[Class Build - Solo Monk - 3.02] Illuminated Master aka "death cone" monk

[Dr <3]

[disclaimer : i'm still doing my run, currently i'm LVL 14, so the build is not 100% "complete" at the moment]

 

This is the build i'm using in my last solo run. 3.02 bring us many awesome things for monk that we are going to abuse as much as possible:

- torment reach is become a OMG SO GOOD I CAN'T EVEN STAND IT  good enough ability that transform us into little barbarians on steroid, basically you have an endless source of FULL ATTACKS with +50% dmg as crush, PLUS an huge AOE cone of dmg

- swift strikes lighting lash FINALLY STACK with turning wheel fire lash

- iron wheel FINALLY STACK with turning wheel

 

have a fast resume:

 

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Illuminated Master

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Difficulty: Normal (rofl-stomping/ never used a figurine-scroll) / Hard (challanging) / PothD (viable with normal solo PothD tactics : es kiting, divide mobs in little groups, ecc)

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Class: Monk

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Race: Wild Orlan® (+10 def bouns that stack with Crucible of suffering and Duality of mortal presence) / Amanua (+ 20 res to stun and prone is very good, we want to kill everyone, not to kiss the groung)

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Background: Living Lands - Scientist (for +1 to mech mainly)

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Stats:

 

MIG: 18 --> DMG, DMG, DMG !!!!

CON: 10 --> honest

DEX: 14  --> honest

PER: 12 --> honest (in case take 2 point from cost and dex for go to 16 PER at the beginning)

INT: 14  --> bigger AOE for torment reach / longer duration for swift strikes

RES: 8 --> we don't have to cast much

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Skills:  Athletics 4, Mech 10 , Lore 4, Rest to survival

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Abilities/Talents (a=auto, !=important, r=recommended):

 

order is not important apart from the second one:

 

Trascendent suffering (a) / we don't even care

Torment reach (!!!) / HELL YEAH

Swift strikes (!)

turning wheel (!)

dluality of mortal presence (!)

flagellanth path (!)

crucicble of suffering (!)

iron wheel ®

 

note: no stunning blows, no clarity of agony, no rooting pain ONLY BEACAUSE I HAVE NOT SPACE FOR  THEM. They are actually very good, but other abilities are just better (sadly). Dragon kick, exploding palm, whatever are not doing good enough for us. Force of anguish? I can spend better my wounds.

 

 

Weapon Focus SABRE ®

Two Weapon Style(!)

Vulnerable attack (!)

Veteran's Recovery ®

Heath of the storm ®

gallant focus ®

 

 

merciless hand (!)

machinary gift ®

duengon delver ®

effigy resentment eder or Mahea

[...]

 

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Items (* = additional echantments by me; ! = essential, r = recommended):

 

Weapon set 1:  Resolution + Sabre  (max enchant possiible, add lighting lash to both) --> Double purgatory  (max enchant possiible, add lighting lash to both) / Double bittercuts / Purgatory + Steadfast

Weapon Set 2: whatever, maybe a ranged weapon if you play pothD and need to pull mobs from safe distance

 

Boots: shood of faith / Viettro formal shoes

 

Head: whatever --> garoth chorus (conservation version) --> maegfolk skull (!)

 

Armor: Aru Barker / Blaidh golan --> Ryona plate (!) / Hunter mail (weak alternative)

 

Neck: Cloak of Comfort / Cloak of protection / Cloak of deflection / Rygimald mantle (depends on fights)

 

Belt: blunting belt / bountiful healing belt--> binding rope ® (binding rope is very powerful, do 2 things for us : 1) block the mobs if for some reason we need to run away (very rare) / 2) stuck on hit means -20 deflecion vs everyone we are actually fighting, so il like a +20 to accuracy for me )

 

Rings:  Ring of Deflection / + 4 int ring / protection ring / bartender ring / .... (depends on fights)

 

Hands: +2 mech gloves (!) / Gauntlets of Precision / Ryona vambraces (depends on fights/exploration)

 

Consumables : white Ynefer is very cheap and gives + 3 DR, use it in every fight, drink with friends is always good

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Thoughts:

 

Fact: In solo you always get plenty of wounds, so spam abilities is not a problem at all and we will still have enough for give sense to iron and turning wheel . 

Fact : swift strike is istant and give us +25% dmg, try to keep it alway active

Fact : tha bad thing of this build is that it needs A LOT of micromanagment (spam torment reach in the right direction, keep on swift strikes). So is better for solo, you can try also in a party with th aggressive I.A. setting but it will not be the same thing

 

 

With torment reach we do constantly double attack. So dexterity is not so important as it can be for others melee buids. We also don't care about the whole 0-recovery thing. So we privilege dmg and accuracy over speed.

 

A "full" torment reach attack can do for us: 2 sabre hit , with + 25% lighting lash from enchant, + 25%lighting lash from swift strikes (both +5% for hearth of the storm), + 50% crush, + 50% fire dmg. So we are already at +150% dmg to a single target.

IF WE CRIT we get another +50% from crit, + 50% from annhilation, + 30% durgan, + 30% merciless hand, + 10% dungeon delver --> more 170% dmg

 

 

 

Sides notes:

 

- BEST WEAPON POSSIBLE is double Purgatory (doubled with the wax item). The dmg it deals with annilation is unpaired by anything, and the lifesteal keep us alive at long as we attack.

 

Little subotpimal is Purgatory + Resolution. Alternative can be Double bittercut with corrode lash and spirit of decay talent, the difference is that the dmg output will be a little less BUT more stable overall (you get +20% from spirit of decay versus + 50% from annilathion). Another item i'm still testing is steadfast, the + 10  might from chapion boon (read +30% dmg) + the immunity to featt can be on par with the annilathion + lifesteal of purgatory.

 

- When rest i go always for +20/40% of healing, with the lifesteal, veteran recovery, shood od faith we are really VERY HARD to kill. Only is some place is better go for +10 ccuracy vs spirits (hi durgan battery!)

 

- after you got the binding rope can have sense to take also apprentice sneack attack talent

 

 

added photoes :

#what happen in a normal fight

Edited April 3, 2016 by Dr <3

[Dr <3]

PS for future use

 

# this is me fighting alpine dragon, most difficut fight so far (very high def--> so no crits, crush immune, high lighting resistance, it is practically immune to half of my build). I just needed to swich resolution for bittercut and to use some blind monk venom to kill him preatty fast   (189 pure dmg over time)

 

 

BUG REPORT

 

#1 i just discovered an horrible bug: after triggered immunity from ruona plate wears off you can't get any wound until the end of combat had to reload and not sleep anymore in dragon's cave

Edited April 2, 2016 by Dr <3

[MaxQuest]

Yeah, Ryona's Breastplate and Maegfolk Skull are extremely good for this build.

 

Btw, you probably meant wild orlan instead of the hearth one

Edited April 2, 2016 by MaxQuest

[Esajin]

Re: "RES: 8 --> we don't have to cast much"

 

What am I missing here? Don't Interrupts affect melee and pretty much all of the monks' abilities?

[Dr <3]

Yeah, Ryona's Breastplate and Maegfolk Skull are extremely good for this build.

 

Btw, you probably meant wild orlan instead of the hearth one

 

tks, fixed

 

Re: "RES: 8 --> we don't have to cast much"

 

What am I missing here? Don't Interrupts affect melee and pretty much all of the monks' abilities?

 

yes, but they are all fast abilities, so interrupt acutally "interrupt" you very rarely. The only ability that can really be "interrupted" is the evocation of the twins since the long "cast" time, but i haven't pick it anyway. Just torment reach spam do more for us.

 

EDIT: i just discovered an horrible bug: after triggered immunity from ruona plate wears off you can't get any wound until the end of combat had to reload and not sleep anymore in dragon's cave!

Edited April 2, 2016 by Dr <3

[Esajin]

I see. I was under the impression that interrupts also worked on the recovery time between the last melee attack and the fast cast too, delaying pretty much everything.

[gogocactus]

Finally, a just and even distribution of power in skills. I declare the monk completed and finished. No further skill revision necessary.

[Dr <3]

I see. I was under the impression that interrupts also worked on the recovery time between the last melee attack and the fast cast too, delaying pretty much everything.

 

you are  totally right it works like that.

 

BUT the thing is : if an action is very long (cast a slow spell, attack with 3 DEX) you can get hit by a lot of attacks and every attack have a chance to interrupt you, and this is very bad since you can't ever "complete" the action, resulting is some kind of perma-stun.

 

INSTEAD, if you have "fast" action (cast a fast spell, attack with high dex) the chances to get hit between the start and the end of the action are very low, so you can complete the action and start another.

 

Or to be more clear:  if you are interrupted at the 75% of a cast, after the inerrupt time wear off, you don't continue the cast from the 75%, but have to restart from 0%. So all the time spended  tryng to cast something is totally wasted. With fast casts or fast attacks is very rare to be interrupted in the middle of the action, so you don't "waste" time, you are just slowed down for the interrupt time

[fiddlesticks]

Sounds like a fun build that's pretty powerful from start to finish. Though I'm surprised you don't pick up Long Stride, I found that to be one of the best abilities for solo runs.

[Reent]

 

Yeah, Ryona's Breastplate and Maegfolk Skull are extremely good for this build.

 

Btw, you probably meant wild orlan instead of the hearth one

 

tks, fixed

 

Re: "RES: 8 --> we don't have to cast much"

 

What am I missing here? Don't Interrupts affect melee and pretty much all of the monks' abilities?

 

yes, but they are all fast abilities, so interrupt acutally "interrupt" you very rarely. The only ability that can really be "interrupted" is the evocation of the twins since the long "cast" time, but i haven't pick it anyway. Just torment reach spam do more for us.

 

EDIT: i just discovered an horrible bug: after triggered immunity from ruona plate wears off you can't get any wound until the end of combat had to reload and not sleep anymore in dragon's cave!

 

 

Please report the bug.

[Dr <3]

Sounds like a fun build that's pretty powerful from start to finish. Though I'm surprised you don't pick up Long Stride, I found that to be one of the best abilities for solo runs.

 if for some reason i need fast run speed i can go for aru bracker (red armour) + sugar or other food that gives speed, is more than enough to outrun mobs. But basically you kill people so fast and hard that you doesn't need much speed like the normal "cheese tactics"  like kiting with ranged weapon, abuse engagement range ecc.

 

And during the fight you have always  flagellant paths to ingore the tank, kill casters/archer and go to a place where your back is shielded by a wall (complete surround is the only thing that can actually kill you).

 

We have to much better options than long stride to pick it.

[Reent]

if all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail - if you start everything with "i am faster" than you wont get to know how much more you can do... and a monk can do more, so much more!

 

I had a solo monk... i fought some enemies and i didnt want to kite... so i simply ran to them... i died in a short time - 2nd try i used pathing (there was one ranged enemy giving me a wound), to line them all up, with one torments reach the whole fight was over, thats what i call efficient use of wounds

 

if you get fast runner lvl 2 and long strides lvl 3, you are faster than anything the game throws at you (okay, almost, use survival 9 and you outrun everything), however you cant fight any other way... imagine fighters recovery and swift strikes or something instead - you cant kite (without item use) however you can straight up fight since you have great AOE damage and can decimate the enemy very fast... making for an interesting playthrough, not the same lame playstyle my chanter has - or i would have with ranger.

Some fights i do with chanter i see the enemies and think "okay, my chanter looses in 1 min because his endurance regeneration isnt high enough (before lvl 10 his summons simply... are too weak)" and i think back to my monk and look at the enemy, look again and think "the fight would end within 3-5 torments reach - after 2-3 torments reach only the 2 archers would be left standing"

[fiddlesticks]

 if for some reason i need fast run speed i can go for aru bracker (red armour) + sugar or other food that gives speed, is more than enough to outrun mobs. But basically you kill people so fast and hard that you doesn't need much speed like the normal "cheese tactics"  like kiting with ranged weapon, abuse engagement range ecc.

 

That's a fair point. There are some fights which I'm not sure you can reliably solo without splitting up the enemies (Crägholdt Bluffs, Mowrghek Ien, some of the White March bounties), but then I suppose you'll have access to the Boots of Speed by that time.

[Dr <3]

if all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail - if you start everything with "i am faster" than you wont get to know how much more you can do... and a monk can do more, so much more!

 

I had a solo monk... i fought some enemies and i didnt want to kite... so i simply ran to them... i died in a short time - 2nd try i used pathing (there was one ranged enemy giving me a wound), to line them all up, with one torments reach the whole fight was over, thats what i call efficient use of wounds

 

if you get fast runner lvl 2 and long strides lvl 3, you are faster than anything the game throws at you (okay, almost, use survival 9 and you outrun everything), however you cant fight any other way... imagine fighters recovery and swift strikes or something instead - you cant kite (without item use) however you can straight up fight since you have great AOE damage and can decimate the enemy very fast... making for an interesting playthrough, not the same lame playstyle my chanter has - or i would have with ranger.

Some fights i do with chanter i see the enemies and think "okay, my chanter looses in 1 min because his endurance regeneration isnt high enough (before lvl 10 his summons simply... are too weak)" and i think back to my monk and look at the enemy, look again and think "the fight would end within 3-5 torments reach - after 2-3 torments reach only the 2 archers would be left standing"

 

 

i can understand your points, but you don't need speed as long as you have teleport (flagellant path)

 

this is a battle sequence of the iron flail battles at Hard, as you can see good positioning is very easy to achive. The second pick is after 2 torment reach + 1 flagellant path

Edited April 3, 2016 by Dr <3

[Reent]

Thats how i imagined higher level monk in wm areas (they changed vanilla and reduced enemies - only to release wm with the same/higher enemy count than vanilla had before the change? WTF)

 

torments reach too OP :D

[Kaylon]

 

I see. I was under the impression that interrupts also worked on the recovery time between the last melee attack and the fast cast too, delaying pretty much everything.

 

you are  totally right it works like that.

 

BUT the thing is : if an action is very long (cast a slow spell, attack with 3 DEX) you can get hit by a lot of attacks and every attack have a chance to interrupt you, and this is very bad since you can't ever "complete" the action, resulting is some kind of perma-stun.

 

INSTEAD, if you have "fast" action (cast a fast spell, attack with high dex) the chances to get hit between the start and the end of the action are very low, so you can complete the action and start another.

 

Or to be more clear:  if you are interrupted at the 75% of a cast, after the inerrupt time wear off, you don't continue the cast from the 75%, but have to restart from 0%. So all the time spended  tryng to cast something is totally wasted. With fast casts or fast attacks is very rare to be interrupted in the middle of the action, so you don't "waste" time, you are just slowed down for the interrupt time

 

That's not how interrupts work. Each time you're "interrupted" you have the delay of the interrupt added to your recovery time. 

[Dr <3]

 

 

I see. I was under the impression that interrupts also worked on the recovery time between the last melee attack and the fast cast too, delaying pretty much everything.

 

you are  totally right it works like that.

 

BUT the thing is : if an action is very long (cast a slow spell, attack with 3 DEX) you can get hit by a lot of attacks and every attack have a chance to interrupt you, and this is very bad since you can't ever "complete" the action, resulting is some kind of perma-stun.

 

INSTEAD, if you have "fast" action (cast a fast spell, attack with high dex) the chances to get hit between the start and the end of the action are very low, so you can complete the action and start another.

 

Or to be more clear:  if you are interrupted at the 75% of a cast, after the inerrupt time wear off, you don't continue the cast from the 75%, but have to restart from 0%. So all the time spended  tryng to cast something is totally wasted. With fast casts or fast attacks is very rare to be interrupted in the middle of the action, so you don't "waste" time, you are just slowed down for the interrupt time

 

That's not how interrupts work. Each time you're "interrupted" you have the delay of the interrupt added to your recovery time. 

 

 

ok but the result is that when you are surrounded somehow you can still spam torment reach with success, while is actually impossible (for me at least) to evocate the twins. And if you get interrupted "too much" (i still have not understand clearly the rule) you "forget" the action you were doing

 

es: i try to evocate twins. I get surrounded in the meantime and get interrupted several times. For 2-3 times the "evocation animation" restart every time, after more hits when an interrrpution expires my char have only dots upon the head and don't even try anymore to perform the action. With wizard sometime i also "lose the spell", the game considered it like "casted" while it was not casted at all, just interrupted.

 

I'm sorry to answer to you in this trivial and experience based only way, since your post are every time of high quality and contain very precise math (i'm your fan)

[Kaylon]

 

 

 

I see. I was under the impression that interrupts also worked on the recovery time between the last melee attack and the fast cast too, delaying pretty much everything.

 

you are  totally right it works like that.

 

BUT the thing is : if an action is very long (cast a slow spell, attack with 3 DEX) you can get hit by a lot of attacks and every attack have a chance to interrupt you, and this is very bad since you can't ever "complete" the action, resulting is some kind of perma-stun.

 

INSTEAD, if you have "fast" action (cast a fast spell, attack with high dex) the chances to get hit between the start and the end of the action are very low, so you can complete the action and start another.

 

Or to be more clear:  if you are interrupted at the 75% of a cast, after the inerrupt time wear off, you don't continue the cast from the 75%, but have to restart from 0%. So all the time spended  tryng to cast something is totally wasted. With fast casts or fast attacks is very rare to be interrupted in the middle of the action, so you don't "waste" time, you are just slowed down for the interrupt time

 

That's not how interrupts work. Each time you're "interrupted" you have the delay of the interrupt added to your recovery time. 

 

 

ok but the result is that when you are surrounded somehow you can still spam torment reach with success, while is actually impossible (for me at least) to evocate the twins. And if you get interrupted "too much" (i still have not understand clearly the rule) you "forget" the action you were doing

 

es: i try to evocate twins. I get surrounded in the meantime and get interrupted several times. For 2-3 times the "evocation animation" restart every time, after more hits when an interrrpution expires my char have only dots upon the head and don't even try anymore to perform the action. With wizard sometime i also "lose the spell", the game considered it like "casted" while it was not casted at all, just interrupted.

 

I'm sorry to answer to you in this trivial and experience based only way, since your post are every time of high quality and contain very precise math (i'm your fan)

 

Well, that's something different... Don't know why you "forget" to drink potions, use scrolls or other actions - sometimes bugs, or maybe if an action can't be completed in a given time it will be canceled. However interrupts work the way I described it - try to hit someone with a long interruption weapon and you'll see how their recovery bar becomes longer oe how a short recovery bar appears if they don't have one. It's even possible to make a character who keeps enemies in perma recovery because their recovery bar will never deplete.

Edited April 3, 2016 by Kaylon

[AndreaColombo]

I reported the Triggered Immunity bug here.

[Dr <3]

Tks Andrea!

[pedwalk]

Thanks for the build!  Having fun with it so far, but I'm still fairly early in the game.  Curious as to whether you took this through Endless Paths solo?  Currently CCs like stun seem to be my main problem, but that will hopefully get better with gear.

Edited August 23, 2016 by pedwalk

[Dr <3]

I have 3 paths for you:

 

A fast solution is to dump dex and max both str & con, so you can have an higher fortitude, wich is the main defence against stuns usually. Since you are using full attacks all day the low dex will not wither too much your dmg. And remember to eat something, so you can have other +2 to str & con, so other +8 to fortitude, wich is more or less what bear fortitude talent gives you.

The alternative can be just lvl up a bit more and come back after some time, so you will "naturally" have better defence.

The third path is just use the yellow potion to shorthen the duration of bad status effects during the fights, so also if they stun you duration that will end fast.

[Boeroer]

Do Crucible of Suffering and the potion stack by the way? That would immediately end all afflictions, wouldn't it?

Edited August 23, 2016 by Boeroer

[Dr <3]

Actually i don't know, need to check

[Endo1]

I don't know you're still alive but, how did you through the early game??? it seems low Con and Res makes my character so fragile that one spider would just destroy me with 2~3 hit, currently lev 3, how did you manage to level up??? and i don't think dex and int isn't that good stat for monk....