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

[Boeroer]

"Lash! A-ah
Savior of the Universe
 
Lash! A-ah
He save everyone of us
 
Lash! A-ah
He's a miracle
 
Lash! A-ah
King of the impossible"
 
- The Queen that was -
 
 
<maybe I will insert backstory here... >
 

 
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Monksterlasher
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Difficulty: PotD v. 3.02
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Class: Monk
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Race: Fire Godlike
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Background: The Living Lands - Colonist
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Stats:
MIG: 19 
CON: 18
DEX: 04
PER: 12
INT: 17 (maybe lower when not taking Veteran's Recovery, put it into PER then)
RES: 08
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Skills: Stealth 0, Athl. 6, Lore 2, Mech. 0, Surv. 14  
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Talents (a=auto, r=recommended, !=important)
Spirit of Decay
Scion of Flame
Heart of the Storm
Lightning Strikes
Savage Attack
Two Weapon Style
Apprentice's Sneak Attack or Veteran's Recovery (when solo or without healer)
Weapon Focus Ruffian
 
Abilities
Turning Wheel
Swift Strikes
Torment's Reach
Long Stride
Crucible of Suffering
Duality of Mortal Presence
Iron Wheel
Enervating Blows (or Flagellant's Path when solo)
Force of Anguish (see above)
 
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Items (*=additional echantments by me; !=important, r=recommended):
 
Weapon set 1: Bittercut (!) (*durgan refined, *burning lash, *superb, *slaying(whatever non-kith)) + duplicated Bittercut (!) (*shocking lash, slaying(whatever else))
(you could also use Bittercut + any other sabre or Bittercut + Azureth's Stiletto or Bleak Fang if you don't want to duplicate Bittercut)
Weapon Set 2: Azureith's Stiletto ® (=Jolting Touch on crit 1/enc) + Irfyn Brngar's Solace (r - switch to this when stun or prone occurs)
 
Boots: Animancer's Boots ® (3*Jolting Touch/rest) or Shod-in-Faith (against hard hitting enemies)
 
Head: nothing (Godlike)
 
Armor: Blaidh Golan (r - after getting Iron Wheel) or heavy armor like He Carries Many Scars (great when health is low), even Vengiatta Rugia works ok, same with Wayfarer's Hide. 
 
Neck: Fulvano's Amulet ®
 
Belt: Broad Belt of Power
 
Rings: Ring of Protection, Iron Circle (r - lots on CON as well as increased DR when endurance is low) 
 
Hands: Blood Testament (!)
 
Quick slots: Potions of Spirit Shield®, Potions of Major Regeneration, Potions of Flame Shield(!), Scrolls of Jolting Touch(!)
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Hey!
 
The Monksterlasher completely evolves around amassing and exploiting lashes using weapon attacks with Bittercut as well as burning retaliations like Flame shield and Battle Forged.
 
I took a monk to do this because of several good reasons:
 
1. Monks can have very high endurance and health. If you want do use Battle Forged, you want to have those high. If you don't, you will have to rest a lot.
 
2. Monks can have three lashes besides weapon enchantments: Turning Wheel, Lightning Strikes and also a raw lash from Blood Testment Gloves (monk-only gloves). And of course, they can enchant their weapons with a lash, too.
 
3. Monk's Turning Wheel and also Blood Testment (not Lightning Strikes) work with retaliation! Not only the normal one, but also Battle Forged as well as Flame Shield. That means that with 10 wounds your Battle Forged retaliation will have additional +50% burn damage and + 20% raw damage lashes. Since Battle Forged starts pretty whimpy but gets very powerful at higher levels (scaling) this leads to very high damage via burning retaliaion. Flame Shields retaliation (+50%/+20%) adds to this if you drink a potion
 
4. Battle Forged + Turning Wheel profit from Scion of Flame. So you will get initial 120% burn damage. This is used to calculate the lash damage of Turning Wheel and Blood Testament. So they get increased, too. ON top of that Turning Wheels' lash damage also gets pimped by 20%. So alltogether you will get this: 120% burn damage + 60% (72%) burning lash + 20% (24%) raw lash (if you calculate the lashes with a base damage of 120% it's 72/24 instead of 60/20 - how you look at it).
 
5. Turning Wheel and Blood Testment work with Jolting Touch! It's amazing: you hit three enemies with high shock damage and do +50% burning +20% raw lash on top. It makes Jolting Touch so good. Also works with Scion of Flame so that Turning Wheel's damage is 60%. Add Heart of the Storm and not only your Lightning Strikes will do 30% lashes instead of 25%, but also Jolting Touch's damage will be boosted. This has the same effect as with Scion of Flame + Battle Forged + Turning Wheel. Only now it's Heart of the Storm + Jolting Touch + Scion of Flame + Turning Wheel
That's the reason why I chose Azureith's Stiletto for my second weapon slot: It procs Jolting Touch on a crit. I also wanted to have 2 Lore of the scrolls. It's a good way to do some AoE damage without using wounds and stay at 10 wounds for maximum lash damage.
 
6. Torment's Reach adds a 50% crushing lash to the initial target. It's another lash and just awesome. Besides that it's AoE is superbig with high INT and adds a lot of AoE damage.
 
7. Monks can have unlimited Full Attacks as long as they have wounds. So a dual wielding setup doesn't suffer from low DEX and armor very much because... Full Attacks, you know. This allowed my to dump DEX altogether. I could then maximize MIG, CON and INT. MIG for myed self healing and damage, CON because it has a great effect on monks because of their heigh base end and health. I need a lot of endurance an health if I want to make Battle Forge worthwhile and not rest all the time. And INT to maximize the durations of self heling, buffs and Torment's Reach's AoE cone.
 
8. Monks can reach crazy high DR which can balance out the lower deflection I have with two sabres and somewhat low RES. But since I want to have a high wound counter and want to receive damage, Iron Wheel is pretty nice to add a lot of DR while getting hit so that only MIN damage comes through.
 
Those are the reason why I combine the concept of lashes with a monk and not a... paladin or whatever.
 
So why Bittercut? Because it has two damage types and because Bittercut's base damage gets buffed by Spirit of Decay. That's because it has the damage type corrode/slash (the order is important). In this case Spirit of Decay works as an +20% addition to base damage, EVEN if slash damage and not corrode damage is applied. I don't know why (I think the explanation lies somewhere in the structure of the code) but it's like that. So on top of things like high MIG, Savage Attack and whatever boosts your weapon damage, Spirit of Decay also adds +20% to that. Besides Stormcaller and the summoned weapons Firebrand, Cadebald's Blackbow and Klakoth's Minor Blights it's the only weapon that does this and is suitable for a dual wielding monk at the same time. Weapons like Durance's Staff don't work like this because they have crush/burn (like I said: the order matters).
This makes Spirit of Decay a much better option than Savage Attacks by the way.
 
So that's the reason I took Scion of Flame, Spirit of Decay AND Heart of the Storm. It sounds like a waste of talent points, but after testing this build a lot I don't have the feeling it is.
I will just quickly list those talents and what they can influence on this build:
 
a) Scion of Flame:
- Battle Forged: +20% burn damage (which also influences the damage of all attached lashes)
- Flame Shield: +20% burn damage (see above)
- Turning Wheel: +60% lash instead of +50%
- Burning Lash (Bittercut, if chosen): +30% lash instead of +25%
- Chanter's Burning Lash (if in party): +30% instead of +25%
 
b) Heart of the Storm:
- Jolting Touch: +20% shock damage (which also influences the damage of all attached lashes)
- Lightning Strikes: +30% shock damage instead of +25%
- Shocking Lash (Bittercut, if chosen): +30% lash damage instead of 25%
 
c) Spirit of Decay:
- Bittercut: +20% corrode/slash damage (which also... and so on)
- Corrosive Lash (Bittercut, if chosen): 30% lash instead of 25%
 
So - because of this it doesn't really matter which lash you put on Bittercut. Shocking, burning or corrosive work equally well. If you have a Stormcaller guy in the party you might want to choose shocking lashes maybe. If you like burning lashes more go for that. If you want to hurt every enemy no matter what immunities you probably go for one burning and one shocking lash (so you have corrosive/slash + burning lash + shocking lash damage with one weapon setup). 
 
Let's see what additional damage and lashes we have when we use Torment's Reach:
Two times weapon attack (Full Attack)...
  + 20% from Spirit of Decay
  + 20% from Savage Attack
  + 33% from 21 MIG
  + 45% from the "Superb" enchantment
  + eventually +15% from Apprentice's Sneak Attack (Enervating Blows help)
  + eventually +50% from crit
this combined damage gets used when calculated:
  + 60% burnig lash from Turning Wheel
  + 50% crushing lash from Torment's Reach
  + 30% shocking lash from Lightning Strikes
  + 30% (shocking/burning/corrosive) lash from enchantment you put on the weapon
  + 20% raw lash from Blood Testament
  + eventually +30% burning lash from chanter
 
this results in +118% weapon damage +220% lash damage against 0 DR. You could also use Vulnerable Attack to lower enemies' DR - it doesn't slow you down that much because of the Full Attacks (I did it first but later retrained - so it's not in the build now). Plus you hit a lot of enemies with Torment's Reach AoE. But you also lower your wound counter - so every hit will be weaker than the first if you don't get wounds while attacking.
 
Luckily, whe have tons of endurance and health because of the Iron Cirlce and our base CON. So we can affort to get hit a bit. With Flame Shield we can do the following additional damage while getting hit:
  + 20% from Scion of Flame
  + 33% from MIG
  + 20% from Savage Attack
  + 15% from Apprentice Sneak Attack (eventually)
  + 50% from crit (eventually)
this combine gets used when calculated:
  + 60% burnimg lash from Turning Wheel
  + 20% raw lash from Blood Testment
  + 30% burning lash from chanter's chant (eventually)
 
Once we hit 50% endurance, Battle Forged kicks in which does the same as Flame Shield (they don't suppress each other) but with much higher base damage at higher levels. This is extremely powerful once you get pommeled so often that you might have to fear that you're getting knocked out. Suddenly you retaliate with more than 100 burn/raw damage with normal ret. hits and a lot more with crits. On top of that comes Flame Shield which is basically half that much damage.
This melts foes who insist to hit you - while you use Torment's Reach or Jolting Touch to kill them even more quickly.
As a side effect, your DR gets raised by 4, adds to the Iron Wheel (+10) and also to your armor. Your armor value might also be strengthened by Iron Circle. So, that's +14 to your armor, not bad.
 
Enervating Blows also work with all of this - so a lot of foes will be weakened either by your weapon attacks or the retaliations which makes it easier for Apprentice's Sneak Attack to kick in and also makes it easier to send foes prone with Force of Anguish. I do this when I have the feeling that I get beaten too much. 
 
All this results in pretty insane damage while you can tank a lot of enemies because of high endurance, DR and great healing mods. I use Fulvano's Amulet with +25% and a +60% healing bonus from camping. This is great when you have any char in your party who heals. Down below I say something about self heals when you want to solo (or don't have healers). But a potion of Major Regeneration always works wonders with this healing mods.
 
If you want to lob Fireballs or other elemental AoE spells onto your Monksterlasher you can do that, too: he has additional +4 DR against burn, shock and corrode damage because of the elemental talents. So it would be +14 or even +18 DR against such spells.
 
Interrupts can be a problem if you send this guy first. So either you have a priest with you or you use potions of Spirit Shield.
 
As i said: For healing I use my party members or potions. In a party that's totally cool.
 
This build is also suitable for soloing. But you might want to get Veteran's Recovery instead of Apprentice's Sneak Attack and Flagellant's Path instead of Envenomed Strike or Force of Anguish (great for escaping when you're surrounded completely and your endurance drops too fast). Also, use an item which raises Concentration and also consider to use Shod-in-Faith. This way you will be near unkillable as long as your self heals work and you have health left. After that Battle Forged can help to clear up the rest of the mob. Also, more Lore is useful when you're solo. Skip Athletics and put more points into Lore when you're solo. He Carries Many Scars's regeneration has no time limit by the way and also adds a lot of DR when your health is low - ao maybe this is a good armor when you're solo.
 
Another thing I discovered lately and which made me choose Force of Anguish: when you use Azureith's Stiletto and use it for Force of Anguish and it crits while doing that... all three enemies who get hit by Jolting Touch also go prone! Hilarious! I have no idea why and it's certainly a bug - but a nice one.
 
OK, have fun. I liked this build a lot. It's tanky and does great dps at the same time, even when disabled (switch to shield setup then!).
 
tl;dr: So the essence of this build is that Battle Forged, Flame Shield and Jolting Touch and of course Torment's Reach work with Turning Wheel and Blood Testament gloves, which makes it worthwhile to take three of the four elemental booster talents if you also use Bittercut as main weapon(s)
 
 
Edit (24.06.2016): Corrected a thing about Vulnerable Attack - it was still in the text despite the fact that I retrained and skipped it. Thanks to sibakroum for pointing this out.
 
Edit (18.09.2016): I wrote Envenomed Strike instead of Enervating Blows a few times - sorry for that, I corrected it.

Edited March 31, 2018 by Boeroer

[Boeroer]

Added a passage concerning a bug when using Force of Anguish with Azureith's Stiletto + crit (triggers Jolting Touch) = three targets go prone instead of just one.

[Boeroer]

Can a mod please edit my title to [CLASS BUILD] instead of just [CLASS] - I don't know what happenend there, I'm sorry. 

Edited June 24, 2016 by Boeroer

[MaxQuest]

High Might, high Int, lots of lashes and Torment's Reach. Just how I like it

 

 

 

INT: 17 (maybe lower when not taking Veteran's Recovery, put it into PER then)

Don't! Provided how Torment's reach is working at the moment (and it doesn't look like it is going to be changed), with high Int, this guy has the potential to three-shot most of the enemy packs.

 

Btw, does the Spirit of Decay (when Bittercut is equipped) affect the end damage of Torment's Reach? 

[Boeroer]

I doesn't seem so. The AoE crush damage seems to be the same regardless of lashes, talents and so on. Only MIG seems to influence it. But I have to admit I didn't do a lot of testing on Torment's Reach's cone other than buffing it's AoE with high INT. 

 

And yes, he can kill very quickly even when he gets hit by a hundert ogre clubs. He can solo upscaled Nalrend easily without special tactics or consumables (except Potion of Major Regeneration and Spirit Sield) and resting bonuses - if you put on Shod-in-Faith. He will be at low health afterwards, but it works. It's because he kills them more quickly than they can kill him.

[MaxQuest]

I doesn't seem so. The AoE crush damage seems to be the same regardless of lashes, talents and so on. Only MIG seems to influence it.

Ah.. that's a pity. But iirc it should work with Aefyllath and specifically with Lightning Strikes. I'll retest it when will have some time.

 

Btw, this build is very close to what I was planing for my main on the next playthrough

Main differences being, trying to use stunning weapons (as it will propagate via torment) and dumping Res into higher Int and Per.

[sibakruom]

Unless I'm missing something, you list -5 DR bypass from Vulnerable Attack in your damage bonuses but you don't actually have Vulnerable Attack in your list of talent.

[Boeroer]

Unless I'm missing something, you list -5 DR bypass from Vulnerable Attack in your damage bonuses but you don't actually have Vulnerable Attack in your list of talent.

Ooops - you're right. I had it for some time and then retrained and skipped it. Will edit my initial post. Thanks!

 

Things like this happen sometimes while I refine the builds. I always try a lot of different combinations to see what works best - sometimes I forget to update the text file accordingly. From time to time I also forget to substract the resting bonuses from stats and so on. Well, I'm just an old senile wreck.

Edited June 24, 2016 by Boeroer

[rheingold]

Hmmm nice build, but why 12 perception? For the interrupts? Seems like 2 points would be a waste?

[Boeroer]

10 PER / 10 RES also works. Doesn't really matter. No difference in overall performance. It's just important to have high MIG and CON and not too low INT (esp. with Veteran's Recovery and Shod-in-Faith - but it's also important for Torment's Reach).

[mukurome]

It seems that when we talk about retaliation, monk seems to be the best class due to turning wheel and blood testament bonus. Also there is a mod for this game (and it's working fine, we can obtain achievment with it anyway), that change battle forged godlike skill - it give +30dr and +5 cons, when hp are below 50%, and fire retaliation hit every time. If we use shield and get deflection more than 120, it will give us scratch from enemy hit, and from our DR around 56 (30 BF 16 armor 10skill) so every hit when we are low health will get around 3-4dmg and crazy amount of retaliation dmg:D

[Elric Galad]

Yes, but that's just an OP mod. No glory to build on this.

[mukurome]

hmm i just notice that in 3.02 there is a small problem with gloves you use here. it sometimes just behave as not equiped, and do not add raw dmg. To avoid problem we need to just put them out and down every time, before fight, but i forgot that often and it's somehow annoying:/

[Boeroer]

That's right. They are a bit bugged. Sometimes the raw lash doesn't get applied and then you have to reequip them.  

[mukurome]

Anyway thanks for this build, it inspired me to make my own monk. Now i'm lvl 15 and monk take out everything so easy on potd, that it's just impossible xD I use onnly fist and with torment rach it deals around 120 dmg 1shot lol. Also i think that in Endgame power the ammanua should be little beter, beacause he get overal better might, and can use helm, so we can get retaliation from helmet and shield (stack) + fire shield potion combined with that berserk skill plate(overall + 6might - 4frenzy/2ammanua comparing to godlike), so before we reach 50% of healt, most of the enemys should be death. I will see how it work when i get to lich castle.

Edited June 28, 2016 by mukurome

[Boeroer]

Cool - report how it works for you. I didn't take the "retaliation road". I tried it but the loss of Full Attacks with Torment's Reach and the whimpy retaliation damage weren't worth it - or so I felt. Maybe I was wrong.

[Blades of Vanatar]

Are there any weapons that do frost/ice/cold damage as the base damage like Bittercut? Thinking of converting this into an Elemental Monk.....

[mukurome]

Cool - report how it works for you. I didn't take the "retaliation road". I tried it but the loss of Full Attacks with Torment's Reach and the whimpy retaliation damage weren't worth it - or so I felt. Maybe I was wrong.

I tested Aumaua Monk - vs lesser enemies he is stronger, vs hard fight like surrounded by mercenery at lich castle or magrana folks godlike seems better. Retaliation from armor/helm with 10 scars give around 10 dmg, from godlike battle forge even 80-90. so godlike seems better choice. But i tested some other weapon build - monk fist + spear cladhaliath stun/20%stund dmg seems AWSOME XD

 Torment reach affect stun effect, so when enemies are in line, we can stunn all of them in every full attack. Monk fist make immense dmg, sometimes around 130 with fist, so one torment rach will give us arround 200dmg - it's better than rogue lol. So we can control group of enemies, we do super high dmg, we are very durable - i take down all ogres on stalward map with monk on potd, and still have more than 50% of life, and we are very fast. Monk seems to be much better than it look like :D

[Boeroer]

Yeah, Torment's Reach with a on-crit weapon like Cladhaliath or Godansthunyr is awesome. Even better than barb with carnage, because you get fast Full Attacks all the time. The first one stuns, the second one crits (and causes Apprentices Sneak Attack and Weakened, if you have Enervating Blows), setting up Deathblows quickly for you fellow wizard/rogue who casts Direballs then.

 

By the way: instead of fists + Torment's Reach you can use the Long Pain - works the same, just from 10m away. It's even better: you don't have to reposition. Just hit-hit-hit

Edited July 1, 2016 by Boeroer

[baldurs_gate_2]

Would "Sanguine Plate" not be a good option, because of the frenzy buff?

[mukurome]

Would "Sanguine Plate" not be a good option, because of the frenzy buff?

Yup it's is, especially when we get to 50% of life since it will raise battle forge dmg. From start to midgame it's probably the best one, but later  In my opion the better one is soul armor for monk, since monks get +15 to hit, when stuck often, not to mention triggered immunity.

[Boeroer]

Yeah, but it's a bit of a waste because Swift Strikes don't stack with Frenzy - so I prefer to give this armor to a party member who has no own speed buff - like rogues or paladins or fighters.

[dambros]

Latelly I've been reading a ton of info about builds especially those focused on soloing and since you dedicated a small paragraph about it I would like to ask for your input on a couple of things:

 

- How do you think the build will fare on early levels without gear nor the main skills?

- Do you think this can somehow tank dragons due to high dr/regen?

 

The build looks so fun, but my current experience on solo PotD makes me wonder how difficult staying alive early should be. I want to plan my next solo playthrough asap because I am getting close to the end on this one (paladin).

 

Anyhow, thanks for another awesome build.

[Boeroer]

Torment's Reach and Turning Wheel you can have from lvl 1 on. So that's powerful enough for soloing per se. Monks are great in the early game. 

Tanking Dragons for longer than half a minute is only possible with an all-in defensive build. But you don't have to tank them in order to defeat them. For every dragon there's a trick.

Edited July 19, 2016 by Boeroer

[K Galen B]

Fun build for moving along as a monk! Double points for the basic build mechanic (lashes+battle forged+other retaliation effects later) being useful from almost the beginning of the game - no endgame equipment/talents/abilities needed to make this start working.