Soulmojo

The soulbound shield idea is good. Though don't forget that fireball is a friendly fire spell, so a fire resist would be more appropriate. I really think there should be many more shield like that. I don't think large shields should do more damage than lets say a medium shield. yes the area is larger but I'm not seeing how it could do more damage than a smaller version.

Ok sorry guys. My mistake really. So shields You have to think from the creators perspective there has to be a general rule thumb which applies to all shield. That is either you can attack or not. Either you make each capable of attack and build the bonuses around the fact that shields can attack and defend. If you don't then you get what you got in PoE1 where the shield enchants were all defensive and they inserted a bash effect which made the shield function as a weapon but couldn't be offensively enchanted and it became more bad as the game progressed. I love your idea of certain shields posessing different effects on a succesfull attack It would give uniquie flavour to each different shield you can find and every shield could be inserted to every build available. But then all shield have to be capable of attack and damage at least as much as a light weapon. And the upgrade path must also consist offensive bonuses too so they remain competitive till the end. This. I think too that the defensive side shields are ok, especially because if you can gear with shields that the enemy couldn't hit you at all, then suddenly no one would use armor and ever build would employ shields. Rationally that would be the bottom line. If shields would have uniquie offensive enchants - elemental damage, daze, stagger, prone etc. and the damage, accuracy would scale with upgrade too they would remain competitive. I would fit into the enchanting plans of the devs too. I remember somewhere Josh or the devs said that they want the player to upgrade the uniquie stat of each item rather that giving general upgrades, so each item would look more different as the game progresses not more the same.

I will It's not hard to find examples. Here are two: the English (and later French) armies during the Hundred Years War were full of well trained, non-noble soldiers; and various Italian city states were training the citizens to use crossbows and various polearms throughout the middle ages and beyond. Yeah do you read my comments? The hundred years war started in the 14th century and lasted that long because armies were so untrained and badly equipped neither side could take a decisive action precisely through that time is where military tactics and equipment went from no professional to professional. You are ignoring 700+ years from medieval times just to prove your point. Meh. About the italian states armies. Those were mercenary armies called condottiere private owned and privately funded companies, who were employed by the various trading states like milan genoa and venice florence or tustcany because they didn't have the manpower to employ a large national army but was rich from mediterranian and silk road trade. Most of them were one maybe two regiments in size and werent nationally trained. A lot of standing mercenary companies of that time were siege units because the nobles and rulers werent trained in siege , and did not posessed the means. Btw I thought we were discussing national professional armies. Yes you could mention swiss pikemen or landsknechts , but those two companies were also sort of high medieval units. Also I wasnt stating at all that in the medieval ages there were no trained man at all, i was stating that in most of Europe and for about 800 years. If you look at the dates most of the professional soldiers came after the 14th century, but the medieval period started after the chaos of the fall of western roman empire. when the saxons conquered england, when the vandals raided through europe, when the visigoths and suebi tribes settled in iberia, when the goths then lombards conquered italy where burgunds carved out a kingdom in france etc. These events started around the fifth-sixth century and where the classical era ended. Many lore and experience were lost at that time and most of the rules even couldn't read how could they train their men when they couldn't understand the scrolls and books of the romans and greeks? You could ofc mention the franks, but as I told you most of europe were ruled by migrated tribals, and the franks could annex large parts without resistance. Also there were the Hunnic invasion where the huns basically razed half of the cities of the romans there were huge areas where the population fled or were killed. there were a 100 year long mini ice age at that period too which brought starvation and death.

You are mistaken. Because they fight with blunted weapons they give everything into each blow. Secondly many competitors fight with clubs, warhammers, maces, all blunt weapons and they don't pull back. Realistically if there were no observers to stop contenders, they would very likely kill each other. Secondly if you are wearing armor the first you have to learn is the armor actually protects you plus these armors are not some low qualiry garbage, they are hand crafted by experienced armorsmiths. All high qualty. estocs, longswords and blunt weapons evolved for a reason, all effective armor piercing. You cannot do much with a battleaxe or slashing sword agains a full plate armor. If that is not enough for you then think what you want. Yeah sure. You have all the information bro... whatever I'm done arguing this. Lets get back topic.

About amateours I meant those who never used or saw real combat. Also lets not kid ourselves about the vision of professional medieval warrior. Until the 15th century with the rise of ottomans and decade long wars, most warriors were drafted at the age of 14-15 and received some very very basic training in one 1 handed weapon and shield or in some polearm and went to battle to die. Ofc there were numerous warrior societies thoughout the ages, but there were no standing armies and certanly no professional training. After the division of the Roman empire professionalism was on a serious decline as the classical legion was replaces by drafted conscripts from local areas, and it was all washed away by the migration of germanic tribes, the goths the visigots the vandals the longobards the saxons etc. from then on tribal warfare was dominant for centuries in large areas. Even with the rise of the franks and the introduction of medieval society there was only a very small caste of warriors who received training of anykind usually nobles who fought from horses and some monastic order members. What you are talking about is post renesaince - late medieval times. + you are seriously mistaken about the small shield. in classical era for example greek pikemen (macedons, later selucids) used small shield as an addition to their pikes to protect themselves in formation. Light armored units like slavic guerilla fighters used small shields spears and no armor Slingers in the classical era used small shields. and I could continue the list but whats the point.... And realisticly battles were fought like this: As you can see shield combat and armored combat in general was more like bashing the head with a shield or its throat because despite the helm and neck guard it was one of the weakest points of full plate armor. Secondly in the previous linked video what they show is not realistic, real combat is not about sublety or beauty or cunning techniques, it is all about unbalance the enemy as fast as you can and bash him to death. Focus on your gazes of the third video, you can see everything about shield combat.

Hey guys I almost posted a new topic for this. So about concentration. I dislike this current system we have with concentration. (I dislike many things nowadays it seems) You gain it, you lost it immediately, cannot gear for it, wasteful to recast abilities just for this. Terrible if you don't have it. So in PoE1 I though that this was a bad stat at first, once I realised that if I gear for it - which I could quite easily actually- , I save myself a world of pain. I miss that system now, because it was a constand defense which made my life easy in a sense that my abilites were not interrupted as much and later at all. The fun part is with this current one is that once I gain it I immediately lose it. The annoying part is they chain interrupt my characters once they see someone is casting or using an item or ability. Is it wishful thinking to ask about the PoE1 concentration system back? I know no one cares but when I played and finished the game with a monk, three things I took very seriously: I hated afflictions, especially stun/paralyze so I geared for it hard. I also hated that my character knocked out quickly so I had a ton of hp (around 2500hp) I hated the constant ability interrupts I received from enemies, so I pushed concentration as much as I could without compromising my build. So yeah, I really miss the old system in this new sequel.

Shields are useful for classes who intend to do no weapon damage (casters, Chanter tanks, some Paladins) as you're not really losing anything by using them. They're also good when they provide something beyond the standard Deflection bonus e.g. the Outworn Buckler's +5 to all defences aura. However for, say, Fighters there's basically no point using a shield. Even if you intend to primarily tank you're probably better off with a two-hander or dual wielding. Well I have to add that even for casters it dubious to be worth it. Medium and large shield accuracy penalty applies to all spells casted not just melee attacks. I always equipped a ranged weapon of somekind instead. Mostly gunns since it did not required a lot of accuracy to do good damage. Hirawitas was pistol Grieving mother was arquebus or twin sting Durance was arquebus (obviously :D ) Aloth was wand and pistol I equipped only Kana with shield, but that was only because he needed to be in the center of battle to heal and use his chants and invocations and he was the number one target for some reason. All other character(including mine) was either dual wield or two handed. I had a playthrough with an Eothas priest which I never finished, where I was flail+shield, but I was strongly hesitating to keep him that way due to him being eaten alive despite the shield and doing unnoticeable damage.

If everything remains the same then no. I wouldn't want even less space to build the character I want. If they strip all generic passives from each class and bring back them as talents plus they come up with a bunch of new stuff then I'm all for it. I really didn't like how they removed the generic talents and distributed them among the classes. I know why, because then the low level ability trees would look very very empty. I would say they were lazy regarding low level class design meaning coming up with new stuff. Wizard, fighter, cleric, druid, and cypher trees are basically a rehash of the first game versions bringing nothing new to the table. As far as I can see instead they lost the all access talents from the first game, and have to multiclass for it to get it.

Maybe because dual wield and 2handed weapons were so much better during the game so everyone dismissed them outhright? I remember when I equipped Larder Door for the first time. I was like wow now I can attack with shield and little later, why am I so bad? I looked how shield attack and shield damage was and I laughed while I put that shield into my stash. From then on I never even equipped shield with bash and little later shields alltogether. Since the game is wired the way that even with 30+ deflection the enemy can hit you with a lucky roll and shields cannot be offensive weapons there is really no reason to equip shields. My rock bottom was with Kana defensive shield build where he had like 138+ deflection and he still got hit by random enemies attacks (no level scaling btw). Well, it's in the game, very steampunk!

Actually outside of a small number of builds using either Badgradr's Barricade or Dragon's Maw the enchantment didn't just lag behind, it caused the character in question to do worse damage than they would have done using a non-bashing shield. As for shields in general I'd agree that they're not where they should be. There's a reason that until the advent of full plate armour almost everyone who was expecting to fight in melee (and many who weren't) would armed themselves either with a shield or with a polearm, and dual wielding was incredibly rare. Yet going by PoE's mechanics you'd expect everyone to do the opposite. Well even with full plate armor if I remember correctly the small shield - the buckler - remained in use for quite some time. And only amateurs would use shields only defensively in combat if not fighting in group formation. You can knock your oponent to the ground, bash its body, have spikes on it or sharpen the shields metal edge in some parts. I even heard somewhere about hooks used on shields against other shields...I don't think this last one was true though. All in all plenty of opportunities are there to attack with a shield.

Good read! I have to agree on the world map with the OP. When I go through It I always feel like I have to scroll through every island it to find all the junk and then move on to the 'real' part of the game. I always loved when I had to go through every mapzone for real. I also loved that when a later quest linked back to the zone I already explored. Obviously the traveling/exploring system cannot be thrown out, but I would like much more if the points of interests would be actual zones where I can do stuff not just get a conversation box. like the shrine place where I could rest on one of the main islands. On the topic of passives I have to agree. Passives are so much better, but what really pains me to see is most of the passives were all access to all classes as talents. It is a bit funny to see that as a pure priest poe1 I was able to get weapon and shield style now I have to multiclass to get it. Class trees should be all about active abilites not passives. It wasn't a very good idea to remove the talent system in my opinion. I feel like sometimes we've taken a step back instead forward. On the topic of active abilities and resources there are indeed very few, and are very restrictive to use them not mentioning that several abilites overlap each other and compete for the prime spot not supporting each other. Rogue has 3 active abilities each doing similar effect but instead using all of them multiple times in encounters I have to decide which one will I use once or twice. I end up using hobbling strike because it is the cheapest and I can use it more per encounter. On the topic of health system I wish the old back. I hated the old at first, but I ended up loving it. I don't know why but I did...maybe it was good design?

Hello! I've always felt in pillars 1 that shields are not good enough than they should be. Meaning in the first game they were purely defensive, with the exception of some shields with bashing enchantment...and that enchant was lagging behind more and more as the game progressed. Shields are as much an offensive tool as it is defensive and I feel the need to share how I would design shields as a combat tool. (In the hopes that it gets picked up ofc, one can dream :D ) So shields: Damage, attack speed and recovery and defense: Each shield have damage stat, attack speed and recovery time based on current melee weapons. The accuracy penalty would ofc remain on medium and large shields. This is to display the clumsyness of using these kind of shields and would reduce the accuracy of shield attacks. Small shield: Fast weapon stat set (fast attack, 2 sec recovery, fast weapon damage) damage type: crush Medium and large shield: Large 1 handed weapon stat set (average attack, 3 sec recovery, large one handed damage) damage type: crush Each shield gets damage, accuracy and penetration bonus too each quality level. Does not benefit from dual wield passives, does not get the dual wield attack speed bonus. Gets full combat benefit from stats and other triggered combat bonuses. Shield attack also triggered on ’full attack’ abilities as weapon attacks. Small shield modal: every successful attack have a chance to trigger an additional main hand weapon attack with reduced accuracy Medium shield modal: Critical hits with a shield daze or stagger the enemy Large shield modal: Successful attacks with a shield have a chance to knock the enemy prone The one tricky thing is when you use pistols and a shield or when you don’t want to attack with the shield. I thought that attacking baseline could be turned on or off by activating the modal of the shield. This way if you want to use an offensive oriented (enchanted) shield you turn the modal on and attack, If you want to just defend or use the shield from range then you turn it off and enjoy the defensive bonuses. What do you think? Please be critical, I’m ready for it. #edit# This I left out from my original post: Shields will need access to offensive enchants like lash damage damage+accuracy bonus/quality level and such. We don't know yet how enchanting will work in the game, but I figured from weapon stats in the beta that at least quality level bonus will be similar to PoE1.

Its good, but it is too short duration to my taste.

Ye You are correct, Every ability uses resolve for determining damage now if it is not a direct weapon damage. Summoned weapons uses resolve too for determining values. I thought that Torments Reach would be strength based similar to Flames of Devotion being strength based. I just tried a Warlock with Concelhauts staff and his strength controls the damage done with the summoned weapon. Yes the melee damage part uses strength. But concelhauts staff does healing now after you do damage similar to pillars 1, and that healing amount is reduced/increased by resolve. Pally Flames of devotion is a weapon damage addition which is calculated from direct weapon damage. Torments reach aoe is an additonal 'spell effect'. which is not calculated from weapon damage.

Warriors still have a serious advantage, and that is armored grace. You can go full armored and have good attack speed. + In the upgraded defender mode gives you 5% recovery reduction per enemy attacking you. So all you have to do is armor up equip the heaviest weapon available and you will be an unkillable lightning fast juggernaut. When the enemy damages will go up late game the other classes will struggle while the devoted will not.

You are correct, Every ability uses resolve for determining damage now if it is not a direct weapon damage. Summoned weapons uses resolve too for determining values.

Yesterday I was testing a bit, mainly to test out the changes. I came to the conclusion that the tuned system is better, but still pretty much exploitable. I made a helwalker + Goldpact knight to test. So I pretty much realized that - like in the first game - I don't really need swift strikes. And I disregarded that ability alltogether and I did the same with every duration ability. I reduced INT and RES to the minimum 3 and spent the free points on the other stats, DEX and PER. I equipped a full plate armor + I used gold pact armor bonus from sworn enemy mechanic and went on a rampage. Basically I soloed the first island on hard difficulty with fists, and that says something about armor/pen mechanics, considering the helwalker has 5% increased damage per wound.... I noted several things: Armor and penetraiton is pretty much still exploitable. It needs an additonal tuning. As it needs: 10% damage reduction per point of difference up to 100% at 10 points difference. Because if you stack enough armor then the enemy still cannot hit you if you don't stack enough penetration you cannot hit the enemy. This system can work, but the stacking penalties are still too big per point. Also if you are above the enemy armor the player should get like 2-3% damage increase per point up to 20%-30% per point. To reward the player and the enemy for stacking the stat. Unarmed damage was like 21-30 something. I cannot recall I'm not in front of the game right now. This is impossible with the current bonuses, which means that your base unarmed damage levels up too as you gain levels just like in the first game. I have to get back on you with this but I wanted to note this first for confirmation from other testers. If you crit the enemy - which means stacing high accuracy - not just your damage increases you penetration value too. This allows the monk to bypass the enemy armor. I found that using fist (at least untill thundering fists) you are 1-2 pt below the enemy and crits usually help you in this. So all in for accuracy guys. Lastly I tried out again a couple of weapons. Hatchets, stilettoes, staffs, greatswors and estocs etc. It was painfully obvious that weapons need some serious tune too. First, every weapon in the same speed category has to have the same damage. Some weapons are high penetration yes, but become subpar for doing minimal damage. The modals are even worse. The estoc for example have much less damage, and while the greatsword modal deals 50% more damage the estocs modal give 2point of penetration... I don't know it doesn't feel right. Same goes with stilettoes vs hatchets. Modals that reduce damage needs to go too, all of them useless. Instead modal penetration every weapon should have an inherent penetration value with same damage range. And useful active modals like bleed, reduced enemy accuracy, aoe capability, reduced enemy movement etc.

I missed the healing change, thanks for pointing that out. I tested the monk/mage multiclass system specifically for dance of death last weekend. I maxed resolve (20pt) casted arcane veil, for deflection bonus and still got hit. Due to game mechanics taking at least some damage periodically is unavoidable. Sadly in the current system having very very high deflection is not a guarantee to not be hit. if the enemy has a lucky roll like 98 or something you will get hit: 20 base + 10 from resolve + 50 arcane veil + 15 from level = 95 vs enemy with 50 accucary who rolls 98 50-95= -45 + 98 = 53 meaning you get hit or graze The only way to keep ahead with deflection if you ad a medium shield minimum, but then whats the point of playing monk then? You might as well go paladin or warror or something. Maybe a staff modal but meh... This is even worse with spells and aoe splash damage spells which targets reflex, fortitude or will. + there is melee friendly fire.... You are bound to get multiple hits. Of course the upgraded version allows you to take some damage before canceling the effect but then you might just as well disregard focusing on deflection. As having low is similar to having high. The only way to truly maintain the effect and harness its power in my opinion is to go ranged, e.g. long pain fists. Dance of death would be much more better if instead of 'cancel after taking damage' you would 'stack increased damage gain' similar to helwalker. Now that would be the true dance of death. I would make it an ability which you can deactivate at will. like a modal.

Listen dam. I know that they will change penetration. I still think it will suck, and be the most important stat in the game. They are reworking this to like this: one point below -25% damage two point below -50% damage three or more -75% damage You will have to guess most of the time what armor the enemy has. You will want to do full damage optimally You will always stack penetration to the max possible as having high enough penetration gives you damage boost. If not then just to be sure. You will always choose high penetration abilities over lower ones just to be sure. And lastly you will always stack the maximum possible armor for denying enemy the chance to damage you. The same principle applies with armor as with penetration. Stacking armor even with the cost of attack speed, you deny enemy the chance to kill you...Just to be sure. Therefore in my eyes nothing really changes even with tunes as I the player want to do the maximum possible damage I am able to do and take the least possible damage. Yes it will be less punishing but no, overall the tune changes nothing. The old system was much better this way. As the game progressed armor became less and less important. Now armor AND penetration will be the most important stats from start to end. I'm really glad though that you will continue to read my posts. Thank you!

I gave some more time to figure out the shattered pillar. I just came to the conclusion that shattered pillar sub is most powerful when using long pain fists. Or more likely he is only really truly effective when fighting from a distance. If you think of it it makes sense since they are the only to be able to generate wounds from afar. I believe now they will be the only class to be able to utilize the Dance of death mechanics too to the fullest. Regarding penetration: I started some different classes to see the penetrations of their abilities, and I saw an interesting thing: Rogues have the tier 1 hobbling strike right? For some reason if you upgrade it to arterial strike the base penetration value of the ability goes up to 25, meaning a guaranteed armor piercing attack for one resource. Now if you add that rogues have 50% damage boost if you give a sneak attack qualifier 2x peneration than armor gives 30% bonus damage plus you crit it... I mean I did around 30-40+ damage with some pair of hatchets... I definitely will look into the monk-rogue multilcass next. I think using this ability and stealth-fist mechanics will be crazy good. By the way the best and greatest combo for the helwalker is the shifter. Synergy: Helwalker: +1 might / wound Duality of mortal presence: +1 con / wound Tenacious +5 might +4 penetration Swift strikes: +20% attak speed +50% lightning damage (i like reliable damage) Rooting pain: damage when gain wound. Shifter: -high claw damage. + wildstrike elemental bonus -different forms provide different type of damage. -no armor recovery penalty -highish armor -can use monk abilites when shifted. -heal when shift ends. As a helwalker your biggest issue is to stay alive while keeping yourself at max wound count. This is where the power of the shifter comes in: When a shift ends you are healed a proportion of max health. Now here comes the fun part. Since you have 28+ con from duality of mortal presence, your max hp increased by at least 90% which increases the amount healed. Also your might is 25+ from wounds meaning you get at least another 50% bonus to healing. When hp is low, shift. that is five self heal without party heal. Not to mention that you can semi disregard the penetration system because if you cannot hit the enemy effectively you simply **** to another form. Your attacks will do good damage. You will have high attack speed due to swift strikes and no armor penalty. High constitution and shift-heal provides an adequate balance against the +50% damage taken. Try it out it is very satisfying!

Hey guys, thanks for posting your thoughts. You totally took the wrong the wrong conclusion of my post. I wasn't saying that monk needs a penetration boost. Overall the monk will come out on top of the penetration game. I was highlighting that early levels, the monk using fists are suffering because compared to others because the they gain penetration very slowly and hitting a certain level, you get a large amount of penentraion via thundering fists. If you read my post I want to take the penetration bonus from thundering fist and distribute into transcendent suffering. So using your fist feels as usefull as are at high levels. Now about the damage part. Again I wasn't complaining about overall damage. I specifically stated that overall damage will be good for the monk. I was stating - as with penetration - that the damage increase you get from summoning 'long pain fists' must go to transcendent suffering and 'long pain fists' should be kept as an utility. So the player doesn't have to wait to x levels to play as intended. Early gameplay people. My problem is the same as was with IRON WHEEL ability in pillars 1. You have to hit level 11 to be able to play as intended. Meaning light armor or robes and fast attacks. The player should never be put in a position where he needs to question the usefulness of the intended play style whatever level he or she is in. Now about shattered pillar. Lightning strike is bugged as far as I've read. I want to see when it works properly then discuss it. My argument is that the penalties you get from the ability to generate wounds through damage dealt is too punishing and restrictive. As I stated you throw out half the bonuses you get from wounds compared to other subs for a mediocre bonus. Mediocre it is because suffering large amount of damage was never part of the monks problem. Even if you are not attacked. For example standing in every damage spell your casters do, or mortification of the soul or reducing armor to a point where you instantly go to 10 wounds from one attack. So why are you punished for doing the opposite? Also I find it still funny that an ability - mortification of the soul - is now useless to shattered pillar because of some threshold set out of ?fear? ? Although I do not care that much about the threshold but more for the very punishing reduced wound count. That needs to be less punishing or changed altogether.

Hi Gents and Ladies! I'm starting this topic to give info about the monk and is problems. I'm posting this from my perspective as I played and continue to play the beta. I've played the first game through and through as a Monk, my favorite class is this and I want to contribute to the discussion of the issues the class face in this second game so it can take it's place as a class which is satisfying to play with. So without further ado: Penetration: The most important new stat in this game is the PENETRATION. Penetration you supposed to acquire to bypass enemy armor rating. if you are below one point then you do 30% of your original damage. if you are above you start to do a bit more. Problem with this: The main problem with this is that the game will turn to be a penetration vs armor rating arms race to a point where it will be the most valuable stat above everything else. You will never know how much armor rating the enemy will have and since if you are one point below the enemy armor rating you will do 30% damage, you will always try to get as much penetration as possible. I don't care to change the system, it is what it is, but monks suffer in this system. Now to the monk's perspective: As a monk your only source of penetration is Transcendent suffering which gives one penetration per power level which translates to +1 per every two level if you are single class and +1 per every three levels as a multiclass. This sums up to the fact that you always will be under the penetration line as you progress through the better part of the game. You will get thunderous blows at tier 4 (level 7 as a pure, level 10 as a multiclass) which gives 4 penetration as a passive, but gods, how do you manage until you get to level 7-10? This is basically the most sad thing I encountered. Basically the first half of the game you will stuck below the penetration line. My suggestion is to scrap the penetration thunderous blows have and distribute into the transcendent suffering penetration bonus. This gives a more linear progression to the monk. and gives more evened out game play with other classes. Unarmed damage: The second most important stat for a monk is it's unarmed damage. You are supposed to get better by level, and the bottom line for developers is that you will do tremendous damage as unarmed. This will be true, I understand why the devs think this. But how do you get to that point and what is the problem with that? Well here it goes: The base unarmed damage is quite low (11-16 if my calc is correct). This is empowered by transcendent suffering which gives a percent based bonus to your unarmed damage which is 5% per every two level if you are single class and 5% per every three levels as a multi class. Doesn't sound much right? well it isn't. Now the tricky part comes. There is a tier 5 ability called Long Pain Fist which is a summonable fist weapon that's allows you to do long range unarmed damage. Now these summoned fists do 15-20 damage which is a big step up from the base 11-16. If you add the multiplier of might and transcendent suffering to that it does decent damage now. Especially if you add the might bonuses, the swift strike +50% element damage or double damage from criticals and etc. Now about my problem with this system: You get the long pain fists at tier 5 (level 9 as a pure, level 13 as a multi class) and again what you do until that time? standing with your balls in your hand? You will spend the better part of the game waiting to be able to do competitive damage. Early gameplay is gimped this way. Not to mention that I baseline never used long pain fists from principle as I think a monk shouldn't be a ranged class, not in this way anyway. Ofc some love this ability I wouldn't take them this for the world. I just think the ranged capability itself is quite enough. I would scrap the extra damage from long pain fist and distribute it through transcendent suffering, just like with penetration. The goal is here to make early level monk progression and power competitive to other classes. Since there is minimum amount of synergy between unarmed damage and other class bonuses it would'n become overpowered but in return help the monk a bit to be more competitive. Shattered pillar subclass: The Helwalker monk and the Nalpazca monks are well balanced and I honestly to my surprise like them very much. They have good bonuses and have potentially good combinations with other classes. This is not the case with the shattered pillar subclass. I feel the devs went a little bit too far fearing the wounds from damage caused will be to overpowered. Lets list the bonuses and the penalties and what does this mean for the player: - You gain wounds from damage dealt, cannot gain wound from damage received. This is not op now since there is dance of death ability where you can get wounds every 3 sec, and you have mortification of the soul where you get two wound damaging yourself. Since wound abilities now primary attack instead of full attack I really don't see the point of acquiring then spending a large amount of wound as the main advantage (full attack + bonus damage dealt) was taken away. Threshold for wounds are increased. I don't know the exact number but I would say it is 20 damage to gain a wound. Mortification of the soul gives 2 wounds and inflict as much damage as your threshold meaning I damaged myself for 40 damage, I had the pleasure to commit suicide in game when I used mortification of the soul. Secondly it is hard enough to damage the enemy with the penetration system and low damage count now you increase it. I was hardly able to acquire any wound. :D Maximum wound count decreased. This means that instead 10 wound you get a grand total of 5 wound max. Let me say that this is punishing as the player throws out half the synergy bonus out of the window playing a shattered pillar since buffs come through wound. Abilities use a lot of wound 2-3 and I can hardly cast any ability even if I managed to get to the max wound. Honestly I was expecting 8 max wound not 5... blah. Basically this subclass needs a serious overhaul as I don't think anyone will play it in the long run. I certainly will not if it stays the same but that's besides the point. That's it for now, I go back to test a bit more, I will write much more later and update the post.