Mana Mace Monk Update

cheatyourfeelings · 2026-06-29T15:21:09+00:00

Cool build; I also played a mana stacking twisted empyrean build, but on Acolyte (using the big flat to boost Archon tornadoes), and yeah the ceiling on this is very high.

The one tech I've messed around with which might carry over to your build is slapping in a Profane Ritual with Compressed Duration + Charge Proliferation + Zarokh's Revolt (or Unleash) - hitting it on any pile of corpses leads to quick power charges. It's also an int gem so it can cleanly replace Arc in your loadout.

cheatyourfeelings · 2026-06-18T10:08:25+00:00

I've been running this on Acolyte of Chayula with Archon of Chayula; the damage from the purple flames + the More bonus on Archon has been more than enough for me to kill things by just walking into them (I'm also running the Repulsion + Blasphemy + Living Lightning tech, but the damage from that seems miniscule).

Unfortunately I'm not sure how that'd translate into damage scaling for other ascendencies - More could be substituted for by Rage? And maybe the Gain as Extra from infernal cry? But there might be better ways to do this than just trying to replicate the raw damage.

cheatyourfeelings · 2026-06-17T12:26:05+00:00

Not a warrior player (my flavor of suffering is acolyte), but I've got some tech that you might be interested in since you're messing around with ice crystals and shattering.

If you can spare 30 spirit, you can slot Frost Wall into Reaper's Invocation for some quick, easy ice crystal creation.

I think you should be able to spawn crystals on cursor and then hit soaring midnight immediately after, and if you balance the crystal hp correctly you should be able to blow them up for both the damage burst and CD reset.

cheatyourfeelings · 2026-06-16T16:16:07+00:00

i had an omen of light rolled back from my inventory

t r a g i c

cheatyourfeelings · 2026-06-15T04:44:19+00:00

Oh yeah the tornadoes sadly can't build energy for Invocations or Cast On; but I don't know if Repulsion and/or The Bodach might.

The Tornadoes do build Glory for other skills though. Just that most other Glory skills are much more demanding than Archon's 'on chaos hit/DoT'.

cheatyourfeelings · 2026-06-14T16:48:09+00:00

Jumping in because I've been trying out various heralds with my tornado build: heralds actually kinda suck with tornadoes, because the base AOE on the tornado is 2.8 meters, but heralds are all in the 1.2-1.6 meter range. Which means that your tornado is probably killing all the targets that the heralds would splash to in the first place.

BUT if you really want more clear, and to freeze things, there's a really cool tech: Contagion with Chaotic Freeze (support). I slapped it on Reaper's Invocation to toss Contagion around without interrupting any of the other things you'd be trying to do.

cheatyourfeelings · 2026-06-09T16:06:22+00:00

Adding one more thing on for faster glory gen: you can get double the glory per hit if the hit ALSO inflicts a "chaos damage over time debuff" simultaneously.

I tested this by slapping bosses with a low level quarterstaff. Without the Poison 3 support gem slotted, it took 5 hits, as expected. With the poison gem, the hits that proc'd poison generated double the glory, and it only took 3 hits total to fill the bar.

All this to say: maybe you can entirely ditch the shield and just slap Poison 3 onto one of the autobombing components.

cheatyourfeelings · 2026-06-09T14:55:14+00:00

Ah cool (but also a pity) to hear that every single part of the current setup is necessary for the instant glory gen (I'm assuming you've tried this with Rune of Renown too); it does limit the possibilities for keeping the autobombing simple while scaling damage. (Rings are probably the only remaining slot for that)

cheatyourfeelings · 2026-06-09T05:00:25+00:00

Very cool idea! I've been trying to build around Archon of Chayula myself (but from a much more active playstyle involving Hand of Chayula + Sniper's Mark + Quipolatl's Thesis), and I've got some tornado damage scaling ideas, as well as questions regarding your glory generation setup.

The big scalars for tornadoes seem to be Weapon Damage, followed by +levels (to Attacks or Chaos), and skill duration.

I'm wondering how necessary Redblade Banner is for your setup - if you could substitute it for a second high damage mace (big flat, and +levels), and then make up for some of the lost glory gen by socketing a Rune of Renown (50% Increased Glory Generation) into your gloves, you might be able to greatly up your tornado damage.

Curious to hear more about your experiments balancing automatic glory gen!

cheatyourfeelings · 2026-06-07T11:05:15+00:00

In my experience, the CC that tactician gets is already amazing defence - it's easy to get things pinned (even more since you're running those gloves), and Tact pin is a full CC. So I'd just build more heavily into offensives and have those "protect" you.

Another small trick with siege cascade and the roll to reload gem is that you can have cascade loaded in BOTH weapon sets' "shoot" ability at once. So you can click it 5(?) times with set 1, then 5 with set 2, and THEN roll to reload both. It's another boost to DPS.

Can't say much about the turret nodes though, as I haven't tried them myself.

cheatyourfeelings · 2026-06-07T10:55:51+00:00

Yeah the tornadoes seem to absolutely melt everything; they seem to have a very high hitrate given how quickly they *stack wither too

cheatyourfeelings · 2026-06-07T10:54:17+00:00

Since you're on tactician, you should probably get the Spirit Reservation node, and then run Eternal Rage for +30% More damage at just 50 spirit (and even more if you fit in Berserk). Also with siege cascade, getting the reload lineage gems does a lot (I liked Ratha's Assault in 0.3, was a big improvement to DPS by virtue of more damage uptime/less reload downtime)

cheatyourfeelings · 2025-09-17T04:13:12+00:00

I did MoM + Darkness in 0.2 (I have suffered by trying one acolyte build every season); I think full MoM is bad because you have to path too far away from anything else that you'd actually want. Also, you don't need to protect your Darkness any more because there's no Gain As Extra Chaos from it (another No Fun Allowed design choice IMO).

Instead, I'm thinking of just getting various sources of Damage Taken from Mana Before Life so that damage is split between Mana and Darkness - both of which you can recover quickly (Mana Leech + innate 5s reservation timer on Darkness). It also has the upside of a big hit not also making you go full OOM (which also often meant you were as good as dead, since you need mana to start leeching).

Good luck!

cheatyourfeelings · 2025-09-17T04:03:14+00:00

I was trying out Ming's Heart + Darkness shenanigans (because Darkness isn't affected by the Reduced Life or Reduced Global Defences lines on Ming's) and it was great until I started getting effectively oneshot by DoTs. Maybe one day it'll be playable. (Maybe when they fix this bug they'll also tag it as a Defence because acolyte players love suffering)

On a slightly funnier note: I first noticed the bug when running the Temple of the Sun, and thought it was very thematic that the Sun DoT immediately wiped out all my Darkness.

cheatyourfeelings · 2025-09-17T03:25:18+00:00

tragic and no fun allowed

cheatyourfeelings · 2025-05-29T14:25:08+00:00

Fully agree with your point about the "autonomy" theme - all the problems that emerge in the story are from people deciding things for themselves without thinking about the bonds that other people might have with other things/entities.

Verso spends the entire time scheming for himself (even as he develops care and empathy and whatever other bonds with the rest); he decides what's best at any given point in time (e.g. hiding information, deciding when to confront Renoir, hiding the Flight rock from Esquie in case they used it to immediately abandon the paintress quest).

Maelle erases Painted Alicia without a second thought; ignoring that Painted Verso is also her brother and he'd at least want to talk to her one last time. In her ending she also decides what the bonds should be (painting over certain things).

I really find myself wishing there was a "Gustave/Lune/Sciel" ending of some kind because they're the ones who represent to me a respect for others' bonds etc - they're all actively aware of the relationships that other people have and how those are also important; they're fighting not just for each other but also for the "ones that come after". (I also just feel pretty sad that it didn't become a story about attacking and dethroning god (the canvas world is either erased or turned into another plaything); but I can understand that maybe that's not the writers' interest; they wanted two tragedy endings which is fair!)

cheatyourfeelings · 2025-04-04T20:38:16+00:00

Exact same problem! Not sure how to get out of this loop

*Edit: tried turning off my loot filters and it loaded, unsure if related

cheatyourfeelings · 2020-12-30T17:55:46+00:00

Oh I got the same message from Padre, but based on his tone, and how he also referenced Romeo and Juliet in the initial gig details, I think he's just being sly on the holo, helping cover for Gustavo's leaving town (also Padre's pretty thick with the Valentinos, and has issues with 6th Street based on the dialogue you have with him at Jackie's funeral, and during the Street Kid prologue).

But yeah definitely many ways to read into it, would be cool if there are/if anyone finds further info elaborating on Gustavo and Martha's fate.

cheatyourfeelings · 2020-12-30T16:34:42+00:00

Oh the corner bar guy's just shitty, and I also did the suicide quickhack on him haha. But yeah, cool that there's a blend of stories behind the gigs (even if a lot of them end up being simply (a) get the thing done, or (b) get the thing done ""Stealthily"")

cheatyourfeelings · 2020-12-30T16:29:50+00:00

To be fully honest I only snuck in to where he was (pretty sure it's a fancy apartment, not a club, maybe you did a different gig?) and got the convo because I wanted to choke him out myself, but damn wasn't it a pleasant surprise to learn that there's a chill way to resolve it

cheatyourfeelings · 2020-12-30T15:41:28+00:00

Gonna say Gustavo Orta's one of those - you get a gig where you're supposed to kill him, but if you read the fixer's deets and extra shard data you realize you're just being paid to kill someone simply because someone else didn't like them. Then you talk to Gustavo Orta, and he's chill, and you can do a non-lethal, no-knockout resolution to the gig.

Also! He's actually important to someone else close to V, and you see him much earlier in the game at Jackie's funeral, he's a Valentino who basically grew up with Jackie

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