
Introduction
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With Season 24, Inna's Mantra Set received a rework which removed the generic damage bonus from the (6) Bonus and instead made it into an entirely Mystic Ally focused set. As a result, all the old Inna builds ceased to exist. While Wave of Light, Tempest Rush and Exploding Palm builds can still be played using other Monk sets, the hybrid Inna/Uliana Seven-Sided Strike build is gone forever because other sets cannot be combined with Uliana's Stratagem (4) Bonus.
It's not all bad news though. Empowered by the reworked Inna's Mantra and buffed The Crudest boots and Bindings of the Lesser Gods, the Inna Mystic Ally build enters the scene. The build comes in two flavors: Water Ally with large AoE and steady DPS, which is used for speed content, and slow but extremely powerful Earth Ally, which is ideal for Greater Rift pushing. After the nerf in Season 26 patch, Fire Ally briefly fell out of favor, but it was buffed again in Season 27 and it's now roughly equal to Water in speedfarming and to Earth in pushing!
Unlike most other skills, Mystic Ally doesn't have any dedicated Weapons so some of the pushing builds use Shenlong's Spirit Set for its 350% global damage multiplier.
While the build works with Area Damage (AD), Mystic Ally unfortunately procs it at a reduced rate which makes it meaningless. However as they are Pets, Mystic Allies do utilize Attack Speed as a separate damage multiplier among other interactions (see Mechanics). All in all this is a fun and versatile build that excels at any kind of T16 content, although it loses to LoD Wave of Light when it comes to Greater Rifts.
Quite Tanky ✔
Strong Season Starter ✔
Amazing for Speed Content ✔
Endless Tide of Water Allies ✔
❌ Flying Dragon RNG
❌ Dumb Mystic Ally AI
❌ Area Damage Not Working
❌ Vulnerable to Crowd Control
Core Setup
Items
- Inna's Mantra provides a massive 9,000% Mystic Ally damage, 50% damage reduction and a bunch of passive effects from Mantras and Mystic Allies, most importantly +80% Life, +40% All Resistance and +56% additive damage.
- The Crudest Boots double the number of your Mystic Allies and triple their damage on top of letting their active effects last longer.
- Bindings of the Lesser Gods provide another 200% increased Mystic Ally damage (or 600% for Fire Ally).
- Other than the set and two Mystic Ally items nothing is really core for the build. Echoing Fury and Flying Dragon are frequently used for extra Attack Speed. Lefebvre's Soliloquy is a popular defensive option. Either Bastions of Will or Endless Walk jewelry set is included for their damage buffs.
Season 28 Altar of Rites
Season 28 brings a brand new progression feature called the Altar of Rites that grants tremendous powers to your entire account in exchange for sacrifices. It requires you to farm Bounties, kill the Ubers, craft the Staff of Herding, and more. Completing all 26 of these tasks, along with sacrificing 6 Primal Ancients grants you unbelievable Damage, Defense, Quality of Life, Increased Drops, 3 Potion Super Powers, and the juicy Wings of Terror. Read the full guides on Unlocking the Altar and the Altar Mechanics by Raxxanterax and Chewingnom to learn everything about this fantastic Season!
Note: The suggested path assumes you are playing Solo and used the Challenge Rift Cache to help you level up.
Optimal Path
Node 2: Choose Anointed to gain a full set of 70 yellows from level 18-70!
Node 6: Rush to gain double Bounties to help unlock other Nodes in the Altar.
Nodes 7-14: These are the last Nodes you can gain until the Challenge Rift resets. Take at least 1 Node at the bottom of each path to unlock all 3 Potion Super Powers. Pick up the Mirror Node at the top for a colossal 41% extra XP all season. Remember to unlock Father once you clear GR70 solo and have your first Primal!
Nodes 15-26: Pick up the final Quality of Life, Damage, and Defense Nodes (in that order) to finish the Altar.
Potion Super Powers: Take Father first, then Mother, and finally Mortal.
Disclaimer: The Mortal and Mother Potions require you to salvage 2 and 3 Primals respectively. Unlock them as soon as you have those materials as they don't cost a point!
Use the Scroll Bar to see Altar Progression
Global Stat Priorities
In push builds only 33% Cooldown Reduction is necessary to cast Mystic Ally on every Convention of Elements cycle. You get that with just the Beacon of Ytar passive and a Flawless Royal Diamond in the helmet. Speed builds prefer to have more CDR (especially Fire Ally builds). Aim to get All Resistance on your Belt, Pants and Boots. Our offensive priorities are: Elemental Damage > Mystic Ally Damage > Critical Hit Chance > Critical Hit Damage ~ Damage Range > Attack Speed. We don't stack Area Damage because Mystic Ally procs it at a reduced rate.
Assembling the Build
1. Do the Challenge Rift for the materials to cube Legendary Powers. You can complete this once a week for additional resources and we always update the guide for you!
2. Gather 6 pieces of Inna's Mantra set. Each piece can be gambled from Kadala for Bloodshards. Do not salvage any duplicate pieces you find! Instead convert them to another part of the set with Recipe 4 in Kanai's Cube. If you have extra materials you can use Recipe 3 to craft the remaining pieces, but this is expensive and not recommended for new players.
3. Gamble from Kadala in this order:
- Inna's Mantra set pieces
- The Crudest Boots
- Bindings of the Lesser Gods and Nemesis Bracers
- Goldwrap
- Lefebvre's Soliloquy
4. Craft using Recipe 3 in Kanai's Cube in this order:
- Create a level 1 Demon Hunter and upgrade 1-Handed Swords to get In-Geom
- Create a level 1 Witch Doctor and upgrade 1-Handed Maces to get Echoing Fury
- 2-Handed Axes to get Messerschmidt's Reaver
- Rings to get Focus, Restraint and Convention of Elements
- Anything from the Gamble list in Step 3 that you haven't already acquired.
5. Do Bounties to acquire several important items for this build:
- Act 1: Ring of Royal Grandeur
- Act 2: Gloves of Worship (for your follower)
- Act 3: Avarice Band
- Act 4: Can drop any bounty item from any act
- Bounty Turn In: Recipes for Aughild's Authority, Captain Crimson's Trimmings, Sage's Journey and Cain's Destiny sets
6. At this point you can comfortably farm Nephalem Rifts or low GRs where you can find all the remaining items you need for different variants of the build. It's better to spend your mats improving your set pieces, getting ancient weapons etc.
7. Use Primordial Ashes in Kanai's Cube with the new Curiosity of Lorath Nahr recipe to obtain a free Crafted Primal Ancient. Since you can only equip one of them, choosing the right item to focus matters! Great candidates are Weapons, Offhands, Jewelry or any item with an important multiplier. With that in mind, we recommend getting one of the following items:
- Shenlong's Fist of Legend or Shenlong's Relentless Assault
- Inna's Reach
- Squirt's Necklace
Item Stat Priorities
SLOT | ITEM | STAT PRIORITY |
Main-Hand | In-geom Shenlong's Relentless Assault Inna's Reach Flying Dragon (Cubed) Messerschmidt's Reaver (Cubed) | 1. Damage Range 2. Socket Ramaladni's Gift 3. Damage % 4. Attack Speed 5. Life per Hit 6. Cooldown Reduction |
Off-Hand | Echoing Fury Shenlong's Fist of Legend | 1. Damage Range 2. Socket Ramaladni's Gift 3. Damage % 4. Attack Speed 5. Life per Hit 6. Cooldown Reduction |
Helm | Inna's Radiance | 1. Critical Hit Chance 2. Socket Flawless Royal Diamond 3. Dexterity 4. Vitality |
Gloves | Inna's Hold Fists of Thunder Frostburn | 1. Critical Hit Chance 2. Critical Hit Damage 3. Attack Speed 4. Cooldown Reduction |
Shoulders | Aughild's Power Lefebvre's Soliloquy Mantle of the Upside-Down Sinners Mantle of Channeling | 1. Mystic Ally Damage 2. Cooldown Reduction 3. Dexterity 4. All Resistance |
Chest | Inna's Vast Expanse Heart of the Crashing Wave | 1. Sockets Flawless Royal Diamond 2. Mystic Ally Damage 3. Dexterity 4. Elite Damage Reduction 5. Vitality |
Pants | Inna's Temperance Scales of the Dancing Serpent Captain Crimson's Thrust | 1. Dexterity 2. Sockets Flawless Royal Diamond 3. All Resistance 4. Vitality |
Boots | Inna's Sandals The Crudest Boots Eight Demon Boots Captain Crimson's Waders | 1. Dexterity 2. All Resistance 3. Vitality 4. Armor |
Ring 1 | Convention of Elements Avarice Band (A3 Bounties) Focus | 1. Socket 2. Critical Hit Chance 3. Damage Range 4. Critical Hit Damage 5. Cooldown Reduction |
Ring 2 | Obsidian Ring of The Zodiac Restraint The Compass Rose Ring of Royal Grandeur (A1 Bounties, Cubed) | 1. Socket 2. Critical Hit Chance 3. Damage Range 4. Critical Hit Damage 5. Cooldown Reduction |
Bracers | Bindings of the Lesser Gods Aughild's Search Spirit Guards Nemesis Bracers Warzechian Armguards | 1. Elemental Damage 2. Critical Hit Chance 3. Dexterity 4. Life per Hit |
Amulet | The Traveler's Pledge Squirt's Necklace | 1. Socket 2. Elemental Damage 3. Critical Hit Damage 4. Critical Hit Chance |
Belt | Inna's Favor Captain Crimson's Silk Girdle Goldwrap | 1. All Resistance 2. Dexterity 3. Vitality 4. Life % |
Potion | Bottomless Potion of the Unfettered | To avoid Crowd Control effects during your DPS phases |
Gems
- Enforcer provides 60% pet damage which works with Mystic Ally.
- Bane of the Trapped provides 60% increased damage to slowed enemies.
- Boon of the Hoarder makes monsters spray gold everywhere for our Goldwrap and 30% increased movement speed for T16 content.
- Bane of the Stricken gives up to 2.3% increased damage on successive attacks against the same target. We'll need this gem to kill the Rift Guardian in high Greater Rifts.
- Molten Wildebeest's Gizzard is used in speed GRs to protect our Squirt's Necklace buff with a shield.
Skills
- Mystic Ally is our main damage skill. Earth Ally is the highest damage rune used for solo push and RGK version, while Water Ally provides more consistent damage which is excellent for speedfarming.
- Cyclone Strike Implosion is used to group enemies together and to activate Bindings of the Lesser Gods and Lefebvre's Soliloquy bonuses.
- Way of the Hundred Fists Assimilation is the most commonly used generator which gives us Spirit and an additive damage buff.
- Dashing Strike is the core mobility Monk skill that can also provide offensive or defensive bonuses via the Radiance and Blinding Speed runes.
- The two remaining skill slots are free, different variants of the build use different skills there such as Epiphany, Serenity Ascension, Blinding Flash Faith in the Light, Inner Sanctuary Temple of Protection and various Mantras.
Passives
- Beacon of Ytar gives 20% Cooldown Reduction.
- Seize the Initiative gives 30% Attack Speed when hitting enemies above 75% health.
- Relentless Assault provides 20% multiplicative damage which is activated by Water Ally or Blinding Flash.
- Near Death Experience provides a cheat death effect.
- The Guardian's Path gives us 35% dodge (or 15% Spirit generation in Bounty variant).
- Other useful defensive passives are Harmony, Sixth Sense and Resolve. Offensive options are comparatively weaker only providing 20% additive damage but if the defense is not needed they can also be used: Unity > Momentum > Determination.
Paragon Points
Core | Offensive | Defensive | Utility |
1. Movement Speed | 1. Critical Hit Chance | 1. All Resistance | 1. Life per Hit |
3. Dexterity | 2. Critical Hit Damage | 2. Life % | 2. Resource Cost Reduction |
3. Vitality1 | 3. Attack Speed | 3. Armor | 3. Pickup Radius |
4. Cooldown Reduction | 4. Life Regeneration | 4. Area Damage |
1 Add a bit of Vitality if you feel too squishy (a total of 1,000,000 Life is recommended in Solo Push).
Follower
Patch 2.7.0 revamped the follower system giving all 3 hirelings new powers and the emanate system. The first thing you should do is read our complete follower guide and remember the key takeaways:
- The emanation system allows followers to share certain legendary and set powers with you. The most important ones are: The Flavor of Time, Nemesis Bracers, Avarice Band, Sage’s Journey and Cain’s Destiny. Click the guide above for the full list.
- Follower’s powers are based on their main stat (maxed at 25,000, but they have a 2.5x multiplier so you only need 10,000). This means we stack Intelligence on the Enchantress, Dexterity on the Scoundrel and Strength on the Templar.
- Guardian's Jeopardy (3) Bonus works for followers by improving their inherent stat multiplier from x2.5 to x3.5, making it slightly easier to hit the 25,000 main stat threshold if needed.
- Followers share 20% of their Experience, Magic and Gold Find stats with you.
- Legendary gems do not work on followers, except Esoteric Alteration and Mutilation Guard.
- With Enforcer equipped on the player, it is much easier to keep followers alive without immortality relic since the 90% damage reduction works on them.
- Cooldown Reduction does not work for any follower skill except the Templar’s Heal.
- Followers never deal significant damage; you’re on your own to clear the content.
Select Follower
T16 Enchantress
All Skills Enchantress
GR Pushing Scoundrel
GR Pushing Scoundrel
For T16 we recommend this Enchantress setup because she is the only follower that gives Cooldown Reduction, allowing you to spam your abilities more. Since this is T16 content, she’ll stay alive with Esoteric Alteration and Mutilation Guard and use Hand of the Prophet to gain all skills. This will give us Cooldown Reduction, Elemental Damage, Reduced Damage from Ranged Attacks, Armor, Attack Speed, and a Cheat Death.
Stat Priorities:Since we do not have the immortality focus, we need to stack survivability on our Enchantress.
Intelligence > Vitality > Life % > Armor > All Resistance > Life Per Hit > Attack Speed.
Key Items:
- The Flavor of Time: For double duration on Pylons.
- Nemesis Bracers: For extra Elites, Death’s Breaths and In-geom procs.
- Avarice Band: For the insane pickup radius.
- Ring of Royal Grandeur: To complete our sets.
- Gloves of Worship: For 10 Minute Shrine Buffs.
- Sage’s Journey: For double Death’s Breaths.
- Cain’s Destiny: For 25% more Greater Rift Keystones.
Gameplay
The overall gameplay for this build is very simple: you use Dashing Strike to teleport forward, cast Cyclone Strike to gather all the mobs together and apply Bindings of the Lesser Gods debuff to them, and finally use Mystic Ally to kill them all. There's just a few things to look out for:
- It's best to sit still for 1-2 seconds after activating Fire Ally to let them explode properly. Teleporting around may confuse their AI.
- In variants with Messerschmidt's Reaver or Obsidian Ring of the Zodiac don't cast your Epiphany more than necessary to avoid wasting procs.
- Always keep attacking and using skills to maximize Flying Dragon uptime. You don't have to hit enemies to activate that effect, so punching air can be a good strategy (for example when the Rift Guardian is spawning).
- On the same note, punching air or Cyclone Striking air can also be necessary to keep up your Spirit Guards and Lefebvre's Soliloquy buffs.
Hardcore
The build can be very tanky and is an excellent choice for hardcore. Use Near Death Experience instead of Relentless Assault or The Guardian's Path. You also have many different ways to boost your toughness by using some defensive active and passive skills (e.g. Harmony and Mantra of Salvation Agility instead of Relentless Assault and Blinding Flash). Check out our dedicated Hardcore Survival Guide to learn more about how to succeed in this game mode!
Variants
Concept
This is one of the best Nephalem Rift builds in the game. We drop Bindings of the Lesser Gods because Bastions of Will and Squirt's Necklace will be more than enough to satisfy all our damage needs. Instead we focus on Cooldown Reduction, Attack Speed and Movement Speed to maximize our mobility. For that we use In-Geom, Messerschmidt's Reaver, Warzechian Armguards and Mantra of Conviction Annihilation. Finally, Goldwrap together with Boon of the Hoarder give us infinite toughness, which is not really needed for this build but it's always a nice thing to have.
Gameplay
In T16 you just have to fly forward using Dashing Strike and Epiphany teleports with Cyclone Strike and watch your tide of mystic allies destroy everything in your path. You can be less conservative with your Water Ally and use it whenever to get more Spirit since its cooldown is very short. Way of the Hundred Fists is only used to crack open elite Primordial Scavengers who can completely ignore Water Ally damage when their armor is up.
Setups
When playing in groups, you need to equip Nemesis Bracers and use Avarice Band and Ring of Royal Grandeur instead of Bastions of Will. This will free up your jewelry slot in Kanai's Cube letting you use both Squirt's Necklace and The Flavor of Time.
At higher paragon when your damage gets too high you can replace Bane of the Trapped and Enforcer with Wreath of Lightning and Gogok of Swiftness.
Concept
The bounty variant combines the Inna's Mantra with the Raiment of a Thousand Storms (4) Bonus, which lets us spam Dashing Strike without cooldown as long as we have enough Spirit. Since mobility is very important in bounties we put some more rolls into Resource Cost Reduction and use The Guardian's Path passive. We also pick up as much Attack Speed as possible to make the Dashing Strike animation shorter.
Gameplay
Spam Dashing Strike to get to the objective. Try to go through mobs to proc Messerschmidt's Reaver. Activate Mystic Ally when your Spirit goes low. Take care to never run out of Dashing Strike charges otherwise you'll have to wait the entire cooldown even if you have plenty of Spirit.
You only need Bindings of the Lesser Gods damage bonus to kill the bosses; outside of that it's sometimes helpful to use Cyclone Strike to group up mobs, but most of the time you should conserve Spirit.
Setups
If you don't have enough damage you have to go back to Nephalem Rift build, it will be a bit slower due to In-Geom dependency but it's still better than almost every other build in the game!
Select Build Version
Water with In-Geom
Water max damage
Fire In-Geom
Fire Shenlong
Concept
In this version we use Inna's Reach with its 120% Mystic Ally damage bonus and put In-Geom into the cube to fly through the rift with Dashing Strike. Since we now have more Inna pieces then needed we replace the gloves with Frostburn for additional 20% Cold damage.
Gameplay
Spam Epiphany, Mystic Ally and Serenity, Dashing Strike forward, Cyclone Strike the enemies and watch your Mystic Allies destroy them. When you are not busy dashing or cycloning, use Way of the Hundred Fists to activate Bastions of Will buff.
With In-geom you want to focus mostly on elites, but since you have Cyclone Strike and excellent AoE damage it's also worth stopping for juicy packs of trash.
Setups
Depending on how you feel about your toughness you can swap some runes and passives around to get more damage or survivability. For offense, use Radiance, Relentless Assault or Unity. For defense - Blinding Speed, Harmony or Near Death Experience.
If you want to do very fast runs in low tiers just to get as much loot as possible, lose Inna's Reach and Frostburn to equip In-Geom and Echoing Fury and put Flying Dragon in the cube. This setup deals less damage (especially against the boss) but with higher Attack Speed all your animations become a bit faster.
Select Build Version
Fire Ally Zodiac
Fire Ally
Fire Ally Squirts
Earth Ally Squirts
Concept
In Season 28 we get lots of Spirit from Vigor and Empowered Shrine which lets us use Tempest Rush with Obsidian Ring of the Zodiac to spam Fire Ally while maintaining Shenlong's Spirit buff at the same time.
This build stays functional even if you don't proc Empowered Shrine but without it you will be missing tons of damage and survivability.
Gameplay
Instead of doing a rotation, with this build you are constantly dealing damage. Hold down Tempest Rush and periodically interrupt it with Way of the Hundred Fists to generate Spirit and to keep up the Assimilation buff. Cast Mystic Ally whenever it's ready and look at your Shenlong's Spirit buff. If you see that it's not active, let go of Tempest Rush and use the generator until your Spirit is full. Only recast Epiphany when it expires.
Once you proc Empowered Shrine you no longer have to worry about Spirit and you can spam Serenity as much as you want. Don't cast Mystic Ally more than once every 2 seconds because they need some time to explode.
Setups
If you are lacking survivability, use Lefebvre's Soliloquy instead of Mantle of Channeling. Another option is dropping Tempest Rush for Mantra of Salvation Agility. In that case you'd use Cyclone Strike Eye of the Storm to proc Obsidian Ring of the Zodiac.
At high Paragon (4,000+) levels you can drop Near Death Experience and/or The Guardian's Path for Unity and Momentum.
Concept
This build is an excellent Rift Guardian Killer (RGK). Similar to solo push build we use Endless Walk, Shenlong's Spirit and Convention of Elements. On top of that we get Aughild's Authority for even more damage. Since supports give us a lot of toughness, we drop Inner Sanctuary to get Breath of Heaven Infused with Light. Finally we use Alacrity passive to stack Bane of the Stricken faster.
Gameplay
The damage rotation on the boss is very simple: you hold down the generator, use Cyclone Strike every 5 seconds and use all the other skills on cooldown. When your Physical Convention of Elements comes up your zBarb should stun the boss to activate Relentless Assault.
In the rift you mostly do nothing because activating Mystic Ally will make all the mobs CC-immune. You can sometimes do some damage to elites when nothing else is left in the pull and you're about to move forward.
Setups
Serenity is not super important for this build so if you're not in danger you can replace it with a skill that's useful for your party such as Mantra of Salvation Agility, Inner Sanctuary or even Mantra of Retribution Transgression. You can also drop Beacon of Ytar for Unity or Resolve if you want more damage or toughness and are willing to deal with long cooldowns.
Concept
This build is for clearing Echoing Nightmares, it can't go very high but it will get you your 125 augments no problem. We use Water Ally build very similar to Speed GR version. We just drop Relentless Assault for Near Death Experience and change Cyclone Strike rune to Eye of the Storm.
Gameplay
Click Speed Pylon as soon as the challenge starts and all the other Pylons at around wave 90. At wave 122 you can stop attacking and run to the corner to let the timer run out.
Spam Serenity as much as possible and dodge Green Meteors after wave 100.
Video Guide
Mechanics
Mystic Ally
- Uses your own Attack Speed as a separate damage multiplier for both basic attack damage and active ability damage.
- Basic Attack rate is based on player Attack Speed and can be increased by Tasker and Theo.
- Mystic Ally damage on gear acts as a separate damage multiplier.
Flying Dragon
- 4% chance to proc on any action, including hitting air or even talking to an NPC.
- Double Attack Speed buff lasts for 7 seconds.
- Upon activation the item goes on 5 second Internal Cooldown, meaning there's a 2 second window when it can be reprocced. With 5 APS and Alacrity passive you have roughly 44% chance to reproc it by attacking with a Generator.
Inna's Mantra
- (4) and (6) Bonuses give you passive effects of all Mantras and all Mystic Allies, which are doubled by the (2) Bonus and the Mystic Ally buffs are further doubled by The Crudest Boots. In total you get:
- 56% additive damage (40% buff from Fire Ally and 16% debuff from Mantra of Conviction)
- 40% All Resistance from Mantra of Salvation
- 80% Life from Earth Ally
- 63368(+42% of your LPS) Life per Second from Mantra of Healing and Enduring Ally
- 16 Spirit per Second from Air Ally
- (6) Bonus provides a 900% Mystic Ally damage per each active Mystic Ally.
- Damage bonus stacks additively with itself for a total multiplier of 91x at 10 Allies.
- Extra Allies are summoned per attack per enemy (or object) hit.
- Extra Allies are summoned in their passive form.
- Extra Allies don't provide their passive bonuses.
- Activating Mystic Ally will give you 100 Spirit even if Air Ally rune is not selected, but it will not increase Mystic Ally damage even if no rune is selected.
The Crudest Boots
- The extra ally also provides their passive effect, doubling its magnitude.
- The passive effects granted by Inna's Mantra (6) Bonus are doubled in the same way.
- Also doubles the number of allies you summon with Inna's Mantra (6) Bonus. Effectively, that means you need to hit 4 enemies one time or one enemy 4 times to summon the maximum number of Allies.
- Increases the duration of Water Ally, Earth Ally and unruned Mystic Ally active effects to 30 seconds.
Frostburn
- The bonus Cold Damage applies twice for most Cold pet skills including Mystic Ally Water Ally.
- This lets you get up to 40% Cold Damage from the item making it superior to seemingly equivalent replacements (Blackthorne's Jousting Mail, Andariel's Visage).
Summary
- Put together the core items and acquire the full Inna's Mantra set.
- Stack a bunch of Attack Speed and never stop attacking to proc Flying Dragon.
- With Water Ally only use the active to get rid of blue men.
- With Fire Ally don't pull too many mobs!
Credits
Written by Northwar.
Reviewed by wudijo.
Changelog
Updated for Season 28 / Patch 2.7.5.
Added Obsidian Ring of the Zodiac Push version
Updated for Season 27 / Patch 2.7.4.
Added Fire Ally Push versions
Removed Water Ally Push versions