Warrior-Monk Advice NEEDED (in conjunction with JanusJones' guide)

[Autopilot]

I have read through JanusJones' guide.

I believe i have summarised it down to what i have below.

SKILLS

TRAPS

1 in Fire Blast (prerequisite)
1 in Wake of Fire (prerequisite)
1 in Blade Sentinel (prerequisite)
1 in Blade Fury (main skill!)
1~20 in Death Sentry


SHADOW DISCIPLINES

1 in Claw Mastery
1 in Claw Block
1 in Psychic Hammer
1 in Burst of Speed
1 in Shadow Warrior
1~20 in Cloak of Shadows
1~20 in Fade
20 in Shadow Master
1~20 in Mind Blast
20 in Venom

MARTIAL ARTS

1~20 in Dragon Talon
1~20 in Dragon Flight



With the skills, JanusJones has left quite a few out in the open (1~20)
I am wondering which would be best to max for uber trist, organ and key hunting?





Gear:
Wep: Grief
Arma: Coh
Gloves: Trangs
Shield: SS
Helm: Kiras
Boots: Shadow Dancer
Ammy: Maras
Ring1: Raven
Ring2: Carrion Wind
Belt: Dungoes
Wep Switch: Cta
Shield Switch: Spirit

I hope all the gear is alright, should anything be changed?


Attrib:
Str: Enough
Dext: Enough for max block
Vit: Everything else
Energy: Nothing


Anything wrong with attributes?


I hope people can help answer some of the questions so my warrior-monk can get on the road :D

[Nuke Rules]

With the skills, JanusJones has left quite a few out in the open (1~20)
I am wondering which would be best to max for uber trist, organ and key hunting?

I think most would go with putting quite a few into Mind Blast, if not maxing it. It's essential to keeping the minions in trist distracted.



Gear:
Wep: Grief
Arma: Coh
Gloves: Trangs
Shield: SS
Helm: Kiras
Boots: Shadow Dancer
Ammy: Maras
Ring1: Raven
Ring2: Carrion Wind
Belt: Dungoes
Wep Switch: Cta
Shield Switch: Spirit

I hope all the gear is alright, should anything be changed?

Lots of options here, but you NEED weapons/gear with critical blow as well as life tap, no way around it. From what I see here you don't really have either. Depending on your wealth, try to get a Last Wish runeword to cover both CB and LT. If you can't afford that go with Fleshripper and Dracs in place of the Trangs.


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[Autopilot]

Okay thanks for that.. Now i need some help with the skills, which should i max for uber use?

[BooTy]

im making this build right now, and dont bother putting anything into death sentry. I made that mistake without thinking. Its completely useless for uber running.

[Cave]

But he also said this build would be used for key hunting and DS will be very usefull when doing so.

[Autopilot]

well, i max

20 in Shadow Master
20 in Venom

Which would be best for uber trist & uber key running?

[BooTy]

i find putting pts into mind blast has helped my sin a lot. i will probably end up maxing that skill as well. Also make sure ur dragon talon ends up at an increment of 6. (ie. lvl 6, 12, 18, 24, etc.)

[Silent Shaddow]

JanusJones i think missed emphasing how important crushing blow is, if u head over 2 the pala section and c how the 1pt smiter build 2 the ubers is set out, ull c all the calcs... cb is how u deal your dmg,

dude, 1stlyur equip, a 'black flail' with help u out more than grief atm black is packing a wuping 40 crushing blow, and is v. useful if ur into v. expensive then last wish is recomend (personally i wouldnt, even if i could afford it, again save this for a pala/barb etc) try stormlash or other r/ws, trade in ur grief for something like beast or i always liked the look of doom
there are items out there are much better than for a ticker than grief, if in doubt use black!:cool:
the big thing 2 remember here is that weapon dmg doesnt affect kick dmg, if u wanna spend lots of runes for high dmg, forti and phonix shield (they have ed and are non weapon and so the ed mod transfers)
here is a list that explains what i just tried 2 badly
Not to make things too confusing here’s a list of mods that will transfer to your kicks:

- Open Wounds
- Crushing Blow
- Elemental Damage
- Magic Damage
- +X% Enhanced Damage from non-weapon gear
- +X% Life Leech
- +X% Mana Leech
- +X% Chance to cast xxx on striking
Now, these mods does not transfer to your kicks:
- Deadly Strike
- Critical Strike
- + Max Damage
- + Min Damage
- +X% Enhanced Damage from weapon
- +X% Chance to cast on attacking

also upped gores also will b more useful 2 u,shaddow dancers arent packing anything particularly interesting other than skills,
the other vital compotent 2 your build is life tap... get ur self some draculs!!!!
these are massively important, u wont live long with out it,

putting you with,

Gear:
Wep: some high cb weapon, not grief (u might as well give it 2 me 4 all the gud it does on u) - if u want something 2 aim for id say doom:grin:
Arma: Coh -fine
Gloves: Draks
Shield: SS -fine (slip a pdia/um in here for more res)
Helm: Kiras/Guil face (use guil face if ur not packing 60+ cb u can get more res from scs etc, but when u face mephi switch back 2 this)
Boots: Shadow Dancer/upped gores again depending on ur cb count
Ammy: Maras-fine
Ring1: Raven-fine
Ring2: Carrion Wind-fine
Belt: Dungoes-fine
Wep Switch: Cta-fine, also a wand with life tap charge maybe b usefulif ur having probs staying alive
Shield Switch: Spirit-fine

in terms of skills, i would personally recomend for general pvm and the all important key finding, a kicker/trap hybrid. there is a gud guide somewhere around, (no offence but JanusJones contained almost no useful info for me)

Skills like mb, shaddow master, fade, bos, vemon etc should b left at 1 for the most part, there are gud reasons for maxing some of these, but thats mostly pvp or ppl talking out there arses

(why would u max BoS at all? unless u wrote a guide with out bothering 2 consider break points)

this is a trapper/kicker build, its my fav char and an awesome weapon

TRAPS

1 in Fire Blast (prerequisite) and just No! leav it at 1

1 in Wake of Fire (prerequisite) see above!

1 in Blade Sentinel (prerequisite),1 in Blade Fury (rubbish (mostly)), scrap these kills, theres a build around for susidle skills like that, atm this is useless

20 spark sentry -synergy therfore requiring less skills

20 lightning sentry - main trap, cast when encounter difficulties

20 in Death Sentry - once theres a couple of corpses, cast this, my traps has a CE raduis of 13 yards and pwns nithy in secs, gozu m8 aint!

SHADOW DISCIPLINES

1 in Claw Mastery
1 in Claw Block
1 in Psychic Hammer
1 in Burst of Speed
1 in Shadow Warrior
1 in Cloak of Shadows (this is amazingly useful, dont eva let any1 convice u other wise, it lowers Target defence, and makes them stand still! a 1 point wonder indeed)

1 in Fade (let skills bring this up, no more than 1 needed, only 2 be used vs mephi)

1 in Shadow Master
1 in Mind Blast (points in this will increase the stun length and chance 2 convert, but i dont need the stun lenght and tbh i rather they didnt convert at all)

1~20 in Venom (quesionable, 1 point certainally, 20 im not so sure)

MARTIAL ARTS
20 in Dragon Talon (this is your main skill! OFC 20, i maxed it 2 make sure i get as many of the kick break points as possible, you should make sure it is atleast at lvl 24,)
1 in tiger strike (for raking up lots of dmg and then taking screenies...)
1 in Dragon Flight (this is for teleing in duels and general mage killing... use it to close distances v. fast and also it doesnt require a lock so use vs fast moving enemies and bosses)

for quick key runs
countess, use BoS, cta, vemon, and shaddow master prebuff (remeber 2 bo ur master) then using BoS speed, run like hell to lvl 5 casting CoS and MB as needed, in lvl 5, make ur way round 2 her little room, cast ur trapps, deader...
if ur lucky collect ur key/runes

summoner, prebuff as above and then this time were going 2 use dflight as a kinda tele skill, run up 2 1st pack of bad guys, and dflight 2 the other side, repeat until at summoner here use traps on physical immunes and kick the summoner in the face a few times,

nithy, prebuff, run like hell, use mb and cos, get 2 the bottom, kill stuff until u find the right place, then as soon as ur there cast CoS (everything stands still) and 5 LS traps, nithies corpse explotion is fear for miles around, but u can explo corpses 5times faster, as soon as u seen a couple of corpses lay down 5 Dsentry traps, splat splat splat splat, each CE generates more corpses in an omnious line right the way back 2 nithy... splat...
dead nithy

but my fav way of doing this was witha friend, she teled opend a tp, i killed, whilst she teled some more... we get thro alot of runs v. fast like that

this build also makes an awesome boss killer, and if u use the above techinques well, running any boss isnt hard...

in conclusion, c-beats guide here is a v. gud guide, but i feel that he has left out alot of non claw weapons, like those i have described
http://strategy.diabloii.net/news.php?id=546#Statistics

as for mini ubers? i havnt got that far yet (im am making this build) but here its all down to CB, life tap and Dtalon, if u have trouble hitting, make use uve cat CoS and if need at the informous angelic combo or passion works nicely as well, once, life has cast on the uber, dont stop kicking until dead,

disclaimer, oh bugger ive done it again, i nvr ment it to b this long, mostly the skills and setup i have described are based on my own experiences, and what i feel works... if i have missed some obvious out its b/c of the time and if its something minor then it either hasnt been that relevent or it cause of the time again

edit: thought id post my set up,

primary weapon: voice of justice (cold dmg, crowd control, FO casting everwhere is just cool. i use this weapon 2 help immoblise my prey, to stop fighting back and 2 max leeching/black fail/twin jadon talon (dream: doom)
primary shield: ss with pdia (phonenix/ss with um)
secondry weapon: cta 4/4/4
secondry shield: spirit
amrour:lionheart (this is a gr8 cheap armour but stick with ur coh over this) (dream: forti/coh/eni etc)
helm: shako/guil face (dream: shako umed/guil face umed/andy face umed)
gloves: draks, (dream: yay!)
boots: upped gores (dream: yay!
belt: glooms trap (dream: dungos/arach)
rings: twin carrion (dream: i like the change 2 cast twister and thereore stun, but incert sojs, bks, uber cool dual leech, res rings etc
amu: +3 traps amu/+2 martial, 11 all res (minor mods) (dream: maras etc)
charms, some martail skillers 2 make sure i get 4 kicks, lifers and res scs as well,
in terms of skills i use 20 dtalon, 1dflight, 1CoS, 1 Mb, 1BoS, 1Fade, 1Venom, (all the 1 point wonders, only 1) and then i maxed the traps, leaving me with ~4k trap dmg, (rubbish i hear u say, i say, im kicking them as well arent i? 4k dmg is enough, ur not relying on ur traps constantly)
there,

the disclaimer again, oh bugger ive done it again, i nvr ment it to b this long, mostly the skills and setup i have described are based on my own experiences, and what i feel works... if i have missed some obvious out its b/c of the time and if its something minor then it either hasnt been that relevent of it cause of the time again

edit: did i mention how cool death sentry was? :grin: