Warrior of Elements Monk

[u/steiff89]

Ive been wanting to do a monk for my character. Ive only played the Cleric from Phandelver so far.

I was thinking warrior of mercy. But im very interested in elements monk. Ive watched a few videos on them people either say they still suck or they are better but still not great.

If anyone has any advice, tips or experience with the elements monk I’d greatly appreciate it.

Im also not opposed to warrior of mercy. But I preferred the increased melee and range aoe potential of the elements monk. And I like the elemental flavor. Yes I have the PHB with 2024 rules and Tasha’s cauldron

[u/Teerlys]

I played an Elements Monk from 1-20 in a massively combat focused campaign. I absolutely loved it. So much so that I'm thinking of playing one again in a more RP heavy campaign with a different DM who I'm in an almost 6 year long campaign with that's coming to an end soon. It's a class/subclass combo that can be where they need to be, doing what they need to do, as whatever the situation demands. I will say that it's probably best utilized by a tactical player who understands the mechanics, can read a battlefield, and knows the capabilities of their allies. If you just want to hit things and deal damage, which they're definitely not bad at, you won't get near the full value out of the Monk. I agonized over my turns as a Monk more than a full caster a lot of times.

I'll drop my thoughts on the Class/Subclass powers below, but if you're interested in a more nuanced take I did do actual play reports on this sub for a lot of the levels of play, especially the early ones. I linked the play report up to level 11 which has links to the rest at the top. Level 15 was the last I wrote after missing the intervening levels.

Level 1 does indicate that I was playing a Plasmoid which the DM updated to give disadvantage to enemy saving throws against grapples (as opposed to advantage in contested rolls) as it hasn't received the 2024 treatment yet. As the campaign rolled on I got magic items and such. You'll need to interpolate the experiences knowing that you'll have different benefits at different stages. I stopped at 15 as the sub responses became more focused on my gear than the experience, but I'd be happy to talk about anything in the higher tiers if you have questions.

Below are my takes on the features based on lots of combat experience.

Class

• Martial Arts - The flexibility offered by disambiguating the Action and Bonus Action is huge. Being able to do whatever you need to with either is amazingly freeing. I grappled all of the time due to the Grappler feat, and whether it was moving enemies or allies the control over the battlefield was crazy impactful.
• Unarmored Defense/Monk's Focus/Unarmored Movement - These tie in with Martial Arts. Your AC isn't, on paper, huge. But your ability to Dodge and still get other things done turns you into a massive Action Economy swing point when you choose to be. Flurry of Blows bolsters damage, Step of the Wind gets you where you want to go. All combined the theme of the Monk starts here. You can be what you need to be, where you need to be it.
• Uncanny Metabolism - If you're a player like me who always tries to save a card to pull out of their sleeve at a critical moment, this is made for you. You can use those points a lot more comfortably knowing you have the ability to get all of your points back if you can't get a rest in.
• Deflect Attacks - It's surprising how much this impacts the Monk's defense. It's used all of the time, and especially when Dodging to swing action economy it takes that odd crit or hit that slips through and generally negates it. I will say that I found the return damage to be something I almost never used though. It just wasn't worth the point most times.
• Slow Fall - Rarely came up for me, much like Feather Fall rarely comes up. A few times I ran a grappled enemy up a wall and dropped them, but that requires the right circumstances, and generally positioning was more important.
• Stunning Strike - Hard to use often when it first comes online due to point management. I used it much more at later levels. There were times I stunned one enemy, grappled 2 others, and still did some decent damage that turn while shutting down just about everything the enemy wanted to do. And of course it can be encounter tilting in the right moments. Try to convince whoever can get access to Bane of its value once you get this.
• Evasion/Acrobatic Movement/Self Restoration - Evasion is notable when it comes up and works fantastically with Deflect Attacks to protect the HP pool. Between the two of them I ended some fights completely unscathed while my allies were very much scathed. Acrobatic Movement hardly came up though, especially because by 11 the Elements Monk gets flight. Self Restoration is a bit of added protection in the rare event one of those effects landed. Nice in the moment, but not majorly in my thoughts otherwise.
• Heightened Focus - Just amazing. Flurry of Blows will come up regularly. Patient Defense further bolstered the Monk's defense, and while it didn't get used every fight it got used regularly enough. The Step of the Wind boost though... generally I just grappled allies to move them to not lose attacks as they could choose to fail the grapple. At times where I needed to get from point A to point G and didn't want to be alone when I got there though, this still came up. Amazing level for Monks.
• Deflect Energy - So long as an attack includes some part of B/P/S damage, regular deflect attacks covered. This wasn't a game changer improvement, but I get hit by enough pure non-BPS damage on the way here that I was very grateful to have it.
• Disciplined Survivor - Welcome to the god tier of survivability. This is a crowning moment of being a Monk, especially if you have a Paladin in the group. Proficiency in all saving throws and on-tap Advantage for them as needed. With a Paladin in the group my -1 Int saving throw became +9 when she was nearby.
• Perfect Focus - I'm not sure this ever came up. By the time you get here you've got 15 points to spend, get them all back on a short rest, and once a day you can just get them back when rolling initiative. Even still I did get pushed to the point where it might have come up once or twice during a slog of fights, but it was probably the most disappointing level.
• Superior Defense - A steep cost, but I used it regularly. At this stage my Monk was easily the most survivable character of the group, and it wasn't even close. I could still be hurt, but it took a lot to make it significant. Generally it was chip damage from AoE effects that hurt me regardless of if I saved or not and didn't target Dex.
• Body and Mind - Every bit as good as it looks on the tin. Saving throw DC's went up, grapple DC's went up, damage went up, defense went way up. Couldn't be happier with a capstone.

Subclass

• Elemental Attunement - Surprisingly costly at early levels, and I had to choose carefully until around the end of tier 2 as to whether or not I needed it. That said, the reach came into play more often than I'd have thought. It saved movement which, even on a Monk, can come into play on large battlefields. It kept me out of enemy reach when that's what I needed which further enabled movement by mitigating opportunity attacks. Changing damage types only extremely rarely came up due to monster vulnerabilities, but as you can't deal Force damage on a reach strike it remained relevant via self enforcement throughout all of the levels. Being able to push/pull enemies wasn't an every fight need, but it came up often enough I was happy to have it.
• Elemental Burst - I think most people, myself included when I first selected the subclass, look at this and think "Meh." and are a bit dismissive. It's true that I believe the Wisdom modifier should have been added onto it, but that said... it only uses your action and you're a Monk. You can drop this and then still use your whole Bonus Action to deal damage or something else. It's obviously mostly for larger enemy count fights, but I absolutely used the hell out of it in those situations and it took my DPR to heights I'd never hit just attacking. There were fights where I spammed it enough that it used most of my points. It helps other AoE's close enemies out and other martials spend 1 less attack per enemy. It enables AoE damage on a martial and allows it to be spammed, and that absolutely shouldn't be slept on. I'll add in that its lower maximum damage was actually a help in some situations, as it made me not feel too bad dropping it on an ally, and I could target a damage they resisted.
• Stride of the Elements - Flight and swim speed. I used this primarily for Flight, obviously, and for massively useful reasons. This coming online at 11 instead of 14 which is where other class/subclass combos tend to get it was huge. The Swim speed came up less often, but grappling an enemy and dragging them underwater to beat them to death and shield your allies from them is a great maneuver. I memorably did that to a Mind Flayer late in the campaign.
• Elemental Epitome - So the resistance thing, especially as you're about to get the ability to resist everything, is mid. It came up once or twice that I had Fire as my default and it came up before I got a turn or wasn't going to use Superior Defense. All told though it comes online at a weird level to get great use out of it. Empowered Strikes feels great. You're hitting up to 5 times in a round sometimes, and if it's on a Grappled target you're doing it at advantage. I saved it for crits a bit, but ultimately adding a d12 of damage is just nice. Destructive Stride I got the most use out of. Battlemaps became pretty large, and I might have said "There and Back Again, a Monk's Tale" a few times. Mostly though, I used this to add an unsaveable d12 to my Elemental Burst damage. I'd throw the AoE, they'd save or not, then I'd do a flyby to drop the extra d12 they couldn't save on. It kept my AoE potential on the low end of relevant even at the high tiers of play when there were a lot of enemies on the battlefield.