I saw a post on the beta forums where someone was complaining about a slow attack speed making it difficult to build up Spirit. However, it seems like slow attack speed may benefit some skills while harming other skills. Let's take a look at Monk attacks:
Spirit Generators:
On first blush, you would think that all Spirit Generators would favor fast weapons, since you'd generate more Spirit that way. This is mostly true. However, there are two notable exceptions:
- Sweeping Wind: The wind damage maxes out at 60% weapon damage per second. Weapon damage is not normalized in Diablo 3, which means that a slow weapon will have higher top-end damage. While it will take longer to get Sweeping Wind fully charged, it will do dramatically more damage with a slower weapon.
- Exploding Palm (Essence Burn rune): The chain-reaction bleed is based on weapon damage, which means it will hit harder with a slower weapon.
Spirit Spenders:
Spirit Generation will be much faster with a fast weapon. Therefore, most Spirit Spenders also prefer a fast weapon. However, there are a few exceptions:
- Lashing Tail Kick costs little Spirit and has a 3 second cooldown. It should not be limited by Spirit generation, unless you take Beacon of Ytar. Due to being weapon damage dependent, it will hit harder with a slower weapon.
- Seven Sided Strike has a long cooldown. It also should not be limited by Spirit generation unless you take Beacon of Ytar. 7SS will also hit much harder with a slower weapon.
Mantras:
- Mantra of Evasion Backlash rune (Dodgeball Monk) does a percent of weapon damage, and will hit harder with slower weapons.
- Mantra of Conviction Reclamation rune (Healing proc) will proc more often with a faster weapon.
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In summary, I think people should start thinking of Monk builds based on slow 2h versus fast DW. For example:
Spirit Generators:
On first blush, you would think that all Spirit Generators would favor fast weapons, since you'd generate more Spirit that way. This is mostly true. However, there are two notable exceptions:
- Sweeping Wind: The wind damage maxes out at 60% weapon damage per second. Weapon damage is not normalized in Diablo 3, which means that a slow weapon will have higher top-end damage. While it will take longer to get Sweeping Wind fully charged, it will do dramatically more damage with a slower weapon.
- Exploding Palm (Essence Burn rune): The chain-reaction bleed is based on weapon damage, which means it will hit harder with a slower weapon.
Your points on damage for these skill are again well-taken, but damage isn't the concern of your post. You're talking about difficulty generating Spirit quickly enough, in which case faster weapons/DW will (seemingly) always be superior. Damage of those skills is a different argument. There's obviously going to be a trade-off. I feel like your post is kind of covering two topics that don't relate to each other within the context of your argument, if that makes sense. Are we talking about the damage of skills or the ability to generate Spirit effectively with a slow, 2H weapon, as your first paragraph would imply?
Point taken, but this is a build built around dodge, which requires dual wield for The Guardian's Path passive dodge bonus.
The dodgeball build can get to 55-60% Dodge with a 2Her and 60-65% Dodge with DW. (remember, Dodge is multiplicative, not additive) However, a 2H will do nearly twice as much AoE damage per dodge. It is a valid tradeoff.
Your points on damage for these skill are again well-taken, but damage isn't the concern of your post. You're talking about difficulty generating Spirit quickly enough, in which case faster weapons/DW will (seemingly) always be superior. Damage of those skills is a different argument. There's obviously going to be a trade-off. I feel like your post is kind of covering two topics that don't relate to each other within the context of your argument, if that makes sense. Are we talking about the damage of skills or the ability to generate Spirit effectively with a slow, 2H weapon, as your first paragraph would imply?
I am again referring to a tradeoff. All Spirit Generators will generate more spirit with faster attacks. However, some Spirit Generators deal more damage with slower attacks. That means if you are using Spirit Generators as a major source of damage, you will want to use a 2H. On the other hand, if your main source of damage is from heavy Spirit Spenders (such as Beaconed 7SS) then you definitely don't want to use a 2H.
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Spirit Generators:
On first blush, you would think that all Spirit Generators would favor fast weapons, since you'd generate more Spirit that way. This is mostly true. However, there are two notable exceptions:
- Sweeping Wind: The wind damage maxes out at 60% weapon damage per second. Weapon damage is not normalized in Diablo 3, which means that a slow weapon will have higher top-end damage. While it will take longer to get Sweeping Wind fully charged, it will do dramatically more damage with a slower weapon.
- Exploding Palm (Essence Burn rune): The chain-reaction bleed is based on weapon damage, which means it will hit harder with a slower weapon.
Spirit Spenders:
Spirit Generation will be much faster with a fast weapon. Therefore, most Spirit Spenders also prefer a fast weapon. However, there are a few exceptions:
- Lashing Tail Kick costs little Spirit and has a 3 second cooldown. It should not be limited by Spirit generation, unless you take Beacon of Ytar. Due to being weapon damage dependent, it will hit harder with a slower weapon.
- Seven Sided Strike has a long cooldown. It also should not be limited by Spirit generation unless you take Beacon of Ytar. 7SS will also hit much harder with a slower weapon.
Mantras:
- Mantra of Evasion Backlash rune (Dodgeball Monk) does a percent of weapon damage, and will hit harder with slower weapons.
- Mantra of Conviction Reclamation rune (Healing proc) will proc more often with a faster weapon.
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In summary, I think people should start thinking of Monk builds based on slow 2h versus fast DW. For example:
1) Stacking skills that benefit from fast attack speed and high Spirit generation:
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/monk#eaRkji!dUg!bZbZac
2) Stacking skills that benefit from high weapon damage and don't need as much Spirit:
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/monk#hUYjdb!UWc!ZaZZcZ
Point taken, but this is a build built around dodge, which requires dual wield for The Guardian's Path passive dodge bonus.
Your points on damage for these skill are again well-taken, but damage isn't the concern of your post. You're talking about difficulty generating Spirit quickly enough, in which case faster weapons/DW will (seemingly) always be superior. Damage of those skills is a different argument. There's obviously going to be a trade-off. I feel like your post is kind of covering two topics that don't relate to each other within the context of your argument, if that makes sense. Are we talking about the damage of skills or the ability to generate Spirit effectively with a slow, 2H weapon, as your first paragraph would imply?
The dodgeball build can get to 55-60% Dodge with a 2Her and 60-65% Dodge with DW. (remember, Dodge is multiplicative, not additive) However, a 2H will do nearly twice as much AoE damage per dodge. It is a valid tradeoff.
I am again referring to a tradeoff. All Spirit Generators will generate more spirit with faster attacks. However, some Spirit Generators deal more damage with slower attacks. That means if you are using Spirit Generators as a major source of damage, you will want to use a 2H. On the other hand, if your main source of damage is from heavy Spirit Spenders (such as Beaconed 7SS) then you definitely don't want to use a 2H.