Gunk is a good Monk Build! - Dnd 5E

[Music] merch shop and patreon if you wish to support me video time enjoy monks they are considered the worst class in 5e optimization and it's true for the most part but that doesn't mean there's nothing to salvage for more than a year i also believe monks were the worst too but i've actually changed my mind anyways i don't think you guys know what a gunk is and i don't know if anyone has pointed out how potent these specific features really are for monks so let's talk about them and hey make a build out of it why not welcome to pack tactics monks are a skirmisher class they're very fast and that's the advantage to classes over others but sadly the step of the wind ruins all the fun by costing a key to bonus action disengage while a rogue can do it without spending resources at all this makes things difficult because we don't have a lot of ki and our defenses and hit points are very bad so the solution is to think like the mongolians and use range weapons and turn them into monk weapons but kubold i know what you're gonna say doesn't that invalidate half the monk class features i'm going to save that argument to the end i'll most likely mark it for you there's also a small math section too by the way anyways second level through tash's options we get dedicated weapon whenever you finish a short or long rest you can touch one weapon focus your key on it and then count that weapon as a monk weapon until you use this feature again the chosen weapon must meet these criterias the weapon must be a simple or martial weapon you must be proficient with it it must lack the heavy and special properties doing this is free by the way anyways the second bullet point is actually a problem you see we only have two simple range weapons of value the light crossbow and the short bow and they suck so the way to solve this is to gunk a gunk is a monk with a gun muskets do 1d12 damage dms who allow art officers will usually also allow muskets and gunks are known to be one of the best monks in the game we pick up gunner fee at first level through voomin or custom lineage it increases decks by one points you gain proficiency with firearms you ignore the loading property of firearms and being within five feet of a hostile creature doesn't impose disadvantage on range attack rolls why do we want to make this musket into a monk weapon well it's to use key fueled attacks at third level if you spend one key point or more as part of your action on your turn you can make one attack with a monk weapon as a bonus action before the end of the turn so shoot your ranged weapon against spending one key that's a good trade for range attacks like muskets the only downside to muskets is the price of the weapon and rarity some dms are also annoying with bullets but i think a conversation with the dm will resolve this problem what are we spending that action key on to activate key fuels focused aim we get that at level five when you miss with an attack roll you can spend one to three key points to increase your attack roll by two for each of these key points you spend potentially turning the miss into a hit this will come up a lot key fueled and focus aim are super duper important they complement each other with killing things especially for gunks so if you spend one key on focus aim you may then use key fueled right away to bonus action attack for you meet that criteria of spending one key points or more as part of your action on your turn here is where it gets super interesting we haven't figured out how to optimize this properly and the math for this is very annoying i'm not equipped and we'll talk about the math later key usage it's normally not worth spending three key on focus aim you will get the best results spending 2k to turn misses into hits shout outs to quetz as soon as we hit level 3 we pick the strongest monk subclass in the game shadow monk why shadow arts spending two key points to cast past without trace if you're level four and monk you can cast pass without trace twice you can even pass without trace and then take a short rest to get two more casts of this spell that's right this subclass is the best tier one party stealther in the game like this subclass is really the gloom stalker of marshalls it's so underrated it's so good this is what the sixth time i'm covering this spell pass to that trace second level action one hour duration each creature you choose within 30 feet of you including you has a plus 10 bonus to stealth checks and can't be tracked by magical means a creature that receives this bonus leaves behind no tracks or other traces of his passage a flat plus 10 bonus to stealth for everyone 67 of creatures in all of the books combined have less than 14 passive perception with a zero modifier you have an 85 percent chance of succeeding the check with disadvantage like that paladin infill plates it's like 72 percent chance getting surprised should be easy now surprise is basically like action search but for your whole party and with advantage on the first attack so it's way better you know that warlock baseline monks have a hard time beating well it's irrelevant in this context we're beating it by boosting the entire team including yourself if you don't know how surprise works i made a video about it i recommend you watch it if you really want to play any shadow monk really cause this is what they do at level six you go fighter one and get archery feature that's a ten percent increase to your chance to hit math wise combined with sharpshooter you really can't ignore this it's super good there you go it looks like a build now five levels in shadow monk one level and fighter here's the race and the ability score we go custom lineage pick gunner feat gunner it also provides us one point in decks i said that before but this is just a reminder ability score 18 decks 14 constitution 10 intelligence and 14 wisdom through unarmored defense that gives us 16 ac yeah the ac still sucks but at least we can move 40 feet instead of 30 skills and background pick what you want but stealth and perception is the most important skills to pick arcana is also a good pick once you get spell casting from ranger for example once you hit level 4 and monk pick sharpshooter okay you're caught up from here you can go multiple directions four level and fighter to pick up battle master maneuvers and then multi-class into ranger 4 to get gloom stalker for invisibility and more damage to make it more complicated you can grab four levels in rogue and go assassin that will greatly complement your password trace and then end with eight levels in monk this is probably the strongest monk build in the game but it's depressing to calculate in theory so the optimization isn't solved here i know quite a few people who have tried to find the correct dpr for it and they all gave up there's too many variables me i'm not equipped to do it i'm actually too dumb these two features from tash's interacting with other features are really annoying and complex in theory from sixth level the exact optimal order is currently unknown and it will stay unknown for a very long time tabletop builds will probably crack the code in the future i have no idea i think battlemaster is the way to go because you're already the master of short rests anyways your past without trace is so incredibly important i can't stress to you how strong it is basically when you need a short rest you demand for it you have the right to sit on your butt standard monks demanding short rests in an optimized party won't get that short rest because monk sucks in the optimizer's perspective even with resources but this build puts you in a position where the whole group wants you to short rest for that stealth boost anyways even at low levels the math for this build is super annoying because again those features the limited key factor and then there's the fact you might not get the musket right away and instead use a short ball or something until you get it but we can at least try to compare this to a to the warlock baseline at fifth level that fifth level baseline is usually the hardest one to beat for a lot of builds this is a very basic calculation spending no resources using sharpshooter with a musket versus a creature with 15 ac is 40 to hit 17.05 dpr with advantage it's 64 to hit 27.50 dpr yes you're one point below baseline at this point but always remember you always have that pass of that trace up and you're getting surprise in majority of encounters so this isn't correct dpr the password trace collective average damage is impossible to find unless you know the party but i can firmly tell you it's super duper high let's factor in that bonus action attack from key fueled alone i don't know how to calculate this together with focus aim average it's probably very easy to find i don't know it's too much for my little kobo brain to handle currently but surface level understanding it looks like good damage because well bigger chance to hit after all so take this calculation with a grain of salt it's actually higher versus a creature with 15 ac 40 to hit 25.8 average damage with advantage it's 64 to hit 41.26 average damage one more thing spending focused aim on that bonus action attack is worth the key for you because while you hit the guy you do damage so there's also that to consider i stopped this character at level 6 because of archery feature so let me quickly factor that in for you versus a creature with 15 ac that's 50 chance to hit 21.15 dpr with advantage it's 75 to hit 32.01 dpr you're above the baseline spending no resources good now with key fueled with archery versus a creature with 15 ac that's 50 to hit 31.72 average damage with advantage it's 75 to hit 48.02 average damage spending a single key to do a little bit more than 31.72 average damage is really good for level 6. quickly on the progression of the fifth level shoot bow or musket don't volunteer into melee if you do end up in melee by a creature walking up to you then use flurry of blows once you hit fifth level and get that focused aim that's when you stop using flurry of blows if you use focused aim and miss the hit anyways key fuel still triggers when it comes to predicting creatures ac it's safe to assume the baseline ac values but you would have to figure that out yourself or you can play it safe and see what hits first and guess what the ac actually is from there like i said the optimal approach has not been figured out yet you now understand what a gunk is and the noteworthy things monks really have going for them and that's the important thing i want you to know at minimum very few people are talking about how important these features are this is a skeleton of a really good monk that legit competes with other marshals and half casters in the ratio of damage dealt versus damage taken and you can make it stronger by multicasting with those examples i gave out that 11th level monk problem won't be a problem anymore if you get battle master or gloom stalker features stunning strike will be its own video there are cases where gunk should use stunning strike like versus casters but you should be the judge of that like if you know for sure this druid npc doesn't have shield spell then go for it you know actual monk dpr overall will be a video in the future not anytime soon like everything before tash's is solved and it doesn't look good at all like the best we could do with a straight monk punching things at level 20 was 28.4 dpr and that's basically kantrip damage the reason for this is simply because there's a lack of features at 11th level they simply don't get enough stuff to boost the damage and the same will happen to this gunk if you don't multi-class all the good features monks have to offer are up to five or six levels then from there you should abandon ship from the class and this is a common practice in optimization for other classes like barbarians rangers and paladins paladins is for level seven you know but but you get the points we got to end this video let's talk about the anti-ranged monk arguments i'm aware that people will argue that this isn't really a monk if it's not using kung-fu stuff but it's still using monk features maybe not all of them but definitely the mobility one for sure monks are the mobility kings that don't rely on horses spells or actions they're just naturally speedy you optimize the mobility by using a ranged weapon like a mongolian they clearly complement each other you can't deny that there's an old ranger argument buried here with monk people in the past and while to this day argue that ranger sucks because of dead features the counter argument to that is just to ignore those bad features and focus on the good ones which is archery feature extra attack and spell casting for example same applies here we ignore flurry of blows because it's a trap to get you into melee which you have a hard time getting out of apparently according to step of the wind causing key you see what i mean you might as well use technology to solve this problem you get the points thank you for watching i hope i earned your subscription bye

Channel: Pack Tactics

Views: 223,420

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Id: wmYyJx5LUGI

Length: 14min 5sec (845 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 01 2022