Chapter XLI: Monks part 3 - Master Monks

Master Monks:

As the name says, they are the ultimate monks. The main difference from them to any other class is the fact is that master monks don’t use any weapon. Don’t get me wrong…for the armory system to work it is required to have “something” at main weapon slot…the only difference is that for master monks, there is no weapon…you will equip a fighting style!

Differently from other classes where the weapon defines many battle attributes from the class, here will be the fighting style that will! And an observation…all fighting styles will be optimal rank 50! So they will, pretty much, grow with you, improving in every single aspect for every rank you acquire!

But not everything is “ponies and rainbows”…being a martial arts style, it cannot be bought or sold…you will have to learn it! “But how?” you might be asking since you need a weapon to start…well, it’s not expected to be a starting class! No one can start “master”, right? =P

When you do the quest to unlock it you will be required to have one of the other monks or PGL in order to face the “Dragon Master”, holder of the Dragon Style! The idea is a quest that really simulates a tournament…7 fighters, 6 fights, one per ingame day (oh yeah…FFXI players might be having some nostalgic feeling regarding this!)…the finals, obviously, is against the Dragon Master.

Once you beat him, you will have a CS of him teaching you the style and TA-DA! Master Monk unlocked!

Now about the class itself! Master monk will have 2 separated sets of actions…the class actions, including basic attacks, some WSs and abilities and the style actions, that can only be learned and used with that style (this is why all styles are optimal rank 50…you need them even in power from rank 1 to 50). So, in short, think that master monk alone would be something like the FFXI job/subjob system, with the class and cross-class actions as subjob and the style actions as main job.

On a side note, the style would only be “visible” in active mode, where a aura burst would be burning by the character until he changes to passive mode. It would be something simple, like FFXI avatar aura and stuff…just so people can distinguish which style you using by just looking to you. Also, the damage of each style would be blunt 50% and the style main damage type 50%.

Each style will have positives and negatives aspects…here some examples:

Dragon Style: It’s a balanced style, that focus on single-hit, strong strikes to defeat enemies. The signature actions would be the Dragon Punch (it HAD to be here! Deals blunt damage to the target. The damage increases the closer the targets are) and the Dragon Kick (Deals Blunt damage to the target. The damage increases the farer the targets are).

Tiger Style: It’s a speedy style. It has pretty low attack if compared to dragon style, but a extremely high critical rate! The signature WS would be the Tiger Claw (5-fold WS dealing slashing damage) and the Eye of the Tiger (would love this name…but I bet there would cause trademark issues due the music. Ensures the next attack to strike a critical hit.)

Boar Style: It’s the classic all-or-nothing…very high attack but pretty low accuracy. Boar Thrash (Line AoE that deals blunt damage to all targets in front of you) is a pretty cool name for a signature action!

And so on…we could have a viper style that is always exchanging low damage for enfeebling effects or what I’d call the ultimate style (just pick an animal…maybe shark style or kraken style) which would constantly consume MP by the simple fact of you changing to active mode…it would be the strongest in every aspect since the active mode period would be limited by the MP pool. If a water monster, even the name could be like Kraken Maelstrom the signature action, an 8-fold WS that deals have the damage increased based on the amount of MP already spent.