all monk skills + general monk/ chayula feedback

monk in general - its funny how the majority of ppl seem to agree that monk is the best designed class. its not. it only has 3-5 default attack replacers (dar) that are viable (whereas the other classes the majority of their skills are viable) - tempest flurry, ice strike, and storm wave. i guess you can use vaulting impact but most ppl don't like the sluggishness of +total seconds to attack time skills. there is also flicker strike but thats late end game. thats it tho, out of 20 skills theres only those 3-5. wtf. monk is completely reliant on heralds for aoe clear. herald gameplay is fine, but being unable to scale the aoe on your actual skills feels bad when everyone else can do that to some degree. its reliant on tempest bell for single target. not good to require a skill for all melee monk builds, also makes balancing a lot harder since the class will live or die depending on how strong bell is. palm skills suck balls and feel horrible to use (except for shattering), but the mobility you gain is the one saving grace. i chose chayula, which has got to be the worst ascendancy in the game, not to mention there are no chaos melee skills in the game right now so i can't even really play my class (also no staves with base flat chaos and % chaos). would suck if chaos melee is an afterthought again like in poe1. invoker on the other hand is one of the strongest ascendancies, the power difference is nuts. just looking at what they get makes me wonder what the hell the devs were thinking when designing chayula. which brings me onto the next topic.


acolyte of chayula - wow this ascendancy is bad. i wouldn't have chosen it had i known how incomplete it was. seems like 80% of the dev time went into invoker and chayula was thrown together with duck tape and good intentions.
flames of chayula - are borderline worthless. 3 different flames you walk over to pick up, they give you 14% life or 14% mana restore, and the last one gives you 14% gain as extra chaos damage for 10sec when upgraded (the duration doesn't reset when you pick a new one up, making stacking these impossible). when you're moving, which is 90% of the time, you almost never pick these things up. why? cuz for some stupid fucking reason they only spawn outside of the radius the granted skill into the breach (which spawns the flames) gives you. yes, you can pick them up running straight forward cuz they will spawn in front of you, but most of the time you're going to be focusing on killing stuff and going out of your way for one flame every second isn't a viable way to play the game. so in reality these are only really working to maybe 20% of max effect. into the breach needs more tags so we can modify it further, plus bug fixes cuz some persistent support gems don't work with it.
embrace the darkness - wow. the worst choice out of all ascendancies. removes all spirit to gain 800 hp at max level. ok? so we have no aoe clear from heralds, no power charge generation, no more evasion from wind dancer, no sustain from ghost dance and grim feast. oh yeah, grim feast. the usable, non character bricking choice for sustain.
consuming questions - mana leech also restores energy shield and the previous node makes mana leech instant. sounds nice. except all of the viable dar's convert your physical damage, which mana leech relies on. unless you have a really good weapon, you're not going to be doing much physical damage. i guess you can play vaulting impact and nothing else? ok.
reality rending - is just a worse flames of chayula. even tho flames are bad, its still better then this node.
chayulas gift - doubles chaos res as well as granting you 17% chaos res, also counting the previous node. solid choice.
mantra of destruction - granted buff skill from ascendancy. it isn't duration based and only buffs your next attack, so its not viable. would be nice if it buffed all damage for a duration.


palm skills in general - bad. shattering palm is good cuz it has an aoe, hand of chayula is ok cuz you don't have to rely on a conditional for it to have an effect. solution? give all palm skills an aoe and a lot more attack speed. the big problem with using these skills is that sometimes you will fail to hit your target since the skills are all point blank single target skills. good chance your target will be body blocked by other mobs which makes you unable to get anywhere close to your target, or you port but hit another mob cuz it walked into your port while you were casting the skill. giving them an aoe (maybe a long cone type?) would solve both these issues. would be cool if we could use these skills as a dar. if completely unarmed they get a big buff and you use both hands.
killing + staggering palm - unusable from mid campaign onwards. you eventually get enough dps to pop every mob group you come across, and since you need an alive mob with the associated conditional, you can rarely ever use these.
hand of chayula - ok skill since you don't need a conditional. would be cool if it could break the normal 1 mark limit. the -effect of marks and curses is too harsh. no point in using this skill to apply a curse when you can just use the curse directly. would be even cooler if we could use the curse buffing support gems with this skill like cursed ground and impending doom. imagine the glory.
shattering palm - the only viable palm skill.


+total seconds to attack time skills in general - oof. they are all cool animation wise but the penalty is way too harsh. putting martial tempo on one of these skills only to have the attack time drop by 0.05 sec feels really really bad. not sure how this design is gonna work. maybe if the penalty was a lot less severe? i get it, you don't want ppl to use these skills as pseudo movement skills. except ppl are already doing that with tempest flurry. there is still the problem of anything taking more then 0.5 seconds to cast getting interrupted by stun spamming white mobs. when you build into pure evasion + stun threshold this isn't so bad but requiring end game gear for a skill to be usable isn't going to work.
vaulting impact - skill is cool. would be nice if there was more stun build up so the armor break explosion support gem combo was more reliable on weaker gear.
whirling assault - my favorite monk skill. sucks its so bad. not sure why it has to do half the damage of tempest flurry and ice strike. aoe could be bigger. oh pretty sure aoe is bugged on this skill since putting on concentrated or magnified effect doesn't make any visual difference. would be really cool if culmination worked with this, meaning during your attack animation the combo built up for culmination and didn't get automatically spent on every strike. also pls buff culmination from 2% to 5% :).
gathering storm - yeah this skill takes way too long to cast. its unusable when you get surrounded by stun spamming white mobs. the shocking ground part doesn't make any sense. it spawns behind you for some reason, when it should spawn around/ in front of you since ya know thats where the monsters will be. the idea of taking a step back to take 2 steps forward also doesn't work in practice. skill feels bad to use, but the animation is cool.


every other skill
frozen locus and wave of frost - lumping these together cuz like gathering storm their main problem is the leap back part. i don't see anyone ever using these cuz why would they use skills that make their mapping take 10x longer? there isn't enough payoff for the cost. allowing multiple instances of frozen locus would go a long way.
falling thunder and flicker strike - both the power charge spenders. nothing to say they are both solid skills.
tempest flurry, ice strike, storm wave - like previously mentioned all these skills are solid and need no changes.
glacial cascade - almost usable. except when anything gets into melee range, which makes you do zero damage cuz all the damage is on the final burst. it needs another burst at the beginning, right in front of you.
tempest bell - it carries monks single target too hard. like i said before, having one skill that a class relies on makes the class live or die based on how strong that skill is. requiring that skill limits build diversity and makes balancing harder. not good overall.
wind blast - does no damage and doesn't even do its intended effect good enough which is to knock back. mobs will still close on you before you can kill them unless you have a crazy dps weapon. why use this over storm wave that can one shot mobs and activate the double herald cascade?
freezing mark - a worse shattering palm. no reason to use this.
siphoning strike - oh my god, the most annoying skill to use. against non shocked targets its actually a pretty good feeling skill cuz you can port around the map and one shot trash mobs. against shocked targets, what its intended to be used against? it takes 5 times longer. what. the. hell guys. we go from a fast hitting cool skill to the worst feeling skill to use out of every available monk skill. also the shockwave aoe feels too small.
charged staff - solid buff. would be cool if the added flat damage adapted to the highest damage on your skill. so for example say i have 49% physical and 51% chaos on whirling assault, the added flat damage is now chaos. that would probably make people mad tho and mess up builds so maybe don't do that. oh making combo finisher work with this would be awesome, so definitely do that.


welp thats the end of the text wall. just my 2 cents guys.

"

googley_eyes#2107 wrote:

monk in general - its funny how the majority of ppl seem to agree that monk is the best designed class. its not. it only has 3-5 default attack replacers (dar) that are viable (whereas the other classes the majority of their skills are viable) - tempest flurry, ice strike, and storm wave. i guess you can use vaulting impact but most ppl don't like the sluggishness of +total seconds to attack time skills. there is also flicker strike but thats late end game. thats it tho, out of 20 skills theres only those 3-5. wtf. monk is completely reliant on heralds for aoe clear. herald gameplay is fine, but being unable to scale the aoe on your actual skills feels bad when everyone else can do that to some degree. its reliant on tempest bell for single target. not good to require a skill for all melee monk builds, also makes balancing a lot harder since the class will live or die depending on how strong bell is. palm skills suck balls and feel horrible to use (except for shattering), but the mobility you gain is the one saving grace. i chose chayula, which has got to be the worst ascendancy in the game, not to mention there are no chaos melee skills in the game right now so i can't even really play my class. would suck if chaos melee is an afterthought again like in poe1. invoker on the other hand is one of the strongest ascendancies, the power difference is nuts. just looking at what they get makes me wonder what the hell the devs were thinking when designing chayula. which brings me onto the next topic.


acolyte of chayula - wow this ascendancy is bad. i wouldn't have chosen it had i known how incomplete it was. seems like 80% of the dev time went into invoker and chayula was thrown together with duck tape and good intentions.
flames of chayula - are borderline worthless. 3 different flames you walk over to pick up, they give you 14% life or 14% mana restore, and the last one gives you 14% gain as extra chaos damage for 10sec when upgraded (the duration doesn't reset when you pick a new one up, making stacking these impossible). when you're moving, which is 90% of the time, you almost never pick these things up. why? cuz for some stupid fucking reason they only spawn outside of the radius the granted skill into the breach (which spawns the flames) gives you. yes, you can pick them up running straight forward cuz they will spawn in front of you, but most of the time you're going to be focusing on killing stuff and going out of your way for one flame every second isn't a viable way to play the game. so in reality these are only really working to maybe 20% of max effect. into the breach needs more tags so we can modify it further, plus bug fixes cuz some persistent support gems don't work with it.
embrace the darkness - wow. the worst choice out of all ascendancies. removes all spirit to gain 800 hp at max level. ok? so we have no aoe clear from heralds, no power charge generation, no more evasion from wind dancer, no sustain from ghost dance and grim feast. oh yeah, grim feast. the usable, non character bricking choice for sustain.
consuming questions - mana leech also restores energy shield and the previous node makes mana leech instant. sounds nice. except all of the viable dar's convert your physical damage, which mana leech relies on. unless you have a really good weapon, you're not going to be doing much physical damage. i guess you can play vaulting impact and nothing else? ok.
reality rending - is just a worse flames of chayula. even tho flames are bad, its still better then this node.
chayulas gift - doubles chaos res as well as granting you 17% chaos res, also counting the previous node. solid choice.
mantra of destruction - granted buff skill from ascendancy. it isn't duration based and only buffs your next attack, so its not viable. would be nice if it buffed all damage for a duration.


palm skills in general - bad. shattering palm is good cuz it has an aoe, hand of chayula is ok cuz you don't have to rely on a conditional for it to have an effect. solution? give all palm skills an aoe and a lot more attack speed. the big problem with using these skills is that sometimes you will fail to hit your target since the skills are all point blank single target skills. good chance your target will be body blocked by other mobs which makes you unable to get anywhere close to your target, or you port but hit another mob cuz it walked into your port while you were casting the skill. giving them an aoe (maybe a long cone type?) would solve both these issues. would be cool if we could use these skills as a dar. if completely unarmed they get a big buff and you use both hands.
killing + staggering palm - unusable from mid campaign onwards. you eventually get enough dps to pop every mob group you come across, and since you need an alive mob with the associated conditional, you can rarely ever use these.
hand of chayula - ok skill since you don't need a conditional. would be cool if it could break the normal 1 mark limit. the -effect of marks and curses is too harsh. no point in using this skill to apply a curse when you can just use the curse directly. would be even cooler if we could use the curse buffing support gems with this skill like cursed ground and impending doom. imagine the glory.


+total seconds to attack time skills in general - oof. they are all cool animation wise but the penalty is way too harsh. putting martial tempo on one of these skills only to have the attack time drop by 0.05 sec feels really really bad. not sure how this design is gonna work. maybe if the penalty was a lot less severe? i get it, you don't want ppl to use these skills as pseudo movement skills. except ppl are already doing that with tempest flurry. there is still the problem of anything taking more then 0.5 seconds to cast getting interrupted by stun spamming white mobs. when you build into pure evasion + stun threshold this isn't so bad but requiring end game gear for a skill to be usable isn't going to work.
vaulting impact - skill is cool. would be nice if there was more stun build up so the armor break explosion support gem combo was more reliable on weaker gear.
whirling assault - my favorite monk skill. sucks its so bad. not sure why it has to do half the damage of tempest flurry and ice strike. aoe could be bigger. oh pretty sure aoe is bugged on this skill since putting on concentrated or magnified effect doesn't make any visual difference. would be really cool if culmination worked with this, meaning during your attack animation the combo built up for culmination and didn't get automatically spent on every strike. also pls buff culmination from 2% to 5% :).
gathering storm - yeah this skill takes way too long to cast. its unusable when you get surrounded by stun spamming white mobs. the shocking ground part doesn't make any sense. it spawns behind you for some reason, when it should spawn around/ in front of you since ya know thats where the monsters will be. the idea of taking a step back to take 2 steps forward also doesn't work in practice. skill feels bad to use, but the animation is cool.


every other skill
frozen locus and wave of frost - lumping these together cuz like gathering storm their main problem is the leap back part. i don't see anyone ever using these cuz why would they use skills that make their mapping take 10x longer? there isn't enough payoff for the cost.
falling thunder and flicker strike - both the power charge spenders. nothing to say they are both solid skills.
tempest flurry, ice strike, storm wave - like previously mentioned all these skills are solid and need no changes.
glacial cascade - almost usable. except when anything gets into melee range, which makes you do zero damage cuz all the damage is on the final burst. it needs another burst at the beginning, right in front of you.
tempest bell - it carries monks single target too hard. like i said before, having one skill that a class relies on makes the class live or die based on how strong that skill is. requiring that skill limits build diversity and makes balancing harder. not good overall.
wind blast - does no damage and doesn't even do its intended effect good enough which is to knock back. mobs will still close on you before you can kill them unless you have a crazy dps weapon. why use this over storm wave that can one shot mobs and activate the double herald cascade?
freezing mark - a worse shattering palm. no reason to use this.
siphoning strike - oh my god, the most annoying skill to use. against non shocked targets its actually a pretty good feeling skill cuz you can port around the map and one shot trash mobs. against shocked targets, what its intended to be used against? it takes 5 times longer. what. the. hell guys. we go from a fast hitting cool skill to the worst feeling skill to use out of every available monk skill. also the shockwave aoe feels too small.
charged staff - solid buff. would be cool if the added flat damage adapted to the highest damage on your skill. so for example say i have 49% physical and 51% chaos on whirling assault, the added flat damage is now chaos. that would probably make people mad tho and mess up builds so maybe don't do that. oh making combo finisher work with this would be awesome, so definitely do that.


welp thats the end of the text wall. just my 2 cents guys.

Gathering Storm Lightning poison monk.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4GUD7zPJUI&t=136s

I wanted to comment on the Acolyte of Chayula. I usually play Fire/Holy/Poison/Darkness/Physical builds in most games. I rarely touch the other elements or themes (i.e. I usually don't play Cold/Ice or Lightning builds), so the Invoker didn't appeal to me at first.

Now, the Monk is pretty much aimed towards Lightning and multi-elements stacking by default, and it doesn't help that a lot of meta items seem to add Lightning damage, favoring lightning element skills. The Invoker fully embraces this gameplay/theme and has some incredible Ascendancy like the one that gives physical damage reduction at the cost of reduced evasion rating.

The Acolyte of Chayula, on the other hand, is aimed towards any damage with + chaos damage on top of it and chaos resistance instead of damage resistance. Seems great, but most passives are kind of underwhelming except the +Chaos resistance ones.

Into the Breach is nice for one thing at first, and it's the fact that socketed supports do not use any Spirit. It might be a bug. If it's a bug and it's not intended, it means that this passive is pretty bad as the purple flames, unless supported by the next passive, do not last long enough to be significant. The life/mana leech from the red and blue flames are too low to be worth it, and the purple flames either drop 6-7 at a time and give a huge temporary bonus, or not at all, meaning that on average, you're usually under 2 stacks at all time while attacking. IMO, they could limit the purple flame stacks to 5 or 7, while also making it the breach radius way smaller, and making flames spawn more often and closer to where your character is. I don't mind moving around a little bit to catch the flames, but currently, most of the time, it makes no sense to move away for 3-4 seconds to potentially grab a purple flame. The overall design is fine, but how the skill feels isn't exactly great due to how random it is.

I'm sure there are some incredible builds with the Acolyte of Chayula, but a lot of Quarterstaff skills are pretty lame/bad/restrictive right now (and I mean, a lot of skills are subpar, regardless of the weapon/class type, so it's not limited to quarterstaves). I doesn't help that I don't want to play a Lightning build... ;)