[CLASS BUILD] The Anvil, the most tough monk around

[Boeroer]

No, you have to kill with Steadfast to proc it.

[Dreamsickle]

So it would be advisable to only have Steadfast equipped, as if you had Whispers of Yenwood in your offhand half your attacks would be with it instead, potentially reducing your chances of killing with Steadfast?

 

Especially considering that spirit slaying and reliable enchants on whispers of yenwood only apply to itself and the damage it does itself?

[Dr <3]

Killing with steadfast is not a big deal. Sure, champions boon is nice, but not a game changer. The main point of steadfast is the fear / terror immunity vs dragons.

 

The dmg outputs of this build are :spamming torment reach( that is a full attack) and the retaliation effects ( mainly battle forged).

In my experiece is always better to dual wield, if you use only steadfast with one hand to boost the champions boon chance you are losing a big chunk of your dmg output ( much bigger than the boost that you could receive with champions boon itself.

[Dreamsickle]

Killing with steadfast is not a big deal. Sure, champions boon is nice, but not a game changer. The main point of steadfast is the fear / terror immunity vs dragons.

 

The dmg outputs of this build are :spamming torment reach( that is a full attack) and the retaliation effects ( mainly battle forged).

In my experiece is always better to dual wield, if you use only steadfast with one hand to boost the champions boon chance you are losing a big chunk of your dmg output ( much bigger than the boost that you could receive with champions boon itself.

 

I'll take note of that.  It appears that IEMod enables soulbound weapons to be enchanted by default as I've been told in the bug reporting part of this forum.  I will have to do some further testing as I have yet to get Champion's Boon to proc and am curious if it has anything to do with IEMod/enchanting soulbound items.

[Dreamsickle]

I'm a bit confused why the build uses boots of the long march; at what point do boots of the long march become better than shod in faith?  With resting bonus, shod in faith are restoring way more than 15 endurance per encounter.  I guess at some point you want to actually get to 50% endurance quickly so you can start burninating all the people?

 

Edit: Also, by "weakening blows" you mean "Enervating Blows"?

Edited January 6, 2018 by Dreamsickle

[Dr <3]

The "problem" of shood in faith is actually that it heals you way too much. You usually want to activate battle forged asap in fights, but if the enemies crits you, shood in faith activates and usually mantain you over 50% of life for the duration of the spell, gimping your dmg output. In some fights they are useful to prevent your death, but often all the healing is just not required.

 

Long march boots gives you a risible amount of +15 life but a much more needed +2 to athletism, boosting second wind. Second wind in this build is very strong, since the things usually work this way:

- enemies hit you with alpha strykes and you go fast under 50% life

- battle forge activates with full wounds ( massive retaliation dmg/ +4 armor/ + 10 armor from iron wheel)

- having massive endurance (600+), beign under 50% means still to have 200-300 endurance, and with massive DR your endurance will go down very low ( at least lower than enemies killing themself while hitting you)

- IF you reach red zone of endurance : activate second wind! So you will heal by a huge amount and often still remain under 50%, so your retail dmg doesn't stop

 

Shood in faith hinders the whole cycle. auto healing with this build << healing on demand

 

Edit: yes, enervating blows

Edited January 6, 2018 by Dr <3

[Dreamsickle]

Should this build be able to tank Magran's Faithful?  Doesn't seem possible as the priests can out-heal our damage output, and we aren't that tanky.

 

To put into context, I'm level 16, have everything but Ryona's Breastplate and the Iron Circle (can't beat Eyeless Hammers).  Trying to work on the dragons and bounties.  I still have to split pull, use figurines and utilize choke points to handle large packs.

Edited January 7, 2018 by Dreamsickle

[Dr <3]

Ryona btestplate will be a huge boost ( is like permanent +20 accuracy, +20 to all def). Grab it asap.

 

When against a large group: find a corner. If only 1-3 people can attack you ( plus the raged one) you should be fine.

[Dreamsickle]

Where is Ryona's Breastplate?  I thought it was in Cayron's Scar...?

 

Edit: nevermind.

Edited January 8, 2018 by Dreamsickle

[Dreamsickle]

Well, after 70 hours and countless reloads I finished the game!  Although there isn't a terribly large amount of content, the depth of character creation makes you want to try new things.  This build seemed to perform really well, but the game was very hard throughout; there were very few fights that I would say were easy.  The vast majority of them required split pulling, choke points, figurines, etc. and that was true from start to finish and I was level 16 before I finished Act 2. 

 

I felt like combat bugged out quite often as enemies would just stand around and do nothing when they weren't even trapped anymore.  Many times I would get wrecked only to reload and have half the pack twiddle their thumbs while I slowly punched them to death.  There were several fights that I felt like I should have been able to take, but couldn't.  In my experience, fights went one of three ways: 1) I would have my 600+ endurance wiped away in the time it takes to chug a potion, 2) the mobs wouldn't be able to beat my passive regen and so I'd never get to battle-forged territory and would just literally walk away from my keyboard until they (painfully slowly) died to rooting pain or 3) the fight was winnable but took every cheese tactic and resource at my disposal.  In other words, there were few fair fights.  I beat Magran's Faithful with 4 health left.

 

Battle-forged never did more than 80 damage per hit (I'm guessing because of DR?) and rooting pain were pot-shots for 10 or so.  What's worse, towards the end of the game during the higher level bounties battle-forged was straight up missing.  I never saw any retaliation damage in the combat log.  Torment's Reach did about 33-50 a hit depending on the enemy.  I'm sure I'm doing something massively wrong, but those were my numbers.

 

Thank you Dr <3 and Boeroer for all your help along the way!

 

PS: I'm going to try another playthrough on TCS,  Any suggestions on a class that, win or lose, ends fights quickly?  Wizard perhaps?  I got very frustrated spending so much time getting my ass kicked only to reload.  If they're going to beat me, they could at least have the decency to do it quickly.  

[Boeroer]

Hm, with a similar build, using Turning Wheel, Lightning Strikes and Blood Testament Gloves as well as Vulnerable Attack, max MIG and Scion of Flame (may I also had Savage Attack - don't know if this works anymore with Battle Forged) I saw damage numbers near 200 with Battle Forged quite often (see Monksterlasher build in this subforum).

 

But yeah: the game is balanced around party play, so no wonder one has to use cheesy tactics in order to solo the game. There are only few build that can just walk into the fight and stay alive until everyone's dead (like a superdefensive paladin - but it's so tedious to play until lvl 13).

 

I once did that solo run with a barb - and there I wanted to jump into the fray because of Heart of Fury. But it was always a very risky game. But that's def. a class that ends fights quickly after lvl 11 - in a positive or negative way.

 

Priest is very powerful if you can reach the higher levels.

 

Wizard, too.

 

But the easiest way in my opinion to do a solo game is to pick chanter and skill for tankyness + The Dragon Thrashed (lvl 9). Also quite fun in early levels because of White Worms (which can be used in a cheesy way because dead bodies can be reused over and over again after explosion. You basically pull all enemies to a chokepoint and kill them there. The more dead bodies on the pile the better. Turn off gib effects in the game menu!).

A chanter can have decent defenses, great regeneration (Vet. Recovery + Ancient Memory + Beloved Spirits + regenerating item like He Carries Many Scars + survival), thick armor doesn't slow down his chanting and dumped DEX also doesn't gimp his chanting. High MIG and INT and PER are good for Dragon Thrashed damage. Besides that nothing boosts the chant's damage yo you can focus on defensive stuff. Try to expand your AoE size with an overseeing item + Voice of the Mountaintop + INT bonus item. You might still need to split-pull somtimes, but at least the enemies will get killed while they're trying to reach you.

Edited January 10, 2018 by Boeroer

[Dreamsickle]

Yeah, I was fully expecting to require utilizing cheese to get through parts of the game, but one of the things that really pulled me to this build was how well laid out this guide was and that it seemed to be capable of running headlong into fights and winning at end game.  In my experience that was not the case.  Of course I did upscale everything, so maybe that was where I went wrong, but it seemed like this build could pull it off.

 

As far as damage goes, I followed this guide to the letter.  I have all the same gear, talents and abilities.  Looking at your monksterlasher build, it seems to be a LOT more damage oriented.  I will reload a previous save and respec to your build and see what the different is.  How does your build compare to Dr <3's as far as fights like Magran's Faithful and Brynlod bounties?

 

I was looking at Jojobobo's Gunslinger build, but it seems to be focused more around the gun aspect of the character rather than the chanting part (high DEX).  Yet the build still seems focused around doing a lot of damage with Dragon Thrashed (with only 10 base MIG)?

Edited January 10, 2018 by Dreamsickle

[Jojobobo]

I was looking at Jojobobo's Gunslinger build, but it seems to be focused more around the gun aspect of the character rather than the chanting part (high DEX).  Yet the build still seems focused around doing a lot of damage with Dragon Thrashed (with only 10 base MIG)?

Blinding with the Dragon Thrashed works very well even with the average Might (though as mentioned you can use Maegfolc Skull, and I did for boss battles for slightly more). You get many crits and overlapping durations, and the damage from the animated weapons is pretty solid too (look at the comments as other people had some pretty solid improvements to the original design).

 

The only thing is you get the gun late in the game, so most people should probably play whatever Chanter they like then respec at that point. I just wanted to play guns only to prove it could be done really.

Edited January 10, 2018 by Jojobobo

[Boeroer]

If you look at the build "Drake's Ambassador" you'll see a defensive Dragon Thrashed chanter. That build was not for solo play and had some roleplaying fluff so you might want to improve it on the defensive side and improve the self-healing (that build is kind of old and pre WMII,so it lacks some talents/abilities). But basically that's a blueprint for a Dragon Thrashed chanter. Also looks kind of great if you don't mind the self-laudation.

Edited January 10, 2018 by Boeroer

[Archaven]

Well, after 70 hours and countless reloads I finished the game!  Although there isn't a terribly large amount of content, the depth of character creation makes you want to try new things.  This build seemed to perform really well, but the game was very hard throughout; there were very few fights that I would say were easy.  The vast majority of them required split pulling, choke points, figurines, etc. and that was true from start to finish and I was level 16 before I finished Act 2. 

 

I felt like combat bugged out quite often as enemies would just stand around and do nothing when they weren't even trapped anymore.  Many times I would get wrecked only to reload and have half the pack twiddle their thumbs while I slowly punched them to death.  There were several fights that I felt like I should have been able to take, but couldn't.  In my experience, fights went one of three ways: 1) I would have my 600+ endurance wiped away in the time it takes to chug a potion, 2) the mobs wouldn't be able to beat my passive regen and so I'd never get to battle-forged territory and would just literally walk away from my keyboard until they (painfully slowly) died to rooting pain or 3) the fight was winnable but took every cheese tactic and resource at my disposal.  In other words, there were few fair fights.  I beat Magran's Faithful with 4 health left.

 

Battle-forged never did more than 80 damage per hit (I'm guessing because of DR?) and rooting pain were pot-shots for 10 or so.  What's worse, towards the end of the game during the higher level bounties battle-forged was straight up missing.  I never saw any retaliation damage in the combat log.  Torment's Reach did about 33-50 a hit depending on the enemy.  I'm sure I'm doing something massively wrong, but those were my numbers.

 

Thank you Dr <3 and Boeroer for all your help along the way!

 

PS: I'm going to try another playthrough on TCS,  Any suggestions on a class that, win or lose, ends fights quickly?  Wizard perhaps?  I got very frustrated spending so much time getting my ass kicked only to reload.  If they're going to beat me, they could at least have the decency to do it quickly.  

 

was following this build... hmm is monkerlasher a better build? seems like the stats are pretty much same except monkerlasher low PER. i prefer 15 PER and 15 INT as we have better accuracy. gonna have a look at monkerlasher then.

[Archaven]

wrong thread

Edited February 25, 2018 by Archaven

[falki]

Thank you so much for this build! It's absolutely awesome! I tried a couple of builds for PotD solo and I'm still in awe how this monk combines sturdiness with a good damage output and that from the start of the game. Other builds were either squishy (and needed a lot more cheese), fights took forever or the build needs some levels to get going, but the Anvil is a lot of fun from the beginning. I'm in Defiance Bay right now and the only fight so far where I needed to split pull and use figurines was the encounter to get the Sanguine Plate (at lvl 6). In every other fight he could stand his ground (in a corner

 

And an addendum, because it's not mentioned in the guide. The Belt of the Royal Deadfire Cannoneer works super well with this build. I would recommend to get it asap. Since deflection is not very high in the beginning, it's very likely to eat a crit and get a flame shield every fight long before you can craft or buy potions. So you can start retaliating before you even hit the battle forged threshold, if you hit it at all, for example in the Temple of Eothas my freeze DR was so high that Rymrgand's Mantle and Veteran's Recovery easily healed the damage from shades (phantoms were a bit more dangerous). On top of that I've found Firebrand very useful against slow, high DR enemies like trolls or Adra animats, because of their slow attack speed there weren't many wounds generated or retaliations triggered, so Firebrand finished them much quicker. And a Torrent of Flame with 10 stacks of Turning Wheel is the icing on the cake.

 

What can I say more, I love this guy, puts a smile on my face in every fight

[wfflgg]

Isn't Moon Godlike better than Fire Godlike?

[Jaheiras Witness]

Erm...no? Have you read the description and what the character is meant to be? It's a retaliation build, of which the strongest source is the fire godlike battle forged, that's the entire character concept.

[Boeroer]

Battle Forged profits from Turning Wheel and other melee stuff. It does tons of damage at high levels. Especially when using a Monk who can combine high health and endurance numbers as well as decent dmg bonuses.

[rusokrd]

As much as I read this topic I realize that this build will be my first attempt to Ultimate. Now I'm playing PoTD with priest, roleplay spin off of @Boeroer 's Skaen Needle. I'm 16 lvl, and walkthrough is routine and boring now just wiping locations (going deep to Adra Dragon), becouse it's a killing machine. But in expert mode it will be too hard for me to preserve disposition points. Also it's cool soulbound belt in deadfire pack, wich is made especialy for this character.

 

UPD. It's like a cheat. Kaed Nua battle all time in permanent stun.

lvl 4. Early game Is much easier then priest run.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited January 20, 2019 by rusokrd

[Blades of Vanatar]

Does using the Helwax Mold on a Item that adds + to a stat allow for a possible doubling of that stat? WoY for example, will equipping two of them give you +4 Con?

[Boeroer]

Yes. But that only works with weapons (and shields). Other items' buffs (e.g. Ring with +4 INT) don't stack. Weapons' effects always do stack. For example two Little Saviors + Outworn Buckler in the party would grant all party members in aura range +15 to all defenses.

Two Whispers of Yenwood would indeed give you +4 CON.

 

 

 

[Blades of Vanatar]

Hmmmm... I will need to look into single handed weapons that have stat bonuses. Thanks. They truly need to have a Boeroer NPC in PoE III. 

[Blades of Vanatar]

Only WoY and Strike Hard are worth it.