Monk - Iksar or Human

[commongood]

Hello,

I've played a necro all my life on P99 and the innate regen from the iksar is a great boon and for many players the deciding factor when choosing their race. This kind of makes sense as regen directly interacts with the necromancer lich-spell line and as such directly influences effeciency (at least at lvl 60).

My question is - how important a role for a lvl 60 monk does regen play? I don't have any particular affinity for humans or iksars so my choice is not biased by feelings or nostalgia... it's mainly a quesiton for me of weighing up the regen vs the 20% exp penalty and the inconveniance of being hated more places as an iksar.

So what do you experienced monks think? Will I regret not having that 11/9/8 sitting/feigned/standing regen at lvl 60 when I play my human monk at raids or in groups etc?

Or is regen not that crucial for monks once at 60?

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[Xap]

I don't play a monk but i'll share my opinion!

If you are concerned about min/maxing and soloing is something you're likely going to do on the long journey to 60, Iksar is the clear winner. Regen + AC Bonus are fantastic, especially 50+. Iksar will have issues with vendoring, banking and training outside of Kunark. They also have a 20% exp penalty.

Having said that, remember this is a 20 year old nerd elf sim, and min/maxing in a game like this is kinda ridiculous. Human get a slight edge on their H2H ratio, and will have no problem being in all good/neutral cities. Humans also look incredible in Velious gear.

I think in a game like EQ playing the race you like looking at, or enjoy the lore of is a better idea. Who cares about a +12 hp regen if you don't like how your character (which you're going to spend 100's of hours staring at) looks.

On a similar note, the 'best' race for Shamans is brought up alot on the forums, and was equally discussed on live. It's generally considered to be Ogre>Troll/Iksar>Barb. Ogre have FSI, Troll and Iksar have regen, and Barb have no xp penalty. If Troll had no regen I would still play a Troll because I just love the classic EQ Troll models and the lore of the race. Also worth noting some of the best geared and best played Shamans on the server are not Ogres, and the same can be said about Monks.

[Pyrion]

If you have access to healers all the time and do not intend to solo much, human should be OK for you. If you solo part time, better be iksar. You get less xp, OK. But you have much less down time and therefore more fun while playing.

Faction problems are not that hard to overcome one way or the other. There *are* vendors out there for you. With FD there are creative ways to bank (risky though). And the whole faction thing can even be an interesting sub game if you are into that.

[SiouxNation]

You have to weigh the options for what you want. Objectively the Iksar monk will perform the best and have the best stats.

I always prefer the look and feel of a Human Monk though. As Xap said, they look amazing in Velious gear.

[Siberious]

Also to note, Iksar monks have 0 issues banking, you simply FD bank out of LOS in any city. Also vendoring is easy, just sneak behind a vendor and sell/buy. Can also wine faction in Neriak.

I've had 0 issues doing anything on my monk as an iksar compared to human. Only slightly noticeable thing is XP penalty, which the regen/ac easily cancels out imo.

[Nixtar]

Biggest weakness for human (eru, barb, hum) characters is now they're almost blind during the night. I re-rolled all my humanoid characters because of it. Wasn't a problem before but the devs did something and unless you got easy access to ultravision it isn't worth the fashionquest.

Yes, I know "shit's classic". Just a word of caution.

[Zentile]

I have heard others say that choosing Iksar is like adding a BIS NToV drop to your character for free. But I honestly don’t think that does it justice since worn regen is capped at 15 on P99. Therefore I’ve updated that view a bit:

Rolling an Iksar is like altering the code in the game to give you a permanent advantage over human monks that is far more valuable than a BIS NToV drop.

Zen

[Synthlol]

Iksar are better. They get an innate AC bonus, and the Iksar AC bonus is not only added to the total AC soft cap (like a shield), it is multiplicative with the innate Monk AC bonus. This means on top of their race bonus, Iksar also get a larger Monk AC bonus than Humans do. Iksar also get the famous regeneration bonus.

Faction issues are largely not an issue since monks get sneak, allowing them to cheese the factions requirements of all merchants and most quests.

Now, humans have their advantages too. Humans get more HP (+5 base stamina = 20hp @ 60) and better resists (+10 svc). Although these bonuses are marginal, hp and resists are a pulling monks most important stats. I still recommend Iksar.

[mefdinkins]

My human monk was about level 17 when Kunark was released?

At that point I thought, "oooh what a pain starting over." Huge mistake for sure. As I progressed I used the XP penalty (which was 44% then not 20% - so now days you're only as bad as a Human Monk used to be) and faction issues (well that could be annoying!?) to justify not re-rolling. Then I finished jboots, then I finished 45 (what a hell level!!) then I got deeper and deeper, kept getting upgrades, etc. and never did it.

When Velious started, I was playing my other chars more so than my monk but finally started to see how overpowered monks were. Monks solo'ing blues that I couldn't imagine pre-velious or killing Lodizal or Ragefire on their own with no assistance - is crazy. I saw people start to gear out and get 10th rings and Vulak weapons and iksar monks were doing crazy things.

At that point my human monk was stuck "in a time capsule" of the Kunark era, she hadn't really had any Velious upgrades - if I wanted to start investing energy into her it would mean replacing a lot of items. So I said, F it. Took all her droppable items and tink bags and created a level 1 Iksar Monk and have 0 regrets - ever since.

Iksar gets +regen, +AC. Iksar regen is incredibly game changing. Even if a nuke just happens to land on you and you need to sit FD to get back up - the regen is huge. Solo'ing it decreases downtime exponentially.

If you have a Fungi, Iksar, and 10th Ring, you're getting 370 hp regenerated every minute while running around from mob to mob? If I added up all the regen I've had on my iksar. I don't even remember the math but through level 59 on my iksar the regen alone (with fungi) it was like having someone log in every 14 minutes to cast a CHeal on me.

So yes, don't make the mistake I made and roll human. If you're concerned about XP... yes it can be a pain but don't worry about it - once you get to 60 this server isn't going anywhere so you can be 60 foreverrrrrrrrrrrrr - getting there a couple days earlier isn't worth losing the regen or AC. Go iksar it's way better. I still park my human monk random places to do little stuff so it's cool to have a character like that but now my iksar monk is far beyond my human in gear - with some easy to do Velious upgrades. I wish I just re-rolled from the start.

[Baler]

Pre-Kunark: Human
Post-Kunark: IKSAR