Has anyone tested the effects of Area Damage on a Holy Monk build? Each of the hits from SSS:FO would have a 20% chance to proc it per target hit. A grouped 5 pack of champions would lead to ~7 procs (35 chances to proc), which would be a kin to 7 more hits on SSS with enough Area Damage. The DoT from WotHF:FoF can also proc it every tick to share that love. Toss in both the initial hit from MoR and then the Feedback from the CD rune, and we have even more AoE….Cyclone strike would be nuts as well since we group everyone up, so an area damage proc would hit the lot of em.
ive been running this build with area damage all the time because i didnt really need the other options.
LoH might be useful if you go for t5+ but as of now i can easily get away without it on t4. Also i almost never have spirit problems unless you have to use your pull a hell lot of times so cost reduction is neither needed..
But yeah, as amazing as the proc opportunities sound, if you have 50% area dmg through paragon points the damage isnt that amazing since most proc opportunities you mentioned are critting for about 500k max, rather less for the most time, so the area damage you get is pretty low most times.
Obviously, if you dont need the other options in the utility tree just go for it, but in reality area damage isnt as good as it sounds in theory
Has anyone tested the effects of Area Damage on a Holy Monk build? Each of the hits from SSS:FO would have a 20% chance to proc it per target hit. A grouped 5 pack of champions would lead to ~7 procs (35 chances to proc), which would be a kin to 7 more hits on SSS with enough Area Damage. The DoT from WotHF:FoF can also proc it every tick to share that love. Toss in both the initial hit from MoR and then the Feedback from the CD rune, and we have even more AoE….Cyclone strike would be nuts as well since we group everyone up, so an area damage proc would hit the lot of em.
ive been running this build with area damage all the time because i didnt really need the other options.
LoH might be useful if you go for t5+ but as of now i can easily get away without it on t4. Also i almost never have spirit problems unless you have to use your pull a hell lot of times so cost reduction is neither needed..
But yeah, as amazing as the proc opportunities sound, if you have 50% area dmg through paragon points the damage isnt that amazing since most proc opportunities you mentioned are critting for about 500k max, rather less for the most time, so the area damage you get is pretty low most times.
Obviously, if you dont need the other options in the utility tree just go for it, but in reality area damage isnt as good as it sounds in theory
This. Pretty much. I did try some aoe dmg when Occultic mentioned that it worked well with MoR: CD but it hardly makes a difference really. Since the build (as it is now) kinda focuses on being able to stand in everything while pulling mobs into Inner Sanctuary, I would rather put my points into LoH.
Well done. Its not as easy as bliizard told us to use those "game changing legendaries". I realy like your approach to get those things working in a build.
I didnt read all the comments and maybe it is already said, but for this to work optimally, you should use Mythic Rythm passive - it increased another 40% your SSS if timed right, which is pretty noticeble.
I didnt read all the comments and maybe it is already said, but for this to work optimally, you should use Mythic Rythm passive - it increased another 40% your SSS if timed right, which is pretty noticeble.
Ah yes, probably something to consider for the Flow of Eternity Variation. My concern is that the only spirit spenders in the build are cyclone strike (not that much damage) and SSS:FO. The later of which is on too long of a cool down to make Mythic Rhythm worth the slot.
The other concern is that since the playstyle is that you cyclone strike then SSS:FO you'd need to fit in three attacks between the two and in that admittedly short amount of time the mobs can have moved more than 7 yards apart. (Diablo yards are TINY)
So I've been working on two different theory crafted builds for the two-handed Holy Monk to go along with the SSS Flow of Eternity build. Each of these builds require a specific Diabo as well as the 2 piece of the Sunwuko's set. Thoughts?
This build's pure focus is on being able to cast as many WoL as possible. To that end, the Incense Torch allows for a full refund when it kills multiple enemies. This is a huge increase to its usability. To that end, Overawe is utilized to provide a global damage increase. Basic play style is gather the packs and nuke em down with Bell. While not as cheap as LTK, it also has a larger AoE range than LTK and, with Tzo Krin's can be used on a ranged group if the ground is covered in nasty effects. Gear with cost reduction is useful in this build as well. Note that depending on how the refund works, The Guardian's Path passive might effect the refund and increase it by 35%. I do know it effects the refund from the active use of the air ally.
This build's focus is on speed The Warstaff's secondary allows us to take Northern Breeze, which converts it into 285% Holy damage. This combines with damage bonuses to TR and +% Holy damage for a massive state of damage (40% holy damage raises it to around 400% weapon damage). The use of Annihilation on MoC allows even more speed between groups. SSS handles the finishing blow, but this should be a very very mobile build. Passives provide the spirit regen, but getting some on gear will allow some to be freed up. Helpful secondary stats would be Health Globe bonus as transcendence is a huge source of constant healing in a TR build. When I run this with just a generic Diabo (and no Sunwuko 2 piece) I'm healed for 4800 health every tick of the channel.
I found it very useful. I use Reaper's Wraps for fast recover of the resource so i can spam the WoL more often. 40 spirit for 552% (damage after landing Bell counted) weapon damage as holy is not perfect compared to lightning Lashing tail kick, but i made some calculations and compared it with other runes. Lets say you have 250 spirit and then spam WoL:EW to drain spirit pool completly so you will make 6 strikes for 3312% weapon damage as Holy. WoL: Wall of light deals 2364% weapon damage as Holy. But there is 1 thing we should consider: bracers. I use regen one so for me WoL:EW is better so I can sometimes spam it during whole elite pack fight without using spirit generator (ofc with mystic ally activations on CD). For those who use Strongarm WoL:WoL will be better, but i want to continue writing about my current gear setup.
So I was pretty lucky that Reaper's Wraps rolled with +18% holy DMG so i could roll the other main stat to crit which i did. Then rolled +13% damage to WoL on boots. But at the moment I really want to get Scycutter so my Unity passive can give me max +20% damage (Scoundrel and Ally give me +10% damage and summoned angels will give more) and 20% (if rolled perfectly) to Holy damage. Then I really want to get http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/item/holy-beacon for more +Holy DMG and http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/item/andariels-visage with good stats and +Holy DMG and in the end http://us.battle.net/d3/en/item/stone-of-jordan for obvious reason. It will be perfect gear setup for me as Holy monk.
I use MoR:Transgression for faster strikes and spirit gain with WotHF:FoF, Mystic ally: air ally (the only Holy rune for this skill) so i can get +100 spirit whenever i need most of the time and also passive 2 spirit per sec. Cyclone strike: implosion obviuosly and paired with WoL it becomes very useful almost killing all non-elite mobs with this combo. Dashing strke:Quicksilver for mobility. Passives are: Exalted soul (+100 spirit is nice paired with Reaper Wraps since it restores 30% of maximum spirit and 2 spirit/sec is also nice and also with transgression rune on MoR you will replenish spirit very fast to 250), Sieze the Initiative and OWE is a must and as i said before Unity for dmg boost (pray for skycutter!!!).
I am doing rifts with friends on T1 but I feel myself comfortably on T3. With listed gear upgrades i can get to T5-t6 with proper toughness (atleast i won't lack dmg). So if it helps with creating a good Holy Monk, my pleasure.
I gave your build a try on torment 3. I don't know what i'm doing wrong btu WoL doesnt seemt o do much damage, compared to the 10 million crits i'm getting with BoH. Could just be different play style, but i've tried a lot of different holy builds as well as different variations of my own and I really don't see a spam build working as holy. I mean it can work, but its not the best.
Part of the reasoning for going for a CDR centred build focused on high bursts of damage. I really think this design philosophy if the future for holy monk builds.
Thanks for the feedback!
Hmm...i can't really get it. You crit for 10M with BoH dmg rune that deals 505% weapon dmg enhanced by +Holy dmg on gear and you can't see WoL:Empowered Wave dealing 473% weapong dmg as holy doing almost the same amount? CD free, spammable skill instead of SSS will perform better IMO, even with the skill set you use in a video. I noticed that my crits with WoL:Em W goes for 1,8M-2,1M in group with Unity stacked on max and my sheet DPS is 1,032,000 and couldn't believe that. Even my third hit from WotHF:FoF dealt more dmg than a single WoL, but then I noticed that i couldn't kill 17,8M mob with just 2 WoLs if it was assumed to do 2.1m crit dmg. Conclusion: dmg you see on screen is the DMG from those 79%( buffed by your +Holy dmg from gear) after Bell landed but the actual dmg from initial bell i couldn't see for some reason and that's why you couldn't see dmg from WoL but saw dmg from BoH:CoS.
Not sure if it's been discussed already but you have to be careful with Cyclone Strike and Guiding Light. Guiding Light will update with every heal, so if you're not consistently staying at the same % of health you'll lose dps.
Pop BoH and get the full 30%, but your health % is now higher. If you use Cyclone Strike afterwards(Unless you've taken more damage to bring you back down again) it will recalculate Guiding Light lowering the amount of damage it gives you. This is assuming you're using Soothing Breeze rune.
So not only does Cyclone Strike spam not do much damage, but it could potentially be detrimental to your dps.
So I've been working on two different theory crafted builds for the two-handed Holy Monk to go along with the SSS Flow of Eternity build. Each of these builds require a specific Diabo as well as the 2 piece of the Sunwuko's set. Thoughts?
Build 1 - The Bell Tolls for Thee
Required Gear Sunwuko's Balance15% SSS damage preferred Sunwuko's PawsTzo Krin's Gaze15% WoL Damage Preferred on a re-roll Incense Torch of the Grand Temple
This build's pure focus is on being able to cast as many WoL as possible. To that end, the Incense Torch allows for a full refund when it kills multiple enemies. This is a huge increase to its usability. To that end, Overawe is utilized to provide a global damage increase. Basic play style is gather the packs and nuke em down with Bell. While not as cheap as LTK, it also has a larger AoE range than LTK and, with Tzo Krin's can be used on a ranged group if the ground is covered in nasty effects. Gear with cost reduction is useful in this build as well. Note that depending on how the refund works, The Guardian's Path passive might effect the refund and increase it by 35%. I do know it effects the refund from the active use of the air ally.
Sunwuko's Balance15% SSS damage preferred Sunwuko's PawsWarstaff of General Quang
This build's focus is on speed The Warstaff's secondary allows us to take Northern Breeze, which converts it into 285% Holy damage. This combines with damage bonuses to TR and +% Holy damage for a massive state of damage (40% holy damage raises it to around 400% weapon damage). The use of Annihilation on MoC allows even more speed between groups. SSS handles the finishing blow, but this should be a very very mobile build. Passives provide the spirit regen, but getting some on gear will allow some to be freed up. Helpful secondary stats would be Health Globe bonus as transcendence is a huge source of constant healing in a TR build. When I run this with just a generic Diabo (and no Sunwuko 2 piece) I'm healed for 4800 health every tick of the channel.
I recently aquired an Incense Torch of the Grand Temple and I plan to start testing a WoL build once i get the sunwukos 2 set. Ball park predictions: Will work well for clearing. Not entirely sure how its going to work for single target. The requirement of killing 6 enemies to get the refund is a bit iffy. Don't think a refund counts towards the 35% from guardians path passive. Air ally works since its 100 spirit generated, but not refunded. as for your build - without cyclone strike, i don't see SSS:FO getting much use aside from single target. Remember that the explosive range on SSS:FO is very small, cyclone strike is required to group them to get the full effects from it. WoL:EL would likely see more effectiveness from having enemies grouped up aswell. Since Tzo Krin's reduces CS cost, it might be worth to include it. I would really like to test the build though, i'm more of a practical man than a theory man
As for the speed of light build: I like the idea. Personally I'd drop almost all the passives except for exalted soul and take Beacon of Ytar, Momentum and fleet footed(though this is less important, perhaps keep a spirit generation passive). Itemization I'd like to see Holy Beacon go along with it (spirit regen + holy damage) & Hexing pants of mr Yan for 25% more damage/spirit generation while moving. Could also drop WotHF since you shouldnt need a spirit generator for a TR build. Maybe BoH: BL for the 10% damage increase and healing - should work well since TR builds are rather low on toughness, the heal will help and since CDR is going to be important for max epiphany uptime you should be able to keep the damage buff up 100% of the time.
Not sure if it's been discussed already but you have to be careful with Cyclone Strike and Guiding Light. Guiding Light will update with every heal, so if you're not consistently staying at the same % of health you'll lose dps.
Pop BoH and get the full 30%, but your health % is now higher. If you use Cyclone Strike afterwards(Unless you've taken more damage to bring you back down again) it will recalculate Guiding Light lowering the amount of damage it gives you. This is assuming you're using Soothing Breeze rune.
So not only does Cyclone Strike spam not do much damage, but it could potentially be detrimental to your dps.
You are correct! Thats why i only suggest the Soothing Breeze rune for higher torment. I'm currently running torment 4 and almost always get the max benefit of Guiding Light while running soothing breeze. Also, cyclone strike is not meant to be spammed in the build, only used to proc strongarm and control mobs. I don't use it more than every 5 seconds.
Completely forgot about the pants until I got them from Kadala while gambling. They're a no brainer. I didn't include things like Holy Beacon as they're not 100% required for a successful build (since other necks can have 20% holy damage). Modified the build somewhat with the assumption that one can get to a certain spirit regen break point (generating enough spirit to use TR constatnly) and with the assumption that BoH:CoS doesn't break Tempest Rush (for the extra 25% damage).
Here's the skills I'm running : http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/monk#WdPXfT!USVi!abcacc
I prefer epipheny because it gives good generation and it does nice damage, plus teleportation is always nice. I use dashing strike for escaping though situations and kiting on cooldowns, also it is the fastest way you can move on the map.
Why Crippling Wave instead of WotHF:FoF? If you go for holy dmg build it would make sense to use the highest damage builder that just happens to be holy damage making it even better.
I am not really aiming at holy damage, plus i don't have any on my gear. I was looking more at aoe dmg, but now I've tried WotHF and it looks interesting as well.
Here's the skills I'm running : http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/monk#WdPXfT!USVi!abcacc
I prefer epipheny because it gives good generation and it does nice damage, plus teleportation is always nice. I use dashing strike for escaping though situations and kiting on cooldowns, also it is the fastest way you can move on the map.
As Lumis said, you should use WothF:FoF - it has more aoe and single target dps than crippling wave. Its not hard to fine holy skill damage, you can get it on bracers and amulets easily enough. Since holy skills generally have very high damage, you dont need that much +holy skill damage to get a huge damage boost.
Not sure how valuable epiphany is in this build - cyclone strike, while useful, doesn't do a lot of damage and it is the only skill that its gonna get benefit from epiphany in your build. Not sure epiphany is worth the skill slot.
Update to Guide: Struck Holy Beacon from the suggested items list. I got one today and it doesn't roll how the game guide indicated (not the first time the game guide is wrong) its kinda bad actually, I turned it into a soul.
LoH might be useful if you go for t5+ but as of now i can easily get away without it on t4. Also i almost never have spirit problems unless you have to use your pull a hell lot of times so cost reduction is neither needed..
But yeah, as amazing as the proc opportunities sound, if you have 50% area dmg through paragon points the damage isnt that amazing since most proc opportunities you mentioned are critting for about 500k max, rather less for the most time, so the area damage you get is pretty low most times.
Obviously, if you dont need the other options in the utility tree just go for it, but in reality area damage isnt as good as it sounds in theory
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ModeratorThe other concern is that since the playstyle is that you cyclone strike then SSS:FO you'd need to fit in three attacks between the two and in that admittedly short amount of time the mobs can have moved more than 7 yards apart. (Diablo yards are TINY)
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Creater of the monk guide "The Eye of the Storm" .-> http://tinyurl.com/pg7kn52
Build 1 - The Bell Tolls for Thee
Required Gear
Sunwuko's Balance15% SSS damage preferred
Sunwuko's Paws
Tzo Krin's Gaze15% WoL Damage Preferred on a re-roll
Incense Torch of the Grand Temple
This build's pure focus is on being able to cast as many WoL as possible. To that end, the Incense Torch allows for a full refund when it kills multiple enemies. This is a huge increase to its usability. To that end, Overawe is utilized to provide a global damage increase. Basic play style is gather the packs and nuke em down with Bell. While not as cheap as LTK, it also has a larger AoE range than LTK and, with Tzo Krin's can be used on a ranged group if the ground is covered in nasty effects. Gear with cost reduction is useful in this build as well. Note that depending on how the refund works, The Guardian's Path passive might effect the refund and increase it by 35%. I do know it effects the refund from the active use of the air ally.
Build 2 - At the Speed of Light
Required Gear
Sunwuko's Balance15% SSS damage preferred
Sunwuko's Paws
Warstaff of General Quang
This build's focus is on speed The Warstaff's secondary allows us to take Northern Breeze, which converts it into 285% Holy damage. This combines with damage bonuses to TR and +% Holy damage for a massive state of damage (40% holy damage raises it to around 400% weapon damage). The use of Annihilation on MoC allows even more speed between groups. SSS handles the finishing blow, but this should be a very very mobile build. Passives provide the spirit regen, but getting some on gear will allow some to be freed up. Helpful secondary stats would be Health Globe bonus as transcendence is a huge source of constant healing in a TR build. When I run this with just a generic Diabo (and no Sunwuko 2 piece) I'm healed for 4800 health every tick of the channel.
This is my guess, can anyone comfirm the same?
Link to my monk: http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/profile/Epholum-2257/hero/39518344
Pop BoH and get the full 30%, but your health % is now higher. If you use Cyclone Strike afterwards(Unless you've taken more damage to bring you back down again) it will recalculate Guiding Light lowering the amount of damage it gives you. This is assuming you're using Soothing Breeze rune.
So not only does Cyclone Strike spam not do much damage, but it could potentially be detrimental to your dps.
As for the speed of light build: I like the idea. Personally I'd drop almost all the passives except for exalted soul and take Beacon of Ytar, Momentum and fleet footed(though this is less important, perhaps keep a spirit generation passive). Itemization I'd like to see Holy Beacon go along with it (spirit regen + holy damage) & Hexing pants of mr Yan for 25% more damage/spirit generation while moving. Could also drop WotHF since you shouldnt need a spirit generator for a TR build. Maybe BoH: BL for the 10% damage increase and healing - should work well since TR builds are rather low on toughness, the heal will help and since CDR is going to be important for max epiphany uptime you should be able to keep the damage buff up 100% of the time.
You are correct! Thats why i only suggest the Soothing Breeze rune for higher torment. I'm currently running torment 4 and almost always get the max benefit of Guiding Light while running soothing breeze. Also, cyclone strike is not meant to be spammed in the build, only used to proc strongarm and control mobs. I don't use it more than every 5 seconds.
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/monk#TcXPjk!bZYV!caacbY
I prefer epipheny because it gives good generation and it does nice damage, plus teleportation is always nice. I use dashing strike for escaping though situations and kiting on cooldowns, also it is the fastest way you can move on the map.
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Curse PremiumAs Lumis said, you should use WothF:FoF - it has more aoe and single target dps than crippling wave. Its not hard to fine holy skill damage, you can get it on bracers and amulets easily enough. Since holy skills generally have very high damage, you dont need that much +holy skill damage to get a huge damage boost.
Not sure how valuable epiphany is in this build - cyclone strike, while useful, doesn't do a lot of damage and it is the only skill that its gonna get benefit from epiphany in your build. Not sure epiphany is worth the skill slot.
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