Any other interesting builds I'm missing?

[dgray62]

Regarding Helwalker/paladin, you might consider going with Helwalker/steel garrote. That way you'd have great healing, from exalted endurance and the SG passive draining from afflicted or flanked characters. You'd also have high defenses and AR from the paladin side. This should mitigate the increased damage from helwalker. As for SI, as Kaylon indicated, Clarity of Agony would greatly reduce the self-damage, enabling you to safely use the ability. Since you'd get big buffs to STR and INT from the monk side, you'd also want to pump up RES to further minimize all negative effects.

[Boeroer]

14 hours ago, crdvis16 said:

For the Soulblade/Trickster, couldn't any combo continously use soul annihilation (since it has no real focus cost)?  I've played a Soul Blade/Barbarian and basically used Soul Annihilation as a focus dump for high single target damage.  Did you mean Forbidden Fist/Trickster by chance?

Sun and Moon allows for continuous usage of Soul Annihilation. Because it has two hit rolls per strike it will first dump the focus into raw damage - and the second hit will already generate new focus for the next strike. So no auto attack or rogue strike needed on between (still possible of course).

Soul Annihilation needs focus to execute, it has a min threshold. If you use any other weapon than sun and moon you will have 0 focus after Soul Annihilation. You'd have to use another attack to gain focus first before you could reuse SA. Thus you cannot use it continuously.

Kaylon's apporach is to use Sun & Moon in combination with Tuotilo's Palm. If you can use Soul Annihilation all the time (basically, missing and not-generating-enough-focus-with-one-roll not accounted for) you can skip attacks with the bash because SA is a primary attack. The bash is low dmg and a worse alternative than your main hand weapon. So skipping it is preferable. Yet you will have the higher attack speed of dual wielding for primary attacks and also the higher defenses from Tuotilo's Palm - which add up nicely with the Trickster's deflection and reflex buffs. 

An alternative is Soulblade/Monk which uses the same trick basically. In this case you also profit from the nice defense buff of Tuotilo's Palm (defense per wound) and Sun & Moon as excellent catalyst for Swift Flurry/Heartbeat Drumming. It hasn't as high deflection as Trickster and less SA raw dmg - but still a nice combo because of Tuotilo's Palm's enchantment and the general synergies of Monk and Cipher. And you won't have limited resources (besides Mortification). Also Stunning Surge with Sun&Moon + TP is great. Accuracy is also potentially very good (Enduring Dance + Instruments of Pain + Borrowed Instincts). Casting anything else profits from high INT of course.  

Basically any combo with Soulblade and Sun & Moon has a similar approach. Trickster combines defenses and dmg output very nicely (which also speeds up focus gain considerably and makes SA very strong due to the Sneak Attack/Deathblows). But you can basically do this continuous SA-thing with Soulblade/Fighter -/Skald, -/Paladin etc., too. If you manage to generate enough focus with the second roll to execute the next SA. 

Edited February 2, 2022 by Boeroer

[crdvis16]

Ah ok- understood.  Sun/Moon is the catalyst for Soul Annihilation while the Trickster multi is for added damage/survivability and could be replaced with other multis.

[Kaylon]

To add to what Boeroer already explained very well:

• the rogue can also generate free focus from misses through Riposte/Outward Spikes (from shield) or through disengagement attacks (from Ryngrim's Repulsive Visage)
• the SA bonus is affected twice by the weapon bonuses (when is generated and also when is applied), thus a rogue can generate the highest dps with SA
• another alternative to Tuotilo's Palm is Magran's Blessing which can also generate free focus through its damage shield (which is considered a shield attack and benefits from the Burning Strike enchantment and other damage bonuses including sneak attack/deathblows); the dmg shield targets reflex which can be lowered using flail's modal.

Of course the monk can also generate free focus through Swift Flurry/Heartbeat Drumming (Sun and Moon is very good for that) and even some disengagement attacks (with Left Hand of the Obscured equipped), however his SA damage is lower overall.

A good ring to use is the Ring of Focused Flame which affects the first head of the flail (to avoid misses from SA) and also the damage shield.

[crdvis16]

@Kaylon can you expand on this part:

• the SA bonus is affected twice by the weapon bonuses (when is generated and also when is applied), thus a rogue can generate the highest dps with SA

I get that rogues are the kings of damage modifiers but how does SA double dip them?

[Kaylon]

The focus you generate is proportional to your weapon damage (ie your damage bonuses) and the SA bonus depends on your focus to which are applied again all the damage bonuses. (It works a bit like wounding in PoE1 which was affected twice by might.) 

Edited February 2, 2022 by Kaylon

[crdvis16]

Oh duh- of course.  Thanks!