Spirit generators will be a huge element of the monk's gameplay. They're the skills we'll spam the most. Let's hear some ideas- how many, which ones, and why? (Of course this is all theoretical until we're actually playing.)
Right now I'm thinking 2 generators, one single target and one AoE:
Fists of Thunder (Crimson Rune): Knockback on the third hit is a great buff. The crimson rune adds a shockwave for all three hits which does solid lightning damage (171%) although only in a short range. Also a little teleporting on the first hit, which could be used tactically on the battlefield.
Crippling Wave (Indigo Rune): AoE with decent damage, good snaring/attack speed reduction. The only downside is the small range, which the indigo rune fixes.
With the two of these, you've got two different types of shockwaves frying anything nearby, plus 50% slow, knockback, and decreased attack speed for crowd control. There are a ton of great options though, especially with the new patch. Any ideas? Anyone planning on having more or fewer spirit generators?
Crippling Wave makes it into every one of my builds simply because it has great debuffs tied to it (either for increased damage or increased defense) and I don't need to build stacks every time I want to fight something. I just really can't justify not taking it.
It's a real toss up after that between Fists of Thunder, Way of the Hundred Fists and Deadly Reach.
Since they added the Combination Strike passive I've been playing with builds that have 3 generators: Crippling Wave, Way of the Hundred Fists (Obsidian, Blazing Fists) and Deadly Reach (Crimson Rune, Foresight). The idea there being to build the highest offensive bonuses I can and blow stuff away.
At the moment, I'm liking the theoretical potential of Fists of Thunder Crimson and Crippling Wave Obsidian. AoE hits and Damage Reduction AOE is just too awesome a combo.
With Resolve, even with the FoT hits you reduce damage by 30%. With the 50% from CW you get a combined 65% reduction.
That said, Way of the Hundred Fists Indigo is looking unbelievably good. That's 2320% of your weapon damage every few seconds to one target. I daresay an Inferno monster won't stand up to that for very long (I hope). With a high critrate that just becomes deadly, assuming each of the 16 hits in the second hit can individually crit.
Fist of Thunder Crimson needs to hit 14 monsters (within 6 yards of each other...) to deal that much damage. It may be possible if the first and second strikes hit 7 to even things out. Damage will be spread out, of course.
Also, something's making me want to take a closer look at Sweeping Wind.
I'd be shocked if each of the hits in Way of the Hundred Fists did 145% weapon damage- maybe doubling the hits from 8 to 16 doubles the damage to 290% on the second hit? We'll have to wait and see. Even if it was 'only' 290% instead of 2,320%, that's still very big damage. I wonder how fast the animation is?
I'd be shocked if each of the hits in Way of the Hundred Fists did 145% weapon damage- maybe doubling the hits from 8 to 16 doubles the damage to 290% on the second hit? We'll have to wait and see. Even if it was 'only' 290% instead of 2,320%, that's still very big damage. I wonder how fast the animation is?
That's a good point. We'll have to wait and see, I don't recall the vids being that enlightening about the skill... didn't see one where the healthbars were showing to determine that.
personally i like exploding palms, way of the hundred fists and crippling wave. I would like to use all in my build. it would give a fair amount of single target DPS with the option for some devastating AoE. however with the changes in beta patch 5 it really is a personal choice.
I like the combo generators much more than the spenders, so the builds i come up with usually revolves around them. At the moment im looking at this build using 3 generators:
It Starts with Fists of Thunder (Crimson Rune) for nice damage and mobility. The second strike is The Way of the Hundred Fists (Obsidian Rune) and Sweeping Winds (Obsdian Rune) as the third. With this build i will also use Mantra of Retribution (Indigo Rune).
So the idea is to get off as many cyclones as possible. Blazing Fists and Transgression should get me some superfast attacks and hopefully it will look pretty badass.
The possbilities to switch between these two are infinite.
Here are some example where a=reach and b=palm
bbb baa (Palm for 4 first strikes, 2 first for debuff third for bleed, fourth for refresh on debuff and fifth and sixth Reach for big damage)
bba bba baa baa baa baa baa (mainly for bosses, start to stack debuff then switch to only 1 for refreshing)
I'm not sure about anything past the beta, but I've been using deadly reach primarily with Cyclone strike as a finisher. Deadly reach at this juncture is so very good. I get to hit (and kill) the mob(s) before they can get within range of me. I put on Breath of Heaven as well, mostly because it lets me stay on Leoric and pummel his face while he whirlwinds.
You make good points Tenhi. It's going to be a tossup for me, based on how fast spirit really generates. My initial thought process is to play a little defensive oriented just to practice for the harder modes later on. I'm going to try getting the debuffs out quickly on the mobs, and try to dish out the damage. I might be too defensive right now, my spirit gen may suck, and my spenders might not be enough damage.
It's quite possible that 1 spirit generator will be plenty, especially with your air ally generating spirit 10% of the time.
I dunno, maybe I need to choose a better single target spirit spender. If I kept my current spec, I'd first trade out deadly reach for Way of the Hundred Fists with a golden or indigo rune. For spenders, I would probably swap out my Cyclone Strike for Wave of Light with a crimson rune.
Edited my sig to reflect my 1/16/2012 thought process!
@MonsterSlask - I'm personally not using runes for extra spirit generation at the moment because I have no idea how it will be yet without them. I'm choosing runes that will help with survivability and healing, assuming that spirit generation is ok.
You can see the generators in my sig that I will use.
Why? I like way of the hundred fists with the obsidian because it looks like it will be a good 1 on 1 generator for when you have only a single strong monster left to kill. And I'm liking crippling wave with the crimson runestone so that I have a decent AOE damage skill always available.
I think I will always want 2 generators one for AOE and one to focus damage. Althought for PvP I am speculating that exploding palm will be devastating. If you combine a monk having exploding palm with a barbarian using rend... thats a lot of blood. If you other players on the team also help you to keep enemies bleeding exploding palm should be lots of fun.
What I don't like about the spirit generators is that the golden runestone enhancements don't look as if they will provide a lot of spirirt (compared to barbarian skills for fury and witch doctor skills for mana). Sweeping wind has the only decent golden rune-stone but no one knows what keeping sweeping wind at max will be like. Anyone else feel like the golden runestone of most of the spirit generators is weak?
I will us the spirit generators below in the order from left to right. The reasons being is i can produce a 57% chance to dodge, 30% chance to miss and up to 60% bonus DMG with deadly strike, blinding flash and evasion. Also Exploding palm with golden will produce a mass amount of spirit Regen so i can spam cyclone strike while being able to heal automagicly with transcendence. So in a way, mass spirit wasting...isn't a waste anymore. Brilliant!
Almost certain I'm going for Deadly reach and maybe crippling wave. I love the extra range it gives and the look of it is absolutely amazing imo. I'm thinking maybe crippling wave because by throwing in a 3rd crip wave attack every few cycles seems like it would be an extremely helpful and efficient idea. Of course, I don't have beta so can't really say for certain.
Right now I'm thinking 2 generators, one single target and one AoE:
Fists of Thunder (Crimson Rune): Knockback on the third hit is a great buff. The crimson rune adds a shockwave for all three hits which does solid lightning damage (171%) although only in a short range. Also a little teleporting on the first hit, which could be used tactically on the battlefield.
Crippling Wave (Indigo Rune): AoE with decent damage, good snaring/attack speed reduction. The only downside is the small range, which the indigo rune fixes.
With the two of these, you've got two different types of shockwaves frying anything nearby, plus 50% slow, knockback, and decreased attack speed for crowd control. There are a ton of great options though, especially with the new patch. Any ideas? Anyone planning on having more or fewer spirit generators?
It's a real toss up after that between Fists of Thunder, Way of the Hundred Fists and Deadly Reach.
Since they added the Combination Strike passive I've been playing with builds that have 3 generators: Crippling Wave, Way of the Hundred Fists (Obsidian, Blazing Fists) and Deadly Reach (Crimson Rune, Foresight). The idea there being to build the highest offensive bonuses I can and blow stuff away.
With Resolve, even with the FoT hits you reduce damage by 30%. With the 50% from CW you get a combined 65% reduction.
That said, Way of the Hundred Fists Indigo is looking unbelievably good. That's 2320% of your weapon damage every few seconds to one target. I daresay an Inferno monster won't stand up to that for very long (I hope). With a high critrate that just becomes deadly, assuming each of the 16 hits in the second hit can individually crit.
Fist of Thunder Crimson needs to hit 14 monsters (within 6 yards of each other...) to deal that much damage. It may be possible if the first and second strikes hit 7 to even things out. Damage will be spread out, of course.
Also, something's making me want to take a closer look at Sweeping Wind.
That's a good point. We'll have to wait and see, I don't recall the vids being that enlightening about the skill... didn't see one where the healthbars were showing to determine that.
The description is also ambiguous.
It Starts with Fists of Thunder (Crimson Rune) for nice damage and mobility. The second strike is The Way of the Hundred Fists (Obsidian Rune) and Sweeping Winds (Obsdian Rune) as the third. With this build i will also use Mantra of Retribution (Indigo Rune).
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/monk#aihkSV!eTY!ZccaaY
So the idea is to get off as many cyclones as possible. Blazing Fists and Transgression should get me some superfast attacks and hopefully it will look pretty badass.
As for myself, i usually tend to go for Exploding Palm(Obsidian)and Deadly Reach(Indigo).
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/monk#cUdSYR!aYT!YcbZac
The possbilities to switch between these two are infinite.
Here are some example where a=reach and b=palm
bbb baa (Palm for 4 first strikes, 2 first for debuff third for bleed, fourth for refresh on debuff and fifth and sixth Reach for big damage)
bba bba baa baa baa baa baa (mainly for bosses, start to stack debuff then switch to only 1 for refreshing)
Battle.net Profile / Diablo Progress Profile
It's quite possible that 1 spirit generator will be plenty, especially with your air ally generating spirit 10% of the time.
I dunno, maybe I need to choose a better single target spirit spender. If I kept my current spec, I'd first trade out deadly reach for Way of the Hundred Fists with a golden or indigo rune. For spenders, I would probably swap out my Cyclone Strike for Wave of Light with a crimson rune.
Edited my sig to reflect my 1/16/2012 thought process!
Battle.net Profile / Diablo Progress Profile
Battle.net Profile / Diablo Progress Profile
Why? I like way of the hundred fists with the obsidian because it looks like it will be a good 1 on 1 generator for when you have only a single strong monster left to kill. And I'm liking crippling wave with the crimson runestone so that I have a decent AOE damage skill always available.
I think I will always want 2 generators one for AOE and one to focus damage. Althought for PvP I am speculating that exploding palm will be devastating. If you combine a monk having exploding palm with a barbarian using rend... thats a lot of blood. If you other players on the team also help you to keep enemies bleeding exploding palm should be lots of fun.
What I don't like about the spirit generators is that the golden runestone enhancements don't look as if they will provide a lot of spirirt (compared to barbarian skills for fury and witch doctor skills for mana). Sweeping wind has the only decent golden rune-stone but no one knows what keeping sweeping wind at max will be like. Anyone else feel like the golden runestone of most of the spirit generators is weak?
EP + Indigo is the best aoe for a monk imo especcialy with cycloneS
DRx5 + EP at 6th strike (repeated) is the best single target dps.
thats a 95% dps bleed(its 95% in beta) + 30% inc dmg(crimson rune)
note that EP does not do dmg the 3rd strike, it just applys the bleed effect, so spamming EP single is bad
my primary rotation will be EPx3 + (DRx5 EPx1 "repeated")
The end.