Suggestion for monk build for 2nd playthrough?

[sinsae]

Just looking for a good unarmed build for Monk, preferrably Helwalker since I'm not too fond of the taking drugs aspect.

 

What would a good subclass for dps be? Or would pure monk be better? This is in a party.

 

I assume 8 str is fine because of Berath and wounds?

[grayrest]

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.

[Dorftek]

Yeah Grayrest's suggestion sounds really good. I've never tried a Ranger/monk tbh but it sounds pretty neat. 

For a Helwalker i really like multiclassing with Fighter because of all the healing you get from that. 

[sinsae]

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.

Thank you! This definitely helped me make a decision.

[thundercleese]

You could also go for Berserker. Will be quite fragile, especially in the early game but the barb passives/buffs are great. Scordeo's Edge doesn't seem to have a cap at the moment (contrary to its description), you can also gain several stacks at once with Swift Flurry (and presumably Heartbeat Drumming). Pair it with Rust's Poignard in the off hand for more attack speed (only against flanked targets, which is easy enough to manage if you have a tank with persistent distraction). The prone on crit is also very nice (also applies -10 all defenses for 6 seconds).

 

For bonus points at level 16, you take Lion's Sprint. It is currently bugged and provides +15 accuracy for the duration of the fight. Combine this with Scordeo's and well:

 

You also get additional 30% hit to crit from Berserk, more from Bloody Slaughter (situational) and you don't need to take Thunderous Blows as it's redundant with Berserk. Barbaric Smash can also be used as a spammable finisher too, even more hit to crit AND crit damage.

[Clerith]

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.

Holy ****, you actually made Monk/Ranger sound strong and made me want to try it out for the first DLC. Strongest Monk multiclass, huh? I wonder if you played Monk/Devoted before the nerfs - now that was an obscenely powerful combo.

 

Most of my Monk knowledge is pre-nerf, so all I can really say is that power level up pure Monk is very very solid and strong throughout and near godlike with T9 abilities.

[grayrest]

I wonder if you played Monk/Devoted before the nerfs - now that was an obscenely powerful combo.

 

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).

[jww]

I'm not sure what the nerfs are for Monk/Devoted that are referred to above, because I've only played one recently, but I'm enjoying it quite a bit so far. With the high enemy armor on PotD, I like having Devoted's bonus PEN on two different damage types (saber/fist) since Devoted otherwise gets penalized when switching weapon types.

 

Between the fighter and monk ability trees, I think you can instantly self-buff four different inspirations, and you can set up a custom AI to do the buffing for you any time one runs out. Set Tactical Barrage first on the priority list to increase the duration of the others (it also gives you +1 Power Level)

 

I briefly tried Helwalker, but decided against it, since my goal with this character was to always have resources to spend (three different resource pools), while with Helwalker, you have to make the choice between spending wounds or saving them.

 

You may want to bump INT up a bit to make the inspirations last longer. Each of the three resource pools has attack abilities, so with Devil of Caroc armor, I think I've always had attack options available, even while burning resources on self-buffs.

 

Grayrest's ideas sound really fun too.

Edited July 30, 2018 by jww

[Clerith]

I'm not sure what the nerfs are for Monk/Devoted that are referred to above, because I've only played one recently, but I'm enjoying it quite a bit so far. 

Was it the 1.1 or 1.2 nerfs? Fighter's Charge lost the aoe full attack, Stance lost lost the infinite full attack, Unbending was halved, Monk's lash was halved, some other minor nerfs. Back then, it was Charge city and everything just melted right off the bat, encounters were over before my non-mobility melee characters had the time to run up to the closest enemy character.

[jww]

 

I'm not sure what the nerfs are for Monk/Devoted that are referred to above, because I've only played one recently, but I'm enjoying it quite a bit so far. 

Was it the 1.1 or 1.2 nerfs? Fighter's Charge lost the aoe full attack, Stance lost lost the infinite full attack, Unbending was halved, Monk's lash was halved, some other minor nerfs. Back then, it was Charge city and everything just melted right off the bat, encounters were over before my non-mobility melee characters had the time to run up to the closest enemy character.

 

 

Both; I didn't try a monk till after 1.2. That sounds very... different.