58 replies to this topic

[Rhye]

hiro_za, on 27 November 2012 - 11:28 AM, said:

thanks orangedrop - some interesting points. Let me clarify some of what I said:

firstly, VERY few monks use full Inna - it's WAY too low on resists - and that's my point. to get a monk over 100k dps your resists end up in the toilet. I've never seen a monk with 100k dps and 800 resists. Have you? double resists is a BIG deal to monks. It's such a big deal that Bliz have said that they'd love to do something about the 'compulsory' passive OWE - but they recognise that it's so tied to monk gear now that it would be unfair to change it. But that's part of my point - it's easy to have double resists, and use all the cool attacks you're talking about if you want to stay sub 100k. The minute you want to do real dps the build becomes cookie-cut, with very little space for variation. Yes you can go single resist on an item - but then you've got inferior resists AND you cant do the dps that barbs do. Karpo touches on this a lot in the post above yours. Also, as Karpo says, serenity is an 'oh shit' use only. It's not effective in battle... if you have huge LS you dont need it anyway - and this is where the barb is so strong... barbs simply dont need escape mechanisms...

monk tanks tend to have pathetic dps. sure they're nice to have in the party - but what incentive is there to use this build? you cannot play high MP at all... they probably couldn't even kill Deckard Cain... If Bliz want monks to be tanks and barbs to be damage dealers ok fine - but then at least make monk gear viable for SOME sort of decent dps. why create incentive to play high MP when it's pretty much impossible for monks? I get what you're saying about gear planning - ok suggest a monk build that can clear mp10. the AoE in mp10 is impossible for a monk sub 800 resists to handle. And if your dps is less than 100k well... go fetch some coffee, because each fight is going to take ages. It's just not viable...

Ehm, I farm MP10 with no problem - 596 all resist and I plan on going down to 500. All resist gets less valuable post 500-ish so why stack to 800? You get twice as much EHP from the first 200 resist as you do for the next 200 and so on. Don't stack too much. And remember to have as much dmg reduction from armor as you get from all resist. If there is imbalance, you'll lose EHP. It's similar to the 1/10 ratio between crit dmg and crit chance.

You state that monks seem to be intended as tanks. No. Far from it. We are among the best dps classes in the game, in addition to have some of the best support. Life steal and high dps is way better than hig all resist. I'm a way better tank than any barb I've seen.

High dps + life steal is the way to go my friend. I get 13500 hp/sec when doing single target dps. Even more when I do aoe. I have lots of dps, ok, but I've had the same mentality since I started playing monk in july (or was it august? not important). High dps, balanced defensive stats + life steal.

Edit: spelling

Edited by Rhye, 28 November 2012 - 10:07 AM.

[Mortac]

I have played a barbarian since beta. I've switched to monk at a couple of occasions only to switch back to the barb again because they are clearly more powerful.

My barb does WAY more damage and survives MUCH better while its gameplay is also much simpler. I have recently made the switch from barb to monk anyway because I felt like I needed something new after having played a barb for so long. I have the following to say about these classes in comparison:

• SURVIVABILITY: Barbarians survive a lot better mainly because a) their attacks hit much harder while they have an easier time using life steal due to their belts, b) Rend with Bloodlust and many other skills heal for crazy amounts and make you pretty much immortal, and c) most of their available set items roll with 70-80 resist all in addition to having damage reducers and way higher armor. Finally, d) with the number of hits flying around, dodge becomes much, much, MUCH worse than having high armor because you WILL experience incoming burst all the time. Dodge simply isn't reliable. One more thing: whoever thought putting a number on the Breath of Heaven heal and only percentages on the barbarian heals was a good idea was an idiot. At the very least Breath of Heaven should heal for 25% of your health, because right now it's somewhat pointless.

• DPS: Barbarians do a lot more damage because most of their attacks have much higher base damage, while they also have access to some really awesome offensive passives. Monks simply don't have any comparable DPS passives, while also being pretty much forced to take 3 defensive passives due to being so squishy. Barbarians don't really need more than one defensive passive. Additionally, dual wield damage might be equal or potentially even better than 2H in theory, but it simply doesn't play out that way due to the insane prices of 1H weapons. 2H is not really an option for monks due to how Spirit works compared to Fury.

• GAMEPLAY: Barbarians are a lot easier to play and don't need to rely on so many different attacks and active skills/buffs as monks do. Barbarians can pretty much put War Cry with Impunity on their bar and have it overwith. There's a lot more room for them to add burst and utility skills, because monks MUST use Sweeping Wind + DPS Mantra + Breath of Heaven/Blazing Wrath to do decent DPS. Additionally, Spirit is a lot harder to keep up than Fury, so barbarians usually aren't held back as much as monks are and thus don't need to gear for it, if they even use fury at all (my barb only used it for Rend, and it still completely blows my monk out of the sky). Barbarians also have a lot better maneuverability even though this probably isn't intended. Their skills simply do their job better.

All my opinions are not based on any barb WW or monk TS builds, but even there there's an advantage to barbs.

[Rhye]

Mortac said:

• GAMEPLAY: Barbarians are a lot easier to play and don't need to rely on so many different attacks and active skills/buffs as monks do.[/quote]

Barbs need to refresh War Cry, WoTB and Battle Rage.
Monks need to refresh Breath, Mantra and (sometimes) Sweeping Wind. Not that big difference.

We can use Deadly Reach (+ armor or dmg), Breath of Heaven, Blinding Flash, Seven Sided Strike (4 great runes) or Serenity. Any combination is good, but there will always be a cookie cutter spec that is slightly better. In fact, Deadly Reach - Foresight is better than both Blinding Flash and Breath of Heaven, but ppl tend to think it's not. Cookie cutter is not always the way to go. (I use to change it up now and then and use the most common build atm.)

Apart from sometimes 3 dps boost abilities up, not really a difficult task, monks have a VERY simple play style. I do not agree with you, and would claim both barbs and monks a bit too dull to play. Monks win though, since we have bubble, teleport and much better alternative skills.

Edit: spelling

Edited by Rhye, 28 November 2012 - 11:09 AM.

[diseasept]

Not even gonna say that monks are underpowered or not cause i don't want to go there, but seriously, some people here need to get a grip and stop lying/ talk crap about barbarians, i mean, saw so many crap in 2 pages about "QQ barbs are gods and OP QQ".

First of all, yes barbarians currently are awesome but you need to stop crying about the LS on belt, and if you don't belive in what i say (and since you can gear a 100k barb for nothing, at least someone said that) try to build a ww barb with LS on belt and set it to mp10 act 3... have fun running to your body.

Also, there's something i kinda love is how people love to overlook dodge and shout "uhh barbs many LS LOH LIFE REGEN abilities UG NERF BLIZ PLIZ QQ" and to backup what I say, my best friend runs a +100k monk and he uses a 2.90LS weapon.... done,nothing else.He's able to run mp7-8 easily and same thing with machines. Gonna give you a tip: high dodge + good AR. If you look to barbarians, armor from stre? yea right nice one, none barb with use a armor passive so don't even start, what about AR? I run MP7 - 8 with 600AR. Problem?

You can go all QQ and point how I'm wrong but please stop doing VS threads, ask for buffs not pointing a well design class cause blizzard will always take the easy way. Nerf the one decent class.

Also, balancing done so much good to wow this past few years, everything seems the same now, /clap for all those who ask for pvp balancing.

[diseasept]

Mortac, on 28 November 2012 - 10:29 AM, said:

GAMEPLAY: Barbarians are a lot easier to play and don't need to rely on so many different attacks and active skills/buffs as monks do. Barbarians can pretty much put War Cry with Impunity on their bar and have it overwith. There's a lot more room for them to add burst and utility skills, because monks MUST use Sweeping Wind + DPS Mantra + Breath of Heaven/Blazing Wrath to do decent DPS. Additionally, Spirit is a lot harder to keep up than Fury, so barbarians usually aren't held back as much as monks are and thus don't need to gear for it, if they even use fury at all (my barb only used it for Rend, and it still completely blows my monk out of the sky). Barbarians also have a lot better maneuverability even though this probably isn't intended. Their skills simply do their job better.

No clue what you're say i guess, barbs might have less abilities to control (even that i guess not true) but just gonna tell you this: WOTB Fury management.

Edited by diseasept, 28 November 2012 - 11:16 AM.

[hiro_za]

Well - good points all - but I can't help but notice you're not actually disagreeing with Mortac's dps and ehp summary there Rhye. I've had a look at your monk and you can't argue that you must have spent a ton of gold on that gear There are VERY VERY few monks doing 200k dps... whereas there are many barbs that easily do that and more. I must have been a bit vague in my OP - what I meant was monks tend to end up relegated to the roll of tank because they just get too squishy on the high end. this clearly isn't true for you - but I think you'll agree IS true for 99% of monks. Your weapons alone cost more than a billion in gold now. a barb with about 100m in gold can easily kit out to do higher dps. That just isn't right to my mind...

[hiro_za]

@diseasept: how is it fair that barbs can have 6% LS with ease, not to mention more from skills? If you're going high dps you cant use LOH. LS is your only option. If you want to survive on MP10 you need both high dps and high LS. Take all other factors and set them aside and it comes down to just that. monks cannot regen health as well as barbs. If monks could mitigate more damage then it might even out, but as I hope I've pointed out that just isn't the case...

[diseasept]

hiro_za, on 28 November 2012 - 11:30 AM, said:

@diseasept: how is it fair that barbs can have 6% LS with ease, not to mention more from skills? If you're going high dps you cant use LOH. LS is your only option. If you want to survive on MP10 you need both high dps and high LS. Take all other factors and set them aside and it comes down to just that. monks cannot regen health as well as barbs. If monks could mitigate more damage then it might even out, but as I hope I've pointed out that just isn't the case...

So ye.... the way you talk please, jump to diablo official forums and ask barbs nerf,

[hiro_za]

@diseasept - haha no man. It's a big deal though... there's a large imbalance between the two classes. Should there be or shouldn't there be? what say you?

[Karpo]

@diseasept, no need to be rude, offensive and aggresive there dude. I haven't seen anyone QQ CRY NERF BLIZZ or ask for it but you. This is a comparison discussion, nothing more. This is not a personal attack against you or your choice of class, at least not on my part (don't think on anyone elses part either). You didn't really contribute anything to the thread except say "go die in MP10". That's pretty much the case with 99% of players, no secret there.

I atleast complement on the barbarian as a class since it's well rounded. Other classes just pale in comparison, after all we are playing the same game here. We who discuss here mainly play monk, we're looking for monk love. It seems to me it's you who don't see that. Barbarian is just the easiest comparison since it's the other melee class (not really true, throw weapon) available. I've played with the same barbarian in co-op since release day and I've been there stuck in act2 back in the day. And I've seen him skyrocket past me lately and congrats to him for that. I like it that he's enjoying himself.

The justification that most barbs make is "we were crap in the past, now it's our time to shine" isn't really valid. It should be everyone's time to shine.

Edited by Karpo, 28 November 2012 - 01:18 PM.

[Rhye]

hiro_za, on 28 November 2012 - 11:41 AM, said:

@diseasept - haha no man. It's a big deal though... there's a large imbalance between the two classes. Should there be or shouldn't there be? what say you?

I wholeheartedly disagree for reasons already stated. but I would like to add something. I feel monks are the strongest class in the game, but I understand most think barbs are. Either way, there are 3 classes that have worse design/itemization, so there is really no reason to cry. No barb or monk on my friends list (people that started playing in may) have quit. There are only 2 out of 37 on my list that are DH's and 1 wizard. Barbs and monks don't quit. The other 3 classes vanish. Just putting it out there.

[Mortac]

Yes, monks are definitely more demanding to play. Barbarians more or less jump right in there and hack their way through. With Leap, you can just go wherever you want on the screen at almost any time, while monks can get stuck between mobs getting arcane enchanted or desecrated to death or what have you. Spirit management is also definitely more tricky than handling fury, and you have to maintain Sweeping Wind + the 3s duration mantra buff, and use your attacks while doing it. Not to mention some item budget may be spent on Spirit regen as well, whereas barbs don't really gear for fury regen. Keeping a permanent WotB isn't ever tricky because all you need to do is to hit things. The rest is taken care of passively.

Barbs don't even need life steal, and still they are the only class that have easy access to it. 3% Life steal is reduced to, what is it, 0.6% if I remember correctly? Now put up Rend instead, and you'll leech 9% out of 700% of your weapon damage on each mob it hits. Suddenly life steal on your equipment becomes almost pointless. You'll zoom to full and pretty much stay there. A monk on the other hand has absolutely no way to recover health in this manner. They have to rely on LoH and LS on their equipment (which reduces their item budget for DPS and other survivability boosts even further), and then get in there and actually hit things or they're screwed. Rend heals you to full and lets you forget about surviving for its duration. Not to mention it just keeps getting better and better by a huge margin as your DPS increases.

Again, I'd also like to point out how crappy dodge is in this game compared to armor, because you will repeatedly take spike damage due to RNG and die, where with armor you can anticipate the damage much easier and adjust, without having to deal with the spikes that kill you. You may say monks have higher resistances, but that's hardly true. Barbarians can focus more of their item budget on resist all, while they have easier access to resist all on the IK set to begin with. Now, barbarians using War Cry with Impunity is a direct armor increase by 25% and resist increase by 20% iirc, without having to obtain specific one-resist gear or use a passive for it. It's an enormous increase to steady damage reduction compared to some spiky dodge that will kill you whenever the RNG feels like it. More strength on barbs increases their damage AND gives them 1.5 armor per point with 1 passive and War Cry. 200 Strength for a 200% dmg increase (to base dmg) and 300 armor? Yes, please! Dexterity on the other hand gives a terrible defensive bonus that has no impact at all whenever you fail to dodge, and not everything CAN be dodged even to begin with.

Edited by Mortac, 28 November 2012 - 12:52 PM.

[Rhye]

Mortac, on 28 November 2012 - 12:36 PM, said:

Yes, monks are definitely more demanding to play. Barbarians more or less jump right in there and hack their way through. With Leap, you can just go wherever you want on the screen at almost any time, while monks can get stuck between mobs getting arcane enchanted or desecrated to death or what have you. Spirit management is also definitely more tricky than handling fury, and you have to maintain Sweeping Wind + the 3s duration mantra buff, and use your attacks while doing it. Keeping a permanent WotB isn't ever tricky because all you need to do is to hit things. The rest is taken care of passively.

Barbs don't even need life steal. 3% Life steal is reduced to, what is it, 0.6% if I remember correctly? Now put up Rend instead, and you'll leech 9% out of 700% of your weapon damage on each mob it hits. Suddenly life steal on your equipment becomes almost pointless. You'll zoom to full and pretty much stay there. A monk on the other hand has absolutely no way to recover health in this manner. They have to rely on LoH and LS on their equipment (which reduces their item budget for DPS and other survivability boosts even further), and then get in there and actually hit things or they're screwed. Rend heals you to full and lets you forget about surviving for its duration. Not to mention it just keeps getting better and better by a huge margin as your DPS increases.

Again, I'd also like to point out how crappy dodge is in this game compared to armor, because you will repeatedly take spike damage due to RNG and die, where with armor you can anticipate the damage much easier and adjust, without having to deal with the spikes that kill you. You may say monks have higher resistances, but that's hardly true. Barbarians can focus more of their item budget on resist all, while they have easier access to resist all on the IK set to begin with. Now, barbarians using War Cry with Impunity is a direct armor increase by 25% and resist increase by 20% iirc, without having to obtain specific one-resist gear or use a passive for it. It's an enormous increase to steady incoming damage compared to some spiky dodge that will kill you whenever the RNG feels like it.

Ok, stop. Barbs have leap. We have Serenity. Moot point.

Barbs can regain life with Rend. We can regen much faster with Breath of Heaven, life steal/LoH (faster attacks) and we can go immune for a few sec with seven sided strike (immune to dmg, gaining tons of life, saving us from death) AND we can use inner Sanctuary or Dashing Strike. Again, there are alternatives for monks. Stop crying.

[Karpo]

Rhye, on 28 November 2012 - 12:43 PM, said:

Barbs can regain life with Rend. We can regen much faster with Breath of Heaven, life steal/LoH (faster attacks) and we can go immune for a few sec with seven sided strike (immune to dmg, gaining tons of life, saving us from death) AND we can use inner Sanctuary or Dashing Strike. Again, there are alternatives for monks. Stop crying.

"Stop crying"?
Why the aggression? Be civilized, please.

There are always alternatives. It doesn't mean they are always viable though.

I'm not even going to make the math between Rend and BoH, there is no comparison.
SSS gives 0 life when used. There is no heal involved in the skill. Even if you gear up with LS the (big) amount of HP gained does not compete with Rend in the long run.

Edited by Karpo, 28 November 2012 - 01:50 PM.

[Mortac]

Rhye, on 28 November 2012 - 12:43 PM, said:

Ok, stop. Barbs have leap. We have Serenity. Moot point.

Barbs can regain life with Rend. We can regen much faster with Breath of Heaven, life steal/LoH (faster attacks) and we can go immune for a few sec with seven sided strike (immune to dmg, gaining tons of life, saving us from death) AND we can use inner Sanctuary or Dashing Strike. Again, there are alternatives for monks. Stop crying.

Eh, what? You're comparing two completely different skills. If you want to compare Serentiy to anything it would be Ignore Pain, which is much better than Serentiy because (yet again) it heals the barbarian to full in no time, and has a longer duration. What I said was that as a monk you're much more likely to get stuck between mobs, and Serentiy doesn't do anything against that other than give you more time to get out (which sometimes you can't).

And don't even get me started on comparing the life return and comparison in survivability between Rend with Blood Lust and SSS or any of the other skills you mentioned. Additionally, like I've stated before, you don't even need life steal on the barbarian.

[MONK_P100]

TR the most efficient?

Who is the first character reaching paragon 100?

Among the first 100 paragon characters, there are how many monks and how many barbs?

Nothing needs to be changed, and I accept the challenge and fun playing monk as it is.

[manaja]

The only problem i see with monks.. half the skills are broken or bugged..

[Zeel]

Barbs WW make me fall to sleep SW dosent make me fall to sleep aka I rolled from a barb to a monk.

[Mortac]

Monks are more fun to play. I agree. This is why I switched to monk from my barb as well.

[invis]

Zeel, on 29 November 2012 - 11:10 PM, said:

Barbs WW make me fall to sleep SW dosent make me fall to sleep aka I rolled from a barb to a monk.

Lol, Monk TR/Sweeping make me fall to sleep too haha