grayrest

I had a blunderbuss Devoted started up but hadn't progressed far enough through the game to get a real feel for it before the full attack nerf hit. The wanderer build is getting slight nerfs in 2.0, you currently get an unconditional +10 accuracy from stalker's link (getting corrected to match description) and can build mortification if your surges crit multiple times (going to only a refund).

I was curious about the highest melee damage thing because I thought the highest melee damage is monk so I consoled myself a level 20 streetfighter/soulblade with grave calling / aldris, bone setter's, fair favor, etc, set my hp to near death, and went about slaughtering CRE_dummy on the starting beach. The highest SA I got was 290 damage. The damage between this setup and a PL12 monk is fairly close but without measuring I do think this is higher damage. In practice I'd rather just hit Whispers and win instead of fiddling around with flanked/bloodied but the damage output is there.

You don't really need a priest. I've had an easy run with a Herald (Paladin/Chanter) and Druid combo and you could probably do it with just a Herald if it was a custom build and not Pallegina.

For an unarmed monk, I'd recommend going pure monk Nature Godlike. The important stat at character creation is perception and the rest can kind of be whatever you want. Might isn't a big factor in melee damage past mid game since it's additive with other, larger bonuses. The choice between Helwalker and no subclass is whether you want to be squishy for ~10% more damage or you want to not be squishy. If you do go Helwalker, you'll need a Priest for Barring Death's Door. The priest also provides Devotions of the Faithful, which suppresses/suppressed by dance of death/enduring dance but is more reliable and Litany of Spirit to bump you up to the next level of Transcendent Suffering (+15% damage, +4 accuracy, +1 pen). The reason for pure monk if you want unarmed is that they get better power levels. At endgame a Nature Godlike getting Litany of Spirit hits PL12 and transcendent suffering provides +95% damage, +26 accuracy, and +7 penetration and fists have the highest base damage and lowest recovery of all weapons. You get Whispers of the Wind at the same time, which is ridiculously good. Unfortunately, this happens at level 19 so the game is pretty much over. They're certainly not bad before that point, they get solid boosts in damage at pretty much every power level but they only get really strong late. If you're looking for something that's stronger for a larger percentage of the game, melee wanderer (ghostheart) is the best multiclass I've tried (sage, shadowdancer, votary, brawler, ravager, transcendent). Ranger gets a lot of passive accuracy and that translates into Stunning Surge crits. Getting crits on SS lets you SS again and triggers Swift Flurry and Heartbeat Drumming. At 60%+ crit rate, you start being able to SS indefinitely and the constant full attacks with the bonus attacks is what pulls the dps ahead of other monk multi-classes. You get SS at 13 and Accurate Wounding Shot is a decent full attack (it works with melee) before that point. I recommend this run with Stalker's Patience in the main hand and a maxed perception Hearth Orlan so it's not an unarmed build. It does more single target than a pure monk if it can crit reliably but a lot of the late game bosses have a 50% crit to hit modifier so the damage drops back down to high but reasonable levels and the pure monk's Resonance pulls that build out ahead. Other equipment of note: Heaven's Cacophony, Boltcatchers, and Scordeo's Edge. Blade Cascade is terrific when it procs (hit it with Salvation of Time, win any fight) but it happens so infrequently that you're mostly taking the Edge for the accuracy buff. Trickster Shadowdancer is also recommended and is strong throughout the game.

I like withdraw, circle, and symbol.

I've been working on getting more damage out of the companions. Maia is pretty straightforward with the Red Hand, you just have to set her to spam crippling strike / twinned shot and accurate wounding shot instead of the default script's concussion shot. I have a set build and script for swashbuckler Eder and he's roughly even with Maia before Twinned Shot and then a bit behind. Since he starts earlier and I feed him kills in cleaving stance to speed up the early game he's usually top damage until the watcher or Maia catches him in the level 13-16 range but he puts out respectable numbers throughout and is my benchmark for watcher damage builds. I don't have high damage builds for the rest of the companions. Xoti as a priest can do okay once she can get Storm of Holy Fire, Symbol of Eothas, Spark the Souls, and spam Blessed Harvest but a lot of her time gets spent buffing/healing and she never really catches up from her late start. In the current playthrough, I'm running her as a Monk, which should be fine. She's behind by quite a but but just now getting into the monk power phase so I'll be interested to see how her damage totals up over the course of the game. I've done her as a contemplative trying to split the difference and been unsuccessful but that might be because I didn't put enough effort into her ai script and I have ideas on how to do it better. I know Aloth can do good damage but I don't particularly like wizards so I'm not particularly good at them. Boeroer posted a battle mage build for him and I'll probably give that a go. I don't like Serafen's Cipher subclass so I run him as a barb with the default script. He does around 2/3 the damage of Eder/Maia so decent but not great. I think I could do better with him by giving him the Reckless Brigandine, setting up the script to trigger the +3 engage with Howl, and set Barbaric Smash only under 50% target hp. I find Tekehu provides a lot of utility by dropping foe-only Chill Fogs and mass stuns with the lightning storms and healing but I don't get anywhere near the damage out of him that I get out of Eder/Maia. I do like Pallegina and I've tried 9 or 10 builds and put together custom scripts for her. I can't get her do deal any kind of reasonable damage. She's like 1/3 of Eder/Maia.

I'm just now playing through a game with Xoti as a monk for the first time but I've done a lot of watcher monk (pure, 2 sage, votary, ranged wanderer, melee wanderer, shadowdancer, brawler, transcendent). The general monk damage progression is that they're strong early autoattackers because blunt is good in Maje and other weapons are terrible. From there, pure monks and the variants that don't have a full attack on the multiclass take a dive in effectiveness until the Stunning Surge loop comes online. Heartbeat Drumming is the next damage boost and from there pure monks get more powerful with Resonance and Whispers and the surge loop gets an assist from Razor's Edge. For me, Stunning Surge is the main engine of monk damage. A crit not only refund not gives two mortification to SS again but also gives two wounds per crit so looping reliably is a great wound generator. Tuotilo's Precision Striker is a key upgrade. The bigger challenge is gloves. Gauntlets of Accuracy are desirable but I find the extra resources from Mortification Bindings to be more valuable until level 16 or so. I tend to Enduring Dance once I've seen the AI lock onto Eder for the first round of attacks but I generally prefer the Priest's Devotions of the Faithful since it's reliable and saves mortification (they suppress each other). Getting the Flanked bonus also helps a lot, either from persistent distraction or chill fog. If you're on an odd power level (hover the mortification number on the ability bar), getting another power level (Stone of Power, Litany of Spirit, Hot Razor Skewers) will put you into the next level of Transcendent suffering for another 4 accuracy (and 15% damage, 1 pen). If you don't mind messing with potions and min/maxing then Potion of Ascension on even power levels can do the same but it doesn't stack with the +1 PL stuff so it's one or the other. For Xoti, the nice thing is that SS isn't affected by her subclass but I'm having more trouble getting the loop going on Xoti since she doesn't have the stacked perception my watchers do and usually is the priest doing the buffing. I'm currently at level 11 with her and have been getting around 5-6 Stunning Surges in a fight so she's getting crits, just not reliably. She'll get respecced at 13 for Swift Flurry + Heartbeat Drumming and that should help and this playthrough is a pure Cipher watcher so feeding her mortification with Ancestor's will also happen at 13. I'm hoping that will be enough to get her to loop indefinitely so she can keep up in damage with Eder and Maia. Further out, I expect her subclass will be really strong with Whispers. My monk AI script is second wind if under 50% hp, swift strikes if not active, thunderous blows over 7 wounds and not active, put a 5-10s timeout on both buffs so Arcane Dampener doesn't instantly blow out your resources, Raised Torment if under 5 mortification and 9+ wounds, full attack ability from the multiclass if >2-3 resource to leave 1-2 resources for utility, always stunning surge, and finally Skyward Kick / Raised Torment if over 7 wounds.

I'm pretty sure it works off the attack and not off the hit so you get 14 hp. Time to check... It's based on attack.

You get assassinate on the first hit from stealth at any range (notably, not the second hit from a full attack) but the backstab talent is only within 2m. I saw a lot of Arqebus Holy Slayer Bleak Walker / Assassin builds posted in 1.1.

I'm also interested in this. Transcendent Suffering increments at even power levels and is 15% damage, 4 accuracy, and 1 pen per level. For convenience: PL 6 - 50%, 14 acc, 4 pen PL 8 - 65%, 18 acc, 5 pen PL 10 - 80%, 22 acc, 6 pen PL 12 - 95%, 26 acc, 7 pen PL 14 - 110%, 30 acc, 8 pen PL 16 - 125%, 34 acc, 9 pen I've checked up to PL16 using console commands (giving a nature godlike the death godlike passive and activating both). For a single class monk it's relatively straightforward to get 10 (take Prestige) and 12 (add Potion of Ascension). A Death Godlike when near death can hit 14 using an Acute buff, Hot Razor Skewers or a Stone of Power but I don't consider that reliable. What I'm looking for is a way to get a Nature Godlike one more PL beyond Potion of Ascension, which is reliably at 13 PL. Litany of Spirit, Hot Razor Skewers, and Stone of Power all seem to be suppressed by the potion.

All the melee martial classes have some way to speed up their actions: * Monk - Swift Strikes * Barbarian - Fury * Rogue - Streetfighter (gimmicky) * Fighter - Mob Stance (I usually stack with Reckless Brigandine, gimmicky) The amounts are generally similar at around 30% except for streetfighter, which is 50. > The enemy just turns around on the first hit and starts hitting my watcher. There is no hard aggro mechanic in this game. The AI will re-evaluate targets after every action and switch to its best target in range. You can generally keep enemies on your tank and not attacking your backline (quarterstaff/pike melee, ranged) using the engagement mechanic but there's nothing to keep them from turning and attacking a melee target. If you wait for targets to become engaged and attack from the side, you can ensure your softer melee will only need to get hit by one enemy at a time but all melee needs to be able to take a hit. It can be somewhat difficult to get engagement slots early. For Eder, you can get one by using a shield. At level 4 you get stances and the defensive stance gives you three. If you get a spear and take the weapon specialization, that's another. There's a passive called Hold the Line in the fighter tree that I usually take at level 9 for another. Finally, Persistent Distraction in the Rogue tree at level 10 is one of the best passives in the game and that's one. I like two weapons and cleaving/mob stance and think 3 slots is enough so I go hold the line, persistent distraction, spear modal on Eder and if he gets the Reckless Brigandine that's a fourth. Edit: A Paladin/Stalker will likely have issues with damage output. Paladin only gets FoD for damage and Ranger gets accuracy, Driving Flight, and Twinned Shot (which multi-class doesn't have) for damage. It winds up adding up to a decent amount and rangers can put out respectable damage with a good ranged weapon but no damage boost and no attack speed means the combination is lower damage by default. You might be able to use a pair of pistols with the modal for attack speed and come out okay but I haven't tried it.

Ghost Heart pet (I use bear) is excellent for absorbing arcane dampeners or shots at the start of ship fights. Even if it does no damage it's a target for the AI that isn't a party member.

I'd like to know if people have a good source for Vithrak Brains. They show up randomly in herb shop suppliers but I don't know of any reliable locations and they're the reagent I'm missing most frequently.

I think rangers are fine in terms of damage. They're just kind of boring mechanically. All the power in the tree is concentrated into the passive accuracy boosts, accurate wounding shot, Driving Flight and Twinned Shot so if your script is set up to spam those and use a good weapon (Frosteeker, Red Hand, Dragon's Dowry) you'll have no problem ascending and from there you're a high accuracy caster so your spells tend to crit. Mind Blades from an ascendant is really strong in the early game and can carry most fights by itself. Having an extremely fast summon that's fairly beefy makes a lot of encounters easier because the AI will dump their initial damage burst/CC into the pet to kill it and it takes you half a second to re-summon. My biggest annoyance with ghostheart is having to set the pet's AI mode every time it gets summoned. The Ranger reputation for low damage comes from comparison to builds that have since been nerfed. Accuracy is really strong, particularly when you're using weapons and equipment that get bonuses from crits. Without accounting for spell damage I expect the damage to be lower but in the same ballpark as the other builds you have listed and certainly not low enough to be a problem.

I'm not a huge fan of streetfighter dps builds. I don't think the damage they do above other rogue subclasses is worth messing around with the blunderbuss modal and there are plenty of other high damage builds. That said, marauder streetfighter can legitimately activate heating up, though it's usually through bloodied and not flanked because it's semi-difficult to flank a Barbarian. Frenzy should be okay to compensate for the looking for a fight penalty. Of the Berserker multiclasses, I like Brute (Berserker/Devoted). Lots of hit to crit, lots of pen (+4), armored grace, stack mob stance and reckless brigandine for speed (hold the line, thick skin, brigandine, barbaric shout) and the extra satisfying whirlwind cleanup when you get the kill and the mob stance AoE racks up kills for instant smashes on carnage weakened targets. I've done two Sage builds (vet and PotD) and I think Citzal's is novel and enjoyable but a tier down from other damage builds. Monk lacks a full attack early and wizard doesn't provide it. Other monk builds do significantly more single target and later on full Wizards AoE better. I think it's probably the best 2h build not exploiting the broken Wahai Porga or the Confused + Deltro's Cage Helm + Lord Darryn's Volgue trick if that still works. For spellblade, I've read AoE blind on Citzal's is good but it wouldn't have anywhere near the area size that a sage does so I haven't tried it. I like ascendants in general but I've only done the early part of the game with a melee transcendant. It worked fine but I play a lot of monk so I'm used to being pretty squishy. Use the constitution part of Duality until you get Turning Wheel, stack athletics, and get the Undying Burden. For ranged Cipher, I've spent more time with an ascendant/ghostheart using the engage immune pet as an echo target. If you want to do a mindstalker I don't see any particular reason it wouldn't work.