Finishing Moves

Now that you understand ki and got your toolbars set, let’s work on your first finishing move. Despite the name (and what you've learned from a Mortal Kombat game), a finishing move is not necessarily a killing blow.

For a few levels or so, you can just hit things with normal attacks and a few ki strikes. But then you'll find yourself struggling. You'll need more coordinated attacks or use your ki to boost your abilities, slay more effectively or protect yourself.

To be an effective non-multiclassed ("pure") Monk that does not use ranged or thrown attacks, you must master your finishing moves.

The skill in using finishing moves are what makes or breaks most Monk players. It's all in the timing of using elemental attacks. It's not intuitive at first, but practice will guide you.

The first thing to know is that you can’t spam the same ki attack immediately. Ki attacks have a cooldown of 3 seconds or more between uses.

The good news is that you can make other attacks that don't use elemental strikes while the ki strikes cool down, especially when using other finishing moves.

It’s easy to see the cool-down timer of each attack in the toolbars as they shade to show a clockwise recharging pattern. If you'd like to see a timer number within the attack icon, you can adjust this in Options.

I'll presume your Toolbar 1 looks the example below for training purposes. In case it's not clear what's there: Button 1 is Sneak. Buttons 2-5 are an Earth, Wind, Fire and Water attack, respectively. Button 6 is your Fists of Light or Fists of Darkness move (once you reach that level of training). Button 7 is the Finishing Move activator. Buttons 8 and 9 are Stunning Fist and Void Strike (commensurate with your training).

If it is not, just adjust my comments to how your Toolbar 1 is set up for now.

Toolbar 2 can hold your Monk Stances and a few abilities. In the example below, Earth, Wind, Fire and Water Stances are the four left-most buttons. Other abilities you aren't trained in as yet may fill the rest of the bar over time.

Back to Toolbar 1. Say you wanted to use the finishing move called Breath of the Fire Dragon. Before you train, you need to be in a non-public place to practice this, so visit a low-level wilderness area, like the Cerulean Hills, outside the Harbor in Stormreach. If you're in Korthos, you can drop into any of these low-level quests or, if you've advanced the quest chain there, out into the wilderness there.

First, it’s a good idea to switch to Fire stance to generate more ki. (That's on Toolbar 2, the large Fire symbol in button 3.)

Next, you need to attack something using your regular attack (for most of us, clicking the mouse). Early on, your ki pool is too small for more than one attack, much less three, so you must use your regular attack (Mouse button 1) on something to accumulate more ki.

Using finishing moves for the first time can be a very frustrating experience.

Here you are, trying to use your normal movement keys and then have to reorient your fingers for finishing strikes and then back to your movement keys?!

On behalf of many, many Monks, we feel your pain.

For suggestions on how to configure your keyboard or other input devices, see "Using Your Keyboard."

Find a few Orcs and beat them up. As you do, watch your ki meter as you fight to see how ki builds up.

Once you have at least 10 ki, press 4 on your keyboard (or whatever key you have mapped for the Fires of Purity attack) for your first ki attack.

Watch the spinning timer on the Fire ki attack. Get a sense of timing on how long it takes for the ki attack to recharge for use again.

You won't see any other feedback that you've used a ki attack except the cooldown indicator on that attack.

Great! Your attack added regular damage plus a little fire damage. But you can’t press that ki attack again yet--not until the 3 second cool-down is done. You'll see the clockwise-moving shadow that represents the cool-down timer, and/or a countdown number, depending on your UI settings.

Beat up more stuff using regular attack (accumulating more ki) and press your Fire attack (button 4) a second time when the timer is reset and when you have at least 10 ki. This takes you into a second cool-down of the Fire strike.

After you fight a bit more for ki and press the Fire attack a third time, two things change. First, your character’s upper body shows an glowing blue electrical arc effect around it.

You'll also hear an electrical crackling of energy from a stored and readied finisher.

Other players (including other Monks) can’t see or hear this effect.

Also, the Finishing Move icon on your Toolbar 1 (which normally looks like the Monk’s class symbol) has temporarily transformed. In this case, it shows the Fire symbol to tell you that the finishing move Breath of the Fire Dragon is ready. Congratulations! You have a finishing move charged up.

To expend it, however, requires more ki. If you try to use it with less ki than the move requires, the finishing move fails and you must start all over again in building up ki to chain ki strikes and to expend the finisher.

So, beat up on your hapless enemies a little more until you have sufficient ki, then press your Finishing Move key.

From your hands will come a jet of burning flame if you’re successful.

At first, you'll likely get frustrated when see the message, "You have missed your special attack opportunity."

This message shows up when attempting to activate a finishing move too quickly. (There's no blue pill for this, sorry.)

By "quickly," I suggest that game lag interferes with activation. Try waiting a half-second before activating the finisher to greatly reduce a chance at a misfire.

Sometimes, as well, the game incorrectly the arcing effect around you, briefly, but doesn't change the finisher icon. This is a minor bug. Try the last ki strike of that finishing move again and it is likely that the finisher will show itself as ready, and the arcing effect will persist.

The Breath of the Fire Dragon is helpful for Monks with low Strength and a door that can be damaged. If your STR can’t bust it down, Breath of the Fire Dragon (which mimics the spell of Burning Hands) often will.

So, at level 1, all Monks, no matter their chosen Philosophy, are capable of these four basic finishing moves:

  • The Trembling Earth
    • Combination: Earth - Earth - Earth
    • The attack has +2 critical multiplier, and the victim is unable to cast spells for 30 seconds.
    • Fortitude save negates.
  • The Gathering Storm
    • Combination: Air - Air - Air
    • The target's ability to "land attacks" is reduced for 30 seconds. -2 on attack rolls.
    • Undeads appear to be immune. Fortitude save negates.
  • The Raging Sea
    • Combination: Water - Water - Water
    • The enemy's attacks are slowed for 30 seconds.
    • Fortitude save negates.
  • Breath of the Fire Dragon
    • Combination: Fire - Fire - Fire
    • A cone of searing flame shoots forth, damaging targets in the area of the flames for 1d6 damage per Monk level.
    • A successful Reflex save (DC 10 + Monk Level + Wisdom modifier) reduces the damage by half.

Notes from the Old Master:Achieving Patience

In a world such as Eberron, adventurers flit here and there with hardly a regard to consider a better way to defeat your foe, outside of hacking them to bits or burning them to ash. It is an uncommon skill for students to know intuitively that it takes time to do things properly.

Such is true for Finishing Moves. You may be flustered in timing them to work while merely training in the dojo. I am sure you will feel frustrated when you use them in the field, in the heat of battle. Repetition is a good thing.

Practice your moves. Know instinctively how fast you can change from one finisher to another. Do not be too fast in activating a completed sequence, as it, too, could fail from being rushed. By the time you achieve Master status, you should be able to heal and buff yourself, or debuff others, even while you are completely surrounded.

There are some rules on Finishing Moves. A finishing move chain will dissipate if you do certain actions while performing the chain or when a charge is ready. Chain-breaking actions include

  • Becoming un-centered for any reason (Occurs if hit with Ray of Enfeeblement for low-STR characters, if made helpless or knocked down). Keep some Lesser Restoration potions handy.
  • Changing your combat stance, such as Power Attack or Defensive Fighting. (Changing Monk stances or going into stealth doesn't disrupt a chain).
  • Drinking a potion.
  • Equipping or un-equipping gear.
  • Using certain special abilities, feat-based or otherwise.
  • Opening doors, using levers or climbing (but not jumping).
  • Entering through zones and transitions.
  • Performing a ki attack that’s not part of a sequence (say, you started with Fire-Fire, then used Earth, interrupting an attempt to use Fire-Fire-Fire).
  • Trying to execute a finishing move with insufficient ki.
  • Activating a finishing move too quickly (wait a half-second before you use it).

Like trying using a genie’s three wishes to wish for more wishes (or more genies), you can not store up successive finishing moves. (DDO Monks don't work quite like the Diablo II Assassin's similar moves.) You have to release your finisher before you can set up any additional finishers.

If you have a simple finisher charged that uses the same attack (such as Fire/Fire/Fire) and use a Fire ki attack again, you will not break your chain. Use any other ki attack, and the chain will break.

For a complete list of finishing moves, see this chapter.

Advanced School: Class Tree Spell-like Abilities

Light and Dark Paths have their own special finishing moves. They're activated by their keystone finishers, Fists of Light or Fists of Darkness, which is part of your Philosophy chosen at level 3.

As you progress in your class trees, you'll find that you can add Elemental Curatives or Ninjutsu effects by placing them on your toolbar from your Enhancements tab, and then clicking any one of them to switch it on. Only one can be active at a time. (The Henshin Mystic's Elemental Words are attacks, not toggled abilities.)

When you use your respective Path finisher thrice, the toggled special effect also goes off.

The disadvantage of this new format for these effects (which were formerly used as spell-like abilities) is that it takes more ki to use as you charge up the finisher.

You can select any of the four Curative/Ninjitsu effects as you gain Action Points and meet the prerequisites.

At level 10, Light and Dark Paths also receive two additional finishers--

but only the Henshin Mystic can access them.

  • Moment of Clarity: A 10 second bonus to attack and damage rolls
  • Curse of the Void: 2 minute charm of most enemies

These two finishers use Void Strike>Fists of Light/Darkness>Void Strike to activate.

See the Class Trees chapter for some additional detail.

As of Update 19.0, the Curse of the Void and Moment of Clarity Level 10 finishers are effectively broken and unable to be used without a considerably steep AP penalty for non-Henshins.

The reason involves the omission of the lesser versions of Void Strike from the new enhancements tree, leaving only the former "Void Strike IV," now renamed simply as "Void Strike." This ki attack is found only in the Henshin Mystic tree as a Tier 5 ability--and only available at Level 12 to use these level 10 finishers.

When you take a Tier 5 ability, not only must you spend 30 AP to get there (choosing all Elemental Words and meeting all point-spent prerequisites), the selection locks out ALL other tier 5 abilities in other trees. You can only have access to one tier 5 level per character. Therefore, only a Henshin Mystic can take advantage of these finishers without a serious AP disability.

We hope that the developers will add back a lesser Void Strike attack as an optional feat so that these finishers can be used in a later update.