OP Monk Combo

[Boeroer]

15 minutes ago, AeonsLegend said:

Does whispers of the wind count as a stealth attack?

It makes you invisible during the execution.

[dgray62]

I'm thinking of trying this, and I see that WotW and Imagined Pain are required for this build. I suppose that Prestige would be the logical third PL9 ability? While it pains me to not get Inner Death, I gather that these three would be the best PL9 choices.

[mepp22]

36 minutes ago, dgray62 said:

I'm thinking of trying this, and I see that WotW and Imagined Pain are required for this build. I suppose that Prestige would be the logical third PL9 ability? While it pains me to not get Inner Death, I gather that these three would be the best PL9 choices.

I personally don't think Inner Death is that great of a skill. You really only get full use it if you are sure of a crit. If there is more than one enemy WotW is much better and if there is only one enemy and if you really are sure of a crit then its usually better just to spam Stunning Surge. For me its a choice between Empowered Strikes or Prestige depending on if you are good at using Empowered. It is also important to remember you don't need many active attack abilities. 95% of the time you are fighting multiple enemies and WotW is by far the best choice. Once you get access to WotW you really should think about respecing out of other abilities and getting Bear's Fortitude and Snake's Reflex. ( I would also avoid Soul Mirror because I am not sure if it ends up doing any funky business with KotF. 

You should keep in mind this is an endgame build and you really only get to use it for the DLCs so it might not be as much fun earlier (although single class monk is more than capable of holding its own). Also once you get KotF, if you are planning on using a party it probably makes sense to have your party fully ranged or they will constantly end up getting knocked out. 

[dgray62]

Thanks for the advice on the build, mepp22.

[dgray62]

While I presume that you would want to maximize religion with Keeper of the Flame, does anyone know how it scales with this skill. The base damage of 2 is pretty low. How big does it get if you have, say, a religion skill of 10 or 20?

[Boeroer]

Religion * 0.25 + 2 = base burn dmg

It may be late game, but other than Weapon Proficiency Flail and Religion you don't need to invest in anything you wouldn't with an ordinary melee monk. So that shouldn't be a problem at all (concerning fun before you get there).

Inner Death is rather bad compared to WotW. Especially if you take Resonant Touch into account. Even if you don't take into account that you fight multiple foes most of times.

First of all it's powered by Mortification and thus its use is limited, unlike WotW and Stunning Surge (in theory). Also because it's quite expensive. And to make it reliable you need Empowered Strikes which takes away another PL 9 pick.

Then, like Forbidden Fist ability, it doesn't use weapons and doesn't seem to be properly tagged as melee weapon attack but as melee spell which prevents it from triggering Swift Flurry/HBD correctly. Also Turning Wheel doesn't get applied (Lightning Strikes do iirc).

If you don't mind using Empower with it (and build around Empower) and have no problem with resting rather often then it's a good thing against single targets - but there's better stuff than that and I'd say that using Stunning Surge + Resonant Touch against single target will be equally good but doesn't need further investment. 

I can see it working nicely with Slippers of the Assassin maybe: go in, kill one guy, turn invisible and retreat from battle. Repeat. That's a completely different playstyle and may justify it's usage.

 

Edited April 25, 2020 by Boeroer

[dgray62]

Thanks for the detailed reply. I'm glad to hear that Keeper of the Flame's Religion scaling is decent. And I don't think that I'll build around Inner Death, as I do not like builds that require frequent resting,

[Kaylon]

12 hours ago, dgray62 said:

While I presume that you would want to maximize religion with Keeper of the Flame, does anyone know how it scales with this skill. The base damage of 2 is pretty low. How big does it get if you have, say, a religion skill of 10 or 20?

Each religion point adds 0.44 burn dmg and with max might and 20+ religion you can do around 20 AoE burn dmg. Also the burn dmg isn't affected by grazes or crits, just by penetration.

This build is great for solo, but in a party you will damage your companions adding stacks of Resonant Touch to them too...

Also the build requires Ooblit or else you risk being hit during the casting phase of WotW by the enemies left unstunned, which will end your immunity.

Another thing to keep in mind - using Dance of Death counts as a hit taken (probably Mortification of the Soul too).

[dgray62]

4 hours ago, Kaylon said:

Each religion point adds 0.44 burn dmg and with max might and 20+ religion you can do around 20 AoE burn dmg. Also the burn dmg isn't affected by grazes or crits, just by penetration.

This build is great for solo, but in a party you will damage your companions adding stacks of Resonant Touch to them too...

Also the build requires Ooblit or else you risk being hit during the casting phase of WotW by the enemies left unstunned, which will end your immunity.

Another thing to keep in mind - using Dance of Death counts as a hit taken (probably Mortification of the Soul too).

Thanks for the detailed answer, Kaylon. I see that a Nature Godlike Helwalker monk would be ideal, as mepp22 suggested, to max out might and PL. How would Ooblit protect you during the casting phase? It adds 3 seconds to beneficial effect duration and +10 def to disengagement attacks. Do the wound ticks in Dance of Death count as hits? If so,  that's strange, since you're not actually taking any damage.

[dgray62]

I think I understand the rationale for Ooblit. It's to extend the invisibility of WotW to cover you while you are recasting the ability, right? That's a great idea.

[mepp22]

I personally don't think oobit is that necessary, 9/10 times WotW will stun all enemies and you will have enough time to act. If blade cascade triggers (and it does often) you can use WotW incredibly fast with an ai script. Focusing on strength is really only smart if that is the solution to getting Avenging Storm to work, otherwise perception, intelligect and dexterity are better. (it's possible the issue was dance of death and mortification) Perception helps you hit the hardest enemies, intellect increases your aoe so you can make sure you hit/stun everyone, finally dexterity let's you act a bit faster but since you are using WotW it's less important than normal. Also getting reflex higher is important bc if you ever get hit twice you will be making an awful lot of reflex saves. You won't be receiving much healing and ideally every enemy will constantly be stunned so might really only speeds up the inevitable. 

[Kaylon]

WotW has 2.5s base casting time which means there's always a big enough window of vulnerability, blade cascade or not. You can face lots of enemies or ranged attackers or enemies with resistance/immunity to might afflictions or who simply resist your stun, which means there can be monsters left unstunned who might hit you. Probably most of the time nothing happens, but why take risk if you can stay invisible all the time? Those 3s of invisibility can also help you escape by going out of enemies' sight and prepare if you need it.

Also I think the build works very well with Fire in the Hole because it can benefit from the reflex debuff of the flail, can also add distraction (which debuffs armor+deflection+reflex) and adds more AoE damage and resonance charges. 

I don't think the nature godlike is the best option because there are many good helmets you can use - Acina's Tricorn adds +5acc to your AoEs,  Cap of the Laughing Stock lowers enemies' deflection by 10, etc...

11 hours ago, dgray62 said:

 Do the wound ticks in Dance of Death count as hits?

No, only when you cast it.

Edited April 26, 2020 by Kaylon

[Raven Darkholme]

I just tried this vs Ooze and Symbiote immediately ended Saint's War effect, but without Symbiote I can't Wotw?

edit:

It might have been related to tb mode, turned to rtwp and kept Saint's War, but when I wotw symbiotes instadie and I'm back to 0.

Edited April 27, 2020 by Raven Darkholme

[dgray62]

On 4/25/2020 at 8:21 AM, Kaylon said:

Each religion point adds 0.44 burn dmg and with max might and 20+ religion you can do around 20 AoE burn dmg. Also the burn dmg isn't affected by grazes or crits, just by penetration.

This build is great for solo, but in a party you will damage your companions adding stacks of Resonant Touch to them too...

Also the build requires Ooblit or else you risk being hit during the casting phase of WotW by the enemies left unstunned, which will end your immunity.

Another thing to keep in mind - using Dance of Death counts as a hit taken (probably Mortification of the Soul too).

I have been working on a SC monk build, and finally got all of the equipment I needed in SSS. It is definitely best as a solo build, as you indicated, Kaylon. I have also found that timing is extremely important. After completing a WoW round you are invisible briefly. It's essential that you immediately reactivate WoW in that brief window, so you can continue the mayhem without being hit. If not, and you're hit twice, you invariably damage yourself pretty seriously with all of the explosions, as well as lay on many stacks of resonant touch on yourself, making the ability impossible to use. So I see that Ooblit is essential for this build, as you suggested Kaylon. Hence I'm off to do Forgotten Sanctum next. Overall this is a great cap to a SC monk run; monks start of strong and slowly gain power, and then just explode when you get WoW. But this is well known, of course!