[CLASS BUILD] No Pain, No Brains (Monk/Paladin)

[Braven]

This is a retaliation based build where you also retailate against yourself. The idea is to create insane numbers of wounds to trigger rooting pain constantly, while not dying. The not dying part is is helped greatly by the huge amount of Intelligence and power level this build gathers. This greatly extends lay on hands which in turn generates tons of health. The low, 1 zeal cost and virtuous triumph ability allows you to keep the pain train going. Instant monk abilities allow you to use up wounds instantly to trigger rooting pain. They also have many quick and passive ways to cause themselves damage, in case enemies are not doing a good enough job of that for you.

 

Class: Helwalker Monk / Shieldbearer Paladin

 

Race: Nature or Death Godlike (tested with nature)

 

Weapon: Dual Sceptors with profiency modal activated (to damage yourself for more wounds)

 

Armor: Naked (clothes provide armor that slows down the pain.)

 

Stats (including abilities that will always be active - no items)

 

Mig: 33 (18 starting, +10 helwalker, +5 thunderous blows)

 

Con: 8 (3 starting, 5 greater lay on hands)

 

Dex: 21 (16 starting, 5 swift strikes)

 

Per: 18

 

Int: 35 (20 starting, +10 duality, +5 clarity of mind)

 

Res: 3

 

Abilities:

 

Greater Lay on Hands: This build fully realizes the potential of this ability. Your high dex and increased action speed from swift strikes allow a quick cast/recovery time. Your really high might, int, and power level allows for huge healing and a long duration. Power level is more benefical on lower tier powers. Being tier one, you will gain +6 from levels and +2 from nature godlike. This adds another 80% healing and 40% duration. Total duration (for shield bearer death immunity), without considering bonuses from items, is: 5 + 125% (int) + 40% (pl) = 13.5 seconds. With items you can probably get this to 15 seconds. This is assuming additive math. If power level is multicative, it would be more. That might not seem like much but you will be constantly (nearly instantly) generating rooting pains so battles will go by -very- fast, and you can use this 12+ times per encounter if needed.

 

Rooting Pain: your really high might and intelligence means this will hit hard and wide. While the base damage is fairly low, there is no DR in this game and it can be spammed over and over, nearly non-stop.

 

Thunderous blows: this is key for getting rid of wounds. It also provides you more strength and penetration. Just use it whenever you have too many wounds.

 

Turning wheel: The +10 intelligence make lay on hands less of a hassle to refresh, giving more time between castings to perform actions. The +50% fire damage is a nice benefit too. Not sure if it helps rooting pain... will check later and report.

 

Clarity of mind: Mainly we use this for the +5 intelligence from it’s “smart” inspiration. It has a long duration so you only need to activate it once. It also, along with all the paladin passives, basically makes you immune to afflictions.

 

Swift Strikes: This allows you to get off your abilities super fast. Not only 20% action speed, it also has +5 dex. Basically it increases the speed of all actions, even spells, by 35% which is huge. Keep it going at all times.

 

Sacred Immolation, you won’t get this till late, but it just makes everythig better. Creates tons of wounds and also damages everyone. Build works without it, but certainly a good thing when you get it. Your intelligence will make it last a long time too.

 

You can create wounds while you are being healed to trigger rooting pain using:

 

- sacred immolation (passive tick)

- mortification of soul (fast activation and costs nothing)

- helwalker increases wound generation by 50%

- less wounds increases by another 20%

- scepters’ profiency modal

- enemies hitting you

- allies hitting you

- aoe hazards

- frriendly fire spells

- ???

 

Wounds can be instantly used up with thunderous blows if you have too many to make room for more.

Edited May 19, 2018 by Braven

[Dorftek]

It's very creative, I applaud this idea. However I'd personally never use it as its a build abusing the immortality screw up by the devs lol. Still tho, very creative and clever build. =)

[Braven]

At least it doesn’t use the even more broken chanter inspiration phrase.

 

The immorality helps against accidental death and lets you keep con low, but your are healing so much that it isn’t really even needed until late game when any build wrecks everything. Healing actually outpaces damage if you don’t purposefully hurt yourself. That is why I used nature instead of death godlike. It can actually be hard to ensure you are at near death because of all the healing you also create. The 20% damage of death godlike might work wonders with rooting pain though.

 

My favorite part is the massive might and int that helwalker monk provides and how you can turn it’s normally terrible downside into a huge boon. That 50% wound growth (from taking increased damage) is what really makes this build work wonders

Edited May 19, 2018 by Braven

[Voltron]

Very creative and orginal! I like that, not my style (scepters) but gave some some ideas of Monk/Fighter combo.

 

Anyway props for build

Edited May 19, 2018 by Voltron

[Braven]

Very creative and orginal! I like that, not my style (scepters) but gave some some ideas of Monk/Fighter combo.

 

Anyway props for build

Fists also do tons of damage with the extra power levels helping. I just was trying to fit weapon with build concept, but really any works. The “best” would be to just pick one with a nice enchantment. An enchantment that passively helps rooting pain would be better since it is quicker to self-create wounds with mortification of soul than using weapons.

 

Monk is fun if you want high int/might. I considered also priest monk since they have good healing and longer durations. The +200 health from triumph of champions would work well with a higher con version... and there is always barring death... level 5 spell that grant immortality, with higher duration than lay on hands, and can be extended with salvation of time at level 6.

 

I stuck with paladin mainly because it got up and running faster and had the ultimate self-inflicted damage option late game with sacred immolation which fits the theme nicely.

Edited May 19, 2018 by Braven

[Elderagp]

why does everyone dump resolve ? I get this is a ranged build but ccs will be devastating on  your charecter I would lower it to no more then 6-8

[Boeroer]

Inspirations remove afflictions as well as supresses affliction. It's my no.1 dump stat as well.

[Boeroer]

Should this go into the build list?

[Braven]

why does everyone dump resolve ? I get this is a ranged build but ccs will be devastating on your charecter I would lower it to no more then 6-8

Like boerer said, there are lots of ways to deal with afflictions. You can counter with an inspiration or use resistance to “downgrade” them to weaker versions. Unless you are going for maximum possible deflection, it doesn’t do much to reduce durations. It is actually less useful than POE1, where you often wanted at least some for concentration.

 

This build really doesn’t want it. I would go with negative resolve if I could since it is anti-synergetic. This character is in a persistant living hell; he has no resolve left! With all the paladin passives, all the really bad ones will be downgraded, if they hit at all, and the monk’s agony ability dramatically reduces the duration anyway; far more so than extra resolve ever would.

Edited May 19, 2018 by Braven

[Braven]

Should this go into the build list?

Sure! I haven’t fully tested and played all the way through yet, but I plan to. I may have more insight to add later, along with some suggested items.

[Climhazzard]

Only 35 intelligence... no brains, lol.

[Braven]

By the way; There is another interesting build I thought of that is less micro-intensive that fully uses death-godlike all the time. Described briefly below:

 

StreetFighter / Priest (Weal)

Flail/blunderbuss with modals (makes you always flanked and reflex debuff for blunderbuss AOE accuracy)

Use Death Barred... spell to make yourself immune to death. Combined with the Salvation of Time spell, you can get about 60 seconds of death immunity with high int. During that time you blunderbuss like crazy with the full streetfighter and death godlike benefits. Why Flail and blunderbuss? Backstab is very lousy with blunderbuss, only applying to one bullet. With flail you backstab with that while at the same time debuffing reflex that the gun’s special AOE attack targets. Just like this build, you can dump CON and RES since health doesn’t matter.

[Braven]

Only 35 intelligence... no brains, lol.

The pain gives him brains (much of that comes from wounds). The roleplaying idea is that he can only find true enlightenment and strokes of genioud when undergoing severe torment and intense suffering.

Edited May 19, 2018 by Braven

[Boeroer]

I added it to the build list.

[Gromnir]

as something similar, mentioned more than once how we intended our first play to be a helwalker/priest o' eothas who would initial one-hand scepters and then switch to a one-hand melee weapon as needed.  (the skaen husk armour has 0 recovery and is ideal for such a build btw.)  tried to point out how a dual wield scepter wielder would, with dance o' death, make an even better helwalker/caster combo, but seemed to be little enthusiasm for such a build.  go figure.

 

*shrug*

 

a priest o' wael with a rod is gonna be better than our eothas priest or even most dual wield builds, but regardless, the advantages o' a ranged caster who has +30 might and +30 intellect in most encounters from early levels onward should be obvious.  our helwalker/priest o' eothas is actual kinda a joke build from midpoint o' the game, and once we hit level 19 is plain stoopid as we got avatar state, enervating blows and heartbeat drumming, along with all the priestly heals (including barring death's door) and salvation o' time for an extra +20 second duration on all beneficial effects.  the orlan is spamming self procing crits which even without the functional multiplication is already doing big damage and weakening foes-- rare has much reason to cast offensive spells other than pre-battle seals, but if am feeling bored, maybe we use a pillar of fire for ridiculous damage before empowers. can always have the blue monkey cast a pain block on us for a little added safety.  is a number o' nice, one-handed, on-crit weapons in deadfire which makes our helwalker/priest build even better, but typical we do the spiritual weapon thing unless am facing fire resistant or fire/blunt immune critters. 

 

am knowing it goes 'gainst traditional crpg wisdom, but helwalker sages, ascetics and contemplatives, is all fantastic options for multiclassing casters.  'course am thinking the reason why such builds is so nice is 'cause monks, regardless o' the helwalker option, need serious nerfs. 

 

HA! Good Fun!

[Braven]

Cool, glad you had fun with priest/monk; monk is good with casters because of the might and int bonuses, along with swift strikes that speeds up spell casting a ton. I want to try a priest build at somepoint, either with monk or rogue. I like Weal since you get the arcane Veil spell for a big deflection boost at level 1, which is a couple levels earlier than wizard. Great spell for powering through the early game since the best priest spells are tier 4+. Also, I like the idea of being a follower of thr “god of secrets”; all very mysterious.

Edited May 19, 2018 by Braven

[Ashen Rohk]

Monk is beautifully broken,  just like back in the good old IE days.

 

<3