Physical Monk/Hand of Chuyula Feels Half Baked And Underpowered

So I have no complaints about elemental monk. I leveled originally as a lightning monk until I finally got a whirling assault gem, and the playstyle there is perfect, and the Invoker feels like a fantastic Dex/Int take on PoE1's Inquisitor for elemental melee. This is completely about a wind/physical/"chaos" monk, and how much I regret picking up Disciple of Chuyula because I felt like it would be a return to the PoE 1.0 glory days of Vaal Pact Ghost Reaver.

Leech Is Incredibly Inconsistent
Finally swapping into Hand of Chuyula was filled with highs and lows where I thought it was coming together, immediately followed by fights where it seemed entirely useless. I've heard that Leech resistance is a thing, and if so, its overturned, badly implemented, and entirely sporadic with how its used. I had some boss fights where it seemed to be working just fine - whirling assault would leech quite a bit of my ES back with my 'decent' physical staff. However, against other bosses - like the one in the Molten Vault - it would do NOTHING. Its not as bad as it is on the Blood Mage, just because at the very least we're not burning health for spells that fail to make the investment return, but suddenly feeling like a core part of your defenses fails to materialize because of something arbitrarily and outside of your control is soul crushing.

There Is Very Little Support For A Physical Monk
In particular, a life saver for my warrior has been armor break. This is doubly important for Whirling Assault, because Whirling Assault does a lot (~9-10 at least) of very little damaging hits (80% damage effectiveness at level 1). Armor, if it functions like it did in PoE1, is much more effective at mitigating small damage hits than larger damage hits. So, arguably, armor break is even MORE important for a monk.

The Warrior gets a skill that, especially after some buffs like double duration, can break armor in a few hits, and allow you to get some nice damage in before refreshing it or slapping it back up. There is no such skill for the Physical Monk, and I can't think of a skill I'd slap the support gem to do it on - as the damage loss from swapping in it likely won't balance the armor break. My initial thought was to use the Curse-application unarmed skill with Vulnerability to reduce their armor. But its a token amount, single target, and worse, has such a short duration that its basically only good for one whirling spin before it runs out. To make it worse, investing between both Dexterity and Intelligence means I can't keep Vulnerability as high level as my other skills, doubly reducing the amount of Armor it can shred for me.

I LIKE the flavor of applying curses over just getting an Armor Break skill, but the curse duration and effect debuff needs to GO. Its not like the skill does amazing damage as a single target unarmed strike, after all, its just a flavorful way to apply a curse that's not a spellcast. If anything, it should probably have an increased duration of the curse, because...

The Whirling Assault "Rotation" Is Not Enjoyable
Beyond the issues Whirling Assault has in its janky movement (you can't redirect it or stand still, something you can do with rolling slam. Even Vault doesn't allow it irrc, which doesn't help Physical Monk not feel like an after thought in comparison), its playstyle isn't very dynamic. Whirling Assault combos amazingly well with Mantra of Destruction, which is good for the Physical/Chaos Hand of Chuyula vibe. But effectively every fight turns into Whirling Assault -> Bell -> Mantra -> Whirling Assault, repeat. Maybe a hand to reply a curse if I want to bother with feeling like I'm doing something. It does pretty decent damage against packs of mobs, but in comparison to how you build up charges to buff with Charged Staff into Tempest Flurry and Falling Thunder, felt very boring.

Secondly, its hard to escape the fact that Whirling Assault feels less good on its own, and more a vehicle to use other abilities that buff it. It calls out for a Cast on X set up, but spells don't seem to have the same effectiveness for HoC as they do for Invoker. This leads into feeling 'compelled' to try and stack as many buffs like Mantra and Bell as you can on it. Staggering Palm also feels odd with it, because your projectiles will shoot out in all directions even if its only a single target like a boss. Which is odd; I can get more Staggering Palm projectiles slamming into a boss via Tempest Flurry than I can Whirling Assault - whose primary schtick is fast attacks!

The DPS tool tip also seems to not be working appropriate for itly. The DPS number doesn't change even with the More Attack Speed support gem, which I hope works considering the skill gives Attack Speed as a Quality effect.

The Entire Ascendancy Feels Lackluster
The most powerful aspect of the Ascendancy, and which draw my interest, is the Instant ES Leech - which is a flip of the coin on if its going to be rewarding or useless depending on the mob you're facing because of the Leech Resistance mechanic. However, to get to it, you have to put four points into the tree AND get leech from your gear, because there is no sources of Mana Leech from the ascendancy OR your passive tree. At all. This is one less rune, modifier, or support gem that you could be using for damage or defenses. Conversely, two points into Invoker, I get to ignore elemental resistance for my critical hits, or double my ES and its recharge, or get more spirit, etc.

The Breech is flavorful, but beyond when you're struggling to sustain early in the campaign because you don't know what you're doing, its kind of pointless. 6 seconds isn't long enough to feel rewarding for gobbling up the purple flames, and the mana or health leech really don't feel like they'll help you sustain through a boss fight. Theoretically, the idea is sound for an ES build, you pull away to let your ES recharge, gobble up some flames, then jump back into the fight stronger than before, but your Leech disables ES recharge and rewards sticking on a foe to leech your ES back!

The darkness mechanic also seems entirely unappetizing - assuming it can't be reserved like Spirit for gems (which I'll test when I get home, I'm assuming no at the moment). 100 extra health pool shield feels like it could be nice early on, but if my Warrior is anything to go by in maps, 600 late game that will be gone for several seconds doesn't feel like it'll do anything. MAYBE it could be useful if it was something that came after energy shield, so for a CI build its an emergency health pool. Meanwhile, this comes at the expense of all the far superior damage and defensive options Spirit Gems allows (Ghost Dancer, Wind Reader, Feast, Blasphemy, etc). None of the bonuses you can get by putting in more points, meanwhile, seem to really be worth the cost either - especially considering you'll likely not have much unreserved ES either.

That's only my thoughts without seeing it at maps while trying to use a quaterstaff for it, of course. Maybe its better as a mace Monk, or a bow monk, but that doesn't quite fit the vibes I was hoping for.

Have you tried including Eternal Youth in the build so you can chug hp flask to heal shield?

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CharAznable#7844 wrote:

Have you tried including Eternal Youth in the build so you can chug hp flask to heal shield?

That I have, its a natural since its downside is already baked in. But at that point there's not much of a difference from drinking a pot when my HP pool is low vs. my ES is low, as the sustain for certain bosses I'm meant to get from leech isn't showing up.

Its a great 'oh shi-' button, but at that point why am I not just using that on an Invoker? In fact, I probably will for my Elemental Monk.

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Amorencinteroph#4321 wrote:

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CharAznable#7844 wrote:

Have you tried including Eternal Youth in the build so you can chug hp flask to heal shield?

That I have, its a natural since its downside is already baked in. But at that point there's not much of a difference from drinking a pot when my HP pool is low vs. my ES is low, as the sustain for certain bosses I'm meant to get from leech isn't showing up.

Its a great 'oh shi-' button, but at that point why am I not just using that on an Invoker? In fact, I probably will for my Elemental Monk.

When you drink pot when hp is low normally, you only get the heal from pot + whatever leech you have for energy shield. Actual energy shield regen is stopped because of enemy attack, unless you disengaged from the enemy.
When you have Eternal Youth you get the energy shield regen on health, the heal from pot on your shield, and then leech on top of that. Because the "shield"(hp) regen isn't interrupted if only your shield is taking the hit(which it usually would be if pot is working) It's far more face-tanky that way(which is way more likely to save you, since dying typically comes from not being able to get away).
EY basically rescues your shield regen and puts it to work on hp, allowing you to basically forego hp regen/leech effects.

Also you can probably use staggering palm(as janky as it is) to trigger heavy stun + devastate support gem for armor break(I slap on break posture and armor explosion for shits and giggles).

Also maybe you should have charged staff on as well.

Hey !

I agree with what you're saying overall. For every point. It's not actually fun to play. Too much investment in stats and gameplay that results in almost no gain, if not worse.

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Amorencinteroph#4321 wrote:

The Whirling Assault "Rotation" Is Not Enjoyable
Beyond the issues Whirling Assault has in its janky movement (you can't redirect it or stand still, something you can do with rolling slam. Even Vault doesn't allow it irrc, which doesn't help Physical Monk not feel like an after thought in comparison), its playstyle isn't very dynamic.

You absolutely can redirect it. Do yourself a favor and check always attack without moving. That will make it feel quite a bit better. You're getting namelocked to a mob. Also be aware it directs with your mouse, not the WASD keys so to control it you need to drag your cursor around.

No real comment on the rest of it. I haven't played around with it the ascendancy much.

This ascendancy is geared toward ranged imo. Go caster or bow user and if you want to go melee i would suggest getting a lot of gear with a ton of es/eva rating later in the game (mapping/near end of campaign)

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DreadlordMephisto#4974 wrote:

This ascendancy is geared toward ranged imo. Go caster or bow user and if you want to go melee i would suggest getting a lot of gear with a ton of es/eva rating later in the game (mapping/near end of campaign)

At the moment yeah. Although I imagine once Shadow is released they might do pretty well with daggers, too. But at that point, I'll probably be playing Shadow (and if Shadow doesn't get a Ghost Reaver somewhere I'mma riot). Either way, going to see how I can do with him by just going full attack speed stacking. The gameplay kind of flows better by putting Mantra on the bell instead of Whirling Assault, too, but that feels a bit lame.

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fireinthahole#3808 wrote:

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Amorencinteroph#4321 wrote:

The Whirling Assault "Rotation" Is Not Enjoyable
Beyond the issues Whirling Assault has in its janky movement (you can't redirect it or stand still, something you can do with rolling slam. Even Vault doesn't allow it irrc, which doesn't help Physical Monk not feel like an after thought in comparison), its playstyle isn't very dynamic.

You absolutely can redirect it. Do yourself a favor and check always attack without moving. That will make it feel quite a bit better. You're getting namelocked to a mob. Also be aware it directs with your mouse, not the WASD keys so to control it you need to drag your cursor around.

No real comment on the rest of it. I haven't played around with it the ascendancy much.

What do you mean by "You absolutely can redirect it. Do yourself a favor and check always attack without moving." ?

The only option close to that is 'Attack in Place Key stops moving' and if that's the one you're referring to it really doesn't make the control of whirling assault any better or smooth.

I'm using hand of chayula but I think it's bugged it's not applying more than one curse.

It's a very underwhelming skill I'm just using it to apply Snipers Mark and poison then hexblast with contagion. The flames have sustained me through many boss fights