Boeroer

Yes, as long as you are not picking the benevolent/diplomatic stuff you're safe. You want to pick cruel or rational from time to time to get Faith & Devotion/Deep Faith to the max. Rational is easy enough. Cruel sometimes hurts - but there are enough situations where you can be cruel to some douchebags like Benweth and such - so that's ok I guess. Maxing RES is a good idea. Every additonal point of deflection has increasing returns, so the more the better. He can be the tank most of times (i played him solo long enough) - but I would not let him tank all alone all the time. He's great against most melee enemies, especially the numerous but weaker ones - but obviously he's nothing special against ranged enemies or spellcasters. Additional frontliners might be helpful.

found some pictures of it: Animated gif (50MB!):

I guess it's the oomphteen's time I come up with this (and forum members might want to crucify this orlan), but Steel Garrote/Bloodmage with Whispers of the Endless Paths and maxed out deflection (bracers, cloak, armor etc. all with deflection buffs) is a lot of fun. Key trick is that Offensive Parry causes dazed on enemies and that automatically unlocks the Steel Garrote's draining with further Offensive Parries. While Offensive Parry is triggering, dazing enemies, doing a bit of dmg and healing you at the same time, you can cast your spells and use Blood Sacrifice. Arcane Knights are tanky as heck anyways, but this one can tank, heal the damage from Blood Sacrifice and deal melee dmg at the same time. Besides that the usual Paladin/Caster synergies apply: Eternal Devotion works with spells, Paladin's AR passive bonuses stack with Wizard's active ones, passive defense buffs stack with Wizard's active ones and so on.

Iirc it has its own scaling which is pretty potent. But maybe better test it - I used it a looong time ago and only as backup weapon for my Mortar Monk.

As I said I have no idea how it works in TB mode, but if you spam it 10 times you also get damaged 10 times. At higher levels that may work, at lower levels if may mean you knock yourself out.

For Hylea's Talons you have to hit the enemies, not the other way round. They also add a 5% slashing lash to your melee attacks which is awesome to have anyway. As a Fighter/Monk you only can gain Mortification via Stunning Surge (as a refund) and the Brilliant Inspiration (see Cipher's Ancestor's Memory for example). You can get +2 Mortification from Mortification Bindings (gloves) and +2 from Devil of Caroc Breastplate. Mortification of the Soul only costs health, nothing else (its costs are listed as 0 Mortification).

I think every Monk subclass is better than vanilla except Xoti's, but you do you. The most consistent wound flow you would have with a Nalpasca by the way. You can use the following stuff to gain wounds as a Fighter/Monk: Mortification of the Soul (don't know if it's a free action in TB) Dance of Death/Enduring Dance: 1 wound every 3 secs as long as you don't get hit (several times). Hylea's Talons: puts a mild DoT on you which will generate wounds. They do not end Dance of Death (no self dmg does). Parting Sorrow: if you engage an enemy and he breaks engagement you gain a wound. This can also be forced with terrify effects. Terrified enemies will crawl around like headless chicken, disengaging in the process Usually Hylea's Talon's and the hits from enemies are enough to let you not starve.

Good question, I don't remember. I think it has no proficiency, but I'm not sure.

If you want to stick to Great Sword at all times pick Devoted. Then Disciplined Strikes, Swift Flurry, Raised Torment, Mob Stance, Turning Wheel, Thunderous Blows, Enervating Blows, Enduring Dance*, Armored Grace, Clear Out, Instruments of Pain*, Heartbeat Drumming. Rest what you like. Enduring Dance is great once you get Instruments of Pain: you can use melee attack from range and thus won't get hit a lot. The added ACC and wounds from End. Dance come in handy, especially with a Swift-Flurry build. Clear Out targets fortitude, so you should use Raised Torment and Enervating Blows in order to debuff fortitude by 20 to raise the chance of crits.

And then we'll have to keep in mind that those spells gain less PL scaling - or was that already included in your analysis?

Again: Cobra Strike is a ranged weapon. So WP: Stiletto sounds rather funny. Scepter or Wand would be better imo.

Forbidden Fist with max RES (+ items and food that reduces hostile effect duration) is great. Tanky and offensively capable. Note that the enfeebled effect (which gets applied by the Forbidden Fists titular ability "Forbidden Fist" (who would have thought? Not me...) will not only lower Fortitude by 10 points and prevents healing completely it also prolongs all hostile effects on the enemy which is great for all CC and DoT stuff. I don't know how that works in TB mode but on RTwP it's really great.

Exactly. I think if you have some great alpha striker in the party who can kill one enemy (who can leave a corpse) very quickly at the start of the encounter this spell is just fun as hell. The base dmg per m² is unmatched I think. That sounds good. One doesn't really value the sickening effect because a Chanter can have stuff like The Long Night's Drink which applies weakened and MIG debuff via chant.

Because its base damage is very high for a PL 1 2 ability, the size of the AoE is enormous and you determine which corpse will explode. The AoE that gets displayed originates from the corpse you target with the mouse. That one will explode, damaging all enemies in the big circular AoE. The really annoying part is that it sometimes fails which makes it unreliable and thus unattractive. Making it auto-hit might be a double-edged sword because then maybe not only the "attack on corpse" will auto-hit but the explosion as well? What do you think?

Depends on the threshold and how much abilities cost. You can't compare it to Cipher because Cipher powers cost at least ten times more focus than Monk abilities cost wounds. Keep in mind that most of the Monk stuff only costs 1 or 2 wounds while the Cipher stuff starts with 10 focus and even raises per Power Level. The old Shattered Pillar generated wounds with all melee damage (ability use included) and that had to be nerfed because it was way too good. But after the auto-attack nerf they should have raised the cap back to 10. The Community Patch "fixes" that - besides my icons another reason why it's totally inexcusable that you didn't already install it.

Nope. It's pretty simple.

White Worms is very good? The only thing that's stupid about it is that it fails to work every now and then because it seems you have to succeed at a hidden hit roll against the corpse(?).

Raised Torment's AoE does not proc weapons' on-hit/-crit effects and doesn't apply ability or modal effects like Clear Out does.

I don't play TB mode so I can't say. Sounds like it could be useful though - like Into the Fray which I also don't use much in RTwP but which seems to be good in TB.

Note that stuff like Vigorous Defense or Llengrath's Safeguard which add +x to all defenses stacks with active buffs that add +y to deflection.

Yeah, "with very little investment" is the part that's truly neat.

Ah oops. 😅

Okaaay! I tested those three items which say "from stealth" with WotW, Vanishing Strikes, Shadowing Beyond and Smoke Veil. Here's the outcome: Mask of the Grotto Deep: WotW: yes Vanishing Strikes: yes Smoke Veil: no Shadowing Beyond: no Ajamuut's Stalking Cloak: WotW: yes Vanishing Strikes: yes Smoke Veil: no Shadowing Beyond: no Lover's Embrace: WotW: no Vanishing Strikes: no Smoke Veil: no Shadowing Beyond: no @AndreaColombo's run is safe I'd say.

I guess so then. The description of the Stalking Cloak explicitly says stealth - like with Lover's Embrace and Mask of the Grotto Deep which also only work from stealth for me but not from rogue invisibility. Although I didn't test those with WotW either.

Empowering Muātu would be my preferred reward. He's a decent summon to begin with an the power-ups make a difference. To me, stuff like +2 ACC against beasts etc. doesn't.