Casildar

Fast Sneak may be the culprit here. I didn't update the move section and it looks like it was changed. I'll adjust for the next version. Not sure if this is related or not, but Long Stride for my solo monk wasn't activating after installing IE Mod and the issue there seems to be Remove Combat-Only Restrictions. Long Stride activates fine with both Game Speed Mod checked and Fast Scouting Mode set to Fast Scouting, Party LOS, but fails with Remove Combat-Only Restrictions checked.

After playing through Act 1 a dozen times and never seeing the gloves, I decided to try to see how deep the loot table is. I started with the hidden stash in Raedric's dungeons in the cell diagonally across from Giacco's because I'd seen a few mentions of people getting the gloves from there. In hindsight, this was a mistake since each reset takes a lot longer than resetting Raedric's bedroom. Oh well. 30 Attempts: - 2x Healing Hands - 3x Minor Gauntlets of Accuracy - 2x Minor Rings of Protection - 2x Cloaks of Deflection (+5) - 4x Rings of Searing Flames - 5x Boots of Evasion (+2 Reflex) - 2x Boots of Stealth - Ring of Overseeing - Rymrgand's Mantle - 3x Minor Cloaks of Protection - 2x Minor Bracers of Deflection - Rotward Amulet (13th loot) - Cape of Withdrawal (21st loot) - Belt of Bountiful Healing (22nd loot) I didn't precisely record the loot chronologically by reset. I just made an Xx note when I got a dupe. I didn't get the first duplicate item until the 12th attempt (first Minor Bracer of Deflect was #11, 2nd Boots of Evasion was #12, Rotward Amulet was #13. I didn't record which duplicated item went with resets #14-20. It never occurred to me that the loot might be tied to a specific game day or day of a calendar month like Dunehunter suggested above. After briefly messing with resets at the Gilded Vale inn for the freeze cloak, I assumed there was more randomization involved. (Reconsidering this, though, it could easily be that the results seem random because there are far fewer items in the loot table for that chest and a 30 day cycle might be, for instance, 10 minor deflect rings, 10 minor protect rings, 5 minor protect cloaks, 3 capes of withdrawal, 1 amulet of health and 1 freeze cloak.) Resets #21 and #22 were new items, but then resets #23-28 were an exact match of my first 6 items (Healing Hands through Boots of Evasion). If the loot is a repeating pattern based on a (relatively) small cycle, I'd expect loot #29 to have been Boots of Stealth. It wasn't. It was Minor Gauntlets of Accuracy. But then, of course, #30 was Boots of Stealth. I stopped there (because I gave up on the gloves from this spot, wanted the boots and just in case it really was a repeating cycle, I didn't want to do it 30 more times to get them). Because I wasn't recording Attempt # -> Item Looted, it's entirely possible I missed a second MG of Accuracy the first time through. It's also possible resets #23-28 being exact duplicates of resets #1-6 was just a huge coincidence. I'm leaning toward the former, but will try something similar with Raedric's bedroom later. Obvious PS. No Gloves of Manipulation in 30 attempts. EDIT: Just did this stash spot again on a new character. The loot is definitely sequential. My first loot this time around was Cape of Withdrawal. Following that: - Belt of Bountiful Healing - Healing Hands - Minor Gauntlets of Accuracy - Minor Ring of Protection - Cape of Deflection - Ring of Searing Flames - Boots of Evasion - Minor Gauntlets of Accuracy - Boots of Stealth Exactly matches my previous list, assuming that I didn't correctly note the second accuracy gauntlets. This isn't the full cycle. There's more on the list between Boots of Stealth and Cape of Withdrawal, but I stopped on stealth boots again. Edit 2: I just did Raedric's bed/desk with two separate characters and the sequences didn't match. So not sure how to take that. Either different lootables have different randomization rules or maybe there's some kind of initial seed (or maybe separate loot tables) based on character class/race/etc. The two characters I used for the dungeon stash were the same name, race, class with the same difficulty settings and only slightly different stat allocations. For Raedric's bed/desk I used one of those characters and then an old save with a character of a completely different class/race on a different difficulty. Either way, it seems like coming up with a general loot list for a given container isn't practical except maybe just to show how deep or shallow the loot table is. PS. Might be worth noting that I got Gauntlets of Accuracy (+5 acc) out of the best chest. Seems pretty early in the game for those.

That's true, but then again have you tested it? As in, how many more crits over normal hits you get in tough fights (not against normal mobs). I'm going to assume 'no' here and that's my problem. I accept test data, like when that guy did dps on fists vs other weapons on unarmored target (although I'd prefer he did it on armored). That's something that helps. The rest really does not, because I'm supposed to spend 12-16 points on "maybe not getting a crit" "unknown number of times per swing" "in theory". No, haven't tested it all. I was just saying that if you were going to test it, attention should also be paid to the hit->graze, crit->hit before saying mediocre defenses are absolutely useless. I didn't say and didn't intend to suggest that I believe mediocre defenses are good/useful. They may very well be absolutely useless, but you'd need to look at the full spectrum of what defenses actually do in order to come to that conclusion.

I do think you're overlooking the non-binary nature of defenses in the game. It's not just a question of hit or miss. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm assuming that when you were doing your 0-1 total miss fights you weren't counting grazes that should have been hits or hits that should have been crits. Because everything--including debuff durations--operates on the miss/graze/hit/crit mechanic, those are at least somewhat important concerns when you're testing defensive stats.

I can definitely see clarity reducing a lot of headache for you.

Yeah they are. I was saying I don't think you ever use fast speed weapons (meaning, if you want fast speed, use fists) unless you need some secondary effect that a specific fast weapon has. If it's a question of using 1h weapons other than fists, I mentioned spears (accuracy and synergy with Peasant Weap Focus if you have it for fists) and sabres (higher damage). But really I guess a case can easily be made for ditching fists altogether and going with something like Ruffian Focus, running 2x stilettos and 2x sabres. Assuming high end enchants, I doubt there's a big difference between stiletto and fist. (Strictly untested supposition on my part.)

Nope, no data. I'm not a particular fan of it, just less buttons to press. Although I've run into plenty of high fort trash mobs on PotD and the -20 is going to get a lot more prone crits from FoA. I have no experience with Clarity of Agony because I hate per rest abilities. I should say hated, since I've come to understand the frequency of resting required in solo.

You lose a chunk of accuracy putting the shield on. Not from the shield accuracy penalty, obviously, because buckler doesn't have one, but from the bonus accuracy you get for wielding only a single 1h weapon. Fist+offhand is the same accuracy as single 1h and that's the highest you're going to get. It just has the added bug/feature of giving you dual wield damage on Full Attack abilities. I don't know for certain whether you lose the two weapon style bonus, but I think you do. @Josip: The consensus was (maybe still is) that fists aren't as good as weapons because no enchanting, but personally I think Climhazzard's numbers earlier in the thread show that it's at the very least not as clear cut and that fists have plenty going for them. I just don't know if plenty=enough. Even if the damage/accuracy bases skewed in favor of fists enough so that fists ended up being just as good as an average speed weapon with a lash enchant, you're still missing out on a possible slayer enchant for specific fights (if you do that kind of thing) as well as the baseline bonus all the weapon types have: accurate, DR bypass, dual damage types, etc. Five accuracy or 3 DR bypass are nothing to scoff at. The problem of when to use high damage and when to use high speed is that, like Climhazzard mentioned above, monk fists are already fast weapons and already do damage equivalent to average speed weapons (discluding sabres). So I think you never use fast weapons unless you really need a secondary effect that one has. If you're not using fists and other secondary effects on weapons you can't enchant yourself aren't a concern, I think it has to be sabres or spears. The usual downside to sabres is that they're slashing damage only, and that's the damage type with the largest number of npcs that have high DR against. But assuming you're running empty hands on swap, it's not a big deal for monks. The benefit to spears is that they're both Accurate and in the Peasant category. For solo, I'm planning to run a pair of spears in offhand (mostly for a secondary damage type vs crush resist mobs, since I can't get the drain spear) unless I can manage to get down far enough in Endless Paths to get the fireball sabre. I'd like Purgatory, too, but the only place I've seen someone mention it drops from is an early act 3 fight and when I did that fight I didn't get the sabre. Not sure if it's just random loot or what. Edit @Josip re: above post Spears are average speed.

Will have to try 22 Int TR then. Flagellant doesn't open until 11, fyi. The wiki says 9, but is wrong. Assuming you don't want a straight up defensive ability like Duality or Crucible Stunning - is fine Turning Wheel - assume you don't want this because all previous reasons plus even heavier use of wounds with TR/FoA now Enervating Blows - it reduces fort, which is the FoA resist and is passive. Also base 15s, so pretty long with 22 Int. Soul Mirror - I think this would be comical on 6 monks, but to get the reflect the initial attack has to miss, so probably not good. If it were me I'd probably try Stunning on whichever two monks were in my first and second slot and Enervating on the rest, mostly because I almost certainly wouldn't want to micro that many stuns a fight. But if you're into that, 12 5sec stuns...

On the group durability comparisons, I'm pretty sure that 6 Moon Godlikes vs 6 anything else is going to make drawing any real conclusions impossible. That's pretty impressive about Rooting Pain.

No love for Minoletta's Precisely Piercing Burst at lvl 6? Does pierce damage but also comes with 10 DR bypass and checks reflex instead of deflection. But the best part is it's foe only. I've enjoyed dropping Call to Slumber once everything clumps around the front line, then running the wiz into the middle.

Nothing wrong with melee dps in a balanced group, especially if you just really want X class in the group. But as far as contribution goes I think the question would be more apt comparing melee dps to ranged dps (caster or missile weapon) rather than priest or tank.

The way I understand it, the fire damage from TR gets evaluated against 25% of the opponent DR, but what it's supposed to do is evaluate it against a percent of the opponent DR equal to the percent of the elemental damage. So a 2-wound TR should be 10% burn damage, which should be evaluated against 10% of opponent DR and 10-wound TR should be evaluated against 50% of the opponent DR. According to http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/74865-damage-bug-vs-dr/, the above isn't working correctly and all added percent damage is getting evaluated against 25% opponent DR. So you should be getting more benefit out of TR at 6+ wounds and less benefit for 4 wounds and under. Which would be great if you could control your wound counts, but it all goes back to the 12s duration. Josip, if you did go Int for FoA, that might make Rooting Pain worth it. Rooting pain's damage is lackluster at best, but maybe 6 monks spamming interrupts per wound would be interesting. I have no real opinion on stunning blows. It seemed fine when I used it, but nothing amazing without high Int and the duration is obviously atrocious if you dump Int. But in this solo, I'm doing TR, FoA, Long Stride, Duality, Crucible, Flagellant. Crucible may or may not get subbed out for something else. Flagellant might not be ideal but I just really like it. As far as caster vs melee dps, yeah...I have to rest so often in this solo playthrough as a monk, I've highly considered trying a wiz or druid instead.

Did you replace FoA on all 6? I'm curious how your wound generation is per monk on average. The undeniably great thing about TW is it's passive, but I don't know how much you micro each monk. If I were using a monk in a group as a main or offtank, I guess it's kind of a coinflip between FoA and TW. Maybe a slight edge toward TW because if I don't spend as much time microing the monk, he's at least getting some benefit and there are usually other better alternatives for CC than FoA. I'll be interested to hear how you like TW though. Still not convinced it's very good and it may just boil down to picking the least bad of the two for a group monk. As for the sextet, I probably just go with TW in your position. I doubt you're going to drop 14 points to go 18 Int and I doubt it's worth the 7 points just to get 3s more duration at 10 Int. But what do you do with all those monks in a fight? Do you micro Torment's for all 6? For solo, if it's a choice between those two, 100% FoA for me. Even at 4 Int. The push portion of the attack is attached to the damaging hit, so if that lands you at least get the knockback. Then the prone is a separate roll. So when that 7 second prone lands you're really getting 8-9 seconds out of it before the mob gets back to its previous position. It's saved my game twice recently, the last one being when I overpulled 6 wichts and thought it was doable because they have low health. It wasn't, but I was able to cc enough with knockbacks and prones to avoid the death. I'll readily admit I don't use FoA that often though. I saw some monk solo thread that didn't take it and did fine, but I have no way of knowing how much combat skipping he did whereas I'm trying some fights that I probably have no business trying and I need something in the back pocket that at least vaguely resembles an oh **** button.

Yeah it's all fairly frustrating. In your case definitely the Con. For the solo deal, I was mostly looking for a way to shave points where they could be shaved so that I didn't have 3s in stats. Not that I'm against dump stats at all. My non-solo build is all about them. What concerned me most wasn't the positive gain in one stat over Con (for instance) but in lessening the negatives from having 3s. I ended up not dumping Int because I didn't want the -14 Will. But I feel like the defensive side of the offensive stats really doesn't matter that much for a group. On the Rooting Pain thing, I was just saying that Int really does help it out. In a group I doubt it matters much, although it might be useful if you were building a passive tank monk that you just wanted to send in and not micro. Solo, I thought it would be good to be able to hit a second rank of targets. But on PotD, Rooting Pain's problem is it does somewhat low damage and doesn't benefit from Turning Wheel or the DR bypass from Vuln Attack. It's not really a stun, either, just a high interrupt. So after all that, I finally decided not to even take it for the solo build. Or TW, as mentioned in that other thread. If anyone's curious, I ended up going 18/13/10/10/10/17. I wanted to dump Int. It's not the AE or duration of FoA that made me keep it at 10. I was afraid that -14 Will would just mean eating every paralyze thrown my way. I'd never do that allocation for a group monk, though. PS. Access to 18 Silver Tides must be comedy.