Inna Mystic Ally Monk Guide

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.

Concept
In this version we lose In-Geom to get Flying Dragon which doubles Mystic Ally damage when active. To stay somewhat mobile even without In-Geom, we use Captain Crimson's Trimmings for extra CDR. In total this version can go about 3-4 tiers higher but the runs are 30-45 seconds slower.

Gameplay
Spam Epiphany and Mystic Ally, 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 and maintain Flying Dragon buff.

Without In-Geom your Serenity has a fairly long cooldown so it's better to save it for elite packs instead of constantly spamming it.

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, The Guardian's Path or Near Death Experience.

Use Molten Wildebeest's Gizzard instead of Bane of the Powerful if you're losing Squirt's Necklace buff too often.

Concept
Compared to Water Ally, Fire is a bit stronger but a lot more difficult to play.

In this version we go for maximum DPS provided by Shenlong's Spirit set and use only Messerschmidt's Reaver to reset our cooldowns. We stack as much CDR as possible (at least 65%) to minimize possible downtimes. Avoid Maximum Spirit stat, as it makes it harder to manage Shenlong's Spirit buff. The runs should be around 2.5-3.5 minutes long.

Gameplay
Here we want every activation of Mystic Ally to kill a lot of enemies, so we need to make sure that we always have all the buffs up. First find a target - an elite pack or a large group of trash. Pull them together with Cyclone Strike and then look at your Shenlong's Spirit buff and at your Spirit. If you have the buff active or you have 25% or more Spirit, activate Mystic Ally. If your Spirit is too low, use Way of the Hundred Fists for 1-2 seconds (depending on your maximum Spirit) and then activate.

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, Unity or Momentum. For defense - Blinding Speed, The Guardian's Path or Near Death Experience. At low Paragon you can go for an extreme toughness setup by using Spirit Guards and Lefebvre's Soliloquy instead of Aughild's Authority.

If you prefer elite hunting playstyle, use In-Geom instead of Messerschmidt's Reaver in the cube. This setup is a little bit weaker but infinite Dashing Strike makes it easier and more fun to play. With In-Geom you need to go a couple of tiers down to consistently oneshot elite packs but your average run will be faster.

You can replace Mantra of Salvation or Serenity with Epiphany Desert Shroud to get more toughness and mobility. However, your Epiphany will eat a lot of Messerschmidt's Reaver procs so you need to be extra careful with Mystic Ally.

Concept
This version abuses Squirt's Necklace and Town Portals with Homing Pads to deal even more damage.

Gameplay
Your rotation starts at 3 seconds into Cold. At this moment you should be standing next to a bunch of mobs with almost fully stacked Squirt's Necklace. Activate Serenity, use Dashing Strike to get in the middle, pull the mobs together with Cyclone Strike. Punch the enemies 3 times with Way of the Hundred Fists and activate Mystic Ally. From this point you have two choices: go to town or stay in the rift. If there's a lot of enemies left and you want to do another rotation, drop Inner Sanctuary and start channeling Town Portal. In town spam left click on a nearby NPC (Tyrael in Act 1 for example) to keep up Flying Dragon and wait for your Squirt's Necklace to stack up. Go back into the rift 1 second into Cold and by the time you load in it will be 3 seconds already and you can begin your next rotation.

When you do this rotation, you only spend 7-8 seconds in the rift and you are invulnerable for the first half of this time and have all your toughness buffs plus Homing Pads for the second half. This makes it very easy to survive in almost every situation. Even if you "die" while teleporting out you still have Fate's Lapse and Near Death Experience to fall back on.

When you reenter the rift you are immune until you take an action, so it's very important that you always start by casting Serenity. This way you will never lose Squirt's Necklace stacks even if there's ground effects stacked under you when you get back in the rift.

If you kill most of enemies just stay in the rift and spend the next 16 seconds running around and building the next pull. You have to rely on movement and dodge chance to keep your Squirts up during this time.

Keep in mind that you lose most Pylon buffs when you enter town, so don't do the Town Portal trick when you have Power Pylon, Shield Pylon or Conduit Pylon active.

During the Rift Guardian fight you have to stay in the rift full time to stack Bane of the Stricken. Many bosses will oneshot you, but you have over 50% dodge, Serenity, double cheat death and extremely high single target damage, so the fight should be pretty short even if you die once or twice.

Setups
You don't really need more than 34-35% CDR so you can drop Beacon of Ytar to get either more damage from Unity or more toughness from Harmony or Sixth Sense. Playing with less CDR won't affect you in the rift but it will make the bossfight even more miserable.

Concept
In this version we use Earth Ally - the highest damage rune which has the most pushing potential. Unfortunately, the AI of Earth Allies is almost entirely based on the idiom "dumb as a rock", which makes this build quite awkward to play. You have to use the weird "TP to town on every rotation" playstyle to make it good.

Gameplay
Your rotation starts at 3 seconds into Lightning. At this moment you should be standing next to a bunch of mobs with almost fully stacked Squirt's Necklace. Activate Serenity, use Dashing Strike to get in the middle, pull the mobs together with Cyclone Strike and activate Mystic Ally. Punch the enemies 3 times with Way of the Hundred Fists and keep an eye out for Oculus Ring. Once it appears, use second charge of Dashing Strike to get into it, cast Cyclone Strike again, drop Inner Sanctuary and start channeling Town Portal. In town spam left click on a nearby NPC (Tyrael in Act 1 for example) to keep up Flying Dragon and wait for your Squirt's Necklace to stack up. Go back into the rift 1 second into Lightning and by the time you load in it will be 3 seconds already and you can begin your next rotation.

When you do this rotation, you only spend 7-8 seconds in the rift and you are invulnerable for the first half of this time and have all your toughness buffs plus Homing Pads for the second half. This makes it very easy to survive in almost every situation. Even if you "die" while teleporting out you still have Fate's Lapse and Near Death Experience to fall back on.

When you reenter the rift you are immune until you take an action, so it's very important that you always start by casting Serenity. This way you will never lose Squirt's Necklace stacks even if there's ground effects stacked under you when you get back in the rift.

If you kill most of enemies and need to move after a rotation, just go back into the rift immediately and you will have about 10 seconds to run around. You have to rely on movement and dodge chance to keep your Squirts up during this time.

When you need to click a Pylon, reenter the rift about 1 second earlier then usual and use that extra second to dash to the Pylon and click it before doing your rotation (if the pull is dangerous you need to cast Serenity first). Keep in mind that you lose Pylon buffs when you enter town so you need to modify your playstyle accordingly. Speed Pylon is the exception to above rule so you can just play normally. Channeling Pylon doesn't give any damage so you can either drop it immediately or completely skip one rotation and use unlimited dashes and Cyclone Strikes to create a big pull. With Shield Pylon and Power Pylon you just have to fight normally without going to town. If you have a door nearby, go to a different floor after your rotation to un-transform your allies.

During the Rift Guardian fight you have to stay in the rift full time to stack Bane of the Stricken. Many bosses will oneshot you, but you have over 50% dodge, Serenity, double cheat death and extremely high single target damage, so the fight should be pretty short even if you die once or twice.

Setups
You don't really need more than 34-35% CDR so you can drop Beacon of Ytar to get either more damage from Unity or more toughness from Harmony or Sixth Sense. Playing with less CDR won't affect you in the rift but it will make the bossfight even more miserable.