I recently made a thread on the official D3 forums discussing the topic of Sweeping Wind duration and got some pretty interesting feedback from some of the posters who replied to my thread.
I'd really be interested in reading some of the thoughts of your opinions and suggestions about the matter as well.
I'm not here to discuss what's wrong with Monks overall or go into any detail of those notions, I'm here to bring up a possible change to this one skill.
I use Sweeping Wind (Which I will refer to as SW for the rest of this post) as one of my main skills, mainly because I've ALWAYS used it and have come to really love using SW, it's a great feeling to be surrounded by a vortex and constantly doing damage to those within it..
But with every great skill comes a minor update that could cause monks a little less of a headache..
(I obviously am not speaking for every player who plays a monk and uses SW; We all have different opinions and suggestions.)
The main issue I have with SW is its 6 second duration..
6 Seconds is not a problem in high density areas, but it does become a bit of pain in some rifts and most areas of the game where there isn't anything in sight for the next 10-15seconds which causes me to either have to re-cast SW, or use an AoE spell that refreshes it, or just let it die until I come upon more mobs.
Recasting isn't a problem when I'm at full spirit, but after a long fight with rares/uniques, I usually am left with very little spirit and re-casting will ruin an entire rotation or mess up my overall dps.
So, now onto what I made this thread for;
I was hoping it would be taken into consideration to increase the duration of SW from 6 seconds to 8-10 seconds. Obviously it's not a large increase but would be right around JUST enough time to not cause issues with spirit spending.
Is there anyone else who feels the same way about this?
Thanks, and I look forward to reading everyone else replies to this.
I got some really good feedback, such as;
Quote from "SolarKnight" »
I'd love to see an extension, but I'd settle for seeing it fall off one stack at a time.
http:;us.battle.net;/d3/en/forum/topic/12673459747?page=1#2
[quote=]
There's actually a very good opportunity for a rework here. With Blizzard going out of their way to expand generator options for cold monks, it's solidifying that they think cold should be a monk element. The cold rune for for Sweeping Winds increases stack duration to 15 seconds. This isn't a dps increase or even a utility option. It's 100% a quality of life choice so that they don't have to recast Sweeping Winds after not having an opportunity to refresh for 6 seconds like everyone else. At most this turns into 3 extra seconds of dps, the value of which drops dramatically as mob density or mob health goes up. It would make so much more sense for the cold rune to give some form of utility like chance to chill or slow or freeze.
After acknowledging that increasing the duration of Sweeping Winds is a quality of life improvement and not really a dps increase, it would make perfect sense to make it baseline in that form or some other. Stacks falling off one at a time is a really cool idea and one I would be really glad to see. An idea I had was for Sweeping Winds to refund it's spirit cost when it fell off. With both ways, you'd still have great incentive to maintain the 3 stacks, but getting to the next mob a second too late doesn't result in the player groaning loudly.
The two above quotes are just some samples of what was posted (Albeit not a lot of responses), but would definitely make a much needed improvement to the skill.
So what are your thoughts on this?
Do you like the idea of extending the duration from 6 seconds to something a little higher?
Like the idea of losing 1 stack per 4-6 seconds?
Looking forward to your feedback,
Thanks!
Edit: Just so you know, I somehow selected the wrong form of poll selection; Sorry about that.
Having SW stacks tick off is a good idea, as a lightning monk often I find that I'm always using spirit gens to maintain SW when it drops off. Hence everyone in my group will be able to destroy everything before I'm able to dish out damage through LTK.
This needs to be updated, monks are already behind in terms of damage and set bonuses compared to other classes.
I'm in the same boat as you with my love for sw. I dont really mind the 6 second expiration, however. What I find excessive is the spirit cost to maintain it if we can't hit refresh. I think another solution is to lower the cost to refresh it. It shouldn't be so low that we can just continually spam it ala Inna's. It should be costly enough for us to consider resource management but not so costly has it can potentially handicap our dps for if we misjudge mob density.
Perhaps we can use a combination of ideas here. Cheaper refresh spirit cost + stacks falling ff 1 at a time. If sw is at three stacks, then the refresh cost should be at its lowest with an increase in spirit cost with two and one stack. This way, there's still a penalty for the less vigilant players...but the punishment is not so bad as it gimps a misjudging mob encounters.
If this method for sw is used, they can also revamped the set bonus for inna's set. Perhaps remove the spirit cost for refresh altogether. My two cents.
Quote from Sarcastic562
I'm in the same boat as you with my love for sw. I dont really mind the 6 second expiration, however. What I find excessive is the spirit cost to maintain it if we can't hit refresh. I think another solution is to lower the cost to refresh it. It shouldn't be so low that we can just continually spam it ala Inna's. It should be costly enough for us to consider resource management but not so costly has it can potentially handicap our dps for if we misjudge mob density.
Perhaps we can use a combination of ideas here. Cheaper refresh spirit cost + stacks falling ff 1 at a time. If sw is at three stacks, then the refresh cost should be at its lowest with an increase in spirit cost with two and one stack. This way, there's still a penalty for the less vigilant players...but the punishment is not so bad as it gimps a misjudging mob encounters.
If this method for sw is used, they can also revamped the set bonus for inna's set. Perhaps remove the spirit cost for refresh altogether. My two cents.
Yes, I love this as well.
While refreshing isn't a HUGE deal 100% of the time, it does become quite taxing for maintaining your clearing speed and applying more potential damage for the duration of the fight.
It is meant to fall of in areas that aren't tightly packed.
No, I understand...
I can also understand the mechanics of having it drop when there aren't any monsters in areas that are spread out over certain distances..
However, even though most of the area's usually have monsters close enough to not have to worry about SW dropping, a good portion of the spawns are distanced just far enough away that having SW drop 30-40 milliseconds really disrupts your damage output because you have to spend the extra spirit to keep SW up, when given 2-3 more seconds on the duration of SW would eliminate that extra lost spirit that could have been used to activate another/other skill(s).
I know this doesn't come off as a big deal, but over the course of one game, the amount of spirit you spend to refresh SW is just too high in my opinion.
If the duration was extended or having a stack fall after X amount of seconds or just reducing the spirit cost to refresh when the skill is already active, would be somewhat noticeable damage increase in the first 5-10 seconds of a fight.
Maybe sw should be a passive...wait, hear me out. Sw can be a one-stack passive by default. Crit hits will add stacks like normal. If this is done, they can lower the drop off timer from 6 sec to 4 sec per stack. Also, to they can add a spirit debuff while sw is active because there's no longer a spirit cost to cast it. The debuff I had in mind is to have spirit spenders cost an additional 5%-10% while sw is active. This mechanic gets rid of the pesky refresh clicking while still being useful. Furthermore, monks will still have to consider if the debuff works with their build or not. Builds focused around dropping high cost spirit spenders will want to stack reduced resource to offset the debuff, for example.
Meanwhile, a potential replacement set bonus for the Inna's set could be to remove the debuff while granting the attributes of all sw runes.
I recently made a thread on the official D3 forums discussing the topic of Sweeping Wind duration and got some pretty interesting feedback from some of the posters who replied to my thread.
I'd really be interested in reading some of the thoughts of your opinions and suggestions about the matter as well.
Original Thread: http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/12673459747?page=1#0
I got some really good feedback, such as;
The two above quotes are just some samples of what was posted (Albeit not a lot of responses), but would definitely make a much needed improvement to the skill.
So what are your thoughts on this?
Do you like the idea of extending the duration from 6 seconds to something a little higher?
Like the idea of losing 1 stack per 4-6 seconds?
Looking forward to your feedback,
Thanks!
This needs to be updated, monks are already behind in terms of damage and set bonuses compared to other classes.
Perhaps we can use a combination of ideas here. Cheaper refresh spirit cost + stacks falling ff 1 at a time. If sw is at three stacks, then the refresh cost should be at its lowest with an increase in spirit cost with two and one stack. This way, there's still a penalty for the less vigilant players...but the punishment is not so bad as it gimps a misjudging mob encounters.
If this method for sw is used, they can also revamped the set bonus for inna's set. Perhaps remove the spirit cost for refresh altogether. My two cents.
Sweeping wind isn't supposed to be passive.
It is meant to fall of in areas that aren't tightly packed.
While refreshing isn't a HUGE deal 100% of the time, it does become quite taxing for maintaining your clearing speed and applying more potential damage for the duration of the fight.
No, I understand...
I can also understand the mechanics of having it drop when there aren't any monsters in areas that are spread out over certain distances..
However, even though most of the area's usually have monsters close enough to not have to worry about SW dropping, a good portion of the spawns are distanced just far enough away that having SW drop 30-40 milliseconds really disrupts your damage output because you have to spend the extra spirit to keep SW up, when given 2-3 more seconds on the duration of SW would eliminate that extra lost spirit that could have been used to activate another/other skill(s).
I know this doesn't come off as a big deal, but over the course of one game, the amount of spirit you spend to refresh SW is just too high in my opinion.
If the duration was extended or having a stack fall after X amount of seconds or just reducing the spirit cost to refresh when the skill is already active, would be somewhat noticeable damage increase in the first 5-10 seconds of a fight.
Meanwhile, a potential replacement set bonus for the Inna's set could be to remove the debuff while granting the attributes of all sw runes.