Novice suffering

[Desmodeus]

Got asked by the friend is there a build that can make use of novice suffering talent(he likes idea of unarmed monk, but didn't liked wound mechanic) on other, preferably melee class. I stumble a lot on "fix glazes on carnage with novice suffering" but thats obviously wrong advice dew to hidden +1 ACC per level on carnage and other abilities... So is there something I can advice person with or only monk for unarmed? He consider himself experienced so he will run on hard.

[Boeroer]

Yes, there are several builds that are good with Novice's Suffering. 

The weird mechanics of those "special fists" make it so:

You will keep the teeny-weeny base damage of your fists (5-8 iirc). But you will gain a huge flat dmg bonus on top. This flat dmg bonus doesn't get influenced by any dmg modifications except Might. Since that flat damage bonus is quite big the impact that might has is substantial. 

That means that grazes, hits and crits will nearly do the same damage which makes this weapon dish out very consistent damage. Since crits will not do a lot of additional damage and grazes will not do a lot less it's possible to have good dmg output even with rel. bad accuracy.

It also means that additive dmg bonuses like Sneak Attack and so on don't so that much because they only get applied to the teeny fists damage, not the flat bonus dmg. 

Barb is indeed a good pick because: first of all he has access to higher MIG (Frenzy/Greater Frenzy) and also because his starting base ACC and starting Carnage accuracy are both rel. bad. Carnage's ACC does scale with level but it will take you 10 levels (without Accurate Carnage) to reach the Barb's base accuracy which isn't too great to begin with.

Another good pick is Priest (who would have guessed?): a Priest can reach very high MIG with Minor Avatar/Champion's Boon + Aggrandizing Radiance (stacks with everything). So besides casting his usual stuff he can also run around and punch enemies really hard.

A Chanter can use Mith Fyr to gain a burning lash for his fists. Lashes are multiplicative dmg bonuses and do work with all the damage you roll (including the flat bonus) so that's good, too. They also can raise their (and others') MIG via invocation.

Basically all builds that can reach high MIG but don't want to invest into accuracy and damage bonuses too much are good picks. High attack speed is good for Novice's Suffering, too (e.g. Barb's Frenzy, Ranger's Swift Aim and such).

I even did a Wizard with Novice's Suffering focused on touch spells like Jolting Touch, Draining Touch and so on and it worked well enough ("I cast 'Fist'!" )

Unfortunately Novice's Suffering stacking with Druids' Spiritshift weapons was patched out (was too good). But Novice's Suffering can be a good backup for Druids when their Spiritshift runs out and they don't want to put effort into upgrading a normal backup weapon.

Another bonus of Novice's Suffering is that it costs nothing to scale it up. This frees up resources for you part members' gear. Enchanting is expensive and needs rare resources sometimes. 

The cons are: no lash enchantment, no durgan steel. 

[Desmodeus]

Yeah, but after lvl 10 novice suffering begin rto slow barb down. WIth that ACC on carnage prone or stun on crit enchantments are so great.

What about cipher btw? IIRC soul whip is also treated as a lash. Or it ignore bonuses?

[Boeroer]

Of course: Carnage is really nice with weapons that proc something on hit or crit. But still: the Barb is a good pick if you want to use Novice's Suffering to begin with.
Until lvl 10 (without Accurate Carnage) the accuracy of a Barb is not good compared to other martial classes like Rogue, Fighter, Monk and Ranger - and therefore Novice's Suffering works quite well for him - on top come attack speed buffs like Frenzy and Bloodlust that work very well with NS - as well as the hgith MIG of Greater Frenzy (one of the few cases where I would pick Greater Frenzy).

Soul Whip is an additive dmg bonus like Sneak Attack. Therefore Cipher is not an obvious pick for Novice's Suffering. I did a buildwith Novice's Suffering on ciphers and it works, but it's more like a theme-build that tries to emulate a cipher/monk multiclass.

[Desmodeus]

So soulwhip does not boost novice suffering damage. Pity

Thanks for info. I translated it to player. looks like he will try to run novice suffering chanter

[Boeroer]

Soul Whip does only boost the 5-8 base dmg. The flat bonus is untouched by it. So additive dmg bonuses do work, but only for the tiny fist base damage which makes almost no difference.

Novice's Suffering isn't a weapon you can ROFLstomp things with. Because of its special mechanics it's a god pick for builds that want to go into melee and do decent dmg but at the same time don't want to/cannot afford/don't have access to ACC and additive dmg abilities. And who want to spare resources, too. 

Chanter with NS will still not be a melee monster, but it's viable as a melee addition to his chants and invocations. Once he gets "Their Champion" it should be pretty cool though. With a mix of Mith Fyr and a few short phrases in between he might be able to cast Champion and get to 0 recovery and then fit in for example Hel-Hyraf before Champion wears off. In combination with Vulnerable Attack Hel-Hyraff can be a great way to crack open high DR foes. +10 dmg per attack is great if you have fast attack speed. 

With 20 DEX and Gauntlets of Swift Action a Chanter with Champion and Two Weapon Style can have 0 recovery with fists even when activating Vulnerable Attack and will punch every 15 frames (with 5 DR bypass which is like a flat +5 dmg bonus against everything with 5 DR or higher). With Hel Hyraf it's a bit like a 10 DR bypass. Imagine punching tough enemies with respectable dmg and 10 DR bypass more than once per second... without having stellar ACC and without having invested in enchantments and melee abilities. 

Edited December 22, 2020 by Boeroer

[Desmodeus]

How focus gain from soul whip works then? From full strike? Or from base? If from full that's not actually that bad... saves one talent on biting whip

As far as I understood from his explanation he mainly want something that feels like dnd/pathfinder monk and poe monk just doesn't feel like monk for him so I am not sure he is after ROLFstomping here

 

[Boeroer]

Don't know why PoE Monk wouldn't feel like it - but whatever. Monk is one of the strongest martial classes (I'd argue the strongest overall) and if you want a character with most effective unarmed attacks then you should pick the Monk. Everything else is inferior in terms of unarmed dmg - but viable. Cipher with Novice's Suffering can indeed have some D&D Monk vibes due to some powers the Cipher can cast.

Soul Whip's damage bonus only applies to the base damage of weapons (and thus picking Biting Whip would be a bad idea for a Cipher with Novice's Suffering since the base damage is so very low). The focus generation of Soul Whip however takes a fraction of the whole damage you roll, including NS's flat dmg bonus, dmg from all additive bonuses + also lashes (not damage over time lashes like Wounding though). Therefore Draining Whip would be a good pick for a Cipher with Novice's Suffering because it doesn't apply any bonus dmg that wouldn't work well with NS anyway - but instead increases the fraction of the dmg roll that gets turned into focus.

You should have a weapon set with non-crush damage as backup. Something like a pair of hatchets or spears or so (same weapon focus, different damage types).

 

[Desmodeus]

As he explained to me, wound mechanic for him felt not like monk who "suppose" to evade attacks and spells but some sort of barbarian class who gets stronger and stronger as he drop hp. Well, who am I to argue here xD

Thanks for all explanation. THough I am ready to bet that he will drop this idea after Temple of Eothas xD

Edited December 22, 2020 by Desmodeus

[Boeroer]

Monks in PoE fuel their abilities with pain like medieval monastic Flagellants did (where there "ability" was to purge sins with pain). Hence all the ability names with Mortification, Flagellant's Path, Suffering, Agony and so on. There's complete lore behind it, Zahua shines some light on that whole shebang and I think the designers/writers embellished the whole wound mechanic quite nicely.

Anyway: Temple of Eothas is not a good performance benchmark for a build. Some which will become really great will struggle there (e.g. some Barbs, Priests etc.) while others do quite well there but never really take off (nost Fighters for example).

Novice's Suffering isn't that bad early in the game especially because grazes are not as punishing and crits are not common that early in the game anyway.  

 

Edited December 22, 2020 by Boeroer

[Desmodeus]

Well for him its not "plays" like monk, so well. Its more about his idea of monk in rpg. Just like some people find it strange that INT is not a dump stat for barbarian or MIG not a dump stat for wizard/druid/rogue/priest

But it is decent "this game does not screw around on hard" mark. 

[Desmodeus]

Not sure it would worth to make separate thread for this question so I just throw it here:

what other cross-class talents are good in endgame? Outlader frenzy, Veteran Recovery, Apprentice sneak attack and Aspirant Mark are obviouly good, Gallant's focus is ok if no pal in party but what about others? Like Prestidigitator's missles? I know they are fantastic early on and 4 characters casting them at once can even cklean bosses in act 1 and early act 2 but I do not think it worth keeping any longer

[Boeroer]

Prestidigitator's Missiles is only worth keeping in the later game for a Rogue - because Deathblows works with it (+100% dmg).

Most of the cross class talents are better in the early game than they are in the late - even Veteran's Recovery. Reason is because PoE <edit> often </edit> knows no scaling of abilites/talents so naturally low level stuff falls behind the higher level abilities/talents.

Edited December 25, 2020 by Boeroer

[Desmodeus]

6 hours ago, Boeroer said:

Reason is because PoE knows no scaling of abilites/talents

Doesn't veteran recovery and novice suffering scales though?

 

Btw about that "monk no monk guy" . He actually finished first act today with his 21-18-17-3-3-16 mountain dwarf chanter guy... looking at this stats I am out of words but hey, whatever rocks his boat. 3 INT he explained as he doesn't want to cast and doesn't care about area of coverage...

[Boeroer]

Eh, sorry, I forgot the word "often".  Some things do indeed scale. Some things even scale very well (Spiritshift weapons, Animal Companion, Battle Forged...). Still Veteran's Recovery doesn't make such a big difference in the late game as it makes one in the early. 

Other stuff like Prestidigitator's Missiles or Enigma's Charm etc. don't scale at all which is too bad. Deadfire's Power Level mechanic is a big step forward in that regard.

3 INT is indeed strange for a Chanter. His linger time will be very short - and if you don't really want to use phrases and invocations I don't know what you pick a Chanter for.

But if it works:

 

 

[Desmodeus]

Well he is not running this solo and he has Eder, Durance, Pallegena and Aloth in party... Pretty sure he will be ok. How effective build is is another question entirely xD

[Desmodeus]

Just some info about the guy with 3 int chanter. He stuck in white march 2 at first eyeless fight.

On a side note I actually ended up rolling my own version of NS chanter just to compare. Also dwarf though I ended up having "strange" stats: 20-8-17-9-16-8. 8 RES is so with +2 bonus on armor I'll be able to even it out eventually. Finished act 1 for now and put in in the backlog. Quite good results even though squishy

[Desmodeus]

Just learned today. In case someone cares( I think no one) - guy ended up dropping character because he couldn't do anything and was stonewalled by eyeless. He was lvl 10. Rest in piece Short John

Just to commemorate - chant list and spells as well as talents
 

Quote

 

Chants: At the Sight of their Comrades, their Hearts Grew Bold, Blessed Was Wengridh, Quickest of His Tribe, Dull the Edge, Blunt the Point, One Dozen Stood Against the Power of the Saint, The Fox from the Farmer Did Run and Leap, Aefyllath Ues Mith Fyr

Invocation: And Hel-Hyraf Crashed upon the Shield, Not Felled by Axe, Nor Broken by Storm, The Thunder Rolled like Waves on Black Seas, Rejoice, My Comrades! Two Fingers of Daylight!, Shatter their Shackles, Cast off their Chains!, The Brideman Slew Thirty 'Fore they Crossed Half the Hall

Talents: Novice Suffering, Weapon focus Peasant. Two Weapon style, Cautious Attack, Superior Deflection

 

 

[Boeroer]

Lol lvl 10 against eyeless. 

[Desmodeus]

Yeah. I wonder how he managed to beat WM1 then. Or did he ignored all sidequests...