monk looking for advice

[skmetalworks1]

Just starting out lvl 6 and was wondering what is more important for me to focus on getting. Weapon (wu stick or staff) or should i get cured silk armor. I want to get the weapon but it will cost alot more. Should i get the armor first then the weapon or just save for wu`s? First time rollin a monk so a little lost. Thanks in advance for your advice.

[chayes]

If you are on a blue server, stockpile bone chips (Freeport has tons of skellies with short respa em timers), go sell them in EC and buy a weapon.
You can usually get 8p/stack with a little patience.

Then buy armor as you go. Your natural AC/dodge/ block will do wonders. Your fists really lack until later. Get a good stick an whack things with it!

[Samoht Farstrider]

If you're in the FP area, go to Nektulos and kill the bears and spider/spiderlings to the left after you zone in. You get xp, bear skins, and silks. HQ bear skin sells for 30pp, medium and low quality sells for 1pp. Spider and spiderling silk also sells for 5-10pp per stack. That's how I got my Wu Staff.

If you're in the Qeynos area, kill do the rabid wolves quest until high enough to do the rabid grizzly one. Each time you turn in gets you 2pp.

[skmetalworks1]

Lvl 10 now got a wu's trance stick from a nice enchanter. I think wu's Quivering Staff is better though so im tryin to scrape some PP together. Unfortunately I'm an Iksar so traveling makes me a little uneasy without Feign Death. Im just hittin Kurns Castle right now. I also got my armor made by a lvl 9 necro.

[Infectious]

Get 15 asap, buy a cured silk gloves and boots. Bum a port to karanas. All around gypsy camp there are willowisps. Every greater light stone will yield you 11pp per hand in. You just need magic weapon(or gloves) and magic boots to hit willowisps.

If you started in qeynos, just go to wisp island and bring bags. If you come with 7 backpacks and do a full run will yield you over 600pp. Do this 2-3 times and head back to ec. Should get you full set of cured silk, 55hp rings and a decent weapon.

[Zliz]

Iksar or Human? Your strategy for money making will differ a lot based on that.

Regardless, save for weapon first, no armor comes close to making such a big difference. However, you can get a full set of Cured Silk for 80-100p, so it's not that much extra you need to save. A Wu's staff can also be found for as little as 100p these days.

I'm an Iksar, and I saved Bone Chips and vendor loot all day and made nice cash that way. People often come to Field of Bone to buy chips for faction, offering between 5 and 10pp per stack. Spiderling silk is also good money.

At level 20 I went to Antonica (I would not advise you to leave Iksar land without having trained and skilled up Feign Death first), and farmed a shitload in the commonlands zones. Will-o-wisps for lightstones (turned in for dark elf faction and pp), bears for HQ pelts (30p), orcs for scalps (10p) and DF belts (5p). Just farming orcs for a few hours and selling scalps and belts will net you hundreds of pp per hour.

Good luck! :)

[Tenloar]

Is the weight restriction worth mentioning here?

[cor3nth]

Wu's Quivering Staff > Cured Silk Set > 5/55 AC rings. Stay in Kurn's and scrounge what PP you can. When you get to 24, head to HHK and do goblin groups. You can make your first chunk of $ of the goblin ears if you stay till there until you are 30+.

[Zliz]

Is the weight restriction worth mentioning here?
It is, and here's my take on it: Fact is that a new untwinked monk needs money, badly. You have to save weapons, items, and looted money in order to gear up. This will continue for many, many levels.

Around level 25 I did some testing to see how bad the weight AC penalty is. Going over 15 weight it starts out at fairly heavy penalty, losing 3-4 displayed AC per weight point. At 30 weight though, I started only losing roughly 1 AC per 3 weight over.

The reality is that with a Wu's staff (or other heavy weapons), a load of looted coin and gear on you, and relatively heavy bags like Burlap Sack and Evil Eye bag, you will probably be at a minimum of 30-35 weight always when you're out hunting. You can also fight just fine this way. You can also equip relatively heavy items such as Lockjaw Hide Vest, Lumberjack Cap, Drolvarg Mantle and even Iksar Scaled Gloves, because the AC penalty will be outweight by the item's AC (in most cases anyway).

Thus, the best thing is to just ignore the weight and loot up, only heading for merchants and banks when you are encumbered and lose agility, where your run speed will begin to suffer.

[Byrjun]

I constantly went from like 28 weight to 170 weight while soloing guards in Highkeep and honestly I never noticed much of a difference between the two extremes. That statement is of course completely anecdotal without any parsing or anything to back it up, but I'd say don't pass up cash drops because of your weight. Buying upgrades is going to be much more valuable than the loss of AC.

[Kender]

at 28 weight at low levels you've already lost most of your ac bonus

[skmetalworks1]

Thanks for the advice here, lvl 14 now and traveled to EC tunnels and picked up Wu's Quivering Staff. So now the only piece of gear Im saving for is the hp/ac rings.