1.0.3 Monk Build | Tank | for under geared monks inferno act 1-4. Inferno Diablo kill included. Written by Tobias, a gamer from Sweden. His in game name is Toxxer and he has a stream over at www.twitch.tv/themagican and his battletag is Toxxer#2903(EU servers) if you want to ask him questions directly.
Intro
This build is for people that don’t have that much money and are under geared. I myself use this build in act 4 Inferno and I can pretty much faceroll diablo with not that grate gear. For this build you’d want to stack your resist as much as you can then armor and vitality and then dex. If you have enough money you could buy some items with these stats and some crit chance/crit dmg from more dps.
Link to the build: http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/monk#bYgiXh!XUZ!ZcaZba
Link to Code to Joy, one of the best self-development books I’ve read this year and the book I credit to my success with The Healthy Gamer: http://www.thehealthygamer.com/codetojoy
Build
Deadly Reach with Keen eye rune
This ability makes you able to kite monsters and it makes you A LOT more tanky. Keen eye increases your armor by 50% for 4 seconds, so every time you’re in combat and you hit something your armor increases by 50%. When I got this buff on me I get around 13-14k armor and that’s about 80% damage reduction.
Blinding Flash
If you feel that elite packs doing too much damage you could use the rune called Searing Light. But I’m using Faith in the Light just because it gives me so much more damage, and in this build damage is a plus.
Serenity with Peaceful response
Not much to say about it. It’s just a must if you want to stay alive.
Sweeping wind with Blade Storm
I use Blade storm instead of Cyclone because I don’t have that much crit chance so my cyclones doesn’t proc that often but it’s really up to you.
Breath of Heavens with Blazing Wrath
Same thing as Serenity, a must for monks. It also increases your damage by 15% for 45 so try to always have that up to burn elite packs down faster.
Mantra of Evasion with Hard Target
Now picking a mantra depends on what situation you’re in. For example Diablo I would use Mantra on Healing with the rune Time of need to increase my resist by 20%. Because the things that will kill you on diablo isn’t his attacks, it’s the fire / dots that he puts on you. But when you kill a bunch of normal mobs Mantra of Evasion is better. With the Hard Target rune your armor is increased by 20%. This is also your “spirit spender” when you activate it you will get 15% additional dodge rating for 3 seconds. Try to spam this as much as you can.
Passive skills
There isn’t much to say about the passives. One With Everything is a must if you stack something else that all resist, after that there are some runes to play around with
Seize the initiative – Resolve – Transcendence.
Gear / Items
Your number one priority is the resist you’re stacking. For act 2 you want to be around 500-600 resist act 3 and for you’d want to get around 700. Try to hold a good balance between your Vitality and Dexterity, if you die to often go for more Vitality and if you don’t die that much and it takes too long to kill monsters go for more Dexterity (I’m sitting around 35-40k hp).
Life on hit – This that is grate for boss fights such as diablo. If you’re on act 1 – 2 this isn’t that important but if you can afford it get it! Try to get as much as possible on your weapon/Neck/Rings.
Attack speed – This is also a big plus because it makes your attacks faster and makes you regenerate more spirit to spam your mantra.
Resist > Armor > Vitality / Dexterity.
Strategy
The strategy I’m using is always have up Sweeping wind and Breath of heavens damage buff. Use Serenity and Blinding Flash in sticky situations and with all my other spirit spam my mantra. Try to kite the mobs with your range on Deadly reach.
Follower
Now this one is really important, a lot of people think that followers suck and they don’t too much damage at all but they give you buffs and they can cc the mobs so you’d have an easier time killing them.
The best one is Enchantress. This is the spells that you’d want to use as a monk.
Charm – This is really good because she sometimes charms a monster with a lot of damage that could nearly one hit another monster and just makes it a lot easier for you.
Powered Armor – This is really important because it gives you a 15% more armor on top of everything else.
Erosion – I like to use Erosion because it makes the affected mobs take 15% more damage for 3 seconds.
Focused mind / Mass control – I use Focused mind for boss fights because I get more spirit and I gain more life from life on hit if I attack faster. Mass control is good for packs of mobs that does a lot of damage. She usually cast that right after you’re entering combat and it hexes all mobs within 8 yards for 5 sec. I’m chaining my blind after the hex so I get 8 seconds if CC.
Small tip – to increase your followers damage as much as possible stack their primary stat, example for the Enchantress its Intelligence.
For more d3 monk builds visit the Monk builds page here. Check out this post for my favorite 1.0.3 farming spot. Click here for more articles related to health and fitness. Get good karma and great free items by visiting the “good karma” forums here.