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Monk
,→Monk Tactics
==Monk Tactics==
The monk is well-balanced; his stats lead to him having about the same amount of mana and hit points are roughly equivalentlife, and he can raise his strength and dexterity to impressive levels. He's also able to deal very high damage to three targets at once, and can clear out levels of melee monsters far more quickly than the Warrior. UnfortunatelyOn the other hand, he has the lowest armor class in the game, and his defense hit points are much lower than those of other combat characters. The Monk is nearly as lacking as essentially a melee style {iw|glass cannon} and with his overpowered offense is overpoweringand very lacking defense, and on the whole the Monk is he's not a very well designed or balanced character.
===Melee Combat===
Defensive issues aside, on levels composed purely of melee monsters, a monk with a good staff is a titan. He's overpowered with the weapon, able to hit three spaces at once, with very high to/hit (he has much more dexterity than the Warrior) and blinding speed. Monks can play much more aggressively than Warriors, since they can kill three monsters at once they don't need to worry about being swarmed, and can hold positions that no warrior would dare. Simply standing along a wall and swinging diagonally to the front, any monster that comes straight on, diagonally (the way drakes do) or even to the side will be slaughtered before they can even get off a swing.
Monks are dominant on hell levels since so many of the passageways and doorways are three spaces wide. A monk can simply park himself in one of those openings, aim straight ahead, and swing constantly. He'll grind up any melee monster that comes into range, and a bold player with a well-equipped Monk can turn whole quadrants of hell levels (D13-16) into miniature [[Chamber_of_Bone|Chambers of Bone]]. If there are only melee monsters in the level, Monks can move into new areas, walking boldly right past the monsters and weaving around to attract as many as possible, before teleporting back to the opening. They then position themselves in the three-wide choke point and start swinging as the monsters walk into the meat grinder. Gold and items simply fly.
===Defense===
The other side of the coin to the Monk's slaughtering offense is a very suspect defense. Monks have less vitality than Warriors or Barbarians, and they gain fewer hit points for each point of vitality. They also have substantial penalties to their Armor Class when wearing heavy armor, and while they can block with their staff, they lose the AC a shield provides. A fully-equipped Monk will have much lower AC than other combat characters, and less than a rogue or a Sorcerer as well. As a result the Monk tends to feel simultaneously underpowered and overpowered. His killing speed is ridiculous, and you feel almost guilty rampaging through levels of just melee monsters.
Until... something goes wrong and you die in two quick hits, or you get a level of witches and mages and find yourself stopping to heal every 3 seconds and nearly dying any time you enter a crowded, spell-filled room.
===Life Leech===
Monks can enjoy life leech from a helm, just like [[D1 Warrior|Warriors ]] and [[D1 Barbarian|Barbarians]]. It doesn't do the monk as much good though, since he has such a shallower shallow life pool that he can't . Life leech benefits other melee characters since their many 500+ hit points allow them to take hundreds of 200 or 300 damage without risking death; points of damage, only to gradually fill it back up they'll refill while killing the next few monsters. This doesn't work for Monks, since they'll be dead, or nearly so, after taking damage that wouldn't worry a Warrior or Barbarian. Monks must cast heal, or drink a potionafter taking that much damage, or die when they lose else risk death from the next hit. As a result, though the Monk's huge damage can yield very quick leech refills, it's risky to play that much lifeway since the next hit will result in death. Using mana leech with mana shield active would be a good option, so while life but there are no helms that grant mana leech can be helpful, such as so this approach would mean forgoing haste on his staff, and that's not a level with lots of low damage spell casters, worthwhile exchange. Monks tend to be feast or famine; full hit points and cruising, or nearly dying and desperately stabbing at their healing potions.
===Magery===
Monks are about as good as Rogues at using spells. They have roughly the same casting speed and mana pool, and can be effective in mini-mage mode, though they can't approach the casting speed of a Sorcerer. Monks have substantially higher magic and mana than Warriors, and one way they can help their weak defense is to use more spells. Stone Curse ranged attackers, telekill rather than walking through incoming spells, use corners to lure witches into range, etc. Monks are far easier to do corner traps and telekilling with than Warriors, since their staffs hit three spaces at once, so they hardly even need to aim. They can even telekill multiple targets at once.
Monks are totally useless with bows. They fire slowly, and even though they can raise both their strength and dexterity over 200 with fairly common equipment, their bow damage is pathetic; far, far lower than their damage with a staff of empty handed.
==Monk Lore==
