Diablo – What stats/item modifiers should I be focused on for a Monk on Inferno

diablo-3diablo-3-monk

I'm currently attempting to work my way through Inferno difficulty with my Monk. Unfortunately, it's extremely slow going. I can take down the regular trash monsters with ease, but any champions or higher tend to eat my face.

I have looked at this question, and that answers the skill questions, but doesn't touch on itemization at all. There is a question about whether I should be using a one-handed weapon or two. There's also a question about whether I should use a shield or not for tanking. My point is, there's a lot of questions about how to play your preferred style. What seems to be missing, though, is what itemization should be preferred, specifically for Inferno difficulty.

I'm currently attempting to focus specifically on a single resist (using One With Everything as a synergy) and life on hit. This tends to let me survive, but now I'm not so balanced towards actually DOING damage.

So, what item modifiers (and a rough idea of how much) should I be looking for to progress through Inferno?

Best Answer

My experience is that whenever you feel you are doing not enough damage, you are actually surviving but unsatisfied with killing mobs too slow. The fact is, there is no "too slow" as long as you survive, especially as a monk.

Try to focus on items with physical resistance if you really want to build tanky, while keeping your resistance up. Your weapon should have fast attackspeed to keep spiritgenerating up so you have more options for dealing damage/healing.

The monk is half a caster half a melee character in my opinion so you shouldn't attempt to kill them with just your spirit generators. Try actually spending your resources as soon as they are aviable and your damage will automatically increase.

Also try a good mix of Dex/Vit on items. Resistance against impairing effects is good, as is damage against melee attackers. But both shouldnt be your main focus.

I also tried a full on damaging monk with max dex, life on hit effects and lots of evasion but i found that vitality and armor through shields was missing.

Skills

Primary: Fists of Thunder with Lightning Flash - the dodge is subject to diminishing returns, but it's still an extra ~8% while I'm attacking. That's not bad at all.
Secondary: Lashing Tail Kick with Hand of Ytar - this is mostly to keep Sweeping Wind from falling off. It also helps attract attention from enemies standing in damage spots.
Skill 1: Serenity with Instant Karma - mostly my panic button. But with Instant Karma, when I'm in the middle of a giant group, this helps thin the crowd.
Skill 2: Dashing Strike with Blinding Speed - This helps get me out of damage spots, and gives me a dodge boost while I'm at it.
Skill 3: Sweeping Wind with Cyclone - nothing like a group of guys trying to beat on you, and dying in the process. At max stacks, it provides a very respectable 45% AoE, with a chance to spawn tornados that do 20%. That's nothing to laugh at.
Skill 4: Mantra of Evasion with Hard Target - my armor isn't very high, so the 20% boost is very helpful. When I get my armor high enough, I'll be switching the rune to Backlash, for the AoE fire damage.
Passive 1: One With Everything - Pretty self explanatory. Focus on a single resistance.
Passive 2: Seize the Initiative - Adds Dexterity to Armor. Monks are all about the Dexterity. With this single passive, Dexterity provides Dodge, Damage, and Armor.
Passive 3: The Guardian's Path - Adds 15% dodge with dual-wielding. Since this is a dodge build, this is pure gold.

Equipment modifiers

Required, in order of importance:

Life on Hit is the saving grace of this build. It's what keeps you going in the middle of a giant group. If both weapons have 400+, then Fists or Daggers will give you over 1000 life per second just for beating on something. Slightly less for slower weaponry. Enough life on hit means you can basically ignore anything a boss throws at you (as long is it doesn't kill you in one hit), as the life regeneration will just heal you back to where you were before he even attacked.

Life Regeneration is the secondary concern. Life on hit heals burst damage. Life regeneration heals damage areas, keeps you up while you run over them to get to (or away from) something. Also, it's easy enough to replace the Mantra of Healing entirely with all of two or three pieces of equipment, allowing you to focus on dodging.

A single resistance; it doesn't matter which one. If you find a piece of equipment that has your chosen resistance and resist all, that's gravy. You can get 90+ resist from one piece of equipment. This will mitigate damage to a very large degree, which is absolutely required for Inferno, even for dodging. You are going to get hit. Make it hurt as little as possible.

Dexterity is your all-around do everything stat. More is better, as always. Don't skimp on the above for this, though. You'll do more damage, yes, but you'll also have more trouble surviving the pain being thrown your way.

Vitality is the last required modifier. This one is last because you don't need a whole lot; enough to survive the biggest hits, but anything that doesn't one-shot you will die. This is why I currently have a grand total of 14,000 life.

Nice to have, but not essential:

Attack Speed is a no-brainer. Faster attacks mean more hits, which means more life. The damage boost is a side bonus.

Strength adds to armor, which is always good. Don't look for it, though, as that's all the bonus it give you.

Intelligence will boost your resistances, and that's never a bad thing. Your chosen resistance is better, though, as it takes 10 Intelligence to match a single point of resistance.

Higher Critical Chance synergizes very well with Sweeping Wind. If you can get this without sacrificing any required stats, get it. It will crank your DPS into overdrive.

Higher Critical Damage is just a damage boost.

Melee/Ranged damage reduction is gravy on top of your armor and resistances. I haven't tested whether this gets dumped on top of existing armor or not, leading into a straight damage reduction, but like I said earlier, less damage taken is a good thing.

Control Effect Reduction will unfreeze and un-jail you that much faster. Freeze is the critical one. Not being able to attack means you can't bring your life on hit to bear. This is not optimal.

Not required:

Thorns are not really needed. Yeah, you'll damage those that hit you, but between Sweeping Wind and your third hit, you'll already be doing much more to those in front of you.

Other resistances are entirely useless. They will provide no benefit whatsoever, unless it goes higher than your chosen. In which case, why are you diluting your equipment choices to that extent? You might as well focus exclusively on Resist All, then.

Playstyle

First up, this build will not let you stand there and take Arcane Sentries and Desecrators without moving. I don't think there's any build that will let you do that. So, get used to moving. Not to kite, but to pull away from damage spots, arcane sentries, that sort of thing. Move is your watchword. Moving is life.

You can stand and take it from enemies that have Reflect Damage, Fast, Vampiric, anything that doesn't drop a damage spot. Even Molten is fine, as long as they don't move. Just remember, they explode when you kill them.

Dashing Strike dashes you to the other side of the enemy that you are on. It can also dash you out of a tight spot. Use this to avoid boss attacks. Butcher winds up his big swing? Dash behind him, and keep going. This takes split-second timing, however, as I've found some enemies will wind up, and if you dash before they begin the attack animation, they'll turn to hit you. You may have better luck dashing away from your enemies. The dodge bonus from the rune only functions when you hit something. It will not work just dashing from one point to another. Also keep in mind that damage spots tend to interrupt the dash, so don't take it as a get out of jail free card.

When fighting bosses, champions, anything with over 100,000 health, turn on Sweeping Wind. You'll regain your Spirit, and be doing extra damage. If you need to run away, use Lashing Tail Kick on an enemy to keep it from falling off.

Don't worry about your life dropping; it's going to happen. It's when you're standing in a plague patch, or other damage area that you need to worry. Remember our watchword? Move. Why are you trying to imitate a Barbarian? Monks are about speed, grace, and balance. Flow around the battlefield. Let them come to you, away from their Arcane Sentries and Plague patches. A live monk is a happy monk.

Anything that can't kill you in one hit will die. You won't be able to stand there and take it from Arcane or Plague champion groups, but normal monsters provide no difficulty.

You are going to die from time to time. It happens. Don't get frustrated. Learn from it, and experiment. Vortex sucks you onto an Arcane Sentry? Hopefully Serenity is available. If not, take your lumps and try again.

Last tip: Have fun. If you're not enjoying having to run around to avoid Arcane sentries or Desecration patches, this build is not for you.

Diablo – be an effective tanking Monk without a Shield at higher difficulty levels

Updated Answer

Having soloed inferno recently with a dual wielding setup on my monk, I can now say as a fact that dual wielding is absolutely possible. But note, this highly depends on having two great weapons to use on your monk.

Here are the main advantages for dual wielding over a shield:

Additional socket on weapon for HUGE critical hit damage boost (This is the most important factor, I've severly underestimated how much DPS having more crit hit damage can provide with modest crit hit chance (~30%).)
A ton of more stats
More Life On Hit Proc (This is the second most important factor)
15% faster attack
15% more dodge

My primary weapon right now is a ~850 dps 250dex 250vit 500 life on hit axe.

My secondary is a ~750 dps 850 life on hit 97% critical hit chance axe.

The main goal of this setup is to have high dps with huge life on hit and high critical hit damage. I'd prefer my primary to be socketed to have even more critical hit, but those weapons with similar stats to mine are too expensive right now and far beyond my reach.

Now that I have 3x more DPS than the old tank build, even though I'm down quite a bit on defense, its easier since I kill them faster so I don't have to tank as long. Also, the really deadly effects such as arcane turret and ground effects can't be blocked anyway, making blocking less useful than killing the target faster.

Finally, dual wielding axes is major style points, imo looks much nicer than axe/shield ;)

Old Answer

This answer is still applicable since having 2 great weapons is really really expensive compared to 1 and a shield.

From my experience, a shield is extremely necessary in late game inferno and ponies (the 1.03 damage nerf has made shield even better by reducing the spikiness of damage). Lets compare and contrast:

Shield Benefits

1000 - 1500 armor (double that if you use deadly reach)
70-140 resist all (70+ res all and another element of choice for stacking)
30-40% block (high block shield with JL + HoC) for 3k damage (note this is after reduction!)
1 free passive slot (you don't have to take guardian's path so you can devote 1 more passive for defense, such as resolve)

Overall, you gain HUGE damage reduction benefits for 1 equipment slot. If you are trying to be a tank this is almost a no brainer.

Duel Wield Weapon Benefits

15% Faster attack speed for more LoH
More stats (weapons can get higher stats than armor can), and more unique effects like transcendence (having 100+ life per spirit spent is a great way to heal).
Faster spirit regen (even faster if you have 2 spirit regen weapons)
15% dodge (if you take the passive)

Overall, you gain a little dodge (doesn't work when frozen, etc, and you can't dodge ground effects like desecrate and plague, which are the main sources of death in late game inferno), some more potential sources of healing and spirit regen, more damage, but way less survivability. Either way you won't be a tank.

To summarize, using a shield is a lot more defensive oriented, and thus provides the most survivability in late inferno acts (3+ and ponies). Not to mention finding a good shield is a heck lot cheaper than finding a good 1 hander with high damage, ias, stats, and LoH. You might be able to get away with duel wielding up to act 2, but I wouldn't expect you to last long beyond that unless you have godly gear and weapons.