Raiment Shenlong Generator Monk BiS Gear, Gems, and Paragon Points

The build incorporates the complete Raiment of a Thousand Storms set bonuses, taking five of the six available Raiment set pieces, and then adding two pieces of the craftable Captain Crimson's Trimmings set — Captain Crimson's Silk Girdle and one more of your choosing, according to your weakest Raiment set roll (either Captain Crimson's Thrust or Captain Crimson's Waders). This auxiliary set provides CDR as well as RCR bonuses, and then scales your damage dealt and damage reduced according to both stats, respectively — bringing a massive boon to the build. You will attain the complete set bonuses of this two-set amalgamation via Ring of Royal Grandeur in the Cube.

Rolls-wise, you will be striving to reach a good balance of Cooldown Reduction, Attack Speed and Area Damage across gear, as well as maximizing Crippling Wave % bonuses on the pants and belt (Cpt. Crimson's pieces in our example in the table below). Area Damage is the fourth desirable primary on the Mantle of the Upside-Down Sinners (accompanying Cooldown and Resource Cost Reductions) and the Fists of Thunder (alongside double Crit rolls). Crit chance and high mainstats are desirable, as always, on the Mask of the Searing Sky. Lastly, Heart of the Crashing Wave and Eight-Demon Boots can remain pure Toughness slots.

Equipping the entire Raiment set allows you to balance between offense and defense in the jewelry slots. Reworked in Patch 2.4, the Endless Walk set — The Compass Rose ring and The Traveler's Pledge amulet — adds a unique mechanic that slowly increases your damage by up to a 100% if you remain stationary, and drains it away and increases your damage reduction while moving. This balance mirrors the Shenlong's playstyle, which delivers punches rooted in one spot for extended periods of time, with periodic dashes of movement to the next big fight (see this build's skills page for more information).

The remaining ring slot will be taken by Unity, as it provides you with unparalleled damage reduction when paired with another on the follower, plus an immortality item for them (i.e. Enchanting Favor). Once you grow confident in handling the build's survivability (or you play in groups), swap Unity for the cyclical damage increase of Convention of Elements.

Introduced in Season 3, the Spirit Guards bracers will multiply your damage reduction for a short duration after using a Spirit Generator — functionally a permanent bonus for this primary-focused build. Stacking with your other sources of damage mitigation, these bracers will add sorely needed survivability to this melee setup. Note the significant range of the unique bonus and try to obtain the maximum without sacrificing Elemental damage, Dexterity, Vitality and Crit Chance.

The mandatory weapon set (and namesake) of the build is Shenlong's Spirit, Shenlong's Fist of Legend and Shenlong's Relentless Assault. These Fist Weapons have been reworked into multiplying your damage for each point of Spirit you have, and upon reaching your maximum reserve will irreversibly deplete it, forcing you to rebuild the damage bonuses as quickly as possible. This necessary weakness is offset by another massive damage multiplier, ensuring top tier viability of the build. The desired primary stats on both weapons are high Damage range, Dexterity, Area Damage and either Life per Hit or CDR; additional Spirit is required in the secondary stats, and a perfect roll would also include a hard crowd control proc (either Stun, Freeze or Blind).

Slot	Pieces	Stat Priority
Head	Mask of the Searing Sky	Dexterity Socket Critical Hit Chance Vitality Physical or Lightning Resistance (Secondary Stat) Crowd Control Reduction
Shoulders	Mantle of the Upside-Down Sinners	Dexterity Cooldown Reduction Resource Cost Reduction Area Damage Pickup Radius (Secondary Stat) Health Globe Healing Bonus (Secondary Stat)
Torso	Heart of the Crashing Wave	Dexterity 3 Sockets Vitality Reduced damage from Elites Physical or Lightning Resistance (Secondary Stat) Melee or Missile Damage Reduction (Secondary Stat)
Wrists	Spirit Guards	Dexterity Critical Hit Chance Fire Damage % Life per Hit or Vitality Physical or Lightning Resistance (Secondary Stat)
Hands	Fists of Thunder	Dexterity (replaced by Attack Speed at High Paragons) Critical Hit Chance Critical Hit Damage Area Damage Physical or Lightning Resistance (Secondary Stat) Pickup Radius (Secondary Stat)
Waist	Captain Crimson's Silk Girdle	Dexterity Crippling Wave Damage % Vitality Life % Physical or Lightning Resistance (Secondary Stat) Life per Kill (Secondary Stat)
Legs	Captain Crimson's Thrust	Dexterity 2 Sockets Crippling Wave Damage % Vitality Physical or Lightning Resistance (Secondary Stat) Life per Kill (Secondary Stat)
Feet	Eight-Demon Boots	Dexterity Vitality All Resistance Armor Physical or Lightning Resistance (Secondary Stat) Health Globe Healing Bonus (Secondary Stat)
Amulet	The Traveler's Pledge	Socket (guaranteed) Critical Hit Damage Critical Hit Chance Fire Damage % Physical or Lightning Resistance (Secondary Stat) Melee or Missile Damage Reduction (Secondary Stat)
Ring #1	The Compass Rose	Socket Critical Hit Damage Critical Hit Chance Average Damage Physical or Lightning Resistance (Secondary Stat)
Ring #2	Unity (Best in Slot) Convention of Elements (Alternative)	Socket Critical Hit Damage Critical Hit Chance Average Damage Physical or Lightning Resistance (Secondary Stat)
Weapon #1	Shenlong's Fist of Legend	High Weapon Damage Dexterity Socket (preferably from Ramaladni's Gift) Attack Speed Increase Area Damage or Life per Hit Maximum Spirit (Important Secondary stat)
Weapon #2	Shenlong's Relentless Assault	High Weapon Damage Dexterity Socket (preferably from Ramaladni's Gift) Attack Speed Increase Area Damage or Life per Hit Maximum Spirit (Important Secondary stat)

To help you with farming the gear you need for your builds, we have two very useful guides that you can access by clicking the links below: a Salvage Guide to help you quickly check whether or not you can safely salvage a piece of gear and a Legendary Farming Guide to help you efficiently farm legendaries and set items.

In the Core section, max out Movement Speed to the 25% cap. Normally this is done by dumping the first 50 Core Paragon points into Movement Speed, but if your boots have an imperfect roll with Movement Speed as a stat that you cannot replace, adjust the necessary point investment accordingly by simply subtracting your roll from the 25% max. Then max out Spirit, which is an important stat in Shenlong set build due to the set mechanics. After that, dump as much as you comfortably can into Dexterity, but feel free to invest into Vitality if you feel yourself lacking in toughness.

In the Offense section, max out Cooldown Reduction, Attack Speed, Crit Chance and Crit Damage, in that order. In Defense, prioritize All Resistance, then Life %, then Armor, and finish off with Life Regeneration. In Utility, build up Area Damage and Resource Cost Reduction first, then finish off with Life on Hit and Globe Radius.

Slot	Paragon Points
Core	Movement Speed up to 25% cap Maximum Spirit Dexterity Vitality
Offense	Cooldown Reduction Critical Hit Damage Attack Speed Critical Hit Chance
Defense	All Resistance Armor Life Regeneration Life %
Utility	Area Damage Resource Cost Reduction Life on Hit Globe Radius

Season 29 introduces a season-specific cap to stat benefits from Paragon levels, all while updating how Paragon point distribution is handled. For the duration of this Season, you can only assign 800 Paragon stat points to your character, removing the long-standing practice of main-stat stacking (with some gearing implications — see below) after you reach Paragon 800.

On top of that, you could only allocate 50 Paragon stat points to each of the four stats in a given Paragon category (Core, Offense, Defense, and Utility). In Season 29, you can allocate up to the full 200 points per category into any attribute, allowing you to more easily reach necessary build breakpoints (as outlined in the Gear page of the guide) for Cooldown Reduction, Resource Cost Reduction, etc.

With the changes to Paragon in mind, we recommend using the following Paragon distribution for this build:

• Core: Maximum Spirit: 200 points.
• Offense: Critical Hit Chance and Critical Hit Damage: Allocate points so they are as close to the desirable 1:10 ratio between the two stats, as displayed in your Character Details sheet. For dual-wielding 1-handed builds, this is usually achieved with 150 points into Critical Hit Chance and the remaining 50 into Critical Hit Damage.
• Defense: Life and All Resistance: Allocate points to maximize survivability; for Monks, this is usually achieved by evenly splitting 100 points into Life (directly increasing your Health pool) and All Resistance (to complement the naturally high Armor stat of Dexterity-based characters).
• Utility: Area Damage: 200 points.

In terms of gear, keeping the Paragon cap in mind is paramount, as it stymies the traditional endless supply of main stat after Paragon 800. This means re-rolling mainstat off your gear is no longer desirable, and full equipment augmentation with your main stat is even more critical. Additionally, you should take a careful look at your build and consider if you can fit the following changes to strengthen your damage and survivability:

• Guardian's Jeopardy: This is a craftable armor set, and the recipe for its creation drops from Bounty farming. Guardian's 2-piece provides a decent damage reduction bonus, but the true powerhouse of the set is the 3-piece bonus, which nets you an additional 100% of your main stats from equipped items. This is a tremendous benefit in an 800 Paragon capped Season. If the Guardian set can fit into the build with minimal sacrifices (other craftable sets, tertiary damage multipliers, etc.), consider its implementation. The available pieces are Guardian's Aversion (Wrists), Guardian's Case (Waist), and Guardian's Gaze (Head). Of course, you can wear 2 pieces of the set and complete the full 3-piece bonus with a Ring of Royal Grandeur (found from Act I bounty caches).
• Endless Walk:This is a jewelry set consisting of The Traveler's Pledge (Amulet) and The Compass Rose (Ring), and is randomly found through farming, gambling Blood Shards, and/or Kanai's Cube recipes. The Endless Walk set is a nice compromise between damage bonuses (building up while stationary) and defensive bonuses (building up while moving). It can replace glass cannon choices like the Bastions of Will set ( Focus and Restraint) and Squirt's Necklace with acceptable losses to DPS.
• Unity: A character wearing this ring, along with another Unity on their follower plus an immortality relic for them (i.e., Enchanting Favor), will reduce their damage taken by 50%. Unity can roll excellent offense-oriented stats and has an innate Extra Damage to Elites roll, which somewhat offsets losing all-out offense jewelry.

Bane of the Trapped is a potent source of additional damage, as it is its own multiplier in your total damage calculation. The gem will be procced by its own level 25 property when in melee range, where the Shenlong Monk fights by default.

Simplicity's Strength is one of the best DPS gems you can take for the build, as it was changed into a separate damage multiplication source to primary skills in Patch 2.4.1. Upgrading with a steady pace of half a percent per gem level, it quickly becomes a priority and a fixture in your gem choices. Its buffed healing secondary effect is just icing on the cake.

Introduced in Season 4, Bane of the Stricken takes a firm spot in your jewelry sockets for Progression. Building up your damage multiplicatively in prolonged fights and with a level 25 bonus specifically targeting Rift Guardians, this gem is designed to assist AoE heavy builds in their struggle against single target, high HP enemies. The Shenlong Monk is not an exception, and Bane of the Stricken is considered a great addition to the setup.

When it comes to gear gems, you will start out progression by slotting the highest available level of Emeralds in the chest and pants sockets. Ideally, these will all be Flawless Royal Emeralds as soon as possible. As you grow in Paragon (bulking up Dexterity in the Core section) and aim for higher tier and more dangerous GRs, you will transition those gems into the defensive Flawless Royal Diamond. There is no specific breakpoint where you do that; the rule of thumb is to make the change as soon as you feel the lack of toughness impede your progress. The build can benefit from either Cooldown Reduction (cut down Breath of Heaven and Dashing Strike downtime) or Resource Cost Reduction (damage reduction scaling via Cpt. Crimson), so you can socket a Flawless Royal Diamond or Flawless Royal Topaz in your helm, respectively. In your weapons, use a Flawless Royal Emerald for the Crit Damage boost.

Slot	Gems
Jewelry	Bane of the Trapped Simplicity's Strength Bane of the Stricken
Helm	Flawless Royal Topaz (RCR) Flawless Royal Diamond (CDR)
Torso and Pants	Flawless Royal Emerald (Damage) Flawless Royal Diamond (Toughness)
Weapon	Flawless Royal Emerald (Damage)

For more information about gems, please refer to our guide on gems.

Cubing the Flying Dragon provides you with one of the strongest weapon procs in the game: a chance to double your attack speed with a separate multiplier, an incomparable bonus for a build that benefits so much from IAS.

Depth Diggers are a natural inclusion in this generator build, since by cubing them you gain the maximized 100% multiplicative damage increase to primary skills.

In the Raiment of a Thousand Storms / Captain Crimson mixture, you will need a Ring of Royal Grandeur: a cache legendary ring from Act I bounties, to tie the two sets together. The ability to run with one full 6-piece set bonus and an additional 3-piece bonus, dodging the undesirable guaranteed stats on the Grandeur by cubing its power, is a tremendous boost to the build.

The Kanai's Cube can be used for much more than simply extracting Legendary powers from items. Please refer to our Kanai's Cube guide for more information.

The recommended follower for this build during solo GR progression is the Enchantress, due to her cooldown reduction- and increased attack speed bonuses, both of which are helpful to the needs of an attack speed- and CDR-heavy build, such as this one.

For more information regarding followers, we advise you to read our Follower Guide, which contains detailed advice for choosing the skills and the gear of your follower.

The preferred potion for this build is Bottomless Potion of the Unfettered due the lack of permanent crowd control immunity in the build, and the massive threat hard CC affixes pose to the build.