D&D 5E Monks Suck

[Asisreo]

I've experienced the Monk and still think it sucks. Any single hit can take half my HP away, and my damage is miserable despite my good stats.

Only thing fun is stealth and teleportation shenanigans. I can traverse some decent terrain (I specifically took Athlete at level 4 because I thought my rolled stats were TOO HIGH!) but that's about it.

Part of being a Monk is fun, part of being my specific character is fun, but I still feel like the kid sidekick of the group rather than an equal partner and it's not quite what I signed up for.

I've experienced the wizard and hardly do well with it. It's my playstyle, but I don't think they suck just because they are over-reliant on spells and their hit points make them easy targets and their damage is nothing to write home to and they can't heal and the only real contribution anyone ever remembers a wizard for is by being something of a dick by researching top 10 spells to piss the DM off.

I know wizards are more than their negatives and while I can't eek out any bit of enjoyment from their flaws, I don't want them gone, because their flaws keep them from being way too broken.

Likewise, I don't expect everyone to see the monk's damage output and raw tank abilites and think "This class does this stuff better than other classes." And I don't expect monks to touch every part of the community in the same way they made me enjoy playing, but I at least want people to be aware that monks know how they play and they play for their strengths and against their weaknesses.

We can stay in melee just fine against most mooks, taking them out and being slippery in the field. If there's a single monster, we can start doing Stunning Strike. If the monster's slow, it's best to constantly disengage and kite them. If they're fast, we can likely stun them.

And we still get the job done.

 

[Eyes of Nine]

So this is almost certainly tongue in cheek, yes (quite hard to tell with some of the assertions being made lately)?

If you read a lot of Enworld, you may notice that @Snarf Zagyg LOVES bards. A WHOLE LOT. When I think BARD LOVER, I think @Snarf Zagyg. Or maybe the opposite...

 

[Minigiant]

Because we do not give in to the demands of terrorists and white-room theorycrafters.

That's what gave us Bards as full casters.

Who asked for full caster bards and why aren't they on trial?

But in all seriousness, I don't see how adding 2-3 more options to Martial Artsand letting the monk choose 3 of 6 is so evil. From my experience there are multiple martial arts with many different foci.

 

[Ashrym]

Eldritch Blast + Agonizing Blast + Hex isn't some kind of corner case obscure exploit build with complicated multi classing and multiple books... It's LITERALLY the easiest way to have good damage with the Warlock. It's all base PHB stuff that's as obvious as the noon day sun! If you have trouble beating this effortless build (a SAD one with a singular focus on CHA, btw) then you are not good at damage.

It's because it's setting the damage bar too high, and hex tends to not be sustainable because of the concentration mechanics.

The result compares monk damage to high end focus and optimization instead of a general overall standing.

That's what gave us Bards as full casters.

That and bards were either always full casters (because of caster level mechanics) or wizards / magic-users were the only full casters because every caster had varied spell levels during other editions so should not have been full casters in a nostalgia edition. ;-)

And it wasn't terrorists and theory-crafters. It was me. All me. I am solely responsible for one of the best versions of the class ever.

 

[Mistwell]

It's because it's setting the damage bar too high, and hex tends to not be sustainable because of the concentration mechanics.

The result compares monk damage to high end focus and optimization instead of a general overall standing.

Oh, no. That's not a high end of damage. ANY class, other than monk, consistently beat that damage if they focus on damage. That's pretty middling damage.

 

[jayoungr]

That wouldn't translate into auto-critical, though.

You're right, but maybe the person who posted that misremembered. It's an easy mistake to make.

 

[Micah Sweet]

The game isn’t built with an assumption of anyone getting magic items, ever.

To be fair, the PH doesn't make that assumption, but all the published adventures do.

 

[Ashrym]

Oh, no. That's not a high end of damage. ANY class, other than monk, consistently beat that damage if they focus on damage. That's pretty middling damage.

No, optimization in each class can beat that damage. That's's not the same thing.

Hex is still an unreliable assumption in any case.

The monks do have MAD issues and are pegged into skirmishers. That's true. Hex plus agonizing blast as baseline damage? Disagree.

 

[Treantmonklvl20]

Is the benefit of the feats because Monks basically HAVE to take the ASIs instead of Feats? Or because there aren't really any cool feats for them (Like a Master of Ki feat that allows them to add their Proficiency bonus to the number of Ki they have after a short or long rest, or something...)?

The lack of feats is definitely an issue. Because close to half their attacks are unarmed they can't benefit from a lot of combat feats other weapon using classes have the option of.

Except for levels 1, 3 and 11 the Monk is right there with the 2 shortswords rogue. Do you also claim the 2 shortswords rogue is bad at damage? I don't think so. So why do you claim the monk is?

Also, to really get a true picture, the benefits of prone on DPR for allies really needs factored in. Additionally, at higher levels the benefits of stunning strike also need factored. How you can make any claims about monk damage contributions without at least attempting to factor in those 2 abilities I have no idea.

Side note: I'm curious how Booming Blade increases level 1 damage?

"right there" means a bit behind. You asked if I could beat the Monk damage from levels 1-10 with any non-variant human class, I said I could. You asked me to show how a rogue could do it, I showed you. Then you point out I didn't beat it by much? I never claimed all classes can trounce the monk in damage from levels 1-10 if we avoid variant human, I just said that it could be done, because the monk is the worst, not that it is the worst by miles.

Yes, we can muddy the waters if we add in class abilities, but let's not pretend the Monk is the only class with these. Calculating DPR is not perfect, for more reasons than you mention. However, it beats, "my gut tells me..." or "in my experience..." as these are rife with emotional bias.

As for the question regarding BB, it's tough to guess the amount of times 2ndary damage will come into play, I assume 1/4 attacks. This might be high or low depending on the table, but it's my best guess.

 

[Esker]

Except for levels 1, 3 and 11 the Monk is right there with the 2 shortswords rogue. a Do you also claim the 2 shortswords rogue is bad at damage? I don't think so. So why do you claim the monk is?

He does claim that a straight-classed dual-wielding rogue is fairly bad at damage. They're the second-worst combat class if you don't multiclass (and rogues at least can get a significant boost if they do multiclass; monks really don't have a way to do this, short of ignoring most of their monk abilities). Reasonable people can disagree about whether the non-combat abilities they get make up for that, but if monks are slightly behind rogues in combat and also don't have rogues' non-combat features, what are they bringing to the table?

Also, to really get a true picture, the benefits of prone on DPR for allies really needs factored in. Additionally, at higher levels the benefits of stunning strike also need factored. How you can make any claims about monk damage contributions without at least attempting to factor in those 2 abilities I have no idea.

Agreed. The analysis I did assumed they used all their ki on Flurry of Blows, so for that damage level, they can't use stunning strike at all, but yes, at higher levels they can flurry every turn and make stun attempts sometimes. But also their direct damage potential falls even further behind at higher levels, so the value they get from stun would need to be higher to close the gap.

You're skilled at quantitative analysis; why don't you take a crack at it? It'd be a useful contribution to try to put everything the monk does together in some common units... But then once you've done that, I'd suggest doing the same analysis for a warlock that spams Hypnotic Pattern / Synaptic Static and then pew pews (they won't have Hex up, so they will fall below the direct damage baseline, but that's fine, since they're bringing other things to the table), as well as for a Battlemaster archer using Menacing Attack, say, or a Ranger supplementing their weapon damage with conjured animals.