Ideas and Requests

Monk
1

Hey everybody, I want to share my ideas/requests for my favorite class, the Monk! This’ll be pretty extensive, and I’m focusing more on concepts than numerical balance which can follow, but I hope you’ll consider fairly and let me know what you think.

Basic goals summary:

  • Consolidate current Justice into Monkey, preserving their builds
  • Convert I6U4 into new Justice: better support and more freedom
  • Refill Uliana: power > quantity, add toughness and density-scaling, streamline Mythic Rhythm
  • Smooth Raiment’s output, add toughness, change Dash from tradeoff to situational benefit
  • Invert Inna: focus on Mystic Ally, add melee AoE synergy and a Spirit-drain buff on activation

From here comes the full rundown. Let’s get into it!

  • Seven-Sided Strike: Sustained Attack rune: Increases the damage of Seven-Sided Strike by 7%, stacking up to 7 times. Lasts 7 seconds.
  • Flow of Eternity: The cooldown of your Seven-Sided Strike is reduced by 70-80%.
  • Sledge Fist: Your Seven-Sided Strike deals 500-600% increased damage.
  • Crystal Fist: Your Epiphany gains the effects of the Ascendance and Insight runes.
  • Binding of the Lost: Your Seven-Sided Strike reduces your damage taken by 10% per hit, stacking up to 7 times. Lasts 7 seconds.

For support of a non-Uliana SSS build while still letting Uliana use it solely to trigger EP. At 0% sheet CDR, the current combo of Sustained Attack rune and extracted FoE offers an SSS cooldown of 5.6 seconds, while this extracted FoE would bring it to 6 seconds but allows a rune choice and can easily combo with the Captain Crimson set. With Captain Crimson set, helm, paragon, and Gogok, this still lets players reach a comfortable sub-2-second cooldown in as few as 2 stat rolls. This Binding of the Lost has an active cap, but stacks faster and refreshes instead of resetting.

  • Lion Claw: Your Exploding Palm deals 10% increased damage for each enemy affected by your Exploding Palm.
  • Fist of Az’Turrasq: Your Exploding Palm’s detonation deals 1000-1100% increased damage.
  • Uliana set:
    • 2pc: Your Exploding Palm’s total damage over time is also dealt on detonation.
    • 4pc: Your damage taken is reduced by 10% per enemy currently affected by your Exploding Palm, to a maximum of 50%.
    • 6pc: Your Exploding Palm deals 9000% increased damage. Your Seven-Sided Strike now also detonates your Exploding Palm.

Adding defense, having fewer but harder hits, and removing the complex SSS-hit mechanic in favor of a density-scaling EP buff seriously bulk up this melee caster build. I think this is an interesting and maybe necessary direction to take in order to set up for high-level group play. Fire EP rune gains support in its full DoT being added to detonation and buffed as part of it. Also of note is that Generators would no longer apply EP - this ends potential issues involving Mythic Rhythm.

  • Raiment set:
    • 2pc: Your Spirit Generators have 25% faster attack speed and 400% increased damage. (unchanged)
    • 4pc: Dashing Strike gains the effect of all runes, and reduces your damage taken by 50% for 5 seconds.
    • 6pc: Dashing Strike increases the damage of Spirit Generators by 6000% for 5 seconds. Spirit Generators empower Dashing Strike for 5 seconds to deal 60000% increased damage and instantly kill enemies hit under 10% health.
  • Shenlong set: (proc now drains 20% of your max Spirit per second instead of flat 65; otherwise unchanged)

I feel the current R6S2 is excessively hard to use for what should be the ultimate straightforward melee DPS build. These changes add of utility, defense, and smoother (higher average) output. Shenlong drain is typically higher, but Band of the Rue Chambers is accessible. Dashing Strike still needs to be managed, but it gets an extra benefit in some situations instead of an alternate cost that’s arguably worse. More toughness and smoother Spirit management might open up other Generator and support skill choices. Dashing Strike change from base increase to multiplier means about 3.7x as much base damage and newly applies to Barrage rune too.

  • Justice set:
    • 2pc: Your Seven-Sided Strike triples to strike a total of 21 times.
    • 4pc: Epiphany has 50% reduced cooldown.
    • 6pc: Your Seven-Sided Strike deals 777% of its total damage with each hit.
  • Epiphany: (now gives the Monk a golden glow instead of a shadow form)

The Justice set is fun and well-made, but there’s no getting around the fact that we already have a Sweeping Wind/Tempest Rush set, while Seven-Sided Strike is on a set but falls short of a modern build. I considered using Monkey King set instead, but felt the weapons and set identity would be too messy. So this Justice set takes the current Uliana set 4pc mechanic as its core, with a buffed version of current Lion Claw built in to support it. Overall, I picture it a chaotic and glorious martial arts build. Changing the Epiphany visual would fit especially well here.

  • Monkey King set:
    • 2pc: Sweeping Wind reduces your damage taken by 50%, and lasts forever.
    • 4pc: Your Lashing Tail Kick, Tempest Rush, and Wave of Light now also cast Cyclone Strike on the first target hit.
    • 6pc: Your Lashing Tail Kick, Tempest Rush, and Wave of Light deal 1500% increased damage per stack of Sweeping Wind you have. (unchanged)
  • Won Khim Lau: Tempest Rush deals 500-600% increased damage, and increases your movement speed by 50%.
  • Kyoshiro’s Soul: Sweeping Wind gains all runes and deals 400% increased damage.

To do justice to the current Justice set concept, I’d like to blend it into the Monkey King set, offering a lot of utility and bringing out the best of both. Won Khim Lau’s automatic Cyclone Strike is moved to the MK set itself, replaced with current Justice set’s movement speed. Making Sweeping Wind permanent full-auto and adding the runes from current Justice set make it and Kyoshiro’s Soul more appealing for high GRs.

  • Inna set:
    • 2pc: Increase the passive effects of your Mystic Ally and base Mantra by 100%. (reworded but unchanged)
    • 4pc: Gain the five runed Mystic Allies and four base Mantras at all times.
    • 6pc: Your Mystic Ally, Sweeping Wind, and Cyclone Strike deal 750% increased damage for each Mystic Ally you have. Your Mystic Ally activation drains your Spirit to deal 50% increased damage per point.

The Inna set would really benefit by promoting Mystic Ally from stage crew to star of the show, with the close-range synergy of Cyclone Strike and Sweeping Wind. Inna’s Reach, BotLG, Kyoshiro’s Soul, and Crudest Boots would all be core pieces. Likely options include Lefebvre’s, Tasker and Theo, BotRC, and Guardian’s Path. This build might need buffs to its multipliers, but this is the basic idea.

Overall, I think this is the best way to offer these builds. Thanks for reading, and again, let me know what you think!

2 Likes
Monk rework list
Monk rework list
2

i do not like the swk changes. 50% dr is way to low for wol and ltk. i personally prefer innas wol which would be gone.
i did some suggestions to monk changes where the sets stay more or less as they are since i find we have multiple builds tvat are fun to play if defesive options are added and dmg can be delt more easily. i personally like wol, ltk, uliana and even gen.monks playstyle but they are simply weak especially defesive. there is kind of a bug that any build needs unity. ok, tr does not and even uli is playable without, innas wol is until you hit 120+ range very good playable but then to weak. there is to much linear dmg delt, no defense at all. i like sone suggestions but all in all you would make most builds worthless as they are now and redesign whole gameplay. i’d even suggest to remove some supporting skills such that we are not longer forced to be aa healer in a group :slight_smile:

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I’d like to address your concerns otherwise, but first, could you clarify what “worthless” means here and why you’re calling my changes that? It’s pretty rude.

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you suggest to kill e.g. innas wol which is btw stronger than swk wol. that is ment by worthless. yeah and except for the new tr style i dislike swk set the most since you are forced to a wpn and a skill that are not in the set bonus. if you compare ltk or wol it is not a surprise why innas or lon/lod version is taken.instead of swk. give us a 60-80% dr ring and things might change. group problems are solved if survivability comes closer to other classes and dmg output as well. as long as we do not deal dmg (which is gotten better with new tr) and we have so many support (dr+heal+pull) we are always forced to be a healer in a high group, same as barbs have their role. both classes share the multiple support possibility.

and you suggest to make a new sss set which would be welcome but you take some things out of uliana. there are problems with mr passive adressed here long time ago and some other things. fixing those should be included. like e.g. why does fd not always double aps? for ltk builds it does in theory but with lags it does not. scarbringer restriction to 7 enemys make the build weak for no reason. those things should be adressed. i did not say i dont like all your idead but i would start by making the problem clear (the state as it is) and then yield your suggestions.

5

I feel that shifting Inna set’s sources of damage to those mentioned better supports the rest of its’ identity, and gives us an interesting build that we don’t currently have. There’s no build of current Inna that cannot and does not exist without it, be it through the other current/suggested Monk sets or in vanilla form through LoN/LoD, so there’s really no reason for current Inna to need to exist.

Overall, MKG set is the one I changed the least. LoN/LoD, and Inna in your case, is usually preferred to avoid the complication of managing stacks, but the suggested Kyoshiro’s Soul negates it. I also didn’t nerf its toughness, and that can always be buffed too. Please remember that I didn’t ignore numbers, but was way more focused on concepts.

There are lots of builds with items that involve only support skills or trigger/setup mechanics; that isn’t unique to MKG and it adds flavor and supports balance, so it shouldn’t be seen as a problem to fix. If everything is about mixed and stacked direct multipliers, the math becomes messy and the gameplay boring. MKG set without Sweeping Wind would suffer from vanilla-ness and overlap with other current builds, and those are problems I’ve tried to address throughout this thread.

I made sure to compensate Uliana set. SSS is not a significant source of damage for it, and halving the number of hits only needs doubling a multiplier. I also removed Generator application of EP to guarantee manual application of MR.

Removing abilities from the Monk class wouldn’t change its role in groups, except to possibly not having one. Instead, I offered ideas for group-viable damage and toughness. Uliana set would gain more damage and toughness against many targets, and Raiment set would gain a lot of up-front toughness along with an execution mechanic. Exact numbers may, again, be tweaked.

Flying Dragon’s proc is supposed to be exciting when you get it instead of limiting when you don’t, and I think the other changes I suggested to Raiment set would make that come true. Making it permanent would buff the build but remove that flavor.

Scarbringer’s effect is another that breaks up the monotony of “normal” buffs and is arguably a point of realism; a sweeping kick should lose power after hitting extra targets. As always, the multiplier can be buffed if needed.

I hope this clarifies and better supports the ideas and other points you don’t like, but I’m glad you like some, at least! Let me know about anything else that grabs your attention.

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i’m kind of messing around with innas ^^ but ok, lets take rainment: you need cc immunity, otherwise a gen monk makes no sense. also the teleport is kind of important. right now you have dash rdy whenever in a fight. that is crucial for the build. so you will need perma epi and kind of perma dash. the flat 65 are ok if you still have your spirit reg, that would make things easier infight. also here a flat 2x aps would be preferred by me. and some change or replacemebt for assimilation rune. for sorcs its much easier to get stacked additive dng. like each enemy in your cs range gives you some dmg or so.
and 50%ms on wkl might be a bit overkill. if you get nassive ns you still lose stackd so pls not 50 :slight_smile:

8

I’m not a fan of your Raiment rework and Raiment is my LEAST favorite monk build. Removing the spirit cost for DS dramatically reduces the movement abilities of the set and limits it to just a generator set (it is generally played that way currently due to Shen Long’s but a DS monk is possible if not optimal currently). It would also require a rework to Fleshrake since that weapon would be utterly worthless with limiting DS to 2 or 3 charges. The thing that Raiment needs is toughness. The build has plenty of damage but you need a ton of paragon to raise your Vitality so you can survive. The problem is if you increase the toughness too much, Raiment would potentially be too OP for high paragon endgame GR pushing.

1 Like
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To Atom: I’m now 99% sure you’re not debating in good faith. I’ve got nothing more to say to you.

To Khord: I think you’re overestimating the power, utility, and overall usability of Dash in the current build. I didn’t (and still don’t) intend to make a modern build for it, but you’re right it’s something to consider, so I’ll at least add a multiplier back to the set to start from. I had already added toughness, though, and I believe the other 4pc change is needed since Spirit is your effective source of damage.

11

Blizzards will never rework so much items and sets. You can consider just buff sets and items.