Ever since RoS was released we've heard about how terrible the Monks damage is compared to other classes, that our spirit generation is pathetic, and we're only there to buff the team and make neat little piles of monsters for others to melt away.
What if I told you I solved the damage problem by sacrificing sheet dps? What if I told you I solved the spirit problem by dropping spirit generating attacks? Finally, what if I told you I did both those things while buffing my groups damage, reducing the damage they take, and locking elites in place? Before I go into detailed information about the build, I'd like to share some links, stats, and concepts that are important to this setup.
Our damage is calculated by some % of weapon damage. This means the damage range on your weapons. This DOES NOT mean the damage on your character sheet or your weapons DPS. Because of this, and the fact that we have a finite amount of spirit to spend, slower weapons are usually preferably to fast ones. Hitting harder > hitting faster!
Since damage is calculated by % of weapon damage, we want to use high % weapon damage skills as much as possible. We never want to resort to using a primary to regen spirit.
Getting the proper stats in the right places is important, sheet damage is not.
Maximum health is overrated by almost everyone. I'm running T4 with less than 200k, and soon I'll be doing T5 with the same amount.
Key Stats to aim for
We need 50-55% cooldown reduction (CDR). I don't recommend trying this build with less than 50%.
25-35% cost reduction (CR). Depending on your weapon speed and any attack speed increases from buffs/ gear.
Critical hit chance (CHC). You want this everywhere you can get it. I'm at just over 50% with a few paragon points left to add.
Critical hit damage (CHD). Gloves, Neck, Rings, and green gems in weapons should give you plenty!
+ % Lashing Tail Kick damage can be found on Boots and Helm. Getting it on boots is easy. Helm is a little more complicated since we need a socket and many helms have effects that are very good, but obviously get it if you can.
Toughness varies widely based on what torment you're doing and where it comes from. Generally speaking, armor and all resist are good, vitality and %life are not. More toughness will allow you to stand in more AoE, less toughness will teach you to move!
Healing also varies, but here we want a good variety. Life per kill and bonus to healing globes are both solid and come from secondary stats on gear. Life per spirit spent we can get from a passive (scaling with globe). Life per second from paragon is a great value after all resist, but not so much on gear. Life per hit is probably the least desirable healing stat for our build considering its a primary stat and its in the same paragon tree as cost reduction and area damage.
The Build
Lashing Tail Kick: Scorpion Sting- 624% weapon damage for 30 spirit and an 85% chance to stun. The range is small but since we never stop using it all you need to do is hit those elites once and chances are they simply don't get to move. The stun also works on bosses and rift guardians, stopping them from doing bad things to you.
Epiphany: Inner Fire- 20 spirit per second and the ability to make LTK move us to whatever we want to hit. Add in the inner fire rune for 353% weapon damage to various things around the screen and the reason for getting all that CDR becomes very clear.
Inner Sanctuary: Forbidden Palace- 55% damage reduction for you're team, 30% damage buff for your team, and if somehow stop stunning the enemies inside of it, they'll be walking away 80% slower than normal. 55% CDR means you get to keep this up 2/3 of the time.
Dashing Strike:Quicksilver- One of, if not the best mobility spell in the game. Will allow you to engage elites before they can scatter, jump over walls, skip area's void of enemies, and avoid all sorts of life threatening situations. I prefer the extra charge from Quicksilver, but the movement speed from Way of the Falling Star is nice as well.
Mystic Ally: AirAlly- Again, CDR makes another ability amazing. Giving this a 15 second cooldown makes this 8.7 spirit per second and a dude thats sometimes kind of annoying. Use it whenever you're down 100 spirit or more!
Serenity: Any Rune- This makes you completely immune to damage and crowd control for 3 seconds. Its usable while you're stunned, frozen, ect. Once more CDR makes this a 9-10 second cooldown. At 55% CDR we can alternate Serenity and Inner Sanctuary with 100% uptime, making us extremely tough without relying on toughness. I use the Tranquility rune in groups, and either Peaceful Repose or Unwelcome Disturbance solo.
Passives
Seize the Initiative: We want lots of Dexterity for damage, this turns some of that into armor. Its super effective!
Exalted Soul: 100 Maximum spirit and 2 spirit per second. This lets us kick longer in between cooldowns, and makes Reaper's Wraps insanely good.
Beacon of Ytar:20% cooldown reduction. An absolute must for our build.
Transcendance:Life per spirit spent is going to be a key part of our healing on high torment levels. Note that it scales with bonus to health globe!
I can't stress enough the importance of trying out different things in this game. This is the build I use for solo/duo play, I'm sure the build would change a little depending on what kind of group you're in. There are lots of good passives, maybe you want to add a mantra and the Unity passive, maybe you've got your secondaries to all roll cold resist and you want to use One with Everything. Perhaps you've got an amazing Inna's Diabo which will definitely change your build. Don't be afraid to experiment and ask questions!
Paragon
Core:Movement Speed (up to 25%) > Maximum Spirit > Dex/Vit
Defense:All Resist > Armor/Life Per Second > % Life
Utility:Resource Cost Reduction > Area Damage > Life Per Hit > Gold Find
Don't be afraid to deviate from this if you find yourself having an abundance of certain things from gear or other abilities. Movement speed from Paragon is a much better value than it is on gear and you should reroll it if possible once you're over level 200, Max Spirit is very good for us tho, and depending on your individual spirit needs you may want to balance the two at lower paragon levels. Some people who do a lot of math will tell you that a 10:1 ratio of Crit Damage to Crit is good, and they're probably right! It goes without saying that Cost Reduction and Cooldown Reduction are what we're getting first. Lastly, I have yet to mention Area Damage. Our build makes putting it on gear kinda tricky, but its an amazing stat and you shouldn't dismiss it. Thankfully we get 50% from paragon by level 400!
A few gear suggestions
Since the AH is no more, rather than give you specific gear requirements I'll just toss some random thoughts here. If I have time I might do a proper section on this later.
Reaper's Wraps and the Captian Crimson's set are extremely good for us and are both crafted, I suggest getting these asap.
Gyana Na Kashu is a spirit stone, the proc shoots a projectile that does ~325% weapon damage whenever you use Lashing Tail Kick. Since we're using LTK all the time, its extremely powerful.
Weapons can roll 10% CDR and 10% CR making them a great place to put those stats if you're lucky enough to be able to roll or reroll into them. Slower weapon are generally better, but if you've got a Thunderfury or Shard of Hate I'd fine a way to make those work.
Last but not least
This build take practice and patience to become comfortable with. You will need to watch 4 different cooldowns, your spirit, your health and try to position yourself to do maximum damage and stun everything all at the same time. You will probably have to sacrifice your damage stat in order to make it work (mine went from 750k to 450k at first), yet you will do more damage than before.
I hold the point of view that monks are not just buff machines, we are not meant to spam primaries while piling up monsters for our buddy's to kill.This build is designed for high torment play, where everyone should be bringing some kind of buff or utility to the group while still doing massive damage, so far this is the best build I've found to do that. There are a number of small details and idea's that I don't have time to put here right now, so any questions or comments you have regarding this build would be most welcome. I look forward to the discussion!
Nice work. I assume the 10% CDR from paragon help a lot towards the 50% goal?
It's pretty cool that you worked out a Monk build without spirit generator, without Mantra and without Sweeping Wind. Someday I might go and try this myself
Thanks! I realized I forgot to do a paragon section after I posted it, I'll probably add it in tomorrow.
Nice work. I assume the 10% CDR from paragon help a lot towards the 50% goal?
It's pretty cool that you worked out a Monk build without spirit generator, without Mantra and without Sweeping Wind. Someday I might go and try this myself
Thanks! I realized I forgot to do a paragon section after I posted it, I'll probably add it in tomorrow.
Our damage is calculated by some % of weapon damage. This means the damage range on your weapons. ThisDOES NOTmean the damage on your character sheet or your weapons DPS. Because of this, and the fact that we have a finite amount of spirit to spend, slower weapons are usually preferably to fast ones. Hitting harder > hitting faster!
Thanks for sharing your build with us , it gave me the desire to try my cdr items again , I used to have 70% cdr but the problem was some of the pieces took much of my resists which ended into being a bad build , i had my immune at 3 seconds cd , but the problem was without it i am dead no matter what , in short it was an annoying build because of relaying on cdr only.
With your build the target can be 50% which maybe a less resist punisher and easier to achieve.
Our damage is calculated by some % of weapon damage. This means the damage range on your weapons. ThisDOES NOTmean the damage on your character sheet or your weapons DPS. Because of this, and the fact that we have a finite amount of spirit to spend, slower weapons are usually preferably to fast ones. Hitting harder > hitting faster!
It might be as long as you can manage your spirit with that weapon speed. I've been hoping to get a solid roll on one to try it out, the only WKL that dropped for me was utter garbage. I was in a 4 person group last night and dropped serenity and exalted soul for mantra of healing and unity, losing the max spirit and regen made me really want 2 slower weapons. But if you've got a good WKL, by all means try to make it work!
Yeah I had my eye on that helm (no pun intended) before I got myGyana Na Kashu, it definitely had me thinking about how to abuse it. With the current setup and that helm you could probably change Mystic Ally to something else. Or, keep it and add some attack speed. Either way I think some spirits going to go to waste when Epiphany is up but there are worse problems to have. There are a number of great spirit stones that do amazing things,
Wouldn't a 2-hander be pretty sweet for this aswell? Slow-attackspeed and high dmg-range?
It would, the problem is the loss of stats and the difficulty in getting one to roll right. I'm just estimating quick but 130% crit damage, 500ish dexterity, and either 10% CDR or CR assuming it rolled one of the two. The good news is you may not need that CR with the slower weapon, nor would you need the Air Ally rune (Earth Ally is pretty fun with lots of CDR and high weapon damage). More bad news, idealy you want a diabo and they can roll every skill affix monks have on all other gear. Take one to the mystic and laugh at how long the list is! Not that it needs to be a diabo, but it would open up several more options as far as gear, passives, ect.
Interesting build. I like builds that focus around LTK:SS for obvious reason. Previous builds I made focused on using epiphany as a nuke while keeping the build functioning without epiphany, but this sounds like it will work.
My only concern is that LTK is your main dps output yet you havn't mentioned gearing to boost the dmg of LTK. I'm sure the stunlock potential makes up for this, but how much damage are you sacrifcing for that stunlock?
That was just an oversight on my part. I'll add it in either the stats or gear sections soon. At present I have LTK damage on my boots and I'll probably replace the spirit regen on my helm with it, but I'd like my spirit to be just a little more stable first (really I'm just afraid of committing to rerolling that stat right now). Also anywhere you can put lightning damage is going to be great as long as you still maintain the CDR and CR requirements to not run out of spirit and stay alive. It should also be noted that Epiphany: Inner Fire does fire damage, and Magefists roll an extra primary stat in the form of fire damage so thats just free damage if you get some to roll good.
But even if I had none, I still feel it would be worth it simply because I never have to stop using that 624% weapon damage stunlock to regen spirit with a primary. And even if you need to lose some to get the build working, you can add it back as you improve your gear.
T3 is cake for me and most elites die within 5-10 seconds when epiphany is active.
I ask because I'm not sure if it would be worth it for me to reroll my gear to have the CDR and RCD like you do, as it stands I hit a bit harder than you at +109 lighting (with SOJ which isn't shown on the profile). Obvi I don't have the up time on epiphany like you do. So I would like to make the comparison.
I've been playing a similar build lately, noting that Epiphany can function in place of a spirit generator with enough CDR.
I use Seven-Sided Strike instead of Lashing Tail Kick, and I also use Forbidden Palace and Unwelcome Disturbance for extra damage. Because SSS still has a (short) cooldown, I also have been using Blinding Flash - Faith in the Light to boost damage.
(My build currently uses Mythic Rhythm and a generator for extra SSS damage, and I've been using the sand rune for Epiphany, as SSS doesn't really work well with Inner Fire and having constant 50% reduced damage is very nice).
While this may be a functional build without spirit generator, I am pretty sure that traditional lightning builds will out damage it since you don't have to make sacrifices and sweeping wind does A LOT of damage. I also doubt this build is capable of spamming LTK on every mob without running out of spirit, even with all these spirit generating cooldowns and passives.
While this may be a functional build without spirit generator, I am pretty sure that traditional lightning builds will out damage it since you don't have to make sacrifices and sweeping wind does A LOT of damage. I also doubt this build is capable of spamming LTK on every mob without running out of spirit, even with all these spirit generating cooldowns and passives.
Did you even watch the video he provided? It's clear he CAN spam LTK constantly, with epiphany only having about 8-9 seconds of downtime means it's up 90% of the time leaving him spirit capped constantly and was easily clearing T3 solo.
This build definitely looks primising with the right gear set, so glad i have a ton of CDR gear from my normal speed run TR build gear lol.
The question still remains whether it's worth it to sacrifice that much damage so you don't need a spirit generator. You also lose your Sweeping Wind damage which with % lightning is a lot as well as Unity/Combination Strike (which still gives 10% when you only use 1 generator).
You are giving up a lot of damage AND toughness for CDR and spirit regen just so you can spam LTK, his toughness and life are awefully low and barely even hold up in T3 with easy mobs (no stuns/charges), any higher probably won't be possible Personally I don't think it can beat a traditional build, it's also very restrictive gearing and skill wise.
Points for innovation, but none for functionality.
Damage wise lightning isn't the real maximum damage spec, exploding palm puts cyclone to shame and does FAR more damage. More work into this mechanic can lead to far more damage than typical builds with a spirit generator. It's possible to get up to about 3 seconds of downtime on Epiphany.
Thanks, Nicdanger, this is an excellent concept and build, I can't wait to try this out on my monk. Very new school with the cooldown reduction emphasis.
I currently run a very cooldown-reduction heavy build with Tempest Rush for bounties, but now i'm seriously considering use her for more based your thread. Thanks!
The question still remains whether it's worth it to sacrifice that much damage so you don't need a spirit generator. You also lose your Sweeping Wind damage which with % lightning is a lot as well as Unity/Combination Strike (which still gives 10% when you only use 1 generator).
You are giving up a lot of damage AND toughness for CDR and spirit regen just so you can spam LTK, his toughness and life are awefully low and barely even hold up in T3 with easy mobs (no stuns/charges), any higher probably won't be possible Personally I don't think it can beat a traditional build, it's also very restrictive gearing and skill wise.
Points for innovation, but none for functionality.
I talked about some of this before but I'm glad you brought it up so I can clarify some things. This build is definitely a work in progress, I made adjustments to it for group play the day after I made the original post. I'm also going to work in One With Everything soon, and that Ring of Royal Grandeur is still eluding me, which I'll just say is going to be huge. Vitality is grossly overrated right now, my HP is just fine for T3/4.
There are some pretty specific items you need for the lightning build you mentioned to really take off and rolling for one trifecta isn't any harder than rolling for a different trifecta, so gear wise its not any harder. Sure its a bit more difficult to play, but you'll get used to it . . or die a lot . . or both
Thanks to everyone for the feedback, I gotta give some credit to a friend of mine I play with regularly who's always coming up with crazy idea's that turn into stuff like this after we work out details. I won't name him here, but he knows who he is!
I have tried it but I guess it needs a lot better gear.. With mine I was constantly out of spirit, and without a spirit generator, I was just running like headless chicken waiting for regen..The speed was OK, tho.. But the rest was not working out for me yet..
Assuming you've got the CDR and CR in check it sounds like you might have too much attack speed or you're using fast weapons. If you want to link your profile I'd be happy to take a look and make suggestions.
Hi Nicdanger, thanks for sharing this type of build. I am currently using this type and it works for me. Having of tota 33.4% CDR (still working on to make it more) i am also lucky of gearing items on my monk that helps CDR and LTK damage. Even DPS and Toughness where sacrificed its still good to fin Mobs or Elite packs as compared to my previous build. Any suggestion from you on my gearing. Thanks
What if I told you I solved the damage problem by sacrificing sheet dps? What if I told you I solved the spirit problem by dropping spirit generating attacks? Finally, what if I told you I did both those things while buffing my groups damage, reducing the damage they take, and locking elites in place? Before I go into detailed information about the build, I'd like to share some links, stats, and concepts that are important to this setup.
The build: http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/monk#ZPRdjg!XbVY!Yccbbb
Profile (stat totals are incorrect, but the gear is fine):http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/Nicdanger-1955/hero/21224091
Soloing a Torment 3 Rift:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3f3020lE2KM&feature=youtu.be
Concepts
Key Stats to aim for
The Build
Passives
Paragon
A few gear suggestions
Since the AH is no more, rather than give you specific gear requirements I'll just toss some random thoughts here. If I have time I might do a proper section on this later.
Reaper's Wraps and the Captian Crimson's set are extremely good for us and are both crafted, I suggest getting these asap.
Gyana Na Kashu is a spirit stone, the proc shoots a projectile that does ~325% weapon damage whenever you use Lashing Tail Kick. Since we're using LTK all the time, its extremely powerful.
Weapons can roll 10% CDR and 10% CR making them a great place to put those stats if you're lucky enough to be able to roll or reroll into them. Slower weapon are generally better, but if you've got a Thunderfury or Shard of Hate I'd fine a way to make those work.
Last but not least
This build take practice and patience to become comfortable with. You will need to watch 4 different cooldowns, your spirit, your health and try to position yourself to do maximum damage and stun everything all at the same time. You will probably have to sacrifice your damage stat in order to make it work (mine went from 750k to 450k at first), yet you will do more damage than before.I hold the point of view that monks are not just buff machines, we are not meant to spam primaries while piling up monsters for our buddy's to kill.This build is designed for high torment play, where everyone should be bringing some kind of buff or utility to the group while still doing massive damage, so far this is the best build I've found to do that.
There are a number of small details and idea's that I don't have time to put here right now, so any questions or comments you have regarding this build would be most welcome. I look forward to the discussion!
With your build the target can be 50% which maybe a less resist punisher and easier to achieve.
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/item/the-minds-eye
Yeah I had my eye on that helm (no pun intended) before I got myGyana Na Kashu, it definitely had me thinking about how to abuse it. With the current setup and that helm you could probably change Mystic Ally to something else. Or, keep it and add some attack speed. Either way I think some spirits going to go to waste when Epiphany is up but there are worse problems to have. There are a number of great spirit stones that do amazing things,
It would, the problem is the loss of stats and the difficulty in getting one to roll right. I'm just estimating quick but 130% crit damage, 500ish dexterity, and either 10% CDR or CR assuming it rolled one of the two. The good news is you may not need that CR with the slower weapon, nor would you need the Air Ally rune (Earth Ally is pretty fun with lots of CDR and high weapon damage). More bad news, idealy you want a diabo and they can roll every skill affix monks have on all other gear. Take one to the mystic and laugh at how long the list is! Not that it needs to be a diabo, but it would open up several more options as far as gear, passives, ect.
That was just an oversight on my part. I'll add it in either the stats or gear sections soon. At present I have LTK damage on my boots and I'll probably replace the spirit regen on my helm with it, but I'd like my spirit to be just a little more stable first (really I'm just afraid of committing to rerolling that stat right now). Also anywhere you can put lightning damage is going to be great as long as you still maintain the CDR and CR requirements to not run out of spirit and stay alive. It should also be noted that Epiphany: Inner Fire does fire damage, and Magefists roll an extra primary stat in the form of fire damage so thats just free damage if you get some to roll good.
But even if I had none, I still feel it would be worth it simply because I never have to stop using that 624% weapon damage stunlock to regen spirit with a primary. And even if you need to lose some to get the build working, you can add it back as you improve your gear.
http://www.diabloprogress.com/hero/arkan-1487/Kinez/22729238
T3 is cake for me and most elites die within 5-10 seconds when epiphany is active.
I ask because I'm not sure if it would be worth it for me to reroll my gear to have the CDR and RCD like you do, as it stands I hit a bit harder than you at +109 lighting (with SOJ which isn't shown on the profile). Obvi I don't have the up time on epiphany like you do. So I would like to make the comparison.
Thanks
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3f3020lE2KM&feature=youtu.be
I use Seven-Sided Strike instead of Lashing Tail Kick, and I also use Forbidden Palace and Unwelcome Disturbance for extra damage. Because SSS still has a (short) cooldown, I also have been using Blinding Flash - Faith in the Light to boost damage.
(My build currently uses Mythic Rhythm and a generator for extra SSS damage, and I've been using the sand rune for Epiphany, as SSS doesn't really work well with Inner Fire and having constant 50% reduced damage is very nice).
I just leveled my monk to 70 last night, and haven't been able to find any sort of build I really like on it yet.
Did you even watch the video he provided? It's clear he CAN spam LTK constantly, with epiphany only having about 8-9 seconds of downtime means it's up 90% of the time leaving him spirit capped constantly and was easily clearing T3 solo.
This build definitely looks primising with the right gear set, so glad i have a ton of CDR gear from my normal speed run TR build gear lol.
You are giving up a lot of damage AND toughness for CDR and spirit regen just so you can spam LTK, his toughness and life are awefully low and barely even hold up in T3 with easy mobs (no stuns/charges), any higher probably won't be possible Personally I don't think it can beat a traditional build, it's also very restrictive gearing and skill wise.
Points for innovation, but none for functionality.
Thanks, Nicdanger, this is an excellent concept and build, I can't wait to try this out on my monk. Very new school with the cooldown reduction emphasis.
I currently run a very cooldown-reduction heavy build with Tempest Rush for bounties, but now i'm seriously considering use her for more based your thread. Thanks!
There are some pretty specific items you need for the lightning build you mentioned to really take off and rolling for one trifecta isn't any harder than rolling for a different trifecta, so gear wise its not any harder. Sure its a bit more difficult to play, but you'll get used to it . . or die a lot . . or both
Thanks to everyone for the feedback, I gotta give some credit to a friend of mine I play with regularly who's always coming up with crazy idea's that turn into stuff like this after we work out details. I won't name him here, but he knows who he is!
Here is my monk
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/Willabaliw-6116/hero/2556381