Diablo III- Skills Article LXXXVIII: The Monk, Passive Skills (2 of 5)

Exalted Soul: Your maximum Spirit increases by 100.

Spirit is your resource.  Your water, your power, your engine.  Surprisingly, there are a number of possible builds that don’t need a skill like this.  If you have Fists of Thunder, particularly if you also have Inner Storm and Circular Breathing, you may find yourself generating Spirit so quickly you don’t care whether the maximum size of your Spirit pool is larger or not.  Most notably, increasing your maximum Spirit really only improves your initial entry to battle- improving the maximum size of your Spirit pool doesn’t increase how quickly you generate each point of Spirit, unlike some other pools (notably Hatred and Mana).  Since Monks are focused on a more tactical and thoughtful playstyle than ‘I do more damage immediately’, having a load of extra Spirit to dump at the start of combat is often not all that useful.  Not that this is a bad skill by any means- but there are things you’re likely to want more.  Generally speaking, this rates your third slot if you have no particular needs- don’t expect it to be terribly important to you.

Transcendence: Every point of Spirit heals you by an amount of Life based on your level (62 Life at level 60).

Transcendence is an amazing skill- provided you generate and spend Spirit quickly enough.  As much a defensive skill as a healing skill, it basically turns every Skill you can put at your fingertips into a way of generating Life.  Monks who generate Spirit quickly enough to be constantly spending it will love this skill absolutely to death, as it can keep a steady stream of Life that can even keep you from needing healing from any other source at all.  The real difficulty is setting your Monk up to constantly generate and spend spirit.  While most Monks will be constantly active, a good portion will be using their Primary Skill more than anything else, and it can get to the point where a Monk spends large periods of time at full Spirit, not spending anything on skills.  Before picking Transcendence, watch your Spirit pool for a long period of time.  If you find that you don’t use your Spirit points on a very consistent basis, then Transcendence won’t be consistent for you either and you shouldn’t take it as a first-pick Passive Skill.  You should still take it if there’s nothing else you particularly want for your third passive slot, but you won’t be able to rely entirely on Transcendence to keep you on your feet in that case.  If you can rely on Transcendence, though, whether you’re firing off a Cyclone Strike every few seconds or dumping Spirit constantly into Tempest Rush, it will save you the trouble of using potions and possibly even Breath of Heaven despite how often you are likely to get hit from being in melee combat with everything.  One of the most impressively useful skills available to the Monk in their passive slots.