Diablo III- Skills Article LXXXIX: The Monk, Passive Skills (3 of 5)

Chant of Resonance: Your Mantras now last 7 minutes.  While you have a Mantra active, you generate 2 Spirit every second.

Chant of Resonance is a boon to Spirit-hungry Monks, especially those using Circular Breathing- it boosts the Spirit per second from that to a whopping five, and adding Inner Storm onto that can up the total to eight.  If you favor Spirit-intensive skills like Wave of Light, Inner Sanctuary, and Cyclone Strike, this is a prime pick for a passive skill slot, and even if you don’t you may find it becoming important.  It’s hard to argue with a constant 2 Spirit per second generation- since there’s pretty much no reason you should ever fail to have a Mantra active.  The duration boost is more a matter of convenience than anything else, but it can save you a little worry now and then- while the 50 Spirit to activate a Mantra is fairly big, every 5 minutes makes it a pretty low total cost, and it’s one you can easily recoup in under a quarter of a minute just by going and fighting something.  Extending that to seven minutes just means less keeping track of stuff.

Seize the Initiative: Your Armor is increased by your Dexterity.

Have you ever wished that your Dexterity were Strength, so you could have armor to protect you in addition to a dodge chance?  That’s what this skill is for.  It’s not quite the same as making your Dexterity double as your Strength score- but it’s far closer than you could otherwise expect to get, and tacking your Dexterity onto your Armor will only do massively good things for you.  If you have any worries about the amount of damage you take when fighting, then you want this skill very, very badly and should not leave it out of a slot.  Some Monks won’t need it thanks to their Mantra or other active skills, but even they will like it if they can afford the passive slot.

The Guardian’s Path: If you have two weapons equipped, your Dodge chance is increased by 15%.  If you have a two-handed weapon equipped, you generate 25% more Spirit.

Two skills in one!  As a Monk, you should generally make a choice for yourself between two-weapon and two-handed-weapon fighting.  Two-weapon fighting usually means a faster attack rate, so your skills will fire faster, doing more damage but eating your Spirit more quickly.  The Dodge chance helps here by keeping you protected while you lash out to generate more Spirit to power your most damaging and protective effects, so this skill is invaluable for those who run dry of Spirit on a regular basis.  By the same rote, generating extra Spirit means that a two-handed-weapon Monk, whose skills fire slower but deal more damage per use, will have to spend less time on their slower attacks to generate Spirit, helping with those who run dry of Spirit on a regular basis.  More particular to each weapon type, a Monk who wields two weapons will have a more explosive entrance to combat, where a two-handed weapon Monk will be more stable.  The dodge chance means that a two-weapon monk can draw more attention before collapsing under the dogpile, allowing them to tag things with their burst more safely- while boosting the Spirit gain of the Monk with the big weapon makes absolutely sure they keep going and going and going.