I’m back from my National Guard duty and ready to rock with more content 🙂 Played around with stacking crit last night. It’s definitely one of the most fun builds I’ve played so far. Seeing crits pop up every other hit is really satisfying.
Theory-crafting
The idea is to stack your crit chance and +crit damage as high as you possibly can. This leads to a tremendous boost in DPS thus allowing you to forego some of the more defensive stats like life on hit because you’re able to kill mobs faster. +Crit is very synergistic with monk skills and gives you a wide variety of build options to choose from. Today we’ll just explore one of these build options.
Important Gear Slots
Weapon
Look for a weapon with a socket and + critical hit damage, dexterity, +attack speed, and lifesteal are all great stats as well but finding a weapon with all of those can get quite expensive. Socket the weapon with a high quality emerald for more +critical hit damage. Lifesteal can actually be useful with this build because you’ll start hitting crits for 60k+. A 60k crit will equal 324 life back to you(60k x 2.7% x 20%).
Shield
Why do you want a shield? Because shields have the highest +crit chance modifier in the game. My shield currently has +10% to crit. Look for +crit chance, dexterity, vitality, and all resist on your shield.
Gloves
Look for gloves with + crit chance, + crit damage, and optionally + attack speed. The best glove you could find would be +crit chance, + crit damage, + attack speed, +dex, + vitality, +all resist. But that’s probably a 30 mil glove so finding one with crit chance and crit damage will suffice.
Helm
Get a helm with +crit chance and a socket. Dexterity, vitality, all resist are secondary stats to look for on the helm. Gem it with a purple gem for the extra life.
Amulet
Ideally you’d want + attack speed, + critical hit chance, and + life on hit. But again, that’s REALLY expensive. I settled for a 104 dex, +190 life on hit, +11% life, +7.5% crit hit amulet. Still cost me a pretty penny but didn’t break the bank. Stats in order of importance on amulet: + crit hit chance, + attack speed, + life on hit, dex.
Rings
Like the amulet if you can get rings with crit hit chance, attack speed, and life on hit you’ll be golden. Mine only have crit chance and dexterity, but still work just fine.
Other slots
The above slots are the really important pieces for this build because those are the items that can have the +crit modifier on them. The rest of your slots can’t, so just stack them up with as much dex, resist, and vitality as you can.
My stats
25,887 unbuffed DPS, 1558 dex, 39k hp, 42% crit hit chance, 203% crit hit damage, 43% dodge unbuffed, 52% dodge with mantra of evasion, 59% with fists of lightning 16% buff, and 65% for three seconds after hitting mantra of evasion.
Armor mitigation is 71.67%, resists are at 50.94% resist all.
Build
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/monk#aiYgXh!XUW!Zccaba
Fists of thunder is great for generating spirit and the +dodge rune is useful for keeping you alive. Sweeping wind with the cyclone rune does INCREDIBLE DPS with 42% crit. You’ll have 4-6 lightning tornados up at one time, each zapping enemies for 20% of your overall DPS. IMO producing much more DPS than just taking bladestorm. Blinding flash and blaze of heaven both work to increase your DPS nicely and help keep you alive. Sixth sense works really great here for increasing your dodge even more.
Strategy
Start off each fight by using flash and getting some big hits in right off the bat. Make sure to keep sweeping wind up as much as possible. Think of blaze of heaven not so much as a heal, but as a 15% damage buff that has a heal as a bonus, so start each fight off with blaze of heaven just for the buff even if you’re at full HP. The drawback of this crit build is that it can be a bit of a glass cannon so manage your cooldowns and run away immediately if your HP starts to drop. Use extra spirit on Mantra of Evasion to keep your dodge as high as possible.
Find more monk builds on this page. Monk level 30-45 guide here. Monk level 45-60 guide here.