Single handed Shattered-Pillar advice

[Myrtillo]

With 5.0 freshly downloaded, I decided to restart for a "complete" playthrough (I haven't done Forgotten Sanctum yet), and after a lot of hesitation I decided to go with a Shattered-Pillar monk.

The funny thing is that, even though I have finished multiple playthroughs, I realize that I never had a monk in my party, not a single time . (This is due to my Xoti always being a Priestess, and Mirke not really appealing to me at all)

Indicators: I usually play on veteran with level scaling upwards on critical path, no god challenges, and use non-optimised (and single class, with the exception of a witch Serafen) story companions/sideckicks. I am more about how a character/party feels both gameplay-wise and rp-wise rather than min-maxing. Say, my choices are 70%rp/30% theorycraft. I will pick an ability that does 25% less damage if the animation is cooler. By personal preference I play single classes (although I know it is not really an issue with Monks), and favor mental attributes (with Berath Blessings, my char has Str12 Con10 Dex14 Per18 Int18 Res16).

I know it is not optimal, but I intend to play single handed with no offhand, just because it pleases me (and if it is relevant I will most likely use a sword or a saber, although it will vary depending on my mood in a given game session). The idea is that the greatly increased amount of crits (+12% from the no-offhand, and +20%HitToCrit) will proc Swift Flurry and Heartbeat Drumming a lot, hopefully outdamaging (or being close to) dual wielding in the auto-attack department due to the crit+overpen damage and the multiple zero recovery attacks.
And more auto-attack damage = more shattered-pillar wounds.

So I have a few questions:
Is the premise realistic or delusional ?
Can Swift Flurry and Heartbeat Drumming proc of themselves and of each other ? 
(In theory with both active every crit has nearly 50% chance of trigerring an additional attack, I have wild dreams of my character wearing Scordeo's blade with the Tempest upgrade hitting 3+ times with zero recovery).

And since I am a monk noob, the big question:
What do I do with my freshly generated wounds?
 

I am looking at Skyward Kick (as primary attacks have increased relative value for single handed builds, and that +50%damage +3pen and short hard CC looks really nice), and maybe Whispers of the Wind to clear trash mobs (with maybe a swap to the second weapon set fist+fist to maximize damage then swap back).
But I am very open to suggestions. Is blade turning any good when in a pinch ?  I know that turning wheel has limited impact on a shattered pillar due to the low wound limit, but is it still worth taking for that 10% fire lash when at max wounds ? Is there any weapon you would see efficient in the context of the build ? (especially of soulbound, because I like the concept).

Any other insight ?

Thanks!

[AeonsLegend]

5.0 makes enemies during Skyward kick untargettable...

Swift Flurry and Heartbeat Drumming both grant extra attacks on target when you crit. Each attack is calculated as a new attack, so in theory you could have your character critting indefinitely. Having both just increases the chance. If it works the same way as crit stacking then it's not 25% + 33%, but less than the sum. Probably something like 50% chance or so. If you use skyward kick then I think patch 5.0 makes it so you cannot trigger additional attacks with Swift Flurry and Heartbeat Drumming. I haven't tested this so I'm not sure.

Don't forget to add Ring of Prosperity's Fortune to your build to increase crit chance (+15% max crit chance). And make sure to take Dance of Death as well to increase accuracy (Max +12 acc).

As the added lash from turning wheel is multicaplicit it is worth taking it. It's not +10% damage of the base attack. It's 10% from the total damage value. So it also increases when critting.

Wounds are used either to increase your int and damage from turning wheel (passive) so buff up before spending wounds as your int will lower when you do. You can then spend wounds on other buffs such as Thunderous Blows (gives tenacious passive!) or actives to damage/cc your enemies. If you play Shattered Pillar and use Dance of Death then you will almost always be at max wounds anyway.

Edited May 9, 2019 by AeonsLegend

[Boeroer]

Swift Flurry and Heartbeat Drumming don't stack additively. They simply get both checked one after the other - which in this case means they both can trigger (!).

They can trigger themselves.

The best generic single handed melee weapon for forcing crits is a Rapier + modal which always has +25 ACC. There's a unique one that even has "Thrusting" (+4 ACC) on top, giving you +29 ACC. This stacks with Enduring Dance (+12) and leads to lots of crits.

Another variant is to use Scordeo's Edge. It has an enchantment that gives you lots of ACC during a fight and also Blade Cascade.

Shattered Pillar actually is the weakest Monk subclass atm. You will get no wounds from using active abilities like Stunning Surge or Force of Anguish or Torment's Reach. At the same time the wound limit means you won't get past 5 wounds - which is bad for Iron/Turning Wheel and also means you can't immediately repeat Whispers of the Wind like other Monk subclasses can.

I don't know why they didn't lift the wound limit back up after they needed the wound generation so hard. 

 

 

[Waski]

Boeroer does swift flurry and heartbeat drumming procs generate wounds for shattered pillar?

Ps i think that heartbeat drumming can trigger only from first attack, never saw more than one proc of it.  Swift flurry on the other side I saw up to 11 procs in one attack. 

[Boeroer]

I didn't play a Shattered Pillar for a long time and not when I was testing Swift Flurry/Heartbeat Drumming. So I can't say if they generate wounds. I suspect that they don't since they are flagged with a certain ability name.

Edited May 9, 2019 by Boeroer

[AeonsLegend]

6 minutes ago, Waski said:

Boeroer does swift flurry and heartbeat drumming procs generate wounds for shattered pillar?

Ps i think that heartbeat drumming can trigger only from first attack, never saw more than one proc of it.  Swift flurry on the other side I saw up to 11 procs in one attack. 

They trigger another auto attack which in turn can generate wounds if you play shattered pillar. So yes.

[Boeroer]

I don't know if they count as auto-attacks since they are labeled with their ability name in the combat log. Did you test if they do?

[AeonsLegend]

It's hard to test with Shattered pillar since a crit will very likely fill up your wounds to max already... So if you're asking if I'm 100% sure, then no. Have any suggestions as to how to test this? The second attack is instant after the first crit. So I have no way of telling which attack generated the wounds. Don't think the console tells you when you gain wounds.

Edited May 9, 2019 by AeonsLegend

[Myrtillo]

I am aware that other monk subclasses might be stronger but I cannot stand the idea of being rewarded for taking damage or relying on consumables. As a central class feature. Plus as I wanted to play single handed no offhand it felt natural that the increased autoattacks from crit procs would synergize with Shattered Pillar and generate adequate resources.

I gave a shot at forbidden fist but unfortunately the animation of the active is silly with a weapon in hand and that's a deal breaker for me. Plus I can't wrap my head around the idea that my intelligence score will be hurting my character by increasing the duration of the self inflicted debuff. I was really hoping that it would be changed in 5.0

However if heartbeat / swift procs do not generate wounds it is very disappointing and kind of defeats my purpose. But ultimately if I can cap wounds fast enough I will still be happy. That's 80 damage inflicted. By mid game I should have that with a couple of crits, right ? And that's not factoring Dance of death wounds.

[AeonsLegend]

Just did some testing and even though its impossible to say for sure I think it's safe to say it doesn't generate extra wounds on the second attack. The second attack is included into the first attack and wound generation is after all attacks are finished. The second attack appears to be an add on to the primary attack and not a separate auto attack as I first thought. My test char was dealing around 30-50 damage and on both the crit and the extra attack and normal attacks I saw a wound generation of +2 max. More damage will of course generate more wounds. but I didn't see +3 wounds on the crit attacks. This suggests that there is no wound generation on the extra hits from Swift Flurry.

[Boeroer]

A Shattered Pillar gets 1 wound from 25 dmg iirc. So if you deal 50 dmg you should get 2 wounds. If you deal over 25 dmg with the additional attack but don't get an additional wound it doesn't work.

[thelee]

4 hours ago, AeonsLegend said:

5.0 makes enemies during Skyward kick untargettable...

 

hasn't this always been the case? (knock up effects always break targeting while the enemy is int he air)

[AeonsLegend]

18 minutes ago, Boeroer said:

A Shattered Pillar gets 1 wound from 25 dmg iirc. So if you deal 50 dmg you should get 2 wounds. If you deal over 25 dmg with the additional attack but don't get an additional wound it doesn't work.

I had lesser wounds so I think it gives 2 wounds at 40 damage. But yea it's safe to say the extra hit doesn't give wounds.

2 minutes ago, thelee said:

hasn't this always been the case? (knock up effects always break targeting while the enemy is int he air)

I have no way of testing it. I don't remember it that way though.

[Jayd]

Skyward Kick broke targeting when I was using it on a character over a month ago. That's not a 5.0 thing. Is indeed annoying to deal with.

[Myrtillo]

2 hours ago, Boeroer said:

A Shattered Pillar gets 1 wound from 25 dmg iirc. So if you deal 50 dmg you should get 2 wounds. If you deal over 25 dmg with the additional attack but don't get an additional wound it doesn't work.

Wiki says 20 damage and 16 with lesser wounds, but it might be outdated ?

[Boeroer]

I know it changed at some point. I did test it some time ago but to my embarrassment I can't remember the outcome of that test anymore.

[Myrtillo]

14 hours ago, Boeroer said:

I know it changed at some point. I did test it some time ago but to my embarrassment I can't remember the outcome of that test anymore.

So after playing with the character, I can confirm that swift flurry doesn't generate wounds, and that it takes more than 20 damage dealt to generate a wound, even with lesser wounds (My guess is 25 but it's hard to know for sure).

Disappointing 
I will still give the character a go and see if it feels balanced, I am still low lvl (6)

[AeonsLegend]

23 minutes ago, Myrtillo said:

So after playing with the character, I can confirm that swift flurry doesn't generate wounds, and that it takes more than 20 damage dealt to generate a wound, even with lesser wounds (My guess is 25 but it's hard to know for sure).

Disappointing 
I will still give the character a go and see if it feels balanced, I am still low lvl (6)

The only downside is that the rapier has only piercing damage. That's not a good damage type and will be hard to get overpen with. Many enemies are also immune to piercing damage (skeleton type enemies for instance)

[Boeroer]

Use a dagger as backup. Also +5 ACC and has slash dmg. 

[AeonsLegend]

I definitely got 2 wounds at 42 damage, so I'd wager it's 20 to generate a wound.

[Myrtillo]

Hmmm I think I had none at 21 damage, but I may have been mistaken.

[Boeroer]

Maybe it's 30/24 now? Maybe I will test later...

By the way: last time I checked Whispers of the Endless Paths and Spirit Lance generated wounds with their AoE dmg. 

Whispers otEP works well with INT bonuses like from Turning Wheel or Enlightened Clarity because the cone will grow. 

The cone attacks do not proc Swift Flurry or Heartbeat Drumming though. But WotEP has its own speed boost that stacks with Swift Strikes.

Edited May 10, 2019 by Boeroer