Since Patch 2.6.7 introduced a new Monk Set, got off my lazy butt to put together this brief refresher on the mechanics of sweeping wind and the new affixes I was able to test on PTR. As Blizzcon cut the PTR testing short and changes made before live, expect there may be quite a few undocumented changes that may not be listed in the patch notes… so please post if things don’t jive on live (I don’t do any datamining or coding… just excel & mspaint!). Here is a link to my old thread on the old forums in case you want to read up on some possibly outdated monk mechanics like TR on page 16: https://us.battle.net/forums/en/d3/topic/16527322731

Sweeping Wind Mechanics

Damage is displayed 1 time per second (1Hz) dealing the listed weapon damage to all enemies in range. Internally each displayed tick is actually the sum of multiple sub-ticks that occur at 60Hz or so. Sweeping Wind damage can crit. But since the damage is calculated at a higher frequency then displayed the color of the damage number is dependent on if > or < 50% of the sub-ticks crit or not. So generally all damage will be partial crits, which are evaluated at some internal frequency less than 60Hz (typically 4-12Hz depending on your APS) Damage scales with APS (ie - counts as its own multiplier) So Echoing Fury’s (75%), Seize the Initiative (30%), Flying Dragon (~2x APS) are all viable options for various builds. APS still caps at 5! (TR channeling cost @ 5 aps is… high!) Damage of Lightning Tornadoes generated by Cyclone do not scale with # of stacks of Sweeping Wind or APS. So even though they look sexy their damage is largely superficial. Their spawn rate is still linked to the attacking skill’s proc coefficient (Fists of Fury + Electric Field are your go-to proc skills as sweeping wind by itself can’t proc tornadoes) Sweeping Wind does NOT proc AREA DAMAGE. You can still snap-shot Mythic Rhythm with Sweeping Wind. You lose it if you change zones however, so when using Kyo’s Belt = Meh!

Patterns of Justice Mechanics (Updated to 2.6.7a)

(2 pc) Sweeping Wind gains the effect of every rune, and movement is increases by 5% for each stack of Sweeping Wind.

* On PTR, the gain all runes worked except you didn’t gain the higher base % weapon damage unless you use Bladestorm. So you may want to hold off investing too much in a specific element until it gets fixed. You will still have to select the correct rune element to gain the +% element damage bonus. 5% movement speed per stack = 65% movement speed bonus… nice, but still not In-Geom nice…

(4 pc) Attacking with Tempest Rush reduces your damage taken by 50% and increases Spirit Regen by 50.

* 50 Sprit Regen basically allows you to almost pick any TR rune you want… but keep in mind TR cost scales with APS. So the base 30 spirit cost is the cost at 1.0 APS with 0% RCR. So if you consistently stay above 2 APS may have trouble maintaining spirit without Epiphany & additional RCR. (there are some tick breakpoints involved but nothing worth getting into)

(6 pc) Hitting with Tempest Rush while Sweeping Wind is active will temporarily increase the size of Sweeping Wind after hitting over 30 times within a short period. Sweeping Wind damage is increased by 15000%

* The initial patch notes are incorrect, and the in-game 6pc is working slightly differently than as described. It is a 151x damage multiplier that is active while channeling TR. Then extra radius effect seems to last 2 seconds after stopping channeling, but the damage bonus does not seem to extend to match the visual. (2.6.7a seems to have fixed the Flurry explosion not receiving the 6pc bonus when you manually stop channeling, but still doesn’t work with other skills like EP/SSS/etc) 6pc does affect ALL damage while channeling TR and does not require hitting 30 times within a short period to proc the size bonus as described in the initial patch notes.

Won Khim Lau

New Legendary Power: Hitting with Tempest Rush will activate Cyclone Strike, and both skills deal 600% increased damage.

Wasn’t on PTR, will need to confirm it works as a separate multiplier on Live. It does work with Lefebvre and will cast any the skilled rune on your bar if you pick one, otherwise will default to the unruned version. (free skill = woot!). Unfortunately, it still always rolls an extra % Lightning Damage affix, which can’t be rerolled.

Vengeful Wind

Increases the maximum stack count of Sweeping Wind by 10. Increases the damage of Sweeping Wind by 800%

3 + 10 = 13 stacks max. Man, I’m good at mechanics. This bonus scales correctly with Sunwuko set bonuses.