Oh right, actually discounting any dps bringing buffs aswell. Guess I'm back to EP doing the best damage ingame atm then.
You're not wrong
As the other user pointed out, when the damage from the group is high enough for the content, EP/PP monk becomes less useful as he doesn't have time to reach potential. When things are alive for 5+ seconds though, its easy for the PP monk to pull ahead. You're not wrong with your arguments; it all depends on the level of gear : difficulty ratio. When that is in favour of the damage, a fourth (supporting, all group players should support the power is too much to ignore) DPS will provide more speed, whether thats a DPS monk or sprint barb or Jade Doctor (15% Piranado +30% SA +30% - and 20% IAS BBV) they will help more than the palm monk.
But as soon as that ration is more balanced the monk pulls ahead with the ability to "transfer the DPS dealt" - but even then the efficiency is grossly affected by the mobs and map tilesets (can't cyclone 'fat boys' and dungeons/halls of agony style corridors can be a bitch for grouping compared to, say fields of misery). With the gross amount fo transferable damage given by FoA and +phys%/elite% modifiers there's no wonder they are top of the "legitimate" GRifts times (discounting basically anything 40+ as 'exploited' - w/e different argument). Pretty sure that's gonna get nerfed "TO THE GROUND" though
I'm clearly not a mathwiz, and my understanding of this might be way off, but untill someone proves me wrong, this is what I will believe.
You are discounting that a 4th DPS can bring buffs as well. Don't get me wrong, the PP monk is *designed* to bring those buffs and its amazing how many people think (for example) that their reapers wraps will provide more group dps from more cluster arrows than strongarm + knockback* would achieve by buffing everyone by 30% but hey. So in reality, yeah sure PP monks are bringing more than 4th DPS. But only because most people play "solo" in group games re: build
*Okay so DH wans'ta great choice but the point stands. Wizards, WDs. Crusaders, all able to bring group buffs/use strongarms, and 9 times out of 10 that will provide more damage to the group than using their solo-play build...
And I do respect that line of thinking except for one, fairly major, point. If something is broken you fix it. You just don't attempt to make it so that no one can abuse it because then the purpose of the game shifts to finding some way to use the broken thing that the developers overlooked. Let's make this less personal and remove the "monk" from the equation.
But we're agree'd that sources of HP% based cirect damage are broken (currently = Furnace Bul Kathos and Rimeheart) and there isn't a way those 3 items can remain in the game as they are and not simply be mandatory for a certain point of Grift. So disregarding EP those items are gonna be fixed/changed. And once you do, EP goes back to being as popular/OP as it always has been. Yo're never gonna be able to chain the ability beyond "mopping up a pack" except on maybe one or two occasions, easily offset by the lack of damage on Rift guardians, and when you're relying on good old fashioned hack and slash to trigger the explosions, their "OP"ness falls in line with that of other classes. A second Jade Doctor to burn down that 50 billion HP (AoE) will do more than monk blowing them up when nearly everything is already dead for 10 billion.
Re: edit, surely any item that can unwittingly proc EP (read: Kill mobs) needs to get fixed pre-season anyway, even if EP had never existed?
But keep pretending Exploding palm just procs itself
I'm not "pretending EP just procs itself."
The problem with EP is that NO MATTER HOW IT'S TRIGGERED it still becomes a ridiculous amount of damage.
For any value of a monster's HP, EP allows you to do that amount of damage (with the Fist) to all nearby monsters. That means that even if you have to do 1000000 BAJILLION damage to proc it, when it explodes, it has the potential to do 1000000 BAJILLION damage several times over. What this means is you have a mechanism whereby killing ONE MONSTER allows you to kill an ENTIRE PACK OF MONSTERS.
This generally isn't a problem when other skills afford the same level of power, but once you scale it to the point that other skills don't have anywhere close to that potential, regardless of the conditions to trigger it, you have a major problem on hand.
I'm not sure why this is so fucking difficult to grasp. EP works as intended only so long as it's not providing damage numbers that no other skill in the game could hope to provide. So long as EP is in-range of other skills then it is a non-issue. Which goes to Fitsu's point that ginormously-inflated HP/damage stats on monsters is a bad long-term way to increase difficulty because it makes skills like EP, items like The Furnace and Rimeheart, and stats like CB inherently IMPOSSIBLE to balance.
Clearly just here for an argument and didn't even bother reading my post. I won't bite, good day
Quote from AeneasBK "Please note, I'm not trying to defend Explosive Palm as it currently stands (combo'd with +damage modifiers and Fist of Az'Turrask) as that clearly makes the ability more efficient than *all* of the damage that came before it, I think I'm popping for about 225% of the mobs HP when they die, this is clearly broken. Being able to trigger the explosions fast on mobs with trillions of HP using Rimeheart or The Furnace is broken. But thats because of the weapons not the skill. Essentially, nerf the ability down to a level where in order to actually start to make headway on a pure DPS toon, you will have to be playing EP/Pull monk very skillfully (positioning the EPs and mobs correctly to maximise AoE and damage dealt by it etc.) but there isn't a need to outright change it."
Bolded the parts you seem to have missed. Try harder next time. If you need to deal 1 bajillion damage to proc an explosive palm which then pops for about 12% of the mobs HP (a bajillion) it's pretty comparable to just "having a fourth person deal 25% more of a bajillion damage for the group" but I guess that concept flew right over your head. Like I said "Pretending it procs itself" (Which, to your credit, you acknowledge happens with CB mechanics like on the furnace) :rolleyes:
Okay; but if you take Furnace and Rimeheart out of the equation you have an ability that already requires you to do trillions of damage to work. If you can already provide trillions of damage from a DPS class; the effectiveness of EP lessens (as you're losing out on another trillion DPS player by bringing the monk).
But keep pretending Exploding palm just procs itself
Hint: There's a reason EP wasn't OP broken and popular as hell pre-RoS I tihnk Blizzar dbuffed it because 0.8% of monks used it and it was the least used skill in the game at the time
EDIT: You plainly didn't bother to read beyond the first line of my post anyway
Wow sorry, did not know that. Interesting. Never noticed, even with little physical/elite damage. Well, something to keep in mind then ;-)
But say that is true; and therefore with 250% more HP on 4 player, it is capped at 20% of the mobs effective HP; you would still have to provide the backing damage to trigger the explosions.
I've been playing EP monk since hitting level 60 back in May and if they change the fundamental way that EP works I'll be gutted, I'm not gonna lie They've already butchered dashing strike Q_Q. Especially if they don't take into account that the only reason its as over powered as it is *right now* (re: tier lvl 100 cleared) is when it is combined with the 2 broken weapons. Fix the broken weapons and EP becomes only as powerful as your group enables it to be. It may well be "mandatory" for end-end game content; but at the end of the day, there will always be "one" build or group setup that is slightlyahead of the others with the right gear, and if you want to sacrifice 25% of the groups damage in favour of EP; that should be a meaningful choice. Nerf EP; yes, but don't change its underlying mechanic. If all the runes end up like essence burn... it's gonna suck
I still maintain the only nerf required is to remove any of the "modifiers" of the EP explosion so it is unchangable (in damage magnitude) by any gear affixes. Nerf Fist of Az'turrask (at the moment it effectively reads "Your EP explosions deal 2-100% more damage" could you imagine a wand or ceremonial knife - "Your disintegrate deals 2-100% more damage" or "Your Gargantuan deals 2-100% more damage" (!!) to no longer affect the damage of the EP explosion. I think size is a fair trade off, alternatively "Enemies effected by your Exploding Palm are imobilized for the duration" could work.
EDIT: I'd also be perfectly happy going back to the old 30% EP explosions, was good enough for me back then; I'm sure I'll cope
EP isn't broken; what's broken is when you stack +physical and +elite damage with a 05%+ Fist of Azturrask so the explosions rather than doing 50% of th Max HP aare doing closer to 300% of the max HP. Thats where it gets broken.
Rework Fist of Az'turrask (Double the range of EP explosions maybe) and remove all modifiers to the explosion damage frmo +Phys, +Elite or ANY OTHER SOURCE, and EP works fine.
When mobs have 200 trillion life, even 50% EP damage are completely blown out of proportion. It doesn't make a difference whether it's 100 trillion damage (your suggestion) or 600 trillion damage (current value), both is just way too much. The problem IS EP as such, and not the items you describe. EP needs to be fixed and decoupled from mob's HP (or somehow capped related to your DPS).
No its simply converting single target damage in to 50% of its amount as AoE.
You still have to deal the 200 trillion damage to trigger it. And fixing Rimeheart/Furnace will prevent that being exploited. Some attacks are single target, some attacks are AoE; EP just converts one to the other. If you've already dealt 200 trillion damage, 100 more trillion (only to mobs within 9 yards) isn't too strong. Its when Furnace and Rimeheart give you a free 50 trillion trigger from insta-killed white mobs that it becomes too strong.
I agree that many people will use it after the patch hits to get at least some additional value from their current gear but especially players who don't have the time to farm the perfect items may very well stop using it after finding some other decent pieces.
Surely the other way around. People will drop it on patch day; but slowly go back to it as their secondary resistances balance out...
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As the other user pointed out, when the damage from the group is high enough for the content, EP/PP monk becomes less useful as he doesn't have time to reach potential. When things are alive for 5+ seconds though, its easy for the PP monk to pull ahead. You're not wrong with your arguments; it all depends on the level of gear : difficulty ratio. When that is in favour of the damage, a fourth (supporting, all group players should support the power is too much to ignore) DPS will provide more speed, whether thats a DPS monk or sprint barb or Jade Doctor (15% Piranado +30% SA +30% - and 20% IAS BBV) they will help more than the palm monk.
But as soon as that ration is more balanced the monk pulls ahead with the ability to "transfer the DPS dealt" - but even then the efficiency is grossly affected by the mobs and map tilesets (can't cyclone 'fat boys' and dungeons/halls of agony style corridors can be a bitch for grouping compared to, say fields of misery). With the gross amount fo transferable damage given by FoA and +phys%/elite% modifiers there's no wonder they are top of the "legitimate" GRifts times (discounting basically anything 40+ as 'exploited' - w/e different argument). Pretty sure that's gonna get nerfed "TO THE GROUND" though
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*Okay so DH wans'ta great choice but the point stands. Wizards, WDs. Crusaders, all able to bring group buffs/use strongarms, and 9 times out of 10 that will provide more damage to the group than using their solo-play build...
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Re: edit, surely any item that can unwittingly proc EP (read: Kill mobs) needs to get fixed pre-season anyway, even if EP had never existed?
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Quote from AeneasBK "Please note, I'm not trying to defend Explosive Palm as it currently stands (combo'd with +damage modifiers and Fist of Az'Turrask) as that clearly makes the ability more efficient than *all* of the damage that came before it, I think I'm popping for about 225% of the mobs HP when they die, this is clearly broken. Being able to trigger the explosions fast on mobs with trillions of HP using Rimeheart or The Furnace is broken. But thats because of the weapons not the skill. Essentially, nerf the ability down to a level where in order to actually start to make headway on a pure DPS toon, you will have to be playing EP/Pull monk very skillfully (positioning the EPs and mobs correctly to maximise AoE and damage dealt by it etc.) but there isn't a need to outright change it."
Bolded the parts you seem to have missed. Try harder next time. If you need to deal 1 bajillion damage to proc an explosive palm which then pops for about 12% of the mobs HP (a bajillion) it's pretty comparable to just "having a fourth person deal 25% more of a bajillion damage for the group" but I guess that concept flew right over your head. Like I said "Pretending it procs itself" (Which, to your credit, you acknowledge happens with CB mechanics like on the furnace) :rolleyes:
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But keep pretending Exploding palm just procs itself
Hint: There's a reason EP wasn't OP broken and popular as hell pre-RoS
EDIT: You plainly didn't bother to read beyond the first line of my post anyway
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I've been playing EP monk since hitting level 60 back in May and if they change the fundamental way that EP works I'll be gutted, I'm not gonna lie
I still maintain the only nerf required is to remove any of the "modifiers" of the EP explosion so it is unchangable (in damage magnitude) by any gear affixes. Nerf Fist of Az'turrask (at the moment it effectively reads "Your EP explosions deal 2-100% more damage" could you imagine a wand or ceremonial knife - "Your disintegrate deals 2-100% more damage" or "Your Gargantuan deals 2-100% more damage" (!!) to no longer affect the damage of the EP explosion. I think size is a fair trade off, alternatively "Enemies effected by your Exploding Palm are imobilized for the duration" could work.
EDIT: I'd also be perfectly happy going back to the old 30% EP explosions, was good enough for me back then; I'm sure I'll cope
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You still have to deal the 200 trillion damage to trigger it. And fixing Rimeheart/Furnace will prevent that being exploited. Some attacks are single target, some attacks are AoE; EP just converts one to the other. If you've already dealt 200 trillion damage, 100 more trillion (only to mobs within 9 yards) isn't too strong. Its when Furnace and Rimeheart give you a free 50 trillion trigger from insta-killed white mobs that it becomes too strong.
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