Thoughts on Honor mode class setup

[Banelord]

So the goal here is to make a 1st turn killer, who always acts 1st in turn and is able to melt a boss in 1st turn on Honor mode.

We are talking minmaxing here, no RP et cetera.

The idea is to make a Monk/fighter/rogue, as , in theory, the ideal combo for this, as a first character, and am considering a sorcerer/warlock as my second player character.

Here is a breakdown ofd the first.

Core Class Combination: Monk/Fighter/Rouge

Starting abilities: 10, 17, 15, 8, 15, 8 (2 in DEX 1 in WIS)

Monk (Primary Class):
Subclass: Way of the Open Hand (combar options).
Key Features: Flurry of Blows, Stunning Strike, Evasion

Fighter (Secondary Class):
Levels: At least 2 levels for Action Surge
Subclass: Champion for improved critical hit chance.

Rogue (Tertiary Class):
Levels: At least 3 levels for Sneak Attack bonus damage
Subclass: Assassin for automatic critical hits against surprised creatures

Race: Wood Elf or Half-Elf: For Dexterity and Wisdom bonuses+fey ancestry

Abilities and Feats
Primary Stats: Dexterity and Wisdom (for Monk abilities and AC).
Feats:
Mobile: Increase speed and avoid opportunity attacks
Alert: Gain a bonus to initiative, critical in getting the first strike

Gear
Weapons:
Monk Weapons: simple weapons to leverage Martial Arts

Armor:
items that boost Dex and Wis

Accessories:
Amulet of Health: increases Con
Bracers of Defense: increase AC
Boots of Speed: double movement speed (positioning)

Spells and Abilities
Stunning Strike (Monk): To incapacitate the boss, making it vulnerable to further attacks
Ki-Empowered Strikes (Monk): Ensures teh attacks count as magical for overcoming resistance
Flurry of Blows (Monk): For additional attacks

Please comment if there is a better Honor mode god tier setup than this, I am bit of rusty.

[Iron Reaper]

Idk if pure fighter is going to outperform barbarian with rogue thief and champion multiclass.. pretty sure getting 4 throws per round (3 + action surge 1st round) is going to be king, plus he has range

By end game sure with 6 + action surge but that’s lv11 I think

[Rachel Dawn Amber]

hold person spells makes you 100% crit within 3m, so always crit monk is better

[Kaisha]

Pally, monk, bard, life cleric is probably going to be better.

Fighters are good early but start to fall off later on. Monks are squishier early game, but really pull ahead once the levels come in. Either way you need a reliable prone, so it's either battle master or OH Monk.

In fact prone is probably the most necessary thing in honor mode, since near every boss's legendary actions are shut down when prone.

Bards >> rogues (and pretty much anything else) for pure damage/crit builds. So much so that they can solo honor mode without much issue.

And pallys can nuke bosses better than anyone (till they run out of smites), and pretty much every boss fight can be solved by just 'delete boss in 1 turn' and ignore all mechanics.

I loved my life cleric, though it's not strictly 'necessary'. When things can go wrong they can easily carry a bad turn (or 3). I completely fcked up Ansur and Grym on my honor mode run and SHart spamming AOE heals easily pulled me through some really dumb plays on my part. On top of that feast + aid is a ton of hp, and she has solid summons/aoe while still being able to spam heals.

Barbs are good, but I prefer eagle/tiger to throwing barb. Eagle is amazing early game (till about level 6) and Tiger scales well into late and is the only class in the entire game that can actually tank. Also Balduran's sword + Tiger barb is stupid...

[Banelord]

Originally posted by Kaisha:

Pally, monk, bard, life cleric is probably going to be better.

Fighters are good early but start to fall off later on. Monks are squishier early game, but really pull ahead once the levels come in. Either way you need a reliable prone, so it's either battle master or OH Monk.

In fact prone is probably the most necessary thing in honor mode, since near every boss's legendary actions are shut down when prone.

Bards >> rogues (and pretty much anything else) for pure damage/crit builds. So much so that they can solo honor mode without much issue.

And pallys can nuke bosses better than anyone (till they run out of smites), and pretty much every boss fight can be solved by just 'delete boss in 1 turn' and ignore all mechanics.

I loved my life cleric, though it's not strictly 'necessary'. When things can go wrong they can easily carry a bad turn (or 3). I completely fcked up Ansur and Grym on my honor mode run and SHart spamming AOE heals easily pulled me through some really dumb plays on my part. On top of that feast + aid is a ton of hp, and she has solid summons/aoe while still being able to spam heals.

Barbs are good, but I prefer eagle/tiger to throwing barb. Eagle is amazing early game (till about level 6) and Tiger scales well into late and is the only class in the entire game that can actually tank. Also Balduran's sword + Tiger barb is stupid...

People are talking quite a lot about "throwing" barbs. Whats in that do you know? How are they powerful exactly?

[Rachel Dawn Amber]

Originally posted by Banelord:

Originally posted by Kaisha:

Pally, monk, bard, life cleric is probably going to be better.

Fighters are good early but start to fall off later on. Monks are squishier early game, but really pull ahead once the levels come in. Either way you need a reliable prone, so it's either battle master or OH Monk.

In fact prone is probably the most necessary thing in honor mode, since near every boss's legendary actions are shut down when prone.

Bards >> rogues (and pretty much anything else) for pure damage/crit builds. So much so that they can solo honor mode without much issue.

And pallys can nuke bosses better than anyone (till they run out of smites), and pretty much every boss fight can be solved by just 'delete boss in 1 turn' and ignore all mechanics.

I loved my life cleric, though it's not strictly 'necessary'. When things can go wrong they can easily carry a bad turn (or 3). I completely fcked up Ansur and Grym on my honor mode run and SHart spamming AOE heals easily pulled me through some really dumb plays on my part. On top of that feast + aid is a ton of hp, and she has solid summons/aoe while still being able to spam heals.

Barbs are good, but I prefer eagle/tiger to throwing barb. Eagle is amazing early game (till about level 6) and Tiger scales well into late and is the only class in the entire game that can actually tank. Also Balduran's sword + Tiger barb is stupid...

People are talking quite a lot about "throwing" barbs. Whats in that do you know? How are they powerful exactly?

monk > throwing barb, it's just tavern brawler. and in tactician mode, damage stacks more for throwing barb

[Banelord]

Originally posted by Rachel Dawn Amber:

Originally posted by Banelord:

People are talking quite a lot about "throwing" barbs. Whats in that do you know? How are they powerful exactly?

monk > throwing barb, it's just tavern brawler. and in tactician mode, damage stacks more for throwing barb

Ye this is how I figure, was just wondering is there some kind of game breaking mechanism behind throwing that I could use to cheeze my way to win. When I put numbers on teh paper, they speak for monk heavily compared to a barb.

[Kaisha]

Originally posted by Banelord:

People are talking quite a lot about "throwing" barbs. Whats in that do you know? How are they powerful exactly?

Early game you combine 'ring of fling', Gloves of Uninhibited Kushigo, and the returning pike (all Act 1 items) with Tavern Brawler feat. Usually they are also cheesing/spamming strength elixirs (robbing Ethel, using multiple level-ups and other cheese/exploits to refresh vendors) so that the TB feat gets huge returns. Without the strength elixir spam, it's not much better than other builds IMHO.

I prefer Eagle Barb because I like to have a front line, the damage is similar (a bit better without elixir spam, a bit worse with), and you have stupid mobility.

Tiger outscales all late game. It blows past fighter, rogues, and is on par with OH Monks (provided there are multiple targets to hit).

[Kaisha]

The problem with monk is they are stupid squishy. Their good gear doesn't come till WAY late in the game. Act 1/2 you're using rogue 'hand-me-downs' and the like. Barbs can stay in the fray and are pretty much invincible once you get the Skinburster.

The real strength of monk in honor mode is prone/cc/burst damage. Also having a reliable lockpick :)

[Banelord]

Originally posted by Kaisha:

Originally posted by Banelord:

People are talking quite a lot about "throwing" barbs. Whats in that do you know? How are they powerful exactly?

Early game you combine 'ring of fling', Gloves of Uninhibited Kushigo, and the returning pike (all Act 1 items) with Tavern Brawler feat. Usually they are also cheesing/spamming strength elixirs (robbing Ethel, using multiple level-ups and other cheese/exploits to refresh vendors) so that the TB feat gets huge returns. Without the strength elixir spam, it's not much better than other builds IMHO.

I prefer Eagle Barb because I like to have a front line, the damage is similar (a bit better without elixir spam, a bit worse with), and you have stupid mobility.

Tiger outscales all late game. It blows past fighter, rogues, and is on par with OH Monks (provided there are multiple targets to hit).

Oh man ! This is interesting, I will do some research around this for sure^^

[Banelord]

Originally posted by Kaisha:

The problem with monk is they are stupid squishy. Their good gear doesn't come till WAY late in the game. Act 1/2 you're using rogue 'hand-me-downs' and the like. Barbs can stay in the fray and are pretty much invincible once you get the Skinburster.

The real strength of monk in honor mode is prone/cc/burst damage. Also having a reliable lockpick :)

Perhaps my goal is a bit ambitious, cos it revolves around a build of 2 player characters that are meant to end it all in turn 1 mostly. This thing with throwing seems interesting during the early levels for that excat reason - do not let the enemy act, throw something OP on their head instead xD

[Kaisha]

Don't overthink it and just play whatever you'll have fun with. As long as you have a spammable prone, you'll be fine. It's not much harder than tactician.