Monk is dead from a flawed skill design and low numbers.
Krivis is dead from a good skill set nerfed to oblivion.
Zealot is too half-baked to carry two dead classes.
your right 20charsorlesssssssss
I personally like the āCombo Monkā with a lot of opportunities to proc extra damage lines. All skills have a lot of Overheat, there is a cooldown refresh and if your skill goes off Cooldown you will get back all your charges!
Now you need to find the best combination to keep the Strike Damage buff up and maximize your rotation especially for boss mobs.
Personally I find that intriguing and I want a character like this. I wonder what combinations will be powerful and what gear makes which rotation the best. =)
They can always adjust the lower numbers if they are indeed too low.
I see the Overheat charges as a divided high damage skill, so instead of doing 1000% in 1 attack you do 1000% in 4 attacks that give effects and each trigger on hit effects. Sounds fun to theocraft around with in my opinion.
From what Iāve seen from videos everywhere, Monk is a bit starved in skill points, and will probably be divided into three playstyles, an auto-attack playstyle, an Energy Blast playstyle and a combo playstyle. The limited amount of skill points would probably make it so you either diversify skill points to use all three playstyles to some extent, but not to āfull specializedā effect, or specialize in probably 1-2 playstyles.
The auto-attack playstyle focuses on maxing and using only Double Punch to do damage and uses Chaplain to boost auto-attacks with buffs, but with that said Double Punch only procs extra lines once per Double Punch (used to be true multi hit so it procs 2 times, now its once for some reason). Also, no matter how much attack speed is stacked, hit delay will eventually happen (still waiting for any proof that hit delay is removed for Double Punch in kTest) so Monks canāt punch faster than 2-3 Double Punch per second, a hard cap so to speak.
The combo playstyle is probably my favored playstyle over the Double Punch spam. Basically, one forgets about Double Punch entirely (leave it at 0 or 1 point) as a DPS option, and focus on the rest of the skills entirely. The combo will probably be as follows:
- God Finger Flick (if single target)
- Palm Strike + Hand Knife until Armor Break procs
- Cleric Smite and One-Inch Punch until Armor Break or God Finger Flick debuff runs out
- Repeat 1. or/and 2. to get both debuffs, then spam Cleric Smite and One-Inch Punch
- Finish the rest of the overheats
- Reset with Golden Bell āShieldā and start again from the top
- Filler with Smite and Double Punch until cooldowns are back up
However, for the God Finger Flick > Palm Strike + Hand Knife > One-Inch Punch combo, the numbers are simply too weak to consider over Double Punch spam with auto-attack buffs. Palm Strike + Hand Knife animation takes as long as 3 Double Punch (unless the players in videos are capped by bad ping because kTest servers, I really hope this is the case so I can be proven wrong), to which its better to just spam Double Punch that way since both are roughly the same damage. One-Inch Punch is rather decent as a damage skill, but in contrast, Cleric Smite Lvl 5 out-damages every skill Monk has (except for Energy Blast, arguably) and has a lower cooldown to boot (just to show how underwhelming Monk is as a Red class). Golden Bell āShieldā may be able to offset that, but being on 60 second cooldown, I beg to differ on that.
For the Energy Blast playstyle, you spam Energy Blast and fill the rest of the time with combos and Double Punch. Ideally, you would have Divine Stigma up so you can combo Divine Stigma + Energy Blast for double damage. This is somewhat viable given how Energy Blastās cooldown got reduced to 20 seconds, which is half-decent.
With that said, for Divine Stigma + Energy Blast, it should be noted that Energy Blast got its charge time reverted back from 2.5 seconds to 5 seconds, and remains easy to interrupt. Since Divine Stigma, a DoT damage debuff, is used before Energy Blast, Monks cannot use Fade to set up Energy Blast so its much harder to use this skill. Furthermore, Energy Blast Remove Knockdown Attribute was removed (couldnāt find it anywhere) so your Energy Blast will be such a great knockdown machine, parties will probably not want you in their party if you have Energy Blast. Also, this causes Monks to be obligated to take Krivis should they want to use Energy Blast with Divine Stigma, locking one class slot to Krivis due to that. Krivis is in a really bad state right now, so its like locking one class slot to another bad class. With that said, there is no need to take Krivis if you do not want the synergy or use any of Krivisā skill set.
Off-topic, but Palm Strike and Hand Knife got their knockdown ability removed and there is no attribute to turn it off or on.
While Zealots could buff those numbers up, Monks have too low numbers in the first place and Zealots canāt bring it to anywhere decent in exchange for not being able to heal due to Fanaticism (like come on, no matter how low skill factor can go, most of Monk skills being barely over 100% skill factor? Thatās like calling most of Monkās skill set a glorified auto attack). Zealots also got hit hard with Krivis being toned down real bad.
The damage numbers are one thing they really need to balance, but there are quite a bit more needed to be done. Monks at the moment is flawed by design, and unless IMC does something, Monk is simply a trap class that takes up 1 or 2 class slots because of Krivis.
(Also, lel at Iron Skin)
Let us hope they increase the numbers a bit to make the combo path more viable.
As they want you to combo Palm Strike and Hand Knife they removed the knockdown, makes sense but limits it in PvP.
Iron Skin could be useful for a PvP Monk even if the knockdown got removed.
If it is roughly the same damage and you enjoy playing the style, is there something wrong with it?
I can agree that they need to increase the damage slightly to push the combo variant more as it seems higher skill ceiling to me depending on what combinations you do. Maybe use druid or Chaplain in the build to supplement and buff, who knows. Even using something like the Statues to reduce cooldown could be interesting depending on where you play, stationary to speed up your combo it could be great.
I personally wonāt throw this playstyle away just yet even if it is not top or the best Monk build, it looks fun to play around and find the combination you enjoy. =)
I welcome the new kinds of playstyles really, being able to use Palm Strike and Hand Knife as damage skills given how useless they were before ToS 2.0, and the possibility of finally using Energy Blast as a DPS rotation to clear mobs outside of the situational physical-weak, holy-weak mobs scenario.
With that said, each playstyle has huge flaws and the damage numbers are simply too low. In reality, nothing has changed and the strongest damage rotation for Monk is still Double Punch spam with Chaplain buffs in ToS 2.0. I just wish IMC bump up the damage numbers. The recent kTest patch notes showed they increased Double Punch speed, but its a moot point when at some point, hit delay will hardcap Double Punch speed. With how Double Punch damage is 50% x 2 and only procs 1 line of damage, that is literally normal auto-attacking. The strongest playstyle of Monk right now is Double Punch āauto-attackingā, by which you donāt need Monk to do and can pick other classes that give arguably better damage and utility.
Iām still hoping IMC realizes this and starts bumping numbers up for Monk (and other classes, I know other classes got damage nerfs, while not as bad as Monks). No matter how low numbers should go, skills being single hits and yet being barely a bit over 100% is just too low.
They probably should be around 250% - 300% at minimum given they have 4 Over Heat, thus given all charges around 1000% damage + 4 times the on hit effects.
As Clerics lets pray that they increase the damage numbers or do something else to make it viable, like a combo point system that increases the damage of each consecutive Monk skill.
If they could deviate between the two playstyles it will turn out great. Just like you can now play offensive and defensive shield characters due to the new attribute the shield classes got.
Yeah, at least let it have damage worthy of a Red class.
So much for āBalanceā.
It is not live yet therefore we should wait a bit more. Once they are finished testing we can scream and spam all we want and should. =D
zealot heavily nerf to dead the point i prefer leave the game.
they can do better decision by nerf it only in pvp since in pve many class can outdps zealot
they just listen to zealot haters too much who keep sayin blindfaith broke broke broke
If anything, Zealot is actually still quite decent in the game, just not āBlind Faith carries all buildsā status anymore, though Iāll also question if it can remain competitive until it comes to iToS for me to test. Zealot cannot carry builds to power like it used to.
IMC recently buffed Double Punch to give twice as much attack speed per skill level (10 -> 20 attack speed per level for a total of 300 attack speed at lvl 15), but in reality it is a negligible, ignorant and useless buff for most Monk builds. The issue with Double Punch isnāt its attack speed but its damage, since no matter how much attack speed a Monk stacks, a Monk cannot Double Punch more than 3 times per second (or 6 Punches per second) due to the hit delay that exists with melee attacks from the start of skill input.
Had a few friends test the attack speed out, and from what Iāve seen, as long as a Monk takes 1 more class in the build that has good DEX multipliers, that Monk has more than enough attack speed to deal 3 Double Punches per second. While getting more attack speed may make Double Punch animation faster, the delay simply nullifies that speed and the result is still the same 3 Double Punches per second, just faster animations with a more pronounced delay. Maybe with enough attack speed, one could squeeze out 1 more Double Punch per 5 or 10 seconds or so, but thatās simply an additional 100% auto attack. Maxing Double Punch in skill level is a trap, and IMCās attack speed buff speaks volume on how blind and deaf IMC is on Monk issues (Or maybe they just want to make Monk builds that donāt take classes with DEX multipliers be able to still Double Punch at decent speeds, IDK).
Monk builds now are probably going to be a mix of either Chaplain and/or Zealot for the DEX scaling, and whatever synergizes with the build best.
I am probably gonna try Zealot with Beady Eyed, Fanaticism and some other buffs as well as Dievkribys to reduce cooldowns, SP and get some regen.
I also thought about Kabalist for the damage boost skill they have also gives you more HP which helps with Fanaticism.
You can probably use Double Punch in a Combo Build as a Skillpoint dump to get some base attack speed which also makes your other skills come out faster.
With 4 classes to pick I would go Monk, Zealot, Kabalist, Dievkribys to have a complete build with support and sustain. =x
Of course going Chaplain could work as well but I kinda want to go away from the holy stuff and make something else playable.
I will go Pala or Druid > Inquisitor> Zealot
Just like to swing a giant Hammer.
And Krivis+Monk feel realy bad now.
Donāt you get the 2-handed Blunt mastery right at the start as a cleric? At least I saw it there. So you have everything open to swing around a big mallet.
Iām probably going to stay as Krivis Monk Zealot just to be that ancient relic to show such a build once existed, and be that sad critical support build that gets dissed by everyone for not doing enough damage.
Then again, Krivis Monk Zealot is only viable if IMC actually buffs damage numbers, not Double Punch attack speed numbers.
Its not because of the Attribute ^^
Str is now important.
Inquisitor gives a good amount of str.
Demolition looks pretty strong.
And i can use Inq+pala skills if the Zea skills on Cooldown.
Fanatism +wheel + godsmash With holyimpact looks pretty strong in Bossfights.
I know it is not only because of the attribute and I get what you are going for. Just wanted to note that you now get this from level 1. =P
Yes, stats are more important now.
Itās not that bad IMO
Thing is, one would question why take Monk in the first place if Double Punch only procs auto-attack buffs once. While it may look a little flashy with Double Punch, in reality its just Chaplain carrying the build, and Monk doing nothing to improve the damage at all. Any other classes couldāve been taken instead of Monk to do more damage really.
Thanks for the video, videos with Monk in it are hard to find.