Diablo® III

I posted this as part of Piffle's thoughts on leaving OWE. However, I figure may as well start a thread as it doesn't look like monk passives are getting any attention this patch. If you haven't seen it, please check it out and show support for keeping OWE the same (and ideally promise they won't touch it, so we can gear up with confidence).

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/7593741622#16

One problem is we have too many passives to increase dodge. Dodge is already worse mitigation than armor and resistances. We need a passive that actually makes dodging better. How about gaining spirit with each dodge? This would open up more build diversity as people might pick up some of the runes with dodge bonuses. (How many people have you seen or heard about using lightning flash, blinding speed, or wall of wind?) It would also give more value to dex, as it is inferior to strength and intel.

Another problem is no attack speed or crit chance buff. Not sure how a dex based class was made and those weren't included. Either of these could be linked to your dodge chance in some way as another option.

Spirit gain passives aren't good enough. Chant of resonance should just be like 20% reduction of all spirit costs. We need something that scales. Exalted soul could be 100 energy and 2 spirit per second. Getting a high spirit per second requires way too many sacrifices on high mp.

Would also love to see a passive that encourages fist weapons and daibos. I would rework guardian path kind of like weapons master. Could keep bonuses as they are, and you gain something small if you are using 2 fists or daibo, like barbs gain for using mighty weapon. Too many monks running around with swords, maces, and skorns IMO. (I know many monks would feel shafted with their current gear, but i think it would really just even out weapon balance a little bit.)

Combination strikes is a bad mechanic, and doesn't even work the way most players think. Change it for bonus when doing combinations of spirit generating and spirit spending attacks. My proposal would be to let us unload a really high damage spirit spender after attacking three times with a spirit generator. Give us the feeling of actually doing combos. (This is what made the system for assassin in D2 so satisfying).

Remove guiding light - no explanation needed here. I would welcome ideas on how to improve it, ideally in a way so it is not so situational. I know people have suggested letting follower and ally count, but I think just scrap it. There has to be more interesting passives out there.

Here is my list of monk passives.
Leave as is:
1. OWE
2. STI
3. Resolve
4. Fleet footed
5. Pacifism - has pvp potential
6. Beacon of ytar - some say not good enough, I disagree, I think it is fine
7. Transcendence - good enough, especially if we get some more spirit gain options
8. Near death experience - hardcore and pvp potential

Change/Add
9. Chant of resonance - reduce spirit costs by 20% and adds 1 second to 3 second mantra buff
10. Exalted soul - 100 energy, 2 spirit per second, and monk spawns with full energy (gives this skill a use in pvp)
11. Sixth sense - increases both crit chance and attack speed by 10% of your dodge chance.
12. Guardians path - keep bonuses the same. Attacks with fists or daibos gains additional 2 spirit per attack (would be 2.7 with daibos b/c of 35%)
13. Combination strikes - increases damage of your next spirit spending ability by 40% when done within 3 seconds of the third strike of a spirit generator
14. New - gain 3 spirit for dodging an attack (or whatever amount is balanced). This would not be OP with blinding light, since you won't be dodging attacks while enemies are stunned.

If these were our passives, I know I would have a tough time picking which 3 to go with. And that is the point. Players should have a tough time deciding which to pick. Improving the spirit spenders is definitely going to open more options, but I think the passives are in desperate need of a reworking as well.

Who is with me?

Would be nice if 'The Guardian's Path' passive would do something with s&b Monk as well. DW gets 15% dodge, 2h gets 35% resource regen - why doesnt s&b get something as well? Like 50% crit dmg or 10% AS or so.

Sword and board could get a benefit. But then the passive starts getting a little wordy and maybe confusing (by blizzards standards). Also, that does not solve the problem that it really is a lackluster passive. The dodge chance is not worth it. The spirit regeneration is very nice, but I think still a little lacking. 2H monks basically have to waste a passive to get on the same footing as dual wielders. This is not so much a problem now, since we don't have many great passives to choose from anyways. But, if passives were improved I know the 2 handers would have a tougher time justifying using a 2 hander if they have to truly waste a valuable passive slot.

dodge chance not worth it? dodge is increadibly good in pvp.....

01/22/2013 12:45 AMPosted by prod

dodge chance not worth it? dodge is increadibly good in pvp.....

Who cares? The pvp-balance shouldn't affect pve, it's been stated over and over.

And for Pve, dodge isn't really a good stat as it doesn't work on arcane/molten/desecrator/plague/fire chains/reflect damage which is where you need your survival stats the most. So choosing skills that gives you extra dodge is a bad idea, especially those two dodge passives.
Only reason to choose extra dodge would be for a backlash build, but that is far from good enough to compete with conviction:overawe and SW:cyclone.

Who cares? The pvp-balance shouldn't affect pve, it's been stated over and over. And for Pve, dodge isn't really a good stat as it doesn't work on arcane/molten/desecrator/plague/fire chains/reflect damage which is where you need your survival stats the most. So choosing skills that gives you extra dodge is a bad idea, especially those two dodge passives.Only reason to choose extra dodge would be for a backlash build, but that is far from good enough to compete with conviction:overawe and SW:cyclone.

D3 was already build to include PVP. Some skills are for PVE, some for PVP, live with it.

Are you implying the dodge passives are good in pvp? In my experience they are ok, but not worthy of a spot. The best pvp passives are sti, owe, nde, pacifism, and I actually like transcendence and exalted soul (although my build works with these well).

But you make a good point, there is PVE and PVP. My comments are coming from a PVE perspective. First and foremost, the game needs to be balanced for it, and there needs to be more passive options for PVE to promote build diversity. I think build variety is actually pretty decent in pvp right now, and I don't feel like monks have a shortage of good passives to choose from in pvp.

yes, for PVP monk passives are fine, we have really good ones. You can build for spirit regen and gain ~12 spirit a second while using DW and still have good EHP/DPS (yet mosts Monks have not figured this out yet it seems... seeing all the posts of 'no spirit in pvp!', 'we need passive regen!', and so on).

Of couse I would love to see your buffs to the passives go through, it makes Monk a lot more powerful having more resources and the increased dmg on spirit spenders... but I dont think that will happen.

I think Blizzard's idea is to have monk mostly play around the spirit regen skills (see the passives) and drop a huge dmg skill every now and then... I dont think we are suppose to regain 20 spirit/sec and have 900% weapon dmg AOE skills to drop with them... It's suppose to have some sort of relation between resources and damage output. I agree that Thunderclap + SW Monk is the only real viable build in 106, and hope to see more interesting Monks in 107 having the possibility to use spirit spenders and spirit regain abilities to still do massive dmg not using all the 'off screen' DPS like Overawe and SW:Cyclone for a change, but just to drop 1 mil+ crits on large area's. I for one would enjoy that a lot more. I like options. I'd love to drop SW altogether and still feel I do dmg, or use something else but Thunderclap for a change. It's so boring that the only think you can swap out in 106 is Serenity to change to SSS, and that's about it.

Daibo's are JUST bad. No reasonable buff from a passive will make people use them except for low MP TR runs. That said, some of those need work.

Personally, I think guiding light is fine as is. Probably 30 seconds instead of 15. The issue isn't with the passive, but with our skills. We can't heal people for **** despite the fact that we're monks. BoH has NO range. Soothing breeze's heal is COMICAL and mantra of healing is just TERRIBLE. Though, mantra of healing time of need with guiding light is NOT a bad set for a secondary monk in a group. Each activation of MoH procs guiding light on everyone affected by MoH.

The only way for daibos to be used is if the attack speed is increased to 1.40
after all, they're not a giant hammer or a mighty person-sized sword. They're just a stick.

Anyways, what's needed is blizzard to care a little, and then we might get some of those changes to passives.

The only way for daibos to be used is if the attack speed is increased to 1.40

!@#$ no.

01/22/2013 07:07 AMPosted by Shuun

!@#$ no.

why not?
besides TR build, but everyone uses skorn anyways

Remove guiding light - no explanation needed here. I would welcome ideas on how to improve it, ideally in a way so it is not so situational. I know people have suggested letting follower and ally count, but I think just scrap it. There has to be more interesting passives out there.

If I could change one Passive it would be Guiding Light. I feel like it is the easiest one to change to give monks another decent damage passive It should be changed tot he following:

"Allies under the effect of a mantra have damage increased by 16%."

The heal mechanic is not very good and with only 3 skills that can activate it it's not worth it. Changing this to any ally under the effect of a mantra makes it a straight up good passive. This should also work for hirelings, mystic allies, and summoned creatures (item or other players), This would promote mantras other than Mantra of Conviction. This would be desired for party play. The only thing would be it would then out perform Combo strike (if it didn't get changed) in most situations. Combo Strike would require 1 of 2 attacks to be Deadly Reach: Foresight or require 3 spirit generation attacks to be better than the proposed changed. Though if I could change all the passives I wanted I would modify Combo strike to work with all attacks (SSS, Cyclone, Dash, Exploding Palm, LTK, WoL, and any I might have missed).

Other changes mentioned here: http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/7592582266?page=1#4

I find the idea of gaining Spirit on a successful dodge very intriguing. It could be overpowered if it isn't balanced properly, but it could do a lot towards solving problems with the generation of Sprit.

On the subject of an IAS passive, maybe a 15 sec buff to AS on 5 consecutive dodges, which can stack 5 times at 3% each for a max of 15%. Some balancing may be required but I think this would work really well with the Monk design philosophy.

+1 OP, great work!

Great suggestions I completely agree. Good luck getting a blue let alone a Dev to actually read this however...

My suggestions change
chant of resonance
-3 %life steal
-6 spirit on crit
-9% damage
-gain life per spirit spent equal to your dodge chance ie 50% dodge get 50 lpss

one with everything
- make dmg reduction, and all resists % reductions equal to the higher of the sum of your highest resistance or armor

seize the initiative - can stack 3 times and lasts for 10 seconds
- on succesful dodge gain
- 1% crit chance
- 3% ias
- 6% movement
- 9% crit damage
- 27 life per spirit spent

01/22/2013 09:52 AMPosted by nWc

seize the initiative - can stack 3 times and lasts for 10 seconds

more buff icons???

01/22/2013 11:27 AMPosted by stromchin

seize the initiative - can stack 3 times and lasts for 10 seconds

more buff icons???

but of course - altho i would feel the 9ias or 18 movement anyways without the icon
also its not like u can invoke a successful dodge with a key, if it happens it happens

01/22/2013 12:45 AMPosted by prod

dodge chance not worth it? dodge is increadibly good in pvp.....

Until they hit with with DOT skills which you CANNOT dodge.

How about a new passive that does something like this

on successful dodge

reduce cooldowns by 10%
gain 10 spirit
3 second stun to all enemies within 12 yards
Dmg is increased by 30% for 3 seconds