Monk Twink Contest: Budget, Moderate, High End

[Deverell]

Fungi is by far the best thing you can have. It's the sole thing that lets you solo reasonably past level 30, and you'll be able to solo up to 50 without trouble with it. Without a fungi, it probably stops being worth your time around level 30, maybe 35-40 tops if you're otherwise heavily twinked.

2x 5/55 rings are a must. Probably the best value for money in the entire game, it's the first thing I'd buy with literally any class.

You want hp in general. It helps so much with mend and bind wounds, essentially translating into regen that way. If you get enough hp that you can safely kill a blue mob with 50% hp, you can solo without downtime. That won't last forever, but certainly through your 20s and maybe 30s. This means Hooded Black Cloak, Glowing Bone Collar, Diamondine Earrings or the 35hp ones if you wanna pay absurd amounts of money for earrings.

The rest of your armor isn't hugely important because raw stats matter very little and you can't get high AC in most slots. There's a few staples such as Azure Sleeves, but for the rest of the set, either go with Wu's or get yourself a set of Crescent armor from Dalnir. When I made a monk alt back when Kunark opened, I was able to get a level 1 monk down there, log him out, and camp the stuff with my level 50 enchanter. Any level 50 soloable class should be able to do it. A couple of hours tops and you'll have a full set.

IFS is the best bang-for-buck weapon, I think it's down to like 9k or so by now. If you have the money to buy whatever you want, obviously get a T-staff. I wouldn't bother dual-wielding until 45+, it can't match up to a 2hander until then. Get the best haste item you can afford, but for the purpose of soloing, it's less important than your weapon and hp gear.

[mefdinkins]

I was wondering what you mean by - you wouldn't bother dual wielding till 45+? Right now I'm level 10 -- decently twinked, some of the stuff I just picked up myself, some of it I got in

Major pieces - Jboots (MQ'ed for these at level 1, I have to say I love em), FBSS, 55 rings, HBC, Exe Hood, Syth Hide Vest, Granite Bracer (I know the +stam stuff is pretty useless now).

I also picked up - Jade Mace x 2 and Wu's Quivering Staff.

So far JM is so much quicker / more DPS than Wu's.

I could try to get rid of the Jade Mace's and pick up a 'peacekeeper' or IFS but don't know when those will be worth it.

I was also wondering when random stuff like goblin skull shrunken earring is worth picking up? Price seems kind of steep for minor ATK increase?

[Deverell]

Of course the JM is better than Wu's staff at level 10, the damage cap is preventing you from benefiting from a weapon damage of more than 10. Once you hit level 20, Wu's will be better for a while since your dual-wield skill will be so low that your off-hand rarely swings, maybe all the way up to your mid-30s.

Keep in mind that Wu's is a level 40ish item while JM is a level 50+ item, so it's more logical to compare JM to IFS or PB. Those two staves will probably be better than dual-wielding until level 50+, and then dual-wield would only be better if you have your epic or AC/SoS.

The reason 2handers are better until late levels is because dual-wield needs a high damage bonus in order to be worthwhile, and also because your off-hand swings don't trigger consistently until upwards of level 40. Even then, you'd probably need weapons with a better ratio than 1:2 because at higher levels you'll get triple attack which, I believe, can only trigger from your main hand and thus benefits 2handers more than dual-wielding.

If you compare two 1handers with a 1:2 ratio (JM, KD etc.) to a 2hander with a 1:1 ratio (which IFS/RFS/PB/T-staff almost have) at the lower levels where you haven't got a damage bonus yet, then you would have to succeed your dual-wield check on every single swing in order for them to even be equal. You obviously don't, so 2handers are better for a long time.

For all of these reasons, classes that can use 2handers tend to do more DPS that way than with dual-wield until about level 45 when the damage bonus has grown big enough to make a noticeable difference when you use a fast 1handers. This is true even for warriors and rangers, and moreso for monks who have access to much better 2handers. I probably wouldn't ever use weapons like JM or KD if I could afford an IFS, I'd want the 15/25 and 17/28 from AC and SoS before I'd care to dual-wield.