Items
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Head
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Shoulders
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Amulet
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Torso
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Wrists
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Hands
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Waist
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Legs
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Feet
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Rings
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Weapon
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Offhand
Kanai's Cube
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Lion's Claw
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The Crudest Boots
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Ring of Royal Grandeur
Basics
You're going to be using the Inna six piece bonus in order to boost the Uliana 4 piece bonus damage. So basically you just need three pieces of Uliana somewhere (the shoulder is required since Inna does not have a shoulder), and 5 pieces of Inna's. Then RORG will fill in the other two for both.
This is one of the only builds where you will be using Holy as your main damage dealer on monk, so you want to stack that on your gear. Pretty self explanatory.
This is a burst build so you're only going to be attacking once every holy cycle and then spending the rest of the time gathering. You need just enough CDR to hit during every single Holy cycle.
CDR explanation
Technically this means that you don't really need any cdr on your gear. We have 5 elements, and 5*4=20 seconds.
1-(20/30)=33.333%.
With just Beacon and diamond in helm, you'll hit that.
But SSS also takes about 2.33 seconds to execute. So 20-2.33=17.67, and 1-(17.67/30)=0.411. 42% would be ideal. Try to get at least one 8% CDR roll somewhere, and you'll be gold. Gloves or shoulders are ideal, but this can be hard to do... at least while keeping AD/CHC/CHD on the gloves as well. The shoulders pretty much need SSS damage % and AD on them. So you might have to sacrifice AD on either the gloves or one of the rings for CDR until you get a perfect pair of gloves.
Note about AD (Area Damage)
I'm making a section for this since even though I pointed it out in the roll priorities above, it might kind of get pushed under the rug: you want as much AD as humanly possible if you want to push high with this build. Basically, if you've ever played any DH Fan of Knives build, you'll know that you need a lot of AD to make sure each of your bursts counts for as much as possible. This is exactly the same. The more AD you have, and the larger the mob size, the more damage you will do. Exponentially more. STACK THAT AREA DAMAGE WHEREVER YOU CAN.
Bracers
Bracers are a mixed bag. You can take Spirit Guards for more survivability. Binding of the Lesser Gods for more damage and some chance to proc Oculus for yourself. Strongarm bracers give you more damage, but... aren't really a strong choice. There's no real right option here. Play around with what you like. Spirit Guards are suggested because they're the defensive option. Note that if you do run Bindings of the Lesser Gods you will have to make run Ally activation in one of those blank slots up there. The reason I left them blank is that what you choose will depend on what you use.
Gems
The only gem you can swap around is Esoteric. If you're feeling ballsy, you can run Bane of Powerful. You will hit much harder, but you will be much easier to kill. Give it a shot when you are more experienced with the build. You'll notice that even DIABLO3 doesn't run Bane of Powerful. If you CAN run it and stay alive, you will hit 2-3 GR's higher than you would with Esoteric.
Sample D3planner
http://www.d3planner.com/846488039
This is just one possible overall setup, loosely based on DIABLO3's 94 clear setup.
Paragon Priorities
Core
Primary Stat
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Movement Speed
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Vitality
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Maximum Resource
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Offense
Cooldown Reduction
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Critical Hit Chance
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Critical Hit Damage
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Attack Speed
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Defense
Life
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Resist All
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Armor
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Life Regeneration
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Utility
Area Damage
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Life on Hit
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Resource Cost Reduction
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Gold Find
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Paragon priorities are fairly self explanatory. You NEED the CDR from the offense branch so go there first. CHD/CHC again self explanatory. AD is the only useful thing in utility branch. Primary stat is your priority for the core. Remember that gear move speed and paragon move speed combined cap out at 25% so just monitor how much MS your gear gives you immediately and then pad it out with paragon if you feel that you move too slow. Your primary mobility will come from dashing strike, but gear/para move speed does help. Don't bother with maximum resource as it's totally pointless.
Instead of talking further about paragon priorities, I'll use this space to talk about the skills chosen, and lack thereof.
You will notice that I left one skill and one passive at the top blank.
The thing is, this build has a lot of possible variations depending on what you want to strive for. The ones at the top are highly suggested, but even some of them are not necessary.
Current skill explanations
- SSS Fulminating strike is... well... your bread and butter
- Assimilation stacks both stricken and gives you a huge damage boost in density.
- Dashing strike is practically necessary to get out alive.
- Implosion for grouping <-- This is technically replaceable. If you want to bank on having highly aggressive mobs that group themselves, insert something else here.
- Serenity to give you just the right amount of time to stack Assimilation before unloading during holy <--- If you don't like using this one because of your playstyle, feel free to replace it
For the remaining slot (and some of the replaceable skills), there are some possibilities
- If running Bindings instead of Spirit Guards, you need Mystic Ally slotted. Its main use in this build will be proccing oculus for your SSS on holy
- Blinding flash is good both defensively and offensively. You'll notice below that DIABLO3 used it during his 90 clear.
- Agility on Mantra of Salvation is always a solid defensive passive
- Epiphany with Desert Shroud for an extra OSH-- button. You'll notice DIABLO3 runs this in his 95 clear, it's quite helpful for not dying. He only died once during that clear.
- Exploding Palm, cold rune provides some extra damage during your onslaught. Not much, but it's a half decent offensive option. If you use Mystic Ally with a full glass setup, consider slotting it so that you can blow up during cold and maybe have the oculus ring carry over into holy.
Passives
Only two passives are actually required: Mythic Rhythm and Beacon of Ytar. Technically Near Death Experience isn't necessary. Your other two passives can both be:
Defensive
Harmony (if you have a lot of secondary resistances)
Sixth Sense (otherwise)
Near Death Experience (always useful for new players)
Resolve (best in slot against the RG, but otherwise kind of questionable)
or
Offensive
Combination Strike, Determination, Unity, etc. Monk has many offensive passives just see which one fits your playstyle.
DIABLO3 chooses to run Unity and Harmony (Harmony in place of Near Death Experience, though; this is ballsy).
Build Guide
First of all, I want to take this moment to thank DIABLO3#1832 (https://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/DIABLO3-1832/hero/74117124) for taking my build and running it as high as he did, and for providing the gameplay video. Completing 94 is quite a feat and it only took him 3 tries I believe. He's a great player. Note that the 90 video above is actually from 2.4.3. It should be considerably easier to push that now that Inna has a 25% buff.
Also here is a link to the current Battle.net thread discussing this build: https://us.battle.net/forums/en/d3/topic/20753465957?page=3
There's some theory to work out, so feel free to chip in either here or there.
Now then...
As you can see in the gameplay video, the gameplay of this build is demanding, but remarkably simple. In fact it's easier to play than Inna EP. There is no attempting to mark the right target or having to have a boss that spawns adds. Your job is strictly to stay alive until holy cycle while gathering all of the mobs that you can together.
Some steps:
- During fire cycle you go into the middle of the mobs, use cyclone to gather, and then
- start using assimilation to get your damage stacks up.
- Pop serenity whenever you see you're taking a considerable amount of damage (or right at the beginning if you're lazy).
- Afterwards just pop any damage increasing abilities you have (like blinding flash)
- and then unleash your Seven Sided Strike somewhere in the middle of holy cycle.
- Dash right out afterwards and repeat the process.
-- Note: if using Bindings of the Lesser Gods, pop Mystic Ally either during cold cycle or fire cycle and hope that an oculus ring pops up. If it does, center yourself and the mobs on the oculus ring.
It is important that during this process you DO NOT USE YOUR FREAKING CYCLONE STRIKE before unleashing SSS. It's incredibly important that your Mythic Rhythm be up for your SSS.
Do note also that Holy SSS has a very small explosion radius. If you're in the middle of a mob that you cannot get to stay close together... then just skip the mob. You're doing crap for damage on anything that doesn't stay very close together. You need very, very clumped mobs in order to take advantage of all of your AOE and AD. If they don't cooperate, your damage just literally goes flying all over the place because you cannot control SSS.
RG fights are a pretty simple affair, and your steps of engagement don't really change. Just use your generator to stack stricken as best as you can and then unload during holy cycle. If facing bosses with adds, pull them all in before you unleash so that you can not only get more assimilation stacks, but do a lot of extra AOE damage. This build is not fully dependent on adds, but they do help.
Bonus: Oculus ring theory
This is just a theory I have, but I believe that SSS snaps to your starting position as far as oculus is concerned, and that its damage is dynamic. Hence, if you can, try to also engage mobs in very tight places. That way you have a higher probability of spawning an oculus ring under yourself DURING your Seven Sided Strike, as you can see happens with some frequency to DIABLO3 in the video.
That's about it, have fun. As a little closing, I'll put a picture of DIABLO3's 95 clear down here:
You mention Binding of the Lost in your discussion on Bracers but you mean Bindings of the Lesser Gods. Binding of the Lost is the SSS belt.
Otherwise I love the guide. I always knew this was a viable alternative to the standard builds being used, plus how often does a Monk get to deal Holy damage?! Nice work by you and DIABLO3 with taking the idea and running with it.
One other thing, if you're attempting to proc Oculus Circles with Mystic Ally then Enforcer gem is a possible 3rd gem in place of Esoteric. In addition to the damage the allies do when active they also freeze a large area which can help your survivability to get you from Cold to Holy. The Ally activation has the same cooldown as SSS so you should always be able to activate them on Cold cycle which leaves you Physical and Fire to group and gain Assimilation stacks for your two bursts of damage with Allies and SSS.
Thanks for your comments. I integrated most of the changes you suggested here and in the battle net topic. Like you said for some reason I had a brain fart and just totally forgot to slot dashing strike. Generally most people run Blinding Speed, but yes the quicksilver rune is viable. Radiance is totally useless, but we knew that.
Thanks for this build. What's the difference between Lion's Claw and The Flow of Eternity? Haven't got Claw yet, so running with The Flow and EP – Flesh Is Weak for additional damage buff.
Flow of eternity just does less damage and overall is not as effective as Lion's Claw. I've tested both out, and while Flow lets you get off more SSS in general, the problem is that you end up wasting density. So when your holy cycle comes around and you're facing down a boss, you do less damage on your holy cycle because you don't have Lion's Claw AND you probably killed off some of that density off of holy cycle. Overall, just using Lion's Claw and only using SSS on holy cycle was simply much more powerful as a gameplay option. Not that flow is terrible mind you. It's weaker but you can still do 80+ with it fairly easily.
I wonder, if Wildebeest's Gizzard could be a viable replacement for Esoteric Alteration. This build can stack a lot of life regen, so Gizzard's shield would be rather sturdy to act as micro-serenity inside mob and to protect player from accidental ranged hits when gathering between COE cycles. Additionally, Serenity - Ascension lasts exactly 4 seconds, so it will refresh shield. This is pure theorycrafting for now, I'll check this later.
I'm doing something wrong I can't even clear 68 with this to save my life.
Edited. OOOHH i see this is one of those build where if you got like 1500 para everything works... I hate that. You never see videos of people doing these "awesome 95+ builds" with like para 600-800 etc.
Ummm..... I'll respond to this comment with someone else's comment:
Now will you clear 95 with it? Probably not... not unless you're very good and you use BoP and you have great augmented gear. But that's kind of to be expected. Post your profile if you need help figuring out what you have wrong.
Tks for the great build, i really like it. Just 1 question: can I change the set to U6/I4 for the EP damage buff ?
No, if you use U6 I4, the build becomes rather useless. Neither your EP nor your SSS will do anywhere near as much damage because you'll be missing all of the Inna's multiplier. You might as well just run standard U6 without Inna's at all.
tks, so I will keep this I6 U4 setup lol. But rely on only 1 skill to deal damage really annoying as if I miss the holy circle I need to run around and try to stay alive to wait for the next circle @@
That's basically how all CoE-based burst builds work. FoK DH, LoN thorns sader, FB wizard, etc. This is actually one of the more forgiving ones. If FoK DH dies, he basically has to waste 30 seconds getting all of his dagger stacks back.
So, could be a lot worse. Your job's to gather as much as possible and then make it all explode. Pretty simple. Plus Ascension is about the only invulnerability move in the game besides Smokescreen and maybe one or two others. Makes it a lot easier to always get your attack off.
Have you tried running I6/U4 with Madstone instead of the Crudest Boots? I know you lose some damage but you can essentially ditch Fulminating for better 7SS rune and spam more with Flow. I'm guessing the goal would be to kite a few damaged EP minions with you similar to U6ers and hit 7SS. You still get the CoE cycle + with enough CDR you basically get 1 7SS every 4 seconds or so.
Looks like benny did a 98 with this on seasons. That's amazing... much higher than I ever expected anyone to take this.