Tips, tweaks, advice for acquiring first ToD Rings

[TPICKRELL]

Everyone,

I was reading through a number of posts yesterday, and I realized that while their are tons of posts about new monks and tons of debate about light vs dark and str vs dex and, TWF, and Stunning Fist... Their doesn't seem to be much content available about some of the things I've found to be more difficult.

So, my challenge for this thread is to provide the answers to the questions that a higher level monk should be asking. New questions are welcome... But I'll kick it off with a couple of my own:

Question: The ToD rings are required gear in order to do DPS for a high level monk. But the Amrath quests you need to run in order to get the rings are pretty difficult until you get the rings... So, how should a monk prepare for Amrath quests before they have the ToD rings? What equipment should the have? What build tweaks would help...

Question: A similar line, a well geared level 20 monk needs a ton of bound, named equipment. Similar to the ToD rings from above, a lot of the equipment is hard to obtain without the effects that equipment provides. What items should a high level monk be working for and what order should you grind for items?

Thanks in advance for your questions and answers...