(Note: responses refer to the words in yellow) I would rather have the "unable to cast spells" be a part of the base monk kit as it is now (The Trembling Earth). Maybe replace it with the poison stacking that is on live now as a toggle (poisoned soul)? This would prevent multiple stacks from dropping when timer ticks down. Alternatively, you can make it reduce fortitude saves by 1 for a minute (stacking up to 5 times).
I'm also not too keen on Shining Star being locked behind trees. On one hand, you have to now put points into a tree you otherwise might not have simply to purchase that ability (and 22 points is a lot), and on the other hand, having it at tier 4 takes away a lot of the reason to go primarily monk. Both are bad propositions to me. I'd rather keep the strike as something the base monk can get through levels. Maybe bring it down from lvl 20 to level 17-18 and replace the level 20 feat with something like "Zen Mastery: If you follow the path of inevitable dominion, monsters must now make two saves against your monastic attacks (what were previously finishers); if you follow the path of harmonious balance, you now get to save twice against effects." This would allow some multiclassing potential since you no longer have to be 20 lvls of monk to get Shining Star while still making it worthwhile to be pure monk. Everything else from this portion looks good.
I greatly disagree with the sentiment that there was no cost to the combo builders. First of all, you have to be monk, so that already places an alignment restriction (and thus multiclass restriction) on you. You also have to be centered, so that places a restriction on the gear that you can wear and the weapons you can use. You also have an opportunist cost in the action economy, as whenever you use such a strike, you could've been using a more powerful ability at that same moment. I'm not entirely sure how you would've chosen to strengthen it, but I'm dubious of the claim that it would have been disproportionately powerful.
But I digress. The primary issue I have is not with removing the combo builders but with taking the formerly-termed "finishers" into the trees. This not only creates the problem of now having to use design space in the trees to give back what you're taking from monk, but also the problem of having an extra factor to be considered when weighing the trees against each other. For example, now that shining star is in the Tier 4 of Henshin Mystic, most monks are going to go into Henshin to pick it up. Not to mention that the wisdom to hit/damage
and the wisdom trance are in that tree. In the same vein, shintao has even more cc now, so how exactly is Ninja Spy supposed to compete? And let's say that you take more of the finishers and move them to Ninja Spy. The same problem occurs, only now it's a different tree that's struggling to compete.
Since we're on the topic of Stunning Fist, can we get CHA working for it on Sacred Fists? The lamannia discussions and even the patch notes stated that it should work off of the higher of WIS and CHA for them, but that is not the case. Which is a shame, since there's such a big push for that archetype to use CHA (almost everything it does scales off of CHA), except the only CC it has access to natively, and without a trance, you're not getting a working value for that off of CHA.
I mean, if you apply crit multipliers to only a certain set of weapons that's still going to be the case. As far as strikes go, there were only a couple strikes gated by weapon type (Stunning Fist and Quick Strikes, the former of which is a feat and thus not really affected by the discussion of enhancement trees). The Ninja Spy imbue is specific to slashing and piercing weapons, and I don't believe that this has changed with this early look, so with all of that, I'm not entirely sure how much "flexibility" you're really going for. It doesn't seem to be a lot as far as I can tell.
I really think that you should strongly reconsider putting a general attack and damage boost in all three trees. It takes up design space for no good reason, especially when the focus for Shintao, for example, is weapon DPS. What you've basically done is taken up 12 spots (4 in each tree) when you could have only taken up 4 and put something else that is better or more thematic in the resulting emptiness. Furthermore, the combinations seem to be a bit twisted; wouldn't it make sense for the tree that is positive and negative theme (restorative/regenerative) to be tied with defenses? Thus, I would suggest the following changes to the focus:
- Shintao: Defenses with some Positive/Negative energy
- Ninja Spy: Keep the same
- Henshin Mystic: Elemental damage and stance bonuses
I'd rather replace the DR bypass with something else and tie that to the stances via Henshin Mystic (e.g. Cold Iron Bypass in Water Stance, Crystal Bypass in Earth Stance, Byeshk Bypass in Wind Stance, Silver Bypass in Fire Stance).
I think the offhand, doublestrike/doubleshot, and strikethrough would be better in Ninja Spy. Please move the Ki Shout back to Shintao. Also, you're moving negotiator here, which is why I'm confused by the stated goal versus your actions. Negotiator reduces the cooldown on intim; how is that not something tied to tanking/wanting defenses?
Not restricted to quarterstaves is good. Please move back to Henshin Mystic. There is the fact that the archetype replaces henshin mystic, but you can also gain doublestrike from Ninja Spy or from other trees. I don't think it's necessary to muddle what the trees do by trying to fit damage everywhere and trying to fit some defenses everywhere (Meditation of War in Shintao and dodge/dodge cap in Ninja Spy).
See, this is where the design space becomes an issue. Because you removed the finishers from the feats, you now have to figure out where to put them appropriately and how to fit them in the design goals. Ninja Spy is supposed to be the trick tree, but why is the blindness and nausea here??? If we work with the defensive outlook for Shintao, we could allow the light path to provide benefits to the party as they do now and have the dark path grant defenses indirectly. For example, Hand of Healing would provide the healing it does now, while Hand of Harm would reduce the monster's attack and damage (T3 would be attack; T4 would be MP/RP/SP reduction)
Can't say I'm a fan of having to avoid getting hit to improve my damage, which goes away as soon as I crit. I would suggest either having it change to like a 3 second duration that doesn't expire on crit (I thought about 6 seconds, but that would be as good as having +5 crit range the entire fight for most)
or having a decent chance (30%?) to reset the cooldown of your jade abilities.
...Why is Meditation of War in Shintao if Henshin Mystic is supposed to be the new defensive tree??? It's also not really thematic, as the stances are elemental, but you have stance-related bonuses in a tree that is supposed to be focusing on positive and negative. I think the quality hp needs to stay to preserve the defensiveness which seems to be spreading too thin amongst all the trees, but all the other bonuses should honestly be reflected in the Henshin Mystic tree, where the theme is understanding martial arts through the elements.
I think stripping poison immunity through failed saves from the strikes would be better than using the poisoned darts. Also, please change this from adding 4-8 stacks to adding stacks over time like what Poisoned Soul is doing currently. It gets real annoying trying to stack up poison stacks only to see them disappear because gaining stacks normally does not reset the timer and the stacks normally proc on crit (so there are two barriers to maintenance). Considering that the imbue is mutually exclusive with alchemist's and rogue's imbues, I don't think it'd be a big issue.
Very good.
See above about the damage lines.
That's not true. I was using Fist of Iron and Knock on the Sky all the time. Now that finishers are not connected to combo builders, it's even more likely that people would want to use more than one of those strikes. They do extra damage, and you currently have a choice of 3 out of 4 (it's in Henshin as well) of: attack with +1 crit multi attack, enable sneak attack, reduce physical damage by 4% (stacks up to 5 times), and apply 4 stacks of destruction. The thing that was holding most people back before is that using those strikes counted towards finishers (thus making it possible to interrupt one).
Hmm. I like it, but I'm worried that this will lead to a nerf somewhere down the line.
Can we not tie Flash Bang to a philosophy, or at the very least, separate Flash Bang and Shadow Flurry? It's ridiculous that we have to choose between doing damage and sneaking around in a tree that has stealth as a focus (I mean, let's be honest, cloak of shadows is really only gonna be used by those who want to skulk around; regular invisibility and sneaking work well enough in most cases).
Especially when that already comes with the opportunity cost of investing points in the ability to use it in the first place.
Don't really have complaints here.
Honestly, Ki Bolt is still such a high opportunity cost in all but the most janky of builds (looking at the Muggle Monk) that you should be gaining ki for using it (please do that for the sacred fist as well). Also, the casting time is reduced, but what about the travel time?
Interesting that you introduce Cauldron so early.
Incinerating Wave change is good. Will the Improved Cauldron change damage type as well? If not, please add that rather than the reduced timer or movement outside the ring (dealer's choice).
If the extra damage and the elemental vulnerability is kept, this will be a good change.
See above for my thoughts on the damage lines.
Please put back in Shintao.
This is good. I'm kinda confused by the wording though, as the Incinerating Wave portion implies that this elemental change is only applying to Incinerating Wave, but this is implying that it should work for Ki Bolt and Cauldron as well. I'm hoping for the latter.
Not gonna lie, I still kinda see Embrace the Void as a joke enhancement serving only as a prerequisite for Focus. Is it still a prerequisite, because if not, please replace it with something else.
Kata of the Wind is... not good. There are way too many items, abilities, and enhancements that grant concealment, and most champions have true seeing. Most monsters that strip blur/displacement happen to be casters, where the concealment would be worthless. I'd rather keep that as a freebie for the standard monk and then upgrade it to apply something like spell resistance equal to twice your monk level (that can't be dispelled) or create a fog cloud (in which case at least it'd be an environmental effect and thus can't be bypassed by true seeing).
Atk, dmg, and trance all in one class tree, and without the restriction to a singular weapon type like Favored Soul. I really hope you don't nerf this in the future...
Again, there's no comparison between the two abilities. Spell cost reduction is really nice for any ability that isn't an SLA (SLA's don't benefit from them). Unfortunately, SLAs play a pretty big role in the majority of the game, and one has to wonder if it wouldn't be simply better to cc something rather than waste the time remembering to hit the group with it (they have to be in range of the person you target) to have some variable benefit. Please give this back to the base monk as a feat and replace the enhancement with something like "grant you and your allies true seeing"
Tier 4 is way too high for MRR. It honestly shouldn't be higher than tier 2 or 3, especially with those values.
Balance in Dawn should be moved down since it no longer serves as a means to access other finishers. That was the only compelling reason to have it up at T5, blocking access to T5s in other trees. Also, move Meditation of War here, since it's thematic to have the ability that enhances elemental stances in the same tree as the one that promotes elemental damage.