SWK LTK Monk Skills and Runes
On this page, we explain how to choose and use your skills when playing SWK LTK Monk in Diablo 3. Updated for patch 2.6.10 and Season 22.
Active Skills |
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Passive Skills |
Rotation
The build begins runs with an activation of Sweeping Wind, whose
stacking mechanic will be maxed out by the build's melee range in combat. While
it will take significant carelessness to waste them completely, always keep your
Sweeping Wind stacks in mind and your dependence on them to reduce and
deal damage from the Sunwuko set. Use
Dashing Strike to find, begin or
evade combat altogether; once you are in an engagement, begin your
Lashing Tail Kick assault. To protect yourself in Greater Rifts, apply
Epiphany
Desert Shroud on cooldown, and take advantage of the
Blinding Speed dodge buff. When faced with damage spikes, pop your
Mantra of Salvation
Agility active for additional Toughness. Similarly to
its
Wave of Light counterpart, the
Lashing Tail Kick build is
resource intensive and will demand the passive regeneration of
Inner Storm
and
Epiphany — but do not hesitate to use your generator attack,
Way of the Hundred Fists
Assimilation, either.
Skills and Runes
The focal point of the build is Lashing Tail Kick, the main source of
damage in the setup. Aided by the Sunwuko set bonuses,
Rivera Dancers and
the Patch 2.4.2 rework
Scarbringer, this flashy melee spender is finally
elevated to endgame potential. Due to its highest damage potential with the
3-second DoT factored in,
Vulture Claw Kick is the recommended rune.
With its medium Spirit cost and scarcity of legendary-based resource cost
reduction, you will have to devote a significant amount of your skills to the
maintenance of Lashing Tail Kick spam.
Way of the Hundred Fists is the primary attack of choice, and it serves
multiple purposes in the build: keeping up a damage buff from the
Assimilation) rune; keeping up the damage reduction of the worn
Spirit Guards; and last but not least, resource generation with a standard
12 Spirit per hit.
Sweeping Wind is an integral part of Sunwuko setups, as it reduces
damage taken while active and its stacks scale your spender damage
astronomically. While
Sweeping Wind is central to the mechanics of the
playstyle, the build does not focus on it as a source of damage — with that
in mind, take
Inner Storm for the 8 Spirit per second.
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
Lashing Tail Kick spam remains uninterrupted. Last
but not least, it strengthens your defenses with powerful 50% damage reduction
from the
Desert Shroud rune while active. It will benefit immensely from
Obsidian Ring of the Zodiac, which allows for zero downtime of this crucial
self-buff.
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
Blinding Speed rune.
This concludes the overview of the Active Skills, now let us look through the Passives.
Passives
Beacon of Ytar is a solid foundation for high skill uptime, providing a
20% chunk to your Cooldown Reduction. The sizable 60- and 15-second timers for
Epiphany and
Blinding Flash 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 (see this build's gear page for more information).
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
Lashing Tail Kick
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.
Round out the passive selection with the Monk's cheat death passive —
Near Death Experience — as failsafe. 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 another bonus on top.
Changelog
- 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.
- 28 Oct. 2017: Updated skills to reflect the build switching to Sunwuko in Patch 2.6.1.
More Monk Guides
Builds from Other Classes
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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