Monk Build for Inferno

[TheDragoon]

I don't think this build is super innovative, but I thought I'd share what has been working well for me thus far in Inferno (which is being able to clear Act 1 fairly easily). I played around with a number of skill builds early on and settled on this one for being a very consistent, reasonably effective build for my monk.

My Build

The build works primarily by debuffing enemies (via 25% less damage from Resolve and 20% less damage from Crippling Wave) and AoEing them down at melee range. Against knockbackable enemies or enemies that flee or hide behind the lines I use the Fists of Thunder (Thunderclap rune) to teleport after them and blow them up thanks to the knockback that doubles as an effective stun against most normal things. I frequently use either or both of these methods to fight, as necessary.

The build also provides a constant source of healing via Mantra of Healing and two active healing spells, Breath of Heaven and Serenity (with Peaceful Repose).

Skill by skill breakdown

Crippling Wave - Concussion
This skill helps reduce incoming damage and it also can hit enemies on all sides of you, so it works great as a point-blank AoE attack.

Fists of Thunder - Thunderclap
This attack can keep many normal enemies knockback-locked assuming you have a fast enough attack speed. Fists of Thunder, Thunderclap, also does a ton of damage so if you're not getting directly attacked I use this as the primary damage dealer. Finally, it's also very useful against things that run away (Treasure Goblins, I'm looking at you) so it definitely pulls its weight.

Breath of Heaven - Blazing Wrath
Obviously, a low-cost, on-demand heal is the primary incentive to use this skill. I like this particular rune because this build is somewhat low on the offensive side of things. The bonus damage is very handy for burning down things.

Serenity - Peaceful Repose
This skill doubles as a panic-button invulnerability skill and a heal. In Inferno, there are plenty of boss modifiers out there that can lead you into bad situations, so it's important to have your outs.

Sweeping Wind - Master of Wind
This skill primarily serves as a method to hit everything with Resolve when it gets too close. It also adds some damage and can blow up boxes and other nearby things, too, adding to its convenience factor. I picked this rune because I like to try and chain it from group to group and 6 seconds just feels like it's not enough time to keep it up in between.

Mantra of Healing - Time of Need
This skill adds some much-needed constant health regeneration as well as a solid boost to resistances. Combined with the right type of gearing and the One with Everything passive, you can boost your resistances fairly high, greatly helping to mitigate damage further.

Resolve
This passive cuts damage from enemies. With the various delivery methods in this spec to make sure most enemies are debuffed, this definitely pulls its weight.

Seize the Initiative
I like this because it helps boost armor which increases survivability. Every little bit helps in Inferno and this ends up being pretty substantial (~1k armor or more if you have a lot of dexterity on gear).

One with Everything
This is fantastic when combined with the Auction House (or selective gear choices for things you find) to allow you to stack one resistance really high and reap huge benefits.

[Dozer]

I'm in Act 3 (currently hit the brick wall that is the post-ghom content), and I have found this build to be the most survivable:



Mantra of Evasion + Hard Target - 15% dodge and 20% armor. This combined with the next rune is what 'makes' the build.
Deadly Reach + Keen Eye - 50% Armor bonus when you are attacking. Insane!
Lashing Tail Kick + Sweeping Armada - Knockback + slow, no cooldown - *great* tool for separating packs.
Blinding Flash - I waffle on what rune is the most effective between Blinding Echo (second stun), Self Reflection (extra second), and Blinded and Confused (charm). I usually end up with Blinding Echo.
Breath of Heaven + Blazing Wrath - Heal, and a damage boost since this build really lacks in that department
Earth Ally - 10% vitality bonus, and his secondary attack is a taunt. Dies a lot but cheap to recast.
Passives:
One with Everything - Self-Explanatory, and pretty much a necessity.
Transcendence - This healing keeps you alive more then you'd expect, Combined with the ~300 life on hit I have.
Seize the Initiative - One more armor boost for good measure.

Totally buffed I am pushing about 10,500 armor and ~650 resist all, with 38000 HP.

For bosses, I will switch Blinding Flash to Serenity (ascension) and Seize the Initiative to Resolve. (edit: and perhaps Mantra of Healing/20% resists, depending on the boss/ if I'm grouped)
For easier content (act I inferno and below) I will change Blinding Flash to Sweeping Wind, Earth Ally to Air Ally, Seize/Resolve to Fleet Footed, and move my primary attack back to Fists of Thunder/Thunderclap. (Edit: and I will go with Mantra of Conviction/Overawe)

[PapaSmurf]

I love this game. So many viable builds. Here is mine I'm currently using in Act 1 inferno.

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/mo...dXU!cZbacZ

Way of a hundred fists

The windforce flurry rune really makes this skill for me. 250% damage is very nice and more importantly provides a "ranged" piercing attack. It really allows you to do some nice damage from a distance which is pretty important as you are kiting those nasty champion packs.

Wave of light

Explosive light is very underrated IMO. The range on this skill is very large. At 285% damage, it provides a reliable knock back/stun. You can aim this skill to shoot through doors and chokes. Once again, a very viable skill when you want to stay away from really hard hitting mobs. This skill is also normalized so it will still hit hard even with fast weapons.

Breath of Heaven

Healing with a damage bonus. Nice!

Mystic Ally

The tanking, damage, and slowing that the water ally provides has been invaluable for me. Perhaps this will tail off in later acts, but the ally is a great skill.

Mantra of Healing

Since I seem to spend a lot of time running from champion packs having a way to reliable build health and spirit using circular breathing is very helpful. This helps me keep up my spirit to let me use my expensive spirit spenders.

Seven-sided strike

This skill is really the ultimate offensive/defensive skill. Did you know that if you target SSS somewhere else you will end up there after doing your attack. This skill is invaluable in escaping cornered situations plus it does massive damage to boot and your invulnerable during the animation.


This build is a lot about attacking from a safe distance. Both my primary and secondary skills have very effective ranged attacks. While I have enough armor, life, resistance to go toe to toe with many mobs in inferno, many of the champion packs still hit so hard that you can't stay in melee range for too long. I can remember a fight against a invulnerable minion boss pack where I would kite hitting at ranged with way of the hundred fists and wave of light. Both attacks are piercing, moving through the minions and hitting the boss. My ally does some tanking, damage, and slows while I run. When I get to the end of a corridor I hit SSS and move back in the other direction. If I do end up in melee range my 50% dodge, 60% reduction from armor, and 40% resistance reduction (still needs work) is enough to keep me alive for a few hits.

[FoxBat]

Resolve is decent but I'm concerned it's not quite as good as it looks on paper, for two reasons:

1) If you're kiting and separating boss packs... things spend alot of time outside of your wind bubble. It does nothing vs. mortar or archers or what not.

2) Some of the boss abilities actually summon separate objects that do the killing. Die to an arcane laser and you will be told you got killed by an arcane sentry for example. As they are separate objects, they may be unaffected by resolving the source monster, and they seem invulnerable enough that you can't resolve them directly either. Could use some testing but this is my concern.

Wave of light

Explosive light is very underrated IMO. The range on this skill is very large. At 285% damage, it provides a reliable knock back/stun. You can aim this skill to shoot through doors and chokes. Once again, a very viable skill when you want to stay away from really hard hitting mobs. This skill is also normalized so it will still hit hard even with fast weapons.

Probably because the skill description never mentions a knockback. I'll have to give this a try.

[Archon_Wing]

I do this, and mostly farm the butcher. Act 2's just impossible atm.

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/mo...ZXU!ZacbYa

Deadly reach seems to work best for me. It lets me attack over wallers as well as hit the butcher when he's in the flames. I can also start drawing back a little. I can't decide between the damage or defense rune, it depends on how tough the act is.

I found more success with mantra of evasion despite having 5300 armor and 650 resist all. You'd think the 130 extra resists from MoE-- ToN would help more, but it doesn't seem to. The pittance of healing isn't helping for battles that actually matter. Instead I feel that the 10% evasion has saved me more often than not.

The advantage of evasion is compounded in group play. Since some folks don't have as great resists (It would be moot to boost a DH by 20% resists typically), they usually benefit more from enhanced armor. The extra evasion chance can save their lives. My healing is mostly carried by spamming breath of heaven which actually does matter.

The light flash/serenity are lifesavers. I couldn't survive any tough foe without it.

I am not sure about Seven Sided Strike. I used to have Earth Ally but she wasn't holding up against tough enemies. Seven sided strike provides me with an escape skill via teleport and renders me invincible, effectively giving me around 7 extra hits which is nice if I desperately need to finish off an enemy. Honestly, I feel this panic button helps a lot against invincible minions.

I also don't know anything about passives. May dump resolve.

[hazzen]

I'm a little past the skeleton king in Inferno, so I'm not quite up to the butcher, but I've been running this: http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/mo...YXc!ZbYaca

I _really_ wish I didn't need Earth Ally or Chant of Resonance, but my HP is low (~37k with the ally up) and my spirit regen is non-existent without the chant passive. I've gotten rather lucky with gear, as I don't use the AH, and I'm sitting around 9k armor with MoE+Keen Eye+enchantress, plus ~150 all resists. For white mobs, I play like a normal monk, punching a lot and spamming MoE as often as I can. For champions/uniques, though, I switch into kite mode - shift-attack towards the mobs and tempest rush away when they get close. Repeat in a circle. It is oddly like playing a ranged class; my most painful encounters are against mortar enemies and I laugh at the usual banes of melee classes (molten, arcane, plagued, or fire chains) because I'm almost never meleeing. So far, it is working as an effective way of playing with so-so gear and proving a lot of fun.

If I can manage some more hp (my rings/amulets/gloves/boots are all pretty much crap save some life on hit and IAS, which I need) I think I can drop the ally and pick up either Crippling Wave or Blinding Flash to help with more crowd control.

[PapaSmurf]

I _really_ wish I didn't need Earth Ally or Chant of Resonance, but my HP is low (~37k with the ally up) and my spirit regen is non-existent without the chant passive.

37k is not low. I run about 31k. I really think your missing out not have one with everything and buffing resists. That change is what has moved me from barely surviving act 1 inferno to clearing through pretty easily. If you aren't willing to AH then this isn't an option though. 37k is a lot to try and heal with pots and heals. Trying to buff resists/armor more will make your heals, pots, and health globes that much more effective.

[Apostolic]

I'm running this at the moment, and farming Act 1 Inferno pretty comfortably:
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/mo...ZXU!YYbYYZ

It's a very spirit-regen, dps-oriented build, so it could certainly benefit from some more defensive abilities for Act 2 (I get pwned pretty hard in act 2 with this build). Sweeping Wind (triggering Resolve) + lots of Lashing Tail Kick stun spam is great on large trash packs.

I might look into dropping at least on of the spirit-regen runes in any case, though I do love Circular Breathing for MoH since I have to run away and play cat-and-mouse with some champ packs (4-second Serenity makes for a great gap-closer, btw).

Don't have my exact stats right now, but I'm running something in the neighborhood of 5900 armor, 52k health, 17.5k dps, 275 resist all.

[hazzen]

I _really_ wish I didn't need Earth Ally or Chant of Resonance, but my HP is low (~37k with the ally up) and my spirit regen is non-existent without the chant passive.

37k is not low. I run about 31k. I really think your missing out not have one with everything and buffing resists. That change is what has moved me from barely surviving act 1 inferno to clearing through pretty easily. If you aren't willing to AH then this isn't an option though. 37k is a lot to try and heal with pots and heals. Trying to buff resists/armor more will make your heals, pots, and health globes that much more effective.

My resists are all within 20 or so of each-other, so One With Everything won't do much. I think I've got 3 items with +resist all that add up to ~130, then a few random resists scattered about my eq. I, honestly, try not to get hit very often, even against white mobs. Maybe the ally is more central to my build than I think, as he takes quite a few hits for me.

It also seems like my armor is quite high, compared to the rest of the posts I've seen in Act I. I could try moving some of that armor into resists, but I'm mostly waiting on 1.03 to cut down the craft costs to something reasonable. In the meantime, Act I Inferno is a fun challenge and I only need to skip a few champ/unique packs - mortar combined with something that makes kiting hard, like fast.

I like that, despite all the complaints, Inferno Act I seems doable for someone who doesn't AH but plays carefully. I'm sure I'll need to farm for Act II, though.

[PapaSmurf]

For those using the resolve passive have you considered using Mantra of Conviction - Submission to keep it up instead of sweeping wind? Doesn't cost any spirit, it's always on, and has a larger radius. I may have to play around with this tonight.

[FoxBat]

For those using the resolve passive have you considered using Mantra of Conviction - Submission to keep it up instead of sweeping wind? Doesn't cost any spirit, it's always on, and has a larger radius. I may have to play around with this tonight.

Good idea so I tried testing this. However not only does this not seem to work, I'm not sure sweeping wind even works with resolve.

Super scientific testing methodology - took my inferno character up vs. a single stygian crawler and watched damage numbers. They ranged between lower 300s all the way to 600. The only time I ever saw sub-300 numbers was right after a bare-handed unruned deadly force. (And I spent quite a while watching.) Neither submission nor winds were able to do this by themselves, and the damage seemed the same as when I was running neither.

[MonTy]

Finally able to work on Act 2 (actually skipped ahead and solo'd Belial) with this build: http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/mo...ZUY!aaZcba

It relies heavily on attack speed so I'm not sure how well it'll work after the patch. But for now the DPS output is incredible, haven't found anything else like it. It's damn fun to play too, using all your skills for more damage which also heals you. I actually have Conviction bound to my right mouse button as I'm constantly using it for the Overawe effect and Transcendence healing.

*edit - been able to kill a few Act 4 Inferno champion packs and rare mob. Trying to clear 1st tier of Gardens of Hope but some packs just obliterate me (as I'm not geared for A4-70k health, 600 resists, and 9k base damage). Cleared the first zone/quest in Act 3.

[krazy83]

For Inferno Act2 and part of Act 3 (pre -nerf) This is the skill build layout, and the only reason I am using the passive "Chant of Resonance" is because I have no other spirit regeneration. http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/mo...XcU!YZaZcc

I really like (Wave of Light~Explosive Light Rune) because it has knockback, which they don't tell you in the description, and the Rune that I use makes it in a circular motion. It has been very handy for when I got surrounded. Another note, the knockback DOES NOT work on unique monsters or bosses. It WILL work on champions and minions (even invulnerable ones so you can keep them off of you while you concentrate on the unique)

And as far as other stuff:
I am a dual-wielder (two talons), 856 to all res (thanks to "One with Everything" and Time of Need Rune on Mantra of Healing), ~7600 armor ("Seize the Initiative" passive with ~1800 dex), ~19k DPS, and only 21k life (18k life without Mystic Ally).
My only real help as far as gear, concentrate on high dex, one res+all res (i think lightning is the cheapest currently on the AH), vitality, and armor is kind of secondary for this build IF you have high dex on your gear.

This build works with "minimal dying" (around 10 - 15 times in Act2 from start to Belial) And has allowed me to farm act2 with keeping my NV at 5

On a side note, just something in my own experience, Armor+res > Vitality when it comes to progressing through inferno.

[PapaSmurf]

I have been experimenting with a new build in inferno. I was very underwhelmed by my health regeneration I was getting with life steal so I started looking for another way of generating health. Initially I looked at LoH as it seems the popular option, but I decided to focus on Life on Spirit Spent. I figured if I could get my spirit regen up high enough I could heal a tremendous amount of damage and it turns out I can.

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/mo...YXU!YZbaYZ

Stat gearing is very dependent for this build. Due to the IAS nerf I started to look to crit as an alternative damage buff. I was going to loose a lot of spirit regen due to the IAS nerf and I though I'd give Quickening a try on Fists of Thunder. I then thought, "what if I can get my spirit regen through the roof?". I purchased several new pieces of gear with spirit regen. I then added Sweeping Wind - Inner Storm and Mantra of Healing - Circular Breathing. My spirit regen is now at 12/s with Sweeping Wind up at 3 stacks. The thing is, with that much regen, Sweeping wind never falls off. I can keep casting it in perpetuity. And even if it does fall off my high crit rate means I'm back to 3 stacks in short order.

The last piece of the puzzle was Transcendence and gearing for Life on Spirit Spent. Between the 2 I now gain 100 life per spirit spent. Passively that is the equivalent of a 15k heal on a 12s cooldown. given my 12 spi/s regen rate. On top of that, Quickening with high crit rate means an absurd regen rate while attacking.

Finally with such a high regen rate, I basically tempest rush EVERYWHERE. My move command is always tempest rush. Between mantra of healing and healing from LoSS I recover a ridiculous amount of health while I tempest rush. I am starting to feel invincible with this build and my gearing isn't even that good. I've seen gear that would allow me to get to 40%+ crit chance and 150+ LoSS. If I focus on armor and resists and keep my health in the 30-40k, the passive healing I get in addition to the absurd mobility I have with Tempest Rush - Tailwind makes me feel really safe. My last few butcher runs I've gone entire levels without Sweeping wind falling off and I never once used serenity because I was never below 50% life. I only used breath of heaven to keep the damage buff up. I've even played around with dropping serenity for Fire Ally to up my damage even more but still like having that panic button when dealing with waller/jailor/frozen/vortex mobs.

[Apostolic]

I have been experimenting with a new build in inferno. I was very underwhelmed by my health regeneration I was getting with life steal so I started looking for another way of generating health. Initially I looked at LoH as it seems the popular option, but I decided to focus on Life on Spirit Spent. I figured if I could get my spirit regen up high enough I could heal a tremendous amount of damage and it turns out I can.

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/mo...YXU!YZbaYZ

Stat gearing is very dependent for this build. Due to the IAS nerf I started to look to crit as an alternative damage buff. I was going to loose a lot of spirit regen due to the IAS nerf and I though I'd give Quickening a try on Fists of Thunder. I then thought, "what if I can get my spirit regen through the roof?". I purchased several new pieces of gear with spirit regen. I then added Sweeping Wind - Inner Storm and Mantra of Healing - Circular Breathing. My spirit regen is now at 12/s with Sweeping Wind up at 3 stacks. The thing is, with that much regen, Sweeping wind never falls off. I can keep casting it in perpetuity. And even if it does fall off my high crit rate means I'm back to 3 stacks in short order.

The last piece of the puzzle was Transcendence and gearing for Life on Spirit Spent. Between the 2 I now gain 100 life per spirit spent. Passively that is the equivalent of a 15k heal on a 12s cooldown. given my 12 spi/s regen rate. On top of that, Quickening with high crit rate means an absurd regen rate while attacking.

Finally with such a high regen rate, I basically tempest rush EVERYWHERE. My move command is always tempest rush. Between mantra of healing and healing from LoSS I recover a ridiculous amount of health while I tempest rush. I am starting to feel invincible with this build and my gearing isn't even that good. I've seen gear that would allow me to get to 40%+ crit chance and 150+ LoSS. If I focus on armor and resists and keep my health in the 30-40k, the passive healing I get in addition to the absurd mobility I have with Tempest Rush - Tailwind makes me feel really safe. My last few butcher runs I've gone entire levels without Sweeping wind falling off and I never once used serenity because I was never below 50% life. I only used breath of heaven to keep the damage buff up. I've even played around with dropping serenity for Fire Ally to up my damage even more but still like having that panic button when dealing with waller/jailor/frozen/vortex mobs.

Looks pretty good. This is pretty close to my Act 1 'farm' build, though I've been using LTK with the stun rune, and I should probably rune Serenity for the heal rather than the extra second of immunity. Resolve passive may also be unnecessary for act 1.

I did experiment the other day with using Mantra of Conviction + Overawe (in place of MoH). Great damage boost; no passive spirit regen kind of sucks but it's not a big deal in act 1 where I'm never really in any grave danger. I really don't know why monks don't get some spirit regen as a baseline.

Re: spirit regen and life per spirit spent on gear. Curious to know what quantities you found and for which slots. I haven't really given much thought to gearing for these stats, but it seems interesting.

[Yricyn]

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/mo...ZcU!cYaZYZ

I've been using this build with a big 2 hander with spirit regen and a helm with spirit regen. The idea was to tempest rush almost permanently. Stopping only long enough to build a bit of spirit for Seven Sided Strike or to restart Sweeping Winds.

[PapaSmurf]

Re: spirit regen and life per spirit spent on gear. Curious to know what quantities you found and for which slots. I haven't really given much thought to gearing for these stats, but it seems interesting.

Spirit Regen and LoSS can be found on helms and weapons that I know of. Regen tends to top out at 2.5 while I've seen LoSS over 50 on helms.

---

Resolve passive may also be unnecessary for act 1.

It's been shown that aoe (i.e. sweeping wind) effects don't trigger resolve. You may not be getting as much damage reduction as you might think. I believe that healing through transcendence is a better defensive option than resolve.

[Concillian]

You guys using mystic ally should try the fire one. He appears to not take any damage from fire chains or molten. I haven't checked desecration. He can do a fair amount of DPS for you on some of the toughest packs and doesn't die all the damn time. It's like a single target poison hydra.

I also think people seriously underestimate the utility value of using deadly reach as your spirit builder. There's three really great runes for it too (10 spirit per crit, +50% armor and +18% damage). The other two don't really fit the specialty of the skill well because they encourage you to get surrounded. It can work as a triple utility skill (semi-ranged attack + piercing attack + rune utility for extra offense, defense, or super spirit builder with crit gear) leaving you a little less squeezed in your other skill slots. The best part is that you can attack through some walls (waller walls) and over danger (molten / plagued). It's not the fastest of the attacks, however the extra range means that time on target is better.

When facing easy stuff it doesn't really matter what your builder is, Most others kill large groups faster. But when I'm facing anything difficult, I always find myself wishing I had deadly reach if I've swapped out another spirit builder, so I'm now pretty much using deadly reach exclusively.

[Concillian]

I have been experimenting with a new build in inferno. I was very underwhelmed by my health regeneration I was getting with life steal so I started looking for another way of generating health. Initially I looked at LoH as it seems the popular option, but I decided to focus on Life on Spirit Spent. I figured if I could get my spirit regen up high enough I could heal a tremendous amount of damage and it turns out I can.

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/mo...YXU!YZbaYZ

Ultimately, I feel like Circle shouldn't even really be an option unless you have at least ~100 total life on spirit spent, as this makes it equivalent to the sustenance rune in heal per second if you heal often. I suppose it gives more DPS and better uptime on wind to compensate.

I think boon of protection warrants a second look for you mostly because it's the only "heal" that scales on VITALITY. If you have 20,500 life then 50 spirit becomes equal to transcendance healing, which is kind of the break-even on having no gear for life on spirit spent.

Ultimately, I don't see a huge difference between the runes, except that sustenance is the best for undergeared Monks and the other runes offer different gear scalings for better geared Monks. This is one place where rune flavor does seem to work pretty well.
- If your gear sucks, then Sustenance is great
- If your gear has lots of "Life on spirit spent", then then circle is great
- If your gear has lots of Vitality, then Boon is great
- If your gear has lots of resist, then Time of need is great.

The only rune that's clearly sub-par to me is Heavenly body. No Monk healing scales with Vitality except Boon. I guess if you had two monks and one was running Boon, then +10% Vit would be good, but then it would still suck, because you can't double-stack the same mantra.

I also have real problems with sweeping wind, you can attack pots and other breakables to keep it up... but it breaks them all! I felt like it was more useful with Thunderclap, because that would let me hit the jars before wind blew them up. But that has significant downsides in positioning... I don't like the way the auto-teleport works.
So I'd lose the wind so often. I'd feel like I had to play a little dangerously in order to keep it running. Then I'd have to backtrack to pickup loot. I'd go over some areas three times because I'd be keeping it going, then backtracking picking up loot, then going back to where I was to continue.

[Concillian]

Good idea so I tried testing this. However not only does this not seem to work, I'm not sure sweeping wind even works with resolve.

Super scientific testing methodology - took my inferno character up vs. a single stygian crawler and watched damage numbers. They ranged between lower 300s all the way to 600. The only time I ever saw sub-300 numbers was right after a bare-handed unruned deadly force. (And I spent quite a while watching.) Neither submission nor winds were able to do this by themselves, and the damage seemed the same as when I was running neither.

So does this mean that crippling wave is the only reliable way to apply resolve in a large area? I'd assume especially with the Tsunami rune. Maybe deadly reach to important enemies.