Inna Mystic Ally Monk Skills and Runes
On this page, we explain how to choose and use your skills when playing Inna Mystic Ally Monk in Diablo 3. Updated for Patch 2.7.3 and Season 26.
Active Skills |
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Passive Skills |
Rotation
Playing the Inna Mystic Ally Monk, you will be using a decision-making chain;
it is mostly tied to your Convention of Elements (CoE) rotation, the
current situation in the fight, and your available cooldowns. Note that the
Mystic Ally Monk thrives in mid-sized fights of no more than two dozen enemies;
it is quite easy to over-pull with
Cyclone Strike, and if you do, the
Mystic Ally will not be able to reach the priority high value targets
through the low progression trash. Outside of enemy type and density, observe
the CoE rotation at all times, and then time ability usage according to the
following factors.
- Do your repositioning from fight to fight in between your relevant CoE
cycles. When you have come across a favorable engagement, plant yourself
stationary halfway through your Holy rotation of CoE, which allows you to
stack
Way of the Hundred Fists on the monsters you pull with a
Cyclone Strike cast. This is also where you put down
Inner Sanctuary, if you are using it.
- Since you should be using the Shenlong's set (
Shenlong's Fist of Legend and
Shenlong's Relentless Assault), you will have an additional buff to track. During the Holy rotation of CoE, you will have to check if your Shenlong's buff is active, and if it is, you will need to dump Spirit with
Cyclone Strike in order to get to the buildup phase of the Shenlong mechanic, which will line up your Shenlong damage bonus phase with the Physical CoE cycle.
Serenity is used either when threatened with death due to high burst of damage, or — ideally — halfway into your Lightning CoE cycle, in order to ensure uninterrupted damage output during your Physical CoE cycle.
- As the Physical CoE rotation comes around, but ideally not after the buff is
halfway through, all your buffs should be up and active (you can make a quick
check of your sheet DPS by popping the inventory open for a second to check the
Flying Dragon proc — see the gear page of the build for more information). Assuming they are all aligned, pop
Blinding Flash (if you are using it) and then
Mystic Ally for a massive burst of damage.
- At this point, the Physical CoE rotation should be over, and you are free to move in between the irrelevant cycles as you prepare to rinse and repeat the process outlined above.
Skills and Runes
The Mystic Ally will be the main damage dealers of the build. You will
be amplifying their damage with the Inna 6-piece set bonus and a slew of
synergistic legendary items, such as the doubled effectiveness from
The Crudest Boots, the DPS boost from
Bindings of the Lesser Gods, and
others. For Greater Rift solo progression, you should be using the Physical rune
Earth Ally due to its highest burst potential, but for general GR farming
you can alternate to the more consistent damage from
Water Ally.
The best generator for the build is Way of the Hundred Fists, whose rapid
triple attack adds a damage buffing angle to the build with the rune
Assimilation. Adding 5% damage for each enemy hit during a brief 5-second
window, it synergizes perfectly with the timing, bursty nature of the build. If
you draw a big fight and build up your
Assimilation stacks directly
before hitting the
Mystic Ally cooldown, you will enjoy a significant
increase to your overall damage. You can ease the rotation a bit by altering the
generator to
Crippling Wave
Rising Tide; the vastly improved Spirit
generation will proc the set bonus at will, but will cost you the optimal
Assimilation damage increase.
To clump up enemies for the convenience of your Mystic Allies and to maximize
Assimilation stacks, you will be using
Cyclone Strike with one of
the longest range pulls in the game — the 34-yard
Implosion rune.
This skill is vital to the build due to the
Bindings of the Lesser Gods and
Lefebvre's Soliloquy legendary bonuses (see this build's gear page for more information).
To protect yourself from crowd control, we generally advise you to dedicate
at least one slot to a CC immunity skill. An excellent option for a low-CDR build
is Inner Sanctuary; while its protective effect confines you to a single
spot when you pop the CD, it synergizes well with the Endless Walk set playstyle,
reduces incoming damage by the massive 55%, and makes you immune to control
impairing effects with the rune
Temple of Protection. Another option for
this slot is
Blinding Flash; it brings a 20-yard Blind for 3 seconds,
along with an additional damage multiplier from the
Faith in the Light rune.
Playstyle-wise, make sure to pop
Blinding Flash directly prior to your
Mystic Ally burst.
Serenity is one of the most potent defensive skills in the Monk
arsenal, allowing you a brief window of invulnerability on a reasonable 16
second base cooldown. Note that the downtime begins after the active effect
expires, preventing permanent uptime exploitation. Thus, take the longer lasting
Ascension rune and use this skill to protect your burst cycle, or in key
situations where you expect a lot of burst coming your way, i.e. Molten
explosions, Grotesque deaths, etc.
Dashing Strike is an irreplaceable mobility tool in the Monk arsenal,
allowing swift and fluid transition between areas, in and out of danger as the
rift dictates. With two charges stored by default you can cover decent ground,
or open a fight of your choice at an advantage with the defensive bonuses of the
Blinding Speed rune.
Passives
Beacon of Ytar is a solid foundation for high skill uptime, providing a
20% chunk to your Cooldown Reduction. With a bare minimum of 33% CDR (see the
Gearing page) to align
Mystic Ally to CoE cycles, this passive eases the
CDR strain on your item rolls quite a bit.
Seize the Initiative is one of the best damage-oriented passives at the
disposal of Monks, providing you with a temporary attack speed increase when
engaging enemies over 75% health, translating into faster pet attack speed for
the
Mystic Ally build. As you get more comfortable with the build, you
will learn to kite into and pull additional enemies or freshly spawned boss adds
to effectively extend the benefits from
Seize the Initiative.
The damage bonuses of Relentless Assault get an easy trigger through
the CC mechanics of the build, as you have both
Blinding Flash and the
active power of the
Water Ally (via Inna 6-piece bonus) at your
disposal.
To counteract some of the damage spikes the build is exposed to, we will be
taking Near Death Experience — the cheat death passive available to
Monks. On the standard 60-second cooldown, it will prevent a lethal situation
and restore you to 35% Life and Spirit instead. The 2-second immunity to damage
and crowd control impairing effects is a nice bonus on top.
Changelog
- 14 Apr. 2022: Guide revised to Earth Ally for Season 26.
- 08 Dec. 2021: Guide revised for Season 25.
- 21 Jul. 2021: Guide thoroughly reworked for the Inna set revamp.
- 01 Apr. 2021: No changes required for Season 23.
- 16 Nov. 2020: No changes required for Season 22.
- 01 Jul. 2020: No changes required for Season 21.
- 12 Mar. 2020: No changes necessary for Season 20.
- 21 Nov. 2019: Reviewed for Season 19.
- 23 Aug. 2019: Reviewed for Season 18.
- 16 May 2019: Guide was reviewed and approved for Season 17.
- 17 Jan. 2019: Information was reviewed and approved for Season 16 with no changes required.
More Monk Guides
Builds from Other Classes
Farming Guides
This build is presented to you by Deadset, one of the very few professional Diablo 3 players. Deadset regularly publishes video guides on Youtube and streams on Twitch, where you can see how this and other builds play out in practice.
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