Ameliorating Strike Monk - Ninja Poison or Whirlwind Attack?

[DarkSable]

Hey guys!

So, I'm trying to figure out my healer's next incarnation. To set up a little background, it's almost always going to be used in a duo with a fleshy centered kensai, so while it needs to be able to serve up healing, it also needs good damage to help us get through quests.

It will be running in Divine Crusader for the blend of melee damage and healing from Consecration.

Anyways, here are the questions that I've been mulling about in my head:

1) Whirlwind attack vs. Ninja Poison. The original concept for this build was going to be TWF with handwraps, to get double/triple/quad ameliorating strike procs. That then changed to being TWF with Foresters Brush Hooks for the crit range and a ranger splash for offhand chance. The ranger splash was later changed to a sorc splash for fire spell power for consecrate and divine vessel. I then realized the power of whirlwind attack on unarmed characters. (the one time something is broken in unarmed's favor!) Trouble is, to fit everything I would need, I would have to splash fighter instead of sorc, for the bonus feats.

So I suppose my question is this. Do I go with Kamas for the crit range, and the ability to use ninja poison with poisoned blades, giving me great dps against fleshies but not undead, or do I go with Unarmed and have better damage vs undead, and more AoE damage (albeit not as good fire spellpower.)

How much damage should I be expecting from Divine Vessel if I'm only focusing on the fire side of it?

Thanks - these questions have been bugging me all day!

EDIT:

...or do I go with 6 monk 6 sorc 8 Favored soul, ignore Divine Vessel, and use Tenser's? I like this idea the most, I think, but I'm very concerned about if I can stretch my AP enough to get shadow veil, tenser's, ameliorating strike, AND a decent amount of healing amp. If I could pull this split off, though, I'd love it - having a viable rig with deep multiclasses from each sphere just tickles my fancy.

[Saekee]

If you are using the hooks, go pure--13-20/3 or 11-20/3 in Divine crusader. The poison stacks very fast and drow venomed blades increments with melee power. Sting further enhances the damage . Add to this fists of light for healing finishers and it is solid. You can even go dex-based unless you are well geared for boosting STR. With some fort bypass like precision, black dragonscale etc you can crit undead mobs. Note also that you can go ninja master and also take tier 5 of henshin for SCEWL for healing bursts on kills and healing finishers, assuming you go dark path.

For unarmed--remember that unarmed damage is based on monk level as well as the various stances. 12 monk gets abundant step, master of forms. Favored soul will add divine might and ameliorating strike; fighter adds DCs and haste boost etc. Unarmed is better against undead. So maybe 12 monk/4 fs/4 fighter? or 12 monk/8 fighter was posted here recently.

Or something unusual like 14 pally 6 monk in wind stance for doublestrike, Holy sword on kamas (or staff for undead)

[DarkSable]

If you are using the hooks, go pure--13-20/3 or 11-20/3 in Divine crusader. The poison stacks very fast and drow venomed blades increments with melee power. Sting further enhances the damage . Add to this fists of light for healing finishers and it is solid. You can even go dex-based unless you are well geared for boosting STR. With some fort bypass like precision, black dragonscale etc you can crit undead mobs. Note also that you can go ninja master and also take tier 5 of henshin for SCEWL for healing bursts on kills and healing finishers, assuming you go dark path.

For unarmed--remember that unarmed damage is based on monk level as well as the various stances. 12 monk gets abundant step, master of forms. Favored soul will add divine might and ameliorating strike; fighter adds DCs and haste boost etc. Unarmed is better against undead. So maybe 12 monk/4 fs/4 fighter? or 12 monk/8 fighter was posted here recently.

Or something unusual like 14 pally 6 monk in wind stance for doublestrike, Holy sword on kamas (or staff for undead)

Mmm, going pure for the ninja spy capstone is certainly tempting, but I'm just not sure that it'll give me the healing that I need. The healing finishers are nice, but not enough for leveling, I don't think. (We're planning on TR-ing together.) If I don't go with the capstone, I have other options for boosting their crit range, don't I? Or is that pretty much it aside from the obvious Improved Crit and Overwhelming Crit? My trouble with using that against the undead is that not only will I have to gear up to get the sexy crits, but all of that poison damage isn't going to do me any good.

I hadn't thought about unarmed scaling based on monk level, that is a bit of a drawback. 4 favored soul at least is a must for healing - I take it you don't think divine conduit and perma-divine power is going to be worth it? I'm almost tempted to go 6 ranger, but I would still have to pick up the dex for Greater TWF. I also like the security of having 12 Favored Soul for Heal, perma-blur, and a pet lazer-maker, plus a whole slew more spell points for consecrate. I'm running as a very gimpy paladin (I had used a couple lesser hearts that I had to try to pick up a pally past life), and don't have nearly as many spell points as I would like to make it through quests.

[Saekee]

You can do fists of light finishers until level 12, then swap feats to dark path for SCEWL from 12-19, swap again for Fists of Light for epics (use the free swap at level 20).
That is if you go pure. Your other ideas sound great too--I haven't played fvs soul so I cannot say. People splash fvs with wizard for magic missile spamming in Shiradi (tier 5 fvs raises evocation spell level by 3, so 6 wiz can generate max 5 missiles).

[Saekee]

Mmm, going pure for the ninja spy capstone is certainly tempting, but I'm just not sure that it'll give me the healing that I need. The healing finishers are nice, but not enough for leveling, I don't think. (We're planning on TR-ing together.) If I don't go with the capstone, I have other options for boosting their crit range, don't I? Or is that pretty much it aside from the obvious Improved Crit and Overwhelming Crit? My trouble with using that against the undead is that not only will I have to gear up to get the sexy crits, but all of that poison damage isn't going to do me any good.

I hadn't thought about unarmed scaling based on monk level, that is a bit of a drawback. 4 favored soul at least is a must for healing - I take it you don't think divine conduit and perma-divine power is going to be worth it? I'm almost tempted to go 6 ranger, but I would still have to pick up the dex for Greater TWF. I also like the security of having 12 Favored Soul for Heal, perma-blur, and a pet lazer-maker, plus a whole slew more spell points for consecrate. I'm running as a very gimpy paladin (I had used a couple lesser hearts that I had to try to pick up a pally past life), and don't have nearly as many spell points as I would like to make it through quests.

you can still use wraps against undead--Jade strike in shintao is an undead destroyer and fists of light is strong against them as well.
For even my low-Str pure monk, using wraps in fire stance does good undead dmg. Not EE stuff but still solid. With easily acquired sun soul set you get mini-heals in Fire stance which add up. For Lawful neutral monks, grave wrappings heal and kill; I use calomels from challenges slotted with devotion 90 for lifedrinker shielding and heal boosting (Even if not optimal they are hard to give up--corrosive salt& crushing wave work on just about everything. Crushing wave is not water damage but bludgeoning). Some swear by the Ivy wraps or Adamantine knuckles for Dps. In heroics the vampiric stonedust are excellent.

[DarkSable]

So I've been doing some research into different builds... I'm strongly leaning towards a big F'n stick build: 6 monk / 2 rogue / 12 Favored Soul. It gets me Heal, self-cast Divine Power without having to take a tier V for it, 25% incorp, and an insane critical range in Divine Crusader... while still supporting a full compliment of cleaves (in the lower levels, even) and good fire spellpower and devotion for heals and my three fire AoEs.

I still like the idea of a weaponized monk quite a lot, and think I'll definitely be playing with it - pure monk SWF with a forester's brush hook, taking advantage of ninja poison and a 10% erasure chance with void strike. Should be a hoot to play.
My only question for the above is what ED to run in... I'm tempted to go with Legendary Dreadnought for the on-vorpal damage, or with Divine Crusader for the crit range, but neither feels particularly ninja-y to me... Any thoughts?

[Saekee]

So I've been doing some research into different builds... I'm strongly leaning towards a big F'n stick build: 6 monk / 2 rogue / 12 Favored Soul. It gets me Heal, self-cast Divine Power without having to take a tier V for it, 25% incorp, and an insane critical range in Divine Crusader... while still supporting a full compliment of cleaves (in the lower levels, even) and good fire spellpower and devotion for heals and my three fire AoEs.

I still like the idea of a weaponized monk quite a lot, and think I'll definitely be playing with it - pure monk SWF with a forester's brush hook, taking advantage of ninja poison and a 10% erasure chance with void strike. Should be a hoot to play.
My only question for the above is what ED to run in... I'm tempted to go with Legendary Dreadnought for the on-vorpal damage, or with Divine Crusader for the crit range, but neither feels particularly ninja-y to me... Any thoughts?

I capped my ninja master with SWF: here are some early thoughts. The key is shadow double for burst doublestrike but it got frustrating; often I would misstime it and not go off. The Henshion might be better--smacking with void strike; Lighting the candle on trash (lots of force procs), Sting on bosses. The throwing speed felt slow, for some reason.

[TeacherSyn]

In your deliberations on your build, note that Ninja Poison does not affect most undead and can only be applied (with one exception) using actual weapons with piercing and slashing properties. Handwraps, unarmed damage or any non-weapon items or feats that suggest piercing/slashing damage (Brawling Gloves, Ivy Wraps, Vorpal Strikes) do not qualify.

[DarkSable]

I capped my ninja master with SWF: here are some early thoughts. The key is shadow double for burst doublestrike but it got frustrating; often I would misstime it and not go off. The Henshion might be better--smacking with void strike; Lighting the candle on trash (lots of force procs), Sting on bosses. The throwing speed felt slow, for some reason.

Hmm, those are some valuable notes, thank you. The note about shadow double is interesting; I had written it off as not being worth it because of its cooldown and short duration.

I've actually got my main character, who started as a pure monk, as an endless max-cc thrower build and absolutely love it.

[DarkSable]

In your deliberations on your build, note that Ninja Poison does not affect most undead and can only be applied (with one exception) using actual weapons with piercing and slashing properties. Handwraps, unarmed damage or any non-weapon items or feats that suggest piercing/slashing damage (Brawling Gloves, Ivy Wraps, Vorpal Strikes) do not qualify.

Yeah, the fact that Ninja poison doesn't work on undead and works only on cannith crafted shuriken is definitely annoying; while I don't need another shuriken build, having a ranged option is always useful. What's the one exception, druid wolf form?

I'm definitely leaning towards the quarterstaff user; it's a lot more synergistic with henshin mystic, which is in turn more synergistic with divine crusader.