I have been playing a lot of Monk in the last few weeks. It is amazing the power difference in the sets. I can easily run T16 GR with the new TR set and only 1 piece is ancient, it’s similar with sunwoku WoL but most of that set is ancient. I love the Inna/raiment/shenlong/ build and most of those pieces are ancient, but it is comfortable at T15 , not T16, and my Uliana (maybe my favourite) is stuck in T13 …. My special gems are all around 78-80 and my builds are either the same as Icy veins , or they have a small difference.For example, I enjoy Hexing pants on the cube in that Inna/Shenlong/raiment build , but I don’t think that is the recommended choice for that Kanai slot.
Is there a reason why sets are not balanced? I read a lot of players asking for balancing sets, but I don’t really understand why it hasn’t been done, so I just conclude it must be a very difficult technical task….I remember in WoW about 8 years ago the classes felt reasonably balanced, I just thought balancing sets would be easy, and therefore am surprised it isn’t done.
Maybe some who post here are games programmers, or just more knowledgeable about programming than me…would love some technical insight into why set balancing is so hard…but maybe that’s not the reason at all…I don’t know
I’d like to say that most of the playstyles, that are possible, are really fun to play. Uliana is maybe the most asked set to buff and “redesign”. Especially defensive parts are way worse than for other classes.
In way of strength the sets are approximately as follows:
swk tr (my best 133)
PoJ tr (my best 125 without trying to push hard, maybe a 128-130 is possible for me)
LoD WoL (my best 122)
Inna WoL (120)
SwK WoL (long time no play, before the CC set buff I got to 115ish range, I still feel it maybe worse or approximately good as innas, maybe a bit stronger)
LoD LtK
Uliana
The only build that is something special is generator build, both: fully rainment and Inna/Rainment. It gets better and better the more paragon you have. When I was at 2500ish range, i put 1500 into vit and could do a 105 with ease. With paragon going up, you get more sustainability and then you can tank much more. Its kind of crappy gameplay, since you have no cc immunity, so if enemys have knockback or freeze you can restart the grift immediately. But when at 6k+ para its stronger than WoL builds since you have much aps and striken gives you some push options. You need to build up big groups to have assimilation up. You have 3 mandatory passiva (soul, alac, sti) and most will need some defense by harmony. The defense with that set is worst ever had, even with spiritguards. Inna/Rainment combination helps a bit but not enough. In theory the 3 gen r6 build is better than impale dh for boss killing in groups before the patch, but impale dh had more support for groups and more survivability. With sub 3k para that builds are approximately strong as LoD LtK.
Worst thing on so many builds: You use unity ring, so you can not play in groups with your maybe fav build. Thats one of the first changes that are needed. Barb has an 80% dmg reduction ring (and other classes also 60-80). Other classes have rings with x4 dmg multiplyer, other classes have only 4 (nec 3) elements for coe. all this makes monks be a unique class which is cool but most of the builds are just bad and for most builds you have no choice to e.g. add inner sanct on a solo build since 6 slots are fix (and even when you could add it, it would be crap since you need to be mobile).
So tl:dr I’d suggest to adress the glitches. Pure dmg numbers can be randomly added somewhere but playstyle needs to be grait.
Thanks for the detailed reply…I think the play styles are nicely varied between the Uliana, Sunwoku, PoJ, and Inna sets. So, I think any adjustments need to be mitigation and damage output rather than ‘the way’ that damage is dealt or mitigated. …You’re so right about Uliana being bad for mitigation of damage. I try to manage this by using Madstone which means I don’t invite disaster using a generator to proc exploding palm, but I think that this means I don’t use the passive skill ‘mythic rhythm’ which means I am loosing power…perhaps a 4 set damage mitigation amount like-> 60% reduced damage when using a generator would deal with this issue, and then they could merely raise the multiplier of damage in the 6 set bonus.
Does anyone have insight into why Blizzard hasn’t balanced the sets before now? It seems an obvious thing to do for the whole game, why would they make a game with unbalanced sets? How is that helpful to the competitive players and/or the casual players (of which I am one).
I have absolutely no idea But when whispers are right they want to balance it with the next patch. My fear is that they will do it wrong. I personally think they do not know how to play diablo and especially monk (especially when there are so many skills that never appear). This season I play barb and he has lots of useful passive skills and well supporting active skills. When you play tr skill, you need sweeping wind, maybe for more spirit reg but also to activate set bonus. what a mess.
Or where you like uliana: When you got your 14 hits with sss (and lion claw), so you have fully upped defense, why you get lower when hitting again an enemy just because he is down before you could hit him with 14 hits? Harvesting souls also simply stacks.
Or on PoJ set: Why the defense buff does not keep for 3 (or 5?) secs like ww/rend set of the barb?
Just a hint: When you push uliana, you drop madstone since there is no dmg buff on it. You better use e.g. leo crown for being on sss more often.
i would say one of the problems with monk sets is that the Devs have made 2 sets that cover to many skills, its hard to balance some thing that gives damage to multiple skills. sunwuko should only be a WOL set with out Sweeping winds(maybe blind or one of the unused skills we have), innas should be pet & 1 skill & one of the unused skills like inner sanctium.
i feel the devs don know the monk and only use the same skills again & again.
i mean even if you use the same skills there are many possible combinations that’s not used at all.
imo monks are super fun at mid gr’s (110-115) and speed pushing, however it gets really tough to push them at higher gr (130+) compare to other classes who can push easier with much lesser effort (monks need to have 90-100 TR stacks and pop them during cold cycle which happen every 15-16 secs, not to mention stacks often get interrupted, even if you pop 100 stacks on cold, most likely it takes more than 2-3 cold cycles for every pack) also the low monk population on lb push justifies…and there’s literally so few who pushes non season and season lb…
But when whispers are right they want to balance it with the next patch. My fear is that they will do it wrong. I personally think they do not know how to play diablo and especially monk (especially when there are so many skills that never appear). This season I play barb and he has lots of useful passive skills and well supporting active skills. When you play tr skill, you need sweeping wind, maybe for more spirit reg but also to activate set bonus. what a mess.