the only thing i recomend is that howling fist should attack from position 1 and 2, you rarely get to go into position 3

Hey man, here i am with a detailed list of my thoughts on the Class Mod so far. I have done a good bit of runs with this guy and can provide some input.

The Monk is a Hero who stands to me as being regulated into either Position 1 or 2 which means he takes the front spot and needs to be able to stand his ground to fend for himself. He provides good damage and reach with situational, but powerful healing if he needs to cover his allies. My concern for him so far is that he is a little too squishy to take punishment despite his small base PROT, and he could benefit gaining a few extra Hit Points (+3-5 or so HP) to aid him in tanking, his DODGE, CRT, DMG and SPD are all good and does not need adjustments.

Now onward to Skills.

"Dragon Tail": A standard Attack with usual Position requirement and very good reach. There isn't much to say about this one besides that it sets up for a Howling Fist next turn with a strong increase in it's CRT chance. There isn't much to say besides that it is a decent Ability.

"Howling Fist": With a requirement of being strictly in Position 1 to use it, it better do something great. Well, it is a good move, but the balancing is a bit over the place. To state first, it's % Chance to apply it's Debuff is very inconsistant and weirdly scaled, it should scale more like how things do in the main game which is 100% at Level 1, gaining 10% each time it is increased in Level, ending on 140% at Level 5. It's PROT Debuff is also a tad too high, it could afford losing a few points. But in terms of damage, i feel this Ability is rather weak despite the added +CRT from Dragon Tail. It's DMG Mod should probably be -10% rather than -20% or at least 0%. It is otherwise a good Ability with a tiny bit of Heal added to it along with a strong boost to Dragon Tail next turn.

"Iron Mountain": Double hitting? Decent damage with Armor Piercing? Knockback and Corpse Clear? This is just a great Ability all in all. It's requirement of needing to being in Position 3 or 2 makes it a little tricky, but it is otherwise a fantastic Ability. No changes needed.

"Sweep Kick": Unfortunately quite overpowered. It is a Stun with a massive (albeit short-lasting) SPD Debuff that comes on decent damage and a substantial buff to all DMG Abilities, with the exception of Sweep Kick itself. The bonus, albeit nice kinda defeats the purpose of chaining together Dragon Tail and Howling Fist as it provides a better bonus to Dragon Tail compared from Howling Fist itself. The balance it out, i suggest reducing the SPD Debuff by quite a lot (-3 at Level 1) and reducing the Buff it provides so it's less beneficial than even Dragon Tail and Howling Fist combined (but still a decent enough buff, like +5% CRT and +10% DMG.)

"Transfer": A situational but very powerful on demand heal. Though i haven't tested it much currently, it could potentially be too strong in the future when covering Heroes. It has some drawbacks to it, which is good. But i feel it needs to be a little less leisure on it. Simply add a Self-Mark unto the Ability so enemies are more likely to target him if he uses it. I will continue to monitor this Ability in particular and provide more future answers.

"Mantram": I think it's supposed to just be "Mantra", but i digress. A small Party Heal with a PROT Buff associated to it makes it overall fairly solid, even at the cost of your own defenses. I have yet to test this Ability more for further input, but it seems the Tooltip Text is a bit messed up upon it's upgrade from Level 2 to Level 3 whereas it starts saying in it; "Except [<buff_rule_data_tooltip_mantram>]. Might wanna get that fixed.

"Inner Fire": A move of many different effects with varying % Chances. Where do i begin... With this Hero being very frontline dependent, this would naturally strike as a Ability that'd come in handy. Except it is a bit unreliable. But i think it's mostly fine that it is, but i have a few pointers how it could be made better. First, make the Self-Heal guaranteed, slightly higher but a still wide result, like 1-6 Heal at Level 1, gaining higher ending values at each Level, but always at minimum 1 at very bottom. Secondly, make it 100% chance of triggering Riposte. Stress Heal, buff to Iron Mountain and Buff to DMG are all fine being % chance based as they currently are.

Camping Skills are all fine, just make "Acupressure" 100% chance instead of 80%.

And that finishes my review, hope it has been helpful! I'll continue to play this Class and see if i can provide some added input. I am still looking for some of his Trinkets so i can rate them accordingly as well. Peace out!

I read that all! and thank you very much♡♡♡! that's great to MOD!
there are many helpful opinion!

I'd also like to offer my opinion on your mod.

First of all, I absolutely love the design, you nailed the artstyle pretty damn well, very high quality.

Now, about his base stats. His resistances look just right, don't think they need an tinkering.
His base DMG I think could stand to loose 1 or 2 points as, in my opinon, he is actually overperforming in the damage department due to all the buffs he can apply to himself.
Currently he has only 1 damage less than the Highwayman, the base game's definitive front rank squishy agile damage dealer, but compared to him the Monk has better accuracy, better support and better overall damage, easily outperforming him in battle.

The base 10% PROT is interesting, but I kinda feel like it only exists so you can use it for negative effects. :>
I'm actually not sure if it's a good idea to give him base prot, it's actually a really powerful stat as it turns many 1 damage attacks into 0 damage ones, easily saving you 10-20HP.
If it really only exists so you can use it for debuffs then I'd recommed removing his base prot, buffing his HP by like +6 and switching out the -PROT debuffs to +damage received debuffs (Leper has this on his Revenge skill) which would be almost the same thing but in my opinion would be a slightly cleaner solution.

Moving on to his speed. Not much to say but I think his original 9 speed was perfectly fine.
Dodge and base crit also seem good.

Now onto his moves:
Dragon Tail: a pretty basic melee attack that sets up Howling Fist. I can't see anything wrong with it, it's seems perfectly fine.

Howling Fist: this is a pretty powerful move, great crit chance (especially after using Dragon Tail), heals a bit (1-3HP depending on the level), removes protection AND has a very generous damage modifier. But the fact that it's only useable in the first position and can't be spammed as it moves you to the second position is probably just enough to balance it out. I think the chance scalling on that PROT debuff could be nerfed to 100-140% but that's it.
(I don't know if you know this, but critical hits actually increase the chance of applying status effects by like 20% iirc. So the fact that this move has high crit chance means that it's pretty much guaranteed to stick with the current percentages)

Iron Mountain: This is pretty much the Leper's Purge but way, way, way better, this attack might just be a bit OP. I don't think this needs Armor Piercing at all, the higher than usual chance on that double(!!) knockback already makes this extremely powerful. Plus it moves him into a more favorable position.
Here's an idea; I noticed that pretty much all of his attacks but this one applies a buff or debuff to him, so how about this:
keep the knockback the way it is, remove the armor piercing and the corpse clearing. Then add a 2 or 3 turn +10-25% ignore_protection buff. This way his next attack will pierce armor keeping that idea alive while also bringing this ability down to a more reasonable level.
Tho you might have already tried this, looking at the .effect file.

Sweep Kick: Can't really say much about this, a really powerful skill with a good animation. I'd perhaps lower the dmg modifier to like -70% due to that self buff, but that's all.

Transfer: Now we are getting into the "weird" territory. This ability is rather peculiar. I love the concept, the Monk essentially sharing his Chi, or something along his lines. But Transfer has some weird scaling issues. First of all, as you level it up it actually gets worse?!
Well, almost.
The main heal (recently nerfed to 20%) is static all the way through. The secondary heal increase substantially, but tbh I'm not even sure why this move has that secondary heal. Why not just increase the percentage on the main heal? I'd love to know your reason for this. My best guess is so it can potentially crit twice and heal 8 stress, but I dunno.
The second aspect of this skill is the payment: you pay an increasing amount of raw HP (5/6/6/7/8). The fact that this increases as you level up the skill seems a tad odd at first but when I compared to his base HP I came to the conclusion that the HP percentage he pays actually decreases (from ~29% to 24%). So it's perfectly fine.
What is very odd tho is that the very next effect is a health regen effect on the monk, which turn the actual cost of the ability into 4/4/4/3/2. This seems a bit messy, why not just have the HP cost at 4/4/3/3/2 to begin with? Is it so the Monk can potentially crit heal for a bit more HP and stress relief?
(Btw, if you take my above advice and change the -PROT debuff to +damage received debuff than be mindful that that also afffects this HP toll, turning it into a 6/7/7/8/9 cost)
Finally the last aspect of this ability: a PROT and dodge debuff. Alright, this makes sense, the heal is very potent an... hold on, this debuff actually increases as you level it up? What, why?
This last fact pretty much means that it's better to NOT level this up and leave it as a level one skill forever, it only gets weaker. No skill does this in the base game.
So in conclusion, I think this skill could use a bit of simplification and the removal of the debuff scaling.

Mantram: I'm sorry, I want to appreciate the idea behind this skill, but this is just plain awful. For a marginal amount of healing you completely nullify your defence for a whooping 5(!!!!) turn.
The base idea is cute, you activate your Riposte then this skill and wait to be attacked. Your hits are guaranteed to be critical hits, triggering the Monk's party healing. The big problem is that because his defence is nullified he is guaranteed to get hit, loosing a ton of HP in the process and potentially even dying: each of his crit hits would heal 2% +2HP +potential crit bonus. Now here's the big thing: that 2% HP on the most robust hero at max level (Leper with 63 HP) is a whooping 1.26 HP, which rounds up for 2HP. So he can potentially heal 4x4x2HP on every character and a bunch stress (not on himself, of course, cause stress received debuff).
Sounds pretty good, right? No, because that would mean that every heal critted but also because he has 0 Dodge and thus guaranteed to get hit (especially in Champion dungeons where every monster has like 90-100 Accuracy and can also easily deal 15-20HP damage in a single non-crit attack). So he is going to be making Death's door checks after like the second attack if not the first. Furthermore this healing effect only lasts one turn and relies on getting attacked. If he doesn't get attacked then nobody gets healed and you simply wasted a turn to activate an otherwise pretty useless skill.
Luckily tho this is a pretty easy fix in my opinion: Just remove the dodge debuff and if it turns out to be too powerful then add a medium +damage_received debuff. That way it's actually a high-risk, high-reward move instead of just straight up suicide.

Inner Fire: His final skill is pretty okay, tho I don't get why Riposte triggering is chance based, especially since it's supposed to combo with Mantram. Unreliability in this case is not good balance. Everything else is fine imo, even if the possibilty of rolling 0 on the heal sounds aggravating XD

Camping skills:
Acupressure: buffs should be 100% guaranteed
Tranquility should be a 3 cost skill as it's self only
Conviction Mantra: one of the buffs should be 80% instead of guaranteed

Trinkets: Most of them look pretty solidly designed, each fitting a different playstyle.
Have yet to find his CC trinket, but his COM trinket seems pretty bad, it has a massive downside, -5 speed AND -20% max HP AND it doesn't buff Transfer? Feels kinda garbage.

Phew, and with that I finished typing up this massive wall of text.
If you managed to read through ot it all: I hope I managed to convey my thoughts in a clear and understandable way and I hope my input helped.

Good luck, Hellintz!

To follow up what R20LEGEND said. I agree to most of his points, but there you don't always have to change characters to scale the same as the current Heroes. "Iron Mountain" is indeed very strong, even more when compared to the Leper's "Purge", but it's like comparing the Crusader's "Battle Heal" to the Vestal's "Divine Grace". Divine Grace is clearly much stronger than than Battle Heal, so Iron Mountain being stronger than Purge is fine... to add to this; We have to realize that the Monk has SUBSTANTIALLY lower Base DMG compared to the Leper, secondly this Ability is only allowed to be used Once before it puts you out of position to repeatably spam it. In turn, this ends up being a very balanced but still good move.

The Monk is indeed all too squishy to act consistantly as a Front Liner still. He has less HP than even a Jester! Which is one of the squishiest Heroes there are, the Monk needs to have at least a maximum of 44 HP at Level 5 Armor so he can hold his ground for being regulated into the front.

"Howling Fist": Still has it's Debuff % Chance scale really weirdly, it's pretty needed that it should scale 100/110/120/130/140% to be consistant with in-game scalings.

"Sweeping Kick": It's still all too powerful, the SPD Debuff is too high, should be about halved. The Buff it provides is a little better to handle, but maybe you could decrease this Ability's DMG Mod into -70% like R20LEGEND suggested so it's less about the damage itself, but more about the utility.

"Transfer": It's a good thing you nerfed the % Heal of this Ability a little bit, but i agree with R20LEGEND, it kinda just scales really badly, which is something that can be fixed. Im OK with this idea of a two-part heal, because it keeps the Ability useful to heal squishier Heroes instead of only tough high Health Heroes. But consider upping the Flat Heal Amount a little bit, but leave the max HP Heal as it is.

"Mantram": Well, i agree, it's defensive Debuff is a little too high to make this Ability practical to use, loosen up the DODGE and PROT Debuff to the same as "Transfer" and then it should be a little more worthwhile to use.

"Inner Fire": Yep, Riposte should be 100% to trigger. If anything, the Stress Heal should be 66% based instead. I also think this Ability should Heal a bare minimum of 1 at all Levels instead of 0.

Camping Skills are all looking good now!

Although i feel the recent patches kinda hurt the Monk more than it helped him, but i hope these suggestions helps put him in his place so he can be great at what he's supposed to be good at!

It's true that heroes don't have to scale the same way and similar skills are allowed to be stronger on weaker heroes, I give you that Sifr, but this move is just insane, doesn't even come close to the Battle Heal - Divine Grace comparision. The difference between those two skills is 3HP healing and it's not a one-sided power difference as Battle Heal is more flexible than Divine Grace, being usable in every position not just the back 2.

Meanwhile Iron Mountain is just a straight up upgrade:
- hits 2 monsters instead of 1
- has 10% higher chance to knockback 3 (usually status effects that can hit more monsters at the same time are weaker, not stronger)
- moves him into a more favorable positon and can be used in more positions
- has better accuracy
- and even straight up deals more damage(!!!)

Some calculations to prove I'm right:
Let's say there are two champion Pelagic Guardians in the first two position. They have 50% PROT which is a 0.5 damage multiplier.
The Leper deals 0.5x.0.6x(13-26) damage to one of them = 4-8 damage
The Monk deals 0.6x(8-14) damage to both = 2 x 5-9 damage, so 10-18 in total.

Don't you think that's insane for a move that also has a high chance to instantly rearrange a party, forcing the monsters to use their weaker moves and put them into more vulnerable positions?

You can also compare this move to the Arbalest's Bola move:
that move can attack 2 targets as well, but only has 75% chance to knockback 1 and doesn't clear corpses. She deals 2x0.5x.0.5x(7-14) damage = 4-8 damage overall (so same damage as Leper)

Tho to be perfectly honest, Bola is the other side of the scale, it's so painfully trash that it's not even funny.

Also, you can combo Iron Mountain with Howling Fist for a quasi-spamming.


Regarding his base HP: in my opinion you are seriously underestimating the power of that PROT, it shaves at least 1HP off every attack (as enemy damage is always rounded down) which adds up really fast, his effective health is definititely at least Highwayman tier. Well, when he doesn't debuffs his PROT, that is.

If I would increase anything to improve his survivability I'd give him +5 dodge instead of more base health.
But that's just my opinion and it's ultimately not my decision. :>

I don't actually have this mod so take what I say with a bucket of salt, but from reading the others' comments I think he has an issue of being too squishy to front line. At the same time however, having base protection seems like a bit much. I get the idea of him reducing his protection for some of his skills, but giving base protection makes him very tough despite his low HP with the right trinkets.

To fix this I think he could have no base protection, but instead have his skills where he debuffs himself grant "+ X% damage taken" in order to make him take more damage from those skills without giving him base protection. In order to make him able to take more hits as a fighter, then, his HP should be buffed fairly significantly, I'm thinking somewhere in the 40-45 range at Level 6.

I also find it questionable that he's part of the "outsider's bonfire" when he's a monk. Monks are usually either Christian or Bhuddist, but either way they tend to serve higher beings (AKA gods) and so I don't thin it makes sense. Seeing as he has a wolf's pelt I assume he comes from somewhere in northern europe, which is where Christianity is predominant. As such, wouldn't it make sense for him to be religious instead?

That being said others have said he's very powerful, so he may need some nerfs in other areas to balance him out. That being said I haven't played him myself as I'm doing my first playthrough with no mods or DLC, so I'll have to wait to try him myself and see if he's too strong or not.

In any case this mod looks damn good, you matched the art style perfectly and he has a very interesting set of abilities, I can't wait to try it once I've finished my first playthrough.

thank you so much, guys. i read them all and I moved!♡♡♡
and this is description of my plan at making this character and skills, and answer to your feedbacks. maybe there are many weird or wrong sentences.

1. About PROT.
yes, He is actually stronger than the visible HP, and it has a similar armor to HWM. That's exactly what I intended. he is in foward position.
Why does he have PROT? Crusader does not have it either.
This seems to be an excuse to impose a panalty on him.
Actually, half of it is to give him a panalty. and half is it.
he is wearing only clothes and some vambrace. it is seen on his HP.
And his PROT, I wanted to express an shedding attack and a little dodge.
So I would like to keep this concept if it does not cause major problems in the balance.

2. Iron Mountain
I know this skill is too stronger than other skills.
I want to fix this problem with Debuff self, and slight -DMG mod
thank you.

3. Sweeping kick
yes, I'll take off half of the SPD debuff from this skill.

4. Transfer
When I envisioned this skill, I thought that he would give away his "Ki" to others.
It makes him exhaust, but he does not actually get hurt. Over time, he will have some energy.
but this will not be fully recovered.
--> so he spend his HP and recovered a little.
If there is only a% based recovery, this is very worse for those with lower Max HP.
So I added a fixed heal value.
The scailing of the Dodge Debuff seems to be a little weird. me too. i'll fix that.

5. Mantram
This previously had a slightly better DMG MOD, so large penalty was not noticeable.
But now that have a large panalty of DMG, and it does not require such a large penalty.
so this penalty will reduce as well.

6. Inner Fire
I think if this counterattack is invoked unconditionally, it will cause a serious balance failure.
Because it has the effect of healing others. but you are right too.
So I thought, Riposte's activate is set to 100%, reducing the chance of the counter.
And then, that will have riposte chance on hit - 67~100%, on miss 100%.

-------
Your feedbacks are very detailed and pointed! that must be spent great effort and time to write. thanks that you have used such efforts to improve my MOD. Thank you again!

I see, thank you for explaining the reason behind your decisions. c:
Helps re-evaluating my opinion on things.

PROT: As long as you don't overbuff his HP (which you haven't so far), I'm quite fine with the base PROT.

Transfer: Alright, the small regeneration is perfectly fine then.
It's true that the %based heal is worse on those with less base HP, but keep in mind that characters with less HP tend to have more Dodge, so they get hit less often.
And other healing skills (like Divine Grace) tend to be worse on high health heroes as they heal a fixed amount of HP so I don't think you really need to worry about this problem.

Riposte: Maybe just simply lower the base ACC of his Riposte if you want it to be a bit less reliable.
I fear that if you changed .riposte_on_hit_chance_add to 67% then people would get upset and complain that it's bugged since the counterattack didn't trigger while they had it active.

Looking forward to testing out the planned changes.

I feel like the buffs he gets are a bit too strong. At level 1 he gets +10% crit to Howling Fist and +25% damage to Dragon Tail from comboing both abilities. That makes him extremely powerful IMO. I definitely think those should be toned down some. Maybe change it to 10-15-20-25-30% damage to Dragon Tail, and 3-6-9-12-15% crit to Howling Fist?

Also, this isn't really a balance change but more of a general suggestion: I feel like he should have a different name other than just Monk. Darkest Dungeon tends not to really follow traditional RPG classes. Instead of Cleric, Paladin, Barbarian or Rogue, we get Vestal, Crusader, Hellion and Grave Robber, for example. I feel like he should have a more unique name. For example: Nomad, Pilgrim, Ascetic, or Hermit.

think u should decrease his base damage, maybe by 1 or 2 points.
btw loved the mod <3

You saw my video, but I will add some more comments here. I still need to play around with the monk more, but I did like the way he was balanced. Looking at his stats, his only real weakness is low HP, so I think this is just part of his identity. If you buff his health, and nerf his damage, he's might become too similar to other healers. I really feel like he's a healer/damage hybrid, rather than like an Occultist or Vestal that rarely attacks.

-IF- you think he needs to be weakened slightly, I would decrease the damage buff on Inner fire from 30% to maybe 15%. But I do not think decreasing his base damage is correct. His damage is usually a reasonable amount. Overall, my advice to you, and to any mod creator. It's all well and good to listen to feedback, but please do not rush to change anything. Give it time, listen to more feedback, try it yourself, and be patient. Changing things quickly is a good way to create new problems. :D

And to the people who find him too vulnerable in the front row. Just try keeping him in positions 2 and 3. Don't use Iron Mountain, and you can easily bounce around in the middle rows and heal and riposte and stuff. It's quite a bit safer there. :3

Slayer1557 // oh, thank you and you dont have to afraid that monks damage. I wont nurf his damage anymore. Also latest patch is not reduce his damage.

I want to reiterate that I don't think it makes much sense for him to be part of the outsider's bonfire and not religious, since monks are usually religious. Adding him as a religious character would also nicely round out the religious heroes with a big damage dealer, as right now we only have 3 front line tanks (Crusader, Leper and Flagellant) and a support (Vestal).

That, and rather than giving him armor you could increase his health and make his skills that reduce protection instead give him a "X% more damage taken" debuff, similar to the Bounty Hunter's Caltrops. I think that would serve your goal of making him vulnerable after using those skills better, because the abilities that debuff his protection don't do much when he only has 10% base protection.

Also, having Mantram give the entire party 20% protection at level 1 seems way too strong, even if it does make the Monk himself more vulnerable.

I tried putting two monks in one party and they both said "it was to the benefit of neither of us." Why? How? A party of one Man at Arms and three Arbalests is not only unimpeded but it that party has a name; Jin Roh. A Four Crusader party is allowed, and it's famously useful. I'm frustrated that I can't have a whole party of monks and I can't see why not.