mepp22

Steel Garrote/Skald might be fun to abuse the disengagement attacks from Whispers of the Endless Paths. You can get Nomad's Brigandine early and later switch to Gipon Prudensco. Not sure if it would be viable solo though.

Single class Ciphers are probably the best class with bombs because of Shared Nightmare, but soloing with a cipher might be difficult.

I meant Reckless Brigandine. It is pretty well guarded but its not the hardest fight and you can aim to pick it up in the mid game with out much difficulty. The Contender's Armor is probably the best Armor for almost any DPS style build but it comes so late that someone new to the game shouldn't make a build specifically for it. They both actually give an extra engagement. I also think both actually look pretty good on a gladiator style character.

I mean you kind of will get both. When more engage you it means that you can engage more( if you have enough engagements) which is what you want for the armor.

Street fighter + Forbidden Fist could also be fun. Using spears and shields means you can get lots of engagements which can help you if you want to get in to the thick of combat. There are some pretty cool items that compliment this style (a ring and some heavy armor that can actually be faster than most light armors). Street fighter is a bit advanced for new players but you can get some pretty great attack speed. Because of Forbidden Fist you will want lots of Resolution (which makes it easier for newer players to survive difficult situations, and on lower difficulty will get you Riposte attacks) and Perception for crits. The other stats can all stay around 10 (Street Fighter can attack super fast even without Dex). Remember you can always respec your abilities later if you want to but your class and attributes are permanent.

Wouldn't Svef work as well? Might be a bit easier than doing a weapon switch. Actually I think that only downgrades Int Afflictions 1 Tier. But Svef with Enlightened Agony should be enough to remove it.

I imagine you could also use Squids grasp on a Monk/Berserker and have a different party member dominate them. Add Stalker's patience in the offhand and spam Stunning Surge all day long. Swift flurry + Heartbeat drumming with such a high crit chance would be insane since I believe Boeroer wrote somewhere that their crits can trigger themselves. I also assume the extra hits can trigger the 20% chance of 0 recovery. And you can use the rapier modal to further boost accuracy since Stunning Surge will only use your offhand recovery. Both weapons are available super early and would offer some serious DPS all game.

You can get some serious hit to crit conversion with Intuitive on a Berserker. Maybe Seekers Fang could be interesting, it can be pretty pretty devastating with an Ascendant. I wonder if Spiders Flurry triggers Carnage and if Carnage triggers any of the Dots.

Does it have to be a party member or can you charm yourself?

If you don't want to focus so much on Offensive Parry, then Contender's Armor is much better than Miscreant's Leather. Because of how Armored Grace and or Pets with armor Bonus work you can actually get significantly lower recovery time with high Athletics. Because of this you should choose Laborer as your background. Nomad's Brigandine does offer some cool options but if you plan on casting lots of spells then recovery time is pretty important too(many Cipher spells have long recovery). Also there are much better options than Cloak of Greater Protection. Choosing History instead of intimidate means Gift Bearer's Cloth is directly a better replacement. If you really wanted to go down the Nomad's Brigandine path then I would recommend Ruata's Walking Cloak and taking Survival as your passive skill. I also think you might not need so many active abilities. You can only use one active ability at a time while your passives will help you constantly. Since you are going to be criting an awful lot, The Complete Self might be pretty useful. You can basically end up filling up your Focus by casting spells. Another thing, I am not sure Nature God Like is the best choice. Is the plus 1 Power level better than being able to wear a helm (especially Helm of the White Void)+ some other racial bonus? For a Monk it might be, but most other classes are better off choosing a different race.

Forbidden Fist only gain wounds when negative effects expire and don't get any wounds from damage taken. When Forbidden Curse expires you gain one wound and since the first level of Forbidden Fist costs 0 wounds you can slowly gain wounds this way, but you probably need a better source early game (Dance of Death/Mortification of the Soul). Hylea's Talon is nice because it give a 25% chance of applying a negative effect on yourself for a fairly short duration. If you have high Resolution and or Clarity of Agony the negative effect expires before it can do much damage. Forbidden Fists also gain a small amount of health back when negative effects expire, because of this you actually end up with a decent source of healing (very useful when soloing). A lot of the build idea's I talked about require gear from the DLCs. One of the most OP combos in the game is combining Eder's Armor with Keeper of the Flame. I am not sure you will have enough wounds to constantly spam WoW without DLC Equipment. If you want to solo but only the base game I would recommend Nalpasca. You will have a much easier time most of the game and most of the fights that made me rule out Nalpasca are in the DLCs. Fists are actually great weapons (arguably among the best in the game). I was just taking advantage of some special weapons and using the game mechanics to make some truly OP combos. But honestly you can beat the base game soloing POTD with pretty much any class. Its those pesky Mega Bosses where you need to game the system.

Those look like some solid stats. Arcana is for scrolls especially Avenging Storm. You just have to be careful when using it, you don't want to break Veteran's Maneuver. For example don't use Thunderous Blows at the beginning of the fight or you won't have enough wounds for WoW. Its kind of a thin balancing act but if you pull it off its insane. Very few fights can survive 2 WoW followed by Resonant's Touch if you have Avenging Storm up. You could pick a different Active skill and only use Avenging Storm from the helm, but I like the flexibility of being able to use different helms for different fights. Enervating Blows is nice because you can apply Weaken in mass. Also it reduces Constitution, therefore Fortitude Saving throws which makes it easier to apply Enfeebled.

Hmm well in that case I think probably the best Combo would be swapping to the wand and shield after you have lots of bleeding cuts then Empowering Stunning Surge. This will almost certainly crit which will Stun and Weaken the enemy and being a Full Attack you have 2 chances to trigger Swift Flurry and Heartbeat Drumming. This will reduce Might and Constitution by 5 which means 20 less Fortitude and reduces Deflection by 10. It also improves Power Level by 3 increasing Transcendent Suffering as well as the inherent Power Level Bonuses. Following this up with a couple Forbidden Fists should be enough to finish off some pretty difficult enemies. Edit: Actually only the shield bash can trigger Swift Strikes or Heartbeat Drumming. Skullcrusher would also be an alternative to the shield. There is some RNG but adding an injury to a boss is a pretty useful debuff. Also its important to make sure you are in melee range before doing this combo.

I don't actually have a full build planned out right now, mostly its just theory crafting. Just off the top of my head I would play a Pale Elf, probably something like 8 Might, 10 Constitution, 10 Dexterity, 19 Perception, 12 Intellect, 18 Resolve. Background White that Wends or Aedyr, and job Mystic or Clergy. Weapon proficiency you will need are Flail, Battle Axe, Sabre (not for the modal but Gauntlets of Greater Reliability might be needed vs certain bosses) Medium Shield, most likely Rapier for early game, maybe Large Shield and maybe Morning Star could be useful. Skills should be Arcana and Religion. Abilities: 0 Swift Strikes, 1 Arms Bearer, 2 Two Weapon Style, Sword and Shield, 3 Clarity of Agony, 4 Swift Flurry, Stunning Blow, 5 Blade Turning, 6 Duality of Mortal Presence, Rooting Pain, 7 Crucible of Suffering, 9 Stunning Surge, Enervating Blows, 10 Thunderous Blows, 11 Turning Wheel, Parting Sorrow, 12 Uncanny Luck, 13 Heartbeat Drumming, Improved Critical, 14 Snake's Reflex, 15 Tough, 16 Resonant Touch, Razors Edge, 17 Soul Mirror?, 18 Long Stride or Bear's Fortitude?, 19 Whisper of the Wind, Imagined Pain, 20 Empowered Strikes. These are probably the skills you would want to have at level 20 but you want to respec once or twice. Dance of Death or Mortification of the Soul are useful early game but later on they don't really help you. Important Equipment: Stalking Cloak, Saint's Armor, Boots of Stone, Ring of Prosperity's Fortune, Ring of the Marksman or Ring of Focused Flame (when using using Keeper of the Flame depending on how much fire armor the enemy has), Hylea's Talons (Very good early could be replaced later), Gauntlets of Greater Reliability (Very useful vs Mega Bosses where you need to get hits off in order to increase your own accuracy), Crimson Panoply, Belt of Magran's Chosen (when fighting single enemies so you can get a 2nd enemy and use WoW), Horns of the Aurochs, Survivor's Tusk. Weapons sets:1 Keeper of the Flame+ Scordeo's Edge, 2 Magran's Favor + Wintertide Bulwark or Magran's Blessing (For Boeroer's Swift Flurry trick depending on the enemy). 3 Weyc's Wand + Tuolito's Palm. Set 1 is for starting fights and when there are multiple enemies. Set 2 is once you have the extra accuracy from Scordeo's Edge and there is only one enemy, 3 is for rapidly finishing single opponents once they have lots of bleeding cuts. I honestly haven't really tried all of this so lots of it is just theory but I hope it helps

I assume you mean Empowered Strikes not Envenomed. A big problem with Inner Death is you need two final level Talents to use it properly. One for Empowered Strikes and one for Inner Death which means you can't also get Wow and Imagined Pain which are too good to pass on. Also worth noting is Forbidden Fist is a Power level 0 Ability so it scales incredibly well with Monk Power level. It increases accuracy, penetration and damage additively from Transcendent Suffering (which scales with Power level) and it scales again directly from Power level increasing accuracy, penetration and a hidden multiplicative bonus to the base damage. Add in a couple Lashes (Kahako Nihi, Auroch Horn, Turning Wheel) and you can do some pretty insane damage to a single target really fast. Getting in 3 levels of Forbidden fist (2 in quick succession) can do incredible damage to finish someone off. To be honest I think Forbidden Fist might have higher damage potential than Inner Death.