Sunwuko Wave of Light Monk Guide

1. Do the Challenge Rift for the materials to cube Legendary Powers. You can complete this once a week for additional resources and we always update the guide for you!

2. Gather the full Monkey King's Garb set. Each piece can be gambled from Kadala for Bloodshards. Do not salvage any duplicate pieces you find! Instead convert them to another part of the set with Recipe 4 in Kanai's Cube. If your last missing set piece is Sunwuko's Shines - don't gamble for it! Instead gamble for a cheap and easy item, like Sunwuko's Balance, and once again convert it with Recipe 4. If you have extra materials you can use Recipe 3 to craft the remaining pieces, but this is expensive and not recommended for new players.

3. Gamble from Kadala in this order:

1. The full Monkey King's Garb set
2. Pinto's Pride
3. Nemesis Bracers
4. Goldwrap
5. Tzo-Krin's Gaze

4. Craft using Recipe 3 in Kanai's Cube in this order:

1. Daibos to get Incense Torch of the Grand Temple
2. Fist Weapons to get Kyoshiro's Blade and Vengeful Wind
3. Swords to get In-Geom
4. Anything from the Gamble list in Step 3 that you haven't already acquired.

5. Do Bounties to acquire several important items for this build:

• Act 1: Ring of Royal Grandeur
• Act 2: Gloves of Worship (for your follower)
• Act 3: Avarice Band
• Act 4: Can drop any bounty item from any act
• Bounty Turn In: Recipes for Captain Crimson's Trimmings, Sage's Journey and Cain's Destiny

6. At this point you can somewhat comfortably farm Nephalem or Speed Greater Rifts where you can find all the remaining items you need for different variants of the build. It's better to spend your materials improving your set pieces, getting ancient weapon etc.

7. Use Primordial Ashes in Kanai's Cube with the new Curiosity of Lorath Nahr recipe to obtain a free Crafted Primal Ancient. Since you can only equip one of them, choosing the right item to focus matters! Great candidates are Weapons, Offhands, Jewelry or any item with an important multiplier. With that in mind, we recommend getting one of the following items:

• Rabid Strike
• The Crudest Boots
• Squirt's Necklace

• Bane of the Trapped provides 60% increased damage to slowed enemies. Pinto's Pride applies the slow before the damage is calculated so we can take advantage of this gem.
• Enforcer increases pet damage by 60%, which also affects Rabid Strike clone.
• Zei's Stone of Vengeance provides up to 80% increased damage based on how far away we are from enemies (50 yards is the maximum which is about half a screen away). This gem is amazing because we will always be hitting monsters at range.
• Boon of the Hoarder makes monsters spray gold everywhere for our Goldwrap and 30% increased movement speed for T16 content.
• Bane of the Stricken gives up to 2.3% increased damage on successive attack against the same target. We'll need this gem if we want to solo push to kill the Rift Guardian.

• Wave of Light Explosive Light is our damage dealer that blows up the entire screen with a fiery bell. This skill is cast at our enemies when we wear Tzo Krin's Gaze so we can kill enemies across the screen.
• Sweeping Wind Inner Storm is needed to gain our massive Sunwuko (6) Bonus. Our maximum stacks are increased by 10 from Vengeful Wind.
• Epiphany Insight gives 45 spirit per second and allows us to teleport to monsters with our melee attacks. This spirit regeneration is needed to spam Wave of Light.
• Breath of Heaven Zephyr gives 30% movement speed so we can fly through speed content faster.
• Mantra of Conviction Annihilation gives 16% damage and 30% movement speed when activated before killing an enemy. Overawe is another good choice if you'd prefer extra damage over the movement speed.
• Mantra of Salvation Agility gives 40% all resistance and 35% dodge when solo pushing.
• Crippling Wave Rising Tide all us to proc the 2nd part of Bastions of Will while solo pushing.

• Beacon of Ytar gives 20% Cooldown Reduction to keep Epiphany up.
• Momentum gives 20% increased damage for 6 seconds after we move 25 yards (about 1/4th of a screen).
• Seize the Initiative gives 30% Attack Speed when hitting enemies above 75% HP.
• Near Death Experience allows us to cheat death.
• Harmony gives us extra resistances when solo pushing.
• Good extra passives to get from your Ethereal are Resolve, Sixth Sense and Momentum.

¹ Add a bit of Vitality if you feel too squishy (a total of 750,000 Life is recommended).

The Altar of Rites is a tree that grants tremendous powers to your entire account in exchange for sacrifices. It requires you to farm Bounties, kill the Ubers, craft the Staff of Herding, and more. Completing all 26 of these tasks, along with sacrificing 6 Primal Ancients grants you extra Damage, Defense, Quality of Life, Increased Drops and 3 Potion Super Powers. Read the full guides on Unlocking the Altar and the Altar Mechanics by Raxxanterax and Chewingnom to learn everything about this fantastic mechanic!

Optimal Path

Patch 2.7.0 revamped the follower system giving all 3 hirelings new powers and the emanate system. The first thing you should do is read our complete follower guide and remember the key takeaways:

1. The emanation system allows followers to share certain legendary and set powers with you. The most important ones are: The Flavor of Time, Nemesis Bracers, Avarice Band, Sage’s Journey and Cain’s Destiny. Click the guide above for the full list.
2. Follower’s powers are based on their main stat (maxed at 25,000, but they have a 2.5x multiplier so you only need 10,000). This means we stack Intelligence on the Enchantress, Dexterity on the Scoundrel and Strength on the Templar.
3. Followers share 20% of their Experience, Magic and Gold Find stats with you.
4. Legendary gems do not work on followers, except Esoteric Alteration and Mutilation Guard.
5. Cooldown Reduction does not work for any follower skill except the Templar’s Heal.
6. Followers never deal significant damage; you’re on your own to clear the content.

Select Follower

T16

The idea here is to fly as fast as possible from elite to elite, dropping a Wave of Light in between each Dashing Strike. If we consistently kill elites and keep our In-geom up, we'll be able to spam our abilities permanently. The best way I know to play this is to hold force stand still and Wave of Light all the time, and tap Dashing Strike. This playstyle will cause your dash to "interrupt" your constant attacking, which will guarantee you fire a bell the second you land from your dash. The rotation is:

1. Spam Epiphany constantly.
2. Activate Sweeping Wind one time. As long as you hit an enemy every 6 seconds, the your stacks will refresh. If you're traveling down long hallways or changing floors, make sure you refresh it manually to avoid losing all your stacks.
3. Activate Mantra of Healing once every 3 seconds to maintain the shield buff.
4. Hold down Wave of Light and force stand still while tapping Dashing Strike to continuously attack and teleport throughout the rift.
5. Use Mystic Ally if you run out of Spirit.

Solo Push

When pushing we have to be much more tactical in how we play. This build is a bit squishy and grouping of enemies is required to get a proper clear.

1. Activate Sweeping Wind one time. As long as you hit an enemy every 6 seconds, the your stacks will refresh. If you're traveling down long hallways or changing floors, make sure you refresh it manually to avoid losing all your stacks.
2. Once you've found a group of enemies use Cyclone Strike and Way of the Hundred Fists Assimilation to gain the damage buff.
3. After 2-3 seconds when you've gotten a decent number of Assimilation stacks, Dashing Strike to a safer spot and start spamming Wave of Light.
4. Even with maximum CDR your Epiphany will have a small downtime so watch out to not get oneshot during that time.
5. After your Assimilation and Bindings of the Lesser Gods buffs drop, you need to go back in and spend a couple of seconds punching to regain Spirit.

In speed content this build is already immortal as long as you pick up gold from Goldwrap + Boon of the Hoarder + Avarice Band. For solo if the current setup isn't tanky enough you can either add more paragon points into vitality, or drop Bindings of the Lesser Gods for Spirit Guards and Cyclone Strike for Serenity. Check out our dedicated Hardcore Survival Guide to learn more about how to succeed in this game mode!

• Sometimes this skill doesn't seem to do any damage. This can happen if a monster is directly in the center of the hit, or if there are wallers blocking the bell's path to the monster. If this happens, reposition yourself and/or break the walls with Bottomless Potion of Kulle-Aid.

• Applies the slow before the damage is calculated, so we can get value out of Bane of the Trapped.

• Changes your Wave of Light to be cast at your mouse cursor instead of on top of you.
• With this item equipped Wave of Light will no longer teleport you to the enemy while Epiphany is active.

• Applies the debuff to all enemies damaged by Cyclone Strike, i.e. all enemies within 15 yard radius around the monk.
• Cyclone Strike cast by Won Khim Lau can apply the debuff.
• Cyclone Strike cast by Rabid Strike clone cannot apply the debuff.

• Epiphany needs to be active to get the clone.
• The clone is considered a Mystic Ally. It gets buffed by Enforcer, The Crudest Boots and Bindings of the Lesser Gods, but not Mystic Ally damage.
• Instead of picking a random value between the Minimum and Maximum Damage from your Weapon, the clone always uses the average of their sum.
• When dual wielding, the clone alternates between your Main-Hand and Off-Hand Weapons to calculate its damage.