BF Centered Kensai 12F-6R-2M = Original Monster?

[Musashiclaw]

After a 8 month Hiatus I have decided to dust off my orginal toon that was a WF Monster then a Helf Monster and was now thinking of trying to build a BF Centered Kensai or go with the Cetus Build everyone is talking about but go TWF. Why? I sorta like TWF more than THF and I like to be a little different.

Has anyone built a Centered BF TWF Kensai?
Did you go 12F 6R 2M?

Has anyone built a TWF Cetus?

Any help with this would be appreciated!

Or Builds
(I only have +4's on my guy(Str, Dex, Con) +3's on the rest so I will have to go with more dex starter points if I do the Cetus)

[unbongwah]

Presuming we're talking about centered monk / kensei BF TWF builds:

Advantages of ftr 12 / rgr 6 / monk 2: extra feats, access to metamagics, Ram's Might, 100% offhand (Tempest + Deft Strikes)

Advantages of ftr 12 / monk 6 / pal 2: Div Grace, Div Might (w/Bane of Undeath), Shadow Form, don't need to LR +1 to get rid of pally lvl

[Zoda]

12F6M2P as helf ranger dilettante gets up to 100% offhand proc (10% deft strike from shintao and 10% from dilly enhancement) as well, and you are not missing on the pally saves + divine might, which is huge. Also if you have 6 AP to spare, you can pick up morphic arrows from elven AA tree and get the threat range expansion on it from pulvirezer for a stronger manyshot.

From Cetus's feat list you will replace completionist with khopesh prof (or whatever else you want use, but I think new crafted khops are sexy) and point blank shot with GTW (and obviously thf feats with the respective levels of twf).

My 2 cents.

[Cetus]

I tried this several times, and it would actually be better than my split if it had 100 AP to spend.

In the end, I just couldn't take everything I wanted - and evasion + shadow fade is too good in this endgame content to give up.

[Musashiclaw]

Appreciate the feedback!

[unbongwah]

I tried this several times, and it would actually be better than my split if it had 100 AP to spend.

I won't get into an argument about what works best; but ftr 12 / rgr 6 / monk 2 should still work fine. You need:

• 33 APs into Kensei to pick up One w/Blade & all pre-reqs
• 13 APs in BF to max repair amp & Reconstruct SLA
• 13 APs into Shintao for Deft Strikes (another +10% offhand) & Iron Skin (+15 PRR)
• 6 APs into Tempest to pick up +10% offhand

That leaves 15 APs to spare. Did I miss anything?

[Lurzifer]

I won't get into an argument about what works best; but ftr 12 / rgr 6 / monk 2 should still work fine. You need:

• 33 APs into Kensei to pick up One w/Blade & all pre-reqs
• 13 APs in BF to max repair amp & Reconstruct SLA
• 13 APs into Shintao for Deft Strikes (another +10% offhand) & Iron Skin (+15 PRR)
• 6 APs into Tempest to pick up +10% offhand

That leaves 15 APs to spare. Did I miss anything?

Not sure why you only put 13 points into Bf, imo a Melee has at least 20 if not more in there. Also 11 on Stalwart are kinda must have for stance (3 saves / 25prr). Problem is with current endgame you definatley need paladin saves for EE new raids. ~DC95 on 1200 damage fireballs is no joke :P

[Nightmanis]

Not sure why you only put 13 points into Bf, imo a Melee has at least 20 if not more in there. Also 11 on Stalwart are kinda must have for stance (3 saves / 25prr). Problem is with current endgame you definatley need paladin saves for EE new raids. ~DC95 on 1200 damage fireballs is no joke :P

What's the time delay on those fireballs? Right about one second? I haven't been able to get in there to see.

[Sokól]

I have been thinking about this as I have doing BF TWF ranger past lives and now a BF EK sorc life and best solution yet is a twf cetus with a 90% offhand.

But with Pulverizer the hammers are maybe better than peshes with endgame being so crowded with undead now and you save a feat!

[Eth]

I have been thinking about this as I have doing BF TWF ranger past lives and now a BF EK sorc life and best solution yet is a twf cetus with a 90% offhand.

But with Pulverizer the hammers are maybe better than peshes with endgame being so crowded with undead now and you save a feat!

Pulverizer doesn't stack with keen edge, which makes the idea of centered kensai with warhammers kinda meh.

On builds without 8 Fighter levels warhammers are more interesting.

[Eth]

What's the time delay on those fireballs? Right about one second? I haven't been able to get in there to see.

If you constantly keep moving you can avoid them.
If you stand still and see the yellow circle on your spot it's kind of to late already.

From my experience 50% Fire Shield + 30% Absorption cloak was enough to barely survive a hit (about 800 damage).
After you died once in there it gets really problematic though.

[Cetus]

I won't get into an argument about what works best; but ftr 12 / rgr 6 / monk 2 should still work fine. You need:

• 33 APs into Kensei to pick up One w/Blade & all pre-reqs
• 13 APs in BF to max repair amp & Reconstruct SLA
• 13 APs into Shintao for Deft Strikes (another +10% offhand) & Iron Skin (+15 PRR)
• 6 APs into Tempest to pick up +10% offhand

That leaves 15 APs to spare. Did I miss anything?

You missed a lot -

1. Need 22 AP in bladeforged - you are seriously ignoring tactics/Improved PA/Power of the forge?

2. With 33 Ap in kensei - you won't max all your tactics (unless you are reducing your boost count), so I'm seeing an "ignore tactics" trend here

3. You're losing fists of iron by going for iron skin in shintao tree - bad DPS move.

4. You lose all the sneak attack damage from ninja spy, you lose ninja poison, you lose shadow fade. You ignore deepwood, which can potentially give you back some SA dmg.

5. You aren't even going for exposing strike or sniper shot in deepwood - which are powerful abilities.

6. Morphic arrows + pulverizer is a powerful combo you are ignoring as well.

7. You lose evasion

In the end, what do you gain? Just 100% offhand attack at the expense of pretty much every DPS enhancement? When I tried this, I wanted to get all of the DPS stuff listed above, and simply couldn't come close. Its not worth going there.

On my 12/6/2 split you can get 90% offhand proc with a slight AP adjustment, and still have most of the DPS enhancements. Your PRR from shintao is vastly inferior to evasion + shadow fade. The difference in feats doesn't really generate anything exceptionally useful. I was able to pick up a few extra things like greater weapon spec or improved precise shot, but overall - meh, I didn't like it at all.

[Teh_Troll]

Problem is with current endgame you definatley need paladin saves for EE new raids. ~DC95 on 1200 damage fireballs is no joke :P

This is a huge problem with the current end-game. Being forced to splash pally for saves does suck.

But come on, you ain't getting the 95 Reflex save anyway.

[Nightmanis]

If you constantly keep moving you can avoid them.
If you stand still and see the yellow circle on your spot it's kind of to late already.

From my experience 50% Fire Shield + 30% Absorption cloak was enough to barely survive a hit (about 800 damage).
After you died once in there it gets really problematic though.

I was thinking more along the lines of blocking. A lot of those different abilities don't necessarily require a shield, which increases your ability to take the hit if you either can't save or outright avoid it.

[Teh_Troll]

. . . so I'm seeing an "ignore tactics" trend here

Yup. Without divine might forget about ever getting an STR high enough to matter in high-level EEs so dumping tactics is the way to go with this. STR tops out at around a 70.

I play a Fighter 12/ranger 6/Monk 2. It's not horrible but I can't say it's optimal. The Archer's Focus fix definitely hurt it and there just aren't enough APs to leverage everything cool.

[Eth]

I was thinking more along the lines of blocking. A lot of those different abilities don't necessarily require a shield, which increases your ability to take the hit if you either can't save or outright avoid it.

Hm, good idea actually, hadn't thought of that. US is 30% (twistable) while blocking (I guess i need a 28% cloak then for stacking purposes?) and divine epic past life another 10 - 30%.

Also improved evasion helps a lot obviously (which I don't have).

[Cardtrick]

7. You lose evasion

I'm probably missing something obvious, but how is he losing evasion with 2 monk levels?

Or do you just mean that without divine grace, his reflex save will be so low that evasion is pointless in EE?

[Sokól]

I'm probably missing something obvious, but how is he losing evasion with 2 monk levels?

Or do you just mean that without divine grace, his reflex save will be so low that evasion is pointless in EE?

You need to be close to 60 reflex just for EH Fire on Thunder Peak, trust me I learned the hard way...

[Teh_Troll]

I'm probably missing something obvious, but how is he losing evasion with 2 monk levels?

Or do you just mean that without divine grace, his reflex save will be so low that evasion is pointless in EE?

Taking 2 pally levels over 2 monk. Divine grace making saves and taking 50% is better than having evasion on paper only and failing your saves 95% of the time. I think with a twist or two you can get high 50s reflex without the pally levels.

but Divine Might is absolutely needed if you want a Stunning Blow that works more than 5% of the time. it's stupid, it's broken, but it is what it is.

[unbongwah]

Not sure why you only put 13 points into Bf, imo a Melee has at least 20 if not more in there.

You missed a lot -

Hence why I said there's 15 APs to spare; 21 if you choose to drop Iron Skin. There's a lot of ways to tweak this build; and never enough APs to go around to get everything you want. So a lot of the things you list could be added to this build; you just can't add all of them.

you are seriously ignoring tactics

Actually, yes: as Teh Troll points out, it's very hard to hit competitive DCs w/out Div Might (+10-15 STR for most builds, or +7-12 if comparing to builds w/Insightful STR item), which this build won't get.

3. You're losing fists of iron by going for iron skin in shintao tree - bad DPS move.

I usually take it from Ninja to help meet Shadow Form AP req. But since F12/R6/M2 can't take Shadow Form, you can take it from Shintao instead.

6. Morphic arrows + pulverizer is a powerful combo you are ignoring as well.

I hadn't thought of that; I forgot Pulverizer works w/morphic+bows! But again, some of those APs can go into AA if you wish to pick up morphic.

7. You lose evasion

How does a monk 2 build "lose" Evasion? Or are you saying w/out Div Grace, Reflex saves are too low for Evasion to do any good?