D3 S28 Monk Fresh Level 70 Guide | 2.7.5

Bane of the Powerful: is an amazing gem. 25 points basically “maxes out” its power. It’s no slouch either, since it takes other gems quite a few upgrades before they catch up to Powerful. It has a place in your set for a very long time and potentially forever.

If I were to level up a temporary defensive gem, it would most likely be Molten Wildebeest’s Gizzard. If you have great self-healing, Moratorium makes a case. Personally, I would level up both to 25 to boost up my defense for now, then use them for augments later.

Bane of the Trapped: seems very difficult to trigger right now, but will be brainless once you loot your Pinto’s Pride. Nevertheless, the L25 bonus allows you to trigger the gem when you’re in their face.

You will often be shuffling a combination of these three, Stricken and Hoarder. Check the next tab for info on those.

Any other gems worth it? 

Bane of the Stricken:  Sunwuko is relatively poor at killing rift guardians. Stricken alleviates this. This is obviously more useful a little later on in the game.

Esoteric Alteration: Is the defensive late-game gem of choice.

Boon of the Hoarder: Will make farming easier.
(See: Speedfarming General, Monk Speedfarming, Monk Fastest Speedfarming)

There’s honestly not much change.
Sunwuko plays exactly like our leveling and no-set 70 build.

The playstyle is obvious. Gain a bunch of spirit, dump it all with Wave of Light.

Sweeping Wind is the core of your build. It provides you with defense, a random taunt (of questionable effectivity), spirit regen and empowers Wave of Light. Needless to say, having it up at all times is IMPORTANT.

Scoring a Crit has a chance to increase the stack, hitting an enemy retains its duration. The rest of the build isn’t very complicated. Use Dashing Strike liberally, and press Air Ally when you’re low.

With Kyoshiro’s Soul, this becomes a lot simpler.

More offense or Spirit needed?

Offense is usually categorized as Damage or, indirectly, Resource Gain.

Sunwuko requires a massive influx of Spirit! The build revolves around generating a ton of Spirit and reducing our Spirit costs! ALWAYS BE AWARE certain combination of rerolls and items will make you feel like you’ve “gone overboard” with Spirit, and you can cut back a bit in place of more damage and defense.

Epiphany – Insight (Desert Shroud): The baseline skill of Epiphany gives us a large Spirit influx. This REPLACES OUR BASIC ATTACK once we get a few key items which will help us manage our Spirit better. Once the build comes together, you’ll see that Spirit generators are simply not needed any more! (Once you fit Epiphany in your build, making space for Beacon of Ytar is a good idea).

Mystic Ally-Air Ally, Exalted Soul, and Chant of Resonance are 3/4 of the Monk’s passive Spirit regen skills and passives. The only other one is Mantra of Healing-Circular Breathing. We don’t use that any more since the loss of a “better” mantra is too big.

Guardian’s Path with a 2-handed weapon gives a Spirit generation bonus – THIS IS A TRAP. It’s a terrible passive for generation! The dual wield version, however, is amazing.

— OFFENSE —

Mantra of Conviction-Overawe is the go-to offensive mantra. It’s simple, brainless, passive, and we can even abuse the active half with Chant of Resonance.

Unity is a basic DPS increase. Right now it gives us 15% (5 from yourself, 5 from your follower, 5 from your Mystic Ally! No joke!). With Crudest Boots, this passive maxes out to 20%. (Yeah, so much for “Unity” eh? It can be maxed alone, lol).

Seize the Initiative is actually a great DPS increase. IT COMES AT A HUGE COST, LITERALLY. Spending 30% more Spirit, since we attack that much faster! It’s unlikely you’ll be using this until later on in the game when you’re more progressed.

More defense needed?

Defense comes in the form of self-healing and damage reduction / mitigation.

Self-healing for Monk is hard to come by. Life per Spirit Spent and Life per Hit are the best sources for the early game.  Life per Spirit Spent comes in weapons and Spirit Stones. Life per Hit is best on weapons (but it appears in many other places, too). Don’t get too greedy with damage this early, I would even be happy using a 2H with LPFS and LPH on it.

Dashing Strike-Blinding Speed is THE rune for when tackling more difficult content.

Epiphany-Desert Shroud fits nicely into our build REPLACING OUR BASIC ATTACK ONCE WE HAVE BETTER SPIRIT MANAGEMENT ITEMS. It gives a large passive Spirit regen, and a much needed defensive boost. (once you fit Epiphany in your build, making space for Beacon of Ytar is a good idea)

On Mantras and Men: Of all the defensive mantra choices, only three really shine:

• Mantra of Healing – Time of Need: It’s hard to explain but this one is best very early on, and again once you’re very high up.
• Mantra of Salvation-Agility: Is a great general purpose defensive mantra.
• Mantra of Salvation-Perseverance: Gives the most STABLE increase, but only when your resists reach absurd levels via Harmony.

Sixth Sense (Harmony) these two passives “almost” do the same thing. While Harmony sucks in the early game (where your gear doesn’t support it well), it quickly becomes the strongest defensive passive in the entirety of the game. Use Sixth Sense early if you need defense NOW.

Resolve is a great passive when you’re hurting for defense. It’s underrated but it provides a huge boost of survivability. This is amazing in multiplayer, which “artificially” lowers the GR difficulty by 6 levels.

More mobility needed?

Dashing Strike-Way of the Falling Star – it’s funny how a single rune change can do so much for our clear speed. If you need more speed – this is the first place to look.

Mantra of Conviction-Annihilation is a double whammy. It increases our clear speed by making enemies more vulnerable AND give us a speed boost after each kill!

Beacon of Ytar is actually good. While it’s hard to fit in now, reducing Dashing Strike cooldown goes unnoticed in terms of how much ground you can cover. Beacon of Ytar does hard work in our build when the time comes (Epiphany, Mystic Ally).

There are a FEW other miiiiildly viable options for speed, but since Sunwuko doesn’t do well without supporting items, I cannot, in good faith, recommend any more speedy passives this early on. Click the links below to learn more.
(See: Speedfarming General | Monk Speedfarming | Best Monk Speedfarming)

Using Blood Shards:

Sunwuko revolves around FOUR KEY ITEMS, which are all MASSIVE.
It’s difficult to tell you which is more important than which – So here’s the 
“Four Heavenly Kings” in rough importance ranking:
Kyoshiro’s Soul > Tzo Krin’s Gaze > Cindercoat > Pinto’s Pride

Belt: snagging Kyoshiro’s Soul gives us a HUGE quality of life increase. It keeps Sweeping Wind up “forever”. This belt is arguably the most important since it just MAKES LIFE EASIER. No more worrying about Sweeping Wind! If you got this far, you know how important this is.

Head: gives the spirit stone Tzo Krin’s Gaze. This notoriously difficult to reroll/perfect item gives you an extreme jump in raw power. The fact that it makes your WoL ranged gives you an added layer of safety! Don’t be fooled by its orange only text – Tzo Krin’s Gaze rolls with a blue stat of +150% WoL power! Do not cube this (requires RoRG).

Chest: Cindercoat gives 30% Resource cost reduction on fire skills. This is technically not needed in very specific iterations of the final build, you can get rid of this with enough RCR and Spirit Regen… But 9 times out of 10 you’re gonna be using this EARLY ON. There’s a trick to obtaining a “cube worthy” Cindercoat – spend shards on a newly made L34 Monk!

Bracers: yield Pinto’s Pride. It’s arguably the worst of the four kings on the surface. The slow it procs is worth millions upon millions of toughness from saved damage. It also triggers Bane of the Trapped.

After this, there’s only one other important legendary…

Boots: Crudest Boots: Doubles Mystic Ally, which doubles our spirit regen from Air Ally (and even doubles the spirit gained from pressing it). It’s a nice addition to our total build.

A Friendly reminder regarding bounty rings: Ring of Royal Grandeur: Act I bounties. Avarice Band: Act III bounties, for speedfarming.

Using Death’s Breath – Rare to legendary:

This one’s a no brainer. Incense Torch of the Grand Temple from Daibo is the first legendary you’re gonna be after. Reduces WoL cost by HALF! It also rolls with a blue stat of +30% WoL damage!

Next are Fist Weapons. Kyoshiro’s Blade and Vengeful Wind are the the pair you’re looking for. As you noticed – BOTH buff our build quite nicely.

The “final” setup is Incense Cubed, while double wielding
Kyoshiro’s Blade and Vengeful Wind.

In-geom from Swords is another popular Monk weapon you’d probably want, if you have nothing else to search for.

The Classics: Good for any type of newer character and even the most battle-hardened of builds.

Ring of Royal Grandeur: “Break” your 6-piece to make space for a good filler item!

Accessory Sets: Focus–Restraint or Traveler’s Pledge. Completing any of these 2-sets is a vast power jump. +100%++ is substantial for only 2 slots.

Convention of Elements: Good ‘ol CoE. Wear it, Kanai it, as a filler or till the end of time. Learning to maximize CoE in any build you choose is a turning point for higher GR’s.

Unity: Straight 50% damage reduction in the cube. Too bad you need two of ’em.

Goldwrap + Avarice + Boon of The Hoarder: I don’t care how many times I have to remind you about this combo. Be on the lookout. Avarice drops from ACT III bounties.