KDubya

I could see a raw damage DoT called dirty boxing or cheap shot. If they do get a fist proficiency a Devoted/Monk will have 5+3+4 = 12 penetration not counting whatever Transcendental suffering adds. Monks have Thunderous Blows which adds 4 penetration and +5 Might for 20 seconds for one wound. Currently any Monk can have a base 9 penetration after taking Thunderous Blows at tier four, the same as an Estoc. I can see the argument that proficient fists would add too much. I'd rather see them stay the same then have other powers nerfed as everyone isn't a Devoted, a Fighter multi or a Barbarian. Plus you can use weapons and benefit normally. You're talking about a multi-class here, which is a specific case. All the same, an assassin Monk gets a bonus to accuracy and pen with Assassinate. You're basically saying "monks are fine (as long as they have this other class' ability", that is not fine. It's like saying "hey you know, car without an engine is fine as long as you don't need to erm, well, drive". A pure Monk will not be worrying about missing out on his Fighter or Barbarian abilities By not needing a proficiency Monks get fists for free. Missing out on a weapon modal is pretty minor, especially since you did not have to spend the point. What super strong modal do you think fists would get anyway? Most are fairly trivial with a few 'never use without activating' level of usefulness. I think Monks, specifically Shattered Pillars mixed with anything is a great build. Weapon use is great and soon once melee weapons get their correct recovery fists with their fast speed will shine. EDIT - A pure Shattered Pillar will still do excellent and will shine when only they can get to whatever top tier powers there are. Where are Monks coming up short? Shed a tear for people trying to make blaster wizards or Priests with any variety but cry not for the uber-Monk!!!

Gilded Enmity is the Goldpact paladins special sworn enemy it adds +4 armor until target killed or you take damage. The upgraded "Greater Lay on hands" adds the "Robust" Inspiration for +5 Con, healing and +4 armor. When both are active you only get +4 armor not +8 armor. Feature or Bug?

I could see a raw damage DoT called dirty boxing or cheap shot. If they do get a fist proficiency a Devoted/Monk will have 5+3+4 = 12 penetration not counting whatever Transcendental suffering adds. Monks have Thunderous Blows which adds 4 penetration and +5 Might for 20 seconds for one wound. Currently any Monk can have a base 9 penetration after taking Thunderous Blows at tier four, the same as an Estoc. I can see the argument that proficient fists would add too much. I'd rather see them stay the same then have other powers nerfed as everyone isn't a Devoted, a Fighter multi or a Barbarian. Plus you can use weapons and benefit normally.

I believe that it comes down to where the enemies are at with their armor values, especially for various damage types. If most enemies are going to be in the 7-11 range with bosses being higher, then the answer will be Estocs unless you can lower Armor by 1-4 points easily. Armor looks to generally have -2 to its weakest type except the heavy types have -4 to their weakest so defeating people looks to hinge on having crushing and piercing. If most enemies get into the 11+ range you're going to need both Estocs and armor defeating powers. Say hello to the Superb Estoc using Devoted/Shattered Pillar with Thunderous Blows for 9+3+3+4 = 19 Armor penetration without any outside buffs, mundane Plate will be overpenetrated If the enemies are tuned a little too much or too little a non-penetrator team could either breeze through most encounters or hit the armor wall all the time. Plus as you obtain enchantment levels the mobs can easily keep pace to either maintain the snoozefest or result in massive ranting on the boards

You can roll up a Devoted/Wizard (no subclass) and stick with the summoned weapons and self buffs. Heck you can just take one spell at creation and take every Fighter talent that you want and just use the spells in the Grimoires that you find. If Fighters aren't your thing you can go with a Cipher for the big damage buff from Soul Whip, a Shattered Pillar Monk using staffs, lots of possibilities. If you really distill it down you can get by with Concelhatts staff, Arcane Veil, Liengraths Displaced Image, Citzals Lance and Martial power. Plenty of picks left to take every good Fighter ability as many are not so great. Compared to a straight up Fighter your self buffer is going to have a much higher deflection for tanking. Remember that you also get to use all the spells in all the grimoires you find without wasting a pick on them. A little luck or some meta gaming knowledge and you get the best of all possible worlds at the cost of the highest level spells. The summoned weapons only take 6 seconds less Dexterity bonus. Hit Arcane Veil first as an instant cast and then safely spend 6 seconds casting. When melee speed gets fixed they'll have a base 3 second recovery instead of the one second they have now.

How would you take into consideration the club doing blunt damage and works well against plate that stops piercing really good? I think they just need to think about raising the damage of the high penetration weapons a little. Another balance pass at the various modals would be good as well, having Sabers do the most damage plus have a modal for extra penetration if its needed is a little too good.

What happens when a ranged attack hits you and drops your dance of death? Or any spell that causes damage as a 6 Con is going to get one shotted? Not dogging the concept, just curious about some of the specifics.

Cipher-Monks (Transcendent) Shattered Pillar/Soul Blade Shocking lash from Lightning Strikes applies to Mind Blades. It also applies the shocking lash to Torment's Reach's cone AoE but Biting Whip does not apply to Torment's AoE but does to the initial target. Shattered Pillars can gain wounds (cause damage) from using Torment's Reach. The Transcendent feels pretty cool, doing damage gets you wounds and focus, Soul Whip is a big passive damage boost of 40% so you can keep Might at base and add to intellect or dexterity. Just stick to Cipher powers that have a 3 second cast unless you really want it. In fact don't take many Cipher powers at all and just use the Soul Blade raw damage attack when you need to hurt something. Once they give us weapon styles for non-fighters it'll get better with a 20% increase to attack speed from two weapon style. At higher level Monks get a +4 penetration to all weapons. Any direct damage type class does well mixed with a Cipher: -Devoted/Soul Blades hit like trucks with great penetration -SharpShooter/Beguilers give some pizzazz to Rangers and add some nice illusion debuffs. Plus the Biting whip buff to bows. Haven't tried the others like Paladin/Cipher, Barbarian/Cipher heck a Wizard/Cipher using self buffs and summoned weapons would hit like a truck, maybe go Ogre/Cipher for style? P.S. Just tried an Ogre/Cipher, they can use Cipher powers while in Ogre form

Are the bonuses and penalties additive or multiplicative? I'd been assuming that the penetration penalty / bonus was "multiply all damage by 1.3" or "multiply all damage by 0.3", not "add 30% of base damage to total." If it's additive you're correct, if it's multiplicative I'm not sure might or other bonuses would matter -- they'd get multiplied down or up just like the rest of the total. I fixed my math in the original post. For fun lets compare an Estoc and a Sabre. SPOILER - The Estoc is only better when the Sabre misses penetration by 2, 3, 4 and 5. Other than that the Sabre out damages an Estoc. These are the same armor values where a Great Sword beats an Estoc. Using my Fighter/Cipher example again you'd have +15% Might, +15% Two Handed Style, +50% Soul Whip and the Sabre gets +20% but misses out on the Two Handed style. Estoc is 11-16 with pen 9, average of 13.5 Sabre is 14-19 with pen 5, average of 16.5 With full buffs you get 24.3 for Estoc and 30.5 for the Sabre. When over penetrating Estoc gets 31.6 compared to 30.5 for Sabre At -25 you get 24.3 vs 22.9 for the Sabre At -50 you get 24.3 vs 15.25 for the Sabre At -75 you get 24.3 vs 7.6 for the Sabre At -25/-75 you get 18.2 vs 7.6 for the Sabre At -50/-75 you get 12.2 vs 7.6 for the Sabre At -75/-75 you get 6.1 vs 7.6 for the Sabre. The Estoc comes out better than it did against the great Sword but still loses at the high end and when both penetrate. But what about the extra talent? What if we add single weapon style to the Sabre? Single weapon gets +12 accuracy and 10% miss>graze Using accuracy = deflection for the Sabre so we can ignore criticals, you get: 0-15 miss but 10% of them get grazes so its 0-13.5 13.6 - 50 graze for 50% damage 51-100 hit for 100% damage This gives a unit damage of 0.5+0.365x0,5 = 0.6825 (without single weapon style it'd be 0.675, so Single Weapon style adds a wopping 1.1% damage) Let's assume we were smart enough to not take Single Weapon style, so we'll use a unit damage of 0.675 Now the Estoc: 0-27 miss (this accounts for the +12 accuracy that the single Sabre gets) 28-62 graze 63-100 hit Unit damage of 0.38+0.35*0.5 = 0.555 Now normalized for accuracy base damage is 24.3x0.555 = 13.5 Estoc and 30.5x0.675 = 20.6 for the Sabre Over penetrating Estoc is 17.6 so less than the Sabre At -25 you get 13.5 Estoc vs 20.6x.75 = 15.5 for the Sabre At -50 you get 13.5 Estoc vs 20.6x.5 = 10.3 for the Sabre At -75 you get 13.5 Estoc vs 20.6x.25 = 5.2 for the Sabre At -25/-75 you get 13.5x.75 = 10.1 Estoc and 5.2 Sabre At -.50/-75 you get 13.5x.5 = 6.8 Estoc vs 5.2 Sabre At -75/-75 you get 3.4 Estoc vs 5.2 Sabre So the Sabre is better except when missing penetration by 2, 3, 4, and 5 which is the same as how the Great Sword did....

The multiclassing here is much better than what NWN2 had. Here I want to make a fighter/mage I select that at creation and then choose from either for abilities as I level up. Very simple yet by choosing more or less from each class I can tailor make what I want. In NWN2 you needed to use a character builder and follow it exactly in order to take what was needed, when needed in order to qualify for the next perk. There was optimal and everything else was gimped.

When you factor in damage buffs the balance between penetration and damage changes. Consider an Estoc and a Great Sword. Estoc 11-16 damage 9 pen Avg = 13.5 Great Sword 19-25 damage 5 pen Avg = 22 Add in some damage buffs like 15% Might, 15% two handed and 50% Soul whip for +80% Now in a case where Estoc penetrates but G Sword doesn't you get 13.5x1.8 = 24.3 for the Estoc and 22 x (1+.8-.7) = 24.2 damage for the Great Sword. In all cases the Great Sword is as good or better, not only more damage but two damage types as well. This is with the current -70%, change that to a mere -25% and its even more in favor of the Great Sword and you don't need near as many buffs. EDIT - MATH IS WRONG, its not additive but multiplicative. With the new 25/25/25 system the Great Sword is better except when it is missing penetration by 2, 3, 4 and 5. Except for this band of armor values the Estoc loses out, sometimes by a bunch. Even when only the Estoc over penetrates it is still less than a normal damage Great Sword at 13.5x1.3 = 17.6 vs 22 for the Great Sword. Unless the majority of enemies fall inside this narrow armor band the Estoc is not as good as a choice. This is not even considering that the great Sword has two damage types. If slash is lower than pierce then the four specific armor values where Estocs are better disappear.

Lack of physical space might very well be the biggest issue, yes. So how do we solve this? Increase the range of engagement for Unbroken/Shieldbearers? That would solve the issue of not just being unable to hold all those engagements, but also enemies just walking around the fighter with ease. Any downsides to that, besides it looking silly? Side note, I'm curious what your reason for being so vehemently against taunts is? If everything was exactly the same, but they just threw taunts on top of it, would that be acceptable? Please elaborate if not. A way to make use of all those engagements would be great. Not with the intention of keeping enemies locked down but the ability to dish out massive disengagement attacks to multiple targets. But if the threat of a big hit was enough to keep them engaged that'd be fine as well. This way a Fighter can control the battlespace, it could be their 'thing' My issue with taunts is that it will make the optimal meta to be make a tanky meatbag who needs no offensive abilities and exists to be hard to hit and to attract everything so that the rest of the team rains down AoE safely from a distance. Then when this becomes too strong Fighters get nerfed into oblivion. Look at what happened to Fighters in PoE with the Defender patch. I really dislike games that require the holy trinity style that MMOs tend to use.

Swift Strikes does not stack with Frenzy, bug or feature? In combat if I right click on my weapons (can't with fists which makes it hard to determine what their base damage, speed and recovery are) I can pull up details that list for a spear recovery time 3.0 sec - dex 13% (dex of 15 should be 15%?), +50% armor, -50% dual wield and -20% Quick Strikes. When I then activate Frenzy the -25% for Frenzy replaces the -20% for Quick Strikes. If this is by design it really crimps being a Barbarian Monk.

Too many to respond with quotes so here goes: No TAUNTS, I can't stress that enough. Making a Fighter a taunting punching bag is not what I want. Quickest way to get me to never use a Fighter again and if you make it mandatory for the game then I'll be looking for something else to play. The Unbroken perk is that an enemy getting hit for disengaging gets hit at +10 penetration which will over penetrate for the x30% multiplicative damage boost. Later you can take the prone as well. Considering that Devoted gets +3 penetration all the time and a +25% crit damage this seems highly conditional but great when it fires off. The issue is that using Defender, a spear and Unbroken with shield gets you six engagements which are too many to actually use. Multi with a Shieldbearer Paladin and you'd get another, take another ability and get another. So far we could have eight engagements with mundane equipment and two abilities. If the normal maximum number of engagements is four due to reach and model size then a lot of these abilities are overkill and wasted. Ultimately looking for a reason not to take Devoted as an auto pick. If four engagements is pretty much the max then using a Devoted with defender stance is better, or going Devoted/Shield Bearer using warrior or even cleave stance with a spear for three engagements.

The easy solution is to have Monks automatically gain 'fists' and later 'long pain fists' as being proficient but have no additional modal ability. This way a Monk/Barbarian can benefit from weapon focus and Monk/Fighters can benefit from the various benefits such as grazes, devoted and what not. They really need to fix the melee recovery bug, or at least give us a spreadsheet showing what the numbers should be. I see multiple tiers of damage for what i assume are same speed weapons - Estocs do less than Morningstars which do less than all the rest. Bug or feature? With one handed weapons stilletos do the same as warhammers then (I think, going from memory) spears, then maces and finally sabres.

Rolled up a Unbroken/Shattered Pillar (Fighter/Monk) to try out going heavy on engagement. Using a spear (modal adds +1 engagement), Defender stance (+3), Unbroken (+1 with shield) gives him +5 engagements and a +10 penetration to disengagement attacks. Theory was he would grab the first five guys and keep them stuck. Reality was his reach is short and probably only had three at a time max. The rest of the fish guys just slide around and engulf the team. Might be that combat speed is so quick that I can't tell any effect from engagements, or that fish people are too big. Maybe you need small xaurip to grab that many. My fear is that Engagements will not be that great and that reduces a Fighter to the melee guy who gets regen (really good), and some so-so abilities that is best used for Devoted for the penetration and as a multi-class. Anyone have success with going hard for engagement?

I've tried one a little. I need to re-do it as the Cipher talents I took were not good, need to pay more attention to the cast time. I think just grabbing very few cipher powers and taking more Monk abilities will help. I miss the regen from the fighter class though.

Berserker + Devoted makes for a confusion free rage when used in conjunction with Tactical Barrage. As a bonus the +5 Intellect also makes your carnage bigger. An extra 7 penetration when raging with 50% hit to crit is stupidly good. Unbroken + Shieldbearer Paladin with spear and shield in Defender stance gets SIX engagements that if broken get a +10 penetration counterstrike. I need to experiment more but this guy could be the line holder.

What happens if you add in damage bonuses like Might, Soul Whip and the like? My worry is that the change to make it more granular and less punishing is that high penetration low damage weapons will be marginalized and it'll be back to damage is king just like in PoE. Having a reason to not take Sabres and Great Swords would be nice besides self gimping.

Maybe Fighters will get something but history shows Fighters generally taking it in the ass. The early versions in PoE of Fighters were good but the Defender update put a fork in them. This version of Fighter looked promising at giving them a distinct advantage compared to the other martial classes but that looks to be blurring. Is Barbarian's weapon specialization being given to everyone as well? If so that'll be a must pick like it was in PoE.

Yes please!! I think Tyranny had this as well (?). So much easier than searching through the combat log to see who's doing dmg and who's not, an audio queue for each character would make it so much simpler and quicker. Isn't that in the game now? My main is always saying "I need something sharper" Plus there are a bunch of "no Pen" pop ups during combat.

Why can't Paladins have Two handed or Barbarians have Two weapon style? How about Monks or Ciphers or .....? The game as designed now allows for all of that via multi-classing. Like it or hate it, that's the game we have. In this game choices and options come at a cost. Deciding whether or not some additional ability is worth the cost is up to you to decide.

Well if you play on PotD there's nothing called high deflection, every mob has much higher accuracy and deflection. Its only +15 accuracy, nothing that a superb small shield with weapon and shield style can't negate with +26 deflection. Heck a plain small shield with the style bonus would get you +14. With the removal of grazes you'll get hit less often and pursuing high deflection will be stronger. Add in 70% DR if your armor is high enough and you can tank till the cows come home.

I like to use Shattered Pillar instead of Hel Walker. Reasons: 1.) Much more tanky as you gain 'wounds' by doing damage instead of taking damage. The Monk attacks are all Primary not Full so using a shield has no downside. 2.) No reason to stat dump and have a bad Will defense that just screams please charm me. 3.) Having a high deflection could make using "Dance of Death" an interesting choice

Actually you'd probably be better going Unbroken instead of Devoted. They get some nice shield buffs and benefits to engagement. Once Devoted get fixed such that the actually only have one weapon proficiency and penalties to everything else they won't be the one stop shop that they currently are. Throw in a fix to the too fast recovery on many melee weapons and then we can see what is powerful. And i would stick with the Fighters are the masters of martial combat mantra. Paladins have lots of useful abilities why do they need to take from Fighters without having to multi? I don't see why you can't just multi-class? This is the defining feature of this new game, embrace it as its not going away.