I see the Mercy Monk as a military doctor who rushes into the battlefield to quickly pick up allies. Just writing that sentence makes me want to make a character around that concept.
I thought this was how most people looked at it. They designed it as "Punching Ghosts". You aren't trying to ever using anything except your stand, so the class is perfectly designed. But if you don't get the references then it's just a monk class where your monk doesn't actually get to attack (which is obviously the point from a Jojo's perspective.)
After looking monks for a while the perfect stand user to me is a way of sun soul monk, just reflavor the "spell attack" to a ethereal image that punch people and is "kinda magic". But that was before Tasha's, the perfect stand user from my pov now is an echo knight with unarmed fighting style
I'm playing a Way of Mercy monk right now and it's pretty great. I usually burn any remaining ki points I have on healing right before a short rest to save hit dice and with flurry of healing and harm I essentially become a blender, plus I get to constantly use the line, "Trust me, I'm a doctor."
"If you have other healers in your party, you're probably not the best healer on the battlefield..." Hard disagree. The Mercy Monk is one of the best battlefield healers, because of the real lack of opportunity cost in using their heal. Any spellcaster who needs to cast a heal is, at best, burning a slot that could be used for spells that actually affect the battle and at worst is both using their action and burning that slot. Mercy Monk's ability to pick up dropped party members and remove debilitating status effects allows spellcasters to cast better spells aimed at ending the battle. And if healing isn't needed, the Mercy Monk is one of the higher if not the highest DPR monk. No-save Poison makes grappling a nightmare for opponents and provides the Monk an added measure of safety if he needs to dash over to pick up a friend (even without Mobile feat.) Honestly, I think it stands out enough from other Monk subclasses to be S-tier. If you consider the abilities themselves to be near or equal to the Shadow Monk, then the Mercy Monk's better Ki point and action economy pushes it over, in my opinion.
Personally, I think Celestial Warlock could give Mercy Monk a run for its money for very similar reasons. Healing Light has very little opportunity cost to use and can heal a decent chunk of change mid fight, plus Warlocks are solid blasters. Out-of-combat healing will always be stronger in 5e, but the "Healing Word on a stick" of Mercy and Celestial is really underrated.
The beauty of the Astral Self is how well it complements the rest of your monk abilities. At no point there's redundancy of skills like with the Shadow Monk and there's a pretty clear order in the action economy of when and how to activate these abilities. Not to mention how sweet it is to finally be able to Shove and Grapple with a monk.
After DMing an Astral Monk for about a year, it hits at LEAST A-tier (if not S-tier) for me because of how versatile it is on a battlefield. The 10 foot reach allows you to stick and move while not provoking opportunity attacks, so freedom of movement alone is a massive plus for everything else it brings to the table. As for Mercy, I'm surprised there hasn't been a healer monk before. It's been a JRPG archetype for decades, and a religious/spiritual one for centuries.
Way of Mercy is the only monk I have considered playing. I have always loved the power of healing and draining life essence and that's the vibe I get from it.
When I saw the Mercy Monk, my initial thoughts were, "this is a great support healer along side Rangers/Paladins/etc so you don't need a Cleric/Druid as a 'full-time healer.'" Which I think is pretty great. The Astral Monk has an amazing initial impact but after hearing about the later abilities, I can see why this received an okay rating.
It really makes a world of difference to have one more party member who can pop allies back up when they go down. Even if you do have a "full-time healer," this preserves their action economy to do more damage or support
This is really the problem with the monk in general. It sounds fun, and it can be fun, but the numbers & limitation on features really drag it through the mud. The ascendant dragon is hot garbage, and it's the newest one introduced. They even NERFED it from the UA. Whoever said the level 11 fwature was broken needs their shins broken for irony's sake.
the automatic poison from Physician's Touch can also be seen as a weaker but more reliable version of stunning strike. there is no saving throw but stunned is stronger then poisoned and more creature are immune to the poisoned condition
well, I'm satisfied with it. immunity to poison might be more common, but its only really undead and fiends. a guaranteed poison on any dragon but the green one, imagine that!
Playing a Way of Mercy Monk now. Loving it! Set up as a foreign eastern-style physician in a medieval style world who sees his role as judging who deserves to be spared and who deserves to be stricken. Wears mask when it's time to "Judge". Agree with A-tier ranking. Nice review!
For the Astral Self Monk... I feel they missed a big part that matter alot... at level 3 when u start hitting with the astral arms ur unarmed strikes deal force dmg... so u dont realy have to think about res or immunitys any more
@@coranbaker6401 Still 3 more levels of not worrying about resistances and some (although admittedly not very many) monsters are resistant to all bludgeoning, magical or otherwise.
@@georgebennett715 Yeah, but those monsters are things you probably won't encounter at low levels. Overall, it's useful, but not as useful as you might think.
Others have stated that it stops being an advantage after 3 levels, which arguably you probably aren't too worried about before level 6 anyways, but on top of that: For purposes of comparing monk classes - Sun soul, Four Elements, Draconic monks all have reliable ways of getting around resistance. That does not make any of these monks actually good.
@@coranbaker6401 Yeah certainly and don't get me wrong it doesn't redeem the class at all but if you come across a swarm or two you're gonna be thankful that you have force damage. It's not good but I don't think I'd call it bad either, it's just situational and very dependant on what type of enemies you're facing.
New to dnd, absolutely obsessed! You guys are amazing, thank you so much for what you do! Just started your season 2 campaign, I laugh all the time listening to you. Thank you for bringing your depth of experience and also making it accessible. You guys are like hardcore light… other hardcore people just get so mean about stuff, especially monks ;) love you guys! XOXO 😘
S class is easy, just make up anything overpowered e.g, 'when you take tradition at third level any weapon counts as a monk weapon for you and you're proficient with it, and may make attacks with that weapon using your X mod' along with also at third level 'you can spend a ki point to make any attack you make with a monk weapon a critical hit'. A class would be more interesting, as that actually needs to be balanced.
@@thefandombard4774 i would love to see them rework the lower-tier subclasses to s-tier or even just living up to expectations of how cool they could be
I love the new subclasses introduced in Tasha’s, but I completely agree with you guys when you say wotc holds back on the monk. Even a lot of their base features are a bit lack lustered. I hope when this 5.5/6e book comes out, that wotc really give some love to the monk. Give them more ki or a way to gain ki back during combat, increase their martial arts dice, and please fix timeless body and perfect self to actually be useful. I say this as an avid monk player who really wants to see this class shine. Loved the video guys👍
They just need to rework the class honestly but I don't see that happening. I'd propose just making most of their class abilities ki free or allowing them to use their class abilities up to their profiency before needing to burn ki.
I'll be honest, I always thought that their Lv.20 ability should be rolled into their Lv.10 ability, same thing with Sorcerer's and Bard's capstone ability. It's technically not a bad ability...until you realize it is supposed to be the "best thing" their class can possibly get and is meant to represent the culmination of going all the way with their class, their ultimate feature, and it's really underwhelming. Would be a great thing to get at Lv.10, not so much at Lv.20.
The fact that the Fizban's Drake Warden actually got slightly better while Ascendant Dragon got a lot worse isn't helping. I love Rangers but damn, even WotC now likes them more than the poor Monk.
If I could give them one ability, Not sure what I’d call it but the ability runs like this Cost 1 ki point, when you punch a creature with a single punch,let’s you roll a d4 to restore a certain amount of ki Definitely could be broken and needs play test, but I feel like it’s a nice risk reward you may only get 1 ki point back and you’re at net zero, wasting that opportunity for when you could have used stunning strikes or FoB,, but it’s a nice way to try and regain ki
Monk feels like it's trying to cover a lot of concepts and would be better served by mix-and-match progression like the Warlock rather than the 'pick at lvl 3' progression it has currently. Have the martial arts options at lvl 1, pick from a few schools that all add some effect to Flurry of Blows (so you can always be doing your bread-and-butter action while also doing your chosen gimmick) as well as some more focussed stuff at higher levels. Have the 'spiritual' Way choice at lvl 3, this is where the monk-magic comes in and you start picking up your shadow stealth or elemental blasting, again, make sure there's at least one feature that interacts with your Flurry of Blows. Have the headliner powers be standalone, but give Flurry of Blows similar customisability to Eldritch Blast. Spitballing some ideas here: -Mantis School - Your extra attacks from flurry of blows have reach. -Crane School - When you use flurry of blows, until the end of your next turn you may use your reaction to add your Martial Arts dice to your AC against one attack. -Snake School - When you use flurry of blows, you may choose to forego one attack and take it at any time before the end of your next turn. -Tiger School - If you move at least 10ft. in a straight line before making your flurry of blows attacks, these attacks are made with advantage. -Monkey School - You may choose to make grapple attempts with advantage in place of unarmed attacks with your flurry of blows attacks. -Cobra School - You may make your flurry of blows attacks with thrown weapons. Then add in some minor elemental damage/pushes and trips/minor sneak attack damage to those attacks from your Way and you have a solid baseline for monk features that lets you explore a much wider range of concepts without each one needing its own subclass and you're less shoehorned into a specific combat role because you wanted some utility powers (and vice versa).
the reach that you get from astral arms lets you forgo getting the mobile feat or use the disengage action alltogether, saving you room for plenty of options that wouldn't be available usually, and overall maybe even saving you ki points in the long run.
thats why i decided to play a bugbear for my first monk lol. that way i needed neither. then i made the mistake of choosing shadow instead of mercy, well, you never stop learning...
@@mayhemivory5730 Haha. I made a Bugbear Barbarian with a reach weapon and the Polearm Master feat - that boy controlled a lot of space. If I could have given him the Sentinal feat, I would have.
But like... what's stopping them from just, you know, walking up to you on their turn? And it definitely doesnt save you Ki in any shape or form. Because it costs Ki to use. The more combats you enter, the less Ki efficient it becomes.
i like way of mercy bcs its another healer subclass not based on spell, until now, all healer subclasses where based on spells (life domain cleric, celestial warlock, dream domain druid, etc.)
That's the exact reason I chose it for my current character (who might die later tonight, who knows). I wanted to have healing capabilities while also playing something that can fight on the front lines and thus the Mercy monk was chosen
Celestial warlock is not really relying on spells to heal. They don't even get pretty good healing spell but other supporting spell like greater restoration and revivify. The healing feature is the healing light. Which may also be the case for dream domain Druid but druid on it's own have lot's of healing spell option.
I know you don't like talking multiclassing all that much, but you did bring it up some in this video, which I found interesting. I've found that the use of Wisdom for the Astral Self Monk actually combines well with the Druid wildshape, where you're at the mercy of the creature you turn into for Str and Dex otherwise. (Buffing Wisdom also worked out well for my character on his unarmored defense while in wildshape.) And the flavor of looking like a Displacer Beast is a lot of fun.
I like that you guys took note of a comment on a previous video and put emphasis on not comparing this to other classes. I didn't have a problem with it personally, but it's nice to see you're listening to your community
Solution for Astral Self: add to the third level feature "When your Astral Arms are present, you can use your Flurry of Blows feature without expending any Ki points if you make both attacks with your Astral Arms". Also maybe make Visage add to the accuracy of Astral Arms' strikes?
Can’t wait to hear what you guys think about the wild magic barbarian. I think it’s an interesting subclass that front loads heavily and massively teeters off at higher levels
Way of Mercy is the incredibly rare case where every single feature doesn't cost Ki. No really, go read many other Monks and realize how much Ki the others guzzle down.
Kensei monk is pretty economical when it comes to using ki points. 1 ki for a guaranteed extra hit at level 6 or 1-3 ki for a +1-3 for 10 turns at level 11. Otherwise it costs no ki and at level 3 you can jump to your level 17 martial arts die and get a 1d8+1d4 ranged attack if you choose longsword/longbow.
@@vancityband6577 I think Kensei Monk would be appealing in a campaign that doesn't get magical weapons. It's particular folly is that it doesn't properly mesh well if you get a cool weapon you wanna integrate. Which I always found super odd to have that restriction.
way of the open hand monks get one ability that requires ki and doesn't come online until 17th level. way of shadow monks likewise have only a single ability, albeit one with multiple functions. drunken masters and kensei each have two which come on during midgame. sun soul monks have three abilities that can use ki, but only one of them requires it. four elements and the long death's capstone ability are genuine ki sinks, but they've both got a laundry list of issues. The way of mercy monk is arguably one of the worst in terms of the ki cost of their features since until they get flurry of healing and harm, all of their subclass features require use of ki (or using flurry of blows, which also costs ki). every single other subclass save the astral self gains at least one free to use option sooner than that.
Around Half of monk subclasses have half of their features require no ki at all. And almost all have features that don't require additional ki expenditure. Mercy is actually one of the only subclasses that doesn't have completely ki free abilities
I agree about the astral self Monk. The one simple change that my playgroup made to give it a little buff is we ruled that if your arms can reach 10 ft... then so can you grapple. This made my character into a really fun grapple shenanigans character! Something I learned the hard way though is almost everyone has arranged option so a lot of the times you're just going to end getting shot in the kidneys lmao
The Astral Self monk should have been able to grapple with a reach of 10ft to be unique. Doesn't make sense to allow Wisdom modifiers to be used for strength checks and then ignore this thematic attack option.
my biggest beef with them is that if you get to your capstone you can't just shove an enemy and then benefit from the additional attack of that feature. Attacking multiple times with advantage after shoving with wis would be the obvious strategy for such a character
There has been so much angry discourse about monk subclasses, so honestly I'm really excited to hear the more fair and positive approach that you Dudes always bring
Still looking forward to the Barbarian class video. I really hope it comes out soon. Thanks so much for the videos, guys, love it each time I get the notification.
The Mercy Monk may not be the best healer in the game, but it's a great secondary healer that offers some extra healing and utility in addition to what makes Monk Monk. Takes some of the stress off your main healer, too, which is always a good thing in my book.
I really, really love monks but it breaks my heart to see how WoTC continues to throw out poor subclasses for them. I always want to play one but then I see these other strong classes with even stronger subclasses and feel like I'm never going to contribute as much. I hope someone does a revised monk UA at WoTC at some point to help get the core class on par with the others.
People keep defending it with "Oh but you can do so much out of combat with monks" And while true, that's just ignoring the fact that DND 5th Edition in particular is extremely focused on combat. If I wanted to play a game that wasn't majority combat, I have about 5 systems I'd rather play. DND5 is for combat and monks statistically suck at combat.
I read you. Here is my homebrew. Keep 1d8 if they are double proficiency in two skills. Or go to 1d10. When not wearing armor…. Add Wisdom and Dexterity modifer, and proficiency bonus to attack rolls. Add Strength modifier to damage rolls. They can pick one light martial arts weapon and be proficient. Any weapon picked does 1d8+ Str Modifier damage. You can be proficient with bows, but only use dexterity modifier with attack rolls and damage. They can do any action when unarmed strike and get the bonus action of 1d4.
@@benry007 True. I was mostly refering to people saying "oh our monk did this and that super cool thing", which 99% of the time is not even a class feature but rather the GM handwaving silly things because "monks can do cool stuff"
@@SielasHDS not just that, its also a. not always on, so you still need DEX sometimes b. uses a bonus action, so you cant use martial arts or flurry c. costs Ki, so you can actually use stunning strike less, even if your save is technically better
@@mayhemivory5730 a>No one is saying Dex isn't important, but it can be de-prioritized for Wis, which in a lot of monk builds goes the other way. b>The bonus action you use to active this is in essence a flurry of blows, but one that has the ability/opportunity to hit multiple enemies at reach. This is a net gain c>Flurry costs Ki, even using the max ki cost for this ability(not count lvl 17) you loose 1 extra Ki Point over a regular Flurry of Blows.
Loved the video (as usual) I'd like to point out that for the mercy monk, in the recap before ranking it A, the debuff cleaning was left out. at level 6 I feel like the healing is not the best part about hands of healing anymore. Remove Paralysis, stun, poisoned, blinded, all that and more, guaranteed for one key points would push it to S tier imo
Here's the biggest problem with the monk: stunning strike. Stunning strike is an S+ tier class feature on a C-tier class, so if they make the monk subclasses any better then they would be too good because of Stunning Strike. If Stunning Strike gets nerfed, then monk becomes barely usable. So Stunning Strike is, no pun intended, completely blocking all progress on the monks.
Spot on. It's the Monks greatest tool but ultimately a curse. They're not allowed to do anything more than middling damage, not allowed to really break any boundaries because they have that one ability that's already toeing the line resulting in every single subclass being borderline garbage with a select few exceptions.
I think just upping their hit dice would not make stunning strike too strong and make them more on par with the others for on the frontline. I agree that they have to be careful, however right now Monk is seen as the weakest class. So they can use some buffs.
No. That's not even an excuse for it. Hold Person is a thing. Multiple control abilities/spells exist that are far better than Stunning Strike. It's just not an excuse for monks to be this poorly designed. And definitely not one that should be accepted.
@@R.E.E.D. Well it becomes more broken at higher levels as you can do multiple attempts per turn and is not limited to humanoids. However, I still agree with you monks deserve a buff.
@@Hyde_Hill Multiple attempts of a Saving Throw that targets Constitution. If it didn't have multiple attempts per turn, it would never land. Not being limited to humanoids is also a non-factor when so many other control abilities/spells are not limited to humanoids.
Astral self monk can grapple using wisdom, imagine with the grappler feat, sure you get restrained but you’re out of range of non reach melee creatures you’ve restrained. Or just advantage on attacks with a grapple. Just funny niche idea ☺️
if only that where true. sadly, only your punches are at 10 feet. grappling isnt explicitely possible using the arms, so its at the normal range of 5 feet still. unless, of course, I've misunderstood what you mean. rogues are still better grapplers also.
@@vxicepickxv the problem is the arms only "work" during YOUR turn, so basically you grapple (which is still somewhat open to debate), succeed, end your turn -> enemy looses the grapple condition if he's 10 feet from you.
One thing that gets overlooked when considering the Astral Self is that the arms/visage/body last for ten minutes. While this would rarely translate into two combats, what it does do is make you a really resourceful person in exploration. And while the cost feels high in terms of Ki, once active, it stays active. Until you get to 11th level in Way of Mercy, you’re likely spending 2 ki or more per turn, so the one ki cost for the arms isn’t actually all that much. I’m not arguing that it’s “S” tier, but I do think it’s “A”.
I do feel like the reach of astral self is undervalued. In my games, I’m constantly bouncing around, avoiding opportunity attacks, and getting into cover. My party will be ending a fight with half health, while I come out unharmed. (I certainly would like it to have a boost though)
I really like the “combat medic” feel of the Mercy Monk. The Mercy Monk I’m playing right now is a shady “Doctor” who wears a Guy Fawkes mask (the one V wears in V for Vendetta) and uses a scalpel along with a needle and thread. I went for a more “grounded” approach with the flavoring like the Hand of Healing being described as him using a needle and thread to sew wounds closed, and the disadvantage from the poisoning effect as him simply cutting some important artery or tendon and having the creature be weakened from the blood loss.
I just started a strahd campaign, I’m playing a deurgar mercy monk who was trained as a slave to drow before breaking out to the surface, now working as a traveling herbalism doctor with chi points healing and a few spells (MI feat) flavored as naruto hand signs. Needless to say this video helped a lot with my choices going forward. Thanks!
For Astral Self, I really wish using your Wisdom modifier for attack and damage rolls of your unarmed strikes extended to the monk's weapons as well. It would have made Astral Self a good multiclass dip for Wisdom casters the same way Hexblade does for Charisma and Battle Smith for Intelligence.
Go Bugbear Monk with 1 level of Druid or nature Cleric (or better yet, 2 levels of ranger with Druidic Warrior), take shillelagh or magic stone. Nobody can touch you!
We have a way of mercy monk in the campaign I'm cleric in. He has done a fantastic job being backup and support healing while still doing decent damage.
I like way of mercy because of the implication of reviving someone without the need for material components (then again i've never made it that high level in a campaign so i don't know how easy is to "load up" for the stuff revival spells demand.)
As well as the time limit of them being dead for more than 24 hours. So your party probably died in a big fight, and your out of Ki. That’s fine. Take a short rest, and start rezing them one at a time.
Small thing about how astral sight in Way of the Astral Self monks you missed! "Astral Sight. You can see normally in darkness, both magical and nonmagical, to a distance of 120 feet." Its different to Dark Vision as its not stated to appear in shades of grey or be a different way of perceiving light. It states you see normally as if the world is illuminated to you. Which is insane. I like to imagine its like looking into the Wraith World when putting on the One ring.
In a campaign I’m currently in, we have on OP way of astral self. It’s semi modern campaign so the character has guns. The DM has allowed them to replace every unarmed attack with a gun shot, even flurry of blows. Plus the character is also permanently invisible to everyone they are not directly interacting with, due to always being in between the material plane and astral plane.
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Love the Astral Self Monk Subclas! :) Regards from Tabasco, México [Land of The Olmecs]!
Been playing a monk of astral self, Kalashtar race for over 2 years now. The RP potential of having my astral body that of my soul fused Quori. The RP has been incredible. Plus my wisdom is 20, when I use my astral self I use wisdom in place of strength. So I have 2 max stats, with grappler and crusher feats. I focus on holding, moving enemies and giving my allies advantage. Turns fighting from just doing damage to a chess game. It's incredible.
I was hoping for the Ascendant Dragon here, but i'm happy with what we got. Really disappointed with the JoJ.. I mean the Astral Self, and spoiler alert: the Ascendant Dragon sucks
It really does! The UA version was amazing, but they nerfed it to shit in Fizbans for no good reason. Its Especially egregious when the Peace and Twilight Domains exist for an already exceptional base class, but Monks can't get any love. I've lost hype for anything Wizards has been putting out, between the changes in race design ("everyone" lives about a century? Lazy, Wizards), the nonsense they've been doing to spellcasting NPCs, giving us a Beastmaster that just uses a dragon flavor, and now butchering one of the most promising Subclasses they've ever had, I'm convinced Wizards is asleep at the wheel and doesn't care. I'm not very excited for anything they're putting out right now
After not having played D&D for 30+ years, my son got into it, and he is bringing me back in. My first adventure in decades will be my son's first campaign as DM. I'm going with Monk, but I could not choose a subclass for it - until I saw this series. I am going with Way of the Open Hand. What's wierd about this is that I am playing as a Plazmoid. I am a really rusty player, and I have never played as a Monk. So I hope this goes well.
I haven't looked at this yet, but the idea of multiclassing the Astral Self with Echo Knight is SOOO COOOL and I want to make that happen. I let you know when I do 😊
I just have to imagine an Astral Self Goliath Monk, who then transforms in his whole Astral Body... It would probably look extremly intimidating, even if it isn't the best subclass and even if I wouldn't use it, I think it would still be cool.
I have always wanted a healing monk. The idea of it always sounded fitting to me. I absolutely love the Way of Mercy Monk and am really happy it was added in Tasha's.
27:00 ; This same exact thing happened to the Dragon Monk, the first monk class I was so excited to play, and they seemingly completely butchered it on the official release. It's very disappointing and makes me quite sad. I'm surprised at the ranking of Astral Self, but when it's broken down that makes more sense. I think the UA of Astral Self was also nerfed, I vaguely recall it being able to do like 6 attacks. But I am probably mis-remembering. Regardless, this video broke down these subclasses really well, and that idea Kelly threw out about a Wisdom-focused Astral Self has my gears spinning. Hehe. You guys rock! Thanks for all the great content you put out!
I agree that Way of the Astral Self Monk is a little underwhelming, but I think that one thing you guys overlooked (or maybe forgot to elaborate on) is the fact that you change your damage type from physical to force damage, before you even get access to Ki Empowered Strikes at 6th level. A martial class even getting access to force damage is pretty rare. Not only that, but as you guys have mentioned before, force damage is one of the least, if not THE least resisted damage types in the game. Being able to do so at a range that might be further out from an enemy's range (punch and move away without invoking Opportunity Attacks) is quite useful.
It's the best monk subclass but look at what other S ranks get and you'll see that it falls short. I'm pretty sure rune knight was an a class and is certainly stronger than mercy.
@@jameshernandez4112 The thing is they are supposed to be ranking these just against other monks and thus as the best monk it would be S tier. It adds game changing abilities to the class (Healing) while still being a good damage dealer and making it a better debuffer.
I still don't think the Way of Mercy meets the S tier criteria. It's the best monk subclass imo, but it doesn't really reach that top echelon of subclasses for me.
The Mercy Monk feels like a discount Kenshiro (ftom Fist of the North Star). The head-exploding punches are so iconic that people forget Kenshiro could alsi use pressure points to heal others and even control their actions (though the healing was used so rarely I don't blame people for not remembering it). Mercy Monk feels like they got a weaksauce version of the 'scramble the other guy's internal organs/mess up their ki with a tap' trick in exchange for better healing. Or maybe a variation of the Gentle Fist from Naruto. Honestly, as good as it is, it feels like its missing something. Maybe something like Chi Blocking from AtLA, where the enemy can't use spells or certain abilities for a while or the targeted limb is temporarily disabled.
For anyone trying to make the Astral Self monk work, I recommend a moon Druid 2-3 level dip on a Variant Human (Mobile). Once you have a 70-80 ft move speed in wild shape and 10 ft reach, you can easily run back and forth in battle to prevent melee enemies from reaching you. You have Deflect Missiles and Evasion to deal with ranged attacks/AOEs. You can focus all off your ASIs into wisdom, so you’ll have a decent beast AC and you can pump up your beast damage with martial arts/flurry of blows. Not the strongest moon Druid/monk multiclass, but quite serviceable.
I played a Spore Druid/Mercy Monk that was very effective in combat with shillelagh and polearm master. Plus, Mercy’s healing/poison mechanics rp’ed nicely with Spore’s fungi nature.
Updated tier list (regarding both The Dungeon Dudes and the users): S TIER - Path of the Totem Warrior (Barbarian) - College of Lore (Bard) - Peace Domain (Cleric) - Twilight Domain (Cleric) - Circle of the Moon (Druid) - Battle Master (Fighter) - Echo Knight (Fighter) - Gloom Stalker Conclave (Ranger) - Aberrant Mind (Sorcerer) - Clockwork Soul (Sorcerer) - Divine Soul (Sorcerer) - The Hexblade (Warlock) - School of Divination (Wizard) A+ TIER - Armorer (Artificer) - Life Domain (Cleric) - Rune Knight (Fighter) - Oath of Vengeance (Paladin) - Arcane Trickster (Rogue) - Soulknife (Rogue) - Swashbuckler (Rogue) - The Fiend (Warlock) - The Genie (Warlock) - Bladesinging (Wizard) - Chronurgy Magic (Wizard) A TIER - Artillerist (Artificer) - Battle Smith (Artificer) - Path of the Ancestral Guardian (Barbarian) - Path of the Zealot (Barbarian) - College of Eloquence (Bard) - Forge Domain (Cleric) - Grave Domain (Cleric) - Light Domain (Cleric) - Tempest Domain (Cleric) - Circle of the Shepherd (Druid) - Circle of the Stars (Druid) - Circle of the Wildfire (Druid) - Eldritch Knight (Fighter) - Way of the Open Hand (Monk) - Way of Shadow (Monk) - *Way of Mercy (Monk)* - Oath of the Ancients (Paladin) - Oath of Conquest (Paladin) - Oathbreaker (Paladin) - Beast Master Conclave (TCE) (Ranger) - Horizon Walker Conclave (Ranger) - Swarmkeeper Conclave (Ranger) - Scout (Rogue) - Shadow Magic (Sorcerer) - School of Abjuration (Wizard) - School of Enchantment (Wizard) - Order of Scribes (Wizard) B+ TIER - Cavalier (Fighter) - Psi Warrior (Fighter) - Way of the Kensei (Monk) - *Way of the Astral Self (Monk)* - Oath of Devotion (Paladin) - Oath of Redemption (Paladin) - Oath of the Watchers (Paladin) - Fey Wanderer Conclave (Ranger) - Phantom (Rogue) - Draconic Bloodline (Sorcerer) - Wild Magic (Sorcerer) - The Archfey (Warlock) - The Celestial (Warlock) - The Fathomless (Warlock) - School of Evocation (Wizard) - School of Illusion (Wizard) - School of Necromancy (Wizard) B TIER - Alchemist (Artificer) - Path of the Storm Herald (Barbarian) - College of Glamour (Bard) - College of Valor (Bard) - Nature Domain (Cleric) - Order Domain (Cleric) - Trickery Domain (Cleric) - War Domain (Cleric) - Circle of Dreams (Druid) - Circle of the Land (Druid) - Champion (Fighter) - Samurai (Fighter) - Way of the Long Death (Monk) - Oath of Glory (Paladin) - Hunter Conclave (Ranger) - Assassin (Rogue) - Mastermind (Rogue) - Thief (Rogue) - The Great Old One (Warlock) - School of Conjuration (Wizard) C+ TIER - College of Swords (Bard) - College of Whispers (Bard) - Arcana Domain (Cleric) - Death Domain (Cleric) - Knowledge Domain (Cleric) - Circle of Spores (Druid) - Arcane Archer (Fighter) - Way of the Drunken Master (Monk) - Oath of the Crown (Paladin) - Monster Slayer Conclave (Ranger) - Inquisitive (Rogue) - Storm Sorcery (Sorcerer) - Graviturgy Magic (Wizard) - School of Transmutation (Wizard) - War Magic (Wizard) C TIER - Path of the Battlerager (Barbarian) - Path of the Berserker (Barbarian) - Way of the Sun Soul (Monk) D+ TIER - The Undying (Warlock) D TIER - Banneret/Purple Dragon Knight (Fighter) - Way of the Four Elements (Monk) - Beast Master Conclave (PHB) (Ranger)
Played a Mercy Monk as a Kabuki Dancer and had an absolute blast. Went into the character more excited about the schtick but was hugely impressed at the mechanical viability of the sub-class. Being able to use Hand of Healing on one's self made her surprisingly tanky.
if you play an astral self monk you should choose a race that can cast darkness, like a half-elf dark elf heritage or a dark elf, this way you can combine that with the astral visage to cast darkness over yourself and still see in that darkness.
I just want to say I played an Astral monk for the flavor. BUT then I fell in love with it. The extra reach from the arms helps a lot. Then the arms do force damage which made my dm choke on her words where she had said my bludgeoning punches could never harm a barbarian. I ran it in a dungeon by myself at lvl 5 and was able to quickly handle 7 undead with no real issues. I do agree though that after the arms it does get niche and agree with the b rating. The visage was useful but I played it as a tiefling so I was able to cast darkness around me. So overall agree with the ranking of it but still love it. And want to run it again in a longer campaign to possibly multiclass it with a sorcerer and then see what potential havok I can unleash.
One thing I feel you guys missed about Astral Self is pretty niche but super fun grappler type build. Astral hands allow to use wisdom instead of strength in athletics checks which always was bane for monk grapplers.
Oh. Astral Self dropped the "regain ki points equal to Wisdom when nearby enemies drop to 0" clause from the unearthed arcana version which made it easily the best Monk subclass, at least for raw deeps.
First time I read the Mercy Monk it reminded me of the Shadow Sun Ninja from the Tome of Battle (Book of Nine Swords) in 3rd (3.5?) edition. The way they kept switching between Positive Energy Healing and Negative Energy damage during combat...
One of the main issues with Astral Self is the opportunity cost of that first round bonus action. The cost of one ki point & a bonus action is the same as flurry of blows. Which means that the benefits from the arms have to be better than just taking two unarmed strikes. Most of the time, they won't be! This is exacerbated by forgoing two more opportunities to stunning strike on the first round of combat, when that ability is at its most valuable!
Astral Monk reminds me of Amera from Borderlands. I plan on playing a Bugbear Astral Monk. Who doesn't wouldn't want to make unarmed strikes at 15 ft range? Plus if you take the fighting initiate feat and go unarmed fighting you can increase your unarmed strikes to be a d8. But because the Astral Monk allows you to use Wis instead of Str for your attacks, you don't have to worry about pumping that stat.
Having played a Mercy Monk, I'll say that it's definitely a ramping, high-level class. The level 3 hand of healing/harm are interesting, but drain your sparse chi really fast. Getting the level 6 physician's touch feels much better, getting the extra adders. But then level 11+ is absolutely amazing, getting the double heal or 5th attack with auto-poison (or even both) each turn is very fun and very powerful.
Though I completely agree with everything said, as well as the overall tier rankings, I think there's more to having 10ft reach as a Monk than most people realise. Simply put, without the Mobile feat or Step of the Wind, you can race past enemies punching them without provoking opportunity attacks. That makes a reliable impact any time you're facing several enemies. Unfortunately, the main impact of this is to free up your Bonus Action (and possibly an ASI), which is undercut by the Astral Self monk's abilities. So, while I don't disagree with anything said, I think this should have been mentioned.
In an upcoming Spelljammer game (where we start off not knowing anything about spelljamming) I have a plasmoid monk (way of the astral self). His backstory is that as a tiny baby ooze, his family were on a ship that stopped off on the planet for repairs and resupply. They went for a picnic and while they were otherwise engaged, he slipped off and got lost. They had to leave before finding him so he was left behind. A group of Kobolds found him and took him back to their warren where he grew up. He took the form of an oozy blue kobold to try and fit in, but had to learn to fight to survive childhood. I’m using monk but replacing all of the zen stuff with the ‘an old kobold pit fighter took him under his wing’ theme (Mr Myagi style). When he uses his astral arms feature they will burst out of his back looking like the wings of a blue dragon, and when he gets the astral visage feature the mask will look like a blue dragon’s head. No eastern zen or meditation just a flurry of mini draconic bites, kicks, head-buts, and wing smashes. You can (assuming dm permission) reflavour the aesthetics and descriptions as much as you want without needing to change any mechanics. I feel that the force damage from the astral arms gets downplayed a lot, and having reach means less dependence on getting the mobility feat. But I agree a tiny boost such as being able to grapple with the arms or use monk weapons with them would be great.
I almost want to agree with you. I think it *is* a B but it toes the line of dropping to a C. The only thing it offers as far as I can tell is that it's the best monk subclass for grappling. Play variant human, pick up skill expert in athletics, and grapple/shove the shit out of people using your wisdom modifier. If you're not bothered grappling, then it offers almost nothing of value besides the additional 5ft reach. With that in mind though the same can be said of basically every monk subclass, so that really isn't saying much.
The Crusher feat also does wonders for the Mercy monk. Letting you disengage an ally from a tough situation until they're ready to get back into combat.
What seems weird to me, is that Mercy Monks can do 2 Hands of Healing when using Flurry of Blows, so by using a Bonus Action, but can only do it one time when they just use the Hands of Healing feature, so by using an Action. Which means punching something, anything, even the air, and then healing two times, costs as much than healing one time, with just a little worse action economy.
I like that Kelly mentioned multiclassing with the Astral Monk. I'm currently playing a Shepherd Druid/Astral Monk, and I'm loving it, but I would love it less if I was just an Astral Monk. It's really cool when paired, but on its own I don't think it would be as cool.
Interesting way of saying Plague. On the astral self monk upping the power of stunning strike is really nice. Wish it would last 1 hour though as then it is easier to carry over between battles or even some weird social shenanigans.
My buddy played an epic healer as a mercy monk. Doctor (guild artisan) warforged monk. He combined chiropractics with Hong Kong cinema mystic Kung Fu and a fanciful take on Eastern medicine.. He was always giving people remedies and suppliments to PCs and NPCs alike. His character was often compared to a mother hen. He had a weird habit of trying food, even though he was a warforged robot.
Having a monk that has another good option beyond stunning strike is worthy S tier. Then you add healing, which recharges on a short rest. Definitely S-tier. All the stories about monk tend revolve around stunning strike, which takes a big hit when fighting a monster immune to stunning strike or even just has a good save. Now you can still be a key player when the DM smiles and says "Immune to stunning strike."
At 24:08 Monty mentions there being a new feature where you can punch when you use those spells (referring to Shadow Monk). As Shadow Monk is one of the classes I'm considering for a one-shot, I've been trying to find where this feature is, but no such luck yet. May anyone know where I might be able to find it? Edit: Scratch that, I've found it: it's Ki-Fueled Attack!
I played a way of mercy monk in a campaign up to level 8 not too long ago. It was a lot of fun! Since there was no healers in the party, I had the role of healing my friends on the battlefield, which makes you loved by all instantly. If you have a DM that likes the idea, the alchemist's tools proficiency is sooooooo useful. In addition to cheap health potion, you can make a lot of useful one-use potions that will definitely come in handy. I once combo-ed a potion of giant strength and a potion of enlargement for pretty great results. Sometimes getting the automatic poisoned status is more useful than trying to stun a foe with a big constitution and more effective ki point-wise. The mask idea is pretty interesting, I had my character have a mask of living flames that were lit up by his ki as were his attacks when he used Hands of Harm and Healing. The color of the flames changed according to his feelings or the powers he used. And mobile feat, because fireboy goes woosh hehe Good subclass overall!
Playing an Astral Self Monk right now and I honestly don't agree with it being a B but alright. Arms saved me a lot of trouble with the reach and force damage, not to mention it's another set of arms to mess around with things with and it's not your body so it can't be damaged! I climbed a thorned tree that both stung and paralyzed no problem! As for Visage, I only just got it so it only came up once when I got to call BS on a commoner pretending to be a shopkeep (it was pretty funny), but the 120 magical darkvision looks great. I've yet to have the Body and Ascended, but they both look great! Body honestly costs 1 ki point by itself, so it not costing anything but having to activate Arms and Visage as well makes a lot of sense and gives you magical darkvision on top of everything else, and Ascended giving +2 AC and another attack is also awesome, just maybe not 5 ki points awesome.
I see the Mercy Monk as a military doctor who rushes into the battlefield to quickly pick up allies. Just writing that sentence makes me want to make a character around that concept.
I was looking at this and was like what background would it be. Oh, battlefield, as in soldier.
Battlefield medic... Like Hacksaw Ridge, only you would also fight.
Reminds of a quote from an older comic. The person goes "I'm a combat medic I patch people up so that they can get back into the fight."
This is the subclass that let's you play as the MC from the wrong way of healing where he punches people with healing magic. I like it.
The Mercy monk made me think of an order rather similar to the House of Black and White from GoT.
But Military doctor is also interesting.
Sorry everyone, but for me Way of the Astral Self is no Doctor Strange at all. It is, forever, a JoJo monk who summons a Stand. And that's all
I thought this was how most people looked at it. They designed it as "Punching Ghosts". You aren't trying to ever using anything except your stand, so the class is perfectly designed. But if you don't get the references then it's just a monk class where your monk doesn't actually get to attack (which is obviously the point from a Jojo's perspective.)
I actually think way of the astral self is more like susanoo than a stand. I think echo knight actually fits more like jojo than this subclass.
YES! YES! YES! YES! YES!
After looking monks for a while the perfect stand user to me is a way of sun soul monk, just reflavor the "spell attack" to a ethereal image that punch people and is "kinda magic". But that was before Tasha's, the perfect stand user from my pov now is an echo knight with unarmed fighting style
Yare yare daze
I'm playing a Way of Mercy monk right now and it's pretty great. I usually burn any remaining ki points I have on healing right before a short rest to save hit dice and with flurry of healing and harm I essentially become a blender, plus I get to constantly use the line, "Trust me, I'm a doctor."
"If you have other healers in your party, you're probably not the best healer on the battlefield..." Hard disagree. The Mercy Monk is one of the best battlefield healers, because of the real lack of opportunity cost in using their heal. Any spellcaster who needs to cast a heal is, at best, burning a slot that could be used for spells that actually affect the battle and at worst is both using their action and burning that slot. Mercy Monk's ability to pick up dropped party members and remove debilitating status effects allows spellcasters to cast better spells aimed at ending the battle. And if healing isn't needed, the Mercy Monk is one of the higher if not the highest DPR monk. No-save Poison makes grappling a nightmare for opponents and provides the Monk an added measure of safety if he needs to dash over to pick up a friend (even without Mobile feat.)
Honestly, I think it stands out enough from other Monk subclasses to be S-tier. If you consider the abilities themselves to be near or equal to the Shadow Monk, then the Mercy Monk's better Ki point and action economy pushes it over, in my opinion.
No
What a sigma response
And clearly, they never see 2 Medics in Starcraft, literally healing each other until they run out of energy, good for big group
@@cheddarcheese4159 sigma balls
Personally, I think Celestial Warlock could give Mercy Monk a run for its money for very similar reasons. Healing Light has very little opportunity cost to use and can heal a decent chunk of change mid fight, plus Warlocks are solid blasters. Out-of-combat healing will always be stronger in 5e, but the "Healing Word on a stick" of Mercy and Celestial is really underrated.
The beauty of the Astral Self is how well it complements the rest of your monk abilities. At no point there's redundancy of skills like with the Shadow Monk and there's a pretty clear order in the action economy of when and how to activate these abilities. Not to mention how sweet it is to finally be able to Shove and Grapple with a monk.
After DMing an Astral Monk for about a year, it hits at LEAST A-tier (if not S-tier) for me because of how versatile it is on a battlefield. The 10 foot reach allows you to stick and move while not provoking opportunity attacks, so freedom of movement alone is a massive plus for everything else it brings to the table. As for Mercy, I'm surprised there hasn't been a healer monk before. It's been a JRPG archetype for decades, and a religious/spiritual one for centuries.
Can't wait to hear your thoughts on the Dragon Monk from Fizban's coming out next week! (It looks bad lol)
Seeing Ascendant Monk nearly made me reach for booze. Wizards why?
I don't understand Wizards, they made a good and fun UA and then nerf it for no reason.
I hope the ranger sub class will be fun cause RIP dragon monk
I really dont understand how Wizards managed to fuck up the same archtype TWICE in the same f'ing Edition.
@@houstonhall1144 they made the drake unlimited but no spells. I guess they're trying to line it up with the buffed beast master?
Way of Mercy is the only monk I have considered playing. I have always loved the power of healing and draining life essence and that's the vibe I get from it.
Yup same, I have a list of characters I want to play and the only monk ever to get close to being on that list is a tabaxi way of mercy monk.
It's the only monk that's even any good too sadly. Even the new dragon monk is pretty white, which sucks because it had such great potential.
Dungeon Dudes, I must say that I’m impressed with the video subsection titles you added to the fast-forward scroller. Very intuitive
When I saw the Mercy Monk, my initial thoughts were, "this is a great support healer along side Rangers/Paladins/etc so you don't need a Cleric/Druid as a 'full-time healer.'" Which I think is pretty great. The Astral Monk has an amazing initial impact but after hearing about the later abilities, I can see why this received an okay rating.
It really makes a world of difference to have one more party member who can pop allies back up when they go down. Even if you do have a "full-time healer," this preserves their action economy to do more damage or support
This is really the problem with the monk in general. It sounds fun, and it can be fun, but the numbers & limitation on features really drag it through the mud. The ascendant dragon is hot garbage, and it's the newest one introduced. They even NERFED it from the UA. Whoever said the level 11 fwature was broken needs their shins broken for irony's sake.
Yup! My party had a Sword Bard and a Mercy Monk and between the two they managed to keep everyone on their feet
I've been playing a Warforged Way of Mercy Monk on Saturdays & I love them so much - it was so validating to hear y'all gush about that subclass
I've waited almost a year for this video!
I love Monks, hope they get some more abilities
the automatic poison from Physician's Touch can also be seen as a weaker but more reliable version of stunning strike. there is no saving throw but stunned is stronger then poisoned and more creature are immune to the poisoned condition
well, I'm satisfied with it. immunity to poison might be more common, but its only really undead and fiends. a guaranteed poison on any dragon but the green one, imagine that!
The ultimate battle: Stands Vs Hamon
In this case Hamon wins because Stands can't Ora Ora here. SIGH
Echo Knight is a better STANDO TSUKAI than Astral Monk
Playing a Way of Mercy Monk now. Loving it! Set up as a foreign eastern-style physician in a medieval style world who sees his role as judging who deserves to be spared and who deserves to be stricken. Wears mask when it's time to "Judge". Agree with A-tier ranking. Nice review!
For the Astral Self Monk... I feel they missed a big part that matter alot... at level 3 when u start hitting with the astral arms ur unarmed strikes deal force dmg... so u dont realy have to think about res or immunitys any more
Most Monks don't have to worry about that either once their fists become magical at level 6. It's only a big change against Barbarians.
@@coranbaker6401 Still 3 more levels of not worrying about resistances and some (although admittedly not very many) monsters are resistant to all bludgeoning, magical or otherwise.
@@georgebennett715
Yeah, but those monsters are things you probably won't encounter at low levels. Overall, it's useful, but not as useful as you might think.
Others have stated that it stops being an advantage after 3 levels, which arguably you probably aren't too worried about before level 6 anyways, but on top of that:
For purposes of comparing monk classes - Sun soul, Four Elements, Draconic monks all have reliable ways of getting around resistance. That does not make any of these monks actually good.
@@coranbaker6401 Yeah certainly and don't get me wrong it doesn't redeem the class at all but if you come across a swarm or two you're gonna be thankful that you have force damage. It's not good but I don't think I'd call it bad either, it's just situational and very dependant on what type of enemies you're facing.
New to dnd, absolutely obsessed! You guys are amazing, thank you so much for what you do! Just started your season 2 campaign, I laugh all the time listening to you. Thank you for bringing your depth of experience and also making it accessible. You guys are like hardcore light… other hardcore people just get so mean about stuff, especially monks ;) love you guys! XOXO 😘
I would be very interested to see you guys make up an S tier Monk subclass. Maybe in a little mini video?
Honestly! I'm soo interested in what d&d content makers can come up with.
S class is easy, just make up anything overpowered e.g, 'when you take tradition at third level any weapon counts as a monk weapon for you and you're proficient with it, and may make attacks with that weapon using your X mod' along with also at third level 'you can spend a ki point to make any attack you make with a monk weapon a critical hit'. A class would be more interesting, as that actually needs to be balanced.
Instead of a new monk rework the 4 elements to be an s class
@@thefandombard4774 now to find a way to share my attempt...
@@thefandombard4774 i would love to see them rework the lower-tier subclasses to s-tier or even just living up to expectations of how cool they could be
I love the new subclasses introduced in Tasha’s, but I completely agree with you guys when you say wotc holds back on the monk. Even a lot of their base features are a bit lack lustered.
I hope when this 5.5/6e book comes out, that wotc really give some love to the monk. Give them more ki or a way to gain ki back during combat, increase their martial arts dice, and please fix timeless body and perfect self to actually be useful.
I say this as an avid monk player who really wants to see this class shine.
Loved the video guys👍
They just need to rework the class honestly but I don't see that happening. I'd propose just making most of their class abilities ki free or allowing them to use their class abilities up to their profiency before needing to burn ki.
I'll be honest, I always thought that their Lv.20 ability should be rolled into their Lv.10 ability, same thing with Sorcerer's and Bard's capstone ability.
It's technically not a bad ability...until you realize it is supposed to be the "best thing" their class can possibly get and is meant to represent the culmination of going all the way with their class, their ultimate feature, and it's really underwhelming. Would be a great thing to get at Lv.10, not so much at Lv.20.
The fact that the Fizban's Drake Warden actually got slightly better while Ascendant Dragon got a lot worse isn't helping. I love Rangers but damn, even WotC now likes them more than the poor Monk.
If I could give them one ability, Not sure what I’d call it but the ability runs like this
Cost 1 ki point, when you punch a creature with a single punch,let’s you roll a d4 to restore a certain amount of ki
Definitely could be broken and needs play test, but I feel like it’s a nice risk reward you may only get 1 ki point back and you’re at net zero, wasting that opportunity for when you could have used stunning strikes or FoB,, but it’s a nice way to try and regain ki
Monk feels like it's trying to cover a lot of concepts and would be better served by mix-and-match progression like the Warlock rather than the 'pick at lvl 3' progression it has currently. Have the martial arts options at lvl 1, pick from a few schools that all add some effect to Flurry of Blows (so you can always be doing your bread-and-butter action while also doing your chosen gimmick) as well as some more focussed stuff at higher levels. Have the 'spiritual' Way choice at lvl 3, this is where the monk-magic comes in and you start picking up your shadow stealth or elemental blasting, again, make sure there's at least one feature that interacts with your Flurry of Blows. Have the headliner powers be standalone, but give Flurry of Blows similar customisability to Eldritch Blast.
Spitballing some ideas here:
-Mantis School - Your extra attacks from flurry of blows have reach.
-Crane School - When you use flurry of blows, until the end of your next turn you may use your reaction to add your Martial Arts dice to your AC against one attack.
-Snake School - When you use flurry of blows, you may choose to forego one attack and take it at any time before the end of your next turn.
-Tiger School - If you move at least 10ft. in a straight line before making your flurry of blows attacks, these attacks are made with advantage.
-Monkey School - You may choose to make grapple attempts with advantage in place of unarmed attacks with your flurry of blows attacks.
-Cobra School - You may make your flurry of blows attacks with thrown weapons.
Then add in some minor elemental damage/pushes and trips/minor sneak attack damage to those attacks from your Way and you have a solid baseline for monk features that lets you explore a much wider range of concepts without each one needing its own subclass and you're less shoehorned into a specific combat role because you wanted some utility powers (and vice versa).
the reach that you get from astral arms lets you forgo getting the mobile feat or use the disengage action alltogether, saving you room for plenty of options that wouldn't be available usually, and overall maybe even saving you ki points in the long run.
Yeah I agree. Less need to consider Ki-Disengage if you punch at reach.
thats why i decided to play a bugbear for my first monk lol. that way i needed neither. then i made the mistake of choosing shadow instead of mercy, well, you never stop learning...
@@mayhemivory5730 I could see Astral Self bugbear monks being amazing because of the 15 foot reach.
@@mayhemivory5730 Haha. I made a Bugbear Barbarian with a reach weapon and the Polearm Master feat - that boy controlled a lot of space. If I could have given him the Sentinal feat, I would have.
But like... what's stopping them from just, you know, walking up to you on their turn?
And it definitely doesnt save you Ki in any shape or form. Because it costs Ki to use. The more combats you enter, the less Ki efficient it becomes.
i like way of mercy bcs its another healer subclass not based on spell, until now, all healer subclasses where based on spells (life domain cleric, celestial warlock, dream domain druid, etc.)
Same
That's the exact reason I chose it for my current character (who might die later tonight, who knows). I wanted to have healing capabilities while also playing something that can fight on the front lines and thus the Mercy monk was chosen
What about like... Paladins
Celestial warlock is not really relying on spells to heal. They don't even get pretty good healing spell but other supporting spell like greater restoration and revivify. The healing feature is the healing light. Which may also be the case for dream domain Druid but druid on it's own have lot's of healing spell option.
I know you don't like talking multiclassing all that much, but you did bring it up some in this video, which I found interesting. I've found that the use of Wisdom for the Astral Self Monk actually combines well with the Druid wildshape, where you're at the mercy of the creature you turn into for Str and Dex otherwise. (Buffing Wisdom also worked out well for my character on his unarmored defense while in wildshape.) And the flavor of looking like a Displacer Beast is a lot of fun.
"Why does this Mercy monk in the art have a mask, is that a mistake?" "Anyway, the Mercy monks all get a mask..."
I like that you guys took note of a comment on a previous video and put emphasis on not comparing this to other classes. I didn't have a problem with it personally, but it's nice to see you're listening to your community
Solution for Astral Self: add to the third level feature "When your Astral Arms are present, you can use your Flurry of Blows feature without expending any Ki points if you make both attacks with your Astral Arms". Also maybe make Visage add to the accuracy of Astral Arms' strikes?
Can’t wait to hear what you guys think about the wild magic barbarian. I think it’s an interesting subclass that front loads heavily and massively teeters off at higher levels
an astral self monk bugbear can have a reach of like, 15 feet with unarmed strikes wich is crazy.
Been waiting on this analysis. Y'all always consider things I miss. Well done. Damn shame there aren't any obviously, undisputed S tier monks
Way of Mercy is the incredibly rare case where every single feature doesn't cost Ki. No really, go read many other Monks and realize how much Ki the others guzzle down.
Kensei monk is pretty economical when it comes to using ki points. 1 ki for a guaranteed extra hit at level 6 or 1-3 ki for a +1-3 for 10 turns at level 11. Otherwise it costs no ki and at level 3 you can jump to your level 17 martial arts die and get a 1d8+1d4 ranged attack if you choose longsword/longbow.
@@vancityband6577 I think Kensei Monk would be appealing in a campaign that doesn't get magical weapons. It's particular folly is that it doesn't properly mesh well if you get a cool weapon you wanna integrate. Which I always found super odd to have that restriction.
I wish you had a way to gain ki easier without rest ore waiting reaching level 20
way of the open hand monks get one ability that requires ki and doesn't come online until 17th level. way of shadow monks likewise have only a single ability, albeit one with multiple functions. drunken masters and kensei each have two which come on during midgame. sun soul monks have three abilities that can use ki, but only one of them requires it. four elements and the long death's capstone ability are genuine ki sinks, but they've both got a laundry list of issues.
The way of mercy monk is arguably one of the worst in terms of the ki cost of their features since until they get flurry of healing and harm, all of their subclass features require use of ki (or using flurry of blows, which also costs ki). every single other subclass save the astral self gains at least one free to use option sooner than that.
Around Half of monk subclasses have half of their features require no ki at all. And almost all have features that don't require additional ki expenditure. Mercy is actually one of the only subclasses that doesn't have completely ki free abilities
I agree about the astral self Monk. The one simple change that my playgroup made to give it a little buff is we ruled that if your arms can reach 10 ft... then so can you grapple. This made my character into a really fun grapple shenanigans character! Something I learned the hard way though is almost everyone has arranged option so a lot of the times you're just going to end getting shot in the kidneys lmao
The Astral Self monk should have been able to grapple with a reach of 10ft to be unique. Doesn't make sense to allow Wisdom modifiers to be used for strength checks and then ignore this thematic attack option.
my biggest beef with them is that if you get to your capstone you can't just shove an enemy and then benefit from the additional attack of that feature.
Attacking multiple times with advantage after shoving with wis would be the obvious strategy for such a character
There has been so much angry discourse about monk subclasses, so honestly I'm really excited to hear the more fair and positive approach that you Dudes always bring
Still looking forward to the Barbarian class video. I really hope it comes out soon. Thanks so much for the videos, guys, love it each time I get the notification.
The Mercy Monk may not be the best healer in the game, but it's a great secondary healer that offers some extra healing and utility in addition to what makes Monk Monk. Takes some of the stress off your main healer, too, which is always a good thing in my book.
I really, really love monks but it breaks my heart to see how WoTC continues to throw out poor subclasses for them. I always want to play one but then I see these other strong classes with even stronger subclasses and feel like I'm never going to contribute as much. I hope someone does a revised monk UA at WoTC at some point to help get the core class on par with the others.
People keep defending it with "Oh but you can do so much out of combat with monks"
And while true, that's just ignoring the fact that DND 5th Edition in particular is extremely focused on combat.
If I wanted to play a game that wasn't majority combat, I have about 5 systems I'd rather play.
DND5 is for combat and monks statistically suck at combat.
I read you.
Here is my homebrew.
Keep 1d8 if they are double proficiency in two skills.
Or go to 1d10.
When not wearing armor….
Add Wisdom and Dexterity modifer, and proficiency bonus to attack rolls.
Add Strength modifier to damage rolls.
They can pick one light martial arts weapon and be proficient. Any weapon picked does 1d8+ Str Modifier damage.
You can be proficient with bows, but only use dexterity modifier with attack rolls and damage.
They can do any action when unarmed strike and get the bonus action of 1d4.
You can do fine as a monk, trust me, the strength difference is there but is much smaller than most make it out to be
@@cptKamina can a monk do loads out of combat? They don't even get extra skills like a rogue or ranger.
@@benry007 True. I was mostly refering to people saying "oh our monk did this and that super cool thing", which 99% of the time is not even a class feature but rather the GM handwaving silly things because "monks can do cool stuff"
*uses flurry to hit enemy and heal
Dm:how does your heal look?
Me: I back hand the fighters face.
The astral self monk removes some of the MADness of the monk class. If wisdom is your to hit and save dc stat you're in a good spot.
Dex is still your AC stat is the problem
@@SielasHDS so is Wisome for the monk :)
@@erwinhaidle9977 So still needs Wis AND Dex
@@SielasHDS not just that, its also
a. not always on, so you still need DEX sometimes
b. uses a bonus action, so you cant use martial arts or flurry
c. costs Ki, so you can actually use stunning strike less, even if your save is technically better
@@mayhemivory5730
a>No one is saying Dex isn't important, but it can be de-prioritized for Wis, which in a lot of monk builds goes the other way.
b>The bonus action you use to active this is in essence a flurry of blows, but one that has the ability/opportunity to hit multiple enemies at reach. This is a net gain
c>Flurry costs Ki, even using the max ki cost for this ability(not count lvl 17) you loose 1 extra Ki Point over a regular Flurry of Blows.
Haha I was just wondering about the new monk stuff if any of it was good and here you guys are, never fails ❤️
I feel with how overloaded Cleric is at level 1, Astral dipping 1 level in some domain has to be at least deece.
Loved the video (as usual)
I'd like to point out that for the mercy monk, in the recap before ranking it A, the debuff cleaning was left out. at level 6 I feel like the healing is not the best part about hands of healing anymore. Remove Paralysis, stun, poisoned, blinded, all that and more, guaranteed for one key points would push it to S tier imo
Here's the biggest problem with the monk: stunning strike. Stunning strike is an S+ tier class feature on a C-tier class, so if they make the monk subclasses any better then they would be too good because of Stunning Strike. If Stunning Strike gets nerfed, then monk becomes barely usable. So Stunning Strike is, no pun intended, completely blocking all progress on the monks.
Spot on. It's the Monks greatest tool but ultimately a curse. They're not allowed to do anything more than middling damage, not allowed to really break any boundaries because they have that one ability that's already toeing the line resulting in every single subclass being borderline garbage with a select few exceptions.
I think just upping their hit dice would not make stunning strike too strong and make them more on par with the others for on the frontline. I agree that they have to be careful, however right now Monk is seen as the weakest class. So they can use some buffs.
No. That's not even an excuse for it. Hold Person is a thing. Multiple control abilities/spells exist that are far better than Stunning Strike. It's just not an excuse for monks to be this poorly designed. And definitely not one that should be accepted.
@@R.E.E.D. Well it becomes more broken at higher levels as you can do multiple attempts per turn and is not limited to humanoids. However, I still agree with you monks deserve a buff.
@@Hyde_Hill
Multiple attempts of a Saving Throw that targets Constitution. If it didn't have multiple attempts per turn, it would never land.
Not being limited to humanoids is also a non-factor when so many other control abilities/spells are not limited to humanoids.
Astral self monk can grapple using wisdom, imagine with the grappler feat, sure you get restrained but you’re out of range of non reach melee creatures you’ve restrained. Or just advantage on attacks with a grapple. Just funny niche idea ☺️
if only that where true. sadly, only your punches are at 10 feet. grappling isnt explicitely possible using the arms, so its at the normal range of 5 feet still.
unless, of course, I've misunderstood what you mean. rogues are still better grapplers also.
@@mayhemivory5730 grapple is a melee attack, so a bugbear would have 10 feet and then easily attack at range.
Grappler is terrible. Just make a fighter and push. Now they are at disadvantage and you have advantage. One more reason not to play a monk.
@@vxicepickxv the problem is the arms only "work" during YOUR turn, so basically you grapple (which is still somewhat open to debate), succeed, end your turn -> enemy looses the grapple condition if he's 10 feet from you.
@@vxicepickxv astral arms specify unarmed strikes, which means no weapons (less damage) and no special melee attacks (so no grapple/shove)
One thing that gets overlooked when considering the Astral Self is that the arms/visage/body last for ten minutes. While this would rarely translate into two combats, what it does do is make you a really resourceful person in exploration. And while the cost feels high in terms of Ki, once active, it stays active. Until you get to 11th level in Way of Mercy, you’re likely spending 2 ki or more per turn, so the one ki cost for the arms isn’t actually all that much.
I’m not arguing that it’s “S” tier, but I do think it’s “A”.
I do feel like the reach of astral self is undervalued.
In my games, I’m constantly bouncing around, avoiding opportunity attacks, and getting into cover.
My party will be ending a fight with half health, while I come out unharmed.
(I certainly would like it to have a boost though)
with flurry of healing and harm. it is more cost effective to use flurry of blows to heal outside of combat because you get 2 uses of hands of healing
You can not flurry of blows outside of combat as you can not flurry unless you took the attack action before it on your turn.
@@adarian so you punch the air twice and then use flurry of blows to heal
@@kelvinvoorneveld7265 Good luck finding a DM that will allow that silly crap.
You can only flurry after taking the attack action. So only if your DM lets you attack air or trees or something.
@@Vielden how about a grapple check, this still counts as taking the attack action and and then you flurry.
I really like the “combat medic” feel of the Mercy Monk. The Mercy Monk I’m playing right now is a shady “Doctor” who wears a Guy Fawkes mask (the one V wears in V for Vendetta) and uses a scalpel along with a needle and thread. I went for a more “grounded” approach with the flavoring like the Hand of Healing being described as him using a needle and thread to sew wounds closed, and the disadvantage from the poisoning effect as him simply cutting some important artery or tendon and having the creature be weakened from the blood loss.
I just started a strahd campaign, I’m playing a deurgar mercy monk who was trained as a slave to drow before breaking out to the surface, now working as a traveling herbalism doctor with chi points healing and a few spells (MI feat) flavored as naruto hand signs. Needless to say this video helped a lot with my choices going forward. Thanks!
For Astral Self, I really wish using your Wisdom modifier for attack and damage rolls of your unarmed strikes extended to the monk's weapons as well. It would have made Astral Self a good multiclass dip for Wisdom casters the same way Hexblade does for Charisma and Battle Smith for Intelligence.
Go Bugbear Monk with 1 level of Druid or nature Cleric (or better yet, 2 levels of ranger with Druidic Warrior), take shillelagh or magic stone. Nobody can touch you!
Thanks for this great overview.
I enjoyed how you guys classified this one. Can’t wait to see your next vid!!!
We have a way of mercy monk in the campaign I'm cleric in. He has done a fantastic job being backup and support healing while still doing decent damage.
I like way of mercy because of the implication of reviving someone without the need for material components (then again i've never made it that high level in a campaign so i don't know how easy is to "load up" for the stuff revival spells demand.)
As well as the time limit of them being dead for more than 24 hours. So your party probably died in a big fight, and your out of Ki. That’s fine. Take a short rest, and start rezing them one at a time.
Small thing about how astral sight in Way of the Astral Self monks you missed!
"Astral Sight. You can see normally in darkness, both magical and nonmagical, to a distance of 120 feet."
Its different to Dark Vision as its not stated to appear in shades of grey or be a different way of perceiving light. It states you see normally as if the world is illuminated to you. Which is insane. I like to imagine its like looking into the Wraith World when putting on the One ring.
In a campaign I’m currently in, we have on OP way of astral self. It’s semi modern campaign so the character has guns. The DM has allowed them to replace every unarmed attack with a gun shot, even flurry of blows. Plus the character is also permanently invisible to everyone they are not directly interacting with, due to always being in between the material plane and astral plane.
Love the Astral Self Monk Subclas! :)
Regards from Tabasco, México [Land of The Olmecs]!
Been playing a monk of astral self, Kalashtar race for over 2 years now. The RP potential of having my astral body that of my soul fused Quori. The RP has been incredible.
Plus my wisdom is 20, when I use my astral self I use wisdom in place of strength. So I have 2 max stats, with grappler and crusher feats. I focus on holding, moving enemies and giving my allies advantage. Turns fighting from just doing damage to a chess game. It's incredible.
Astral Monk is an absolute monster grappler and shover. Wisdom for STR saves and checks is amazing.
I was hoping for the Ascendant Dragon here, but i'm happy with what we got. Really disappointed with the JoJ.. I mean the Astral Self, and spoiler alert: the Ascendant Dragon sucks
It really does! The UA version was amazing, but they nerfed it to shit in Fizbans for no good reason. Its Especially egregious when the Peace and Twilight Domains exist for an already exceptional base class, but Monks can't get any love.
I've lost hype for anything Wizards has been putting out, between the changes in race design ("everyone" lives about a century? Lazy, Wizards), the nonsense they've been doing to spellcasting NPCs, giving us a Beastmaster that just uses a dragon flavor, and now butchering one of the most promising Subclasses they've ever had, I'm convinced Wizards is asleep at the wheel and doesn't care. I'm not very excited for anything they're putting out right now
I hope the next "edition" gives the monk some work. It's always been my favorite class, but 5e has not treated the monk very well.
Very true
5E monks are far above how they were in 1E. You’ve no idea how much better than are now compared to the past.
@@GodwinXZ I do remember playing 3.5 monks and they at least felt on par with other martial classes.
@@GodwinXZ So they, according to you, went from unplayable to worst class in the game? My, what progress.
@@OakenTome I wouldn't call them worst class in the game, just kinda middling.
After not having played D&D for 30+ years, my son got into it, and he is bringing me back in. My first adventure in decades will be my son's first campaign as DM. I'm going with Monk, but I could not choose a subclass for it - until I saw this series. I am going with Way of the Open Hand. What's wierd about this is that I am playing as a Plazmoid. I am a really rusty player, and I have never played as a Monk. So I hope this goes well.
I've been waiting for this episode!
I haven't looked at this yet, but the idea of multiclassing the Astral Self with Echo Knight is SOOO COOOL and I want to make that happen. I let you know when I do 😊
How did we get through an entire episode on the Astral self monk without making a single JoJos reference?
Lowkey was expecting the Monk Tier video last, just as a reflection of the general disdain for the by the community. I still fw them.
I just have to imagine an Astral Self Goliath Monk, who then transforms in his whole Astral Body...
It would probably look extremly intimidating, even if it isn't the best subclass and even if I wouldn't use it, I think it would still be cool.
I have always wanted a healing monk. The idea of it always sounded fitting to me. I absolutely love the Way of Mercy Monk and am really happy it was added in Tasha's.
27:00 ;
This same exact thing happened to the Dragon Monk, the first monk class I was so excited to play, and they seemingly completely butchered it on the official release. It's very disappointing and makes me quite sad. I'm surprised at the ranking of Astral Self, but when it's broken down that makes more sense. I think the UA of Astral Self was also nerfed, I vaguely recall it being able to do like 6 attacks. But I am probably mis-remembering.
Regardless, this video broke down these subclasses really well, and that idea Kelly threw out about a Wisdom-focused Astral Self has my gears spinning. Hehe. You guys rock! Thanks for all the great content you put out!
I agree that Way of the Astral Self Monk is a little underwhelming, but I think that one thing you guys overlooked (or maybe forgot to elaborate on) is the fact that you change your damage type from physical to force damage, before you even get access to Ki Empowered Strikes at 6th level. A martial class even getting access to force damage is pretty rare. Not only that, but as you guys have mentioned before, force damage is one of the least, if not THE least resisted damage types in the game. Being able to do so at a range that might be further out from an enemy's range (punch and move away without invoking Opportunity Attacks) is quite useful.
way of mercy deserves the s tier IMO, its just a very mobile healer that can deal decent damage
As far as Monks go, I think it’s the best.
It's the best monk subclass but look at what other S ranks get and you'll see that it falls short. I'm pretty sure rune knight was an a class and is certainly stronger than mercy.
@@jameshernandez4112 The thing is they are supposed to be ranking these just against other monks and thus as the best monk it would be S tier. It adds game changing abilities to the class (Healing) while still being a good damage dealer and making it a better debuffer.
I still don't think the Way of Mercy meets the S tier criteria. It's the best monk subclass imo, but it doesn't really reach that top echelon of subclasses for me.
The Mercy Monk feels like a discount Kenshiro (ftom Fist of the North Star). The head-exploding punches are so iconic that people forget Kenshiro could alsi use pressure points to heal others and even control their actions (though the healing was used so rarely I don't blame people for not remembering it).
Mercy Monk feels like they got a weaksauce version of the 'scramble the other guy's internal organs/mess up their ki with a tap' trick in exchange for better healing.
Or maybe a variation of the Gentle Fist from Naruto.
Honestly, as good as it is, it feels like its missing something. Maybe something like Chi Blocking from AtLA, where the enemy can't use spells or certain abilities for a while or the targeted limb is temporarily disabled.
For anyone trying to make the Astral Self monk work, I recommend a moon Druid 2-3 level dip on a Variant Human (Mobile).
Once you have a 70-80 ft move speed in wild shape and 10 ft reach, you can easily run back and forth in battle to prevent melee enemies from reaching you. You have Deflect Missiles and Evasion to deal with ranged attacks/AOEs. You can focus all off your ASIs into wisdom, so you’ll have a decent beast AC and you can pump up your beast damage with martial arts/flurry of blows.
Not the strongest moon Druid/monk multiclass, but quite serviceable.
I played a Spore Druid/Mercy Monk that was very effective in combat with shillelagh and polearm master. Plus, Mercy’s healing/poison mechanics rp’ed nicely with Spore’s fungi nature.
Yay been waiting for this one!
Updated tier list (regarding both The Dungeon Dudes and the users):
S TIER
- Path of the Totem Warrior (Barbarian)
- College of Lore (Bard)
- Peace Domain (Cleric)
- Twilight Domain (Cleric)
- Circle of the Moon (Druid)
- Battle Master (Fighter)
- Echo Knight (Fighter)
- Gloom Stalker Conclave (Ranger)
- Aberrant Mind (Sorcerer)
- Clockwork Soul (Sorcerer)
- Divine Soul (Sorcerer)
- The Hexblade (Warlock)
- School of Divination (Wizard)
A+ TIER
- Armorer (Artificer)
- Life Domain (Cleric)
- Rune Knight (Fighter)
- Oath of Vengeance (Paladin)
- Arcane Trickster (Rogue)
- Soulknife (Rogue)
- Swashbuckler (Rogue)
- The Fiend (Warlock)
- The Genie (Warlock)
- Bladesinging (Wizard)
- Chronurgy Magic (Wizard)
A TIER
- Artillerist (Artificer)
- Battle Smith (Artificer)
- Path of the Ancestral Guardian (Barbarian)
- Path of the Zealot (Barbarian)
- College of Eloquence (Bard)
- Forge Domain (Cleric)
- Grave Domain (Cleric)
- Light Domain (Cleric)
- Tempest Domain (Cleric)
- Circle of the Shepherd (Druid)
- Circle of the Stars (Druid)
- Circle of the Wildfire (Druid)
- Eldritch Knight (Fighter)
- Way of the Open Hand (Monk)
- Way of Shadow (Monk)
- *Way of Mercy (Monk)*
- Oath of the Ancients (Paladin)
- Oath of Conquest (Paladin)
- Oathbreaker (Paladin)
- Beast Master Conclave (TCE) (Ranger)
- Horizon Walker Conclave (Ranger)
- Swarmkeeper Conclave (Ranger)
- Scout (Rogue)
- Shadow Magic (Sorcerer)
- School of Abjuration (Wizard)
- School of Enchantment (Wizard)
- Order of Scribes (Wizard)
B+ TIER
- Cavalier (Fighter)
- Psi Warrior (Fighter)
- Way of the Kensei (Monk)
- *Way of the Astral Self (Monk)*
- Oath of Devotion (Paladin)
- Oath of Redemption (Paladin)
- Oath of the Watchers (Paladin)
- Fey Wanderer Conclave (Ranger)
- Phantom (Rogue)
- Draconic Bloodline (Sorcerer)
- Wild Magic (Sorcerer)
- The Archfey (Warlock)
- The Celestial (Warlock)
- The Fathomless (Warlock)
- School of Evocation (Wizard)
- School of Illusion (Wizard)
- School of Necromancy (Wizard)
B TIER
- Alchemist (Artificer)
- Path of the Storm Herald (Barbarian)
- College of Glamour (Bard)
- College of Valor (Bard)
- Nature Domain (Cleric)
- Order Domain (Cleric)
- Trickery Domain (Cleric)
- War Domain (Cleric)
- Circle of Dreams (Druid)
- Circle of the Land (Druid)
- Champion (Fighter)
- Samurai (Fighter)
- Way of the Long Death (Monk)
- Oath of Glory (Paladin)
- Hunter Conclave (Ranger)
- Assassin (Rogue)
- Mastermind (Rogue)
- Thief (Rogue)
- The Great Old One (Warlock)
- School of Conjuration (Wizard)
C+ TIER
- College of Swords (Bard)
- College of Whispers (Bard)
- Arcana Domain (Cleric)
- Death Domain (Cleric)
- Knowledge Domain (Cleric)
- Circle of Spores (Druid)
- Arcane Archer (Fighter)
- Way of the Drunken Master (Monk)
- Oath of the Crown (Paladin)
- Monster Slayer Conclave (Ranger)
- Inquisitive (Rogue)
- Storm Sorcery (Sorcerer)
- Graviturgy Magic (Wizard)
- School of Transmutation (Wizard)
- War Magic (Wizard)
C TIER
- Path of the Battlerager (Barbarian)
- Path of the Berserker (Barbarian)
- Way of the Sun Soul (Monk)
D+ TIER
- The Undying (Warlock)
D TIER
- Banneret/Purple Dragon Knight (Fighter)
- Way of the Four Elements (Monk)
- Beast Master Conclave (PHB) (Ranger)
I've played a mercy monk like zenyatta even though it doesn't have the range, but let me tell you that was some of the most fun I've had being a monk.
Played a Mercy Monk as a Kabuki Dancer and had an absolute blast. Went into the character more excited about the schtick but was hugely impressed at the mechanical viability of the sub-class. Being able to use Hand of Healing on one's self made her surprisingly tanky.
if you play an astral self monk you should choose a race that can cast darkness, like a half-elf dark elf heritage or a dark elf, this way you can combine that with the astral visage to cast darkness over yourself and still see in that darkness.
Feral Tiefling with Bloodline of Asmodeus or Levistus works well.
Shadow Monk with Eldritch Adept and Devil's Sight is far more effective at taking advantage of Darkness for a single feat than any Astral Monk is.
I just want to say I played an Astral monk for the flavor. BUT then I fell in love with it. The extra reach from the arms helps a lot. Then the arms do force damage which made my dm choke on her words where she had said my bludgeoning punches could never harm a barbarian. I ran it in a dungeon by myself at lvl 5 and was able to quickly handle 7 undead with no real issues.
I do agree though that after the arms it does get niche and agree with the b rating. The visage was useful but I played it as a tiefling so I was able to cast darkness around me. So overall agree with the ranking of it but still love it. And want to run it again in a longer campaign to possibly multiclass it with a sorcerer and then see what potential havok I can unleash.
One thing I feel you guys missed about Astral Self is pretty niche but super fun grappler type build. Astral hands allow to use wisdom instead of strength in athletics checks which always was bane for monk grapplers.
Oh. Astral Self dropped the "regain ki points equal to Wisdom when nearby enemies drop to 0" clause from the unearthed arcana version which made it easily the best Monk subclass, at least for raw deeps.
First time I read the Mercy Monk it reminded me of the Shadow Sun Ninja from the Tome of Battle (Book of Nine Swords) in 3rd (3.5?) edition. The way they kept switching between Positive Energy Healing and Negative Energy damage during combat...
One of the main issues with Astral Self is the opportunity cost of that first round bonus action. The cost of one ki point & a bonus action is the same as flurry of blows. Which means that the benefits from the arms have to be better than just taking two unarmed strikes. Most of the time, they won't be! This is exacerbated by forgoing two more opportunities to stunning strike on the first round of combat, when that ability is at its most valuable!
Astral Monk reminds me of Amera from Borderlands. I plan on playing a Bugbear Astral Monk. Who doesn't wouldn't want to make unarmed strikes at 15 ft range? Plus if you take the fighting initiate feat and go unarmed fighting you can increase your unarmed strikes to be a d8. But because the Astral Monk allows you to use Wis instead of Str for your attacks, you don't have to worry about pumping that stat.
Having played a Mercy Monk, I'll say that it's definitely a ramping, high-level class. The level 3 hand of healing/harm are interesting, but drain your sparse chi really fast. Getting the level 6 physician's touch feels much better, getting the extra adders. But then level 11+ is absolutely amazing, getting the double heal or 5th attack with auto-poison (or even both) each turn is very fun and very powerful.
Though I completely agree with everything said, as well as the overall tier rankings, I think there's more to having 10ft reach as a Monk than most people realise.
Simply put, without the Mobile feat or Step of the Wind, you can race past enemies punching them without provoking opportunity attacks. That makes a reliable impact any time you're facing several enemies.
Unfortunately, the main impact of this is to free up your Bonus Action (and possibly an ASI), which is undercut by the Astral Self monk's abilities.
So, while I don't disagree with anything said, I think this should have been mentioned.
In an upcoming Spelljammer game (where we start off not knowing anything about spelljamming) I have a plasmoid monk (way of the astral self). His backstory is that as a tiny baby ooze, his family were on a ship that stopped off on the planet for repairs and resupply. They went for a picnic and while they were otherwise engaged, he slipped off and got lost. They had to leave before finding him so he was left behind. A group of Kobolds found him and took him back to their warren where he grew up. He took the form of an oozy blue kobold to try and fit in, but had to learn to fight to survive childhood. I’m using monk but replacing all of the zen stuff with the ‘an old kobold pit fighter took him under his wing’ theme (Mr Myagi style). When he uses his astral arms feature they will burst out of his back looking like the wings of a blue dragon, and when he gets the astral visage feature the mask will look like a blue dragon’s head. No eastern zen or meditation just a flurry of mini draconic bites, kicks, head-buts, and wing smashes. You can (assuming dm permission) reflavour the aesthetics and descriptions as much as you want without needing to change any mechanics. I feel that the force damage from the astral arms gets downplayed a lot, and having reach means less dependence on getting the mobility feat. But I agree a tiny boost such as being able to grapple with the arms or use monk weapons with them would be great.
"Subclasses that can become ethereal, and teleport around... Like the Echo Knight!"
Horizon Walker: "Am I a joke to you?"
B is super generous for the Astral Monk.
I almost want to agree with you. I think it *is* a B but it toes the line of dropping to a C. The only thing it offers as far as I can tell is that it's the best monk subclass for grappling. Play variant human, pick up skill expert in athletics, and grapple/shove the shit out of people using your wisdom modifier. If you're not bothered grappling, then it offers almost nothing of value besides the additional 5ft reach. With that in mind though the same can be said of basically every monk subclass, so that really isn't saying much.
The Crusher feat also does wonders for the Mercy monk. Letting you disengage an ally from a tough situation until they're ready to get back into combat.
What seems weird to me, is that Mercy Monks can do 2 Hands of Healing when using Flurry of Blows, so by using a Bonus Action, but can only do it one time when they just use the Hands of Healing feature, so by using an Action.
Which means punching something, anything, even the air, and then healing two times, costs as much than healing one time, with just a little worse action economy.
I imagine it being the Acupuncture/pressure point stabs you see in chinese medicine where you hit them in specific spots to heal them.
@@ruga-ventoj Then why Healing one time then attacking one time costs as much as attacking one time then healing two times ?
I like that Kelly mentioned multiclassing with the Astral Monk. I'm currently playing a Shepherd Druid/Astral Monk, and I'm loving it, but I would love it less if I was just an Astral Monk. It's really cool when paired, but on its own I don't think it would be as cool.
Interesting way of saying Plague. On the astral self monk upping the power of stunning strike is really nice. Wish it would last 1 hour though as then it is easier to carry over between battles or even some weird social shenanigans.
Both of these classes were hard nerfed from unearthed arcana. I still cant believe how much WotC just refuses to let monk have anything nice.
Did they seriously remove the ki recovery of the astral monk? I didn't know that.
My buddy played an epic healer as a mercy monk. Doctor (guild artisan) warforged monk. He combined chiropractics with Hong Kong cinema mystic Kung Fu and a fanciful take on Eastern medicine.. He was always giving people remedies and suppliments to PCs and NPCs alike. His character was often compared to a mother hen. He had a weird habit of trying food, even though he was a warforged robot.
Having a monk that has another good option beyond stunning strike is worthy S tier. Then you add healing, which recharges on a short rest. Definitely S-tier. All the stories about monk tend revolve around stunning strike, which takes a big hit when fighting a monster immune to stunning strike or even just has a good save. Now you can still be a key player when the DM smiles and says "Immune to stunning strike."
What is immune to stunning strike? Last I checked, Stunned is one of the least resisted status effects.
@@adwenger0066 Because high CON save o legendary save
At 24:08 Monty mentions there being a new feature where you can punch when you use those spells (referring to Shadow Monk). As Shadow Monk is one of the classes I'm considering for a one-shot, I've been trying to find where this feature is, but no such luck yet. May anyone know where I might be able to find it?
Edit: Scratch that, I've found it: it's Ki-Fueled Attack!
My own Homebrew "Way of the Hecatonchires" is what Kelly wants for Astral Self. I agree, a woefully underserved class.
I played a way of mercy monk in a campaign up to level 8 not too long ago. It was a lot of fun! Since there was no healers in the party, I had the role of healing my friends on the battlefield, which makes you loved by all instantly. If you have a DM that likes the idea, the alchemist's tools proficiency is sooooooo useful. In addition to cheap health potion, you can make a lot of useful one-use potions that will definitely come in handy. I once combo-ed a potion of giant strength and a potion of enlargement for pretty great results. Sometimes getting the automatic poisoned status is more useful than trying to stun a foe with a big constitution and more effective ki point-wise. The mask idea is pretty interesting, I had my character have a mask of living flames that were lit up by his ki as were his attacks when he used Hands of Harm and Healing. The color of the flames changed according to his feelings or the powers he used.
And mobile feat, because fireboy goes woosh hehe
Good subclass overall!
And now I’m thinking of too many character ideas
Love your content
Playing an Astral Self Monk right now and I honestly don't agree with it being a B but alright.
Arms saved me a lot of trouble with the reach and force damage, not to mention it's another set of arms to mess around with things with and it's not your body so it can't be damaged! I climbed a thorned tree that both stung and paralyzed no problem! As for Visage, I only just got it so it only came up once when I got to call BS on a commoner pretending to be a shopkeep (it was pretty funny), but the 120 magical darkvision looks great.
I've yet to have the Body and Ascended, but they both look great! Body honestly costs 1 ki point by itself, so it not costing anything but having to activate Arms and Visage as well makes a lot of sense and gives you magical darkvision on top of everything else, and Ascended giving +2 AC and another attack is also awesome, just maybe not 5 ki points awesome.