I feel like fangs of the fire snake is the coolest one. Not only gives you fire damage afterwards but have different animations with the staff. Other elemental skills should have had similar effects and animations as well.
As a prospective modder looking to see all the skills and such available in the game and their use-cases, your videos have been a great help. Keep up the awesome work!
Very good video, great information without a lot of bloat or spoilers. I loved your thumbnail. the avatar series is what I immediatly thought of when I saw this subclass when I tried monk. Now I can play the game as the avatar, which should be fun, xD
The biggest problem of four elements monk is that it uses too much ki points for spells that other classes already have so you don't really feel like going for the four elements since your spellcaster can already do everything the four elements monk can do except for a few things like fist of unbroken air
Harmony of Fire and Water is nice, but Wholeness of Body is just better. You get the one-time half of your ki points, _plus_ one extra for 3 turns. At level 12, that's 9 ki points regained, and during those 3 turns you have two bonus actions for flurrying.
I’m wanting to basically create Mario as a monk, and like fangs of the fire snake will be his fire ball. I’m a Duergar so I’ll eventually be able to cast enlarge as well.
Tav is a shadow monk, Shadowheart is way of the fist, Lae’zel is four elements, and Karlach is a Berserker specializing in throwing. No armor and at level 5 they are all deadly.
A big part of playing an elemental monk in campaigns is improvising uses for shaping elements. Examples ive seen are: making marbles from stonr to cause enemies to stumble, creating caltrops out of ice
Been playing around with the monk and I'm more about the heavy armour and tavern brawler, four elements kinda sucks, I like the fist of unbroken air as it looks like a monk attack while all others don't and make me think, I'd rather be a caster. Shadow monk with a dip into a war cleric and thief make you a teleporting brawler but I'll do more experimenting tomorrow.
I want to try a multiclass build elemental monk x tempest cleric but not sure what proportion should i split the levels i thought maybe go 6 and 6 but evasion on monk lvl 7 seems really nice
Hi! I realized that he has few skills and I was left wanting more. Do you know if adding the "5e Spells" mod gives more abilities to this monk? something like earthbending
note. shields disables unarmored defense. dexterous attack when it is active, overrides shillelagh and other stat scaling like pact. (if dex>str. shillelag uses Dex. if str>dex. shillelag uses wis. doesnt matter if wis is higher or lower than dex.) fangs of the fire snake, is a attack. so it trigger extra attack. all others are not attacks. so you cant double cast it. which is a shame. cause those spells cannot be upcasted. so being able to cast it twice would make it balanced.
I love the Four Elements but they are so weak against the Way of the Openhand. But u got style and i dont use the style sadly in first act i play very mutch with the spells and on act 2 i use only the Water Whip and in act3 i reskill becous i feel a bit weak.
I wonder why the Way of the Four Elements Monk doesn't get earth-based abilities, i.e.: - Thorn Whip - Grasping Vine - Entangle - Spike Growth - Plant Growth - Wall of Stone - Wall of Thorns - Barkskin - Stoneskin - Flesh to Stone I'm also curious why they don't get more of the other elemental abilities other classes get tbh, i.e.: ICE/ WATER - Ice Storm - Sleet Storm - Cone of Cold - Wall of Ice - Create or Destroy Water FIRE - Fire Bolt - Produce Flame - Heat Metal - Fire Shield - Wall of Fire - Flame Strike AIR - Wind Walk - Fog Cloud - Hold Monster - Telekinesis - Globe of Invulnerability LIGHTNING/ THUNDER - Witch Bolt - Lightning Bolt - Chain Lightning - Destructive Wave - Thunderous Smite
This subclass gets a lot of flack, but my first tav was a 4E monk, and it was genuinely a lot of fun. I had some bad optimization with some of my spell choices and gear, but otherwise was a blast to play
The only good thing about 4E monk, is you can target enemy different stat when you want to do prone or push, thunder for Con, water for Dex and another for Str. Overall its just a support monk, only to help knock enemy prone or drag or push them. They wont be major damage dealer. But even as support monk their ki just pathetically low.
@jaysonburke6839 What, you compare 4E monk to shadow monk and open hand about ki usage efficiency? Do you even play all subclass in FULLPLAYTHROUGH before comment?
I like that you started to speak more freely on videos, even jocking sometimes it adds more character to you while still maintaining educational strait to point approach without that "too much of a youtuber's personality, attention-whoring and empty words" which is just annoying I watch your videos even if I don't care about that (sub)class at all just because you deliver information just the right way and watching videos does not feel like a waste of time compared to swiftly reading wiki
It should be called way of the three elements because BG3 missed earthbending entirely LMAO Also, I’ve never seen half of these in action myself, thanks for the video!
step of the wind removes the bonus action cost, so you only pay the movement cost. That means with 60ft movement speed (30 base + 20 from Unarmored Movement + 10 longstrider) multiplied twice because of the dash, you'll have 12 jump attempts. With a 30ft base jump distance at 20 STR, the Athlete feat (+ 50% jump distance) and level 9's Advanced Unarmored Movement (+20 ft), each of those 12 jumps would be at 75 ft. You're basically spanning the whole battlefield getting into melee distance with _everything_ to either stun them or burn their reactions from Opportunity Attacks.
@@Omaha01 it's just... Go to emerald grow - buy 3 elixirs for 21 str per long rest couple of times and you're covered for the first act. And since extra action elixir is mainly act 3 necessity you can gulp them til lower city and get + 10 to your unarmed strikes plus great hit chance, basically great weapons master perk without negative 5 to attack rolls
Neat subclass and the animations are nice but it seems kinda lackluster overall. I don't wanna wait several extra levels to be basically a worse wizard/sorcerer when i could be using Ki points to hit things a lot.
I think an easy way to make it competitive with the other monk classes would be to make the spells count as unarmed attacks. Cause as it is, the damage is just too low and they have too little utility to make up for that, so as cool as everything looks, it's incredibly weak. All sizzle no steak basically.
Yes, monks and barbarians get unarmored defense ONLY if they are wearing no armor or shields. Clothing is fine. You can see in the item descriptions if something is considered armor or clothing. Don't forget to check your gloves, boots, and helmet slots! Many of those items are still tagged as armor, even if they don't increase your AC. I had Karlach wearing the helldusk gauntlets for a while and since that counted as "armor", she lost unarmored defense and her AC dropped to 11. When I realized it, I removed the gauntlets, and her AC went up to 17!
Before lvl 6, this is better IMO. The pure burst dmg is more valuable early on. But at lvl 6, Wholeness of Body from the Open Hand way just shits on this whole way. Fireballs at lvl 11? No thx. Ki-resonating punches do the same thing, earlier and for free.
I find it quite of a shame that its just a slight caster and it feels very dead as soon as the ki points end. It really is the weakest of the monk subclasses
I mean that's most caster classes for you: dead as soon as the spell slots are over. Of the four primary caster classes (wizard, sorc, cleric, warlock) only warlock gets to recover spell slots on short rest + constant EB spamming in between. Sorcs at least get burn sorcery points to regain spell slots -- leading to the nasty coffeelock combo of burning warlock spell slots to restore sorcery spell slots, short-resting, and repeating. Wizards managed to get a homebrewed spell slot restoration feature (arcane cultivation), while clerics get absolutely nothing. Also, none of the 2/3rd casters -- which I'd argue this subclass is -- can recover spell slots outside of a long rest.
@@romxxii yeah but casters in general can last so much longer, especially since if you multiclass this one you will last even less, and there is also warlock which just lasts forever just because eldritch blast
I haven’t played this subclass but it just sounds so bad. Mainly having to use 2-4 Ki points for a spell when if you really wanted to be a spell using Monk, you can just go Way of the Open Hand and multiclass into Wizard/Sorcerer/Warlock and use cantrips for free. Or if you don’t want to multiclass out of Monk you could just use a feat for Mage Initiate: Wizard and get two cantrips and a spell; pop on that gear that gives 17 intelligence and you’re all set. Maybe I’m missing something, but this sounds like a D tier subclass.
cool subclass, but bad mechanics. no utility spells (only blaster until the end), you can only choose a small number of spells, and it use ki pts. All monk abilities use ki points... huge competition between your monk basic abilities (and you have a lot) and spells, mean if you cast spell you can't do other cool monk stuff. Feel inferior to eldritch knight or arcane trickster (or warlock). if the subclass used spellslots, that would have allowed it to cast spell while doing monk stuff.
Thinking of adding it with Barb as it’s only of the few things I found you can still do while ragging and only having smash and smash is a little boring though being almost unkillable is nice.
WoE Monk is so weak at all stages of the game. Easiest way to fix Way of elements monk is to make the T1 spells cost 0 ki points and make every Tier after that cost one less ki point. To balance that early game buff just make their ki gain like normal 5e. That would be a crazy way to make them relevant at least and strong early but they still kind of fall off late because they end up just being worse sorcerer/ wizard. This gives them some type of balance and a unique reason to use the subclass.
Either give them more Ki, or treat their spell like abilities as attack, so you can have 1 spell, 1 attack and 1 bonus attack, it wont be OP since there are so little Ki
Man, I love how you clearly demonstrate the abilities so that there's no question about how something works.
Thanks! I figure it's easier to tell if you like something if you can actually see it in action rather than just read it
@@Omaha01 Will those skills get stronger dmg in later levels or do they stay that way?
@@Omaha01 Clear and well put together
@anormos7270 yeah a lot of them get an extra damage dice at level 9!
@scottrackley4457 thanks!
I feel like fangs of the fire snake is the coolest one. Not only gives you fire damage afterwards but have different animations with the staff. Other elemental skills should have had similar effects and animations as well.
It is sad that there is no earth bending
Even with plenty of earth spells available...
There’s a vine ring or something somehwere
Scroll.of stone wall
Man, I was so ready for that
The earth spell its just in higher level
this subclass is way cooler than i thought! thanks for the video!
Glad you liked it!
It’s not because they are not spells that you can cast them while Silenced, it is because they have no verbal component.
I've tried various classes and so far Monk is my favorite. I love the movement they get. Plus tavern brawler is a nice bonus to damage.
As a prospective modder looking to see all the skills and such available in the game and their use-cases, your videos have been a great help. Keep up the awesome work!
Please make them look more asian-like, with symbols and stuff!
Thanks for the thorough demonstration!
You deserve more subs. I love your class breakdowns!
Glad you like them! I appreciate it!
your guides are sick with the demonstrations and you speak well, very nice and im definitely subbing
Thank you! Glad to hear you like them!
Very good video, great information without a lot of bloat or spoilers. I loved your thumbnail.
the avatar series is what I immediatly thought of when I saw this subclass when I tried monk. Now I can play the game as the avatar, which should be fun, xD
Glad you liked it! Yeah same here. I just wish there was a little more earth-bending haha
The biggest problem of four elements monk is that it uses too much ki points for spells that other classes already have so you don't really feel like going for the four elements since your spellcaster can already do everything the four elements monk can do except for a few things like fist of unbroken air
Fist of unbroken air is still the worst name for an ability...
Harmony of Fire and Water is nice, but Wholeness of Body is just better. You get the one-time half of your ki points, _plus_ one extra for 3 turns. At level 12, that's 9 ki points regained, and during those 3 turns you have two bonus actions for flurrying.
You also get some hp back just wanted to add that in case some people didn't know
Top tier class breakdown
awesome content!
Thanks!
Great videos! Dont know if i want to play ranger or monk
I’m wanting to basically create Mario as a monk, and like fangs of the fire snake will be his fire ball. I’m a Duergar so I’ll eventually be able to cast enlarge as well.
Tav is a shadow monk, Shadowheart is way of the fist, Lae’zel is four elements, and Karlach is a Berserker specializing in throwing. No armor and at level 5 they are all deadly.
Holy heck that red robe is sooo much better than the default fruit
A big part of playing an elemental monk in campaigns is improvising uses for shaping elements. Examples ive seen are: making marbles from stonr to cause enemies to stumble, creating caltrops out of ice
You can through the ice cube?
Class theme is interesting. Just wish 11th level spells could hit harder. Feels like a watered down warlock at this point.
I always play open-hand Monk, but after watching avatar, this will be my new main.
Been playing around with the monk and I'm more about the heavy armour and tavern brawler, four elements kinda sucks, I like the fist of unbroken air as it looks like a monk attack while all others don't and make me think, I'd rather be a caster.
Shadow monk with a dip into a war cleric and thief make you a teleporting brawler but I'll do more experimenting tomorrow.
I made the sun zero build it is so amazing
I want to try a multiclass build elemental monk x tempest cleric but not sure what proportion should i split the levels i thought maybe go 6 and 6 but evasion on monk lvl 7 seems really nice
Richter Belmont build incoming
i wanna try creating ice blocks and then chucking them with telekinesis, it's still a 250kg block, should do decent damage i recken
why does fist of four thunders not trigger unarmed strike like all the other disciples?
I don't care what anyone says... this is my favorite monk subclass.
I love the whole idea of it. Just wish it had a little more to it
I was hoping the “way of the sun soul” would be available on this game.
Is it better to use unarmed attack for the monk?
Hi! I realized that he has few skills and I was left wanting more. Do you know if adding the "5e Spells" mod gives more abilities to this monk? something like earthbending
I'm not really sure. I haven't messed with any mods yet other than a camera mod
What ability was that snapping thing?
In theory could you multiclass with a Tempest Cleric? This way you’re a heavy armored monk? Closest thing to a WoW Shaman
But why lose a lot of the monk abilities?
I'm so happy Larian made Four Elements Monk at least viable. the 5e one is notoriously bad
Please do a build reveal video
note. shields disables unarmored defense.
dexterous attack when it is active, overrides shillelagh and other stat scaling like pact. (if dex>str. shillelag uses Dex. if str>dex. shillelag uses wis. doesnt matter if wis is higher or lower than dex.)
fangs of the fire snake, is a attack. so it trigger extra attack.
all others are not attacks. so you cant double cast it.
which is a shame. cause those spells cannot be upcasted. so being able to cast it twice would make it balanced.
I love the Four Elements but they are so weak against the Way of the Openhand. But u got style and i dont use the style sadly in first act i play very mutch with the spells and on act 2 i use only the Water Whip and in act3 i reskill becous i feel a bit weak.
I wonder why the Way of the Four Elements Monk doesn't get earth-based abilities, i.e.:
- Thorn Whip - Grasping Vine - Entangle - Spike Growth - Plant Growth
- Wall of Stone - Wall of Thorns - Barkskin - Stoneskin - Flesh to Stone
I'm also curious why they don't get more of the other elemental abilities other classes get tbh, i.e.:
ICE/ WATER
- Ice Storm - Sleet Storm - Cone of Cold - Wall of Ice - Create or Destroy Water
FIRE
- Fire Bolt - Produce Flame - Heat Metal - Fire Shield - Wall of Fire - Flame Strike
AIR
- Wind Walk - Fog Cloud - Hold Monster - Telekinesis - Globe of Invulnerability
LIGHTNING/ THUNDER
- Witch Bolt - Lightning Bolt - Chain Lightning - Destructive Wave - Thunderous Smite
This subclass gets a lot of flack, but my first tav was a 4E monk, and it was genuinely a lot of fun. I had some bad optimization with some of my spell choices and gear, but otherwise was a blast to play
Do the spells scale?
The only good thing about 4E monk, is you can target enemy different stat when you want to do prone or push, thunder for Con, water for Dex and another for Str.
Overall its just a support monk, only to help knock enemy prone or drag or push them. They wont be major damage dealer. But even as support monk their ki just pathetically low.
You get all of your Ki back on a Short Rest. Running out means nothing in BG3 compared to Tabletop.
@jaysonburke6839 What, you compare 4E monk to shadow monk and open hand about ki usage efficiency? Do you even play all subclass in FULLPLAYTHROUGH before comment?
I wonder if it's better to focus on 1 element, or just be a jack-of-all-trades and use them all?
I think using them all is probably the way to go!
what did you mean when you said the spell triggers unarmed strike?
It let's you use unarmed strike in the same turn as a bonus action
I like that you started to speak more freely on videos, even jocking sometimes
it adds more character to you while still maintaining educational strait to point approach without that "too much of a youtuber's personality, attention-whoring and empty words" which is just annoying
I watch your videos even if I don't care about that (sub)class at all just because you deliver information just the right way and watching videos does not feel like a waste of time compared to swiftly reading wiki
It should be called way of the three elements because BG3 missed earthbending entirely LMAO
Also, I’ve never seen half of these in action myself, thanks for the video!
Yeah that's true lol. Thanks for watching!
Which feat do you recommend on lvl 4?
Tavern brawler always it's op😊
I play this one as monk but I wanna try to mix this with another job (warlock or anything
Sometimes I want try monk/paladin 😅
Howd you get so much movement speed 😮 im way of the openhand monk and my movement speeed is no where near 45 m
It might be because I took the mobile feat
3:29
pretty sure jump always costs movement on top of a bonus action
Usual jump does, you are right.
step of the wind removes the bonus action cost, so you only pay the movement cost. That means with 60ft movement speed (30 base + 20 from Unarmored Movement + 10 longstrider) multiplied twice because of the dash, you'll have 12 jump attempts. With a 30ft base jump distance at 20 STR, the Athlete feat (+ 50% jump distance) and level 9's Advanced Unarmored Movement (+20 ft), each of those 12 jumps would be at 75 ft. You're basically spanning the whole battlefield getting into melee distance with _everything_ to either stun them or burn their reactions from Opportunity Attacks.
How can you say, that dex is the most valuable char when Tavern Brawler exists?
I just meant usually you want to grab dexterity but I forgot to mention tavern brawler/strength like I did in my way of the shadow video
@@Omaha01 it's just... Go to emerald grow - buy 3 elixirs for 21 str per long rest couple of times and you're covered for the first act. And since extra action elixir is mainly act 3 necessity you can gulp them til lower city and get + 10 to your unarmed strikes plus great hit chance, basically great weapons master perk without negative 5 to attack rolls
6:37 why did he take 46 damage? I thought that spell only has 3d10
Undead are vulnerable to bludgeoning so they take double
Neat subclass and the animations are nice but it seems kinda lackluster overall. I don't wanna wait several extra levels to be basically a worse wizard/sorcerer when i could be using Ki points to hit things a lot.
Yeah it's really fun but probably the worst monk subclass.
I think an easy way to make it competitive with the other monk classes would be to make the spells count as unarmed attacks. Cause as it is, the damage is just too low and they have too little utility to make up for that, so as cool as everything looks, it's incredibly weak. All sizzle no steak basically.
🤔 so Monk shouldn't be wearing any light armor? Just clothing?
Yes, monks and barbarians get unarmored defense ONLY if they are wearing no armor or shields. Clothing is fine. You can see in the item descriptions if something is considered armor or clothing.
Don't forget to check your gloves, boots, and helmet slots! Many of those items are still tagged as armor, even if they don't increase your AC.
I had Karlach wearing the helldusk gauntlets for a while and since that counted as "armor", she lost unarmored defense and her AC dropped to 11. When I realized it, I removed the gauntlets, and her AC went up to 17!
For barbarians, you can use shields with clothing and still get unarmered defence, unlike monks
Sad that theres no ''avatar form''
Why does fist of four thunders make a cube?
I think it was just a visual glitch
How comes your monk outfit is red ?
You can dye it. I just used the dye that came in the deluxe edition
Before lvl 6, this is better IMO. The pure burst dmg is more valuable early on. But at lvl 6, Wholeness of Body from the Open Hand way just shits on this whole way.
Fireballs at lvl 11? No thx. Ki-resonating punches do the same thing, earlier and for free.
Four elements? I only counted three…
I find it quite of a shame that its just a slight caster and it feels very dead as soon as the ki points end. It really is the weakest of the monk subclasses
I mean that's most caster classes for you: dead as soon as the spell slots are over. Of the four primary caster classes (wizard, sorc, cleric, warlock) only warlock gets to recover spell slots on short rest + constant EB spamming in between. Sorcs at least get burn sorcery points to regain spell slots -- leading to the nasty coffeelock combo of burning warlock spell slots to restore sorcery spell slots, short-resting, and repeating.
Wizards managed to get a homebrewed spell slot restoration feature (arcane cultivation), while clerics get absolutely nothing.
Also, none of the 2/3rd casters -- which I'd argue this subclass is -- can recover spell slots outside of a long rest.
@@romxxii yeah but casters in general can last so much longer, especially since if you multiclass this one you will last even less, and there is also warlock which just lasts forever just because eldritch blast
it's definitely the coolest subclass for monk but open hand just outclasses it in every way which really sucks.
Yeah I agree 100%
I haven’t played this subclass but it just sounds so bad. Mainly having to use 2-4 Ki points for a spell when if you really wanted to be a spell using Monk, you can just go Way of the Open Hand and multiclass into Wizard/Sorcerer/Warlock and use cantrips for free. Or if you don’t want to multiclass out of Monk you could just use a feat for Mage Initiate: Wizard and get two cantrips and a spell; pop on that gear that gives 17 intelligence and you’re all set.
Maybe I’m missing something, but this sounds like a D tier subclass.
Thematically it's one of my favorites, but yes it is probably one of the weaker subclasses in the game
cool subclass, but bad mechanics. no utility spells (only blaster until the end), you can only choose a small number of spells, and it use ki pts. All monk abilities use ki points... huge competition between your monk basic abilities (and you have a lot) and spells, mean if you cast spell you can't do other cool monk stuff. Feel inferior to eldritch knight or arcane trickster (or warlock). if the subclass used spellslots, that would have allowed it to cast spell while doing monk stuff.
Thinking of adding it with Barb as it’s only of the few things I found you can still do while ragging and only having smash and smash is a little boring though being almost unkillable is nice.
WoE Monk is so weak at all stages of the game. Easiest way to fix Way of elements monk is to make the T1 spells cost 0 ki points and make every Tier after that cost one less ki point. To balance that early game buff just make their ki gain like normal 5e. That would be a crazy way to make them relevant at least and strong early but they still kind of fall off late because they end up just being worse sorcerer/ wizard. This gives them some type of balance and a unique reason to use the subclass.
Either give them more Ki, or treat their spell like abilities as attack, so you can have 1 spell, 1 attack and 1 bonus attack, it wont be OP since there are so little Ki
you can polearm this and it gets ignorant edit: quickly
Awesome vid. But by far worst monk subclass.
Spelled Jedi wrong
You're absolutely right
Well that’s just lazy all they did was rename the spell that other classes can use instead of giving the class it’s own Thing
just dont, woe monk is one of the worst subclass in the game overall.
You are wrong
Is it me, but it looks like you still have a action even though you just casted a spell
whats with the weird cubes that appear out of nowhere
what part?
You did not show the only thing I wanted to see...how the abilities interacted with your unarmed strikes...sigh