D&D 4E Optimized Monk Builds: 4e

[MwaO]

Ah, good point. Plus, realized I missed +3 damage per use of Flurry! Now 56 damage nova at 4th.

 

[MwaO]

Threw in some more builds, two from CharOp, one from a Radiant Fist choice.

 

[masteraleph]

Firegoat variant? Sarifal Feywarden for theme, MC Sorcerer, poach Flame Spiral and go Demonskin Adept. Fire conversion/addition can be a little tricky (you end up needing a Blazing Arc Ki Focus for melee attacks, if you have any, a Hellfire Staff for Close attacks, and an Incendiary Ring of Fireblazing if you want your RBAs to be Fire), but well worth it. Can work with either Desert Wind for more damage, or Centered Breath if you want to rotate enemies into Flame Spiral early on. At level 13, AP nova gives you Flame Spiral followed by Furious Bull, for multiple enemies who take Flame Spiral + Furious Bull + Flame Spiral slide + Flurry of Blows + start of their turn Flame Spiral damage and they're dazed. At level 17, you can also take Death's Chilled Embrace, which gives you a non-AP combo (assuming you read DCE like MwaO does) of Death's Chilled Embrace, Flurry of Blows, and 3x Demon Soul Bolts with each hit from DSB also triggering DCE damage as well, so you have two full novas, one against multiple opponents, one against a single opponent. I don't have the Compendium handy, but IIRC there are some level 1 Encounter powers that slide for Monk, so even with Desert Wind you have a very nice AP combo from level 4 onwards with Flame Spiral + sliding power.

 

[MwaO]

Firegoat variant? Sarifal Feywarden for theme, MC Sorcerer, poach Flame Spiral and go Demonskin Adept. Fire conversion/addition can be a little tricky (you end up needing a Blazing Arc Ki Focus for melee attacks, if you have any, a Hellfire Staff for Close attacks, and an Incendiary Ring of Fireblazing if you want your RBAs to be Fire), but well worth it. Can work with either Desert Wind for more damage, or Centered Breath if you want to rotate enemies into Flame Spiral early on. At level 13, AP nova gives you Flame Spiral followed by Furious Bull, for multiple enemies who take Flame Spiral + Furious Bull + Flame Spiral slide + Flurry of Blows + start of their turn Flame Spiral damage and they're dazed. At level 17, you can also take Death's Chilled Embrace, which gives you a non-AP combo (assuming you read DCE like MwaO does) of Death's Chilled Embrace, Flurry of Blows, and 3x Demon Soul Bolts with each hit from DSB also triggering DCE damage as well, so you have two full novas, one against multiple opponents, one against a single opponent. I don't have the Compendium handy, but IIRC there are some level 1 Encounter powers that slide for Monk, so even with Desert Wind you have a very nice AP combo from level 4 onwards with Flame Spiral + sliding power.

Of course, it still works better to have centered flurry of blows…

Then, you can suck targets in who weren't even near you in the first place…

 

[masteraleph]

Of course, it still works better to have centered flurry of blows…

Then, you can suck targets in who weren't even near you in the first place…

Starblade Flurry certainly helps there, yes, though you need a way of increasing your slide difference significantly- Centered Flurry gives you one square, the boots that are level 7 whose name I can't remember gives you another, but it takes a lot more effort to get you more. Furious Bull gives you Burst 2 sliding, and if you're a Satyr you get your own Slide 3 against one enemy who you hit with Flame Spiral. CF is probably better on the whole than Desert Wind, but I'm not sure it's that much better. The other question is what the damage numbers end up looking like- I haven't run all the numbers, but the DW Flurry itself should be doing 15+ damage in Paragon including Sarifal, which could be the difference between severely damaging an enemy and killing it.

 

[MwaO]

Starblade Flurry certainly helps there, yes, though you need a way of increasing your slide difference significantly- Centered Flurry gives you one square, the boots that are level 7 whose name I can't remember gives you another, but it takes a lot more effort to get you more. Furious Bull gives you Burst 2 sliding, and if you're a Satyr you get your own Slide 3 against one enemy who you hit with Flame Spiral. CF is probably better on the whole than Desert Wind, but I'm not sure it's that much better. The other question is what the damage numbers end up looking like- I haven't run all the numbers, but the DW Flurry itself should be doing 15+ damage in Paragon including Sarifal, which could be the difference between severely damaging an enemy and killing it.

The major thing is that you don't need to expend sliding options to pull targets closer to you - Cat & Mouse allows you to hit a target, move to the other side of it, then slide it past you. And you're invisible to it - so no provoking.

That then makes targets closer together for setting up Flame Spiral. The big damage isn't to one target - the big damage is that just how many targets end up adjacent to you.

My Unseen Hand doesn't do the Flame Spiral, but regularly pulled off crazy stuff with Low Slash(which has its own slide...)+Lion's Den+Unseen Hand+Furious Bull. Half the encounter(or more) would end up dazed next to him while he was invisible. And his MBA marked and did ok damage.

 

[MwaO]

More builds listed - includes a Flame Spiral/Demonskin adept build - note Cat & Mouse makes you invisible to a specific target on the round you nova, giving you a little more defenses.

 

[darkbard]

Question regarding the Firegoat Variant: I understand how valuable having one's primary stat be INT/DEX is (Rogue, Monk, Wizard, for example), for all the things it modifies, thus justifying the starting preracial 18. But on builds like this, where the nova is built off a secondary stat 4 points lower than the primary, wouldn't going dual 16/16 in DEX/CHA be more effectively optimized? I mean, I get it: having that higher initiative and/or defense and bonus to some skills (at the expense of others) and extra +1 on all other attacks is very beneficial. But even with Elven Precision (or Heroic Effort, or Memory of a Thousand Lifetimes even), having a starting score of 14 preracial in the attack stat for all those rolls has to hurt some, no?

 

[MwaO]

Question regarding the Firegoat Variant: I understand how valuable having one's primary stat be INT/DEX is (Rogue, Monk, Wizard, for example), for all the things it modifies, thus justifying the starting preracial 18. But on builds like this, where the nova is built off a secondary stat 4 points lower than the primary, wouldn't going dual 16/16 in DEX/CHA be more effectively optimized? I mean, I get it: having that higher initiative and/or defense and bonus to some skills (at the expense of others) and extra +1 on all other attacks is very beneficial. But even with Elven Precision (or Heroic Effort, or Memory of a Thousand Lifetimes even), having a starting score of 14 preracial in the attack stat for all those rolls has to hurt some, no?

Theoretically. But...
You're going through Heroic. That's when you have 1-3 attack rolls per combat using Charisma and likely 5-6 using Dexterity. And it affects init/AC/ability to yank someone into the Flame Spiral or slide them to another adjacent square - to a certain extent, what you care about is not whether or not you hit someone, but rather that after doing Flame Spiral, you can get them to an adjacent square for big damage via stacking bonuses.

You're in Paragon. You get +3 to hit on an AP. Essentially, as if you had a starting Cha of 22 with Satyr. Yes, you're potentially going to take a lot of damage for that +3 to hit, but...and at that point, you probably want the extra kick up to AC given the builds defenses overall are high.

 

[darkbard]

That makes a great deal of sense. And why I defer to your far more extensive play, particularly above Heroic tier, over my theoretical musings....