Monk Wave of Light Build with Sunwuko Set

Previously stuck in the group-only support DPS role, the Sunwuko set received a revision in Patch 2.4 to a viable soloing state. With this rework and the aid of several revised items, the Season 2 champion Wave of Light re-emerges in a new form. This ranged, sustained damage build is geared towards Greater Rift solo progression. We also have a speed farming variation, accessible using the link just below.

The basic skill setup of the Sunwuko Wave of Light Monk is displayed below. Read the dedicated Skills page for detailed information on choices, alternatives and build customization.

Active Skills
Wave of Light Pillar of the Ancients Cyclone Strike Implosion 1 Epiphany Desert Shroud 2 Sweeping Wind Inner Storm 3 Dashing Strike Blinding Speed 4 Serenity Ascension
Passive Skills
Seize the Initiative Beacon of Ytar Harmony The Guardian's Path

The required gear setup for the Sunwuko Wave of Light Monk is listed below. Check the Gear page for detailed information on choices, alternatives, gemming, Kanai's Cube and Paragon distribution.

• Helm: Sunwuko's Crown
• Shoulders: Sunwuko's Balance
• Gloves: Sunwuko's Paws
• Chest: Sunwuko's Soul
• Belt: Captain Crimson's Silk Girdle
• Pants: Captain Crimson's Thrust
• Boots: The Crudest Boots
• Bracers: Pinto's Pride
• Amulet: Sunwuko's Shines
• Ring 1: Unity
• Ring 2: Obsidian Ring of the Zodiac
• Weapon 1: Rabid Strike
• Weapon 2: Vengeful Wind

With this Season's addition of a 4th slot in Kanai's Cube as a theme, your ideal setup will be:

• Kanai's Cube 4th Slot: Kyoshiro's Blade

This Season comes with the theme of Angelic Crucibles — consumable items that empower Legendary items with perfected Ancient-level stats, as well as infuse them with one of three unique, powerful, class-specific abilities at random. For this build, we recommend aiming for the Wave of Light Sanctification, which adds the following power to your build:

• Wave of Light Sanctification: Casting Wave of Light now summons a bell at the target location that deals damage when any player attacks the bell. Up to five bells can be active at one time.

Use Angelic Crucibles on an item that crosses over most (if not all) variants of a build, and is also an item that is relatively harder to perfect than other slots (since sanctifying an item maximizes its stats). In the case of this build, good candidates for Sanctification are your weapons, Rabid Strike and Vengeful Wind.

You can read more on Angelic Crucibles and the sanctification process in our dedicated Angelic Crucible Mechanics guide.

The former Season 28 theme, the Altar of Rites, has been revised and re-added to Diablo 3 as a permanent character progression mechanic. — For virtually all builds and players of all skill levels — from casual to advanced — we recommend progressing through the Altar tree using the path outlined below. The suggested path is geared towards maximum quality of life first, then amplifying damage, and then mopping up the tree with defensive and edge case utility nodes.

Note that while they require reaching them with a Seal, Legendary Potion Powers are not part of the Seal cost system; Potions unlock with a separate resource called Primordial Ashes, obtained from salvaging Legendary or Set items of Primal (red bordered) quality. Upgrade them as soon as possible, and in the order shown below (courtesy of Caleko's Altar of Rites planner).

You can read more on the Altar of Rites, Seals and Legendary Potion Powers in our dedicated Altar of Rites Mechanics guide.

• Legendary Gem 1: Bane of the Trapped
• Legendary Gem 2: Enforcer
• Legendary Gem 3: Bane of the Stricken

• Weapon Slot: Incense Torch of the Grand Temple
• Armor Slot: Bindings of the Lesser Gods
• Jewelry Slot: Ring of Royal Grandeur

In this section, we will briefly go over how to kickstart this build into reality; which items you should aim for with priority when farming and gambling, and what is their relative priority for the functioning of this spec. Note that these suggestions are exclusively aimed at getting you up and running into endgame farming, and might not reflect the gear you need to wear for high-end Greater Rift solo or group pushing. This section also assumes a fresh Season's start, which usually is the point where most players work on assembling their first build with a particular set.

If the Sunwuko set is part of the Haedrig's Gift for the Season, your simplest and most straightforward path to assembling the build is to complete the Seasonal Journey chapters up to Chapter IV. The Seasonal Journey chapters will gradually give you a complete class-specific set, giving 2-3 pieces for Chapters II, III and IV.

From the pre-game menu, choose and do this week's Challenge Rift. When successfully completed, this weekly event will grant you 5,1 million Gold, 475 Blood Shards, 370 Reusable Parts, 350 Arcane Dust, 125 Veiled Crystals, 35 Death's Breaths, and 15 of each Bounty cache material: Khanduran Rune, Caldeum Nightshade, Arreat War Tapestry, Corrupted Angel Flesh, and Westmarch Holy Water. This will allow you some early Seasonal leeway to extract and reforge items in Kanai's Cube, speeding up the assembly of this build with the items recommended below.

Having some materials at your disposal, either from farming or the Challenge Rift, is particularly important when you get duplicate pieces of your desired set. When you do, you can use Kanai's Cube Skill of Nilfur recipe (10x Forgotten Souls, 10x Death's Breaths, 1x Set item) to convert into another item from the same set. You should never salvage duplicate pieces of a desired set before you have it assembled.

In order to assemble a Sunwuko Wave of Light Monk, you should do the following.

• Gather the full 6-piece Sunwuko set using the advice above, or by spending Blood Shards at Kadala. In order of gamble chance, you should spend for: Shoulders, Pants, Gloves, Chest, Helm, and Amulet. A trick you can also use is to gamble for duplicate pieces with an easier gamble chance (i.e., Shoulders) and convert them into another piece from the same set using the Skill of Nilfur recipe in Kanai's Cube.
• Upgrade rare (Hope of Cain recipe in Kanai's Cube) Daibos to get Incense Torch of the Grand Temple, which you might have lucked into with your level 1 crafts as per our Seasonal Starter Guide. This weapon provides the basis of your resource management and damage dealing in a Wave of Light-based build.
• Gamble Bracers for Pinto's Pride, which also might have been your lucky find from the level 1 gambling. These bracers bolster damage and provide indirect safety with their Slowing effect. Bracers gambling can also net you Nemesis Bracers, which are a cornerstone farming item.
• Upgrade rare Fist Weapons to get Vengeful Wind and/or Kyoshiro's Blade. Both these weapons will skyrocket the performance of a Sunwuko WoL build, as the former ties into your set mechanic and can be adapted to any SWK build, while the latter simply provides upfront burst that can carry you through the difficulty levels.
• Gamble Belts for Kyoshiro's Soul; this is a convenience item that will mostly carry you through early farming with the Sunwuko set and will allow you to focus on damage rather than monitoring Sweeping Wind stacks. While gambling Belts, you can also stumble into Goldwrap, which is a cornerstone standard rift farming item that makes you nearly invulnerable as you pick up gold.
• Upgrade rare Spirit Stones for Tzo Krin's Gaze for a skill damage boost and additional farming convenience — it turnes Wave of Light into a ranged skill.
• Upgrade rare One-handed Swords to get In-geom; doing this on a level 1 Demon Hunter alt will improve your chances due to their lowest loot pool of legendary swords.
• Do Act I bounties to attain the act-specific Ring of Royal Grandeur from Bounty caches. This will be helpful either in completing the basic set bonus, or mixing other helpful sets in (Aughilds) as described in the Gear page. Bounties will net you the craftable set recipes to begin with, so you will be killing two birds with one stone. Bounties will also net you Avarice Band (Act III), another farming-oriented staple for most builds and classes, this one included.
• While largely undesirable due to high costs, gambling or upgrading rare Jewelry is also possible; Obsidian Ring of the Zodiac, Unity and Convention of Elements will all bring massive damage bumps to the build, with other standout pieces that can also substitute or be temporarily helpful in the face of Stone of Jordan, Squirt's Necklace, or Oculus Ring and The Flavor of Time for your Follower.