Hey folks, I just picked up Xoti and decided to make her a single-class monk this time. The problem is that I have no idea how to build a monk -- never used one. I could use some help with some ideas about how to build her.

 

A ranged monk build appeals to me; how would I go about building that? I just saw Essence Interrupter; is that a good weapon for a ranged monk?

 

But a melee monk appeals to. How to build that? Can I build a monk that can do both ranged and melee?

 

Anyway, any suggestions would be much appreciated.

Keep her alive until she gets Whispers of the Wind and Resonant Touch, and then watch her kill everything.

 

As a monk, she's not that useful until then.  Give her Iron Wheel and just have her tank and torment's reach in the lower levels.  

 

In the later levels she's great.  In the earlier levels as a monk she kinda sucks.  

Edited December 31, 20187 yr by Marigoldran

Ranged single class Monk is kind of a niche build but works fine. The usual build is to dual wield scepters and keep the scepter modal on all the time - that increases damage and crucially self-inflicts damage, which generates wounds and powers your abilities.

 

A lot of Monk's abilities are melee only. Dance with Death works better at range though and helps your damage and wound generation. Lightning Strikes and Turning Wheel will passively increase damage via lashes, and Thunderous Blows gives might and penetration.

 

Your big mid-game power spike comes from Stunning Surge. It works with ranged weapons, and restores its cost on crits, allowing you to spam stunning dual attacks as long as you keep critting.

 

Then late game you get some immensely powerful abilites; Monk has the strongest PL9 abilities in the game (only competing with Wizard) and those work well from range as well.

 

A lot of this works really well with the mortars (unique Blunderbusses) as well, turning most of the above into ranged AoE attacks.

Oooh, I really like that build idea. Thank you! I need more ranged characters. Here are some questions:

 

- Should you dual-wield the mortars, or just use one? I imagine you'll have huge accuracy problems if you dual-wield and won't be able to generate the critical hits you need.

- Any advice for particularly useful gear?

- Are you saying that Whispers on the Wind works with ranged? The description is ambiguous.

- Any other abilities I should integrate into the build?

What should I spend my wounds on early on? The wound spenders I'm seeing before PL 4 are all melee.

 

Also, does the self-inflicted damage from the scepter modal end Dance with Death? And does resonant touch work from range?

Edited December 31, 20187 yr by TheMetaphysician

Oooh, I really like that build idea. Thank you! I need more ranged characters. Here are some questions:

 

- Should you dual-wield the mortars, or just use one? I imagine you'll have huge accuracy problems if you dual-wield and won't be able to generate the critical hits you need.

- Any advice for particularly useful gear?

- Are you saying that Whispers on the Wind works with ranged? The description is ambiguous.

- Any other abilities I should integrate into the build?

 

Whispers of the Wind absolutely works with ranged, which is why you dual-wield mortars. That's one full aoe attack from each mortar against each of 5 enemies (a total of 10 shots, 15 if you have the chain shot upgrade for Fire in the Hole). Higher INT increases the AoE of your mortars, so against a reasonably tight cluster of 5 enemies it's like each of them suffers 10-15 blunderbuss attacks instantly. That's usually enough to melt most of them into a pool of gore, but you can couple that with Ajumat's Stalking Cloak (which adds stun to all attacks made from invisibility - and WotW makes you invisible) and resonant touch to lock down and detonate the rest. 

Edited December 31, 20187 yr by Purudaya

Whispers of the Wind + Resonant Touch with dual mortars (and Stalking Cloak):

 

 

Sorry for the spam. Posted this for the 12th time now I guess.

 

Whispers of the Wind is lvl 19 though. Don't base your build on that because it comes so late. But on the way you can use Stunning Surge (infinite uses as long as you attack several enemies) and Flagellant's Path (skips reload). Both are great fun as well. Combine with Dance of Death and Turning Wheel. You want the INT for bigger mortar AoE.

Edited December 31, 20187 yr by Boeroer

Very cool! Two questions:

 

- How does stunning surge give you infinite uses if you attack several enemies? Is it just that it is likely to crit at least once and refund the cost?

- Relatedly, with the huge accuracy hit from dual-wielding mortars, how do you make sure you crit to get stunning surge back? Does the number of individual hits that can crit make up for it?

- How does Flagellant's Path interact with mortars? Do you get yourself into melee, or what?

Edited December 31, 20187 yr by TheMetaphysician

Does Stunning surge work with Blast from Rods?

What should I spend my wounds on early on? The wound spenders I'm seeing before PL 4 are all melee.

 

Also, does the self-inflicted damage from the scepter modal end Dance with Death? And does resonant touch work from range?

Early on you'll take Clarity of Agony and use that in case of emergency. Otherwise sit on the wounds and use them for Thunderous Blows or stack them up for Duality and its upgrades. Later you use them to summon duplicates and eventually whispers - yes, whispers works with ranged.

 

With dual mortars and stunning surge you're looking for the usual - buff accuracy, debuff enemy defenses, and try to hit enough foes to get crits. You're a bit more wound starved than with scepters but AoE stunning surge and whispers can get really funny.

Stunning Surge has a very high chance to cause at least one crit with dual mortars (Full Attack + one jump from Fire in the Hole) + AoE hits. One crit is enough to get the full refund.

 

Stunning Surge works with Blast as well, yes.

Lightning Strikes and Turning Wheel will passively increase damage via lashes

Based on description, Turning Wheel (fire lash) only work with melee attacks. Is this description wrong?

From what I can remember Whispers also works with the blast modal and can be used to mass stagger with Tekahu's scepter and the recently added *Sanguine Plate w/ spirit frenzy enchantment.*

 

Not as cool... But it's another option for trolling through the game with multiple monks.

Yes, it works with Blast. Using Watershaper's Focus instead of dual mortars is equally effective. A bit less dmg (because of longer recovery of the rod+Blast and also because mortars target reflex and that's debuffed so easily) but much higher range (safer to use).

Edited January 1, 20197 yr by Boeroer

Great point. I like the rod idea better. Best way to lower deflection in Aoe? I’m guessing confounding blind is a good one.

Thanks for everybody here for turning me on to the dual mortar monk stunning surge build! I've been using it on Xoti and it has been great. I'm level 11 and she's pretty far ahead of all my other party members in damage.

 

It's made me realize that I might not have built my companions for damage very well. My main guy is a Healing Wall Herald, so he does basically no damage, and fights take a long time (with hardcore Deadly Deadfire on PotD). Do you guys know any other builds for companions that are as good for dps as the Xoti monk dual-mortars stunning surge build?

Edited January 8, 20197 yr by TheMetaphysician

Scout with Maia run using the red hand is pretty bonkers. Sin Tee has a guide on YouTube for it. I’m using it now and she’s tripling dps of my other guys.

Thanks for everybody here for turning me on to the dual mortar monk stunning surge build! I've been using it on Xoti and it has been great. I'm level 11 and she's pretty far ahead of all my other party members in damage.

 

It's made me realize that I might not have built my companions for damage very well. My main guy is a Healing Wall Herald, so he does basically no damage, and fights take a long time (with hardcore Deadly Deadfire on PotD). Do you guys know any other builds for companions that are as good for dps as the Xoti monk dual-mortars stunning surge build?

Mirke as Shadowdancer (Monk/Streetfighter) can be great with blunderbusses as well. Doesn't need to be mortars. Xefa's and Kitchen Stove are nice.

 

Aloth as Battlemage with Citzal's + Mule Kick and later Clear Out is doing very well, too. Clear Out + Citzal means number-of-enemies * number-of-enemies hits and does tremendous damage for only 2 Discipline. And of course he still has his usual nuke spells. 

Use Essential Phantom to produce two guys with Spirit Lances. Bonus style points when wearing Devil of Caroc + Helm of the Falcon. But it's also highly efficient to wear Rekvu's Fractured Casque , cast Nectoric Lance on himself to get a rel. minor injury and then be immune to your own Slicken.

Zandethus' Draconic Fury (form that unique grimoire) is also awesome with a Battlemage.

 

Tekehu can be a single class Watershaper using either Lord Darryn's Voulge and Deltro's Armor to boost his Powel Levels with shock through the roof and go melee with lots of storms stuff - or use the Watershaper's Focus to boost his Water/Freeze PLs and be ranged. Take everything that boosts PLs further.

In addition to that he has a Foe-only Chillfog which is just awesome.

Also works as Theurge with the melee approach. Everytime you wait for phrases to build up for your next shock invocation you can cast a druidic shock spell. You're casting shocking spells all the time basically. Best thing about him relaly is that he's got so many foe-only spells.  

It is interesting that you recommend caster Takehu for dps. I haven't used many caster-damage characters, but when I have used casters it just seems like they run out of resources too quickly on PotD/Deadly Deadfire to really do lots of damage. Is my impression wrong? Cipher or Chanter would of course be an exception.

 

Also, in looking at Takehu, I'm not actually seeing all that many shock spells a single-class druid can use. (The Druid/Chanter version is another story.) Returning Storm conflicts with the awesome foe-only Chill Fog you mentioned, and the only other ones I can see are level 5 Relentless Storm and level 1 Dancing Bolts. That's just 4 casts per fight. Am I missing something?

Edited January 9, 20197 yr by TheMetaphysician

Yes: Avenging Storm and Great Maelstrom.

 

And of course you still have the other druid spells. Put Spine of Thicket Green into your second slot and cast some nasty Beast spells like Plague of Insects and so on.