Raiment Shenlong Generator Monk BiS Gear, Gems, and Paragon Points
Below, we detail the items and gems that you should use for your Raiment Shenlong Generator Monk in Diablo 3 and why. We also list your paragon points and Kanai's Cube items. Updated for Patch 2.7.5 and Season 28.
Best in Slot Gear and Alternatives
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 |
|
|
Shoulders |
|
|
Torso |
|
|
Wrists |
|
|
Hands |
|
|
Waist |
|
|
Legs |
|
|
Feet |
|
|
Amulet |
|
|
Ring #1 |
|
|
Ring #2 |
|
|
Weapon #1 |
|
|
Weapon #2 |
|
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.
Season 28: Altar of Rites
Season 28 comes with the theme of the Altar of Rites — a powerful new account-wide and Season-specific progression system that brings tremendous offensive and defensive buffs to every seasonal character. 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 outlined below.
https://caleko.github.io/s28planner/?s=01030214180415050f061211101a07131709080c0e0a160b190d1c1d1b1eYou can read more on the Altar of Rites, Seals and Legendary Potion Powers in our dedicated Altar of Rites Mechanics guide.
Paragon Points
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 |
|
Offense |
|
Defense |
|
Utility |
|
Gems
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 | |
Helm |
|
Torso and Pants |
|
Weapon |
|
For more information about gems, please refer to our guide on gems.
Kanai's Cube
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.
Follower
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.
Legendary Potion
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.
Changelog
- 21 Feb. 2023: Added Season 28 Altar of Rites recommendations, and slight revision to the build to account for Combination Strike changes.
- 26 Aug. 2022: Added Season 27 Angelic Crucible recommendations.
- 14 Apr. 2022: Guide reviewed for Season 26.
- 08 Dec. 2021: Added Season 25 Soul Shard recommendations.
- 21 Jul. 2021: No changes required for Season 24.
- 01 Apr. 2021: Added follower recommendation.
- 16 Nov. 2020: Added S22 Cube recommendation.
- 01 Jul. 2020: No changes required for Season 21.
- 12 Mar. 2020: No changes necessary for Season 20.
- 24 Nov. 2019: Fixed an outdated reference to multiplier numbers.
- 21 Nov. 2019: Gearing recommendations revised to include the Cpt. Crimson set, improved tables and added explanations. Updated for Season 19.
- 23 Aug. 2019: Reviewed for Season 18.
- 16 May 2019: Guide was reviewed and approved for Season 17.
- 17 Jan. 2019: Added suggestions for the baseline Ring of Royal Grandeur for Seasonal characters.
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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