Here we are again! If you’re a Fresh L70 Monk and wondering where to go – look no further. Seriously. Here, we teach you what to do step by step until you reach your free seasonal 6 piece set. Get your Haedrigs Gifts, complete your seasonal journey, and get your Monk to endgame with our Fresh Level 70 Monk Guide!

In Season 26, the Monk free set is: Inna’s Reach.

Season 26 and YOU. How does it affect?

S26’s unique mechanic is the Echoing Nightmare. Here’s how it works

– Beat a Greater Rift Guardian, get a Petrified Scream.
– Transmute the Scream in the cube, and enter an Echoing Nightmare

More difficult as it progresses, progress faster by killing monsters quickly. Rewards on completing an Echoing Nightmare: EXP, Legendary Items, Blood Shards, Gems, and a new Legendary Gem, Whisper of Atonement.

– Whisper of Atonement is used exclusively to augment legendaries, up to L125!

Thank god… this basically removes a huge grind via levelling up gems for augmentation at least up to 125 which is good for 99% of people.

For this guide though, the free set doesn’t matter (but we WILL be able to beat the whole Seasonal Journey, don’t worry), as we’re rushing with LoD. Why? We want to get out of the early and early-mid game, freeing up for us to transition STRAIGHT into high-tier speedfarming or tryhard builds. LoD is the easiest, non free-set reliant way to do this, which you can transition from easily.

Step 1) Initial Build & Getting Legacy of Dreams

Don’t get stressed out, yes, LoD builds might seem a little daunting but let me tell you that it’s a fun and exciting process. Ultimately you need two things right now: The actual LoD gem, and a basic build to get you going.

Generic Starter build (slightly related to our ‘final build’)

S24 Fresh 70 Monk BASIC BUILD
Skill Rune
Crippling Wave Rising Tide
Wave of Light
Explosive Light / Pillar
Dashing Strike
Falling Star / Blinding
Mystic Ally Air Ally
Mantra of Healing / Perseverance
Circular Breathing / Agility
OPEN OPEN
Passives
Mythic Rhythm
Seize the Initiative
Sixth Sense Exalted Soul

The above build is meant to be in the middle of two things: Easy to edit – that hopefully game-changing legendaries can fit in no matter what. Related to our ‘final build’ – it’s a rough basic version of our “goal”, so it feels more natural as you transition towards it. Have a look down there for the final build preview to see what we’re going for.

Getting Legacy of Dreams ASAP

It’s simple, you need this GEM so get it ASAP.

Get 3 rift keys → Run 3 rifts → Wear three gemstones on your gear.

The first three gems will always be Bane of the Powerful, Legacy of Dreams, and one random one. So thankfully, there’s no RNG there.

Step 2) Easy power-ups. Huge gains for little effort.

You can go all of these things “simultaneously”, basically small tasks here and there that you should keep in mind right now that will greatly increase your power for little to no effort.

Make a Reaper’s Wraps: Speaking of no effort to big returns… Make this ASAP. Plans drop from any Torment Malthael.

What three Legendary gems?

Your next goal should be getting at least L25 on your three most important gems. Just get rift keys and spam GR’s 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.

You want double defensive gems since toughness will be a little rough… Esoteric Alteration and Molten Wildebeests Gizzard. They both should help beef you up quite a bit. If you feel like you can drop them, check out Powerful, Trapped, or Stricken.

Can’t ever go wrong with leveling up a Boon of the Hoarder for speedfarming. (Need a refresher? Basic offensive: Powerful, Trapped. Basic Defensive: Esoteric Alteration, Molten Wildebeests Gizzard)

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.

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

Monks / Demon Hunters 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 – it’s your best defensive stat by FAR.

So your gemming strategy (body and legs) should be slotting your best Diamonds, 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”.

Life per Hit is pretty good early game, and try to get a roll of it somewhere. Luckily, Weapon soul shards have it.

Wave of Light % is found in Helm and Boots.

The Element% you want is Fire (lategame, 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.

FOLLOWER GEAR!

Do not forget to fully equip your follower for farming. You can start by crafting Sage or Cain’s NOW and worry about the rest later.

Step 3) Refining, Using Resources -> ‘Full Build’

Full Build Preview

So you can easily see what items you’ll need, and you can get an idea of what we’re trying to do here.

S26 Monk Fresh Level 70 – LoD WoL Mystic Ally (Midgame / Speedfarm) Build
Head Tzo Kirn’s Gaze Skill Rune
Shoulder Lefebvre’s Soliloquy Cyclone Strike Implosion / Wall of Wind
Chest Cindercoat (Open) Wave of Light Explosive Light / Pillar of the Ancients
Arms St. Archews Gage Dashing Strike
Way of the Falling Star / Blinding Speed
Legs Blackthorns Jousting Mail Mantra of Salvation Agility
Boots The Crudest Boots Mystic Ally Air Ally
Belt Goldwrap Epiphany Desert Shroud
Bracer Pinto’s Pride (Binding) Passives
Amulet Squirts Necklace / Open Beacon of Ytar
Ring Obsidian Ring of the Zodiac The Guardians Path
Ring Unity Unity
Weapon Kyoshiro’s Blade Sixth Sense (Harmony)
Offhand Rabid Strike —
Kanai’s Cube Legendary Gems
Incense Torch of the Grand Temple Legacy of Dreams (IRREPLACABLE)
Binding of the Lesser Gods (Pinto) Bane of the Powerful (Flex / Gizzard)
Convention of Elements (Any) Boon of the Hoarder (If Farming)

Get CORE ITEMS asap. The heart of your build

The absolute core of your build are these:

Incense Torch, Kyoshiro’s Blade – use Death’s Breath.
Pinto’s Pride, Cindercoat – use Blood Shards.

This is core to “phase 1” of your build which is WoL and essence management. Later items help you “reach 100% epiphany uptime”. Then finally, the “Mystic Ally” final tier.

Spending Blood Shards and Death’s Breath

Blood ShardsDeaths BreathRings, amulets

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

  • Pinto’s Pride / Binding of Lesser Gods – Bracer
  • Cindercoat – Chest
  • Tzo Krin’s Gaze – Helm
  • Goldwrap – Belt
  • Lefebvre’s Soliloquy – Shoulder
  • Crudest Boots – Boots

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.

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 ammys…

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!

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.

Keep in mind that this is a pretty involved build. It doesn’t need to be “full” to be powerful, its damage can easily toned down as well for more defense, removing Rabid strike and Binding of the Lesser Gods for a tougher build with things like Crystal Fist, and utility bracers like Reaper’s Wraps or using a generator for Spirit Guards.

Follower Gear odds and ends

More of a reminder than anything, once you start farming you will be running into those little bonuses for your follower farming build. Keep an eye out!

Summary & Outro

Welp, that’s about it. I’m liking these seasonal bonuses that remove the augmentation grind – makes the game a lot more humane. From here, you can easily do the Seasonal Journey if that’s your thing, or transition into literally any other build you like – the it’s exactly what the S26 fresh 70 LoD builds for each class are made for.

GL out there and check out our D3 Guide Directory if you need anything else!

30 COMMENTS

  2. hello, this is my first season and this helped greatly. It took me the three day weekend, but I made like paragon 50 and have the full set. I see the paragon recommendation in the comments. thanks again.

  5. Thanks for the guide, just started supporting you guys on Patreon since I’ve been using your guides for the last few seasons.

    Do you have paragon point recommendations? I only saw the small bit in the section on beating GR20.

    Thanks!

    • Oh wow! Thanks so much! Paragon Priorities are as follows for a basic fresh 70 monk using Uliana:

      MS > DEX > Spirit optional > VIT
      CDR > CHC > CHD > AS
      ALLRES > Life > Armor > Regen
      AD > LPF > RCR > GF

  8. Thanks a lot for the guide, I killed T4 Belial without many problems(and without doing the GR20 or good sockets). If anyone needs, the paragons and the skills were the same as the guide suggests, except for one swap, which is Cyclone Strike(with the Soothing Breeze run) for Sweeping Wind.
    Here you have the setup I used for it: http://imgur.com/a/op0bY

  9. Really awesome content on this website. Was wondering why fill a skill slot with a mantra, while wearing 4 pieces of inna’s? the set bonus already gives every mantra, epiphany desert shroud seems like a solid skill to use instead

  10. In the recent guide for season 9, you list one of the requirements for getting the 6 pc as having to kill Ghom on T1. The achievement requires T2.

    • Blood Shard section gives a good idea. Depth Diggers is best, and everything else is tiny in comparison. Magefist… I’ts difficult to have a useful body slot. Spirit Guards/Nemesis. Ring? RoRG > Rue Chambers… CoE. Weapon is Flying Dragon best > Crystal Fist? In-geom? Raiments strength is so narrow (Basic attacks) that options improving on it aren’t that vast.

      • I’m on GR40 now and cubed Crystal Fist is very good actually, cuz we’re dashing every 6 sec anyway and Raiment (you said it) are low-def set. Some hits couldn’t be covered with LoH even with Flying Dragon proc, so -50% dmg received is great. Just a thought.
        No doubts about Diggers and RoRG, bis.
        When I’m supposed to switch to Shenlongs? Non-ancient 2h legendary mace gives like 676k dps when Shenlongs 580k, but “in the field” I’d say the fists shows more stable results even with weaker emeralds in both.

        • Shenlongs gives an otherworldly DPS increase… youll unerstand once you try it. My only advice is switching once you have the “full build” including the Lefebres rorg diggers.

  14. I’m a total noob in monks but this guide has helped me greatly. Just to let you know guys, this work is appreciated, thank you very much!

  15. For your Inna’s 4 set clear GR20 build I think there is an error.

    You have the build with Crippling Wave: Mangle but then you say to try to stack Assimilation as much as you can. Which is it?

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