DiabloFans

Consider that you add a lot of armour but are also stacking Dodge. So most of the time, one or the other useless. And of course, we're working on the assumption that Dodge is only for physical (bows and swords) attacks, not magical ones.

I would suggest maximizing Dodge and then minimizing the damage output of the spellcasters. This helps everyone else you're partying with.

Look at Crippling Wave with the Obsidian Rune. If you use the first two hits from Fists of Thunder and the third for Crippling Wave, everything surrounding you would be snared by 50% and have their attacks slowed by 35% for 4.5 seconds, and have their damaged halved by 50% for 6 seconds.

Also, consider that you SHOULD be dodging an awful lot. I daresay you'll need a crapton of armour to mitigate 50% of anything's damage, and it doesn't even work against magic. So, swap the Mantra of Evasion's rune to Crimson perhaps. It's been nerfed, but it's a free 79% fire attack to anything near you when you Dodge.

I'd remove Guiding Light for Transendence. Even though it's been nerfed very badly this time around, it still offers free healing. Considering you don't have any Active Healing Skills, it's not worth it for you anyway.

The rest is up to choice, I suppose. I like the 50% bonus to health and all, but I'd prefer a regular heal instead of that.

Thank you.

I altered it a bit by swapping out Caltrops with Shadow Power (Obsidian). It's a little extra DPS and survivability in one package.

Fan of Knives will have to be the only snaring ability, which, thanks to its Crimson rune, it should be able to do quite well.

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/demon-hunter#fPgdUQ!Tcf!bbZacY

Definitely not the classic Ranger, but this build is meant to be versatile with decent damage output: http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/demon-hunter#fPgdYQ!Tcf!bbZacY

Passives

Grenadier - +15 Hatred for using Grenades and -15 Hatred cost for Cluster Arrow is nifty.
Cull the Weak - 20% extra damage against snared targets (which should be your primary targets?) Yes, please.
Numbing Traps - Fan of Knives and Caltrops will reduce monster damage by 30%.


Active Skills

Grenades (Golden) - Raises Hate generated to 10. Hopefully, this works as we hope it does by generating 25 Hatred for each use with Grenadier.
Cluster Arrow (Golden) - Instead of the 4 mini-bombs it deals Shadow damage, which should heal you as well.
Fan of Knives (Crimson) - Increased range of effect to 18 yards, more snaring and damage reduction.
Vault (Alabaster) - Knocks back mobs within 8 yards of where you end up, and stuns them for 3 seconds.
Caltrops (Obsidian) - Immobilizes targets for 4 seconds. I hope this also means they're snared with the original effect.
Marked for Death (Indigo) - 20% bonus damage (if snared, a total of 36% more damage) and spreads to 5 nearby targets when dead.

===========

It has bonus damage, crowd control, and an efficient Hatred generator and spender.

Concerned about Discipline though.

Any thoughts?

Quote from Thaegrin

They just said that D3 is on track for early 2012, that's really all they said. They have high expectations and beta testing was going well.

What got me was they said, there would be 2 big releases for them next year. So which 2, D3 and WOW?

D3, WoW: Mists of Pandaria, and SC2: Heart of the Swarm... That's 3.

Unless they're going to announce Titan for immediate release next year.

Quote from ArcaneWeapon

I can see a lot of negative posts incoming since you've picked Energy Twister. Just ignore them. What's most important is to play with a build that YOU enjoy.

Hehe yeah, I know it's not the most popular spell at the moment. But I think the Obsidian Runestone takes care of that. If you cast Energy Twister just once it'll let you cast a 360% "Giant" Twister with the casting of a Signature Spell (maximum 1080%). I think, sadly, that that's the only viable use for Energy Twister.

Quote from Strill

Quote from Hans

Casting speed/weapon speed (the same thing right now. I think Blizzard will remove casting speed since they want to go to weapon speed to effect casting speed.

Casting speed will still have a limited effect on channeling skills since there is likely a start up and finishing casting animation. But during the channeling it has no effect.

That's the exact opposite of what I heard. I was under the impression that the tick speed on channeled spells was dependent on attack speed.

It is. The individual ticks are faster if you have faster weapons, there's a Blue post on it. I think it's the big one with all the math.

Anyone else remember the PC Gamer Diablo 1 demo? One of the tips said to buy a scroll of Fire Wall and so I did. Me and my cousin were so freaking scared playing through the first few levels... then we saw the Butcher's room.

It only worked the first time, but I cast Fire Wall right as he stepped into the door. His animation got stuck and he stayed there the whole duration; we took him down with some furious clicking afterwards.

I'd love to see him back in some capacity. He sold me on the game. But I don't know if he has the same appeal.

I really do miss D1's austere graphics and playstyle...

The Elementalist

This build tries to use all the Elements (including Arcane as Wind) to look cool and be all thematic. And hopefully, viable.

1) Electrocute (Golden) - At max level, Signature Spells shouldn't cost AP. So this can potentially bring 12 AP per cast.

2) Energy Twister (Obsidian) - Main spam. After every 3 castings, cast Electrocute for the massive twister. Or simply alternate in a 2-2 pattern.

3) Ray of Frost (Golden) - A direct-fire snare could be useful. Mainly there should AP be low but still requiring heavier damage than what Force Lightning---err Electrocute can deal.

4) Meteor (Indigo) - I like the number 13, and it seems attractive. Maybe the Crimson rune would be better?

5) Teleport (Obsidian) - Will teleport everytime it's up, just to keep up that damage reduction.

6) Energy Armour (Crimson) - Defensive stuff.


Passives:

Glass Cannon - Energy Armour cancels out some of these effects, but you still gain 20% more damage.
Galvanizing Ward - It remains to be seen if it'll be of any real use.
Astral Presence - Cancels Energy Armour's AP penalty and allows for faster AP regen.

Alternatively: Temporal Flux - Energy Twister will be dealing Arcane damage, so you might as well snare them.


Unlike my other attempts, this doesn't focus on the hardest difficulties but levelling up. It has a wide variety of damage dealing tools. There's a mix of offense and defense plus decent AP regen.

Energy Twister's Obsidian Rune will be the moneymaker here. I can see casting ET once then Electrocute thrice (once for the Giant Twister, two to recharge) and repeating. Maybe Hydra would be better than Meteor since it'll be up for longer.

I wanted to incorporate Blizzard but Ray of Frost with the Golden Rune is just too cool to pass up.

Thoughts?

Quote from Raskolnikov

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.

The description is also ambiguous.

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.

Aren't Monks supposed to be martial artists?

The class has a good bit of Spirit Generators, but they all focus on dealing damage in different ways. In order to generate Spirit you have to hit something.

And then you spend that spirit on:

- 2 Summons (Lethal Decoy and Mystic Ally)
- 2 Summon things from the sky (Wave of Light and Breath of Heaven)
- 2 Bubbles
- 2 Mobility moves, but not that different

There are only 2 "Martial Arts" Spirit Spenders: Seven Sided Strike and Lashing Tail Kick. And SSS will cost 90 Spirit now for a 30s cooldown.

It just seems like the Monk's a point-blank range caster. There's no variety in Spirit generation, and the combo mechanic seem a little shallow.

I'm not against the effects per se, but against the delivery method. Would it be so difficult to get the Monk to go Supersaiyan and then have glowy silhouettes charge forward instead of summoning a bell and kicking it? I'd love to see Dashing Strike as a Spirit Generator. Give the generators the same variety as the Barbies.

On the whole, I feel the Monk's abilities are underwhelming. When I think "Monk" I don't think about bells or pillars, I think about an ultra-fast hard hitting badass with fists and feet breaking faces. I get the ninja decoy thing but the rest seem so uninspired.


EDIT: Yes, I played my friend's beta. No invite yet.

Here's the latest version of the Mitigator. He's a bit of a passive-aggressive.

1) Fists of Thunder (Alabaster) - This steps up Dodge chance, slightly. Can be replaced with Crimson to AOE Hit. First two hits of a combo start here.

2) Crippling Wave (Obsidian) - Cuts damage in half to everyone around the Mitigator. Meaning this guy needs some mobility.

3) Dashing Strike (Obsidian) - With a 21% boost to Dodge, and the ability to "charge" groups you can easily handle separate mob groups.

4) Seven Sided Strike (Indigo) - Extra Damage and hopefully a longer animation time means less time for you to get hit.

5) Blinding Flash (Obsidian) - So they're going to do less damage to everything, and they'll have an increased miss chance against you... why not let the damage potentially go to their friends instead of you?

6) Mantra of Evasion (Crimson) - 90% weapon damage as Fire damage everytime you dodge?

Passives:
Transcendence - With no dedicated healing spells this will be the primary means of regenerating health.
Beacon of Ytar - Seven Sided Strike has a boring 30s cooldown. I hope to use that as an effective damage dealer.
One With Everything - With high dodge and mitigation, Resistances will shore up the lack of other defenses. Considering "Seize The Initiative" but I don't know if Defense lowers damage from spells as well. I recall hearing it did, but only gameplay experience will show which is overall more useful.


Assuming the Monk has 0% Dodge chance and 0% Damage Resistance, this gives him a 51.6% chance to Dodge and mitigates 65% of the enemy's damage. If Blinding Flash is applied, it'll only increase survivability.

(44.7% Dodge chance without the Fists of Thunder Alabaster rune. With Crimson Rune Damage would go way up.)

I don't know if Blinding Flash's increased miss chance translates as "Dodging" for the sake of the Mantra of Evasion's Crimson Rune. Because that would be awesome. He'll stand in the middle of a group of mobs who'll keep missing him and they'll get fried and even hit each other. If they hit him, it'll be at 35% of their normal strength.

Math may be horridly wrong as it's 1am.

The awesome pillar is so awesome with its awesome awesomeness.

Sigh.

I get the "temple aesthetic" with the bell and so on, and I don't begrudge them for being creative. But it was presented so lamely.

Also, why break the pillars of your temple? Are the monks to turn into some weird Samsons to literally bring down the house on their foes? Why not an ethereal pillar representing something, like the ground, and smashing it makes a big hole?

Nope. Summon a big concrete pillar which breaks and its chunks fall on some poor mob.

Ever since the info on the monk came out I've been looking for any skills relating to the 1001 gods. You'd think that if the guy thinks there's a mini-god in a campfire he'd ask it for help or something.

Who built these heavenly pillars anyway and what's up with their construction laws?

It'll be almost a necessity for Hardcore players though. That is, if it's available to HC.

I think most of the Monk skills need a look-over.

Quote from Crypto137

No comments lol

I am more than okay with this.