Furthermore, to add to this subject, what is everyone's theory regarding the mechanics of Combination Strike? Does it just add 8% dps for 3 seconds and each hit refreshes the timer or does it stack over each hit and each stack lasts 3 seconds? I'm guessing its the former, the later would be nuts.
Changed around my remaining skills a bit in response to survivability and mobility woes:
-Changed SSS + Fulminating Onslaught for LTK + Scorpion Sting. Being able to spam this it will make a good form of crowd control that will be continuous while doing the 3 generator combos.
-Changed Breath of Heaven + Blazing Wrath for Serenity + Peaceful Response. Still get the healing on cooldown but add the serenity shield for 3 seconds for when you are about to either confront a champion pack with a bunch of control impairing affixes or as emergency cover if you get overwhelmed. You can kick everyone away with LTK in these cases, should give you enough time to run away and recover before jumping back into the fray.
-Changed the rune on Mantra of Conviction to Overawe to make up for the lost damage buff from removing Blazing Wrath from Breath of Heaven. I figured you will need some gear to support this build anyway so add one more thing to the list of things that will be required from gear.
-Changed Seize the Initiative to Sixth Sense to add to The Guardian's path dodge bonus. The goal will be to look for as much dodge chance as possible so you can avoid getting hit as much as possible.
From gear you will need, high aps, life leach, as much dex as possible and bonuses to critical strikes for added damage and dodging from Sixth Sense.
Can't wait to get the game on my hands to test all this.
The point is to mix and match the different buffs and abilities from your genrators and buff up the damage with other support skills. One slot has to go to a heavy hitting spamable spirit dump like cyclone strike, ltk, wol, etc. With all the stacks going each hit from your basic generator strike will be able to hit for 200% per hit depending on the build. At high speed this has the capacity of dealing more damage in the same ammount of time as most of our spenders can deal.
As far as how this will work in Inferno we will have to see if the remaining two slots can be be enough to add survivability. Passives will have to be mainly survival skills like extra dodge, armor, etc.
This is a pretty cool idea and I'll have to mess with it when I get around to a monk, but it seems like you would miss out on some nice utility skills. Is the gain really that great over simply using one generator? That's for each player to decide.
At this point we are all speculating on every form of build. We will find out once we get the games on our hands. That goes for every theoretical build that has been posted all over the forums.
It looks good and all, but I would rather choose when I use each stage of each generator. sure i'll probably link the 1 and 2 key to my mouse if I have to, but I won't want to lose the strategy of choosing when I want to trident aoe and when I want to slow with crippling and sometimes I may not want to dash but use the long reach...using a macro seems like it would add another button which I don't need to use. But not having played inferno, perhaps that will mean I never master the multi-generator monk like you folks.
The point of this is that aps will get so fast you won't have finite control of when precisely you want to hit with the 3rd strike from one specific combo. Even if master your three clicks you will still get some randomization within the sequence of combos unless you can keep doing that and have some form of godly mouse skill and you can keep doing 1 click every 150ms manually and still be precise enough to keep your mouse hovering over enemies and not the ground. Trust me, this is one of those things that you have to put into practice to really notice the benefits.
Sorry if I've missed something, but if you hold shift to attack in a direction then use your macro (don't spam, say hold shift + click once), will it execute the combo in the right order?
Correct. But you will also do it consistently in order if you time your clicks according to the exact time it takes to do all three moves and skillfully keep flowing your mouse to target enemy after enemy and not the ground. So this still takes quite a bit of skill to keep going in the right order. Eitherway, if you notice in the video, having it click randomly might not look beneficial on paper but it is still beneficial in practice as you can get the 3rd hit from each generator at random moments.
An important thing to note is that you have to adapt your macro's timing according to your aps. If the macro is timed to slow it will slow you down, if you time it to fast you will skip a hit.
We havent even begun to scratch the surface with aps in the beta. Fully decked out I wouldn't be surprised of getting 4+ aps at the higher levels. You're fingers will explode without a macro.
I saw this on the official forums, it looks really cool. Not able to watch the video now, but do you still get the problem where if you spam your macro really fast the combination randomizes? I'm really interested in setting up a macro that lets you attack really fast while still landing your combination in the right order every time.
It will randomize no matter the macro as the hits only happen if you are targeted. It still plays out favorably while playing.
Now on patch 17 I got a 1.70aps balanced simple dagger and another with 1.66aps. Doing 2.41 total aps on the faster hand with all the other bonuses from two rings and gloves.
I had to adjust my Macro's timing as predicted to keep up with the speed. Now all my timings in the macro are 50ms per key press and 100ms in between key presses and he is blazingly fast. Still tweaking the macro to see how much I can make it match the actual speed of the spell casting, I think this is going to be key to keep playing a macro monk.
Furthermore I switched the setting to "Repeat while pressed" and you can just leave it pressed down around the mob and he'll keep swingin as long as your mouse is targeting something. He'll even keep walking but instead of following your mouse continuously he'll follow it in pulses so it's a bit jerky but he'll keep walking and opening chests, cracking open barels, opening doors the whole time you just lave the button down. LOL just found the ultimate couch potato/play while your drunk class.
I'm going to post an updated video soon with the faster aps.
My G500 has 3 buttons on your thumb, forward, back and one in the middle. I'm using the one in the middle as it's very comfortable to spam click with and still have control of the mouse.
Any good gaming mouse from Logitech, Microsoft, Steelseries, Razer, etc... has software for macros. They are all different. You're going to have to check your software's manual. I can only vouche for my case, a Logitech G500. All of Logitech's gaming mice use the same software so the same options apply.
1. Go to your "Device Settings" app on your Start Menu, should be at Start -> All Programs -> Logitech -> *... Gaming Mice folder. Go to your Buttons menu, select the button you want, set it to "Macro" from the long list on the drop down.
2. Click on Macro Manager and place a check mark on "Record Keyboard", "Record Mouse" and "Record Delay", leave the rest alone. On the bottom you should have selected "Multiple Keystroke".
3. Press ALT+F1 on your keyboard (The shortcut under "Start/Stop recording when I press").
4. Press your Left Click, then Right Click, then 1 Key on your Keyboard.
5. Press ALT+F1 again to stop recording.
6. Edit all the delays to 100ms by right clicking on them and clicking "Edit"
7. Click Save
8. Close the Macro Manager
9. Select your "New Macro" on the "Select a Macro:" drop down.
10. Select "None" on the "Repeat Options:" drop down.
11. Click Apply.
12. Have fun!
For reference, your Macro should look like this: http://s14.postimage.org/46o2cyrht/Untitled.jpg
EDIT: Just noticed I don't have "Record Mouse" nor "Record Delay" on that screenshot. You have to have them selected, this screenshot is so that you can see how the Macro sequence should look once your done editing.
Of course you can change the name of the Macro if you want, make sure you select the right one on the drop down. Also, if you're Logitech mouse supports Profiles per app, I'd suggest making a profile for Diablo 3 and adding this Macro to it. You don't want to be doing this key combo on your desktop.
I made a video demonstrating how you can use a build with 3 spirit generators using a macro from your mouse's software.
From the video's description:
This is a demonstration of the potential of a Monk build with 3 spirit generators. In my opinion the only way this will work right is with a proper macro shortcut using your gaming mouse's software. In my case I'm using Logitech's G500 and the macro is set to execute Left Click - Right Click - 1 Key in quick succession with about 100ms delay in between key strokes. If you don't add this short delay it will only do the skills on Left Click and Right Click. The 1 Key on the keyboard will be skipped since the software will press the 1 Key on the keyboard so fast that the 2nd skill hasn't even started so the 3rd skill will get skipped, a short delay between strokes fixes this. This quick succession can get randomized if you spam click the button you assign the macro to and that brings about even more interesting combinations since the order of the 3 strikes will get moved around. But your combo will always remain in tact if you stop spamming for about half a second. I demonstrate each step with the in-game chat on the video.
If you review the Monk's Skill Calculator: http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/monk#aWUTXk!dXg!acccbY you will notice how certain spirit generators include buffs or enemy debuffs in their strikes. Furthermore, since all of the Monk's generators have a 3 strike configuration and they follow through from generator to generator this means you can combine different things from one of the three different strikes from different generators.
In my build above I have Fists of Thunder + Thunder Clap for my first strike witch teleports me to my target, followed by Crippling Wave + Breaking Wave witch grants me an extra 10% damage to the enemies it hits (generally everything directly in front of me) and finally Way of the Hundred Fists + Windforce Flurry to deal a massive area of effect strike that deals 250% to everything directly in front of me. Explore the different Spirit Generators and their runes and the possibilities for a 3 generator build are endless. If you look at my example build further, at this point we are all assuming since we don't have the game, you will notice that the rest of the skills should help this build stay alive and still have an extra offensive skill to spend spirit with. Also notice that the passive Combination Strike is essential in this type of build.
EDIT2: I forgot to add the importance of building for fast attack speed. Anything that boosts attack speed will make this build even more effective.
I don't know man. Overpower has a very short range you have to be heavily surrounded. Besides with the rest of the build you should be generating tons of Fury with just Frenzy and Whirlwind.
The way I intend to play my build would be:
Run towards a pack and when I get close cast WotB, Battle Rage and Ignore Pain one after the other and alternate between Frenzy and WW depending on how tightly packed the group is. Using a pair of Mighty Weapons and other fury generating gear added on top of the "Into the Fray" rune for Battle Rage, Animosity and Weapon Master passives and in theory you should be forced to keep spamming Rend to keep spending fury so you can continue generating it enough for WotB to remain activated as long as possible. While fighting I would keep casting Battle Rage and Ignore Pain every 30 seconds to keep their buffs active.
EDIT: I just noticed the rune you used on Revenge. I think I could swap out Rend for Revenge for that Crit chance bonus. And use Battle Rage as my fury spender to keep fury generation going. Hmmm...
Yes what benefits, besides spending furry, would you get from spamming Battle Rage? I only intend on doing Battle Rage as needed to keep it active. Spamming Rend would do a lot more. I was thinking of also replacing Ignore Pain with Ground Stomp + Wrenching Smash. That would make Rend very powerful as you can bunch up everyone real close to you and Rend would make quick work of the now bunched up mob, but since it isn't my main skill I opted to keep my defensive "Oh shit!!" button.
Frenzy + Maniac - Default Generator modified for some added damage buffing.
Whirlwind + Wind Shear - Main spender with added Fury Generation per hit.
Rend + Bloodbath - Main AoE fury spender, not sure if Bloodbath or Ravage would be more effective from reading the tooltips.
Ignore Pain + Ignorrance is Bliss - "OH SHIT!!" button. If life goes down to much just tapping Ignore Pain and WW'ing should help protect yourself from incoming hits and leach back your life quickly.
Battle Rage + Into the Fray - Damage Buff and added 15 Fury per Crit Strike. With high speed Frenzy attacks and WW'ing I count on the Barb doing crits often enough.
WotB + Thrive on Chaos - Main buff with Thrive on Chaos to keep it alive as much as possible with all the Fury Generation
Nerves of Steel - Big Armor Bonus
Weapons Master - Added Fury generation from either Criting more with Maces/Axes (maybe faster attack speed than Mighty Weapons I suppose) or just straight up using Mighty Weapons for the 3 Fury per Hit.
Animosity - Furty Generation Buff
I think this build should survive anything that comes at it and still be able to deal with single targets and large mobs effectively. One thing the OP did bring up that interests me would be switching Rend for Sprint + Marathon to help it get from mob to mob even faster but I don't think that it would be worth it to add even faster mobility and sacrifice my big AoE skill, unless WW on its own proves to be powerful enough at inflicting widespread damage on its own. In that case I would switch to Sprint + Marathon in a heartbeat. I would love to emulate my D2 barbarian build that used Frenzy and WW while running all over the place like a mad man.
1
I've since updated my build to this regarding thoughts on survivability and spirit dumping: http://us.battle.net...UZgk!dWg!accYaa
Changed around my remaining skills a bit in response to survivability and mobility woes:
-Changed SSS + Fulminating Onslaught for LTK + Scorpion Sting. Being able to spam this it will make a good form of crowd control that will be continuous while doing the 3 generator combos.
-Changed Breath of Heaven + Blazing Wrath for Serenity + Peaceful Response. Still get the healing on cooldown but add the serenity shield for 3 seconds for when you are about to either confront a champion pack with a bunch of control impairing affixes or as emergency cover if you get overwhelmed. You can kick everyone away with LTK in these cases, should give you enough time to run away and recover before jumping back into the fray.
-Changed the rune on Mantra of Conviction to Overawe to make up for the lost damage buff from removing Blazing Wrath from Breath of Heaven. I figured you will need some gear to support this build anyway so add one more thing to the list of things that will be required from gear.
-Changed Seize the Initiative to Sixth Sense to add to The Guardian's path dodge bonus. The goal will be to look for as much dodge chance as possible so you can avoid getting hit as much as possible.
From gear you will need, high aps, life leach, as much dex as possible and bonuses to critical strikes for added damage and dodging from Sixth Sense.
Can't wait to get the game on my hands to test all this.
0
As far as how this will work in Inferno we will have to see if the remaining two slots can be be enough to add survivability. Passives will have to be mainly survival skills like extra dodge, armor, etc.
0
At this point we are all speculating on every form of build. We will find out once we get the games on our hands. That goes for every theoretical build that has been posted all over the forums.
0
The point of this is that aps will get so fast you won't have finite control of when precisely you want to hit with the 3rd strike from one specific combo. Even if master your three clicks you will still get some randomization within the sequence of combos unless you can keep doing that and have some form of godly mouse skill and you can keep doing 1 click every 150ms manually and still be precise enough to keep your mouse hovering over enemies and not the ground. Trust me, this is one of those things that you have to put into practice to really notice the benefits.
0
Correct. But you will also do it consistently in order if you time your clicks according to the exact time it takes to do all three moves and skillfully keep flowing your mouse to target enemy after enemy and not the ground. So this still takes quite a bit of skill to keep going in the right order. Eitherway, if you notice in the video, having it click randomly might not look beneficial on paper but it is still beneficial in practice as you can get the 3rd hit from each generator at random moments.
An important thing to note is that you have to adapt your macro's timing according to your aps. If the macro is timed to slow it will slow you down, if you time it to fast you will skip a hit.
0
We havent even begun to scratch the surface with aps in the beta. Fully decked out I wouldn't be surprised of getting 4+ aps at the higher levels. You're fingers will explode without a macro.
0
It will randomize no matter the macro as the hits only happen if you are targeted. It still plays out favorably while playing.
0
I had to adjust my Macro's timing as predicted to keep up with the speed. Now all my timings in the macro are 50ms per key press and 100ms in between key presses and he is blazingly fast. Still tweaking the macro to see how much I can make it match the actual speed of the spell casting, I think this is going to be key to keep playing a macro monk.
Furthermore I switched the setting to "Repeat while pressed" and you can just leave it pressed down around the mob and he'll keep swingin as long as your mouse is targeting something. He'll even keep walking but instead of following your mouse continuously he'll follow it in pulses so it's a bit jerky but he'll keep walking and opening chests, cracking open barels, opening doors the whole time you just lave the button down. LOL just found the ultimate couch potato/play while your drunk class.
I'm going to post an updated video soon with the faster aps.
2
Any good gaming mouse from Logitech, Microsoft, Steelseries, Razer, etc... has software for macros. They are all different. You're going to have to check your software's manual. I can only vouche for my case, a Logitech G500. All of Logitech's gaming mice use the same software so the same options apply.
1. Go to your "Device Settings" app on your Start Menu, should be at Start -> All Programs -> Logitech -> *... Gaming Mice folder. Go to your Buttons menu, select the button you want, set it to "Macro" from the long list on the drop down.
2. Click on Macro Manager and place a check mark on "Record Keyboard", "Record Mouse" and "Record Delay", leave the rest alone. On the bottom you should have selected "Multiple Keystroke".
3. Press ALT+F1 on your keyboard (The shortcut under "Start/Stop recording when I press").
4. Press your Left Click, then Right Click, then 1 Key on your Keyboard.
5. Press ALT+F1 again to stop recording.
6. Edit all the delays to 100ms by right clicking on them and clicking "Edit"
7. Click Save
8. Close the Macro Manager
9. Select your "New Macro" on the "Select a Macro:" drop down.
10. Select "None" on the "Repeat Options:" drop down.
11. Click Apply.
12. Have fun!
For reference, your Macro should look like this: http://s14.postimage.org/46o2cyrht/Untitled.jpg
EDIT: Just noticed I don't have "Record Mouse" nor "Record Delay" on that screenshot. You have to have them selected, this screenshot is so that you can see how the Macro sequence should look once your done editing.
Of course you can change the name of the Macro if you want, make sure you select the right one on the drop down. Also, if you're Logitech mouse supports Profiles per app, I'd suggest making a profile for Diablo 3 and adding this Macro to it. You don't want to be doing this key combo on your desktop.
2
I am reposting the OP here to spread the info:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lcw-i89g0wY
I made a video demonstrating how you can use a build with 3 spirit generators using a macro from your mouse's software.
From the video's description:
This is a demonstration of the potential of a Monk build with 3 spirit generators. In my opinion the only way this will work right is with a proper macro shortcut using your gaming mouse's software. In my case I'm using Logitech's G500 and the macro is set to execute Left Click - Right Click - 1 Key in quick succession with about 100ms delay in between key strokes. If you don't add this short delay it will only do the skills on Left Click and Right Click. The 1 Key on the keyboard will be skipped since the software will press the 1 Key on the keyboard so fast that the 2nd skill hasn't even started so the 3rd skill will get skipped, a short delay between strokes fixes this. This quick succession can get randomized if you spam click the button you assign the macro to and that brings about even more interesting combinations since the order of the 3 strikes will get moved around. But your combo will always remain in tact if you stop spamming for about half a second. I demonstrate each step with the in-game chat on the video.
Why am I demonstrating this? Because I found a discussion about this here: http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/4365750393?page=1
If you review the Monk's Skill Calculator: http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/monk#aWUTXk!dXg!acccbY you will notice how certain spirit generators include buffs or enemy debuffs in their strikes. Furthermore, since all of the Monk's generators have a 3 strike configuration and they follow through from generator to generator this means you can combine different things from one of the three different strikes from different generators.
In my build above I have Fists of Thunder + Thunder Clap for my first strike witch teleports me to my target, followed by Crippling Wave + Breaking Wave witch grants me an extra 10% damage to the enemies it hits (generally everything directly in front of me) and finally Way of the Hundred Fists + Windforce Flurry to deal a massive area of effect strike that deals 250% to everything directly in front of me. Explore the different Spirit Generators and their runes and the possibilities for a 3 generator build are endless. If you look at my example build further, at this point we are all assuming since we don't have the game, you will notice that the rest of the skills should help this build stay alive and still have an extra offensive skill to spend spirit with. Also notice that the passive Combination Strike is essential in this type of build.
EDIT2: I forgot to add the importance of building for fast attack speed. Anything that boosts attack speed will make this build even more effective.
0
The way I intend to play my build would be:
Run towards a pack and when I get close cast WotB, Battle Rage and Ignore Pain one after the other and alternate between Frenzy and WW depending on how tightly packed the group is. Using a pair of Mighty Weapons and other fury generating gear added on top of the "Into the Fray" rune for Battle Rage, Animosity and Weapon Master passives and in theory you should be forced to keep spamming Rend to keep spending fury so you can continue generating it enough for WotB to remain activated as long as possible. While fighting I would keep casting Battle Rage and Ignore Pain every 30 seconds to keep their buffs active.
EDIT: I just noticed the rune you used on Revenge. I think I could swap out Rend for Revenge for that Crit chance bonus. And use Battle Rage as my fury spender to keep fury generation going. Hmmm...
0
0
0
Ancient Spear + Rage Flip will act as a closer similar to the Monks Dashing Strike?
EDIT: BTW you have the Inspiring Presence passive but you don't have any of the 3 shouts it affects. It doesn't work with WotB.
0
http://us.battle.net...cRiP!bYW!cYcbYc
Frenzy + Maniac - Default Generator modified for some added damage buffing.
Whirlwind + Wind Shear - Main spender with added Fury Generation per hit.
Rend + Bloodbath - Main AoE fury spender, not sure if Bloodbath or Ravage would be more effective from reading the tooltips.
Ignore Pain + Ignorrance is Bliss - "OH SHIT!!" button. If life goes down to much just tapping Ignore Pain and WW'ing should help protect yourself from incoming hits and leach back your life quickly.
Battle Rage + Into the Fray - Damage Buff and added 15 Fury per Crit Strike. With high speed Frenzy attacks and WW'ing I count on the Barb doing crits often enough.
WotB + Thrive on Chaos - Main buff with Thrive on Chaos to keep it alive as much as possible with all the Fury Generation
Nerves of Steel - Big Armor Bonus
Weapons Master - Added Fury generation from either Criting more with Maces/Axes (maybe faster attack speed than Mighty Weapons I suppose) or just straight up using Mighty Weapons for the 3 Fury per Hit.
Animosity - Furty Generation Buff
I think this build should survive anything that comes at it and still be able to deal with single targets and large mobs effectively. One thing the OP did bring up that interests me would be switching Rend for Sprint + Marathon to help it get from mob to mob even faster but I don't think that it would be worth it to add even faster mobility and sacrifice my big AoE skill, unless WW on its own proves to be powerful enough at inflicting widespread damage on its own. In that case I would switch to Sprint + Marathon in a heartbeat. I would love to emulate my D2 barbarian build that used Frenzy and WW while running all over the place like a mad man.