Boeroer

??? You simply sneak to a group of enemies and do a Stunning Surge or Flagellant's Path with mortars and you are ascended. Skip reloading and immediately start an ascended Amplified Wave or something. Besides that dual mortars are not that much slower compared to a Hunting Bow with modal - due to 30% from dual wielding and 15% from two weapon style. It's not 50% recovery time, but it's not very slow either. Plus you can skip reload and immediately do a Flagellant's Path again. It's like skipping recovery entirely between Stunning Surge and Flagellant's Path. Tons and tons of focus and often all enemies in range are already dead. You can't build focus faster than that with a Helwalker/Ascended (if there are several enemies). If you want to take out casters in he back line - that's fine. But it is neither the fastest way to build focus nor is it the best way to shut down casters. If you want to do both with one character then it's fine of course.

Mortars' damage type (for the AoE) is pierce/slash. On average that's as useful as having pierce/shock. Enduring Dance gives you +12 ACC. Hunting Bow Modal substracts 15. You end up at -3. Add the inherent +5 for all Hunting Bows and you have +2. But if you'd just turn off the modal against high defense enemies you'd have +17 ACC. And that will most certainly lead to more damage against a foe with high defenses. Against normal enemies the modal is nice - but here I argue that dual mortars would lead to a much faster ascension (usually one Full Attack from my tests from stealth). Remember that one of the mortars has a build-in jump that nearly doubles the damage per shot if the enemies stand near each other. Doesn't matter though. If you like to stick to the bow (which is indeed nice) that's totally fine. Mortar everything is kind of boring. But they are so damn effective...

You can also add a single class Furyshaper. Afaik his blood ward stacks with Old Siec...

If you didn't use Clarity and your 35 INT comes from items instead, why did you write ? However - I still think with +10 INT you will be better off using mortars most of the time (also because you can skip reloading and start casting powers immediately once ascended): The AoE grows exceptionally big and makes you hit a lot of enemies. Even with low PEN you will generate focus faster than with Essence Interrupter (by the way: mortar and hunting bow have the same base PEN). Against single foes the bow is the better pick of course because dual damage and higher base. But then you wouldn't want to trigger the modal. Edit: removed brainfart about Crippling Strike.

Not really. That is not correct. There is no druid subclass that is suited better for dealing damage with beast and plant spells (Plague of Insects, Venombloom and many others) than the Ancient. Combine with Spine of Thicket Green and Nature Godlike (both fit beautifully) and you'll have an awesome damage dealer who can also heal well and do good CC. That is not correct either. Theo only thing that works on kith only is the charm. The other bonuses (e.g. 100% hit to crit chance against charmed enemies) always work. If you multiclass with let's say a Wizard and have a Cipher or Chanter in he party you can AoE-charm enemies and then do a friendly fire AoE on all charmed enemies with the Debonaire. You will get all crits. That's pretty nice actually since casters tend to have PEN issues and crits solve most of these issues. Also make sure you take crit damage bonus stuff. You've to build around it though. But it's a subclass after all. It's ok if it is niche. Forbidden Fist is even weaker than Shattered Pillar - and that's something. Furyshaper is good. The wards are very helpful. The frenzy ward stacks its speed with everything (making you that fastest Barbarian/caster there is) and the fear ward is very powerful as CC effect. Priest of Woedica is great. Check out the unique spells! Also the summoned fists used to scale with level AND Monastic Unarmed Training. I don't know how/if that got fixed/nerfed. Psion is indeed a bit meh. If they'd remove the part "focus generation stops when gets hit" it would be decent.

You can cast Champion's Boon on yourself as well.

I wouldn't say that Rogues have no eye-popping high level powers. Vanishing Strike and Gamit for example are very, very good. You could give Edér two hand mortars (yeah, again those things, I know) and do this (single class rogue):

No, they don't stack. So no 35 INT for your Monk. At least not because of Turning Wheel + Clarity of Mind. But it's possible to reach 34 rel. easily with items (headger +2 INT + amulet +2 INT) and Turning Wheel. I don't think OP really played this character but mostly theorycrafted it. Which is fine. But some minor flaws in your build idea only become visible when you actually play a build (a bit longer). So they don't stack BUT: Clarity of Mind will always give you +5 INT even if your wound count drops below 5. Kind of a backup. So Turning Wheel and Clarity of Mind are not completely redundant. The change from Turning Wheel to melee only is stupid. I understand that they wanted to remove it from spells etc. But why are ranged weaons now excluded? Long Pain is a monk ability which can't profit from Turning Wheel now...

The quest is done pretty shicily, but I don't get too annoyed by such things. It's meh,yeah - but everybody is allowed to have a bad day or two, even designers.

Ah yes. I only remembered the short (or non-existent) recovery time. 3 seconds casting time is something of course.

I judge it by my single class mortar monk: the important part is the INT. The lash was pretty nice though. But the important part is Stunning Surge and Flagellant's Path with big AoE, not the lash.

Hehe - right. Also Robust on a Dragon should make it more... robust. Oh and patch 4.1 didn't fix the summons issue.

Why melee? Why not "weapon"? Now a monk who uses the Long Pain cannot profit from Turning Wheel - and Iron Wheel is not that useful for a ranged monk. Bummer!!!

By the way: do you guys prefer to use Dagger + modal (high bonus but melee only) or hatchets (lower bonus,but universal). Or do you switch from hatchet + large shield if you get fired at to dagger + medium shield once you get attacked in melee?

The question is "with what?".

Oh, good point. The Defiant Apparel (starting equipment) has a resistance to PER afflictons and will downgrade Blind to Disoriented. Since Disoriented has a 50% recovery penalty you will (more than) nullify your Heatig Up recovery bonus though.

By the way the most fun I had with an Assassin/Priest of Skean although it might not be the most powerful combo in terms of dps or so. But it's powerful on its own - because you can grind encounters. When I was able to sneak up on encounters I always did with this guy and shot some enemies dead and retreated to invisibility (stops combat) and repeated that. My other party members would just wait as backup. And when I had the impression that I assassinated enough I would just lure then to my party and *bam*.

Yes, you can manage the PL loss and you are both right that the most important part is the beginning of an encounter. I just wanted to point out that shifting and summoning a weapom can be a drawback for a Lifegiver.

If you summon the rod or shift your healings over time will immediately lose their PL bonuses from the Spine of Thicket Green. You'll gain +5 from shifting. But If you then also shift back and summon rod you will lose a TON of power level - also on active heals. The drawbacks of shifting as a Livegiver...

They are very strong. It's easy to do with Blunderbusses + Powder Burns because you'll Distract yourself (Distracted contains Flanked) with every shot. Besides that it's pretty difficult to get flanked and not get knocked out quickly as a "rogueish" Streetfighter who focuses on offense. But you can do it without too much pain when you build him defensively - meaning high AR and/or wearing a shield and doing a multiclass that gives you more sturdyness (Fighter, Paladin, maybe Chanter). Or combining it with a Priest (either as multiclass or in a party setup) who can cast Barring Death's Door and Salvation of Time on you. That way you can easily trigger Flanked and Bloodied and not die. Escape once the "can't die" buff expires. I personally like the Streetfighter/Paladin Combo. Especially with Goldpact you gain substantial sturdyness despite being flanked. The fat armor will slow you down, but your recovery bonus is huge as well. On top you'll have the higher Sneak Attack damage. I also started a run with a single class Streetfighter and dual mortars (what else) and that is (in my opinion) absolutely great. I play him like a melee guy but without the need to really get flanked (since I use Powder Burns). I use Smoke Veil and Hand Mortar's Blinding Smoke to substitute Persistent Distraction (which doesn't work with ranged weapons). Arterial Strike and Toxic Strike in an AoE are great and Gambit with Mortars is crazy (due to some internal Guile-calculations which go bonkers). One reason why one might want to go single class: Vanishing Strike gives you an invisibility which doesn't break. This means you get Backstabs all the time while it lasts. Not only great with mortars but also melee weapons. BUT: once you are invisible you will lose the flanked status (if you were "really" flanked). Distracted stays. So maybe one can do this once health is below 50%: you will keep the "Heating Up" status but get untouchable while doing speedy Backstabs.

With the current summon bug (lots of summons don't scale properly) you might want to wait for the new 4.1 patch and see if that got fixed. I'm playing a party with two Rangers atm (and two melee guys) and find myself in the situation that I have too many bodies in the front line. So maybe consider only playing ranged or reach chars when you plan to have three animal companions (and additional summons) on the field. Besides that some general thoughts on summons: I find the best summons tend to be the Wizard's Pantoms because they get all your gear (including summoned weapons which will not run out). Unfortunately they can't use any active abilities (including weapon modals) - but two Blackbows on the field instead of one (for example) is pretty nice. Also (as I reported earlier) Concelhaut's Draining Touch doesn't get removed after a hit if a summon uses it. It's the melee weapon with the highest base damage, does corrode damage and targets Will instead of Deflection. Monk's Summons are short-lived but also get your gear except weapons. If you are wearing Effigy's Husk with the enchantment that does raw dmg in an AoE on unconsciousness and send both summons to die they will both trigger that effect - which can be pretty effective. There's also a Cloak of the Falling Star that does this. And I think some other item (Mantle of the Seven Bolts I believe). The Great Sword Effort can also be enchanted to do a Full Attack on K.O. Monk's summons won't get it but Essential/Substantial Phantoms do. As do the Living Illusions from Shroud of the Phantasm... Other nice effects on summons is Wild Growth of the Ancient. It only affects summoned beasts and primordials. I didn't test Maura's Tentacles or Xoti's Vines, but I guess it works on them. What I tried was Chanter's primordials summons (Mushroom) and it worked on them. Making your summons robust and bigger is cool. The animal companions are pretty equal I think. I like Takedown Combo best - if you pair it with a high base dmg attack (like Killing Bolt or Sunlance or so) it can do some serious damage while the enemy is also knocked down. So in my opinion: if you have an animal companion you should also have somebody who can deliver a fat blow. I didn't check what happens with DoT like Disintegration if it gets combined with Takedown Combo. I guess not much...

Afaik Enervating Blows only works with melee weapon attacks. I did the Witch Doctor build in this forum which uses the Long Pain (ranged fists) and even those don't trigger it (because non-melee). Rooting Pain is an AoE attack that neither counts as melee nor as weapon attack. But it can trigger Resonant Touch charges if it does enough dmg (e.g with a crit vs. low crush DR).

Good catch. Maybe it's not that much of a problem since it's a fast cast anyway and only triggers once you become bloodied. But I guess it's not intended.

It's good. Especially with the Staff of Thicket Green. Also the modal helps a bit more with the melee attackers (in combo with the Illusions). I only did console-testing with it though.

To be fair (towards myself ): I mention Morning Star when somebody asks for a good weapon choice for fighter, barb or monk (or Geomancer or Ranger)/how to debuff Fortitude/good two handed weapon. I don't mention Morning Star if somebody wants to know... don't know... which dual wieldig setup his Devoted should pick or something. And I even apologize for mentioning it so often (even though it fits). Same with mortars by the way. Another Edér build I did was "Master of DoTs" where I stacked as many DoT effects as possible: Bleeding Cuts (Battle Axes), Deep Wounds, Arterial Strike, Gouging Strike, Ring the Bell, Toxic Strike. Those do all stack with each other (not necessarily with themselves though). Then I did "Full-Attack+Full-Attack and charged to another enemy while the first one bleeded out (if still alive). Also pretty good against tougher guys with high AR because the raw DoTs keep being... raw... So, not so different from OP's approach. It's pretty fun.