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On December 28 2012 16:00 Miami Metro wrote:
Hey guys, I am new to this game and have started with a Monk. Can someone please direct me to a webpage or site which shows the best builds/items for this class and where I should put my character/skill points? I think I will go crazy if I try to read through the 130 pages in this thread, but even still, it seems most of the posts in this thread are by people who are already on very high levels. Thanks very much.
edit: most webpages also have long discussion threads, so i thought id spare you that lol.
also below is my opinion, others may think differently ^^
i can pm you a link to my profile if anything is unclear
If youre just starting out, you can just join public games to level to 60 or ask a friend to powerlevel you
Assuming youre softcore, my personal approach is starting out with items that give you defensive modifiers (all resist, single resist, vitality), dexterity, and any damage modifiers (avg, crit, crit dmg, ias, etc.). Then cut down on defensive modifiers as much as you can while still being comfortable with your survivability, and focus on the damage modifiers and dexterity.
Once you have your starting items and are basically grinding for upgrades, here are rough stat comparisons:
1% critical chance = 10% critical damage = 2-2.5% ias = 40 dexterity
average damage: hard to judge with the many variations, but for a quick glance, add up the min and max dmg and thats how much dex it equals, min+max ~ dexterity (yeah this isnt too accurate, best to use a calculator for this)
Items to work toward (best in slot) are pretty much standard cookie cutter ones (if its not rare, its legendary or set):
Helm: Mempo of Twilight (or Andariel's visage if youre a poison monk; you will have to choose between mass dex or a socket)
Amulet: rare with whatever damage modifiers you can get
Chest: Inna's Vast Expanse
Shoulders: Vile Ward
Bracers: Lacuni Prowlers or some rares with high defensive modifiers if you lack them
Pants: Inna's Temperance
Belt: The Witching Hour
Rings: Natalya's Reflection and a rare ring with offensive modifiers (A perfect hellfire ring would be the best, but i dont think any exist yet)
Boots: Natalya's Bloody Footprints
Gloves: rares with damage modifiers (crit chance, crit dmg, attack speed, dex)
Main Hand: Echoing Fury
Off Hand: either a Won Kim Lau* or a rare with dex, crit dmg, lifesteal and black damage (non-elemental damage)
i would start out using the wkl
As far as skill builds go, you can pretty much use whatever you think works for you. the ones that i prefer are:
passive skills: seize the initiative, one with everything, and either combination strike, exalted soul, or fleet footed
active skills:
fists of thunder-thunderclap, which lets you teleport around
sweeping wind-cyclone, which is your damage dealer
mantra of conviction-overawe, which is your damage amplifier
blinding flash-faith in the light, which lets you boost your sweeping wind damage and gives you burst damage
the last two skills are whatever
serenity + breath of heaven-blazing wrath (good to start out with, serenity is pro)
breath of heaven + deadly reach-foresight (this is what i use)
i see some people use one of the above with way of the hundred fists or seven sided strike. really up to you here
you can also choose to use tempest rush for fast farming, combined with passive exalted soul
also in multiplayer, you will need to use cyclone strike, probably serenity if the mp is higher than what you normally run solo, and probably guiding light because it gives a nice permanent boost to dps if you remember to refresh it all the time
hope this helped
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On December 28 2012 16:00 Miami Metro wrote:
Hey guys, I am new to this game and have started with a Monk. Can someone please direct me to a webpage or site which shows the best builds/items for this class and where I should put my character/skill points? I think I will go crazy if I try to read through the 130 pages in this thread, but even still, it seems most of the posts in this thread are by people who are already on very high levels. Thanks very much.
This guy has a couple of nice videos about gearing low-budget monk, possibly some tips about the playstyle.
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Thanks guys, I'm up to about level 23 now and see that it's nothing like Diablo 2, more of just randomly assigning skills whenever you can upgrade them and playing around. I'm not finding the difficulty too hard at this stage. I appreciate the advice, I think I'll find it useful once I'm up to that level. I'm glad I don't have to carefully select skill points lest I need to restart a character altogether like in Diablo 2, although I feel like it takes away a bit of the challenge.
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Random obvious farming/leveling tip:
If you're running some variant of the Tempest Rush : Tailwind farming spec (12+12+10+25% ms) getting at least 21 pickup radius lets you: run over piles of crap and still pickup the gold drops. Getting 28 pickup radius lets you open chests and continue rushing and still pickup the gold piles. You figure once you hit high enough paragon, your gold find was pretty damn high without any gear, may as well pickup some free gold without hurting your xp / hour. ( I recently stopped using OWE when farming since Blind + MoH spam was plenty to survive RD even without a LL snapshot, so I swapped out some old single resist gear for pickup radius. ) This was inspired by my WD with 50 pickup which was amazingly convenient. Plus you can pickup stuff thru walls which is nice heh.
Some cheap spots to get pickup:
Strongarm Bracers (cheap alternative to crit lacuni's since they have no ias to make your TR cost more)
Gloves: Crit/CD/Dex (poor man's trifecta with no ias to make your TR cost more)
Any Inna piece: Inna's has one random roll, may as well make it pickup
It's important to keep TR net spirit cost to 0. I run with 1.7 attack speed (S&B), so I need 17 spirit/sec to cast it forever.
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On January 06 2013 21:15 Burrfoot wrote:
Random obvious farming/leveling tip:
If you're running some variant of the Tempest Rush : Tailwind farming spec (12+12+10+25% ms) getting at least 21 pickup radius lets you: run over piles of crap and still pickup the gold drops. Getting 28 pickup radius lets you open chests and continue rushing and still pickup the gold piles. You figure once you hit high enough paragon, your gold find was pretty damn high without any gear, may as well pickup some free gold without hurting your xp / hour. ( I recently stopped using OWE when farming since Blind + MoH spam was plenty to survive RD even without a LL snapshot, so I swapped out some old single resist gear for pickup radius. )
Some cheap spots to get pickup:
Strongarm Bracers (cheap alternative to crit lacuni's since they have no ias to make your TR cost more)
Gloves: Crit/CD/Dex (poor man's trifecta with no ias to make your TR cost more)
Any Inna piece: Inna's has one random roll, may as well make it pickup
It's important to keep TR net spirit cost to 0. I run with 1.7 attack speed (S&B), so I need 17 spirit/sec to cast it forever.
What is bringing you up to 1.7 APS? I run a similar build but my attack speed is only 1.51 (1.4 base and 8% IAS from pants). I think that to be able to support 1.7 APS, I would have to equip an SOJ with spirit regen to handle it, assuming that the helm, amulet, fist and inna's set is already providing some. This would displace my Leoric's which is both a source of +xp and pickup radius.
Cool tip on the pickup radius. I only have 12 at the moment (compared to the 0 I used to have on my barb), but I'll probably be adding more once my paragon starts overtaking my MF gear. It also works well with my strategy of stacking +health globe bonus as my main source of healing. It's quite unnecessary to go for lifesteal for tempest rushing, I prefer to get higher damage instead.
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Why not use a decent Skorn instead ?
Lower attack speed, less spirit consumption, higher minimal damage, 35% bonus from guardians path -> if youre using MoH you can drop spirit regen from all your items except 2+ S/s from innas helm ..
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On January 06 2013 22:25 zylog wrote:Show nested quote +On January 06 2013 21:15 Burrfoot wrote:
Random obvious farming/leveling tip:
If you're running some variant of the Tempest Rush : Tailwind farming spec (12+12+10+25% ms) getting at least 21 pickup radius lets you: run over piles of crap and still pickup the gold drops. Getting 28 pickup radius lets you open chests and continue rushing and still pickup the gold piles. You figure once you hit high enough paragon, your gold find was pretty damn high without any gear, may as well pickup some free gold without hurting your xp / hour. ( I recently stopped using OWE when farming since Blind + MoH spam was plenty to survive RD even without a LL snapshot, so I swapped out some old single resist gear for pickup radius. )
Some cheap spots to get pickup:
Strongarm Bracers (cheap alternative to crit lacuni's since they have no ias to make your TR cost more)
Gloves: Crit/CD/Dex (poor man's trifecta with no ias to make your TR cost more)
Any Inna piece: Inna's has one random roll, may as well make it pickup
It's important to keep TR net spirit cost to 0. I run with 1.7 attack speed (S&B), so I need 17 spirit/sec to cast it forever. What is bringing you up to 1.7 APS? I run a similar build but my attack speed is only 1.51 (1.4 base and 8% IAS from pants). I think that to be able to support 1.7 APS, I would have to equip an SOJ with spirit regen to handle it, assuming that the helm, amulet, fist and inna's set is already providing some. This would displace my Leoric's which is both a source of +xp and pickup radius. Cool tip on the pickup radius. I only have 12 at the moment (compared to the 0 I used to have on my barb), but I'll probably be adding more once my paragon starts overtaking my MF gear. It also works well with my strategy of stacking +health globe bonus as my main source of healing. It's quite unnecessary to go for lifesteal for tempest rushing, I prefer to get higher damage instead.
I use cyclone, so I wanted to use the max APS I could handle with the spirit gen I had. Since I sold my Life Steal Skorn snapshot (non LL skorns are dirt cheap!), I needed some type of sustain which I ended up using a cheap Fist of Azztur with some LoH (Shield has 300 dex, 10crit, MF). I don't use Leoric's and my Hellfire has IAS (fail!) so my input/output spirit is
APS:
Fist of Azz has 11% ias + 6% Hellfire + 8% Innas = (1.4*1.11)*(1+.06+.08) = 1.77 aps * 10 = 17.7 Spirit Cost per Second .
(I never liked 2h playstyle, so only use Skorn to snapshot - in sig.)
SPS:
Helm (2.37) + Fist (2.45) + Xeph (2.3) + SoJ (2.33) + MoH (3) + Chant (2) + Exalted (1) + Inna (0.33) = 15.78
Templar Bonus = +12% = 17.7 Spirit Generation per Second
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On January 06 2013 22:58 nV[MB] wrote:
Why not use a decent Skorn instead ?
Lower attack speed, less spirit consumption, higher minimal damage, 35% bonus from guardians path -> if youre using MoH you can drop spirit regen from all your items except 2+ S/s from innas helm ..
There are benefits to using a fist and shield. While the spirit cost is higher with attack speed, the damage from a snapshotted sweeping wind is that much higher too. Additionally, the shield can roll 10% crit with 8% tempest rush bonus for even more damage. This also makes cyclone a much better choice since both APS and crit chance are elevated.
Even though this setup requires circular breathing to maintain spirit, I feel that the benefits are enough for me to choose over a skorn + overawe setup.
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On January 06 2013 23:23 zylog wrote:While the spirit cost is higher with attack speed, the damage from a snapshotted sweeping wind is that much higher too.
Because holy damage from blind is added to the base weapon damage, not the DPS, right ?
Additionally, the shield can roll 10% crit with 8% tempest rush bonus for even more damage. This also makes cyclone a much better choice since both APS and crit chance are elevated.
Yea, what I meant was not that it doesnt make sense (cuz it does, and it probably works really well), but that the inflated spirit cost requires you to use very specific items (namely Xeph and spirit regen weapon), that will either greatly increase the costs of the entire build or cause you to lose some of the dps, compared to widely available regular amulets and skorns.
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Jeez, I didn't realize how much semi-decent Xeph amulets are these days. I was lucky and got in before the Tempest Rush craze inflated their prices. This is the one I use since it has the high spirit for 250k:
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/4EeQh.png)
Probably should have got a similar crit % one back then, but now they are like 20m+. Spirit Regen weapons are very cheap. I used to us a double spirit regen Shenlongs in my TR build that cost 6m each last month. They just aren't in demand like anything with +crit dmg and can be won without really needing to snipe:
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/h6tQ5l.png)
1.9/2.1 aps with the set @ 20.77 spirit regen = slowly lose spirit sometimes, which wasn't too bad.
I used to use this shied before I got tired of the graphic and switched to my current MF shield.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/99n7p.png)
I bought it for 125k (1d10) and flipped it for $25 last month.
I even used + Show Spoiler + for a while for kicks too.
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When to use the serenity ability? Just before I'm about to die or only when facing elite packs?
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On January 07 2013 00:27 nV[MB] wrote:Show nested quote +On January 06 2013 23:23 zylog wrote:While the spirit cost is higher with attack speed, the damage from a snapshotted sweeping wind is that much higher too. Because holy damage from blind is added to the base weapon damage, not the DPS, right ? Show nested quote +Additionally, the shield can roll 10% crit with 8% tempest rush bonus for even more damage. This also makes cyclone a much better choice since both APS and crit chance are elevated. Yea, what I meant was not that it doesnt make sense (cuz it does, and it probably works really well), but that the inflated spirit cost requires you to use very specific items (namely Xeph and spirit regen weapon), that will either greatly increase the costs of the entire build or cause you to lose some of the dps, compared to widely available regular amulets and skorns.
The holy damage from blind is indeed added to the base weapon damage, at a rate of 0.3*(base damage)/APS. That's wasn't exactly the point I was trying to make though. Instead, it's that while attack speed is detrimental to the channeling cost of tempest rush, there are still dps benefits to having higher attack speed, such as generating more cyclones and also greatly increasing sweeping wind damage when using gear snapshotting.
As for the inflated spirit costs, it is a bit higher than a 2 hander tempest rush but it's not that bad. I have both a Xephirian amulet and a Stone of Jordan with high regen, but I only need to use 1 of them (I use the Xephirian so I can equip a Leoric's signet). Since this build relies on cyclones to kill elites, rather than something like SSS or bells, you don't need any excess spirit generation to be able to use skills. You can even run with a slight deficit in spirit generation, which you can refill whenever you get to elites.
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On January 07 2013 18:46 zylog wrote:Show nested quote +On January 07 2013 00:27 nV[MB] wrote:On January 06 2013 23:23 zylog wrote:While the spirit cost is higher with attack speed, the damage from a snapshotted sweeping wind is that much higher too. Because holy damage from blind is added to the base weapon damage, not the DPS, right ? Additionally, the shield can roll 10% crit with 8% tempest rush bonus for even more damage. This also makes cyclone a much better choice since both APS and crit chance are elevated. Yea, what I meant was not that it doesnt make sense (cuz it does, and it probably works really well), but that the inflated spirit cost requires you to use very specific items (namely Xeph and spirit regen weapon), that will either greatly increase the costs of the entire build or cause you to lose some of the dps, compared to widely available regular amulets and skorns. The holy damage from blind is indeed added to the base weapon damage, at a rate of 0.3*(base damage)/APS. That's wasn't exactly the point I was trying to make though. Instead, it's that while attack speed is detrimental to the channeling cost of tempest rush, there are still dps benefits to having higher attack speed, such as generating more cyclones and also greatly increasing sweeping wind damage when using gear snapshotting. As for the inflated spirit costs, it is a bit higher than a 2 hander tempest rush but it's not that bad. I have both a Xephirian amulet and a Stone of Jordan with high regen, but I only need to use 1 of them (I use the Xephirian so I can equip a Leoric's signet). Since this build relies on cyclones to kill elites, rather than something like SSS or bells, you don't need any excess spirit generation to be able to use skills. You can even run with a slight deficit in spirit generation, which you can refill whenever you get to elites.
I was sort of confused by what you just typed so correct me if I'm wrong but you aren't using multiple gear sets to do the snapshot I assume? If you really want to abuse the snapshot mechanic you could have three sets of gear - one for buffing, one for sweeping, and one for combat.
The order of events for massive abuse:
Equip BF Set, Cast Blind, Equip Sweeping Set, Cast Sweeping, Equip Combat Set and Cast TR and twirl your way to Paragon 100.
I'm sure there is more detailed info out there but in short:
Blinding Flash Set : uber IAS and +damage
Sweeping Set: just max out your damage (dex/crit/CD), bonus damage (elites/demons/sweeping/elemental), life steal
Combat Set: IAS and Crit % with enough sustain for the MP you plan on farming. (This assumes cyclone)
I only use 2 - snapshot and combat but there is some fairly obvious advantages to using all three, but I personally don't care for carrying so much crap and still a bit iffy on using keyboard/mouse macros. Finally got my snapshot to 300k with some star gems (woo!) and stuff really just melts at low MP.
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On January 07 2013 03:36 fzeroonline wrote:
When to use the serenity ability? Just before I'm about to die or only when facing elite packs?
Try to use serenity just before a big burst of dmg comes, for example, you see 3 arcane beams coming close, or a couple molten mobs just died next to you. This is better than using after the big burst dmg to prevent immediate dying. Also use it to dodge frozen (before it explodes) and break jail. Ofcourse prioritise moving away, if it is possible. The cooldown is quite short, so you can be liberal with it.
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On January 08 2013 22:03 Burrfoot wrote:Show nested quote +On January 07 2013 18:46 zylog wrote:On January 07 2013 00:27 nV[MB] wrote:On January 06 2013 23:23 zylog wrote:While the spirit cost is higher with attack speed, the damage from a snapshotted sweeping wind is that much higher too. Because holy damage from blind is added to the base weapon damage, not the DPS, right ? Additionally, the shield can roll 10% crit with 8% tempest rush bonus for even more damage. This also makes cyclone a much better choice since both APS and crit chance are elevated. Yea, what I meant was not that it doesnt make sense (cuz it does, and it probably works really well), but that the inflated spirit cost requires you to use very specific items (namely Xeph and spirit regen weapon), that will either greatly increase the costs of the entire build or cause you to lose some of the dps, compared to widely available regular amulets and skorns. The holy damage from blind is indeed added to the base weapon damage, at a rate of 0.3*(base damage)/APS. That's wasn't exactly the point I was trying to make though. Instead, it's that while attack speed is detrimental to the channeling cost of tempest rush, there are still dps benefits to having higher attack speed, such as generating more cyclones and also greatly increasing sweeping wind damage when using gear snapshotting. As for the inflated spirit costs, it is a bit higher than a 2 hander tempest rush but it's not that bad. I have both a Xephirian amulet and a Stone of Jordan with high regen, but I only need to use 1 of them (I use the Xephirian so I can equip a Leoric's signet). Since this build relies on cyclones to kill elites, rather than something like SSS or bells, you don't need any excess spirit generation to be able to use skills. You can even run with a slight deficit in spirit generation, which you can refill whenever you get to elites. I was sort of confused by what you just typed so correct me if I'm wrong but you aren't using multiple gear sets to do the snapshot I assume? If you really want to abuse the snapshot mechanic you could have three sets of gear - one for buffing, one for sweeping, and one for combat. The order of events for massive abuse: Equip BF Set, Cast Blind, Equip Sweeping Set, Cast Sweeping, Equip Combat Set and Cast TR and twirl your way to Paragon 100. I'm sure there is more detailed info out there but in short: Blinding Flash Set : uber IAS and +damage Sweeping Set: just max out your damage (dex/crit/CD), bonus damage (elites/demons/sweeping/elemental), life steal Combat Set: IAS and Crit % with enough sustain for the MP you plan on farming. (This assumes cyclone) I only use 2 - snapshot and combat but there is some fairly obvious advantages to using all three, but I personally don't care for carrying so much crap and still a bit iffy on using keyboard/mouse macros. Finally got my snapshot to 300k with some star gems (woo!) and stuff really just melts at low MP.
Yes, I use exactly that type of setup. IAS set for blinding flash, dex/dmg/cd set for casting SW, then a combat set that is different depending on whether I'm tempest rushing or playing a cyclone build on higher MP. The flash swap adds maybe 20% more damage, it does take up quite a bit of space but it's also fairly inexpensive to add the necessary pieces.
Are you including CC into your sweeping wind casting set? It does nothing for your sweeping wind damage. I've previously done tests killing Ghom where I've snapshotted with and without an extra 12% crit chance, with all other offensive stats being equal. The sheet dps was very different for both situations, but Ghom went down in the same amount of time. It's better to skip CC to get perfect or near-perfect rolls on CD, damage and dex.
However, in the post-swap set, CC is king. I was playing with someone last night who has 70% crit in his combat set. We were theorycrafting that given his extremely high CC, he would theoretically have higher cyclone generation by dropping the crit shield to dual his IAS sledge fist with a bonesaber of zumakalis, as both weapons have +0.17 APS. However, when he tested it out on Azmodan he reported that he was significantly slower than his usual setup.
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Hey I have a quick question.
Im looking to maybe putz around in D3 again but I dont know what to do.
I have a maxed out Monk and Demon hunter. The Demon hunter has ok gear.
Should I play the Demon hunter, use the gear to play the monk (sell whatever, I dont care), or should I just break down and roll a barbarian (everyone says D3 is still Barbarian and the 4 follower classes).
Also I just have to ask:
Tempest Rush? When did this skill become not complete garbage?
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On January 09 2013 06:18 Medrea wrote:
Hey I have a quick question.
Im looking to maybe putz around in D3 again but I dont know what to do.
I have a maxed out Monk and Demon hunter. The Demon hunter has ok gear.
Should I play the Demon hunter, use the gear to play the monk (sell whatever, I dont care), or should I just break down and roll a barbarian (everyone says D3 is still Barbarian and the 4 follower classes).
Also I just have to ask:
Tempest Rush? When did this skill become not complete garbage?
In my opinion, monks > barbs in many ways (low MP speed farming, high MP farming, ubers). This is coming from someone who has a P100 barb and a P66 monk. The trick is to know how to use sweeping wind to your advantage.
Tempest rushing became viable when they introduced monster power levels. Mp0 has very easy to kill enemies, but has access to top level drops too, so many (most?) people farm there. Tempest rush without fleet footed is slightly faster than a barb with sprint + wrath, and with fleet footed it is significantly faster. Meanwhile, it's quite hard to keep up WotB on Mp0, almost impossible with a WW build without deliberately playing at low DPS.
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So Im guessing Demon hunter doesnt really deserve a mention then?
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Honestly I dont bother too much with actual dps or min maxing as I have no desire to solo higher MPs, and ok with just TR farming low MPs so don't want to get too attached to snapshotting when it may be fixed in 1.07. I like the fuzzy feeling the listed dps shows so don't bother much with WKL, +sweeping, or life steal lol.
I believe most uber monks go with 20% ias dagger (white weapons) for the 1.8 attack speed + 10% shield to generate the best output. For anyone reading this these white superior daggers sell for 2m if you can spot then out of the field of blue/yellow garbage.
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On January 09 2013 06:41 Medrea wrote:
So Im guessing Demon hunter doesnt really deserve a mention then?
In my opinion, if your chars aren't very geared yet, you could consider a barb
You can get lifesteal from passive, belt, and weapons so you are hard to kill in the high mps.
Dh is rather squishy compared to monk and barb, and you have to be willing to click a lot to swap gear to snapshot sweeping wind as monk to maximize efficiency.
In low mps, all three can be fast at clearing. Dh has vault and tactical, barb has sprint, monk has tempest rush and fleet footed.
Higher mps, barb definitely stands out to me. Usually when i run mp10 with friends and we come upon a tough elite pack, 3 of us die repeatedly and the barb is still whirlwinding.
Also consider roles, dh just dps's stuff from some range, barb just sits in the middle of time bubble and whirlwinds, and monk cyclone strikes stuff into time bubble and spams overawe with sweeping wind up
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EPT![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/PLLnBl.png)
