Monk beta analysis

[Soulmojo]

Hi Gents and Ladies!

 

I'm starting this topic to give info about the monk and is problems. I'm posting this from my perspective as I played and continue to play the beta.

I've played the first game through and through as a Monk, my favorite class is this and I want to contribute to the discussion of the issues the class face in this second game so it can take it's place as a class which is satisfying to play with.

 

So without further ado:

 

 

Penetration:

 

The most important new stat in this game is the PENETRATION. 

 

Penetration you supposed to acquire to bypass enemy armor rating. if you are below  one point then you do 30% of your original damage. if you are above you start to do a bit more.

 

Problem with this:

 

The main problem with this is that the game will turn to be a penetration vs armor rating arms race to a point where it will be the most valuable stat above everything else. You will never know how much armor rating the enemy will have and since if you are one point below the enemy armor rating you will do 30% damage, you will always try to get as much penetration as possible. I don't care to change the system, it is what it is, but monks suffer in this system.

 

Now to the monk's perspective:

 

As a monk your only source of penetration is Transcendent suffering which gives one penetration per power level which translates to +1 per every two level if you are single class and +1 per every three levels as a multiclass. This sums up to the fact that you always will be under the penetration line as you progress through the better part of the game.

 

You will get thunderous blows at tier 4 (level 7 as a pure, level 10 as a multiclass) which gives 4 penetration as a passive, but gods, how do you manage until you get to level 7-10? 

 

This is basically the most sad thing I encountered. Basically the first half of the game you will stuck below the penetration line.

 

My suggestion is to scrap the penetration thunderous blows have and distribute into the transcendent suffering penetration bonus. This gives a more linear progression to the monk. and gives more evened out game play with other classes.

 

 

Unarmed damage:

 

The second most important stat for a monk is it's unarmed damage.

 

You are supposed to get better by level, and the bottom line for developers is that you will do tremendous damage as unarmed.

This will be true, I understand why the devs think this. But how do you get to that point and what is the problem with that? Well here it goes:

 

The base unarmed damage is quite low (11-16 if my calc is correct). This is empowered by transcendent suffering which gives a percent based bonus to your unarmed damage which is 5% per every two level if you are single class and 5% per every three levels as a multi class. Doesn't sound much right? well it isn't.

 

Now the tricky part comes. There is a tier 5 ability called Long Pain Fist which is a summonable fist weapon that's allows you to do long range unarmed damage. Now these summoned fists do 15-20 damage which is a big step up from the base 11-16. If you add the multiplier of might and transcendent suffering to that it does decent damage now.

Especially if you add the might bonuses, the swift strike +50% element damage or double damage from criticals and etc.

 

Now about my problem with this system: 

 

You get the long pain fists at tier 5 (level 9 as a pure, level 13 as a multi class) and again what you do until that time? standing with your balls in your hand? You will spend the better part of the game waiting to be able to do competitive damage. Early gameplay is gimped this way.

Not to mention that I baseline never used long pain fists from principle as I think a monk shouldn't be a ranged class, not in this way anyway. Ofc some love this ability I wouldn't take them this for the world. I just think the ranged capability itself is quite enough. 

 

I would  scrap the extra damage from long pain fist and distribute it through transcendent suffering, just like with penetration. The goal is here to make early level monk progression and power competitive to other classes. Since there is minimum amount of synergy between unarmed damage and other class bonuses it would'n become overpowered but in return help the monk a bit to be more competitive.

 

 

Shattered pillar subclass:

 

The Helwalker monk and the Nalpazca monks are well balanced and I honestly to my surprise like them very much. They have good bonuses and have potentially good combinations with other classes.

 

This is not the case with the shattered pillar subclass. I feel the devs went a little bit too far fearing the wounds from damage caused will be to overpowered.

 

Lets list the bonuses and the penalties and what does this mean for the player:

 

 - You gain wounds from damage dealt, cannot gain wound from damage received.

 

This is not op now since there is dance of death ability where you can get wounds every 3 sec, and you have mortification of the soul where you get two wound damaging yourself. Since wound abilities now primary attack instead of full attack I really don't see the point of acquiring then spending a large amount of wound as the main advantage (full attack + bonus damage dealt) was taken away. 

 

Threshold for wounds are increased.

 

I don't know the exact number but I would say it is 20 damage to gain a wound. Mortification of the soul gives 2 wounds and inflict as much damage as your threshold meaning I damaged myself for 40 damage, I had the pleasure to commit suicide in game when I used mortification of the soul.  

 

Secondly it is hard enough to damage the enemy with the penetration system and low damage count now you increase it. I was hardly able to acquire any wound. :D

 

Maximum wound count decreased.

 

This means that instead 10 wound you get a grand total of 5 wound max.

 

Let me say that this is punishing as the player throws out half the synergy bonus out of the window playing a shattered pillar since buffs come through wound. 

Abilities use a lot of wound 2-3 and I can hardly cast any ability even if I managed to get to the max wound. 

Honestly I was expecting 8 max wound not 5... blah.

 

Basically this subclass needs a serious overhaul as I don't think anyone will play it in the long run.

I certainly will not if it stays the same but that's besides the point.

 

 

That's it for now, I go back to test a bit more, I will write much more later and update the post.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Boeroer]

You know that Rooting Pain generates wounds when used by a Shattered Pillar? You also know that Swift Flurry generates wounds more quickly than you could ever spend them?

The penetration issue is the same for most other classes. That's why there are buffs and debuffs. This is a party game and when you think that your high damage monk can't penetrate well enough then either use another party member to lower enemies' AR or let him buff your PEN. Or use a weapon set that allows you to raise your PEN with a modal. There's a reason why you get Weapon Proficiencies.

 

Monks are one of the clear winners of the Deadfire beta so far. Like Deadfire paladins, they combine sturdyness with very good offensive capabilities and are a great candidate for multiclassing as well.

 

Obviously monks don't need any boost. I'd even say that Shattered Pillar and Helwalker need a nerf since they are not balanced at all. MIG is a multiplicative damage bonus now which makes Helwalker's bonus ridiculously good. And the dps potential of a monk let's the Shattered Pillar gain wounds more quickly than he can spend them.

 

There are classes that need a boost - and that's offensive casters. Especially in the PEN department they can't use any weapon modals to raise the PEN for their spells. And their long casting times feel horrible if you compare it to a superfast hitting monk.

Edited December 16, 2017 by Boeroer

[AndreaColombo]

Gotta agree with Boeroer here (except MIG is multiplicative; must be a typo )

 

Keep in mind that right now Transcendent Suffering is bugged (fists deal a lot less damage after a save/load) and the penetration system is getting a facelift in the next backer beta, so being under the bar won't be half as punitive as it currently is.

[Boeroer]

Eh sorry. Corrected that.

[dunehunter]

Berserker, monk, paladin are the 3 classes that I feels really good in current beta imo, they are perfect for a multiclass combo.

 

Monk fist is tied to power level, so if you want to use fist, do pure monk, if you want to use weapon, multiclass. I remember Natural Godlike pure Monk is pretty decent with his/her fist.

 

And Monk is one of the only a few classes that can boost their own Penetration, if Rogue is not complained about their lack of Penetration, I don't see why Monk should.

 

Shattered Pillar + Rooting Pain is very good synergy if you have good DPS, I don't think it is a weak subclass.

 

Helwalker is insane if you have self healing or party with heal to support you.

 

Nalpazca works pretty good for a defensive/control focused multiclass combo, for example monk/wizard. You can put arcane veil on and use drug + dance of death to constantly generate wound without do damage or get damaged.

Edited December 16, 2017 by dunehunter

[KDubya]

Monks are bugged right now with the save/load removing Transcendent Suffering. The messed up weapon recoveries also make it hard to rate a class. Still a fast attack speed weapon using Monk does very well.

 

Personally I love the Shattered Pillar. A Monk that gets stronger doing damage not by taking damage? YES I'LL TAKE SOME OF THAT!! Combine with a tanky Paladin and make use of Dance of Death. Or make Captain America an Unbroken/Shattered Pillar fist and shield fighter. Limited to five wounds but if you are going to be a Torment's Spammer you only need three.

 

Combine a Berserker with a Nazpalca or a Helwalker and gleefully take the damage incoming while dishing out massive amounts. You can even clear the confusion with clarity of agony.

 

The possibilities are near endless with Monks. Once they fix a few bugs they will shine.

[Soulmojo]

Hey guys, thanks for posting your thoughts.

 

You totally took the wrong the wrong conclusion of my post.

 

I wasn't saying that monk needs a penetration boost. Overall the monk will come out on top of the penetration game. 

I was highlighting that early levels, the monk using fists are suffering because compared to others because the they gain penetration very slowly and hitting a certain level, you get a large amount of penentraion via thundering fists. If you read my post I want to take the penetration bonus from thundering fist and distribute into transcendent suffering. So using your fist feels as usefull as are at high levels.

 

 

Now about the damage part. Again I wasn't complaining about overall damage. I specifically stated that overall damage will be good for the monk. I was stating - as with penetration - that the damage increase you get from summoning 'long pain fists' must go to transcendent suffering and 'long pain fists' should be kept as an utility. So the player doesn't have to wait to x levels to play as intended. Early gameplay people.

 

My problem is the same as was with IRON WHEEL ability in pillars 1. You have to hit level 11 to be able to play as intended. Meaning light armor or robes and fast attacks.

 

The player should never be put in a position where he needs to question the usefulness of the intended play style whatever level he or she is in.

 

 

Now about shattered pillar.

 

Lightning strike is bugged as far as I've read. I want to see when it works properly then discuss it.

 

My argument is that the penalties you get from the ability to generate wounds through damage dealt is too punishing and restrictive. 

 

As I stated you throw out half the bonuses you get from wounds compared to other subs for a mediocre bonus. Mediocre it is because suffering large amount of damage was never part of the monks problem. Even if you are not attacked. For example standing in every damage spell your casters do, or mortification of the soul or reducing armor to a point where you instantly go to 10 wounds from one attack. So why are you punished for doing the opposite?

 

Also I find it still funny that an ability - mortification of the soul - is now useless to shattered pillar because of some threshold set out of ?fear? ?

 

Although I do not care that much about the threshold  but more for the very punishing reduced wound count. That needs to be less punishing or changed altogether.

[KDubya]

Regarding Penetration - Fists start at base 5 which is the same as every normal weapon in the game, so at low levels fists are just as good or just as bad as any other non-specialized penetrating weapon. If you are concerned you can always grab a pair of stillettos or an Estoc as there are no penalties to using a weapon without proficiency.

 

Then as you gain Power levels you gain penetration (or is at as Trancendent Suffering increases?) , either way your fists will stay on pace with weapon enchantments. So again you are not unduly penalized for using fists.

 

Once you get access to Thunderous Blows all your worries go away as one wound gets you +4 penetration and +5 Might.

 

Regarding Shattered Pillar:

• Taking damage to generate wounds predisposes you towards a low or at least lower deflection as going super deflection tank would keep you from gaining wounds.
• Shattered Pillar, on the gripping hand,  rewards you for not taking damage (you're not flirting with death) and gets you wounds for dealing damage. To balance that out they put a limit of five wounds. We will have to see if there are abilities that take more than five wounds that'd be unavailable for Shattered Pillars.
• You can gain wounds (doing damage) by using Monk abilities like Torment's Reach and Force of Anguish. With the reduced cost upgrade for FoA I've been able to get ten plus FoA out of five wounds. This makes it so that so you endlessly bang out FoA and regain the wound spent, especially as you get better weapons or better Transcendent Suffering.
• People who want to go with the old take damage to get wounds mechanism have two subclasses and the base class to choose.
• Not knowing what the higher Monk abilities have regarding gaining benefits per wound ala Iron Wheel, currently only the Helwalker benefits from holding onto a large number of wounds and that comes at a steep cost. Only being able to bank five wounds makes it beneficial to make use of them as fast as you get them.
• I see Shattered Pillars being excellent when mixed with a high defensive class like Paladin, Shield using Fighters like Unbroken, Wizards for their defensive buffs and Priests of Wael for their illusion buff spells. You can make a deflection monkey that doesn't get hit at all and still has use of their core abilities like Torment's Reach.
• Mixes with Berserkers and Ciphers would gain in the damage output end but not much benefit from the not needing to get hit part but still would be viable and interesting.

Overall I'm quite happy with the Shattered Pillar but we will have to see what the full skill tree holds.

[Soulmojo]

I gave some more time to figure out  the shattered pillar.

 

I just came to the conclusion that shattered pillar sub is most powerful when using long pain fists.

Or more likely he is only really truly effective when fighting from a distance.

If you think of it it makes sense since they are the only to be able to generate wounds from afar.

I believe now they will be the only class to be able to utilize the Dance of death mechanics too to the fullest.

 

Regarding penetration:

I started some different classes to see the penetrations of their abilities, and I saw an interesting thing: 

Rogues have the tier 1 hobbling strike right? For some reason if you upgrade it to arterial strike the base penetration value of the ability goes up to 25, meaning a guaranteed armor piercing attack for one resource.

 

Now if you add that rogues have 50% damage boost if you give a sneak attack qualifier 2x peneration than armor gives 30% bonus damage plus you crit it... I mean I did around 30-40+ damage with some pair of hatchets... I definitely will look into the monk-rogue multilcass next. I think using this ability and stealth-fist mechanics will be crazy good. 

 

 

By the way the best and greatest combo for the helwalker is the shifter.

 

Synergy:

 

Helwalker:

 

+1 might / wound

 

Duality of mortal presence: +1 con / wound

 

Tenacious +5 might +4 penetration

 

Swift strikes: +20% attak speed +50% lightning damage (i like reliable damage)

 

Rooting pain: damage when gain wound.

 

Shifter:

 

-high claw damage. + wildstrike elemental bonus

-different forms provide different type of damage.

-no armor recovery penalty

-highish armor

-can use monk abilites when shifted.

 

-heal when shift ends. 

 

As a helwalker your biggest issue is to stay alive while keeping yourself at max wound count.

 

This is where the power of the shifter comes in:

When a shift ends you are healed a proportion of max health. Now here comes the fun part. Since you have 28+ con from duality of mortal presence, your max hp increased by at least 90% which increases the amount healed. Also your might is 25+ from wounds meaning you get at least another 50% bonus to healing.

 

When hp is low, shift. that is five self heal without party heal. Not to mention that you can semi disregard the penetration system because if you cannot hit the enemy effectively you simply **** to another form.

 

Your attacks will do good damage. You will have high attack speed due to swift strikes and no armor penalty. High constitution and shift-heal provides an adequate balance against the +50% damage taken.

 

Try it out it is very satisfying!

[dunehunter]

There are a lot other things work with Dance of Death, like Shadowing beyond, Arcane Veil, just anything that make u hard to touch.

 

That Arterial Strike penetration I believe is a bug and I report it in this thread https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/95193-ridiculous-high-penetration-bonus/

 

Yeah Helwalker works amazing with self healing classes like Shifter and Kind wayfarers. However in next patch healing is changed from Might to Res, these combos will not work as good as it is now unfortunately.

Edited December 18, 2017 by dunehunter

[AndreaColombo]

Helwalker/Shifter is my current go-to Thundercat

 

Berserker/Shifter is also good, but this thread is about Monks.

[dam]

Hi Gents and Ladies!

 

I'm starting this topic to give info about the monk and is problems. I'm posting this from my perspective as I played and continue to play the beta.

I've played the first game through and through as a Monk, my favorite class is this and I want to contribute to the discussion of the issues the class face in this second game so it can take it's place as a class which is satisfying to play with.

 

So without further ado:

 

 

Penetration:

 

The most important new stat in this game is the PENETRATION. 

 

Penetration you supposed to acquire to bypass enemy armor rating. if you are below  one point then you do 30% of your original damage. if you are above you start to do a bit more.

 

Problem with this:

 

The main problem with this is that the game will turn to be a penetration vs armor rating arms race to a point where it will be the most valuable stat above everything else. You will never know how much armor rating the enemy will have and since if you are one point below the enemy armor rating you will do 30% damage, you will always try to get as much penetration as possible. I don't care to change the system, it is what it is, but monks suffer in this system.

 

Now to the monk's perspective:

 

As a monk your only source of penetration is Transcendent suffering which gives one penetration per power level which translates to +1 per every two level if you are single class and +1 per every three levels as a multiclass. This sums up to the fact that you always will be under the penetration line as you progress through the better part of the game.

 

You will get thunderous blows at tier 4 (level 7 as a pure, level 10 as a multiclass) which gives 4 penetration as a passive, but gods, how do you manage until you get to level 7-10? 

 

This is basically the most sad thing I encountered. Basically the first half of the game you will stuck below the penetration line.

 

My suggestion is to scrap the penetration thunderous blows have and distribute into the transcendent suffering penetration bonus. This gives a more linear progression to the monk. and gives more evened out game play with other classes.

 

Nope, just nope.

 

I apologize my friend I stopped reading here, I shall read the rest of your post later on.

 

 

You cannot take into account penetration problems, because they're being tuned as we speak.

Penetration is going to be changed in the next beta update (with adjustable values for modders, to boot).

[Soulmojo]

Nope, just nope.

 

I apologize my friend I stopped reading here, I shall read the rest of your post later on.

 

 

You cannot take into account penetration problems, because they're being tuned as we speak.

Penetration is going to be changed in the next beta update (with adjustable values for modders, to boo

 

 

Listen dam. I know that they will change penetration. I still think it will suck, and be the most important stat in the game.

 

They are reworking this to like this:

 

one point below -25% damage

two point below -50% damage

three or more -75% damage

 

You will have to guess most of the time what armor the enemy has.

You will want to do full damage optimally

You will always stack penetration to the max possible as having high enough penetration gives you damage boost. If not then just to be sure.

You will always choose high penetration abilities over lower ones just to be sure. 

And lastly you will always stack the maximum possible armor for denying enemy the chance to damage you.

The same principle applies with armor as with penetration. Stacking armor even with the cost of attack speed, you deny enemy the chance to kill you...Just to be sure.

 

 

Therefore in my eyes nothing really changes even with tunes as I the player want to do the maximum possible damage I am able to do and take the least possible damage.

Yes it will be less punishing but no, overall the tune changes nothing.

 

The old system was much better this way. As the game progressed armor became less and less important. Now armor AND penetration will be the most important stats from start to end.

 

I'm really glad though that you will continue to read my posts. Thank you!

Edited December 19, 2017 by Soulmojo

[Soulmojo]

There are a lot other things work with Dance of Death, like Shadowing beyond, Arcane Veil, just anything that make u hard to touch.

 

That Arterial Strike penetration I believe is a bug and I report it in this thread https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/95193-ridiculous-high-penetration-bonus/

 

Yeah Helwalker works amazing with self healing classes like Shifter and Kind wayfarers. However in next patch healing is changed from Might to Res, these combos will not work as good as it is now unfortunately.

 

I missed the healing change, thanks for pointing that out.

 

I tested the monk/mage multiclass system specifically for dance of death last weekend.

I maxed resolve (20pt) casted arcane veil, for deflection bonus and still got hit. Due to game mechanics taking at least some damage periodically is unavoidable. 

 

Sadly in the current system having very very high deflection is not a guarantee to not be hit. if the enemy has a lucky roll like 98 or something you will get hit:

 

20 base + 10 from resolve + 50 arcane veil + 15 from level = 95

 

vs enemy with 50 accucary who rolls 98 

 

 

50-95= -45 + 98 = 53  meaning you get hit or graze

 

The only way to keep ahead with deflection if you ad a medium shield minimum, but then whats the point of playing monk then? You might as well go paladin or warror or something. Maybe a staff modal but meh...

This is even worse with spells and aoe splash damage spells which targets reflex, fortitude or will. + there is melee friendly fire.... You are bound to get multiple hits.

 

Of course the upgraded version allows you to take some damage before canceling the effect but then you might just as well disregard focusing on deflection. As having low is similar to having high.

The only way to truly maintain the effect and harness its power in my opinion is to go ranged, e.g. long pain fists.

 

Dance of death would be much more better if instead of 'cancel after taking damage' you would 'stack increased damage gain' similar to helwalker. Now that would be the true dance of death. I would make it an ability which you can deactivate at will. like a modal.

Edited December 19, 2017 by Soulmojo

[Climhazzard]

If you're worried about low level monk penetration, which is certainly an issue though you don't really have to use fists exclusively so I'm not sure it really is, you can go nature godlike.  Low level Monk benefits a lot from power level boosts to transcendent suffering.

 

About shattered pillar.  We can't really rate the downside of their max wounds pool before knowing what benefit later abilities will give us from wounds.  However right now shattered pillar is the best monk for generating wounds so as long as you're spending them quickly you'll be using more total wounds than other monks with higher wound caps.  Also the ability to generate wounds when you hit instead of when you get hit makes rooting pain a lot better.  If we do eventually get abilities that give defensive bonuses from wounds such as the one in PoE, then shattered pillar builds will just be the more offensive monk builds since they're better at steadily generating/spending wounds and don't need to be the center of attention to generate them.

[Doppelschwert]

The helwalker works pretty well with Dance of Death and dual wielding scepters with their modals enabled from afar; you get a magic missile machine gun.

Might be even more fun with either ranger for the ranged talents or fighter for the improved auto attacks.

[KDubya]

In the new Beta Monk's unarmed damage is still bugged.

 

On creation it works fine but after a save/load it forgets what your damage should be and reverts to a very low number. The damage is low both in the inventory screen

and in actual combat.

 

 

 

EDIT- Torment's Reach now uses Resolve for the AoE part of the damage Which really sucks. It also looks to be completely independent of whatever weapon that you are using as far as damage goes, not sure if that is new or I'm just noticing it now.

Edited December 22, 2017 by KDubya

[AndreaColombo]

Decoupling a Monk’s abilities from whatever weapon they are Wielding was a long-time coming, tbh. IIRC it was reported as a bug early on in the first game and never fixed.

 

It does suck that you need Resolve for Torment’s Reach, though. Told ya the change to attributes wasn’t a good idea

[Soulmojo]

Yesterday I was testing a bit, mainly to test out the changes.

 

I came to the conclusion that the tuned system is better, but still pretty much exploitable. 

 

I made a helwalker + Goldpact knight to test.

 

So I pretty much realized that - like in the first game - I don't really need swift strikes. And I disregarded that ability alltogether and I did the same with every duration ability. 

 

I reduced INT and RES to the minimum 3 and spent the free points on the other stats, DEX and PER. 

 

I equipped a full plate armor + I used gold pact armor bonus from sworn enemy mechanic and went on a rampage.

 

Basically I soloed the first island on hard difficulty with fists, and that says something about armor/pen mechanics, considering the helwalker has 5% increased damage per wound....

 

I noted several things:

 

• Armor and penetraiton is pretty much still exploitable. It needs an additonal tuning. As it needs: 10% damage reduction per point of difference up to 100% at 10 points difference. Because if you stack enough armor then the enemy still cannot hit you if you don't stack enough penetration you cannot hit the enemy. This system can work, but the stacking penalties are still too big per point. Also if you are above the enemy armor the player should get like 2-3% damage increase per point up to 20%-30% per point. To reward the player and the enemy for stacking the stat.

 

• Unarmed damage was like 21-30 something. I cannot recall I'm not in front of the game right now. This is impossible with the current bonuses, which means that your base unarmed damage levels up too as you gain levels just like in the first game. I have to get back on you with this but I wanted to note this first for confirmation from other testers.

 

• If you crit the enemy - which means stacing high accuracy - not just your damage increases you penetration value too. This allows the monk to bypass the enemy armor. I found that using fist (at least untill thundering fists) you are 1-2 pt below the enemy and crits usually help you in this.  So all in for accuracy guys.

 

• Lastly I tried out again a couple of weapons. Hatchets, stilettoes, staffs, greatswors and estocs etc. It was painfully obvious that weapons need some serious tune too. First, every weapon in the same speed category has to have the same damage. Some weapons are high penetration yes, but become subpar for doing minimal damage. The modals are even worse. The estoc for example have much less damage, and while the greatsword modal deals 50% more damage the estocs modal give 2point of penetration... I don't know it doesn't feel right. Same goes with stilettoes vs hatchets. Modals that reduce damage needs to go too, all of them useless. Instead modal penetration every weapon should have an inherent penetration value with same damage range. And useful active modals like bleed, reduced enemy accuracy, aoe capability, reduced enemy movement etc.

Edited December 22, 2017 by Soulmojo

[Soulmojo]

In the new Beta Monk's unarmed damage is still bugged.

 

On creation it works fine but after a save/load it forgets what your damage should be and reverts to a very low number. The damage is low both in the inventory screen

and in actual combat.

 

 

 

EDIT- Torment's Reach now uses Resolve for the AoE part of the damage Which really sucks. It also looks to be completely independent of whatever weapon that you are using as far as damage goes, not sure if that is new or I'm just noticing it now.

 

 

You are correct, Every ability uses resolve for determining damage now if it is not a direct weapon damage.

Summoned weapons uses resolve too for determining values.

[KDubya]

 

In the new Beta Monk's unarmed damage is still bugged.

 

On creation it works fine but after a save/load it forgets what your damage should be and reverts to a very low number. The damage is low both in the inventory screen

and in actual combat.

 

 

 

EDIT- Torment's Reach now uses Resolve for the AoE part of the damage Which really sucks. It also looks to be completely independent of whatever weapon that you are using as far as damage goes, not sure if that is new or I'm just noticing it now.

 

 

You are correct, Every ability uses resolve for determining damage now if it is not a direct weapon damage.

Summoned weapons uses resolve too for determining values.

 

 

I thought that Torments Reach would be strength based similar to Flames of Devotion being strength based.

 

I just tried a Warlock with Concelhauts staff and his strength controls the damage done with the summoned weapon.

[Climhazzard]

Lightning strikes isn't bugged by the way.  It pretty much takes care of the low level penetration issue by itself considering the damage isn't resisted by armor.

Edited December 22, 2017 by Climhazzard

[Soulmojo]

Ye

 

 

 

In the new Beta Monk's unarmed damage is still bugged.

 

On creation it works fine but after a save/load it forgets what your damage should be and reverts to a very low number. The damage is low both in the inventory screen

and in actual combat.

 

 

 

EDIT- Torment's Reach now uses Resolve for the AoE part of the damage Which really sucks. It also looks to be completely independent of whatever weapon that you are using as far as damage goes, not sure if that is new or I'm just noticing it now.

 

 

You are correct, Every ability uses resolve for determining damage now if it is not a direct weapon damage.

Summoned weapons uses resolve too for determining values.

 

 

I thought that Torments Reach would be strength based similar to Flames of Devotion being strength based.

 

I just tried a Warlock with Concelhauts staff and his strength controls the damage done with the summoned weapon.

 

 

Yes the melee damage part uses strength.

But concelhauts staff does healing now after you do damage similar to pillars 1, and that healing amount is reduced/increased by resolve. 

 

Pally Flames of devotion is a weapon damage addition which is calculated from direct weapon damage.

Torments reach aoe is an additonal 'spell effect'. which is not calculated from weapon damage.

Edited December 22, 2017 by Soulmojo

[dunehunter]

Lightning strikes isn't bugged by the way. It pretty much takes care of the low level penetration issue by itself considering the damage isn't resisted by armor.

Honestly Lightning Strike is the main reason I multiclass into Monk, it’s the best Monk ability imo.

 

Specially with the new AI, you can set it so your character will automatically use it when it expired.

Edited December 22, 2017 by dunehunter

[KDubya]

I'm also a big fan of Lightning Strikes, speed plus dex for more speed and a 50% lash - gimme some of that!!

 

My new experiment is going to be Wave of Anguish abuse (the upgraded Force of anguish that only takes one wound) I'm thinking dual wielded fast weapons or sabres with AI set to use FoA at every opportunity. Torment's damage is lacking so maybe mass FoA will be viable?