[Class Build] The Glass Tsunami - Monk Edition

[Braven]

Like my fighter build, the Glass Tsunami, this character is based on having endurance regeneration that keeps pace with damage received. However, instead of accomplishing this using limited duration, per encounter abilities, this build uses tactics that are self-sustaining. The key is using endurance draining weapons at max DPS (for max regeneration), disabling your enemies with all the wounds you receive, and to avoid getting disabled yourself. The main reason I picked Monk for this is:

 

1) Monks benefit the most from health regeneration due to wounds mechanics. Not only do you get health, but you get "mana" too. They also have a nice health multiplier for a large total health pool.

 

2) Monks have a couple abilities to help minimize the impact of enemy debuffs and disables. It is really important to not get disabled or de-buffed with this build because that will stop the endurance regeneration completely and you completely rely on it since you are a glass cannon.

 

3) Monks have the most efficient damage mitigation of all the melee class with the amazing Force of Anquish ability. This is important since you need to lower damage input since the regeneration from draining weapons takes time to add up. Ciphers have charm and mental binding, but they can't be spammed like FoA. Fighters have knockdown, but it is only 3 per encounter and has half the duration. FoA has a long duration, can be used dozens of times per encounter, and Monks have ways to increase the effective accuracy to make sure those Prones stick.

 

This build really puts the "Tsunami" into the "Glass Tsunami" moniker because you end up literally pushing your enemies everywhere while wearing almost no armor. So without further ado...

 

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GENERAL STAT/EQUIPMENT

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Race: Human (This is actually pretty important because we will be using the racial ability fighting spirit to boost our FoA prone accuracy)

Background: Your choice (I recommend having decent lore since this monk is a great scroll caster. Athletics is also quite useful)

 

My Starting Stats (Might/Con/Dex can be tweaked to your liking)

Might: 17

Con: 5 (Ideally, you want enough to not get one-shot, but always be under 50% endurance before you use your first FOA.)

Dex: 15

Per: 18

Int: 19

Res: 4

 

Weapon: Two one-handed endurance draining (keep all you find so you can switch weapon sets based on enemy DR resistances) Cladhaliath Spear is particularly good as explained later and is probably the best option. Tidefall is an excellent option if you want to go the two-handed route with speed increasing potions. There is also a rapier which has both high interrupt and draining.

Armor: Robe (or none). (unless a special enchantment is needed like the stun/prone protection hide armor)

 

Abilities/Talents:

1) Swift Strikes

2) Veteran's Recovery

3) FoA

4) Lesser Wounds (good early when your endurance pool cannot support many wounds yet and good for regeneration efficiency throughout the game)

5) Stunning Strikes

6) Two weapon style

7) Rooting Pain (gives you a bit of breathing room to unleash FoA by interrupting your enemies after they hit you. Minimizes the downsides of your low resolve)

Gallant's Focus (if solo; otherwise it doesn't stack with other characters' abilities. Monk however has no class accuracy buffing abilities so it is great)

9) Enervating Blows

10) Weapon focus Peasant (as soon as you get Cladhaliath, since that is your end game weapon and FoA weapon)

11) Clarity of Agony

12) Binding wounds (increases your available health pool tremendously. Before this talent, use potions as needed)

13) Crucible of Suffering

14) Lightning Lash OR Vulnerable attack OR Apprentice sneak attack

15) Duality of Mortal Presence

16) Lightning Lash OR Vulnerable attack OR Apprentice sneak attack

 

Equipment Ideas:

Head: Lavendar Wreath (sickening effect increases FoA accuracy by 14). Another good hat is the one with charm spell-binding for those resistant to prone.

Hand: Accuracy Gauntlets (accuracy is really important to this build)

Belt: Blunting Belt (always effective because of your low DR), Belt of Chimes (big concentration boost. Good against packs of fast enemies). Looped Rope is helpful in the late game to avoid disabling status effects.

Ring: The +4 Int one is nice late game since it is a key stat of the build. I like ring of protection too, since spells pack too big of a punch with a crit hit.

Amulet: Lost Periapt of the winding path gives a healing spell and concentration boost which are both great for this character.

Boots: Shod in faith. Can never have too much endurance regen

 

 

 

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Standard Tactics

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The goal is to attack as fast as possible (to heal faster) and to use all of your wounds on FoA as soon as you get them. Swift Strikes is useful for leftover wounds after your enemies are all prone in order to speed up regeneration and also to use against high-fortitude enemies to interrupt-lock them. Damage reduction is not important because enemies can't hit you when they are lying on the ground. Also, the quicker you gather wounds, the quicker you can knock them down again before they start interrupting you and giving you nasty status effects. That said, I would take DR if it has no speed penalty, like the unique belt in the first town.

 

Your typical battle lifecycle follows this cycle: Gather Wounds->Knock Everything Prone->Regenerate health by hitting them while they are down->repeat until everything is dead

 

You might think it is crazy to wear plain clothing or just a robe while also having low CON and RES stats. However, I found that the health loss was not that bad. This is because your enemies spend most of the encounter with their face in the mud because your excellent FoA accuracy and duration. You are only really taking heavy damage at the very start of each encounter. Armor does not help you at all for much of the battle, but lower attack recovery time is extremely important all the time. That said, the first few levels I recommend heavy armor until your endurance pool builds up high enough to not get one-shot before you can get off all of your needed FoA attacks.

 

Your stunning fist attack (and charm equipment) should be carefully used for: 1) enemies immune to prone. 2) Recover from bad dice rolling with FOA 3) Immediately disable a major threat.

 

Finally, don't chase after the prone enemies (unless they are all prone). Let them come back to you when they are ready and focus on the ones still standing so you can put your high interrupt rating to work.

 

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INCREASING ACCURACY

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The whole build relies on disabling enemies. If you can't disable them, you will die very quickly because of the low CON, RES, and armor. Luckily, we have several ways to increase our accuracy further.

 

1) Max Perception. This not only helps your accuracy, but also helps your interrupts which is needed for high-fortitude enemies (trolls, ogres, etc)

2) Enervating Blows. Your best accuracy booster. Lowers enemy fortitude by 28 and also lowers Will a lot for alternate disables like charm equipment or confusion scrolls. Because it requires a critical hit, having high accuracy in general is even more important. Critical hits make FoA much more efficient by increasing the already long duration by an additional 50%. Long prone durations are needed to give yourself time to regenerate endurance so you can in turn create more wounds and perpetuate the cycle.

3) Sickening Aura: Passively lowers enemy fortitude by 14, generally righty before you hit them. You want to wear the Lavender Wreath hat for the whole game after you find it.

4) Fighting Spirit: This increases your accuracy by 7 (and damage by 15%) for around 30 seconds and triggers reliably near the start of every encounter right when you need it most, just before you unleash a bunch of FoA attacks and need to pound them into submission for regeneration.

5) Accuracy gauntlets. Accuracy is probably more important than anything else you could put in the gloves slot and zero recovery is easy to get without the speed gloves.

6) Cladhaliath Spear. I have confirmed that weapon accuracy bonuses work with FoA. This makes Cladhaliath the best weapon to have in your primary weapon slot because it is has an inherent +5 accuracy bonus for being a spear. Further, you can customize it to both have endurance draining and another +10 accuracy (and +25% damage) with the valiant enchantment. This triggers when you are under 50% endurance (which you will be after gathering your initial wounds right before unleashing FoA spam).

 

 

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ADDITIONAL STAT THOUGHTS

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You want to place all stats you can spare into damage dealing since that is also your health regeneration and mana pool engine. Might is good for helping passive healing from Veterans Recovery early on and TideFall's wounding if you go that route. However, this does not need to be maxed out since the utility of the other stats are more important. Dex should be fairly high since it helps minimize the concentration problems of low resolve and also get the series of FoA out very quickly, important when facing larger numbers of enemies. Perception is really important early for accuracy to ensure that your don't miss with FoA which is a really big deal for this build. It is also great for interrupting high fortitude enemies that you can't prone effectively (they tend to be slow and easy to chain-interrupt to death. Think Trolls, Ogres, etc). For CON, you want as little as possible but enough so that enemies don't drop you before you are able to get all of your FoA attacks out. Resolve is the least important. Deflection and concentration don't matter when most of your enemies are lying prone on the ground. Intelligence should be maxed since it makes your wound abilities more efficient allowing the "prone/regenerate-endurance" cycle to be more self-sustaining.

 

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TIDEFALL?

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I haven't tried out Tidefall with this strategy, but it seems like it would work really well particularly with speed boosting consumables. Usually I don't like Tidefall with high intelligence because it takes forever for the wounding to tick through and much of the time it ends up wasted because they are dead. However with FoA, the long duration wound can tick through while they are prone making it a really efficient source of damage. Also, FoA is primary-attack only so it doesn't benefit from dual wielding like most abilities. You might want to use both Tidefall and dual weapons and switch based on the type of enemy. High DR: Tidefall, Low DR (or fast enemies): dual weapons

 

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WHY NO TURNING WHEEL?

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Does anyone know if lashes affect draining weapons endurance regeneration? I suspect no which is partly why I avoided lashes like turning wheel and has the lightning lash as a low priority. Also, most of the time I have no wounds when attacking because I use them on FoA immediately and when everything is prone, you don't gain wounds.

Edited October 1, 2017 by Braven

[Boeroer]

 

No lash damage for draining, sorry. Also healing bonuses don't work with draining.

 

Weapons' ACC bonuses translate to FoA, yes. Unarmed ACC bonus from Transcendent Suffering does not.

 

What about one handed style? +12 ACC and hit to crit conversion might be good for this. Sure, you lose a bit of attack speed, but you generate more crits for FoA. 

Edited September 29, 2017 by Boeroer

[Braven]

It is a little strange ignoring the monk staple of weapon lashes.  This build is pretty much the opposite of Monksterlash.  I do like NOT having Torments Reach, as I am kind of tired of that ability.   It is also nice to not -need- to have survival.  The accuracy boost it can provide can still be helpful, but athletics is surprisingly good too.  There is a nice window of time to use second wind or a potion right after knocking everyone prone.  Every 16 endurance is another 10-20 second prone so every bit helps.  Having no armor speeds up all types of recovery so it doesn't feel like you waste much time using non-attack actions.

 

I thought the +12 accuracy of using only one weapon didn't work with FoA, but I never tried it.   Does the One-Handed Talent work?  Both of those combined could be significant considering how important accuracy is for this whole build.  The biggest danger is whiffing on the FoA as that can mean game over.  Also, boss enemies are much harder to hit and have sky-high fortitude.  I don't think this build really work at all for dragon slaying... but the good accuracy and intelligence is great for spamming scrolls of confusion for those special cases.

 

I am interested to see if the Valiant weapon enchant accuracy bonus works with FoA.  +17 Accuracy (fighting spirit and Valiant enchant) can make a big difference.

 

I can totally see using all three weapon styles, depending on the encounter.  Going against higher Fortitude, use one weapon.  Killing several weak enemies (or slow ones)?  Use two weapons.  Going against high DR targets (or few in number)?  Use Tidefall to break through the armor and continue damaging them when they are knocked back.

 

One reason I like two weapons is that sometimes it is better to interrupt-lock an enemy.  Enemies FoA tends to be bad against (high fortitude brutes), interruption is very good against (they are usually slow, heavy hitters with low concentration ratings).  One of the stiletto weapons provides both a really good interrupt rating and draining and can be bought at the start of Act 2.  I also find that low concentration is less of a problem with dual-wielding, but maybe it is just my imagination. 

Edited September 29, 2017 by Braven

[Boeroer]

As far as I know the +12 ACC and hit-crit conversion work with FoA's fortitude roll. But I actually never played a one-handed monk. But even if not you will apply weakened more often through crits which will in turn lead to more prone enemies.

But I guess you have to test.

 

FoA works well with dragon-slaying. Despite the fact that dragons have high fortitude and +20 resistance to prone on top it's a great way do disable them (all but the flying one can go prone). You only need a paladin marker (Zealous Focus, marking weapon, Coordinated Attacks) and a priest (Insp. Radiance, Devotions). Paired with your own ACC (and the +1 ACC per char level FoA has) it's enough to send dragons to the floor reliably.

 

Solo it's a different story of course.

 

There is no draining stiletto that you can buy. The only draining stiletto I know of is Oidreacht and it sticks in the Giant Spider in level one of the Endless Paths. Maybe you mean Mosquito, the rapier. It fits your description. Yes, that's a good one because it also adds +5 ACC.

[Braven]

Oh, you are right, it is the rapier Mosquito I was thinking of. I will correct my post. Thanks!

[Braven]

As far as I know the +12 ACC and hit-crit conversion work with FoA's fortitude roll. But I actually never played a one-handed monk. But even if not you will apply weakened more often through crits which will in turn lead to more prone enemies.

But I guess you have to test.

 

 

I tested.  The +12 ACC does not work work with FoA (or stun attack) for the secondary roll against fortitude.

[Torm51]

+12 ACC has never applied to the extra affliction checks unfortunately.

[Boeroer]

Ah - so it only works for the initial roll against deflection. Bummer!

[Torm51]

Ya I tried it on a potential "CC" fighter and was highly disappointed.

[Braven]

By the way, does anyone know if the interrupting blows talent works with rooting pain? Or does rooting pain just always interrupt? Just thinking that could be a really nice talent for monks because of the AOE attack.

[Boeroer]

It should work with Rooting Pain. It does wotk with pulsing druid and wizard spells (Chillfog, Wicked Briars and so on) for example (played around with some caster interruptor builds) so I see no reason why it shouldn't work with Rooting Pain. But I never tested that.

[Braven]

(and the +1 ACC per char level FoA has).

I didn’t know FoA worked that way, but that accuracy bonus also applies to the deflection primary attack too. I tested out Tidefall at level 8 and both attacks created by FoA are 8 accuracy higher than auto-attacks. At level 16, having +16 additional accuracy on your most important attacks is a huge boon.

 

Tidefall is quite powerful with this build. I like it better than the two-weapon version, I think. Attacks are a bit slower, but they do a lot of damage, particularly with the additional shock lash talent. It also provides for consistent healing that is really noticible against high DR enemies. With low armor penalty, high dex, and swift strikes, recovery is still pretty short.

Edited October 1, 2017 by Braven

[Boeroer]

Also, Blood Testament Gloves and Tidefall's wounding should add up very nicely - even if you're not hoarding wounds. But if you get pummeled a lot on accident and then start dishing out FoAs with +45% raw damage lashes in addition to the other elemental lashes that's really going to hurt. And even if you only have 1 wound left you'll still get +2% additional raw damage.

 

The +1 ACC per level is not exclusive to FoA. It's likethat with all attack abilites (Flames of Devotions, rogues' strikes, Knockdown, Torment's Reach, even Carnage)

[Braven]

So FoD is actually +36 accuracy at level 16? That really helps out the spamable powers, like torment reach, since you can use it over and over for every attack compared with the encounter limited attacks like FoD. It is basically a passive +16 accuracy buff.

[Lampros]

So FoD is actually +36 accuracy at level 16? That really helps out the spamable powers, like torment reach, since you can use it over and over for every attack compared with the encounter limited attacks like FoD. It is basically a passive +16 accuracy buff.

 

Wow, nuts.

[Boeroer]

Yes, FoD will have +36 ACC at lvl 16. But the +20 ACC of FoD suppress the bonus of Zealous Focus (if you use that). So it's not +42 with Zealous Focus but still "only" +36.

 

With Carnage it's like this: it has a build-in ACC malus of 10. But with every level Carnage gets +1 ACC. So at lvl 10 Carnage will have the same ACC as your initial hit - and at lvl 16 it will even hit better (+6). Add Accurate Carnage and your ACC with it is +11 above your normal ACC at lvl 16. That's a reason why a high level barb can crit a lot with Carnage while he can't hit the broad side of a barn with Carnage when he starts at lvl 1.

Edited October 1, 2017 by Boeroer

[Braven]

I thought the bonus accuracy was meant for (non-weapon) abilities to compensate for the accuracy enchants weapons get as you level up. But with these abilities you double benefit since it gets both.

 

For this build when playing solo, I am thinking sword/shield in one weapon slot, and Tidefall in the other. With durgan steel, sword/shield is a little faster than tidefall and provides extra defense at the start of combat when you need to mitigate initial spike damage (I usually get take more damage than I have wound-space for). After you prone everyone, switch to Tidefall for better health regeneration. A shield you can switch out, but heavy armor you are stuck with. Two-handers don’t really need the weapon style talent anyway.

[Boeroer]

Yes,Two Handed Style only adds 2.55 damage on hit on average (on Tidefall). It's something that I take if I took every other talent that fits my char. Same with Apprentice's Sneak (even worse) and Savage Attack. Although if you combine them all (+8.5) things become interesting.

 

When going solo your approach is def. a good one. Especially against casters and ranged salves you want to have high defenses at the beginning of a fight.

Edited October 2, 2017 by Boeroer

[Braven]

I retrained to try the defensive setup to get a feel for how it performs for soloing; As suspected, it is much better. The original build is just too fragile once you hit the White March with Ogre Cannoners sneak attacking at range for crazy damage; you need either very high DR, defenses, and/or Endurance Pool to survive the initial onslaught (or use summons every battle). The original build works great in a party where you are not taking all the hits, but the damage comes in too quickly when soloing.

 

When soloing, you have the luxury to carry around a lot of items and can switch between them depending on the situation and having a shield increases your options for dealing with problems making some of them trivial where an offensive-oriented build would struggle. Going against ranged attackers? Use the shield that reflects grazes. Going against weak, but fast mobs? Use the retaliation shield or a Large shield. Prone or stun? You can now use both the armor and shield for double the protection. In my stats, I trade some DEX for more Might and CON since getting FoA out quickly and avoiding interruptions is less important and fortitude is particularly good when soloing. With high deflection, getting interrupted is much less likely because grazes have a large interruption penalty. Also, it is still possible with monk to have zero attack recovery with a shield without consumables as long as swift strikes is active.

 

Might: 19 (Might is important for all monks: Passive Healing, Fortitude, and Rooting Pain are all helped in additional to normal attack damage)

Con: 10 (I would love 18 if only for the fortitude and additional wounds, but other stats need it more)

Dex: 8 (low/zero recovery and extra defense lowers the benefits for this stat. It is the second least important after Resolve now)

Per: 18 (needed for critical hits for enervating blows and FoA durations. If using a larger shield, it helps compensate for the loss of accuracy)

Int: 19 (veterans, FoA, and swift strikes duration makes wounds more efficient. Wounds also last longer allowing for flexibility on when you use them up)

Res: 4 (concentration is not a big deal with good deflection, zero recovery, and the ability to knock down enemies. While we want high deflection, we don't need maximum deflection and gaining it through resolve is much less efficient than through equipment. I found concentration to be a non-issue with this build, even without concentration boosting items)

 

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Weapons:

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Sword of Daenysis or March Steel Dagger (if slash is better): Both available at the start of Act 2 with no fighting and allows for zero recovery even with a shield eventually and are pretty fast even before then. These are my primary weapons for weak/average encounters. Use against low-mid DR enemies you want to cut through fast. Accuracy bonus of both helps FoA and the dagger can go all the way to Legendary with a lash.

 

Tidefall: Good option against high DR enemies because of the higher base damage and wounding. Late game, this is replaced with Drawn in Spring for high DR. Drawn in Spring is excellent because wounding is effective against high DR enemies, it shares the same weapon group of your weapon focus (noble), and you can also use a shield.

 

Reghar Konnek: I use this exclusively paired with Aila Braccia to further increase deflection for reflecting ranged deflection attacks (dart blowers and ogre cannoneers in White March). While it provides no bonus accuracy, it does have the predatory enchantment which helps for getting critical hits and the speed enchantment for good DPS.

 

Mosquito: Good option for wars of attrition when you run out of other healing and are fighting lower DR enemies (where Draining is still effective). I usually use this for tough fights paired with a DaoM potion to make up for the lack of a weapon speed enchantment.

 

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Shields

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Aila Braccia: Very good for certain battles against Brood Mothers, Ogre Cannoneers, and the paralyzing dart throwers. Shuts them down completely.

 

Sura Supper Plate: The retaliation is actually pretty good in the mid-game when you find it and is better than Aila Braccia if just facing melee enemies. Being small, it doesn't hurt your FoA accuracy or ability to inflict weakening.

 

Little Savior: Not available until late, but becomes the best shield option when you get it.

 

Byrngar's Solace: Your anti-stun/prone answer before getting Little Savior. Stacks with other equipment. (shields and weapon benefits stack with everything)

 

Old Gerun's Wall: If you desire maximum deflection and reflex. It is the only shield with a superb quality enchantment and provides hit->graze too making it more efficient than other shields before facing the Adra Dragon. It also provides more reflex than any other shield which is helpful for some fights. While the -8 accuracy penalty is harmful for FoA, the higher deflection may give you more chances to land the critical hit to inflict weakening before you need to use the FoA or you could just stick with Swift Strikes. Aspirant's Mark talent would be a good pick up if you primarily use this shield since the +8 accuracy it provides counters the -8 accuracy of the shield. Personally, I like sticking with the small shields better because of the better monk synergy.

 

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ARMOR

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Hide Armor: Good options for protecting against stun/prone/paralyze and also one with a +25% healing multiplier when you don't need specific protection. Hide armor can be worn while still maintaining zero recovery with a speed weapon after durgan steel.

 

Leather Armor: without the Iron Circle ring, you can wear leather without recovery time loss, but they are all terrible. The best is Kerdhed Pames (It provides +3 resolve) but that means you can’t apply your own +2 stat enchantment. With only a net 1 stat increase, I would rather have the healing multiplier of the hide armor.

 

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EQUIPMENT

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Cloak: Cloak of Comfort is good if you have access to the stronghold quest. Master Mystic is good just for the +12 deflection. I haven't tested it, but I imagine the Dying Boar would be good with this build too. The +5 (+might,+healing modifier) would help stabilize later in a battle if your other healing runs out. Combined with FoA and the Iron Circle, it might be sustainable enough in some circumstances, though it would work better with a more retaliation focused build (max CON and fire god-like).

 

Ring: Rings of deflection/protection are always good. Iron Circle is a good option late game. It's speed penalty only results in a half frame of attack recovery which is effectively zero if it rounds down. The only defense that really matters when soloing is Fortitude and the +4 CON results in 8 more; nearly as much as the ring of protection plus you get the endurance benefits. Reflex is helpful, but having a shield already provides a big boost to that and Will is nearly useless since charm/dominate does nothing when soloing and confusion and will-based paralyze is rare and can be countered with immunity items. No amount of will helps against fear aura since they auto attack constantly and only need to graze occasionally to be effective; better off using scrolls that only require minimal Lore for the couple of fights you really need fear protection.

 

Head: One that increases Intellect is good early. Executioners Hood is good late game. The skull one is not bad, but I personally don't care for the look and the hood seems better.

 

Belt: Broad Belt of Power, +25% Healing multiplier, endurance regeneration, +3 Might/Con are all fine options. Looped rope seems good, but by the time you get it there are better ways to deal with status effects.

 

Boots: Fenwalkers or +4 Dex ones late game. By then, you can get a paralyze immunity item making the fen-walkers obsolete. Boots of speed is another option for positioning yourself in corners to avoid getting surrounded or chasing down enemies you push with FoA.

 

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Tactics

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FoA and Swift strikes do not gain any benefit from dual weapons and swift strikes enables the possibility of zero recovery even with a shield so that now becomes the top priority for wound usage. You might as well use a shield which grants a big deflection and reflex boost since there are not any compromises except losing your gloves spot for Gauntlets of Swift Action. A more defensive monk build allows you to more efficiently use you wounds because, by slowing incoming damage, you will never hit the 10 wound cap and "lose" wounds for no benefit. It also gives you more attacks to apply the weakening ailment before you need to use FoA so you benefit from the accuracy increase more often. The DPS is also nearly as good because you can still reach zero attack recovery speeds. Just because you gain benefit from receiving wounds doesn't mean you need to gain them quickly when playing solo; you will gain the same number of wounds eventually if you need them so there is no reason to gain them quickly.

 

For most battles, just auto-attacking and using swift-strikes does the job, along with FoA for any additional wounds you have. The main strategy is choosing your weapon/shield/armor to best match the enemies you face since you have several combinations you can switch between.

 

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Talents

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Veterans Recovery

Lesser Wounds

Sword/Shield Style

Lightning Lash

Superior Deflection

Bear's Fortitude

Weapon Focus: Noble

Gallants' Focus

 

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Abilities

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Swift Strikes

Force of Anguish

Stunning Blows

Duality of Mortal Presence

Rooting Pain

Enervating Blows

Crucible of Suffering

Resonant Touch (have not used this before, but seems good for high DR/HP enemies)

Edited October 5, 2017 by Braven

[Braven]

There seems to be a bug with resonant touch and endurance drain weapons (specifically, I was using Purgatory saber). After I got that ability, the combat log was only showing 1 endurance drained, even though I was hitting for big damage. Before that it was providing 10 times as much. I retrained it away, and the larger endurance drain numbers returned.

 

Also, I didn’t do the math but the endurance drain (without Resonant Touch) seemed much higher than 20% of the non-lash damage. Maybe it was also including the lash damage? I will see if I can figure out the cause later.

Edited October 31, 2017 by Braven

[Braven]

I have confirmed that draining is helped by lashes. It is 20% of all damage including lightning strike, weapon elemental enchant, scion of flame bonus, turning wheel and even torments reach crush lash. This makes Purgatory a top monk weapon given that it has annihilation and endurance drain.

[Boeroer]

Cool. I used Purgatory on a monk (Monksterlasher - with all those lashes of course) but never noticed. Does Blood Testament's raw lash also count? It's not DoT but direct damage.

Edited November 1, 2017 by Boeroer

[Braven]

Not sure; I wasn’t wearing them when I checked the math. I can test it next time. I basically did monksterlash for a while after getting Purgatory since I also got the wax at the same time. Though, I used the accuracy guantlets since I don’t like the buggy-ness of the Blood Testament and I wanted more crits. Monksterlash even without the raw lash... is very powerful. After zero recovery and crit bonuses from durgan it was just a slaughterfest. Only danger was getting disabled. In that way, the shield version is better since it will also eventually kill everything but Monksterlash kills things much faster and is more fun since you get more wounds to play with by being less defensive.

 

I just got the Blade of the Endless Path now and retrained for two-handed talent and Adventurer weapon focus. Auto-attack does more damage with the two-hander and with swift action guantlets and swift strikes, it is nearly zero recovery with a robe. At this point I just want to be lazy and not worry about abilities except Swift Strikes and use FoA only if overwhelmed. The stabbing sword animation is a little funny. Feels like the monk should be swinging that big sword around instead of always poking with it.

 

I think overall the purgatory setup is better because the endurance drain is just crazy and the damage is still very high. Slightly lower average DPS than bitter cut (and less than BoTEP), but the endurance drain easily makes up for this and then there is no need to spend a talent for the bittercut corrode boost which is nice since there are more talents I want then I have room for. Using both bittercut and purgatory works well together since one sword worth of healing is really enough. If using a shield, I would put purgatory in one slot and bittercut in the other for slash resistent enemies. Or, that club from twin elms. It is already superb (so no sky dragon eye needed), also has endurance drain, and is in the “ruffian” weapon focus family.

Edited November 1, 2017 by Braven

[Braven]

Blood testament also works with draining.

[Boeroer]

Oh my. Now I have to build Zahua into a draining machine when I pick him up.

 

I suppose a paladin with FoD would also drain decent endurance from the big lashes? I still want to find a way to make good use of the Rose of Salthollow. It looks so nice... Maybe a draining Bleak Walker would be ok?

 

And I never tried a chanter with a draining weapon plus Mith Fyr and Old Siec. Since I alsways thought Old Siec is weak. But since both Old Siec and Mith Fyr also work with spells and invocations...

Edited November 2, 2017 by Boeroer