Mistwell
Crusty Old Meatwad (he/him)
Mechanically, that is. Treantmonk made a good video on the topic, and I happen to agree with him. Indeed, I've used that phrase here in the past several weeks many times. That monks suck.
For those who disagree, and I know many do, I'd love to see a rebuttal to his video that considers the points he makes.
Summary [Edit - I will be adding to this summary over the next couple of hours]
Treantmonk's basic theme is monks do four things (defense, offense, maneuverability, and battlefield control). Without focusing on any of those things, they're basically mediocre at them with other classes being better at each (often without even trying that hard to be better and spending no limited resources). But even when they focus on one of those things, other classes do them better when they focus on them. Essentially, they're not the best at anything, and they're not even "good" at many things at once. So they're overall pretty sucky. Here is the break-down on those elements:
1. Monk deals poor damage for melee attackers:
Important Note: Treantmonk uses "Baseline Damage" as a measuring tool. Baseline Damage is based on a Warlock using hex spell, agonizing blast, increases charisma over time and uses eldritch blast. You can agree or disagree with it, but just know it's a fixed-line he can use for comparison for all classes, and his goals in looking at damage is to always be above that baseline.
a. Of all classes in the game which use weapons primarily to deal damage, monks are the worst. Any class can be made to do more damage than the monk if they specialize in doing damage.
b. Martial Arts deals about 8.15 points of damage per round at level 1. All martial arts is, is two-weapon fighting. All other classes can do that. Level 1 fighter deals the same damage with two weapon fighting. A level 1 rogue dos 9.5 damage per round by the way.
c. Monks struggle to even do the Baseline Damage, and just the Baseline, though any other class built for damage can exceed Baseline Damage pretty easily (yes even a beastmaster ranger). But the monks can only struggle to get to the baseline to level 10. After that, their damage will suffer below the baseline.
d. Flurry of Blows: It's too limited a resource to be able to do every attack so it doesn't change their numbers much, and it requires devoting too many resources to Dex which causes stunning strike to suffer. But even if the Monk mysteriously could use flurry of blows all the time, and did crank Dex over Wis, they still would fall below the baseline of damage after level 10. But more likely they will fall below baseline at level 5.
2. Monks are ineffective tanks and have mediocre to poor defense;
a. Hit Points: For all classes expected to be in melee, monks are tied for the worst HP. Made worse by the fact they need Dex and Wis, which means their Con won't be as high as some others.
b. AC: Every other melee class other than the rogue that wants a higher defense will have a higher, often much higher, AC. The monk can spend some precious resources (which power everything else they do as opposed to drawing from multiple pools) to increase their defense, but other melee classes can also spend their resources to increase their defense as well. Monk's defense won't catch up to other melee classes (other than rogue) until around level 16 without spending resources, and even spending resources they can at best reach the middle of the pack versus other melee classes not spending any resources to get that same AC.
c. Saving Throws: Dex will be high, Con will be low, Wisdom will be in the middle. Essentially the same number of strengths and weaknesses as other melee classes. At the level they get evasion - same as rogues. They only get better saves at 14th level, which is very late and by that point some other melee classes that wanted good saves would have them before that point. Paladins get better saves by level 6, gloomstalker rangers bypass wisdom saves at 7, warmages can use their reaction to any save at level 2, fighters get lots of feats and at level 12 they often get a feat for saves like resilient wisdom, and get a save re-roll. So, even at level 14 they're not noteworthy for being able to have better saves.
3. Monks are not all that great at maneuverability (but at least they're decent here);
a. Any character on a horse can move faster than a monk at 60', and they get a free disengage or dash and they don't need to use their bonus action to be decent at it. A Paladin at level 5 can summon one. A Wizard can summon one as a ten minute ritual with a speed of 100 and they can give one to the whole party because no resources are spent.
b. So many other classes can enhance maneuverability. Longstrider, Misty Step, zephyrs strike, barbarians gain speed, ranger and druid can avoid difficult terrain, conjures and echo knights can teleport without spending resources, a glory paladin can make the entire party more maneuverable, etc.. Their maneuverability is just not unique, and they're not best at it.
4. Monks are not great at controlling the battlefield (Stunning Strike):
a. It uses a Ki point and all their abilities draw from that same pool including their subclasses. It's too limited a resource pool.
b. You need to both hit AND the foe needs to miss a Con saving throw. But your save DC on your Stunning Strike isn't great, and you need to increase Wis at the expense of Dex to even make it OK. At level 5 your average DC will be 14 or 15. Your average CR 5 creature has a Con save of +4 (so 50% to 55% chance), but if your party is facing CR 5 creatures at that level there should be many of them to make it a challenge and so stunning one creature isn't very impressive. A challenge for a 5th level party for a single creature is probably about CR 9, and they get an average +9 to their Con saves, which means you fail most of the time (75% to 80%). Even if you blew threw a lot of Ki with a flurry to hit many times, you STILL on average will fail to stun that CR 9 creature (44%).
c. Magic on the other hand can target any saving throw if you pick your spells right, so you won't be stuck targeting only Con which can often be a higher save for many foes. Spells can also target multiple enemies, or even offer no save at all. And spellcasters get more times to cast spells than Monks get Ki. Stunning Strike really doesn't get much better at higher levels, while spells get better over time.
d. When looking at sample games, stunning strike works roughly 1/3 of the time. Not a good battlefield control record relative to others who do battlefield control.
e. Stun isn't even a great battlefield control. Paralyze or incapacitate for example is better, and available to spellcasters earlier to hit multiple targets at lower levels, and last longer on them.
5. Other Monk features don't make up for the deficiencies:
a. Spellcasters and/or others can do all these features earlier and better.
b. Most of these abilities are highly situational. Some don't even work the way intended (like the charm one - it takes an action, which you won't have when hit with a charm).
c. They have sucky higher-level abilities and a terrible capstone./\
For those who disagree, and I know many do, I'd love to see a rebuttal to his video that considers the points he makes.
Summary [Edit - I will be adding to this summary over the next couple of hours]
Treantmonk's basic theme is monks do four things (defense, offense, maneuverability, and battlefield control). Without focusing on any of those things, they're basically mediocre at them with other classes being better at each (often without even trying that hard to be better and spending no limited resources). But even when they focus on one of those things, other classes do them better when they focus on them. Essentially, they're not the best at anything, and they're not even "good" at many things at once. So they're overall pretty sucky. Here is the break-down on those elements:
1. Monk deals poor damage for melee attackers:
Important Note: Treantmonk uses "Baseline Damage" as a measuring tool. Baseline Damage is based on a Warlock using hex spell, agonizing blast, increases charisma over time and uses eldritch blast. You can agree or disagree with it, but just know it's a fixed-line he can use for comparison for all classes, and his goals in looking at damage is to always be above that baseline.
a. Of all classes in the game which use weapons primarily to deal damage, monks are the worst. Any class can be made to do more damage than the monk if they specialize in doing damage.
b. Martial Arts deals about 8.15 points of damage per round at level 1. All martial arts is, is two-weapon fighting. All other classes can do that. Level 1 fighter deals the same damage with two weapon fighting. A level 1 rogue dos 9.5 damage per round by the way.
c. Monks struggle to even do the Baseline Damage, and just the Baseline, though any other class built for damage can exceed Baseline Damage pretty easily (yes even a beastmaster ranger). But the monks can only struggle to get to the baseline to level 10. After that, their damage will suffer below the baseline.
d. Flurry of Blows: It's too limited a resource to be able to do every attack so it doesn't change their numbers much, and it requires devoting too many resources to Dex which causes stunning strike to suffer. But even if the Monk mysteriously could use flurry of blows all the time, and did crank Dex over Wis, they still would fall below the baseline of damage after level 10. But more likely they will fall below baseline at level 5.
2. Monks are ineffective tanks and have mediocre to poor defense;
a. Hit Points: For all classes expected to be in melee, monks are tied for the worst HP. Made worse by the fact they need Dex and Wis, which means their Con won't be as high as some others.
b. AC: Every other melee class other than the rogue that wants a higher defense will have a higher, often much higher, AC. The monk can spend some precious resources (which power everything else they do as opposed to drawing from multiple pools) to increase their defense, but other melee classes can also spend their resources to increase their defense as well. Monk's defense won't catch up to other melee classes (other than rogue) until around level 16 without spending resources, and even spending resources they can at best reach the middle of the pack versus other melee classes not spending any resources to get that same AC.
c. Saving Throws: Dex will be high, Con will be low, Wisdom will be in the middle. Essentially the same number of strengths and weaknesses as other melee classes. At the level they get evasion - same as rogues. They only get better saves at 14th level, which is very late and by that point some other melee classes that wanted good saves would have them before that point. Paladins get better saves by level 6, gloomstalker rangers bypass wisdom saves at 7, warmages can use their reaction to any save at level 2, fighters get lots of feats and at level 12 they often get a feat for saves like resilient wisdom, and get a save re-roll. So, even at level 14 they're not noteworthy for being able to have better saves.
3. Monks are not all that great at maneuverability (but at least they're decent here);
a. Any character on a horse can move faster than a monk at 60', and they get a free disengage or dash and they don't need to use their bonus action to be decent at it. A Paladin at level 5 can summon one. A Wizard can summon one as a ten minute ritual with a speed of 100 and they can give one to the whole party because no resources are spent.
b. So many other classes can enhance maneuverability. Longstrider, Misty Step, zephyrs strike, barbarians gain speed, ranger and druid can avoid difficult terrain, conjures and echo knights can teleport without spending resources, a glory paladin can make the entire party more maneuverable, etc.. Their maneuverability is just not unique, and they're not best at it.
4. Monks are not great at controlling the battlefield (Stunning Strike):
a. It uses a Ki point and all their abilities draw from that same pool including their subclasses. It's too limited a resource pool.
b. You need to both hit AND the foe needs to miss a Con saving throw. But your save DC on your Stunning Strike isn't great, and you need to increase Wis at the expense of Dex to even make it OK. At level 5 your average DC will be 14 or 15. Your average CR 5 creature has a Con save of +4 (so 50% to 55% chance), but if your party is facing CR 5 creatures at that level there should be many of them to make it a challenge and so stunning one creature isn't very impressive. A challenge for a 5th level party for a single creature is probably about CR 9, and they get an average +9 to their Con saves, which means you fail most of the time (75% to 80%). Even if you blew threw a lot of Ki with a flurry to hit many times, you STILL on average will fail to stun that CR 9 creature (44%).
c. Magic on the other hand can target any saving throw if you pick your spells right, so you won't be stuck targeting only Con which can often be a higher save for many foes. Spells can also target multiple enemies, or even offer no save at all. And spellcasters get more times to cast spells than Monks get Ki. Stunning Strike really doesn't get much better at higher levels, while spells get better over time.
d. When looking at sample games, stunning strike works roughly 1/3 of the time. Not a good battlefield control record relative to others who do battlefield control.
e. Stun isn't even a great battlefield control. Paralyze or incapacitate for example is better, and available to spellcasters earlier to hit multiple targets at lower levels, and last longer on them.
5. Other Monk features don't make up for the deficiencies:
a. Spellcasters and/or others can do all these features earlier and better.
b. Most of these abilities are highly situational. Some don't even work the way intended (like the charm one - it takes an action, which you won't have when hit with a charm).
c. They have sucky higher-level abilities and a terrible capstone./\
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