This guide is no longer updated. A new guide will be coming soon.
-- Carl Douglas (after reading Sun Tzu)
Once you’ve got a few key finishing moves down, you’ll settle into a natural rhythm of fighting. In fact, you’ll likely gain a certain intuitiveness when you spot certain enemies.
This is a good thing. The best way to play the game is to become the character you play in as much as you can mind your virtual surroundings.
Here, I’ll try examples of party and solo fighting for specific quests that show you what I mean. These are Light Monk examples. You'll find a more advanced Dark Monk example in the Master section.
Let’s start with a younger Syncletica (Around L12) and a typical full party at the same levels. We just entered the third quest in the Delera’s Tomb chain, "Free Delera." We’re just running the quest for Elite favor and have just entered, waiting for buffs.
Syncletica first uses Water->Light->Water for the Aligning the Heavens buff before the Cleric and others dish out some party buffs.
Aligning the Heavens reduces spell-point use by 25% for one minute. Spell casters love you for this, especially when buffing. If you can spam this while in combat, so much the better, especially in quests where shrines are quite distant or few.
After buffing, the group moves in to a small room with stairs leading down to the right to a door. Skeleton archers appear on the thin ledges around the upper layer of the room. Ahead is a chest on the level of the archers. The party Cleric and several others try and fail to jump to the left of the level and to the ledge in hopes of reaching the chest early, and the archers are a bit nasty, pummeling the party.
Syncletica’s Jump skill easily lands her on the ledges to destroy the enemies. She’s able to reach the chest without problem and collect her loot in advance before joining the party as they move downstairs.
Syncletica received a new feat, Abundant Step, at level 12. She can use ki to make a long jump to reach ledges that only a few others can do (such as Favored Souls with their Leap of Faith wings and Air Savant Sorcerers with Wind Dance). Unlike Leap of Faith, Abundant Step has only a 3 second cool-down.
The party reaches a wide, high room with a spiral staircase. Two exits lead at the top, left and right, but the left is sealed. Just as Syncletica reaches the party, a horde of wraiths appear to ambush them all.
Syncletica switches her handwraps from her Wraps of Endless Light to Ghost Touch handwraps and tries to use her Shintao smiting moves on the ghosts to ensure she’ll hit them.
She puts in a a chain of Fists of Light to damage the ghosts and bursts a Healing Ki to help out the Cleric’s heals a bit (Healing Ki doesn’t hurt undead). After helping in dispatching the ghosts, she runs up the ramp, jumps up to the top right, then uses Abundant Step to reach the many archers that continue to rain damage from thin, isolated ledges that are otherwise unreachable. Other party members enter the first soul lock room.
Some classes can just roam through a quest, hardly adjusting their gear. Monks have it good on two fronts. They can carry and change not only handwraps very quickly, but also outfits (there’s no “Equipping” delay with robes or outfits) that provide special protection.
In her future, Syn gains the Spectral Gloves from the Demon Sands. These gloves give more DEX but also have the Ethereal property--natural Ghost Touch is applied to her unarmed attacks. That way, Syn will later just change her glove set, keeping the more effective Wraps of Endless Light in play for better undead beat-downs. Again, Abundant Step helps here to reach targets that can’t otherwise be reached without a spell caster or good archer.
Let’s skip ahead to the last quest in Delera’s Tomb, "Thrall of the Necromancer". This one has a shaky start.
After buffing, the party begins their walk down to the first door. For some reason, the Cleric is ahead of the party. He’s hit by a nasty fire trap just before the door and dies.
Syncletica volunteers to help. Using Abundant Step, she leaps so quickly forward to the door, passing the trap before it can even spring on her. After a moment of Meditation, she uses her Rise of the Phoenix to raise the Cleric from the dead while the party’s Rogue disables the deadly trap.
Some Monks may choose not to take Rise of the Phoenix, and given the many AP needed for other things, that’s understandable. Rise of the Phoenix in this example, however, saved the party. A shrine in this quest is some ways ahead, and with many mobs to destroy before they got there.
The cost to Syncletica in using her Raise Dead spell-like ability is more than just ki, however. Syn loses 50 HP in addition to her 50 ki anytime she uses it. Needless to say, have no less than 51 HP before using Rise of the Phoenix or the ability will be automatically disabled to keep you from incapacitating or killing yourself.
It doesn’t hurt that Syn now has Improved Evasion. Even if she were to spring the trap and miss her saving throw, she’d take only half-damage at most.