For anyone interested, I thought I would do a list of BiS items for the monk. I consider myself pretty knowledgeable about the class and I've managed to reach about 150k DPS unbuffed while maintaining pretty good EHP (50k HP, 400+ resists) without spending more than 50M per item. More importantly, I know exactly how to get to 200k+ while maintaining the same EHP (just don't have the gold for it). I have two separate categories for BiS: the absolute, no holds barred, best item (typically doesn't exist or costs billions) and the "Walmart" BiS (may cost anywhere from 10M to 100M, but gives you nearly equivalent DPS). Some of these items are obvious, some of them are opinionated, but I tried to consider all viewpoints. At the end of the day, you want the absolute minimum for EHP (except at really high MP) and the absolute maximum for DPS for efficient farming.

Let's continue this thread for all classes. Hopefully, resident experts of the other classes can contribute here. So without further ado...

Main Hand: Echoing Fury. This is really a no brainer. The added attacks do not work like increased attack speed, which is a non-DPS upgrade; Fury actually adds raw DPS to your off-hand. The DPS is unmatched by any rare. Key props: Dex, Socket, CD, Life Steal
Walmart: Equivalent rare with Dex, Socket, CD, Life Steal

Off-hand: Rare with Dex, Socket, CD, Life Steal. It's a careful balance between finding a weapon with high enough DPS (850+) and finding one with these properties.
Walmart: Rare with Dex, Socket, CD, LoH

Helm: Mempo of Twilight. The key here is the Mempo must have CC. Without it, the Mempo loses to Walmart.
Walmart: Inna's Radiance. Not only are these pretty cheap now, but they can easily roll things like 180+ dex, 6% CC, vit, life%, +armor. Plus, it counts towards the Inna's dex bonus requirements.

Shoulders: Vile Ward. Must have vit and off-resist.
Walmart: Rare with dex, vit, off-resist, all-resist, and life%

Amulet: Rare with damage, dex, AS, CC, CD. Or possibly a rare with just damage, dex, CC, and CD with higher rolls. Or even a a rare with just dex, CC, and CD with near perfect rolls on each.
Walmart: Rare with damage, dex, CC, CD

Gloves: Rare with Dex, AS, CC, CD. Or possibly a rare with just dex, CC, and CD with near perfect rolls on each.
Walmart: Rare with dex, CC, CD

Chest: Inna's Vast Expanse. Should have highest possible vit and perfect rolls on life% and reduction to melee.
Walmart: Inna's Vast Expanse. The combination of life%, melee reduction, 3 sockets, and high dex simply crushes any other rare. Plus, it counts towards the Inna's dex bonus.

Bracers: Rare with dex, vit, off-resist, all resist, CC. Some people might say Lacuni Prowlers can be better and they can, but only for pure DPS. The combination of the higher possible dex plus the survivability elements makes this a BiS rare.
Walmart: Rare with dex, vit, off-resist, CC

Belt: The Witching Hour. Must roll vit or off-resist.
Walmart: Inna's Favor. One would be surprised at how close in PURE DPS Inna's Favor can come to the Witching Hour. The 8% damage bonus is actually immense in combination with Echoing Fury's pure physical damage. In combination with a pure physical damage off-hand and a rare 150+ dex roll, Inna's Favor can actually beat the WH in pure DPS. Even so, extremely cheap IF can be found which come very close.

Ring 1: Natalya's Reflection. Must roll damage and either CC or CD (slight edge to CC, but high CD can also work).
Walmart: Natalya's Reflection. For budget concerns, the best stat to look for is high average damage. This will give the most bang for your buck without venturing into the CC/CD price range. If not going for Nat's set bonus, a rare with damage, dex, CC, and CD will do.

Ring 2: Hellfire Ring. Must roll damage, AS, CC, and CD. If not, a rare with damage, dex, AS, CC, and CD will do. Or possibly a rare with damage, dex, CC, and CD with higher rolls.
Walmart: Rare with damage, dex, CC, and CD

Pants: Inna's Temperance. Must roll vit.
Walmart: Inna's Temperance. The combination of 12% MS, CC, AS, and 2 sockets makes it essential unless you are dirt poor. Find a lower vit or off-resist one.

Boots: Natalya's Bloody Footprints. Must roll vit.
Walmart: Natalya's Bloody Footprints. Obviously, only good for the Nat's bonus. If not going for Nat's bonus, I recommend Fire Walkers (even better if stacking fire resist). These have the underrated property of melee reduction, which does increase EHP. If not stacking fire, then a rare with dex, vit, off-resist, and MS will do.

Without spending more than 50mil per item! I don't think I have an item worth over 15mil on any character, and have never had 10mil saved up at any time. ..ha

Thank you for the information though, as I am working on switching my main from my dh to monk, I'll keep an eye out for some deals. (Just need to finish the 100,000 demon kills first).

@mindlessone

I think there are really 3 price points for DPS: 100k, 150k, and 200k+. To move to the next tier, it takes exponentially more gold (because the necessary items are exponentially more rare). I think it's very possible to reach 100k DPS on just 50M gold TOTAL (with some smart/lucky buying). 150k DPS is going to take 500M-1B; there's really no way around it unless you find some stupid cheap deals or you severely cripple your EHP. 200k+ DPS is mostly BiS gear and these items cost hundreds of millions each.

I wouldn't really worry about not having gold. You don't get rich in Diablo by grinding small amounts (unless you're a botter). You get rich by getting lucky drops. You're probably one epic item away from having enough gold to have better gear than me :).

@Metta

Nice! This is now my guide to pursue for my upgrades.

I don't get what you mean when you said "In combination with a pure physical damage off-hand and a rare 150+ dex roll" in the section of belt. 8% holy damage ~ I thought it would help when a weapon rolls holy damage. I must have missed something. Please could you help clarify? Thanks.

BTW I further upgraded my off-hand. What do you think of it, and how much do you think it is worth (just curious if I got a good bargain)?

@douvinsky

Inna's Favor adds bonus damage to NON-ELEMENTAL damage on your weapons. If your weapons were all elemental, it would add ZERO bonus damage, even though it says it "adds 8% to holy damage". If your weapons had no elemental component, then it would add 8% to your DPS, which would be pretty substantial. Typically, it's somewhere between 0% and 8% (it's about 6.5% for me). All "adds x% to element damage" items work the same way. It's worded pretty poorly and Blizzard has already acknowledged this.

Your off-hand is pretty good. I personally wish I could switch to Life Steal from LoH, but I haven't been able to find any good bargains. It's hard to price weapons these days, but maybe 50-100M?

@Metta
Thanks.

"adds 8% to holy damage".

OMG I have been misleaded all the while!!

How about the +poison skill on the range follower....I was going to buy him a +poison damage 2H bow >-<

It's hard to price weapons these days, but maybe 50-100M?

I agree it is hard to price weapons these days. I have been changing my off-hand rapidly, I think I have bought more than 10 off-hands from the auction house and experimented with them (I keep switching my priorities e.g. with +vit, LoH then now LS, attack speed to a slow spear, then back to current high DPS fist).

One thing to highlight is that everytime I wanna try out a weapon ~~ I almost immediately bid / buyout what I am comfortable to afford in the auction house. It is funny that a spear costed me only 3 millions, but beat my previous (well, previous previous) offhand fist in terms of DPS which I paid 20 millions!! (Thanks to your advice about EF's attack speed). And guess what, I just resold my 20m fist at 50m buyout LoL. And I have resold most of my old off-hands at profits (except one bought at 12 m sold at 2 m ouch).

So, I am guessing there is a demand in the weapon market from players like me ~~~ i.e. players who are not that knowledgeable, but have some old savings or some lucky drops (and also lazy to use DPS calculator) and decided to upgrade weapons. To these players, what is affordable and appear the cheapest c.f. other similar and 'thought to be good' is a great buy to them.

Back to my current off-hand ~~ I placed a last 45 minutes bid and won it at 32 millions. I have made my permanent switch to LifeSteal I guess. The 2.80% is surprisingly good enough for me who is at nearly 100k DPS. When I scale up my DPS further I can see a greater benefit coming out of LifeSteal.

@Metta



Old off-hand



Current off-hand



What I think is missing in the guide is the 'Pick-up Radius' ~ not a critical stat but I found it annoying when I have 0 pick up radius. I guess this can exist in most of the gears, and maybe boots is the most convenient gear to house it, since on a boots you may ideally need [Dex, Vit, AR, off-resist, movement speed] hence there is a free slot on 6-properties YELLOW boots to house the pick up radius. What do you think? If I use a Nat boots, which piece of gears ideally should house the Pick-Up radius?

@ Metta

I was searching in the AH for

pure physical damage off-hand and a rare 150+ dex roll

and I found this 750 DPS baby..........it actually adds 2.7k DPS should I replace my 880 DPS fist with it.

So, I am going to sell off one of them again.....unless I am keeping it for spare for double LS (i.e. do without EF). Thoughts?

@douvinsky

LOL lots of questions! I'll try to answer all of them.

How about the +poison skill on the range follower....I was going to buy him a +poison damage 2H bow >-<

I'm not sure how that works; I've never used the Scoundrel. He can't use the Grand Vizier and the MF bonus from that weapon alone is too good to pass up. So I'm stuck with the Enchantress for that reason alone.

If I use a Nat boots, which piece of gears ideally should house the Pick-Up radius?

TBH, pickup radius is one of those "bad affixes". If it has pickup radius, it's probably missing something more important. I suppose if it has great rolls on everything else AND for some reason, also has pickup radius, then you can go for it. When you need 50M+ gold for your next upgrade, you're just looking to clear elites as quickly as possible in hope of some epic drop. 2k piles of gold aren't going to cut it.

So, I am going to sell off one of them again.....unless I am keeping it for spare for double LS (i.e. do without EF). Thoughts?

I don't think you should use double LS at the expense of DPS. If you're rolling 100k+ DPS, then one (near 2.90 or 3.00) LS should be fine. If the sword gives you higher DPS, then I don't really see any reason NOT to use it. It already has LS; everything else is already accounted for in DPS calculations.

As a general rule of thumb, when you roll a lower DPS weapon (750) but it has mega, uber stats like that sword, you want to look for high +damage on jewelry. This is going to give you a bigger DPS boost than high dex, for example.

There's really no cut and dry method to obtain great DPS while maintaining EHP and minimizing cost. It depends on what you have and what you lack. Whatever you lack: increase it, whatever you have: maintain it or sacrifice it. I use my own spreadsheet for DPS and EHP. I literally plug in a weapon or armor and see what it does. I just kind of eyeball it to see whether it's worth it and what I gain/lose.

My personal opinion: stack defense on shoulders and bracers. Stack DPS everywhere else but try to also have either vit, life%, or an off-resist on every piece. My current wishlist right now (I have almost zero interest in anything else, but I can't afford any of these!):

1) Nat's ring with +40 damage and CC or CD
2) Echoing Fury with either 1200+ DPS/dex/socket or 1050+ DPS and CD/dex/socket
3) Witching Hour with either vit or fire resist/all resist
4) Mempo of Twilight with high dex and CC
5) An amulet with SICK stats. Like +damage, 150 dex, 80+ CD, 10% CC.
6) Trifecta Gloves with 7%+ AS, 35%+ CD, 8%+ CC, 150 dex

@Metta

Thanks. I often learn a lot more after I talked to you LoL.

1. Scoundrels - not using him either. Maybe once I got bored with Templar I wil use him.
2. Pick-Up Radius - OK... I will still pick up 2k piles of gold though. Last time I check my gold pick up rate is about 300k per hour.
3. High + damage on jewelry to complement my lower DPS weapon - great advice!
4. I think my final wishlist will be similar to yours ... but right now my immediate wishlist is actually my MF bracer. It is a bit weak either on offensive or defensive (although it has nice AR + FR). However, I am not prepared to pay a lot for it. I would rather save up more.

thanks a lot @metta for this list, it's interesting, i've tried the EF, trying to get used to de F*?&%#$% fear, but the dps is awesome.

i am not sure what piece i should upgrade next, would you mind looking at my profile and offering a suggestion?

@mowuffe

Yeah the Fury fear is kind of a bitch sometimes, but it can also be used strategically. You can pin an elite against a wall and they won't be able to do anything. For the sake of damage, you just gotta get used to it...

Depending on what your budget is, I think you should get gloves with higher CC and CD (with dex of course). 5% AS is very low and 7% CC is actually not very good. I've seen gloves with like 150 dex, off-resist, and 40-45% CD and 8% CC for <5M. I'm selling my old gloves that I used to get up to 150k+ for 10M:

157 dex
52 FR
39% CD
10% CC

The general myth is that you should get trifectas ASAP, even with low stats, or that AS trumps CC/CD. AS almost NEVER trumps decent CC/CD rolls and you should always stack CC/CD/primary for DPS first. Trifectas only become BiS at the extremely uber levels (to give you an example, my gloves aren't trifecta, but to gain any DPS boost, I would need something like 150 dex, 7% AS, 32% CD, and 8% CC, which is REALLY expensive. Additionally, mine has FR and vit.)

Your amulet also needs CD. My old amulet which I just sold for 8.5M was:
+14-27 dmg
103 dex
53% CD
8.5% CC

Get high +dmg over AS on an amulet. Unless you're pricing amulets in the 100-500M range, you should not have AS on an amulet.

CC on one ring. Get high +dmg, dex, and CC. A lot of people really don't understand how important high +dmg is for increasing damage.

If you lose some vit, then the best places to stack it are probably your belt, your shoulders, helm, or pants. I really don't like that Vile Ward because it has like no EHP. My old shoulders had:

147 dex
78 vit
58 FR
67 AR
11% life

So yeah, those have 50 dex less, but they have 78 vit and 11% life. That would give you about 7k more HP! That's nearly 200 vit that you could play around with or just have greater EHP overall for only 50 less dex. I would take that trade all day.

When you build a good character, you want to be thinking about pieces in pairs or in bunches. Where can I stack one thing and where can I afford to exclude it? When you consider the cost also, it becomes a pretty tedious affair, but it's really the only way to get the best bang for your buck. I sometimes spend up to 1 hour thinking about one piece and what it needs before I price it.

@Metta

Any ideal range of + Attack Speed% for DW? For both DMG and resource generation?

I just bought a ring with +dmg, CC and +AS. If +AS is not as good I might need to hunt again.

Also, perhaps time to change the title to BiS Items - Monk!

Between Ring 1 BiS and Walmart.............maybe this Unity. It boosted my unbuffed DPS way above 100k.



And yes, I am becoming better and better at winning bids........

@douvinsky

WOW nice! How much was that? Other than the slightly mediocre CD, that ring is AMAZING.

@Metta

Found this 14 minutes item with bid at 21m.

Within the 14 minutes I actually maintained a cool head and did my considerations:

1) Check similar Unity. The next best similar/ similarly priced Unity was at 45m.

2) Check my overall need. Agree that the CD is mediocre, but I can accept it since I have rolled CD on my Hellfire and my offhand has over 190 CD after socket (& low on DPS but all NON-ELEMENTAL and I have an Inna Belt!).

3) Check similar rares. A similar rare was at a budget 12 millions, I nearly bought it but at the end decided to stick with Unity for the color, narrative, and hell ya just a little bit of LoH and Increased Damage Against Elites. I nearly going to flip the rare too, if it was a 1D11Hr I probably has done it.

4) Check my budget lol

5) I notice active bidding started which spiked it to 28m, then to 33m. Did a final decision on what's the most I am willing to pay, and also tried to guess what is the max bid that the other top bidder are 'inputting'.

I placed only ONE bet (I have timed and monitored the auction period to the exact second) and I won it at 42m. Does it cost me 42m? Not really....I flipped enough old off-hands during my recent offhand hunt, and I can consider this ring sponsored by the other players :P Made me feel better this way.

Trade-off: I lost more than 100 resist (AR + FR) and my resistance is now low at 200 level (with MF cap 300). My priority now is to power farm MP1 (not sure if I can powerfarm MP2 at 200 resist?) with max MF low resist...... then it will reach a day when I can finally replace all my 4 MF inna pieces with more resist and farm higher MPs.

Finally thanks again to your unfailing advices on monk gears / overall gear decision. They are top grade advices!

(not sure if I can powerfarm MP2 at 200 resist?)

Tested this.
With 106k DPS unbuffed, 186 resist is not an issue in MP2. I killed them before they pose a threat.

Yeah, I think at MP3 and below, you can really go "glass cannon" because of a monk's serenity. At MP4, I think you need a bit more EHP to survive prolonged fights. My stats right now are about 170k DPS unbuffed, 44k HP, 4000 armor and 450 resist. I can pretty much walk through everything except reflect damage elites.

I've encountered some resistance at MP5, but it's not a survivability issue as much as it just takes more than 2-3 hits sometimes to kill stuff. Also, reflect damage mobs become a REAL pain because there's absolutely no way to fight them without serenity up. I've tried stacking life steal AND LoH even at slightly lower DPS and the reflect is just too strong. A reflect damage, extra health pack can pretty much ruin the entire run with multiple deaths and an extremely prolonged fight. So until that's modified, MP5 isn't worth it.

170k DPS unbuffed

@-@

@Metta

A new question for your: +30 min dmg vs +30 max dmg, +18-37 dmg ............any preference? I would think average wise they are the same, just difference when crit (ability to one shot).........Help on this needed before I sold off my +30 max dmg ammy!

i know min is better than max, but i couldnt tell for the range... i'd go min damage first

There's not really a whole lot of difference between +max and +min. In fact, on average, they are the exact same thing. The only difference is your average DPS with higher minimum damage will have higher "lows" whereas the +max damage will have higher "highs". The important thing is to consider the sum total.

+18-37 means the average damage gain will be (18+37)/2 = 27.5. The average damage gain from a ring that just says +30 max/min damage is 30/2 = 15. So +18-37 is a lot better. Add the two numbers up and divide by two. This gives you the average damage gain.

It should also be noted that these values are not calculated correctly in the auction house. Minimum damage isn't divided by 2 when it should be; IE, it says it gives you +30 minimum damage but it actually only gives you 30/2 = 15. Sometimes these values are just not calculated correctly, so you should be careful when you actually buy these. Take a look at my profile: I stack a lot of average damage on my rings and amulets, which allows me to get really high DPS without any real BiS gear.

Posted by Metta at 11/05/2012 07:50 PM

There's not really a whole lot of difference between +max and +min.

+18-37 means the average damage gain will be (18+37)/2 = 27.5. The average damage gain from a ring that just says +30 max/min damage is 30/2 = 15. So +18-37 is a lot better. Add the two numbers up and divide by two. This gives you the average damage gain.

It should also be noted that these values are not calculated correctly in the auction house. Minimum damage isn't divided by 2 when it should be; IE, it says it gives you +30 minimum damage but it actually only gives you 30/2 = 15. Sometimes these values are just not calculated correctly, so you should be careful when you actually buy these. Take a look at my profile: I stack a lot of average damage on my rings and amulets, which allows me to get really high DPS without any real BiS gear.

I might he wrong...it happens, but my math says your math doesn't make sense. When you have a min and max you average the two by dividing like you did. When you only have min damage you do not divide by 2. Since it adds 30 damage to every swing thus easing you dps by 30. Could confirm my adding 30 to your weapon dps average.

If you have +30 max dps you would have to add that to your weapons dps to see the plus.

As I write this I think the best measure to min or max is to.add it to the weapon to see offical change. But I don't think you just divide it by 2 alone.

@zerokewl

My understanding of what @Metta is saying:

A = minimum dmg of a swing
B = maximum dmg of a swing
Average dmg = (A+B) / 2

+30 min dmg --> [ (A+30) + B ] / 2
+30 max dmg --> [ A + (B+30)] / 2

Both the above are equal mathematically..........if this is how they behave in D3.

Now that I think of it......I have underpriced a ring which shows separate +32 minimum dmg; + 33 maximum dmg. Oh well lol.

@douvinsky

I agree, but dividing min damage alone by 2 doesn't truely represent the average damage that stat adds.

Your equation makes it much clearer. My thought was he had dropped the 'B' variable from the equation incorrectly. Can't remove it from one side without removing it from the other...if my math knowledge is correct.

Let's try one with basic numbers.

100-300= 200 avg dps

130-300= 215 avg dps
100-330= 215 avg dps

BUT as said your min 130 hit happens every time where as your max hit is one out of 230 hits assuming each damage swing has same chance.