Pure Dark Monk: Wind 4 vs Sun 4 stance

[RATRACE931]

Thanks for the explanation.

Don't think that would work too well for me as I tend to burn Ki on the trash mobs as well to take them out faster.
Still, seems a viable approach if you are willing to back off on your DPS a little on the trash mobs in order to use it where it really matters on the Bosses.

I usually stun a trash mob, for example the orange named before ToD part 2 and just auto-attack it till it dies, few seconds, and i usually have max Ki going into the boss fight. Never run out in wind stance that way.

[Hokonoso]

I was agreein with ya ya jack*^%

i know, i just have to give you a hard time lol

[quickbunnie]

I must be missing something. First of all, I thought that ToD was supposed to hit only once, regardless of stance. I thought this is what it was pre-U5. Post-U5, I thought that the 80% off-hand hit counted for ToD as well (which may or may not be intended), so in sun stance, you would get double ToD's 80% of the time. Add in the Wind stance double strike and you will get triple ToD's 8% of the time, 82% double ToD's , and single ToDs the rest of the time.

But people are saying that Sun stance is getting up to 3 ToD's and Wind gets up to 5 ToD's. So what's the mechanism? Is double strike proc'ing on off-hand hits as well? I unfortunately don't have a capped dark monk - I'm leveling a monk up now, and was trying to figure out what stance I should be in. But on my 20 fighter (GTWF, 10% doublestrike), I only get a maximum of 3 hits on any "swing". I had assumed that ToD work in a similar mechanism - it has so far on my monk.

[RATRACE931]

I must be missing something. First of all, I thought that ToD was supposed to hit only once, regardless of stance. I thought this is what it was pre-U5. Post-U5, I thought that the 80% off-hand hit counted for ToD as well (which may or may not be intended), so in sun stance, you would get double ToD's 80% of the time. Add in the Wind stance double strike and you will get triple ToD's 8% of the time, 82% double ToD's , and single ToDs the rest of the time.

But people are saying that Sun stance is getting up to 3 ToD's and Wind gets up to 5 ToD's. So what's the mechanism? Is double strike proc'ing on off-hand hits as well? I unfortunately don't have a capped dark monk - I'm leveling a monk up now, and was trying to figure out what stance I should be in. But on my 20 fighter (GTWF, 10% doublestrike), I only get a maximum of 3 hits on any "swing". I had assumed that ToD work in a similar mechanism - it has so far on my monk.

I honestly don understand the mechanism that allows 4+ ToDs myself, just love reaping the benifits

[Nevthial]

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.

This.

Also, the double/triple proc's will go off no matter what special attack is used when in Wind stance ( stun,trip,ect all produce double/triple strikes making your attack rate soar if you twitch play). Attacking at the fastest possible rate is ALWAYS better unless forced by situation into another stance.

[quickbunnie]

It is accurate for the variables i used...
The only way wind does more dps then fire is if you can generate enough ki to use all of your available high damage strikes.

Oremis + Crane 4 gives a wind stance monk enough ki to spam 2 additional stikes on top of TOD (usually earth 3+4).
Fire stance also allows you to spam 2 additional strikes (which does require the enemey you're fighting to be vulnerable to at least 1 element)


So...
If the target is vulnerable to at least 1 element, my previous calc still holds that wind would need ~126 damage per mainhand to out dps firestance.

In fact, most monks will have at least 6 available high damage ki strikes (all tier III strikes + 2 tier IV strikes + possibly void strikes too) so even with oremis + crane IV + firestance IV you wont generate enough ki to use all of them..

I agree with most of your calculations, but I don't come to the same conclusion when it comes to the strikes. The GM strikes do 12 dmg/sec (earth does 10), but tier 3 strikes only do 6.3 (earth does 7.5). This is a pretty big drop off, and the additional hits and slightly more powerful Ki strikes from Wind will make up for the difference, assuming Wind has Oremi's. Please check my spreadsheet in the OP - it runs numbers in seconds instead of minutes, but it works through the same basic numbers.
Wind4 + oremis = Touch of Death and 2 Ki strikes (both Tier 4 strikes, Elec and Earth)
Sun4 + oremis = Touch of Death and 4 Ki strikes (2 Tier 4, 2 tier 3)

10% doublestrike adds ~20-26.4 DPS (assuming a bunch of stuff: 30 STR, ToD rings, good handwraps, PA, etc). 20 = 100% fort, 26.4= 100% sneak attacks
Doublestrike addition to Ki strikes yields about 5-8 dps (Roughly 10% of ToD (57), Earth4 (10), Wind4 (12))
Wind4 bonus = 25-34.5 dps (depending on sneak attacks)

Sun4 stance adds ~7.3 dps from additional strength and the additional Earth3 (7.5) and Wind3 (6.3) strikes:
Sun4 bonus = 21.1 dps

Now if Sun4 was using additional Tier 4 strikes - assuming mobs are vulnerable and the strikes are available, the sun stance dps would increase to 31.3. 3/4 GM strikes and Void4 would be 30. So now factors like sneak attacks, strength, other situational factors make a difference. But, as I note in the OP and later posts, 4/4 GM's is a bad assumption, as well as a poor build idea. I still haven't been able to confirm the void strike Ki cost/cooldown unfortunately, perhaps someone can help me out there?

[Darkrok]

Sorry, my misreading of your intent. When you said 'listen to this guy....' you actually meant it, whereas I read it as 'Listen to this guy (he's taking nonsense) ....'.

And yes, I've tried sun 4 and wind 4. As a human dark monk I actually have the AP to have both at once, so I don't need to reset my enhancements to test the difference. It's very easy to see which works better when you can just flip between stances while killing stuff.

Wind 4 is seriously lagging behind on the important stuff (bosses) because you can't get the ki from Crane autocrits.

I've got a human light monk and unless I switch to Oremi's and give up the +2/+2 set bonus I can't keep up my strike rotation on bosses. It's either wind IV/oremi's or fire IV/shintao for stationary boss battles where I can do EarthIV, EarthIII, FoI, Finisher, LightningIV.

[Mobeius]

Has anyone looked at the possbility of the number of attacks allowing for 5 TOD's and maybe that since monks are the only class in game that treats each fist equally? I know part has to do with GTWF and Windstance... Must to the chagrin of ToD monks I want to ask a dev is that what they intended? I am not going to but you begin to wonder.

[Monkey_Archer]

I agree with most of your calculations, but I don't come to the same conclusion when it comes to the strikes. The GM strikes do 12 dmg/sec (earth does 10), but tier 3 strikes only do 6.3 (earth does 7.5). This is a pretty big drop off, and the additional hits and slightly more powerful Ki strikes from Wind will make up for the difference, assuming Wind has Oremi's. Please check my spreadsheet in the OP - it runs numbers in seconds instead of minutes, but it works through the same basic numbers.
Wind4 + oremis = Touch of Death and 2 Ki strikes (both Tier 4 strikes, Elec and Earth)
Sun4 + oremis = Touch of Death and 4 Ki strikes (2 Tier 4, 2 tier 3)

10% doublestrike adds ~20-26.4 DPS (assuming a bunch of stuff: 30 STR, ToD rings, good handwraps, PA, etc). 20 = 100% fort, 26.4= 100% sneak attacks
Doublestrike addition to Ki strikes yields about 5-8 dps (Roughly 10% of ToD (57), Earth4 (10), Wind4 (12))
Wind4 bonus = 25-34.5 dps (depending on sneak attacks)

Sun4 stance adds ~7.3 dps from additional strength and the additional Earth3 (7.5) and Wind3 (6.3) strikes:
Sun4 bonus = 21.1 dps

Now if Sun4 was using additional Tier 4 strikes - assuming mobs are vulnerable and the strikes are available, the sun stance dps would increase to 31.3. 3/4 GM strikes and Void4 would be 30. So now factors like sneak attacks, strength, other situational factors make a difference. But, as I note in the OP and later posts, 4/4 GM's is a bad assumption, as well as a poor build idea. I still haven't been able to confirm the void strike Ki cost/cooldown unfortunately, perhaps someone can help me out there?

Your own numbers in the OP support my conclusion (or my numbers support your conclusion ) that you need about 126 average damage for wind to pass sun.

Your average damage:
11 Base
9 Wraps
16 Strength
5 PA
3.5 Oremis
18.5 Sneak attack
~20 TOD (2000 damage per minute / 100 mainhand attacks)
10.5 Greater bane
10.5 TOD rings
----
104 non crit damage

Now factor in crits, ki strikes and double strikes and you've got pretty close to 126 average damage.

As for strike damage, Grand master stances require 64 AP spent, so you have 16 AP... Which is just enough to purchae 2 grandmaster stances (8 AP), the capstone (2 AP), a tier 3 Pre (likely 2 AP) and have 4 AP left over for either void 4 or a 3rd grandmaster stance. So with oremis, the wind monk can use 2 tier IV strikes, while the fire monk has to use 3 tier IV and 1 tier III (which is why i averaged the damage for tier 3&4 strikes in my calc)