Braven

Ah, I thought they overwrote each other. In that case the linger does help, but only if the shield lasts 6 seconds or so before getting used up. I kind of like the idea of a minimum intelligence chanter in order to avoid the temptations of Dragon Thrashed. Just let your summons do your dirty work while you stay in your nice, iron shell.

I got it. First you knock the orlan wizard prone while the wizard is wearing a +50 to defenses while prone/stunned shield and another piece of equipment with that enchantment (they stack for +100 to all defenses). You can then use a will attack on them (which will miss), triggering defiant resolve.

DR reduction is slightly less valuable for rogues because they have high damage multipliers from abilities like sneak attack and deathblows which makes DR less problematic. With high damage, attack speed becomes more powerful. Vulnerable attack comes with a speed penalty and no stilettos have the speed enchantment which can harm attack speed. While DR-bypass is always nice, at somepoint in may not be worth the cost in lower attack speed (as far as optimal DPS). However, It is always always good early and maybe the best (before deathblows). In other words, it is good as long as you are not sacrificing something better. If you want an enchantment like Draining for better survivablity, stillettos are quite nice. They also get a +4 additional accuracy boost from a plot talent in white march giving them a nice midgame boost. In the white march, there is the Vent pick stilleto. It’s best use case is with rogue because the Flames of Devotion lash synergizes best with high damage multipliers.

I have been thinking about my never-ending quest to build a better invincible character in a hypothetical never-ending battle (solo). It is well established that you can get insane endurance regeneration eventually with a Chanter (with the kindness chant adding 100% healing multiplier, and the fact veterans and the two chanter specific talents stack). However, because the talents are duration-limited, they will eventually stop. So, I have been thinking about ways to have a more sustainable damage mitigation that has no duration limit and is able to keep pace with damage. Here is my idea: Str: 21 Con: 18 Dex: 3 Per: 8 Int: 10 Res: 18 - The level 4 chant, "Her courage thick as steel", provides a "30 damage shield". At level 16, this should only take 5 seconds to refresh. You also don't need intelligence to use it since we don't care about the linger time. When compared with the DOT endurance, it is equivalent to 18 endurance Regen per tick and it doesn't use health making that non-limiting factor and it can be used over and over again, indefinitely. - Dying Boar Cloak for +5 regeneration, to help cover any damage that manages to get past the damage shield and our defenses. I am not sure if it stacks with the +1 regen of the belt or scars armor (I know the belt and armor don't stack), but that could be a bit more too. - You can effectively get a 145% healing multiplier from might, a belt, and survival. This makes the Dying Boar mantle heal for +12.5 endurance per tick. Combined with the damage shield, that is 30.5 damage per 3 seconds mitigated, most of which doesn't count against the health pool. - To increase DR, we use The Champion invocation (you should have enough Intelligence to have its duration last through your phrases). It provides +10 DR. Plate armor provides another +20 eventually with legendary enchantment. Second Skin provides +2. At low endurance, we get another +15% from the iron circle ring. - Defenses are great. Mantle of the Dying boar gives +15 will, max might and con give high fortitude, and the shield helps reflex. We invest all talent points for defense. With the speed-enchanted hatchet, we can get a bit more deflection and, combined with The Champion invocation, a less painful recovery. No recovery bar with the swift-action gauntlets, if faster attack speed is desired. Question: Does retaliation effects fire off when the damage shield is hit? Does DR mitigate the damage it absorbs? If retaliation works, it could make fire godlike an interesting option. ---------- This character won't kill anything very quickly at all, but is he unkillable even in a 10 minute fight? Would incoming damage ever outpace the damage shield, dying boar, and DR mitigations? Another variation is to dump INT and place it all into Perception or Dex. With high dex, you could just stick with summoning invocations that don't use intelligence or perception. With high perception, you could go with the freezing spells for damage which don't need intelligence. You give up the 10 DR from the invocation, but gain additional reflex defense; the defense most susceptible to burst damage.

The key to playing rogue is to apply afflictions to your enemies that allow sneak attack and deathblows. Deathblows is available at level 11 and is the main draw of the class. It allows for higher damage multipliers than any other class allowing for a very high DPS in the late game. Stealth is not specific to rogues; any class can stealth equally well and it is mainly for stealing and avoiding enemies. Same with mechanics; rogues are no better than anyone else at finding secrets, disabling traps, or opening doors. The one unique thing rogues can do with stealth is back stab. However, you don’t actually need high stealth for this as you just need to queue up the attack before enemies see you, actually performing it from stealth is not required. One problem with backstab is that many key fights start with a scripted conversation bubble that prevents back stab from working. It is also only one attack generally per encounter (though there are some ways to increase this) and requires a talent. The main problem with rogues is staying alive. The health and endurance pools for rogues are small and they have bad starting deflection. You will die a lot if you don’t do anything to compensate. Here are some ways, but they will all lower your DPS. 1) Wear plate armor. Not very rogue like thematically but it helps to stay alive. 2) Max out CON stat. 3). Use endurance draining weapons. Of all classes rogues are best with these type of weapons. Note: this won’t help if you are disabled (prone, stunned, etc) and burst damage can still take you out. 4) Take abilities like escape to get away if you start getting targetted. 5) get passive healing like Veterans recovery talent along with healing multipliers, like the survival skill and some equipment provides. This is only useful with good might and int stats, though. 6). Use a shield (though it sounds like you want dagger like weapons). Bashing shields are quite good with rogues, though. For weapons (sticking with dagger theme): There is a stilleto you can get pretty early with the draining enchantment. It is basically like a dagger. This is good paired with the march steel dagger, also available pretty early. Put the dagger in your primary hand and all of your full attacks will get extra speed. Even earlier there is a nice stilleto with a on-crit effect available in the first town smithy.

So it acts like a lash, basically, but with fixed damage. 50% net damage increase makes sense if it is the only additive damage multiplier. Is it increased if the fox’s Might is buffed (from a priest or such)?

Over time, you may get more criticals by duel-wielding just because the faster you attack, the more total attacks you have and thus have more opportunities to critically hit. I am not sure the math on this though. This is particularly true with rogues who already have hit-to-crit conversions making slightly lower accuracy still work. This works best after durgan steel which provides a big boost in both speed and crit conversion. Another option, if you want to stun, is to have a weapon with the disorient enchant in your other hand (or a friendly party member attacking the same enemies). This reduces all enemy defenses helping you both land the crit and pass the followup fortitude check while still allowing your attack speed to not suffer. Strikehard is good for this since it also has the speed enchant. If you place it in your primary weapon slot, all of the rogue’s many full attacks will have a lower recovery time since only the primary weapon’s recovery is checked. Sadly, the offhand weapon attacks first so the debuff doesn’t happen until after the full attack completes if they didn’t already have it. If you want only one weapon, for roleplaying purposes or just change of pace, stunning is good. There are some, but they are all available pretty late in the game. A great thing with stunning is that it helps activate sneak attacks and deathblows now. Otherwise, I would just do a small one-hander with speed. There is a dagger and rapier available early that fit a rogue well thematically. Their is also a draining stiletto and rapier. Again, looks great and while lower DPS, it helps survivability. Draining weapons work best with high, non-lash, damage and works pretty good with rogues.

Oh wow, guess it is good. Slows enemies too. Shield cipher sounds good. No real downsides at all. By the way, I discovered a really neat trick with cipher. You can actually cast that vampiric shield power outside of combat by targeting yourself. It will drain your resolve and give you +25 deflection over a long duration. Outside of combat, the focus immediately replenishes, so it costs nothing so you can use all of your initial powers casting charms or mental binding instead at the start of battle. The resolve loss sounds bad, but if you dumped resolve and only have 3, you only lose 2 resolve since you can’t go below 1 in any stat. Basically you get 23 net deflection for free. This is really great for a shielded, defensive cipher. They don’t really need concentration anyways if enemies mostly graze and the rest disabled with your crowd control spells. Also, you can keep casting vampiric shield until you crit yourself for maximum duration.

I think several really nice big weapons are available early: Tidefall, Hours of St. Rumbalt, Tallgrass, Temperecal(...yes I probably misspelled it...), Spectacular Spetum, Firebrand... I meant, large one-handers by “big weapons”. My original comparison was between faster and slower one-handers. Two-handers are a different comparison, but similiar in that high damage multipliers and low enemy DR favor duel-wielding. Low damage multipliers and High DR favor two-handed. On-Crit effects are worse early game because your accuracy is not high enough to critical hit at a high rate (though enemies are also weaker, so maybe good still). Two-handers are generally good early-mid game because everyone has low damage multipliers. The best part is they require no extra talents to be good. Talents are few early game. For large one-handed, I like shatterstar which can be bought at start of Act 2. Good early and interrupting is less reliant on super high accuracy. Other than that... not really any I can think of. Oh, there is also the vile loner spear which is nice.

Shields are good soloing. You can reach zero recovery with sword of daeneyes and a shield. With gloves of swift action, durgan steel, and outlanders frenzy you can wear up to leather. When it expires, you are still pretty fast or there is always time parasite. Should have focus by then. The advantage of duel weapons is the ability to get vulnerable attack without speed loss and not rely on abilities like frenzy. +5 damage is not worth the loss of deflection/reflex for a fragile cipher, in my opinion. Your modifiers are so high that in the late game you do not need DR-bypass to still make a fast small weapon out-DPS (and the rapier comes with 3 bypass anyway) and not taking it saves a talent. Another option is to open with a big gun shot, switch to shield, cast time paradite. That is +50% speed so you can even wear plate armor or use vulnerable attack with zero recovery. That said, in my cipher run, I preferred my focus for boosting defenses and Crown control. Parasite is focus-expensive and has a short duration. I like the march steel dagger; don’t forget that! It is simple to get and available early. Remember, daggers have an extra +4 accuracy from the white march perk, is a different damage type, and can eventually be upgraded to legendary and still have a lash as well as the speed enchant.. Also, rapiers and daggers share noble weapon focus. Otherwise, maybe I would consifer the flail. But then you are stuck with just crush damage or you give up weapon focus’s accuracy.

For ciphers, the argument can be made that lower dps, but more consistent DPS, is better since less focus is much better than no focus. The dual damage type large one hander, or two handed weapon is better for consistency. Particularly is you are a newer player who doesn’t know where high DR enemies are to know when to switch weapons. I have no idea why non-backstab rogues don’t use light weapons. They should. Though Tidefall is also very good for a rogue. I think actually better because the endurance drain is great for a squishy rogue and massive because of their high damage. They can also get away with low/dumped int which is good with wounding.

Regarding bittercut vs speed rapiers. The rapier has -3 DR, +5 accuracy, and speed. Without a potion, speed enchant and dual weapons is the only way to get vulnerable attack with no speed penatly late game without consumables and if you used consumables tidefall is better anyway making this comparison moot. In fact, you can take vulnerable attack and still have more speed than bittercut without vulnerable attack because the speed bonus is applied multicatively and vulnerable attack is a simple additive penalty. This allows you to also wear heavier armor, compared to a bittercut dual wield. Bittercut has +40% additive damage bonus (with talent) and two damage types (variable DR bypass). I think the -8 guaranteed DR-bypass and 5 accuracy is roughly as good as bittercut’s enchants, but it will vary from fight to fight. Sure, the -8 bypass might be overkill sometimes for very low DR enemies, but those are the ones that benefit the most from small weapons on the damage charts so small still has an advantage. Bittercut also has a couple per rest abilities, but It also has a -20 penalty to poison and sickness attacks. A lot of attacks check against this, including the annoying paraylzing dart throwers in the white march.

Best weapon for DPS varies based on DR, attack speed, and total damage multipliers. Many people assume large damage multipliers favor big weapons over small ones, but the opposite is true because in those cases attack speed is more important. Exception is the paladin FoD monsterlash and barbarian heart of fury, if it hits many enemies. That still favors big weapons, but only because you only get two of them per battle and has a ton of lashes (paladin) or several instant attacks (barbarian). The advantage of small weapons is small enough that it would take many follow up auto attacks to make up the lower initial damage burst. If you are okay with slamming down potions that give you +50% attack speed every encounter and wearing a robe, two handers like Tidefall will always be best. If you auto attack without consumables, small weapons are best (generally) in the late game for characters with a lot of damage multipliers; particularly ciphers and rogues. Other classes with low might or few class-based multipliers are better off with large one handers or two-handers (if facing mid-high DR enemies)

Novice suffering at level 2 and vulnerable at level 4. That would be very nice! I also like going with just a single one-handed weapon in Act 1. +12 is a huge boon and better hit quality results in higher damage multiplier which helps light weapons more so. With vulnerable attack, that 3-7 early DR breakpoint is pretty easy to reach.

Yep, the early game is where big weapons shine for all classes. Ironically, the good big weapons are available late when they are less effective while the good small weapons are available early. The redeeming factor for small weapons early is that vulnerable attack is most effective early (or super late if it effectively had no penalty). This is because DR is more harmful with less damage multipliers. Also speed enchanted small weapons are available much sooner than the hammer and axe and synergizes great with vulnerable attack. Only small weapons have the accuracy increases which are particularly helpful early. With those advantages, small weapons I think still outperform larger ones most of the time in ACT 2 and the advantages continue increasing into the late game. (Paladin and gun alpha strikes, aside) By the way, barbarian with vulnerable attack at level 4 is really powerful. The higher accuracy of light weapons combined with DR bypass of vulnerable attack make carnage much more effective (and possible speed enchant to offset vulnerable attack and even more DR bypass). The damage penatly is also less impactful on light weapons because of the lower base damage. You just need bypass to get rid of DR. Heart of Fury is not available yet so you are just auto-attacking so that is not a factor.

A retailation monk would work well, with a “want to be hit” equipment setup. Torments reach is still good for the extra lash with the high base damage of firebrand or go with FoA for occassional disables; FoA is less micro since you just use it when in trouble. Otherwise you can auto attack and passively use wounds for the fire lash and DR reduction, which doesn’t require babysitting. It should out damage tidefall and not have the annoying wound interaction with intelligence. The biggest issue with firebrand is no durgan no swift action gloves resulting in a slow attack speed in the late game. Great for act 2, though. Though just using fists is good for danage too in act 2 and doesn’t require a glove slot, extra talents, and is not limited to 3 uses per rest. Dual weapon and vulnerable attack with fists will be better against low DR targets. So firebrand’s purpose is high DR.

Ciphers are a great choice with light weapons, at least if they focus on disables. Mental binding is a huge deflection debuff, and the 1st level blinding and charm are not bad (-20 for stuck, -40 for paraylze, -20 blind, -25 charm). When I played cipher, I critical hit 100% of the time because of the massive paraylze debuff on enemies combined with the naturally high accuracy of rapiers and dahgers (daggers have +9 with free plot talent). For the MC, that is a +130% modifer after durgan, merciless hand, and dungeon delvers. Combined with the class specific talents and soulwhip and DR always favors light weapons, even enemies with the highest DR. Also, the speed is helpful tactically since you can get cipher powers out quicker (right before a nasty spell animation completes or a debuff ends because your current attack finishes faster). Regarding dual weapon types, I don’t find it a problem with pierce weapons. The rapier with speed also has 3 dr bypass. Stilletos are also good for this reason too. Most of the time, the difference between DRs is around 5 or less. Sometimes there is no difference and you gain no benefit from dual damage. The DR bypass weapons always benefit. If there is a 5DR spread, it is only 2 DR worse. If the DRs are the same, it is 3 better. Over time it evens out to roughly the same advantages without weapon switching. There are a couple extreme differences in DR, but they are few and far between. Pierce in particular has less issues I feel. Fire elementals are the only immune enemies and they are weak anyway, and there are no dangerous enemies with high pirece DR. I think that was on purpose because ranged characters rely so much on pierce since all guns and bows have that weapon type. Veteran players know where these enemies are and can switch weapons before the encounter. Because “noble” weapon focus has daggers, rapiers, and maces, you have all damage types covered. For rogue, the main purpose of their full attacks is to trigger sneak attack, deathblow, and debuff enemies. Most only have a minor damage bonus which is relatively insignificant for rogue. In a trival battle, fast weapons let you unleash them out quicker for higher DPS and damage mitigation. In a drawn out encounter, fast weapons also win out because of auto attacking DPS. There is only a very thin band between those where large weapons are better. Fighters also do full attacks for the disables; the damage bonus is very minor and charge has its own base damage. Most fighter attacks are auto-attacks. This is true for all characters if they focus on zero recovery. It is really only paladin that likes the big alpha strike and FoD monster lash benefits a lot from higher base damage. I think the reason players like big weapons in general is because people naturally like to see big numbers; it is very psychologically satisfying. Also big weapons look a lot cooler.

One other note: The damage drops off very quickly after those break points (exponential curve drop-off as the DR increases) which is why it is really noticeable with small weapons when attacking enemies with high DR early in the game before better accuracy, crit multipliers, and quality enchantments. Interestingly, rogues benefit the most from small weapons yet people like to use sabers or other big weapons thinking that the higher base damage is better for high damage classes. Drawn in spring is so much better now because small weapons out-dps large ones for high multiplier characters in all situations and it has a 25% raw damage lash on top. Only tidefall with a DAOM potion can beat it. Without the potion and other extreme measures to reduce recovery time (like no armor) and Tidefall is worse. Regardless, In the early/mid game before you collect a bunch of damage multipliers (or if you have low might and few talents or equipment to help damage), large one-handers are going to be better overall. This can be mitigated a lot with vulnerable attack, making small weapons more viable. Normal weapons are never that far behind fast weapons before the breakpoint. Across all damage multipliers, in the examples above, at zero DR the rapier was only 20% higher DPS than the Warhammer. Maybe it is worth it to usually have slightly worse damage in order to not have to worry about the massive drop when fighting high DR enemies.

Are fast (small one handed) really worse than normal (large one handed) weapons? Sure the average base damage is 2.5 lower, but the attack speed is almost 50% faster. DR will play more of a role, but I don't think it is as bad as often assumed. The extra speed clearly helps any "effect-on-hit" like stunning since you will have more hits to apply it and it lasts just as long, duration wise, as a slower weapon's stun. Interrupts are also better because of this. Mosquito interrupts better than shatter-star even though it has a lower interrupt rating because of the speed difference. For damage, it depends mostly on DR and the number of additive damage multipliers you have. Lower DR helps fast speed weapons and Higher DR favors normal speed weapons. Larger damage multipliers help small weapons more than large one-handers. First some observations about faster and slower one-handed weapons: 1) Min damage helps fast weapons more than normal weapons because fast weapons hit MIN damage more often. Min damage increases the damage you were supposed to deal based strictly on a DR formula, so it is actually a good thing. The reason we think of MIN damage as bad is because fast weapons are more likely to use it and they are always low numbers. But this is really a DPS boost for fast weapons. 2) Two of the fast weapons have a slightly faster animation speed than others (rapier and stiletto). It is very minor, but it can still amount to 1-2 DEX worth of additional speed with zero attack recovery. For example, zero recovery with a rapier and 20 DEX is the exact same speed as a dagger at 22 DEX 3) Normal speed weapons get a bit better relatively the closer you get to zero recovery because the ~4 frame delay is a smaller percent of the total attack cycle. 4) Limited use abilities benefit normal weapons because speed is less of a factor for measuring the effectiveness of those abilities. If that is a big part of you strategy (example: alpha strikes with FoD or gun-switching), bigger weapons are going to be better. We will assume auto-attacking for comparison. 5) The dagger with wounding is not being considered since it works very differently and there are not any large one-handers with wounding to compare against. Generally, it is a great weapon and doesn't suffer so badly against high DR as other fast weapons. 6) Damage multipliers benefit small weapons more for the same reason that lower DR helps small weapons. More total damage means that DR has less of an impact. For this calculation I am assuming a Rapier vs Warhammer at zero recovery with 10 dexterity. This is pretty fair because the speed enchanted ones both effectively decrease DR and increase accuracy and in my mind have roughly equally useful enchantments, at least for a solo character. I will look at different additive bonuses and DR levels to see where the DR breakpoint is in which one does more damage over time than the other. Speed: Rapier: 23.1 frames (guessing this rounds to 23 frames) Warhammer: 34 frames Rapier is: 47.8% faster (full attack cycle) Formula Used: (base damage * multiplier * speed) - (DR * speed) = Damage Example: Rapier @ 100% additive damage multiplier: (11 * 2 * 1.478) - (DR * 1.478) = Damage I am not sure if this math is correct, but it came up with the following DR break points. 0% damage multiplier: 5 DR and lower favor small weapons 50% damage multiplier: 8 DR and lower favor small weapons 100% damage multiplier: 11 DR and lower favor small weapons 150% damage multiplier: 14 DR and lower favor small weapons 200% damage multiplier: 17 DR and lower favor small weapons If this math is correct, higher damage multiplier characters like rogues are better with small weapons. If you really ramp up your damage multipliers, only against dragon-level DR is a large weapon superior... and then you are best off with wounding enchant. If DR is super high, such that both large and small weapons hit MIN damage, small weapons will again have better DPS (20% higher)... but who is fighting dragons in a fair fight. The same breakpoints apply for lashes (only you can't factor in any MIN damage so they are worse at the upper end of DR and are not helped by DR-Bypass). Single attack lashes that are limited use, like Paladin's Flames of Devotion, would still favor big weapons of course since a DPS equation wouldn't apply to them because of their limited uses.

Dex has slightly diminishing returns the farther away from 10, but it is a very slow diminish and for this build it’s benefits are so great that it doesn’t matter. Also different stats are intrinsically more effective in different situations and stages in the game. I think it is more helpful to look at how stats synergise with playstyle, equipment, and abilities than just comparing raw values. More speed means more stunning storms which is more beneficial than, say, a little more damage or healing from might for the effectiveness of this build.

I wish at least the DR reduction matched the lash. For example, 10% lash would get 1/10th the DR like how 25% lashes get 1/4 DR. That would also make it more desirable and easier to judge the relative value of a lash. Part of the reason 50% lashes are so good is because they are still only penalized 1/4th DR.

Interesting. I can see how it will be useless. I am guessing lashes of the same type are not added up before DR, but each checked seperately Maybe I over-estimate lash greatness. Tough enemies usually have high DR making lashes worthless when you need the damage most. Maybe it could still work for rogues; particularly ones with low perception to make use of the graze to hit and low dexterity or heavy armor to make dual-weilding desirable when comparied with tidefall (tankier rogue). Or maybe a shield using one. With backstab and deathblows and sneak attack, even 10% should have no problem blowing through DR. What rogues need most is speed. Even if just in one hand for all their many full attack powers. It used to be that sabers were clearly the best because of the higher base damage, but now it is a more open field.

I just noticed yesterday that the unforgiven flail seem to have a +10% additional fire lash. I wonder if it works like enchantment elemental lashes? Given how powerful we know those can be given that it applies to the full damage instead of just base damage and can be boosted with Scion of Flame, does this makes this flail the best option with the right build? One thing that gives it an advantage over sabers is that unforgiven is a speed enchanted weapon (sabers don't have any). I guess maybe 10% just isn't significant enough, but it seems like a -true- MonsterLash needs it on principal. Monk might already get scion of flame and, since full-attacks only use the primary weapon's recovery, torments reach will benefit from this even if you only have it in one hand and the other non-speed fire-lashed flail (star caller) in the other hand and they will both effectively have the speed enchantment when spamming Torrents Reach; now with extra fire.

I retrained to try the defensive setup to get a feel for how it performs for soloing; As suspected, it is much better. The original build is just too fragile once you hit the White March with Ogre Cannoners sneak attacking at range for crazy damage; you need either very high DR, defenses, and/or Endurance Pool to survive the initial onslaught (or use summons every battle). The original build works great in a party where you are not taking all the hits, but the damage comes in too quickly when soloing. When soloing, you have the luxury to carry around a lot of items and can switch between them depending on the situation and having a shield increases your options for dealing with problems making some of them trivial where an offensive-oriented build would struggle. Going against ranged attackers? Use the shield that reflects grazes. Going against weak, but fast mobs? Use the retaliation shield or a Large shield. Prone or stun? You can now use both the armor and shield for double the protection. In my stats, I trade some DEX for more Might and CON since getting FoA out quickly and avoiding interruptions is less important and fortitude is particularly good when soloing. With high deflection, getting interrupted is much less likely because grazes have a large interruption penalty. Also, it is still possible with monk to have zero attack recovery with a shield without consumables as long as swift strikes is active. Might: 19 (Might is important for all monks: Passive Healing, Fortitude, and Rooting Pain are all helped in additional to normal attack damage) Con: 10 (I would love 18 if only for the fortitude and additional wounds, but other stats need it more) Dex: 8 (low/zero recovery and extra defense lowers the benefits for this stat. It is the second least important after Resolve now) Per: 18 (needed for critical hits for enervating blows and FoA durations. If using a larger shield, it helps compensate for the loss of accuracy) Int: 19 (veterans, FoA, and swift strikes duration makes wounds more efficient. Wounds also last longer allowing for flexibility on when you use them up) Res: 4 (concentration is not a big deal with good deflection, zero recovery, and the ability to knock down enemies. While we want high deflection, we don't need maximum deflection and gaining it through resolve is much less efficient than through equipment. I found concentration to be a non-issue with this build, even without concentration boosting items) --------------- Weapons: --------------- Sword of Daenysis or March Steel Dagger (if slash is better): Both available at the start of Act 2 with no fighting and allows for zero recovery even with a shield eventually and are pretty fast even before then. These are my primary weapons for weak/average encounters. Use against low-mid DR enemies you want to cut through fast. Accuracy bonus of both helps FoA and the dagger can go all the way to Legendary with a lash. Tidefall: Good option against high DR enemies because of the higher base damage and wounding. Late game, this is replaced with Drawn in Spring for high DR. Drawn in Spring is excellent because wounding is effective against high DR enemies, it shares the same weapon group of your weapon focus (noble), and you can also use a shield. Reghar Konnek: I use this exclusively paired with Aila Braccia to further increase deflection for reflecting ranged deflection attacks (dart blowers and ogre cannoneers in White March). While it provides no bonus accuracy, it does have the predatory enchantment which helps for getting critical hits and the speed enchantment for good DPS. Mosquito: Good option for wars of attrition when you run out of other healing and are fighting lower DR enemies (where Draining is still effective). I usually use this for tough fights paired with a DaoM potion to make up for the lack of a weapon speed enchantment. ------------- Shields ------------- Aila Braccia: Very good for certain battles against Brood Mothers, Ogre Cannoneers, and the paralyzing dart throwers. Shuts them down completely. Sura Supper Plate: The retaliation is actually pretty good in the mid-game when you find it and is better than Aila Braccia if just facing melee enemies. Being small, it doesn't hurt your FoA accuracy or ability to inflict weakening. Little Savior: Not available until late, but becomes the best shield option when you get it. Byrngar's Solace: Your anti-stun/prone answer before getting Little Savior. Stacks with other equipment. (shields and weapon benefits stack with everything) Old Gerun's Wall: If you desire maximum deflection and reflex. It is the only shield with a superb quality enchantment and provides hit->graze too making it more efficient than other shields before facing the Adra Dragon. It also provides more reflex than any other shield which is helpful for some fights. While the -8 accuracy penalty is harmful for FoA, the higher deflection may give you more chances to land the critical hit to inflict weakening before you need to use the FoA or you could just stick with Swift Strikes. Aspirant's Mark talent would be a good pick up if you primarily use this shield since the +8 accuracy it provides counters the -8 accuracy of the shield. Personally, I like sticking with the small shields better because of the better monk synergy. ------------- ARMOR ------------- Hide Armor: Good options for protecting against stun/prone/paralyze and also one with a +25% healing multiplier when you don't need specific protection. Hide armor can be worn while still maintaining zero recovery with a speed weapon after durgan steel. Leather Armor: without the Iron Circle ring, you can wear leather without recovery time loss, but they are all terrible. The best is Kerdhed Pames (It provides +3 resolve) but that means you can’t apply your own +2 stat enchantment. With only a net 1 stat increase, I would rather have the healing multiplier of the hide armor. ------------- EQUIPMENT ------------- Cloak: Cloak of Comfort is good if you have access to the stronghold quest. Master Mystic is good just for the +12 deflection. I haven't tested it, but I imagine the Dying Boar would be good with this build too. The +5 (+might,+healing modifier) would help stabilize later in a battle if your other healing runs out. Combined with FoA and the Iron Circle, it might be sustainable enough in some circumstances, though it would work better with a more retaliation focused build (max CON and fire god-like). Ring: Rings of deflection/protection are always good. Iron Circle is a good option late game. It's speed penalty only results in a half frame of attack recovery which is effectively zero if it rounds down. The only defense that really matters when soloing is Fortitude and the +4 CON results in 8 more; nearly as much as the ring of protection plus you get the endurance benefits. Reflex is helpful, but having a shield already provides a big boost to that and Will is nearly useless since charm/dominate does nothing when soloing and confusion and will-based paralyze is rare and can be countered with immunity items. No amount of will helps against fear aura since they auto attack constantly and only need to graze occasionally to be effective; better off using scrolls that only require minimal Lore for the couple of fights you really need fear protection. Head: One that increases Intellect is good early. Executioners Hood is good late game. The skull one is not bad, but I personally don't care for the look and the hood seems better. Belt: Broad Belt of Power, +25% Healing multiplier, endurance regeneration, +3 Might/Con are all fine options. Looped rope seems good, but by the time you get it there are better ways to deal with status effects. Boots: Fenwalkers or +4 Dex ones late game. By then, you can get a paralyze immunity item making the fen-walkers obsolete. Boots of speed is another option for positioning yourself in corners to avoid getting surrounded or chasing down enemies you push with FoA. ------------------ Tactics ------------------ FoA and Swift strikes do not gain any benefit from dual weapons and swift strikes enables the possibility of zero recovery even with a shield so that now becomes the top priority for wound usage. You might as well use a shield which grants a big deflection and reflex boost since there are not any compromises except losing your gloves spot for Gauntlets of Swift Action. A more defensive monk build allows you to more efficiently use you wounds because, by slowing incoming damage, you will never hit the 10 wound cap and "lose" wounds for no benefit. It also gives you more attacks to apply the weakening ailment before you need to use FoA so you benefit from the accuracy increase more often. The DPS is also nearly as good because you can still reach zero attack recovery speeds. Just because you gain benefit from receiving wounds doesn't mean you need to gain them quickly when playing solo; you will gain the same number of wounds eventually if you need them so there is no reason to gain them quickly. For most battles, just auto-attacking and using swift-strikes does the job, along with FoA for any additional wounds you have. The main strategy is choosing your weapon/shield/armor to best match the enemies you face since you have several combinations you can switch between. ------------------ Talents ------------------ Veterans Recovery Lesser Wounds Sword/Shield Style Lightning Lash Superior Deflection Bear's Fortitude Weapon Focus: Noble Gallants' Focus ------------------------- Abilities ------------------------- Swift Strikes Force of Anguish Stunning Blows Duality of Mortal Presence Rooting Pain Enervating Blows Crucible of Suffering Resonant Touch (have not used this before, but seems good for high DR/HP enemies)

I thought the bonus accuracy was meant for (non-weapon) abilities to compensate for the accuracy enchants weapons get as you level up. But with these abilities you double benefit since it gets both. For this build when playing solo, I am thinking sword/shield in one weapon slot, and Tidefall in the other. With durgan steel, sword/shield is a little faster than tidefall and provides extra defense at the start of combat when you need to mitigate initial spike damage (I usually get take more damage than I have wound-space for). After you prone everyone, switch to Tidefall for better health regeneration. A shield you can switch out, but heavy armor you are stuck with. Two-handers don’t really need the weapon style talent anyway.