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Given that a unarmed monks damage is tied to their PL would it be ideal to run a dps monk as a single class, rather than multiclassing? The role I had in mind is as a melee damage dealer/bruiser with the Shattered Pillars subclass. For multiclass options I had either Soul Blade or Devoted in mind. As for party composition I am also planning to run Eder as a maintank and Pallegina as a offtank and melee buffer.

Concept Basically a tanky dps build utilizing Tuotilo's Palm and Stalker's Presence spear that zaps in the middle of melee and proccing Street Fighter buffs as much as possible. Stacking crit is important for triggering Heartbeat Drumming/Swift Flurry + spear upgrades to land multiple hits. Monk inspirations and Rogue passives are our friends. There are 2 versions of the build I had in mind; Assassin with Backstab passive/gear support and the Streetfighter version presented in this thread. Shattered Pillar seems like a good splash as I prefer it over drug-addled Nalpacza monks (micromanaging drugs is a bit tedious for me, no matter how powerful it is). This is a RP build, so stats are not optimized as I'm not really a min-maxer. The build is currently in testing phase in Veteran mode, so I may update it a bit later as I don't have much time to play. Gameplay Buff up with Swift Strikes -> position yourself to get flanked -> Thunderous Blows -> Spam Torment's Reach -> Blind dangerous foes -> lock down and kill casters with Shadow Step (flavor skill, could be useful). Enervating Blows and Rogue debuffs make sure you land Deathblows with relative ease. Overview Class Street Fighter/Shattered Pillar Race Human (Humans are best Street Fighters IMO) Culture Aedyr (Anything works) Background Merchant (Decent RP bonuses) Difficulty Veteran (still testing) Full Party (could work solo) Stats 13 Might 12 Constitution 13 Dexterity 16 Perception 14 Intelligence 10 Resolve As you can see, the stats are pretty spread out, but that is how I envision character attributes for RP reasons. Feel free to modify them as you wish, just make sure you don't neglect PER and never dump INT, I'll explain why; STR - an additive damage bonus, no healing or spells to augment, so feel free to drop it a bit CON - couple of points never hurt, especially on higher difficulties. You can live with 10 if you feel confident DEX - a good dps attribute, but with Swift Strikes/Street Fighter speed bonuses it feels somewhat redundant PER - most important stat. big roleplay/detection, crit and hit bonuses (important for proccing extra attacks) INT - don't dump it. Useful for RP, also for buff duration and Torment's Reach damage radius (our only AoE) RES - could be dropped I guess, but i tend not to go below 10. Also roleplay heavy stat As explained above, Perception is top stat. Works well with spear +5 acc and ensures hits/crits. Also, our companions PER sucks (Maya Rua is an exception), so it's good to have for looting and detecting traps. INT is important here both for buff/debuff duration and for TR's reach (heh). It makes monk inspirations last longer, keeping our rotation simpler without frequent rebuffs which can be annoying. Everything else can be subject to a change. Skills Focus mostly on Mechanics and Stealth, with only couple points to Athletics. On a Passive skill side I picked Insight/Dipomacy, with couple points to Streetwise (RP reasons, frequent checks). Mechanics - you all know how important it is in this game Stealth - good for stealing and avoiding fights. Buffs Stalker's Patience damage (by a small amount, nerf bat hit it pretty hard) Athletics - frequent checks and a nice heal for sticky situations Insight - frequent checks, very useful Diplomacy - same as Insight Streetwise - frequent checks, adds to RP flavor Talent progression LVL 0 Sneak Attack, Wounds, Transcendent Suffering LVL 1 Escape, Swift Strikes LVL 2 Lesser Wounds LVL 3 Fast Runner LVL 4 Two Weapon Style*, Blinding Strike LVL 5 Dirty Fighting LVL 6 Weapon and Shield Style* LVL 7 Torment's Reach, Confounding Blind LVL 8 Swift Flurry LVL 9 Riposte LVL10 Persistent Distraction, Duality of Mortal Presence LVL11 Thunderous Blows LVL12 Shadow Step/Tumbling LVL13 Raised Torment, Deep Wounds LVL14 Enervating Blows LVL15 Uncanny Luck LVL16 Iron Wheel**, Slippery Mind LVL17 Turning Wheel** LVL18 Improved Critical LVL19 Deathblows, Heartbeat Drumming LVL20 *take your pick* * - having both TW style and W&S style benefits Tuotilo's Palm (benefits from Transcendent Suffering!) as it is considered both shield and weapon ** - having both Turning and Iron Wheel adds to versatility, depending whether you tank or dps Gear Weapons Set 1: Stalker's Patience/Tuotilo's Palm (pierce/blunt) Set 2: dual Sabres or Sabre/Dagger (slashing) Head Blackblade's Hood, Fair Favor (Sabres) Chest DoC Breastplate, Garari Cuirass, Fleshmender Accesories Up to you Here, hope you like it!

Unlike the description, monk's turning wheel add fire damage to everything, except traps.

Greetings fellow watchers I'm a little concerned about monk unarmed base damage: Short version: Monk fist base damage are basically like dual wielding 2 greatswords, with the accuracy and attack speed of daggers, while penetrating like an estoc (a weapon specialized specifically for piercing armor). It's only bludgeon yes, but up to 11 pen + scaling. Fist base damage should perhaps be more in line with 2 clubs rather than super all-round weapons? - or perhaps a timed damage increase, like empowered fist for 20-30 sec? My main gripe with the current implementation is that it makes any other heavy weapon wielding class look like wet noodles in baseline comparison, especially early game and also makes Xoti's sickle subpar. Granted, It's still early game, but feeling a bit forced to ditch any other weapon but Xoti's fists, which outshine every other party members damage currently. Long version: Pardon up front for a bit of a rant, but here goes.. I was trying to decide which weapon to use on Xoti as a contemplative (priest+monk) and while while doing some basic auto attack testing, noticed that when removing her sickle she would out damage any other wielded weapon. In fact, her unarmed fist damage would outperform any other weapon base damage on any character, even without spending a single skill point in weapon style or damage increase. (I'm talking low levels here, where the base weapon mechanics are most obvious) Xoti is the only party member who can easily beat down Eder in full fighter tank setup/gear, even out of combat. Her monk fist alone are basically like she is dual wielding 2 two-handed swords, with the accuracy and attack speed of daggers, while penetrating like an estoc (a weapon specialized specifically for piercing armor). Now, I understand that the monk traditional class fantasy is to be kick-ass throwing punches and such (which I personally always found a bit out of place in a setting with heavy armor, weaponry and firearms - but hey, it's all "soul magic", so oh well) My main gripe with the current implementation is that it makes any other heavy weapon wielding class seem a bit like wet noodles in comparison, especially early game and also makes Xoti's sickle subpar. Ex, my (fairly high acc) ranger with greatsword + two-handed style + proficiency (savage attack) can hardly hit/dent Eder at all, while the bare-fisted Xoti happily hammers him down in seconds. I know greatswords are very dependent and best on soft targets etc, it just "feels" and looks wrong in relation. I'd agree that the base unarmed damage of monks fists should be slightly higher than default, maybe on par with a pair of clubs - but not on par with two-handers, and certainly not with nearly twice the penetration values, without using any ability. Who Would like to attempt to punch a guy/gal wearing full plate? ouch.. I find it is (sadly) often the case that monk is implemented as an all-round super high damage dealing class in games - why not have it depend more on sustained and precise but lower-damage hits, a lot of interrupts/stuns with build-up kill moves to represent the high martial skill of a fighting monk? Very effective vs softer targets. The game already has most of this - but on top of the out of place high base damage/pen on fists. Yes, it's bludgeon, but what does it matter if the pen can go to 11 (and scaling up) Equippable knuckle-dusters to add a +pen or two which can gear-scale slightly could perhaps have been a thing, but probably too drastic change. Maybe have a monk specific unarmed passive to specialize in fists, so weapon wielding monks do not feel like missing out on the class main bonuses. Heck, I'd even be totally fine with the high fist damage if it was a baseline 20-30 sec ability, something like "soul empowered fists" for a nice damage burst period (essentially like instant spiritual weapon summon) - which would also allow for weapon monks to deal out some knuckle-justice once in awhile.. I'm guessing some of the explanations might go along the lines of "gear-scaling and legendary bonuses on weapons will offset this later in the game", but that is not really comforting if the underlying base seem unrealistic and skewed in this case. There must be other ways to make it seem less "implausible". The PoE combat system is otherwise doing a nice weapon/armor simulation on a base mechanical level (which is awesome!) but the unarmed monk dmg feel a bit like Fist of the North Star thrown into the mix. I generally love PoE for some of it's emphasis on good martial weapon combat, where you select the best tools for the job, consider weapon/armor types etc. I really want to like the monk class (usually don't most fantasy games) without it feeling OP, and do love it so far, the ability path & wound mechanic, just wish it not to overshadow the more "realistic" weapon wielders and weapon type decisions. Anyways, enough of a rant, and perhaps things will balance out over time, enjoying the game so far after the increased PoTD dif in 1.1, hope everyone else is too Sidenote: two-handed greatswords should probably have +1 pen due to the non-tapered blade mass (and since no +pen modal option, as well as the fact that it does not have longer reach, which would be it's main advantage)

...or are they mutually exclusive? I plan on running Streetfighter/Shattered Pillar using Stalker's Patience and Tuotilo's Palm shield for a healthy mix of offense and defense (Persistent Distraction, Thunderous Blows, Swift Strikes, Ripostes/BT), seems nice on paper. Anyone has any info whether or not those 2 skills can be used simultaneously?

Finishing up my 1st playthrough as a melee War Caller (Skald/Fighter) on Veteran, so I'm looking to make a ranged Bleak Walker for my 2nd one, probably on PotD (not solo). My basic idea is the following: A Votary Bleak Walker/Helwalker who uses Dragon's Dowry's enchant to increase action speed and inflict damage on myself which generates wounds, which in turn triggers Paladin's Retribution ability while healing back up with Lay on Hands and Moon Godlike passive. Stat distribution is as follows: MIG: 15 CON: 10 DEX: 18 PER: 18 INT: 14 RES: 3 Helwalkers get a bonus to MIG with each wound, which is why I left it at 15, 18 DEX for hitting/casting fast, 18 PER so I don't miss, 14 INT for longer heals, dumped RES but not CON. Although I wonder if I should switch INT and PER since Paladins get +5 Accuracy from the aura. What do you think? Curious to see suggestions/improvements/changes you would make.

My run is on POTD/all levelup(only up) Helwalker / ranger The reason I am choosing normal ranger is the sharpshooter subclass is kinda weak imo. We get +15% hit->crit when target > 4m and +1 pen when target <= 4m at the cost of 10 def and 10% recovery time. Hit to crit is kinda worthless for a high-acc build, 10% recovery time is a huge debuff. Helwalker can provide +12 acc & +10 might with Dance of Death and passives. Ranger can provide very high ranged acc and some mobility to avoid taking dmg which would stop death dance. And swift flurry is amazing with weapons can do multiple hits. And there comes ranger's driving flight. In the picture, my ranger dishes our 11 dmg instances with only one mundane attack. He is level 8 right now, no driving flight yet. The weapon is called frostseeker. It normally has 3 projectiles. With Swift Flurry, 11. And it should be much more with driving flight. Also, +12 acc/+10 might improves dmg output. Updated May 19th, Well, this run is about to end, time to write a short summary. I also tested other weapons (Frostseeker is just too OP and makes the game boring) and some abilities. Core abilities: Monk: Swift Flurry, +10 MIGHT, +10INT&+50% fire dmg, +2pen&+5might (2 wounds), +12 acc Ranger: Driving Flight, +10acc(mark), +5acc(marksman), +20acc(wounding shot), +100%base dmg(knockdown combo), potential +10acc(stalker link) +10acc(survival of the fittest), and mobility Currently some good(or broken) combos: 1. Swift Flurry + Driving Flight + any weapon that do multiple hits. The most broken one is Frostseeker. It fires 3 projectiles and does aoe dmg on crit. With a very high ranged acc, Swift Flurry would chain proc and instantly kill most enemies within seconds. 2. Stunning Surge regens much more mortifications then intended. The tooltip of Stunning Surge says if the attack crits, refund mortifications cost. However, I found that a crit would +2 all monk resources (+2 morts + wounds) instead of the actual cost (2 morts). Using a weapon that can only hit 1 time, that's OK. But multi-hit weapons such as frostseeker, every crit would +2 monk resources. Thus, unlimited monk abilities. 3. Ranger Leap Shot(I forgot the name). This upgraded ability allows the ranger a 10m blink + 1 free attack. Its casting time and recovery are both close to 0. A ranger can mark on a target and instantly fire 8 times without recovery time (9 bonds total). Combined with monk goodies, it would be a ton of dmg. 4. Concussive Shot + Frostseeker + driving flight. A lot of interrupts, enemies cannot do anything. Ranged acc, The screenshot shows a 178 acc(without stalker link), that is definitely not the optimal value. My character started as 19 10 14 15 10 10 just to "play safe". I would lower some CON&RES and add more DEX&PER. You can also use Berath's Blessing to make it stronger. And I was trying to upgrade the soulbound arquebus (relatively low enchantment bonus, and inherited -5 acc). At that acc level, the base crit rate is > 50% for almost any enemy in the game( as far as I know) , which means hit->crit is less effective. Ranged dmg A hit with lvl2 soulbound arquebus(basically a normal "exceptional arquebus") 200+dmg, not so bad, and could potentially follow with some lucky swift flurry free hits.

See topic. I've got a soft spot for psychic kickpunchers, and I'm curious about people's experiences with or thoughts on them.

I decided to go for a Helwalker Monk as my PC but I'm already having issues keeping him alive. I feel like my monk don't have the high deflection / Armor needed to properly survive. Sure I could throw some heavier armor on him but it feels like that would hurt his damage too much. I'm only level 6 so haven't gotten that far into the game but I'm really thinking about restarting and going for PotD instead of Hard but also going for a regular monk or even the shattered piller one. What are you guys thoughts? We are talking Hard/PotD difficulty

I'm new to theorycrafting but I thought there could be some cool synergies with a Shattered Pillar / Soul Blade combo. I'm not in the beta, but here's my concept: I would basically try to leverage Swift Strikes --> Swift Flurry plus crit conversion passives plus Hearth Orlan to build resources as fast as possible and just repeatedly slam down Soul Annihilations. There are also a fair number of crit-enhancing passives in both trees, as well as penetration bonuses. For weapons I would do unarmed / rapiers. My questions are: 1. What would a good stat spread look like for this build? 2. What cipher spells would be helpful for this? Is it worth taking shred spells (which compete with Soul Annihilation)? Or more expensive CC? 3. Any other issues with this idea? Thanks.

Hello, I would like to ask you whether it's intended or bug that ogre fist (from Form of the Fearsome Brute) is not count as unarmed weapon? I wanted to play monk/wizard as Ogre with high attack speed, but it looks like monk's passive buffs to unarmed weapon doesn't work for Ogre fist. It would be probably too strong, but now it's quite confusing.. Thanks guys!

I've seen information indicating that monks fighting with nothing in either hand benefit from Two Weapon Style bonuses. I've equipped a shield and seen the Weapon and Shield Style bonuses on my monk. Anybody know if/how One-Handed Style and Two-Handed Styles work for monks? Specifically, - Does empty main hand +shield gain any benefit from One-Handed Style? - Does Two-Handed Style give any benefit to my monk's kick attacks?

Hi guys/gals, Has anyone tried or theorycrafted a barbarian/monk combo? I could not find any post on this multiclass build. I was planning on going Barbarian/Corpse-eater (for sustainability) + Monk/Shattered-pillar (to get wounds from hits). On the paper it seems to synergize quite well with the barbarian high hit-rate + AOEs and the wounds gained from hits by the Monk/Shattered-pillar but maybe I am missing something... If you feel like it's bad, could you advise a better balanced (non glass-canon) melee build, with high burst damage, AOEs ans some croud-control? Any advice about how to level this build is also welcome Thanks

I would just like some advice on the monk play through. Whether it be stating stats or race selection, that best suits monk. Thanks for your help.

"Lash! A-ah Savior of the Universe Lash! A-ah He save everyone of us Lash! A-ah He's a miracle Lash! A-ah King of the impossible" - The Queen that was - <maybe I will insert backstory here... > =================================== Monksterlasher =================================== Difficulty: PotD v. 3.02 -------------------------------------------------------------- Class: Monk -------------------------------------------------------------- Race: Fire Godlike -------------------------------------------------------------- Background: The Living Lands - Colonist -------------------------------------------------------------- Stats: MIG: 19 CON: 18 DEX: 04 PER: 12 INT: 17 (maybe lower when not taking Veteran's Recovery, put it into PER then) RES: 08 -------------------------------------------------------------- Skills: Stealth 0, Athl. 6, Lore 2, Mech. 0, Surv. 14 -------------------------------------------------------------- Talents (a=auto, r=recommended, !=important) Spirit of Decay Scion of Flame Heart of the Storm Lightning Strikes Savage Attack Two Weapon Style Apprentice's Sneak Attack or Veteran's Recovery (when solo or without healer) Weapon Focus Ruffian Abilities Turning Wheel Swift Strikes Torment's Reach Long Stride Crucible of Suffering Duality of Mortal Presence Iron Wheel Enervating Blows (or Flagellant's Path when solo) Force of Anguish (see above) --------------------------------------------------------------- Items (*=additional echantments by me; !=important, r=recommended): Weapon set 1: Bittercut (!) (*durgan refined, *burning lash, *superb, *slaying(whatever non-kith)) + duplicated Bittercut (!) (*shocking lash, slaying(whatever else)) (you could also use Bittercut + any other sabre or Bittercut + Azureth's Stiletto or Bleak Fang if you don't want to duplicate Bittercut) Weapon Set 2: Azureith's Stiletto ® (=Jolting Touch on crit 1/enc) + Irfyn Brngar's Solace (r - switch to this when stun or prone occurs) Boots: Animancer's Boots ® (3*Jolting Touch/rest) or Shod-in-Faith (against hard hitting enemies) Head: nothing (Godlike) Armor: Blaidh Golan (r - after getting Iron Wheel) or heavy armor like He Carries Many Scars (great when health is low), even Vengiatta Rugia works ok, same with Wayfarer's Hide. Neck: Fulvano's Amulet ® Belt: Broad Belt of Power Rings: Ring of Protection, Iron Circle (r - lots on CON as well as increased DR when endurance is low) Hands: Blood Testament (!) Quick slots: Potions of Spirit Shield®, Potions of Major Regeneration, Potions of Flame Shield(!), Scrolls of Jolting Touch(!) ----------------------------------------------------------------- Hey! The Monksterlasher completely evolves around amassing and exploiting lashes using weapon attacks with Bittercut as well as burning retaliations like Flame shield and Battle Forged. I took a monk to do this because of several good reasons: 1. Monks can have very high endurance and health. If you want do use Battle Forged, you want to have those high. If you don't, you will have to rest a lot. 2. Monks can have three lashes besides weapon enchantments: Turning Wheel, Lightning Strikes and also a raw lash from Blood Testment Gloves (monk-only gloves). And of course, they can enchant their weapons with a lash, too. 3. Monk's Turning Wheel and also Blood Testment (not Lightning Strikes) work with retaliation! Not only the normal one, but also Battle Forged as well as Flame Shield. That means that with 10 wounds your Battle Forged retaliation will have additional +50% burn damage and + 20% raw damage lashes. Since Battle Forged starts pretty whimpy but gets very powerful at higher levels (scaling) this leads to very high damage via burning retaliaion. Flame Shields retaliation (+50%/+20%) adds to this if you drink a potion 4. Battle Forged + Turning Wheel profit from Scion of Flame. So you will get initial 120% burn damage. This is used to calculate the lash damage of Turning Wheel and Blood Testament. So they get increased, too. ON top of that Turning Wheels' lash damage also gets pimped by 20%. So alltogether you will get this: 120% burn damage + 60% (72%) burning lash + 20% (24%) raw lash (if you calculate the lashes with a base damage of 120% it's 72/24 instead of 60/20 - how you look at it). 5. Turning Wheel and Blood Testment work with Jolting Touch! It's amazing: you hit three enemies with high shock damage and do +50% burning +20% raw lash on top. It makes Jolting Touch so good. Also works with Scion of Flame so that Turning Wheel's damage is 60%. Add Heart of the Storm and not only your Lightning Strikes will do 30% lashes instead of 25%, but also Jolting Touch's damage will be boosted. This has the same effect as with Scion of Flame + Battle Forged + Turning Wheel. Only now it's Heart of the Storm + Jolting Touch + Scion of Flame + Turning Wheel That's the reason why I chose Azureith's Stiletto for my second weapon slot: It procs Jolting Touch on a crit. I also wanted to have 2 Lore of the scrolls. It's a good way to do some AoE damage without using wounds and stay at 10 wounds for maximum lash damage. 6. Torment's Reach adds a 50% crushing lash to the initial target. It's another lash and just awesome. Besides that it's AoE is superbig with high INT and adds a lot of AoE damage. 7. Monks can have unlimited Full Attacks as long as they have wounds. So a dual wielding setup doesn't suffer from low DEX and armor very much because... Full Attacks, you know. This allowed my to dump DEX altogether. I could then maximize MIG, CON and INT. MIG for myed self healing and damage, CON because it has a great effect on monks because of their heigh base end and health. I need a lot of endurance an health if I want to make Battle Forge worthwhile and not rest all the time. And INT to maximize the durations of self heling, buffs and Torment's Reach's AoE cone. 8. Monks can reach crazy high DR which can balance out the lower deflection I have with two sabres and somewhat low RES. But since I want to have a high wound counter and want to receive damage, Iron Wheel is pretty nice to add a lot of DR while getting hit so that only MIN damage comes through. Those are the reason why I combine the concept of lashes with a monk and not a... paladin or whatever. So why Bittercut? Because it has two damage types and because Bittercut's base damage gets buffed by Spirit of Decay. That's because it has the damage type corrode/slash (the order is important). In this case Spirit of Decay works as an +20% addition to base damage, EVEN if slash damage and not corrode damage is applied. I don't know why (I think the explanation lies somewhere in the structure of the code) but it's like that. So on top of things like high MIG, Savage Attack and whatever boosts your weapon damage, Spirit of Decay also adds +20% to that. Besides Stormcaller and the summoned weapons Firebrand, Cadebald's Blackbow and Klakoth's Minor Blights it's the only weapon that does this and is suitable for a dual wielding monk at the same time. Weapons like Durance's Staff don't work like this because they have crush/burn (like I said: the order matters). This makes Spirit of Decay a much better option than Savage Attacks by the way. So that's the reason I took Scion of Flame, Spirit of Decay AND Heart of the Storm. It sounds like a waste of talent points, but after testing this build a lot I don't have the feeling it is. I will just quickly list those talents and what they can influence on this build: a) Scion of Flame: - Battle Forged: +20% burn damage (which also influences the damage of all attached lashes) - Flame Shield: +20% burn damage (see above) - Turning Wheel: +60% lash instead of +50% - Burning Lash (Bittercut, if chosen): +30% lash instead of +25% - Chanter's Burning Lash (if in party): +30% instead of +25% b) Heart of the Storm: - Jolting Touch: +20% shock damage (which also influences the damage of all attached lashes) - Lightning Strikes: +30% shock damage instead of +25% - Shocking Lash (Bittercut, if chosen): +30% lash damage instead of 25% c) Spirit of Decay: - Bittercut: +20% corrode/slash damage (which also... and so on) - Corrosive Lash (Bittercut, if chosen): 30% lash instead of 25% So - because of this it doesn't really matter which lash you put on Bittercut. Shocking, burning or corrosive work equally well. If you have a Stormcaller guy in the party you might want to choose shocking lashes maybe. If you like burning lashes more go for that. If you want to hurt every enemy no matter what immunities you probably go for one burning and one shocking lash (so you have corrosive/slash + burning lash + shocking lash damage with one weapon setup). Let's see what additional damage and lashes we have when we use Torment's Reach: Two times weapon attack (Full Attack)... + 20% from Spirit of Decay + 20% from Savage Attack + 33% from 21 MIG + 45% from the "Superb" enchantment + eventually +15% from Apprentice's Sneak Attack (Enervating Blows help) + eventually +50% from crit this combined damage gets used when calculated: + 60% burnig lash from Turning Wheel + 50% crushing lash from Torment's Reach + 30% shocking lash from Lightning Strikes + 30% (shocking/burning/corrosive) lash from enchantment you put on the weapon + 20% raw lash from Blood Testament + eventually +30% burning lash from chanter this results in +118% weapon damage +220% lash damage against 0 DR. You could also use Vulnerable Attack to lower enemies' DR - it doesn't slow you down that much because of the Full Attacks (I did it first but later retrained - so it's not in the build now). Plus you hit a lot of enemies with Torment's Reach AoE. But you also lower your wound counter - so every hit will be weaker than the first if you don't get wounds while attacking. Luckily, whe have tons of endurance and health because of the Iron Cirlce and our base CON. So we can affort to get hit a bit. With Flame Shield we can do the following additional damage while getting hit: + 20% from Scion of Flame + 33% from MIG + 20% from Savage Attack + 15% from Apprentice Sneak Attack (eventually) + 50% from crit (eventually) this combine gets used when calculated: + 60% burnimg lash from Turning Wheel + 20% raw lash from Blood Testment + 30% burning lash from chanter's chant (eventually) Once we hit 50% endurance, Battle Forged kicks in which does the same as Flame Shield (they don't suppress each other) but with much higher base damage at higher levels. This is extremely powerful once you get pommeled so often that you might have to fear that you're getting knocked out. Suddenly you retaliate with more than 100 burn/raw damage with normal ret. hits and a lot more with crits. On top of that comes Flame Shield which is basically half that much damage. This melts foes who insist to hit you - while you use Torment's Reach or Jolting Touch to kill them even more quickly. As a side effect, your DR gets raised by 4, adds to the Iron Wheel (+10) and also to your armor. Your armor value might also be strengthened by Iron Circle. So, that's +14 to your armor, not bad. Enervating Blows also work with all of this - so a lot of foes will be weakened either by your weapon attacks or the retaliations which makes it easier for Apprentice's Sneak Attack to kick in and also makes it easier to send foes prone with Force of Anguish. I do this when I have the feeling that I get beaten too much. All this results in pretty insane damage while you can tank a lot of enemies because of high endurance, DR and great healing mods. I use Fulvano's Amulet with +25% and a +60% healing bonus from camping. This is great when you have any char in your party who heals. Down below I say something about self heals when you want to solo (or don't have healers). But a potion of Major Regeneration always works wonders with this healing mods. If you want to lob Fireballs or other elemental AoE spells onto your Monksterlasher you can do that, too: he has additional +4 DR against burn, shock and corrode damage because of the elemental talents. So it would be +14 or even +18 DR against such spells. Interrupts can be a problem if you send this guy first. So either you have a priest with you or you use potions of Spirit Shield. As i said: For healing I use my party members or potions. In a party that's totally cool. This build is also suitable for soloing. But you might want to get Veteran's Recovery instead of Apprentice's Sneak Attack and Flagellant's Path instead of Envenomed Strike or Force of Anguish (great for escaping when you're surrounded completely and your endurance drops too fast). Also, use an item which raises Concentration and also consider to use Shod-in-Faith. This way you will be near unkillable as long as your self heals work and you have health left. After that Battle Forged can help to clear up the rest of the mob. Also, more Lore is useful when you're solo. Skip Athletics and put more points into Lore when you're solo. He Carries Many Scars's regeneration has no time limit by the way and also adds a lot of DR when your health is low - ao maybe this is a good armor when you're solo. Another thing I discovered lately and which made me choose Force of Anguish: when you use Azureith's Stiletto and use it for Force of Anguish and it crits while doing that... all three enemies who get hit by Jolting Touch also go prone! Hilarious! I have no idea why and it's certainly a bug - but a nice one. OK, have fun. I liked this build a lot. It's tanky and does great dps at the same time, even when disabled (switch to shield setup then!). tl;dr: So the essence of this build is that Battle Forged, Flame Shield and Jolting Touch and of course Torment's Reach work with Turning Wheel and Blood Testament gloves, which makes it worthwhile to take three of the four elemental booster talents if you also use Bittercut as main weapon(s) Edit (24.06.2016): Corrected a thing about Vulnerable Attack - it was still in the text despite the fact that I retrained and skipped it. Thanks to sibakroum for pointing this out. Edit (18.09.2016): I wrote Envenomed Strike instead of Enervating Blows a few times - sorry for that, I corrected it.

First off, the dual class system is what I dreamed of while playing PoE1. This kind of thinking really blows the class system wide open. Being able to further specialize an ability like Smite to get another bonus is also a great choice. I acknowledge and like how removing general talents makes individual classes more unique, but without those 30-40 general talents there really are so few options each level. Right now it feels like a 1:1 trade off with dual classing instead of talents; however, if some form of general talents were added, this system would be incredibly versatile. If there are more soulbound items than in PoE1 that allow a character to develop through items, that would also solve this lack of options. I love how the soulbound weapons invite you to pursue certain achievements in the game world. Finally, a personal desire of mine: allow druid wildshape weapons (claws, etc.) to count as unarmed for the sake of being able to use the barbarian's weapon focus or the monk's transcendant suffering. I think creating an unarmed weapon proficiency is all that's needed to rectify this. I love the shifter subclass but a multiclass druid misses out on many of the martial classes' accuracy/defense increases. A multiclass monk also finds itself lacking synergy.

Here's an early draft of the Lady of Pain build for the Deadfire backer beta. Most things are subject to change as newer beta versions are rolled out with balance changes; more so once the game is out and we get to see whole ability trees and all unique items. These were the defining traits of the original build, which I'll pursue again with this one: Maxing out its MIG score. Packing as many damage bonuses as possible. Pumping Accuracy as much as possible. Reaching 0 recovery (or getting very close to it.) Turning its low Deflection into an asset. With this in mind, my Lady of Pain build for Beta 1.0820B is as follows: Race: Coastal Aumaua Aumaua gets +2 MIG bonus; Iit is crucial to go for the Coastal subrace in order to get Resistance to Might Afflictions, which makes us immune to Stun. Background: Any Attributes: MIG 20* CON 10 DEX 10 PER 18 INT 15 RES 05 * Can be 21 if you remove one point from another stat. I chose 20 to stick to an even number; I didn't want to dump CON (as you'll see, this Lady of Pain is quite the glass cannon compared to its PoE counterpart) and I wanted to allocate all points from RES to INT in order to make up for the Will defense penalty while profiting from a longer duration on all self-buffs. These attributes include the bonus point from your chosen provenance. It can be anywhere so long as you rearrange your stat points to look like the above. Class: Devoted/Helwalker In Deadfire, synergies between the Fighter and Monk classes abound and nothing screams Lady of Pain like this combination. A few highlights: Helwalker gets +1MIG per Wound up to +10. This is what turns low Deflection into an asset: Let them help you hit them harder. The bonus MIG from Wounds increases your Healing received, including Constant Recovery—this beautifully offsets the extra damage per Wound you take from the Helwalker. * Duality of Mortal Presence can be used to gain up to +10 CON (1 per Wound) in a build that already encourages you to hoard Wounds. Thunderous Blows gets you +5 MIG and +4 penetration; Lightning Strikes adds a whopping +50% lash and +35% attack speed. The Devoted adds +3 penetration and +25% critical hit damage off the bat, plus access to Weapon Specialization, Armored Grace, and fighting style talents. * as of the upcoming beta build, MIG will no longer affect healing, thus eliminating this synergy. Proficiency: Sword Here is another deviation from the original build, as Deadfire makes heavy armor + two-handers a rather impractical combination. Namely, heavy armor's recovery penalty was doubled from 50% to 100%. Based on the information we possess from the beta, it is not possible to reach 0 recovery in heavy armor unless you dual-wield—and even then, you must sip a Potion of Relentless Striking to achieve it. Additionally, the modal for Great Sword is rather underwhelming. Swords have a nice modal that gives +2 penetration in exchange from -20 Deflection—a good trade-off for the Lady of Pain, since its Deflection already sucks Granted, there will be fights where taking the Deflection hit will have you killed pretty fast, so we can't have the modal on all the time; however it's a nice-to-have and Swords have good base damage. Talents: Many good talents in the Fighter/Monk trees. Here are my picks for the beta in no particular order: Disciplined Barrage Two Weapon Style Disciplined Strikes Fighter Stances Knock Down OR Force of Anguish* Confident Aim OR Into the Fray OR Determination Rapid Recovery * Now that Prone no loner has a duration and merely counts as an interrupt, Knock Down is no longer as powerful as it used to be in the first game. The push back from Force of Anguish may prove useful if you're taking too much of a beating, as it shoves the enemy and gives you time to drink a potion. Mortification of the Soul Swift Strikes Lesser Wounds Lightning Strikes Clarity of Agony Bull's Will Note that I am not taking any active Monk abilities that may cost Wounds (we want to keep Wounds high in order to benefit from the extra MIG) or Mortification (we want to use it to pop Lightning Strikes back up when it expires.) Confident Aim is only really "necessary" in this first backer beta build, since Disciplined Strikes is granting Miss-to-Graze conversion without also granting the ability to Graze. From the next update on, I suggest Determination to gain a +20 bonus against Charmed/Dominated effects which could prove ... hurtful, if they landed. Clarity of Agony is very good in case those Afflictions landed anyway, since it will make them last 50% shorter. Bull's Will is highly recommended to make up for the relatively low Will defense. Going into higher levels, make sure you pick the following: Armored Grace Weapon Specialization Body Control Unstoppable Fearless Duality of Mortal Presence Thunderous Blows Clarity of Mind Recapping: Damage Up to 35 MIG with no spell or item buffs (20 starting + 10 Helwalker + 5 Thunderous Blows); that's a multiplicative 75% damage bonus. 50% lash damage from Lightning Strikes. 15% damage bonus from Weapon Specialization. 25% crit damage bonus from the Devoted sublcass. You can get an extra 20% from the Potion of Relentless Striking, which becomes 40% with 10 ranks in Alchemy. Penetration +3 from the Devoted subclass. +4 from Thunderous Blows. +2 from Half-Sword (Sword modal.) That's +9 on top of the extra penetration from the Swords' enchantment; should be enough to guarantee over-penetration every time you land a critical hit. Accuracy +8 from Perception. +5 from Conqueror Stance. +5 from Disciplined Strikes. 50% hit-to-crit conversion from Disciplined Strikes. That's +18 Accuracy on top of that from the Swords' enchantment with no spell or item buffs. You can get +20 from Devotions for the Faithful, which also gets you another +4 MIG that I think stacks with everything else we've been using so far. You can also get +6 from a Potion of Deftness, which becomes +8 if you have 10 ranks in Alchemy (which I dearly endorse for the extra attack speed.) When you crit, you get extra damage and extra penetration; with over-penetration, everything gets a 30% multiplicative bonus, including your MIG which was already multiplicative. That's pretty massive. Recovery: -35% from Lightning Strikes (20% from the ability; 15% from the Dexterity boost.) -50% from dual-wielding. -20% from Two Weapon Style. -20% from Armored Grace (can't get it as a multi-class in the beta, but eventually you will in the game.) That's -125% recovery and some of those abilities also boost your attack speed. If wearing medium armor (e.g. Scale Armor, +50% recovery) you must get to 150% to have 0 recovery. Based on the above, a speed weapon would already get you to 5%; an item that gives +2 DEX would get you to 0 without using potions. If wearing heavy armor, that's another 50% penalty—you'll need the Potion of Relentless Striking to get to 0 recovery. Alternatively, a Potion of Deftness with 10 ranks in Alchemy gives you a 75% attack speed bonus, which is enough to reach 0 recovery in Plate armor with no speed weapons and no other boosts to DEX. It is not known how many potions of that kind we'll be able to hoard in the game, nor do we know whether speed weapons still exist and how they work. Hopefully there will be at least one end-game sword with that ability and the potions will be available in large supply. In the beta you can reach 0 recovery wearing medium armor and popping the potion (150% recovery - 155% recovery bonuses.) Defenses: Your Fortitude is unconquerable, especially once you get Duality of Mortal Presence (can't get it as a multiclass in the beta.) Your Reflexes are pretty good owing to the bonus from Perception (further increased by the PER bump from Disciplined Strikes and the DEX bump from Lightning Strikes.) Your Will is relatively weak, as it's only getting a bonus from Bull's Will. You may want to take the talent Determination for another +20 against Intellect Afflictions (that's +30 total against Confusion/Charmed/Dominated before any item bonuses, which is solid.) You are immune to Stun thanks to your racial; with Body Control, you are also immune to Dazed. You are immune to Paralyze thanks to Unstoppable and to Terrified thanks to Fearless. Your Deflection is poor. Granted, the Conqueror Stance makes up for the 5 points you lose on Resolve, but you're gaining no bonuses from anywhere. Popping a potion of Relentless Striking gets you -10 and using the Sword modal gets you another -20. You'll need to either boost it with spells and items, or watch out when you use those to avoid getting critted too much (enemies will over-penetrate your Armor Rating and hit you for a multiplicative 30% extra damage that also applies to the extra damage you take from the Helwalker ability.) You should wear Scale Armor at the very minimum—better Plate or Brigandine. With low Deflection, you want to boost your Armor Rating at every opportunity.

I don't particularly enjoy playing with Monk characters. Will there be a way, I wonder, to respec the priest/monk character Xoti and yank out the Monk class levels? Or are we stuck with that?

Hi, quick question: Does envenomed strike work with fists (unarmed)? Thanks.

Hey guys, So, I am at the end of the game [just about to jump on Thaos] I got a monk, part tank, part DPS, using the long reach. I am using He carries many scars armor. But it is recommended to use Sanguine Plate to get frenzy. Well I kind of do not like the def attributes of Sanguine Plate. Ofc I got it and can change it at any time. What other armor do you recommend for monks?

Hi, First time poster. Loving this game as an old BG1 & 2 & IWD, etc. addict. I modified / made a few new portraits for my game and thought I'd share: http://www.nexusmods.com/pillarsofeternity/mods/128/? Brak

Duplicate - Sorry - Mod Please delete.

Hello I'll get straight to the point: I'd like to mod the game, and add a DR passive effect every certain amount of levels to the monk class. Sort of like the passive you get every several levels that increases unarmed damage. Maybe I could just add a DR effect to it and save myself the trouble of trying to add something completely new. My reason is, that I like the unarmed martial arts no armor theme of the class, but every time I tried to start a game as a monk, I felt either very weak and useless, or had to stray from the theme and use medium or heavy armor to utilize the wounds mechanic properly and to actually survive (I play on POTD exclusively). If I could add a passive DR value to Transcendent Suffering, I could make it reach 12 DR (like plate armor) at level 10, which seems reasonable to me for a front line fighter who's theme is to wear just clothes and be a punching bad-ass. I'm very proficient in Java, but I have never modded any game, so I'm feeling a bit lost. I mostly request guidance on where I could find the files I need to mod, maybe a link to a modding guide would be enough. If I eventually get this to work and other people would be interested in it, I'd gladly upload it somewhere and share it. Thanks in advance

Finally got White March after waiting for Part 2, and decided to use my first party, with a Monk main character. What I discovered is an amazing synergy between unarmed attacks and the new Cipher spell Reaping Knives - namely the fact that they apparently benefit from unarmed damage boni, as seen here: This makes my Monk do absolutely bonkers damage while my Cipher pretty much generates more focus than she can reasonably spend. The best strategy for everything at that point seemed to be buffing the Monk as much as possible and just letting her take apart everything pretty much on her own. Note that this makes her do 100% raw damage, so the unarmed damage essentially gets transformed into raw. Just to be sure, I tested Reaping Knives on my Barbarian as well, and sure enough, they took over the slot from the equipped weapon, so it's not like they just add their raw damage on top of the equipped weapon. I assumed the Reaping Knives being affected by unarmed boni is not intended, but I went back to check the Accuracy breakdown - and lo and behold, Monks actually get double Weapon Focus boni here. Note that Reaping Knives apparently give you a Weapon Focus bonus even if you usually wouldn't get them for daggers, so long as you have any Weapon Focus talent at all. Here, however, they get it twice - my Monk has both WF: Peasant for the unarmed attack and WF: Ruffian for the secondary set of double stilettos. All of this leads me to believe that this is not merely an oversight or an unintended interaction, but actually designed so that Reaping Knives don't overwrite fists like other weapons, but rather get grafted onto them. adding their damage to the base damage of the fists and transforming it all into raw damage. If so, I very much like my monk being Godlike not just in appearance, but combat ability. tl;dr New Cipher spell Reaping Knives seems to stack with Monk's unarmed attacks, giving them super-strong raw damage fists

Hi all, I just started the White March DLC and really wanted to incorporate zahua into my party. I wanted him to take Eder's role as main tank. The thought of an ascetic tank was just too much for me to resist. The tank is gonna take a beating, so why not make him the guy who uses pain as a pathway to enlightenment! Furthermore, monk looks to have some pretty cool CC abilities that may be a bit more interesting to play than Eder's fighter class. Anyway, it's pretty obvious that using zahua with the attributes he comes programmed with wasn't going to cut it, as he was balanced around dps. So I used the console commands to change his attributes to better suit a tank. I also replaced mortification of the soul with defender. I'm currently using: lvl7 mgt 8 con 18 dex 13 per 11 int 10 res 17 for reference, here's his stats without the modification. unmodded lvl7 mgt 17 con 14 dex 13 per 11 int 10 res 12 Using a stiletto with life drain, a shield, and heavy armor, he still feels feels considerably squishier than eder was. This could just be the area I was in (russetwood has some pretty heavy hitting trolls and ogres), but regardless I'd like to get you guys opinions on how to create this custom monk main tank build. Seems really fun if I can get it working the way i want! Thanks for any input.