by JR Cook - 8 years ago     show comments

Angels and demons are bound to their natures. Demons are given to chaos and deceit; angels to truth and order. That much is known …The Nephalem alone have choice. ~Archangel Itherael.

Welcome to Wishful Wednesdays where we will attempt to show some ideas from fellow Nephalem who want to see something added to the game: whether that be builds that need items to make them work, a new or revamped mode of game-play that they would enjoy, holiday buffs or just QoL improvements.

Today, I’ll start off with my wish: a viable Tempest Rush Monk, at least viable at T8 farming. Tempest Rush was one of my favorite playstyles in Vanilla D3, before I cared about being viable, and I was able to recreate it in season 1 and 2. But, with all the additions of powerful items and more difficulties I have not been able to create a workable build that is practicable above T6.

Pieces Already in Place:

There is already a set that buffs Tempest Rush: Monkey King’s Garb:

• (2) Set:
• Casting Cyclone Strike, Exploding Palm, Lashing Tail Kick, Tempest Rush or Wave of Light causes a decoy to spawn that taunts nearby enemies and then explodes for 100% weapon damage.
• (4) Set:
• When your decoys explode, you gain a buff that increases the damage of Cyclone Strike, Exploding Palm, Lashing Tail Kick, Tempest Rush and Wave of Light b 500% for 3 seconds.

Unfortunately, there has been two more powerful sets added for Monks since this set saw it’s peak. But, even if this set was buffed, which they’ve mentioned is in the works or will be soon, the Tempest Rush skill would still fall behind because the only off-piece it has is a weapon that increases your speed while Tempest Rushing:

• Tempest Rush: Tailwind Rune– Increases your movement speed while using Tempest Rush by
  25%

While this item would be good for farming it doesn’t add the killing power that is needed.

Because this spec is not based around a generator Focus/Restraint combo does not factor into it. While trying to get it to work I was using Obsidian Ring of the Zodiac, Stone of Jordan and Convention of the elements. The Obsidian ring was to keep Epiphany: Desert Shroud up for defense as well as to combat the spirit cost, while the other two were purely offense.

I have tried using items that increase my damage (Taeguk, Hexing Pants, Cindercoat, Maximus, Strongarms, Fire Mystic Ally with The Crudest Boots and the Momentum passive) and even though I can get three million or more fire damage on sheet dps I still cannot use the build to efficiently farm T7 let alone T8.

Ideas to Make it Work Better:

So, my wish is really two-fold: boost Monkey King’s Garb and add a 6 piece while keeping Tempest Rush as one of the skills used and add an item or items that boost the killing power of Tempest Rush in some way. That item has many slot options as the set only four pieces and even if they add two more pieces for a six set, one of the pieces is an amulet so would still have a normal spot open for a piece.

Two more pieces added to Monkey King’s Garb with set bonus- Every enemy caught in your decoy’s explosion reduces the cool down of Epiphany by X amount of time or every time your decoy explodes reduce cool down of Epiphany by X amount of time. Every solo set the monk has had in Reaper of Souls so far has required a massive amount (close to 75%) of CDR for our defense and, while spirit regeneration helps our offense, Epiphany does not have an innate damage increase so that’s a lot of offensive stat loss for a set that doesn’t need CDR for the spells included.

For the items I’m hoping for a weapon and an armor piece.

Weapon=Remake of Balance (Daibo)– Enemies hit by sweeping wind take X% more damage from TR. This would add Sweeping Wind (one, if not the first, of my favorite monk spells) to a build for damage reasons, albeit indirectly, instead of it’s last use only to generate spirit and/or to keep Taeguk stacks up before the rework on the Focus/Restraint and the Inna’s set bonuses.

Armor piece=New item-You take X% less damage while Tempest Rush is channeled. This would add what you’d lose out on by not using a generator (Spirit Guards) or SSS (Binding of the Lost) and, hopefully, make it so the defense is competitive.

This is the dream, but I’d be okay with only half of this and have it be a farming spec only.

Have something you wish would be added to the game? Whether you have ideas on how to make a build wor`k, a mode of game-play you’d like to see changed or an improvement added to the general game, I’d love to hear about it.