Diablo® III

Hey guys,

Here is my build: http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/monk#WZdgTQ!ZbY!Zbaaac

Crippling Wave - I found it's aoe with debuffs was most effective. Although I am in a toss up between which rune to use. Mangle for the overall increased damage, or Concussion for 20% less additional damage. Does this stack nicely with Resolve?

LTK - Main spirit spender.

Dashing Strike - Good use to dash into a group of mobs, getting to a ranged, or using to escape.

Serenity - Still debating whether to use Serenity or Breath of Heaven. I think a personal shield along with a heal sounds a bit better to me.

SSS - Heavy damage cooldown

Mantra of Healing - Additional defense and healing

Passives:

Resolve - I like the additional reduced damage.
Exalted Soul - More spirit will allow more spenders?
Transcendence - Additional healing sounds good.

I am open to all suggestions, comments, and critiques. What does the build do well, and what does the build lack? Finally, I plan on starting the game with my brother who is playing a Barbarian. Any possible co-op builds I should look into if i plan on playing with him?

Thanks Guys!

Very similar to my own build

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/monk#WdZgYh!ZYT!ZbZaYZ (ment for HC or SC solo hell/inferno)

You have a solid build, lots of damage and some defensive skills. You lack any real form of CC though, but with the mobility you have that might not be a huge issue. The thing that I am mainly concerned about with my build is spirit generation. I see you took Exalted Soul which may help with that particular issue. For SSS I tend to think the FO rune will be better than Sudden Assault, but Sudden Assault will be better for single target.

My two cents:
Since it aleady has Dashing Strike, Sudden Assault can be replaced with any other rune with additional effects. I'll probably go for the stun one or the holy aoe one.
The only CC in this build is Crippling Wave's slow, I recommend the tsunami rune to stengthen it.

Here is another build i was thinking:

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/monk#WVdgfQ!ZbY!ZZaacc

Getting rid of LTK for EP if the knockback starts to annoy me. I think the EPlosion will also be effective with the aoe from Crippling Wave as well.

However, I've been reading over the monk forums for the last couple of weeks and EP seems very 50-50 for me to take. I think many others are in the same boat at me. Will I lose damage by taking EP over LTK?

Finally, I replaced SSS with Cyclone Strike to keep enemies grouped together with a little bit of additional damage. Any recommendations of a CS rune? Would CS be worth taking over SSS?

Thanks for the imput!!!!

In my opinion, EP can do huge damage but it's not an easy skill to use.

For it to work, you need to make sure the target dies within 3 seconds, which might be a lot more difficult than it sounds in Inferno. If it doesn't die, then you've spent 40 spirit on 73.33% single target damage over 3 seconds, which is nothing.

Compare that to Crippling Wave's damage: if you have 3 attacks per second, Crippling Wave will do 990% area damage, and instead of spending 40 spirit, you will generate 54. So I think we can conclude that if the target doesn't explode, EP is a huge waste of spirit.

So EP is very situational as it needs to be timed right, and the explosion only works if there are more enemies in that radius, but if you get it right it could be very effective. Whereas LTK is a solid damaging skill all the time. If the knockback is really annoying you, you could get Scorpion Sting for the 50% chance to stun instead of knockback.

Edit: about Cyclone Strike, I think it's only effective if you have a way to damage all of those enemies once they're close around you. E.g. you could take SSS/FO with CS. When you use Cyclone Strike and they're all grouped around you, the explosions from FO will hit all of the enemies (hopefully). That's 777% Holy damage just from the explosions to all targets, on top of the initial 777% to 7 targets. Assuming that it works the way I think it does.

@OP:

You're active skills look pretty good. I'm not a personal fan of Dashing Strike in it's current incarnation, the damage is too low for the Spirit Cost, the pathing is buggy, the root is buggy, and there's a hitch in the animation that delays you from acting after you move that makes me crazy. I personally prefer either Fists of Thunder+Thunderclap or WotHF+Fists of Fury for a gap closer.

Transcendence and Exalted Soul are meh, IMHO you'll get more out of Seize the Initiative, Sixth Sense or One With Everything depending on your gear and stats.

SSS is only ok, too. Until we find out more about how it's animation time(and thus it's immunity to damage) is affected by APS and IAS, I'd wait to take this skill. Replace it with w/e else you like, but I'd suggest you consider a Mantra. Mantras are too awesome, even single player, not to have one.

So EP is very situational as it needs to be timed right, and the explosion only works if there are more enemies in that radius, but if you get it right it could be very effective. Whereas LTK is a solid damaging skill all the time. If the knockback is really annoying you, you could get Scorpion Sting for the 50% chance to stun instead of knockback.

\

Thanks, I'll definitely take this into consideration.

@OP:
Transcendence and Exalted Soul are meh, IMHO you'll get more out of Seize the Initiative, Sixth Sense or One With Everything depending on your gear and stats.

You mind posting your future build? Thanks!

One final question,

For my original build: http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/monk#WZdgTQ!ZbY!Zbaaac

Any opinions of taking Sweeping Wind over SSS?

Thanks!

Personally I think Sweeping Wind will be one of the best skills in the game for the Monk. I take it in basically all my builds. Assuming it works good in game I always pick Sweeping Wind.

Edit: Here is my planned solo build. http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/monk#WdXZik!ZXY!abbbZa.
I have a full write-up about it here. http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/4837134177?page=2#30

Build looks like it might be too defensive. It's hard to say without knowing final numbers. If monks do absurdly high damage normally, it may be that additional damage is unnecessary and you should focus on defense and utility, as you do.

I tend to think that using offensive abilities and defensive passives will be most optimal, mostly because the Monk defensive passives (STI, Resolve, TGP, Transcendance, OWE) are substantially better than the offensive ones.

Personally I think Sweeping Wind will be one of the best skills in the game for the Monk. I take it in basically all my builds. Assuming it works good in game I always pick Sweeping Wind.

Hmm, that gives me a thought about just using sweeping wind instead of LTK and dumping all excess spirit into the 24% extra damage bonus on MOC.

Interesting. Probably not as good, but interesting.

Something along the lines of
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/monk#WdXTik!ZXY!cbbcZa

Seems like it might be a fairly balanced build for single target, aoe and defense, assuming that the numbers work out.

You could also just stack damage % modifiers and take out the SSS burst damage for Deadly Reach's 18%, and swap out one of your passives for combination strike (though probably not worth it for 8% damage). If blinding flash - faith in the light causes sweeping wind's attacks to each deal an additional 30% weapon damage, that's probably even better.

Assuming it's all additive, just MoC, Deadly Reach and Breath of Heaven will give you an extra 57% damage (increasing your sweeping wind max ticks to 94.2% weapon damage) or when MoC is used an extra 81% damage (increasing SW max ticks to 108.6% weapon damage).

Not bad at all, if you can keep SW fully stacked, though that's assuming quite a bit in the way of how the math will work.

[quote]Personally I think Sweeping Wind will be one of the best skills in the game for the Monk. I take it in basically all my builds. Assuming it works good in game I always pick Sweeping Wind.

Interesting. Probably not as good, but interesting.

Something along the lines of
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/monk#WdXTik!ZXY!cbbcZa

Seems like it might be a fairly balanced build for single target, aoe and defense, assuming that the numbers work out.

Not bad at all, if you can keep SW fully stacked, though that's assuming quite a bit in the way of how the math will work.

I really like this build. Because I'll probably be playing with my brother (Barbarian) the majority of the time, LTK will not be constantly knocking back enemies out of our melee range (unless i rune it specifically). Crippling Wave will be the main damage dealer along with the occasional SSS. This will allow Sweeping Wind to be up almost all of the time. I may consider swapping out Mantras based on the sitation, but otherwise thanks for the post!