Monk changes we need for balance

Like a monk who play in EU from vanilla, cleared 130+ GR solo in all builds at 6k paragon, I want to share my ideas for our favorite class. See no reason to make many changes. My goal is everyone happy and noone build is too strong or weak compared to others.
First I tested every monk’s build and analise clears on world leaderboards. Next I thought how to optimise and add something news to current builds to reach the balance.
Since SWK and POJ are dominated up to 145 clear, our buffs target other sets to reach the compared efficient.

  1. Uliana’s Stratagem
    Data clear: 130 GR with 6k paragon with Convertion of Elements / MonkForever, EU

Potential burst: 6,6x

  • Uliana’s Stratagem:
    • 6pc: Increase the damage of your Exploding Palm by 9000 -> 60000% and your Seven-Sided Strike detonates your Exploding Palm.

https://www.d3planner.com/448124239

Note: This buff will make Uliana competitive with others. Crimson set and permanent epiphany give us enough toughness to survive.


  1. Raiment of a Thousand Storms
    Data clear: 134 GR with 9,5k paragon without Convertion of Elements / Cricifix, Asia

Potential burst: 5,76x (1,4x from CoE and 4,11x from set)

  • Raiment of a Thousand Storms:
  • 4 pc: Dashing Strike spends 75 Spirit, but refunds a Charge when it does. Dashing strike reduce damage taken by 60% for 6 seconds.
  • 6 pc: Your Spirit Generators increase the weapon damage of Dashing Strike to 60,000% for 6 seconds and Dashing Strike increases the damage of your Spirit Generators by 6000 -> 25000% for 6 seconds.

https://www.d3planner.com/546921427

Note: Toughness buff will make Crimson Raiment build playable with Convertion of Elements and give us ~2-3 levels in addition to damage burst. Right now we can use Raiment only with Unity.


  1. Inna’s Mantra:
    Data clear: not available. Target buff for Inna’s Mantra is based on solo tests and should be tested on PTR.

Potential burst:

  • Inna’s Reach:
    Increases Mystic Ally Damage by [90 - 120] -> [45000 - 50000]%

https://www.d3planner.com/507945250

Note: This buff will open Mistic Ally build. Right now this build is too weak because of Mystic Ally Damage is so small even to kill tresh mobs. We need very high Mystic Ally Damage buff ~ 35 tiers.


  1. LON builds

LON WOL
Data clear: 135 GR with 7,5k paragon / Schmon, EU

Potential burst: 3,23x

  • Incense Torch of the Grand Temple:
    Reduces the Spirit cost of Wave of Light by 50% and increases its damage by [450 - 550] -> [1800 - 2500]% (Monk Only)

https://www.d3planner.com/301924447

LON LTK
Data clear: not available. Target buff for LON LTK is based on solo tests and should be tested on PTR.

Potential burst: 7,28x

  • Scarbringer:
    The damage of Lashing Tail Kick is increased by [450 - 600] -> [4500 - 5000]% to the first 7 enemies hit. (Monk Only)

https://www.d3planner.com/500514403

Note: These buff will balance LON LTK and LON WOL with other sets.


P.s. Every Great rift’s tier is 16.7% damage increase.
P.s. 145 tier is the goal for every build. (I cleared solo 144 tier in SWK TR with 8k paragon while 145 is close to max with 10k paragon.)
P.s. I tested every build with decent gear and knowledge of build’s mechanics.
https://eu.diablo3.com/ru/profile/MonkForever-21731/career

14 Likes

Any significant buff to EP will make me happy, so I vouch for your post ! :wink:

3 Likes

I think you have some good ideas and taking an easier approach to buffing the monk is more likely than some of the other recent suggestions out of the forum. I still think that Fist of Az’Turasq should buff ALL damage from EP, not just the detonations. Since Fist of Az only buffs the explosion currently, it is a hard lock on using the highest damage rune, EVERY other rune is complete garbage compared to cold. If The Fist of Az buffed the DoT and detonation, (and if they did a “slight” rewrite of EP to consume remaining DoT upon detonation), then other runes on EP would have a potential spot in the build.

Your idea for buffing Raiment has some potential to be scary. As it stands now, Raiment is VERY strong but VERY squishy. You need a lot of paragon to dump into VIT so that you can survive, but the build has the dps to kill things at that level. Buffing the 6 piece the way you suggest may make R6 the ONLY high end push build for very high paragon players (but that might be ok since it is still a hard build for average players and high endgame users should potentially have something to strive for).

2 Likes

I don’t think that Blizzard will rework it.

This build is unplayable before 5k paragon and very squishy for average players (5-8k paragon).

Are you taking Bindings of the Lesser Gods into account with these numbers?

Would Cubing Rabid Strike and Equiping Inna’s Reach make Inna’s WoL over powered?

Yes.

No. Rabid Strike doesn’t up Mystic Ally Damage.

The clone that repeats your skill is buffed by your Ally damage, which is why lon and Inna WoL builds use rabid strike and bindings of the lesser gods.

I’d love a viable Ally build, but doing a massive multiplier in one item probably isn’t the best way to go

one good way to buff Inna is 750% to 1500% but only affect for 5 mystic ally, so we can get rid of the boots and got one open slot for another legendary effect

No sense to make this build 2 times stronger. No sense to buff this build over 2500% per every Mystic Ally because this way Inna set can be used with generators or TR. We need big significant buff to Mystic Ally Damage on set Daibo to make it mandatory and keep full set.

1 Like

Of the 5 Monk sets, only SWK and PoJ have DR built into the set. Yet PoJ loses that DR immediately when you stop TRing. WW barbs have 3 seconds to spare.
Inna relies on Mantra and Mystic Allies for some form of indirect DR which IMO are lower than 50% DR.
Neither Ulianna nor Raiment have DR. Ulianna needs Binding Belt to attain 70% DR and yet Barbs gain 80% DR on a single ring alone.

IMO, first thing to do with Monk is either:
a) buff the DR on the sets, or
b) give monks better tactical buffs from those sets that can be used for DR
Example: For Uliana 2pc, Reduce SSS cooldown by 1 second per every 10~25 spirits generated. Not only does this simple tactical boost gives DR, but also DPS in the form of doing SSS more frequently.

I dont have any good idea for Raiment. Making it into a Dashing Strike set was kinda lame since Barbs’ got Furious Charge set already.

Raiment is generator build not like Furious Charge. Crimson Raiment has decent mechanic with keeping spirit up all time. This melee build needs DR.

1 Like

If intent was for a Raiment Generator, then dont buff DS:

With such a HUGE DS Buff, I sure would play this as a Furious Charger.

Apparently SWK TR has slightly higher potential. Patator made 143 with almost 11k paragon but didn’t use FoT. ArThurCJ (rank 1 all servers) did it too, but used FoT.

The numbers I saw look good for balance
Raiment / Gen is fine with the current mechanics, the player only needs training to master it. As for DS, I think it needs legendary support.

Patator did 136 in just over 13min with LOD WoL. It could possibly go to 137. I think it should have at least a 2x increase in DPS = + 5lvl (137-142). But for all the sets to be able to enjoy this buff ALSO, the ideal would be that the adjustment should be made in some legendary support (Incense Torch of the Grand Temple perhaps).

I think the proposed buff for LoD / LoN LTK would not be enough, this build suffers at 120+ with high paragon, even with a buff of 3.3x (~ 8lvl) would still be far below most.

I think uliana could get some help from the boss:

"THE FLOW OF ETERNITY

Increase the damage of Seven-Sided Strike by 100% and reduce the cooldown of Seven-Sided Strike by 60%. When hitting up to 3 enemies, SSS deals ???% additional damage "

In fact, I agree that Inna needs buff, but only for Ally.

1 Like

I agree. Darkpatator can clear 144 with 11k paragon with his setup.

LON WOL and LTK shouldn’t dominate anymore. I just want to see the balance between WOL and LTK.

No need this buff, it is possible to bring 5-6 min for the boss.

They will not be dominated, if the proposed buff is 2x for WoL it will only go from 137 to 142, it will be ~ 2-3lvl weaker than the others, the same applies to LTK.
A build with ~ 2-3lvl different from the others is not dominated.

The point is that a 5 minute boss fight is not something I would call “fun”, on the contrary, it is tiring and discourages the player to push with this build. Uliana has the biggest advantage in large slits, but the RNG needed to reach her full potential is a pain, I would gladly remove some of the buff proposed by a buff against the boss. Anyway, Uli is not my favorite build,
the choice of adjustments I leave to those who play with it…

What rune does Uliana 2pc apply?

It applies whatever rune you have selected on your skill bar. If you don’t have EP on your skill bar then it applies the un-runed version of EP.

I see… So much like how Barb’s Ambo applies the runed rend, 2pc does the same.

And I assume I dont have to manually apply EP, as long as I the runed EP on bar and kept attacking with a generator will be enough.

(For the longest time, i kept manually applying EP…)

For pushing and getting the most from Uliana build, you will want to manually apply EP to “snapshot” Mythic Rhythm and spread those MR buffed EP’s around the screen. The process of snapshotting is a bit of a pain but carrying 40% multiplicative buff around is pretty significant. For those who don’t know how it’s done, you use your generator 3x to get MR (and apply EP to a group of mobs). Then you dash away to a pack of mobs without ANY EP applied to them and use SSS. If you hit the mob with the MR buffed EP on it, then Gungdo Gear will spread that MR buffed EP to everything in the area. It is extremely important to NOT use your generator third hit until EVERYTHING around you has an EP applied to it since the Uliana 2 piece will not overwrite your manually cast MR buffed EP.

1 Like

Sounds like what Starpact Wiz are doing. Sounds like a job for a Macro/Bot. this aint healthy for gaming.