Monk looking to move up in the world...

[devnl]

I've been enjoying my Monk for a while now as it breezes through Inferno A1 without even a drop of sweat forming on the top of his balding head. However, seeing as how he's of the adventuring kind and cannot find a good item to save his life (100 hours of play and not a single unique with ~150MF), he has decided to go on an adventure into A2 and beyond. Boy did he get his *** handed to him. Not afraid to admit that getting his *** spanked by Lacuni Prowlers and Sand Wasps wasn't his cup of tea, he retreated back to the Warden and Butcher, 2 guys he could actually make his b*tch without too much effort...

Life goes on, but his wish to progress in the world didn't go away. So he started on a journey of self reflection, inner piece and all the other stuff monks do in those loads of spare time between saving the world and saying their prayers. And that's where I hope you guys will come in. I'm currently using the following build:





It works, I'm happy with it and so is my monk. However, his set of items is a entirely different story. Seeing as how he has no steady income besides the bits of gold that creatures of all sizes carry on them, he has not put that much effort into his gear. The question I would like to ask you is: what items should I be looking at finding substitutes for? And what should I look for? Ofcourse, specifying the sexiest of items is easy to do, but my monk is a eunuch. Sex doesn't do anything for him (and he just lacks cash in general as you can see in the following screenshot). No, what I'm really looing for is some pointers on which items I should really be getting rid of and what some common replacements are, what stats too look for etc. Both me and my monk would greatly appreciate any effort you make to help us out!

[FaultyYogurt]

Don't have really great solutions for you but posting to say you're definitely not alone :-)

I had literally just created a similar image to make a posting just like yours. I was going to post my setup but I'll just watch the suggestions on this thread instead. It's surprising how similar my stats and financial situation are to yours, though I have a more defensive build with lower dps, and lower crit chance. I'm personally OK with the low dps because I want to be a party player tank.

Are you really looking for more survival, more damage, or both?

[devnl]

Obviously, both would be ideal, but for the moment survivability is key. If I can survive better while maintaining my current damage, I think I should be doing fine in A2 and beyond. If not then putting some money into some crit gear would probably also help.

[zorroaster]

Well, for one thing you can try to switch the hard target rune on MOE, cause your armor is low. Then I would try to get faster weapons, with more life on hit, maybe life on spirit, if its cheaper. Even if your dps drops, your survivability will improve. And finally try to get more items with dual resist for OWE. I would try to get 5k armor, 1,8 aps, 600 life on hit, 600 resall, 15k dps, and maybe a bit more life.

[FaultyYogurt]

Well, for one thing you can try to switch the hard target rune on MOE, cause your armor is low. Then I would try to get faster weapons, with more life on hit, maybe life on spirit, if its cheaper. Even if your dps drops, your survivability will improve. And finally try to get more items with dual resist for OWE. I would try to get 5k armor, 1,8 aps, 600 life on hit, 600 resall, 15k dps, and maybe a bit more life.

That for A2 or A3/4 and are you telling him unbuffed stats? I've made it through A1 with worse than his stats along with a more defensive build. Skipped some packs but it was doable. A2 on the other hand...

[zorroaster]

I would say those are the minimum required stats for act 2, so that you can progress without loosing gold from dying a lot. I counted hard target for the armor, cause its almost always on, but for dps not counting BOH or blinding flash.

my build is:

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculato...ihg!UXd!acbZaa

stats:

Screenshot005.jpg

With these stats I can progress without loosing money. and only have to skip some elites. After reaching desolate sands I went back to farm act1, so now I have some gold.

[FaultyYogurt]

Thanks. But man...you're basically saying there can be no tradeoffs other than LoH and that's only if you have high APS. So ridiculously expensive for the gear...I have about 500K to work with (converted the money I used to have into Paypal), and with my current setup it looks like the only thing that I can keep is the weapon if DPS/APS can be sacrificed.

[zorroaster]

I don't know your setup, and I don't say my approach is the best, I just showed mine, because it's good enough to progress act 2.

I like to play with high aps, so I use 2 daggers (both under 700 dps, but good LOH) and this high aps means I can use LOH very efficiently.

I actually sacrificed high crit chance/damage to have everything else high enough (maybe my armor is a bit low) Everybody seems to stack crit, so stuff without crit is not that expensive, and my dps is still good enough. With 2 swords/claws and 1 item with attack speed, you should get around 1,8 aps, and that should be perfectly fine if you want to use LOH or LpSS. If you use One with Everything, reaching 550-600 resist all should be achievable. Armor with the seize the initiative and MOE+hard target should be fine too. Its basically down to buying items with dual res+dex, some vitality and 2 swords/claws with good LOH and 600+ dps. If you are in Europe, like me 500k gold is probably not enough to gear for act 2, but farming act 1 is your only option then.

[Mehmet]

I'm just about to give up on my monk. It's the only character I've played since the game was released and I enjoy playing him. But I'm getting really bored with act 1 and act 2 is still way too hard.

So far what's been working best for me is a defensive crit build, but still no real luck in A2. My stats are: 560 all res, 6.2k armor, 15k dps at 1.5 aps, 33% crit, 32k hp, 125 LPSS. Any rare pack with molten, plague, arcane or desecrator will melt me instantly.

[Mr Man]

I'm just about to give up on my monk. It's the only character I've played since the game was released and I enjoy playing him. But I'm getting really bored with act 1 and act 2 is still way too hard.

So far what's been working best for me is a defensive crit build, but still no real luck in A2. My stats are: 560 all res, 6.2k armor, 15k dps at 1.5 aps, 33% crit, 32k hp, 125 LPSS. Any rare pack with molten, plague, arcane or desecrator will melt me instantly.

Whats skills are you using? You seem to have stats that are fine for act2.