What monk skill deals the most damage per spirit?

Question

I don't quite know which skills do the most damage (preferably AoE) but have a relatively low spirit cost.

Asked by The Rabbi

Answer

Here is the dps (damage per spirit) of all the Monk AOE spells, taken from http://us.battle.net/d3/en/class/monk/active/.

Note that I'm only listing AOE skills that hit a bunch of enemies at once (not Seven-Sided Strike or Tempest Rush), only runes that increase damage or lower spirit cost, and not listing spirit generators.

Skills, listed in decreasing dps:

• Lashing Tail Kick: Spinning Flame Kick: 240% weapon damage for 30 spirit = 8 dps
• Lashing Tail Kick: Vulture Claw Kick: 220% weapon damage for 30 spirit = 7.33 dps
• Lashing Tail Kick: 200% weapon damage for 30 spirit = 6.67 dps
• Wave of Light: Pillar of the Ancients: 420% weapon damage for 75 spirit = 5.6 dps
• Wave of Light: Wall of Light: 312% weapon damage for 75 spirit = 4.16 dps
• Wave of Light: Explosive Light: 285% weapon damage for 75 spirit = 3.8 dps
• Cyclone Strike: Eye of the Storm: 100% weapon damage for 30 spirit = 3.33 dps
• Lashing Tail Kick: Circle of Scorn: 80% weapon damage for 25 spirit = 3.2 dps
• Wave of Light: 215% weapon damage for 75 spirit = 2.87 dps
• Cyclone Strike: 100% weapon damage for 50 spirit = 2 dps

Of course, this is very situational. Some of these spells affect a large area and will make it easy to hit a dozen monsters. Some affect a cone or path and will make it hard to hit more than 2 or 3.

Answered by Wikwocket

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Is there an advantage if I use knuckles with monk instead of daggers? [closed]

Question

Possible Duplicate:
Are class-specific weapons better than other weapon?

I am starting with monk and asked a friend what weapon I should use. He told me that my priority should be on knuckles and fist weapons. I started out that way but daggers seem to be much better because of their attack speed. Is it because knuckles work better with a shield or am I missing something? Why prioritise knuckles? Do monks get bonus damage for them or something?

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Asked by Melini

Answer

That particular fist weapon is poor quality, so don't let the low attack speed throw you off.

Later in the game, magic daggers typically have a base attack speed of 1.50 attacks per second. Fist weapons are a close second at 1.40 attacks per second.

If you want to focus on attack speed, by all means try to get these weapon types. But don't limit your options just for that reason. You may find a 1h Spear than is a lot slower but the other stats are so good that its worth using. It's all about your playstyle and what feels good to you.

Also note that later in the game you can find weapons with the + X% Attack Speed affix. I've seen plenty of swords and spears with 1.5 and higher attack speed because of this, and I'm only level 45 so it will surely go higher.

Answered by dpatchery

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Maximum Spirit regeneration

Question

I want to try a build (for fun, not practical use) with maximum Spirit regen—what items and skills should I equip? What is the maximum possible rate of Spirit regeneration once all of these perks are in use?

Asked by Sean

Answer

The Fist of Az'Turrasq(fist weapon) can roll up to 2.33 Spirit Per Second.
The Demon Hand(fist weapon) can roll up to 2 per second.
The Madstone(spirit stone) can roll up to 2.33 per second.

That puts us at 6.66 per second from gear.

The Chain of Resonance Passive gives 2 per second whil a mantra is active.

The Mantra of Healing with the Circular Breathing Rune gives you 3 per second.

So as far as I can tell, the max maximum spirit regen, disregarding Spirit Generator skills is 11.66 points per second.

Now, the listed monk fists attack 1.40 times per second. With the 15% dual wield bonus this you can attack 1.61 times per second. So 6 spirit per attack from Spirit Generators gives you 9.66 per second assuming you are attacking as fast as possible. This does not include any +% attack speed you may have, but I'm not sure how to find the max you could have on gear with the Spirit Regen Items.

The Breath of Heaven skill with Infused With Light rune will double this amount to 19.32 spirit per second.

So with this build, you are guaranteed a maximum of 30.98 spirit per second.

Please note that some skill runes will increase the spirit gained from an attack when you crit, so realistically if you have this exact build you will be able to average more per second depending on your crit chance.

Answered by Mr. November

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How do you beat Belial in Diablo 3 as a Monk?

Question

Belial is the guy at the end of act 2, and the last part is really hard. I never seem to get his life very low. How do you beat him as a monk?

Asked by NickLarsen

Answer

Stage 1

Kill all the worms which is trivial.

Stage 2

Focus on Belial and let your companions handle the little guys for the most part. Make sure at the end of this round you are full on spirit or else you'll be in much worse shape.

Stage 3

From what I can tell, Belial has 3 main abilities:

• Whack you
• Spit green stuff in sweeping motion
• Green exploding void zones

It requires a little concentration, but if you counter each one individually, it's much easier.

When he whacks you, you are in his melee range and it doesn't hit very hard, so you can basically ignore it.

When he spews green stuff, make sure you 300 life and you should live through it.

The green exploding void zones are the hard part. These will tag you for bleeding damage while you are standing in them and then they pop you for 500-600 when they explode. The only real strategy for these is to run away from them. I have found that running around the outer edge of his zone gives you the most room to work with and tends to be a lot less busy so you can see yourself the whole time.

This is not a DPS fight! Focus on keeping yourself at full life. I used the aura that heals you when you use spirit and the one that gives you 100 extra spirit. I don't think the mantras I had at this point are particularly useful for this fight, but I used the one that increases dodge to help with the first 2 stages. I also used the aura companion spell and the heal party spell. I had the enchantress follower with me.

The basic strategy is to keep your spirit capped off, and as soon as you take damage, blow some spirit. During the slow parts, run up to him and build your spirit back up. Don't forget to use your potion if you get into trouble and don't worry about your companions, they will figure it out. The last piece of advice is to not go crazy and blow all your heals when you take damage. If he hits you with a whack as you are lighting up your spirit orb or you take a green spit, just cast a single damage spell that uses spirit and save the big cool downs for when you are running away from the green voids.

Lastly, health globes do pop up in melee range quite often. It's more important to keep yourself topped off than it is to DPS.

Answered by NickLarsen

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What changes were made to Boon of Protection? How will it impact Hell/Inferno Monks?

Question

A lot of monks have been getting by using the Mantra of Healing with the Boon of Protection rune, especially in Hell and Inferno (though it seems to be less effective in Inferno Act II).

How has it changed and what is the impact on a Hell/Inferno Monk? Why is this change necessary?

Asked by Stephen

Answer

The rune is being changed to be capped at the amount of healing given by Mantra of Healing's activated ability. For example, using the stats in the given screenshots, it would be a 3721 damage shield.

Prior to this change you could potentially have a significantly more powerful damage shield - builds using it commonly have over 50k HP - and it's an extremely spammable ability. Its impact was most noticable in Hell and early Inferno, though later Inferno acts are horrifyingly lethal and hateful of melee classes even with this ability.

Answered by Ashel

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How much resistance is needed in inferno for a melee class?

Question

I got some lightning resist, and with the Monk's One With Everything passive, that puts all my resists at 200%, but I still think that is too low.

How much resistance does a melee class need to be effective in Inferno?

Asked by André Cytryn

Answer

There have been various debates over the effectiveness of stacking resist. I'd say that it's extremely helpful, but make sure you maintain a decent amount of health and damage. Focus on one resist and take the passive if you want to build this way. Around act II or III, you can reach at least 300 resist (at least 50% resist).

While there may be several viable stat builds, resist is definitely one of the most effective. Why? At the higher difficulties, the only true threats are elite packs and champions that use Arcane Enchant, Molten, Fire Chain, as well as several other damaging skills. Resist helps to counter the majority of these.

Answered by Domocus

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Seven Sided Strike Runes: Sudden Assault or Several Sided Strike?

Question

I am a bit confused by a couple of the runes from the Monk ability "Seven Sided Strike"

• On the one hand, you have "Sudden Assault" which deals 1007% damage in the normal seven strikes.
• On the other hand, you have "Several Sided Strike" which increases the number of hits to 9.

The community-wide assumption, is that several sided strike deals 999% damage, as the base seven sided strike does 777% in 7 strikes.

The damage difference between the two is fairly negligible. Is there an advantage to one or the other? Do the additional two strikes extend the animation, thereby making you invulnerable for longer?

Asked by Tater596

Answer

The damage of Sudden Assault is higher, however hitting more times with Several Sided Strike means you can hit more enemies, and possibly get more crits (which are pretty nice since some of the Monk's abilities and runes are based off crits)

Personally I would go with Several Sided Strike in most cases, especially if you're using Sweeping Wind which has a chance to gain stacks for each crit, although I suppose if you really want to maximize your dps on a long boss fight Sudden Assault might be better in a long run

Edit: Great point from Domocus' comment below,

The increased amount of hits from Several Sided Strike also provides a longer time for attacking, useful for avoiding damage while waiting for cooldowns

I have used SSS for the ability to be invulnerable for a short time when my heals are on cooldown, so the increased invulnerability period is quite nice. Although be warned, if you're tanking and use this ability, it means you will drop aggro onto the rest of your party.

Answered by Rachel

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Monks and the effectiveness of 2-handed weapons

Question

I am just starting a Monk build in Diablo 3, and notice that a dual-wielding setup or a weapon/shield combo is far more favorable than using a Daibo, due to the ability to equip more prefixes and faster attack speed.

Are there any reasons to use a Daibo instead, besides the Spirit regeneration bonus?

Asked by Extrakun

Answer

I think it's a pretty general question of 2-handed weapon versus two 1-hand items (weapons or shields). With 2-handed weapons you usually get less affixes, because you're basically throwing away an item slot. 2-handed weapons tend to have a better damage (and DPS), though.

In my experience with a Monk, going with a 2-handed weapon would typically get me 10-20% more DPS, which is significant, but often not worth it if I got a great shield or a good secondary weapon.

I think that your decision should be made on a case-by-case basis, based on the specific items. I don't think it's possible to reach a general rule for 2-handed over 2 1-handed or vice versa, Monk or not.

Edit specifically regarding Monks, there is one important difference here - Spirit-generation from skills depends on attack speed only, not on damage done or any other affixes. Since dual-wielding means +15% attack speed, a dual-wielding Monk will generally generate Spirit faster than a Monk using only one weapon.

Answered by Oak

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Does Monk's Resolve passive work vs Bosses / with AoE?

Question

I haven't been able to determine if the Monk's passive Resolve works as a debuff vs. every mob there is. I'm planning on using Deadly Reach with the armor buff and Resolve to apply damage reduction all around for my party and to be more tanky. Does anyone know whether bosses are immune to the damage reduction debuff, and whether it would be applies for AoE attacks?

Asked by red

Answer

As far as I can tell it DOES affect bosses, and it triggers off anything that deals % weapon damage (the damage dealing components of all monk abilities).

Answered by Medicdude

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How do you build Monk to survive Nightmare/Hell/Inferno?

Question

As you need a lot of single target damage and health, but also AoE, what attributes have you guys been building to survive reliably in the harder difficulties? I'm thinking going 50%/%50 Dex/Vita.

I'm thinking of using Blind, Serenity as my main 'oh shi*' and doing damage with Mangle runed Crippling Wave. Thinkinf of either using Companion with the vitality rune or Seven Sided Strike to make me briefly untargetable while I have other things on cooldown.

Dodge mantra doesn't seem feasible since you can easily get a bad streak of RNG and blow up.

TL;DR; What's the optimum build for Monk when you want to avoid dying while still being able to dish out enough dmg.

Asked by red

Answer

Optimal build in my opinion: http://d3db.com/tool/calculator/monk/20174

I completed Inferno 4 player coop today and this is what I used to be unkillable, I could basicly just tank even Diablos damage with everyone else dead, with just rotating 3 defensive skills and activating my mantra as spirit dump and extra damage.

Some Elites/Rares were a bit troublesome due lasers and conditions, but I suppose that will get easier once I get some resistance gear later on.

I swapped the heal rune for extra 15% dmg rune depending on bossfights, and I ran with Claw+Shield. Had about 20k life and 2300 damage in the end of Inferno with my gear, focusing on about 75% dex and 25% vitality.

Answered by red

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How does Transcendence scale? (The monk passive: spirit spent heals you)

Question

The amount of health per point is going up but I'm now sure what determines it

Asked by Mccxiv

Answer

All of the monk's healing abilities scale up with level, and not with a specific stat at all. This includes Breath of Heaven and Mantra of Healing as well.

You can also get that same "Healing from spirit spent" on certain magical Spiritstones, Daibos, and Fist Weapons.

Answered by Raven Dreamer

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Does “Way of the Hundred Fists” generate more than one “on hit” effects?

Question

The description for the Monk’s Way of the Hundred Fists seems to indicate the second strike in the sequence is composed of 7 individual hits. Are they truly separate hits, meaning each can generate a separate “on-hit” effect?

And if they aren’t, what is the benefit of the Hands of Lightning rune, then?

Asked by Oak

Answer

Way of the Hundred Fists consists of 3 attacks, which appear to be 1 hit, 5 fast hits, than 1 hit again.

The 5 fast hits counts as one hit for any on-hit effect.

For example, if you have 0 spirit and use the full Way of the Hundred Fists combo, you will have 18 spirit since it gives you 6 spirit per attack.

I also tested this with on-hit effects by removing all equipment except a weapon with an amethyst in it (which steals life on hit), and found that during the course of a combo, I'd only heal 3 times.

As for your other question about the Hands of Lightning rune, it appears you are getting 3 extra attacks with no damage decrease per attack. I played around with it a bit, and although the damage per hit fluctuated a bit, it seemed to average the same per hit both with and without the rune.

The three attacks each seem to do 1/3 of 140% weapon damage each, so your 5-hit combo is around 9.3% weapon damage per hit, which results in an extra 3 hits giving you another 28% damage.

Answered by Rachel

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Does Thunderclap teleport on all Fists of Thunder attacks, or only the first in the sequence?

Question

The Thunderclap rune of Fists of Thunder adds the ability to teleport to the target when striking it.

Does this teleportation happen on any hit of the skills 3-hit sequence, or only on specific hits in the sequence?

Asked by Oak

Answer

The teleport is only on the very first hit in the sequence. If you continue to use this skill, every third hit (after the first) will teleport you.

Even so, the mobility it grants you is absolutely insane. You won't have to manually move in combat again.

Answered by StrixVaria

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