Boeroer

If you go for a lot of crits (e.g. use Mental Binding + Stunning Surge) I would also argue that Veilpiercer and St. Omaku's Mercy with their recovery-skipping can lead to higher damage output. By the way is the shocking lash of EI broken or did I just have a game hickup? I skilled my char's metaphysics to 20 but the shocking lash stayed really low.

@FleetFeet: Thanks for the update!

I already said that ranged characters have an advantage when enemies stand seperate but melee do if enemies atand near together. Also with Rapid Shots you simply trade attack speed for accuracy. It's a modal that you can't just leave on if you wish to be effective since it depends on the enemy which is better (ACC or less recovery time). Thus it doesn't alter dps and therefore focus gain a lot on average. For example it's a pretty inefficient modal in the early game. Simply awful to use -15 ACC right from the beginning (dpends on the difficulty settongs though). You also need a ton of cash to buy the bow. If you compare dual fists (works right away with no money or resources) with Hunting Bow + modal (actual ingame values at 10 DEX): Hunting Bow: 0.9 sec attack speed + 4 sec recovery with modal: 0.9 sec attack speed, 2 sec recovery, -15 ACC (generally roughly estimated as -30% dmg loss on average) dps with modal: base dmg of 19 * 0.7 modal / 2.9 --> dps of 4.58. If we totally ignore the ACC then 6.55 dps without modal: 19 / 4.9 --> dps of 3.88 Fists: 0.5 sec attack speed, 1.9 sec recovery base dmg of 16.5 * 1.2 Turning Wheel / 1.9--> dps of 10.24 base dmg of 16.5 / 2.1 (no Two Weapon Style, no Turning Wheel - right from the beginning) --> dps of 7.85 If the melee guy wears the most heavy armor (+50% recovery penalty) with no pet you will end up at the same dps (roughly). Then factor in that you can't use a lot of melee abilites of the monk. And that -15 ACC is a bad thing for Stunning Surge (the only attack ability that you can use with a hunting bow), too. So clearly a melee Transcendant can potentially do more dps and gain focus faster than a hunting bow Transcendant. Essence Interrupter has great features, no doubt. Especially since you can get it as exceptional item with a lash so early in the game (if you have the cash). But while your setup def. works well and ranged monks in general can be great - it just doesn't justify to say "melee ciphers or transcendants don't work, go ranged" when somebody asks for a melee Transcendant. They totally work. And then the problem with the Essence Interrupter destroying loot - which I informed you about several times in the past.

Sure, I just wanted to be clear (for other people who might read this) that it's not a special advantage of Soul Annihilation alone but is the case with all primary attacks in combinaton with a bashing shield. So in order to keep up this effect (circumventing the bash but still profit from the shorter recovery time) you can even alternate between different primary attacks if you wish. Luckily the Monk has several alternatives. Funny somehow that the Monk turned from a Full Attack guy in PoE to a Primary Attack dude in Deadfire. By the way I consider the fact that Force of Anguish targets Fortitude instead of Deflection a nice feature. It's a good alternative against enemies who have lower fortitude than deflection (for whatever reason).

Maybe save before leveling up and try it out. Might be it got fixed, I don't know for sure. Edit: I just fired it up and did a quick console check: it's still the case. So yeah, best to stay away from Lesser Wounds as a Shattered Pillar when using the Community Patch.

You don't need Weapon Proficiency to use different weapon types (in order to apply the most effective dmg type). In that regard you could do without it. The only effect (besides Devoted's passive and Confident Aim) is that you can use a "balanced" modal that gives you additional options. Maces can lower AR for others but hit a lot slower, Morning Star lowers fortitude but does less dmg then, Sword gains +2 PEN but deflection drops. I generally like this approach. I do agree though that a) at a certain point it feels redundant because you already picked all of those you think are useful for you and b) replay value or -motivation would be increased (at least for me) if the choice were a bit more scarce. I also think that some of the modals are fantastic while others are meh. They seem to be a bit unbalanced. For example the modals of battle axe, mace, flail, club and especially morning star can be very useful while I can't see as much value in the hunting bow or great sword modal (trading one dps stat for the other).

They are not as impactful in the late game though. Their healing doesn't scale or anything.

Chilling Grave is completely broken (balance-wise). Not only does the Chillfog gain all the weapon quality bonuses (legendary) - but Grave Bound will trigger on the Chillfog-hits, paralyzing all foes in the AoE. I think it also procs Avenging Storm. And then it also generates focus. 😄

Yeah. The dual head is quite nice for a Soulblade since the first one dumps the focus as raw dmg and the second one already replenishes your focus. You can also spam other primary attacks with this setup to avoid the rel. weak bash but still use the bonus recovery of dual wielding. E.g. Force of Anguish, Forbidden Fist or Torment's Reach.

The best offense isn't very good. It also comes very late. Akola's Apex Ward is nice but you need to have -3 reputation with the Huana faction and bring down the captain+ship then. Also the retaliation effect is a bit weak. Problem with most bashing shields is that they don't scale their offensive capabilites. So dmg, PEN etc. always stay the same. I'd say the best one (offensively) is Tuotilo's Palm since its stats scale with Transcendent Suffering/Monastic Unarmed Training which makes it pretty unique. Preferably you'd use this shield with a Monk.

If you want to put yout whole focus on casting cipher powers - like you might want with an Ascendant - sure. You want to have very short recovery then. But on the other hand a melee cipher potentially generates focus more quickly even with armor. If you - for example - use Devil of Caroc's Breastplate with a pet like Abraham then your recovery isn't that bad in the first place while you will be a lot sturdier than without. Adding Body Attunement on top and you're sturdy enough yet fast enough to be a good melee character and being able to cast pretty quickly. There's also the question if you want to go armorless if you are ranged - boarding fights for example can be a nightmare if you are without armor. Get focus-fired by some gunners and you're done - no matter if back row or not. Then there is a whole cipher subclass that is supposed to go into melee combat (Soul Blade). If that wouldn't be possible its defining melee-only ability wouldn't make much sense, would it? I mean you played plenty of melee Cipher/something yourself. You wouldn't have done it if didn't work. Also you don't necessarily need to be very tanky to play melee as long as you are in a party. You just need a fitting party composition. Different story for solo of course. But I don't think that the questioner had a solo Transcendant in mind. And if you really want to combine back (or second) row and melee there's always reach weapons (first) and Instruments of Pain (later). That's still melee but with a lot less risk and not much need for thick armor.

It should get its own spell in a unique grimoire.

If this works well for you then go for it! Circle of Protection is quite cool because it stacks with deflection buffs like Shields for the Faithful. Too bad its duration is rather short. But with high INT it's nice. Shod-in-Faith boots can come in handy. Sometimes your one Consecrated Ground isn't enough. Also you might want to spare some spell uses every now and then. Getting a crit happens quite a lot as a melee Priest (low startig deflection, no shield) so the boots trigger quite often. For the health loss (Priests do have rather abysmal health for a melee setup) I would always keep some potions of Infuse with Vital Essence. To bring health back up by 50. I also used Vetaran's Recovery and stacked healing bonus gear. This helps a lot against knockouts but it won't do anything for your health. Except that those healing bonuses (Fulvano's Amulet for example) also work for the health healing of Infuse wVE (and also Wound Binding etc. - if that's an option for you).

That anecdote - if anything - is only suited to show that you didn't know how to play that particular character (which we know nothing specific about). Of course you can't storm into the enemies first with a glasscannonish Transcendant build. You picked a Helwalker which is the most squishy monk class in the first place! But that your Helwalker/Ascendant was made from wet tissue paper doesn't mean that all "ciphers are very very squishy in the front lines" in general. My anecdotal evidence clearly says that Ciphers and Transcendants can be more than sturdy enough to be played in melee and even in the front line (which is not the same). You can even build them a bit squishy - if you don't make the mistake and go in with them first (which is a suboptimal thing to do with any character who's not a real tank). You also don't throw an egg at the wall and then say "Here's my experience with round objects: they all do shatter if you throw them at walls!". Well at least I hope so... I made my arguments that show how Transcendants can be sturdy enough to be played in melee if you wish so - which you didn't comment on. I played a Shattered Pillar/Soulblade recently with Whispers of the Endless Paths and its Offensive Parry. That's all tankyness and high deflection and it's very well suited for the front line. High deflection through Borrowed Instincts and crazily stacked defense against disengagement attack makes this Transcendent build quite sturdy AND gives him a crazy high focus and wound generation due to the Offensive Parry (which generates wounds for Shattered Pillar and focus for the Soulblade and also works with Swift Flurry, Heartbeat Drumming and Turning Wheel). He can go solo against 6 CRE_Tigers and destroy them in seconds. A squishy character would just die in seconds. Transcendants don't have to be squishy. Of course it matters if you want to compare the focus generation of melee vs. ranged setup. I mean you are saying it's always better for a Transcendant to go ranged. But you don't back it up with the "why" - besides the "very, very squishy" argument which is not generally true. It's only true for your once tried cipher... So we have to compare the pros and cons of melee vs. ranged. When going ranged you will not get the burning lash of Turning Wheel which will result in lesser focus generation. So, besides the fact that melee weapons have higher dps in general you also can't generate focus as quickly with a ranged weapon as you an with a melee one (hand mortars aside) because you lack a lash. On top of that you can't even use a lot of the Monk's special abilites because most of them are melee only (see Heartbeat Drumming, Swift Flurry and more). Also Enduring Dance's ACC bonus (+12) doesn't stack with Borrowed Instinct's (+20). You can take it for the wound generation at range then, but the nice ACC part is doing nothing unless you forego Borrowed Instincts. Those are some things that have to be mentioned in order to make an informed choice. Yes - but you can have it all: Turning Wheel's lash + high MIG and INT + Ascension. And since Turning Wheel is a multiplicative dmg bonus you will profit from your MIG even more. So if you compare for example Monk's fists + Turning Wheel using Stunning Surge with Essence Interrupter + Stunning Surge (because there is no other attack ability you could use with a bow) then you can see that fists do more damage and thus produce more focus in a given time, Ascending you faster. The pro of a ranged weapon is that you don't have to move to targets which can raise the dps compared to a melee setup. If enemies are standing in a crowd the melee will do considerably more dps/focus while against enemies that stand far apart the ranged weapon might be better. The only tricks are to not build him with 3 RES and 3 CON and let the tank engage first before you go in. This is really simple. It's always good to keep real squishies in the back if you don't know how to keep them alive. However - as I showed above: a Transcendant doesn't have to be a squishy. He can have higher defenses than a single class monk and thus he can be more tanky than a single class Monk if you build him right. So you don't have to keep him in the back if you don't want to. You also wouldn't want to keep all SC Monks in the back row... You forgot that this "noob" explicitly asked for advice on a melee Transcendent. What's best then is to tell him how that can work (if it can - and it can indeed). It's ok to suggest another approach, but at the same time telling him (non-veridically) that his preferred combat style won't work just because you are searching for yet another opportunity to place your overly precious "Helwalker/Ascendant with Essence Interrupter" (let's call it "HAwEI" from now on) build is not best. It's just pushing. *** Whatever - just to give two quick examples what can be fun melee Transcendants (don't know if that's the vibe the "noob" was searching for - and most likely it's too late for that anyway since the post was already ten feet under before it got necroed by a random HAwEI): Nalpasca/Beguiler use a Morning Star + modal with Stunnig Surge --> -35 Fortitude use Secret Horrors on a group --> -45 Fortitude, most likely a lot of focus because Beguiler-refund. If focus is too low cast Phantom Foes. use Borrowed Instincts --> +20 ACC either use Force of Anguish with Swift Flurry --> targets fortitude. You now have the equivalent of +65 accuracy which leads to a crapload of crits usually. Especially on non-PotD difficulty settings. This can one-shot enemies which have lowish fortitude to start with. THen you will also gain a ton of focus because the additional attacks from Swift Flurry etc. do generate focus. Against touch ones is nice to bring down their Fortitude immensely in order to apply: Disintegrate. It targets Fortitude which usually makes it hard to use it on the big ones since those tned to have lots of it. Not if you brought it down by 45 first... If you want to specialize on Disintegrate it can make sense to use a Helwalker instead since the higher MIG works well with the DoT ticks. But of course this is more squishy. You also might want to cast Psychovampiric Shield first because its RES debuff will make the Disintegrate last a lot longer (RES influences the duration of hostile effects) To help with the Swift Flurry multiprocs you can also utilize Mental Binding. With Lingering Echoes + Monk INT bonus (eithr from Enlightened Agony or Turning Wheel) it will paralyze for a really long time and give you a 25% crit conversion against that enemy. Play this like a flanker since it's not too sturdy. You don't want to rush in first but come from the sides when the tank already engaged. Another one (very sturdy) Forbidden Fist/Beguiler max RES, high MIG and INT, generally stack all stuff that has bonus RES and -% fo hostile effects to shorten Forbidden Curse as much as possible - use Enlighened Agony (-50% duration hostile effects, -5 sec hostile effects, +5 INT). stack deflection with stuff like weapon & shield style, cape an whatnot. use a thickish armor - Devil of Caroc is sufficient though. Other nice ones are Casita Samelia's with high Intimidate skill. Aim for the Kāhako Nihi in SSS. use Iron Wheel Tuotilo's Palm + fist. Hylea's Talons. Will give you a wound once it expires on you (very short duration because of your high RES and Enlightened Agony), will put a lash on your melee attacks which increases focus gain. Lingering Echoes use Forbidden Fist ability: target is enfeebled --> -10 Fortitude and +50% duration of all hostile effects on the tartget. Stacks multiplicatively with Lingerung Echoes and high INT in the Transcendant use Stunning Surge: --> now -20 Fortitude, stun lasts a really long time because of high INT, enfeebled and Lingering Echoes use Psychovampiric Shield if the target probably has high RES (if you are a Beguiler it costs only 5 focus if you hit). This will prolong hostile effects on the nemy even further. cast Disintegrate: if you hit the Disintegrate will have a very long duration due to enfeeblement and Lingering Echoes, INT and eventually -10 RES. Go to another victm because this one will most likely die... Forbidden Fist does not generate focus in the unmodded game. Hence Beguiler. If you use the Community Patch mod it will generate focus. Forbidden Fist's Enfeeblement is a very strong tool for Transcendants because of the synergy of Lingering Echoes with high INT and the +50% duration effect. All afflictions will last a crazy long time. Like Mental Binding, Stunning Surge, Whisper of Treason, Puppet Master - you name it. You can also first charm or dominate the enemy and then cast Disintegrate. In both cases the mind control will last a very long time and DoTs don't make chamed enemies flip back alliance. So you can turn them against your foes while they are dying from the DoT. It's very effective. You can play this a bit less sturdy and reactive with a Morning Star. Fortitude debuffing will me much better but attack speed and survivability will be lower.

Or a conveyor belt full of french fries...

No, unfortunately the cone of WotEP will stay in melee (originates from player) while the initial attack will have the increased range. It can have it's merits but in general that's not the best combo. If you are using Community Patch then Shattered Pillar is fine. Just save before you consider Lesser Wounds: afaik it resets the wound limit to 5 again. Maybe it got fixed in between. Can't say. Unfortunately @MaxQuest and @Phenomenum seem to have abandoned this forum. with Community Patch Forbidden Fist is also a proper weapon attack and thus works with Swift Flurry.

Err? He didn't say anything about multiplayer. Did you misread "multiple options [for combat system]" as "multiplayer options"?

Until you get WotEP you can dual wield if you wish, sure. In the early game St. Drogga's Skull ist a very good pick for a cipher (you'll have it right from the start). Just don't take two weapon style. Whispers of the Endless Paths is a great sword (you have the parts in your ship's drawer right at the start of the game but you need to assemble it in Neketaka - you can get it quite soon) - so I would recommend Two Handed Style. The focus will come in "on the fly" and passively because you will do an immediate retaliation attack (or even two with Riposte) that generates focus if an enemy misses you in melee. Since Mirrored Image and Borrowed Instincts stack you will be missed lot. Against the usual bunch of enemies focus generation is so fast that you can use Soul Annihilation all the time. I would always use Draining Whip because Biting Whip is just awful (unless you use the Community Patch mod).

A proven and fun concept is using a Trickster/Soulblade, go for max deflection (high RES and INT are benefical, Mirrored Image, Borrowed Instincts, Psychovampiric Shield and ACC debuffs on enemies) and use Whispers of the Endless Paths with the enchantment "Offensive Parry". It will generate focus for you when enemies miss. Add in Riposte (stacks with Offensive Parry) and the fact that Soul Annihilation applies raw damage over the whole AoE cone of WotEP and you have an rather tankish yet offensively very performant build. DoTs don't break stealth or invisibility anymore by the way.

May I ask why you start the battle with Interdiction and not Inspiring (+eventually Aggrandizing) Radiance? Or even better: cast Devotions and then Radiance (since Devotions lasts a lot longer)? They do stack and in my book +10 additional party wide ACC is way better for the first CC spells etc. than a short-lived Daze effect (which might graze or even miss).

"moment of incredible cleverness" goes into my bag of funny phrases. 😄

I just recently wondered if Arcane Assault was there all along - or if it's a new addition to the game. Because I never noticed it in the Weathered Grimoire before.

Yes, the synergy of Debonaire/Beguiler I also experienced myself. Did you know that you can cast Disintegrate on a charmed enemy and it will not flip back? That's rather awesome. +50% duration almost guaranteed and no backlash. Another nice combo (especially with Community Patch which turns Forbidden Fist into a proper weapon attack) is Forbidden Fist/Cipher with Stunning Surge and a Morning Star. Enfeeble (+50% duration of hostile effects) + Stun + Body Blows + Turning Wheel's INT bonus + a potential crit with Disintegrate (-45 fortitude after all) means a really long disintegration duration. And against high RES enemies (who usually laugh about DoTs) you have Psychovampiric Shield which removes 10 RES and further prolongs Disintegration. It's a fun combo. You just "infect" enemies with that combo and go to the next.

I do find lots of misses very annoying. First of all it gives the impression that your character can't even hit the broad side of the barn - which is a bit frustrating at times. But mainly because it just prolongs fights unneccessarily. By that I mean that if enemies and player characters both play by the same rules of misses/hits/crits then the outcome of the battle (on average) doesn't change if everybody misses more - it just takes longer. I don't mind misses every now and then, but with D&D they are way to frequent for my taste. It's not that bad with a RTwP game since it's faster paced than turn based combat and thus the time you lose isn't that apparent - but jeez is it annoying when you play turn based D&D games or even tabletop P&P and you miss all the time. I mean that's my free time that I spend with hitting the air... Hence I appreciated the graze mechanic of PoE a lot. I would have liked it even more if there would have been an "quality of hit" system that is more fine-grained - where you gradually do more or less damage based on the quality of your hits - but miss/graze/hit/crit is quite easy to grasp and also suitable for tabletop games. Obsidian even decided to lower the miss chance for TB mode even more - because as I said it it's even more tedious when playing turn based. So - if Larian decides to deviate from the (for my taste) awful miss mechanics of D&D they have my support. Even if they do a RTwP game. On the other hand I didn't look at D&D 5 yet so maybe it's not as bad (in my book) as it used to be?

Are you sure it didn't destroy loot? Because often players don't exactly know which loot is supposed to drop. And you don't miss stuff that you know nothing about in the first place. It is not a bug that occurs 100% of times. But it does still occur. After patch 4 or so I tested it and it seemed to be fixed. But then later I tried it again (just recently) with Nomu the Marauder who drops Chamaeleon's Ring. I shot him dead with Essence Interrupter (including crit and then death) several times and several times the Ring didn't drop. Killing him without the bow gave me the ring 100% of times (it's not a random drop). So even if it doesn't occur all the time it's still there. And I guess it will stay. Community Patch didn't touch Essence Interrupter. I also guess the bug is too deep in the code for a mod to fix it. Edit: I just now tried it again and killed Nomu several times with EI. This time the loot dropped. It may be that this bug does not occur in every playthrough - like the stuttering bug (the one where you command your party member to execute an ability but instead the ability keeps getting abandoned and reexecuted in an infinite stuttering loop until you cancel). In some playthroughs you might have it, in others it will not occur once. So it may totally be the case that you can play with EI and not lose loot. I would still be careful though and try it out on bounties and bosses before fully committing myself to the bow. I mean you can also reload and try again should you experience loot destruction. But maybe that can become a bit tedious. And the uncertainty is unnervig as well. Another possibility is that it got secretly fixed recently without any patch notes. Don't think so because patching's supposed to be over, but silent fixes like that did happen in the past.