increases your regeneration power! (because that's based on your level). The monk obviously doubly benefits from that since he's got that double regeneration trait. Finally, anything that increases your healing is stronger if you have good resistances, so the Monk does really well with Blood Tithe. Do remember that Blood Hunger (life steal boon) reduces your maximum resistances; while the Monk gets a bonus to his max resists (at 75% instead of 65%), if you're fighting physical resist monsters you'll pretty much always want the extra resists from Blood Shield, which would be nullified by the Blood Hunger penalty.

-Earthmother
This one is a bit less straightforward. One of the biggest boons for the Monk is simply the free IMAWAL glyph. This lets you petrify targets you'd most likely never fight anyway (such as level 9 Warlocks) to get more XP out of your choice targets. This is a huge help in saving blackspace. Also, getting a couple of shots of Vine Form and Greenblood is very helpful for the first few levels, as it boosts your damage (corrosion damage is helpful since you're hitting the enemies so many times) and damage reduction (again, very noticeable at low levels). The rest of her boons aren't mind-blowing for Monks (though Entanglement is arguably one of the best boons in the game), but you can always convert out if there are better options; you'll be off to a much better start.

Okay, so TL;DR: The Monk is a class with amazing strengths, but you have to work a bit early on to overcome the penalties that keep those strengths in check. You should play the class by picking choice high-level targets to level up as efficiently as possible, getting to as high a level as you can while leaving as much blackspace as possible for the boss. Boosting damage and further boosting resistances are the most efficient way to make the Monk completely unstopable. Finally, the Viper Ward/Halpmeh Glyph are especially valuable to the Monk, as are the Apheelsik and Burndayraz Glyph. Get the weakenign/corrosive curing potions as well.

Finally, the class just takes some practice to use efficiently, since it treats the game's resources differently from most classes. I hope this was helpful! If you have any questions, feel free to ask! Also if someone is really good with the Monk they're welcome to correct anything I said since, again, the Monk is really not my strong point.

Before I forget, here's an anotated walkthrough of a Monk game. Some of it might be basic for you, but it's especially useful since it discusses a formula for proper regen-fighting, which you should really familiarize with if you're playing the Monk (it's great to keep in mind with other characters too!)

http://www.qcfdesign.com/wiki/DesktopDungeons/index.php?title=Annotated_Playthrough:_Regenfighting

Also I have a video of myself playing through Monk Gold challenge. I don't play it very well, but I also don't get some of the more "overpowered" stuff like Apheelsik or Taurog, so it might still be helpful. I hesitate to post it here though since I don't know if you've seen it, and I'd consider it a spoiler unless you've gotten a chance to try it out yourself. Still, let me know if you'd like to see it! :)

*EDITED* for typo

[~'(^ + ^)'~]

Great advice! I don't really like using monks too but they are really great if you learn how to make use of their bonuses to your best advantage.

On a slightly unrelated note, correct me if I am wrong but I think Dracul's Blood Curse is really a penalizing boon to take. First, it makes you lose 1 level of potential stat gains (hp, mp, damage). Secondly, you can't take the boon anymore when you are level 10, so there is no situation where you can put it to good use and not avoid the potential stats loss. Raising your level "artificially" also makes you lose out on potential experience bonus.

The only good thing/(s) about it is if you need a higher level for a stronger Burndayraz damage especially against physical immune boss/monsters. Or when you need a higher level for first strike advantage, when you are an assassin with inherent class advantage, etc.

[Ordon Draconis]

You know, I may have done myself (and the monk) a disservice playing as I did. I hadn't played the monk previously. Then when I saw that I had 4-5 quests that all required a monk, I figured I'd play them all in a row, learning the monk's nuances as I went.

I'm thinking that maybe the quests were specifically "anti-monk" oriented. I'm serious when I say that I played game-after-game and never saw 50% damage resistance come into play. And because of that, I couldn't level enough to see double regen kick into high gear.

Maybe if I were to try the monk on random dungeons, I'd have a very different experience. In fact, I did eventually win the "anti-monk" scenarios, so a random run might turn out to be easy!

Thanks for the great info.

Also, I checked out your link. Your system of calculating power for regen fighting is very handy. I did it the slow slow slow way (going round by round adding, subracting, adding, subtracting).

[Ordon Draconis]

Also, your summary screen is new to me. I like the way it presented your run summary. Is that a mod?

[The Schachter]

You're absolutely right about Blood Curse. I probably wasn't clear enough on this, but I only advocate taking Blood Curse when you *know* you won't be gaining any more levels, at which point the stat loss and bonus XP loss no longer matters. (There may be some fringe cases where you would take it earlier, but I've never run into one)

So yeah, Blood Curse is great for the Monk specifically if you don't stand to be penalized by the artificial level gain, because that "artificial" level still increases the amount of health you regenerate per tile. Incidentally, this is also the reason why I pretty much never worship Glowing Guardian as a Monk; Humility is GG's best boon, but you feel the lower regeneration a lot as a Monk, while the extra damage you get from your levels is less than other classes.

EDIT: Oops, Ordon Draconis, looks like we posted at the same time! The above was addressed at ~'(^ + ^)'~. To quickly address what you wrote: You're most likely right that the special quests you're doing might be intentionally hard on the Monk. I recommend playing a few Den of Danger/Venture Cave runs; with the above info you should be able to stomp the dungeons with a bit of practice.

Also, I should have made clear, I did not write that annotated playthrough! It was written by Nurator, who you can find on the official forums (http://www.qcfdesign.com/forum) (and maybe also here? I forget) along with a bunch of other super-veterans of the game. And that summary screen is actually the old results screen from back when the game was in Beta. It was further fleshed out and made prettier shortly before release :)

[dislekcia!]

Schachter pretty-much nailed Monk general advice, I just wanted to add a couple of little extra tips:

-Bloody Sigil on Monks at low level is awesome, yes the damage penalty can be a thing (prep a badge from the Blacksmith to counteract it) but having 3 and then 5 regen per square at lvl 1 and 2 is fun. Convert it after that when you start needing more damage :)

-Burning's regeneration decrease effect on enemies is really useful for Monks at any stage of the game. It emphasises double regen and helps you be more resource efficient with blackspace.

-BLUDTOPOWA. Double regen... You don't "lose" the health regen from the tiles B2P reveals.

@Ordon Draconis: Yes, those quests are "anti-Monk" challenges. They're pretty much designed to be really hard for standard Monk tactics... They emphasise weird things like non-damage races to build a monk on, etc.