Climhazzard

Like offhand a blunderbuss with powder burns?

Hmmm so far Chill Fog and Tanglefoot are probably the best class synergies I can find. Should probably check to see how it interacts with Berserker Frenzy though.

So I haven't played this game since around 1.1 or 2.0, and recently decided to give the new content a go. I'm a fan of monks, and was wondering if anyone has worked out how to make this Forbidden Fist subclass from the 4.0 beta consistently generate wounds? I'm imagining an item that debuffs you with some kind of inconsequential status every few seconds, but I don't know if anything like that exists. Otherwise I can see this monk going entire battles without generating 10 wounds. Ideas?

The healing shield got nerfed really hard with 1.1 anyways, but you don't really need it. I haven't really been motivated to update the OP for 1.1 but the build still works, it's just a bit less self sufficient since lay on hands can no longer be cast on the caster. Generally I have Xoti or Tekehu for backup healing though so that's fine. Since the healing on ancient memory rounds up it's nice to be able to get it to 2hp per second as soon as you get it at level 7. I don't recall exactly what you need but I think it's around 20 might along with the physician's belt, so even if you start at 18 might you can get it to 2hp per second with items acquired in Port Maje.

Enemy encounters can be designed to take advantage of friendly fire to begin with, and often are, like a bunch of fighters with tower shields backed up by evokers or druids. Confusion as a CC is pretty useless compared to how it was in PoE.. But don't worry because there's a replacement, and that's terrify. Of course Terrify isn't as available as confusion, so it's still an overall nerf. A wizard gets good terrify spells at 3rd and 5th tiers, but used to have confusion spells useful from tier 1 on. Still you can use chill fog/slicken as your tier 1 Debuff/CCs, Curse of Blackened sight at tier 2, Pull of Eora at tier 4. In general they're just as good as they used to be with CC. My biggest gripe is that the tier 5 terrify overshadows the tier 6 gaze of the adragan, or tier 7 chaotic orb. Perhaps the change was because of Illusion based priest and rogue subclasses?

The description of Flagellant's path now says that the full attack only effects the target, so I've been assuming it's no longer a powerful AoE... or is this wrong? @OP It's to bad there's no transforming armors to simulate your magical girl build, lol.

My take on transcendent... https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/100718-class-build-the-transcendent/ Scepter offhand, fist mainhand, run around smacking enemies with soul annihilation and charms. Shattered Pillar would be fine too but you'd have to drop the scepter to generate wounds. Commenting on what you have so far.. Perception is my god stat for this build, in order to make sure stuff like whisper of treason hits. I generally go Nalpazca then boost the other stats with drugs. You can do the same with Shattered Pillar though. I don't particularly care for mind wave, prefer Whisper of treason for my level 1 cipher pick. After that it's something like... Cipher: Whisper of treason, Draining whip, Phantom foes, Secret Horrors, Hammering thoughts, Pain block, Mind lance (for ranged interrupts), Borrowed Instincts, Ring leader, Disintegrate, Amplified wave (I get enervating blows before these last 2), The empty soul, Echoing Horror Monk: Lightning strikes, Force of anguish, Clarity of/Enlightened agony, Long strike, Raised Torment, Thunderous blows, Turning wheel, Rooting pain, Flagellant's path, Enervating blows (helps all your fortitude targeting attacks hit including Disintegrate) General: Two weapon style I probably missed a few, and obviously you have to make some choices, you can't get them all. Like should you take force of anguish or mind lance for interrupts? Mind lance is ranged and will most likely have a better chance to hit since fortitude is often the highest enemy defense and you can boost will attack accuracy with The empty soul, but Force of anguish will have less recovery and uses a different resource, plus I think it interrupts on graze. Dance of death probably isn't very useful on a melee character, but would be a fine pick for my transcendent build which relies on the scepter quite a bit. If you're dying every other fight your party comp needs some work. Though I can say this is also why I prefer the scepter version so I can hang back at the start of the fight. In general approach battles from stealth and have your tank unstealth first, then have your spellcasters start their support or CC spells from stealth. Also a good time to use whisper of treason.

I just had a thought where you could use instruments of pain along with the gun/sword combo that synergize with each other... don't recall their names atm, might be kind of cool. My first choice for ranged monk is always Nalpazca due to their wounds generation. Using sword and gun together would limit your options when it comes to which classes would best take advantage of the fact you can only do primary attacks. Cipher would work well, would be like my Transcendent build except with a gun instead of a scepter. You could just dual wield the guns but then you couldn't use Force of anguish, torment's reach, and skyward kick. You could dual wield the guns then swap to the long pain when you want to use monk abilities. Most caster classes would be pretty good to multi with for the gun/sword combo. Like going troubadour would give you a chant that increases your gun reload speed and another that adds fire damage to your attacks, with plenty of options for invocations.

Umm last I checked it didn't have the accuracy bonus anymore, is that no longer the case?

Dear Developers... pls buff the laser sword!

Fists have nothing but damage, other weapons have all kinds of unique abilities. Most of what Monk's can bring to a multi class combination has already been heavily nerfed, and multi classed fists barely scale better than legendary weapons by endgame. Right now they bring status resistance (clarity of agony), intellect bonuses, small lash and action speed bonuses, fist damage, and fortitude targeting primary attacks that use wounds resource. I don't see any reason to nerf fist damage considering rogues were buffed last patch and bring a much bigger damage multiplier that still applies to spells. And yeah Xoti's fists are better than her sickle, but it uses 2 damage types and can be upgraded to have huge action speed bonuses after you finish her quest line, at endgame it compares just fine.

Never bothered to deal much damage with my Heralds, most of it is from soft winds of death which I pair with ancient memory.. Her accuracy is usually to low to hit with offensive invocations so I just use the armor invocation "Nor Flame, Nor thrusted blade". If you were soloing you'd have to figure out some way to use the summon invocations. The problem would be avoiding interrupts during your first summon.. can you open battles with a figurine? I'm sure there's some strats that work but I don't know them because I don't care about soloing.

The weapon modals are mostly garbage anyways.... I also happen to hate the stacking rules. They made it so item bonuses stack, probably to make it easy to understand... but went in completely the opposite direction for abilities.

The answer depends on your party makeup. I use a Herald with 18 might/intellect, which works out because I have Xoti providing healing as well. I don't even worry that much about deflection or other tanking stats.

I used my character backstory to determine my actions in the Deadfire. Deadfire>slave. Then slaughtered anyone and everything that supports the crookspur slavers, with only minor support to the remaining factions, but ultimately went my own way because my character didn't really care about the Deadfire and who became the Top Dog there.

Does the mageslayer disruption only apply from weapon hits? Or can stuff like carnage and rooting pain apply it?

Glad to see scepters made the list at least, I'm assuming their high penetration rating might bring them up against specific targets.. but I wish there was a scepter with dps oriented stats like a lash or action speed bonus. For the sake of my transcendent. Or maybe just something that synergizes with Monks beyond just the modal.

Bonus Accuracy, bonus damage, full attack, tier 3 Affliction, sets up Sneak Attack... SeemsGoodMan. For my septim it was the best Rogue spammable even before the patch. This is the part I don't understand, why did crippling strikes get buffed while soul annihilation was nerfed so hard? Seems like a bit of a double standard.

It's easily my most valued attribute, mostly because I hate it when abilities miss.... probably depends on your build though, like if you just rely on auto attacks then might and dex are just as good as perception.

Quick 1.1 update for this build. Few key components were nerfed, making it somewhat questionable, and certainly not the most optimal. I'm somewhat bitter about that considering it didn't use anything I thought was OP, except perhaps body attunement... So first off, the scepter component was heavily nerfed. The keybreak scepter no longer bounces, it now shares an on hit effect (fear kith on crit) with one of the other unique scepters. Like seriously, there's 3 unique scepters and you couldn't even give it a bonus one of the other two didn't have... Anyhow, because there are now no longer any dps scepters in the game, the ranged component of this build is just a novelty. You'll want to spend more time in melee than not, and just use the scepter when you need the high penetration to do damage. Here's to hoping the expansions will add in a good scepter or two (that don't share bonuses with scepters already in game!). Next up, Soul annihilation was nerfed hard, like really hard. You can see from my screenshots that it did good damage before, you can forget that now. If you get a triple digit soul annihilation now you better screenshot it so someone can give you a prize. Spending Focus on this as opposed to just charming more enemies instead is now kind of questionable. Luckily Transcendent suffering + Draining whip is still a good combination for doing good damage and gaining plenty of focus, so the build is still intact, it's just a bit shakier than it was before. I think the soul annihilation nerf was a big joke, considering the powergamers around here found that using 1 resource full attacks with a damage bonus was generally better, like Flames of Devotion, and none of those were nerfed... Well, whatever. Might be better off going ascendant now, but I'm not sure. Here's to hoping for some future cipher love and a scepter that actually synergizes with monks.

Multi class something like monk for swift strikes, then wear and use everything that reduces recovery.

I believe Nature Godlike is still justified if you go monk at least. At level 20 it only takes 1 additional power level, single or multi class, to bump up to the next tier of transcendent suffering. As you're leveling up you'll benefit from it about every other level, but it can be every level if you use the stone of power amulet or some other way to grab another +1 power levels.

Check in the Status: Target category, you'll find one for animal companion attacking the target. There's also a priority for targets your animal companion is attacking.

+1 for more cosmetic options, especially hair. So hard to match hairstyles when I pick portraits. Also, my female character needs some skimpy armor... because reasons. More seriously, there are a lot of clothing options in game that the player can never really use. There should be some nice looking unique robes or something that put some of them to use, or even unique clothes.

It could probably be taken a step further to say the majority of people who play through this game will probably never know what's good. People like us are the minority.