Monk disksFollow

Hello
I have dusted of my monk,to see what he gained on the auto grant aa,rarely play him,mostly just to do older content and do something different from my main 91 ranger.
He has all sorts a disks and never got a full grasp on what I should have loaded,seems a lot are tied together and now I have more,was wondering if anyone could give me a idea or what I should have up at all times.
Thanks

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You might also try Monkly Business if they're still around - used to be an awesome Monk resource.

Thanks for the replies
Monkly I've found and am sorting through the site,Computer dummy,LOL,was going for the easy out,didn't work.
So I will go to a Lb zone and figure out what has same cool down timer and what doesn't,than which disks are best.
Monk is sorta twinked,last year I farmed fabled items and full set Gnoll Amor,with the ranger.
And very welcome Snailish,will repost ,what I figure out.

This is the downside of auto-granting AAs and levels. NO class can be played easily at high level without practice and research. Consider it part of the fun of the game to LEARN YOUR CLASS. I've played monks more than once, leveling from 1up. Not sure why eventually I got tired of them once I reached about 60-70ish but they were fun prior to that. Their basic abilities weren't that hard to master. Monks get a lot of kicks/actions which are on the same timer and basically have the same effect, some extra damage. Ultimately it doesn't really matter which you stick with. The key monk abilities/discs, of course, are feign death and mend. Always have been, always will be.

IMO the problem with monks, like rogues, is while you CAN solo with them, their real purpose in the game is to excel as part of a group. Monks are great pullers---they used to be the best, in a class all of their own, but with the "great leveling" that Sony devs now seem dedicated to, other classes can pull as well if not better. In the "old days" my guild would be hesitant to even start a lot of raids until our key monk(s) logged in to join the raid force. Alas, those days are past.

Edited, Feb 21st 2014 7:46am by Sippin

I really like this Snail....I have always been one who didn't care when a PUG ( or guild group ) had some deaths as we learned to play together, and that attitude led us to try things we probably shouldn't have...but made the game fun for me...


Plus, it was usually me causing the dying ( Mutant Corpses littering the moon .... )

You learn more from playing your character leveling then you do playing your character getting AA> The reason for this is that while leveling you are typically trying to challenge yourself.. however if you are AA grinding you are trying to maximize the AA amount per kill. SO typically you choose the fastest exp possible by killing the weakest or easyiest mobs that still get a certain amount of reward. Low risk high reward... does not make a good player or teach you how to play your character. Leveling and working on how to level does. Unless you are being power leveled through those as well.

Boy, I'd disagree with that contention. World of difference between any class at 51 with zero AAs and say even 85 with 2000AAs. And yet another huge difference at 95-100 with 4000-6000AAs. Sure, you can learn the very BASICS of a class by leveling up to 51. Assuming you do that the ole-fashioned way, not being PL'd, being grouped as much as possible, taking the time to acquire spells and level up skills regularly, not just leaving them all to be picked up after the leveling is done. BUT that still doesn't mean by getting to 51 the ole-fashioned way you'll be capable at playing the same class at a much higher level and with the extra abilities and powers provided by thousands of AAs. TONS more to learn post-51!

Edited, Feb 25th 2014 8:01am by Sippin

I'm actually going to kinda disagree with both of you. An exp grind is an exp grind. What you have your AA % set to doesn't really matter. The same spots that are best for grinding AAs are also going to be best for grinding exp. I suppose the main difference is that if I'm just doing exp, I'm going to have to move camping spots more often. But you're still going to find the best spot, which allows you the most exp per hour, while presenting the least risk. And if you're being PL'd or grouping with folks higher than you to soak up exp, you're also not going to learn anything about your class.

Having said that, in EQ level 51 is really kinda the start of your characters skills and abilities. That's kinda the point of the AA system. Up to that point, the abilities/spells of the character are pretty standard and simple. It sill requires some learning and skill, and obviously one class is going to be different than another, but there aren't as many things to learn along the way. 51 is when your character will start gaining a lot more abilities. Learning what they do and how to use them is huge in terms of whether you're going to be a good or bad player of that character.

I'll also point out that with mercs and defiant in the game, getting to 51 is so fast that it's almost certain that you haven't learned much at all about your character at that point. Almost all characters play the same up to that level (send merc tank in to kill mobs). The differences between say a cleric and a wizard to that point are nearly academic. I'd actually say that merc tanks so overpower things that you probably wont actually have to use your own characters abilities to kill mobs until you're in your 60s. I mean, you use them all along the way, but you don't have to. At a certain point, the delta in result for using your character well versus poorly becomes large enough, and the level rate slows down sufficiently, that you'll actually start to finally learn how to play your character.


And in today's EQ game, that's well after level 51.

I agree completely. The main issue for me is that pretty much no one spends sufficient time in the level ranges that we used to have to spend a lot of time in that "learning your class" gets pushed back quite a bit. Back in the day, it might take you several months just to get a character to level 20. And months more getting high enough to enter the raid game. I remember returning to Faydwer around level 20 with my Dwarf Paladin (cause travel was so slow that you tended to stay in one area for a long time, hence "returning"), and felt like I was on top of the darn world at that level. I distinctly remember the excitement when I first got double attack and when damage for the first time exceeded the default (2xdam+1) equation. Weapons were slow enough (and haste rare enough) that you could watch each individual swing, dread a miss, hope for a hit, and hope for good damage.

You learned, maybe not just your class, but also the role you played in a group during those levels. That's just not the case anymore. No one spends 5 hours at a time pulling orc1 (in whatever zone that particular orc camp is in) at level 8 with 4-5 other characters, and having to work to break the camp and keep the spawns managed in order to maximize exp gain rate (and maybe gaining a bubble or two of exp at that level after doing all of that). The game is just so much faster that you don't have time to learn anything anymore. Not saying that's bad, just that you aren't going to learn much until you get high enough level that the game slows down enough for you to notice the tactics that are needed to succeed.


You're also absolutely correct that the roles and tactics of different classes can change radically over the range of their levels. Also, they'll change over time. Tactics which were godly back in the day (like say kiting giants in your mid 30s) are a complete waste of time today. If I were playing a new wizard from scratch, it's a good bet that I'd never use many of the tactics I learned the first time through. Using bolt spells to make root/nuke work better, for example. Hell, I'd wager most people who started their wizards in the last 4-5 years don't even know what bolt spells are, or how they work. They don't exist at higher levels. While my paladin still more or less fights the same way (meleeing mobs doesn't provide for a lot of variation), the specific spells and abilities are completely different. Hell, even just in the post 80 game, paladins get a whole set of different spells that change what you're doing during a fight. A couple lines of "hit target with something bad, while providing something good to targets target" spells completely change the spell lineup in my bar. A spell like remorse for the fallen changes how you approach and time your self heals. It puts a 2 charge effect in the short term window when you deal the final damage that defeats a mob, each of which nearly doubles the effectiveness of a direct heal spell. Certain discs change things radically (freaking armor of courage ftw!). And yeah, AAs change things as well.

I'd wager that about 80% of the spells and abilities I actively use on my Paladin in a fight simply didn't exist prior to maybe level 70. And I don't mean that specific spell, but the actual lines don't exist. The Ward of Tunare line (proc heals when you take hits) starts at level 70. Challenge spells (agro generation without having to use a stun) show up at level 72. Fast (.25 second) cast heals (the burst line) don't exist prior to level 73. The remorse spell I mentioned is level 75. The first "mark" spell (debuff that hurts the mob and heals his target when attacking. It's minor, but acts as a great pulling spell) shows up at level 79. Aurora group heals (heals each member just what they need, taking just the mana needed) don't appear until level 80. And that's just new spells. Add in new discs, and new hotkeyed AA combat abilities, and it's seriously a completely different game. It's not like the stuff I learned in the first 70 levels playing a paladin no longer applies (mob pulling and positioning is always important!), but that there's a ton more stuff you have to learn how to use properly and that maybe doesn't change the broad strokes of what you're doing (still pulling and tanking), but completely changes what buttons you're mashing, in what order, and at what times, and for what reasons, during the fight.


Hence my response to the idea that level 51 is even remotely the point at which you can have "learned your class". It really is just the beginning.