This is part two of my leveling guide. You can find part 1 here giving a guide for levels 30-45.
Level 45
You’ll be in the later acts of Hell. Things should start getting more challenging. If you find you’re dying a lot start picking up more vitality on your gear and stacking a few pieces of +all resist gear.
Build
Recommended build: http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/monk#aZigXQ!YdX!YYZabZ
This build is focused around generating a ton of spirit so you can spam your Lashing Tail Kick and keep everything stunlocked.
Fists of thunder with the spirit gen rune is wonderful. You should have at least +15 crit chance to use this rune. If you don’t an alternative is to use crippling wave until level 48 where you’ll switch over to way of the hundred fists with the spirited salvo rune(15% chance of generating 15 spirit).
Lashing tail kick is your primary spirit dump. It does great damage and the PBAOE(point blank area of effect) stun will make it so most mobs never actually even hit you. Couple that with the fact that transcendence heals you everytime you use the skill and you should have no trouble surviving.
Activate sweeping wind at the beginning of each fight. It’s wonderful AOE DPS and you can forget about it after you hit that button once.
Serenity and breath of heaven are great for oh sh*t moments, but should also be used proactively. Use serenity whenever you’re about to get hit by a big attack or laser and to avoid/escape from freezing/movement impairing effects. Always keep the 15% damage increase buff up from breath of heaven. Pop it at the beginning of a fight even if you don’t need a heal right then, the DPS increase is worth it and the CD is short enough to allow you to do that safely.
Mantra of healing with the spirit regen rune is great for helping you crank out more lashing tail kicks. Hit this if serenity, breath of heaven, your potion are on CD and you still need a heal. The extra heal for 3 secs is pretty nice ontop of the heal from transcendence for spending 50 spirit and definitely more preferable to dying.
Passives are up to you to play around with depending on your weapon choices and gear set up.
Equipment
This is the point where you want to start picking up pieces of gear with dex, vitality, and all resist. You’ll need it in Hell mode difficulty. Keep an eye out for cheap rings/amulets with +attack speed %. Buy whatever weapons have the highest DPS. Secondary stats on weapons you should look for are attack speed increase, life steal, and + life on hit. Secondary stats to try to find on gear is +crit hit chance, + life on hit.
Still I’d recommend not buying much from the auction house until you hit 60. Just get enough to comfortably kill things.
Tips
If you’re getting stuck on any quests/bosses ask a friend to help! If you can’t find friends, ask someone on a forum. Dj2sp and diablo incgamers are both great D3 communities.
Level 50
Welcome to hell *evil laugh*
Build
Recommended build: http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/monk#WijgXk!YdX!ZZbaba
This is the same build I’ve used successfully at 60 to clear out Act 1 Inferno in a breeze. Here’s the video I made for it, explaining everything, the only change is that instead of dashing strike the build I linked calls for a mystical ally. That mystical ally will be better for you leveling as it will help your DPS. You’re not trying to really skip trash mobs at 50. If you want a more detailed writeup of the build click here, and then here’s the video explaining the build.
Equipment
Hell is when you need to start stacking your vitality and resists. I recommend getting enough vitality so that you’re not getting 1-shot by mobs, and then focusing on all resist gear, or even better pick a resist(fire/arcane/whatever) and find gear with all resist PLUS that specific resist, and run the one with everything passive. This can help you get some ridiculously high levels of resist and make Hell mode feel like easy mode.
Weapons same goes as before, find the highest DPS, look for life steal, +life on hit, attack speed.
Find attack speed rings and amulets. Have I said that enough times now? 😉
Secondary stats to look for on equipment, +crit hit chance, +life on hit, +attack speed increase.
Tips
You’ll die a lot more in Hell. It’s just part of the game. Try to learn from it and not get too frustrated. Kiting becomes really important starting in Hell. If all your defensive abilities are on cooldown you want to run away until they’re up again before re-engaging. Also kiting with shift click(hold to attack) is vital. Move away, hold down shift, hit them 1-2 times, run away again.
Level 55
You’re almost there! You can do it. You’ll probably run into Belial somewhere in your mid 50’s. Here’s a video tutorial I made showing you the best ways to beat this challenging encounter(in my opinion the most challenging in the game by far).
Build
Honestly I’d just stick with the same build I linked last time. Here it is again: http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/monk#WijgXk!YdX!ZZbaba
If you want to try something different here’s one of the first videos I made. This is at 58. Looking back probably not the most efficient build but it’s fun and something different to try. Gives you some good gameplay footage of what I mean when I say “kiting” as well.
Equipment
Resists, resists, resists! Surviving Act IV Hell and Act 1 Inferno(and beyond) are all about your resists and damage mitigation as a monk. At this level I ran a 1h/shield build for extra armor and block and to free up a passive slot, but this is up to you. The important thing is to find a playstyle that you like and make a build around your playstyle, not try to force your playstyle to fit some sort of equipment build. If you don’t like shields, don’t use shields! Plenty of monks are super successful dual wielding or using 2 handers. That’s one of the best parts about D3 is that you’re not FORCED to do anything. Choices are good 🙂
Tips
You’re probably getting pretty good at the game now, so let me give you a farming tip. This is what I did to accumulate gold to gear up for Act 1 Inferno.
I have a TON of level 60 builds for Act 1 Inferno up on this page. Peruse at your leisure and good luck in Inferno 🙂 If you found this guide helpful it would help me out a lot if you would share via the social media buttons to the left side of the screen and post this guide to your favorite D3 forums/websites.