Requests for Monk

Hey everybody, here are my ideas for the Monk class - this is a heavy post but I put many hours of thought and work into it so please consider fairly. Something to note is that my intent here is largely conceptual and I actually tried to keep numerical balance roughly where it is; separate work on that could and should follow.

Basic goals summary:

  • Combine current Justice and Monkey sets, preserving the build
  • Turn I6U4 into new Justice: better support and more options
  • Refill Uliana: fewer but harder hits, add toughness and density-scaling, streamline Mythic Rhythm
  • Streamline Raiment, add toughness, change Dash from tradeoff to situational benefit
  • Flip Inna: focus on Mystic Ally, add melee AoE synergy and a Spirit-drain buff on activation

Here’s the full rundown, in sections:

  • 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 Seven-Sided Strike gains the Teleportation and Spirit cost effects of the Sudden Assault and Pandemonium 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 opens rune choice. 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. Binding of the Lost would stack faster and refresh instead of resetting.

  • Lion Claw: Your Exploding Palm’s detonation deals 10% increased damage for each enemy currently 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, up to 60%.
    • 6pc: Your Exploding Palm deals 9,000% increased damage. Your Seven-Sided Strike now also detonates your Exploding Palm.

Adding defense, having fewer but harder hits, and trading the current SSS mechanic for a density-scaling EP buff to bulk up this melee caster build. 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 by giving you permanent manual control. Overall I think this is an interesting and maybe needed change in direction to set up for high-level group play.

  • 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 60% for 5 seconds.
    • 6pc: Dashing Strike increases the damage of your Spirit Generators by 6000% for 5 seconds. Dashing Strike now instantly kills enemies under 10% health.
  • Shenlong set: (proc now drains 25% of your max Spirit per second instead of flat 65; otherwise unchanged)
  • Flying Dragon: Your Spirit Generators have a 10% chance (currently reported as 4%) to double your attack and movement speeds and allow you to move through enemies for 5 seconds (currently reported as 5-10).

The current R6S2 is uncomfortable for what should be the ultimate straightforward melee DPS build. These changes add utility, defense, and smoother damage output. Shenlong drain is typically higher, but Band of the Rue Chambers is accessible. Dashing Strike is still important, but it gets an extra benefit, instead of an alt cost that’s arguably worse. Flying Dragon would be more reliable, and offer more mobility and an escape. Other Generator and supporting choices may also be opened up.

  • 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)

I love the Justice build, but there’s no denying we already have a Sweeping Wind/Tempest Rush set, while Seven-Sided Strike is on a set but falls short of a modern build. The unique way this mechanic scales means that between access to FoE and the further-increased number of hits, it actually provides far more of an effective multiplier than it might seem to. SSS also effectively provides a huge amount of its own defense due to casting invulnerability, but more uptime on Epiphany would give even more, plus mobility and Spirit regen. Between this and the first section above, Inna bonuses wouldn’t be missed. Visual change for a nice finishing touch.

  • Monkey King set:
    • 2pc: Your damage taken is reduced by 50% while Sweeping Wind is active. (unchanged)
    • 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 your Sweeping Wind (unchanged).
  • Won Khim Lau: Tempest Rush deals 500-600% increased damage, and increases your movement speed by 50% while channeling.
  • Kyoshiro’s Soul: Sweeping Wind gains the effects of all runes, activates with maximum stacks, and lasts indefinitely.

I’d like to blend the current Justice set into the Monkey King set. The automatic Cyclone Strike from WKL is moved to MKG itself, replaced with most of current PoJ’s movespeed. Making Sweeping Wind akin to Shadow set’s Shadow Power, and adding the runes from current Justice set, make 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 950% increased damage for each Mystic Ally you have. Your Mystic Ally activation drains your Spirit to deal 50% increased damage per point.

This promotes Mystic Ally from stage crew to star of the show, with the close-range synergy of Cyclone Strike and Sweeping Wind. Inna’s Reach, Bindings of the Lesser Gods, Kyoshiro’s Soul, and Crudest Boots would all be core pieces. Likely options including Tasker and Theo, Band of the Rue Chambers, and Guardian’s Path. Mystic Ally multipliers likely would still need buffs, but this is the basic idea.

Thanks for reading, and let me know what you think!

4 Likes

Your inna changes are not my fav.
On rainment cc immunity is missing imo - and 50% dr is not enough
Justice will not deal any dmg with that changes.

I made a suggestion to get a 2h set for the builds that were 2h initially. That are WoL and TR (since channeling and ringing the bell costs spirit). And if you want so: EP could also be used 2h and so ltk.
Something like all stats of the wpn are doubled 2p
increases all dmg when using 2h 6p
and a freak ton of defense :wink: (not op ton, but enough) 4p

I like inna being flexible but many builds cant be played with it or are not very good. But it does not need to be since it is the flat multiplyer.

Removing / replacing PoJ set is kind of mandatory since noone needs it (except stupid season buffs occur)

I do not like Swk set being tied to Sweeping wind since it does not increase its dmg. Sweepin wind was long time ago a perfect match with generator since gens deal dmg at one target + little aoe for some gens and wind delt the dmg around you. So those two should be combined again together.

Also I do not like that gen has 3 mandatory dmg passiva
I do not like that some builds have 3 mandatory wpns to take - no diversity here. We have some wpns with special ability (crystal or even sledge, FD or rabid) but no room to add them in.

I feel there are much more problems you do not adress

I think your attachment to Inna might actually be that you’re just attached to WoL and dislike MKG. If that’s the case, wouldn’t LoD/LoN do the same thing the same way for you?

In any case, I don’t feel Monk needs an open multiplier set, because all of its functional damage abilities are represented by these builds. Take another look through ingame and I think you’ll confirm there aren’t really any others left for current Inna to bring to the table.

For examples, Sweeping Wind is great as a supplementary source of damage but is way too simple and lazy to be allowed to be a main one. Dashing Strike is great for mobility but imagine actually just dashing back and forth on a target over and over, it’d be pretty silly imo.

Naturally I’d like to test things; I admitted the balance won’t be spot-on. Raiment DR could be 60% or even 80% if necessary, but I think this is a good start.

It seems like you agree with me about doing something else with PoJ, tho, so I appreciate that!

I don’t think there’s any need, or any room, for Sweeping Wind on Raiment. On the other hand, again, LoD/LoN might be a good path for that.

MKG using Sweeping Wind as a trigger mechanic is no different from many other sets having their own trigger mechanics. I don’t see what’s wrong?

Gen weapon requirements, too, are no different from many other builds. Personally I don’t think it’s realistic to have more than a few options in a given build, anyway.

I just feel like we should clean up and make the most of what we’ve got, first. There’s room to add things but these are my goals.

Raiment - (4) Double the affect of Dashing Strike rune. Dashing Strike reduce your damage taken by 60% for 6 second.

Jawbreaker - When Dashing Strike hits an enemy more than 20 yards away, it Charge is refuned. Reduce Dashing Strike cooldown by 50%

Crystal Fist - Increase Dashing Strike damage by xxx% and hit all enemies in a 2-3 yard radius. Increase by gold pickup.

Fleshrake - Dashing Strike increases the damage of Dashing Strike by 300% for 3 seconds, stacking up to 5 times.

I’m still really not in favor of making a mobility skill the basis and primary source of damage of a build; I just don’t picture it actually working. If it’s something people are that interested in I don’t want to fight over it, but again these were just my ideas and the way I thought they worked best. Theoretically there’s always room to add.

I like these changes, having more focused sets.

I feel maby they could remove LTK from SWK, having one set for 3 different skills, pluss sweeping winds and cyclon is a bit mutch. I’d rather get a new set at a later stage for LTK, synergicing with some of the unused skills. ( but its not that important)

Damage wise i think a innas and justice would be too weak to come close to meta build. We would need more multiplyers for allies.

But the base ideas are great.:blush:

1 Like

Many thanks!

Personally I think LTK is a good part of the set, even tho it’s fallen behind a bit it has potential. Under this rework Sweeping Wind stays as a trigger and the automatic Cyclone Strike is added from WKL only to synergize with the fact that all three main skills are AoE. It’s simpler and much more direct than the current 4pc power.

Any or all of these ideas may need numbers buffs, but don’t underestimate that SSS mechanic at least - it scales extremely hard with extra hits.

I forgot to add PoJ’s movespeed to WKL even tho I mentioned it below the box, so that’s fixed now. By popular demand I bumped Raiment’s DR up to 60%. Also, after rechecking the math I increased the Shenlong drain to 25% given Rue Chambers access. Finally I added movespeed to the Flying Dragon proc too, to better make up for the loss of extra Dashing Strikes.

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Quite frankly, I think anything less than 80% DR specially for gen monk wouldn’t work. There’s soo many classes with builds that can use their 80% dr ring and/or use Aquila/unity/stones Plus other DR from their sets.

Definitely a good approach

Charge refund + cooldown down reduction sounds like not making sense. It could lower the cooldown of epi e.g. Also that crystal change sounds well in the first place but think of it: Gen monk uses shenlong to push since it has 2 multiplyer, then you only have 1 wpn left. Usually it is the FD since it doubles APS, which makes striken more effective and lifts the dmg of generators. That means it would need much to break through that wall - but it is possible.

Hm, the initial approach on swk was pushing all spirit spenders. I do not like swks dependance on VW. In addition: LTK feels just right with LoN (not LoD, even although it is stronger right now since ltk lacks massively on defensive part). My LoN ltk is t16 incredibly fast and mobile, thats real fun. Maybe one should add so many ltk multiplyers on legendaries (that are too low for adding it into a set) but lift the LoN variant into big fun to play :slight_smile: Right now its a pity that it has no supporting defensive buffs you can add except that cs shoulders. CS is a skill you can not use when using swk set. And ltk very well synergizes with rabid strike and those ally bracers. It would be kind of funny to use that for the build. Ltk is a massively fun build.

1 Like