Narudans Monk Guide

[Narudan]

WORK IN PROGRESS


Part 1: Basics
Part 2: Healing
Part 3: Tanking (upcoming)
Part 4: Damage (upcoming)

Basics

What weapon should you go with? If you tank obviously a shield. But wait, what about the passive that gives you 15% dodge if you dual wield? Some pros and cons

One Weapon + Shield
+ Great defense, Blocking
+ Good additional stats
+ Moderately quick attacks mean moderate spirit generation
- Low damage per hit, low damage overall

Dual Wield
+ 15% Dodge
+ Great Stats if you can afford two good items
+ Quick Spirit generation
- Low damage per hit
- Enemies who block your attacks are harder

Two-handed Weapon
+ Big damage numbers
+ 25% spirit generation with passive
+ One weapon is cheaper than two.

- Less attacks means less spirit generation and less procs
- No defensive boni

Personally I found that going full dodge works best for me in act 1 Inferno

Healing skills

Breath of Heaven

Your standard healing spell. Watch out, 12 yards range isn't much and it seems to not work on allies from time to time if they are moving. Maybe that's just lag though.
Costs only 25 Spirit, heals an average of 6822 life.
273 Life per Spirit.

The better version
Costs the same, 25 Spirit, heals an average of 8869 life
355 life per spirit.

Mantra of Healing

My favorite mantra, invaluable for Level 1-50.
It's also not a bad hot, mostly because of the range and the fact that it doesn't have a cooldown.
Costs 50 spirit, heals 3721 life in the first 3 seconds.
75 life per spirit

Inner Sanctuary

A very good support skill. Use it in doorways for extra fun.
Costs 30 spirit, heals up to 7750 life.
260 life per spirit.

Serenity

My favorite healing skill. Great for single player. As a healer you won't need this if you play in a group
Costs 10 spirit, heals 6977 life on average
280 life per spirit.

Cyclone strike

Not really a good healing spell. I'm just including this to cover everything
Costs 50 spirit, heals 1250 life,
25 life per spirit

Now for a good build. Here's what I use if there is a tank in the group:

Primary: Way of a hundred Fists with Spirited Salvo. This is just a personal preference, the Rune gives you additional spirit.

Secondary: Lashing Tail Kick with the Sweeping Armada Rune. As a healer you don't really need a secondary. So I suggest you take a skill with knockback to crowdcontrol and keep the enemies off your ranged friends. Sweeping Armada increases knockback and slows the enemies.

Breath of Heaven with the Circle of Life Rune. It's debatable if the extra 2000 heal are worth it, I suggest Penitent Flame if you need more crowd control (fears enemies for 1.5 seconds)

Inner Sanctuarywith Safe Haven. It's great if your allies actually step into the sanctuary. Circle of Protection is also a good alternative - 35% less damage for 5 seconds isn't bad.

Mystic Ally. It's a great tank. If you need more damage choose the Air Ally since he deals AOE damage, if you need life or an offtank, choose the Earth Ally.

Mantra of Healing with Time of Need. 310 life per second isn't really much in a battle. But the HoT is useful in battle if you are seperated from your allies.
The Rune increases resistance to all damage types to 20% - which is great.


Alternatives:

Instead of Inner Sanctuary, choose Serenity. Peaceful Response if you plan on taking damage, Tranquility (extends the shield to your allies) is also quite useful.

Instead of the Mystic Ally, choose any other skill. Seven-Sided Strike for damage, Blinding Flash for crowd control

Instead of the Mantra of Healing choose the Mantra of Evasion. Hard Target improves armor by 20% but I suggest Divine Protection

Tanking

You always have to keep in mind: There are no tanks like in WoW. And if there were, they would be barbarians.
A monk isn't supposed to be an immovable object who can stand for a prolonged time inside a huge group of enemies.
The important thing is to keep those enemies off your allies.
If you want to try and understand stats like armor, resist and int I suggest you watch this video
http://youtu.be/K9uVdmdzfb0

Builds

Build 1


Crippling Wave is a great skill. Slowing the Movement Speed by 30% and the Attack Speed by 20%. And with the Concussion Rune enemies deal 20% less damage.
The Lashing Tail Kick is a good relatively cheap crowd control option. If you are surrounded by too many enemies Crippling Wave won't help you since it only affects your front. And use it to help allies get rid off attackers
I don't think I have to say anything about Serenity or Blinding Flash.

Mantra of Conviction is good for support but also reduces damage with the Intimidation Rune.
Cyclone Strike is your most important AOE tanking skill. And that 20% extra Dodge Chance from the Wall of Wind Rune helps a lot. It has a 24 Yard Radius, if you don't think that's enough there is a Rune to increase that to 34 yards.




Build 2

This is a full on Dodge build. The downside is of course that if you get damage - it will be a lot. The upside is that you can dodge anything. Spells, Aoe attacks, that nasty freeze from elites.
Fist of Thunder + Lighting Flash Rune - 16% Dodge
Dashing Strike + Blinding Speed - 20% Dodge
Cyclone Strike + Wall of Wind - 20% Dodge
Mantra of Evasion - 20% Dodge
The Guardians Path - 15% Dodge.
And 10% Life from the Earth Ally, 20% Armor from the Hard Target Rune.


Build 3

This is an example of a build if you want to go with a shield, a lot of armor, maybe some strength and int.
Crippling Wave,Resolve and Mantra of Healing + Time of Need Rune all help you take damage. Tempest Rush + Transcendence help you to crowd control and gain HP back.

Good Skills to consider:
Deadly Reach with the Keen Eye Rune. That gives you 50!% more armor. Especially good to include in your dodge build to increase your surviveability. Not so good for a monk with shield since Armor effectiveness declines with higher numbers.

Seize The Initiative Passive. Armor increased by 100% of your Dexterity. Basically the same thing as above.
One With Everything Passive. If you have one high resistance, it will raise all others too. Good if you have the gear.

Damage

Dealing damage isn't your main priority as a monk. Of course you are capable of it and you do it very well. Still you should always try to keep the rest of your team alive.
Look back at the top and read the basics. Now it's important to understand how dual wielding works.

Dual Wielding

With every attack you are alternating weapons. That means if you simply hit an enemy without any special attack you will deal (mainhand+offhand)/2 damage.
The attack speed of your weapons indicates the delay to the next hit. Remember you have a 15% bonus on that.
I haven't come around to test it yet, but I've read that this also applies to special attacks, meaning that if you have a strong and a weak weapon and it's the weak weapons turn, you will deal a lot less damage with an attack like Seven-Sided Strike, which deals a percentage of your weapon damage.
In any case it's always important to have 2 good weapons if you dual wield - if you have only one you might actually deal more damage with a good shield.

[pepe2c]

nice =P. Cant wait for the next parts

[bt411]

Quick reminder for serenity:
the group shield was hotfixed down to 0,5sec protection from 2sec, tooltip doesn't show that yet but you can easily test it.

[Morrigan]

Gonna try the full dodge build thx

[hikhik]

i have very god succes using this one:
Monk - Game Guide - Diablo III
and stacking 1 kind of resist...... (using shield and fast main hand)