D3 S28 Monk Fresh Level 70 Guide | 2.7.5

What three Legendary gems? L25 them ASAP.

Your next goal should be getting at least L25 on your three most important gems. Just get repeat the cycle of Nephalem Rift for a Key -> Do a Greater Rift until you get them, and do the absolute minimum level you need to level them up. Get them and level them quickly – do not feel pressured to “maximize” your rift keys by inflating the difficulty.

Legacy of Dreams is mandatory, as mentioned in the basics segment! Level this up as much as you can.

From here you have some choices

I highly recommend double defensive gems for now. Since the progression of the monk items is really offensive, an early setup of Moratorium (L25 only) + Molten Wildebeests Gizzard (Upgrade as you want) is the ultimate early game defensive duo that will hard carry you until the point you don’t need it anymore. Esoteric Alteration is worth a mention as the late-game defensive gem of choice.

Bane of the Powerful is an option if you don’t want double defensive gems. It’s a cheap 25 level investment for very powerful offensive and defensive effects. Other offensive options are Trapped, and Stricken (which is only good in the LATE game).

Can’t ever go wrong with leveling up a Boon of the Hoarder for speedfarming.

Legendary Items in ALL SLOTS

LoD gets stronger with each legendary item you have equipped – so get to it! You should aim to get this done “passively” by natural item drops, but you can also craft items if you’re desperate.

Simply wear whatever junk you find eventually
replacing them with useful pieces as you get them!

Spending Blood Shards is “OK”, but only use Death’s Breath to fill up the slots if you’re absolutely desperate. You’ll get an item for each slot in no time (you can even craft them). Save your resources for finding SPECIFIC items that will greatly boost your power. We talk more about this in the next segment, refinement.

Ancients DOUBLE this bonus, and they’re a welcome boost to consider.

Defense Type & Gems

Demon Hunter / Monk are DEXTERITY classes (they get free Armor from DEX). So, in the face of all this free armor, your prime defensive stats are ALL RESISTS > VIT. So try to reroll ALLRES on your gear if you need defense, and REMOVE AS MUCH ARMOR (it’s pretty useless as a rolled-in stat).

Slot in your best Diamonds on body and legs, as they give ALLRES.

Basic Rerolls

Since legendaries are a little expensive to reroll EARLY ON, try to make the most by REMOVING GARBAGE STATS, and getting anything “remotely usable”.

DEX and VIT are your primary stats and are welcome everywhere, also, as mentioned above, ALL RESISTS are also very welcome.

Life per Hit is pretty good early game, and try to get a roll of it somewhere.

Wave of Light % is found in Helm and Boots.

The Element% you want is Fire (some like lightning), found typically in Bracers and Amulet.

Remove useless stats

• Life Regeneration – garbage for any build.
• Attack Speed – it usually an endgame tune-up stat.
• Excess Resource Cost Reduction – Is a crutch, and only niche builds need it.
• Excess Cooldown Reduction – Only useful for an endgame “need”.
• Unused skill% – literally USELESS.
• Armor – Useless for us, take ALLRES instead.

Take better stats

• DEX VIT– can’t go wrong with these. Your core stats!
• ALLRES Life% Great defensive stats.
• Sockets are essentially MANDATORY.
• Life per Hit – Great early game sustainability.
• CRIT Stats (CHC / CHD) – More for endgame, but I’d take this over garbage stats.
• Skill and Elemental% – that you use.

Here’s advice on how to spend your blood shards with Kadala, roughly in order of importance:

Pinto’s Pride / Binding of Lesser Gods / Nemesis – Bracer: You have lots to discover in the bracer pile so this becomes a huge priority. Pinto is your prize here, and you can move on after that. Nemesis is great to have, but not critical. Lesser Gods isn’t important until later.

Cindercoat – Chest: Get this if you’re having problems with Spirit, otherwise you can move on ahead to other items.

Tzo Krin’s Gaze – Helm: A unique item that not only gives DPS, but makes our Wave of Light a targeted ranged attack! This is a godlike upgrade.

Lefebvre’s Soliloquy – Shoulder: A much needed defensive item.

Goldwrap – Belt: Used with Boon of the Hoarder, solves your Nephalem Rift defenses for some giga greedy speedfarming builds.

Crudest Boots – Boots: Doubles your Mystic Ally of choice, and doubles their passive bonus to boot.

Blood Shards are a great place to get filler legendaries
to get one in every slot for Legacy of Dreams early game.

You can look for the other ‘unimportant’ things in the build preview after these (IE, Gloves etc)

Here’s advice on how to get your weapons from Deaths Breath rare item upgrades (Kanai’s Cube Recipe: 25x Deaths Breath convert a rare into random legendary of same type), roughly in order of importance:

2h Daibo for Incense Torch of the Grand Temple, this should be your first chase item. It helps with spirit massively. Youll want to EVENTUALLY cube this.

1h Fist for a bunch of possibilities, Kyoshiro’s Soul, Rabid Strike and a decent filler in Crystal Fist.

Nothing else is really WORTH spending DB’s for, and would rather spend to try and get jewelry you might not have yet.

The end build is pretty much locked into Kyoshiro / Torch / Rabid. You can drop Kyoshiro for a speed item like In-geom…

Rings and Amulets are tough to get from either BS or DB’s (due to the large amount of possible outcomes), but if you’re done getting your core items from these currencies – and you haven’t got your core accessories, it’s a viable way to spend them. Typically you’ll just find these as you grind – then use currency if you’re desperate. Anyway, if I had to rank the importance of your rings and amulets…

Obsidian Ring of the Zodiac is what will enable your 100% Epiphany uptime. It’s core to progress your build to the next “level” of Mystic Ally shenanigans.

Unity is a decent defensive option, but you need the follower immortality relic, and another Unity for the follower!

Convention of Elements is really the only other usable ring you have.

For Amulets? Hellfire, or Squirts are your only real options.

As an aside – Ring of Royal Grandeur and Avarice Band are BOUNTY ONLY rings (respectively ACT I and III), which DO NOT APPEAR FROM any other source. They, like any other bounty item, DO NOT DROP from monsters, gambling, upgrades or any other source outside of their respective BOUNTY CACHE.