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The Book of Syncletica: A DDO Monk Guide

Ki: Mystical Energy

Now that your toolbars are set up, let’s understand what powers your elemental attacks and abilities.

That’s ki. It's pronounced "key."

The Ki Bar

Ki is represented as a yellow bar underneath your player’s red HP bar. You’ll see a number like 10/50 (0) in the bar itself.

Here's a HP/ki bar from a Grandmaster Monk.

When you first start a Monk, the amount of ki you have in your stable pool will be low, a number based in part on your Concentration skill. In the picture above, the stable pool is 65. This number is based on:

The actual Concentration skill itself.
Inherent bonuses from Tomes of Skill: Concentration.
Ability bonuses from your CON modifier
Enhancement bonuses from gear with "Inner Focus" prefixes or Concentration bonuses.

As a Disciple, your pool will likely be about 10-20 when starting out.

The stable pool is the amount of ki you'll have after any ki above this number dissipates over time.

Your base maximum ki is equal to ten times your Monk level + 40 + 5 times your Wisdom modifier.

Ki attacks, as the name implies, require ki to use.

Monks have special attacks, each with a 3 second cooldown, that generate increasing levels of electric, fire, wind, and (in advanced training) acid damage.

Sometimes, your ki attacks can work in strange ways.

If you strike an arcane ooze (found in quests such as "The Prisoner") with an electric-damaging melee ki attack (Storm Strike), it will give you a Haste buff (30 seconds)!

Thanks to Teacher "Alternative" for this one.

A Monk generates ki in a few ways, depending on your Monk Stance and, later, items or enhancements that may help your stable pool or ki regeneration.

You attack an enemy and successfully hit them, causing damage (the most common way to generate ki)
An enemy attacks and damages you (Mountain Stance only)
You meditate
You gain other regeneration methods (by way of items or enhancements as you advance in training)

As you attack (using normal Attack), the yellow bar of the ki meter grows, as does the first number. You can happily attack enemies to fill the ki meter to its maximum (that’s the second number).

But note the third number in parentheses as you stop attacking. The number will change to a “-1”, then a “-3” perhaps, or a higher number. That’s your accumulated ki draining at that rate per six seconds. The ki will continue to drain until it reaches the stable (first) number, where then the ki drain indicator will go to "+0".

The greater the amount of ki you have accumulated, the faster the drain.

Should you use ki attacks while at your stable pool, your ki will NOT regenerate back up to your stable pool. The only way to return to your stable pool at your early levels of training is to attack or use a rest shrine (more on why to avoid shrines, in early training, in a moment).

Since ki drains away, most Monks are opportunist fighters. If you don’t use your ki, you’ll lose it.

As you grow in experience (with higher Wisdom and Concentration, among other things), you'll be able to have a larger stable pool and maximum, and the rate of ki decay will decrease, or even stop.

As a disciple of the Way of the Elements, however, you'll likely find yourself with hardly enough ki to make more than 2 or 3 strikes before waiting to regenerate.

Treat this as comparable to other melee fighters and the limitations of their early weapons. You, as an unarmed character, are the weapon. It will take a little time to build your strength. Your small amount of ki will force you to learn how much ki it takes for specific strikes and, later, finishing moves.

Henshin Mystics should read up in their chapter on improving ki as their likely use of quarterstaves play out differently for ki use. Melee weapon-based users (shortsword, kama, quarterstaff) also will have fewer ki issues.

Remember: Ki regenerates as you hit enemies (or, in Mountain Stance, when you are also hit by enemies). Continual regenerative ability of ki makes Monks very dangerous. What does not kill you (and what you kill) makes you stronger.

Spell casters can run out of spell points. Other classes may run out of healing potions or have fewer options to damage an enemy. As long as you have something to fight, you will never run out of ki--which can heal you, augment attacks and protect you, often all at once and while fighting.

Ki regeneration is often a party saver. When spell casters have exhausted their spell points and other classes are low on healing potions, a Monk may be able to keep themselves and their party healed long enough to get everyone to a rest shrine while dishing out simple buffs or maintaining a party defense.

At the highest levels, you'll find a Monk stance and items that help regenerate ki without attacking. It’s as if you have almost unlimited spell points...to a point, if you're a melee Monk.

If you're considering the use of the shuriken or a bow, your ki generation requires careful preparation. See "Passive Ki Regeneration", below.

There are important points on using and generating ki that you must remember throughout your training:

You do NOT generate ki...

If your attacks create no damage on an enemy whatsoever because your attack damage is fully absorbed by the enemy's damage reduction.
- Fighting Iron Golems before Level 16 and without Smiting, Adamantine-lined or Construct Bane weapons results in this problem. This is doubly dangerous as you will drain your ki stores quickly in fighting such an enemy that's too tough without a DR-bypassing option such as a kama.
When using shuriken (throwing stars) or with other ranged attack abilities.
When using spell-like attacks (such as Henshin Mystic ki attacks or Grandmaster of Flowers epic destiny attacks such as Lily Petal).
If your ability to generate ki while in melee is cancelled out by another ability (such as the Mystic's "Lighting the Candle").

Now, rest shrines are common in many quests. For many, particularly spell casters, it's a critical spot to recharge their spell points (also called "mana," or "their blue bar") in order to cast spells.

As a Monk, you should generally avoid the use of rest shrines, especially early in your training. Read on.

Resting and Meditation

At Level 2 you gained a new granted feat: Meditation. Place this button on your second toolbar.

Meditation allows you to regenerate a moderate amount of ki while sitting and doing no other actions, twice per rest. Save your Meditation ability for crunch times where enemies are many, a shrine is far off, and your party needs your ki for buffs or killing blows.

The reason why a Monk avoids rest shines is how ki works. Any ki greater than your stable pool evaporates on resting. This is opposite from spell casters who get to regenerate their spell points ("mana") when resting. Obviously, losing ki is not advantageous if there's a big fight ahead.

If your health is low once you reach Level 7, you have a new trick up your sleeve to recharge your health while avoiding a significant loss of accumulated ki. The granted feat Wholeness of Body (another item for your second toolbar) can recharge your HP cheaply. If you haven’t enough ki, use Meditation first, then use Wholeness of Body to regenerate most of your HP every 2 minutes from just 10 ki, all without diminishing your ki pool.

If you are out of Meditations and cannot generate ki safely, then you should use the rest shrine to recharge your Meditation turns and some HP. In higher levels where you generate ki more rapidly and have a much larger stable ki level, you may opt to use the shrine to recharge “clickies”, or if you have died a few times too often (resulting in accumulating death penalties).

Once you have reached more advanced training (at least a Master of one stance), you'll likely have gear and technique that allows you to regenerate ki rapidly. It's probable, then, that you'll also be carrying "clickies" with spell-like protections such as Death Ward that could use a recharge at a shrine. Even with advanced training, discern the use of shrines carefully.

By the time many Monks reach Epic levels, the use of the Grandmaster of Flowers epic destiny will add substantial effects for active and passive ki that using a shrine should not be a major problem.

Henshin Mystics are special. Using their class enhancements, they can attain up to 5 Meditation turns per rest. They also enjoy additional passive ki regeneration options and can regenerate ki in Meditation much faster. As a ki-based spellcaster-like fighter, they need this boost. By the time they reach their highest Heroic training, using a shrine to reset their Meditation turns, given a Mystic's higher passive ki regeneration, isn't a bad idea.

Passive Ki Regeneration

Normally you can only generate ki from a melee attack, usually by your character striking an enemy.

But you can regenerate ki without doing anything at all.

Passive ki regeneration is a special mechanic found through some class enhancements, core abilities and Epic Destinies. It boosts your ki regeneration by 1 point.

That may not seem like much, however, passive ki regeneration effects stack.

While melee-fighting Monks generate ki in combat, Monks using ranged weapons and thrown weapons cannot generate ki any other way except through passive ki regeneration training.

For these builds, passive ki regeneration doesn't power finishing moves but other Monk abilities, such as the Wholeness of Body healing effect, offensive attacks such as Ten Thousand Stars and the ki-magic attacks in the Grandmaster of Flowers epic destiny.

There are six possible training options.

Ultimate or Greater Ocean Stance (Monk Stance, levels 12 and 18): While in these stances, gain +1 passive ki regeneration.
Stealthy (Ninja Spy tier 1): With all three ranks trained, gain +1 passive ki regeneration while in Sneak.
Contemplation (Henshin Mystic tier 2 or Kensei Fighter's Ascetic Training: Contemplation. These are anti-requisites. You can only train of these abilities). Gain +1 passive ki regeneration with all ranks trained.
Way of the Tenacious Badger (Henshin Mystic tier 1, Animal Form): If your HP drops to 50% or less, gain +1 passive ki regeneration.
Enlightenment (Grandmaster of Flowers epic destiny, tier 1 ability): Gain +1 passive ki regeneration with all 3 ranks trained.
Balance in All Things (Grandmaster of Flowers, sixth innate ability, available only as active destiny): Gain +1 passive ki regeneration.

Now that the theory's out of the way, let's use ki for something useful.

Continue to the next section, "Finishing Moves."

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