I have never played a Monk

[Charlievox]

I am thinking about rolling one up just to round out my EQ resume. I have played every other class and enjoyed them all to some extent. Except the Bard, he only lasted three hours. /mourn.

What race is best and after that, what are the Five things I most need to know about playing a Monk?

[Nixtar]

Iksar is the min-max race but any decently played monk will be an asset to any group they're in. If you group a lot the ikky regen won't make a lick of difference(if it does, work on avoiding damage on pulls).

Make an FD macro. If you haven't turned off auto-attack it will fail.

Work on your sneak. Sneak pull + FD = single pulls all day. You might put the enchanter to sleep doing this though, but if this happens give one mob for the chanter to charm.

If you're forced to tank, demand people rooting(proxy aggro)/snaring because otherwise the mobs might just start ping-ponging between mobs.

Probably my favourite class in EQ. Very versitile. When you get your pulling technique down people will love you to the point when they will actively send you tells asking if you wanna hunt with them.

[maskedmelon]

Iksar get, forage, ac bonus, regen and better stats. Unfortunately they are ugly as sin ^^

Humans get a -1 delay bonus to their fists at higher levels and don't look like ass ^^

Five things to know:

1. Turn- off attack before feign death. Best to macro it in.
2. When splitting mobs do not sneak while feigned until all mobs have started patching back.
3. Attacking while sneaking within the back 180 degrees of a target will result in a single pull so long as you and it do not have LOS and are within aggro range of other mobs.
4. Watch your weight. Monks get some nasty penalties when overweight and low on health. The standard penalties when not low on hp are not that bad, but are noticeable.
5. Purge aggro. If you are not tanking flop and drop aggro whenever you have it. You can and should help the tank by eating a few blows if mend is up though.

[Man0warr]

I never liked macroing Feign Death, sometimes had weird lag. I have auto-attack set to Q so by habit I just click it off before hitting my FD button - didn't take long to get used to and its second nature now.

[snots]

2. When splitting mobs do not sneak while feigned until all mobs have started patching back.

Again, please stop misleading new monks with this erroneous information. I don't know why you think this is how it works, but it's not.

What you want to do is to Sneak as soon after you have FD-ed as possible, so as to reduce the amount of time you have to potentially waste to get a successful Sneak in. If you sneak right after you FD, FD will come off cooldown like a second before Sneak. And if Sneak doesn't come off cooldown in the next 1-3 second after FD came off cooldown, you know the Sneak was successful.

It does not matter when you sneak when FD/Sneak pulling with relation to how the mobs will path back.

(If you're of lower level, Maskedmelon, your mileage may vary with what you're seeing agro wise.)

EDIT: The only two things that matter (basically) are 1. Was the Sneak successful? and 2. Are any mobs facing you when you're standing up again? If the sneak is successful and in a pull of three mobs, two are pathing back, you can stand up and only the one mob facing you will come (provided the two that are pathing back are behind the one facing you of course). End result is a single pull, only you made it happen faster than if you were waiting for all mobs to path back and then start trying to get succesful sneaks in.

[maskedmelon]

Originally Posted by snots [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Again, please stop misleading new monks with this erroneous information. I don't know why you think this is how it works, but it's not.

What you want to do is to Sneak as soon after you have FD-ed as possible, so as to reduce the amount of time you have to potentially waste to get a successful Sneak in. If you sneak right after you FD, FD will come off cooldown like a second before Sneak. And if Sneak doesn't come off cooldown in the next 1-3 second after FD came off cooldown, you know the Sneak was successful.

It does not matter when you sneak when FD/Sneak pulling with relation to how the mobs will path back.

(If you're of lower level, Maskedmelon, your mileage may vary with what you're seeing agro wise.)

EDIT: The only two things that matter (basically) are 1. Was the Sneak successful? and 2. Are any mobs facing you when you're standing up again? If the sneak is successful and in a pull of three mobs, two are pathing back, you can stand up and only the one mob facing you will come (provided the two that are pathing back are behind the one facing you of course). End result is a single pull, only you made it happen faster than if you were waiting for all mobs to path back and then start trying to get succesful sneaks in.

Snots, this is the way it works. Try it. I am not sure how it used to work or how it is supposed to work, only how it does work (on red, up through mid 50's) 100% of the time that sneak is successful. Just because you haven't noticed or don't understand a mechanic doesn't mean it works the way you think it does. If sneak is successful before the mobs begin to path back, they all leave at the same time and they will continue to leave at the same time on subsequent FDs. I'd encourage you to test it before arguing further ^^

[Synthlol]

False bits are bolded.

Originally Posted by maskedmelon [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Iksar get, forage, ac bonus, regen and better stats. Unfortunately they are ugly as sin ^^

Humans get a -1 delay bonus to their fists at higher levels and don't look like ass ^^

Humans have better stats than Iksar. Humans 5 more strength and stamina, while Iksar get 10 more dexterity and 15 more agility. Sure, iksar get more raw melee stats, but STR and STA are much more important than DEX and AGI.

Originally Posted by maskedmelon [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Five things to know:

1. Turn- off attack before feign death. Best to macro it in.

The best monks do this manually and habitually.

Originally Posted by maskedmelon [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Five things to know:

2. When splitting mobs do not sneak while feigned until all mobs have started patching back.

This is so wrong. You just need to be sneaking when you stand up. Hit sneak asap so that if it fails, you next chance for it to work comes sooner.

Originally Posted by maskedmelon [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Five things to know:

3. Attacking while sneaking within the back 180 degrees of a target will result in a single pull so long as you and it do not have LOS and are within aggro range of other mobs.

Sneak actually works in the back ~250 degrees, as in it still works if you are at a mob's side. You don't *have* to be behind them.

[maskedmelon]

Originally Posted by Synthlol [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Humans have better stats than Iksar. Humans 5 more strength and stamina, while Iksar get 10 more dexterity and 15 more agility. Sure, iksar get more raw melee stats, but STR and STA are much more important than DEX and AGI.

Nah ^^ Those extra 20-25hp will help on very rare occasions, very rare... How many times have you survived a combat round, feigned or whatever with less than 1% hp? I am guessing you can count them with your fist ^^ Sure it adds an extra 5hp or so to your mend and gives the cleric a free ch every 1-200 heals or so.

Originally Posted by Synthlol [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

The best monks do this manually and habitually.

Ok, you got me... I am not the best. I freely admit that ^^

Originally Posted by Synthlol [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

This is so wrong. You just need to be sneaking when you stand up. Hit sneak asap so that if it fails, you next chance for it to work comes sooner.

Ok, try this. Tonight (or tomorrow or next time you are in Norrath on your monk. You have one right?) Pull a few mobs and make sure the stack on you when you feign. Then think of me ^^ <3 and spam that sneak key. Watch. And learn ^^ It really does work. Now, it is only a concern if the mobs are stacked on you because then they will be the last thing to leave you and if they go at once as a clump, even the sploitastic sneak pull fails (alongside harmony). If you have a string of mobs spaced out from you it doesn't matter. Maybe that is where the confusion was coming from??

Originally Posted by Synthlol [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Sneak actually works in the back ~250 degrees, as in it still works if you are at a mob's side. You don't *have* to be behind them.

[/QUOTE]

Very cool ^^ That I did not know. I'll give it a try tonight. 110 degree frontal cone seems like an odd number, but ok ^^ If it works it works ^^ Tyx

[Man0warr]

As long as sneak is successful before you stand up (and the mobs aren't facing you obviously) it doesn't matter if you sneak before or after mobs turned around.

[Synthlol]

Originally Posted by maskedmelon [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Nah ^^ Those extra 20-25hp will help on very rare occasions, very rare... How many times have you survived a combat round, feigned or whatever with less than 1% hp? I am guessing you can count them with your fist ^^ Sure it adds an extra 5hp or so to your mend and gives the cleric a free ch every 1-200 heals or so.

I didn't say it wasn't marginal, I said it was better. The 5 extra STA results in 20 more hp at level 60, which on it's own is better than 15 AGI and 10 DEX. The 5 extra STR is just gravy on top. I've survived fights with critical levels of hp many more times than you have predicted, and I've just barely died many more. In the former case it was a tiny bit of additional HP that saved me, and in the latter I could have been saved by just a few more. I'll take that a small amount of HP over another proc every hour and a few points of broken AC any day.

Sure, it's just 20 hp. But if you think that 20 hp doesn't matter, you'll also likely think that a djarn's isn't worth it over a platinum fire wedding ring. And that a heiro isn't worth it over a hooded black cloak. And you won't allocate your starting stats to stamina either. This attitude will cause you to constantly miss out on additional hitpoints, and the end result will be that your character will have hundreds of HP less than they could because you don't realize that HP is king.

Originally Posted by maskedmelon [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Ok, try this. Tonight (or tomorrow or next time you are in Norrath on your monk. You have one right?) Pull a few mobs and make sure the stack on you when you feign. Then think of me ^^ <3 and spam that sneak key. Watch. And learn ^^ It really does work. Now, it is only a concern if the mobs are stacked on you because then they will be the last thing to leave you and if they go at once as a clump, even the sploitastic sneak pull fails (alongside harmony). If you have a string of mobs spaced out from you it doesn't matter. Maybe that is where the confusion was coming from??

I'm really not sure what effect you are claiming that sneaking while flopped has on a monk attempting to split with sneak pull. The best I can tell is that you are claiming that sneaking while flopped causes all mobs to path back to their spawn points simultaneously, and this is 100% false on the blue server. I've always know that this is not the case, and to be sure I confirmed it with my monk moments ago.

Can you clarify why you think it's a bad idea to sneak while flopped before all the mobs have begun to return to their spawn points? I did what you said and saw the same behavior that I've seen on the thousands of sneak pulls I've done.