KDubya

This is good news indeed. The default of maxing Might made for poor design considerations. I'm feeling pretty prophetic, I called for a Might change like this and the Resolve change to tie it to affliction duration

Did you mean "frenzy" or do you really suggest to skip all rage skills and only use the barbarian's passives? Yes I meant frenzy. The berserker version and the normal one for that matter have identical buffs as Thunderous Blows and Swift Strikes so they make a poor match for a Monk. I believe the malus for Corpse Eater is more expensive frenzy so skipping it helps them. Then you can burn your resource on yell or leap or whatever. best of all you are a Kung Fu Cannibal

Resource wise the paladin will be able to liberally use FoD and Sworn enemy which upgrades to return the zeal on kill. So you can sworn enemy one guy and then use the rest on FoD and just reapply the Sworn enemy on the next target. For the Barbarian you probably need to reserve three resources for Frenzy and that'll last for the entire fight. I was never a fan of Barbaric Blow but the Beta was limited to low level so never had the extra ability to choose it. Saving the extra resource for liberal use of leap might be better. There were boots of Leap and they were pretty fun to use. Resource usage is a bigger problem for Rogues and Rangers, why take three strike abilities that all use the same small pool instead of pick one and use that over and over? The new AI system lets you set up a logic path that'll activate your powers and abilities as you want. Worked really nice with Monks to spam out Torments or FoA or keep a buff like Swift Strikes and Thunderous Blows always up. You can set it to refresh frenzy whenever it wears off.

The thing is Monk fists are really good. They do more damage per hit than a sword 16.5 vs 16 avg damage and attack at the fast speed of daggers. The two powerlevel deficit between single and multi is +1 penetration, +4 accuracy and +15% damage. This is also what you gain from Nature Godlike racial which runs off of Swift Strikes so it'll always be in effect. So I'd be hard pressed to not pick a Nature Godlike for a Monk. If the multi adds more than what you lose due to power level than you're golden. A Soul Blade gets you at least +20% damage and access to all the Soul Blade goodies so its a fair trade off. Barring some sort of immunity I'd avoid weapons. Maybe a dagger in the off hand would be good for the +10 deflection modal in case you need to tank better or get more out of Dance of Death. Clubs and flails have debuff attacks to will and reflex which could be useful.

Uh, wait, what triggers carnage? Rooting pain or the aoe or torment reach? Or just the primary target of torment's reach? Definitely the primary target of Torments Reach. I used to get 2 wounds back from Torments, 3 if it crit'd, and that was without any additional targets. So that'd get you one carnage and however many Rooting Pains that you caused wounds for. The carnage is gravy and the multiple AoE interrupts from Rooting Pain should really mess with the enemies ability to do anything.

I found a Soul Blade/Gold pact Inquisitor did very well in Beta. Gilded Enmity gets you a massive +4 armor and a nice accuracy and damage boost that is refundable when you kill the target which soul annihilation and FoD do quite well. Made a great individual killer, you choose one enemy and kill him quickly then choose another and another ....

If those are the number then draining whip looks pretty good as you'll be getting the big damage fro soul annihilation rather than auto attacks. I like the lightning lash instead of the possible extra hit on crit. The hit on crit was pretty buggy and exploitable in the beta. I try and avoid broken exploits, also why I'm not big on Fighters and cleave cheese.

If you went Shattered Pillar/ Corpse Eater or plain barbarian and skipped rage you'd avoid the stacking issues. Get your speed boosts from Quick Strikes>Lightning Strikes and your penetration and Might boost from Thunderous Blows. Take Shout or Yell at first level and stick with the passives from Barbarian. Berserkers are great but that friendly fire carnage is going to hurt low level parties as well as that self damage when frenzied. Spamming Torment's Reach which generates wounds which activates Rooting Pain plus carnage is going to be good.

It's definitely viable. Combining any two of the melee classes I had in the original post - Berserker, Soul Blade, Paladin, Devoted, Shattered Pillar - would make for a great melee monster. There have been a lot of changes from Beta 1.0 when I wrote this and the actual game so some combos will be better than others. Also I haven't looked at any streams or ability lists so I'm not up on what the high level abilities are. A lot depends on where armor, penetration and attack speed end up. Dual wielding might not be the absolute best anymore and wearing armor might or might not be useful. Since Beta 3.0 I've gotten a lot more positive on single classes, especially Monks. The quicker access to higher level abilities is really good. Lots of classes have pretty poor low level abilities to pick and a multiclass is stuck there for a long time. Plus a single class gets so many more picks in the one class. A level 20 single class would have 28 abilities while a multi would have at best 20 in one class and 7 in the other. I'm in Afghanistan so probably won't be downloading that quickly, will take a day or two. Plus I'm rocking Battletech so DeadFire will have to wait.

From what I found in the Beta - might be different in the actual game - power level did not make that big of a difference for melee besides Monk unarmed, there it made a big difference. Both the Soul Blade/Devoted and the Soul Blade/Berserker are very powerful. I like the Berserker version better as it has more fun stuff to use. The fighter is much more one dimensional, it tanks better than anyone but just is kinda bland. Devoted get you +2 penetration but restrict you to one weapon which is rather harsh going into a game blind. Maybe you chose poorly and re-specing is a cheat to me so I'd avoid it. A second playthrough based on meta knowledge would be possible if the mechanics of the class were intriguing enough. Anyway you'll have Eder on the team to see how a Fighter is. Go with what seems fun, both are mechanically very good.

For stats maybe something like this: Might 18 - it's multiplicative now so it'll be great with your soul whip bonus and for soul annihilation Con - 10 - I don't like to dump and health is needed Dex - 14 - faster actions, maybe drop to 12 to add to Perception Per - 16 - more accuracy for more crits. I think 16 is enough to find all traps and such, maybe go even higher to 18? Int - 10 - Longer duration is always nice but you're going for more of an up tempo guy rather than a CC'er Res - 10 - Don't like to dump but with Clarity of Agony available to lessen affliction duration by 50% you could maybe drop a few or a lot here Grabbing a few good cipher spells isn't a bad idea. You'll have to get a Cipher ability every time you gain a power level so keep that in mind when you level up so you don't waste a free pick on a universal ability like dual wielding instead of using a dedicated Cipher level up. Having an AoE attack or CC is always nice, Phantom Foes is cheap and gets all enemies 'flanked' for +10 to hit and sets up any sneak attackers nicely, well worth a pick and the focus needed. You'll want to get Rooting Pain as a Shattered Pillar as every time you gain a wound you'll activate it. Since you gain wounds by causing damage you'll get a lot, just need to be below max wounds so you'll need to spam something that costs wounds. Force of Anguish is cheap at one or two wounds and causes an interrupt which Rooting Pain also does, maybe better to spam Torment's Reach at three wounds and upgraded causes an AoE cone stun which is very nice for minimizing incoming damage and helps get crits too I believe. You have a nice concept going and it has great synergy. The key features of soul annihilation, soul whip, Torment's Reach and Rooting Pain are all available early, its not some Dreamer Build that only comes into its own at Powerlevel seven at level 19.

I'd look at a Ranger/Cipher,Beguiler or Ascendent You'd get the damage boost of 40% from soul whip, some good Cipher passives, access to Cipher powers and a target (the pet) for all your Cipher powers. Seems a lot more fun than a Rogue/Ranger, especially if you will be ranged.

I wouldn't drop Intellect on a Berserker, I like to go with a 15 for the longer duration for Frenzy. If it kills the team who cares? After the fight just eat some hardtack and rest. You would want to avoid friendly fire of Chants, auras benefitting enemies and AoE healing from Kind Wayfarer affecting enemies.

I'm waiting to see what the actual high level abilities are that a multiclass misses out on before I decide whether multi or single is better. Also awaiting to see what actually goes live as far as armor, penetration, weapon damage, attack speed and recovery. But a Berserker/Paladin (BleakWalker or Gold Pact) looks to be very strong. Will have to be careful with the self damage from Berserk early as your hit point pool is small at the start. The Bleak Walker Berserker also has a nice role play synergy - you believe that violence solves all problems so overwhelming violence from frenzy is the best course of action

The Berserker confusion would have your chants affecting your enemies for buffs and your team for debuffs in addition to friendly fire from carnage.

You can always put one weapon in your left hand and use your fist in your right. Best of both worlds! Protip - make it a dagger and you can activate the modal for a deflection boost

The two powerlevel difference between single and multi will get you +15% damage. +4 accuracy, and +1 penetration. Plus you'll get more monk abilities and get access faster. Fists do higher average damage than the slow one handers and attack at the speed of fast one handers. So going fists is both great thematically and from a game mechanics standpoint. If you are going to use weapons its probably better to go multi or even skip monk altogether. The powerful combos I'd say are: Shattered Pillar single class Nature Godlike for an easy +2 powerlevel boost that'll ad another +15% damage, +1 pen and +4 accuracy Shattered Pillar/Soul Blade - soul whip +40% damage, soul annihilation, weapon penetration passive, a few cipher powers Shattered Pillar/Paladin - Bleak Walker, Gold Pact or Kind Wayfarer - FoD, LoH, Gilded Enmity, auras and good on kill effects Shattered Pillar/ Devoted - cleave cheese and Disciplined Strikes Shattered Pillar/Trickster - illusion spells for extra defense, sneak attack, deep wounds Shattered Pillar/Berserker - Clarity of Agony clears your confusion, rage, on kill effects, carnage and lots of other good stuff Shattered Pillar/Wizard - spells for defense Shattered Pillar/Priest of Wael - illusion spells for defense and priest buffs Shattered Pillar/Skald - fast attacks with good accuracy for more crits and more chants, all the normal chanter greatness Anything that gets you a big deflection boost will synergize nicely with Dance of Death for +12 accuracy and you'll generate wounds by causing damage activating rooting pain while spamming torments reach. There are entirely too many interesting class combos . I'll never get around to playing even 10% of them

I find it funny that 77.8% went with the "WTF Wizard ..... How about ..." poll answer

If it was me I'd go with a Trickster/Cipher - either Soul Blade for melee or Beguiler for ranged/more casting. Tricksters big benefit is access to illusion spells that greatly increase your defenses. Wizards also have access to those and better spells so the Trickster is pretty much wasted and ends up as just a Rogue with a bad sneak attack. I agree with the consensus that all of the wizard specializations are bad, better to always go generalist wizard.

Just pick Sabres and have a single rapier, club or spear in the other slot. You'll have -10 accuracy + 5 accuracy + 12 accuracy for a total of +7 accuracy on the rare occasions that you find a slash immune. I'd go Paladin/Soul Blade anyway

What would be funny is a Berserker/Shattered Pillar spamming Torments Reach which gains wounds which causes Rooting Pain which then affects your team as you are confused Maybe tack on some friendly fire carnage damage and some friendly fire AoE cone stun from Torments to add to the hilarity.

A Wizard (general)/Cipher (Soul Blade) could do really well. Start with a stealth cast of your best nuke Buff up with your fast spells like Fleet Feet, Infuse, Liengrath's Displaced Image Summon your weapon - Staff or Lance, while your team engages enemy Bash people with a soul whip buffed wizard weapon and build focus Drop a soul annihilation as needed to burn off focus or cast a higher level Cipher power Fire off additional spells as desired Compared to a Cipher/Warrior type you'd have the buff spells of the wizard for better stats and defense, plus the summoned weapons and nukes. While a Wizard/Warrior type misses out on the +40% damage boost from soul whip, the penetration from the cipher passive, soul annihilation and the rest of the Cipher powers. A Nature Godlike would do well due to the better power levels. Get a high dex for faster casting. Its on my list of builds I'd like to use.

I'm guessing that armor quality will rise at about the same rate as weapon quality so if mundane basic weapons make your mundane light armor worthless and your mundane medium armor only good for avoiding overpenetration then that will continue throughout the game. Sure some really sweet bonuses or imbued powers on armor will make it worthwhile to use even if it doesn't protect much, but if those same cool effects were on a set of clothes that'd be even better. To wrap my head around it I'm looking at it as being in a time frame similar to when firearms were becoming prevalent and armor was becoming obsolete. Pirates and Musketeers survive by not getting hit or killing quickly not by face tanking while wearing Gothic Plate.

Heavy armor is definitely worth it if you have extra AR due to talents. A GoldPact gets +4 AR from Gilded Enmity, add in the +2 AR when damaged ability, triumphant defense or whatever its called and you're sitting at 15 AR with normal plate. This guy will be taking minimal damage from most everything. A Berserker gets +2 AR from frenzy and another +1 from thick skin. That'll get your plain plate up to 12 AR which will push a plain Estoc to minimal damage. Even just having a +1 AR is probably worth it to armor up as your plate will drop an Estoc to -25% damage and have normal weapons at -75%. Worst case naked takes +30% damage as every attack over penetrates. If you have a high deflection from illusion spells, shields, shield modals or weapon modals naked is pretty survivable. Plus you'll kill a lot faster so the incoming damage will be reduced. Or be able to stunlock the enemy group with something like upgraded Torments on a Shattered Pillar with an interrupting Rooting Pain added in for fun.

Another issue with armor is that since they buffed penetration armor doesn't do a whole lot to help you. Basic weapons have 7 penetration which makes light armor at 5 AR useless and makes medium armor at 7 AR only good for stopping over penetration attacks. Even heavy armor loses to armor piercing weapons and comes at an expensive -50% speed. Basically unless you can get some extra AR to add to your heavy armor you might as well go naked. You could even trade 6 points of dex for con getting you +30% hit points to offset the +30% damage from over penetration while suffering -18% attack speed compared to the -35% attack speed malus of medium armor. Think of more of a renaissance era pirate/musketeer than a medieval knight.