Why is Chalupa Monk so poorly designed? Suggestions on how to improve.

I actually like the class and I have a lot of builds I want to try with it, just none of them use Quarterstaff :-D I guess there is a reason Chalupa is the least played ascendancy among the top sc ladder players. Well.

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Xenus_Paradox#7530 wrote:

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The_Song#4903 wrote:

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Xenus_Paradox#7530 wrote:

What skills are you using that don't convert most of your damage to elemental?

One could choose to use maces, and I imagine once released dagger and sword will be better than maces for monk.

In the meantime I've been using the wind and chaos quarterstaff skills.
If something is to be called my main damage so far, it would either be the bell buffed by Mantra of Destruction, or the projectiles from Staggering Palm.
At some point I'll see if I can't beat them out with Flicker or Whirling

But... What are you using for DPS filler/combo builder? Mace skills require investment in strength and you're already doing int/dex...

Are you seriously using Wind Blast as your main DPS ability?

Best dps for phys quarterstaff is whirling strike -> bell - whirling strike -> bell forever.

It is boring but it 'works'.

Wind blast is super slow but at least you can attkspeed scale it better than whirling strike and it give you some range and mobility so it is better defensively than whirling strike. Unfortunately, it doesnt build combo so you cannot easily windblast with bell.

I'd honestly say that Chalupa Monk should be played with either bow or crossbow poison instead of melee. But even then, I'd rather play witch-hunter or pathfinder for a phys/poison build.

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fouquet#0993 wrote:

Best dps for phys quarterstaff is whirling strike -> bell - whirling strike -> bell forever.

It is boring but it 'works'.

Wind blast is super slow but at least you can attkspeed scale it better than whirling strike and it give you some range and mobility so it is better defensively than whirling strike. Unfortunately, it doesnt build combo so you cannot easily windblast with bell.

I'd honestly say that Chalupa Monk should be played with either bow or crossbow poison instead of melee. But even then, I'd rather play witch-hunter or pathfinder for a phys/poison build.

That sounds absolutely fucking miserable. I would legitimately rather just use the basic quarterstaff attack at that point.

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Xenus_Paradox#7530 wrote:

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fouquet#0993 wrote:

Best dps for phys quarterstaff is whirling strike -> bell - whirling strike -> bell forever.

It is boring but it 'works'.

Wind blast is super slow but at least you can attkspeed scale it better than whirling strike and it give you some range and mobility so it is better defensively than whirling strike. Unfortunately, it doesnt build combo so you cannot easily windblast with bell.

I'd honestly say that Chalupa Monk should be played with either bow or crossbow poison instead of melee. But even then, I'd rather play witch-hunter or pathfinder for a phys/poison build.

That sounds absolutely fucking miserable. I would legitimately rather just use the basic quarterstaff attack at that point.

It is worse than you think because whirling strike is buggy af with the namelocking. Also Vaulting Impact is probably the single buggiest skill in the game. You cannot aim it and if your staff strike ends up in terrain or off map (out of your control) the aoe shows but deals no damage (and it still consumes fist of war).


Phys staff skills in general feels awful to play. I cannot recommend it at all.

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Xenus_Paradox#7530 wrote:

The problem is 100% that monk doesn't have any decent physical DPS skills.

For the leech aspect of the subclass, that's certainly true. The overall issue is that Chayula as a whole has nothing Chaos-tagged to grab onto for a coherent build. Quarterstaff gives a plethora of powerful elemental options to Invoker and two gimmick skills for Chayula. The monk's tree has no Chaos identity other than being adjacent to Witch. There are no good support skills for the playstyle.

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LeFlesh#9979 wrote:

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Xenus_Paradox#7530 wrote:

The problem is 100% that monk doesn't have any decent physical DPS skills.

For the leech aspect of the subclass, that's certainly true. The overall issue is that Chayula as a whole has nothing Chaos-tagged to grab onto for a coherent build. Quarterstaff gives a plethora of powerful elemental options to Invoker and two gimmick skills for Chayula. The monk's tree has no Chaos identity other than being adjacent to Witch. There are no good support skills for the playstyle.

Yup, the only other option for chaos/phys is poison scaling which is nearby in the tree but the phys quarterstaff skills have anti-synergy with poison (needs big hits to matter) and pathfinder or hell even witch hunter has a better time applying poisons.

My initial build was going to be poisons, then I read the other classes and realized they would do everything better.

Getting my 4th ascendancy with my invoker... Yeah. Invoker really did get all the presents and Acolyte of Chayula is like the step child GGG didn't want, lol.

I'm thinking that Invoker's evasion conversion into armor should probably be a Chonk thing, though (since Chonk has a greater emphasis on physical damage), which would probably be a better cornerstone of a defensive node than Darkness. Invoker, keeping to its elemental theming, should probably have a node that converts x amount of physical damage received into elemental damage instead, I feel.

Edit: Or perhaps Chonk gets to convert physical and elemental damage taken into Chaos? That could work very well with CI, which Chonk kinda leans towards anyway.

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Xenus_Paradox#7530 wrote:

Recommendations for this branch: Add "[25-40]% of your elemental

What? No, Chayula isn't supposed to be using elemental tags, keep that away from the subclass. Invoker is the elemental monk. AoC needs Quarterstaffs/some other weapon to be given a better set of Chaos skills to work with and passives/support skills that can build around them.

I think chayula is simply going to change in the future, they said on their streams prior to EA that they just went full "R"word on chayula trying to feel out a few ideas.

Out of all ascendancies my guess is that blood mage/chayula are pretty much bound to change - blood mage might be fixed by lifesteal changes though