D3 Marathon - Day 13

There isn't much to say about day 13. I was gone most of the day and only got about 3 hours of play, spent exclusively on farming Acts 2 and 3 in Hell with my Monk. I make about 100K an hour doing that, during which the 5 stacks of Nephalem Valor also built up quickly.

I didn't find a single upgrade for the Monk, though I did get a couple of rare drops for my other classes. On the other hand I spent about 200K on the Auction House for some incremental upgrades that I thought were "cheap" but they barely raised my DPS from 10K to 10.8K. At least my Monk looks better now without that ridiculous helmet he was wearing previously.

It has become clear to me that the only way I'm going to get 15-20K DPS is to buy a much better weapon. My current sword gives 500+ DPS along with some Dexterity. I would need at least a 800+ DPS weapon in order to progress. The problem is that those weapons are very expensive, usually upwards of 1 million gold. I pretty much have 2 options right now: spend most of my gold on getting a better weapon or continue to grind Hell in the hopes of getting better drops and more gold.

I'm reluctant to spend so much money though because it might still be worth something when the RMAH finally decides to show up. But this is a catch-22. Don't spend gold - can't progress. Spend all the gold - be broke but progress and perhaps make some of it back before the RMAH is released. What to do?

My plan is to keep an eye out on the AH for some good deals on a better weapon. While in the past I've been able to snag some really sweet gear for very low prices, all of a sudden, from level 59 and up, a wall has been erected and the bar has been set a lot higher for those items. Up until then, I considered a good deal anything south of 50K. Now, I'll be very happy to find a 800+ DPS weapon for less than 500K.

Build and skills
My build has changed a little bit now that I'm farming Hell.
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/monk#UZXgQT!YZX!cZZaaa
I've replaced Mystic Ally (because he kept dying at higher levels and I was tired of wasting Spirit refreshing him) with Seven-Sided Strike runed with Sudden Assault. This is my "emergency" nuke and helps me a lot especially for champions and rare bosses. Besides, the cooldown is low enough that I can use it often, including on annoying monsters who like to run away.

Barbarian
I have also put in a few hours over the past couple of days on my Barbarian who's level 30 and has just finished Normal difficulty. Because he does 700 DPS at this level, everything is a piece of cake for him. Why so much? Because he has some of the best items courtesy of his big brothers the Demon Hunter and the Monk. He does have some issues with survivability, though he hasn't died once in all his 30 levels. I can tell, though, that he will never be my main.

Next, I'll be continuing to attempt to gear the Monk for Inferno Act 1. Will I succeed? It remains to be seen.

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