Metaturtle

'Doy. I didn't even realize... I guess I figured "I'll put it in later," and then never did. Ah damn, so I just got home and patched 2.1. Looks like they did something with SA and i'm even seeing some missing string stuff. I'm thinking that the issues that had essence interrupter spawning units weirdly could have been related with the whole SA deal. Grave Calling still functions normally though and you still get focus from chillfog procs. Continue on and build this like any rounded rogue class. So Soul Annihilation is completely broken now? Greeeeat. Hopefully they fix it before SSS comes out. Edit: Or, well, the interaction between it and Grave Calling that spawned Chill Fog on kill against non-vessels is broken, I mean. Which... I don't think broke the really cool on-death effect where enemies froze and shattered, which is cool. I think it's an on-crit thing for being killed with a frost lash. Which is good! I liked that. The damage is still more or less the same? ... You know, I was playing with 2.1 installed anyway, so I probably didn't even have it to begin with... What do you mean by "Missing Stringtables"? I've seen those a few times with other stuff (Most especially the Ring of Prosperity's Fortune) and I can't stand them. It's a good possibility that you were already playing 2.1 and I was just here talking crazy lol. The paralyzation on crit from stacking the frost lash is probably the effect you are looking at where they all turn stony (icy?). The string stuff just pops up a lot from artifact code and the damage is still the same. Now you just gotta be on the lookout for undead vessels and make a beeline to them.

Obsidian should get some kinda award for this stuff. Can you fight the final boss yet? Ukaizo? The boss has like 160+ fort with decent AR so it takes a bit of dancing until you can line up enough accuracy buffs for chillfog to do decent focus farming, but anything is possible with a skeleton wall lol. I found it way easier just going gravecalling for trash and ecceas for focus gain then just targeting reflex with cipher ectopsychic.

Seemed like monk got some nice fixes to abilities like The Dichotomous Soul and it could use some discussion on a separate thread. Equipment abilities like Effigy's Husk's death aoe works when your clones die though they are kind of tanky. I've tried equipping the Necklace of Unlocked Possibilities, but the weapons spawned in the hands of the monks do not scale like their fists do so you can get a range of unique weapons going from exceptional to legendary that you can find out via combat log. One thing I like to note is that for some reason item party auras like the Curios necklace didn't seem to give the buff to my party members, but it gave it to my party's other summons. On the other hand some auras that also benefit self, were able to be copied with my clones. The Belt of Magran's Chosen got even better for a monk since now the clones can trigger the "on-hit" to summon a fire elemental. That means a pure monk can farm for an elemental proc to perform a mortar/frost seeker Whispers of the Wind to stack a ton of resonances via splash aoe then burst into raw damage then repeat again on all the fire elementals it may have spawned to stack even more. I haven't tried the other new weapons or checked if other weapons have been changed similarly so there might be some super cool synergies I'm too busy to test. Has anyone felt any differences in blade turning?

Ya, what Manveru123 said. SA allowed the build to proc both equipped weapons' on-kill effects from a killing blow on any type monster. I am thinking it shared a similar bug with essence interrupter, which was related to how weird the kill effects could be when abilities resolved themselves. The new "bug"? It now does the opposite and not even proc the on-kill effects with a killing blow complete with a missing string! wooooo

So 2.1 has landed and now the task of updating these builds come. Major change to this build is that Soul Annihilation triggering offhand and any "monster type" killing blow has been fixed and possibly partially bugged in a new way. The build is still effective with its chillfog farming and now functions where you just dump focus on enemies rather than to constantly gib your summons with SA. A bit more micro, but it still is strong.

Ah damn, so I just got home and patched 2.1. Looks like they did something with SA and i'm even seeing some missing string stuff. I'm thinking that the issues that had essence interrupter spawning units weirdly could have been related with the whole SA deal. Grave Calling still functions normally though and you still get focus from chillfog procs. Continue on and build this like any rounded rogue class.

Mmmm more reason for me to spec xoti as a pure cannon monk.

I think you can pull off a decent human look as pale elf. Pale elf kinda helps if you get confused inside a chillfog because of the +4 freeze ar though getting the bloodied bonuses from human is pretty sweet once you manage to lockdown the enemies in a heated moment.

Ya

... Okay, that has to be a bug. Maybe because you're annihilating their soul? I do not doubt it might be changed at some point. :0 I do like to think that it just razes their soul so hard to basic components that it just finds a way to do its magical deal lol.

I agree with staying away from the talents that add initial focus. If you have not read my recent rymgrand artist post, killing an enemy with soul annihilation while equipped with an on kill effect like Grave Calling will trigger the effects (chillfog or imp) even if the enemy is not a vessel and it doesn't matter even if Grave Calling is equipped on your offhand. So you could go around SA deathblowing enemies as you spawn clouds of death. It's nice to know since you'll probably be noticing that as you kill stuff with Grave Calling. You also get focus back from the damage chillfog does too! Edit: Post written before 2.1. Won't proc on SA kill and works normally. You still get focus.

You could use resolve debuffs like secret horrors and psychovampiric if you need to lower enemy deflection more though that eats into your focus pool unless the target's defense has good reason to for focus gain improvement.

Btw, is there a build for clothes users? I'd love to have an efficient character with the Principi's clothes or the Dancer's outfit. You can do it if you put your mind to it or accidentally do half the game while still wearing Arkemyr's old robes.

Are there battles that are so long where casters run out of spells? I thought casters no longer need to sleep after every fight? When I meant marathon I meant a single long fight that would exhaust your spells. Though the point is only valid up to a certain level in a party where the whole resource limitation can be sidestepped.

Huh, I've never had my monk summons use the death aoe ever when wearing effigy's husk. I need to test that again, something must have changed. :0 I dont see the problem with brilliance inspiration since you can cast it anytime without having to stagger it by going into ascendant mode. It's not like you suddenly become an SA devotee.

Yay no instagibbing my tanks anymore. So it should do full damage regardless of time now I hope.

Honestly, the kill effect on spells seemed a bit unintended, but when it did get nerfed I would imagine at least weapon abilities should still benefit. It would be counterintuitive having to predict an auto attack kill when bursting down enemies via melee abilities.

Imagine how big those bites on a corpse eater barb could get!

I can feel Druid's stag carnage seething with utter jealousy in the forgotten corner lol.

You still can live the dream a bit by having an endurance healing herald (see healing pillar build), a shield + life leech herald, and an affliction cleaning herald run around with your dps to auto everything although the ramp up is kinda late

But stop spamming an ability to spam another ability? Ah who am I kidding, big numbers and aoe is the business lol.

True, it's totally relying on every damage booster it can get like rogue's deathblows to get that raw damage as high as it can into the enemy healthpool. I like that it functions like a weapon hit that does normal weapon damage then adds the raw damage like a supercharged lash.

Yeah, I REALLY don't like to dump INT if I can help it, since it's so important from a roleplay context. I think I'm going to try out both Mindstalker and Transcendent as Mercs and see which performs best DPS-wise. You dont need to really go low INT with a mindstalker soulblade since the common stat to go low is RES. Just having high MIG and DEX makes the stalker get into a flow of dispatching their enemies really quick from filling up focus immediately from a round of attacks then execution with soul annihilation right after and you don't need to always cap focus to use it.

It was a low int build that pumped its other stats by lowering INT, but it didn't go full tard with mule's wit because I didn't actually needed to cast disintegrate much since soul annihilation was enough. I just had enough INT to have a distraction and as long as I can hit and pen, I'd have a steady focus gain to cast other spells. Spells like ectopsychic echo and antipathetic field have fixed timers so it didn't matter what my INT is at.

The way your describing the monk is way too busy having to upkeep those buffs, maintain your wounds, and then milk your ascendant windows. Summons and the ranged buff are nice, but they add a lot of downtime if you are already in a party. I played a dumbstalker soulblade and it's pretty nice in the assassin rp kind of way. You muddle them up and then methodically kill each person. It's no poweroverwhelming aoefest like an ascendant but it's nice to tap some unlucky target and watch them get sheared by soul annihilation in seconds.