Diablo 3 Monk Inferno Solo Success Guide

Diablo 3 Monk Inferno Solo Success Guide by tongxinglian

A few days ago I managed to solo all of Inferno and since then I have been getting spammed with with questions from fellow monk friends. Thus, I have decided to make a brief guide to help other monks through inferno.

Part 1-Resists
Resists are the key to any monk build as most of you know. Melee in general have an extreme disadvantage right now because skilled ranged classes can kite all day and don’t need near the amount of resist we do. To put things into perspective, I had almost 1200 resist to all when soloing Diablo. Which leads to my next topic-how monks should gear and spec to maximize their resistance.

The key to resistances as a monk is using the passive One of Everything. This passive will allow you to get your resistances fairly high. The passive allows all your resistances to be equal to your highest one. Thus when gearing to abuse this passive, try to pick one element you want to stack (probably easiest if you pick the element you are already highest with) and look for gear that has resistance to that element on it and resist to all elements. So for instance, if fire resistance is your highest, if you get gear with 50 resistance to fire and 50 resistance to all elements, you are actually adding 100 resistance to all elements. As you can see for yourself, abusing this can really add up.

The next step to maximizing your resistance is using Mantra of Healing with the rune Time of Need. This will boost your resistance by 20%, which can be a very large number as your resistances get higher.

Part 2-Spec
The two specs I used for soloing are:
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/monk#WYjXgQ!ZYU!ZacYYc
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/monk#bZjXgQ!aYU!aZcYYc

The first one is only for if you have your resists at a decent mark. It allows you to be in melee range and take hits. It is meant to reduce the amount of damage you take to a minimum. Please note though, even though we are a melee class, there is no amount of resist I have found that will let you continuously sit in melee range. You going to have to kite sometimes until your cooldowns come back up. My usual rotation against high level inferno mobs is to open with a blind-> serenity ->breath of heaven (to get your spirit back and heal) ->spam mantra of healing ->repeat. Also make sure to always have your ally up. For bosses this rotation is similar however I tend to save my blind and serenity to stop or avoid boss mechanics. Blind is also great if you need to get your ally back up.

The second spec is meant for people who are struggling with resist. This is a kite build. The idea is to have your ally up and use deadly reach to get hits in while running. If mobs get too close, use your lashing tail kick to peel and slow them down. This is also a great spec for most of the bosses in inferno.

As you can see I use ally in both builds. I think the ally is crucial because it takes aggro away from you, thus minimizing damage on you. Also the 10% HP boost is pretty nice.

Part 3-Gear
The order of stats you should focus on is:
1) Resists
2) Vitality
3) Dexterity
4) Attack Speed

I can not stress enough to focus on resists before anything else. When I soloed I only had 12k dps. DPS is not going to keep you alive. Once you have decent stats, my biggest suggestion to you is maximizing attack speed without sacrificing resists. When weapon shopping look for fists or daggers only which have a attack speed bonus on them. This is because the faster you attack, the faster you generate spirit. With an excess of spirit you will always have enough spirit to use your crucial skills when needed and be able to spam mantra of healing.

That is pretty much all the tips I have. The only other tip I have is that in regards to groups, I find that grouping with a barb is very beneficial. Ask him to use his resistance shout. When stacked with your mantra your resistances will get to absurd amount (2k to all resistances is doable). Since both of you will have low dps, ask him to go earthquake (and beserker too if has decent gear). With this combo you can pull whole zones and he can earthquake them down. If you have any questions or would like to add to this guide please feel free to post.

Guide Additions

Part 4-Farming
Since many of the posts claim that money seems to be an issue, I have decided to add a monk farming section to help. I will show you that it is possible to make 4 mil a day minimum.

The first run is for people that are struggling getting into Act 2. You won’t make amazing gold but it will be enough to get the gear you need to start farming harder stuff.

1) Select Imprisoned Angel Quest-The Cursed Hold in Act 1.
2) Go to festering woods. There should be packs roaming outside the waypoint, if not locate the two caves. There is one pack per cave. Get 2 Stacks.
3) Once you have 2 stacks go to Halls of Agony Level 2. You should get at least one stack in here while finding the exit.
4) Enter the cursed hold, there should be at least 2 more packs in here which will cap you at 5. Free the prisoners and kill the warden.
5) Locate the butcher and kill any packs on the way.
6) Kill the butcher

Note: Doing this run will help you find some upgrades needed for Act 2. However, what you will find is a lot of it is garbage. You will however find resist to all elements gear which is your money maker. Many resist to all gear in Act 1 will sell for 200k minimum. Some rings I have found in there have even gone for a mil+.

The next run what I currently do to farm my gold. I average about 4 mil a day doing this run. The great thing is you don’t need amazing gear for this run, just patience. However once gear comes this run can be done in about 30 min.

1) Select the quest Siegebreaker-Kill the Siegebreaker
2) Go to Rakkis Crossing to pick up tyreal. Clear all the mobs to seigebreaker. Most likely you will get a stack. If you see dungeon open called underbridge, go inside.
3) Clear all mobs in the underbridge and look for a chest. Make sure if you see the chest do not open it until you have 5 stacks.
4) Go to the keep depths level 1. As soon as you go to the WP, if you head out of the first room and you enter a giant room with fire, it is likely there is a chest there too. Again, do not open it until you 5 stacks. Proceed to get 2 stacks from level 1.
5) Once you get 2 stacks, port to town, go back to level 1 WP and go to keep depths level 2. Get 2 stacks. If you don’t have 5 stacks by now port to town and go to level 3.
6) Go loot all the chests you left.
7) Kill seigebreaker

Now the reason why I say you do not need amazing gear for this and just patience…is that with Tyreal he can kill most of the rare packs. You can die, AFK for a few minutes and let him go to work. Please note, if the mobs are vampiric, shielding, or health link, you need to help him kill them. If you don’t have the gear for it either skip them or pull them to the entrance and rez-> serenity->dps repeat….once you get gear you wont have to die at all. And trust me, in the end it is worth the repair bill starting out. The reason why I think act 3 is good, is because you can still get amazing loot from it and eventually the run times become fast. You can get 1h 1.1k dps weps (which are selling for 5 mil+). Many of the blues you get will be 700+ 1h which will sell for around 100k. And last, the resist gear I haven gotten has been as high as 70+ to all elements which with the right stats will sell for a few mil.