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Monk Class Overview

Last Updated: January 7th 2024

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Introduction

Monks are sacred warriors who channel divine power through sheer force of will. Healing waves, mantras of protection and attacks empowered with holy might are all within their purview. One thing that sets Monks apart from other classes is their unparalleled mobility. Nobody outruns a Monk. Between Dashing Strike, Epiphany, Fists of Thunder, Inner Sanctuary Intervene and Seven-Sided Strike Sudden Assault every single Monk build is able to teleport. Depending on the build, Monks can use these teleports anywhere between a lot and infinitely. On top of that Monks' teleports are incredibly fast, taking up just a fraction of a second regardless of the distance traveled.

Lore

Monks of the Sahptev faith train their bodies and minds so that they may become the foremost holy warriors of the land of Ivgorod. Within the cloisters of the Patriarchs, the monks endure harsh trials both physical and spiritual, proving their devotion and attaining unmatched focus.

Daily ritualistic cleansings help Monks purify their spirits and overcome the corruption that gnaws at the hearts of all men. In the pursuit of martial perfection, they also hone their legendary balance and clarity, skills that allow them to master both unarmed combat and a diverse array of weapons.

After a lifetime of preparation, anointed monks are permitted to leave their monasteries' halls to serve the decrees of the Patriarchs. The emblem on their foreheads marks them as survivors, achievers, and pillars of their society.

Monks embody the will of Ivgorod’s one thousand and one gods in every step and every strike.

Read the full story of the Monk here

Resources

Maximum Spirit: 250

  • +50 from Paragon points
  • +45 from secondary rolls on gear
  • +50 from Exalted Soul
  • +14 from Stone of Jordan

Passive Regeneration: none

  • +20 from Epiphany
  • +25 from Insight
  • +8 from Sweeping Wind Inner Storm
  • +4 from Mystic Ally Air Ally
  • +3 from Mantra of Healing Circular Breathing
  • +4 from Exalted Soul
  • +4 from Chant of Resonance
  • +15 from The Mind's Eye
  • +50 from Patterns of Justice (4) Bonus
  • +9 from primary rolls on gear

Active Generation: 12 per attack with a Primary skill

  • +2 from Fists of Thunder
  • +6 from Quickening
  • +14 from Breath of Heaven Infused with Light
  • 2.5 per enemy hit with Crippling Wave Rising Tide
  • 10 per enemy hit with Blinding Flash Replenishing Light
  • 15 per enemy hit with Exploding Palm Strong Spirit
  • 100 from Air Ally

Additional Spirit sources:

  • The Laws of Seph
  • The Guardian's Path
  • Inspire

Monks use Spirit to cast their most powerful skills. Spirit doesn't regenerate or decay by itself, but it's possible to get Spirit Regeneration from certain skills or items. On top of that, Spirit can be gained from hitting with a Primary skill or via some other effects.

Many of the Monk builds rely heavily on Spirit spenders and thus invest quite a lot into Spirit generation. The most commonly used source of Spirit is Epiphany, but it's often not enough. In these cases Monks use Resource Cost Reduction and/or skills like Air Ally or Inner Storm.

Equipment

Monks are proficient with all melee weapons and shields and they can also dual wield any combination of two one-handed weapons. Like most other classes, Monks almost never use two-handed weapons, with the exception of some Inna build variants that need Inna's Reach to complete the set.

Spirit Stones

Spirit Stones

Spirit Stones are unique Monk headgear that have the same base stats as regular Helmets, but also can roll certain class-specific stats:

  • Primary rolls
    • 2.17-3.00 Spirit per Second
    • 456-540 Life per Spirit Spent
  • Secondary rolls
    • 13-15 Maximum Spirit

Fist Weapons

Fist Weapons

Monk's unique one-handed weapons are Fist Weapons. They are fairly fast (1.4 APS), have unique attack animations, and use all the normal weapon affixes plus some class-specific stats:

  • Primary rolls
    • 2.17-3.00 Spirit per Second
    • 456-540 Life per Spirit Spent
  • Secondary rolls
    • 13-15 Maximum Spirit

Daibos

Daibos

Daibos are Monk-specific two-handed weapons. They are among the fastest two handers with 1.15 base APS and on top of normal weapon stats they can roll following affixes:

  • Primary rolls
    • 4.33-6.00 Spirit per Second
    • 912-1080 Life per Spirit Spent
    • 10-15% Damage to any Monk Skill
  • Secondary rolls
    • 26-30 Maximum Spirit

*all the values given are for ancient legendary items

Sets and Builds

Inna's Mantra
Raiment of a Thousand Storms
Monkey King's Garb
Uliana's Stratagem
Patterns of Justice
No Six Piece Set

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
    • 63,368 (+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 for each active Mystic Ally.
  • Damage bonus stacks additively with itself for a total multiplier of x91 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 gives you 100 Spirit (200 with The Crudest Boots) even if Air Ally rune is not selected, but it does not increase Mystic Ally damage even if no rune is selected.

Inna's Mantra was reworked in season 24 patch and became a dedicated Mystic Ally set, buffing their damage and letting you have 10 allies at once.

Inna Mystic Ally - Beginner friendly

This build comes in two flavors: Fire and Cold. The Cold version uses Water Ally rune and excels at all T16 content, whereas the more powerful (but also more clunky) Fire Ally absolutely destroys Greater Rifts. The only downfalls of this build are it's reliance on pet AI and lack of UI indicators for Mystic Ally and Flying Dragon.

Raiment of a Thousand Storms

  • (2) Bonus provides 25% multiplicative Attack Speed and 400% damage multiplier (x5) for your Spirit Generators.
  • (4) Bonus makes your Dashing Striketest cost 25 Spirit instead of a charge. This makes Dashing Strike a Spirit Spender letting it proc Obsidian Ring of the Zodiac and Bastions of Will.
  • (6) Bonus provides a 141x damage to your Spirit Generators and modifies the Weapon Damage of Dashing Strike from 370% to 60,000%, effectively being a x162 damage buff. This only buffs the damage of the Dash itself, the extra strikes from Barrage are unaffected.

Raiment of a Thousand Storms buffs all Spirit Generators and Dashing Strike. However, it's impossible to make Dashing Strike strong enough to beat even T16 content so only one build with this set exists.

This build uses Shenlong's Spirit, Flying Dragon and all-class generator bonuses - Depth Diggers and Simplicity's Strength to punch monsters really fast. It is, however, weak, squishy and not very interesting, not to mention reliant on Flying Dragon RNG.

Monkey King's Garb

  • (4) and (6) Bonuses' magnitude can be increased by the Vengeful Wind for a total of 13,000% Weapon damage explosion and x196 damage multiplier for Wave of Light, Lashing Tail Kick and Tempest Rush at 13 Sweeping Wind stacks.

Monkey King's Garb buffs three different skills: Wave of Light, Tempest Rush and Lashing Tail Kick. Surprisingly enough, each of these skills can be used in a Sunwuko build and the resulting builds are pretty close in power too! Another valuable feature of Sunwuko set is its nonstandard piece - Sunwuko's Shines, which lets you equip Cain's Destiny even when playing in groups.

Sunwuko Tempest Rush - Beginner friendly

This build uses Won Khim Lau, Balance and Cesar's Memento to buff the damage of Tempest Rush Flurry beyond any reason and unleash devastating explosions on every Cold cycle of Convention of Elements. The build excels in solo pushing and is pretty good for speedfarming, but the PoJ version beats it there.

Sunwuko Wave of Light - Beginner friendly

This build uses Incense Torch of the Grand Temple, Pinto's Pride and a combination of Rabid Strike, The Crudest Boots and Bindings of the Lesser Gods to buff the damage of Wave of Light. Once again, the build is pretty good for solo pushing and for speedfarming but the LoD version beats it in both.

This build uses Scarbringer, Rivera Dancers and a combination of Rabid Strike, The Crudest Boots and Bindings of the Lesser Gods to buff the damage of Lashing Tail Kick. This build is very similar to the WoL build and almost as strong. Unfortunately, it's pretty bad for speedfarming, so it's best to use another build.

Uliana's Stratagem

  • (2) Bonus applies an Exploding Palm to all enemies hit by the 3rd hit of your Spirit Generators. These palms use your equipped rune and can proc Area Damage, but are not buffed by Mythic Rhythm.
  • Hitting an enemy that already has an Exploding Palm on it refreshes its duration.
  • (4) Bonus gives 54.4x Seven Sided Strike damage multiplier. The Lion's Claw doubles the number of hits of Seven Sided Strike and increases this bonus to x108.8.
  • (6) Bonus gives a x126 Exploding Palm damage bonus and lets your Seven Sided Strike detonate your Exploding Palms. Normally this would remove Exploding Palms from enemies but when used in combination with Gungdo Gear, the palms are immediately reapplied to the original target as well as all surrounding enemies.

Uliana's Stratagem buffs the damage of Exploding Palm and Seven Sided Strike, but since the latter is lacking when supporting legendaries, it's only used as a tool to detonate Exploding Palms.

This build uses The Fist of Az'Turrasq, Gungdo Gear and Shenlong's Spirit to buff the damage of Exploding Palms and then detonates them with Seven Sided Strike. While it's not a very strong build, it has a unique playstyle and it is very satisfying visually. It can also be used reasonably well for Nephalem Rift or Greater Rift speedfarming.

Patterns of Justice

  • (2) Bonus provides 5% Movement Speed per stack of Sweeping Wind for a total of 15%. Vengeful Wind can increase that bonus to 65% at 13 Sweeping Wind stacks.
  • (4) Bonus provides damage reduction and Spirit Regeneration while Tempest Rush is active and for 0.2 seconds after.
  • (6) Bonus gives a x201 global damage multiplier and a Sweeping Wind size buff for 2 seconds, which is refreshed each time Tempest Rush hits an enemy.

Patterns of Justice provides a generic damage buff and can technically be used with any skill. But since (4) and (6) Bonus both require you to channel Tempest Rush it becomes incredibly clunky outside of TR builds.

PoJ Tempest Rush - Beginner friendly

This build uses Won Khim Lau, Balance and Cesar's Memento to buff the damage of Tempest Rush Flurry beyond any reason and unleash devastating explosions on every Cold cycle of Convention of Elements. This build is very fun and pleasant to play, and it can be used in both pushing and speedfarming.

Legacy of Dreams/Legacy of Nightmares

For skills which don't have a dedicated Set, there's always an option of making a build around the Legacy of Dreams gem or Legacy of Nightmares set, which provide a 97.5x damage multiplier at 13 Ancient items. Since the Monk's generic damage set, Patterns of Justice, is nearly impossible to use in non-Tempest Rush builds, some builds use LoD instead.

LoD Wave of Light build actually beats it's Sunwuko counterpart because WoL just has too many different multipliers and a set build simply cannot include them all.

Support

Monk is the best support when it comes to keeping your party alive, but it's not very strong offensively. As a result, it's mostly used at low levels, in triple support teams, or on Hardcore.

This is the strongest Wave of Light build due to its ability to use a veritable mountain of different WoL multipliers: Incense Torch of the Grand Temple, Kyoshiro's Blade, Pinto's Pride, Tzo-Krin's Gaze, Rabid Strike, The Crudest Boots and Bindings of the Lesser Gods. The build is also very powerful for speedfarming solo or in groups, albeit the Rabid Strike bug makes it a bit annoying to play.

This build uses 4-piece of Inna's Mantra to give your teammates the effects of all 4 mantras and further helps the party with different skills: Mantra of Healing for shields (which are especially useful for protecting Squirt's Necklace), Inner Sanctuary Temple of Protection for damage reduction and CC-immunity. In speedfarming groups a zMonk can be very mobile with Dashing Strike and In-geom, which lets them lead the party discovering the map and grouping up mobs with Cyclone Strike.

Legendaries

Apart from 6-piece sets, Monks have 45 unique Legendary and Set items, providing bonuses to various skills and in some cases even altering their behavior.

Fist Weapons

  • Crystal Fist
  • Fleshrake
  • Jawbreaker
  • Kyoshiro's Blade
  • Lion's Claw
  • Logan's Claw
  • Rabid Strike
  • Scarbringer
  • Sledge Fist
  • The Fist of Az'Turrasq
  • Vengeful Wind
  • Won Khim Lau
  • Shenlong's Fist of Legend
  • Shenlong's Relentless Assault

Rings

  • Band of Rue Chambers

Amulets

  • Holy Beacon

Daibos

  • Balance
  • Flying Dragon
  • Incense Torch of the Grand Temple
  • Staff of Kyro
  • The Flow of Eternity
  • The Paddle
  • Warstaff of General Quang

Spirit Stones

  • Bezoar Stone
  • Erlang Shen
  • Eye of Peshkov
  • Gyana Na Kashu
  • Kekegi's Unbreakable Spirit
  • Madstone
  • See No Evil
  • The Eye of the Storm
  • The Laws of Seph
  • The Mind's Eye
  • Tzo Krin's Gaze

Boots

  • The Crudest Boots
  • Rivera Dancers

Belts

  • Binding of the Lost
  • Kyoshiro's Soul

Bracers

  • Bindings of the Lesser Gods
  • Cesar's Memento
  • Gungdo Gear
  • Pinto's Pride
  • Spirit Guards

Shoulders

  • Lefebvre's Soliloquy

Polearms

  • Vigilance

Below are listed select few items that have mechanics which aren't immediately obvious from their description.

Shenlong's Spirit

Bindings of the Lesser Gods

Flying Dragon

Gungdo Gear

Madstone

The Crudest Boots

Rabid Strike

Won Khim Lau

Passives

Monks have more flexibility in their passive choices than most classes because a lot of them give similar benefits. Oftentimes you can switch them out based upon your gear, paragon level or familiarity with the game. You also have the choice to select tons of defense or straight offensive with most of the build choices. Let's analyze each passive and see what they're all about.

Alacrity

Beacon of Ytar

Chant of Resonance

Combination Strike

Determination

Exalted Soul

Fleet Footed

Harmony

Momentum

Mythic Rhythm

Near Death Experience

Relentless Assault

Resolve

Seize the Initiative

Sixth Sense

The Guardian's Path

Transcendence

Unity

Skills

Primary Skills

Fists of Thunder

Deadly reach

Crippling Wave

Way of the Hundred Fists

Primary skills deal little damage and generate Spirit when they hit an enemy. Raiment of a Thousand Storms build uses Primary Skills as a main source of damage. Most other builds only take them to proc associated bonuses such as Bastions of Will or Spirit Guards and to get the damage buff from Way of the Hundred Fists Assimilation.

Damage Dealing Skills

Lashing Tail Kick

Wave of Light

Tempest Rush

Exploding Palm

Seven-Sided Strike

Mystic Ally

These are the main build-defining skills. Pick one of these, a Set that buffs it, 2-3 supporting Legendaries and you got yourself a build.

Seven-Sided Strike is only used in Uliana's Stratagem builds to proc Exploding Palms because it doesn't deal enough damage by itself.

Mystic Ally is only used as a DPS skill in Inna's Mantra builds. In some cases Air Ally or Fire Ally is included in other builds just for the passive bonuses.

Mantras

Monks can choose to have one of four Mantra skills: Mantra of Salvation, Mantra of Retribution, Mantra of Healing and Mantra of Conviction. Mantras provide a small persistent buff or debuff in an area around the Monk. Mantras can be activated up to two times per second to provide another bonus or empower the existing aura for a short time.

Most solo builds use Mantra of Salvation Agility for its huge defensive boost. Mantra of Healing is used by support monks to generate a lot of shielding for the party, or in T16 builds to protect Squirt's Necklace stacks. Mantra of Conviction is used in some speed builds for Movement Speed from Annihilation rune. Mantra of Retribution Transgression is sometimes included for a little bit of extra Attack Speed.

Utility Skills

All the other Monk skills can be grouped together. They are used to round up the builds with extra defensive, offensive and mobility buffs, or to proc certain Sets or Legendaries.

SkillUsage
EpiphanyThis skill is included in many builds for mobility, CC-immunity, Spirit generation and damage reduction from Desert Shroud rune. Some T16 builds use Insight for even more Spirit, while support monks go Soothing Mist to provide extra healing to the party.
Dashing StrikeThis is the best mobility skill in the game: it has long range, short cooldown, multiple charges, can go through walls and the animation is nearly instant. Almost every build uses Dashing Strike with either Blinding Speed for defense, Radiance for damage or Quicksilver for more mobility.
Cyclone StrikeOften included in pushing builds to group up or move monsters and kill them more efficiently. Implosion is the most commonly used rune, although all the other runes except Sunburst also see some play.
SerenityAn excellent defensive skill, which also has great synergy with Squirt's Necklace. DPS builds use Ascension rune, while supports go with Tranquility for party-wide shields.
Inner SanctuaryThis is primarily a support monk skill which is used to provide a massive 55% damage reduction to your party members. High GR runs usually go with Temple of Protection for the CC-immunity, while in speeds Intervene is often included to better protect Squirt's Necklace.
Sweeping WindUsed in Patterns of Justice and Monkey King's Garb builds to activate the set bonuses. Inner Storm is sometimes used in other builds purely for the Spirit regen.
Blinding FlashThis skill is often included into rotation-based DPS builds with Faith in the Light rune for extra damage and to proc effects such as Relentless Assault or Cesar's Memento. Support monks sometimes use Crippling Light for more survivability.
Breath of HeavenThis skill sees very little play. Infused with Light is used in the Raiment of a Thousand Storms build to maintain Shenlong's Spirit buff. Support Monks and some T16 builds use Zephyr for more Movement Speed.

Below are listed select few build-relevant skills and their mechanics are explained in detail.

Epiphany Teleport

Epiphany Soothing Mist

Mystic Ally

Tempest Rush Flurry

Summary

Regardless of its strength and place in the META Monk is always extremely fun to play. After trying out Dashing Strike once, every other mobility skill in the game feels sluggish. Flying through the maps and destroying everything in your way is what Monks do best! Bury your enemies under an avalanche of fists and bring glory to Ytar!

Credits

Written by Northwar.
Reviewed by wudijo and Raxxanterax.

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