I think I might give Munkenmo's build a go when adding melee lives; it sounds like fun.  Cheers for the thread 

my gearset at 18 now.

Robes : Blue Dragon
Goggles : CHA skills sp (haste clicky) / true seeing of blindness immunity yellow slot (fear immunity)
Helmet : flexible cannith crafted +4 constitution greater false life colorless slot (+5 dex)
Necklace : torc / Golden Guile
Trinket : Voice
Cloak : Hp min 2
Belt : Spare Hand (level 16)
Ring 1: Holy Burst Kyrians Band
Ring 2: Stalker ring (lvl 16)
Gloves : Fabricators Gauntlets
Boots : Rock Boots (lvl 16)
Bracers : Bracers of Wind (lvl 16)

Weapons
Alchemical Kama - silver - air / air
Greensteel Kama - Con op 6str / 20 heal amp / 30 heal amp
Greensteel Kama - Min 2
Tharaak Wraps
Mabar Wraps (level 16)
 

I used to feel like i was slipping behind the power curve at level 18. The kamas have completely changed that.

With the heal amp I've got now, i'd not bother with empower heal, and on feat starved classes i'll drop all magical meta's.

Darkrok wrote on May 14^th, 2013 at 10:13am:


No problem, once i get more tomes on this guy, I'll end up making it as a +4 dex / gfl helm, with +5 con slotted.

Before i made this, I was swapping out my fabricators for dex, and using  a nightshield clicky.

This new solution evens out my stats quite nicely with much less hassle.

Ok, I'm dumping my plan of farming xp on this life as I managed to snag an Otto's Box and I burnt some TP on a Sov elixir...going to TR rq tonight and burn my way back to 8 to use the stone on a monk life. I just couldn't stand the slower run speed of the fighter version when I thought about how much faster the monk version would be...probably end up saving time on the overall capping of the ED's just on the run speed alone.

I finished building out the Dronk version of this and obviously we no longer need the Monk Dilettante once we hit level 18 and have 7 monk levels. Those open up the natural monk amp. That gives me a couple really strong dilettante choices - Cleric and Rogue.

Cleric would give me the 95% heal scrolls w/o worrying about UMD gear, charisma score, etc. That said, I'd still have all that stuff around anyways...I just wouldn't have to swap to it when using heal/rez scrolls. Rogue on the other hand gives that really nice 3d6 additional sneak damage.

Anyone played this enough at cap to comment on whether the cleric or rogue would play better?

Anyone have any idea how Celestia would interact with wolf form? I'm assuming that all the properties on the weapon would function normally but it would still do slashing/piercing damage rather than light damage unless you left wolf form but is that correct?

I'm loving the haste boost from Dreadnaught now. Since I didn't need Momentum Swing I picked up Versatility IV and did Haste Boost III from LD and extra action boost III as well. Being able to pop off 2:40 of 30% haste boost/25% damage boost back-to-back is just sick. That change alone has amped up what this toon can do from decent to outstanding.

I'm starting to work out the gear for this at 25. Here's what I've come up with so far:

Helm: Black Dragon (Green/Colorless or Green/Yellow depending on difficulty)
Necklace: Con-opp sp/wizardvi or (epic) golden guile. I feel much less 'needy' when it comes to improved deception because of unbalancing strike but could still see times on bosses where a swap to GG would make sense. Slot if I make it epic would be a great spot for spell points.
Goggles: Tharnes/Yellow Slotted Deathward Blindness Ward of True Seeing
Trinket: Idol of Fortune/Upgraded Head of Good Fortune (depending on ring slot and whether I need the yellow/colorless slots on the Idol)
Robe: Black Dragon (Blue Slot)
Cloak: Earthgrab Guard GS hp item (have it made, just need cleansing stone), Level 20 Cloak of Night (would love the 24 when/if Mabar comes back)
Bracers: T3 Epic Bracers of Wind (Yellow/Colorless Slot)
Belt: T3 Epic Spare Hand (Blue/Colorless Slot)
Ring1: T3 Epic Ring of the Stalker (Yellow/Colorless Slot)
Ring2: Swap based on enemies/situation. I have Holy Burst ToD ring (the 6wis/1str one), Shocking Burst ToD ring (6str/1con), and want to get a Dun Robar ring with 10 vertigo. Given how much of my damage comes from unbalancing strike this is a high priority item and will be on most of the time. A second Dun Robar ring with 10 stunning would be very helpful as well. I could see situations where stalker would come off but they'd be few and far between as that's where we're getting our exc. sneak and our seeker.
Boots: Halcyon Boots (Yellow/Colorless Slots)
Gloves: Gauntlets of Immortality (Yellow/Colorless Slots)

Stats will obviously depend greatly on the version of the helm and dunrobar ring(s) I get but there's plenty of colorless slots here to fit in everything stat-wise. We've got 3 blue/green slots and have gear with heavy fort already so we can slot False Life, Resist, and PRR all 3. I'd consider prowess trinket but it's a tough call - it locks us into Antipodes for the bonus and it means slotting Heavy Fort somewhere else so we lose either False Life, Resist, or PRR with this gear set.

We have so many yellow/colorless slots that we can afford to slot pretty much everything in those (at least once we get the comm's to unlock them all). Honestly though we don't need much. We'll have the stats from the helm and the dun'robar ring. Halcyon covers the dex. If we find we're not swapping very often to golden guile we have 6 wisdom on our necklace. This build definitely benefits a ton from the +1 exc. to all stats trinket. We've got a lot of colorless slot but not enough to slot that many +1's as well as covering +2's/+7's in some stats. Slotting resistances besides acid would be extremely helpful as well. We don't have Toughness in our main setup so the next update will definitely help - we can slot it in a colorless slot.

As far as weapons go I could see wanting to snag a celestia regardless of how it works in form. Rebellion could be a nice one as well to pair with a healing amp kama. As I mentioned in my previous post though wraps should be our main basis with a focus on extra damage die. The EE Adamantine Knuckles slotted with some additional damage types would be great for unstunnable enemies/boss fights because of the extra 1.5[w] on them and the extra damage we can slot. Grave Wrappings would be our main option though.

I could see the argument for going a different direction than the black dragon set but in my mind this build gets SO much damage from a superior crit profile (equivalent to khopeshes) and sneak attack damage that it's hard to pass up getting as much armor pen/fort bypass as you can.

New things I learned:

• Spider Spun Caparison is amazeballs. Seriously...you couldn't create a better item for monk itemization and not have it unbalanced. I need every single stat on this thing and I can almost never say that about good items with hard to find abilities like enhanced ki or reinforced fists. I loved it my last time in epic levels as a pure monk but you really learn to appreciate it when itemization becomes harder on a hybrid.
• Cannith crafting may not be the end all/be all but it can certainly fill in gaps in gear really well.
• On a wisdom-based toon with sneak attack damage that's already built for tripping unbalancing strike is phenomenal. I redid my enhancements to fit in Human Versatility IV and part of that rebuild included putting in unbalancing strike (hadn't done it before since I had just picked up Monk 6 when I stoned). I'm taking down sneak-vulnerable but stun immune enemies SO much faster now it's ridiculous.
• I can't stress this last one enough - LD Haste Boost III + HV IV Damage Boost + Unbalancing Strike or Improved Deception = Dead Bosses. Really dead. Doing level 23 Picture Portals/Moving Targets last night to completely upgrade my epic bracer of wind and was blown away with the fights against Crystal and Rushmore. I'd wait for the water to spawn, drop it with ToD and unboosted melee, then boost while switching targets to the boss. 1 or 2 boosts and the fight was over. I'm not sure if I killed them that fast on my caster...probably did but usually I'd just stack eladrins/niacs and while it's more reliable it does take a bit longer. And dropping the other bosses was a joke - they died before 1 boost even ran out.

The new trinkets make all the difference in the world for difficult content. I now feel like I can comfortably heal through anything short of EE's. I might have to go air stance to do it in a sustainable/non-hastepot chugging fashion but I've got 9 minutes or so of haste clickies too so that's not too bad on the tougher spots where I'd still want water stance. Now that my bracer is finished I feel like I could easily cap in the current gear.

Definitely 9 druid levels for quite awhile. I plan on maxing ED's on this build, possibly getting a final monk life with this build as 9/9/2 depending on timing of the expansion and how long the ED's take, and then seeing what the expansion/enh pass brings. I'm still not sold on the kama's though (but will definitely be making some as time permits to provide another option and also to pair with Rebellion if I'm lucky enough to get it). Obviously would DEFINITELY want them if I TR again but once you start getting up into the 4[w]+ range while running wraps versus 1[w] max when running kama's (since the [w] doesn't apply when in form and not using wraps)...that's a lot of damage left on the table to get kama's.

The con-opp SP on the necklace was the best option I had at the time given what I had available gear-wise. If I get the opportunity to do so I'll make another that's con-opp hp as I agree that would work much better. I haven't shroud flagged yet this life as I'm focused on making full use of the 15% xp bonus (just TR'd Thursday night and hit 22 last night) but I'm going to be running quite a bit of shroud to get set up with some displacement clickies, probably 1 more haste clicky, another cleansing stone or two this life, and a better setup with a con-opp hp item cleansed. Necklace definitely seems like the best spot for that as a balance between leveling value and cap value. Oh, and making the kamas for leveling future lives on this build and for maxing out healing amp when needed on this life.

3-piece abishai set is nice as well. I doubt I'll ever end up with that as I'm a hater on Chrono but it would work well. You're right that having the kama's for healing amp is important regardless of the gear setup as none of the ideal gear at cap has healing amp on it. I just can't see running it full time but there are definitely situations you'd want to swap to it. I'm thinking in those situations the best weapon to pair with it would be Rebellion. Fully upgraded it's +8 Enhancement Bonus, Rebellion (ALL threat -25%, on crit 13-78 piercing), Sneak Attack Bonus +5 (nice if you don't have Tharne's), bibs-Piercing - 20% (really nice if you don't want to run black dragon bibs), Improved Deception, and a Red Augment Slot which could be slotted devotion if you don't go with the gloves. The best part about slotting devotion there is that it's then a +8 spellcasting implement giving you an additional 24 universal spell power. There are certainly other options in that red slot but given that we can offhand whatever metal kama we want and cast whatever align fang we need to beat almost every DR imaginable I can't imagine passing up on that unless we're using the Gauntlets of Immortality. Once you get those it's easy to swap to a damage-based augment.

Honestly Rebellion would be the one key item that would make me rethink the black dragon bibs. With Rebellion equipped you're then only getting a blue slot, 3% double strike, 40 acid resist, and 5% damage boost for 30 seconds after kills assuming you're using the black dragon helm.

If we're going with SS/Kama setup then we'd get nothing from the caparison's reinforced fists as well. I'm thinking in that setup you'd almost want to go Blue Dragon bibs/Helm. You'd get Major Arcane Lore, 80 potency, 15 artifact bonus to universal SP, and 40 elec resist instead of acid. I think that just edges out the double-strike and damage boost from black assuming you're getting your bibs piercing by always using Rebellion/off-hand kama (either con-opp amp or a metal-based dr-breaker).

The blue dragon set lends itself better to the 3-piece abishai set and rebellion/kama. I do really like the boots from FoT though - proc'ing 15 temp sp's would be really nice for firing off an unmeta'd Greater Vigor though 5% proc-rate isn't overly exciting. Would be really nice for lower diff's and not very attractive in EE's.

I completely agree with the wrist slot as a nice spot for swapping to GS. Nothing on the bracers of wind will kill you while you have it swapped off (well...other than that it's my featherfall slot at the moment but that's another story). I just happened to have the cloaks already crafted for my clickies.

Now, I doubt this will be my final life. I don't think this build will be particularly attractive post-enh update. That said, I'll be here quite awhile I think so definitely worth getting the gear to make it work well. And I hadn't thought about it yet but I'll be farming up a Wolf Cloak as well. Given that I'm currently running mabar cloak there (and until I have to drop my gs hp boots) I'd get a lot of use out of swapping away from mabar when appropriate. Level 20 mabar's really nice...that 5/good dr takes the sting out of non-EE hits...but running EE's the PRR from a Wolf Cloak would far outstrip that 5/good dr.

Here's an extreme version of that tree

Basically we take the pre-req's for EiN and building up to EiN (all the petals), the pre-req for 3% double-strike (0.5[w] damage), and we get 6% total dodge along with +5 wisdom. If you don't need the last point of wisdom you could add 1 more [w] in its place or 10% armor piercing, though on this build we're really aiming for trash...the [w] would be more useful. If you know that one save or another will be critical in what you're going to run a lot you could spend 3 points to get that to the no-fail on a 1 status...I'm just not sure the base build's saves are high enough to get there anyway. Maybe with the right twists but even that's pushing it.

I'm kind of thinking that Warforged could be highly effective with the 9 druid/9 monk/2 fighter version of this build. Obviously we give up the dilettante which in my case means giving up 10.5 damage per sneak attack on average. We gain for the same amount of AP +2 to all tactics (and +3 for 6 more AP). We do lose 2-3 wisdom so the net effect on tactics would be +0.5 or +1.5. In addition we gain 25% fortification and the ability to leave form to get reconstructed and be immune to negative levels.

The big drawback to being a forged though - the loss of healing amp - goes away in wolf form. We get the best of both worlds...getting recon'd if we need to but having full healing amp most of the time.

tl;dr
Warforged 9 druid/9 monk/2 fighter
Pro's
Tactics line
+25% fortification
+2 to 3 con
Can be reconstructed/neg level immune when desired
Can use docents

Con's
-2 to 3 wisdom
-10.5 sneak damage on average
Can't use any robes you've saved up

Post-enhancement Pass

I think this gets even more interesting with what Warforged have coming in the enhancement pass. Being in wolf form will allow you to mitigate healing penalties for free. That frees up points to do things like +3 tactics, +3 power attack damage, +3 will saves, and +3 fort saves. I think that works out where you would have enough points spent to get 75% extra fort and +1 con for a relatively small investment of AP (about 15 overall).

It's the fort that really does it for me on that build. I basically have Brace for Impact locked into a twist for EE's. 125% isn't enough and would require me swapping to sub-optimal gear. 140% still sees the occasional crit sneak in. 175% though is outstanding. That should protect from crits in all but the nastiest of situations and we can still twist in Brace for Impact in those cases.

I read it all because I have no life but who the fuck cares about what works in EH ?
There are other boards with retards "advice" for that.