Best Of

Alright! Monks and what they do, with a focus on nekotai and ninjakari.

Monk are defined by building katas. Attack forms, which contain up to two arm actions and one leg actions. There is an exception in that there are also full kata actions like Nekotai's FinalSting, but for the most part you're looking at the arm/arm/leg style. This is the same no matter what sort of monk you play. The reason monks are fairly strong in both PvE and PvP is that they get these multiple actions per balance. For PvE that's three attacks per balance, each of which has a chance to crit. For PvP it's because that's three attacks, which once you've learned enough of the skills can each cause an aff, plus your weapon can have poisons and deliver affs that way as well, for up to five affs per go. That is not a gaurantee, as there is poison shrugging, various abilities that can give a chance to not have a limb break, and other ways of avoiding the affs, but still.

These all relate to stances. As you attack you will progress through stances. You'll start off without a stance, then move into base, then twist(with options for low or high), then centre, then surge(again, low or high), then killer, then it circles back around to base. These stances fade after a period of not attacking, and harder hitting moves require you be in a higher stance to use them. Stances have various bonuses for a brief time when you swap into those stances, or for being in them, depending on the type of monk. So nekotai get bonuses that cause more bleeding, while ninjakari cause more bruising. So obviously attacking as quick as you can is the goal, to keep aff pressure, bleeding/bruising pressure, damage, AND to ensure you're getting your stance bonuses.

So on to specifics. Both Nekotai and Ninjakari use stealth as a secondary skill, which has some use in combat but is more utility focused. It's about, oddly enough, sneaking around. You can hide, of course, mislead as to which direction you leave out of, eavesdrop on channels like CT and GT, or if you get a head make a mask for impersonating people. There's other things as well.

Then they both have a choice between acrobatics and psionics/psychometabolism(monk only specialization of psionics). Acrobatics is dodging and such, moving faster, being harder to knock down, standing up without being on balance, faster writhe and tumble alternatives, and some acrobatic maneuvers for jumping from room to room, attacking that way, and such. It is very much about retaining mobility. Which is useful on a monk, as shutting down mobility(rendering limbs unusable, paralysis, being knocked down and so on) is a way to stop our stance progression, which can hurt our offense.

Psychometabolism is more defensive in nature. See, you get 3 psionic channels, super, sub, and id. And certain abilities in psionics and psychometabolism use one or more of those channels, and can be used to set up defenses. Such as gliding, which lets you glide along water(waterwalk), as well as GLIDE in a direction to pass through a bunch of rooms quickly(sprinting). Further, more powerful defenses need to be locked, which makes that defense active, but means you can't use the channel for anything else while it's locked. A couple examples of this are bloodboil, which makes it so you don't bleed, but it instead costs you ego when you would bleed, or bonedensity, which gives you a chance to not have your bones break when they otherwise would. Useful stuff. I, personally, prefer psychometabolism, but both it and acrobatics are quite good.

Now for the meat. What is different between Nekotai and Ninjakari? I will preface this by saying that I haven't been Ninjakari since before the monk rework so some of my info could be out of date, but I am currently a Nekotai(most of the time).

Nekotai use 2 claws, ninjakari use 1 chain weapon. This does not mean a ninjakari cannot make two arm attacks in a form. They can. A nekotai will cause bleeding, a ninjakari will cause brusising. Bleeding causes damage over time unless clotted, while bruising causes damage on movement unless clotted. A nekotai tends to focus on this bleeding, and can cause a lot of ice(a curative) wounds. Further, one of our kicks can increase the balance on using curatives, with which curative is affecting being determined by where we kick.

Ninjakari cause bruising when they strike, and I believe they have a bit heavier dust focus than ice, as well as having abilities that do things like stun, knock someone off balance, or other similar things. Further, they have a bit heavier focus on grapples, if I recall right.

Both of them(and all monks really) make use of hemorrhaging and a monk ability called burst. See, hemorrhaging is built up when you hit someone with an attack that causes bleeding or bruising, and it builds up to a cap of 850 hemorrhaging. Burst, when used, converts all of the hemorrhaging into half that amount of bleeding/bruising depending on the type of monk. So, 400 hemorrhaging would convert to 200 bleeding, 800 to 400. And! If a monk uses burst while at a certain threshold, something special happens. With the OG 4 monks(nekotai, ninjakari, shofangi, and tahtetso) bursting while at 750 hemorrhaging or above that puts the target in a weakened state temporarily, which then lets you use your instakill ability on them. For the new monks(nunchaku and tessenchi), they can instead burst a form to afflict with a mental or spiritual aff(mental for nunchaku, spiritual for tessenchi). Then their trans abilities do 15% more damage per mental/spiritual(again, depending on which they are) on the target.

This... This is all probably a lot more than you were looking for as an answer, and I should stop rather than keep going. So in short!

2) Ninjakari and nekotai's mechanical differences come down to if their attacks deal bruising or bleeding, and what afflicitions they can apply more readily.  A nekotai can more readily damage limbs, cause hemophilia, can more easily stack ice cured afflictions, and can even sometimes hit with a third poison via scorpionspit. Ninjakari can more readily cause stun, cure delays, and have a kick usable in surge or killer that lets them reduce poison shrugging by 20%, which can really help with hitting with a critical poison at the right time. Both are good, and the basics of them(or any monk class) will carry over to others. It's just the strategies you go for would be different slightly.

1. There is a definitely numbers inbalance between the alliances right now, paired with the loss of a few key combatants on that side which is slowly recovering. Such things do  happen, but the tides always do change

2. Sorry, haven't played neither, but I can tell you that all monks work on the same core principles with certain differences in what their tertiaries are and how their kill methods are executed.

3. melds are an absolute game changer if they're present. Fighting an enemy meld without your own melder in the group is tedious and puts you at a distinct disadvantage unless you can aprehend and murder the melder quickly. One thing to be aware of, if you choose to play a mage with a focus on melding (as opposed to say a chemist ), you'll end up being a primary target for enemy forces. A meld gives your group a distinct and important advantage, from breaking down enemy melds to effectively hindering your enemies across almost the entire battlefield. A melder, because of that, often ( but not always ) takes a more passive role, focusing more on staying alive and hitting enemies from afar then being in the fray of battle itself (if all linked melders are slain, the meld disperses and has to be reinstated ).

4. My main advise is, never be afraid to pester people with questions. If something doesn't make sense or you don't get something, ask people. The majority of people are really helpful towards new players in particular!

As a note on Uzriel's answer to 7: Aside from Celerity, rooting, and experience (which are all outside of the weighted buff system), getting to 13/13 requires artifacts. The artifacts to take vitals and vitals regeneration buffs to x/13 are 500 cr each, damage type buffs and resists are 300 cr each, influence types are 125cr each, and all of them can be bought in 'tiers'.

For an unasked number 8) If you know the secret jutsus and nobody throws off your game, 20 daily credits will run you an hour or two of in-game work each day. There are two newbie friendly quests I know of off the top of my head that require no real combat, some puzzle skills, and a waterwalk and waterbreathe enchantment that can be done together in about an hour for all 20, then done again an hourish later by someone else. Once you get more weight under your belt you can start varying your DC plan up a lot more, but it's only tedious if you look at the long-game instead of eating that horse one day at a time. At the outside, if people just keep doing your quests, a mixture of about 3 hours of influencing and bashing should get you pretty close to a full load of daily credits, especially if you combine the bashing with questing by going after things you can turn in to villages for commodity quest tics and gather bards, scholars, and pilgrims at the same time. Or failing a full load, just do what you can and don't worry about it.