Wednesday, May 9, 2012

Player Guide: Specialization

Even though the Way of the Monk's primary purpose is to provide a new playstyle, I have incorporated several ways to specialize your character.

1. Classic Monk


There is, of course, the classic fantasy-genre monk that wields no weapons, wears no armor, and heals his fellow warriors. Either the Pillar of the Healer or the Pillar of Aptitude are for you. The Pillar of the Healer's power automatically heals nearby allies by 3 points per second. Used with a follower-enhancement mod such as UFO, this will be especially useful. The Pillar of Aptitude does not give you any special powers, but instead increases the speed at which your Monk skills level. This classic character-type would use both of my new skills, as well as take advantage of the new weapons. To raise your player level and to survive for the first few levels, I would also suggest taking the time to improve your Restoration and Aleration skills.

2. Strangle 'em!


Want to sneak through the shadows and surprise your enemies with a stranglehold? With the latest patch from Bethesda, a ton of new Unarmed killcams have been added, including a number of which are specific to stealthily killing someone from behind. Just adds another level to your awesomeness. Finding the Pillar of the Shadow Monk would be my first deed. Read "the Pillars" at the Pillars of the Way for a riddle to find its location. The Pillar gives you a Backstab-like effect that multiplies your sneak-attack damage by 6 with Monk weapons. For you Unarmored assassins, it also fortifies your Sneak by 10 when you are not wearing armor. If you are going to play the part of a blade-less shadow killer, you might want to consider playing a Khajiit to get their Unarmed Damage and Sneak bonuses.

3. Magical Monk


One of the uniquenesses of this mod is its Unarmored features. In the vanilla game you must rely on your spells or talent in avoiding attacks to survive blows from your opponents. But with Way of the Monk, you can use the Unarmored perks to raise your chances of survival, and the Unarmed perks to fight in close combat. The Pillar of the Elemental Monk would be the most beneficial for such a character, since it gives you a resistance to magic when unarmored and lets you deal elemental damage to enemies with your attacks. Use whatever magic skills you desire in combination with my own new skills.

4. Tough Pugilist


Perhaps you just want to be a metal-encased warrior that beats his enemies into submission with his fists rather than a warhammer? Go for it! There is no specific pillar for a heavy-armor or light-armor monk, but I might suggest using the Pillar of the Wielder that multiplies the speed of your Monk attacks by 3 once a day. Use either of the vanilla armor skills that you want. I would suggest getting the Fists of Steel perk if you are a heavily armored Dovahkin.

11 comments:

  1. Thanks for this list... it definitely helps a bit in choosing the right pillar... And hey: Thanks a lot for your work with this mod! I hope its popularity will grow on the Nexus, since your ideas fit very well what I was searching! Great work!

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    1. You are very welcome. :-)

      Btw, I just uploaded the update for Way of the Monk to the Nexus. Check out the latest post on this blog for the list of changes.

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    2. Ha, yes... I saw it before half an hour and just started a new game, since my old savegame bloated up (+12MB and increasing), after installing the mod... but this happened before to other mods... this seems to happen due to the heavy scripting which does something to the saves. I think this is repaired by just starting a new game... while it is also better start punching easier opponents to train unarmed fighting :) because on master difficulty as mage on lvl 10+ the opponents are just too powerful to start training as a monk...
      one last question: It seems that I do much higher damage with the unarmed weapon before the update?

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    3. I meant: now the damage seems to be higher than before the update... sorry for getting this wrong

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    4. Yeah, I would definitely suggest starting a new character. It kind of messes up your quests and achievements, but it's much easier.

      It shouldn't be doing any more actual damage per attack, but it does attack slightly faster, which can result in more damage dealt.

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  2. Yeah, I would definitely suggest starting a new character. It kind of messes up your quests and achievements, but it's much easier.

    It shouldn't be doing any more actual damage per attack, but it does attack slightly faster, which can result in more damage dealt.

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  3. thanks for your fast reply! Yes, the attack speed now is perfect I think... unfortunately I got the savegame bloat again :/ in the following way: when I stand there doing nothing for several hours (I went approx. 40 min afk for testing this) and do a save before and after this waiting... then the second save is 800 kb greater than the first one, and with a cleaned save without the mod, the save is much smaller (in my case, as I just started a new game:
    -save without mod 3.5 MB
    -save before waiting 4.0 MB
    -save after waiting 4.8 MB)

    if this increase is constant, than I would get a really huge save file after playing 50+ hours...

    Is this just for me or did you recognize something similar?

    Thanks a lot!

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    Replies
    1. Hmm, I'm not sure what is causing the savegame bloat. Someone else noticed that and said that it tends to happen with heavily-scripted mods. I will post something in the Nexus forums asking for advice. Thanks for the info. :-)

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  4. Hey can I level up my unarmed without the Monk weapons?

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    Replies
    1. You can if you use the console. Other than that, using the new Monk weapons and the Unarmed weapon are the only way.

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  5. This is an informative blog by which I have got that info which I really wanted to get.

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