Does the Monk class suck now, or am I playing it wrong?

[Justin_760]

I found some old threads from the first PoE about how much fun the monk was to play, but in this game it seems totally useless. My attacks do a paltry 7-9 damage at level 5, while Xoti is doing 300% more damage with her little scythe despite not even being a melee class.

Also the vast majority of my hits miss, maybe one in five hits will actually do damage. In 5 hours of playing I have yet to use a single Monk ability, because the "wounds" resource is so damn ellusive. Every battle I do is over before I get more than a single wound, and the only skill I have costs 2, which I assume is the minimum required for any skill.

What is going on? Is it just unbalanced in Deadfire? Im about to scrap my playthrough and start over as a different class because its damn boring and Im getting stomped because of it. On a side note, does anyone know if this game has the console command from the first to go back to character creation screen to change class and whatnot?

[Flatbuffer]

what's your build ?

[Yaldabaoth]

My Xoti is a monk (unarmed), was weak at first but started crushing everything once she got stunning blow. Was holding my record for highest damage hit at 121 dmg, too. Aloth overtook her with 134. So... keep at it?

[Justin_760]

Originally posted by Stiglets:

what's your build ?

Um... Armor and fists? Im only level 5 but have been consistently underperforming to a vast degree since the start of the game. Somehow despite having the same health and armor as Eder, any hit will take out half my health where he will just get a chip.

I chose all the recommended stats for Monk in character creation, which I think was might, dex and resolve. Well I guess if Yaldabaoth says they arent broken, Ill keep at it.

[Esmian]

Monk is one of the hardest hitting classes. Did you take swift strikes? If you're having a problem with armor penetration early on, turn on haymaker.

[Flatbuffer]

Maybe you need more perception ? Perception makes you hit more and have actual hits or crits instead of grazes.

[Alatar]

my highest damage with my monk 959 in one hit :) and i didn't even use my potions

[Jotun]

Originally posted by Justin_760:

Originally posted by Stiglets:

what's your build ?

Um... Armor and fists? Im only level 5 but have been consistently underperforming to a vast degree since the start of the game. Somehow despite having the same health and armor as Eder, any hit will take out half my health where he will just get a chip.

I chose all the recommended stats for Monk in character creation, which I think was might, dex and resolve. Well I guess if Yaldabaoth says they arent broken, Ill keep at it.

Remove your armor. Take the two weapons style. Problem fixed.

[captain403]

Two weapons style w/dagger specialisation in off hand. Soulblade as multiclass. Melee god.

[madgamer2]

Originally posted by captain403:

Two weapons style w/dagger specialisation in off hand. Soulblade as multiclass. Melee god.

my monk doe not use weapons and does not need duel wield You can put a sweapon or two, depending on how many weapon slots you have but Monks FIGHT WITHOUT WEAPONS.

Open your character sheet and list the 6 stats and there value. If you are a level 5 and are getting wiped its because you might have the wron numbers or perhaps its your choices in leveling up.

[Armoth]

Take the hellwalker (think thats what its called) subclass. You will take more damage all around but you start with more wounds and it raises your might based on how many wounds you have. Be sure to keep that attack speed up as much as you can.

[captain403]

Originally posted by madgamer2:

Originally posted by captain403:

Two weapons style w/dagger specialisation in off hand. Soulblade as multiclass. Melee god.

my monk doe not use weapons and does not need duel wield You can put a sweapon or two, depending on how many weapon slots you have but Monks FIGHT WITHOUT WEAPONS.

Open your character sheet and list the 6 stats and there value. If you are a level 5 and are getting wiped its because you might have the wron numbers or perhaps its your choices in leveling up.

I'm not the OP. I'm not the one getting wiped.

And monks are not REQUIRED to fight unarmed. The off-hand dagger w/spec will give +10 to deflection, which is quite a boost early in the game. Later in the game you can drop the dagger for pure unarmed, but early in the game a dagger is an alternative to heavy armour for survival, and doesn't gimp your damage output to much.

[Morgian]

7-9 is fist damage for a non-monk. Monks deal 9-26 at level 1 with their fists. So you do something wrong, although I cannot divine from here what it is.

[billy]

Originally posted by Morgian:

7-9 is fist damage for a non-monk. Monks deal 9-26 at level 1 with their fists. So you do something wrong, although I cannot divine from here what it is.

this

OP I have no idea how you are only doing small damage with your monk , monks do good damage. My main is a monk with no subclass , monk kicks arse.

At even first level you see over 20 damage often.

And you get loads of wounds really quickly. you can spam your skills.

on normal difficulty you could afk and win 95% of fights letting the AI run round pummeling things.

[wendigo211]

For my second run I'm doing a Shattered Pillar/Soul Blade. I'm not a fan of any class that requires taking damage to charge up (particularly when it has no passive healing), so Shattered Pillar is the only monk class I would consider and its wound generation synergizes well with focus generation.

So far it's pretty strong, you do have to make sure you push accuracy and my monk had a 20 perception. They aren't a class that has a lot of accuracy buffs, although the accuracy buff from Transecendent suffering does seem to grow a little faster than weapon accuracy buffs. So you either need to rely on third party buffs (Devotions for the Faithful) or multiclass it with something that can buff itself. Also keep an eye out for any items that convert misses to grazes and grazes to hits.