Diablo 3 Season 28 Sunwuko Lashing Tail Kick Monk Guide

Introduction

Welcome to the Sunwuko Lashing Tail Kick (LTK) Monk Guide. Little known fact: the set used by the build is actually called Monkey King's Garb, but since every single piece is called "Sunwuko's this" and "Sunwuko's that" everyone in the community just calls it Sunwuko.

Lashing Tail Kick is a very simple Spirit spender: Spirit goes in, AoE damage comes out. It is often competing with Wave of Light as they are very similar and share many multipliers (Monkey King's Garb (6) Bonus, Rabid Strike, Bindings of the Lesser Gods and The Crudest Boots).

Wave of Light usually wins because it has more dedicated Weapons (Incense Torch of the Grand Temple and Kyoshiro's Blade vs. Scarbringer), however Sunwuko builds have to dedicate a Weapon slot for Vengeful Wind, meaning that WoL build has to give up one of their weapons, which puts it at equal footing with Lashing Tail Kick.

While nearly all skills and items are the same as in the Sunwuko WoL build, it still plays differently due to the limitations imposed by Scarbringer. The build is unfortunately not the best fit for speedfarming, due to the small AoE of Lashing Tail Kick and the Rabid Strike bug. Yet, the build is overall very good for Nephalem Rifts (same as any Monk build with In-Geom), and fairly competitive on the Sunwuko Leaderboard.

Very Mobile ✔
Roundhouse Kicks ✔
Great at Keyfarming ✔
High Single Target Damage ✔

❌ Very Squishy
❌ Dependent on Pet AI
❌ Limited AoE Capabilities
❌ No Flexibility in Skill Choices

Core Setup

Core Item Build

Items

Sunwuko (2) Bonus gives 50% damage reduction when Sweeping Wind is active.
Sunwuko (6) Bonus gives 1,500% increased damage for each Sweeping Wind stack for a total of 4,500%. Vengeful Wind increases the maximum number of stacks to 13 and this bonus to 19,500%.
Captain Crimson's Trimmings (2) Bonus gives 20% Cooldown Reduction and Resource Cost Reduction.
Captain Crimson's Trimmings (3) Bonus increases our damage by our Cooldown Reduction percentage and decreases our damage taken by our Resource Cost Reduction percentage.
Scarbringer gives 600% increased Lashing Tail Kick damage against the first 7 enemies hit.
Rivera Dancers give 50% multiplicative Attack Speed to Lashing Tail Kick and increase its damage by 300%.
Ring of Royal Grandeur completes our Sunwuko and Captain Crimson's Trimmings set bonuses.

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.

Node 7: Take Vigor to help your build sustain its resources.

Nodes 8-14: 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!

Recommended Altar Path
Use the Scroll Bar to see Altar Progression

Global Stat Priorities

Our offensive priorities are: Physical Damage > Critical Hit Chance > Cooldown Reduction > Critical Hit Damage > Area Damage, along with as much Lashing Tail Kick damage as possible. We need the Cooldown to keep Epiphany up at all times and to gain damage from our Captain Crimson's Trimmings (3) Bonus. In the push build Cooldown Reduction and Resource Cost Reduction become interchangeable stats thanks to Obsidian Ring of the Zodiac, the former gives you more damage, the latter - defense. You need at least 55% CDR to reset Epiphany comfortably but beyond that you can choose between more CDR or RCR.

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 the full Monkey King's Garb 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 your last missing set piece is Sunwuko's Shines - don't gamble for it! Instead gamble for a cheap and easy item, like Sunwuko's Balance, and once again convert it with Recipe 4. 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:

The full Monkey King's Garb set
Rivera Dancers
Nemesis Bracers
Goldwrap
Gyana Na Kashu

4. Craft using Recipe 3 in Kanai's Cube in this order:

Fist Weapons to get Scarbringer and Vengeful Wind
Swords to get In-Geom
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 Captain Crimson's Trimmings, Sage's Journey and Cain's Destiny

6. At this point you can somewhat comfortably farm Nephalem or Speed Greater Rifts where you can find all the remaining items you need for different variants of the build. It's better to spend your materials improving your set pieces, getting ancient weapon 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:

Scarbringer
The Crudest Boots
Bindings of the Lesser Gods

Item Stat Priorities

SLOT	ITEM	STAT PRIORITY
Main-Hand	In-geom Rabid Strike Scarbringer	1. Damage Range 2. Socket Ramaladni's Gift 3. Cooldown Reduction 4. Area Damage 5. Life per Hit 6. Resource Cost Reduction
Off-Hand	Vengeful Wind	1. Damage Range 2. Socket Ramaladni's Gift 3. Cooldown Reduction 4. Area Damage 5. Life per Hit 6. Resource Cost Reduction
Helm	Gyana Na Kashu Sunwuko's Crown Cain's Insight (Crafted)	1. Lashing Tail Kick Damage 2. Socket Flawless Royal Diamond 3. Critical Hit Chance 4. Dexterity 5. Vitality
Gloves	Sunwuko's Paws	1. Cooldown Reduction 2. Critical Hit Chance 3. Critical Hit Damage 4. Area Damage
Shoulders	Sunwuko's Balance	1. Cooldown Reduction 2. Area Damage 3. Dexterity 4. Resource Cost Reduction 5. Vitality
Chest	Sunwuko's Soul	1. Sockets Flawless Royal Diamond 2. Dexterity 3. All Resistance 4. Vitality
Pants	Sunwuko's Leggings Captain Crimson's Thrust (Crafted)	1. Dexterity 2. Sockets Flawless Royal Diamond 3. All Resistance 4. Vitality
Boots	Captain Crimson's Waders (Crafted) Cain's Travelers (Crafted) The Crudest Boots Rivera Dancers	1. Lashing Tail Kick Damage 2. Dexterity 3. All Resistance 4. Vitality
Ring 1	Avarice Band (A3 Bounties) Convention of Elements Unity Stone of Jordan	1. Socket 2. Critical Hit Chance 3. Damage Range 4. Critical Hit Damage 5. Cooldown Reduction 6. Area Damage
Ring 2	Obsidian Ring of the Zodiac Ring of Royal Grandeur (A1 Bounties)	1. Socket 2. Critical Hit Chance 3. Damage Range 4. Critical Hit Damage 5. Cooldown Reduction 6. Area Damage
Bracers	Bindings of the Lesser Gods Nemesis Bracers Lacuni Prowlers	1. Physical Damage 2. Critical Hit Chance 3. Dexterity 4. Life per Hit
Amulet	Sunwuko's Shines Squirt's Necklace (Cubed)	1. Socket 2. Physical Damage 3. Critical Hit Damage 4. Critical Hit Chance
Belt	Captain Crimson's Silk Girdle (Crafted) Goldwrap	1. Dexterity 2. All Resistance 3. Vitality 4. Life %
Potion	Bottomless Potion of Kulle-Aid	For breaking walls to pull enemies and increase DPS

Gems

Bane of the Trapped provides 60% increased damage to slowed enemies. This is a melee build so the secondary effect of the gem is enough to proc it.
Enforcer provides up to 60% pet damage, which also affects the Rabid Strike clone.
In T16 build there's no Rabid Strike so Bane of the Powerful is used for a bit of extra damage.
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 if we want to solo push to kill the Rift Guardian.

Skills

Lashing Tail Kick Sweeping Armada is our main damaging skill. The Physical rune is used for bigger AoE and increased damage.
Sweeping Wind Inner Storm is needed to gain our massive Sunwuko (6) Bonus. Our maximum stacks are increased by 10 from Vengeful Wind.
Epiphany gives Spirit regeneration and allows us to teleport to monsters with our melee attacks. It's also necessary to activate Rabid Strike and all the pet bonuses.
Cyclone Strike Implosion is used to group enemies and to proc Bindings of The Lesser Gods.
Mystic Ally Air Ally is used to generate even more Spirit.
Finally Dashing Strike is the staple mobility skill used in every build that can fit it in.

Passives

Beacon of Ytar gives 20% Cooldown Reduction to keep Epiphany up.
Seize the Initiative gives 30% Attack Speed when hitting enemies above 75% HP.
Near Death Experience allows us to cheat death.
The Guardian's Path gives us 35% Dodge chance.
Other useful passives can include:
- Harmony
- Resolve
- Sixth Sense

Paragon Points

Core	Offensive	Defensive	Utility
1. Movement Speed	1. Cooldown Reduction	1. All Resistance	1. Area Damage
2. Maximum Spirit	2. Critical Hit Chance	2. Life %	2. Resource Cost Reduction
3. Dexterity	3. Critical Hit Damage	3. Armor	3. Pickup Radius
4. Vitality¹	4. Attack Speed	4. Life Regeneration	4. Life per Hit

¹ Add a bit of Vitality if you feel too squishy (a total of 750,000 Life is recommended).

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.
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

Gameplay

T16

Here the main focus is going fast. You should always be teleporting forward, either by using Dashing Strike or by casting Lashing Tail Kick on a mob to trigger Epiphany teleport. Ideally, you want to alternate these two means of teleportation: use Dashing Strike when you have charges to go exactly where you want to go, then use Lashing Tail Kick to kill enemies and to let Dashing Strike recharge, all while moving forward, even if a little bit. Your remaining four skills are very easy to use:

Spam Epiphany constantly.
Activate Sweeping Wind one time. As long as you hit an enemy every 6 seconds, your stacks will refresh. If you're traveling down long hallways or changing floors, make sure you refresh it manually to avoid losing your stacks.
Activate Mantra of Healing once every 3 seconds to maintain the shield buff.
Use Mystic Ally if you run out of Spirit.

Solo Push

When pushing we have to play around Obsidian Ring of the Zodiac, which means that you should be as conservative as possible with your Cooldown Skills.

Activate Sweeping Wind one time. As long as you hit an enemy every 6 seconds, your stacks will refresh. If you're traveling down long hallways or changing floors, make sure you refresh it manually to avoid losing all your stacks.
Always keep Epiphany up to proc Rabid Strike which is responsible for 99% of your damage. Do not refresh it early, even if the cooldown is ready in order not to waste any Obsidian Ring of the Zodiac procs.
Use Cyclone Strike every 5 seconds and spam Lashing Tail Kick otherwise. Since 99% of your damage comes from the Rabid Strike clone, you don't have to be in the middle of everything. You can dash out after casting Cyclone Strike and let the clone do all the heavy lifting. When you do this, make sure to hit at least one mob with your own Lashing Tail Kick to proc Obsidian Ring of the Zodiac.
Cast Mystic Ally when your Spirit goes below 25% to replenish it.
Use Dashing Strike when you need to move or every 4 seconds in dangerous situations to keep up the Blinding Speed buff.

Hardcore

In speed content this build is already immortal as long as you pick up gold from Goldwrap + Boon of the Hoarder + Avarice Band. The solo push build is extremely squishy and not recommended for Hardcore. Use Sunwuko Wave of Light or Sunwuko Tempest Rush build instead. Check out our dedicated Hardcore Survival Guide to learn more about how to succeed in this game mode!

Nephalem Rifts

T16

Ethereals
Concept
In T16 build we have enough damage without Rabid Strike and pet items so instead we use In-Geom for mobility and Gyana Na Kashu for damage boost and extra AoE coverage via fireballs.

Gameplay
The section above describes everything in detail. This build can be very fast but only if you utilize Epiphany teleports and high Attack Speed to their fullest. Practice looking for enemies to jump to at the edge of your screen to maximize your effective movement speed.

Setups
If you're feeling brave, drop Goldwrap and The Crudest Boots for Captain Crimson's Trimmings. This will give you more damage and Cooldown Reduction but you will be very squishy, with "kill them before they can kill you" being your only real defense. Serenity Ascension instead of Mantra of Healing will be your other way of not dying.

If you're playing in groups, equip Nemesis Bracers and change Stone of Jordan into Avarice Band. On the Rift Guardian fight swap The Crudest Boots and Gyana Na Kashu for Cain's Destiny. You can also change In-geom to Rabid Strike at the same time to make the fight shorter.

GR Solo Push

Select Build Version

Standard

Empowered Shrine

Solo Push

Concept
Pushing build uses Rabid Strike and a bunch of pet multipliers: Bindings of the Lesser Gods, The Crudest Boots and Enforcer. Obsidian Ring of the Zodiac holds the entire build together by letting us maintain 100% Epiphany uptime and providing Spirit via Air Ally spam.

Gameplay
Follow the DPS rotation described in the Gameplay section above. Unlike many other push builds, you don't want to fight too many enemies at once because it'll likely get you killed and Scarbringer only buffs damage against 7 targets. Focus on making small to medium sized pulls and only move when almost everything is dead.

Many of the Rift Guardians will do unspeakable things to you that are illegal in at least 18 different countries if you try to facetank them, so you need to stay at range. Position yourself 10-15 yards away from the RG and use Force Stand Still to attack while keeping your mouse away from the boss. This way you will still hit it, triggering Obsidian Ring of the Zodiac and Bane of the Stricken but you won't Epiphany teleport into melee range. This also allows your Mystic Ally and the Follower to tank the boss for you.

Setups
This build has major survivability issues with no good way to fix them. You can replace Bane of the Trapped with Esoteric Alteration but that only helps vs elites. Your other option is dropping Dashing Strike for Serenity Ascension, but in that case you will have to rely only on Epiphany teleports for mobility. Another good way to gain toughness is dropping some Area Damage rolls in favor of Resource Cost Reduction.

At high Paragon (4,000+) you can drop Unity for Convention of Elements and give Hand of the Prophet to your Enchantress.

Video Guide

Mechanics

Rabid Strike

Epiphany needs to be active to get the clone.
Clone's attacks can proc Area Damage.
The clone is considered a Mystic Ally. It gets buffed by Enforcer, The Crudest Boots and Bindings of the Lesser Gods, but not Mystic Ally damage.
Instead of picking a random value between the Minimum and Maximum Damage from your Weapon, the clone always uses the average of their sum.
When dual wielding, the clone alternates between your Main-Hand and Off-Hand Weapons to calculate its damage.

Gyana Na Kashu

The Fireball has proc coefficient of 0.
The Fireball is affected by all Lashing Tail Kick multipliers.
The Scarbringer bonus applies to Fireball only if you hit less than 7 targets with the kick.
The Scarbringer bonus cannot apply to the Fireball against targets that are already hit by buffed Lashing Tail Kick. When fighting a single target, you can either deal 7x Kick damage + 1x Fireball damage if you stay in melee, or 7x Fireball damage if you sit at range and your Kick misses. In most cases the latter deals more damage, but since it cannot proc Bane of the Stricken or Obsidian Ring of the Zodiac you can't use this strategy for the entire bossfight. Still it's important to remember that you have an option to deal damage at range, which may come in handy during the final stages of the bossfight, especially if Power Pylon, Squirts Necklace or Oculus Ring are involved.
The Lashing Tail Kicks cast by Rabid Strike clones do not trigger the Fireball.

Bindings of the Lesser Gods

Applies the debuff to all enemies damaged by Cyclone Strike, i.e. all enemies within 15 yard radius around the monk.
Cyclone Strike cast by Won Khim Lau can apply the debuff.
Cyclone Strike cast by Rabid Strike clones cannot apply the debuff.

Summary

Put together the core items and acquire the full Sunwuko set.
Stack 55%+ Cooldown Reduction and pay attention to your Obsidian Ring of the Zodiac procs.
Use Epiphany teleport to fly through the rifts.