Monk vs Bard
 

Hello all,

Trying to decide between monk or bard for a melee class.

Overall thoughts on which is more fun for end game. I realize both are pulling classes which catches my eye, monk has FD, bard has swarm kiting.

I just started on Friday so no ability to twink out a toon so want one that can potentially make some money to twink out alts later as well.

Thanks in advance.

Depends on how you want to play. As a MELEE class specifically, Monk is leaps and bounds ahead of Bards in the melee department. So if you are looking to mostly melee, go Monk.

Bard will probably be more profitable as a first toon, since they don't really need gear to do their job. You just need to learn the class.

Monk way better twinked. Bard will be a better non twinked class. Imo though get rich playing an enchanter then twink out a monk or bard. My twinked bard is a blast and there’s much more to them than just swarm kiting.

Thanks guys.

Is it really worthwhile to make an alt to make money first? Feel like that is going to take like 6+ months to get to a level that is meaningful for making money no?

End game raiding monk will do 80% of pulling where bard will do some FTE races like VP.
Monk is a DPS/pull class.
Bard is more a Support/pull class.

Anything requiring an actual split will typically be done by a monk and not a bard high end bc of FD.

Bard offers so much. Can charm kill. Swarm. Fear kite. Charm adds for more dps in grps. Has lull and as long as no crit fails you can split mobs easy. Also has maybe the best snare in game.

Monk has superior dps and oh sh!t button FD.

As a bard you may not kill as fast as a monk but you have so many tools to get the job done with out much if any downtime.

As a starting class I’d go bard don’t need anything to start.
Monk needs weight/coin reduction bags so you don’t go over your limit. *not required but helps!

A class like Monk can solo decently well naked due to Mend, damage skills, FD, and increased fist damage. However, Monks have a weight restriction. If you do not follow it, you will lose a chunk of AC every time you go over the target weight. This makes farming on a Monk more difficult naked, because you have no good weight reduction bags. This means you are either very limited on what you can carry, or you need to just take the AC loss, which will make your naked soloing harder.

This is why people tend to make a money farming class first. Quite a few classes in Everquest just can't really farm money that well naked. So if it is your first toon, it will take you a much longer time to level and farm naked. In a much shorter time span, you could basically level a naked Necromancer to it's mid 30s (which doesn't take long), and you can farm at least 300pp per hour at Halfling Guards. With that money, the character you really wanted to play can have a nice leg up right out of the gate. This is especially true on Blue, where you can get a lot of great stuff pretty cheap.

Make bard, sell ae kite runs, profit.

I’m currently level 27 on my monk. First character on the server and I’m fairly new to EQ in general.

If you roll Iskar your level 1-20 will be really comfortable. You can do FOB from 1-10 and then Kurns from 10-20. At these levels I ignored the weight limit and looted what I could to make plat. Save your bone chips and burynai armor drops from Kurns to sell later. Also skill up tailoring to 20 and carry a sewing kit around with you when you’re in the FOB. Spider silk doesn’t stack, but the silk swatches will. While leveling to 20 I skilled up brewing to make the Heady Kiola and tailoring to make my own cured silk. This was likely a waste of money since it did cost me a bit to level both brewing and tailoring, but in the end it was really satisfying. I grouped most of my time in the FOB and Kurns. Very easy to find or start a group. On a side note, while at Kurns I grouped with 5 necros. It was a lot of fun chain pulling back to the group and watching all their pets quickly murder each pull.

At around level 20 I took all of my savings and anything I think I could sell and headed for EC. I ended up making the run there. After getting a bind I sold everything I could and had enough for my initial goal of buying a Wu’s quivering staff. With that I headed to Oasis for a couple levels followed by killing ogres in Timorus Deeps. The ogres drop a good amount of raw plat (up to 2p on a single kill) and will occasionally spawn with FS weapons. I used the gypsy in oasis to sell and buy bandages. I also farmed some deathfist belts which I sold in the EC. After a couple levels I hit my next goal of 450p which is enough to get a set of 55hp 5ac rings.

That’s when I decided to head back to Cab and level on giants in WW. At level 24 soloing was a bit of a pain, but again it was really easy to find groups. Now at level 27 I can solo there easily. If you’re lucky there money can be pretty good too. I’ll still group there even though it’s worse xp, since I don’t enjoy competing for spawns or too much downtime. I also can’t reliably solo the evergreens yet from 50% hp.

Overall it’s been great leveling a monk and the most fun I’ve had playing the game. It’s a really active class, so you need to enjoy that, as you’ll be tasked with pulling most of the time. You won’t be a powerhouse right away, but you should be decently geared by your mid 20s. It seems like it will be some time before I get any significant upgrades since the next big items are really expensive (haste and a good dual wield combo, eventually epic and fungi).

Don’t sell your bone chips for less than 8p a stack. They will sell for at least that much, but try to sell them for 10p if you can. The burynai armor will sell for 10-20p depending on the piece. You should be able to get a Wu’s quivering staff for between 400-700p. I was impatient and bought it for 700, though I saw them going to 600 earlier that day (just didn’t have enough plat yet).

So no you don’t need to be twinked to enjoy playing a monk. I’m sure it makes it much better, but it’s hard to beat the feeling of satisfaction you get when you finally get some gear you’ve been eyeing. I personally wouldn’t bother playing another class that you’re not interested in to get to play what you actually want.

You don't need to be twinked to play any class, especially not a Monk who can level 1-50 with full naked.

Best way to enjoy game is to play the class you want to be and roleplay to the max. Someone may get more in game plat than you with their junky farming class that you have no interest in- let them do that. If you start treating the game like a job (how can iget the most wealth and achieve my goals fastest) you will probably have less fun.

Best is to go on a quest and have a good time. If you level to 60 and raid you will get all the best armor. Maybe your overall hours could be reduced if you farmed on 1 class then gave that profit to the monk then power leveled the monk then raided but it will be close to a wash and you spend a ton of time on a class you don't want to be and don't get to spend that time enjoying your favorite class, and in the end will suck at playing that class because you didn't make level 1-59 work the old fashioned way.