Read the guide on how to build. Watch the video to see it in action.
This guide creates a Monk with high magic find and average offensive and defensive stats with the purpose of doing solo Act 1 butcher runs.
DISCLAIMER: I realize that there are many that power game and do things such as magic set swapping and other things to maximize numbers. This guide is not aimed at you. If, however, there is something I missed that would help then please send me a message.
Left Click: Fists of Thunder (Thunderclap) - It allows you to jump back into a fight, helps keep your Sweeping Wind up by closing the gap, and allows you to travel quicker through levels by attacking breakable objects.
Right Click: Sweeping Wind (Blade Storm)
ALTERNATE: Sweeping Wind (Cyclone) - If you have 15% crit with a fast attack speed, pick this instead for much greater DPS.
Slot 1: Breath of Heaven (Infused with Light)
ALTERNATE: Seven-Sided Strike (Fulminating Onslaught) - This is really fun to use.
Slot 2: Serenity (Peaceful Repose)
ALTERNATE: Serenity (Ascension) - At 35k HP, this is the better option.
Slot 3: Blinding Flash (Faith in the Light)
ALTERNATE: Blinding Flash (Searing Light) - I don't like this as much because of the lack of damage output, but many people run with it.
Slot 4: Mantra of Conviction (Overawe)
ALTERNATE: Mantra of Evasion (Hard Target) - If you don't have good enough gear yet to run with Conviction, run with this to survive long enough to farm some items/gold.
PASSIVES: Resolve, One With Everything, Seize the Initiative
3.Gear
Stat priority on all items → MF, DEX, Resistance, VIT
Get at least 10% crit chance. A little bit of gold find goes a long way. Since monk has One with Everything passive, you can save a ton of money on buying items with one high resistance on every item as well as Magic Find and DEX. I recommend poison or cold since those are not wanted by anyone. A breakdown of how I buy my items is below:
Helm → High magic find (MF + Topaz), Resist, DEX, VIT (biggest MF potential)
Weapon → High dps is most important, try to get a socket and IAS/DEX
Shield → MF, Chance to Block, DEX, Resist, VIT
Then you should start equipping your enchantress with a 1k weapon with intelligence, and everything else with as much INT and MF as you can find, with a little VIT on the side. Her skills should be Charm, Powered Armor, Erosion, Focused Mind.
4.Item Hunting
I start at Northern Highlands and run to see if the Watchtower is there. If it is not, I start at festering woods. Get at least 2 stacks of NV before moving on to Leoric's Manor. Go backwards for an elite, then continue on to Halls of Glory Level 1 with at least 3 stacks. Then continue on to Butcher.
When approaching a group of Elites, get ready to right click Sweeping Wind as soon as you teleport to your target. Start getting those stacks up while watching your health. If it does down quickly, pick a minion and focus on them while popping skills back to back starting with Blinding Flash and Aura. Pop heal once you get halfway on life, and always be ready to trigger Serenity if things get out of control.
General tips
With good enough MF and 5 stacks of NV your MF should be around 300%.
Ignore blues until your first trip back to town, which should be around The Warden.
The focus should be on exploring the map for elites and goblins, not getting to the next section.
Kill everything in Halls of Agony level 3.
5.Conclusion
I hope you found this mini-guide useful! It will be updated periodically.
I run somewhat the same setup with my monk. Currently at 293 MF with 5 stacks, 19k dps, 25k life and 800 LoH. Next upgrades are gonna be my rings or pants for more MF and a slightly DPS increase.
I can complete the entire act 1 without deaths and have been farming it for about 2-3 weeks. Never found anything usefull besides a 1089 dps 2-handed sword. Not with the best affixes and couldn't even sell the item for 75k on the auction house so I ended up vendoring it. I do get an fair amount of ilvl 61-63 but nothing close to an upgrade.
I tend to salvage anything I find, except for things that roll a descent number in usefull stats and goes for around 200-400k on the gold auction house.
I have much bigger success in selling the exquisite essences on the auction house and make roughly 100k a day with 2-3 hours played.
If you are interested in a par run on regular basis you can add me Pwnstarr#2933
I do these sorta things on my wizard as my Monk is my progress toon, but handy to see what others are aiming for. I havent found anything useful in act 1 for a while though
This is exactly the kind of guide I was after. My wife and I appreciate you taking the time to write one up for the community. We need better gear for Act III.
I've had similar thoughts on the matter (regarding act3 vs act1).
If you go with relatively useful MF gear for Act1, I'd say 225% is pretty good (300% with NV is what I'm sitting at). That makes your ilvl63 rate 19.2%
If you go with 0 MF (for ease of comparison) to do Act3, you only have the 75% NV.. so your ilvl63 rate is 28.5%
It is a substantial difference, for sure, at around 9% more for Act3.. I guess it boils down to what you prefer and what you can handle. If you're dying more than once to certain affixes, perhaps Act3 is too slow. If Act3 is cake for you, then have fun.
I've had similar thoughts on the matter (regarding act3 vs act1).
If you go with relatively useful MF gear for Act1, I'd say 225% is pretty good (300% with NV is what I'm sitting at). That makes your ilvl63 rate 19.2%
If you go with 0 MF (for ease of comparison) to do Act3, you only have the 75% NV.. so your ilvl63 rate is 28.5%
It is a substantial difference, for sure, at around 9% more for Act3.. I guess it boils down to what you prefer and what you can handle. If you're dying more than once to certain affixes, perhaps Act3 is too slow. If Act3 is cake for you, then have fun.
MF has nothing to do with what ilvl items drop. That's completely and solely dependent on what act you're in. 0% MF or 400% MF, Act 1 will yield the same percent of 61s, 62s, and 63s. It's just that a lesser percentage of them will be rare if your MF is lower.
Woo this guide is on the main page news. :Thumbs Up:
While Act 3 may get you better quality gear in the long haul, you need to make some money first to be able to get there. Using this monk i'm gearing up my barb for 0% MF so I can do Act 3 runs. Within a week of using this build I found a bow that I sold on RMAH for $100. Although that is not something that's going to happen very often, I've found quite a bit of good/sellable gear by only doing 2-3 runs a day (approx 1 hour 30 minutes).;
I've had similar thoughts on the matter (regarding act3 vs act1).
If you go with relatively useful MF gear for Act1, I'd say 225% is pretty good (300% with NV is what I'm sitting at). That makes your ilvl63 rate 19.2%
If you go with 0 MF (for ease of comparison) to do Act3, you only have the 75% NV.. so your ilvl63 rate is 28.5%
It is a substantial difference, for sure, at around 9% more for Act3.. I guess it boils down to what you prefer and what you can handle. If you're dying more than once to certain affixes, perhaps Act3 is too slow. If Act3 is cake for you, then have fun.
MF has nothing to do with what ilvl items drop. That's completely and solely dependent on what act you're in. 0% MF or 400% MF, Act 1 will yield the same percent of 61s, 62s, and 63s. It's just that a lesser percentage of them will be rare if your MF is lower.
What MF does do is affect the quantity of the affix's that drop. So if a 63 drops, if you don't have MF, your chances of getting 6 affix's is lower then if you did have MF.
Folks should not be so quick / smug to point out faults in other people's posts when they are not really telling the whole story themselves ... and the reality is ... high MF > low MF ... period.
What I like about this guide is how easily the build is adaptable for A2-A3 if you're a hair undergeared. Also great for those of us who JUST made it to Inferno on the Monk and haven't gotten anything decent yet, essentially the same as if you're loading down on MF when your dear is actually decent.
Really, all you need to do is grab a smattering of LOH gear and perhaps swap matras to Evasion (Hard Target) and you're pretty much golden. I'm not a fan of the Infused with Light rune, either, but that's a personal choice (I go with Blazing Wrath)
I've had similar thoughts on the matter (regarding act3 vs act1).
If you go with relatively useful MF gear for Act1, I'd say 225% is pretty good (300% with NV is what I'm sitting at). That makes your ilvl63 rate 19.2%
If you go with 0 MF (for ease of comparison) to do Act3, you only have the 75% NV.. so your ilvl63 rate is 28.5%
It is a substantial difference, for sure, at around 9% more for Act3.. I guess it boils down to what you prefer and what you can handle. If you're dying more than once to certain affixes, perhaps Act3 is too slow. If Act3 is cake for you, then have fun.
MF has nothing to do with what ilvl items drop. That's completely and solely dependent on what act you're in. 0% MF or 400% MF, Act 1 will yield the same percent of 61s, 62s, and 63s. It's just that a lesser percentage of them will be rare if your MF is lower.
What MF does do is affect the quantity of the affix's that drop. So if a 63 drops, if you don't have MF, your chances of getting 6 affix's is lower then if you did have MF.
Folks should not be so quick / smug to point out faults in other people's posts when they are not really telling the whole story themselves ... and the reality is ... high MF > low MF ... period.
It also (and I'm sure you know this, just pointing out for others) can make whites and blues into yellows. There are a lot of white ilvl 63 items that you'll see dropping in A1, enough MF can make them blue or even yellow.
I'd agree that A1 MF isn't that effective if you can do the later acts, though. A2 and A3 is a more interesting comparison--A2 drops 63 items much more commonly, and the numbers gap between A2 and A3 is not linear. In other words, going from A2 to A3 you see some monsters increase their health more than 2X, whereas the droprate doesn't increase exponentially.
I need some clarification. I'm just now getting to the point of investing extensive time and gold in my Monk and this is the second guide I've seen where we're told to use Sweeping Wind as our secondary skill. Is it just me or is this not an option? Did something change recently and this is now outdated? Thanks in advance for any help.
Pretty poor guide....... I mean this is decent for a new player. But any Monk with any decent play time will be using Exploding Palm in A1/A2 farming for multi drops off each blue pack. Meaning you can get 3x drops off 1 pack by using the Exploding Palm skill when all 3 monsters are close together and low hp, just bleed one and kill.
Pretty sad that this was on main page and video linked is A1. A1 is such a joke you dont even need decent MF gear to farm.
Also your skills are pretty noob build.........I would rather have the 1 Sec longer immune than the minimal heal that rune provides)
Also Infused with Life is prolly the worst rune there is due to short Time its on . 100% switch this to Blazing Wrath.
Oh and unless you in A3+ i would put Fleet Footed instead of Resolve. oh and switch to Cyclone, its 100% better
1) exploiting a bug is not a valid MF strategy (it might also have been fixed according to the last hotfix, but I'm not sure)
2) it is pretty clear that the guide is aimed at new players
3) if you want to farm A1 you need somewhat decent gear... otherwise it goes slow and that's not efficient
4) Cyclone needs a certain crit chance to surpass blade storm. This is clearly written in the first post, but I guess you didn't really read it.
The only thing that is sad here is your post!
Uhmm, Its been in game since launch and hasnt been fixed (shows how much you know hotfix warrior) and its the best option for Monks farming A1/A2.....no you dont need decent gear to farm A1, you can be nicely geared under a few mil.where you dont even need all the heal rune's etc....
I have ALOT of hours on my Monk, and trust me this build is no good above A1/A2, and if you do farm A1/A2 there are much more viable builds that will do the runs much faster....
so if i want to magic find on act 3 i should use my progress gear and try to get gear i can switch 2 that equals at least 300mf on 5 stacks? bc i never find anything good i need to do something dif i jsut started switching but it doesnt give me that much more magic find just under 200 or so....i feel like it would cost 50mil to find 300mf gear you could rock through act3 non stop
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I run somewhat the same setup with my monk. Currently at 293 MF with 5 stacks, 19k dps, 25k life and 800 LoH. Next upgrades are gonna be my rings or pants for more MF and a slightly DPS increase.
I can complete the entire act 1 without deaths and have been farming it for about 2-3 weeks. Never found anything usefull besides a 1089 dps 2-handed sword. Not with the best affixes and couldn't even sell the item for 75k on the auction house so I ended up vendoring it. I do get an fair amount of ilvl 61-63 but nothing close to an upgrade.
I tend to salvage anything I find, except for things that roll a descent number in usefull stats and goes for around 200-400k on the gold auction house.
I have much bigger success in selling the exquisite essences on the auction house and make roughly 100k a day with 2-3 hours played.
If you are interested in a par run on regular basis you can add me Pwnstarr#2933
I do these sorta things on my wizard as my Monk is my progress toon, but handy to see what others are aiming for. I havent found anything useful in act 1 for a while though
You might want to read up on how MF actually works before spreading bad info to a bunch of players.
Thanks for the info thundersteele. I didn't realize MF didn't effect ilvl. That has been removed.
I'm working on a short (less than 5 minute) video of my stats and a run through to show how this guide looks in action. Look for it after the weekend.
If you go with relatively useful MF gear for Act1, I'd say 225% is pretty good (300% with NV is what I'm sitting at). That makes your ilvl63 rate 19.2%
If you go with 0 MF (for ease of comparison) to do Act3, you only have the 75% NV.. so your ilvl63 rate is 28.5%
It is a substantial difference, for sure, at around 9% more for Act3.. I guess it boils down to what you prefer and what you can handle. If you're dying more than once to certain affixes, perhaps Act3 is too slow. If Act3 is cake for you, then have fun.
MF has nothing to do with what ilvl items drop. That's completely and solely dependent on what act you're in. 0% MF or 400% MF, Act 1 will yield the same percent of 61s, 62s, and 63s. It's just that a lesser percentage of them will be rare if your MF is lower.
While Act 3 may get you better quality gear in the long haul, you need to make some money first to be able to get there. Using this monk i'm gearing up my barb for 0% MF so I can do Act 3 runs. Within a week of using this build I found a bow that I sold on RMAH for $100. Although that is not something that's going to happen very often, I've found quite a bit of good/sellable gear by only doing 2-3 runs a day (approx 1 hour 30 minutes).;
What MF does do is affect the quantity of the affix's that drop. So if a 63 drops, if you don't have MF, your chances of getting 6 affix's is lower then if you did have MF.
Folks should not be so quick / smug to point out faults in other people's posts when they are not really telling the whole story themselves ... and the reality is ... high MF > low MF ... period.
Really, all you need to do is grab a smattering of LOH gear and perhaps swap matras to Evasion (Hard Target) and you're pretty much golden. I'm not a fan of the Infused with Light rune, either, but that's a personal choice (I go with Blazing Wrath)
It also (and I'm sure you know this, just pointing out for others) can make whites and blues into yellows. There are a lot of white ilvl 63 items that you'll see dropping in A1, enough MF can make them blue or even yellow.
I'd agree that A1 MF isn't that effective if you can do the later acts, though. A2 and A3 is a more interesting comparison--A2 drops 63 items much more commonly, and the numbers gap between A2 and A3 is not linear. In other words, going from A2 to A3 you see some monsters increase their health more than 2X, whereas the droprate doesn't increase exponentially.
Pretty sad that this was on main page and video linked is A1. A1 is such a joke you dont even need decent MF gear to farm.
Also your skills are pretty noob build.........I would rather have the 1 Sec longer immune than the minimal heal that rune provides)
Also Infused with Life is prolly the worst rune there is due to short Time its on . 100% switch this to Blazing Wrath.
Oh and unless you in A3+ i would put Fleet Footed instead of Resolve. oh and switch to Cyclone, its 100% better
Uhmm, Its been in game since launch and hasnt been fixed (shows how much you know hotfix warrior) and its the best option for Monks farming A1/A2.....no you dont need decent gear to farm A1, you can be nicely geared under a few mil.where you dont even need all the heal rune's etc....
I have ALOT of hours on my Monk, and trust me this build is no good above A1/A2, and if you do farm A1/A2 there are much more viable builds that will do the runs much faster....
but I guess pretty pictures make it 100% CORRECT.