War Monk

War Monk
Generic class portrait of a War Monk from Fire Emblem: Three Houses.
Name (JP)	Battle Monk (バトルモンク, Batoru Monku)
First Seen	Fire Emblem Awakening
Promotes From	Priest
Promotes To	N/A
Usable Weapon Types	Axe Staff Faith (FE16 only) Brawl (FE16 only)
Class Skills	Rally Luck, Renewal
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The War Monk is a class that debuted in Fire Emblem Awakening.

History in the Series

A class that is both physical and magical, the War Monk class takes on both combat and support roles. It is one of the promoted forms of the Priest class, employing Axes and Staves as its equipment of choice. The War Monk class is the male equivalent of the War Cleric class.

It, alongside the War Cleric class, later returns as a DLC Class in Fire Emblem: Three Houses's Cindered Shadows DLC.

Overview

Combat

Awakening

War Monks and Clerics are some of the more unique classes in Awakening, as they have great defensive stats for healers, wield physical Axes as weapons, and their Strength and Magic stats are equal, granting them even usage of both normal and Bolt Axes. They are treated as mage units, meaning that they can traverse sand-based terrain uninhibited. 

As stated before, War Monks are not about dodging attacks until they are rescued, but are, much like Generals, styled to sustain attacks. Their healing power is less potent than Sages, but the Healtouch skill that they learn as Priests remedies this quite a bit. Their choice of Axes as promoted healers is a double-edged sword; while they can deal copious amounts of damage, their strikes are inaccurate. In addition to this, War Monks will, immediately after promotion, be stuck with low-level Axes for a while before they can be armed with higher-quality equipment like Helswath and Vengeance.

The two skills War Monks can learn are Rally Luck and Renewal. Rally Luck boosts Luck by 8 to all allied units within a three-tile radius of the user. This Rally skill is unique because the boost received is double of what is usually granted by other skills, making it ideal for facing armies with high Skill, as the chance of critical blows inflicted on the player's units will be significantly reduced, alongside increasing the activation rates of other utility skills like Miracle, Armsthrift, and Despoil. Renewal, conversely, restores the user's HP by 30% at the start of each turn. Complementing the War Monk's bulkiness extremely well, this skill can make them almost impossible to defeat. Renewal pretty much eliminates the need for healers when combined with other regenerative skills (Sol and Lifetaker to name a few), allowing them to be spread to the player's less hardy units.

Three Houses

In Three Houses, War Monks and their sister class War Clerics are made into an identical class that only differ in terms of outfit and a unit's gender. They have been revamped to be mainly a class that is proficient in using Gauntlets, with a secondary proficiency in Axes and Faith. Compared to their beginning outing, War Monk's growth rates have been severely nerfed, shafting many stats.

Notably, they are one of few classes able to wield both gauntlets and magic, with the only others being the base Commoner and Noble classes, Trickster, War Cleric, Mortal Savant, and the Byleth-exclusive Enlightened One. They have comparable stats to the Grappler, trading Speed and Dexterity for slightly better HP, Strength and Resistance (and a slight boost to Magic growth), and having mage-like movement instead (which makes them worse at crossing forests or water tiles, but better at crossing sand).

In-Game

Base Stats

	HP	Str	Mag	Skl	Spd	Lck	Def	Res	Mov	Con	Wt	Wlv	Cha
FE13	24	5	5	4	6	0	6	6	6	-	-	E E	-
FE16	32	17	10	10	10	10	14	11	6	-	-	B+ C+	0

Maximum Stats

	HP	Str	Mag	Skl	Spd	Lck	Def	Res	Mov	Con	Wt	Wlv	Cha
FE13	80	40	40	38	41	45	38	43	6	-	-	A A	-

Growth Rates

	HP	Str	Mag	Skl	Spd	Lck	Def	Res	Mov	Con	Wt	Wlv	Cha
FE13	45%	15%	15%	10%	15%	0%	10%	10%	-	-	-	-	-
FE16	40/50%	10/18%	5/0%	10/0%	0%	0%	0/25%	5/15%	-	-	-	+1 +3 +1	5%

Class Modifiers

	HP	Str	Mag	Skl	Spd	Lck	Def	Res	Mov	Con	Wt	Wlv	Cha
FE16	3	2	0	1	0	0	1	1	2	-	-	-	0

Class Skills

	Skill	Requirements
FE13	Rally Luck Renewal	Learnt at Level 5. Learnt at Level 15.
FE16	Fistfaire Unarmed Combat Heal Brawl Avoid +20 Pneuma Gale	Class Ability of War Monk. Class Ability of War Monk. Class Ability of War Monk. Mastery Ability of War Monk. Mastery Ability of War Monk.

Promotion

	Base Class	Promotion Method	Promoted Class
FE13	Priest	Use a Master Seal on a Level 10+ Priest.	War Monk
FE16	Any class	Use an Abyssian Exam Pass on a Level 20+ male unit and pass the War Monk Certification Exam.	War Monk

Notable War Monks

Awakening

• Libra - A saint belonging to the clergy of Ylisse.
• Possible promotion for: Brady.

Three Houses

• Balthus (Cindered Shadows) - A member of the Ashen Wolves that hails from the Alliance who's on the run from gambling debts plus his own past.

Trivia

• In Awakening, War Monks (alongside their female counterparts) boast equal Strength and Magic, a trait shared by Tacticians, Grandmasters, Villagers/Merchants, and Dancers.
• While a generic class portrait was created for Three Houses, it cannot be seen in gameplay as no generic War Monks exist in any part of the game.

Gallery

Concept artwork of the War Monk class from Awakening.

Generic class portrait of a War Monk from Fire Emblem Awakening.

Libra's battle model as a War Monk.

Map sprite of Libra as a War Monk.