[CLASS BUILD] Monksterlasher (elemental lashing & retaliating offensive tank)

[KDubya]

I'd say Monk is better than a Barbarian for the retaliation because when a Barbarian gets damaged he just gets closer to death but when a Monk gets damaged he gets more powerful.

 

I'd think fist and shield would work well for this, they have fast attack speed and average speed damage. Plus it'd look much cooler

[Dr <3]

Yeah turning wheel stacks with retaliation. And as barbarian have his own retaliation the monk has rooting pain, that is much better ( it does less DMG but in a aoe). In my experience monk is proving ti bè better for the punchbag approach.

[Braven]

I am not sure I agree that barbarians just get closer to death when taking damage.   They have a class ability that grants +25% damage when under 50% endurance, +20% when near at least two enemies (often the case).  I am not sure if those apply to retaliation damage or not (UI isn't clear), but that could be a large damage boost.  They also have the vengeful defeat ability should they run out of endurance which can be triggered multiple times with "second chance" item or other resurrect.  While it is true that monks get to actually use their abilities after they take damage, they start with basically no abilities without wounds, so it is not so much "normal" -> "strong" as it is "below average" -> "normal".  The higher endurance of barbarians (particularly with maxed out CON) means that the fire godlike racial will last longer making that retaliation source stronger too.

 

The biggest difference for me, though, is that barbarians actually have a good form of endurance regeneration, which can be extended with spell tongue and doubled with the dragon-maw shield (could switch back to the retaliation shield after the 1/encounter heal triggers).  Monks have nothing and must rely on other party members to stay alive or consumable items.

 

Regarding rooting pain vs barbaric retaliation, I don't think the (very small) AOE makes up for the much lower damage.  It also has lower accuracy because it targets fortitude (almost always higher than deflection and doesn't benefit from binding rope's "stuck" deflection debuff or Aspirant's Mark) and because it is crush damage, it can be greatly reduced by DR and does nothing to crush-immune enemies like the Alpine Dragon.  Barbaric retaliation is raw damage and would often trigger in the 30s for me and I even saw over 40 with critical hits and maxed might.  Against high DR enemies, barbaric retaliation does at least 5 times more damage even when not considering accuracy differences.  Large groups of enemies die nearly instantly to barbarians already because of heart of fury, one stands alone, and carnage so the fact it isn't AOE doesn't really matter;  single target damage is more important.

 

That said, I think they are both fine choices for a retaliation build.  I don't think that monks are clearly better and they are both good in different ways.

Edited December 21, 2016 by Braven

[Boeroer]

What makes this special monk very good at retaliation is Turning Wheel + Battle-Forged + Scion of Flame + Blood Testament. But I guess that Battle-Forged + Blooded + One Stands Alone + Scion of Flame + Barbaric Ret. is also a nice combo. One should try and post a build.

Edited December 21, 2016 by Boeroer

[Dr <3]

When i have time i will try all' craghold buffs with barbarian / monk and see wich One come out better. I bet on monk, But some of the ojection of braven make sense, it is just a matter of testing. Maybe blooded and stand alone can fill the gap left from missing turning wheel, we will see

 

Edit: btw yesterday my monk soloed alpine dragon at potd, with the aid of 2 flame shield potion, 2 war paints potion and 4-5 major healing potion, not bad. Tooked me 4-5 trials, but mainly to bugs related to the potion drinking animation ( start of animation but no actual healing effect)

Edited December 21, 2016 by Dr <3

[Boeroer]

+45% to damage is not bad of course (maybe added by +20% from higher MIG from Frenzy), but a lash should be better if the burn DR is not ridiculously high. Maybe the raw retaliation helps. Blood Thirst and Bloodlust ould be a good addition. They also trigger when retaliation kills stuff, making your attacks very fast even in the fattest armor with a two hander like Hours of Saint Rumbalt (I love that thing on a barb).

[Braven]

I noticed that the heart of fury damage buff can get extended forever with spelltongue. Not sure if that also helps retailate damage or not.

[Boeroer]

Yes, it's a nice side effect. Given enough enemies, HoF with Spelltongue also prolongs all currently active timed effects, even from potions/scrolls and so on for... like... forever. It's debateable if this is more powerful than the sheer damage or massive CC you could cause with other weapons, but it's nice nonetheless.

 

Hm, I actually never tried out HoF + Spelltongue + Potion of Infuse with Vital Essence. I can't remember if it has a healing over (very short) time or if it's instant (haven't played for some weeks now). If it's the first, a trah encounter could restore your whole health...

[Dr <3]

I have not finished all' test yet, but i'm still of my opinion that rooting pain > barbaric retaliation.

Ok, it hits fortitude, do crush DMG and do less DMG per hit BUT it activates every time you get a wound, not when you are hit in melee. Main advantage of this are

A) if you get hit by a strong hit rooting pain activate multiple times ( es 50 DMG = 5 activations)

B) all the mobs that surrounded you are hit ( when soloing is often 3-5 mobs)

C) if you are in a middle of a crown of range hitters ( languefath, archers, ecc ) you can DMG them with rooting pain ( ad long you get dmg) while bsrbaric retaliation wouldn't even work.

[Boeroer]

But you have to spend your wounds quickly because after 10 your Rooting Pain won't trigger any more.

Rooting Pain has a nice synergy with Combusting Wounds (Ring of Searing Flames) by the way. It gets even better when you can add Pain Link via cipher.

[Braven]

Good points. The fact rooting pain can trigger multiple times per hit and works for non-melee attacks are big advantages. It has a stun of some kind too, right? Only working for melee attacks is a big crutch of retaliation focused builds (and the reposite rogue). Rooting pain is also available much earlier. Barbaric retaliation is a level 13 ability, which is pretty late in the game.

Edited December 23, 2016 by Braven

[KDubya]

Rooting Pain can proc multiple times off of a single powerful hit?????

 

I had always assumed that it was one proc per hit not per wound sustained. Due to that I always through it into the trash category. Learn something everyday

[Dr <3]

But you have to spend your wounds quickly because after 10 your Rooting Pain won't trigger any more.

Are you sure? I've actually never payed attention to that detail, i've always thought that also if the counter is full you can actually get more rooting pain activations no problem. I have to test this.

 

@braven: no stun, but can interrupt like a normal attack

 

@kdubya: Yes, actually this ability is the main reason that i hate enemy monks, you hit them and they wipe your party.

Edited December 23, 2016 by Dr <3

[Boeroer]

The drunk orlan is a pain in the back because of Rooting Pain. If you surround him and then hit him hard he will react with so many Rooting Pain flashes...

 

Yes, it triggers for every wound, not hit. It triggers multiple times when you get hit hard. I also like the talent that lowers the damage you need to get a wound in combination with Rooting Pain. Without Rooting Pain I don't think it's worthwhile, but with it it helps you to trigger Rooting Pain more often with every hit you take.

 

If your wound counter reaches 10 you don't get any more wounds. Therefore Rooting Pan stops working. You can test it of course. But unless OBS didn't change the behaviour lately it's like that.

 

Rooting Pain also works if you inflict the wounds yourself. Don't know if this is of any use though.

[Dr <3]

Ok in the case i have to put a flagellant path or a Force of anguish in the build for sunk the wounds...

 

Or go for min int and waith that they expire by themself

Edited December 23, 2016 by Dr <3

[Boeroer]

Haha - but then Rooting Pain's AoE will be very small.

Take Torment's Reach: there's nothing better to spend wounds really fast. Or cast Dichotomous Soul early. But maybe you don't even need to do that. With 10 wounds you won't have any more Rooting Pain, but see it like a bridge to a maxed Turning Wheel: as long as you don't have 10 wounds, you don't have 50% burning lash for retaliation via Battle Forged, item retaliation, Potion of Flame Shield and so on. But you can balnce this out with Rooting Pain. Once you reach your full "lash" potential, Rooting Pain might stop, but your burn damage will be very high. Once a wound expires and Turning Wheel's power decreases a bit, you gain Rooting Pain back again. It's a quite effective setup. Iron Wheel also fits really well into this: when you want to get wounds really fast your DR is low, but once your wounds reach 10 and you only want to get MIN damage and retaliate your DR is +10. Nice.

 

If you can manage to cause more than 10 damage per Rooting Pain (it's very difficult, maybe a ton of MIG and Expose Vulnerabilities helps - did anybody test if the bracers that give you +10% spell damage work with Rooting Pain?) then Resonant TOuch also may be really good. Imagine you receive a crit of 100 damage, causing 10 times Rooting Pain which each causes 10 damage on all surrounding targets. This might give them all 10 Resonent Touches which you then can trigger, giving them a lot of raw damage.

Edited December 23, 2016 by Boeroer

[Dr <3]

Uuuu, never used risonant touch before, shame on me. Never thought it would work also with retaliation effect.

In the other side i'm really curious to try the low int variant, in the end even with max int rooting pain manage to hit only mobs surrounding you, probably even with low int you are still able to do that.

Many things to iron in this build

Edited December 23, 2016 by Dr <3

[peddroelm]

 

..Take Torment's Reach: there's nothing better to spend wounds really fast... .

FOA can attack just as fast and cost two wounds instead of one .. (significantly less damage output but you can still use it to spam rooting pain if you discharge it against a target pinned to a wall so it cannot be knocked back out of range).

[Boeroer]

But with FoA they fly away and stop hitting you. Then you can't gain or spend any more wounds. Flagellant's Path also stops the Rooting Pain fest.

Pushing against a wall is a bit circumstantial.

I meant Torment's Reach is the best in this setup. The enemies have lower MIG and don't hit you as hard any more and they won't get disabled.

[Dr <3]

Still testing things, i just wanted to share a bunch of findings with you:

- Savage attack DOES NOT work with standard retaliation, flame shield retaliation, Fire godlike racial retaliation and even rooting pain so is discarded for the build

- Vulnerable attack DOES work with standard retaliation, flame shield retaliation, Fire godlike racial retaliation, DOES NOT work for rooting pain

- vulnerabile attack and cautious can be active at the same time

- Savage attack and cautious attack are mutually exclusive

- cautious attack overlap the deflecion part of duality of mortal presence. So you can take both, cautious attack for deflecion, duality of mortal precence for fortitude, reflex, will

- crucicible of suffering bonus (+10 to all' def) stack with both cautious attack and duality of mortal presence

- vigorous defence ( from ryona brestplate) stacks with everything discussed so far

 

More things are coming

Edited December 29, 2016 by Dr <3

[Dr <3]

About weakening strykes:

- they need a critical hit to happen, After that they target fortitude ( that is often the higher defence)

- the critical hit can come also by " on hit triggered spells" , like the blind from erlyn jacket ( enemy hit you--> blind triggers--> if you get a crit game Rolls for weakening strykes --> you can find anche enemy that is dazed, blinded and weakened in 1 shot)

- same goes also for binding Rope and similar items

- even resonant touch Rolls for graze/hit/crit when you apply a resonance counter. Also that have a chance to trigger weakening strykes.

- weakened is a good affliction overall, but for this build not superuseful ( it helps a little with force of anguish and rooting pain)

- this is all interesting for research, but in actual game i found anyway that

looped Rope > binding Rope ;

Ryona brestplate/ he carry many scars >> erlyn jacket

[Boeroer]

Please note that when I was playing this build that Enervating Blows worked with retaliation (I guess that's still the case). So if the retaliation crits the enemy is weakened. It indeed helps a lot with Force of Anguish.

 

And you shouldn't look at this as if it was a solo build. The afflictions you cause also help your teammates. For example an enemy automatically qalifies for rogue's Deathblows if he hits this monk. It helps some of your casters spells to land or even crit and so on and so forth.

 

I think there are other chars/builds which are better suited for looped rope. I try to spread items throughout my build because it would became quite boring if you use all the same stuff all the time for every build. But of course Ryona's Breastplate is a good alternative - esp. when Triggered Immunity is unlocked.

I did not use Elryn's Jacket by the way. Not enough DR for a retaliation build.

Edited December 30, 2016 by Boeroer

[Ergo Proxy]

One question about this build... I noticed that under skills and abilities there is supposed to be a key with " (a=auto, r=recommended, !=important)" and yet I didn't see any of those associated with the skills or abilities.

 

Can you clarify for me which ones are necessary and which are optional?  Total noob here, lol

[Natures Bounty]

I read somewhere that the fire lash from torment's reach and lightning strikes don't stack anymore, that the lightning lash gets suppressed. Is that true?

[Boeroer]

Didn't try that out lately. Maybe I can do that tomorrow. But I don't think that's the case.