So, ding! I hit level 60 earlier this week. This build is what I ended up running with through the majority of Hell difficulty (and this is the build that I am running with currently). Originally, I had specialized as a full tank for the first half of Nightmare, focusing mostly on dodge and mitigation in terms of talents and gear. It was a great build for grouping since the folks that I run with are squishy caster types, but not so much for soloing given how long it took me to kill anything (to be honest though, my crapass weapon was most likely the actual problem).
Basically what I would do was: Repeatedly pull huge groups of enemies onto me with Cyclone Strike so that we could freeze them and AoE them down. The mobs in Nightmare didn’t hit hard enough to matter. This build wasn’t entirely viable once mobs did start hitting hard enough to matter, thus one of the reasons why I swapped over to a more kiting/ranged style of play. One of the problems with tanking in Diablo 3 is that I feel like I am trying to pet someone’s cat: Everything just seems to wander off and attack whoever. The Earth Ally helps quite a bit though, when it’s not running off triggering Treasure Goblins.
I ended up using Wave of Light over Lashing Tail Kick for most of hell difficulty because I was convinced that the range was a bit larger and that the knock back worked more consistently. In reality, I am pretty sure that I just liked the sound that the bell made when you activated it. To be honest, I am not finding either skill particularly useful in inferno and have replaced with with Blinding Flash for the AoE stun, which has been invaluable.
I was having some trouble earlier on with being severely spirit starved while kiting mobs. I ended up finding a pretty decent helm and main hand weapon with enough regen to allow me to drop Chant of Resonance in favor of One with Everything. If I recall correctly, I have about 3.2 spirit/second at the moment, which isn’t all that much but it is just enough to allow me to pop abilities as they come off of cooldown if I am running about.
There seem to be a few skills that everyone takes eventually: Binding Flash, One With Everything, and Serenity. But other than that, I haven’t seen any one master build being used extensively by the majority of the Monk playerbase, ala every WoW class. People mostly, seem to spec into abilities as it suits their play style (ranged, AoE, whatever), which I like quite a bit. Well, that and it depends on your gear mostly anyway.
So regarding inferno: Bought/found new gear, increased my DPS to roughly, 21k unbuffed and 24k buffed, and smashed through the first act without any real difficulty. The second act on the other hand sure is a jump up in difficulty. Jesus. If you are having trouble with the normal mobs at the beginning of the act, you are going to have a bad time. I need…way way more damage mitigation and health.