Introduction
The support Monk (usually called the zMonk because they do "zero" damage) is one of the strongest supports in the game since Season 4 and the addition of Crowd Control Resistance. Keeping people alive is their specialty, but they also can provide some offensive buffs and a lot of utility your team might need!
For the longest time zMonk was included in every high GR META team, thanks to their unparalleled ability to keep the DPS alive. Between Inner Sanctuary, all the Mantras granted by Inna's Mantra Set, shield spam from Mantra of Healing as well as heals from Epiphany Soothing Mist, zMonk offers by far the most powerful toughness and recovery buffs out of every support in the game. On top of that zMonk's shields allow damage dealers to utilize "never take damage"-style items, such as Squirt's Necklace and Pride's Fall.
Unfortunately, zMonk is sorely lacking when it comes to damage buffs. The only thing they have to offer is some small additive damage bonuses: Mantra of Conviction, Exploding Palm The Flesh is Weak, Crippling Wave Breaking Wave and Unity. Comparing that to the recently buffed Odyssey's End from Season 21, it should come at no surprise that zMonk's spot in group is more often than not occupied by a zDH. In Season 27, Sanctified Powers with Sanctified Wave of Light revived him as a viable metagame support build (see Mechanics).
Still zMonk can find a place in triple support teams, both in high Greater Rift pushing and in speedfarming. Also some damage dealers (such as Mundunugu Witch Doctor) are just too squishy to survive without a zMonk, and while zDH's damage buffs are great, you need to be alive to make use of them.
Tanky ✔
Versatile ✔
Very Strong Toughness Buffs ✔
Provides Lots of Shields and Healing ✔
❌ Requires Spamming
❌ Weak Damage Buffs
❌ Positioning is Very Important
❌ Tough to Play at Low Paragon
Core Setup
Items
- Inna's Mantra (2) Bonus doubles the base passive effect of our mantras, which gives us 40% All Resistance, 16% additive damage, and increased life regeneration.
- Inna's Mantra (4) Bonus gives us all 4 mantras at all times: Mantra of Healing, Mantra of Salvation, Mantra of Conviction, and Mantra of Retribution.
- Captain Crimson's Trimmings (2) Bonus gives 20% cooldown reduction and 20% resource Cost Reduction, which are both critical stats we need for this build.
- Captain Crimson's Trimmings (3) Bonus gives damage reduction equal to our Resource Cost Reduction, which will help us survive as we heal our party.
- Ring of Royal Grandeur completes both our Inna's Mantra and Captain Crimson's Trimmings sets so we can have their (4) and (3) Bonuses respectively.
- Oculus Ring provides 85% increased damage to our teammates who stand in the ring.
- Obsidian Ring of the Zodiac helps us reduce the Inner Sanctuary cooldown to ease its repositioning.
- Illusory Boots give unrestricted movement, which makes the build a lot more smooth and pleasant to play.
Global Stat Priorities
Since we are a support class, we don't need any offensive stats like Critical Hit Chance, Critical Hit Damage, Area Damage, or Elemental Damage. Instead we will gather as much Cooldown Reduction, Health Globe Bonus, Resource Cost Reduction and Attack Speed as possible. Cooldown Reduction is needed to keep Epiphany and Inner Sanctuary up all the time. Attack Speed lets you Crippling Wave faster, giving you more spirit and healing from Soothing Mist. Acquire as much Attack Speed as possible.
Resource Cost Reduction will allow you to spam Mantra of Healing for constant shields to protect Squirt's Necklace on our damage dealers. Health Globe Bonus secondary rolls will make our shields and heals even stronger and will be a key stat we're looking for. Try to aim for at least +150,000 Health Globes Bonus before attempting to zMonk. For defense, prioritize All Resistance > Life % > Vitality > Armor. Since Intelligence gives us more All Resistance, craft any pieces on a Necromancer, Wizard or Witch Doctor.
Assembling the Build
Item Stat Priorities
Gems
Skills
Passives
Paragon Points
Gameplay
Hardcore
Variants
Select Build Version
Concept
For LoD Meteor Wizard the zMonk is the optimal support as it gives you a lot of toughness, shields and CC-immunity. While zDH's offensive buffs are great, it's much more important to be able to perform your rotation correctly and keep Squirt's Necklace buff.
Gameplay
Fairly standard zMonk gameplay: you sit next to the Wizard and keep up Inner Sanctuary while spamming Crippling Wave and Mantra of Healing.
You need to pay extra attention to the moment when the Wizard comes out of Archon and have your Inner Sanctuary ready for them. If you make a mistake and place it in a different spot, spam Exploding Palm to reset the cooldown.
Setups
If you're struggling to stay alive, use Desert Shroud instead of Soothing Mist. Your Wizard should have 100% health of the time so the loss of healing is not super important. Another toughness option is dropping Illusory Boots for Spirit Guards but then you will have to move around the pull with Epiphany teleports which can be very difficult with some large hitbox monsters present.
If you're just starting out and don't have enough Resource Cost Reduction to sustain Mantra of Healing spam, replace Seize the Initiative with Chant of Resonance.
If your toughness is good and you're feeling brave, use Unity instead of Near Death Experience for 5% additive damage.
Concept
Currently zMonk is not included in any 4-man push META teams, but it can be used instead of zDH if you want more toughness rather than damage. Spirit Barrage Witch Doctor can often struggle to stay alive without extremely high Paragon so they choose to play with a zMonk.
Gameplay
Fairly standard zMonk gameplay: you sit next to the DPS and keep up Inner Sanctuary while spamming Crippling Wave and Mantra of Healing. Tap Tempest Rush every 3s to apply Iceblink.
When playing with a squishy damage dealer, the most important thing for us is too keep Inner Sanctuary under them at all times. Tempest Rush is very good for that because each time our DPS moves (for example to take an Oculus Ring) we can follow them with Tempest Rush and reset the cooldown of Inner Sanctuary at the same time.
When you need to click a pylon, first make sure to drop a fresh Inner Sanctuary and then use Epiphany teleports to get to the pylon and return back before it expires!
Setups
At very high Paragon (5000+), you can drop Born's Command and Spirit Guards for 2 pieces of Uliana's Stratagem. Use Pig Sticker as your weapon and cube Illusory Boots. Finally, replace Tempest Rush with Exploding Palm The Flesh is Weak and change Crippling Wave rune to Tsunami to proc Iceblink and apply palms to more mobs. This setup costs you a lot of toughness but gives 15% more additive damage to your TK and RGK.
Another high Paragon damage option is dropping Serenity for Deadly Reach Piercing Trident and replacing Spirit Guards with Strongarm Bracers for 30% additive damage. This combo is more powerful but it needs to be used very carefully, because you don't want to actually send the mobs flying, you only want the debuff. Make sure to only use Piercing Trident after zBarb's Ground Stomp to not mess up Crowd Control Resistance!
If you're just starting out and don't have enough Resource Cost Reduction to sustain Mantra of Healing spam, replace Seize the Initiative with Chant of Resonance.
If your toughness is good and you're feeling brave, use Unity instead of Near Death Experience for 5% additive damage.
Concept
Once again zMonk is not currently included in any XP meta, but it can replace some other support or secondary DPS. The main advantage of zMonk in speeds is their... well... speed. They can outrun any other class and they can group up enemies very fast (if not very well).
It's important that your amulet is NOT The Flavor of Time. Your teammates deal way more damage than Conduit Pylon in these runs so extra 30s of that doesn't help that much, while extra minute of Speed Pylon is incredibly annoying. Hellfire Amulet is the best choice here, although you can use Rondal's Locket or The Star of Azkaranth if you don't want to farm uber mats.
Gameplay
The gameplay is pretty standard speed zMonk as described above. It can be tricky for your DPS to stay inside one Inner Sanctuary, so if you have In-Geom proc active, spam them all over the place!
Try not being too trigger-happy with your Cyclone Strike; it's best to use it once and then let the zBarb use Ground Stomp to pixel the mobs tighter.
Setups
If you are struggling to survive your best option is switching Stormshield to Crystal Fist. If that's still not enough, you can replace Gungdo Gear and Exploding Palm with Stone Gauntlets and Serenity Tranquility.
At higher Paragon, you can replace Near Death Experience with Unity for 5% additive damage.
Concept
This build is very different from all the others and can be hardly called a support monk. Still it can be used to help your party and it deals "zero" damage so it has a place in this guide.
The idea here is to use Raiment of a Thousand Storms (4) Bonus together with loads of Resource Cost Reduction and Spirit generation to use Dashing Strike indefinitely and without any delays. You need to stack all the RCR and CDR you can get, all other stats don't really matter. Attack Speed makes Dashing Strike animation shorter, but you will be limited by your own ability to avoid walls rather than by how fast you can dash.
Both your Weapons, Amulet, Bracers and right ring are not important and you can use any items with good rolls in these slots.
Gameplay
The gameplay is very simple: keep up Epiphany and Sweeping Wind, spam Blinding Flash and hold down Dashing Strike. That's it, congratulations on becoming the fastest being in the entire Sanctuary. Cops would give you a ticket, but they can never even see, let alone catch you.
This mobility can be used for a number of things:
- Finding Pools of Reflection. A skilled monk can usually find 10 pools in under 5 minutes by checking all the zones with a lot of shrine/pool spots. It can come in handy when your group takes a small break for one reason or another.
- Hunting for Rainbow Goblins. Since Cosmic Wings have the same drop chance regardless of difficulty, you can play this build on Normal where you still deal enough damage to kill stuff. Superior mobility of infinite dash monk will let you find more goblins per hour than any other build.
- Doing Sprinter conquest. With this build you can beat the entire campaign in under one hour even if you play solo, and you will usually even have 5+ minutes to spare. To kill stuff faster switch Sweeping Wind to Wave of Light Explosive Light and replace Burst of Wrath with Incense Torch of the Grand Temple.
- Hunting for some achievements. Similar to rainbow goblin farming, many achievements don't have a difficulty requirements so you can do them on Normal using this build.
Video Guide
Mechanics
Epiphany Teleport
Epiphany Soothing Mist
Monk Shields
Flying Dragon
Summary
- Put together the normal build and focus on perfect Cooldown Reduction, Attack Speed, at least 150,000 Health Globes Bonus, and as much Resource Cost Reduction as you can.
- Spam your abilities and keep Inner Sanctuary down where your Trash Killer and Rift Guardian Killer go.
- Be aware of Crowd Control Resistance rules!
- Practice using Dashing Strike and teleports from Epiphany to smoothly move through the rifts.
- Dodge major attacks and stay alive to ensure your team survives.
Credits
Written by Northwar, Chewingnom & Raxxanterax.
Shoutout to Nevetser the Brutal for help with the builds.