Two-Handed Monk Advice

[Greensleeve]

So I'm feeling the PoE bug pretty hard right now. Deadfire and all that. So obviously I have to run through the game, the White March and the whole shebang. I'm thinking either knife-fighter Barbarian, which I feel I've a decent grasp on, or a two-handed Monk, which I need some advice for. 

 

A few things: 

 

1) I'm not using Blade of the Endless Paths on the Monk. I'm set on that estoc going to Pallegina. Sub-optimal, sure, but nonetheless. So probably Tidefall. Maybe Hours of St. Rumbault? 

 

2) No Torment's Reach. I find the animation stupid with a two-hander. Why would I do a double jump-kick when I could just smack the with four feet of sharp steel? 

 

I'm thinking something along the lines of Swift Strikes, Turning Wheel, Iron Wheel, Duality of Mortal Presence, Crucible of Suffering, and Flagellant's Path (too awesome not to use). Idea is to stack Wounds, get awesome as I get hit and kill dudes faster. Duality and Crucible will let me survive CC easier. Result seems kinda low-micro, and I wouldn't mind medium-micro. 

 

Any items, talents, or abilities I should keep in mind? Stat suggestions etc? Give me what you've got. 

 

Oh, and finally, I'm interested in how to make a two-handed Monk great, not in how much better dual-wield or sword n' board is. So try to refrain from talking about that. 

[Blades of Vanatar]

Stack damage bonuses. I would use high Might/Dex, dump Res. Other stats as you wish except maybe pump Int depending on if you choose a 2hander that applies Status effects. Or not. Or pump Per and side with the Doemenals for crit central. Go Hearth Orlan and flank constantly for even better crit central. Wear any items that also pump crits if they stack.

 

I like Tidefall, but who doesn't right?! Hours is nice as is the Temperwhatever sold early on in the Dirty Whore Inn.

 

I have used a Staff Monk with Scion of Flame and Taluntain's Staff with a Fire Lash. Drop Fireballs on yourself then swing away. (Long Live SP!) Same can be done with the White Spire, Cold Lash and Secrets of Rime.

[George_Truman]

Fire godlike synergizes really well with this build because lightning and turning wheel buff his retaliation so while you get hit you get even awesomer and kill guys fasterer. You can dump int for per eapecially if you arent using torments reach beacause you arent going to be using up wounds too fast. You just need to hit lighting strikes a bit more often (medium micro).

Edited February 18, 2017 by George_Truman

[KDubya]

I'd go for Tidefall  if you don't have Blade of the Endless available. Estocs are the best but Tidefall has some great buffs. You don't need any weapon that adds crowd control like stun or prone because you have Force of Anguish getting you a 10+ second prone for the cost of two wounds.

 

Here's what I have off the top of my head:

 

Boreal Dwarf - Dwarves are cool and the accuracy bonus is huge.

Rauitai - for the con bonus, or go for the Might or Dex, up to you

Might - 18 - more damage and healing

Con - 20 - more endurance to be converted to wounds

Dex -10 - faster attacks, can be increased

Per - 10 - good enough, Monk's have high base accuracy

Int - 10 - the duration of Force of Anguish is really long so not really needed. Will get +4 from food and an item anyway

Res - 10  - don't want to be interrupted all the time

 

The stats could be adjusted between Might, Con and Dex, all of them will help a bunch. The others aren't needed as much but I'm not a big fan of dumping below 10.

 

level one - Swift Strikes - faster attack speed

level two - Veterans recovery - passive regen that stacks with the two Chanter auras. makes you Wolverine

level three - Force of Anguish - ten second prone at 10 intellect

level four - Lightning Strikes - +25% lightning lash

level five - Turning Wheel - +5% fire lash per wound

level six - Weapon Focus - more accuracy

level seven - Duality of Mortal Presence - +8 defense

level eight - Two Handed Style - +15% damage

level nine - Crucible of Suffering - more defense OR Enervating Blows for weaken on crit

level ten - Savage Attack OR Apprentice Sneak Attack OR Bear's Fortitude OR Wound Binding

level eleven - Flagellant's Path - zip across the field damaging everything on the way

level twelve - Savage Attack OR Apprentice Sneak Attack OR Bear's Fortitude OR Wound Binding

level thirteen - Iron Wheel - +1 DR per wound

level fourteen - Savage Attack OR Apprentice Sneak Attack OR Bear's Fortitude OR Wound Binding

level fifteen - Enervating Blows OR Resonant Touch

level sixteen - Savage Attack OR Apprentice Sneak Attack OR Bear's Fortitude OR Wound Binding

 

Basically you acquire lots of wounds to power your Turning Wheel and iron Wheel while using Force of Anguish and Falgellent's Path as needed, otherwise you auto attack with lots of lashes. You'll have +25% lightning lash, up to +50% fire lash Turning Wheel, +25% lash from weapon and possibly +25% fire lash from Chanter. When applied to a hard hitting two hander it will hurt.

[Boeroer]

For early/mid game you can try Firebrand. Pick Turning Wheel and Scion of Flame asap. because Scion of Flame works with both Firebrand and Turning Wheel.

 

Later variant a)

Tidefall + burning lash. Tidefall is best with maxed MIG because wounding damage scales with MIG. Pretty straightforward.

 

The alternative b)

is max PER with Hours of St. Rumbalt + burning lash and Enervating Blows + Apprentice's Sneak. Enerv. Blows causes weakened on crit which lowers fortitude. Force oA and prone from Hours target fortitude. So it's a lot easier to cause prone. Apprent. Sneak will apply a lot because both weakened and prone trigger it. Hours also has Annihilation, giving you double crit damage bonus. Works great with Merciless Hand and other crit damage mods. Try to get gloves of Accuracy. If you crit with Force oA you willdo a lot oft damage, cause weakened, have two rolls against fort. for prone. This is instant Deathblows if you have a rogue in the party.

 

In both cases I would take Veteran's Recovery and rel. high MIG and INT. RES is not so important. Iron Wheel is good. Of course Lightning Strikes. Shod-in-Faith is always nice for monks.

Once Iron Wheel is there you can use light armors.

 

I personally would prefer option b. But Tidefall is also very nice.

 

Such a monk is perfect for "behind enemy line" operations. Especially with Flagellant's Path.

Edited February 18, 2017 by Boeroer

[Greensleeve]

Thanks for the input guys. 

[chickenhed]

So I've been thinking about this for a while. I'm really trying to find the "best" class to utilize two handed swords (estoc or greatsword) to the best of their ability. See, fighter makes the most sense but I keep coming back to monk because their abilities seem just so good. 

 

Now, I'm not denying that a monk using dual wielded fists or weapons may be more efficient than using a two hander, but, overall, do you guys think a monk wielding a two hander actually be more "powerful" than a fighter? Stream of thoughts incoming:

 

The attack speed from the monks swift strikes makes the early game much more fun since you aren't standing around between attacks as much. Because of this, swift strikes also allows you to bring dex down a bit in order to up your con. Speaking of which, a higher con also make you more durable than a fighter. Again, especially at earlier levels.

 

Monk also allows for lightning strikes, and lashes on two handers are fantastic so adding another class-based one is another boon. Plus turning wheel for more lash damage. This build would be more of an auto attack damage build, much like the lady of pain fighter build on this forum, so these lashes really add up. Wounds would be spent on swift strikes and Force of Anguish.

 

The crit based two handed monk mentioned by boeroer above makes the most sense to me because of enervating blows synergy with stunning blows and force of anguish. FoA also is a primary attack, thus you aren't losing another chance to prone by not dual wielding (though stunning blows is a full attack).

 

So what do you guys think? I would love to do a playthrough with a strong two-handed sword build, but I can't decide if a monk or a fighter would provide the most firepower.

 

PS, sorry if I hijacked your thread, Greensleeve. But it got me thinking!

[George_Truman]

Monk has more damage output potential, especially as a fire godlike. Fighter may be more fragile early (particularly with dumped resolve) but evolves into an unkillable being (with high int especially).

[Boeroer]

I would still use Torment's Reach, although it's a Full Attack. It has its own crushing lash which works well with high per-hit damage of 2handers. If you combine Turning Wheel + Lightning Strikes + weapon lash + Torment's Reach there will be 4 lashes in one hit. That should lead to great damage per hit. Force of Anguish is also great. But if your enemy is already prone or stunned you might want to have a tool to finish him off quickly.

I think I would use Hours of St. Rumbalt because of its Annihilation enchantment. Once you crit you will cause prone AND weakened, but more importantly you will have done +100% crit damage, too. If you go the Doemenel way and use the other crit modifier bonuses you could do +150% damage on crit. And then imagine 4 lashes on top of that.  In the early to mid game Firebrand could be a great choice, too. Annihilation with such high base damage is good.

My tactic would be to initially attack with Force oA or Stunning and then finish off quickly with Torment's Reach-crits. The enemy will never get back on his feet.

Edited March 9, 2017 by Boeroer

[Whipstitch]

Yeah, I really believe that the biggest reason people sometimes have trouble with monk builds is that sometimes they over specialize by only pairing mitigation & CC themed powers with tanking gear & attributes and discount everything but passive damage boosts when picking abilities for guys with dps stats and gear. In practice, it's often better to put some CC powers on the DPS guys and to give some wound hungry damage powers to the tanks--Stunning Blows & Force can go a long way towards keeping a lightly armored monk alive whereas tanky monks are already using their own faces as a form of ersatz crowd control and can quite plausibly run around burninating people to death with Turning Wheel instead.

Edited March 9, 2017 by Whipstitch

[chickenhed]

Thanks for the replies. Good stuff.

 

Do you guys think a monk is actually more effective with a two hander than a fighter is? When I actually look at the abilities of the two classes, the monk with a two hander actually seems stronger (ie, more offensive power) than a fighter would be.

[Boeroer]

Depends. Disciplined Barrage, Armored Grace and Charge for example are very strong, too.

[Livegood118]

Thanks for the replies. Good stuff.

 

Do you guys think a monk is actually more effective with a two hander than a fighter is? When I actually look at the abilities of the two classes, the monk with a two hander actually seems stronger (ie, more offensive power) than a fighter would be.

 

Did some quick maths. An Average hit from Tidefall on a Monk with 10 Wounds is:

 

24% (Base Might) + 45% (Superb) + 20% (Savage Attack) + 18% (Might items/boosts) + 15% (Apprentice Sneak) + 15% (Two Handed Style) = 137%

14 – 20 * 2.37 =

33 – 47.4

AVG hit = 40 unmodified

20 (Torment’s Reach)

24 (Turning W)

10 (Wounding)

12 (Wep Lash)

12 (LS)

= 118 average damage vs 0 DR (98 No Torments Reach)

= 118 - 10 - 10 = 98 vs 10 DR (80.5 No Torments Reach)

= 118 - 20 - 20 = 78 vs 20 DR (63 No Torments Reach)

= 118 - 30 - 30 = 58 vs 30 DR (45.5 No Torments Reach)

Recovery Mod = .25 (Swift Strikes) * .15 (Durgan) *.15 (Gloves of Swift Action) = 1.65, + durganised plate armor = 1.3

 

The same with five wounds is:

AVG hit = 40 unmodified

20 (Torment’s Reach)

12 (Turning W)

10 (Wounding)

12 (Wep Lash)

12 (LS)

= 106 vs 0 DR (86 Torment's Reach)

= 106 - 10 - 10 = 86 vs 10 DR (68.5 No Torments Reach)

= 106 - 20 - 20 = 66 vs 20 DR (51 No Torments Reach)

= 106 - 30 - 30 = 46 vs 30 DR (33.5 No Torments Reach)

 

Then for an Offence specced Fighter:

24% (Base Might) + 45% (Superb) + 20% (Savage Attack) + 18% (Might items/boosts) + 15% (Apprentice Sneak) + 15% (Two Handed Style) +15 (Wep Spec) + 10% (Wep Mastery) = 162%

Apply Confident Aim to base: 14*1.2 = 17

17 – 20 * 2.62 = 44.54 – 52.43

Avg hit = 48.5 unmodified

12 (Weapon Lash) 

10 (Wounding)

= 70.5 vs 0 DR

= 70.5 - 10 - 2.5 = 58 vs 10 DR

= 70.5 - 20 - 5 = 45.5 vs 20 DR

= 33 vs 30 DR

Recovery = 1.33 (Sanguine Plate) * 1.15 (Durgan Weapon) * 1.15 (Gloves Swift Action) = 1.76 Recovery Mod (+.2 for Armoured Grace) (-.35 Durganised Armour) = 1.6

 

So, let's assume both are wearing Durganised Plate Armour and have 15 Dex

attack_duration = base_attack_duration / dex_coef

recovery_duration = attack_duration / recovery_factor * max(0, 1 - 2 * speed_coef)

 

30/1.15 = 26 frame attack

26 * max(0, 1 - 2 *0.6) /1,2 = 4.33

+5 frame recovery

= Fighter Attacks every 35 Frames

 

30/1.15 = 26 frame attack

26 * max(0, 1 -2 *0.3) /1.2 = 8.67

+ 5 Frame Recovery

= Monk Attacks every 40 Frames

 

So, fighter hits 35 times for every time the monk hits 40 times.

 

Draw whatever conclusions you want from this. I'm not 100% certain about the attack speed math.

 

Monk seems to do more damage with the 2h'er just auto-attacking, assuming you've got some wounds and turning wheel/lightning strikes. With Torments reach he seems to be the clear winner. The maths doesn't take in to account accuracy/crits/grazes but between fighters and monks they're mostly on par in that respect.

Edited March 9, 2017 by Livegood118

[chickenhed]

Wow. That was awesome, thanks Livegood!

 

I suppose it comes down to whether or not it's a "fun" playstyle to always make sure you have wounds on the Monk. 

 

Monk vets: do you find, later in the game on POTD, that wound accumulation is any sort of issue in regards to both using wound abilities, and having enough wounds for the passives (turning wheel for example) to still be effective?

 

Or is it better to just focus more on an active wound-based monk or a passive wound-based monk.

[JerekKruger]

So, fighter hits 35 times for every time the monk hits 40 times.

 

This implies that the Fighter is attacking slower than the Monk, yet your calculations assume the Fighter has the better speed coefficient so this is wrong.

 

What you actually determine is this. Assuming that 30 frames is a second (which I believe it is, or near enough) you've determined that your Monk attacks once ever 1.33s and your Fighter attacks every 1.17s. This actually means that the Fighter attacks 1.14 times as fast as the Monk, or in terms without decimals, for every 7 attacks the Monk makes the Fighter makes 8.

 

EDIT: another thing, your numbers for Lighting Strikes, Turning Wheel and Weapon Lash are all too high for the Monk (they should be 10, 20/10 and 10 respectively) reducing the Monks attacks by 8/6 for the ten wound and five wound variants respectively.

Edited March 9, 2017 by JerekKruger

[Livegood118]

 

So, fighter hits 35 times for every time the monk hits 40 times.

 

This implies that the Fighter is attacking slower than the Monk, yet your calculations assume the Fighter has the better speed coefficient so this is wrong.

 

What you actually determine is this. Assuming that 30 frames is a second (which I believe it is, or near enough) you've determined that your Monk attacks once ever 1.33s and your Fighter attacks every 1.17s. This actually means that the Fighter attacks 1.14 times as fast as the Monk, or in terms without decimals, for every 7 attacks the Monk makes the Fighter makes 8.

 

EDIT: another thing, your numbers for Lighting Strikes, Turning Wheel and Weapon Lash are all too high for the Monk (they should be 10, 20/10 and 10 respectively) reducing the Monks attacks by 8/6 for the ten wound and five wound variants respectively.

 

I assumed that the Monk had taken Scion of Flame and Heart of the Storm for Turning Wheel + Lightning Strikes/Weapon Lash respectively, increasing the lashes to 0.6 and 0.3

 

You're right on the attack speed thing, I got them mixed up: Fighter Attacks 40 times for every 35 of the Monk's Attacks, edit or 8/7 as you point out.

Edited March 9, 2017 by Livegood118

[Livegood118]

Wow. That was awesome, thanks Livegood!

 

I suppose it comes down to whether or not it's a "fun" playstyle to always make sure you have wounds on the Monk. 

 

Monk vets: do you find, later in the game on POTD, that wound accumulation is any sort of issue in regards to both using wound abilities, and having enough wounds for the passives (turning wheel for example) to still be effective?

 

Or is it better to just focus more on an active wound-based monk or a passive wound-based monk.

 

I've found that generating wounds on a Monk is a problem in the very late game if you've got a Cipher that uses Defensive Mindweb in your party.

 

Normally, if you want to generate wounds, all you have to do is engage and disengage from enemies very quickly and you'll have some in no time.

 

It can be a little bit of a problem if you've already CCd everyone, but if they're already all CCd then they're good as dead anyway imo.

[Boeroer]

In terms of ACC the fighter and monk are not really on par because the fighter has +20 ACC via Disciplined Barrage. That's a big plus.

 

But still the monk has the better offensive options in my opinion. Not only does he have the better CC abilites, but he also can deal good AoE damage. The fighter's capabilites concerning AoE are somewhat limited.

[George_Truman]

Also once the fighter is struck down he returns more powerful than you could possible imagine.

 

Also its good to remember that additional defenses mean less focus on your boy = fewer interrupts + less cc which means more damage. An offensive fighter with solid armor and vigorous defense on basically gets to run around and do whatever he wants. Also High accuracy = good hits with envenomed strike. Early game on an int fighter you can get a lot of damage even on high fort high dr targets using rotfinger gloves, accuracy, and envenomed strike. Also mad AOE with the rotfinger gloves.

 

In all I think the fighter is better without priest/scroll support.

Edited March 11, 2017 by George_Truman

[Boeroer]

I wouldn't say that. A fighter does decent single target dmg and disables - but you can't compare his overall dps to that of a monk. When I try out new class builds for PoTD solo and approach the Nalrend Bounty for testing it's nearly always the monk that shines and the fighter that fails. I don't blame my skills. In fact I think the monk is cooler with me because I found the most effective way (for me) how to use him - which can be tricky.

 

Monks do have some awesome abilites that can break the difficulty. Fighters are cool in a party and Disciplined Barrage and Charge are supernice, but Charge comes so late while the monk gets his best stuff from lvl 1 to 7. All you need to do is to find the sweet spot between gaining enough wounds and not getting knocked out. But with Veteran's Recovery + healing bonuses it's usually easy to stay alive while receiving enough wounds. And because the monk often uses his special ability attacks rather than auto attacks the accuracy is not such a big deal since all abilites get +1 ACC per char level. That means Torment's Reach and Force of Anguish and so on all get +1 ACC per char level. Figher's Knockdown and stuff also get that, but he uses less special attacks per encounter than a monk does.

 

What's totally right is that a high INT fighter can be one of the best scroll users and Envenomed Strike + Disciplined Barrage is indeed a great combo. Good recommendation! By the way a paladin with Zealous Focus & Sworn Enemy + Envernomed Strike can also do that nicely. Once had a dps Bleak Walker whith that and it not only fits mechanically, but also thematically.

Edited March 11, 2017 by Boeroer

[Livegood118]

Yeah, the math seems to support the conclusion that in terms of pure damage under two reasonably optimised set-ups, meaning Monk has Scion of Flame, Lightning Strikes, Heart of Storm, Turning Wheel and is using torments reach liberally, and Fighter has most of the damage talents/abilities, that with a 2H wep like Tidefall the Fighter and the Monk will be more or less equivalent around the 3-4 wound mark, but after that the Monk's damage will take off like a rocket ship (this is without taking in to account the fact that TR will also do AoE damage, or that Monk's turning wheel/lightning strikes synergises with Fire Godlike Racial). I haven't done the math on the Monk's fists but it stands to reason they'd be even stronger than a fighter using 2H because of greater wound economy/speed.

 

Still, the Fighter has a lot to bring to the table as has been pointed out by others in the thread. Once you've got Disciplined Barrage, Vigorous Defence, Confident Aim, Armoured Grace, (which should be taken on all fighter builds imo!) there's loads of other cool abilities like Unbending, Unbroken, Triggered Immunity, Charge, Overbearing Guard etc ... After both expansions fighters went from being a super boring class to a reasonably engaging one with lots of cool abilities/utilities.

[George_Truman]

In terms of potential damage the monk dominates the fighter. The monk is even stronger with proper support too because the fighter's abilities dont synergize as well with support (barrage and fear immunity aren't so great when you have a priest or use buff scrolls) but without that support the fighters abilities are really nice. The monk is better with micro too; the fighter really shines at shift-clicking the back line. If you're a low-energy Jeb like me that counts for something!

[Boeroer]

True. Fighters don't necessarily need a lot of micro to be good while a monk sucks without it in most cases.

[Livegood118]

In terms of potential damage the monk dominates the fighter. The monk is even stronger with proper support too because the fighter's abilities dont synergize as well with support (barrage and fear immunity aren't so great when you have a priest or use buff scrolls) but without that support the fighters abilities are really nice. The monk is better with micro too; the fighter really shines at shift-clicking the back line. If you're a low-energy Jeb like me that counts for something!

True. Fighters don't necessarily need a lot of micro to be good while a monk sucks without it in most cases.

 

 

This is so true. Unless you're willing to manually spam those Torments Reaches the gap between the two classes narrows a fair bit. You can't discount willpower at the end of the day.

[JerekKruger]

30/1.15 = 26 frame attack

26 * max(0, 1 - 2 *0.6) /1,2 = 4.33

+5 frame recovery

= Fighter Attacks every 35 Frames

 

30/1.15 = 26 frame attack

26 * max(0, 1 -2 *0.3) /1.2 = 8.67

+ 5 Frame Recovery

= Monk Attacks every 40 Frames

 

I just noticed a couple of mistakes here. The first is that 1 - 2*0.6 = -0.2, hence max{0, -0.2} = 0 and thus the Fighter's recovery should be 0 in your calculation.

 

However that's not so important, because you also forgot to include the -0.5 penalty for not dual wielding in both calculations. Including this penalty, the two calculations become

 

30/1.15 = 26 frame attack

26 * max(0, 1 - 2*0.1) /1,2 = 17.33

+5 frame recovery

= Fighter attacks once every 48.33 frames

 

30/1.15 = 26 frame attack

26 * max(0, 1 - 2*(-0.2)) /1.2 = 30.33

+ 5 Frame Recovery

= Monk attacks once every 61.33 frames

 

This means the Fighter attacks 1.27 times for every attack the Monk makes. This actually puts the Fighter slight ahead of the Monk with five Wounds when autoattacking, and slightly behind the Monk with ten Wounds, but given the way Wounds work, I'd say the five Wound Monk is more representative of what a Monk will do on average (perhaps a little low for a passive Monk not using many abilities, and a little high for a Monk spamming things like Torment's Reach). Of course, once you throw Torment's Reach into the equation the Monk comes out firmly on top again, but it's closer than it appeared at first.

 

By the way, I promise I'm not deliberately looking for mistakes in your working. I was actually working out something else and happened to be using your post as a reminder of the formulae when I spotted the mistake.