Martial Arts Guide

The Martial Arts Guide created by Losstarot

Introduction: The Ability 'Martial Artist' is the Monk's last acquired ability if you go the pure path for the prestige class (Mage 5, Fighter 10, Monk 15). It gives you access to the 'Martial Arts' unique spell in the ]wizardgump.

The spell costs a minimum of 30 mana to cast and its effects last for 20 minutes. The strength of the spell scales with mana channeled into it, up to 5 Intensity levels. Once you channel the min mana, a gump pops up with the martial arts styles. There are 4 to choose from, one for each element. You stop channeling when you select a style or when you can't channel more.

Each style has two effects: a passive bonus and an 'on hit' special attack (which doubles in effect if you're unarmed). Additionally, for its duration, the spell also grants a pulsing aura that shares your buffs (partially) with your party.

Styles

(values shown for Intensity 5)

> Earth Stance Passive: Grants 30% mitigation from all sources (6% per Intensity level). OnHit: Hammers/Maces reduce target's swing speed (2x reduction if unarmed).

> Fire Stance Passive: Grants 40% bonus damage to attacks (8% per Intensity level). OnHit: Spears/Forks can proc additional attacks 10% of the time (20% of the time if unarmed) (2% / 4% per Intensity level).

> Water Stance Passive: Grants +15 Mana/HP regeneration (+3 per Intensity level). OnHit: Staves have a 10% chance to stun for .5 sec on hit (20% chance if unarmed) ( 2% / 4% per Intensity level).

> Wind Stance Passive: Grants a 40% evasion chance (8% per Intensity level). OnHit: Swords/Knives have 10% chance to evade target's armor (20% chance if unarmed) (2% / 4% per Intensity level).

Aura

When you have a martial art active, your arcane energy pulses outwards, like an aura, every 8 seconds. This aura applies an Intensity 1 version of your current stance to party members close to you. Refer to the minimum values between parenthesis above for an idea of how Intensity 1 would be.

The aura effect lasts for 1 minute on party members, if not attended. However every time your aura pulses, it reapplies itself. So your party members may receive the buff and not necessarily remain close to keep it, as long as they return to the monk before that 1 minute ends.

Usability

The 4 styles add even more versatility to the monk, which was already a quite versatile class. Combining styles with spells, weapons, armor and enchantments allows for much freedom and variety when coming up with a playstyle.

A style may be more beneficial than others according to the situation, so the idea is to switch between them when the situation changes. Here's an example: a monk is in a dungeon, about to storm into a room with about 10 weak enemies, he decides to kill them all quickly and casts the Fire Stance; later on, to face a slow hitting, but heavily armored knight, he casts Wind Stance to avoid his few hits while also ignoring the armor on a few of his own hits; and so on.

A group of monks in the same party can potentially activate all styles at the same time via aura share, if each pick a different element. Your element is displayed on the buffs / debuffs bar. Click the button on the top-left of the maximized version of status bar to show buffs/debuffs currently on you. To maximize the status bar, double click on it.

That's all! Hope this guide was helpful. Thanks for reading.