Is OWE "mandatory" in an absolute sense or is it just because most of the other monk passives aren't that good and it makes gearing up a monk cheaper? Like I don't see why a monk couldn't in theory skip OWE and just load up on AR like barbs and WDs(?) have to do -- if the other passives were better and felt like viable alternatives.
In the current game, it's mandatory in an absolute sense. You may be able to fix it with some of what you listed, but as of right now, and I guess in 1.0.4, it's mandatory in an absolute sense.
e: I guess I should clarify. By mandatory in an absolute sense, I mean that after 150 hours of progression Monk playing, I can't imagine a viable build without it. Perhaps there is one somewhere, but without it being a serious gimmick, I would question it.
I think the only way it would be possible to nerf OWE without straight fucking monks would be to give them a percent of the highest resists to all other resists. Stacking resists would still be really nice, but it wouldn't be something you simply had to lean on, period. Otherwise it's a rug you just can't yank out from under the class as a whole without gimping the gear of a massive majority of them. They're probably better off trying to buff the other passives to the point where they can tempt people away from OWE... but man, good luck doing that without seriously throwing things out of whack.
They could also add a debuff to OWE. Wizard has the Glass Cannon passive that increases damage at the expense of resists. OWE could keep the same resists benefit but have a "reduces damage by 10%" effect on it. Or how about keep resists but reduce armor by 15% or something. There are a lot of ways to handle this.
True, there are packs you absolutely destroy with the build, but it's far from untouchable. Anyway thinking about it more they said they wanted to keep the build viable but that's difficult to envision with such a drastic nerf to the proc rate. Half the CD reduction, half the AP generation, half the LOH? That's going to be rough in A3.
Yep. At least the 1% can shrug it off. That's cool. Don't worry though, you get new weapons that can charm elites and champions for half a second and summon angel/demon pets that die from a stiff breeze. That totally makes up for it.
I'm pretty sure the worst that will happen to CM is we use the new buffed meteor
so I'm not too worried
Or we just have to be a bit more cautious and don't faceroll A2 with 350k worth of gear anymore, and have to gear up our crit rate to make up for the lower proc rate. People were making windup work with crit in the 20s. Push it into the 30s and 40s and the build is still perfectly viable in its current state, especially if you're using Deep Freeze on Frost Nova.
OWE might be a mandatory defensive passive, but it's far from mandatory overall. Monks just have shit all in terms of offensive passives (woo, 8% damage for 3 seconds per skill generator I use) so we leave it in there.
OWE helps a little with gearing early on but it's easy to start phasing it out once your gear gets better. You've got 12 slots for a potential max of 940 all resist - how many people have that even with OWE? I beat Inferno with around 700, and I've got 860 now.
I also disagree with the sentiment that monks are the most complete class. We've got the least interesting options for builds, with the only real deviation being one focused around dodge; everything else is just "push this button for numbers".
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GnomeTankWhat the what?Portland, OregonRegistered Userregular
edited August 2012
I disagree about the builds. We've had discussions on this forum, when the whole "four monk" thing was going on, about how diverse monk builds were. We have a litany of skill choices to make in Inferno. While some are less optimal than others, we have a lot of viable options. Even SSS, which is getting a massive buff, has been heavily used by some of the monks here.
SSS isn't a main skill, is it? I mean it has a considerable cooldown. Personally, I'd like to be able to roll a ranged monk that involves more than Pillar of the Ancients.
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darklite_xI'm not an r-tard...Registered Userregular
All the bitching and moaning on bnet forums has driven blizzard into this corner where they're scared shitless to nerf any class. It was crystal clear to anyone looking at the skill calculator even before the game was released that skills like Revenge, Battle Rage and OWE are overpowered as fuck, but I guess blizz will try to build up some good will before they dare to nerf these crybabies' little skills.
This is a straight up goose statement. Nerfing shouldn't be the de facto fix to a problem. They SHOULD make other skills desirable instead of nerfing useful skills to the point that every skill is shit instead of just most skills.
Steam ID: darklite_x Xbox Gamertag: Darklite 37 PSN:Rage_Kage_37 Battle.Net:darklite#2197
All the bitching and moaning on bnet forums has driven blizzard into this corner where they're scared shitless to nerf any class. It was crystal clear to anyone looking at the skill calculator even before the game was released that skills like Revenge, Battle Rage and OWE are overpowered as fuck, but I guess blizz will try to build up some good will before they dare to nerf these crybabies' little skills.
This is a straight up goose statement. Nerfing shouldn't be the de facto fix to a problem. They SHOULD make other skills desirable instead of nerfing useful skills to the point that every skill is shit instead of just most skills.
The part I liked in the Mage preview is the section talking about how they want different versions of hydra to be the best in different situations.
Situational buffing is a neat idea.
Now they just need to make a game that has genuinely unique situations, rather than aoe pack, aoe pack, aoe pack, aoe pack.
I disagree about the builds. We've had discussions on this forum, when the whole "four monk" thing was going on, about how diverse monk builds were. We have a litany of skill choices to make in Inferno. While some are less optimal than others, we have a lot of viable options. Even SSS, which is getting a massive buff, has been heavily used by some of the monks here.
Four monks (or three monks and a barb) was mainly the awesomeness of having the different mantras stacked (and shout). I don't believe that there are many monk abilities that change the way you play save Deadly Reach (pseudo-kiting) and Cyclone Strike (evasion build). Everything else is just a matter of "how you deal with Inferno hitting you too hard" (crippling wave, tempest rush etc), and once you're done progressing and you've got Act 3 on farm there's not a whole lot to keep it interesting. Robots like _J_ are fine just holding down left click and picking up the shinies, but I got bored with it.
E: For the rest of the people saying "That's videogames" you've missed my point, I think. You can play Wizard a bunch of ways (or you could, depends on how windup turns out) and it has Archon to mix shit up. Barb has a bunch of options and stuff like "hit this many enemies with sprint to reduce cooldowns" or whatever. Demon Hunter has interesting gameplay by merit of being ranged and having to do the whole stutterstep/keepaway thing. Monk, once you're geared, is just sit there and hold down left click. It's not even visually exciting!
EE: It's why I've even stopped complaining about Arcane and Molten, because they at least force me to engage my brain a little (will never stop complaining about Vortex/Jailer/Nightmare though, that unavoidable control removing bullshit can eat a dick forever.)
So I played a bunch right at release. Got a DH to 60 (he got nerfed) so I got a Barb to 60 (running the absurdly powerful whirlwind tornado thing). I was getting bored of constantly playing solo so I sold all the gear I could (~$120) and got out. However, I'm really sad that D3 didn't instill the same addiction in me as D2 did, and I keep seeing interesting new patches. Is the game at a point yet where I would find it exciting to play? Is coop the dominant form of play yet? Is item seeking more... interesting than it was before?
I disagree about the builds. We've had discussions on this forum, when the whole "four monk" thing was going on, about how diverse monk builds were. We have a litany of skill choices to make in Inferno. While some are less optimal than others, we have a lot of viable options. Even SSS, which is getting a massive buff, has been heavily used by some of the monks here.
Four monks (or three monks and a barb) was mainly the awesomeness of having the different mantras stacked (and shout). I don't believe that there are many monk abilities that change the way you play save Deadly Reach (pseudo-kiting) and Cyclone Strike (evasion build). Everything else is just a matter of "how you deal with Inferno hitting you too hard" (crippling wave, tempest rush etc), and once you're done progressing and you've got Act 3 on farm there's not a whole lot to keep it interesting. Robots like _J_ are fine just holding down left click and picking up the shinies, but I got bored with it.
Perhaps Diablo is not for you.
Keeping in mind that this is an action rpg dungeon crawler, what do you want the game to be?
It worked the way it was designed to work. It was supposed to be uber powerful but because Inferno mobs hit so stupidly hard on release, kiting/never get hit builds were the strongest and people were fucking pissed off at the demon hunters. Blizzard over-reacted and nerfed the shit out of them, while cutting mob damage in half and adding reflect damage and unavoidable damage as much as possible.
Really? It was supposed to hit mobs multiple times?
That is news to me.
It also had higher crit damage than everything else. It's one of those silly things that was never listed anywhere. When you look at the skill description, it does the same as BL but NT crits always hit harder than BL's.
I disagree about the builds. We've had discussions on this forum, when the whole "four monk" thing was going on, about how diverse monk builds were. We have a litany of skill choices to make in Inferno. While some are less optimal than others, we have a lot of viable options. Even SSS, which is getting a massive buff, has been heavily used by some of the monks here.
Four monks (or three monks and a barb) was mainly the awesomeness of having the different mantras stacked (and shout). I don't believe that there are many monk abilities that change the way you play save Deadly Reach (pseudo-kiting) and Cyclone Strike (evasion build). Everything else is just a matter of "how you deal with Inferno hitting you too hard" (crippling wave, tempest rush etc), and once you're done progressing and you've got Act 3 on farm there's not a whole lot to keep it interesting. Robots like _J_ are fine just holding down left click and picking up the shinies, but I got bored with it.
Perhaps Diablo is not for you.
Keeping in mind that this is an action rpg dungeon crawler, what do you want the game to be?
So I played a bunch right at release. Got a DH to 60 (he got nerfed) so I got a Barb to 60 (running the absurdly powerful whirlwind tornado thing). I was getting bored of constantly playing solo so I sold all the gear I could (~$120) and got out. However, I'm really sad that D3 didn't instill the same addiction in me as D2 did, and I keep seeing interesting new patches. Is the game at a point yet where I would find it exciting to play? Is coop the dominant form of play yet? Is item seeking more... interesting than it was before?
Wait until the patch and try it? How are we supposed to know if you're going to find it exciting to play or not?
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Big Red Tiebeautiful clydesdale style feettoo hot to trotRegistered Userregular
I disagree about the builds. We've had discussions on this forum, when the whole "four monk" thing was going on, about how diverse monk builds were. We have a litany of skill choices to make in Inferno. While some are less optimal than others, we have a lot of viable options. Even SSS, which is getting a massive buff, has been heavily used by some of the monks here.
Four monks (or three monks and a barb) was mainly the awesomeness of having the different mantras stacked (and shout). I don't believe that there are many monk abilities that change the way you play save Deadly Reach (pseudo-kiting) and Cyclone Strike (evasion build). Everything else is just a matter of "how you deal with Inferno hitting you too hard" (crippling wave, tempest rush etc), and once you're done progressing and you've got Act 3 on farm there's not a whole lot to keep it interesting. Robots like _J_ are fine just holding down left click and picking up the shinies, but I got bored with it.
E: For the rest of the people saying "That's videogames" you've missed my point, I think. You can play Wizard a bunch of ways (or you could, depends on how windup turns out) and it has Archon to mix shit up. Barb has a bunch of options and stuff like "hit this many enemies with sprint to reduce cooldowns" or whatever. Demon Hunter has interesting gameplay by merit of being ranged and having to do the whole stutterstep/keepaway thing. Monk, once you're geared, is just sit there and hold down left click. It's not even visually exciting!
EE: It's why I've even stopped complaining about Arcane and Molten, because they at least force me to engage my brain a little (will never stop complaining about Vortex/Jailer/Nightmare though, that unavoidable control removing bullshit can eat a dick forever.)
actually my relatively unpopular DH build is sit in one place holding shift left click and hitting 1
i do agree monks need more interesting build variety, but people told me they had it last time i said that!
All the bitching and moaning on bnet forums has driven blizzard into this corner where they're scared shitless to nerf any class. It was crystal clear to anyone looking at the skill calculator even before the game was released that skills like Revenge, Battle Rage and OWE are overpowered as fuck, but I guess blizz will try to build up some good will before they dare to nerf these crybabies' little skills.
This is a straight up goose statement. Nerfing shouldn't be the de facto fix to a problem. They SHOULD make other skills desirable instead of nerfing useful skills to the point that every skill is shit instead of just most skills.
The part I liked in the Mage preview is the section talking about how they want different versions of hydra to be the best in different situations.
Situational buffing is a neat idea.
Now they just need to make a game that has genuinely unique situations, rather than aoe pack, aoe pack, aoe pack, aoe pack.
And give me the ability to change my skills to meet these situations without dumping my NV stack.
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GnomeTankWhat the what?Portland, OregonRegistered Userregular
They do have it. We've had pages long discussions about on this forum, in the last couple of months. The core of Shen's problem seems to be that monks click things to do damage, and that they are based heavily around holding left click/spamming left click...which they are, that's how the class is designed. You tend to do a lot of your damage with your spirit builder, with bursts of various effects coming from taps of spirit spenders. That's the class design.
Shen does't like the class design, which is fine...but that doesn't mean their aren't many viable builds.
I disagree about the builds. We've had discussions on this forum, when the whole "four monk" thing was going on, about how diverse monk builds were. We have a litany of skill choices to make in Inferno. While some are less optimal than others, we have a lot of viable options. Even SSS, which is getting a massive buff, has been heavily used by some of the monks here.
Four monks (or three monks and a barb) was mainly the awesomeness of having the different mantras stacked (and shout). I don't believe that there are many monk abilities that change the way you play save Deadly Reach (pseudo-kiting) and Cyclone Strike (evasion build). Everything else is just a matter of "how you deal with Inferno hitting you too hard" (crippling wave, tempest rush etc), and once you're done progressing and you've got Act 3 on farm there's not a whole lot to keep it interesting. Robots like _J_ are fine just holding down left click and picking up the shinies, but I got bored with it.
Perhaps Diablo is not for you.
Keeping in mind that this is an action rpg dungeon crawler, what do you want the game to be?
Character building. There's just not a whole lot of replayability in D3.
I thought that being able to change your build on the fly was almost too flexible. So I felt like that took away from some of the replayability, and the lower level cap [did] also.
It became more efficient to grind for gold than it did to find items. The point of the game is to find items; if you make the point of the game to grind for gold instead, it really loses a lot of what the game is about.
All the bitching and moaning on bnet forums has driven blizzard into this corner where they're scared shitless to nerf any class. It was crystal clear to anyone looking at the skill calculator even before the game was released that skills like Revenge, Battle Rage and OWE are overpowered as fuck, but I guess blizz will try to build up some good will before they dare to nerf these crybabies' little skills.
This is a straight up goose statement. Nerfing shouldn't be the de facto fix to a problem. They SHOULD make other skills desirable instead of nerfing useful skills to the point that every skill is shit instead of just most skills.
The part I liked in the Mage preview is the section talking about how they want different versions of hydra to be the best in different situations.
Situational buffing is a neat idea.
Now they just need to make a game that has genuinely unique situations, rather than aoe pack, aoe pack, aoe pack, aoe pack.
And give me the ability to change my skills to meet these situations without dumping my NV stack.
Indeed.
If skills are situational, and players can change their skills, then let players change their skills to match the situation without being punished.
Such bad design.
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GnomeTankWhat the what?Portland, OregonRegistered Userregular
more specifically, viable builds that aren't what he described
such as how i have a tank DH build when the main DH build is kiting with high dps
Not really. At it's core, monk is very much spirit build, spirit build, spirit build, spirit build, dump, repeat. It's how you build and dump that changes.
e: Actually, let me change that a little. There are monk builds (I use one), that don't have the massive dump at the end. Since I use Sweeping Winds and Mystic Ally, much of my spirit is spent in bursts on defensive abilities, as my regular spirit dump slots are taken up by front loaded skills that have long up times. LPSS is not a stat I stack.
It hasn't been discussed much but what are people's thoughts on the addition of filters for the AH? While incredibly nice (speaking as a monk) to be able to add both my AR and my arcane resistance to a search. Having 6 slots to filter on may lead to the very cookie cutter rares being the only things sought after and all others tossed aside.
As it is there are really only so many affixes that an individual item slot can have that set it apart. Then again it could just make it easier to sell your items at a fair market price instead of throwing it out there and letting people in the know flip it.
Expigator on
"Look out here comes"..."Susan"..."Suuuuuuuuuuuuusan".
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Big Red Tiebeautiful clydesdale style feettoo hot to trotRegistered Userregular
All the bitching and moaning on bnet forums has driven blizzard into this corner where they're scared shitless to nerf any class. It was crystal clear to anyone looking at the skill calculator even before the game was released that skills like Revenge, Battle Rage and OWE are overpowered as fuck, but I guess blizz will try to build up some good will before they dare to nerf these crybabies' little skills.
This is a straight up goose statement. Nerfing shouldn't be the de facto fix to a problem. They SHOULD make other skills desirable instead of nerfing useful skills to the point that every skill is shit instead of just most skills.
The part I liked in the Mage preview is the section talking about how they want different versions of hydra to be the best in different situations.
Situational buffing is a neat idea.
Now they just need to make a game that has genuinely unique situations, rather than aoe pack, aoe pack, aoe pack, aoe pack.
And give me the ability to change my skills to meet these situations without dumping my NV stack.
Indeed.
If skills are situational, and players can change their skills, then let players change their skills to match the situation without being punished.
Such bad design.
it's not bad design, because it's more fun to have to make actual good specs and spend your time playing the game
See my edit. There actually are non dumpy monk builds, I use one myself. So there are ways to alter the monk play style, but yes, it's pretty formulaic. Doesn't mean there isn't build diversity.
OWE might be a mandatory defensive passive, but it's far from mandatory overall. Monks just have shit all in terms of offensive passives (woo, 8% damage for 3 seconds per skill generator I use) so we leave it in there.
OWE helps a little with gearing early on but it's easy to start phasing it out once your gear gets better. You've got 12 slots for a potential max of 940 all resist - how many people have that even with OWE? I beat Inferno with around 700, and I've got 860 now.
I also disagree with the sentiment that monks are the most complete class. We've got the least interesting options for builds, with the only real deviation being one focused around dodge; everything else is just "push this button for numbers".
Seize may actually be more essential than OWE, given the abundance of resists and lack of armor everywhere else. I didn't check any numbers, but I always figured Seize was usually the more important passive given the vast majority of monks have higher resist DR than armor DR.
Like I said in the other thread, if something really is that important you could just give it to people, maybe in a reduced form, so they don't have to spend a skill slot on it.
The other issue, as you mentioned, is we just don't have offensive passives. There's 2 passives that directly affect damage, and the rest go into spirit generation (Wave of Light still doesn't seem appealing, btw.) Combination Strike is actually ok (it doesn't disappear as long as you keep attacking - you don't need to refresh the 2nd skill) but the fact that it requires two spirit generators immediately makes it difficult to incorporate a spirit finisher into your build.
It hasn'e been discussed much but what are people's thoughts on the addition of filters for the AH? While incredibly nice (speaking as a monk) to be able to add both my AR and my arcane resistance to a search. Having 6 slots to filter on may lead to the very cookie cutter rares being the only things sought after and all others tossed aside.
As it is there are really only so many affixes that an individual item slot can have that set it apart. Then again it could just make it easier to sell your items at a fair market price instead of throwing it out there and letting people in the know flip it.
I'd like them to keep AH search as it is.
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Big Red Tiebeautiful clydesdale style feettoo hot to trotRegistered Userregular
See my edit. There actually are non dumpy monk builds, I use one myself. So there are ways to alter the monk play style, but yes, it's pretty formulaic. Doesn't mean there isn't build diversity.
right, but your build still consists of standing still left clicking, right?
it's not bad design, because it's more fun to have to make actual good specs and spend your time playing the game
maybe micromanaging specs is fun for a robot, but
That's a bit drastic? I wouldn't mind the ability to just be able to say "Well, I'm moving from this big open zone to a tight cave/hallway area... Looks like it's time to swap from lightning hydra to mammoth hydra for a while."
That's hardly micromanagement, to just swap one rune/passive or some such when you know you're going to be changing zone types for a good long time. Hell, the beginning of act 3's ramparts, followed by the giant open battlefield is a prime example. You spend a long long time in one style of area, followed by a long long time in another style.
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In the current game, it's mandatory in an absolute sense. You may be able to fix it with some of what you listed, but as of right now, and I guess in 1.0.4, it's mandatory in an absolute sense.
e: I guess I should clarify. By mandatory in an absolute sense, I mean that after 150 hours of progression Monk playing, I can't imagine a viable build without it. Perhaps there is one somewhere, but without it being a serious gimmick, I would question it.
so I'm not too worried
Yep. At least the 1% can shrug it off. That's cool. Don't worry though, you get new weapons that can charm elites and champions for half a second and summon angel/demon pets that die from a stiff breeze. That totally makes up for it.
They could turn One With Everything into something like that.
Or we just have to be a bit more cautious and don't faceroll A2 with 350k worth of gear anymore, and have to gear up our crit rate to make up for the lower proc rate. People were making windup work with crit in the 20s. Push it into the 30s and 40s and the build is still perfectly viable in its current state, especially if you're using Deep Freeze on Frost Nova.
OWE helps a little with gearing early on but it's easy to start phasing it out once your gear gets better. You've got 12 slots for a potential max of 940 all resist - how many people have that even with OWE? I beat Inferno with around 700, and I've got 860 now.
I also disagree with the sentiment that monks are the most complete class. We've got the least interesting options for builds, with the only real deviation being one focused around dodge; everything else is just "push this button for numbers".
...that's Diablo.
you press the buttons to hit them with your numbers to get the items to make your numbers bigger so you can hit them with bigger numbers
Nice reduction!
This is a straight up goose statement. Nerfing shouldn't be the de facto fix to a problem. They SHOULD make other skills desirable instead of nerfing useful skills to the point that every skill is shit instead of just most skills.
The part I liked in the Mage preview is the section talking about how they want different versions of hydra to be the best in different situations.
Situational buffing is a neat idea.
Now they just need to make a game that has genuinely unique situations, rather than aoe pack, aoe pack, aoe pack, aoe pack.
Four monks (or three monks and a barb) was mainly the awesomeness of having the different mantras stacked (and shout). I don't believe that there are many monk abilities that change the way you play save Deadly Reach (pseudo-kiting) and Cyclone Strike (evasion build). Everything else is just a matter of "how you deal with Inferno hitting you too hard" (crippling wave, tempest rush etc), and once you're done progressing and you've got Act 3 on farm there's not a whole lot to keep it interesting. Robots like _J_ are fine just holding down left click and picking up the shinies, but I got bored with it.
E: For the rest of the people saying "That's videogames" you've missed my point, I think. You can play Wizard a bunch of ways (or you could, depends on how windup turns out) and it has Archon to mix shit up. Barb has a bunch of options and stuff like "hit this many enemies with sprint to reduce cooldowns" or whatever. Demon Hunter has interesting gameplay by merit of being ranged and having to do the whole stutterstep/keepaway thing. Monk, once you're geared, is just sit there and hold down left click. It's not even visually exciting!
EE: It's why I've even stopped complaining about Arcane and Molten, because they at least force me to engage my brain a little (will never stop complaining about Vortex/Jailer/Nightmare though, that unavoidable control removing bullshit can eat a dick forever.)
Perhaps Diablo is not for you.
Keeping in mind that this is an action rpg dungeon crawler, what do you want the game to be?
See my edits.
Wait until the patch and try it? How are we supposed to know if you're going to find it exciting to play or not?
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LoL: FutureBlues
actually my relatively unpopular DH build is sit in one place holding shift left click and hitting 1
i do agree monks need more interesting build variety, but people told me they had it last time i said that!
And give me the ability to change my skills to meet these situations without dumping my NV stack.
Shen does't like the class design, which is fine...but that doesn't mean their aren't many viable builds.
Character building. There's just not a whole lot of replayability in D3.
One of the Diablo and Diablo 2 lead designers, David Brevik, said he "wouldn't have made the same choices."
such as how i have a tank DH build when the main DH build is kiting with high dps
Indeed.
If skills are situational, and players can change their skills, then let players change their skills to match the situation without being punished.
Such bad design.
Not really. At it's core, monk is very much spirit build, spirit build, spirit build, spirit build, dump, repeat. It's how you build and dump that changes.
e: Actually, let me change that a little. There are monk builds (I use one), that don't have the massive dump at the end. Since I use Sweeping Winds and Mystic Ally, much of my spirit is spent in bursts on defensive abilities, as my regular spirit dump slots are taken up by front loaded skills that have long up times. LPSS is not a stat I stack.
As it is there are really only so many affixes that an individual item slot can have that set it apart. Then again it could just make it easier to sell your items at a fair market price instead of throwing it out there and letting people in the know flip it.
"Woah, I just scared myself!"
they should buff hand of ytar for reals
it's not bad design, because it's more fun to have to make actual good specs and spend your time playing the game
maybe micromanaging specs is fun for a robot, but
See my edit. There actually are non dumpy monk builds, I use one myself. So there are ways to alter the monk play style, but yes, it's pretty formulaic. Doesn't mean there isn't build diversity.
Like I said in the other thread, if something really is that important you could just give it to people, maybe in a reduced form, so they don't have to spend a skill slot on it.
The other issue, as you mentioned, is we just don't have offensive passives. There's 2 passives that directly affect damage, and the rest go into spirit generation (Wave of Light still doesn't seem appealing, btw.) Combination Strike is actually ok (it doesn't disappear as long as you keep attacking - you don't need to refresh the 2nd skill) but the fact that it requires two spirit generators immediately makes it difficult to incorporate a spirit finisher into your build.
I'd like them to keep AH search as it is.
right, but your build still consists of standing still left clicking, right?
That's a bit drastic? I wouldn't mind the ability to just be able to say "Well, I'm moving from this big open zone to a tight cave/hallway area... Looks like it's time to swap from lightning hydra to mammoth hydra for a while."
That's hardly micromanagement, to just swap one rune/passive or some such when you know you're going to be changing zone types for a good long time. Hell, the beginning of act 3's ramparts, followed by the giant open battlefield is a prime example. You spend a long long time in one style of area, followed by a long long time in another style.