So of what I understand for the next patch is the devs are removing the WD perma-stun. I'm sure it will still provide good stun, but I'm still loving the idea of a good zDPS monk. With 4-peice innas + crudest boots + MWG gem we can get really good health and healing. Combine it with borns sword and chest and new cool down ring, it could be really good. Thoughts? My second monk has this and storm shield 18,000 armor, 2000+ res, 1.4 mil health and 150k LPS.
Monk is by far my favorite zDPS, but I still worry crusader and WD will be too OP even after next patch, when they nerf perma-stun.
It has shown some pretty great results. Though I'm still testing 3p borns and 2p raiment. It is possible to use both with Innas and Crudest boots. I've also noticed that even with Epiphany and Inner Sanctuary, Serenity has barely any cool down. I'm sitting at ~64% CDR and its cool down just flys by with the new zodiac ring.
Does anyone have advice or opinions on the build? I've found the freezing rune on cyclone strike to be good for mobs, but the freezing runes on crippling wave or fist of thunder can nearly perma freeze the RG, but you lose out on the 10% damage.
Also after testing the Runes for the montras don't get buffed by innas 2p. pretty easy to test, though I noticed some people on the official forums think it does.
Theory crafted a build, did not get to test it (don't have a softcore seasonal char, so don't have zodiac ring, hard to find someone in HC to test something like this). Maybe you can give it a spin, or take some of the ideas and implement it. I really hope support monk will make it's comeback.
Theory crafted a build, did not get to test it (don't have a softcore seasonal char, so don't have zodiac ring, hard to find someone in HC to test something like this). Maybe you can give it a spin, or take some of the ideas and implement it. I really hope support monk will make it's comeback.
I like the use of the Eun-Jang-do. That's more or less what I had in mind and have been testing. Still messing around with different combinations, but the more I test into high GR the more I go toward freezing them. Wall of wind Is good for mobs but doesn't work on the RG. If I remove Tsunami then I lose more damage, then what's the point. I definitely like using Raiment with Innas, but Borns is still good and proven to work. Could do both, but would I miss the CDR from leorics? Still need to test it. Later in the week I'll get some friends and see just how far we can push into GR's.
I think implosion is mandatory. The increase is just to big not to use.
As for controlling rift guardians (and yellows): you need a proc of 3 or more seconds for it to work.
I don't get your comment about removing tsunami losing damage. You are zdps, only there to keep the party alive and potentially buff their damage.
Not sure about borns. The weapon is worse than sledgefist or azurewrath. You have to go with rorg, so you loose attackspeed from pain enhancer (not sure if needed, has to be tested) because of no crit. And you only gain 15% life if you replace leoric crown for it (you even loose a bit cooldown).
In the past, monks did go for it, because of perma serenity, and no zodiac ring. Since perma serenity is not possible anymore, and we have zodiac now, I think the aditionl procs from it will be better than the little more CDR born would give you, and I think the 15% life can be ignored with the additional control from the other weapons.
Or we can just wait until they nerf WD and someone does a lot of testing and comes up with a build You never know what the new items will be either.
I think implosion is mandatory. The increase is just to big not to use.
As for controlling rift guardians (and yellows): you need a proc of 3 or more seconds for it to work.
I don't get your comment about removing tsunami losing damage. You are zdps, only there to keep the party alive and potentially buff their damage.
Not sure about borns. The weapon is worse than sledgefist or azurewrath. You have to go with rorg, so you loose attackspeed from pain enhancer (not sure if needed, has to be tested) because of no crit. And you only gain 15% life if you replace leoric crown for it (you even loose a bit cooldown).
In the past, monks did go for it, because of perma serenity, and no zodiac ring. Since perma serenity is not possible anymore, and we have zodiac now, I think the aditionl procs from it will be better than the little more CDR born would give you, and I think the 15% life can be ignored with the additional control from the other weapons.
Or we can just wait until they nerf WD and someone does a lot of testing and comes up with a build You never know what the new items will be either.
Sorry I worded that wrong. I meant if I remove Breaking wave for tsunami or the FoT freeze I would lose the damage buff for the team. I've used both of those before and made Perdition look like a walk in the park, even solo.
As for the Gear, you could mix and match to get 3p Borns + 2p Raiment (for AS%) + 4p Innas + Crudest boots. Could use Aughilds or Ashera in place of borns. Just have to move the pieces around the get the right ones for to complete every set bonus.
While that is true there may be some new seasonal items in the next patch when they nerd WD, I thought I get an early start. Mostly because I love theory crafting, particularly as a tank in most MMOs, and because I love the monk. Was my first character and loved playing the speedy/support role.
Well, I hope you find a super OP build for the monk, as I really love it. It can go both dps and support. In support it can go healing, toughness, crowd control or damage boost. In dps it can go high dps itself or support dps by palming everything. So many options! Sadly, currently it is outperformed by other classes for any of those rolls.
I hope I added some different views on some things, that you take into consideration when testing (and you got options to change things), and I wish you a lot of luck.
While I do like theorycrafting, I will hold back for now, since this season is going to last for at least 4 months, so patch will come in about 4 months from now. I do expect 3 new sets (including 1 for the monk), probably 2 legendary gems, probably a lot of changes to skills to make the new sets work, some tweaks (WD will get reworked helltooth, might be good support again) to items, ... I expect way too many changes for anything we theorycraft now to work in the next patch. And for this patch we have the WD we can't compete with anyways.
But again, I wish you the best of luck, a lot of fun and hope you come up with something (that will keep working)
First things first (skills) - i don't find near death necessary unless u play hc and even though ure not supposed to die until 50. Guardians Path is imho better choice or even unity when u play in organized group.
I personally prefer windblast over tsunami (although i know its more popular) for more mana and more constant effect on packs and bosses. It demands better positioning but...
Also I dont think u will be able to sustain mana with two spenders on high gf - so drop ep for blinding speed (better maneuverability and more toughness) and leave mana for cyclone strike spamming. Accordingly I prefer cold blast (for extra effect) over implosion - bigger range isn't much bonus whilst ure spamming cyclone strike and repositioning.
I also find infused with light better in refilling mana than ally, even with inna's bonus (i don't use crudest boots - but about gear later) and it gives little healing as well.
About gear - 3p inna (belt, armour,stone), 2p. Crimson (boots, pants), 2p. born (shoulder, sword), frostburn gloves. U can also switch frostburns for inna's and use leoric crown or strings, cdr or rcr belts depending on stats (don't remember names right now ;). As a second ring i find rue chambers best in slot (even more mana). I've tested zodiac - and the problem is it only affects one skill at the time, more likely second to go and with cdr u already got theres not much bonus from it. For amulet i would choose count julia as i find lasers most damaging. I find myself very often tanking in the centre of bunch of them. Any other resist is also good. Eye too, especially with both secondary reduction, but as i've noticed ranged enemies will most likely target other players so theres not much use in range reduction whilst playing in team. Ess of johann could be also useful. As u're support theres no use in rainment.
As for the weapons my choice is born, Eun-Jang-do, sledge is also good and even butchers sickle in lack of others. The best imho would be sledge, Eun-Jang-do but as i haven't found nothing better for shoulders so i prefer born bonus overall. I know theres wide utilisation of in-geom as a second weapon but i dont think theres much use of it on high gr. In affixes dex cdr and loh over dmg or socket. there's also no need for shield.
And finally the gems - gogok, esoteric and toxin. gizzard or mutilation could be also good but i don't think there's need for so much toughness. I haven't tested iceblink so far as well i haven't reach gr beyond 50 so my choices applies to 49 - from my experience.
The rest more likely the same.
I just did some GR58+ and I did find near death experience kinda pointless. I swapped in resolve.
As for spirit, I have no issues. I spam CS and EP and never have an issue and each time I use one I gain a second on Inner Sanctuary and Epiphany. So Spamming lets me keep Epiphany up, which lets me spam.
I wouldn't bother with frost burns gloves with a monk support build. There's enough 100% going on that they don't really provide a benefit.
After playing with a group of 4 in high Grifts. I swapped my immunity amulet for overwhelming desire. I could stand in any affix and tank/heal though it. Only the fire explosion was a threat. Fire chains were barely noticed and even several arcane beams didn't do much.
Raiment is only there for the AS, but like I said I'm still testing it out some. I was using Sledge and borns sword, but I might swap borns sword for Eun-Jang-do, but I haven't tested that weapon yet.
I would like to mention that Tsunami works on some RGs but not all, I know they work on saxtris bug minions. So that annoying enemy is taken care of.
but with crimson u have more cdr and rcs and i didnt find benefit from croodest boots better.
also arcane is the only affix where i see some dmg i can also stay in any other even explosions to some extend arent much treat.
with Eun-Jang-do any mobs or minions arent an issue anymore but i prefer it with born for cdr and exp. And still find wind blast more consitent although it demands better positioning.
still i cant believe that u can maintain mana spamming cyclone and ep - somehow u must save on one or another
Crudest boost and Innas gives me 80% life with earth ally or a huge amount of LPS with enduring ally. That's why I don't even notice arcane in GR60 and you have issues in GR50 I have about 57% CDR with zodiac I have perma Epiphany and can spam Inner Sanctuary every 4-5 seconds. At one point I have serenity on my bar and with 64% CDR I could still spam them all. The Zodiac ring is BiS for zDPS.
As for Eun-Jang-do, I haven't tested it but it's only not an issue when the enemy is under 20% health. So Saxtris spamming bugs, which Tiki WD can't stun, tsunami can. I sure wind blast does the same, but Tsunami is AoE.
After every tsunami 3rd punch I CS. EP doesn't need to be spammed as it lasts 9 seconds, so just tagging RG, elites, and any big mob every 4-6 seconds it all it needs. Besides why would you give up 20% increased damage for your team. Your main job is to buff the damage of the DPS.
After a bunch of GR55+ runs I determined that 2p raiment wasn't worth it. The attack speed increase was nice, but I noticed the CDR loss. I did a bunch of runs as the solo zdps and while I couldn't stop the affixes, obviously, we were able to push into the 60's.
Monk is by far my favorite zDPS, but I still worry crusader and WD will be too OP even after next patch, when they nerf perma-stun.
I dont know why people are making zdps monks, they arent nearly as good as wd's. Id rather them just go dps.
Leeching XP.
I do believe a good support monk can be made, along the lines of this thread, using innas/wuko EP/CS, and bring better survivability and dps to a group. But the big question will be if it's really better than just bringing a WoL/EP monk, who's already bringing the buffs, plus serious DPS, and can face tank most stuff already.
I think it's shook out with DS being the solo GR build and WoL/EP being the group GR build.
zDps? Uhm... is that a real spec for monk? show me on a balance sheet against other monk builds or class builds. You can make a list of what it brings... but it still adds up to leeching XP for what can be gotten elsewhere better.
At the end of the day all these monks showing up to grift with a ruby socketed in helm spells out that something's not right. Justify away, but you're wasting valuable stats on leeching XP.
I don't understand why people come into the Monk forum talking shit saying that zDPS monk isn't viable. So far with my clan we have recorded a 59 in 9 mins with 2 DH (1 Ball Lightning/1 MS) Lockdoc and me on my zdps Monk. we missed a 60GR by 28 seconds. If you don't like the Monk just STFU no one asked you. I've personally not seen anything saying the WD is getting stun nerfed but if that is the case I still don't see it being replaced its really all between the Zdps Sader and the Monk. Cyclone strike works better than draw and quarter and condemn both the only real benefit that the sader has over the monk is Laws of Valor Critical. So I think there needs to be something to compete the mantra of conviction just isn't enough.
So of what I understand for the next patch is the devs are removing the WD perma-stun. I'm sure it will still provide good stun, but I'm still loving the idea of a good zDPS monk. With 4-peice innas + crudest boots + MWG gem we can get really good health and healing. Combine it with borns sword and chest and new cool down ring, it could be really good. Thoughts? My second monk has this and storm shield 18,000 armor, 2000+ res, 1.4 mil health and 150k LPS.
Monk is by far my favorite zDPS, but I still worry crusader and WD will be too OP even after next patch, when they nerf perma-stun.
So I've been testing out different variations of my build.
Inna's Support zDPS GR60+
It has shown some pretty great results. Though I'm still testing 3p borns and 2p raiment. It is possible to use both with Innas and Crudest boots. I've also noticed that even with Epiphany and Inner Sanctuary, Serenity has barely any cool down. I'm sitting at ~64% CDR and its cool down just flys by with the new zodiac ring.
Does anyone have advice or opinions on the build? I've found the freezing rune on cyclone strike to be good for mobs, but the freezing runes on crippling wave or fist of thunder can nearly perma freeze the RG, but you lose out on the 10% damage.
Also after testing the Runes for the montras don't get buffed by innas 2p. pretty easy to test, though I noticed some people on the official forums think it does.
Theory crafted a build, did not get to test it (don't have a softcore seasonal char, so don't have zodiac ring, hard to find someone in HC to test something like this). Maybe you can give it a spin, or take some of the ideas and implement it. I really hope support monk will make it's comeback.
Here's the thing
I like the use of the Eun-Jang-do. That's more or less what I had in mind and have been testing. Still messing around with different combinations, but the more I test into high GR the more I go toward freezing them. Wall of wind Is good for mobs but doesn't work on the RG. If I remove Tsunami then I lose more damage, then what's the point. I definitely like using Raiment with Innas, but Borns is still good and proven to work. Could do both, but would I miss the CDR from leorics? Still need to test it. Later in the week I'll get some friends and see just how far we can push into GR's.
I think implosion is mandatory. The increase is just to big not to use.
As for controlling rift guardians (and yellows): you need a proc of 3 or more seconds for it to work.
I don't get your comment about removing tsunami losing damage. You are zdps, only there to keep the party alive and potentially buff their damage.
Not sure about borns. The weapon is worse than sledgefist or azurewrath. You have to go with rorg, so you loose attackspeed from pain enhancer (not sure if needed, has to be tested) because of no crit. And you only gain 15% life if you replace leoric crown for it (you even loose a bit cooldown).
In the past, monks did go for it, because of perma serenity, and no zodiac ring. Since perma serenity is not possible anymore, and we have zodiac now, I think the aditionl procs from it will be better than the little more CDR born would give you, and I think the 15% life can be ignored with the additional control from the other weapons.
Or we can just wait until they nerf WD and someone does a lot of testing and comes up with a build You never know what the new items will be either.
Sorry I worded that wrong. I meant if I remove Breaking wave for tsunami or the FoT freeze I would lose the damage buff for the team. I've used both of those before and made Perdition look like a walk in the park, even solo.
As for the Gear, you could mix and match to get 3p Borns + 2p Raiment (for AS%) + 4p Innas + Crudest boots. Could use Aughilds or Ashera in place of borns. Just have to move the pieces around the get the right ones for to complete every set bonus.
While that is true there may be some new seasonal items in the next patch when they nerd WD, I thought I get an early start. Mostly because I love theory crafting, particularly as a tank in most MMOs, and because I love the monk. Was my first character and loved playing the speedy/support role.
Well, I hope you find a super OP build for the monk, as I really love it. It can go both dps and support. In support it can go healing, toughness, crowd control or damage boost. In dps it can go high dps itself or support dps by palming everything. So many options! Sadly, currently it is outperformed by other classes for any of those rolls.
I hope I added some different views on some things, that you take into consideration when testing (and you got options to change things), and I wish you a lot of luck.
While I do like theorycrafting, I will hold back for now, since this season is going to last for at least 4 months, so patch will come in about 4 months from now. I do expect 3 new sets (including 1 for the monk), probably 2 legendary gems, probably a lot of changes to skills to make the new sets work, some tweaks (WD will get reworked helltooth, might be good support again) to items, ... I expect way too many changes for anything we theorycraft now to work in the next patch. And for this patch we have the WD we can't compete with anyways.
But again, I wish you the best of luck, a lot of fun and hope you come up with something (that will keep working)
Does the slow from Inner Sanctuary runes count as a chill for iceblink?
I haven't tested it, but I would assume it doesn't as the slow from inner sanctuary isn't cold damage.
There are some other instances where the game doesn't seem to notice the differences between chills and slow, freezes and stuns. So I wonder.
I just did some GR58+ and I did find near death experience kinda pointless. I swapped in resolve.
As for spirit, I have no issues. I spam CS and EP and never have an issue and each time I use one I gain a second on Inner Sanctuary and Epiphany. So Spamming lets me keep Epiphany up, which lets me spam.
I wouldn't bother with frost burns gloves with a monk support build. There's enough 100% going on that they don't really provide a benefit.
After playing with a group of 4 in high Grifts. I swapped my immunity amulet for overwhelming desire. I could stand in any affix and tank/heal though it. Only the fire explosion was a threat. Fire chains were barely noticed and even several arcane beams didn't do much.
Raiment is only there for the AS, but like I said I'm still testing it out some. I was using Sledge and borns sword, but I might swap borns sword for Eun-Jang-do, but I haven't tested that weapon yet.
I would like to mention that Tsunami works on some RGs but not all, I know they work on saxtris bug minions. So that annoying enemy is taken care of.
Do you have a reference for this nerf to "perma stun"? I don't see anything about that in the latest PTR patch notes.
Crudest boost and Innas gives me 80% life with earth ally or a huge amount of LPS with enduring ally. That's why I don't even notice arcane in GR60 and you have issues in GR50 I have about 57% CDR with zodiac I have perma Epiphany and can spam Inner Sanctuary every 4-5 seconds. At one point I have serenity on my bar and with 64% CDR I could still spam them all. The Zodiac ring is BiS for zDPS.
As for Eun-Jang-do, I haven't tested it but it's only not an issue when the enemy is under 20% health. So Saxtris spamming bugs, which Tiki WD can't stun, tsunami can. I sure wind blast does the same, but Tsunami is AoE.
After every tsunami 3rd punch I CS. EP doesn't need to be spammed as it lasts 9 seconds, so just tagging RG, elites, and any big mob every 4-6 seconds it all it needs. Besides why would you give up 20% increased damage for your team. Your main job is to buff the damage of the DPS.
I dont know why people are making zdps monks, they arent nearly as good as wd's. Id rather them just go dps.
After a bunch of GR55+ runs I determined that 2p raiment wasn't worth it. The attack speed increase was nice, but I noticed the CDR loss. I did a bunch of runs as the solo zdps and while I couldn't stop the affixes, obviously, we were able to push into the 60's.
Leeching XP.
I do believe a good support monk can be made, along the lines of this thread, using innas/wuko EP/CS, and bring better survivability and dps to a group. But the big question will be if it's really better than just bringing a WoL/EP monk, who's already bringing the buffs, plus serious DPS, and can face tank most stuff already.
I think it's shook out with DS being the solo GR build and WoL/EP being the group GR build.
zDps? Uhm... is that a real spec for monk? show me on a balance sheet against other monk builds or class builds. You can make a list of what it brings... but it still adds up to leeching XP for what can be gotten elsewhere better.
At the end of the day all these monks showing up to grift with a ruby socketed in helm spells out that something's not right. Justify away, but you're wasting valuable stats on leeching XP.
I don't understand why people come into the Monk forum talking shit saying that zDPS monk isn't viable. So far with my clan we have recorded a 59 in 9 mins with 2 DH (1 Ball Lightning/1 MS) Lockdoc and me on my zdps Monk. we missed a 60GR by 28 seconds. If you don't like the Monk just STFU no one asked you. I've personally not seen anything saying the WD is getting stun nerfed but if that is the case I still don't see it being replaced its really all between the Zdps Sader and the Monk. Cyclone strike works better than draw and quarter and condemn both the only real benefit that the sader has over the monk is Laws of Valor Critical. So I think there needs to be something to compete the mantra of conviction just isn't enough.
Well it looks like I was right and very close about the new season and the Zdps monk meta.