Monk - Iksar or Human

[Zentile]

I have heard others say that choosing Iksar is like adding a BIS NToV drop to your character for free. But I honestly don’t think that does it justice since worn regen is capped at 15 on P99. Therefore I’ve updated that view a bit:

Rolling an Iksar is like altering the code in the game to give you a permanent advantage over human monks that is far more valuable than a BIS NToV drop.

Zen

[mefdinkins]

My human monk was about level 17 when Kunark was released?

At that point I thought, "oooh what a pain starting over." Huge mistake for sure. As I progressed I used the XP penalty (which was 44% then not 20% - so now days you're only as bad as a Human Monk used to be) and faction issues (well that could be annoying!?) to justify not re-rolling. Then I finished jboots, then I finished 45 (what a hell level!!) then I got deeper and deeper, kept getting upgrades, etc. and never did it.

When Velious started, I was playing my other chars more so than my monk but finally started to see how overpowered monks were. Monks solo'ing blues that I couldn't imagine pre-velious or killing Lodizal or Ragefire on their own with no assistance - is crazy. I saw people start to gear out and get 10th rings and Vulak weapons and iksar monks were doing crazy things.

At that point my human monk was stuck "in a time capsule" of the Kunark era, she hadn't really had any Velious upgrades - if I wanted to start investing energy into her it would mean replacing a lot of items. So I said, F it. Took all her droppable items and tink bags and created a level 1 Iksar Monk and have 0 regrets - ever since.

Iksar gets +regen, +AC. Iksar regen is incredibly game changing. Even if a nuke just happens to land on you and you need to sit FD to get back up - the regen is huge. Solo'ing it decreases downtime exponentially.

If you have a Fungi, Iksar, and 10th Ring, you're getting 370 hp regenerated every minute while running around from mob to mob? If I added up all the regen I've had on my iksar. I don't even remember the math but through level 59 on my iksar the regen alone (with fungi) it was like having someone log in every 14 minutes to cast a CHeal on me.

So yes, don't make the mistake I made and roll human. If you're concerned about XP... yes it can be a pain but don't worry about it - once you get to 60 this server isn't going anywhere so you can be 60 foreverrrrrrrrrrrrr - getting there a couple days earlier isn't worth losing the regen or AC. Go iksar it's way better. I still park my human monk random places to do little stuff so it's cool to have a character like that but now my iksar monk is far beyond my human in gear - with some easy to do Velious upgrades. I wish I just re-rolled from the start.

[Synthlol]

Iksar are better. They get an innate AC bonus, and the Iksar AC bonus is not only added to the total AC soft cap (like a shield), it is multiplicative with the innate Monk AC bonus. This means on top of their race bonus, Iksar also get a larger Monk AC bonus than Humans do. Iksar also get the famous regeneration bonus.

Faction issues are largely not an issue since monks get sneak, allowing them to cheese the factions requirements of all merchants and most quests.

Now, humans have their advantages too. Humans get more HP (+5 base stamina = 20hp @ 60) and better resists (+10 svc). Although these bonuses are marginal, hp and resists are a pulling monks most important stats. I still recommend Iksar.

[Nixtar]

Originally Posted by Synthlol [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Now, humans have their advantages too. Humans get more HP (+5 base stamina = 20hp @ 60) and better resists (+10 svc). Although these bonuses are marginal, hp and resists are a pulling monks most important stats. I still recommend Iksar.

Iksars do get that nifty Stone of Morid though. +30 CR/FR range slot for a very cheap price. Just swap out after using whatever it is your using for a ranged weapon when pulling.

[Baler]

Pre-Kunark: Human
Post-Kunark: IKSAR

[SiouxNation]

What do people think about male vs female iksar? Animations wise who wins.

[kjs86z]

Iksar and it isn't even close.

[skarlorn]

humans look way cooler and p99 is already easy mode so you'll only pick iksar if you're bad at the game, hate aesthetic quality, and are a scale-sucker... hope this helps!

[commongood]

Thanks for all the feedback. I'll be going Iksar for sure.