Are multiclass Monks really ever worth it over single class?

[Stardusk78]

It just seems like they lose a lot of PL as well as some very cool abilities. Thoughts?

[Boeroer]

It depends - as always. If you want to cast stuff then a Monk Multiclass (most likely Helwalker) is a very good pick - and SC Monks don't cast stuff. For example a Psion/Helwalker can dominate multiple enemies for a very, very long time with high ACC and gain Focus and Wounds comfortably from safety with Soul Mind + Enduring Dance of Death. 

A Streetfighter/Helwalker with Hand Mortar+Fire in the Hole can use Stunning Surge nearly countless times because you will nearly always land a crit with the big AoE of the mortars, stunning enemies in an AoE for a very long time while having incredible dmg bonuses and also reloading speed due to Streetfighter passive (which is triggered by Powder Burns). It's a damage/CC hybrid against mobs which is very strong very early on. With an SC Monk you have to wait longer to have such an impact.

Also some builds want to rely on crits and play around with Swift Flurry/Heartbet Drumming. A Multiclass is better for this because you can combine multiple sources of accuracy and/or crit conversion. For example a Monk/Berserker with a Morning Star can add accuracy, crit conversion, Brute Force (lower enemies fortitude with a Mordnign Star, Enervating Blows and Spirit Frenzy by 45 so you will land a lot more crits by circumventing deflection).

Sages (Wizard/Monk) are great in general. See stuff like Citzal's Spirit Lance + Stunning Surge for example - while being defense-buffed up to the max with Wizard's self buffs and Monk's passives and attribute boosts (+10 INT=+20 Will or +10 CON = +20 fortitude, +10 MIG=+20 fortitude as Helwalker, too).

On the other hand the SC Monk' PL 8 (Resonant Touch) and 9 (Whispers of the Wind) are incredible. Truly worth the wait imo. 

So it's more a matter of taste... or a matter of "what should the role of the character be?" or "waht should it play like?".

I tried both MCs and SC multiple times and both have their appeal. There is no universal, general better or worse imo. 

Edited April 8, 2023 by Boeroer

[Stardusk78]

I suppose you are right. I have never actually fully played a monk so that is why I was asking.

[Shai Hulud]

11 hours ago, Stardusk78 said:

It just seems like they lose a lot of PL as well as some very cool abilities. Thoughts?

I prefer MC monks. SC monks are a bit dull. Once you get Whispers on the Wind your fights are mostly using that as much as possible. 

Transcendents are really good. Particularly FF / soul blade. Have more accuracy than SC monks with a bit of work, more versatility, soul annihilation fulfills a similar role as resonant touch but can be used more often, you can disintegrate things, etc. Needs community patch for FF to build focus. 

Brawlers can be quite good if you like tanks. FF / unbroken probably being the most tanky.

Wanderers can reach high amounts of accuracy. Probably won't surprise you I like FF / ranger. You can even play ranged with Instruments of Pain, but pretty sure FF attacks don't benefit from driving flight. You can use Long Pain Fists with normal fist attacks though, using animal companion and dichotomous souls to keep things off you. Works well as shattered pillar with the community patch, you can generally maintain enough damage and crits to keep up the long pain fists. 

Have also played votaries, cantors, ravagers, and sages, all of which have their selling points, but my favorite is probably transcendent. 

If you're willing to go through the blood mage deification process (buff self, blood sacrifice to near death, drink potion of final stand, put up walls of draining every 30 seconds), then helwalker / blood mage is insane. Blood sacrifice creates wounds, and you can spam it endlessly since you won't day, then use citzal's spirit lance and stunning surge on groups. Or spam raised torment, skyward kick, etc. Or you can play it as a caster just using helwalker for the +10 might and +10 INT. 

[masterty66]

Monk/Priest is very nice as well. I once played a Berath/Helwalker monk and it fit thematically and was quite strong as well. Helwalker bonuses helped make my castings more impactful so it was nice synergy. And when I was done casting I could smash heads with a big summoned greatsword.

Better than pure Monk? I don't know. PL 8/9 Monk abilities are obviously quite impactful. It was fun though, and more interesting I think than spamming Wotw. 

[dgray62]

A SC monk is fantastic against mobs due to WotW. However, as @masterty66 notes, monk/priest is also a great combo. It is particularly good against megabosses and other tough fights in the DLCs, and can handle mobs too although not as quickly as the SC monk. This is because a monk/priest is immortal (by prolonging Barring Death's Door with Salvation of Time) so long as you have a source of brilliant, which is also prolonged by SoT.

[Shai Hulud]

4 hours ago, dgray62 said:

A SC monk is fantastic against mobs due to WotW. However, as @masterty66 notes, monk/priest is also a great combo. It is particularly good against megabosses and other tough fights in the DLCs, and can handle mobs too although not as quickly as the SC monk. This is because a monk/priest is immortal (by prolonging Barring Death's Door with Salvation of Time) so long as you have a source of brilliant, which is also prolonged by SoT.

Helwalker/priest is a good one.

Helwalker / blood mage is also immortal and doesn't need brilliant, though admittedly laying walls of draining is slightly trickier than casting salvation of time over and over, and this doesn't come online until l19. Also not an unlimited number of potions of final stand, but even without any blood mage can do find in most battles just extending arcane veil, llengrath's safeguard, llengrath's displaced image, etc., and can always run away with arkemyr's brilliant departure to regen health. Helps to have some kind of passive healing like from devil of caroc BP which can be extended with WOD when you don't have the final stand potions. Also sanguine great sword. And unstable soul essence. And darkest before dawn.

This combination also benefits from citzal's spirit lance being awesome with stunning surge. I suspect skyward kicks are also distributed by the lance but I haven't tried it. Mule kicks are, and they are mechanically similar, so maybe.

---edit---

LOL I already mentioned this build. My memory...sigh.

Edited April 19, 2023 by Shai Hulud

[Boeroer]

5 hours ago, Shai Hulud said:

Helps to have some kind of passive healing like from devil of caroc BP which can be extended with WOD when you don't have the final stand potions. Also sanguine great sword. And unstable soul essence. And darkest before dawn.

The easiest (and I guess mostly overlooked) solution is the pair of Healing Hands gloves. My Aloth almost always uses then at higher levels with WoD.

Also Blightheart's Heartbeat can be a nice healing source to prolong with WoD because it doesn't rely on crits. It's a nice weapon for a Wizard to have anyway (bc. 10% corrosive lash for spells). 

[Shai Hulud]

6 hours ago, Boeroer said:

The easiest (and I guess mostly overlooked) solution is the pair of Healing Hands gloves. My Aloth almost always uses then at higher levels with WoD.

Also Blightheart's Heartbeat can be a nice healing source to prolong with WoD because it doesn't rely on crits. It's a nice weapon for a Wizard to have anyway (bc. 10% corrosive lash for spells). 

Hey I did forget about these, since they're once per encounter, but with WOD that may as well be permanent. And 12 health per 3s is a lot. That's about as much as the all the things I mentioned combined

Literally never used Blightheart, kinda forgot it existed. If you did like 60 damage per shot I guess it would be equivalent to Healing Gloves. Soulbound weapons capping at superb is kind of a bummer, especially on POTD upscaled where 12 penetration isn't going to cut it. But would be useful just for the healing proc then summon a real weapon like concelhaut's parasitic quarterstaff.

[dgray62]

14 hours ago, Shai Hulud said:

Also not an unlimited number of potions of final stand

There actually is an unlimited number if you're into grinding. You can get one potion of final stand (+2 of the best healing potions) as loot when attacking master level Valian ships, so long as you kill the captain quickly before he can use it. Monks are very good for this, since you can zap right over with Flagellant's Path and then permanently-stun with stunning surge.

[thelee]

13 minutes ago, dgray62 said:

There actually is an unlimited number if you're into grinding. You can get one potion of final stand (+2 of the best healing potions) as loot when attacking master level Valian ships, so long as you kill the captain quickly before he can use it. 

wow i never knew that!

[Boeroer]

1 hour ago, dgray62 said:

There actually is an unlimited number if you're into grinding. You can get one potion of final stand (+2 of the best healing potions) as loot when attacking master level Valian ships, so long as you kill the captain quickly before he can use it. Monks are very good for this, since you can zap right over with Flagellant's Path and then permanently-stun with stunning surge.

I almost never use potions, but this is cool.  

[dgray62]

I don't use potions either, since the potion drinking animation is so slow, and is cancelled by the AI, requiring you to turn it off in order to use them. But if you're into this, you can get as many as you wish so long as you're into grinding.

[Shai Hulud]

4 hours ago, dgray62 said:

I don't use potions either, since the potion drinking animation is so slow, and is cancelled by the AI, requiring you to turn it off in order to use them. But if you're into this, you can get as many as you wish so long as you're into grinding.

You can script drinking potions, it is pretty easy. What's interesting is the scripting AI will actually OVERRIDE the "near death" requirement of potions of final stand, so with a blood mage you can just script to cast your buffs, cast wall of draining every 30s prioritize on "greatest number of enemies" and the AI can make you immortal from the get-go.

I actually made a script to deify blood mages and keep them deified. Can share it if interested, but the main thing is script drinking the potion, the automated casting of wall of draining and then blood sacrificing enough to get it back (has 50% chance in vanilla game to get tier 7 spell back, so after drinking potion of final stand just spam it to get spells back, can script this too).

Tried to script proccing blade cascade with scordeo's edge but that part is a bit messy because the game can't actually tell when you proc the effect, so I made blocks that just attacked things if i'm carrying exactly a weapon and no shield, then my other weapon slots have a different weapon configuration, and I switch weapons once it procs. 

[thelee]

16 hours ago, Shai Hulud said:

You can script drinking potions, it is pretty easy.

don't quote me on this, but when I was messing around with magran's challenge run (abandoned, it's not worth it at all lol), i found i was somehow able to avoid the potion-drinking bug when my Eder's AI script had a potion drinking action at the bottom of the list (even with other potions). i haven't investigated it thoroughly, but maybe there's a way out of the potion-drinking issue.

Quote

What's interesting is the scripting AI will actually OVERRIDE the "near death" requirement of potions of final stand

omg that's hilarious. must be like how AI script can ignore hidden health (like from berserker rage) and trigger health status conditions. i need to do that on my scripts, would make final stand much more useful (frequently i miss the opportunity to use it)

Edited April 20, 2023 by thelee

[dgray62]

22 hours ago, Shai Hulud said:

You can script drinking potions, it is pretty easy.

Would you kindly share how you do this? I am a novice when it comes to AI scripting.

[Shai Hulud]

5 hours ago, dgray62 said:

Would you kindly share how you do this? I am a novice when it comes to AI scripting.

These are just two simple potion blocks from my blood mage / helwalker script. 

You can use a conditional like "heatlh: self - health below 50%" if you want, which makes sense for healing potions, but for other potions I usually just use "always true" which is the default and it's always processed when the script reaches the block. I just put one potion of the type to be consumed in the quick slot so the script doesn't consume a whole stack of potions of final stand.

If you don't have wall of draining or salvation of time and want to keep up a potion buff you could put a stack and then in the cooldown put the duration (it's alchemy dependent, usually like 60 to 120). Or if it's a healing potion just something like health: self - health below 25%, action potion of miraculous healing, cooldown 0.

So the first screenshot just has me casting wall of draining with cooldown 23, then I cast spirit shield or arcane veil if I don't have concentration to ensure the potion of final stand isn't wasted, then I drink the potion.

The second screenshot is less important potions or other consumables I may sometimes use, if I intend to use it during a combat I just place one in the quick slots. This block is much lower in the script because in between I have some more complicated blocks that proc brilliant, blade cascade, then various wizard buffs and clarity of agony. There's also a 3 second delay between drinking potions in case I have more than one which makes it less likely I'm interrupted, because the script will drink one potion, then go on to the other blocks, then come back after 3 seconds to the second potion on the list, etc. Just put what you want in the quick slots and script it under action -> consumables

If you want the full script you can download it here (I hope I'm allowed to link to files), it's sort of complex and specific for blood mage / monk but I label everything so it isn't completely inscrutable, it may be instructive, just move it to C:\Users\<username>\Saved Games\Pillars of Eternity II\CustomAIBehaviors

-----edit- some of the blocks may seem bizarre, like block 7, which I have turned off but can be used to clear hostile afflictions by rapidly swapping weapons with outworn buckler (and scordeo's edge) in slot 1. Also in some of the targeting blocks at the bottom I have it set not to target spirits, this is so I can proc the fire blight and use it proc brilliant while wall of draining it without killing it

Also scripts are processed top down, so emergency actions like healing potions / spells (or potions of final stand) should go near the top, in the middle I have buffs I try to sustain, then I have longer casts (summoned weapons, llengrath's safeguard), then finally attack abilities (stunning surge, skyward kick) and a standard attack block at the very bottom.-----

https://filebin.net/2zrxk2d596ftjtyl

Edited April 21, 2023 by Shai Hulud

[dgray62]

Ah, I see. In the past when I added potions to the AI they were usually at the bottom of this list. This would explain why the potion drinking animation was often interrupted by AI actions higher on the list. Thanks!

[thelee]

wow, impressive script, shai hulud. this is inspiring me to create a script that's just focused on consumables that i can load up on all my party members. (i pretty much always have one script slot empty)

 

can't run into the AI consumable bug if the AI is always consuming when I need it to anyway

Edited April 21, 2023 by thelee

[limaxophobiacq]

Is there a difference between 'Always True and (second conditional)' compared to just having the second condition as conditional alone?

[thelee]

4 hours ago, limaxophobiacq said:

Is there a difference between 'Always True and (second conditional)' compared to just having the second condition as conditional alone?

from a boolean math perspective, no

 

maybe shai hulud has those to make it easy to switch AI actions on and off (you just invert the "always true" conditional with a not)

Edited April 21, 2023 by thelee

[Shai Hulud]

12 hours ago, dgray62 said:

Ah, I see. In the past when I added potions to the AI they were usually at the bottom of this list. This would explain why the potion drinking animation was often interrupted by AI actions higher on the list. Thanks!

Yep, the script always processes higher up blocks if it can, so the ordering is important. And you're welcome

12 hours ago, thelee said:

wow, impressive script, shai hulud. this is inspiring me to create a script that's just focused on consumables that i can load up on all my party members. (i pretty much always have one script slot empty)

 

can't run into the AI consumable bug if the AI is always consuming when I need it to anyway

Thanks. I've gotten pretty good at throwing together scripts like this, can make one for a build in about 20 to 30 minutes, bit less if I don't label things or aren't starting from scratch. The most annoying thing is when you add a new block it starts at the bottom and you have to move it up by clicking the arrow button, but each time you do this the script goes back to the bottom, so if you have 30 lines and want a new block near the top, it can take a couple minutes just to move it up the script. 

At this point I have so many scripts I can usually just duplicate a long one and I just change the blocks completely rather than creating new ones at the bottom and moving them up, saves a lot of time. 

Aside from the way you add blocks to the bottom, the most frustrating thing about the scripting is there's no OR for conditionals. This is why in that script I sometimes have two blocks that do the same thing but check for different conditionals

11 hours ago, limaxophobiacq said:

Is there a difference between 'Always True and (second conditional)' compared to just having the second condition as conditional alone?

Nope, as @thelee suspects I maintain an "always true" so the block can be easily turned off if needed. I often play with Woedica challenge on so I may turn off certain expensive resources except in the more challenging fights.

It doesn't take any more effort to change the always true block to the first conditional than to just add a second conditional so I do the second

---------

OH another scripting trick, you can use the giftbearer's cloth and/or fleshmender armor to carry extra items and weapons. You can script to change weapons on various conditions (for example I have a streetfighter / FF that switches from dual-wielding to fighting with a shield with block modal when bloodied, then back to the dual wielding at 75% health) and you will switch even with the slot locked out. Same with consumables, this way you can carry six consumables without having to wear the gear. 

Be aware the game is kind of buggy and items can disappear this way so I'd only do it before and after a battle when you need extra potions or weapons, then remove them. 

Edited April 22, 2023 by Shai Hulud

[thelee]

On 4/21/2023 at 9:33 PM, Shai Hulud said:

I often play with Woedica challenge on

a true glutton for punishment