Hope you all had a nice long weekend, I took Wednesday at lunch until this morning off and it was super. Tobril made the drive down and we had our normal Turkey day fest surrounded with much xp farming. Saturday afternoon, when he had to go the TR group was level 12, most of us had xp for 13 and are holding back leveling until we are forced to level. I also fired up my sons premium account and piked his level 8 pally to level 13ish.

But I want to share the run down of how the bowonk has been doing.

My 36 point version following the plan as close as possible. I had to move the barb past live feat to level 3 because I am dumb; I didn’t remember that I had to wait until then for past life feats… But other then that it works.

1-8:
These early levels were a little different, at 8 I was 6ranger, 1monk, 1 fighter. I tried to play monkish, while leveling up, but I think I would have had more fun playing rangerish. Using wraps in wind stance with the two weapon feats from ranger are not bad dps. But will always put you behind your fellow group members that have more monk levels and in my case have the monk past life feats.

That said I was never far behind in the kill count, and most of the time after the fighter level I was ahead even. Fighter Haste boost for the win. By the way, if you don’t know you can use a race boost and a class boost at the same time. So Fighter haste + human damage equals good times. Also human to hit or damage + manyshot also equals good times.

At 8 elven archer comes on line and makes life more fun. Force arrows + silver longbow = good times.

9-10:

Level 9 starts the monky goodness. Evasion is a huge boon; 9 also gives to feats for Stunning Fist & Zen Archery. 10 gives extra movement speed to help with running around in earth stance all the time, as well as slow fall so you can look bad ass when jumping off tall things raining death on the bad men.

Back to running around in earth stance all the time, not only does this give extra Hp and pre damage DR that works with your normal DR. Earth stance sets us up to use normal Stonedust wraps + jidz for a damage die step boost and stone skin guard which is a boon even if your using your Bloodrage Symbiont.

11 brings the old shroud gear on line, including something I don’t get to talk up a lot my 3X neg goggles. They are hp, immunities, immunities + slay living guard. Phlor had a pair on his Pally that were all immunities and I didn’t see the love. But when I went to make the my last shroud hp item. (I like to spread out my HP items so I can swap out any one part of them and not loose 45 hp. Takes some work to and at least 40 shrouds but I think it is worth it.) I decided it would be good to have all those immunities for my low level TR lives. And the Slay living guard is so so. Well this life it has saved me at least 3 times. Once I has fighting an orange named drinking pots trying to get him before he got me. I was sundered and took a huge hit, 60-70 points and he got skulled. I was at 5 hp. That same quest I think I skulled a few more mobs and Tobril joked that we should just let my guards eat things.

Okay last 2 thoughts:
One I have the fighter level planed for next level mainly to get Greater Two Weapon Fighting. But I didn’t take into account the changes to Ten Thousand Stars making it Manyshot timer number 2, and how cool Shadow Fade will be. So there might be a flip flop to really love on the ranged action.

And Two: Hp I hadn’t realized how good the Hp was going to be. The barb past life feat is huge. 10 for free plus that extra 20 all at once vs 23 at cap with toughness. The fighter level also opens up that first tear of the enchantment line a few good items ie a GFL hat (thanks to cove crafting) and a level 9 +6 con belt with a med guild slot (thanks to Cannith crafting) put me ahead on the HP curve for a long time with me at level 12 running around with about 400 hp.

Final thought:

So far this is the melee for me, more so then my WF FvS or my Barb life. Highly survivable (So far I have died a total 3maybe4 times, twice from traps before evasion and once from a hundred plus crit thanks to an Imp Sunder I have had some close calls however), having good dps (think I will have a jump at 13 or 14 and again at 16), good ranged options, great self healing/Amp, good hate gen (earth stance+items) and the potential to swap in to fairly high AC mod (not super AC mind you but I could move some stats at cap and go super AC….).

Okay I hope that makes up for the long brake with no posts.

❤