All men can see the tactics whereby I conquer, but what none can see is the strategy out of which victory is evolved. Do not repeat the tactics which have gained you one victory, but let your methods be regulated by the infinite variety of circumstances. Military tactics are like unto water; for water in its natural course runs away from high places and hastens downwards.
So in war, the way is to avoid what is strong and to strike at what is weak.
--The Art of War, Sun Tzu
...And knowing is half the battle!
--G.I. Joe
...But fighting the battle is the other half.
---Syncletica
Part of the discipline of playing a Monk is knowing how not to hack-hack-hack or cast-cast-cast in a quest. In short, you do neither (at least, not in Heroic levels).
By the Adept training level, you should be able to use basic finishers well. If not, this is a good opportunity to master them. You have work ahead of you, and useful gear awaits the well-prepared and trained.
Ataraxia's Haven quests
- Duergar cannot be paralyzed. They are very durable mages and fighters that will wear you down quickly without good strategy and the right gear. They are harder to stun as well.
- Wildmen's attacks like to Slow you. How high are your saves?
- This is a great area to complete Explorers and get good Slayer XP.
House Jorasco quests
- "Redwillow's Ruins" is a great party quest. You need better-than-average saves to avoid the traps in some caves if you haven't a Rogue handy. Mobs, mobs everywhere.
- "Valak's Mausoleum" is a timed quest with deadly traps and lots of undead. Light Monks will do well here.
- "Haunted Library," "The Graverobber," and other quests here are filled with undead. Zombies are a problem--remember that they are resistant to Bludgeoning.
- Certain quests such as "The Xorian Cipher," "From Beyond the Grave" and "Dreams of Insanity" may all but require a party to complete with multiple switches that must be activated, or with an area that must be defended while others activate items inside the quest.
- "And The Dead Shall Rise" is a nightmarish tower that will challenge Monks at the quest level. Traps are all over as well as mummies (with Rot), hordes of undead, and a lich that likes to remove the floor you're standing on while you try to attack him.
House Phiarlan quests
- Running the Tangleroot Gorge and Phiarlan Carnival quests on Heroic Hard difficulty should give you enough favor to obtain the House patron's 30 minute buffs.
- More favor will grant you the Phiarlan Pendant of Time, which will make traversing about in public areas less time-consuming (as well as in special public adventures such as Crystal Cove and the Mabar Festival).
- If the idea of harming innocents in the quest "Purge the Heretics" bothers your personal sensibilities, don't worry. You are being manipulated, as you'll discover in the Web of Chaos quest chain.
- The Necropolis is good training for Light Monks, but challenging for Dark Monks. Do you understand why?
- The Ruins of Threnal quest chain should be run as a party--0nce, and on as high a difficulty as possible. The tediousness of this chain makes it hard to repeat. You can gain Fernian Wraps, +2 Flaming Burst handwraps, as well as Mantle of the Worldshaper, a nice spell-absorption cloak which pairs with the Voice of the Master to give you True Seeing.
- Like Stormcleave Outpost, the Tear of Dhakkan and Gwylan's Stand are long, resource-intensive adventures but fun to run as a party and highly rewarding in XP. Do not underestimate the traps or mobs in either adventure.
- A vampire awaits you in "The Church and the Cult." Do your fists have enough training and the right wraps/weapon to kill him?
- Whisperdoom is a heavily elemental-resistant magical beast, not a spider. She is found in two quests.
- In one quest in the "Assault on Splinterskull" chain in Tangleroot, she is effectively invulnerable. Just destroy her eggs, loot the chest there, and run.
- In "The Spawn of Whisperdoom," she can be slain, but it is far from easy. Pure Good works, but it alone may not be enough to penetrate her defenses and quickly regenerating health before her spell attacks kill you. Consider the power of Light. Also, three items hidden in her lair may offer you the chance of a special cloak that gives you web immunity.
House Deneith quests
- Stormcleave Outpost has impressive experience for parties, but is a very long quest where ship buffs will fade. It is a good test of your resource usage and continues to have a very adventurous, raid-like feel for low training levels. Watch out for the weight of these supplies you recover; they are very heavy and only a few may uncenter you. At the boss fight, you need only kill off one or two elemental groups to make the boss vulnerable to damage.
- If you haven't built your Jidz-Tet'ka bracers by now, run the Sentinels of Stormreach chain right away.
Sorrowdusk Isle
- This is a comparably-small wilderness area with large experience benefits for Slayer and Explorer objectives.
- The first cave is loaded with Force traps at a bridge. You are likely to die without a good Jump, knowledge of where to land safely and/or a good Rogue. Don't let your hirelings follow you here.
- Do not be surprised by unexpected foes; have fire or acid handwraps or weapons ready.
- On the upper mountain, mages, elementals and undead hold sway.
- For better training, have Secret Door Detection handy for the first upper mountain temple.
- A feather-falling item and an icy-burst throwing star may be yours on quest arc completion.
The Chronoscope (Raid)
- The Devotion handwraps from the Delera's Tomb quest chain are ideal here. (Update 17 revised these handwraps significantly and made them Bind to Character on Acquire.)
- Stay close. The wide area of the raid makes it easy to stray and be picked off by respawning mobs.
- Don't let the armorers of Blood Plate do their job.
- Have elemental resist potions or a good Cleric for the end-fight.
- Don't allow anyone to open the end chests until the tent is destroyed and the Dungeon Master's message has announced the tent's demise.
House Kundarak quests
- The quests here mix-up many enemy types. Most of these early adventures are quite short.
- Do not taunt Myr'dril unless you are prepared, in "Tharashk Arena."
- Something from Xoriat awaits you in of the "Caverns of Korromar", "The Prisoner" and "Jungle of Khyber." It will strip you of your protections and your life if you are not ready.
- Do not enter "Haywire Foundry" without a ki weapon with Adamantine, Adamantine-lined handwraps, Construct Bane or Smiting. Your fists are not yet ready at level 9 training. Also, you will need a very good Rogue to disarm traps at one of two required switches, or you'll need an insane Reflex save.
The Red Fens
- This is an expansive wilderness area with great rewards for Slayer and Explorer.
- Will-O-Wisps do not like Force damage.
- The Drowned do not like Cold damage. They are also Undead.
- If you enter "Fathom the Depths" without Underwater Action, you might survive to find air pockets and bubbly moss as you swim about.
- To defend the followers in "The Last Stand", you may need more than hirelings.
- A deathblocking helmet awaits you at the conclusion of "Into the Deep."
- The fish-people, while underwater, do not like Electricity. Fire is worthless there.
- If solo, stealth is better when seeking out "The Claw of Vulkoor."
Tempest's Spine (Raid)
- A good guide is needed for this one. You cannot use your map here. See DDO Wiki's updated guide.
- This raid is often run by Pick-Up Groups. As such, they are often chaotic events. Know your role.
- For a mid-level raid, this adventure is filled with extraordinarily deadly traps and foes. Follow your leader. Stay together.
- The raid forces you to be ready with all environmental protections; Underwater Action/Water Breathing potions, Proof against Poison and Disease, Remove Curse potions, Feather Falling, Deathblock/Death Ward, elemental resistances and protection potions/spells are a must.
- Do not rely on your Clerics to heal you all the time.
- To complete this raid, you must have a good Rogue/lockpicker in your party as well as a Wizard or class with high INT.
- There are three runes found in the raid that are key to raid completion. Do NOT pick them up unless you know what you are doing.
- The Lair of Fire and Ice have an ice flenser and a fire reaver that must die together within 30 seconds of the other. This area often kills a party because they split up, causing the constantly respawning denizens here to overwhelm a party. You could pull Ice down to where Fire lives, where the party can dispatch both, quickly.
- When swimming through the Flooded Tunnel, keep the tunnel wall to the right and swim up through a couple of holes to find a chest. On return, do the same; keep to the right wall. The tunnel is Y-shaped. You'll exit at a new location.
- Beholders and rust monsters will pay a visit.
- Iron Golems and a Marut appear in the last shard-gathering phase. Without Adamantine and Chaotic weaponry, most Monks may need to fend off other enemies while the rest of the party dispatches the mechs.
- The final portal to the summit, down a one-way hole, is guarded by a beholder. Have a worthy spell caster drop in a few Walls of Fire to dispatch.
- Remove your Feather Fall items before you enter the last portal.
- Sor'jek, the raid boss, uses weather control against you, threatening to literally knock you off the mountain as the party solves the puzzle and uses the runes to turn off his weather-control before he is vulnerable to attack.
- Fight against Sor'jek with your back to the entrance and the ruins to minimize being knocked off too easily.
- If you are knocked off the mountain, it's a VERY high drop. Kick your Feather Fall on and try typing the "/stuck" command once a day in hopes of an emergency teleport back up to the summit. If this fails, you have a long, deadly run back to the mountain entrance in store for you.
- Update 17 updated the end rewards as raid items, but none of them may be too useful for a Monk.
- Unlike other raids, Tempest's Spine has no timer. Run it as often as you dare.
The Sands of Menacharun
- Mummy Rot was a big annoyance for Monks but not fatal, until Update 14 turned the Rot into a supernatural disease, requiring Monks to have Remove Disease ability, potions (or a good Cleric) to rid themselves of the disease effects.
- Use the spell-like ability Restoring the Balance (Light Monk) or a Remove Curse potion first, then use The Receptive Earth ability (Light Monk) or a Remove Disease potion for friends or yourself.
- Light Monks may want to carry a few potions unless they can generate enough ki to remove this stuff every 30 seconds.
- The Blood Stone (Seeker +6) can be found somewhere within the chests of two rare encounters within the Valley of the False Tombs.
- Feather-falling is required here to traverse the mountains or canyons or death is certain.
- One of the flagging quests, "An Offering of Blood," may give you a chance to find the Spectral Gloves, which gives you Ethereal hands (Ghost Touch). Keep moving here. As you run up the ramps, everything respawns and chases you. You can be overwhelmed if you stay put for too long. Don't feel obliged to kill everything, but don't let Dungeon Alerts begin to build.
- Dark students may find the undead a greater challenge to fight in the Chambers of Kourush, Raiyum and Rahmat because their debuffs are less effective against these foes.
- The Burning City is arduous and long. Your ki may be all that's left as a resource after what few shrines are depleted by your party and the final enemies await you. The city's name suggests you have fire resist and protection potions. There are snipers often above you; a Snowstar will be useful to pick them off if you cannot outrun their barrage.