Climhazzard

Imo if something like swift flurry has an internal cooldown then it shouldn't be higher than the recovery time of your attacks. If it doesn't have a chance to proc with every attack it'll be worse than say lightning strikes.

Cipher really seems like the only valid choice rp wise. Just consider cipher a psionicist that gets stronger as he/she fights.

I imagine lightning strikes is better against high defense enemies too, not that you'll have that problem late game. I just see it as less bursty/gimmicky and more consistent. But I will keep passing on swift flurry as long as it can proc off itself.

I go all in on alchemy when I use a drug monk, with Berath's skill blessing. A helwalker would have 10 might from wounds, a drug monk should have 10 might/con/dex from drugs. There are no watcher only checks that are a big deal to fail imo, so personally I just work with skills that fit the character.

I'm not sure what the Zahua bonus actually works for, I know it doesn't work for any of the monk stuff like lightning strikes and enlightened agony. My 2nd choice would be Devil of Caroc as long as you can still get her breastplate, but I've heard her +1 penetration doesn't work either, or has an unknown conditional? I guess just toss Durance in there...

Been using hired adventurer Heralds for my tank, Shieldbearer does the job. I generally pick up reckless brigandine pretty early, then a couple other things later. Would be nice if they got one more natural slot but by about midway through the game it seems fine. Palegina is unsuitable in various ways though especially since she's no shieldbearer. What I find funny is monk, they have a passive that gives them wounds when targets disengage with them, but no passive that gives them an engagement slot, lol.

Arkemyr's Brilliant Departure seems like it would be a nice escape. I also wonder if there's anyway to make a build around the snake weapons that would be viable. Nice list anyhow, wonder if there will be more with the expansions.

My problem with the story is that it doesn't make sense. Clearly the Engwithans did fine without the wheel, so why would it's destruction lead to the consequences that it supposedly leads to...

So as far as I can tell the beneficial effect duration from Zahua's bonus doesn't work. 2nd best is probably Devil of Caroc's, so my next goal I guess is to see if you can sacrifice her and still get her breastplate.

So I had a hunch about what was causing this, and today I confirmed it. If you have a Paladin Aura effect on you when you're called to speak to the gods after Hasango then the aura will get stuck on you permanently.

There's plenty of challenging stuff before level 10, especially since the all scaling option doesn't really bring enemies down to your level... However if you just do quests around Neketaka and the early faction quests you can get to level 10 easy without anything being excessively hard. Then you'll have key abilities like Devotions for the Faithful and then challenging fights are the exception, not the norm. As you level the problem just keeps getting worse. Fights that you would expect to be hard, like against Dragons, are jokes. In PoE Dragons were scary, they had hard hitting breath attacks, Terrify aura, etc... In this game I never see my health bar go down when fighting them. So it's all just a matter of perspective I guess. I would hardly recommend Helwalker/PoTD for someone unfamiliar with the game though, one or the other perhaps, not both.

Would it perhaps be workable if you stack it with soft winds of death? Troubadour.

It does not.

It's not because of PoTD it's because of the scaling options. I guess they figure you don't need the skulls if the enemies will scale to your level... but scaling often doesn't seem to do anything and you would still need the skulls with scale up only selected....

I'd actually been hoping someone would make something like this, so thank you. Btw, in reply to your comment on zealous focus, every playthrough I've had a Paladin in the party I've got one or other of the auras permanently stuck on my MC.

Apparently, you're both right. Both Venombloom and Plague of Insects gain +1 PL per point in Alchemy, resulting in disgusting amounts of raw damage per 3 sec. I hope that's an oversight, couldn't you get like +20 power levels just from alchemy in that case? The Woedica ending from PoE is supposed to give you +1 power levels is it not? Seems like it would be good to stack with acute from tactical barrage to give you a bit of multi class bonus, or prestige from every single class for a late game bonus. For monks at least odd power levels don't do much, making the prestige useless without another +1.

I thought it might be more interesting than your last build but then I'm like... wow how is he reloading so fast, and got around to reading the description, lol...

The only things I'm really hoping to see nerfed are the proc items, skill scaling items, certain empowered Wizard spells, Inner death+empowered strikes, and full attacks. For example, concussive missiles. This may be more of a bug in need of fixing I guess, but they only check accuracy for the targeted enemy, then automatically hit everything else, so if you're picky with your target you can OHKO enemies you have a 5% chance to hit when you empower concussive missiles. When I say full attacks, I mostly mean I think charge and flagellant's path ought to be primary attacks at best. I also happen to believe making a lot of other attacks into primary attacks would help balance dual wielding against 2 handing and 1 handing, but that can wait till later. After those few things, I hope more attention is put into bringing up trash tier abilities, like a lot of cipher and priest spells. Then once things shake out a bit they can consider more nerfing if necessary.

Reviving this thread because I'm working on a custom history to use for Ironman attempts for when/if this game ever gets challenging and balanced. I have a few questions. 1: The bonuses from Gift from the Machine, etc, activate after Hasongo? I think I used "Fair and Balanced" on the run I beat the game with and didn't get anything. I'd like to know how far I need to play to make sure my custom history is working. 2: Has anyone figured out how Gift of Hope is acquired yet? 3: Is the Woedica ending the only one that gives a permanent bonus? +1 power levels won't do much without a way to get another +1 but I can think of a few so it seems like it would easily be the best option.

Maia's pet is useful for flanking bosses since it's immune to engagement, otherwise it's mostly just a distraction if you take the armor and engagement ability. Idk about player pets though.

aren't all these build interesting? instead of nerfing maybe focus on improving the game and making the game harder? well unless if it's overly broken. How is something that turns the game into an even bigger snoozefest interesting? Even if the mobs were hard enough to compensate it would still be stupid because it trivializes all your skills.

Isn't Turning Wheel for melee attacks only? No, and it even works with spells.

Mhm..Is "The Long Pain" not usable while wearing weapons or does it work but weapons simply doesn't count? You don't generate wounds while attacking with the long pain, which makes it sort of useless for shattered pillar, but you do generate wounds with instruments of pain, which just uses your normal weapons but has a shorter range.

If you're looking at monk I would probably go monk/ranger so you can get driving flight, but I'm sure there are plenty of viable options.

I learned today that instruments of pain allows Shattered Pillar to generate wounds and use abilities from range, the range is pretty short and you don't get as much out of rooting pain, but it's still pretty cool.