Diablo 3 Monk Leveling Build – Part 2 of 3

In Part 1 of the Diablo 3 Monk Leveling Build Guide, we covered the best skill choices for early leveling up to level 10. Now, in Part 2 we will explore the abilities you should be using between levels 11 and 20.

* UPDATE: Part 2 of this Monk Leveling build is now updated with the latest information from the final release of Diablo III.

Monk Leveling Build: Levels 11-20

In this level range, your monk will gain access to many new skills, both active and passive that greatly increase his offensive and defensive capabilities.

Below are the best monk skills you should be using by the time you reach level 20:

Active Monk Skill – Crippling Wave (Spirit Generator)

Crippling Wave is a frontal AOE attack that does 110% damage to enemies you are facing. Additionally, on every 3rd attack you will hit every enemy around you with a bonus ability that reduces their attack speed by 20% and slows their by movement by 30%. This will last for 5 seconds. In these levels, Crippling Wave will be your main spirit-generating attack in place of Fists of Thunder, so use it often!

Best Skill Rune – Mangle

Mangle increases the damage of Crippling Wave up to 143% weapon damage.

 

Active Monk Skill – Breath of Heaven (Spirit Spender)

Breath of Heaven receives it’s first skill rune at level 14.

Best Skill Rune- Circle of Scorn

The Circle of Scorn skill rune adds a damaging effect to this heal when used on an enemy. In addition to being able to heal yourself and your allies, now Breath of Heaven will cause 80% holy damage to your enemies. This rune improves an already versatile skill.

Active Monk Skill – Exploding Palm (Spirit Spender)

Exploding palm is learned at level 13 and offers quite a bit of firepower for your monk. This attack costs 40 spirit and puts a bleed effect on your target that does 220% damage spread out over the course of 3 seconds. The cool part about this skill is that if the target dies while under the effects of this bleed, they will explode, doing 30% of their max health as an AOE damage to all other enemies in the area.

Best Skill Rune- The Flesh Is Weak

The Flesh Is Weak skill rune add another 12% damage over 3 seconds to the Exploding Palm skill and is the only skill we have to choose from at these levels.

Active Monk Skill – Seven-Sided Strike (Spirit Spender)

Seven-Sided Strike costs 50 spirit, has a cooldown of 30 seconds and is basically just awesome. This skill allows your monk to dash back and forth between your enemies at lightning speed, hitting them for a total of 777% damage over the course of well….7 strikes. Not only is this ability an extremely powerful AOE attack, but it’s also arguably one of the coolest attack animations to watch.

Best Skill Rune - (None available for levels 11-20)

Passive Monk Skill – Transcendence

At level 20, you’ll want to pick up Transcendence.  This is a survivability skill that heals you for 62 Life for every point of Spirit that you spend. Check out this example scenario:

Let’s say that you engage a group of enemies and build up some spirit with your Crippling Wave. Then you unleash a huge Exploding Palm which costs 40 spirit, followed by a Breath of Heaven costing 25 spirit. In addition to doing a massive amount of damage to your enemies, you will be receiving the following heals:

Breath of Heaven: Up to 7442 direct heal

Breath of Heaven: 25 spirit cost x 62 Transcendence bonus  = 1550 indirect heal

Cyclone Strike: 40 spirit cost x 62 Transcendence bonus  = 2480 indirect heal

Total Healing Done: Up to 11,472

That is an enormous amount of healing to simultaneously do while attacking your enemies. Transcendence will really allow you to pull huge groups of enemies without worrying too terribly much about the consequences.

 

 

Wrap Up

That’s about it for Part 2 of the Monk Leveling Build Guide. In Part 3, we will complete your ultimate monk leveling build and get you ready to power level your character towards 60!

 

Looking for a complete Diablo 3 Guide? Visit Inferno Codex for awesome Diablo 3 tips and strategies!

Or check out my full video review and exclusive FREE chapter!

 

 

 

 

Tagged as: monk builds, monk leveling build, monk leveling spec