Pre-1.03 I finally discovered that a solid offense was the key to the game - so I adjusted my gear and spec accordingly. You'll see in my spec that I dropped mantra of evasion for overawe MoC (and that's one skill that will NEVER leave my bar again), and picked up the 15% dmg rune in my heal - also non-negotiable. For acts 1-2 I drop Resolve/Transcendence for Combination Strike (8% free damage while attacking).
One other thing that doesn't show on the character sheet is 10% bonus damage to fists of thunder (which is 100% of my damage) on my helmet. So my DPS, with helmet and mantra included, is somewhere in the realm of 52.5k - all that while maintaining >800@res (thanks to OwE), >60%DR from armor, and >35% dodge from dex.
I choose to dual wield (makes beefing up LoH and CDB easy) over 1h+shield or 2h. With a pair of daggers, this gives the best possible spirit generation and APS for LOH. (15% bonus aspd for dual wielding with a pair of daggers and ZERO ias gear yields 1.76aps - FoT's mechanic makes it more than that.
To date I've spent somewhere in the realm of 75m on gear - some of it was bought, though, when prices were much cheaper (and gold more valuable).
Stats I look for: Dex/Vit/all res/single res on most equips - crit chance anywhere it can spawn, and on weps dex+loh+cdb+socket
A4 solo no problem, but the road to doing it was far from easy
Pre-1.03 was rough for people who didn't get in on the early exploits. Good luck fellow munkz.
