Now that patch 2.01 is up on us, this formidable build is no longer practicable.
I dedicate this article In memory of my own quest for ultimate monk:
First this build is fundamentally a variation of the famous Nirvana Build, but it has enough potent and distinct properties for deployment that i think it deserve it's own identity, but why call it Wave Stream Burst, check it out:
Even before D3 launch I have made up my mind to focus on monk class, which I consider perfect balance between pure strength and elegance. However soon after sink enough time to reach inferno first time I realized there are so many broken factors with my beloved monk class, it was considered by many as shittiest of all. After 1 week of struggle on ACT 2, I finally made major breakthrough after finding a 2 hander daibo with 900 loh and socket, and with it i made it to act 3. Then few days later a new patch cuts my aps from 2.2 to 1.3, so right back to bitterness i was, endure gruesome strive that lasted for days i finally made to the chamber of Ghom..... and learned it's possible for me to develop such intense deep hatred. At barely 12k dps Ghom always get enraged no matter what, AH is of no help b/c I could barely break even with all the repairs. Through days of frustration I was enlightened by Sweep Wind snapshot capability, and the rest is history. Within couple of hours after clear Ghom I put Diablo in her inferno coffin, by myself.
During this time i also learned fastest farming method-AH.
Needless to say not long after i was very well geared monk at the time(150k+ DPS), got to top 50 DPS monk on d3progress in US servers. I was killing FAST, tempest rush through map and drop elites in seconds on inferno. My greatest joy come from show case my monk to others, trolling public games I call it: 1 shot gobs, 1 shot Demonic Tremors in act 3 before they puke mobs, killing elite before other players get to them...and drop jaws in the process even though i can't see. However soon the game become boring and i realized my monk's biggest limitation-the ability to apply huge damage in large area, bells are too costly and damage is not enough(400%ish weapon at the time), SSS is too long on cd, LTK has aoe size of a peanut on screen. After tried dozens of combination and builds, nothing still come as efficient as the old cookie cutter build for monk . As time pass on top geared wiz/barbs are starting to show up, i still distinctly remember when i met a wiz in random public game, who in act3's keeps drop meteors to wipe out whole room and teleport to the next, while i haven't even got few cyclones out from my FOT yet. Dispite over 3mil effective DPS there aren't any thing left to hit with, and an empty spirit pool for tempest. Inferno has became too easy for everyone....
Then came patch 1.05 and Ubers, and I was back in business.
The ubers put my insane single target DPS for good use, I set up shops provide Uber carry for a small fee, and business is flourishing. I had more request than i can provide, so have to limit my service to reservations only. For about a month i was grinding on ubers one after another, with an endless supply of machines provided by the hard working class. However after some 300 rings I crafted not a single one was decent enough, best was ave damage with low CD, while made at least a dozen i would drool over for others. I must say grinding is not something i enjoy (why the fuck i play D3), especially something repetitive as killing ubers. I came to realize that the end game goal is not intriguing to me anymore. What would i accomplish by getting 100 paragon? few more percent damage to my cyclones? even if i manage to get the best monk gears available i still can't deploy such damage on a large area scale. Cookie cutter build is as mechanical as one can get, hold down the left mouse and spam MOC every 3 seconds, with such high DPS life steal is good enough for 99% time, even with tempest for dodging i find the game play become tedious. And my finger started to hurt due to extended period of down pressure on the mouse.
So with such emotions I stopped clicked on D3 icon on my desktop.
For 7 months i moved on to other stuff in my life. Until one day i came across an article of some D3 item sold for ridiculous amount of cash. I remembered i still had about 1bil in game gold and 240 cash in ah. At least get those funds out before it gets lost i thought. So back to D3 i was, and greeted by a lengthy patch note of 1.08. I was intrigued by some changes, particularly the WoL's damage buff. After swear few times for letting my fortune became pennies on dollar, i decided might as well give 1.08 a spin. SW buff is gone, so MP10 is no longer efficient for me, bell's damage is awesome now, but still takes too long to get enough spirit, empower wave doesn't interest me as i want something hits bigger. Quicken+Explosive Bell seem to be it, at about 1 bell every 2 seconds, not really enough to make appreciable dent other than blow everything away. Then everything came together with the discover of Nirvana build, big thanks to the person(fitz?) who revealed this mechanism to the world. With infinite spirit for limited time I finally found the tools to achieve ultimate monk i envisioned.
This was one of my earliest example of this builds used in public game, as i don't play solo games unless it's for testing or achieve certain objectives.
There were many obstacles to make this build viable: Biggest issue is the knock back, so cyclone strike is used in all cases to mitigate while focus on increasing damage to kill mob with fewer bells. Secondly the lack of survivability during BoH cd, since no SW means there is not much delay life steal, so I spent lots of time focusing on practicing combat awareness.
The balanced gear approach I always stick with also paid off, as this build need very high damage mitigation.
After ditching escape skills Near Death Experience is best option for suffer burst damage and crap moments beyond your control, this evolved into aggressively use of NDE's knock back effect to getting into better location for maximum burst target.
Let's not forget the problem of game LAG, this build require precise execution of Fist of Fury to Breath Infuse with light, MoC, Cyclone strike (reset to main hand), to Blind flash to finally spam bells then cyclone again. Often the large amount of mob on screen lag cause skip of one or more of such inputs, resulting failed burst with low damage or no spirit regen.
And the bane of this build is reflect packs, tested with dual Life Steal 5.6% 550resis, 5k armor 55k HP high spec 1 bell hits still trigger NDE and second bell dead due to the extremely high burst total damage, so can't buff damage for such packs or wait till reflect is on cd.
Last but not least this build require high level of situation awareness, analyze combat flow as well as make split second decisions due to lack of life saving skills. Surprisingly Explosive bells are good for creating brief opens of space to relocate yourself, often such decision lead to the difference between getting exp or a trip to repair broken gears.
As I my gear gradually Improve tailored for this build so did the build itself, switched to more damaging buff skills as play skill & dps increase. Eventually I had to switching to faster bell cast rate setup instead of focus on bell damage, as once bell crit damage is high enough it one shot mobs which stops Nirvana spirit refill.
Few videos of my monk in action, you can find more videos of the build in my youtube channel:
Personally I can't play repetitive simple grinding games for long, which is why i always like to pull field instead of just running Crypt, nothing match the overwhelming sense of might watching 50+ flying backward or punch a huge hole in the middle of screen full of mobs, with the game reconfirming seconds later with messages of 50-100+ killed with one blow.
At the end I'm very proud of my journey for my vision of ultimate monk, able to deal large aoe damage that rival any other class if not dominate, but also not mindlessly invincible and require skills for very engaging/exciting game play, creating battles you really have to worked hard to accomplish with high satisfaction at the the end.
With the arrive of ROS there will be no doubt more powerful/fun build out there with all the new crazy gears, however without the mob density the excitement isn't quite the same. I hope they change that in future patch but for now the original D3's brilliant moments will be surely missed.
PS, personal record of fastest/highest dps Nirvana Build vs Elite@2.5sec/20mil dps:
For those who ran with me and complain my monk isn't pulling, is not that I'm against pulling, when i was playing with dual 500+ archon players I'm the best cyclone monk out there (nirvana doesn't work well with things die so fast anyway). But pulling for sub 300k wd just isn't efficient, no offense.
I apology for lack of full detail guide for the build, for one i consider the build need more polish and improvement such as rotation targeting during bell spams, also the demanding game play combine with extreme high gear for such build to be effective render it useful to very limited few. Most ppl will simply find this not viable in group play and for solo i recommend Invis's speed palm build anyway.
I dedicate this article In memory of my own quest for ultimate monk:
First this build is fundamentally a variation of the famous Nirvana Build, but it has enough potent and distinct properties for deployment that i think it deserve it's own identity, but why call it Wave Stream Burst, check it out:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOqIrIUjrfo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v8KE502q0lQ
The story:
Even before D3 launch I have made up my mind to focus on monk class, which I consider perfect balance between pure strength and elegance. However soon after sink enough time to reach inferno first time I realized there are so many broken factors with my beloved monk class, it was considered by many as shittiest of all. After 1 week of struggle on ACT 2, I finally made major breakthrough after finding a 2 hander daibo with 900 loh and socket, and with it i made it to act 3. Then few days later a new patch cuts my aps from 2.2 to 1.3, so right back to bitterness i was, endure gruesome strive that lasted for days i finally made to the chamber of Ghom..... and learned it's possible for me to develop such intense deep hatred. At barely 12k dps Ghom always get enraged no matter what, AH is of no help b/c I could barely break even with all the repairs. Through days of frustration I was enlightened by Sweep Wind snapshot capability, and the rest is history. Within couple of hours after clear Ghom I put Diablo in her inferno coffin, by myself.
During this time i also learned fastest farming method-AH.
Needless to say not long after i was very well geared monk at the time(150k+ DPS), got to top 50 DPS monk on d3progress in US servers. I was killing FAST, tempest rush through map and drop elites in seconds on inferno. My greatest joy come from show case my monk to others, trolling public games I call it: 1 shot gobs, 1 shot Demonic Tremors in act 3 before they puke mobs, killing elite before other players get to them...and drop jaws in the process even though i can't see. However soon the game become boring and i realized my monk's biggest limitation-the ability to apply huge damage in large area, bells are too costly and damage is not enough(400%ish weapon at the time), SSS is too long on cd, LTK has aoe size of a peanut on screen. After tried dozens of combination and builds, nothing still come as efficient as the old cookie cutter build for monk . As time pass on top geared wiz/barbs are starting to show up, i still distinctly remember when i met a wiz in random public game, who in act3's keeps drop meteors to wipe out whole room and teleport to the next, while i haven't even got few cyclones out from my FOT yet. Dispite over 3mil effective DPS there aren't any thing left to hit with, and an empty spirit pool for tempest. Inferno has became too easy for everyone....
Then came patch 1.05 and Ubers, and I was back in business.
The ubers put my insane single target DPS for good use, I set up shops provide Uber carry for a small fee, and business is flourishing. I had more request than i can provide, so have to limit my service to reservations only. For about a month i was grinding on ubers one after another, with an endless supply of machines provided by the hard working class. However after some 300 rings I crafted not a single one was decent enough, best was ave damage with low CD, while made at least a dozen i would drool over for others. I must say grinding is not something i enjoy (why the fuck i play D3), especially something repetitive as killing ubers. I came to realize that the end game goal is not intriguing to me anymore. What would i accomplish by getting 100 paragon? few more percent damage to my cyclones? even if i manage to get the best monk gears available i still can't deploy such damage on a large area scale. Cookie cutter build is as mechanical as one can get, hold down the left mouse and spam MOC every 3 seconds, with such high DPS life steal is good enough for 99% time, even with tempest for dodging i find the game play become tedious. And my finger started to hurt due to extended period of down pressure on the mouse.
So with such emotions I stopped clicked on D3 icon on my desktop.
For 7 months i moved on to other stuff in my life. Until one day i came across an article of some D3 item sold for ridiculous amount of cash. I remembered i still had about 1bil in game gold and 240 cash in ah. At least get those funds out before it gets lost i thought. So back to D3 i was, and greeted by a lengthy patch note of 1.08. I was intrigued by some changes, particularly the WoL's damage buff. After swear few times for letting my fortune became pennies on dollar, i decided might as well give 1.08 a spin. SW buff is gone, so MP10 is no longer efficient for me, bell's damage is awesome now, but still takes too long to get enough spirit, empower wave doesn't interest me as i want something hits bigger. Quicken+Explosive Bell seem to be it, at about 1 bell every 2 seconds, not really enough to make appreciable dent other than blow everything away. Then everything came together with the discover of Nirvana build, big thanks to the person(fitz?) who revealed this mechanism to the world. With infinite spirit for limited time I finally found the tools to achieve ultimate monk i envisioned.
This was one of my earliest example of this builds used in public game, as i don't play solo games unless it's for testing or achieve certain objectives.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1Yw-SCmd-k
There were many obstacles to make this build viable: Biggest issue is the knock back, so cyclone strike is used in all cases to mitigate while focus on increasing damage to kill mob with fewer bells. Secondly the lack of survivability during BoH cd, since no SW means there is not much delay life steal, so I spent lots of time focusing on practicing combat awareness.
The balanced gear approach I always stick with also paid off, as this build need very high damage mitigation.
After ditching escape skills Near Death Experience is best option for suffer burst damage and crap moments beyond your control, this evolved into aggressively use of NDE's knock back effect to getting into better location for maximum burst target.
Let's not forget the problem of game LAG, this build require precise execution of Fist of Fury to Breath Infuse with light, MoC, Cyclone strike (reset to main hand), to Blind flash to finally spam bells then cyclone again. Often the large amount of mob on screen lag cause skip of one or more of such inputs, resulting failed burst with low damage or no spirit regen.
And the bane of this build is reflect packs, tested with dual Life Steal 5.6% 550resis, 5k armor 55k HP high spec 1 bell hits still trigger NDE and second bell dead due to the extremely high burst total damage, so can't buff damage for such packs or wait till reflect is on cd.
Last but not least this build require high level of situation awareness, analyze combat flow as well as make split second decisions due to lack of life saving skills. Surprisingly Explosive bells are good for creating brief opens of space to relocate yourself, often such decision lead to the difference between getting exp or a trip to repair broken gears.
As I my gear gradually Improve tailored for this build so did the build itself, switched to more damaging buff skills as play skill & dps increase. Eventually I had to switching to faster bell cast rate setup instead of focus on bell damage, as once bell crit damage is high enough it one shot mobs which stops Nirvana spirit refill.
Few videos of my monk in action, you can find more videos of the build in my youtube channel:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R76Dc1fSdww
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=de9xXJggXHo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pn_QBaWCizY
Personally I can't play repetitive simple grinding games for long, which is why i always like to pull field instead of just running Crypt, nothing match the overwhelming sense of might watching 50+ flying backward or punch a huge hole in the middle of screen full of mobs, with the game reconfirming seconds later with messages of 50-100+ killed with one blow.
At the end I'm very proud of my journey for my vision of ultimate monk, able to deal large aoe damage that rival any other class if not dominate, but also not mindlessly invincible and require skills for very engaging/exciting game play, creating battles you really have to worked hard to accomplish with high satisfaction at the the end.
With the arrive of ROS there will be no doubt more powerful/fun build out there with all the new crazy gears, however without the mob density the excitement isn't quite the same. I hope they change that in future patch but for now the original D3's brilliant moments will be surely missed.
PS, personal record of fastest/highest dps Nirvana Build vs Elite@2.5sec/20mil dps:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lkq7JSATJp0
For those who ran with me and complain my monk isn't pulling, is not that I'm against pulling, when i was playing with dual 500+ archon players I'm the best cyclone monk out there (nirvana doesn't work well with things die so fast anyway). But pulling for sub 300k wd just isn't efficient, no offense.
I apology for lack of full detail guide for the build, for one i consider the build need more polish and improvement such as rotation targeting during bell spams, also the demanding game play combine with extreme high gear for such build to be effective render it useful to very limited few. Most ppl will simply find this not viable in group play and for solo i recommend Invis's speed palm build anyway.