Alright so for the first 2 difficulties I was getting by with Quickshot's attack speed + life steal/life on hit build and it worked great. I made it through nightmare and the majority of act 1 and 2 on hell with it without a problem. Once I started to get to act 3 and 4 though it wasn't working out for me. The last straw for me personally, was after killing the 1st boss (terror demon who summons all the shadow fiends) of act 4, I walked out and got 1 hit by an oppressor. So instead of using an attack speed + life steal build, I decided to go for an evasion build; and it worked freaking amazingly, and can only get better as you level. Right now at level 56 with 931 dexterity I am getting up to about 59% dodge using this build, so at level 60 when you're up there stacking inferno gear and rollin w/ twice my dexterity, this will work only that much better. It's not 100% though, so this build does use some self healing.
For my spirit generator, I use fists of thunder with the lightning flash rune. Dual wielding this ability is amazing for 2 reasons. 1, it generates spirit faster than any other spirit generator; and 2, when dual wielding, you should never drop your +16% dodge.
For my spirit spender, I use wave of light with empowered wave to lower the spirit cost to 40. This turns it into a pretty handy moderate spirit cost transcendance heal w/ a good amount of damage and an aimed knockback. Pretty sweet.
Defensively, I use Serenity, for when those big hits do slip through your dodge and you need a second to heal up. You can use whatever rune you like, but personally I prefer reap what is sown.
For technique I use sweeping winds. Awesome move all around, you should be using this. Once again the rune doesn't really matter, but I like cyclone myself.
For Focus I am using Cyclone strike with Soothing Breeze. This move when used this way is an offensive heal with no cd. Awesome. 50 spirit cost w/ transcendance and the extra health from the rune make it awesome. And if you have a large pack of trash, hit this to pull them all in and go to town with fists of fury for some nice aoe clearing.
Now the most important part, the Mantra. Most people are saying Mantra of Healing is a must, and this is where I say NAY, it is inferior. It is nice for sure, but I feel that as monks we have so much healing from everything else, we don't need this. So instead, I use Mantra of Evasion with Divine Protection. With Mantra of Evasion and Fists of Thunder glyphed with lightning flash you easily have over 50% dodge, and with transcendance you can tap your Mantra button every 3 seconds to refresh the double dodge % giving you even higher dodge (it gets me up to 59% at level 56 w/ only 931 dexterity) as well as act as a self heal with transcendance.
Using this build I am now flying through Hell with ease. I mean, I don't even know what the max possible dexterity is with level 60 legendary sets and super high dexterity, but I bet it wouldn't be hard to get up to 80 even 90+ % dodge like this, which would make even inferno alot easier. The best part, is you can even combine this with Quickshot's attack speed + life steal build and it will work even better. A few high damage weapons w/ % damage dealt converted to life, maybe even some star amethysts, and even when you do get hit you heal it right back up. Now obviously this isn't gonna work on EVERYTHING. If you get stuck in a fire chain, or an arcane sentry, or you let one of the giant mallet fist demons in act 4 slam you, you're still gonna get 1 shot, so use your head and play safe around the big guys still.
I'm heading down to the butcher now to record the build in action. I'll edit the video in when i'm done.
Alright here's my vid. It's not quite as clean as Quickshot's because I don't actually have any life steal going on at the moment, just two random blue weapons I found on the AH, but as you can see I am easily dodging his melee attacks, but still get hit by the fire coming from the ground (which I obviously suck at getting out of) and even without the life steal going on, I am able to heal up whatever I do get hit for. I'm gonna go work on farming some act 3/4 stuff for gear/money and we'll see how this works in combination with attack speed + life steal later on against Diablo.
Bommes, is there a reason you don't use wall of wind to spam Cyclone strike instead of refreshing the mantra? Unless im totally missing something i'd think that'd be better. Its 5% more dodge for the same 3 seconds, for the same spirit cost, and it also does damage.
Here's the build I am currently using: http://us.battle.net...gifh!YcX!ZbZccZ
For my spirit generator, I use fists of thunder with the lightning flash rune. Dual wielding this ability is amazing for 2 reasons. 1, it generates spirit faster than any other spirit generator; and 2, when dual wielding, you should never drop your +16% dodge.
For my spirit spender, I use wave of light with empowered wave to lower the spirit cost to 40. This turns it into a pretty handy moderate spirit cost transcendance heal w/ a good amount of damage and an aimed knockback. Pretty sweet.
Defensively, I use Serenity, for when those big hits do slip through your dodge and you need a second to heal up. You can use whatever rune you like, but personally I prefer reap what is sown.
For technique I use sweeping winds. Awesome move all around, you should be using this. Once again the rune doesn't really matter, but I like cyclone myself.
For Focus I am using Cyclone strike with Soothing Breeze. This move when used this way is an offensive heal with no cd. Awesome. 50 spirit cost w/ transcendance and the extra health from the rune make it awesome. And if you have a large pack of trash, hit this to pull them all in and go to town with fists of fury for some nice aoe clearing.
Now the most important part, the Mantra. Most people are saying Mantra of Healing is a must, and this is where I say NAY, it is inferior. It is nice for sure, but I feel that as monks we have so much healing from everything else, we don't need this. So instead, I use Mantra of Evasion with Divine Protection. With Mantra of Evasion and Fists of Thunder glyphed with lightning flash you easily have over 50% dodge, and with transcendance you can tap your Mantra button every 3 seconds to refresh the double dodge % giving you even higher dodge (it gets me up to 59% at level 56 w/ only 931 dexterity) as well as act as a self heal with transcendance.
Using this build I am now flying through Hell with ease. I mean, I don't even know what the max possible dexterity is with level 60 legendary sets and super high dexterity, but I bet it wouldn't be hard to get up to 80 even 90+ % dodge like this, which would make even inferno alot easier. The best part, is you can even combine this with Quickshot's attack speed + life steal build and it will work even better. A few high damage weapons w/ % damage dealt converted to life, maybe even some star amethysts, and even when you do get hit you heal it right back up. Now obviously this isn't gonna work on EVERYTHING. If you get stuck in a fire chain, or an arcane sentry, or you let one of the giant mallet fist demons in act 4 slam you, you're still gonna get 1 shot, so use your head and play safe around the big guys still.
I'm heading down to the butcher now to record the build in action. I'll edit the video in when i'm done.
Alright here's my vid. It's not quite as clean as Quickshot's because I don't actually have any life steal going on at the moment, just two random blue weapons I found on the AH, but as you can see I am easily dodging his melee attacks, but still get hit by the fire coming from the ground (which I obviously suck at getting out of) and even without the life steal going on, I am able to heal up whatever I do get hit for. I'm gonna go work on farming some act 3/4 stuff for gear/money and we'll see how this works in combination with attack speed + life steal later on against Diablo.