I’ve been doing a little bit of paragon leveling with my tempest rush monk. So far, I managed to get him to level 10 (and I haven’t even completed all of Inferno yet!) Mostly, I’m focused on doing Alkaizer runs and have been doing them on Monster Power 1.
I would say that I might end up dropping the Monster Power down to nothing because I find myself dying quite frequently. I believe that the issues are that I do not output enough damage and my life is just too low. It feels as though I should have roughly 30-35k base life to avoid getting one shotted (which is the primary issue) and probably should be doing around 90k damage minimal.
In fact, I’ve done a bit of reading to figure out how I can optimize myself a little better. First, I discovered that the best follower is the templar for the resource (i.e. spirit) regeneration capability. I do not use One With Everything as I tend to favor spirit regeneration passives with Exalted Soul, The Guardian’s Path and Chant of Resonance. That might be hurting me slightly since I’m pretty much too focused on All Resist gear rather than finding a cheaper alternative. With the templar acting as a spirit battery, it might be worth re-examining using Guardian’s Path instead.
Next, I simply need better gear. I’ve been doing some BoA crafting on occasion but haven’t found anything capable of beating my Vile Ward shoulders. After that I have to get better bracers and gloves. Unfortunately, I have a few Increased Attack Speed items, which I’ve read end up hurting your spirit regeneration. My gloves might be easy to replace but I use Lacuni Prowlers, which in reality are probably better for a different spec. I also employ Natalya’s Reflection but I find that the 7% critical hit bonus from the 2-piece bonus worth the penalty.
That all said, I really have mixed feelings about the Tempest Rush monk right now. It can be a really fun build in that you’ll be zooming through areas non-stop (unless you meet a waller or jailer) and just nuke zones really fast. However, the glass cannon aspect is pretty discouraging. The biggest issue with the build is that it’s horribly gear dependent and you sacrifice a lot of stats to bump your spirit regeneration to make the build viable. People say that it’s the fastest paragon leveling spec around, which I can see, as well as a reasonable farming build. However, you can definitely feel all the weaknesses in higher monster powers.
With that in mind, I hope to some day return to my barbarian. I did like the whirlwind build idea but I donated my gear to a friend. Some day, I would like to work on him again to compare that build against the tempest rush monk. I think that the whirlwind barbarian might end up being more durable, but I need to get a few more pieces of gear before being able to give it another go.