Pandora Saga Monk Guide

Pandora Saga Monk Guide by Brovic

Monks are one of the third-tier classes of the acolyte starting class. In order to become a monk you must follow the path Acolyte → Ascetic → Monk. Monks are one of the main melee classes in the game along with juggernauts, and while they don’t have as much damage output as a juggernaut, they make up for it with their ability to stun and interrupt their enemies. One of the main traits of a monk is that of the ‘tank killer’, with their ability to deal very large damage to tanks, ‘break’ their shields and remove their armour, but they are equally as good, if not better, at ruining enemy clerics and hence giving their team the upper hand in a battle. You should play a monk if:

The first question that will come to most peoples’ minds when looking at becoming a monk is, ‘so where to I spend my attribute points?’. Well let’s take a look at the stats and how important each one is to a monk;

STA. Stamina. This attribute increases life points (LP), LP recovery rate and increases the recovery rate from status ailments. As a front-line unit you should definitely invest a decent amount of points into this stat, and especially if you’re a monk since the base hp for a monk is quite low compared to other melee/warrior units.

STR. Strength. This increases your overall damage output. Every 10 strength nets a nice bonus to your attack range and if you want to be a damage-dealing monk, you should probably maximise this stat. Boosting your STR to 110 with gear can make a huge difference in the damage you do.

AGI. Agility. Enables you to dodge attacks and also increases your attack speed. In my experience, attack speed is pretty useless for melee units as you’re just spamming skills most of the time anyway, so the reason you put points into this stat is for dodge. Monks can make the most out of this stat due to their class buff (see later) and many evasion-boosting skills they can get. If you want to dodge attacks, this stat should be very high, if not max. However your damage will be low if you put a lot of points here so be wary of that.

DEX. Dexterity. Increases accuracy (and casting speed). Every class that uses physical attacks needs this stat, no question about it. You can get away with 30 dex with the monk’s skillset although you will still miss occasionally. Some people go for 40, 50 or somewhere in between, it’s really up to you to see how much dex you want to put.

SPI. Spirit. MP, MP recovery rate, status effect and spell interrupt resistance. No points are needed in this stat. Monks have a large base MP pool, an MP regen skill and good status effect resistance anyway. Don’t waste points here.

INT. Intelligence. Also don’t put points here. Increases magic attack power and decreases skill cooldown time. As a melee unit you don’t need int; monks can get a couple of magic attacks but you won’t be using them unless you’re trying some crazy advanced/unique build.

Now let’s talk about how you should be building your monk.

STR-type monk – the damage-dealer

Recommended build:
STR: 90-99 (99 strongly recommended but not compulsory)
STA: 40-60
DEX: 30-50

Not much to say here; this is a pretty generic monk/any damage-dealing class build. The build works very well as you can swiftly dispatch many enemies before they even get a chance to attack you.

AGI-type monk – the annoyer

Recommended build:
AGI: 80-99
STR: 50+
DEX: 30
Rest into more STR or STA

I don’t have any experience playing an AGI monk but this is probably what I’d do. The focus of this build is to continually disrupt enemy casters and tanks while being able to dodge most physical attacks, and while you will be able to kill people it will take a lot longer to do so than the STR-type monk. You will be vulnerable to magic attacks on this build with low-mid STA so be careful. Difficult to make this build work well.

Now let’s take a look at the good stuff – the monk skill set and the ability points you need to get those skills.

Abilities

Melee
15 Cleave
90 Bash – MUST get at least 71 of this stat for all available monk skills. No question about it. Increase past 71 for more damage, increase to 90 to maximise damage output for STR-type.
25 Defend

Finesse
55 Evasion – You’ll need this for AGI-type monk.

Prayers
30 Grace
25 Blessing
60 Exorcism – MUST get at least 21 of this stat since one of the monk’s best skills requires 41 bash AND 21 exorcism.

Special
10 Mount

As you can see, you’re already spending a wealth of ability points just to get all the monk skills. The other points can be spent how you see fit (DON’T get mount though), I recommend increasing blessing and exorcism.

Skills specific to the acolyte/ascetic/monk classes:
Level 12 – Meditation (passive) – increases MP recovery rate (rate increases for every 25(?) Prayers proficiency

Level 18 – Heal – heals LP of one target. Pretty useless for monks.

Level 20 – Blessed Garments (passive) – gives bonuses to Poison, Charm and Magic resistances if you are wearing armour/a weapon upgraded with light runes.

Level 20 – Mana Restore – gradually heals mana (every 2-3 secs). The amount it heals depends on level divided by 10 (at level 39 it will heal 3 mana per 2-3 secs, at level 40 it will heal 4 mana per 2-3 secs).

Level 28 – Speedy Gale – increases dodge stat of all party members. The amount of dodge increase is higher for those with a high dodge and lower for those with a low dodge.

Level 45 – Sound Mind (passive) – reduces duration of debuffs (depending on exorcism proficiency?).

Level 50 – Paralyzing Bond – excellent skill. It’s a normal attack, but if you hit the enemy from behind, you and your enemy will be unable to move for ~10 seconds. Works on horses too.

Melee-proficiency skills:
Melee 4 – Slash – great skill. Has a very high hit-chance, deals high damage in comparison to other monk skills, has a very low MP cost and low cooldown.

Melee 35 – Bash – also very useful. Knocks an enemy back. Interrupts them if they’re casting, and deals good damage.

Melee 70 – Misdirection – causes everyone who is targeting you to lose you as their target. Good if you’re in a fracas and everyone’s hating on you.

Melee 100 – Ossify – decreases attack power, but renders you immune to trip, and movement reductions (apart from pinning arrow annoyingly). Use this if you need to run away.

Cleave skills:
Cleave 8 – Clobber – monks can’t use this.

Cleave 12 – Riposte – causes you to enter a stance for 2 seconds, whereby if you are attacked from the front you will counter with a critical hit. Very difficult to use correctly and seems to render you immobile for about a second afterwards.

Bash skills:
Bash 8 – Stun – high damage attack, low cooldown, and has a good chance of stunning the enemy. You will love this skill.

Bash 26 – Grand Shock – interrupts spell-casting and also has a high critical hit rate, useful for hitting enemies with high dodge was well as disrupting casters.

Bash 41 Exorcism 21 – Stun Hammer – does 0 damage, but stuns enemies in a smallish radius around you. Since it doesn’t actually ‘hit’ the enemy this attack is not based on DEX. This should be your opening skill for combos. Arguably the monk’s best skill.

Bash 50 – Shatter Armour – Removes the torso armour of your enemy and interrupts their spell-casting. Mid-range damage, good skill to use on anyone really.

Bash 61 – Shield Break – only use this if your enemy is blocking with a shield. ‘Breaks’ their shield (meaning they can’t wear one) for about a minute. If the enemy is not blocking, this deals 0 damage, basically it does nothing.

Bash 71 – Subvert – the skill that monks are best known for. Deals exponentially higher damage depending on the opponent’s defense, where higher def means higher damage. Still does very high damage on enemies with low defense. Your most powerful skill as a monk. Has a pretty high MP cost and longish cooldown though.

Defend skills are, in my opinion, pointless to get as a monk, so I won’t bother listing the skills.

Finesse-proficiency skills:
Finesse 3 – Backstep – very low cooldown, pretty obvious what it does.

Evasion skills:
Evasion 8 – Dash – allows you to run very fast for a very short period of time. Extremely useful for catching up to enemies, or escaping. Definitely get this.

Evasion 16 – Quick Step – increases your dodge by 15.

Evasion 21 – Tangled Fingers – decreases the enemy’s accuracy.

Evasion 26 – Reinforce (passive) – gives resistance to freeze, stun and knockdown.

Evasion 41 – Avoidance – the next 2 physical attacks on you will miss. Increases dodge by 100 although this is kind of obsolete.

Evasion 50 – Intuition – grants a small change to dodge magic.

Prayers-proficiency skills:
Prayers 35 – Mental Aid – removes a debuff. Long cooldown.

Prayers 102 – Physical Barrier – nullifies 1 physical attack.

Prayers 102 – Magical Barrier – nullifies 1 magical attack.

Grace skills:
Grace 8 – First Aid – quickly heals a small amount of your target’s LP.

Grace 12 – Cleanse – cures Poison on your target.

Grace 21 – Regenerate – gradually heals your target’s LP over time.

Grace 26 – Vivify – cures Sleep, Stun and Freeze effects on your target.

Blessing skills:
Blessing 8 – Velox – increases your target’s attack speed.

Blessing 12 – Lapis Medio – increases your party’s defense.

Blessing 21 – Impedimenta – decreases your enemy’s movement speed. Can be very useful, but stops you doing melee stuff for a few seconds which is more important as a monk.

Exorcism skills:
Exorcism 8 – Pure Arrow – pitiful skill, but you’ll have it anyway so use it for the lols if you want.

Exorcism 12 – Elemental Absorption – decreases damage done to you by fire, ice and lightning attacks.

Exorcism 26 – Bless Weapon – grants an aura to your/your target’s weapon which deals additional elemental damage with your attacks. The amount of damage is very low unless you have high SPI.

Exorcism 41 – Remedium – far superior to Mental Aid.

Exorcism 54 – Holy Rays – does AOE magical damage.

Whew. That’s a lot of skills to choose from. Again you absolutely MUST get 71+ Bash and 21+ Exorcism. The rest of the points are really up to you.

A note on equipment and racial skills
Monks should be using 2-handed blunt weapons, along with STR/AGI boosting gear and STA/LP boosting gear. All gear should, ideally, be upgraded with light runes to massive the bonuses you can get from Blessed Garments.

Choosing a race is important for any class. For monk I recommend either Dwarf or Enkidu if you’re going STR-type, since both have racial skills that will increase the damage of your hammer. Myrines are good for AGI-types with their dodge racial passive. However again this decision is up to you. Take into account the starting stats, the racial, and if you enjoy looking like a Dwarf or Enkidu before making your decision.

Strategies/Tactics
Monks can hold their own against pretty much every class in the game, but are extremely useful for dealing with tanks, clerics and mages. You should always be looking to latch on to an enemy cleric if you can, and continually stun/interrupt them. A very useful combo (my personal favourite) to use against clerics and mages is:

Stun Hammer → Auto-Attack → Stun → Auto-attack → Subvert → Slash.

Subvert on a tank can deal over 4000 damage (maybe even the fabled OVER 9000 damage if the tank is undermined and you get lucky). To maximise the effect of Subvert, use it when the tank’s LP is about 1/3rd, as a finishing strike. Using it too early gives tanks the chance to heal the damage with a potion.

Back attacks are key in this game and you should always be striking the enemy from behind for the bonus damage you can deal that way. One of your skills requires you to be behind your enemy (Paralyzing Bond). This skill is brilliant. Use it on an enemy running away, a horse unit who’s slept or pinned, a juggernaut who is extended away from his party or whenever you feel like. Just be aware you can’t move when you use it. If you can time it with a Conjurer’s Psychic Blades, you can Bash along the path of the blades while the enemy can’t move and each Blade will hit the enemy twice, totalling over 6k damage if timed correctly.

That’s it for my tips (from my playstyle/experience). I hope you’ve enjoyed reading this guide and if you do choose Monk, I hope you enjoy playing it! Send a PM/mail in-game to Gyorg (Astaroth server) if you have any queries.

– Buster (aka Gyorg)