Advantages:
-ridiculous HP
-25% incorporeal
-Improved Evasion
-20 x6 / 19 x6 / 18 x4 / 17 x4 crit profile, with dragonforged heavy picks.
-100% offhand attack
-racial damage bonusses
-retain bonuses with bludgeoning damage
-cocoon-powered
The idea of this build is to make use of all the synergy that comes with con-based fighting.
-No str means no stunning bow. Means Fury of the wild as stun option (you basically NEED some stun as melee in EE imo, even more so than selfheal). Means twf to fuel Adrenaline regeneration.
-No str means you don't need 12 fighter. No str also means no need for CHA and divine might. So no need for paladin. This means enough levels to go deep in monk and still pick up ranger for more twf.
-No str but CON means dwarf. this means axes, hammers or picks.
-Best weapon in the game -probably- is conveniently not a sos/sireth/balizarde anymore, but crafted dragonforged. So any type is viable again.
-Also coincidentally, heavy picks are now par with the old king in crafted weapons, khopeshes, in terms of crit profile, thanks to Keen Edge (19/x4 base equals 18/x3 and both beat all other weapon types). With monk earth stance, this adds up to a 180% crit profile.
-Fury means relative benefit from a high crit multiplier/low crit range weapons because of the autocrit on 400% swings, so Heavy Picks has even more synergy.
Starting stats would look like:
18 con (+2 racial) +6 level
17 str +1 level
14 dex
9 wis
8 int
8 cha (-2 racial)
-master earth stance (for crit, but also +3 con, yay)
-cleave/greatcleave/overwhelming critical (thats why you still start with 17+1 str, too bad you are 1 short of max con)
-especially the improved evasion is something I am looking forward to. I'm getting sick of dying to 1200 point damage spells so instead of needing to have the reflex to save you just at LEAST 'autosave' for half.
-manyshot is easy to pick up for furyshotting.
-Alternatively, since dwarfs get you bonuses on 'picks and hammers', and for kensai focus the group is also 'picks and hammers', you might as well spend a feat on IC: bludgeoning and be good with warhammers as well.
To love this build, you do have to like Fury of the Wild. I think they play so much different from dreadnoughts that the two are hard to compare.
I'm leveling a bodybuilder soon, but I love him on paper already. Anyone else excited yet?
-edit: For the 5 spare feats (see below), I am now leveling with the ranged feat package to see how I like that. I will update the build with my experiences when I hit 21.