Can someone please help me through some Act II

[Lilly32]

My monk had decent stats I thought to start Act II but I cant even get to Maghda. I have looked through every guide on the forums but no build I try seems to work. Anyways here are my stats and current build:

HP: 25K
Armor: 6690 or 69% reduced damage
Dodge: 42% or 50% with mantra spam
Block: 15%
Attack: 13K
Life on Hit: 634
All Resists: 718 or 70.53%

My Build: http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculato...gYh!ZXU!ZZbaca

Im just raging because according to every guide posted my gear is fine but I cant kill any rare packs. I have changed my spec around like a million times as well. Also using sword and shield obviously. Also I keep trying to join public groups but every single one is all monks/barbs. I keep relogging to get one with all DH/Wiz but I always hit the limit for log ins.

[Deleted]

I am sorry to say so, buf if you cant do ACT 2 , you wont be able to do ACT 3, Act 3 is many times harder, just a fair warning^^

[Lilly32]

I am sorry to say so, buf if you cant do ACT 2 , you wont be able to do ACT 3, Act 3 is many times harder, just a fair warning^^

so off to the RMAH for BiS gear then? or should I just reroll a wizard. I really enjoy the monk but I just cant figure out why I fail. I can kite pretty good but I swear it seems like every pack I get is rape no matter how many times I relog and hope for different affixes.

[tehgather3r]

You can always try running past the packs.

[Lilly32]

You can always try running past the packs.

Then how will I get better gear if I dont kill anything? Also Im not Method Im not gonna cheat my way through the game skipping everything

[Repefe]

You need to get to 7th quest in act II inferno. Once you enter the aquaducts you have got yourself a farming spot with easy elite group you can kill over and over and over and over and over. But if you can't get there ... just run butcher over and over and over and over till you get enough money for better gear.

If there is something wrong with your build I don't know ... as barb I finished act II with 10k armor, 50k hp, 10k dps, 900 resists.

[tehgather3r]

Then how will I get better gear if I dont kill anything? Also Im not Method Im not gonna cheat my way through the game skipping everything

Not saying you should skip all of them. If you find a particularly hard pack that you just can't seem to kill though, you can try running past it instead of restarting the game and hoping for something easier.

I have fairly similar gear as you and I'm about halfway through act 2. It's not that bad yet. What you could try doing is getting some life on spirit spent as well though. Combine that with transcendence for some decent healing.

My current build:
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculato...gYh!YXU!acbaca

[Deleted]

As far as melee go the big deciding factor is gear. I know you don't want to switch mains but what a lot of Monks I know have considered doing is making a Wizard/DH to farm with and feed their main. At least until the class balance patches. However for the time being lets look at your gear a little bit:

1) Block - this is your single greatest downside right now. 15% is extremely low, you don't mention your block amount but if that's low too then you might as well not have a shield. This is probably the single most important item for tanking so invest well in it and make sure you have high block chance (25% minimum) and high block value.

2) Resist - If you stack both all resist and a secondary resistance on your gear then you could get higher than 718 I'm sure. I know its expansive but there's no way around that, your resist can always use work.

3) % Mitigation - against elites or melee attacks, obviously quite useful to have

There are items that help a lot with pretty much all 3 of these things are, Stormshield, String of Ears, etc. They are expansive but they will last you a long time so if you have the patience than start saving up gold for them. Long story short, improve your gear with time spent farming items and/or gold and you'll make progress.

[Duskmourne]

How fast are you attacking? Life on hit is meaningless if you aren't hitting fast as hell.

I also use both Deadly reach - with foresight, and Fists of Thunder - Thunderclap. These are my right and left clicks.

Thunderclap is boss for attack speed, and great with life on hit in general. Deadly reach is a substantial damage boost and useful in situations where forced to kite.

[Ichy]

Something I've been wondering about for life on hit and WothF. the 2nd attack, while for spirt generation only counts for 1 attack, does it count the same for life on hit because you are technically HITTING each time for small amounts of dmg. I know the crits during the mini hits don't count for SW stacking, but if LoH did, wouldn't that be a bit OP?

[Hand Banana]

My monk is halfway through act 3 atm with slightly better gear and the biggest difference im seeing is the damage. Your damage is insanely low for my taste im sitting at 18k unbuffed with a bit less life on hit and it makes fights go so much faster and smoother.

My other issue is the spec, I would drop sweeping wind (I really dont see what all the hype is about that ability really sucks) and grab earth ally. Earth ally gives you a life buff and tanks really well. The big advantage of him is he is so cheap to pop out and provides a great distraction if your in trouble and smart use of him makes it damn near impossible to die in act 2.

My 2 cents..

[Firecrest]

All the early replies in this thread have been especially useless. Seriously. If you don't have something better to say than "you're not going to be able to do Act III" or “just skip it all” don't bother posting at all.

OP. I had the exact same problem as you when transitioning from Act I to Act II. The step up in difficulty there is huge. Good news, they’re fixing it in the upcoming 1.03 patch. Better news, your gear is plenty good enough to do it now anyway.

Your skill choices are just a little off. The first thing you have to realize about going into Act II is that you can no longer take a full complement of offensive talents. My biggest piece of advice is your major attack. Deadly Reach is not good. You really really want to use Crippling Wave (Concussion). This ability glyphed causes monsters to attack 20% slower AND do 20% less damage. This is pretty much the mandatory main attack for Inferno. +50% armor can’t hold a candle to that. You should see an instantaneous change in your survivability once you make this change. This one change may be all you need given your gear.

Beyond that, I would highly suggest taking the Earth Ele. I would replace Blinding Flash or Sweeping Wind (probably Wind). She can easily tank 1-3 elites for a very long time if not indefinitely. And even if she dies, her recast cost is next to nothing. There’s really very few abilities in the game that can do more to reduce the damage you take than basically removing several of the mobs you’re fighting from the equation.

Lastly, consider glyphing Breath of Heaven with (Circle of Life). This helped me in the beginning but was one of the first defensive changes I moved back to offense as I began to gear up. Your gear is at least 25% better than the gear I used for my first Act II clear, so you may find you don’t need to do this.

Your other skills and your passives are perfect. And you have plenty of Life on hit (I did it with just a +300 gem). Change your main attack, add Earth Ele and you should be fine.

---------- Post added 2012-06-13 at 04:02 PM ----------

As far as melee go the big deciding factor is gear. I know you don't want to switch mains but what a lot of Monks I know have considered doing is making a Wizard/DH to farm with and feed their main. At least until the class balance patches. However for the time being lets look at your gear a little bit:

1) Block - this is your single greatest downside right now. 15% is extremely low, you don't mention your block amount but if that's low too then you might as well not have a shield. This is probably the single most important item for tanking so invest well in it and make sure you have high block chance (25% minimum) and high block value.

2) Resist - If you stack both all resist and a secondary resistance on your gear then you could get higher than 718 I'm sure. I know its expansive but there's no way around that, your resist can always use work.

3) % Mitigation - against elites or melee attacks, obviously quite useful to have

There are items that help a lot with pretty much all 3 of these things are, Stormshield, String of Ears, etc. They are expansive but they will last you a long time so if you have the patience than start saving up gold for them. Long story short, improve your gear with time spent farming items and/or gold and you'll make progress.

I disagree with a lot of this. Obviously these suggestions will work, but it's a lot of overkill. I did Act II with ~500 resist and a shield that had a measley 16% block. I spent maybe a grand total of 4 mill on my gear to get to that point.

More to the point, this guy's gear is plenty good enough to be doing Act II. Like I said above, it's at least 25% better than what I used. And I didn't have to spend a lot of time kiting or dying or skipping. I went toe to toe with pretty much everything. Life on Hit keeps you fairly stable, but you have a rotation of Heal, Bubble, Blind and Pot to fall back on if needed. By the time you've gone through all 4 of those, the first one is back up off CD and you're good to go again.

Obviously, you're not going to be able to stand in fire or run dead on at wasps without major gear, but c'mon...

[Hand Banana]

Your skill choices are just a little off. The first thing you have to realize about going into Act II is that you can no longer take a full complement of offensive talents. My biggest piece of advice is your major attack. Deadly Reach is not good. You really really want to use Crippling Wave (Concussion). This ability glyphed causes monsters to attack 20% slower AND do 20% less damage. This is pretty much the mandatory main attack for Inferno. +50% armor can’t hold a candle to that. You should see an instantaneous change in your survivability once you make this change. This one change may be all you need given your gear.

The main advantage of deadly reach is the range, and unless hes planing to skip molten champions hes going to need it. Also, 50% armor is far better than concussion from my expereience since concussion doesnt stack fully with resolve (to my knowledge). Plus he doesnt mention his attack speed but deadly reach is faster hitting than crippling wave and unless hes surrounded generally hits more targets which is money with the life on hit hes rocking. Deadly reach is damn convient for alot of situations, i can remember plenty of times i stood behind my earth ally 25 yards back and hit stuff for life when i was sitting at 15% waiting for cds to come back.

[Firecrest]

The main advantage of deadly reach is the range, and unless hes planing to skip molten champions hes going to need it. Also, 50% armor is far better than concussion from my expereience since concussion doesnt stack fully with resolve (to my knowledge). Plus he doesnt mention his attack speed but deadly reach is faster hitting than crippling wave and unless hes surrounded generally hits more targets which is money with the life on hit hes rocking. Deadly reach is damn convient for alot of situations, i can remember plenty of times i stood behind my earth ally 25 yards back and hit stuff for life when i was sitting at 15% waiting for cds to come back.

Why would you need reach to do molten champions? Even poison pools are small enough that you can attack a mob standing in the middle of them wthout taking damage. Molten is one of the easiest abilities to take care of if you just let them come to you. Ocasionally they will try to surround you, but it's crazy easy to just pull out and let them come to you again. If you go chasing after a molten mob that runs away, you're going to have problems - but who does that?

I've not heard anything about concussion not stacking with resolve. I'll have to look into it. But from my anecodatal experience, it stacks as expected.

[Lilly32]

You need to get to 7th quest in act II inferno. Once you enter the aquaducts you have got yourself a farming spot with easy elite group you can kill over and over and over and over and over. But if you can't get there ... just run butcher over and over and over and over till you get enough money for better gear.

If there is something wrong with your build I don't know ... as barb I finished act II with 10k armor, 50k hp, 10k dps, 900 resists.

Is this where the guy is stuck in a barrel? Im at the part to get Kulle's Blood now. I was told the path leading up to the desert from the port pad has a treasure goblin but have reloaded 20 times and havent seen him and a lot of people said hes there 40-50% of the time but that was a few weeks ago.

[Firecrest]

A whole lot of the farming spots have been nerfed in the past week or so. Honestly, most of the spots people talked about two weeks ago are gone now.

[Hand Banana]

Why would you need reach to do molten champions? Even poison pools are small enough that you can attack a mob standing in the middle of them wthout taking damage. Molten is one of the easiest abilities to take care of if you just let them come to you. oOcasionally they will try to surround you, but it's crazy easy to just pull out and let them come to you again. If you go chasing after a molten mob that runs away, you're going to have problems - but who does that?

Honestly either my latency sucks or diablo is broken because if im within 10 yrds of molten i get recked. Molten is by far the most difficult for my monk to handle since 80% if the time i am getting killed by it even with deadly reach. It looks like im not in it but it still recks me, dunno what it is.

[Deleted]

I disagree with a lot of this. Obviously these suggestions will work, but it's a lot of overkill. I did Act II with ~500 resist and a shield that had a measley 16% block. I spent maybe a grand total of 4 mill on my gear to get to that point.

More to the point, this guy's gear is plenty good enough to be doing Act II. Like I said above, it's at least 25% better than what I used. And I didn't have to spend a lot of time kiting or dying or skipping. I went toe to toe with pretty much everything. Life on Hit keeps you fairly stable, but you have a rotation of Heal, Bubble, Blind and Pot to fall back on if needed. By the time you've gone through all 4 of those, the first one is back up off CD and you're good to go again.

Obviously, you're not going to be able to stand in fire or run dead on at wasps without major gear, but c'mon...

Well I never said the Act 2 is impossible without more gear did I? I said with melee the big deciding factor is gear, which is a true - they are a lot more gear dependent than any ranged. Then I just said what parts of his gear need work. It doesn't mean he HAS to upgrade them but they are the areas to look at for improving. Of course if a change-up in skills works just as well then kudos to that, it'll certainly be a lot more fun.

Did you actually do Act 2 and then farm it with a 5 stack of NV? Because there's not much point in just rushing through it and killing Belial but you said you didn't do that. I just feel like 500 resist and 16% are a bit too low for any comfort in farming Act 2 but maybe I'm wrong. 700 resist is a bit better but i would prefer 800-850, and block % is huge and vastly underrated by a lot of people when building survival.

Of course I have seen videos of melee doing Act 2 and even 3 with <1mil gear so I'm sure with enough skill and patience its doable. Its jut that my experience every time I try melee has been one nasty as hell elite pack after another to the point where I compensate by throwing gear at it until it feels doable.

[Lilly32]

A whole lot of the farming spots have been nerfed in the past week or so. Honestly, most of the spots people talked about two weeks ago are gone now.

awesome. so basically Blizzard rewarded those 1.7% or whatever people in inferno after the first few weeks with easymode farm loot and now punishes everyone else because RMAH is out. Working as intended I guess.

Also my DPS sucks because

A) I dont have 15+ mil for a 1k DPS weapon with high life on hit. With how much Act I gear has plummeted in prices its not worth farming anymore so I probably never will have a decent weapon. I mean spending an hour farming elites just for one yellow out of 15-20 i can sell for 10k is just a waste of time.
B) Im not spending $200 on RMAH

[Samoflange]

Get rid of Sweeping Wind and take both Deadly Reach and Crippling Wave. Now you can alternate both attacks and reap the benefits. With a high enough attack speed, you can have both buffs up pretty quickly and keep them up.