Henshin Crusader

[TheDr0wRanger]

First, lets be clear, if you are going to tell me that this isn't going to work, save your breath. I made him to prove that idea wrong and I'm going to work on him until such a time as I'm convinced of that by experience.

Now, I've LRed a Horc Monk at lvl28 into a Henshin Mystic, following the teachings of Spencarian I'm trying to balance his staff skills with the usage of his SLAs .

Due to the melee-intensive and fire-oriented nature of Crusader I suspect there's a great opportunity for it.

I've lost the build sheet and there was a glitch when I rolled the toon, so I cant recall everything in my plan at the moment, but the basic idea was to leverage the Henshin and Horc increased damage for the staff, using cleave, great cleave and possibly whirlwind, while also taking the Crit Range increase from higher Henshin. Adding that from Crusader, along with the numerous damage options and another increased Crit Range punctuated by Strike Down and I can see lot of multi-target damage. Further since Henshin allows a lot of Fire spellpower without the requirement of a lot of feats to get it, I can enter Crusader with enough SP to leverage its power. Strength for damage and Wisdom for DCs in both Henshin and Crusader.
Hes got all the wrong gear for this stick thing, and unfortunately he longer has a raid-box to get Sireth, which essentially means he won't ever get one given the amount of hatred for that raid.


As I said I LR'd this character from an unarmed monk that I simply found unexciting, stunning and beating one guy at a time, even at the absurd speeds I'd pushed the character to, was nothing to compare to the raging doom machine of my Human Flame Savant or the steel tornado of my PDK Dex-built Bastard-Dreadnought Cleaver.

Early testing as I try to advance the Crusader destiny was exciting, he didn't get the dps or the amount of Ki I was aiming for but he was in the ballpark, which makes sense given an unleveled destiny and no gear. Because of fire wave, Cleave and Great Cleave he hits everyone in his vicinity quite frequently, if I get a Cauldron of Flame up and Consecrate the ground, I suspect my ability to grab and ruin bad-guys will be more than adequate for my purposes. He's pure monk and I intend to keep him that way because multiclassing hardly proves the viability of the Henshin Crusader if hes not exactly that.


Disadvantages I can see ahead:
Control, hes got no great way of holding or stopping enemies from hitting him, theres just not much on offer in terms of CC.
SP reliance, I build all of my melees with Magical Training for unlimited cocoons, so he won't be totally screwed, but given the number of potent crusaders skills requiring SP I may find myself under-equipped.
Ki: Its expensive for a henshin with no other focus, its very difficult to keep running when you spam the SLAs, at least so far.
Toughness: It remains to be seen if this character has the stones for full confrontation, advice on what to maximize is appreciated.

Advantages: More kills faster, as I said he hits everyone most of the time, and in a pinch he can kite and pop off ki skills for tolerable effect.
Unlimited capacity: The lack of SP and Ki are problems of having enough fast enough, given time he regenerates ki on a constant basis and SP up to a usable level.
Healing: Light monk skills, Heal Amp, Crusader abilities and correct equipment should make me competent in self-sufficiency and possibly pinch-hit backup healing.
Cool: I've yet to see one, it'd be nice if I was able to draft something new for once(although my Fighter-Monk Cleaver was made before anyone was talking about those much, so I kinda co-developed it with the rest of the world).

I'll post the character planner sheet after work sometime, to make this whole idea a little more clear.

But I'm asking, can anyone offer advice on how to make this work to the best of its capacity? If it sucks I'll deal with that but I want to try it at its best before I judge it.