Skill Tweaks - Divine Spirit (Monk), and Throw Dirt (Ranger)

Divine Spirit: For 1-9 seconds, Monk spells cost you 5 less energy to cast (min. cost 1 energy).

But the recharge is 60 seconds, and the max duration you can get with a 16 in Divine Favor is only 12 seconds. I understand making the recharge longer than the duration could ever be, because if a Monk kept re-casting it, or at least being able to minimize the time of the downtime of the spell, it could be heinously abused. But I think 60 seconds is a bit extreme, isn't it?

Why not lower it to 20 or 25 seconds? At least that way the max duration is a respectable fraction of the recharge, rather than a ridiculous 1/10.

Maybe even just narrow the gap a bit...scale the duration to a max of 15 seconds and give the skill a recharge of 25 or 30.

Throw Dirt: Target touched foe and adjacent foes become Blinded for 16 seconds (that's with Expertise at 16).

16 second duration with a 45-second recharge. I'm not getting why 45 seconds is necessary...why 30 seconds wouldn't be better. The skill doesn't become abuseable or spammable with the 30-second recharge, so...why not

For only 16 seconds of close-quarters Blind, we have to wait 45 seconds to use it again? It's such a fantastic melee defense for a Ranger, considering we don't have exceedingly powerful armor against melee attacks, so evasion tactics are what I know I rely on most of the time, whether that be lowering the accuracy of the attacker, using various stances, or just using Crippling Shot and running.

Would anyone object to having a 30-second recharge for Throw Dirt?

Something is going horribly wrong here. I had all of that formatted into nice, neat paragraphs.

Peculiar. Mozilla was being a bastard.

The latest update changed divine spirit a bit. At 15 in divine favor, divine spirit lasts 14 seconds, at 16 DF 15 seconds. If you use +20% enchant wrapping, it will last about 18 seconds. Not bad imo. And you can use Glyph of Renewal {E} to have DS recharged immediately. Glyph recharges in 15 seconds. So.. Glyph + DS = DS always on without distraction etcetc.

Blessed aura will also boost enchants by around 37% i think. Combined with the 20% longer enchants...it's amazing to use a divine spirit monk.
26.55 second divine spirit, oh yes baby. That is plenty of time for the monks energy to build back up while casting orison/word at 1 energy each...even on a 3 regen.

Haven't really thought about throw dirt, although i do like annoying those warriors as they hack remorselessly at my armour. So why not? lol

The reason Throw Dirt has such a long recharge is because it makes warriors useless. Don't buff it. If you play as a warrior in the desert vs enchanted bows you'll know what I mean. 16 seconds of doing nothing isn't my idea of fun.

Bring Oath Shot, and the recharge time becomes irrelevant.

rangers have the second highest armor in the game. rangers can snare with barbed trap, pin down, and crippling shot. rangers can use any number of 75% evade stances. rangers can use dust trap as well.

Throw dirt is an AoE blind, which means an AoE shutdown against all melee. If you're worried that restore/mend/martyr are going to take it down too fast for you to react, then you should probably keep it just for pve, where it makes farming as a ranger possible.

Regarding Divine Spirit, if you need to combine at least two other Monk spells, plus an Elementalist Elite Glyph (it is an Ele Elite, right?) just to make Divine Spirit useable...isn't that indicative that the skill needs a buff? You're devoting half a skillbar to make one spell effective. It doesn't make any sense. lol.

Not to sound indignant, but so far I've not seen any counter-arguments here that really explain why Divine Spirit doesn't need to get changed. I only see "You can use this spell, that spell, and that Glyph and then Divine Spirit rocks."

The fact that you need 3 other skills (including an Elite Glyph, too) to actually use Divine Spirit is proof enough that D.S. needs a boost, I think.


Regarding Throw Dirt, I've played Warrior in the desert vs. Enchanted Bows, and being Blinded sucks, yeah, but things like Plague Touch from Nec secondary (or Infuse Condition with minionmaster), Antidote Sig from Ranger, any of the condition removals in Monk...are terrific counters to Blind status--Plague Touch in particular, because it's fast, it's cheap (even for a War), and it recharges in a second or less.

Ranger uses Throw Dirt. I've not seen or talked with any Rangers who have their Expertise at max, so I'm wondering what the max duration for most Throw Dirts would be. 12 seconds? 13 seconds? A Ranger uses Throw Dirt for a duration of 13 seconds.

Even if the status gets removed right before that duration is expired, you're still waiting another 30-35 seconds to be able to use it again.

And worst case scenario, the opposition removes the Blind immediately. That's 40 seconds now you're going to be waiting.

I guess Oath Shot would work, but another Elite skill needing to be used so a long recharge doesn't matter? I don't know if I'd necessarily say Throw Dirt is fine because of that.

Again, it goes back to what skills and how many other skills are needed to make another one viable, and while Oath Shot certainly helps, I'd rather not need an Elite skill (while it may be effective for the entire skillbar) so I can use Throw Dirt and be able to re-apply it without having to wait a little under a minute.

Why not even a 35-second recharge? It'd still be designed so that there's a downtime of a solid 15 to 20 seconds--and even a bit more if the opposition is speedy with condition removal.

Divine spirit is already overpowered IMO. I use it in any monk build that doesn't require another elite (that's a lot, but neverthless).

Throw dirt's fine too, and again if you want it to be spammable, it requires an elite. That's fair.

the fact is that you don't need to devote half your skillbar to making divine spirit work

just ds plus the glyph of renewal is a nigh-constant divine spirit, making all of your skills ridiculously cheap

You want a skill that gives you 18 seconds of almost free 5 energy spells, with a 1/4sec cast time, 10 energy cost and recharge of 20 seconds, and not even elite?

You could spam orison, dwaynas, word, RoF, guardian etc. indefinately.

This would make it the best and severely overpowered skill in the game by a long a way.

But the fact is that the skill is completely useless when you don't combine it with anything. 15 second duration with a 60-second recharge. It's not even worth having at those stats, regardless of the skill's qualities. The only ways it becomes viable are if you enhance the duration with Monk skills and items, or if you tap into an Ele secondary for an Elite Glyph.

But if you're playing a primary Monk specced into Healing and/or Prot...there are other Elites in Healing and Prot that would be much more useful than an Elite from your secondary class that's only going to be affecting one skill in your skill bar.

My point is that in order for a skill to be viable, we shouldn't need to use other skills to buff it up. Other skills should augment the effectiveness, not produce the effectiveness. What's happening currently with Divine Spirit and Throw Dirt is the latter.

Lowering a recharge from 60 seconds or 45 seconds to 30 seconds is not making a skill spammable, so I don't see how you'd imply I want spammable Throw Dirt or Divine Spirit.

Spammable is the previous state of PE or Divine Boon. And even within the context of these two skills (Divine Spirit and Throw Dirt), what I'm suggesting will not make them spammable.

What I'm suggesting will make them viable as stand-alone skills, yet still allow them to benefit from outside enhancements to durations and so forth.

Siren did you even read the posts? Divine spirit has been changed to a 30 second recharge.. with a 20% enchant staff you get 18 secs i think someone said. That and glyph of renewal equals it being up all the time. Throw dirt does need a buff though.

entropy, here's a screenshot of the skill. I just took this one minute ago.



Notice the "60" by the recharge?

Divine Spirit at 45 seconds wouldn't hurt anyone seeing as its still a long way off from getting recharged while it lasts.