I think I have only played a monk once and that was way back in AD&D1e. I've watched how the class has been changed over different editions and I really can't understand the reason why? I also can't understand the many hating Youtube videos about it. I wonder if they actually know how the class works, or they are just on the bandwagon to get more views?
The biggest hate that I see is that everyone wants to compare the damage to the Fighters. I am not sure why. They were never intended to be like fighters, or they would be a fighter subclass. In Basic D&D it was just an optional class, called Mystic. There were three things, in the beginning, that made the class stand out: 1) Multiple attacks 2) better amor calls when leveling up and 3)Quivering Palm.
For whatever reason WotC got rid of better armor class when leveling, for simply adding the modifiers of your Dex/Wis to your now ascending AC. And that's it. Anything else you need to constantly try to increase those abilities or hope you find magical apparels of protection.
The WoTC added a point based system called Ki. Why? Are they trying to replicate video games' mantra bars? Other than those things, which are simply annoying, I don't see a reason to post videos telling people to hate the class. Some people don't know any better and will just assume the video guy knows what he is talking about and they too will claim to hate the Monk and tell others not to play it.
I think the Playtest, yet another modification, is okay but now it weakens the staple power of the Mon: Quivering Palm. Instead of the deadly Save for10d10 damage or die, the die part has been taken out. Now bosses and their lieutenants can breathe easier not having the uncertainty of failing a roll and dying. Yet of course Wizards can still auto kill with Power Word Kill.
Apparently the change was due to their survey and people thought that power was to OP for the Monk, but those same people mock it for not doing enough damage anyway. smh🙄
Some YouTubers specialize in optimized builds that do the most damage most efficiently given the build they are going for. Monks can fall behind in that area and don’t Multiclass well (the typical method for optimizers to get big damage numbers)
Some compare to Fighters because monks are a melee class and their primary job is damage. They have some crowd control via Stunning Strike but not much for the social pillar of the game (not much out of combat features)
As for AC the main complaint is what you described. To get the best AC you need to use most of your ASI’s (Ability Score Improvements) on DEX/WIS leaving little to no room for feats
Ki is simply a resource that monks use for their primary combat abilities (Flurry of Blows, Patient Defense, Step of the Wind, Stunning Strike) to let monks do cool things but with a limiting mechanic. Much like Sorcerer’s Sorcery Points or Battle Master’s Superiority Dice. But those points can run out fast if you spam them.
Put them all together and you can see why some think monks are not that good. And I’m sure there are some out there who do hop on the monk hate bandwagon
I don’t think I do but I do think, monks have been my favorite class since AD&D 1E, but monks needed some improvements and the Playtest is helping with that. It’s not perfect but it’s pretty good comparatively.
Edit: And WotC is getting away from save or die features like Quivering Palm, it was a bit overpowered, and they are trying to better balance it. power Word Kill has a 100hp limit or it does nothing QP could take out a 10,000hp creature, if there was one, by one bad roll.
Forgot to mention, as for the changes over editions, well, if they stayed the same why a new edition? Plus the various game mechanics changed greatly (compare AD&D to 3rd edition and it’s a big difference) between editions and what worked in previous editions needed to change to fit the general game and class designs of this one
You shouldn't write off criticism towards the class's design as hate. There is a lot of in-depth analysis on the flaws of the class and most youtube videos I have seen on the matter engage with the topic in good faith.
Not that I watch YouTube videos, but there are a few things about the monk:
It's a bit underpowered as a melee class, with some actual design flaws. This seems likely to improve in the upcoming revisions.
It needs to build around two separate stats, which limits its access to feats
It's a generalist melee class, capable of filling various roles in a fight on the fly
The latter two make it a poor fit for the paradigm of optimizing a class to do one specific thing (usually do as much damage as possible), but in a game where people aren't doing that, it can definitely hold its own.
I also think that people mistakenly call it a melee class. It's not a melee class anymore than a Druid, Cleric or Thief, who also use weapons. In fact when it was introduced in AD&D1e it was referred to as a group who are monastic aesthetics, not trained soldiers.
So I think people need to remove the "melee" classification assumption so they better understand that damage is not a priority, but rather wellness and balance the body, mind and soul.
I also think that people mistaking call it a melee class. It's not a melee class anymore than a Druid, Cleric or Thief, who also use weapons. In fact when it was first introduced in AD&D1e it was referred to as a group who are monastic aesthetics, not trained soldiers.
So I think people need to remove the "melee" classification assumption so they better understand that damage is not a priority, but rather wellness and balance the body, mind and soul.
I disagree. Describing it as a melee class is accurate, because that's what most of the class's abilities make it suited for. "Monastic ascetics" and "wellness and balance the body, mind and soul" are chrome; there's nothing in the class mechanics to make you do that. I'm currently playing a monk that fits those descriptions not in the slightest, and it's no big deal.
On the other hand, if you want to play a monk that isn't an unarmed combat specialist, you have a much harder row to hoe. (Yes, some subclasses let you.)
The thing to understand about most of these YouTubers is that they and their audience see themselves as "optimizers", people who build their characters to have maximum damage output and AC for the sake of feeling better than other players. If the Monk has, say, five hit points or one AC less than their "optimized" Fighter, in their eyes the Monk is completely worthless. Whether such characters are well-conceived in terms of roleplay or even contribute to the rest of the party's damage and survivability or other areas such as skills or exploration are entirely irrelevant to these YouTubers.
More so, their idea of "optimization" doesn't acknowledge how the game is actually played. Their hypotheticals and "theorycrafting" involve assumed figures, ignoring how different enemies have different stats and attacks and thus different classes are stronger in different situations. Their "theorycrafting" takes place entirely in featureless voids where class features aside from pure damage are irrelevant. Thus, a class like the Monk whose strength lies in mobility and battle utility is treated as less powerful than a class that simply hits things hard. (It should also be noted that most "theorycrafters" largely ignore subclass as well, when Monks gain much of their versatility and/or damage output from their subclass compared to other classes.)
On top of that, these YouTubers prefer to play in ways that the game wasn't balanced around, where instead of longer adventuring days with more encounters and short rests for the PCs, they expect one or two big encounters per day with no opportunity to rest. This creates an obvious imbalance between the Monk, a class that draws from a short-rest resource and has its power scale based on its ability to use that resource more often, versus classes that derive strength from passive features or long-rest resources (like spell slots). Contributing to this problem is their adamance that the only Monk feature worth making use of is Stunning Strike, a feature that can apply a powerful status but is balanced by targeting a difficult save. Thus, these YouTubers (and those who follow their advice) will end up expending their entire resource stock in one or two turns attempting to land Stunning Strike, then complain that the class is too limited in resources after their own actions.
The main factor is that, with average players building characters, a Monk will parallel other martials easily. What that separates them is actually certain imbalanced feats that other martials can benefit from that Monks cannot. Great Weapon Master and Sharpshooter give significant damage boosts at the cost of an attack penalty that can be offset in various ways. Polearm Master gives melee martials an unlimited-use bonus-action attack, which throws off balance between Monks (whose bonus-action attack is meant to give them an edge/parity with other martials) and other martials (who often have features that are balanced around expecting those classes to have only two attacks per turn). Without those feats, Monks match other martials easily.
There's also another factor, in that these YouTubers often have unrealistic expectations of what the Monk should be. A common complaint is that playing a Monk isn't like being the star of a martial-arts film, a genre where the lead often takes on entire groups of enemies by themselves. The other expected comparison is to shonen anime protagonists - a genre infamous for overpowered main characters and "ki" systems that exist to give the protagonist effectively-unlimited and constantly-escalating power. Neither of these match the party-based gameplay of D&D, just in the same way that a Barbarian doesn't mow through entire hordes a la Conan.
So in short? If you're a regular player who doesn't care about "optimization", the Monk is a very fun class to play, with its subclasses giving a variety of different abilities and playstyles. But if all you care about is being more powerful than everyone else, then the Monk doesn't get the overpowered and exploitable features and feats you want. And in all of my experience playing, the folks who play Monks are a heck of a lot more fun to play with than folks who play "optimized" builds and extol the wisdom of whatever YouTuber.
The thing to understand about most of these YouTubers is that they and their audience see themselves as "optimizers", people who build their characters to have maximum damage output and AC for the sake of feeling better than other players. If the Monk has, say, five hit points or one AC less than their "optimized" Fighter, in their eyes the Monk is completely worthless. Whether such characters are well-conceived in terms of roleplay or even contribute to the rest of the party's damage and survivability or other areas such as skills or exploration are entirely irrelevant to these YouTubers.
More so, their idea of "optimization" doesn't acknowledge how the game is actually played. Their hypotheticals and "theorycrafting" involve assumed figures, ignoring how different enemies have different stats and attacks and thus different classes are stronger in different situations. Their "theorycrafting" takes place entirely in featureless voids where class features aside from pure damage are irrelevant. Thus, a class like the Monk whose strength lies in mobility and battle utility is treated as less powerful than a class that simply hits things hard. (It should also be noted that most "theorycrafters" largely ignore subclass as well, when Monks gain much of their versatility and/or damage output from their subclass compared to other classes.)
On top of that, these YouTubers prefer to play in ways that the game wasn't balanced around, where instead of longer adventuring days with more encounters and short rests for the PCs, they expect one or two big encounters per day with no opportunity to rest. This creates an obvious imbalance between the Monk, a class that draws from a short-rest resource and has its power scale based on its ability to use that resource more often, versus classes that derive strength from passive features or long-rest resources (like spell slots). Contributing to this problem is their adamance that the only Monk feature worth making use of is Stunning Strike, a feature that can apply a powerful status but is balanced by targeting a difficult save. Thus, these YouTubers (and those who follow their advice) will end up expending their entire resource stock in one or two turns attempting to land Stunning Strike, then complain that the class is too limited in resources after their own actions.
The main factor is that, with average players building characters, a Monk will parallel other martials easily. What that separates them is actually certain imbalanced feats that other martials can benefit from that Monks cannot. Great Weapon Master and Sharpshooter give significant damage boosts at the cost of an attack penalty that can be offset in various ways. Polearm Master gives melee martials an unlimited-use bonus-action attack, which throws off balance between Monks (whose bonus-action attack is meant to give them an edge/parity with other martials) and other martials (who often have features that are balanced around expecting those classes to have only two attacks per turn). Without those feats, Monks match other martials easily.
There's also another factor, in that these YouTubers often have unrealistic expectations of what the Monk should be. A common complaint is that playing a Monk isn't like being the star of a martial-arts film, a genre where the lead often takes on entire groups of enemies by themselves. The other expected comparison is to shonen anime protagonists - a genre infamous for overpowered main characters and "ki" systems that exist to give the protagonist effectively-unlimited and constantly-escalating power. Neither of these match the party-based gameplay of D&D, just in the same way that a Barbarian doesn't mow through entire hordes a la Conan.
So in short? If you're a regular player who doesn't care about "optimization", the Monk is a very fun class to play, with its subclasses giving a variety of different abilities and playstyles. But if all you care about is being more powerful than everyone else, then the Monk doesn't get the overpowered and exploitable features and feats you want. And in all of my experience playing, the folks who play Monks are a heck of a lot more fun to play with than folks who play "optimized" builds and extol the wisdom of whatever YouTuber.
I’m not an optimizer but I watch a couple of those YouTube channels and I think you are showing as much hate towards them as you say they do for monks. And in some cases unwarranted.
One of the optimizers makes themed builds, one was a sorcerer who only used touch spells. The way you describe them there would be no way all those “bad optimizers” would take a spellcaster into melee limiting themselves to touch spells. They come up with a concept or theme first then build around that.
Don’t get me wrong, they do optimize for damage and AC but it’s, in many cases, not so they can feel better than everyone else. No more so than non-optimizer players who are Rules Lawyers, Main Character Syndrome-ers, or any other “not ideal”” behaviors.
Edit: wanted to add. you mention optimizers doing one or two combats a day but one of the YouTubeers I’ve watched builds his characters on a 6-8 combats with 2 short rests And considering recent surveys of players that WotC did, I believe, is that most tables don’t play that way, optimizers or not. It’s typically less, much less in many instances, than what the designers planned for.
Or maybe I’m not watching all those bad optimizer people.
I also think that people mistaking call it a melee class. It's not a melee class anymore than a Druid, Cleric or Thief, who also use weapons. In fact when it was first introduced in AD&D1e it was referred to as a group who are monastic aesthetics, not trained soldiers.
So I think people need to remove the "melee" classification assumption so they better understand that damage is not a priority, but rather wellness and balance the body, mind and soul.
I’m not sure what you mean. Monks primary means of conducting combat is in melee with monk weapons or unarmed strikes. They are a martial class. Look at their class features and that is their role in the group. Even in 1E the monk had AC and unarmed strikes that scaled as they leveled right on the monk table. They had other features but they were not a support class or spell caster. Melee is what they do.
The thing to understand about most of these YouTubers is that they and their audience see themselves as "optimizers", people who build their characters to have maximum damage output and AC for the sake of feeling better than other players. If the Monk has, say, five hit points or one AC less than their "optimized" Fighter, in their eyes the Monk is completely worthless. Whether such characters are well-conceived in terms of roleplay or even contribute to the rest of the party's damage and survivability or other areas such as skills or exploration are entirely irrelevant to these YouTubers.
More so, their idea of "optimization" doesn't acknowledge how the game is actually played. Their hypotheticals and "theorycrafting" involve assumed figures, ignoring how different enemies have different stats and attacks and thus different classes are stronger in different situations. Their "theorycrafting" takes place entirely in featureless voids where class features aside from pure damage are irrelevant. Thus, a class like the Monk whose strength lies in mobility and battle utility is treated as less powerful than a class that simply hits things hard. (It should also be noted that most "theorycrafters" largely ignore subclass as well, when Monks gain much of their versatility and/or damage output from their subclass compared to other classes.)
On top of that, these YouTubers prefer to play in ways that the game wasn't balanced around, where instead of longer adventuring days with more encounters and short rests for the PCs, they expect one or two big encounters per day with no opportunity to rest. This creates an obvious imbalance between the Monk, a class that draws from a short-rest resource and has its power scale based on its ability to use that resource more often, versus classes that derive strength from passive features or long-rest resources (like spell slots). Contributing to this problem is their adamance that the only Monk feature worth making use of is Stunning Strike, a feature that can apply a powerful status but is balanced by targeting a difficult save. Thus, these YouTubers (and those who follow their advice) will end up expending their entire resource stock in one or two turns attempting to land Stunning Strike, then complain that the class is too limited in resources after their own actions.
The main factor is that, with average players building characters, a Monk will parallel other martials easily. What that separates them is actually certain imbalanced feats that other martials can benefit from that Monks cannot. Great Weapon Master and Sharpshooter give significant damage boosts at the cost of an attack penalty that can be offset in various ways. Polearm Master gives melee martials an unlimited-use bonus-action attack, which throws off balance between Monks (whose bonus-action attack is meant to give them an edge/parity with other martials) and other martials (who often have features that are balanced around expecting those classes to have only two attacks per turn). Without those feats, Monks match other martials easily.
There's also another factor, in that these YouTubers often have unrealistic expectations of what the Monk should be. A common complaint is that playing a Monk isn't like being the star of a martial-arts film, a genre where the lead often takes on entire groups of enemies by themselves. The other expected comparison is to shonen anime protagonists - a genre infamous for overpowered main characters and "ki" systems that exist to give the protagonist effectively-unlimited and constantly-escalating power. Neither of these match the party-based gameplay of D&D, just in the same way that a Barbarian doesn't mow through entire hordes a la Conan.
So in short? If you're a regular player who doesn't care about "optimization", the Monk is a very fun class to play, with its subclasses giving a variety of different abilities and playstyles. But if all you care about is being more powerful than everyone else, then the Monk doesn't get the overpowered and exploitable features and feats you want. And in all of my experience playing, the folks who play Monks are a heck of a lot more fun to play with than folks who play "optimized" builds and extol the wisdom of whatever YouTuber.
You are making a lot of assumptions about these youtubers and optimizers in general. Also the average player building a monk will not outclass the average player building any other martial. And insinuating that people who enjoy optimization are wrong for doing so is policing what kind of fun players are allowed to have. You are also assuming that people who play optimized builds cannot be monk players. This is false, many monk players I have played with ARE optimizers.
You are making a lot of assumptions about these youtubers and optimizers in general. Also the average player building a monk will not outclass the average player building any other martial. And insinuating that people who enjoy optimization are wrong for doing so is policing what kind of fun players are allowed to have. You are also assuming that people who play optimized builds cannot be monk players. This is false, many monk players I have played with ARE optimizers.
I haven't played with a single table where Monk PCs were doing less damage on average than other martials.
So clearly it's not a problem with average players, but with these types of YouTubers and their audiences.
You are making a lot of assumptions about these youtubers and optimizers in general. Also the average player building a monk will not outclass the average player building any other martial. And insinuating that people who enjoy optimization are wrong for doing so is policing what kind of fun players are allowed to have. You are also assuming that people who play optimized builds cannot be monk players. This is false, many monk players I have played with ARE optimizers.
I haven't played with a single table where Monk PCs were doing less damage on average than other martials.
So clearly it's not a problem with average players, but with these types of YouTubers and their audiences.
Your personal experiences don't supersede everyone else's. You are placing your experiences with monk over the experiences of literally hundreds of other players. I think you're in the minority on that issue.
You are making a lot of assumptions about these youtubers and optimizers in general. Also the average player building a monk will not outclass the average player building any other martial. And insinuating that people who enjoy optimization are wrong for doing so is policing what kind of fun players are allowed to have. You are also assuming that people who play optimized builds cannot be monk players. This is false, many monk players I have played with ARE optimizers.
I haven't played with a single table where Monk PCs were doing less damage on average than other martials.
So clearly it's not a problem with average players, but with these types of YouTubers and their audiences.
Your personal experiences don't supersede everyone else's. You are placing your experiences with monk over the experiences of literally hundreds of other players. I think you're in the minority on that issue.
Yet you're 100% adamant that your personal experiences (or rather the opinions of YouTubers) should supersede everyone else's opinions and experiences.
You are making a lot of assumptions about these youtubers and optimizers in general. Also the average player building a monk will not outclass the average player building any other martial. And insinuating that people who enjoy optimization are wrong for doing so is policing what kind of fun players are allowed to have. You are also assuming that people who play optimized builds cannot be monk players. This is false, many monk players I have played with ARE optimizers.
I haven't played with a single table where Monk PCs were doing less damage on average than other martials.
So clearly it's not a problem with average players, but with these types of YouTubers and their audiences.
Even the designers realized the monk needed a damage bump from the responses when they did a PHB survey several years ago. It’s why the first version of the UA monk increased the damage die for unarmed strikes.
Well, there's also the fact that the game does not 'penalize' ranged combat or show clear benefits to melee combat (which base monk clearly is) other than very few exceptions. I know this isn't always the case, but I've seen some youtubers that, when not playing a spellcaster (which is their #1 recommendation), they will encourage the ranged option if available (typically going Sharpshooter+Xbow Expert).
Aside from cover rules, 5 feet disadvantage (which SS and XE can cancel) and prone enemies, there really aren't many other ways to disencourage ranged combat. It's usually up to the DM to come up with a way to have melee classes shine, because the ranged combatants will surely not need that help. It's not that it's very hard to do (in my last session, I throwed a Maddening Darkness on top of the players and the ranged attackers were nearly killed, while the melee guys, including a monk, carried the fight), but it would really help if there were more common ways to bridge the disparity between melee and ranged.
You are making a lot of assumptions about these youtubers and optimizers in general. Also the average player building a monk will not outclass the average player building any other martial. And insinuating that people who enjoy optimization are wrong for doing so is policing what kind of fun players are allowed to have. You are also assuming that people who play optimized builds cannot be monk players. This is false, many monk players I have played with ARE optimizers.
I haven't played with a single table where Monk PCs were doing less damage on average than other martials.
So clearly it's not a problem with average players, but with these types of YouTubers and their audiences.
Your personal experiences don't supersede everyone else's. You are placing your experiences with monk over the experiences of literally hundreds of other players. I think you're in the minority on that issue.
Yet you're 100% adamant that your personal experiences (or rather the opinions of YouTubers) should supersede everyone else's opinions and experiences.
You are the one writing off my (and others) experiences as the opinions of Youtubers though. I never said anyone had to agree with me or even those youtubers, just that our arguments should be approached in good faith. Making broad generalizations, and saying that anyone who criticizes the class must hate it, is not intellectually honest.
I wont use the word "hate" I haven't seen any videos saying to hate the monk. What I have seen is videos saying to avoid playing the monk because monks are weak which is what I think you are referring to.
When 5e first came out it was the ranger that regarded as the weakest class. I am not sure is this video by Treantmonk was the first "Monks Suck" but it was certainly posted at a time when that was not perceived wisdom. In summary what he says is that without using resources Monks are well behind the curve for damage, control, and defence they might be able to get up to average damage (at least to level 10) if they use all their ki of flurry of blows but they will then really suck at defence and control, if they use all their ki on patient defence thier damage and control become next to nothing, if they use all their ki on control like stunning strike they probably still have less control than any spell caster and they are puttting themselves in harms way with little defence to cope with that.
Things have moves on since then Tasha's means that Monks don't have to pick a race that gives a bonus to Dex and Wis but the same applies to every class. Tasha's also vastly improved the ranger. The Mercy Monk is probably more powerful than any other sub class of monk but us still behind nearly every non-monk subclass, let alone sub-classes that have moved the bar in other classes such as the Twilight Cleric. The result is monks are probably further behind now than when the video came out.
I wont use the word "hate" I haven't seen any videos saying to hate the monk. What I have seen is videos saying to avoid playing the monk because monks are weak which is what I think you are referring to.
When 5e first came out it was the ranger that regarded as the weakest class. I am not sure is this video by Treantmonk was the first "Monks Suck" but it was certainly posted at a time when that was not perceived wisdom. In summary what he says is that without using resources Monks are well behind the curve for damage, control, and defence they might be able to get up to average damage (at least to level 10) if they use all their ki of flurry of blows but they will then really suck at defence and control, if they use all their ki on patient defence thier damage and control become next to nothing, if they use all their ki on control like stunning strike they probably still have less control than any spell caster and they are puttting themselves in harms way with little defence to cope with that.
So, in other words, monks, ignoring their subclass abilities entirely, can deal damage adequately, tank adequately, control a target mediocrely (and that's ignoring the control provided by punching someone in the face repeatedly, even without stunning), and jump between those roles on a round-to-round basis, and that's bad?
Of the three pillars of D&D (Combat, Roleplay, Exploration), Monks shine brightest in Exploration, even outperforming Rangers quite often. They can trivialize a lot of environmental hazards with their ability to move incredibly fast and run up/across walls and across liquids. They perform decently well in Combat and probably better than any other martial in Roleplay bar Paladins.
Most optimizers are looking only at combat, which is going to put the Monk behind, but if you consider all three, the Monk is a well rounded class.
Roleplay is subjective, but even then Bards and Rogues can beat Monks if we're talking charisma related stuff. In combat they are behind other martials in tiers 3 and 4, not unplayable but quite weak. I agree that their exploration abilities are underrated but those also depend on the campaign and if you have a DM that will give you challenges suited to your skills. Rangers also suffered from having abilities that were too situational after all.
I think I have only played a monk once and that was way back in AD&D1e. I've watched how the class has been changed over different editions and I really can't understand the reason why? I also can't understand the many hating Youtube videos about it. I wonder if they actually know how the class works, or they are just on the bandwagon to get more views?
The biggest hate that I see is that everyone wants to compare the damage to the Fighters. I am not sure why. They were never intended to be like fighters, or they would be a fighter subclass. In Basic D&D it was just an optional class, called Mystic. There were three things, in the beginning, that made the class stand out: 1) Multiple attacks 2) better amor calls when leveling up and 3)Quivering Palm.
For whatever reason WotC got rid of better armor class when leveling, for simply adding the modifiers of your Dex/Wis to your now ascending AC. And that's it. Anything else you need to constantly try to increase those abilities or hope you find magical apparels of protection.
The WoTC added a point based system called Ki. Why? Are they trying to replicate video games' mantra bars? Other than those things, which are simply annoying, I don't see a reason to post videos telling people to hate the class. Some people don't know any better and will just assume the video guy knows what he is talking about and they too will claim to hate the Monk and tell others not to play it.
I think the Playtest, yet another modification, is okay but now it weakens the staple power of the Mon: Quivering Palm. Instead of the deadly Save for10d10 damage or die, the die part has been taken out. Now bosses and their lieutenants can breathe easier not having the uncertainty of failing a roll and dying. Yet of course Wizards can still auto kill with Power Word Kill.
Apparently the change was due to their survey and people thought that power was to OP for the Monk, but those same people mock it for not doing enough damage anyway. smh🙄
I think you answered your own questions.
Some YouTubers specialize in optimized builds that do the most damage most efficiently given the build they are going for. Monks can fall behind in that area and don’t Multiclass well (the typical method for optimizers to get big damage numbers)
Some compare to Fighters because monks are a melee class and their primary job is damage. They have some crowd control via Stunning Strike but not much for the social pillar of the game (not much out of combat features)
As for AC the main complaint is what you described. To get the best AC you need to use most of your ASI’s (Ability Score Improvements) on DEX/WIS leaving little to no room for feats
Ki is simply a resource that monks use for their primary combat abilities (Flurry of Blows, Patient Defense, Step of the Wind, Stunning Strike) to let monks do cool things but with a limiting mechanic. Much like Sorcerer’s Sorcery Points or Battle Master’s Superiority Dice. But those points can run out fast if you spam them.
Put them all together and you can see why some think monks are not that good. And I’m sure there are some out there who do hop on the monk hate bandwagon
I don’t think I do but I do think, monks have been my favorite class since AD&D 1E, but monks needed some improvements and the Playtest is helping with that. It’s not perfect but it’s pretty good comparatively.
Edit: And WotC is getting away from save or die features like Quivering Palm, it was a bit overpowered, and they are trying to better balance it. power Word Kill has a 100hp limit or it does nothing QP could take out a 10,000hp creature, if there was one, by one bad roll.
Hope that helps answer your questions
EZD6 by DM Scotty
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/397599/EZD6-Core-Rulebook?
Forgot to mention, as for the changes over editions, well, if they stayed the same why a new edition? Plus the various game mechanics changed greatly (compare AD&D to 3rd edition and it’s a big difference) between editions and what worked in previous editions needed to change to fit the general game and class designs of this one
EZD6 by DM Scotty
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/397599/EZD6-Core-Rulebook?
You shouldn't write off criticism towards the class's design as hate. There is a lot of in-depth analysis on the flaws of the class and most youtube videos I have seen on the matter engage with the topic in good faith.
Not that I watch YouTube videos, but there are a few things about the monk:
The latter two make it a poor fit for the paradigm of optimizing a class to do one specific thing (usually do as much damage as possible), but in a game where people aren't doing that, it can definitely hold its own.
I also think that people mistakenly call it a melee class. It's not a melee class anymore than a Druid, Cleric or Thief, who also use weapons. In fact when it was introduced in AD&D1e it was referred to as a group who are monastic aesthetics, not trained soldiers.
So I think people need to remove the "melee" classification assumption so they better understand that damage is not a priority, but rather wellness and balance the body, mind and soul.
I disagree. Describing it as a melee class is accurate, because that's what most of the class's abilities make it suited for. "Monastic ascetics" and "wellness and balance the body, mind and soul" are chrome; there's nothing in the class mechanics to make you do that. I'm currently playing a monk that fits those descriptions not in the slightest, and it's no big deal.
On the other hand, if you want to play a monk that isn't an unarmed combat specialist, you have a much harder row to hoe. (Yes, some subclasses let you.)
The thing to understand about most of these YouTubers is that they and their audience see themselves as "optimizers", people who build their characters to have maximum damage output and AC for the sake of feeling better than other players. If the Monk has, say, five hit points or one AC less than their "optimized" Fighter, in their eyes the Monk is completely worthless. Whether such characters are well-conceived in terms of roleplay or even contribute to the rest of the party's damage and survivability or other areas such as skills or exploration are entirely irrelevant to these YouTubers.
More so, their idea of "optimization" doesn't acknowledge how the game is actually played. Their hypotheticals and "theorycrafting" involve assumed figures, ignoring how different enemies have different stats and attacks and thus different classes are stronger in different situations. Their "theorycrafting" takes place entirely in featureless voids where class features aside from pure damage are irrelevant. Thus, a class like the Monk whose strength lies in mobility and battle utility is treated as less powerful than a class that simply hits things hard. (It should also be noted that most "theorycrafters" largely ignore subclass as well, when Monks gain much of their versatility and/or damage output from their subclass compared to other classes.)
On top of that, these YouTubers prefer to play in ways that the game wasn't balanced around, where instead of longer adventuring days with more encounters and short rests for the PCs, they expect one or two big encounters per day with no opportunity to rest. This creates an obvious imbalance between the Monk, a class that draws from a short-rest resource and has its power scale based on its ability to use that resource more often, versus classes that derive strength from passive features or long-rest resources (like spell slots). Contributing to this problem is their adamance that the only Monk feature worth making use of is Stunning Strike, a feature that can apply a powerful status but is balanced by targeting a difficult save. Thus, these YouTubers (and those who follow their advice) will end up expending their entire resource stock in one or two turns attempting to land Stunning Strike, then complain that the class is too limited in resources after their own actions.
The main factor is that, with average players building characters, a Monk will parallel other martials easily. What that separates them is actually certain imbalanced feats that other martials can benefit from that Monks cannot. Great Weapon Master and Sharpshooter give significant damage boosts at the cost of an attack penalty that can be offset in various ways. Polearm Master gives melee martials an unlimited-use bonus-action attack, which throws off balance between Monks (whose bonus-action attack is meant to give them an edge/parity with other martials) and other martials (who often have features that are balanced around expecting those classes to have only two attacks per turn). Without those feats, Monks match other martials easily.
There's also another factor, in that these YouTubers often have unrealistic expectations of what the Monk should be. A common complaint is that playing a Monk isn't like being the star of a martial-arts film, a genre where the lead often takes on entire groups of enemies by themselves. The other expected comparison is to shonen anime protagonists - a genre infamous for overpowered main characters and "ki" systems that exist to give the protagonist effectively-unlimited and constantly-escalating power. Neither of these match the party-based gameplay of D&D, just in the same way that a Barbarian doesn't mow through entire hordes a la Conan.
So in short? If you're a regular player who doesn't care about "optimization", the Monk is a very fun class to play, with its subclasses giving a variety of different abilities and playstyles. But if all you care about is being more powerful than everyone else, then the Monk doesn't get the overpowered and exploitable features and feats you want. And in all of my experience playing, the folks who play Monks are a heck of a lot more fun to play with than folks who play "optimized" builds and extol the wisdom of whatever YouTuber.
I’m not an optimizer but I watch a couple of those YouTube channels and I think you are showing as much hate towards them as you say they do for monks. And in some cases unwarranted.
One of the optimizers makes themed builds, one was a sorcerer who only used touch spells. The way you describe them there would be no way all those “bad optimizers” would take a spellcaster into melee limiting themselves to touch spells. They come up with a concept or theme first then build around that.
Don’t get me wrong, they do optimize for damage and AC but it’s, in many cases, not so they can feel better than everyone else. No more so than non-optimizer players who are Rules Lawyers, Main Character Syndrome-ers, or any other “not ideal”” behaviors.
Edit: wanted to add. you mention optimizers doing one or two combats a day but one of the YouTubeers I’ve watched builds his characters on a 6-8 combats with 2 short rests And considering recent surveys of players that WotC did, I believe, is that most tables don’t play that way, optimizers or not. It’s typically less, much less in many instances, than what the designers planned for.
Or maybe I’m not watching all those bad optimizer people.
EZD6 by DM Scotty
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/397599/EZD6-Core-Rulebook?
I’m not sure what you mean. Monks primary means of conducting combat is in melee with monk weapons or unarmed strikes. They are a martial class. Look at their class features and that is their role in the group. Even in 1E the monk had AC and unarmed strikes that scaled as they leveled right on the monk table. They had other features but they were not a support class or spell caster. Melee is what they do.
EZD6 by DM Scotty
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/397599/EZD6-Core-Rulebook?
You are making a lot of assumptions about these youtubers and optimizers in general. Also the average player building a monk will not outclass the average player building any other martial. And insinuating that people who enjoy optimization are wrong for doing so is policing what kind of fun players are allowed to have. You are also assuming that people who play optimized builds cannot be monk players. This is false, many monk players I have played with ARE optimizers.
I haven't played with a single table where Monk PCs were doing less damage on average than other martials.
So clearly it's not a problem with average players, but with these types of YouTubers and their audiences.
Your personal experiences don't supersede everyone else's. You are placing your experiences with monk over the experiences of literally hundreds of other players. I think you're in the minority on that issue.
Yet you're 100% adamant that your personal experiences (or rather the opinions of YouTubers) should supersede everyone else's opinions and experiences.
Even the designers realized the monk needed a damage bump from the responses when they did a PHB survey several years ago. It’s why the first version of the UA monk increased the damage die for unarmed strikes.
EZD6 by DM Scotty
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/397599/EZD6-Core-Rulebook?
Well, there's also the fact that the game does not 'penalize' ranged combat or show clear benefits to melee combat (which base monk clearly is) other than very few exceptions. I know this isn't always the case, but I've seen some youtubers that, when not playing a spellcaster (which is their #1 recommendation), they will encourage the ranged option if available (typically going Sharpshooter+Xbow Expert).
Aside from cover rules, 5 feet disadvantage (which SS and XE can cancel) and prone enemies, there really aren't many other ways to disencourage ranged combat. It's usually up to the DM to come up with a way to have melee classes shine, because the ranged combatants will surely not need that help. It's not that it's very hard to do (in my last session, I throwed a Maddening Darkness on top of the players and the ranged attackers were nearly killed, while the melee guys, including a monk, carried the fight), but it would really help if there were more common ways to bridge the disparity between melee and ranged.
You are the one writing off my (and others) experiences as the opinions of Youtubers though. I never said anyone had to agree with me or even those youtubers, just that our arguments should be approached in good faith. Making broad generalizations, and saying that anyone who criticizes the class must hate it, is not intellectually honest.
I wont use the word "hate" I haven't seen any videos saying to hate the monk. What I have seen is videos saying to avoid playing the monk because monks are weak which is what I think you are referring to.
When 5e first came out it was the ranger that regarded as the weakest class. I am not sure is this video by Treantmonk was the first "Monks Suck" but it was certainly posted at a time when that was not perceived wisdom. In summary what he says is that without using resources Monks are well behind the curve for damage, control, and defence they might be able to get up to average damage (at least to level 10) if they use all their ki of flurry of blows but they will then really suck at defence and control, if they use all their ki on patient defence thier damage and control become next to nothing, if they use all their ki on control like stunning strike they probably still have less control than any spell caster and they are puttting themselves in harms way with little defence to cope with that.
Treantmonk's "Monks Suck" Video
Things have moves on since then Tasha's means that Monks don't have to pick a race that gives a bonus to Dex and Wis but the same applies to every class. Tasha's also vastly improved the ranger. The Mercy Monk is probably more powerful than any other sub class of monk but us still behind nearly every non-monk subclass, let alone sub-classes that have moved the bar in other classes such as the Twilight Cleric. The result is monks are probably further behind now than when the video came out.
So, in other words, monks, ignoring their subclass abilities entirely, can deal damage adequately, tank adequately, control a target mediocrely (and that's ignoring the control provided by punching someone in the face repeatedly, even without stunning), and jump between those roles on a round-to-round basis, and that's bad?
Roleplay is subjective, but even then Bards and Rogues can beat Monks if we're talking charisma related stuff. In combat they are behind other martials in tiers 3 and 4, not unplayable but quite weak. I agree that their exploration abilities are underrated but those also depend on the campaign and if you have a DM that will give you challenges suited to your skills. Rangers also suffered from having abilities that were too situational after all.