I most likely won't update this anymore as I've lost interest to D3 and gaming in general.
Here's what I had a few weeks earlier when 1.0.4 just came out:
My focus with this new article is to collect useful information about the Monk class. I'm assuming the reader at least leveled a Monk to 60 and is familiar with all the tooltips, spells and runes, I won't be covering any basics.
Spirit generators
Spirit generators have different attack speeds. I've attempted to test them as good as I can here. Knowing these values allows us to actually compare spirit generators accurately. Lets look at weapon damage per second and spirit generation per second, assuming a 1.0 attacks per second character.
Fists of Thunder: 45% faster. This converts into 159.5% weapon damage per second and 8.7 spirit per second.
Deadly Reach: 16% faster. This converts into 127.6% weapon damage per second and 6.96 spirit per second.
Crippling Wave: 11.5% faster. This converts into 122.65% weapon damage per second and 7.805 spirit per second.
Way of the Hundred Fists: 8.75% faster. This converts into 152.25% weapon damage per second and 8.7 spirit per second.
Let's consider direct weapon damage increasing runes. Runes that increase the damage of only a part of the combo I will simply average out.
Fists of Thunder with Thunderclap: applies only to non-finisher strikes, averages out to 133.33% weapon damage per strike. Converts into 193.33% weapon damage per second.
Deadly Reach with Scattered Blows: averages out to 130% weapon damage per strike. Converts into 150.8% weapon damage per second.
Crippling Wave with Mangle: converts into 159.44% weapon damage per second.
Way of the Hundred Fists with Hands of Lightning: averages out to 160% weapon damage per strike. Converts into 174% weapon damage per second.
Way of the Hundred Fists with Windforce Flurry: averages out to 176.66% weapon damage per strike. Converts into 192.12% weapon damage per second.
Other weapon damage runes.
Fists of Thunder with Bounding Light: doesn't proc on the main target. If you attack a single target, it just does nothing. If you're up against two targets, the lightning does proc, but it only hits the secondary target, and doesn't chain back to the main target (chain lightnings don't get reduced between jumps, they always hit for 73%). It's useless in single target, although it's fairly close to Thunderclap for AoE.
Fists of Thunder with Static Charge: puts a debuff on the target you're clicking on when you attack with FoT. When you click on another target, it strikes the debuffed target for 37% weapon damage (and debuffs the new target - you can have multiple debuffs up). This is the only way it works - the AoE finisher of FoT doesn't proc it nor applies the debuff, other sources of damage don't proc it. Single target wise, this has no benefit at all, and it's not exactly a comfortable way to AoE things either.
Way of the Hundred Fists with Fists of Fury: applies a DoT on all targets hit by WotHF. The DoT doesn't stack, attacking again only refreshes it. This is basically a flat 20% weapon damage per second, so this skill/rune converts into 172.25% weapon damage per second.
I'm not going to compare runes that give buffs such as crit, attack speed or run speed, because that's gear and build dependant. It's well possible that 15% attack speed or 18% damage are worth more than the differences between primary skills, but we can only know that with a spreadsheet that accounts for all sources of damage and your gear.
Thunderclap hits, which are separate from the main strike, proc on-hit effects for 75% each. This includes the hit on the main target. So, if you're fighting a bunch of mobs, you get 140% of your life on hit every time you strike the main target, and then 75% for every offtarget Thunderclap hits. This all applies to Bleed effects as well which further gives FoT/Thunderclap a damage advantage. WotHF/Fists of Fury has this effect too, as the DoT application procs on-hit effects.
Spirit Spenders
The tooltip for Sweeping Wind is very vague - it doesn't even mention in which time frame it does its damage. Tests show that it does 20% of your tooltip DPS per second, so it scales with everything - attack speed, crit, crit damage (note that these tests were done with a single weapon, dual wielding mechanics are described below). Sweeping Wind snapshots your stats when you cast it and keeps them until it fades or is recasted, Cyclones inherit that snapshot.
This has a very interesting interaction with the dual wield mechanics: with DW you strike with your main and off hand in turns, i.e. your character actually switches between the weapons and your stats update, namely your attack speed and weapon damage range. This is easily observed: look at your attacks per second and at your weapon damage range at the tooltip for "Attack" ability, which is available if you drag a mouse ability off the bar; the DPS tooltip doesn't update on this because it simply counts the average of the two. When you cast Sweeping Wind (or pretty much any spell), it takes a snapshot of all of your stats, with the weapon that is currently active. Ergo casting Sweeping Wind while your stronger, higher DPS weapon is active is profitable.
There's a misconception that weapon attack speed somehow matters here and that you should "use a slow mainhand and a fast offhand". It doesn't, because Sweeping Wind scales with attacks per second. If you use two weapons with the exact same DPS but different speeds, it doesn't matter which hand is active when you use Sweeping Wind. Similarly, there's a misconception that off-hand DPS is less important than main-hand DPS, and that's very far from the truth.
Another interesting thing about Sweeping Wind is that if you cast the spell again while the aura is already up, it will simply extend your current buff without scanning the stats again, as well as keep your stacks. It doesn't matter which weapon or buffs you have when refreshing, only when you cast it first time. This is fairly useful when moving between packs.
Blinding Flash/Faith in the Light scales with attacks per second. So, if you have 2.0 attacks per second, the buff will increase your damage by 60%. Whether this is intended or not is still unknown, but it makes the rune much more effective than it looks like on the tooltip.
Regarding the pure damage dealers, Lashing Tail Kick and Wave of Light. The problem with these two spells is that you will have to choose between casting them or casting Mantra - under most circumstances you simply won't have the spirit for both. Now, it's easy to compare them (just look at damage per spirit), but it's not easy to calculate how much exactly Mantra of Conviction/Overawe is doing. Based on my very abstract calculations for a single target, it's never worth casting either of them regardless of which runes you run, but to prove that for sure we will need to model it properly, i.e. we need a spreadsheet or a simulation. Also, take into account that you need to cast them instead of a primary strike, unlike Mantra which has no cast time and doesn't disrupt your left click DPS. LTK's knockback can and will affect your DPS as well, mostly in negative ways.
I didn't include Seven-Sided Strike in the paragraph above because of the cooldown. It's a good skill and it does a lot of damage for its cost, there's just no scientific way to compare it to the other skills as you're probably not going to use it by cooldown and definitely not on every pack. I'll pull the "depends on playstyle" card here. (Using it with Fulminating Onslaught rune and Cyclone Strike can be fun.)
Exploding Palm has a very nice damage per spirit ratio assuming all of the damage lands, but is a skill that's only useful on elite packs - non-elites generally have very low hp so the debuff won't tick for 9 seconds and the explosion won't do much damage. Essence Burn looks like a rune that could make the skill useful on non-elite packs, but 60% weapon damage is just too little; it also makes the skill worse against elites as it takes away the 30% of max hp explosion component.
From my limited testing of Mystic Ally I've figured out the following: their attack speed is constant 1.5 attacks per second, however attack damage is scaled by the characters attack speed; they dynamically scale with buffs and weapon switches when dual wielding, i.e. each attack scans your stats and weapon and it doesn't matter when you spawn them; they can crit. They're still not that great for our damage because 40% isn't much and they lack any reliable, decent AoE.
Damage reflect effects become worse the more damage you mitigate (Mantra of Retribution and Serenity/Reap What Is Sown).
Damage is absorbed after it is mitigated, so Mantra of Healing absorb does scale with gear.
All the other skills do exactly as their tooltips say and are fairly obvious. If you know anything interesting - things that aren't obvious from the tooltips or things that can be used as a reference for calculations later on - please post them.
Passives
Resolve only procs from actual attacks, not "all" sources of damage as the tooltip implies. Sweeping Wind doesn't proc it, Mantra of Conviction/Submission aura doesn't proc it, Thorns damage doesn't proc it.
Combination Strike works like most other stacking buffs. If you attack with spirit generator A, then once with spirit generator B, and then just continue attacking with spirit generator A, you will still have 2 stacks of it until you stop attacking. The only downside is that the buff isn't displayed on the UI so it can be problematic to track it.
A common question I used to see on the forums is about One With Everything. If you have 500 all resistance, 500 lightning resistance, you will have 1000 all resistance with One With Everything. This is why this skill is so good and is used by almost every Monk in Inferno.
Dodge, reduction, and damage stacking
Common builds
You can do whatever you want with this or the original article.
Regarding that blue post: it's indeed not going into any calculation any more. He's just described how they converted "for 5 seconds" to "over 5 seconds". So, for example, this is why Fists of Fury effect went up from 10% for 5 seconds to 100% over 5 seconds. Assuming an APS of 2.0, FoF would tick 10 times, so that's 100% weapon damage. Pretty simple.
Why it's a buff for 2handers - because all DoTs now deal a constant amount of total weapon damage over a period of time, so APS doesn't improve DoTs, and the APS is pretty much the best thing about 1handers.
Now that the patch is out, there's no need to worry about that anymore.
Alright, so after searching for a good calculation of the native speed of spirit generator attacks, I decided to make one of my own.
What I did: I limited the frame rate of the game to 30 frames per second, and then used video capture software to record my character performing attacks (at 30 frames per second too, of course). I then counted the amount of frames it takes to perform certain attacks or combos. To avoid the character performing starting/ending animations, I always recorded at least 3 full combos chain casted, and only looked at the 'middle' combo. I used a 1.0 attack speed staff and my total attack speed was 1.0 attacks per second. I did all tests without any runes. I also stared at the fps counter whenever recording to make sure it's stuck at 30 - if it changed at any point, I would re-do the recording. It was very easy to find where one attack ends and when the other one starts because there is always 1 frame where the weapon is sheathed between attacks (on the back of the character in the case of a staff).
Normal attack: 87 frames, 29 frames per attack. The reason I looked at normal attacks is to make sure this method is accurate, and to compare the other attacks versus this value rather than assuming it's 90 (3 attacks at 30 frames per second and 1.0 attack speed should be 90). So, I guess even this method is not going to be completely accurate, but very close.
Fists of Thunder: 1st attack: 19 frames, 2nd attack: 19 frames, 3rd attack: 22 frames. 60 frames total. This makes FoT 45% faster.
Deadly Reach: 1st attack: 20 frames, 2nd attack: 20 frames, 3rd attack: 35 frames. 75 frames total. This makes DR 16% faster.
Way of the Hundred Fists: 80 frames total. This makes WotHF 8.75% faster. I couldn't break this by attacks here because the animation is just too smooth (and there's no sheathed weapon frame, no stance change, it just looks like one smooth attack).
IMPORTANT EDIT: I changed the numbers a bit. Instead of counting how much time less each combo takes (i.e. dividing total frames by 87), I count how much faster the attacks are (i.e. dividing 87 by total frames). This makes all other calculations much easier, so if you want to know how much damage per second FoT does, for example, you only need to do 110*speed, instead of 110*(1-speed).
Yeah I see where you're coming from, but I think that's more of a personal preference thing. After all we're talking about a difference of 3%, and you can't directly compare a heal vs a ranged ability.
Not only because of the damage per spirit, but DoTs are based on a 2.0aps.
What does this mean exactly?
Anyhow, Paragon levels sparkled my interest to Diablo 3 again, which means I'll be playing which means I'll expanding this guide rather than just updating it. My thoughts so far:
I'm most likely going to be rewriting the guide from scratch because the whole point of the game is changing with this patch. What's going to matter now is speed of clearing. Having read the entire patch note, I'm pretty sure that progressing through Inferno is no longer going to be an issue pretty much regardless of which exact build you're using, as long as it makes sense and you have the appropriate gear. Hence there's no point in "forcing" a certain build anymore like in this guide.
Instead I'm going to write about which abilities are the most efficient and where, certain obvious or not very obvious combinations that just work well, add a bit more theory and numbers (f.ex. Sweeping Wind mechanics).
Gear section will probably become the main focus of the guide as well, seeing as legendaries actually have a weight now and will be sought after. It'll still be just a listing of stuff with a few comments, but I'll put more effort here as there's actually a reason to min/max now.
However, I'm not going to play the game (at least not a lot) until next week, so this might be slightly delayed.
They don't understand that we have only 1 slot for a spirit spender DPS ability. We are not going to drop using 3 defensive skills, and nobody will want to skip Mantra. Serenity is just too good on its own - it provides a much needed DPS window vs certain packs; Breath of Heaven provides a passive 15% damage buff via rune; and Faith in the Light buff scaling with AS ends up being ridiculous burst. That's on top of the fact that you sort of need to use all 3 of them to survive unless your gear is amazing and you kill things before it matters. All of them provide amazing offenses, better than most of our spirit spender abilities, THAT is the issue.
Wave of Light is still gonna be crap because 75 spirit is just too much. Even if it's going to hit like a truck, it just takes too long to get 75 spirit for the ability to be fun, even if it works out to be a DPS increase in numbers. A simple damage increase to SSS isn't going to be sufficient. Nobody in their right mind will enjoy having a 30 seconds cooldown in the only slot we can put a random ability into. We simply don't have a bar slot for a "pop every once in a while for fun" ability.
Exploding Palm numbers must be a joke. It went from dealing 73% weapon damage per second to 83%. Well thanks. Sure, the skill is about the corpse explosion yada yada, but that doesn't help much at all versus elites - the hard part is when they're all alive. If you ever used EP you'd try to time it close to the mobs death to actually get the explosion off, otherwise you just spam Overawe because that's just better. That won't change with these numbers.
They don't understand that we have only 1 slot for a spirit spender DPS ability. We are not going to drop using 3 defensive skills, and nobody will want to skip Mantra. Serenity is just too good on its own - it provides a much needed DPS window vs certain packs; Breath of Heaven provides a passive 15% damage buff via rune; and Faith in the Light buff scaling with AS ends up being ridiculous burst. That's on top of the fact that you sort of need to use all 3 of them to survive unless your gear is amazing and you kill things before it matters. All of them provide amazing offenses, better than most of our spirit spender abilities, THAT is the issue.
Wave of Light is still gonna be crap because 75 spirit is just too much. Even if it's going to hit like a truck, it just takes too long to get 75 spirit for the ability to be fun, even if it works out to be a DPS increase in numbers. A simple damage increase to SSS isn't going to be sufficient. Nobody in their right mind will enjoy having a 30 seconds cooldown in the only slot we can put a random ability into. We simply don't have a bar slot for a "pop every once in a while for fun" ability.
Exploding Palm numbers must be a joke. It went from dealing 73% weapon damage per second to 83%. Well thanks. Sure, the skill is about the corpse explosion yada yada, but that doesn't help much at all versus elites - the hard part is when they're all alive. If you ever used EP you'd try to time it close to the mobs death to actually get the explosion off, otherwise you just spam Overawe because that's just better. That won't change with these numbers.
Blizzard changed something in the talent calculator - Mantra of Retribution showed up instead of Sweeping Wind in all the links. I don't know for how long this has been the case and how many people it confused, but I've fixed the links now.
A small update after a long silence: I haven't played the game for a long while, but I will play again come 1.0.4 and update the guide for all the balance changes in that patch.
I can also say that I was a bit lazy to update. Just before I quit I figured that DW is actually superior to 1h/Shield, but I never got around to updating on that here. So for all of you struggling in A3, try that. The attack speed/LoH might make all the difference for you. Half the reason some of you struggle in A3 even though you're doing everything right is because of attack speed. Spears are usually cheaper (or at least when I played), so you end up with 1.4-1.5 AS and simply don't get enough from LoH.
Somthing i'm a little confused about with the EPH is it doesn't seem to take into account life per hit or healing abilities which make mitigation far more valuable than vit because if u had say 100k hp and healed for 1500 but got hit for 5k then ud eventually die, but if u had 20k hp and healed for 1500 but got hit for just 1k then u wouldn't. With that in mind atm it recommends I should get more vita but i'm unsure if it's right I feel like id benefit more from gettin more resi/armor or am I looking at it wrong?
In the pre-1.0.3 version of the guide I had this exact idea written, but I forgot to mention that when I rewrote the gear section completely. I'll add a paragraph about that in the defensive section later on, thanks for noticing this.
Also, if we're talking about very large packs - which I assume means you're talking about normal mobs here, not just elites - keep in mind that FoTs 3rd strike is a knockback. With a very high attack speed you can actually stunlock mobs (around 2.0 APS), which outweighs any defensive benefits of CW. Even if you don't stunlock, the amount of damage you prevent with the knockback spam is huge.
@Drez: alright, so I just did a small in-game test.
I went to Normal mode and got myself some random weapon with 15 DPS and 9-16 damage range, 1.2 APS. I also equipped a +9 minimum damage necklace, so effectively my min and max damage were equal (confirmed in tooltip for "attack": 18-18). My total APS was 1.46. Every time I hit mobs I did 268 damage, I must've hit like 30 times just to be sure.
I then striked 10 times with FinL up, and these were the numbers I got: 398, 373, 376, 395, 390, 387, 396, 401, 378, 384. That averages out to 387.5, which is 44% more than 268.
My tooltip for attack does change when I activate Blind, by the way, so we can actually figure the exact way it affects min and max damage. 24-27 was the range with FinL up.
It seems like it's simply multiplied with attacks per second. I have an attack speed of 1.46, so 30 * 1.46 = 43,8. I equipped a 1.5 APS dagger with 6 DPS and got an APS of 1.83, and the difference between damage with FinL and without went up to 55%. 30 * 1.83 = 54.9. It seems like it doesn't scale with crit, also, as I tried equipping/removing pure crit items and it had no effect on that relation.
I tried with this new attack speed of 1.83. My attack range was 11-11 and without FinL I would always hit for 164. Ten strikes with FinL: 262, 240, 241, 251, 244, 267, 245, 245, 243, 257, average: 249.5, that's 52% more than without FinL and is almost the expected the number. My damage range with FinL went up to 16-18.
I've now edited the guide to include this information.
As for resolve vs trascendence. Well resolve definitely helps when you're hitting stuff, but first it needs to be applied (so no benefit vs ranged usually), and then again it doesn't help againt the most dangerous ground effects.
When you're hitting something your LoH+spirit generation spent on trascendence should be almost as good as resolve, but when you can't hit stuff cause you need to kite/reposition that's when resolve falls off very badly, and transcendence shines cause you can still heal yourself, while resolve would be doing nothing.
Transcendence does not heal for that much. I really really doubt it'll outperform Resolve even comparing amount healed vs amount reduced on an infinite fight vs a single level 63 mob. (But let's stick to calculating one thing for now.)
I wouldn't say that Transcendence exactly "shines" when you're kiting, because to generate spirit you actually need to hit stuff as well (I find the spirit regen stat really lacklustre number wise, besides, that would imply you actually have to get that spirit/second on gear). They both rely on hitting stuff, but yeah Resolve has to be applied, that's the only advantage Transcendence has vs ranged mobs. I'm not saying it's a bad passive - I even recommend it in the guide if you have no other sustain (read: LoH) - but Resolve is superior if you don't lack self healing imo.
I understand that looking at the tooltip lead you to this conclusion. I just can't think of any realistic way, where 30% extra damage for each of my hits would be amplified further by attacking faster. If you look at it rationally it doesn't matter if you attack for 10 per second, or you attack for 10 twice every second. adding 30% to it will be still the same 3 extra damage per attack giving giving you 13 dps instead of 10, or 26 instead of 20 - the same 30% increase. that's why i believe that the tooltip is bugged, and it calculates the bonus with your DPS (which already factored in crit and AS) and than it applies those to the extra damage again. so that's why i said id be interested in real game tests (not tooltip, but looking at real damage), or a mathematical approach which i might have not thought of.
You are right, and as I said, when I was writing that part I only had the DPS tooltip in mind, not actual damage output.
There might also be a possibility that it applies the same way in actual damage calculations by the way. Ergo it goes as bonus damage in the damage calculation, but it takes 30% of DPS, so it double dips IAS.
If i searched right the modifier is for both 75%, only the last hit of Crippling Wave has 50%. But FoT can only hit offtargets for the last hit and Deadly Reach only when they stand in a row. Crippling Wave will always hit multiple targets in front of you, so if you play right you gain more from LoH in big groups. Combined with the mitigation and higher AoE damage it is a viable alternative in my eyes.
Thunderclap rune for FoT. The 35% hit procs LoH separately from the main strike.
What you linked is the same i have written except I didn't add (1+stat/100) every time it's a % multiplier... I made a spreadsheet for myself ages ago and the results match my ingame DPS, there's no need to explain math to me lol. Don't throw links at me or other vague explanations, show math backing it up, or ingame tests.
DPS=weapondps*(1+dex/100)*(1+attackspeed%/100)*(1+(crit%*(critdmg)/100)/100)*(1+passivedmgincrease%/100) this assumes you input 50% as 50 of course. so please show me under which conditions does Weapondps*1,3 or (weapondps+0,3weapondps) or [(averageweapondmg+0,3averageweapondmg)*attackspersec] or any other way translates to more than 30% damage dealt overall when put into the equation.
And just because you prefer that rune, that doesn't make it the ultimate one and only best rune as you say wtf, it's your personal opinion. Yes against elites cc duration is reduced, but when you're swarmed the longer duration definitely helps more when you're in a group. As a group you're doing around 1/4 of your groups DPS, so yay your group deals around 7,5% more dmg for 3 seconds every 15 seconds netting an average increase of 1,5%. ok some more than that, since between groups the cd resets sometimes. also using it to increase your damage makes you spam it carelessly, possibly making you not have it when it's needed.
To me it just looks like that since you recieved lots of positive feedback, you came to believe that your opinion became the ultimate unrefutable and undebateable truth.
I've been proven wrong and corrected the guide based on feedback from other people several times.
Here's an ingame test: 24334.3 damage, pop Blind, damage goes to 35287.6. That's a 45% increase not a 30% increase.
Now I take off all my IAS gear (which was 25% incl. Enchantress buff, which I dismissed too). Damage is at 15967.51, pop Blind, get 21713.99, which is a 37% increase.
Now I take off all my crit gearing leaving myself at the base 5% crit (but 132% crit damage due to weapon). Damage is at 10304.53, pop Blind, damage is at 14012.98, that's a 35% increase.
If we could have 0% crit and 0% crit damage, it would end up being exactly 30%.
And as I said I'll edit that part. What I had in mind when writing it is only the DPS tooltip.
As for Blind rune, it's up to you. Counting its average DPS contribution in a group is about as useless as trying to calculate the defensive benefits of the extra second of blind (less on elites) and we both know that. You're most likely not dpsing all the time, not the exact same equal amount of damage, etc.
Stacking them additive would be unnatural from the start. It doesn't make Concussion worse if you have Resolve. It still reduces the 75% damage you get (with Resolve) by 20%. That it isn't 45% reduction is clear. Most mechanics in Diablo 3 try to prevent that a Stat gets better the more you stack it, thats why they use diminished returns. And don't forget the 20% attack speed reduction, it isn't nothing.
Yep, it's just a very common misconception (I post on official forums a lot) so thought I'd say it.
Keep in mind LoH still has a higher modifier for FoT and it does proc from all the offtargets hit by Thunderclap, on top of being faster for even more LoH procs.
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Here's what I had a few weeks earlier when 1.0.4 just came out:
You can do whatever you want with this or the original article.
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Why it's a buff for 2handers - because all DoTs now deal a constant amount of total weapon damage over a period of time, so APS doesn't improve DoTs, and the APS is pretty much the best thing about 1handers.
Now that the patch is out, there's no need to worry about that anymore.
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What I did: I limited the frame rate of the game to 30 frames per second, and then used video capture software to record my character performing attacks (at 30 frames per second too, of course). I then counted the amount of frames it takes to perform certain attacks or combos. To avoid the character performing starting/ending animations, I always recorded at least 3 full combos chain casted, and only looked at the 'middle' combo. I used a 1.0 attack speed staff and my total attack speed was 1.0 attacks per second. I did all tests without any runes. I also stared at the fps counter whenever recording to make sure it's stuck at 30 - if it changed at any point, I would re-do the recording. It was very easy to find where one attack ends and when the other one starts because there is always 1 frame where the weapon is sheathed between attacks (on the back of the character in the case of a staff).
Normal attack: 87 frames, 29 frames per attack. The reason I looked at normal attacks is to make sure this method is accurate, and to compare the other attacks versus this value rather than assuming it's 90 (3 attacks at 30 frames per second and 1.0 attack speed should be 90). So, I guess even this method is not going to be completely accurate, but very close.
Fists of Thunder: 1st attack: 19 frames, 2nd attack: 19 frames, 3rd attack: 22 frames. 60 frames total. This makes FoT 45% faster.
Deadly Reach: 1st attack: 20 frames, 2nd attack: 20 frames, 3rd attack: 35 frames. 75 frames total. This makes DR 16% faster.
Crippling Wave: 1st attack: 24 frames, 2nd attack: 24 frames, 3rd attack: 30 frames. 78 frames total. This makes CW 11.5% faster.
Way of the Hundred Fists: 80 frames total. This makes WotHF 8.75% faster. I couldn't break this by attacks here because the animation is just too smooth (and there's no sheathed weapon frame, no stance change, it just looks like one smooth attack).
IMPORTANT EDIT: I changed the numbers a bit. Instead of counting how much time less each combo takes (i.e. dividing total frames by 87), I count how much faster the attacks are (i.e. dividing 87 by total frames). This makes all other calculations much easier, so if you want to know how much damage per second FoT does, for example, you only need to do 110*speed, instead of 110*(1-speed).
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What does this mean exactly?
Anyhow, Paragon levels sparkled my interest to Diablo 3 again, which means I'll be playing which means I'll expanding this guide rather than just updating it. My thoughts so far:
I'm most likely going to be rewriting the guide from scratch because the whole point of the game is changing with this patch. What's going to matter now is speed of clearing. Having read the entire patch note, I'm pretty sure that progressing through Inferno is no longer going to be an issue pretty much regardless of which exact build you're using, as long as it makes sense and you have the appropriate gear. Hence there's no point in "forcing" a certain build anymore like in this guide.
Instead I'm going to write about which abilities are the most efficient and where, certain obvious or not very obvious combinations that just work well, add a bit more theory and numbers (f.ex. Sweeping Wind mechanics).
Gear section will probably become the main focus of the guide as well, seeing as legendaries actually have a weight now and will be sought after. It'll still be just a listing of stuff with a few comments, but I'll put more effort here as there's actually a reason to min/max now.
However, I'm not going to play the game (at least not a lot) until next week, so this might be slightly delayed.
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They don't understand that we have only 1 slot for a spirit spender DPS ability. We are not going to drop using 3 defensive skills, and nobody will want to skip Mantra. Serenity is just too good on its own - it provides a much needed DPS window vs certain packs; Breath of Heaven provides a passive 15% damage buff via rune; and Faith in the Light buff scaling with AS ends up being ridiculous burst. That's on top of the fact that you sort of need to use all 3 of them to survive unless your gear is amazing and you kill things before it matters. All of them provide amazing offenses, better than most of our spirit spender abilities, THAT is the issue.
Wave of Light is still gonna be crap because 75 spirit is just too much. Even if it's going to hit like a truck, it just takes too long to get 75 spirit for the ability to be fun, even if it works out to be a DPS increase in numbers. A simple damage increase to SSS isn't going to be sufficient. Nobody in their right mind will enjoy having a 30 seconds cooldown in the only slot we can put a random ability into. We simply don't have a bar slot for a "pop every once in a while for fun" ability.
Exploding Palm numbers must be a joke. It went from dealing 73% weapon damage per second to 83%. Well thanks. Sure, the skill is about the corpse explosion yada yada, but that doesn't help much at all versus elites - the hard part is when they're all alive. If you ever used EP you'd try to time it close to the mobs death to actually get the explosion off, otherwise you just spam Overawe because that's just better. That won't change with these numbers.
Underwhelming.
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I can also say that I was a bit lazy to update. Just before I quit I figured that DW is actually superior to 1h/Shield, but I never got around to updating on that here. So for all of you struggling in A3, try that. The attack speed/LoH might make all the difference for you. Half the reason some of you struggle in A3 even though you're doing everything right is because of attack speed. Spears are usually cheaper (or at least when I played), so you end up with 1.4-1.5 AS and simply don't get enough from LoH.
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I can't find a good source confirming how faster FoT is exactly except for the very outdated http://blackrabbit29...tor-attack.html
Also, if we're talking about very large packs - which I assume means you're talking about normal mobs here, not just elites - keep in mind that FoTs 3rd strike is a knockback. With a very high attack speed you can actually stunlock mobs (around 2.0 APS), which outweighs any defensive benefits of CW. Even if you don't stunlock, the amount of damage you prevent with the knockback spam is huge.
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I went to Normal mode and got myself some random weapon with 15 DPS and 9-16 damage range, 1.2 APS. I also equipped a +9 minimum damage necklace, so effectively my min and max damage were equal (confirmed in tooltip for "attack": 18-18). My total APS was 1.46. Every time I hit mobs I did 268 damage, I must've hit like 30 times just to be sure.
I then striked 10 times with FinL up, and these were the numbers I got: 398, 373, 376, 395, 390, 387, 396, 401, 378, 384. That averages out to 387.5, which is 44% more than 268.
My tooltip for attack does change when I activate Blind, by the way, so we can actually figure the exact way it affects min and max damage. 24-27 was the range with FinL up.
It seems like it's simply multiplied with attacks per second. I have an attack speed of 1.46, so 30 * 1.46 = 43,8. I equipped a 1.5 APS dagger with 6 DPS and got an APS of 1.83, and the difference between damage with FinL and without went up to 55%. 30 * 1.83 = 54.9. It seems like it doesn't scale with crit, also, as I tried equipping/removing pure crit items and it had no effect on that relation.
I tried with this new attack speed of 1.83. My attack range was 11-11 and without FinL I would always hit for 164. Ten strikes with FinL: 262, 240, 241, 251, 244, 267, 245, 245, 243, 257, average: 249.5, that's 52% more than without FinL and is almost the expected the number. My damage range with FinL went up to 16-18.
I've now edited the guide to include this information.
Also,
Transcendence does not heal for that much. I really really doubt it'll outperform Resolve even comparing amount healed vs amount reduced on an infinite fight vs a single level 63 mob. (But let's stick to calculating one thing for now.)
I wouldn't say that Transcendence exactly "shines" when you're kiting, because to generate spirit you actually need to hit stuff as well (I find the spirit regen stat really lacklustre number wise, besides, that would imply you actually have to get that spirit/second on gear). They both rely on hitting stuff, but yeah Resolve has to be applied, that's the only advantage Transcendence has vs ranged mobs. I'm not saying it's a bad passive - I even recommend it in the guide if you have no other sustain (read: LoH) - but Resolve is superior if you don't lack self healing imo.
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You are right, and as I said, when I was writing that part I only had the DPS tooltip in mind, not actual damage output.
There might also be a possibility that it applies the same way in actual damage calculations by the way. Ergo it goes as bonus damage in the damage calculation, but it takes 30% of DPS, so it double dips IAS.
See test below.
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Here's an ingame test: 24334.3 damage, pop Blind, damage goes to 35287.6. That's a 45% increase not a 30% increase.
Now I take off all my IAS gear (which was 25% incl. Enchantress buff, which I dismissed too). Damage is at 15967.51, pop Blind, get 21713.99, which is a 37% increase.
Now I take off all my crit gearing leaving myself at the base 5% crit (but 132% crit damage due to weapon). Damage is at 10304.53, pop Blind, damage is at 14012.98, that's a 35% increase.
If we could have 0% crit and 0% crit damage, it would end up being exactly 30%.
And as I said I'll edit that part. What I had in mind when writing it is only the DPS tooltip.
As for Blind rune, it's up to you. Counting its average DPS contribution in a group is about as useless as trying to calculate the defensive benefits of the extra second of blind (less on elites) and we both know that. You're most likely not dpsing all the time, not the exact same equal amount of damage, etc.
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Keep in mind LoH still has a higher modifier for FoT and it does proc from all the offtargets hit by Thunderclap, on top of being faster for even more LoH procs.