Acolyte of Chayula ideas

The idea of a dark monk was what really got me to buy EA and come play PoE2. So far playing the monk with my buddy has been a blast and I love how PoE2 plays, speed, quick combat, rewarding dodges and skill tree.

I was very excited when I got the chance to jump in to the Acolyte but felt some disappointment once I could see the mechanics. Now, I did play some PoE 1 and never did a lot with the game so I don't pretend to know just how the class should work or see all the math behind what it could do. I am building towards chaos damage and it is alright. But I had some ideas and being still in Early Access I thought it might be worth suggesting.

The biggest problem I see is with "darkness". I get that its fun to have an extra health bar and along with Chaos Inoculation might be a great path to the follow but it stops you from using anything that has to do with sprit and adds no visual effects and really not that much damage if you go grasp the void.

My Suggestion.

Embrace the Darkness: Works as it does now, add a visual effect to the eyes or where the eyes are to match the art that goes along with the acolyte that gives us those purple glowing eyes.

Grasp of the Void: Remove it, change it to Truth in the Lies.

Truth In The Lies: The Masters told us to keep balance in the elements, fire, lighting, ice... they seem to have left out an element...

Truth in the lies allows us to spend Darkness to use spirit effects such as Harld of ice, thunder, ghost dance and so on. They cost more than normal (maybe double it? So things that cost 30 now cost 60 and 60 skills cost 120? We do start with 100 darkness to play with) and visually they take on that chaos purple effect. If they deal damage half of the damage is now replaced with Chaos damage.

Inner Silence: Remove it, replace it with They Have Always Been Here.

They Have Always Been Here: I have my own disciples now...

They Have Always Been Here: Allows us to spend Darkness to have minions, undead, animals, solders, whatever you have or want to add to the game. Those minions now are given a black shadow like appearance replacing whatever texture you are using with a shifting smoke effect around them. What I would like to see is that they deal less damage but its chaos damage, they move MUCH faster but have far less health if targeted or hit with an AoE, they are shadow so they also don't stop other monsters from moving past them.

Darkness should feel like you are going down a dark path, you no longer trust in your soul, sprit... you are putting your faith in dark chi and gain the "rewards" of that. We should feel like we get to do something no other class can do or other monk who dared going down that path.

Into The Breach: remove the health and mana flames as they stand. Chaos flames that spawn from this should slowly come towards the player... don't make us move around in odd ways when we should be hitting something! If we hit something with Chaos damage give us a chance to break a hole in reality... a "breach" if you will ... that spawns health and mana orbs near us. Any following chaos damage can make more flames spawn and causes all of the flames around us to more quickly come to us based on how much damage we did... In other words. Chaos flames are all over the place and come to us, we make life and mana ones as we damage monsters and we cause ALL flames to come towards us when we deal chaos damage in some way.

Reality Rending is great ... might not need TWO points to get to it but its great.

Chayla's Gift is amazing.

Ravenous Doubts: leave this skill be but this idea might not be for everyone but I will make it anyway. Once we have taken this node, when we are out killing things we have a chance to spawn a "Ghostly Master" ... A blue, pure energy looking monk who stands judging you. It may even have a voice line, something like "You can turn back, you still have time." "All is not lost, inner peace young one...". This npc is a one hit kill we can flying kick right in the face! When we do so it spawns a few purple flames of chaos and maybe some mana flames also! The idea here is that we have... doubts ... as to what we have done and that follows us.

Consuming Questions: Leave the skill be, but if you liked the ghosts from Ravenous Doubts you could add to it. Now from this point we could add other voice lines like "Stop this! Don't go down this path!" "Turn back young one! NOW!" ... maybe get a few more purple flames?

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Thanks if you got this far, this is just my rant about what I would like to see for a "dark monk". As it stands the Acolyte is a great melee chaos fighter and I will have fun with it. I just wish it did not feel so basic or unimaginative. I feel like we could add to this class and make it a bit more interactive or interesting with more than just one or two plays styles