It’s actually really, really good. If you play Duelist and find an early Round Shield and get a good wand from the Old Wandmaker, playing a ranged shield Monk is tons of fun! You get so much energy back from kills by wearing tier 1 gear. And you never get hit because you’re ranged, so you don’t need armor, and you can also kick everything in the face for megadamage if they get close. Dragon Kicks become like 1 energy, and even free sometimes (due to rounding, I think.)[1]. The shield is for facing ranged enemies that surprise you. Or for just walking around melee enemies.
Except if you kick from full energy because the energy you spend for the kick is taken after the bonus energy is returned, so you pay full price for a kick from full energy. This seems like a bug to me, but I haven’t testng it in a long time, and I haven’t bothered reporting it. ↩︎
It’s actually really, really good. If you play Duelist and find an early Round Shield and get a good wand from the Old Wandmaker, playing a ranged shield Monk is tons of fun! You get so much energy back from kills by wearing tier 1 gear. And you never get hit because you’re ranged, so you don’t need armor, and you can also kick everything in the face for megadamage if they get close. Dragon Kicks become like 1 energy, and even free sometimes (due to rounding, I think.)[1]. The shield is for facing ranged enemies that surprise you. Or for just walking around melee enemies.
Except if you kick from full energy because the energy you spend for the kick is taken after the bonus energy is returned, so you pay full price for a kick from full energy. This seems like a bug to me, but I haven’t testng it in a long time, and I haven’t bothered reporting it. ↩︎