Pure Dark Monk: Wind 4 vs Sun 4 stance

[quickbunnie]

The difference between Sun and Wind stances is actually much more situational than I thought. Depending on gear and sneak attacks, you may need a strength of up to 60+ to offset the extra Ki strikes, but with Ninja Spy 2 and Tharnes, ToD rings, good handwraps (example: +2 holy of greater bane), Wind4 will only need a strength of 18 to outpace Sun 4 (if 100% sneak attacks).

I've made several assumptions in my posted calculations, I will try to list them:

+5 handwraps of greater bane
Bloodstone
2d10 pure monk base damage
Oremi's Necklace
Permanently hasted
Power attack
5% misses, 10% criticals
3d6+8 sneak attacks (ninja spy 2 + tharnes) for every hit (favors wind stance)
Grandmaster in all 4 elements (favors sun stance a lot, bad assumption)
No ToD bursting rings (favors sun stance)
Crane enhancements are not taken (favors sun stance)

Attack speed:
When hasted, there are 115.45 unarmed "swings" per minute. With GTWF, this is 207.81 "hits" per minute. This is pulled from Absolute Omniscient and Yargore's Update 5 DPS calculator. I have not tested this attack speed.

Given these calculations, I come up that a strength of 42 (BEFORE stances) is needed for wind stance to surpass sun stance. Greater strength will favor Wind 4, and less strength will favor Sun 4.

Here are my calculations:
https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?...thkey=CMyr-c4I

Please see if I made any mistakes. It's not marked that well, but if some of the power number crunchers can take some time, there aren't all that many calculations.

Variations with fewer bad assumptions:
With ToD rings and 100% SA (but above HWs), Wind4 outpaces Sun4, with only a strength of 22 needed to outpace Sun4
At 50% fort (but no aggro), rings, above HWs, Wind 4 outpaces Sun 4 at 34 strength.
At 100% fort, above HWs, rings, Wind4>Sun4 at 52 strength
If 3/4 grandmasters, above assumptions, 100% fort: only 24 strength and Wind4>Sun4

[Hokonoso]

wind 4 stopped doing more dps than sun 4 with this last update, it's not even close anymore...

[quickbunnie]

wind 4 stopped doing more dps than sun 4 with this last update, it's not even close anymore...

I had not realized that this was a consensus - from my forums browsing it seemed that most people were still under the impression that wind stance did more DPS than sun stance.

Regardless, it was an interesting exercise, and I would still appreciate anyone who cares to double check the work.

[Kolaid]

in sun you get more Ki so there for i think you did more damage if u can do ur 500 pt hit every 12 ++ have earth for crit range always like sun !

[Soleran]

wind 4 stopped doing more dps than sun 4 with this last update, it's not even close anymore...

Really plus 2 to damage is not even close, that seems odd somehow especially with an oremi neck on I dont see how fire (I'm assuming you mean) is so far ahead or that wind is far behind whichever you meant.

Also would like to add plus 5 of greater banes are hard to find for everything so not good to use for a base calc.

[Zilta]

what about the 3+ touches of death you can get off at once in wind stance. I do realize this is a bug and will be fixed but im just saying.

[Soleran]

what about the 3+ touches of death you can get off at once in wind stance. I do realize this is a bug and will be fixed but im just saying.

3 isn't a bug, double hit and offhand attacks = 3.

[quickbunnie]

The damage doesn't come from the sun stance strength bonus, it comes from the extra Ki generation. If you look at the calculations, the extra damage comes from being able to use Touch of Death and 4 ki strikes as soon as cooldowns are over.

In comparison, Wind stance generates enough Ki for Touch of death and 2 Ki strikes continuously.

The non-Touch of Death strikes aren't nearly as big numbers, but have only 3 second cooldowns. Each additional Ki strike that you can keep hitting continuously adds about 10-12 dmg/sec. Thus, 2 extra strikes count for about 22 dmg/sec in Sun stance. To match that in Wind stance, the toon needs to have a base strength of 42 - at this point the extra hits offset the less frequent elemental Ki strikes.

This assumes both players are using Oremi's necklace. Sun stance still generates over 33% more Ki.

Also, the triple hit ToD's have been accounted for in the calculations - that's why Touch of Death and each elemental Ki strike is a higher additional DPS in wind than in fire.

As for handwraps, they are simply to keep calculations relatively simple. Similarly, bursting ToD rings are not included. Without greensteel handwraps or epic handwraps, there isn't really a standard set of handwraps to base calculations on. I suppose Devouts, but really once you get your rings, there are better wraps.

[orakio]

Personally i still receive double attacks in sun stance which can be tested using ki strikes. 3 hits of Void Strike IV in a round. this means you get basically 4 dex vs 4str and extra ki. That's why there is really no competition.

Also a sun stance monk can skip the oremi necklace and go with shintao set for +2hit and damage while maintaining superior ki generation so they are +4 damage a hit over wind stance monk based on both strength bonus from sun stance and the +2damage from set bonus.

Until they fix the double attack for wind stance only then all monks should be in sun stance currently while dps'ing.

[Junts]

Wind is still better.

The extra ki makes no difference regardless of your light/dark nature: you will have enough ki to use touch of death on cooldown regardless of stance. What you gain from extra ki generation are more earth 3s or air 3s or whatever you use for filler. Any time you lack the ki to touch of death, it is a player performance issue.

It is not hard for 20 extra attacks to counterbalance 10-15 extra ki strikes..or even 40 extra ki strikes.

[Alintalkin]

The damage doesn't come from the sun stance strength bonus, it comes from the extra Ki generation. If you look at the calculations, the extra damage comes from being able to use Touch of Death and 4 ki strikes as soon as cooldowns are over.

In comparison, Wind stance generates enough Ki for Touch of death and 2 Ki strikes continuously.

The non-Touch of Death strikes aren't nearly as big numbers, but have only 3 second cooldowns. Each additional Ki strike that you can keep hitting continuously adds about 10-12 dmg/sec. Thus, 2 extra strikes count for about 22 dmg/sec in Sun stance. To match that in Wind stance, the toon needs to have a base strength of 42 - at this point the extra hits offset the less frequent elemental Ki strikes.

This assumes both players are using Oremi's necklace. Sun stance still generates over 33% more Ki.

Also, the triple hit ToD's have been accounted for in the calculations - that's why Touch of Death and each elemental Ki strike is a higher additional DPS in wind than in fire.

As for handwraps, they are simply to keep calculations relatively simple. Similarly, bursting ToD rings are not included. Without greensteel handwraps or epic handwraps, there isn't really a standard set of handwraps to base calculations on. I suppose Devouts, but really once you get your rings, there are better wraps.

That is forgetting that monks have stunning power. My monk has a 40 stunning DC (Dwarven tactics ftw )and against things that can be stunned (not sure about epics) I gain enough ki for rotating ki strikes easily as I am on crane path and have Oremi's neck even though I am in wind stance. Sun stance just gives +2 two damage and hit vs the double strike of wind stance in that case, as well as the ability to have a constant haste in windstance as you can't always rely on casters and potions are only 30 secs so I personally see it as a waste to do it and pauses combat too much.

I hardly call it an easy win for sun stance. I use wind stance and would still use it even if my monk wasn't gimped enough to be dex/wis based from the days a lot of people thought it was a good idea (I really got to get rid of that problem sometime and make him strength based )

edit: besides a extra few ki strikes doesn't exactly win when you have holy and shocking ToD rings and good wraps against a double strike bonus (and shouldn't win even without those things)

[quickbunnie]

Wind is still better.

The extra ki makes no difference regardless of your light/dark nature: you will have enough ki to use touch of death on cooldown regardless of stance. What you gain from extra ki generation are more earth 3s or air 3s or whatever you use for filler. Any time you lack the ki to touch of death, it is a player performance issue.

It is not hard for 20 extra attacks to counterbalance 10-15 extra ki strikes..or even 40 extra ki strikes.

With respect, this depends on your gear (the DPS part, not keeping up your Ki). With a good set of handwraps and 2 bursting ToD rings (standard end-game), you are correct. Each hit gains a substantial amount of damage with rings, and quickly offsets damage gained from extra ki strikes.

My calculations assume that both Sun and Wind can continuously keep Touch of Death up. Additionally, wind stance can keep earth 4, and wind 4 up continuously, while sun can keep ToDeath, Wind4, Earth4, Fire4, and Water4 all up continuously.
This is probably not a good choice since it would be pretty difficult to build a toon that has 18 base in STR/DEX/CON/WIS. Also, many mobs will be resistant to one or more of fire/ice/lightning damage, again pushing numbers in favor of Wind4 (weaker tier 3 strikes)
To be fair, I also assumed 100% sneak attack damage, and +5 greater bane HWs, which I feel is also unreasonable, and pushes numbers substantially in favor of Wind4.

Given these circumstances, a Monk needs a pre-stance strength of 42 to make wind stance better DPS.

However, with standard end-game gear, build constraints, and mob resistance, I can't imagine a scenario where Sun4 will out-DPS wind4 - but it's closer than I had been led to believe.

[Alintalkin]

With respect, this depends on your gear (the DPS part, not keeping up your Ki). With a good set of handwraps and 2 bursting ToD rings (standard end-game), you are correct. Each hit gains a substantial amount of damage with rings, and quickly offsets damage gained from extra ki strikes.

My calculations assume that both Sun and Wind can continuously keep Touch of Death up. Additionally, wind stance can keep earth 4, and wind 4 up continuously, while sun can keep ToDeath, Wind4, Earth4, Fire4, and Water4 all up continuously.
This is probably not a good choice since it would be pretty difficult to build a toon that has 18 base in STR/DEX/CON/WIS. Also, many mobs will be resistant to one or more of fire/ice/lightning damage, again pushing numbers in favor of Wind4.

Given these circumstances, a Monk needs a pre-stance strength of 42 to make wind stance better DPS.

However, with standard end-game gear, build constraints, and mob resistance, I can't imagine a scenario where Sun4 will outDPS wind4 - but it's closer than I had been led to believe.

Umm a fewthings.
1. being a grandmaster of all four elements is a bad thing as you can't get capstone and you would have to have even more stretched out stats
2. the striking pattern is more usually following the Earth strikes as they are the best (aka some people would do Earth IV, Earth III, FoI, and possibly a storm strike IV).
3. Water IV and fire IV (unless you like fire stance) are generally not used as devils are immune and there are many devils in endgame.
4. You forget stunning in your equation which would make the wind stance have more then enough to keep up the strikes.

[quickbunnie]

Umm a fewthings.
1. being a grandmaster of all four elements is a bad thing as you can't get capstone and you would have to have even more stretched out stats
2. the striking pattern is more usually following the Earth strikes as they are the best (aka some people would do Earth IV, Earth III, FoI, and possibly a storm strike IV).
3. Water IV and fire IV (unless you like fire stance) are generally not used as devils are immune and there are many devils.
4. You forget stunning in your equation which would make the wind stance have more then enough to keep up the strikes.

Yes, I note that grandmaster in all 4 is unreasonable. Although a tier 4 wind/fire/water strike averages ~35 damage, and a tier 4 earth strike averages ~32.5 damage. That's why the earth4 strike isn't used in the Wind4 pattern - because assuming 0 elemental resistance/immunity, the 4th tier fire/water/lightning strikes will do more damage than earth4. Void strikes can also be used, which average at 34.2 dmg per strike, but I didn't know the cooldown timer or Ki cost.

I also note that mobs have resistances/immune. There are also several epic quests where fire and cold damage are doubled - which is never factored either.

Stunning will allow very fast Ki generation with either crane or sun stance. While it this is fine for epic non-boss mobs, at the same time, it doesn't adequately reflect DPS against bosses.

Similar to any calculations exercise, there are several variables that need to be accounted for. I needed to make several assumptions, some good, some bad. I tried to make roughly equivalent bad assumptions so that in my estimation, neither stance had a substantial advantage. But that is a very subjective balancing, and prone to error. The worst assumption was all four grandmaster elemental strikes were available, as this both heavily favors sun stance, and is unreasonable build-wise.

[sephiroth1084]

The real comparison would be Sun IV w/ Shintao set vs. Wind IV w/ Oremi, and Sun IV w/ Shintao vs. Wind IV w/ Shintao.

I just got Earth IV on my monk, so my info may be slightly off, but with Oremi's equipped, I can ToD, Earth 3, Earth 2, FoI, Ex3 and ToD without interruption.

So, the real issue is whether +4 damage, +2 att is greater than +10% doublestrike.In epic it probably is, but elsewhere I'm not so sure.

[Monkey_Archer]

Simple Calc:

With roughly 200 attacks per minute you generate just over 200 ki.... which is just enough to use TOD as soon as its cooldown is up regardless of stance.

With Firestance 4 you generate an additional 250 ki and do +2 damage per hit.

Using all tier 3&4 strikes you average almost 30 damage per strike at 7.5 ki per strike, which is nearly 4 damage per ki. (which can vary depending on enemy vulnerabilities/weaknesses, but 250 ki is only enough to perform 1 strike every 2 seconds anyway, so you can use whichever elements work best)

So...

4 damage per ki * 250 extra ki = 1000 damage per minute extra using firestance.

1000 damage / 200 hits per minute = 5 damage per hit from ki strikes


Totals:

(5 damage from ki strikes + 2 base damage from strength) * 180% main/offhand =
12.6 damage per swing using firestance

Since wind stance gives a flat +10% increase to mainhand damage the calculation is simple:
If your mainhand does over 126 damage on average then windstance will do more dps then firestance.

[quickbunnie]

The real comparison would be Sun IV w/ Shintao set vs. Wind IV w/ Oremi, and Sun IV w/ Shintao vs. Wind IV w/ Shintao.

I just got Earth IV on my monk, so my info may be slightly off, but with Oremi's equipped, I can ToD, Earth 3, Earth 2, FoI, Ex3 and ToD without interruption.

So, the real issue is whether +4 damage, +2 att is greater than +10% doublestrike.In epic it probably is, but elsewhere I'm not so sure.

Obviously, the +4 to hit is the X factor. If there are misses, then Shintao/Sun is better than Oremi/Wind, since even 5-20% increase in to-hit range is better than 5% double-strike (since they have almost identical Ki generation)

If you assume 5% misses, tod rings, power attack, etc.: Wind Ki strikes will be slightly stronger because of the 10% double strike, but the main difference will be in +2 dmg per hit vs 10% double strike.
Damage-wise, Shintao/Sun adds an additional 14.55 dps when hasted
Oremi/Wind is more variable, but using a base strength of 30 and no sneak attacks, the 10% double strike still add 16.6 dps. Adding any strength and sneak attacks only pushes the numbers into Oremi/Wind territory.

Now for Wind4 with shintoa vs Sun4 with shintoa, the Ki generation loss for Wind4 is too great. At 1 Ki per hit, a hasted attack rate will only yield enough ki to keep ToD up - no room for any extra tier4 ki strikes. Shintao adds at most 8 DPS (2*.85+4*0.1)*3.465 attacks/sec*1.10 (doublestrike) = 8
A single Tier4 ki strike hit as soon as cooldown finishes is 10-12 dps 1.8*(2d20 for fire/lightning/cold, 16+0.1*(2d10) fpr earth)/3sec = 10dps, 12dps

Sun/Oremi vs Sun/Shintao is a little bit more tricky, since you can go very deep into your ki strike pattern. Still, my numbers are coming higher with Sun/Oremi with just 2/4 grandmasters. Pattern would be something like ToD (Wind4, Earth4, Wind3, Earth3)x4, ToD. This is a pretty saturated pattern, 17 strikes in 15 seconds. Every other swing will be a Ki strike. With this pattern, I'm getting that 99.43 dps will come from Ki strikes and fire-stance strength bonus. Comparatively, a Shintao/Sun can pattern ToD (Wind4, Earth4)x4, ToD, resulting in 93.6 dps from Shintao, Sun strength, and Ki strikes.

I ran all the numbers on the spreadsheet posted at the top, so you can check for yourself to see if they pan out.

Overall, looks like Wind/Oremi is the clear winner for any strength based monk, assuming no misses, rings, good wraps, etc.

[Taimasan]

All these sun calculations are assuming haste right?

[Hokonoso]

Simple Calc:

With roughly 200 attacks per minute you generate just over 200 ki.... which is just enough to use TOD as soon as its cooldown is up regardless of stance.

With Firestance 4 you generate an additional 250 ki and do +2 damage per hit.

Using all tier 3&4 strikes you average almost 30 damage per strike at 7.5 ki per strike, which is nearly 4 damage per ki. (which can vary depending on enemy vulnerabilities/weaknesses, but 250 ki is only enough to perform 1 strike every 2 seconds anyway, so you can use whichever elements work best)

So...

4 damage per ki * 250 extra ki = 1000 damage per minute extra using firestance.

1000 damage / 200 hits per minute = 5 damage per hit from ki strikes


Totals:

(5 damage from ki strikes + 2 base damage from strength) * 180% main/offhand =
12.6 damage per swing using firestance

Since wind stance gives a flat +10% increase to mainhand damage the calculation is simple:
If your mainhand does over 126 damage on average then windstance will do more dps then firestance.

listen to this guy. even if you crit 100% of time your mainhand WONT average 126 damage. there is no time when wind does more than sun at this current time. there are no epic wraps thus our dmg is coming from our earth strikes (earth 4, earth 3, foi, finisher repeat) and a wind user cant keep that up AND ToD every 15 seconds thus making them do less dps. this doesnt even count the fact that if they have wind 4 their str isnt as high before the stances as someone with sun 4 earth 4, so they are already loses extra dmg per hit just by going dex!

right now there is no comparison, sun 4 > wind 4 for dps at this current time, odds are it will change as before this update it was the other way around, and when it changes all of us sun users will go back to wind, simple as that...

on a side note, wind 4 can generate 5 tods in a row where sun and all the other stances can only do 3, sure it's very random but just food for thought.

[Codect]

wind 4 stopped doing more dps than sun 4 with this last update, it's not even close anymore...

Would you care to explain this? You can say it's because of the ki generation, but if wind stance uses an oremi's necklace as opposed to shintao, ki generation is equal. This means fire stance does 4 damage more per hit (+2 from stance, +2 from shintao set).

Now lets assume everything is WAI and you can't get 5 hits per attack with wind or 3 with sun stance. Let's also assume fire is always hasted by some means.

10% doublestrike in wind = one extra attack per 10 attacks.
4 extra damage per attack in sun stance * 10 attacks = 40 damage.

So surely it all comes down to whether you average more than 40 damage per hit (in which case, wind is still better dps). Or am I missing something here?