Monk Quarterstaff Non-Elemental Attacks? Yikes!

So I’ve been playing Ice Strike / Charged Staff (clear) add bell and mantra for bossing Chalupa monk and wanted to try something different.

The physical skills caught my eye especially the spin2w…lose move and staggering palm. Also tried the slam ability to try and get a daze/stun thing going.

Even after respecing my tree and burning some greater jeweler orbs I couldn’t get anything to work. I went back to what I assume to be the meta build for my chalupa monk.

My question is: Do I suck at making builds? Or are the non elemental Qstaff skills super weak?

Had almost exactly the same experience on Chmonk. Even tried all archer and crossbow skills. Pure physical damage builds are non existant aside warrior ascendancies at this point in the game. It sux...

All according to design. Even in POE 1, physical damage is infinitely weaker than elemental. If you don't go at least half elemental you're basically gimping yourself.

I have no idea why GGG hates certain game mechanics so much: minions (this one is debatable though. Because while good enough it still pales in comparison to their favorite mechanics...broken skills that 1 shot bosses), physical damage, melee to name a few

It's due to your starting class/tree location.

Staff moves are focused on elemental damage (the good ones) but more importantly you get crap for physical/damage increasing nodes on the left side of the tree.

IF you start as a warrior instead of a monk, but use the staff, everything is better lol.

The difference is HUGE in how much physical/melee/two handed damage nodes you get, and that, because of how ice strike etc work, means you do a crap ton of elemental damage.

At the same time, even your normal staff attack can do a ton of physical and stun buildup because you have such a huge base modifier (I'm talking 1000% vs 100% on the east side).

That lets you use things like bleed/poison well if you want on an attack, and the support that adds 35% more physical damage etc.

You STILL use mainly ice strike, it just does WAY more damage and you shatter everything lol, but you also can do very high armor break/stun build up and heavy stuns. If you go titan as your ascendency you get 50% more on small nodes (boosting that physical damage bonus even higher) and you get crushing blow etc letting you heavy stun way easier/faster, and do 40% more damage to heavy stunned enemies.

Monk class has it's own strengths, you can get high eshield and evasion (with acrobatics) VERY high/fast attack speed (warrior gets....10%? I think attack speed from the tree at most), but yeah, in general warrior location has a ton more damage that makes physical shine, but converts with monk staff attacks to more elemental as well.

I guess you've missed the point. The skills convert almost all damage to ele no matter which passives you pick. The only thing you can do is go around with default weapon attack but why then any skills matter at all?

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lupasvasile#5385 wrote:

All according to design. Even in POE 1, physical damage is infinitely weaker than elemental. If you don't go at least half elemental you're basically gimping yourself.

I have no idea why GGG hates certain game mechanics so much: minions (this one is debatable though. Because while good enough it still pales in comparison to their favorite mechanics...broken skills that 1 shot bosses), physical damage, melee to name a few

You still could make decent phys damage build in POE 1. And there were 100% phys damage skills as an option.

Two things I have to say.

First, Whirlwind assault can be especially good when paired with one (or multiple) Bells. Whirlwind is not the best at damage by itself but it attacks very fast per second and triggers bells a lot. + you can have multiple bell gems and that can get verry efficient.

Secendly, a physical skill everyone seems to ignore is Siphoning Strike. That thing has VERY good DPS and absolutely no conversion to elemental damage. Jut make sure you don't hit shocked target or you'll get that slow animation of the shockwave. But seriously that thing hits very hards with no conversion, and lets you dash to targets, which is quite nice. Only downside is it is single target but guess what ? BELLS

The biggest hurdle to make phys quarterstaves skills works is that they have hard-coded attack speed limit. They can't be lowered to the level of Ice Strike or Tempest Flurry, and their damage are meh. The phys skills were designed to be a complimentary / utility skills which is completely crap and a waste of development time because why would players incorporate such playstyle that not only can make themselves killed but also eating up resources (passive points, skill slot, support gems), when they can just straight up eliminate threats with their main skill. Staggering palm ? Enemies die before they are stunned. Vaulting impact ? You are a defenseless target while in animation. Windblast ? Really ?

Why would I use whirling assault or any of those phys based quarterstaves skills that deals no damage, horrible attack speed, non-existent stun gauge built up, when I can just use Ice Strike that not only its quick, actually deals damage, and can freeze the enemy ?

Base attacks can be very strong for any of the weapons and I usually have them set up for something specific (often 2 things, one for each weapon slot).

They have full attack speed bonuses, and a very large damage bonus based on their level (and +skill level bonuses affect them).

They are exceedingly great with attack speed support and other supports that add alot of damage but increase the mana cost, because they are free, no increase in cost, and you can use it as fast as you want because.....no mana cost.

You CAN add elemental damage with infusions to them, and in the past I have even done that to freeze/explode enemies by putting cold infusions and build up on a normal attack. Bows get ice shot, q-staff gets ice strike so don't need it (and you can use one of those in an alt weapon slot if you are primarly using something else, just for the ice damage), but I didn't always do that early on, so I would use an xbow normal attack with ice infusion + herald of ice to blow everything up.

But more importantly you don't HAVE to add any elemental damage to your base attack, you can boost base physical damage with the 35% more physical support on it that removes elemental/chaos damage, and you can add stun build up, poison/bleed whatever you want to it, all with absolutely no cost.

Works for EVERY weapon type, and is quite strong.

I strongly suggest no matter what weapon you use that at the minimum you have a strong ice attack and strong stun buildup attack, the combo is just too good to pass up.

Q-staff has ice/thunder covered with skills, but physical? Base q-staff attack has a high damage multiplier already, no mana cost lets you use the most expensive supports and attack as fast as you possibly can.

Base q-staff for stuns, ice strike for freeze, bell for the heck of it (you don't need it, but why not) and you are pretty much done.

Go warrior/titan so you get all the yummy damage, high eshield, very high eshield recharge, decent armor (which does help keep you alive even end game vs normal physical attacks by enemies), max rage over 50 (and very easy to build it up/keep it up) and crushing blow allowing you to heavy stun everything twice as fast (while already doing so fast) and then get 40% more damage vs heavy stunned enemies.

It is easy mode.

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Hadson1403#6408 wrote:

Two things I have to say.

First, Whirlwind assault can be especially good when paired with one (or multiple) Bells. Whirlwind is not the best at damage by itself but it attacks very fast per second and triggers bells a lot. + you can have multiple bell gems and that can get verry efficient.

Secendly, a physical skill everyone seems to ignore is Siphoning Strike. That thing has VERY good DPS and absolutely no conversion to elemental damage. Jut make sure you don't hit shocked target or you'll get that slow animation of the shockwave. But seriously that thing hits very hards with no conversion, and lets you dash to targets, which is quite nice. Only downside is it is single target but guess what ? BELLS

Have you tried siphoning strike and whirl? Or you've just read the skill descripton?