Abstract
The primary goal of this thread is to encourage more styles of gameplay.
The problem with sweeping wind/cyclone is that there is only one way to play with it.
You need high proc rate and critical hits, so the only way to play is to punch nonstop with thunderclap.
Wave of light looks like a useful spell on paper, it does 2-3x the DPS of thunderclap afterall.
But since it has a low proc rate, you pay an opportunity cost of cyclones each time you cast it.
So you don't actually boost your DPS when you cast this spell because of how cyclone works.
You can't kite either, because then you lose out on cyclone DPS as well.
It's a very static, boring way to play, that forces you to facetank every enemy attack.
To solve this issue, I will propose 2 sets of changes.
- Improved Sweeping Wind runes that encourage funner, more active gameplay
- And improved monk mobility on spirit generators
Sweeping Wind Rune Changes
Quick Comment on Cyclone Rune Balance
This really goes without saying, but cyclone doesn't really need a buff.
Blizzard last stated that monks are in a nice place in terms of DPS.
This is due in large part to sweeping wind cyclone bringing monks on par with barbarians.
But that was before the advent of the weapon throw barbarian.
Now, monks once again feel a bit behind barbarians in terms of DPS
So in that sense, a small buff to cyclone rune would not hurt balance at all IMO.
But there's plenty of other ways to bring monks up to par with barbarians.
So for the moment, let us assume no buff to cyclone rune.
Balance Objectives
- Make all runes comparable viable to Cyclone.
- Attempt to create runes that encourage active and tactical gameplay.
- Avoid making more runes crit chance based like cyclone. (For the sake of diversity)
How Powerful is Sweeping Wind Cyclone right now?
To know how powerful we need to make the new runes.
We need to know how powerful sweeping wind cyclone is on end game monks.
So we're going to do a quick Calculation:
Lets assume a single target scenario.
And lets assume a dual wield monk with 50% crit chance and 2.00 attack speed.
The wind stacks deal 45% of your inventory DPS
Cyclones deal 20% weapon damage per shock, a total of 6 shocks for 120% weapon damage.
With thunderclap, you have a proc rate of: 3.75
Meaning 1.875 cyclones per second in a single target scenario.
The cyclones are responsible for up to 120%*1.875 weapon damage per second. Or 225%
225% weapon damage at 2.00 AS is 112.5% Inventory DPS per second.
Sweeping Wind/Cyclone deals approximately 157.5% Inventory DPS unbuffed
Inner Storm
- For every 10 spirit spent, produce a storm.
I'm going to call it a storm to avoid confusion with the name of the cyclone rune.
Each storm shocks for 10% weapon damage every 0.6 seconds, a total of 6 times.
Technical Details:
If the amount of spirit spent by a given spell is not divisible by 10, use RNG. For Example:
You use 25 spirit with dashing strike. You produce 2 storms and have a 50% chance of a 3rd.
Cyclones/Storms were chosen as a mechanic over say, producing ground based DoT's or backlashes.
This was because spirit spenders generally involve knockback or motion.
You don't want to cast LTK or WoL only to realize the enemy is no longer in range if your SW.
Cyclones/Storms have large range, so they synergize best with spirit spending.
PS: Yes we're keeping the 45% wind stack and 3% spirit/second. No Nerfs!
How much DPS is this?
If you use Fists of Thunder/Quickening, 50 spirit per second is achieveable at 2.00 AS
You will create 5 storms per second.
Each cyclone will do 15%*6 = 90% weapon damage
This is a total of 495% weapon DPS including 45% stack, or 247.5% inventory DPS
about 1.57more than the single target DPS of cyclone.
The down side is that Inner Storm will not scale with AoE.
Once you start fighting 3 enemies with thunderclap, Inner storm is on par with Cyclone.
Quickening also does not do as much DPS as thunderclap, and lacks a teleport.
(Granted I think all FoT runes should have a teleport, but we'll talk about that in another section)
The up side is this rune synergizes with spirit spenders.
Wave of light and Lashing tail kick have very low proc rates, so they create very few cyclones.
They will not suffer this problem with the alternative Inner Storm rune.
Why is this good or interesting?
Well we've essentially created a rune based on an entire different mechanic than cyclone rune.
That is, this is spirit based instead of directly crit chance and proc chance based.
Cyclone rune also had the fundamental flaw that it inhibited DPS spirit spenders.
Every time you cast WoL, you have to pay an opportunity cost of cyclones you could have made.
And this mechanic made spells such as WoL and LTK non-viable.
Inner storm will not have this issue, and will create an entirely new and diverse branch of monk builds.
And we won't even need to buff other skills to achieve that goal.
Fire Storm
- Every time you strike an enemy, erupt the ground in a 7 yard radius of the target
Each eruption lasts for 3 seconds, and will not stack with itself.
Enemies standing inside the eruption radius take 100% weapon damage per second.
This weapon damage does NOT scale up with attack speed.
I wanted to create a rune that would make 2 handers viable.
This is it.
Even if you use a skorn with 1.0 attack speed and no IAS:
This rune does 145% Single Target DPS including stack, a bit less than Cyclone Rune.
However, it scales much better with AoE than Cyclone Rune.
Why is this good or interesting?
Unlike Cyclone or the previously proposed Inner Storm, Fire Storm does not require constant combat.
Cyclone requires you to keep punching for crits, inner storm requires punching for spirit.
The proposed Fire Storm changes only requires you to punch at least once every 3 seconds.
The result is mobility and survivability. Monks can now kite substantially while maintaining their DPS.
Likewise they can cast spells without incurring an opportunity cost of cyclones.
These numerous advantages offset the otherwise lackluster single target DPS, and need for low AS.
Blade Storm
- Each time you bump into an enemy, deal damage in AoE around you, similar to backlash.
There is a limit on the number of backlashes per second based on attack speed.
Technical Details:
Each backlash deals [45% weapon damage * AS] to all enemies in 10 yards.
IE a build with 100k DPS/2.00 AS deals the same damage per backlash as 100k DPS/1.00 AS
After each backlash, a CD of [0.5 sec / AS] must pass before another backlash can proc.
Why is this good or interesting?
Lets tally what we have suggested right now:
Inner storm deals single target DPS as DoT, and favors high spirit generation.
Fire storm deals AoE DPS as DoT, and favors slow attack speed
Cyclone is mostly single target DPS when using thunderclap, and it favors high crit chance.
So when I tackled Bladestorm, I tried to aim for greater variety.
As we can see above, every other rune so far is a DoT, so we want an instant damage rune.
We also see that an extra AoE DPS rune would not hurt either.
Finally, a tweaked the mechanics to favor high attack speed to balance out Firestorm.
Applying a backlash fit both these conditions, and IMO fits the style and idea of a bladestorm.
The backlash procs when you bump into an enemy, so it's perfect for many positioning skills.
IE tempest rush, cyclone strike, dashing strike.
It also would synergize well with spirit generators if they were given more mobility.
Master of the Wind
- I had a hard time thinking up a new rune for Master of the Wind.
Because I feel like with the previous suggestions, everything in regards to DPS is covered.
Firestorm favors slow attack speed.
Bladestorm is the only instant damage sweeping wind (IE no DoT) and favors high attack speed.
We have 2 runes that favor single target (Inner Storm and cyclone)
and 2 runes that favor AoE DPS (Fire Storm and Blade Storm
We have a wide variety of proc mechanics ontop of simple crit chance.
We already have 4 DPS focused sweeping winds, we need something different: A Defensive/Support Sweeping Wind.
This rune will also be a play on inverse ninja law, since monks are basically bearded ninjas. http://en.wikipedia....verse_Ninja_Law
- Extend the radius to 24 yards and change the element to cold damage.
- At max stacks, the player and friendlies within 24 yards gain 10% MS & AS
- Players and Allies in 24 yards gain an additional 1% MS & AS times the number of enemies in the stack. Capped at 15.
- Slows movement of projectiles within 24 yards.
When I play in teams, I have a hard time keeping the team inside my overawe radius.
I wanted something to make it obvious to my teammates that we should do together.
It's hard for teammates to notice that they're benefiting from overawe.
But everybody notices when they're moving and attacking faster, and most people love it.
Scaling the magnitude with the number of enemies inside the radius encourages CC.
And slowing enemy projectiles is to help make kiting slightly more viable.
[b]Spirit Generator Mobility Changes[/b]
Fist of Thunder
This is a fairly obvious suggestion, that you'll see in a million suggestion threads.
It's simple, obvious, and most importantly it works.
Deadly Reach
Allow players to move while casting Deadly Reach
Deadly Reach will auto attack the nearest enemy (Similar to Strafe in D2)
Vault 7 yards on double click, 3 second cooldown
The issue with Deadly Reach right now is you need to line up enemies to maximize DPS.
Imagine hellions lining up SCV's in starcraft 2.
But deadly reach is completely stationary, so your proverbial hellion gets swarmed by proverbial zerglings, and you can't actually use your AoE effectively.
By allowing players to kite with deadly reach, we make deadly reach funner, more mobile, and better DPS.
The mobility makes it easier to survive, so you don't need extra proc rate for sustain.
And since you don't need the proc rate for sweeping wind cyclone rune either, this change greatly balances Deadly Reach with thunderclap without even needing to tweak the DPS/Proc rate numbers.
That's not to say some further tweaking won't be necessary, but it solves most of the balancing problems in an elegant fashion.
Crippling Wave
The jist of the suggestion is to make Crippling Wave more like Whirlwind
Allow players to move while casting Crippling Wave
Allow players to pass through enemies while casting Crippling Wave (like Whirlwind)
Blink 7 yards on double click, 3 second cooldown
Similar to Deadly Reach, the issue with Crippling Wave is its mobility.
You want to be in the center of a pack of enemies, but you're simply too stationary.
Like with the deadly reach fix, extra mobility will inevitably boost your DPS output.
The mobility will also improve your survivability, lowering the need for proc rate.
Way of the Hundred Fists
Every now and then, you get a guy who says he likes stationary spirit generators.
So I think we should leave Way of the Hundred Fists as a stationary skill for those people.
But, hundred fists would be very under powered if we just left it as it is right now.
So I'm going to propose only 1 change to hundred fists.
When I think of hundred fists, I think of brute power.
Like you want to shower your enemy with blows until they shatter to bits.
So we'll add a quick change that reflects this mentality
Ram into your enemies for boosted AoE and Damage on double click. 3 second cooldown
Welcome to the first ever Monk Suggestion Journal.
Druin & I wanted a way to encourage and archive good suggestion threads.
Our solution for this was an academic styled suggestion journal.
All articles are written independently with review and feedback from myself and Druin.
Opinions in some threads may or may not contradict those found in others.
We will review your suggestion based on the following criteria:
- Must contain and abstract
- Must be well written. (Good formatting, spelling, grammar)
- Should make the game more fun.
- Game mechanics must be correct.
- Should be balanced relative to other monk skills.
- Should be balanced relative to other classes.
- Should be elegant or thorough. (Avoid giant lists of number tweaks without supporting math)
- Should encourage more active, mobile monk gameplay.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
The primary goal of this thread is to encourage more styles of gameplay.
The problem with sweeping wind/cyclone is that there is only one way to play with it.
You need high proc rate and critical hits, so the only way to play is to punch nonstop with thunderclap.
Wave of light looks like a useful spell on paper, it does 2-3x the DPS of thunderclap afterall.
But since it has a low proc rate, you pay an opportunity cost of cyclones each time you cast it.
So you don't actually boost your DPS when you cast this spell because of how cyclone works.
You can't kite either, because then you lose out on cyclone DPS as well.
It's a very static, boring way to play, that forces you to facetank every enemy attack.
To solve this issue, I will propose 2 sets of changes.
- Improved Sweeping Wind runes that encourage funner, more active gameplay
- And improved monk mobility on spirit generators
Sweeping Wind Rune Changes
Quick Comment on Cyclone Rune Balance
Blizzard last stated that monks are in a nice place in terms of DPS.
This is due in large part to sweeping wind cyclone bringing monks on par with barbarians.
But that was before the advent of the weapon throw barbarian.
Now, monks once again feel a bit behind barbarians in terms of DPS
So in that sense, a small buff to cyclone rune would not hurt balance at all IMO.
But there's plenty of other ways to bring monks up to par with barbarians.
So for the moment, let us assume no buff to cyclone rune.
Balance Objectives
- Make all runes comparable viable to Cyclone.
- Attempt to create runes that encourage active and tactical gameplay.
- Avoid making more runes crit chance based like cyclone. (For the sake of diversity)
How Powerful is Sweeping Wind Cyclone right now?
We need to know how powerful sweeping wind cyclone is on end game monks.
So we're going to do a quick Calculation:
And lets assume a dual wield monk with 50% crit chance and 2.00 attack speed.
The wind stacks deal 45% of your inventory DPS
Cyclones deal 20% weapon damage per shock, a total of 6 shocks for 120% weapon damage.
With thunderclap, you have a proc rate of: 3.75
Meaning 1.875 cyclones per second in a single target scenario.
The cyclones are responsible for up to 120%*1.875 weapon damage per second. Or 225%
225% weapon damage at 2.00 AS is 112.5% Inventory DPS per second.
Sweeping Wind/Cyclone deals approximately 157.5% Inventory DPS unbuffed
Inner Storm
I'm going to call it a storm to avoid confusion with the name of the cyclone rune.
Each storm shocks for 10% weapon damage every 0.6 seconds, a total of 6 times.
Technical Details:
You use 25 spirit with dashing strike. You produce 2 storms and have a 50% chance of a 3rd.
Cyclones/Storms were chosen as a mechanic over say, producing ground based DoT's or backlashes.
This was because spirit spenders generally involve knockback or motion.
You don't want to cast LTK or WoL only to realize the enemy is no longer in range if your SW.
Cyclones/Storms have large range, so they synergize best with spirit spending.
PS: Yes we're keeping the 45% wind stack and 3% spirit/second. No Nerfs!
How much DPS is this?
You will create 5 storms per second.
Each cyclone will do 15%*6 = 90% weapon damage
This is a total of 495% weapon DPS including 45% stack, or 247.5% inventory DPS
about 1.57more than the single target DPS of cyclone.
The down side is that Inner Storm will not scale with AoE.
Once you start fighting 3 enemies with thunderclap, Inner storm is on par with Cyclone.
Quickening also does not do as much DPS as thunderclap, and lacks a teleport.
(Granted I think all FoT runes should have a teleport, but we'll talk about that in another section)
The up side is this rune synergizes with spirit spenders.
Wave of light and Lashing tail kick have very low proc rates, so they create very few cyclones.
They will not suffer this problem with the alternative Inner Storm rune.
Why is this good or interesting?
Well we've essentially created a rune based on an entire different mechanic than cyclone rune.
That is, this is spirit based instead of directly crit chance and proc chance based.
Cyclone rune also had the fundamental flaw that it inhibited DPS spirit spenders.
Every time you cast WoL, you have to pay an opportunity cost of cyclones you could have made.
And this mechanic made spells such as WoL and LTK non-viable.
Inner storm will not have this issue, and will create an entirely new and diverse branch of monk builds.
And we won't even need to buff other skills to achieve that goal.
Fire Storm
Each eruption lasts for 3 seconds, and will not stack with itself.
Enemies standing inside the eruption radius take 100% weapon damage per second.
This weapon damage does NOT scale up with attack speed.
I wanted to create a rune that would make 2 handers viable.
This is it.
Even if you use a skorn with 1.0 attack speed and no IAS:
This rune does 145% Single Target DPS including stack, a bit less than Cyclone Rune.
However, it scales much better with AoE than Cyclone Rune.
Why is this good or interesting?
Unlike Cyclone or the previously proposed Inner Storm, Fire Storm does not require constant combat.
Cyclone requires you to keep punching for crits, inner storm requires punching for spirit.
The proposed Fire Storm changes only requires you to punch at least once every 3 seconds.
The result is mobility and survivability. Monks can now kite substantially while maintaining their DPS.
Likewise they can cast spells without incurring an opportunity cost of cyclones.
These numerous advantages offset the otherwise lackluster single target DPS, and need for low AS.
Blade Storm
There is a limit on the number of backlashes per second based on attack speed.
Technical Details:
IE a build with 100k DPS/2.00 AS deals the same damage per backlash as 100k DPS/1.00 AS
After each backlash, a CD of [0.5 sec / AS] must pass before another backlash can proc.
Why is this good or interesting?
Lets tally what we have suggested right now:
Inner storm deals single target DPS as DoT, and favors high spirit generation.
Fire storm deals AoE DPS as DoT, and favors slow attack speed
Cyclone is mostly single target DPS when using thunderclap, and it favors high crit chance.
So when I tackled Bladestorm, I tried to aim for greater variety.
As we can see above, every other rune so far is a DoT, so we want an instant damage rune.
We also see that an extra AoE DPS rune would not hurt either.
Finally, a tweaked the mechanics to favor high attack speed to balance out Firestorm.
Applying a backlash fit both these conditions, and IMO fits the style and idea of a bladestorm.
The backlash procs when you bump into an enemy, so it's perfect for many positioning skills.
IE tempest rush, cyclone strike, dashing strike.
It also would synergize well with spirit generators if they were given more mobility.
Master of the Wind
Because I feel like with the previous suggestions, everything in regards to DPS is covered.
Firestorm favors slow attack speed.
Bladestorm is the only instant damage sweeping wind (IE no DoT) and favors high attack speed.
We have 2 runes that favor single target (Inner Storm and cyclone)
and 2 runes that favor AoE DPS (Fire Storm and Blade Storm
We have a wide variety of proc mechanics ontop of simple crit chance.
We already have 4 DPS focused sweeping winds, we need something different:
A Defensive/Support Sweeping Wind.
This rune will also be a play on inverse ninja law, since monks are basically bearded ninjas.
http://en.wikipedia....verse_Ninja_Law
- Extend the radius to 24 yards and change the element to cold damage.
- At max stacks, the player and friendlies within 24 yards gain 10% MS & AS
- Players and Allies in 24 yards gain an additional 1% MS & AS times the number of enemies in the stack. Capped at 15.
- Slows movement of projectiles within 24 yards.
When I play in teams, I have a hard time keeping the team inside my overawe radius.
I wanted something to make it obvious to my teammates that we should do together.
It's hard for teammates to notice that they're benefiting from overawe.
But everybody notices when they're moving and attacking faster, and most people love it.
Scaling the magnitude with the number of enemies inside the radius encourages CC.
And slowing enemy projectiles is to help make kiting slightly more viable.
Fist of Thunder
This is a fairly obvious suggestion, that you'll see in a million suggestion threads.
It's simple, obvious, and most importantly it works.
Deadly Reach
Allow players to move while casting Deadly Reach
Deadly Reach will auto attack the nearest enemy (Similar to Strafe in D2)
Vault 7 yards on double click, 3 second cooldown
The issue with Deadly Reach right now is you need to line up enemies to maximize DPS.
Imagine hellions lining up SCV's in starcraft 2.
But deadly reach is completely stationary, so your proverbial hellion gets swarmed by proverbial zerglings, and you can't actually use your AoE effectively.
By allowing players to kite with deadly reach, we make deadly reach funner, more mobile, and better DPS.
The mobility makes it easier to survive, so you don't need extra proc rate for sustain.
And since you don't need the proc rate for sweeping wind cyclone rune either, this change greatly balances Deadly Reach with thunderclap without even needing to tweak the DPS/Proc rate numbers.
That's not to say some further tweaking won't be necessary, but it solves most of the balancing problems in an elegant fashion.
Crippling Wave
The jist of the suggestion is to make Crippling Wave more like Whirlwind
Allow players to move while casting Crippling Wave
Allow players to pass through enemies while casting Crippling Wave (like Whirlwind)
Blink 7 yards on double click, 3 second cooldown
Similar to Deadly Reach, the issue with Crippling Wave is its mobility.
You want to be in the center of a pack of enemies, but you're simply too stationary.
Like with the deadly reach fix, extra mobility will inevitably boost your DPS output.
The mobility will also improve your survivability, lowering the need for proc rate.
Way of the Hundred Fists
Every now and then, you get a guy who says he likes stationary spirit generators.
So I think we should leave Way of the Hundred Fists as a stationary skill for those people.
But, hundred fists would be very under powered if we just left it as it is right now.
So I'm going to propose only 1 change to hundred fists.
When I think of hundred fists, I think of brute power.
Like you want to shower your enemy with blows until they shatter to bits.
So we'll add a quick change that reflects this mentality
Ram into your enemies for boosted AoE and Damage on double click. 3 second cooldown
Druin & I wanted a way to encourage and archive good suggestion threads.
Our solution for this was an academic styled suggestion journal.
All articles are written independently with review and feedback from myself and Druin.
Opinions in some threads may or may not contradict those found in others.
Table of Contents
November 2012
[Spirit Generators] A Comprehensive Review - By Druin
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/6607333164
[Sweeping Wind] Rune Changes & Spirit Generator Mobility
http://www.diablofans.com/topic/76808-journal-monk-suggestions/#entry1075625
Do you have a suggestion you want to get linked?
If so, please fill out the form below:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?formkey=dDJVRUM3ZVRQNDMxbElfZk1MbTlNdVE6MQ
We will review your suggestion based on the following criteria:
- Must contain and abstract
- Must be well written. (Good formatting, spelling, grammar)
- Should make the game more fun.
- Game mechanics must be correct.
- Should be balanced relative to other monk skills.
- Should be balanced relative to other classes.
- Should be elegant or thorough. (Avoid giant lists of number tweaks without supporting math)
- Should encourage more active, mobile monk gameplay.