Blizzhackers

I've been working with a budget monk recently and I've never really paid much attention to monster affixes until now. It seems that molten, desecration, and arcane sentry completely ignore my resistances. I haven't had much of problem with other elites but some A2 elites (most recently the little zombie guys had waller, illusionist, molten, and plague. Doesn't seem fair considering all the illusions can summon walls and their bodies pop leave huge clouds of poison that I'm unable to dodge) are giving me a load of trouble.

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/DanAmbro-1554/hero/21919469

That's the set up I'm running. I know it's not the best, but it cost less than 500k and I figured ~900 resi all with 6k armor should be enough to get me through A2 with a bit of skill.

So are molten, plague, arcane, and desecration programmed to ignore target defenses or is 900RA really that low?

900 isn't too low and raising them is barely worth it. If you wanna test that, activate the extra resists rune from mantra and see the difference, it's like nothing.
Your problem is your hp is WAY too low and your dps is shit (Which, in turn, means you have to survive much longer)

This is mine: http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/profile/iden ... ro/7387531

I stopped playing it (and will probably stop playing d3 at least until 1.04) simply because I don't have 50 mil for a decent weapon (they're much more expensive on hc)

Mine was built on a budget as well (everything on that char cost around 1,000,000 gold), so I get the "budget" part. Unfortunately, you've picked a shitty class for "a budget char". For some reason I don't quite fully understand, monk gear is way more expensive than say, barb gear or DH gear. I mean, the class is shit for inferno. Incredibly low dps and incredibly low survivability, despite supposedly having the highest one (surv).

For monks, the trick on inferno isn't higher resists (although they help a bit, no argument there). It's being able to kill a pack before having to use all your cooldowns. That comes down to dps and in that regard, monks are at the bottom. In theory, with enough dps, you'd be able to kill 1-2 champion mobs before your bubble runs out. Unfortunately, that's just theory, haven't really seen any monk able to do it.

If you're looking to play a "budget" class, go for a barb or DH, especially on softcore. They can both be awesome chars.

I know my dps is low, but that 10k isn't really an accurate reflection of how much damage I actually do. With the buffs from the blinding skill, my mantra, and my healing skill and the 3 stacks of my whirlwind thingy, I do some decent damage. I think you're right that my HP is too low. But I still feel that with 900RA I shouldn't be melting by standing in plague or desecration for more than half a second.

EDIT: I already have a pretty well-geared DH that's cleared Inferno. This was more for the challenge.

He was right about dps, if your at 10k sheet dps, that is way too low.. needs around 20-30k sheet dps minimum. 33-36klife 850+ all res

The problem is that if you choose to use those 2 specific "spells" to buff your dps, you're going to die - often.

On inferno, you need blind with searing light to make champion packs and bosses miss you. 60% chance to miss, 14% chance to block, 40% chance to dodge (with mantra of evasion + hard target), that's how you stay alive long enough to kill packs. Miss and dodge also apply to spells, so searing light dramatically increases your survivability, even on low hp.

You can't choose sweeping wind on hardcore either, it's certain death right now. I've had one dead monk on hardcore to a shitty pack I could've killed with no issues, but I had sweeping wind on, on an invulnerable minions pack and got caught in a door. That's why you NEED tempest rush. Of course, on softcore, you could simply afford one more death. Seeing how you need serenity, blind, mantra searing light and one normal attack skill (crippling, fists of thunder, whatever), you only have room for one more spell. It's either tempest rush (the only thing that can get you out of a bad spot) or death. If shielding / invulnerable minions go away at some point, that may change, but even then you'll have to get out of vortex/plagued/desecrator/molten asap, so tempest rush looks like a "absolutely-need-that" ability.

Look, no matter how you look at it, monk dps is simply shit. Not whining about it or anything, it's how it's supposed to be balanced - a class that greatly reduces enemy damage (look at my profile for specific spells/runes/passives) and mitigates damage while healing. It's never going to have "Good" dps. Originally, with enough ias and life on hit, you could be invulnerable - save for invulnerable minions or shielding packs. That no longer works, so the only thing you can do is spec for maximum survivability and just...dps as you can.

That thing about classes being flexible and being able to use spells as you wish is just bullshit. It may work up to hell. On inferno, you're stuck, same 6 spells, no matter what.

I won't speak for hardcore but a DPS monk is certainly viable.

I won't speak for hardcore but a DPS monk is certainly viable.

22k life is not enough, I would aim for ~50k. Arcane and other high dps affixes will do tons of damage even with sufficient resists.
Your dps is also fairly low. This ties in with survivability, (If you do half the dps that is required then you will need to survive twice as long when fighting elites, etc.)
Life on hit is also super important. I would try aim for more than what you have if you are having trouble staying alive.
I don't know how the affixes work but I think molten, desecration, and arcane will do damage to you no matter how much resists you have in inferno.

I don't know about softcore, but you can't get 22k dps and 50k life while maintaining armor and resists as a monk for less than 250 mil on hc - possibly 500 - and he was trying to build a monk "on a budget"...which seems impossible to me.



Just dex, vit, loh. Not the highest dps in history either. A good weapon (over 100 dex/vit and 900 loh with ~1150 dps was selling for about 190 mil at some point)

I _really_ can't understand why monk gear is so much more expensive that barb, for example.

Because Barbs are the only ones who use str.

Until the xpac when we get our shape shifting class.