So I rolled a monk 2 days ago or so...

[thewoodshed]

...and I am at level 35 and just realized I have no idea what I am doing LOL.

I normally play a barbarian and am no used to this dodgey stuff. I like to dual wield, and since I started playing coop games it seems my DPS is at a plateau. So what are some suggestions and must haves? Any tips will be handy,

Thanks,
'shed

[InsaneAction]

Didn't give me much to go on so I'll just type stuff and I hope it helps.

Pick a resist and stick with it... Lighting, Fire, Poison, Arcane, whatever it is try your hardest to stick with it and stack it with All Res... That is for the One with Everything passive, I'm sure you knew that but I'll put it here anyways.

To help out your DPS the Monk has many buffs... Do you DW or are you a Sword & Board guy?

MoC with Overawe is great for a damage buff, that is if you can run it and take the hit on losing the Dodge Chance + armor (MoE with Hard Target) or losing the Life Regen with the + resist (MoH with Time of Need) It's important that no matter what Mantra you use get in the habit of casting it every 3 sec when in a fight. Not so much for White mobs but for elites and champs you need to. MoC and MoE have the best 3 sec cast Bonus followed with MoH. As a quick opinion of mine MoR is useless unless you're in a 4 Monk party and everyone runs a different Mantra. To further drill the 3 sec casting point, MoC with Overawe bumps to +48% damage for the first 3 sec after casting it... That's a lot... MoE bumps to +30% dodge, also a lot...

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Now moving on to the 3 passives that I think are the staple for a good build (well 2 for sure)

Transcendence, One With Everything, Seize the Initiative;

Transcendence will give you ~3000 life every time you cast your Mantra in a fight... Because you're gonna be casting that every 3 sec that's 1000 LPS... + what ever else you cast you're getting more life back.

OWE well duh...

StI also a duh...


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Moving on to other things, Breath of Heaven with Blazing Wraith is great! Heals you and allies near you for 6200-7400 and increases your damage by 15% for 45 SEC! that's a crazy good buff... I personally cast this just before a fight and it will be off cool down by the time I might need a clutch heal... It's amazing. Blazing Wraith is for DPS if you're going for a more tanky build (if you're in a party or something) go with BoH with Circle of Life for a great clutch heal, that's 8000-9600 life every 15sec for 25 spirit, while running Transcendence that makes it 9550-11050 life every 15 sec...

Serenity with Peaceful Repose (or Tranquility if you're a team player ) is a must, it's great for those "Oh $#!@" moments and it also negates all negative effects, frozen, nightmare, ect...

Inner Sanctuary is amazing! I love it with Forbidden Palace for DPS or with Safe Haven for tanking. As a plus the bad guys can't cross it!!!! So if you're surrounded with no way out drop Inner Sanc on the ground and it fears all enemies within it and they run away. It doesn't fear the Champ of a Champ pack but it will fear his minions... Or say you're kiting back and you run through a doorway, drop Inner Sanc in the doorway and you just slammed the door in their face... That's 3 sec you can use to get some distance or that's 3 sec of pounding by a ranged DPS class with out the fear of being run up on...

Sweeping Wind is great for added DPS, any rune is great in this one. Well maybe not Master of Wind, that one is kinda useless... I personally run the Cyclone rune and have a high Crit Chance... So I just fill the screen with little blue tornadoes...


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Lastly I leave you with my personal thoughts of your main attacks...

Deadly Reach with Keen Eye, or Fist of Thunder with Thunderclap;

I use FoT with TC, for many reasons like it procing faster, attacking faster, having a forward AOE strike on the 3rd hit that has a slight knock back but the main reason I use it... Teleport... You move across the battle field SOOOO fast, you can pop in and out of groups/mobs with ease... I just can't give it up... It is kinda of a double edge sword, sometimes that teleport feature puts you someplace you really don't want to be.

DR with KE is also a good one, it's a ranged attack and it gives you a HUGE armor gain... but it does proc slower than FoT. I think when it comes down to it you just need to try them both and see what fits your play style.

This is all my personal thoughts and play style but I hope it's helped some,


If you have any questions ask away, I'll try to answer them as best as I can. I just kinda carpet bombed it, If you show me your stats and gear I could give you a more direct answer to achieve your goal.

[thewoodshed]

No, that is exactly the kind of thing I a, looking for!

I dual wield.

I didn't post stats and what not becasue at this level things fly by so quick. I am using my lvl 60 barb to farm NM for a Chatty Gem and keeping all the 38-42 drops I have been getting to suit up my my monk with.

[thewoodshed]

Okay, a couple of things here...

You have a ton of spirit spenders but only one spirit generator...how the heck am I going to cast MoE every 3 seconds spending 50 spirit/cast (let alone the other things I need to cast at times)?

[luizdeh]

Don't worry, just use FoT/Thunderclap and watch your spirit go back up very fast

[VHD]

Thanks, I'm in the exact same boat. Just started my Monk last week and up to lvl 35 ... and looking for advice on how to play him. Thanks for the tips.

Also, does your advice change if I'm playing with a team of 1-2 range dps heroes in inferno?

For tanking in a party, is it better to sword/board for highest possible resist and armor or to go for dual wield crit+loh?

[InsaneAction]

Thanks, I'm in the exact same boat. Just started my Monk last week and up to lvl 35 ... and looking for advice on how to play him. Thanks for the tips.

Also, does your advice change if I'm playing with a team of 1-2 range dps heroes in inferno?

For tanking in a party, is it better to sword/board for highest possible resist and armor or to go for dual wield crit+loh?

Great question, this is where the power of Item Swapping can be your friend... If I'm tanking for a group in Act3 or 4 I carry a shield in my stash, that way when I get in a harry spot I can hit "i" and right click the shield to gain Armor, Resist, Vit, Dex, and Crit chance. When the Pack is killed or down to the last guy I'll go back to DW. Try to keep your weapon with the most LoH/Life Steal as your Main Hand, that way you don't lose the survivability when you put the shield on.

A small point to make, when the farm run starts I always peep at everyone's gear/skills. More so other Monks/Barbs to see what kind of build they are running and I adjust accordingly. Like if there is another Monk I make sure we're not running the same Mantra. If it's a Barb I see if he's a DPS/WW Barb or a tanky Barb, that way I can go tanky or DPS. When you get to 60 it's important to check all this stuff out because it sucks getting 2 stacks to find out that you and that other Monk have been both running MoC the whole time... and he won't change even though you said you were going to be running it ......

Okay, a couple of things here...

You have a ton of spirit spenders but only one spirit generator...how the heck am I going to cast MoE every 3 seconds spending 50 spirit/cast (let alone the other things I need to cast at times)?

Just like luizdeh said, well and me, FoT TC procs really really fast. When you're in the fight your spirit is just always going up... My goal is to never let my spirit get full when I'm in a fight. If it gets full that means I'm not in a good rhythm with my cool downs... Also I cast my Mantra maybe about every 4 or 5 sec... I try to get it ever 3 but sometimes it just doesn't work out.

Just to toss some math out there;

(I'll be using this for some of the numbers if you wanna check it out. I don't know who made it but this thing is awesome... https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/...HhkTjB5b0hZTkE)

[don't quote me on this, this is just my understanding of how it works and from what I've seen it's true]

For Single target: FoT gets 6 spirit per-hit, right? wrong....

75* / 75* / 75 297/297/148 (445/446/297 hitting 2 targtes > *1st/2nd double strikes single target

Just a smallllll example, in the "3 punch combo" you hit 5 times. I do 1.7ish attacks per sec... So it takes me about 1.76sec to do a "3 punch combo" procing for 5 hits... That's 30 Spirit every (well just round it up) 2 sec...

The same math goes for LoH,

1000 LoH = ~5000 life every "3 punch combo"



Now ALLLLLL of that was taking into account just ONE target...

FoT TC has an AOE.... So when you've got a group in front of you it's just ridiculous! You will Proc Spirit/LoH for every enemy hit! Wait till you get into a HUGE mob with a high crit chance running Sweeping Winds/Cyclone, The. Screen. Fills. Up. With. Tornadoes. It's flippin awesome! Oh man and with 2 Monks running that build?!?!?!?! ITS AMAZING! haha... Really though I rolled a Wiz first (still play him from time to time) but Monk is by far my favorite class... I would post some pics for you guys but I got my account locked from selling in the RMAH. I guess when the auction goes bad they Lock both party's accounts... Who knew? When I get that fixed up I'll put up some Pics of different things for y'all.

[CrazyCowboy]

For Single target: FoT gets 6 spirit per-hit, right? wrong....

Spirit regen is still 6 per attack, but you are right about FoT:TC proccing LoH twice per target for the first and second attacks.

[InsaneAction]

You're right, I meant that in the fact that the 1st and 2nd hit are proced twice, so it's as if you're getting 12 per-hit... I can see the confusion I didn't word it very good on my part.

[thewoodshed]

So I am at a point now where I have all the level requirements I need to get all the passives listed, but I was using The Guardian's Path. I was wondering that since monks are all about the dodge and I dual wield (thus getting the 15% dodge bonus), why would I select Seize the Initiative over it? I know the armor boost is great- is it becasue armor mitigate all damage? Can elemental damage (especially plagued and molten) be dodged?