I call the build the Paladin because it plays like a holy crusader with a shield. Grab a sword or mace to go with your essential shield and your basically look more like the archetypical paladin and not a monk.
I've messed with a ton of builds trying to find something that works for Inferno. This is the one I've found that works. It breezes through Act 1. I can kill the Butcher without avoiding anything and standing in the fires, there isn't a pack I can't kill in Act 1 anymore, though I occasionally have to resort to kiting and the like. Standing in Arcane rays and molten are no problem. Cruising through Act 2 right now when solo. It's quite a bit tougher in a party unless you have a barb for warcry.
They key element to any effective build is synergy. Any time a skill or gear choice can help you survive and do more damage it goes from good to great. You will see I mention this synergy at several points during the guide.
The last two skills are up to you, I use a combo of mystic ally, seven sided strike, dashing strike, cyclone, and sweeping wind. Use what sorts your play style or is appropriate to the situation.
The main point of the build is to stack effective health through damage mitigation in the form of armor and resistances. Deadly Reach with Keen Eye and Mantra of Healing with Time of Need are therefore absolutely essential. The other two skills give you spot healing when needed. The ability to be immune for 3 seconds is also nice for avoiding damage as you gear up. Breath of Heaven also gives us a 15% damage boost that you can keep up pretty much all the time.
Stacking Resists and Armor (Warning Math)
When I refer to hard mitigation in this guide I basically mean the mitigation that applies after you take a hit. By stacking both you can make every hit you take is for as little as possible. You can figure out how much damage your actually going to take with the following formula:
Don't forget to make sure deadly strike and mantra of healing are up when you check your armor values.
At low gear levels it's not hard to pull off 70% armor and 70% resists. That comes out to (1-0.70)*(1-0.70)=0.3*0.3=.0.09 So when you take damage your actually taking only 9% of that damage. If you have 27000 health at this point (which is what I'm working with) that comes out to an effective health of 300,000. Here's the formula.
health/hard mitigation=effective health
Having high hard mitigation also makes your heals work better. When a skill might heal for 9k health, that's 100k effective health healed for the person in our example above. It's one of those synergy things. Stacking more hard mitigation means your heals are more effective.
One with All is the key here to stacking resistance. Search the AH for pieces of gear with both resist all and a resist of your choosing. It shouldn't be that hard to get several pieces of gear that basically give you over 100 resist all with the talent. Adding another 20% to the resulting resists with Mantra of Healing and it's possible for us to stack more resistance to all than anyone. A barb can stack one, maybe two higher, but not everything.
Of course the higher your armor the better as well. Seize the Initiative and Deadly Reach are the essential abilities here. A shield also becomes essential since you can get 1k+ armor pretty easily one one. Don't forget when looking at the armor of a piece that both the strength and dexterity on it add to that value. Your not gonna look at strength that much, but stacking your dexterity means more hard mitigation from armor and dodge to go with your primary damage stat. It's synergy like this that makes builds work and getting plenty of dexterity is essential to making sure you make your way through inferno at a decent pace. Essentialy the best way to mitigate damage from an enemy is to kill it.
Why not Mantra of Evasion with Hard Target?
Answering this question is key to understanding what makes this build tick. Understanding why I went this route is key to understanding how the build functions once content isn't trivial.
Basically I'm finding that stacking dodge is virtually useless when it is in place of the hard mitigation that armor and resistances give. Eventually your gonna get hit and if you don't have armor and resists to mitigate that health it's going to kill you. Basically stacking dodge is hoping you don't die and stacking hard resists are making sure you don't. My daddy use to tell me "Hope in one hand and crap in the other, see which fills up first." That's basically what dodge is worth, without really high hard mitigation to back it up, less than crap.
Also, even though dodge is the worse of the three forms of mitigation available for some reason it's dimininishing returns seem to kick in lower than the other forms of mitigation. Comparing builds of similiar gear resists or armor may get you to the 70-80% range of mitigation, while dodge gear and build of the same level is probably 50-65%. This means Guardian's Path and Fist of Thunder with Lightning Flash with 1500 dex, like I was trying at first. Both abilities mean your giving up some form of hard mitigation. So not only is dodge worse than the others it's more expensive to gear up for.
Lastly the extra healing from Mantra of Healing is nice. Deadly Reach allows you to kite pretty well when the damage in an area or from some elites is more than you can handle. Basically Deadly Reach/Mantra of Healing becomes one of those synergy things I mentioned earlier when you start kiting.
Finally, despite all this I want to mention it's actually possible (though not likely without trying due to diminishing returns) to reach a gear point where the 20% extra armor gives you more hard mitigation and therefore effective health than 20% more resists. In which case you may find Mantra of Evasion is better.
Gear Choices:
Dexterity is your key stat. A piece of gear without it should be exceptional in other aspects.
All Resistance and your chosen secondary resists: Hopefully you'll have as many pieces as possible with both. Don't forget every 10 int is 1 resist all, this might push one piece of gear ahead of others.
Armor (and Str): Anything to get more armor for your Deadly Reach to multiply. Dexterity figures in to this one as well that's why it's your number one stat. You shouldn't look for gear with strength but it can push one piece ahead of another.
Vitality: Your going to get enough pretty quick. I'm comfortable with 27k health nearing the end of Act 2. Despite not having as much vitality as some people your effective health will be quite high.
Attack Speed: It's essential to get off that third strike of Deadly Strike very quickly, especially when melee kiting. If you don't get it off before mobs swing at you your taking a lot more damage.
Movement Speed: Makes kiting easier, I wouldn't give up what I have on my boots, though I've yet to find any other pieces of gear that have movement speed I'm willing to give up other stats for.
Life on Hit: I didn't realize how good this was til I swapped out a couple of pieces that had it as an afterthought. A couple hundred is really nice, some of the weapons with up to 1k would be amazing, but I'm getting by with 200 right now and my next big purchase will be a Blackthorne ammy.
i was just wondering if you wouldnt mind posting your stats page, im attempting to gear up to act2 right now and this seems like the build will do it for me
i was just wondering if you wouldnt mind posting your stats page, im attempting to gear up to act2 right now and this seems like the build will do it for me
Can't log on right now with the server issues, that's why I finally wrote this up. I do know offhand I have 73.xx% reduction from both armor and resistances when everything is up. I got lucky and found an amazing weapon last night so I'm right at 20k damage with Breath of Heaven, but I did most of act two with less than 15k.
I have 130 magic find as well...should actually be fairly cheap to match my numbers if you don't spend the money on magic find I did.
i was just wondering if you wouldnt mind posting your stats page, im attempting to gear up to act2 right now and this seems like the build will do it for me
Can't log on right now with the server issues, that's why I finally wrote this up. I do know offhand I have 73.xx% reduction from both armor and resistances when everything is up. I got lucky and found an amazing weapon last night so I'm right at 20k damage with Breath of Heaven, but I did most of act two with less than 15k.
I have 130 magic find as well...should actually be fairly cheap to match my numbers if you don't spend the money on magic find I did.
i dont see my damage getting to be that high but maybe if i replace a bunch of my gear that is lacking in dex and has more vit i should be ok, i have quite a bit of gold to be able to spend on the AH it shouldnt be much of a problem for me to get dex/allres/lit res gear for myself so as soon as blizz gets off their butts and fixes these servers i will attempt your build and get back to you, thanks for posting this, act2 has really been a downer for me
i dont see my damage getting to be that high but maybe if i replace a bunch of my gear that is lacking in dex and has more vit i should be ok, i have quite a bit of gold to be able to spend on the AH it shouldnt be much of a problem for me to get dex/allres/lit res gear for myself so as soon as blizz gets off their butts and fixes these servers i will attempt your build and get back to you, thanks for posting this, act2 has really been a downer for me
Just to be clear I'm still kiting a lot in act two with my gear. Get your three deadly reach hits in, back off 3 or 4 steps and unload again. Getting surrounded by an elite pack is very often deadly. I can run through molten, or arcane if needed. I can stand in plague for a few seconds (in act 1 I can ignore it, Mantra of Healing heals more). Desecrate in act 2 is insane, must move quickly and mortar on ranged guys is really difficult. Mystic Ally is my favorite skill of the choice ones right now. The guy seems to get some of our defenses and can tank for a while, though he falls quickly when he ignores the tricks of the elite packs.
i've tried this build.
My stats are about 10k armor with keen eye activated, 700+ res with mantra and 2,40 atk speed....but elite packs still destroy me without any problems. But at least I survived in Act 2 at all normal mobs i've encountered
I have less armor (8.6k) and more resists (824) right now, with 26997 health. That comes out to 6.8% of damage taken and 392,821 effective health. I'd be interested to know where your numbers are.
Most normal mobs are a joke as you said, although anything with a wind up attack is worth avoiding, as are the flies. Elites can be hit or miss. Some packs I can stand and tank no problem. Others I have to kite no matter what mods they spawn with. I managed to kill everything I faced from the start of the Kulle stuff up to Belial last night however with only 7 or 8 deaths before Belial. Five of those were on a wrath pack with molten...very nasty they phase through you to attack and leave you in lava constantly, with jailer and frozen as well it was the first pack I thought about skipping in a while. Kulle was easy, but I died once when one of his guys hit me right as the ceiling caved in on me. The guys still hit hard enough I had to kite, getting hit by both at once would of been death.
Got 3 attempts on Belial but it was late and I was tired and kept messing up around the half way point. I expect to beat him tonight, and try out act 3, though I fully expect it to be a bit much until I get some more gear.
IIRC with your formula i've hard mitigation = 7,22% with 24984 hp.
Today i've tried again act 2 and I could kill 2 elite pack without dying, but they dont have nasty combination (like fear + mortar or freeze + molten or the worst of all: illusionist).
That comes out to 346k effective health. I had 392k and by the end of the act 2 was thinking of bumping up my vitality some, I'll probably shoot for 30k soon, which will be another 42k effective health.
Some packs just suck. Use corners, and practice kiting. Bring an aoe skill and illusionist become a lot easier. Sweeping wind with the fire rune for the bigger radius has become my go to for one of the open spots as of last night.
You might find Mystic Ally effective for taking some of the heat off you, I've been using the water one lately and it pretty much steals aggro on something if it's out. For 25 spirit the water one is worth it if it just gets off the initial attack, in fact I sometimes chain cast it just for that nuke. The earth one has obvious benefits as well.
At the moment my skill choise is this:
Left click: Crippling Wave + Concussion
Right Click: Seven Sides Strike + Pandemonium or Sustained Attack
1: Breath of Life + 15% damage
2: Serenity + Heal
3: Sweeping Wind: must try the fire rune (what actually change from normal and fire damage, except the radius?)
4: Mantra of Healing + All Res (or Mantra of Evasion + Hard Target, but only if I try dual wield)
Today I've encounter a pack of Bees with Barrier, Arcane, Fear and Extra Life. I have to log out because they got enraged. I'm really frustrated.
If your using crippling wave your not using this build. Deadly Reach is absolutely essential.
Sweeping wind plus fire rune changes the radius, that's exactly the point with deadly reach, I was often hitting stuff with deadly reach but it wasn't in the radius of sweeping wind.
Enrage isn't a death sentence for this build, last night a pack enraged on me and I managed to keep fighting through it, it last about a minute and goes away.
i've tried Keen Eye but it seems that the armor boost is not good enough as concussion effect. I know that I can hit from 20-25 y with it, but sometimes i'm surrounded by mobs and cant easily escape. However I must work a bit on balance between vitality and dex.
Deadly takes my armor from rought 66% to roughly 73% with resists being at 73 as well with my Mantra. Plugging those numbers in a calculator you get .07 with deadly and .09 without. It may not seem like much but your actually taking 28% more damage without deadly strike. Deadly Strike also makes it possible to kite. Both are essential parts of this build. Not saying crippling isn't good, I used it through all of hell and I loved it. I pull it out with the 143% rune for farming act 1 now, but your not in this build when your using it, This build is about taking as little damage as possible every time your hit.
Never get surrounded, that's why your kiting, being surrounded is a death sentence way too often.
And what do You thing about new mantra of healing with absorb and healing per hit?
Time of Need is essential imo. Life on Hit is great so it may be workable, but the build relies on high armor/resists to reduce damage as much as possible.
Gonna edit the initial post to reflect movement speed and life on hit as well.
You suggest life on hit 1k. It's a bit hard to reach:
ring and amulet usually give all 3 together about 350 life on hit, so you need at least 1 weapon with 350 life on hit + socket with +300 life on hit gem.
I mention 1k is available on weapons straight up, that could be 1350 if it has a socket as well. I have right at 200 now and I'm getting by fine.
I find the main issue with this build is a complete lack of spirit being generated passively. With a lot of kiting you don't get much opportunity to melee (even with Deadly Reach), so you can be spirit starved quite easily.
It could just be down to my personal preference though. I think I'd want to get some +spirit regen gear to make this work for me. Might help other people (or I may be doing something wrong, in which case please feel free to enlighten me).
That said, I do find this build allows me to easily burn through Act 1 Inferno. Some things can cause me to pause/kite, but for the most part Act 1 is very, very easy. Act 2 is still the issue though: even with this build, with 650 resistances, 27k HP and around 7k armor, I find I die very quickly.
Think I need more dexterity too, then. It's a very good build though: perhaps most effective when with other people?
Used the same build exept with cripling wave. Switching to deadly reach prooved to be a great idea, not so much becouse of armor increase but becouse of the range - having no problems keeping up sweeping wind (firestorm) and generating enough spirit to rotate defensive cds. Cleared act 2 with 700ish resistance/8K armor with buff (droped seize the initiative for resolve)/40K hp/700 live on hit, can clear it pretty fast now but still die from time to time to retarded affix combinations.
P.S. Entered Act 3, that was a wholle different story - dunno what kind of stats needed to clear it.
I find the main issue with this build is a complete lack of spirit being generated passively. With a lot of kiting you don't get much opportunity to melee (even with Deadly Reach), so you can be spirit starved quite easily.
It could just be down to my personal preference though. I think I'd want to get some +spirit regen gear to make this work for me. Might help other people (or I may be doing something wrong, in which case please feel free to enlighten me).
That said, I do find this build allows me to easily burn through Act 1 Inferno. Some things can cause me to pause/kite, but for the most part Act 1 is very, very easy. Act 2 is still the issue though: even with this build, with 650 resistances, 27k HP and around 7k armor, I find I die very quickly.
Think I need more dexterity too, then. It's a very good build though: perhaps most effective when with other people?
I have no +spirit personally but I have a 1.65 base attack speed weapon and a total attack speed of 2.66. Also my kiting method when I must is 3 attacks fall back 3 or 4 steps, 3 attacks. You get hit a little more than a true kiter, the real point is to avoid being surrounded, which is almost certainly a death sentence.
In a group I tend to kite in a circle, which tends to gather stuff. Takes a little practice, but it works pretty well for me at keeping mobs on me. The pet is a nice additional tank to boot, almost always use it in group.
I have act 2 on farm with this build as of last night. Did Magdha run up through Belial with almost no deaths, didn't have to repair but once. Only mob I skipped was a horde of arcane guys right in the door of a basement, couldn't move when I went in and died a quick death to a horde without kiting.
Act 3 was painful, died 4 times on first 2 elite packs. Stuff was killable. Going to farm act 2 until I get some more defense and 35k health I think.
Also this is a tank build but with dexterity and attack speed as priorities it packs decent damage for a monk, I have 20k damage now, 22.5K with breath of heaven.
My barbarian friend finally hit 60 the night before last. Did Act 1 inferno with him and another friend, clear through. Totally unkillable with warcry with this build, resists were up to just under 1200. At one point we had two groups pulled with arcane on both, plague, desecrator, and mortar and I just stood in the middle of it all and laughed. It was one of 3 times my pet actually died the entire run. Our defenses must transfer to him as well because he was pretty much unkillable as well.
Did you try Fist of Thunder with Thunderclap instead of Deadly Reach, Keen Eye.
I currently have 580 life on hit with a (slow) 1.3 weapon and I find the regeneration to be twice faster with it.
Plus the teleport part which get useful to get out of jailer, the knockback comp allow to stunlock ennemies with slow to mid attack animation, and the extra attack speed allow for a better dps overall for me.
I also have Lashing tail Kick, Sweeping Armada as my main spender to avoid beeing surrounded and/or teleport to a mob for mobility.
So I did try Deadly Reach Keen Eye, but I not sure if I'm doing it wrong but the mitigation I gain from it and the extra range doesn't seem to help that much. Also having such a great regen on hit saves me the passive slot you use for Transendance for something else like Resolve or Pacifism maybe.
What do you think about it (aside from the, I want the highest Armor/Res possible build).
what act are you in? actually, what difficulty are you in because it seems like you haven't gotten to the hard stuff yet...
Did you try Fist of Thunder with Thunderclap instead of Deadly Reach, Keen Eye.
I currently have 580 life on hit with a (slow) 1.3 weapon and I find the regeneration to be twice faster with it.
Plus the teleport part which get useful to get out of jailer, the knockback comp allow to stunlock ennemies with slow to mid attack animation, and the extra attack speed allow for a better dps overall for me.
I also have Lashing tail Kick, Sweeping Armada as my main spender to avoid beeing surrounded and/or teleport to a mob for mobility.
So I did try Deadly Reach Keen Eye, but I not sure if I'm doing it wrong but the mitigation I gain from it and the extra range doesn't seem to help that much. Also having such a great regen on hit saves me the passive slot you use for Transendance for something else like Resolve or Pacifism maybe.
What do you think about it (aside from the, I want the highest Armor/Res possible build).
Tried something similar exept with wave of light (explosive light) as a spender (had a great memories of runing with it on NM/Hell), lost quite a bit mitigation and i really didn't like standing in the mobs face. Becides with current stats/build i faceroll Belial dodging only chain attack and metiors - rest time i spend taking whatever he throwns on me:P
P.S. In act 3 droping whatever mitigation you can get isn't even a choice, dieing to elites time after time. Mean things going there...
Did you try Fist of Thunder with Thunderclap instead of Deadly Reach, Keen Eye.
I currently have 580 life on hit with a (slow) 1.3 weapon and I find the regeneration to be twice faster with it.
Plus the teleport part which get useful to get out of jailer, the knockback comp allow to stunlock ennemies with slow to mid attack animation, and the extra attack speed allow for a better dps overall for me.
I also have Lashing tail Kick, Sweeping Armada as my main spender to avoid beeing surrounded and/or teleport to a mob for mobility.
So I did try Deadly Reach Keen Eye, but I not sure if I'm doing it wrong but the mitigation I gain from it and the extra range doesn't seem to help that much. Also having such a great regen on hit saves me the passive slot you use for Transendance for something else like Resolve or Pacifism maybe.
What do you think about it (aside from the, I want the highest Armor/Res possible build).
Tried it for a bit just now on the part of Act 2 I have on farm and hated it. You can't kite when you teleport back to the mobs. Tried it with the dodge and it was ok, but not nearly as effective as deadly for me.
Deadly strike with Keen is 25-30% less damage taken for most people...it may not look like much when your mitigation goes from 65-70 or so, but it's a huge deal.
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I've messed with a ton of builds trying to find something that works for Inferno. This is the one I've found that works. It breezes through Act 1. I can kill the Butcher without avoiding anything and standing in the fires, there isn't a pack I can't kill in Act 1 anymore, though I occasionally have to resort to kiting and the like. Standing in Arcane rays and molten are no problem. Cruising through Act 2 right now when solo. It's quite a bit tougher in a party unless you have a barb for warcry.
They key element to any effective build is synergy. Any time a skill or gear choice can help you survive and do more damage it goes from good to great. You will see I mention this synergy at several points during the guide.
Here is the must have part of the build: http://us.battle.net...b.QgX!YXU!Z.cab
The last two skills are up to you, I use a combo of mystic ally, seven sided strike, dashing strike, cyclone, and sweeping wind. Use what sorts your play style or is appropriate to the situation.
The main point of the build is to stack effective health through damage mitigation in the form of armor and resistances. Deadly Reach with Keen Eye and Mantra of Healing with Time of Need are therefore absolutely essential. The other two skills give you spot healing when needed. The ability to be immune for 3 seconds is also nice for avoiding damage as you gear up. Breath of Heaven also gives us a 15% damage boost that you can keep up pretty much all the time.
Stacking Resists and Armor (Warning Math)
When I refer to hard mitigation in this guide I basically mean the mitigation that applies after you take a hit. By stacking both you can make every hit you take is for as little as possible. You can figure out how much damage your actually going to take with the following formula:
(1-damage mitigation)*(1-resistance)=hard mitigation
Don't forget to make sure deadly strike and mantra of healing are up when you check your armor values.
At low gear levels it's not hard to pull off 70% armor and 70% resists. That comes out to (1-0.70)*(1-0.70)=0.3*0.3=.0.09 So when you take damage your actually taking only 9% of that damage. If you have 27000 health at this point (which is what I'm working with) that comes out to an effective health of 300,000. Here's the formula.
health/hard mitigation=effective health
Having high hard mitigation also makes your heals work better. When a skill might heal for 9k health, that's 100k effective health healed for the person in our example above. It's one of those synergy things. Stacking more hard mitigation means your heals are more effective.
One with All is the key here to stacking resistance. Search the AH for pieces of gear with both resist all and a resist of your choosing. It shouldn't be that hard to get several pieces of gear that basically give you over 100 resist all with the talent. Adding another 20% to the resulting resists with Mantra of Healing and it's possible for us to stack more resistance to all than anyone. A barb can stack one, maybe two higher, but not everything.
Of course the higher your armor the better as well. Seize the Initiative and Deadly Reach are the essential abilities here. A shield also becomes essential since you can get 1k+ armor pretty easily one one. Don't forget when looking at the armor of a piece that both the strength and dexterity on it add to that value. Your not gonna look at strength that much, but stacking your dexterity means more hard mitigation from armor and dodge to go with your primary damage stat. It's synergy like this that makes builds work and getting plenty of dexterity is essential to making sure you make your way through inferno at a decent pace. Essentialy the best way to mitigate damage from an enemy is to kill it.
Why not Mantra of Evasion with Hard Target?
Answering this question is key to understanding what makes this build tick. Understanding why I went this route is key to understanding how the build functions once content isn't trivial.
Basically I'm finding that stacking dodge is virtually useless when it is in place of the hard mitigation that armor and resistances give. Eventually your gonna get hit and if you don't have armor and resists to mitigate that health it's going to kill you. Basically stacking dodge is hoping you don't die and stacking hard resists are making sure you don't. My daddy use to tell me "Hope in one hand and crap in the other, see which fills up first." That's basically what dodge is worth, without really high hard mitigation to back it up, less than crap.
Also, even though dodge is the worse of the three forms of mitigation available for some reason it's dimininishing returns seem to kick in lower than the other forms of mitigation. Comparing builds of similiar gear resists or armor may get you to the 70-80% range of mitigation, while dodge gear and build of the same level is probably 50-65%. This means Guardian's Path and Fist of Thunder with Lightning Flash with 1500 dex, like I was trying at first. Both abilities mean your giving up some form of hard mitigation. So not only is dodge worse than the others it's more expensive to gear up for.
Lastly the extra healing from Mantra of Healing is nice. Deadly Reach allows you to kite pretty well when the damage in an area or from some elites is more than you can handle. Basically Deadly Reach/Mantra of Healing becomes one of those synergy things I mentioned earlier when you start kiting.
Finally, despite all this I want to mention it's actually possible (though not likely without trying due to diminishing returns) to reach a gear point where the 20% extra armor gives you more hard mitigation and therefore effective health than 20% more resists. In which case you may find Mantra of Evasion is better.
Gear Choices:
Dexterity is your key stat. A piece of gear without it should be exceptional in other aspects.
All Resistance and your chosen secondary resists: Hopefully you'll have as many pieces as possible with both. Don't forget every 10 int is 1 resist all, this might push one piece of gear ahead of others.
Armor (and Str): Anything to get more armor for your Deadly Reach to multiply. Dexterity figures in to this one as well that's why it's your number one stat. You shouldn't look for gear with strength but it can push one piece ahead of another.
Vitality: Your going to get enough pretty quick. I'm comfortable with 27k health nearing the end of Act 2. Despite not having as much vitality as some people your effective health will be quite high.
Attack Speed: It's essential to get off that third strike of Deadly Strike very quickly, especially when melee kiting. If you don't get it off before mobs swing at you your taking a lot more damage.
Movement Speed: Makes kiting easier, I wouldn't give up what I have on my boots, though I've yet to find any other pieces of gear that have movement speed I'm willing to give up other stats for.
Life on Hit: I didn't realize how good this was til I swapped out a couple of pieces that had it as an afterthought. A couple hundred is really nice, some of the weapons with up to 1k would be amazing, but I'm getting by with 200 right now and my next big purchase will be a Blackthorne ammy.
Can't log on right now with the server issues, that's why I finally wrote this up. I do know offhand I have 73.xx% reduction from both armor and resistances when everything is up. I got lucky and found an amazing weapon last night so I'm right at 20k damage with Breath of Heaven, but I did most of act two with less than 15k.
I have 130 magic find as well...should actually be fairly cheap to match my numbers if you don't spend the money on magic find I did.
i dont see my damage getting to be that high but maybe if i replace a bunch of my gear that is lacking in dex and has more vit i should be ok, i have quite a bit of gold to be able to spend on the AH it shouldnt be much of a problem for me to get dex/allres/lit res gear for myself so as soon as blizz gets off their butts and fixes these servers i will attempt your build and get back to you, thanks for posting this, act2 has really been a downer for me
Just to be clear I'm still kiting a lot in act two with my gear. Get your three deadly reach hits in, back off 3 or 4 steps and unload again. Getting surrounded by an elite pack is very often deadly. I can run through molten, or arcane if needed. I can stand in plague for a few seconds (in act 1 I can ignore it, Mantra of Healing heals more). Desecrate in act 2 is insane, must move quickly and mortar on ranged guys is really difficult. Mystic Ally is my favorite skill of the choice ones right now. The guy seems to get some of our defenses and can tank for a while, though he falls quickly when he ignores the tricks of the elite packs.
I would make vitality more of a priority. How much so is hard to say of course, probably more like even with dex instead of the 2/3 or so mine is now.
I have less armor (8.6k) and more resists (824) right now, with 26997 health. That comes out to 6.8% of damage taken and 392,821 effective health. I'd be interested to know where your numbers are.
Most normal mobs are a joke as you said, although anything with a wind up attack is worth avoiding, as are the flies. Elites can be hit or miss. Some packs I can stand and tank no problem. Others I have to kite no matter what mods they spawn with. I managed to kill everything I faced from the start of the Kulle stuff up to Belial last night however with only 7 or 8 deaths before Belial. Five of those were on a wrath pack with molten...very nasty they phase through you to attack and leave you in lava constantly, with jailer and frozen as well it was the first pack I thought about skipping in a while. Kulle was easy, but I died once when one of his guys hit me right as the ceiling caved in on me. The guys still hit hard enough I had to kite, getting hit by both at once would of been death.
Got 3 attempts on Belial but it was late and I was tired and kept messing up around the half way point. I expect to beat him tonight, and try out act 3, though I fully expect it to be a bit much until I get some more gear.
That comes out to 346k effective health. I had 392k and by the end of the act 2 was thinking of bumping up my vitality some, I'll probably shoot for 30k soon, which will be another 42k effective health.
Some packs just suck. Use corners, and practice kiting. Bring an aoe skill and illusionist become a lot easier. Sweeping wind with the fire rune for the bigger radius has become my go to for one of the open spots as of last night.
You might find Mystic Ally effective for taking some of the heat off you, I've been using the water one lately and it pretty much steals aggro on something if it's out. For 25 spirit the water one is worth it if it just gets off the initial attack, in fact I sometimes chain cast it just for that nuke. The earth one has obvious benefits as well.
If your using crippling wave your not using this build. Deadly Reach is absolutely essential.
Sweeping wind plus fire rune changes the radius, that's exactly the point with deadly reach, I was often hitting stuff with deadly reach but it wasn't in the radius of sweeping wind.
Enrage isn't a death sentence for this build, last night a pack enraged on me and I managed to keep fighting through it, it last about a minute and goes away.
Deadly takes my armor from rought 66% to roughly 73% with resists being at 73 as well with my Mantra. Plugging those numbers in a calculator you get .07 with deadly and .09 without. It may not seem like much but your actually taking 28% more damage without deadly strike. Deadly Strike also makes it possible to kite. Both are essential parts of this build. Not saying crippling isn't good, I used it through all of hell and I loved it. I pull it out with the 143% rune for farming act 1 now, but your not in this build when your using it, This build is about taking as little damage as possible every time your hit.
Never get surrounded, that's why your kiting, being surrounded is a death sentence way too often.
Yes, I wouldn't wear a pair of boots without movement speed, once you get use to it it's just too hard to get use to being slow again.
Time of Need is essential imo. Life on Hit is great so it may be workable, but the build relies on high armor/resists to reduce damage as much as possible.
Gonna edit the initial post to reflect movement speed and life on hit as well.
I mention 1k is available on weapons straight up, that could be 1350 if it has a socket as well. I have right at 200 now and I'm getting by fine.
It could just be down to my personal preference though. I think I'd want to get some +spirit regen gear to make this work for me. Might help other people (or I may be doing something wrong, in which case please feel free to enlighten me).
That said, I do find this build allows me to easily burn through Act 1 Inferno. Some things can cause me to pause/kite, but for the most part Act 1 is very, very easy. Act 2 is still the issue though: even with this build, with 650 resistances, 27k HP and around 7k armor, I find I die very quickly.
Think I need more dexterity too, then. It's a very good build though: perhaps most effective when with other people?
P.S. Entered Act 3, that was a wholle different story - dunno what kind of stats needed to clear it.
I have no +spirit personally but I have a 1.65 base attack speed weapon and a total attack speed of 2.66. Also my kiting method when I must is 3 attacks fall back 3 or 4 steps, 3 attacks. You get hit a little more than a true kiter, the real point is to avoid being surrounded, which is almost certainly a death sentence.
In a group I tend to kite in a circle, which tends to gather stuff. Takes a little practice, but it works pretty well for me at keeping mobs on me. The pet is a nice additional tank to boot, almost always use it in group.
I have act 2 on farm with this build as of last night. Did Magdha run up through Belial with almost no deaths, didn't have to repair but once. Only mob I skipped was a horde of arcane guys right in the door of a basement, couldn't move when I went in and died a quick death to a horde without kiting.
Act 3 was painful, died 4 times on first 2 elite packs. Stuff was killable. Going to farm act 2 until I get some more defense and 35k health I think.
Also this is a tank build but with dexterity and attack speed as priorities it packs decent damage for a monk, I have 20k damage now, 22.5K with breath of heaven.
My barbarian friend finally hit 60 the night before last. Did Act 1 inferno with him and another friend, clear through. Totally unkillable with warcry with this build, resists were up to just under 1200. At one point we had two groups pulled with arcane on both, plague, desecrator, and mortar and I just stood in the middle of it all and laughed. It was one of 3 times my pet actually died the entire run. Our defenses must transfer to him as well because he was pretty much unkillable as well.
what act are you in? actually, what difficulty are you in because it seems like you haven't gotten to the hard stuff yet...
Tried something similar exept with wave of light (explosive light) as a spender (had a great memories of runing with it on NM/Hell), lost quite a bit mitigation and i really didn't like standing in the mobs face. Becides with current stats/build i faceroll Belial dodging only chain attack and metiors - rest time i spend taking whatever he throwns on me:P
P.S. In act 3 droping whatever mitigation you can get isn't even a choice, dieing to elites time after time. Mean things going there...
Tried it for a bit just now on the part of Act 2 I have on farm and hated it. You can't kite when you teleport back to the mobs. Tried it with the dodge and it was ok, but not nearly as effective as deadly for me.
Deadly strike with Keen is 25-30% less damage taken for most people...it may not look like much when your mitigation goes from 65-70 or so, but it's a huge deal.