Best Magic of Incarnum Skill Monkey

[BowStreetRunner]

Although I've been aware of Magic of Incarnum for years I have only recently started really delving deeply into the material. I am a fan of skill monkey builds, and the first time I glanced at the classes in this book I saw 2 + INT modifier skill points per level and quickly moved on. Now I understand the true power of meld-shaping and am taking another look. It looks to me that Soulborn are truly inferior as skill monkeys due to fewer soulmelds and lower essentia. While Incarnates and Totemists both have the same number of soulmelds, I would also assume that an Incarnate would be a superior skill monkey due to the larger essentia pool. However, I know that the available soulmeld options is also a factor and don't know if there is anything else I may be missing that factors in as well. So here are my questions for the playground:

For a single-classed build, is Incarnate truly the best MoI skill monkey class?
Once multi-classing and prestige classes are factored in, is there anything that makes one of the other MoI classes a superior choice for skill monkey builds?
Just how good are these classes for dips when creating a multiclass skill monkey?

[Vaz]

1. Yes
2. No. If you are looking to empower a particular skill, you'll get more mileage out of Shape Soulmeld and then the Open Chakra spells if necesaary. Totemists come online at level 2 thanks to Totem Chakra; but totem chakras provide utility abilities and natural attacks.
3. Depends what you want. You pick up multiple abilities through incarnum which you can shape the soulmeld on a day to day basis and invest incarnum as needed. If you need more superpowrring, Binder, Exemplar, and Cloistered Cleric all do more for it usually.

Incarnum sacrifices optimization god powers for flexobility. It is tier 4 at best whichever.

[Nifft]

I've always wanted to see a good Incarnate + Chameleon.

I guess it'd want to take something else at level 1, like maybe Rogue for the class skills.

It's too bad that there's no Incarnum aptitude focus.

[Coidzor]

Incarnate is good for UMDing skillmonkeys, while Totemist is great for melee blender sneak attacker skill monkeys.

[Taveena]

Incarnate has a lot more options in terms of general skill use. Totemist has a niche in perception, sneaking, and movement skills, but is also capped at 5-6 essentia for anything they don't wanna bind to their totem, while the Incarnate's got their 7-8 cap across the board.

Also, the best Magic of Incarnum Skillmonkey is a Sapphire Hierarch who DMM: Persist'd Incarnum Apotheosis.

[Psyren]

Incarnum sacrifices optimization god powers for flexobility. It is tier 4 at best whichever.

Nah, Totemist can get to T3 easily - great combat prowess and strong out of combat utility.

Incarnate can actually get to T2 thanks to 1/week Gate - you can break the game in very limited ways, which is the definition of T2 (e.g. chain-gating Solars.)

[Dusk Eclipse]

^Not really familiar with Incarnates at all.

How do you get Gate 1/week with an incarnate?

[Nifft]

^Not really familiar with Incarnates at all.

How do you get Gate 1/week with an incarnate?

Planar Chasuble, one of their Soulmelds.

It's a really neat-looking class.

Too bad about the skill points and BAB.

[Dusk Eclipse]

I assume it is with one of the higher tier binds... Soul or Heart?

[Segev]

I've been toying with the idea of Incarnate 3/Totemist 2->Chameleon for a while. It gives a pretty decent essentia pool and number of simultaneous soulmelds, which should help with the Chameleon's daily swap of what class he's emulating.

[Taveena]

The thing is, the Truenamer and the Healer can get gate At-Will and once per ninth level spell slot per day, respectively. Those are explicitly not considered in optimization just by virtue of not showing up until the endgame - and the same goes for the Incarnate, who gets this with even harsher restrictions than those two only a level before the Truenamer and two after the Healer.

[Nifft]

I've been toying with the idea of Incarnate 3/Totemist 2->Chameleon for a while. It gives a pretty decent essentia pool and number of simultaneous soulmelds, which should help with the Chameleon's daily swap of what class he's emulating.

If you're going Chameleon, I think you'd want a level of Cloistered Cleric in your build, to qualify for Item Creation feats (during downtime) and for turn undead slots to fuel Devotion or Divine feats.

CCleric 1 (Knowledge, Trickery, whatever) / Incarnate 4 / Chameleon could work.