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[Krat0s]

Hello everyone,


   After reading all the other guides I thought I should post one too,a more complex one with everything I learned about the monk so far after  1000+ hours spent on him playing and testing multiple builds along different gear sets on my way from a 50k monk doing act 2 vault runs while everyone was focusing on act 3 getting all the legendaries(won`t happen again !) when the new patch came out,all the way to my present 250k + dps monk and as Clawmaster said in his post, “after leeching for such a long time” we should give something back.
Well,enjoy and remember to message me for questions and help.

Table of contents

1.Introduction

• About the monk
  
• Pros
  
• Cons

2.Skills in Detail

• Passive Skills
  
• Active Skills

3.Choosing a Build

4.Learning the Stats

• Offensive
  
• Defensive
  
• Supportive
  
• Other

5.Gearing Up

6.Know Your Enemy

7.Farming Routes(coming soon)

8.Useful Links


1.About the Monk

Blizzquote

“The gods guide me. You cannot win.”

Monks of the Sahptev faith train their bodies and minds so that they may become the foremost holy warriors of the land of Ivgorod. Within the cloisters of the Patriarchs, the monks endure harsh trials both physical and spiritual, proving their devotion and attaining unmatched focus.

Daily ritualistic cleansings help monks purify their spirits and overcome the corruption that gnaws at the hearts of all men. In the pursuit of martial perfection, they also hone their legendary balance and clarity, skills that allow them to master both unarmed combat and a diverse array of weapons.

After a lifetime of preparation, anointed monks are permitted to leave their monasteries' halls to serve the decrees of the Patriarchs. The emblem on their foreheads marks them as survivors, achievers, and pillars of their society.

Monks embody the will of Ivgorod’s one thousand and one gods in every step and every strike.

We shall start off with the pros and cons of the monk,maybe you just started off and you are not sure what are the advantages and disadvantages of being a monk or maybe you have already been a monk for some time and you are still not sure which are your strong points and where are your weak points so we shall break it down in two sections: Pros and Cons.

Pros:

• Mobility – What else defines the monk better than his great mobility,being more adept at dodging enemies than any other class and with the ability to move between the enemies aswell in and out of combat at without difficulties and with all of these added to the incredible speed a monk can reach(fastest class on long distance runs with the proper build),mobility is clearly one of the monk strong points.

• A Hybrid Class – Monk skills vary a lot which allow him to either deal damage and debuff the enemies,heal and support the party members or fight in the front row as a tank.The monk is  a combination of Paladin /Warrior/Rogue so he is a multi purpose class and you can either play as a support or a tank for your friends or as a lonely wolf because he can fit both roles.

• Good AoE and the Powerful Mantras – Yes,the monk has a very good AoE having a rune with such effect on almost all of his skills and they are not there only for the AoE,they still do their job if we look at them on the damage output side.He also has the mantras,strong auras owned only by the monks which can help you and your party members very much.

• Complexity – A particular thing I love about the monk is that it takes some time to master him, starting out easy and increasing in difficulty as you level and go on your path to level 60.There, the combinations between the vast array of skills you used to overcome the challenges and the multitude of builds show up along with his great potential and numerous paths to go,while some see this as a downside I personaly love the way the monk is built.

Cons:

• No ranged attacks – Monks only proper ranged attack is the “Hand of Ytar” rune on Lashing Tail Kick,of course they have some long range punches but they still don`t have enough range on them to be considered ranged attacks.I should mention that Way of Hundred Fists also has a ranged attack on the third hit with the “Windforce Flurry” rune but because it is slow it is pretty uneffective.

• Limited Effective Builds – I mentioned before that the monk has a lot of variation in his skills,well that`s true and he has a lot of fun/good visuals and other kind of builds,in fact he has a crazy amount of builds which are not only random and each serve a purpose but the actual viable builds which maximize your potential and allow for a smooth farming are few.

• Not Heavy – When it comes to tanking there is no way a monk with a sword and a shield can do as well as a Barbarian with the same weapons in his hands and can stand and receive as much damage as the Barbarian(considering you don`t have 10k dps and everything else thrown on hp/ar/armor),however because of its mobility and specific skills he can survive as well as a Barbarian ,maybe even better in some scenarios.What i want to highlight is that he can`t take as much raw damage as a barbarian can.

• Lacks Burst Damage – If we look at the Barbarian who can land 5 hammers per second each hitting for 400%+ damage or the Demon Hunter which can unload deadly Cluster Bombs on the enemies in a rapid maner we will realize a monk`s only heavy hitting ability is the Seven-Sided Strike which has a long cooldown and nothing else.But,do not fear as the monk`s real power comes from the huge amount of buffs he owns and from the ability of unleashing a constant stream of deadly punches against any target.

Now that you know where the monk kicks ass and where he should be careful it`s time to have a more detailed look on the abilities as many don`t know the full power of every skill and the mechanics behind them, aswell some of their secrets.


2.Skills in Detail

-Passive Skills-

Fleet Footed

• It bypasses the 25% movement speed cap that any character currently has, so with this passive you  will reach 35% movement speed.
  
• You will almost always want more movement speed, any character would wish such a passive so it always comes in handy either if you just started or you are already in the middle of the burning hells killing demons and i am pretty sure that when you will gear up properly you will use this passive.

Resolve

• As the skill says,it reduces the damage of targets you hit by 20% and it is always 20%, nothing reduces that.
  
• All the direct attacks you use proc. resolve, with the only exception being Exploding Palm which is a damage over time skill and not a direct attack.
  
• Mystic Ally and Sweeping Wind do not proc. resolve.
  
• No mantra procs. resolve with the exception of Mantra of Evasion with “Backlash” rune which seems to proc. it.
  
• Skills like Seven Sided Strike,Dashing Strike,Tempest Rush,Wave etc. all of these primary and secondary skills proc. resolve.

Exalted Soul

• It increases your maximum spirit pool by 100 which means you get to 250 and also adds  1 spirit regen,it is usefull for builds where you need a lot of spirit and the damage output is fully based on spirit spender skills.

Transcendence

• Not many look upon this passive and upon Life Per Spirit Spent(LPSS) in general,but it is a very useful stat mostly for starting monks or budget builds,stacked with LPSS gear it becomes very insane and you get to have the heal of an paladin/priest for every skill you cast,for example if you double it from gears to 120 you get the following healing numbers for some skill you always use:
  
• Any Mantra: 50 spirit spent = 120 * 50 = 6.000
  
• Breath of Heaven:25 spirit spent = 3.000
  
• Seven Sided Strike:50 spirit spent = 6.000
  
• You already got 15.000 health only from casting usual abilities,if you stack the LPSS with a big spirit spender build you get yourself a sick healing source.
  
• I would recommend this skill for starting players when you can`t afford a proper amount of Life on Hit on gears not to talk about Life Steal which requires high DPS,but LPSS is way cheaper on equipment and it does its job, good to have always.

Chant of Resonance

• The good thing about this passive is the 2 Spirit Regeneration which is useful for Tempest Rush builds and other spirit spender builds or whenever you need some extra spirit regeneration.
  
• The increased mantra duration can be useful only for those times when you use Mantra of Healing as it provides nothing on cast except a weak bubble shield which break instantly so you just want it to sit there, as for the other mantras you will find yourself casting them over and over in order to benefit from the bonuses you get on cast.

Seize the Initiative

• This was a mandatory passive back then when it used to give 100% of your agility as bonus armor,now it got nerfed to 50% and the bonus is not that big anymore,the only way to recover that lost armor is either by stacking +armor or some strength between your other affixes on your armor pieces,but you won`t be able to achieve that on end game items as the slots are occupied by something else but for mid gear it should do the trick when you require more armor.
  
• A must have passive along One With Everything for newbies,tanks and for high monster power levels.

The Guardian's Path

• It has no effects if you use a shield in your off hand, you either need to dual wield two weapons in order to get the dodge bonus or wield a two handed weapon in order to get the spirit regeneration bonus.
  
• Very powerful when it is combined with other dodge skills like Mantra of Evasion and a must have when you use the “Backlash” rune.
  
• Also a must have for Tempest Rush builds and build which focus on spirit as main dps source as it is the best spirit generator passive(combined with spirit regeneration gear and skills).

Sixth Sense

• A good passive overall,at 50%+ critical chance you get 15%+ dodge,it is like a second “Guardian`s Path” but it`s advantage is that it can be used with shields and two handed weapons, but you need to get enough critical chance in order to make it effective.

Pacifism

Not much to say about this one,it is a bit worse than all the other passives for now and will probably be good only when PvP comes out.As for now, for PvE you should note that:

• There are no monsters that can Charm you and very few can stun you.
  
• Freezing can be avoided easy and you also got Serenity to help you out.
  
• While under the Fear effect you will find yourself running like mad around so usually no monster will touch you.
  
• You will want to use this passive only if you are too lazy to avoid all those effects or maybe for a tank build and as i said, it will probably serve well in PvP against a CM Wizard but we can`t talk about that as changes will be made when PvP is out.

Beacon of Ytar

-A very usefull passive, because 20% cooldown reduction is pretty huge.
-Skills that benefit mostly from this passive are skills like:

• Serenity
  
• Seven-Sided Strike
  
• Flashing Light etc.

-Always good to drop between your passives whenever you have a free slot.

Guiding Light

The base of support builds,a very good passive to support the whole party.
Skills that trigger it:

• Breath of Heaven – All Runes.
  
• Mantra of Healing – All Runes.
  
• Inner Sanctuary – “Safe Haven” Rune.
  
• Cyclone Strike – “Soothing Breeze” Rune.
  
• But the best way to keep it up is using Mantra of Healing which has no cooldown medium spirit cost so you can basically keep up the damage buff active all the time.

Your party members will love this buff!

One With Everything

First,I`ll explain this passive as I saw many monks that didn`t know what this does.So,it make all you resistances equal with your highest elemental resistance stacked togheter with your All Resistance also.
For example,you have the following:
300 All Resist,50 Fire Resistance,150 Cold Resistance and 100 Poison Resistance.
Your stats will be: 350 Fire Resistance,450 Cold Resistance and 400 Poison Resistance.
Now,when you drop OWE on one of your passive slots your stats will look like this:
450 Fire Resistance,450 Cold Resistance,450 Poison Resistance,all your resistances now got raised to your highest resistance which was Cold Resistance(450).Pretty easy but some seem to don`t understand and they throw all kind of resistances along All Resistance on their gear.
You can easily say this is the best passive in the game,even if getting an extra elemental resistance on any piece of gear consumes a magic affix so you get less from others(dexterity,vitality etc.) you can stack a crazy amount of All Resistance using this,you can use OWE in 2 ways:

• For a budget build and newbies,you can stack only one Elemental Resistance along Dexterity and Vitality,this way you will cut your costs when building a set  and get a decent amount of survivability because a specific Elemental Resistance is way cheaper than All Resistance.
  
• You can put elemental resistance along all resistance on your gear allowing maximizing your resistances output.
  
• There are also some monks, the super rich ones who choose to stack only All Resistance and to drop this passive, if you have no troubles surviving this way then that is a good thing as you get a free slot which can be filled by another passive.

Combination Strike

• You get a 8% damage buff for each Spirit Generator skill you use, so if you use 3 of them you can get to a 24% damage boost, you can have the first hit using one Spirit Generator and before it ends start pushing the button for the second Spirit Generator and so on for the third one or even fourth one.
  
• Even if it looks great on the paper,it Is not that great when you go for multiple Spirit Generators cause you can simply get way more damage from skills like Breath of Heavens or Flashing Light which come with other benefits also, so if you plan on using it I recommend staying on 1 or max 2 Spirit Generators,the other one being Deadly Reach with “Foresight” Rune.I really hope Blizzard will rework the mechanics of this skill so you can …I don`t know, combine 3 spirit generators on one skill each hit using a different generator or something like that cause this passive has great potential.

Near Death Experience

• A good passive and a must have for Hardcore I would say,the downside of it is that even if it saves you from death you still need to either kill your enemy or run away and escape from it else you will end up dead for real so you still need to add an escape skill alongside this ability.
  
• Even if it saves your life, because of its downside you won`t use it too much as most of the times you will die because of the swarms of enemies who charge on you or because of the annoying elite`s abilities and as i explained before you will most probably not even notice you got saved from death and you will die for real.

With that said,we finished with the passive abilities.Overall all monk passives are good or decent,not too much to complain about or to change,the only think the monk leaks and which all other classes owe is a damage boost passive but let`s hope he will obtain one soon
We shall have a quick look on the active skills now but I won`t get too much into details,if you have other questions regarding them feel free to message me.



-Active Skills-

  1.Primary


Fists of Thunder

• The most basic attck used in most of the builds because of it`s high attack speed(higher than any other primary skill),has two normal hits and a mini stun with a low AoE on the third hit.
  
• Most used rune is Thunderclap because of it`s teleport and AoE hit.All the other runes excepting Static Charge(which in my opinion Is useless) are good.

Deadly Reach

• The skill with the highest range among primary skills,good for striking enemies at a short distance.
  
• Mostly used as a damage buff with the Foresight rune.
  
• Other good runes:Keen Eye – defensive builds or whenever you feel you need some extra protection,Strike from Beyond – if you need spirit, but not as good as the other spirit generators.

Crippling Wave

• Good only if you like charging into the middle of enemies cause it hits everything around you on the 3 rd strike with a movement and attack speed reduction to all enemies touched but not too great as a damage dealing skill.
  
• Good runes:Rising Tide and Tsunami.

Way of the Hundred Fists

• Has the highest damage but the slowest attack speed among your primary skills,deals a mini stun on the second hit and has a weak knockback on the third one.Has a good AoE and the best spirit generating rune if you just started out and you don`t have the Critical Chance for which all the other skills ask,this rune is called Spirited Salvo.
  
• Other good runes are Blazing Fists and Windforce Flurry

  
2.Secondary


Lashing Tail Kick

• The first spirit spender you obtain,has decent damage and is best used as a knockback skill having  3 different runes for this purpose with another one to make use of it as a stun skill.Also,it is the only skill with a ranged attack which can be found on the last rune, beside that, it also slows the movement speed of the target you hit which, on paper of course, makes it look good for the upcoming PvP.

Tempest Rush

• The foundation of Tempest Rush build which also uses its name,a good escape skill and your main speed traveling skill,deals 85% damage on successive attacks with a 60% movement speed slow on targets hit.The only rune you will use on this skill is “Tailwind” the others don`t really do anything useful.
  
• Not too great at the beginning, it gets very good only after you stack some spirit regeneration and you learn how to use it properly.

Wave of Light

• A heavy skill on both the damage and cost side,has a short range on the first hit(around 20 yards) followed by a long traveling wave summoned after the bell hits(around 50 yards) which deals only 45% damage.Many people don`t use it because of the expensive spirit cost(depletes your spirit pool in 2 hits if you don`t have the Empowered Rune.
  
• Explosive Light rune is very good for newbies and beginners and very useful when you level up.
  
• You need to build proper spirit regeneration in order to sustain this skill and use it at full potential, do no drop it between your skills if you lack a sustained spirit regeneration.

  
3.Defensive


Blinding Flash

• A crowd control skill,most popular because of the Faith in the Light rune which gives a huge damage boost, also useful for its short duration debuff which blinds and interrupts enemies along with reducing their accuracy (only for elites which recoverer faster from the blind).
  
• Very good when you want to maximize your damage if you use the Faith in the Light rune.
  
• Useful as an escape mechanism also.

Breath of Heaven

• The standard monk healing ability.
  
• Favored for the Blazing Wrath rune which offers a significant damage boost.
  
• Has good runes useful for a variety of builds.

Serenity

• Your life savior skill,a default ability used by almost any monk – no need for more to be said.

Inner Sanctuary

• A good skill overall considering the runes it has but very unpopular along monks because it requires you and your allies to stand still in order to benefit from it`s protection and buffs.
  
• Good for support builds and possibly for the upcoming PvP.

  
4.Techniques


Dashing Strike

• A very good skill to drop in any build you use, it can be used both as an escape mechanism or as a speed boosting ability.Even if not too many use this,because of its design which allows it to be used for multiple purposes, the few who mastered it know how powerful this skill can be.Dashing strike has a 0.5 delay between casts and because of its low spirit cost it can be used frequently and you can permanently dash from target to target ,the range at which you dash is of about 45-55 yards.
  
• Can be used on any monster and on any environment object.
  
• A thing to note is that if you cast dashing while frozen bombs explode you can evade the freeze,that works for the other affixes like jail or desecrator as well from which you can escape dashing to a nearby enemy or object from the environment
  
• The most used rune is “Way of the Falling Star” because of its speed boost,other runes like “Flying Side Kick” may be very viable for PvP and can be used in a stunlock build.

Exploding Palm

• Monks version of the popular barbarian ability called “Rend”,but even better I could say because of the exploding damage that occurs when the target dies under the bleeding effect,30% of target`s maximum hp is dealt as damage to nearby targets which on high monster powers becomes insane.
  
• A very powerful rune is Essence Burn which applied in crowds of monsters can make the entire room lay down on the ground dead.
  
• Also,I should highlight the “Flesh is Weak” rune with its 12% extra damage debuff on the targets affected by the bleed,if you put this along Mantra of Convinction and other skills as such, you can create a huge hole in targets defense.A really good rune considering it still retains the damage over time.
  
• Very good in combination with Breath of Heaven - Infused with Light,Fists of Thunder - Quickening and any other hard spirit generating skill.

Sweeping Wind

• The soul of every monk,this ability has so much damage output that almost every monk uses it and it is the most favored ability because of the Cyclone rune, that`s why we will talk some more about this ability.
  
• Now, if you use Cyclone, in order to maximize its efficiency your attack speed and critical chance need to be as high as possible because Sweeping Winds power(runed with Cyclone) comes from the tornados it summons so you need to summon as many as possible to use its fully potential.This rune is most efficient in higher monster powers where monsters got a lot of hp and the cyclones keep floating around you draining an insane amount of life for you as they proc. the lifesteal.
  
• The Inner Storm rune provides on of the greatest spirit regeneration along Mantra of Healing and Guardian`s Path when Sweeping Wind is at maximum stacks, a must have for big spirit spender builds.
  
• Blade Storm and Fire Storm runes are best used when you lack the critical chance which is vital for Cyclone rune.While Blade Storm provides an sick source of 60% damage per second when at max stacks which ravages everything around you, Fire Storm provides a range increases which takes Sweeping Winds range to 14 yards and changes the damage type to fire so i can burn even the most distant enemies, very useful when your damage is very big and you just want to pick all the enemies at once.
  
• We also have the Master of Wind rune which increase the duration to 20 seconds, not too very effective considering the other runes you got at your disposal.
  
• I would like to make a call for those who don`t use this skill, you should really try it out as it is the best monk skill in my opinion.

  
5.Focus


Cyclone Strike

• Used mostly in support builds for getting enemies together so they can be mass nuked by the other party members,can be used for solo builds also but you can replace it anytime with a more useful skill.
  
• The runes i would recommend are: “Implosion”,”Soothing Breeze”

Seven-Sided Strike

• The most heavy hitting skill from the entire monk arsenal with only one downside:the long cooldown which can only be reduced by Sustained Attack from 30 seconds to 23 and by Beacon of Ytar passive.
  
• Pandemonium rune has such a great potential as a stun ability shame it is ruined by the long cooldown of the skill but lets hope it gets changed in further patches considering barbarians Hammer of the Ancients ability deals 400%+ damage per hit and can be spammed.
  
• Fulminating Onslaught is my favorite rune because of the AoE it offers, increasing the damage output a lot by hitting all the enemies with all the seven hits if they are close to eachother and decimating any horde that stacks too much demons.
  
• Another great rune is the Sudden Assault rune which increases the total damage to 2310% and increases the teleport range so that it reaches any enemy on the screen.

Mystic Ally

Even though the cost of this skill is very low and the ally can be spammed this is a pretty weak skill in my opinion because the ally dies fast and his damage output is low so his only use would be in a tank build where he can tank along you or sacrifice himself while you escape but this still has a badside as he doesn`t agro enemies on him too often and in most of the cases they will still focus on you(at least some of them).
If you decide to use this skill recommended runes would be:

• Earth Ally in a defensive/tank build
  
• Air Ally in a build where you need huge amounts of spirit.

  
6.Mantras


Mantra of Evasion

• A defensive mantra used at the beginning of the game mostly and when there is a need for survival as it provides a huge boost to dodge.
  
• Most used runes are Hard Target for its big armor bonus and Backlash rune for its monstrous damage when the dodge is big enough.
  
• Divine Protection would be a good rune also but because of the long cooldown it has it isn't, Wind through the Reeds provides a nice movement speed boost but sadly it doesn't bypass the 25% cap as Fleet Footed does.

Mantra of Retribution

• Occupies the last place among the mantras with only one good rune which is Transgression buffing the your and your party members attack speed by 8%.Well,the reflect damage sounds great on paper but in game it is not that great anymore and even if it was decent you can always replace this mantra with a better one so i wouldn't really recommend this mantra considering you got the others which are wayyyyyy better.

Mantra of Healing

• Mostly noticeable for the Time of Need rune which gives you a bonus of 20% All Resistance, very useful for newcomers and for tank builds.
  
• For more skilled players this mantra is mostly used with the Circular Breathing rune because of the spirit regeneration it provides which is vital in the Tempest Rush build and other big spirit spender builds.
  
• The health regeneration per second it gives is pretty useless and could only be probably good in the upcoming PvP, all the runes are decent but the ones I mentioned before are the ones who shine.

Mantra of Conviction

• The king of mantras and a top monk skill that every uber boss party asks for and that every high geared monk uses, well...almost any monk that has no problems surviving uses it.
  
• The best rune is the Overawe one which doubles the additional damage the enemies take and makes it 24% as long as the mantra is active and 48% for the first 3 seconds after it has been casted.Because the enormous debuff it gives when it is casted you need to refresh it as much as possible in any fight and whenever you have extra spirit that you don`t use.
  
• The other runes may each serve a purpose for some but they are not that great.

3.Choosing a Build

I will add the builds later as I am looking upon making them as much detailed as possible.

Note - These are my own versions of builds and some of them are made by me, they are not mandatory and you can adapt them to your play style !

I'll present you 4 builds for now:

1.Tempest Rush Build

Spoiler

I`ll start off with the Tempest Rush build because it is the most efficient for farming experience and the best build to run if you are farming low monster power levels seeking for treasures. I shall introduce you into the build while also showing you variations of it.
You will find almost everything you need to know about the build starting from how to use it all the way to proper gearing up for the build and handling the enemies efficiently.

IMPORTANT

1. I won`t teach you how to use the glitched version of this build which asks you to take a snapshot of your  damage by casting sweeping wind cause when that gets fixed you won`t be able to do anything anymore.
2. This build is designed to be used with a proper gear set which I will show you later and only on low monster powers from 0 up to 3-4 if you can get BiS gear.

But enough talk, let’s get on with the build, first we will start off with the build itself and we will talk about the skills and the variations you can use.

First, check the build here.


Skills Explanation

-Active Skills-


Fists of Thunder – Thunderclap
Your main weapon whenever you run out of spirit or there are single enemies left and also life saviors if you make use of the teleport whenever you are in danger.
While most of the monks would go for Deadly Reach, I will go for Fists of Thunder, why? simple, because the purpose of the build is rushing as fast as possible through every single enemy on the map and for this purpose, Fists of Thunder are over Deadly Reach because of multiple reasons:

• Stoping every 30 seconds to rebuff yourself is a waste of time as the damage increase is only 15% and it is simply not worth the time cause we got alternatives.
  
  
• On the damage output side Fists of Thunders > Deadly Reach, they are way faster and got a better AoE delivering more damage and that`s what we want.
  
  
• Fists of Thunder offer a lot more mobility and have a higher Spirit Regeneration power not to mention you also get the teleport from Thunderclap rune which keeps the fast movement up even if you run out of spirit and can get you out of nasty situations.

Overall Fists of Thunder are over Deadly Reach from almost every point of view so that is why I prefer to use them.

Alternatives:

• Deadly Reach – Foresight: I recommend using these only if your dps is too low to sustain the build cause that is the only purpose they serve: to buff your dps, they fail in all the other categories.
  
• Fists of Thunder – Quickening: Only if you can`t manage to keep your spirit up, but you should see this only as a desperate option.
  
• Fists of Thunder – Bounding Light: An alternative to Thunderclap rune if you don`t like the teleport but this shouldn`t happen.

Tempest Rush  – Tailwind
The foundation of this entire build, you need to learn to use this skill properly and equip the required piece of armors in order to make everything work. There are no alternatives to this as this Is a unique skill only comparable to Barbarian`s Whirlwind but with different mechanics. The highest goal you need to achieve is Tempest Rushing through everything while one shooting the white mobs and the dropping the heavy striking Seven-Sided Strike on elites for instant kills.


Seven-Sided Strike – Fulminating Onslaught
Your main skill against Reflect Damage packs and against elite packs in general(and huge hordes of monsters of course),beside it provides a few fractions of invulnerability and can get you out if you get stuck it will instantly kill any elite pack if they are close to each other and your dps is high enough.

Alternatives:

• Sudden Assault – If you use this rune the teleport range increases so that is covers the entire screen, you get increased damage but no AoE so the skill is still limited to only 7 targets wich means you need to kill the white monsters before you use it on elites.
  
• Sustained Attack – Only if you prefer reduced cooldown so you can spam more the skill but even so ,the reduction is not too big and the other two runes are over this one.

Sweeping Wind – Cyclone
As we talked before , this skill has a huge damage output so we need it here also as this will be the main source of damage when you stop tempest rushing to kill the hordes of minions that charge upon you. You need to activate it every fight and keep it up as long as there are monsters in your way, let It wear off only when you got a clean road ahead with no monsters to hit.
Tip: If you have decent dps the tornados summoned will kill all the low hp monsters you leave behind just as Barbarian tornados do, very good for improving your runs time.

Alternatives:

• Blade Storm/Fire Storm – These should be used only if your critical chance is low as they are not dependent of it in order to maximize their potential or if you don`t like the Cyclone rune.
  
• Inner Storm – Should be used only if you lack the spirit regeneration required for a constant channeling of tempest rush but, remember, you need to keep it activated and stacked at max in order to benefit from the spirit regeneration.

Breath of Heaven – Blazing Wrath
Your main dps boost source, we use this because it lasts 1 minute and it can be cast in fights or at anytime just with the press of a button. It offers a 15% damage boost and replaces the damage lost from dropping Deadly Reach, remember to refresh it every minute so it stays up all the time.

Alternatives:

• Breath of Heaven – Circle of Life: If you have troubles staying alive.
  
• Breath of Heaven – Infused with Light: An extra source of Spirit.
  
• Blinding Flash – Faith in The Light: If you have problems with the elites this ability offers you an advantage over them, beside boosting your dps by 30% pure holy damage it also blindes the elites earning you some extra time to either kill them or run. Also very reliable when your Seven-Sided Strike Is on cooldown.
  
• Blinding Flash – Self Reflection: For even more extra time against elites.

Mantra of Healing – Circular Breathing
A default ability for spirit spender builds because of the high spirit regeneration it offers and that`s why we need it here also.

Alternatives:

• Mantra of Convinction – Overawe: Only if you feel that you have enough spirit regeneration and damage is what you need. Most effective against elites and big hp monsters.
  
• Mantra of Convinction – Submission: Used when you are powerful enough to one shot elites and you don`t have any problems with spirit regeneration as this skill is most effective against low hp monsters.

-Passive Skills-

The Guardian`s Path
This is a mandatory passive as it provides the highest spirit regeneration that combined with the other spirit generators and proper gear allows the constant channeling of Tempest Rush. Remember, you must use a two handed weapon in order for this ability to work!

Chant of Resonance
I use this skill because I want to keep my spirit regeneration at that point where I can channel Tempest Rush without having to worry about my spirit. The increased duration on all mantras is also useful if you decide to use Mantra of Healing as there is no need for it to be refreshed and this way you get rid of some extra spirit consumption.

Fleet Footed
Maximizing our speed while smashing through crowds of demons is what we seek, well this ability fits perfectly into the equation and that's why i use it as it is also the only thing that can bypass the movement speed cap(excluding the active abilities).


Depending on your play style and needs you may swap the last two passives with any other passives but i would recommend the following:

• Exalted Soul
  
• Transcendence
  
• Seize the Initiative
  
• One With Everything
  
• Resolve
  
• Beacon of Ytar

We discussed them all before so you now where each fits and their pros/cons so it is up to you to either go on my build or chose the ones who fit you better,the same goes with the active skills to as i gave you suggestions for each of them.


The Gear
What do we want to build?

We want a monk with a self sustained spirit regeneration of about 10-14/s(buffed) depending on you attack speed as Tempest Rush cost scales with attack speed, the bigger the attack speed the bigger the cost and we don`t want this but it is always good to have just a bit more spirit regeneration than your attack speed is, later on when you master the build you can have less spirit regeneration also as long as you can Tempest Rush for a decent amount of time.We also want as much Critical Chance and Critical Damage as possible in order to "one-shot" all the white mobs while we pass through them, this along a high DPS of course.

We need some pieces of armor which are mandatory, you can take the cheapest but you can`t take something else because we build the spirit regeneration and the build itself through these items, this is what we need:

• Inna's Grandeur set consisted of:Inna's Radiance,Inna's Favor,Inna's Temperance,Inna's Vast Expanse
  
• A Stone of Jordan
  
• A sturdy two handed weapon which is a Skorn.

Inna`s Grandeur
You need this because when you got 4 pieces it reduces the cost of Sweeping Wind to 10 spirit, skill which needs to stay active the whole time in order to burst out the real damage.There is nothing with which you could replace this and get the same efficiency, not having this set will stop you from Tempest Rushing as each cast of Sweeping Wind will eat your entire spirit, so gather some gold and assemble this set rather than loose time with yellows or other crappy legendaries.


Stone of Jordan
Now,to clarify what Stone you should get:

• It doesn't matter which x% elemental damage you choose, only the cold one could help you a bit because it slows your enemies so they don`t run around like wild but it is not mandatory.
  
• You need to have at least 1.90 Spirit Regeneration on it
  
• If your budget is low you should consider buying one with only 20-25% damage against elites but it must have atleast either 3-4% Increased Critical Chance for Tempest Rush or 7-8% Sweeping Wind Damage because "one-shotting" white mobs is what you aim for, we will learn later how we handle the elites, so again , your only problem is the white mobs.
  
• If you have a medium budget you should aim for a Sweeping Wind SoJ with 8-12% skill bonus and 25-30% extra damage against elites depending on your buget.We want a Sweeping Wind SoJ because it can be used outside Tempest Rush build also, while a Tempest Rush SoJ can`t be used because it's practicaly useless.
  
• If you don`t care about the gold you should get a 7% Tempest Rush SoJ with 30% damage against elites.

A Skorn
Even if it doesn't look great on a holy warrior because it is "dark" this is the best choice you can make, not only because there isn't anything better or even close to it but nowadays it is also very cheap.The Skorn should have at leasat 170% critical damage if possible and a decent amount of DPS.Now for the other option you can either go for extra Dexterity(if you are ready to pay a bit more) or for lifesteal which is not necessary but will make your life a lot easier, will make the runs faster as you don`t have to worry about your life and will even save you from a couple of deaths probably.But a lifesteal Skorn is expensive so if you can`t afford it you should stick to a normal Skorn with as much DPS and Critical Damage as possible.

Other things to note:

• Don`t get attack speed on your Skorn, you need a two handed weapon as slow as possible.
  
• This build is no meant to go with dual-wielding, it won`t be effective at all.
  
• Do not get attack speed on you gear(only exception is Inna`s Temperance) as it won`t help you.
  
• Get a decent amount of EHP then go fully on DPS.
  
• Remember the pick-up radius,pick-up is always good.
  
• Get the Templar as follower and use his Inspire ability because for monks it generates a pretty decet amount of extra spirit.

The Gameplay

Always start by casting Mantra of Healing in order to start benefiting from the 3 spirit regeneration, then buff yourself using Breath of Heaven and remember to refresh it every 1 minute.Cast Sweeping Wind and get it to 3 stacks by hitting the first monsters that appear in your way, after that start channeling Tempest Rush and run through the endless hordes of demons and start killing them, remember to always refresh Sweeping Wind if there are enemies ahead and let it pass out only if you got clean road ahead.

You should try to stop as little as possible, only to pickup Legendaries,Weapons,Amulets,Rings,Shoulders and other things that you consider valuable, refresh your spirit on heavy enemies and elites and teleport/move to the next zone because the more you stop the more spirit you lose as every new channel of Tempest Rush starts with a cost of 15 spirit.

When you encounter elites you must wait for the perfect timing when they get close to another so you can use Seven-Sided Strike on which we have the Fulminating Onslaught rune that grants us AoE damage, so when they get together even if there are other monsters near them, casting SSS will render them all dead because any target you would hit the damage splashes to the others also.

Practice until you get the hang of it and then you will enjoy it and blame yourself for not trying this earlier.
That`s almost everything about Tempest Rush build,i tried to make it as short as possible as we got another 3 builds to check, so let`s go see the next one.

Click the spoiler if you want to master this build.

Bonus - Check my Tempest Rush monk here(She will get a Natalya Reflection soon)

2.Cookie Cutter Build

Spoiler

Our second build is the "Cookie Cutter" build, a very popular build used by almost every top geared monk because it delivers an insane amount of damage.

To note:

• You need a decent gear set in order to effectively use this build
  
• This build is designed for for monsters power starting from 4 up to 10 and for uber bosses.
  
• If you decide to use this build you will become addicted and hardly change it until the next patch.

Now,we got the build here, so lets have a look on the skills.


Skills Explanation

-Active Skills-


Fists of Thunder – Thunderclap
Your main attack, has a pretty good AoE damage and a great attack speed which is one of the requirement s for this build cause the bigger your attack speed and critical chance the more tornados you summon.
Tip:Use the short teleport to increase your movement speed by blinking from objects to objects and you can also swiftly move between the enemies and escape with no problems if the situation calls for.

Blinding Flash  – Faith in the Light
Used mostly on elites when you are next to them and ready to strike because of the 30% damage buff it provides and because of the blind which keeps the elites togheter

Sweeping Wind  – Cyclone
This is where the big DPS comes from,you should keep it up on every fight and try to get every monster in the range of your tornados.This skill is what makes this build so great cause combined with Mantra of Convinction and with the high attack speed and AoE of Fists of Thunder along a DPS oriented gear set it becomes incredibly powerful and can rip away any demon in seconds.

Serenity  – Ascension
Use it whenever your HP drops too much and you feel like dying and when you meet hard reflect elites, activate serenity and rush into them trying to kill or damage them as much as possible in the 4 seconds of invulnerability that Serenity offers you.

Breath of Heaven – Blazing Wrath
Your permanent DPS buff,pared with Blinding Flash they give a extreme DPS boost, keep it active all the time and use it whenever you need some healing.

Mantra of Convinction – Overawe
Try to refresh it in every battle so you can get the 48% damage bonus.You can do this because you have no hard spirit spenders so you can basically keep this maximized always.


-Passive Skills-

Resolve
Increases your survivability by reducing the attackers damage by 20% which is pretty big.We talked before when we had a look into the skill about which attacks proc. this passive.

Seize the Initiative
Not the best passive for this build, but because we got no offensive passive we will stack what we can and that is armor and defense.If you have 3 000 dexterity you will get 1 500 which is pretty huge i would say..so this is not a bad passive but a offensive one would have served much better.

One With Everything
Mandatory for high monster power levels because you will need proper resist in order to survive the elites.


The Gear
I won`t get much into the gear because it depends on your budget and preferences and the only items required are the BiS ones when you can afford them,I will resume to writing down some goals for each attribute,you can read then more about each item that fits the monk in the later section.


HP: At least 35 000
All Resistance:At least 400
Armor: At least 4 000
DPS: I would suggest something around 70k unbuffed, but you can go lower also.
Dexterity: At least 1700-2000
Attack Speed: At least 1.6 ApS
Movement Speed: You don`t need any but i would recommend getting at least 12%
Critical Hit Chance: At least 40%
Critical Hit Damage: At least 300%
Lifesteal:

• At least 3% combined with 700 LoH
  
• or 5%+ Lifesteal
  
• You can survive only with 3% if you are an experimented player/your defense is good/you kill
  
• things before they kill you.

Pick up Radius: Optional 7



The Gameplay

Buff yourself up,cast Mantra of Convinction and start rampaging through inferno.Remember to use Mantra of Convinction as often as possible and to keep Breath of Heaven active all the time.
Sweeping Wind activated at every enemy encounter and Serenity on Reflect elites and in time of need.

Pretty much everything about this build,if you read the skills section,the stats section and the gear section this is more than enough to convert your monk into a over 9000 power holy warrior.

Click the spoiler if you want to master this build.

Bonus - Check my Cookie Cuter monk here.

3.Support Build
Coming soon.

4.Tank Build
Coming soon.




4.Learning the Stats

Before we start gearing up, you need to know what are the benefits of each affix and which of them are more important and which are less because there are affixes which are completely and there are affixes which are almost vital so we are going to go through all of them.
I will simply group the affixes into three categories:

• Offensive
  
  
• Defensive
  
  
• Supportive
  
  
• Other

I recon they are self explanatory and i don`t need to explain them each, so let's breakdown each category.



1.Offensive

Dexterity - Primary attribute for Monks and Demon Hunters, it increases your damage by 1% for each point of dexterity.It also increases your dodge chance, starts out at 30% dodge for 1000 dexterity and degrades the more dexterity you get as at 2000 dexterity you have only 40% dodge, so a increase of only 10%, for 3000 dexterity you will have the same increase of 10% reaching 50% dodge( I did not test further but you will barely pass the 3000 dexterity mark because going further requires insane gear).You should have dexterity on all of you gear pieces as it provides damage increase so the more is definitely better.

Critical Chance - Translates clearly, the chance of landing a critical hit on your attacks, a very important stat and the biggest paper and real dps provider when you harmonize it with the other stats cause the big numbers come from critical hits.As a goal i would recommend getting around 40-50% critical chance while having at least 300% critical damage.

Critical Damage - Naturally, the bigger it is the heavier your hits are, a important stat also which needs to harmonize with the critical chance in order to fully utilise their potential, the ideal would be a 1:10 ratio, so for every 1 point of critical chance you would have 10 critical damage, but that`s a bit hard to achieve and getting more critical chance is better as long as you keep your critical damage pretty high.

Attack Speed - The amount of hits you land per second, not as important as the critical chance and critical damage.A dual wielding monk should get over 1.80 attack speed with no problems as dual wielding provides a +15% attack speed bonus and if you have two weapons with 1.40 attack speed you are already 1.65 attack speed.As i mentioned, not as important as the other offensive stats but you should stack some too,the sweetspot would be at around 1.80 attack speed.

Average Damage - You will find this attribute on amulets and rings either as + minimum damage,+ maximum damage or as xx-yy damage, where xx is minimum damage and yy is maximum damage.An important stat as it increases the average damage of your weapon maximizing its damage output, I myself put this before the attack speed, always good to have as it raises your DPS by a lot.

+x% Elemental Damage - You won`t find this stat too often, except when you get a Inna`s Favor or a Stone of Jordan.Even so, this is a more complicated stat and it requires a non-elemental weapon also called a "black weapon" in order to fully benefit from its effects, i won`t bother explaining it as there is a blue post that clarifies how does this stat work and has everything you need to know about it, click on the spoiler below to learn about it.

Spoiler

Blizzquote

The "+x% Elemental Damage" affix works by adding "x%" of your physical damage to your attack, in the form of the damage type listed.

So, really basic example:

• Your physical damage is 100, and the item adds +3% Fire damage.
  
• You gain 3 extra damage to your attacks as Fire damage.

Things this takes into account:

• Rings, mojos, orbs (etc) that have an "X-Y" damage affix (e.g. "1-2 Damage")
  
• The base damage range of your weapon, before any elemental damage is added from the affix
  
• +Min or +Max affixes on weapons

(Note: It doesn't benefit from "+X-Y Elemental Damage" affixes on weapons.)

We realize the current wording for this affix can be confusing, and it's something we'd like to make more clear in the future. If you have any suggestions for how this affix could be better worded, we're definitely interested in your suggestions. Just keep in mind that space is limited in item tooltips, and that whatever we use would need to be translated into all of our supported languages.

• All these stats compose the "Damage per Second" or simply called DPS which translates into the amount of damage you are capable of dealing per second.You can read even more about the DPS here.

2.Defensive

Armor - Reduces damage from all the attacks that are delivered against you.It is as important as All Resistance is but many people underrate it, you should try to stack +armor or some of your gear pieces or even some strength along your other stats should do the trick as every point of strength provides a point of armor also.I personally would aim for around 4000-6000 armor in order for you to feel safe.

All resistance - I lied before, all resistance is just a bit more important than the armor, it reduces the damage from every source(physical,fire,cold,poison,arcane,lightning) and it is very important against the affixes of the elite monsters.Getting all resistance is easier than getting armor and you should consider stacking around 400-500 as it will help you a lot against elites and give you a boost of survivability.

Vitality - Represents the amount of health points you have, 1 vitality point = 35 HP.It is a important stat and your goal should be 35 000 HP, but depending on preferences you can stack way more, not the case of the monks, you will most probably see barbarians with over 100 000 HP but not monks.

• All of these combined form the EHP which translates into effective health people, it basically shows you the amount of damage you can take before you actually die.You can find more about the EHP along a full guide here, I'll just tell you that the secret of becoming invincible is the harmony between armor,all resistance and vitality.

Life % - The second way of increasing your HP, it adds a lot of HP and works the best only if you already have a considerably amount of vitality(at least 30 000) and you will end up having at least 18% from your helm's socket after you reach paragon 100 and you take out that ruby.While having this stat is always good you shouldn't aim for it if you are not into becoming a tank or if you like having big numbers of HP as it can be replaced with something more useful.

Elemental Resistances - These are the fire,arcane,poison,cold,physical and lightning resistances i mentioned before.They are also welcome if you get them for free on any gear piece and the only one for which you should look for as a bonus is the physical resistance as it provides defense against monsters melee attacks and it helps you against reflect damage elites.



3.Supportive

I should rename this category but until i find a name to fit it I'll let it as so.

Life steal - The best life regeneration source for those who got past the 100k DPS mark as it requires a decent amount of damage in order to be effective.It gets a 80% reduction in inferno but even so it is way better the other alternative which is Life on Hit, but only after you decent a decent amount of damage as i mentioned before.The only downside is that it rolls only on weapons and on mighty belts on barbarians, so getting this stat is pretty expensive but you will ask for it in the end and you will pay the required amount of gold in order to get it.

Life on Hit - It gives you a specific amount of health per hit and it varies from skills to skills some giving you more and some giving you less.It gets boosted  by attack speed as the more hits you deal the more life you recover and it is the best way to go for beginners and if your DPS is low as it is not based on damage but on the attacks you make per second,as i said before: more attacks => more life gained.

Life per Spirit Spent - As i mentioned before when we went through the skills and we reached the passive called Transcendence which offers LPSS, this is a very underrated stat but it does very well when you stack it and you have a decent attack speed, it also benefits from spirit regeneration.
You can find it on Daibos,Fist Weapons and Spirit Stones.
I would recommend that you give it a shot as it it pretty cheap.

Spirit regeneration - The amount of spirit you gain per second.Spirit is used to fuel all of your skills and this stat can be found on Daibos,Fist Weapons and Spirit Stones.
Stone of Jordan is an exception which also provides Spirit Regeneration.
This stat is very useful for spirit dependent builds.

Life Regeneration - Because it requires big numbers(at least 2000) to be stacked in order for you to even feel it and is not even too efficient maximized it is pretty useless and you should not aim for it at no means as the other life sources are much better.Will probably only be good for PvP.

Life after Kill - Another stat that no one cares about, even though it does very well on low MP's and can get you a pretty good healing source as it comes with big numbers.It's only downside is the fact that if you find yourself fighting an elite and there are no white mobs around you, you won`t be able to kill anything in order to heal yourself, so this stat is dependent of weak monsters in order for it to be efficient.

Extra Health from Globes - Most useful for Witch Doctors because of their insane pick up radius, not too much of a deal for the Monks so i would suggest you to avoid it and consider it as a bonus if it comes on one of your armor pieces.



4.Other

Movement Speed - Capped at 25% but not for the monks, remember they can bypass this cap using the Fleet Footed passive.The ideal would be to get two items with 12% movements speed and i strongly recommend doing this cause it will shorten your runs a lot.

Dodge - Speaks for itself, your chance of dodging an attack and evading all the damage.I would call this the best defense because once you dodged an attack you take no damage but the downside is that you can`t relay only on it because reaching 100% dodge chance is impossible.
Things that you CAN'T dodge:

• Ground effects like molten,desecrator,plague,poison pools,Azmodan's holes etc.
  
• Attacks of some specific units like Blazing Guardian's fire(ground effect also).

These kind of things, you can dodge everything else.

melee/Missle Reduction - Speaks for itself,reduces the incoming melee and ranged damage, not necessary as the it comes on armors with low values, but good to have anyway.

Bonus Damage/Defense Against Elites - Found mostly on legendaries and shields, you won`t find or get too much defense against elites but on the other hand damage against elites is pretty easy to acquire because of the so called ring "Stone of Jordan" which gives a semnificant damage against elites along Spirit Regeneration,Skill bonus and x% Elemental Damage.Not a must have stat but the bonus against elites does very well.

Pickup Radius - Auto pickup of the nearby piles of gold and health globes, who doesn't want that.The recommended value would be 7-10 as monks are melee warriors and you pretty much walk around so that is enough, even though..you can stack as much as you want if you are really lazy but doesn't make too much of a difference.

Bonus Experience - You will want at least 30% bonus experience when you are leveling(which you can gain from the ruby in your helm) though there are only 4 items that have this affix and they are:

• The Ruby you can put in your helmet - up to 31% bonus experience.
  
• A Hellfire Ring, would be good if it rolls other useful stats also - 35% bonus experience.
  
• Leoric's Signet - up to 30% bonus experience.
  
• Cain's Set - 30% bonus experience when you got 3 pieces.

Even though you can get up to 120% bonus experience from items, only the Ruby in your helmet is reliable and the hellfire ring if it gets at least a decent roll.Leoric's Signet only other stats beside bonus experience are a bit of one of the main stats and a short pickup radius, the same with Cain's Set, being a low level set it has almost no other benefits other than the bonus experience.So I would suggest you to stick to the Ruby and Hellfire Ring and go for the other two only if you are already killing fast enough and you hunger for experience.

Magic Find/Gold Find - Magic Find is raise the price of any piece of armor it sticks to and on the other hand eats 1 affix from it.I wouldn't recommend stacking too much MF/GF as you sacrifice other affixes in order to get them but if you are a treasure hunter do as you wish.
You can find more about Magic Find and how it works here.

Crowd Control Reduction - Reduces the duration of control impairing effects like freeze,stun,slow etc.
A good stat overall but they big problem again is that it eats a magic affix which can be used for something better I wouldn't aim for it but again, as a bonus it is fine.a

Thorns - Nothing to be said,the black sheep, avoid them at all costs.


Well,that's almost everything about the stats and magic affixes you can find in Diablo 3, now that you know what each does and which are the good ones and which are the bad ones let's move on and see what piece of armors you should chose.



5.Gearing Up


I will enlist items prior to each slot category starting from the best all way down to the weakest.
I will use Bagstone's table style because I like the way it's made and it's layout very much and I think it fits perfectly here,I hope he doesn't mind and of course the credits go to him.


Head

Item	Pros	Cons
Mempo of Twilight	Mempo is by far the best head you can have,it has sick DPS along with great EHP and always a socket,it has only 1 roll any you will want that roll to be CC otherwise vitality or an extra resistance are fine and are much cheaper,it is good for any build except tempest rush where you need the 4 pieces from inna`s set.	Mempo has no downsides except for the high costs that come with the CC,but if you manage to get one with 200+ dex and vit/extra resist roll you will see that it does its job very well.
Inna`s Radiance	The only set spirit stone,comes with Dexterity which can go high, with 5-6% CC and a socket,best rolls you can get are high Dexterity,high Vitality and maxed AR even though Inna can roll even better getting almost close to a Mempo with CC,the one thing you can roll is the Sweeping Wind skill,with this skill rolled at 12-14% With 180+ Dexterity and AR you can effectively use Inna to replace a 3-5 CC Meempo,but getting one of those is extremly hard and most likely pricey,you will want to focus on getting as much CC as possible with high Dexterity and vitality along your resistance(fire,cold etc.) or AR if you can afford it.I also need to mention that this is a must have for Tempest Rush builds because of the Spirit Regeneration they can provide.	Inna`s Radiance has no downsides,comes with everything you need and a cheap price as they get good rolls pretty often and they can be used only by monks.
Andariel`s Visage	It comes with 8-9% Attack Speed along 4.5% Critical Chance and a random main stat,so you already have the offensive stats,it also comes with Poison Resistance for the monks that are on poison which is a + for them.The bad thing is that it doesn`t come with a socket,so you will want the roll to be a socket if you are aiming for EXP,if you don`t,a high Dexterity roll or AR should do the trick,you can also consider vitality or armor.	The bad thing about an Andariel is that it also comes with extra fire damage taken,and as you are a melee fighter you will take a lot of fire damage,so it is best to look for a helm with as low fire damage as possible,I would say 15% in the worst case but try to get even lower even though it raises it`s price.
Tzo Krin's Gaze,Madstone	These are the very cheap alternatives for all the helms listed above,you will want Critical Chance on both of them in order to make them effective and the skill you use on Madstone,relay on them only if you really but really can`t afford any of the above.	They lack a lot of stats,there is no need for more to be said.
Shoulders
Item	Pros	Cons
Vile Ward	These shoulders are perfect from every point of view,they are BiS,they can get everything you would want on a pair of shoulders and they can roll up to 300 Dexterity unlikely Rare Shoulders and they also come pretty cheap.These shoulders got 2 rolls and you will want those two rolls to be Vitality along Life % or an Extra Resistance(the main resistance you use) as they always come with the All Resistance and Armor.	As I said before,these shoulders are perfect and you will find yourself wearing a pair(if not now,then later),not even the price is a drawback as they come most of the times cheap for the stats they provide,so I don`t have any cons to enlist for them,just maybe the looks for those who don`t like it.
Rare Shoulders	These should be consider an option just if you started out and you don`t have the funds to afford a pair of Vilewards, even though they come pretty cheap.They can get the stats of a Vileward pair but that`s hard to achieve and they are limited to 200 maximum Dexterity.You should look for at least 150 Dexterity,Vitality and All Resistance as mandatory stats,other stats to get  along those 3 are Armor,Extra Resistance,Life % and Pick-Up Radius.	They are limited to only 200 Dexterity,a good pair is hard to find and it tends to be pretty expensive,I would recommend trying to get a pair of Vilewards.
Chest
Item	Pros	Cons
Inna`s Vast Expanse	The best chest you can get as a Monk,it comes with Dexterity,Vitality,Life % and Reduced Damage from Melee Attacks along 3 Sockets,mostly used in combination with Inna`s Temperance for the 130 Dexterity bonus from 2 set pieces.It has only 1 roll so you will want either extra vitality up to 300 or All Resistance,in the worst case you can consider an Extra Resistance as a roll.The best you can get is 200 Dexterity,100 Vitality and 80 All Resistance or 200 Dexterity with 300 Vitality or any numbers close to these.	Finding a very good one is hard and costs galactic amounts considering it is only a chest,another con would be that it has only one roll,so you can`t get high Vitality if you also want All Resistance,except that,it has everything you want.
Tyrael`s Might	A decent chest as it comes with 170-200 Dexterity,high All Resistance and Movement Speed as a bonus,for the random roll your best option is 3 Sockets or at least 2,you may also consider Vitality or Life %.A good alternative to Inna`s Chest if you just started out and you can`t afford that one.	It comes pretty expensive if it rolls 3 sockets and comes with no Vitality.
Blackthorne's Surcoat	A good chest if you want crazy load amounts of EHP,it comes with up to 200 Vitality and 80 AR and two rolls,you`ll want those rolls to be Dexterity and an extra 100 Vitality,other stats to consider are Life % or Armor.Get one only if you can`t afford a Inna`s Vast Expanse as you can find one cheap or if you want to play as a support/tank.	It provides great EHP but low DPS boost and as everyone wants DPS they will go for Inna.Also, it looks bad in my opinion.

6.Know Your Enemy

Every good warrior knows his enemies well, that's why we shall have a look on every elite affixes and on the most feared enemies I collected from the forums, cause you know what they say "Keep your friends close and your enemies even closer" but I wouldn`t recommend keeping a fallen lunatic close to you.Anyway,let's begin.


Monsters & Elites
I shall start off with the most annoying/hard enemies,and here is a picture that makes up for my words.



I will enlist the most annoying/hard enemies here from what comes in my mind now and complete the list along the way until i write down every single annoying enemy

• I`ll start off with the Succubuses which for me are the most annoying elites,they got a guided ranged attack which also applies an armor killing debuff, if they come with horde and molten affix, you can start running.
  
• 
  
• Fallen Lunatics,these little things gathered more hate upon them than any other monster in Diablo did,if you let your guard down and one of these things appear you only have some seconds before it is either him or you,nasty imps,very nasty.
  
• 
  
• Demonic Tremors,even if they are big and heavy, these things have an incredible speed,punching big hits and dropping very hard.When it happens to encounter an elite and it also enrages then you know you have big troubles.
  
• 
  
• Hulking Phase Beasts,the name speaks for them, armed with big blades and ten tones of muscles the most annoying think about these beasts is their teleport, they come right beside you and rend you in pieces if you are not quick enough or you don`t have enough armor.
  
• 
  
• Swift Skull Cleavers,these things know how to swirl an axe at long range, even if they attack and move slowly you must be careful because they hit hard and their range is very big.
  
• 
  
• The ones who carry the big weapons,Bloated Malachors,they are big,heavy and predictable but even so, if you get into a crowd and these things start to hit you then you gonna have a bad time, so take care when you encounter them as they also drop pretty hard.
  
• 
  
• Blood Clan Ocultists,beside running around like mad and hitting pretty hard they also got the most wicked shields, at all costs try to kill them before they drop the shields on anyone cause if they do so, you can already say goodbye speed run and welcome time wasted.
  
• 
  
• Blood Clan Rangers/Warriors,they become very bad when they enrage which takes their dps to another another level and they start hitting pretty hard, but thankfully the drop fast so they won`t be a big trouble as long as you evade their attacks.
  
• 
  
• Horned Mammoth Chargers,if you let any of these beasts hit you..you will most probably end up dead spread around the entire room.I am serious,these guys can kill any low armored player in one charge and they also pack a good punch while having a big amount of HP.

Elites Traits

Avenger - Not many know what this trait does, whenever one of the elite group members die the others receive a stacking damage buff, so the more you kill the more powerful the last one standing becomes.

Arcane enchanted - Just don`t get close to any of the lazor beams as they are deadly,they are pretty easy to avoid as you can see where they will spawn, but be careful if you are in a narrow place and you fight with an elite that has this trait cause you will get ripped appart.

Desecrator - This thing hits hard,be careful as there is a one second delay after it has been cast by an elite before it comes out and starts dealing damage, also be careful to the fact that you still get damaged for a very short amount of time after you leave the desecrated area and most of the time this is deadly damage.A easy to avoid trait in general.

Electrified - Dangerous only if you hit the entire elite group at once so they all start shooting electric bolts, they don`t do too much damage but if there are too many electric bolts hitting you, you will start to feel them.

Extra Health - It gives the monster 150% extra health and can be pretty annoying and time consuming on elites like Succubs,Blood Clan Ocultists etc..
Some people say that it adds extra damage also along the extra health.

Fast - Monsters with this trait will run 50%, attack 20% and cast 10% faster, it gets worse when you get the fast trait on an already fast elite and it gets insane when that elites has molten also, proceed very carefully if you encounter such a pack.


Fire Chains - These are some little bastards,they will usually surround you and run around you so you get hit by the fire chains as much as possible, you should try staying out of the chains range and get them down one by one.


Frozen - Spawns ice bombs which explode when the channeling is over.Easy to avoid because it takes some time before the bombs explode and you can see their explosion radius, however, if it happens to get cornered or stuck and there are bombs about to explode next to you Dashing Strike,Serenity,Mantra of Evasion,Seven-Sided Strike etc. are your best friends so use them carefully.


Health Link - I personally like this one as i kill them all at a time no matter which one of them I hit, but there is a bad side of this also, if it happens for the pack to get Reflect Damage along Health Link then you got a serious problem because as the damage splits you also get the Reflect Damage from the entire group if they are close to each other.


Horde - You should look upon this trait from the good side, more enemies = more loot but even so there is a dark side also, if this trait comes with molten,arcane,frozen or reflect damage then you will have a bad time.

Illusionist - When ever you damage the monster with this trait it has a chance to create two clones of itself, clones have full damage/health/traits of the original monster except they cant create clones. Clones award no XP or loot.But for melee classes the more enemies results in a bigger amount of life drained so this trait is not too scary.

Jailer - Each attack from monster with this trait has a 25% to immobilize you for a short period of time, not too dangerous if it doesn't come with desecrator,frozen or anything like that.

Knockback - Has a chance to knock you back on hit, not dangerously except the times when you end up in an Arcane Beam or into a pool of Molten Fire etc.
More annoying than dangerously cause you also get slowed and you need to return to your initial target.

Missile Dampening - Has no effect against the Monk,but for your general knowledge the projectiles that enter in the area of effect of this skill are slowed by 50%.

Molten - Molten monsters will spawn pool's of lava on the ground when they move, standing in thous pools will damage you. Elite and champion monsters with this trait explode dealing fire damage when they are killed.You should not run after elites with this trait,let them come to you and kill them one by one and never but never stand on the ground where multiple lava pools have already stacked up.

Mortar - Monsters with this trait toss a volley of 3 fiery bombs at you every 4-5 secs.As long as you stay close to the elite this trait shouldn't bother you, for monks mortar enemies are not a big deal.

Nightmarish - Each has a chance to apply fear on you making you run away for a few seconds.Since the new patch you get a 6 seconds protection after the last fear before you can be feared before.The proc. chance is pretty low and this trait won`t bother you,except the fact that you will run away like mad with no control.

Plagued - Not very powerful unless they manage to stack pools of poison underneath you, when they do so just move a bit further and everything should be fine.

Reflect Damage - The nightmare of every insane DPS player, if you don`t have enough lifesteal and defense or proper skill set in order to cancel the reflect effect or defeat them before they can harm you then you should take these elites slowly and carefully taking them down one by one and hitting only when your HP is high and your escape skills are ready.

Shielding - After it got nerfed in the new patch this trait is almost useless, it shields one of the pack members for a short duration of time, nothing to worry about it.

Teleporter - Don`t even mind these, they will eventually teleport to their dead in the end.

Vampiric - Again,not that great since it has been patched, don`t worry too much about it.

Vortex - This, in combination with Arcane,Molten,Frozen and all those crappy traits is deadly, always have your escape skill prepared when you meet a Vortex pack.

Waller - Not much to worry as a monk about these, they mostly help you as they offer you cover and you can take your enemies one by one.

Well,that`s kinda everything about elites,traits and scary monsters.









Note:I will be constantly updating this guide so remember to occasionally check in to see what's new.

And remember to message me for any questions,help,suggestions,set builds,gear checks and pretty
much anything regarding the monk.

Quote

Credits for the images:

• http://d3db.com/news...-event-wrap-up/
  
• http://guide4games.c...nd-skills-guide
  
• http://hanciong.devi...d-map-253195357

  /Edited by me.

Edited by Spectral213, 02 February 2013 - 09:49 PM.

[vioche]

woha long guide nice effort

[Krat0s]

vioche, on 22 January 2013 - 09:10 PM, said:

woha long guide nice effort

Thank you!

Will get even longer

[Diavolo222]

good guide man

[Rhye]

Nice guide, but where is the (by my account, and a lot of other MP10 farming monks) best build?

Fists of Thunder - Thunderclap
Way of a Hundred Fists - Blazing Hands
Exploding Palm - Flesh is Weak
Blinding Flash - Faith in the Light
Sweeping Wind - Cyclone
Mantra of Conviction - Overawe

Combination Strike
Passive
Passive

If you haven't tested this: please do. It's hard to play anything else when you know how insane this is And Exploding Palm is getting a buff as well! Yay!

[Krat0s]

Rhye, on 24 January 2013 - 07:28 AM, said:

Nice guide, but where is the (by my account, and a lot of other MP10 farming monks) best build?

Fists of Thunder - Thunderclap
Way of a Hundred Fists - Blazing Hands
Exploding Palm - Flesh is Weak
Blinding Flash - Faith in the Light
Sweeping Wind - Cyclone
Mantra of Conviction - Overawe

Combination Strike
Passive
Passive

If you haven't tested this: please do. It's hard to play anything else when you know how insane this is And Exploding Palm is getting a buff as well! Yay!

There are more builds to come including this one,which is as you also said a sick build for high mp farming and I use it aswell sometimes when I farm those high mps.I will add even a PvP build that I created myself and I use and with which I kicked ass in the arena.
Just check back soon !

Edited by Spectral213, 24 January 2013 - 12:40 PM.

[Rhye]

Spectral213, on 24 January 2013 - 12:39 PM, said:

Rhye, on 24 January 2013 - 07:28 AM, said:

Nice guide, but where is the (by my account, and a lot of other MP10 farming monks) best build?

Fists of Thunder - Thunderclap
Way of a Hundred Fists - Blazing Hands
Exploding Palm - Flesh is Weak
Blinding Flash - Faith in the Light
Sweeping Wind - Cyclone
Mantra of Conviction - Overawe

Combination Strike
Passive
Passive

If you haven't tested this: please do. It's hard to play anything else when you know how insane this is And Exploding Palm is getting a buff as well! Yay!

There are more builds to come including this one,which is as you also said a sick build for high mp farming and I use it aswell sometimes when I farm those high mps.I will add even a PvP build that I created myself and I use and with which I kicked ass in the arena.
Just check back soon !

Sweet Keep it up. These guides must be very nice for new monks!

[Krat0s]

Quote

Sweet Keep it up. These guides must be very nice for new monks!

I hope so !

[3ddy]

Where is the rest im asking! You did really great job, but you need to update it and add things which you were supposed to add "tomorrow" but it has been already a week since u wrote it

Keep going !

[Krat0s]

3ddy, on 29 January 2013 - 08:38 AM, said:

Where is the rest im asking! You did really great job, but you need to update it and add things which you were supposed to add "tomorrow" but it has been already a week since u wrote it

Keep going !

Updates are coming,I am very sorry but I was so busy the last days that I had no time left for me and for the guide.
They will be here soon,no worries!

I will post the update most probably in the weekend,also, feel free to suggest what would you like to see, what do you like and what you don`t etc.

Regards!

Edited by Spectral213, 29 January 2013 - 08:38 PM.

[Zero(pS)]

Amazing guide.

First time I read it thoroughly. A must read for Monk users (new and veteran alike).

Have a +1 cookie.

[3ddy]

Spectral213, on 29 January 2013 - 08:20 PM, said:

Updates are coming,I am very sorry but I was so busy the last days that I had no time left for me and for the guide.
They will be here soon,no worries!

I will post the update most probably in the weekend,also, feel free to suggest what would you like to see, what do you like and what you don`t etc.

Regards!

You definitely have to fill up the gear table ASAP (maybe with some prices? ). What is more...  some hints according not only monk build, but more general hints about some specific runs, exping, farming etc. what you find the most efficiency, what "regions" you find easy to do and farm etc.

[Krat0s]

3ddy, on 30 January 2013 - 06:37 PM, said:

Spectral213, on 29 January 2013 - 08:20 PM, said:

Updates are coming,I am very sorry but I was so busy the last days that I had no time left for me and for the guide.
They will be here soon,no worries!

I will post the update most probably in the weekend,also, feel free to suggest what would you like to see, what do you like and what you don`t etc.

Regards!

You definitely have to fill up the gear table ASAP (maybe with some prices? ). What is more...  some hints according not only monk build, but more general hints about some specific runs, exping, farming etc. what you find the most efficiency, what "regions" you find easy to do and farm etc.

Will definitely do that,I was thinking of creating a "Farming Routes" section and thats what I will do.
Gear table will be here on weekend along with the rest of the update.

Thank you for your feeback,I appreciate that!

[demonknight667]

As a monk at 56 reaching 60, your guide has been a good eye opener in getting prepared for inferno.

Thanks for this

[bachster]

Great guide! A lot of nice stuff here. I will be reading it more closely when I get home.

Just one thing:

Spectral213, on 22 January 2013 - 02:44 PM, said:

Illusionist - When ever you damage the monster with this trait it has a chance to create two clones of itself, clones have full damage/health/traits of the original monster except they cant create clones. Clones award no XP or loot.But for melee classes the more enemies results in a bigger amount of life drained so this trait is not too scary.

Are you sure? - As far as I have experienced they have quite a bit less health and do zero damage (or close to zero, not sure).

[Krat0s]

They actually do damage,and about the health,they either got lower health or lower armor,the point is they die way faster...I should mention that.

[Neooo]

Fists of Thunder - Thunderclap
Way of a Hundred Fists - Blazing Hands /
Exploding Palm - Flesh is Weak
Blinding Flash - Faith in the Light
Sweeping Wind - Cyclone
Mantra of Conviction - Overawe

Combination Strike
Passive
Passive
Could add Deadly reach - foresight and this is where comes the boom with the proper gear

[Bagstone]

Hey Krat0S,

Didn't notice at first that you actually referenced me for structuring your gear section. Thanks, glad you liked it! I have to say though, yours looks better than mine How did you do that? It seems like you managed to avoid line breaks for the item names, like some fixed column width. Please tell me your secret of dealing with the somewhat stubborn forum software ;-)

Just as a random suggestion: your guide has a lot of text, it's almost longer than mine - if you have the time, I think it'd be great to link the index to the specific sections by using anchors. It's really simple, just add

[alink='builds']3. Choosing a build[/alink]

in the introduction and then put an anchor around the section header like this:

[anchor='builds']3. Choosing a build[/anchor]

Excuse me if you knew this already and decided deliberately against using this - I just thought it might make it easier to jump through the sections. Oh, and thanks for the great guide of course! Besides the content it's actually a nice inspiration to update the visuals of my guide, which looks more like a wall of text by now.

[Formigah]

Great guide, helped me a lot ^^

[ArmeleonEU]

Awesome guide. Best monk guide I'v come by so far actually. Some of the details of how some less used skills work were new to me even though I also have 1000+ hours on my monk.

I think some parts require editing due to patch 1.0.7 though.

I don't think the 'limited viable builds' is really current anymore. I'v seen and used many new builds based around buffed WOL, explo palm and cyclone strike. Also the parts explaining these skills could use some tweaking since they have new uses and are generally more powerful.