Tyriddik's State of the Monk 2.0.4
First I would like to briefly introduce myself. I am Tyriddik, a 28yo software engineering major and long time gamer. I have not wrote many post to forums in the past so this may not be the best read. Also being a programmer I don’t care much for english grammar, so I apologise for bad grammar. I writing this post to let others know my opinion of the monk in the current patch 2.0.4. I am the type of poster or never reads others post and if anything I say or question has already been addressed I again apologise.
First I would like to say to all those saying “Monks don’t belong over t4” that I have done t6 rifts and t6 Ubers with a party as their tank(Palming/Pull monk) and felt very useful. Gear isn’t even a huge problem while tanking. I will link my builds for both for others to explore.
Now then even though I have done t6 I still feel as if monks are missing out on somethings. I have to spam shields from MoH to stay alive in Ubers and in rifts I feel that the only real damage is coming from EP. I believe Blizzards don’t want monks to be a burst class and I feel increasing the damage of their abilities directly would not be the answer. I feel a better answer would be to increase spirit regen letting them use their abilities more often. Monks currently have several ways to increase their spirit across a several different abilities, but in most cases you have to sacrifice damage and toughness to do so. If monks had a less options to increase their spirit regen but they was more potent than the current version could be a decent fix.
More on monks damage, its low. Without EP… clearing anything over t3 is slow compared to other classes. Also because I feel our single target damage is our weakest point. While elemental damage is a good way to fix this, our builds can be lackluster of the way some would like to play the game. Even making a good skill kit by singling out a single element leaves your Monk with an awkward mix of runes, none other than maybe fire working well. And fire is only at the top because of how strong I feel Epiphany is with fire and CDR. On the CDR note I want to start some of the pin pointing. If i don’t mention something then I probably believe it is in a fine state.
CDR - I honestly feel this is a game breaking mechanic the way it stands now. Look at the perma Epiphany, Pet, Berzerk, and Arc builds.. I feel all of them are broken or gimmick at best. A few ways to fix this. -To again increase the DR on CDR.. but then it would be a wasted stat on many items and would only cause grief upon rolling it. -Put some kind of cap on it around 40-50%.. League does it! .^ -Reduce the amount of items it appears on. I like this idea the best.
Crit Damage - I hate crit Damage.. it inflates your DPS more than it should and should be nerfed hard. In 99% of all cases if you don’t have a CHD gem in your weapon.. you are doing it wrong. As a monk I still don’t have enough max emeralds to put in all my slots.. I would like to see the amount emeralds give to weapons nearly halved.
2 Handed Weapons - I feel they are still lacking and would like to see them with 2 gem slots instead of only 1.
Skills
Generators - I feel that most of the generators are fine. I would like to see a tad bit more spirit gained as well as more elemental options on them.
Secondaries - LTK LTK LTK.. This is your go to spell when you are attempting to dps. With it being less than half the cost of WoL, over 100% more damage, and can still AOE, there is no reason to look at WoL. That is why I feel WoL needs a major cost reduction.
Defensives - I feel that these do what they need to do and work well with weaving into certain fights or builds.
Techniques - I’ll have to go over all 3 individually here…
Dashing Strike - Lets be honest… everyone is jealous of this skille. It even outperforms teleport! A nerf here would be expected. Maybe 8 second charge timer up from 6?
Exploding Palm - In higher tiers.. this is nearly* a must have. A nerf here would be expected as well. I would be ok with the exploding damage being as low as 30% base.
Sweeping Wind - This is one skill i feel just needs a base damage buff.. it is just too low to count for DPS. Lightning monks can still make decent use of it however. Maybe a small buff up to 105% WD?
Focus - I feel CS and MA both are in a decent place atm. However, I believe SSS has too long of a cool down to use in a dps build and Epiphany is lacking direct dps increases other than its fire rune.
Mantras - I think these could be tweaked here and there.. but I don’t see any of them as a major problem currently. Maybe a slight nerf to Dishearten, that slow just feels OP in higher tiers. And i’m not sure Convictions is increasing the damage as it says.
Passives - I like the new adds to more DPS related passives, I still feel as if we are missing a stronger one like many other classes have. I also look at OWE and see that it is in a good place. If you get lucky you can be very tanky from it, but if you are not lucky with you loot drops then it is not even worth it. If OWE is something you want to use it make finding gear on a game with no economy harder than other classes. So I was thinking of a DPS passive that would increase our DPS and even out the added difficulty of finding gear with OWE. Basically the opposite side of OWE. It could replace Guiding Light and read something like this..
Elemental Mastery - Added elemental damage will now affect all you abilities regardless of their elements.
If this proves to be too OP you could always set it back a notch by making it only work with other elemental types and exclude Physical.
Earlier I mention adding a bit of Spirit regen, one way I feel Blizzard could do this would be to increase the spirit regen on Exalted Soul to 3-4 and remove the spirit regen from Chant of Resonance replacing it with a buff that would double the time of the activation bonus of your montras.
I feel that some of these changes works well together and could put monks in a better place than blizzard thinks they are in now without making them OP like WDs and DHs. I hope this was a good read for some and not too long. Thank you all for your time and feedback.
P.S. With the “right” gear being so hard to find and ppl wanting more drops. Why not just make it so you can trade Kadala the legendaries you don’t want for more shards?