Sunwuko Wave of Light Monk Skills and Runes

Table of Contents

• +Introduction
  • 1. Introduction
  • 2. Quick Reference
    • 2.1. Skill Setup
  • 3. Builds
    • 3.1. Gear Setup
    • 3.2. Legendary Gems
    • 3.3. Kanai's Cube
  • 4. Role in the Current Meta
  • 5. Reading Further
  • 6. ChangeLog
• ×Skills and Runes
  • 1. Rotation
  • 2. Skills, Runes and Passives
• +Gear, Gems, and Paragon Points
  • 1. Best in Slot Gear and Alternatives
  • 2. Paragon Points
  • 3. Gems
  • 4. Kanai's Cube
  • 5. Follower
• +Speed Farming Variation
  • 1. Speed Farming
  • 2. Adapting Skills
  • 3. Adapting Gear
  • 4. Adapting Gemming
  • 5. Adapting Kanai's Cube

General Information

Below, we explain how to choose and use your skills when playing Sunwuko Wave of Light Monk in Diablo 3. Updated for patch 2.6 and Season 11.

The other pages of our Sunwuko Wave of Light Monk guide can be accessed from the table of contents on the right.

Active Skills
Wave of Light Explosive Light Dashing Strike Blinding Speed 1 Epiphany Desert Shroud 2 Sweeping Wind Inner Storm 3 Mystic Ally Air Ally 4 Mantra of Salvation Agility
Passive Skills
Seize the Initiative Beacon of Ytar Harmony Near Death Experience

1. Rotation

The build begins runs with an activation of Sweeping Wind, whose stacking mechanic will be maxed out by Kyoshiro's Soul instead of melee hits. Always keep in mind how the belt flips the basic mechanic of Sweeping Wind and avoid dropping your stacks (and as a consequence, your Sunwuko damage and protection bonuses) by keeping distance from enemies. Use Dashing Strike to seek out and draw the attention of massive groups of enemies, then begin your Wave of Light assault. To protect yourself in Greater Rifts, apply Epiphany Desert Shroud on cooldown and Dashing Strike for the Crystal Fist damage reduction, as well as the Blinding Speed dodge buff. When faced with damage spikes, pop your Mantra of Salvation Agility active for additional Toughness. To satiate this Spirit-hungry setup you will enjoy the passive benefits of Inner Storm and Epiphany, but once resources drop lower you should trigger Air Ally for an instant refill.

2. Skills, Runes and Passives

The primary damage dealer of the build is the Spirit-intensive Wave of Light. This hard-hitting spender is among the skills benefiting the most from the 2.4 reworks, receiving damage multipliers from the revamped Sunwuko set, Tzo Krin's Gaze, the new Pinto's Pride bracer, and the new Kyoshiro's Blade fist weapon. The preferred rune is the fire Explosive Light; while mathematically weaker than other runes, it benefits from the resource cost reduction of a cubed Cindercoat, allowing you to output the most Wave of Lights per point of Spirit.

Even with the Incense Torch of the Grand Temple resource cost reduction, Wave of Light spam will still take a toll on your Spirit reserves. A substantial part of your build and gearing choices will be focused on mitigating or recovering the Spirit expenditure in this generator-less setup.

Sweeping Wind is an integral part of Sunwuko setups, as it reduces damage taken while active and its stacks are consumed to increase your spender damage astronomically. Keeping enemies outside of Sweeping Wind range is vital to maintain Kyoshiro's Soul automatic stacks, so the rune damage is irrelevant; with utility in mind, take Inner Storm for the 8 Spirit per second.

With both a passive and active component, Mystic Ally will also aid your thirst for Spirit through the Air Ally rune. Doubling the number of summons with The Crudest Boots, you increase the passive regeneration bonus to 8 per second, and the active bonus to 200 per use. While the summons themselves will serve as a distraction at best, their Spirit utility is invaluable.

Epiphany rounds out the list of 'threefold value' skills in this utility-packed build. It bolsters your mobility by allowing you to stick to your target, securing the kill. It increases your Spirit regeneration by 20 per second, ensuring your Wave of Light spam remains uninterrupted. Last but not least, it strengthens your defenses with powerful 50% damage reduction from the Desert Shroud rune while active.

Uncommon among the protective skills because of its spender nature, Mantra of Salvation passively increases all resistances by 20%, and adds 35% dodge chance through the Agility rune. Its active component further increases resistances for a brief duration, but should be used sparingly due to the already high resource costs of the build.

To solidify their mobility options, Monks have the most responsive and fluid movement tool in the game, Dashing Strike. A charge-based skill on a low cooldown, it will take you to cursor location without fail, as long as there is no closed door between the starting point and the destination. With two charges stored by default you can skip unfavorable fights, seek out the next pack, or simply boost your survivability through the Crystal Fist legendary power and the Blinding Speed rune.

This concludes the overview of the Active Skills, now let us look through the Passives.

Beacon of Ytar is a solid foundation for high skill uptime, providing a 20% chunk to your Cooldown Reduction. The sizable 60 and 30 second timers for Epiphany and Mystic Ally respectively, are important enough to demand a high CDR goal.

A mainstay in the Monk arsenal of passives, Harmony fuels your All Resistance with 40% of the single elemental resistance per piece of gear. (E.g. 100 Fire Resistance roll on the boots will add 100 to your sheet Fire Resistance and add 40 to your other resists.) A well geared Monk will usually sport secondary resistances in all the gear slots that are able to roll them, adding significantly to his overall Toughness.

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 Wave of Light output for the Sunwuko Monk. 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.

While pushing Greater Rifts, take Near Death Experience in your final slot — 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.

About the Author

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.