Welcome to the fastest build in Diablo 3: Sunwuko Wave of Light Monk. 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.
With nearly limitless mobility provided by Dashing Strike + In-Geom combo and huge AoE coverage of Wave of Light Explosive Light, this build can clear Nephalem Rifts like no other. Its true strength however comes from the flexibility of Monkey King's Garb set. Sunwuko's Shines allows us to keep the (6) Bonus while equipping Cain's Destiny for more Greater Rift Keystones.
Follower overhaul in Season 23 made it possible to include Cain's Destiny into every build, which brought many Nephalem Rift builds up to Sunwuko Wave of Light level. Followers however, are only available in solo play, so this build still retains its #1 spot when it comes to farming Greater Rift Keystones in groups!
Best Key Farmer ✔ Insane AOE Damage ✔ You Don't Have To Aim ✔ Fastest Build In Diablo 3 ✔
❌ Requires Decent Gear ❌ Struggles In Bad Maps ❌ Rotation Requires Practice ❌ Low Single Target Damage
Core Setup
Items
Sunwuko (2) Bonus gives 50% damage reduction when Sweeping Wind is active.
Sunwuko (6) Bonus gives 1500% increased damage for each Sweeping Wind stack for a total of 19,500% thanks to Vengeful Wind.
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.
Vengeful Wind is mandatory as it gives us 10 extra stacks of Sweeping Wind providing us a 15,000% multiplier due to the Sunwuko (6) Bonus.
Incense Torch of the Grand Temple cuts the cost of Wave of Light in half and gives it 550% increased damage.
Tzo Krin's Gaze gives up to 150% Wave of Light damage, and allows us to cast WoL where our mouse cursor is.
Pinto's Pride makes Wave of Light slow enemies by 80% and increases its damage by 150%. The slow is significant because it's applied before the damage is calculated, letting us always get full benefit from Bane of the Trapped.
Ring of Royal Grandeur completes our Sunwuko and Captain Crimson's Trimmingsset bonuses.
Season 33 Shades of the Nephalem
For the duration of Season 33, you gain one extra slot in Kanai’s Cube that allows to choose any Legendary Powers for a total of 4 slots. While normally a player can equip one power each from the Weapon, Armor, and Jewelry categories, now you can add a second of one of these categories! Some builds enjoy major damage buffs while others are able to run completely different setups, for example through otherwise impossible combinations of weapon effects.
In addition, whenever you press a shrine or pylon, you spawn a Shadow Nephalem of your class to assist you for 1 minute. These use various abilities and provide helpful extra damage in the early game and for lower tier Greater Rifts. Learn more in our Season 22 overview.
In this build, we can add Kyoshiro's Blade which massively boosts our damage.
Global Stat Priorities
Our offensive priorities are: Cooldown > Fire Damage > Critical Hit Chance > Critical Hit Damage > Attack Speed, along with as much Wave of Light damage as possible for speed content. We need the Cooldown to keep Epiphany up at all times and to gain damage from our Captain Crimson's Trimmings (3) Bonus. We stack Attack Speed to cast Dashing Strike and Wave of Light as fast as possible.
When solo pushing drop the Attack Speed rolls for Area Damage as too much Attack Speed will drain our spirit. Our playstyle will involve gathering up large groups of enemies to burn down with Area Damage.
Assembling the Build
1. Do the Challenge Rift for the materials to cubeLegendary 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.
Fist Weapons to get Rabid Strike 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:
Rabid Strike
The Crudest Boots
Squirt's Necklace
Item Stat Priorities
SLOT
ITEM
STAT PRIORITY
Main-Hand
In-geom Rabid Strike Incense Torch of the Grand Temple (Cubed)
1. Damage Range 2. Socket Ramaladni's Gift 3. Cooldown Reduction 4. Attack Speed 5. Damage %
Off-Hand
Vengeful Wind
1. Damage Range 2. Socket Ramaladni's Gift 3. Cooldown Reduction 4. Attack Speed 5. Damage %
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. Pinto's Pride applies the slow before the damage is calculated so we can take advantage of this gem.
Enforcer increases pet damage by 60%, which also affects Rabid Strike clone.
Zei's Stone of Vengeance provides up to 80% increased damage based on how far away we are from enemies (50 yards is the maximum which is about half a screen away). This gem is amazing because we will always be hitting monsters at range.
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 attack against the same target. We'll need this gem if we want to solo push to kill the Rift Guardian.
Skills
Wave of Light Explosive Light is our damage dealer that blows up the entire screen with a fiery bell. This skill is cast at our enemies when we wear Tzo Krin's Gaze so we can kill enemies across the screen.
Sweeping Wind Inner Storm is needed to gain our massive Sunwuko (6) Bonus. Our maximum stacks are increased by 10 from Vengeful Wind.
Epiphany Insight gives 45 spirit per second and allows us to teleport to monsters with our melee attacks. This spirit regeneration is needed to spam Wave of Light.
Breath of Heaven Zephyr gives 30% movement speed so we can fly through speed content faster.
Mantra of Conviction Annihilation gives 16% damage and 30% movement speed when activated before killing an enemy. Overawe is another good choice if you'd prefer extra damage over the movement speed.
Mantra of Salvation Agility gives 40% all resistance and 35% dodge when solo pushing.
Crippling Wave Rising Tide all us to proc the 2nd part of Bastions of Will while solo pushing.
Passives
Beacon of Ytar gives 20% Cooldown Reduction to keep Epiphany up.
Momentum gives 20% increased damage for 6 seconds after we move 25 yards (about 1/4th of a screen).
Seize the Initiative gives 30% Attack Speed when hitting enemies above 75% HP.
Near Death Experience allows us to cheat death.
Harmony gives us extra resistances when solo pushing.
Paragon Points
Core
Offensive
Defensive
Utility
1. Movement Speed
1. Cooldown Reduction
1. All Resistance
1. Area Damage
2. Maximum Spirit
2. Attack Speed
2. Life %
2. Resource Cost Reduction
3. Vitality1
3. Critical Hit Chance
3. Armor
3. Pickup Radius
4. Dexterity
4. Critical Hit Damage
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).
Altar of Rites
The Altar of Rites is a tree 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 extra Damage, Defense, Quality of Life, Increased Drops and 3 Potion Super Powers. Read the full guides on Unlocking the Altar and the Altar Mechanics by Raxxanterax and Chewingnom to learn everything about this fantastic mechanic!
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!
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.
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
T16 Enchantress
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.
For Greater Rift Pushing we recommend this Enchantress setup for the Slow from Temporal Pulse, Cooldown Reduction from Prophetic Harmony, Damage Reduction and Armor from Powered Shield, and the Attack Speed from Focused Mind.
Stat Priorities:Since we have the immortality relic, we do not need to stack survivability on our Enchantress.
Intelligence> Attack Speed. Key Items:
The Flavor of Time: For double duration on Pylons.
Nemesis Bracers: For more progression from Elites.
Oculus Ring: For 85% increased damage.
Unity: For 50% damage reduction if you're also wearing one.
Ice Climbers: To make your follower immune to Freeze and Immobilize effects.
Mempo of Twilight and Cain's Destiny: For more Attack Speed.
Gameplay
T16
The idea here is to fly as fast as possible from elite to elite, dropping a Wave of Light in between each Dashing Strike. If we consistently kill elites and keep our In-geom up, we'll be able to spam our abilities permanently. The best way I know to play this is to hold force stand still and Wave of Light all the time, and tap Dashing Strike. This playstyle will cause your dash to "interrupt" your constant attacking, which will guarantee you fire a bell the second you land from your dash. The rotation is:
Spam Epiphany constantly.
Activate Sweeping Wind one time. As long as you hit an enemy every 6 seconds, the 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.
Activate Mantra of Healing once every 3 seconds to maintain the shield buff.
Hold down Wave of Light and force stand still while tapping Dashing Strike to continuously attack and teleport throughout the rift.
Use Mystic Ally if you run out of Spirit.
Solo Push
When pushing we have to be much more tactical in how we play. This build is a bit squishy and grouping of enemies is required to get a proper clear.
Activate Sweeping Wind one time. As long as you hit an enemy every 6 seconds, the 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.
Once you've found a group of enemies use Cyclone Strike and Way of the Hundred Fists Assimilation to gain the damage buff.
After 2-3 seconds when you've gotten a decent number of Assimilation stacks, Dashing Strike to a safer spot and start spamming Wave of Light.
Even with maximum CDR your Epiphany will have a small downtime so watch out to not get oneshot during that time.
After your Assimilation and Bindings of the Lesser Gods buffs drop, you need to go back in and spend a couple of seconds punching to regain Spirit.
Hardcore
In speed content this build is already immortal as long as you pick up gold from Goldwrap + Boon of the Hoarder + Avarice Band. For solo if the current setup isn't tanky enough you can either add more paragon points into vitality, or drop Bindings of the Lesser Gods for Spirit Guards and Cyclone Strike for Serenity. Check out our dedicated Hardcore Survival Guide to learn more about how to succeed in this game mode!
Variants
Nephalem Rifts
GR Solo Push
Echoing Nightmare
Concept Since this is one of the best speed builds in Diablo 3, this is where we belong. Flying around detonating everything with Wave of Light is our specialty. Many players will make this Monk regardless of what class they main just to acquire Greater Rift Keystone as fast as possible.
Gameplay The main thing to remember from the Gameplay section we already covered is you need a rhythm between Wave of Light and Dashing Strike. My favorite way to play is to put WoL on my left mouse button, hold it down constantly along with force stand still, and tap my dash. The basic idea of this in plain English is: "I'm always throwing Waves of Light, and I interrupt that with Dashes."
This is a bit counter-intuitive as we usually move, and then attack. Here we perpetually attack, and interrupt that with moving. With practice you'll be flying around faster than Neo from the Matrix.
Setups At very high Paragon (5,000+) you can replace Tzo Krin's Gaze with Leoric's Crown to get Epiphany Teleports back.
If you're playing in groups, cube Nemesis Bracers and change Stone of Jordan into Avarice Band. Without Goldwrap we're not immortal so we use Serenity Ascension in place of Mystic Ally to pick up loot from Molten packs. On the Rift Guardian fight swap Captain Crimson's Waders and Tzo Krin's Gaze for Cain's Destiny.
Concept In solo push setup we use Rabid Strike and an assortment of pet multipliers to maximize our damage. We need to get as much CDR as possible to have almost permanent Epiphany.
Gameplay Follow the DPS rotation described in the Gameplay section above. You can perform this rotation 3 times per Convention of Elements cycle. Make sure that one of the DPS phases overlaps with Lightning cycle! Since 95% of your damage comes from the Rabid Strike clone, it doesn't matter where you aim your own Wave of Light. It's best to hold down Force Stand Still and have your mouse cursor somewhere in the corner of the screen to prevent unwanted Epiphany teleports.
Setups The main problem of this build is toughness, but it's very hard to get without sacrificing tons of damage. Your best option is switching Way of the Hundred Fists to Serenity Ascension. You will lose a powerful damage buff and will only have enough Spirit for one or two DPS rotations per CoE cycle, but surviving will be much easier.
If that is still not enough, your only option is to drop a damage multiplier. Drop Bindings of the Lesser Gods for Spirit Guards and use Serenity instead of Cyclone Strike. Also switch from Pillar of the Ancients to Explosive Light and go for really large pulls. You can make this setup a bit more competitive by using Focus and Restraint as well as Hand of the Prophet on enchantress, but then your toughness will be almost back where you started.
Concept For Echoing Nightmares we are using a build similar to solo push. We drop Bindings of the Lesser Gods, since all the monsters are CC-immune and use Tzo Krin's Gaze instead. For more information check out our full Echoing Nightmare Guide and take a look at our Echoing Nightmare Build Tier List and META post for the best builds and strategies!
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.
Keep up Epiphany at all times but don't recast it until it's almost expired. Spam Wave of Light to kill everything. Use Mystic Ally when your spirit gets low and use Serenity or Dashing Strike when meteors come falling down.
Video Guide
Mechanics
Wave of Light
Sometimes this skill doesn't seem to do any damage. This can happen if a monster is directly in the center of the hit, or if there are wallers blocking the bell's path to the monster. If this happens, reposition yourself and/or break the walls with Bottomless Potion of Kulle-Aid.
Pinto's Pride
Applies the slow before the damage is calculated, so we can get value out of Bane of the Trapped.
Tzo Krin's Gaze
Changes your Wave of Light to be cast at your mouse cursor instead of on top of you.
With this item equipped Wave of Light will no longer teleport you to the enemy while Epiphany is active.
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 clone cannot apply the debuff.
Rabid Strike
Epiphany needs to be active to get the clone.
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.
Summary
Put together the core items and acquire the full Sunwuko set.
Practice interrupting your Wave of Light with Dashing Strike to move as quickly as possible.
Learn to swap to Cain's Destinyset on the Rift Guardian for 25% more keys!
Enjoy the fastest build Diablo 3 has ever seen!
Town Is Lava!
Credits
Written by Raxxanterax & Northwar. Updated by Northwar.