Inna Mystic Ally Monk Skills and Runes
On this page, we explain how to choose and use your skills when playing Inna Mystic Ally Monk in Diablo 3. Updated for Patch 2.7.8 and Season 34.
Active Skills |
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Passive Skills |
Rotation
Playing the Inna Mystic Ally Monk, you will be using a decision-making
chain; it is mostly tied to your Convention of Elements (CoE) rotation,
the current situation in the fight, and your available cooldowns. Note that
the Mystic Ally Monk thrives in mid-sized fights of no more than two dozen
enemies; it is quite easy to over-pull with
Cyclone Strike, and if you
do, the
Mystic Ally will not be able to reach the priority high value
targets through the low progression trash. Outside of enemy type and density,
observe the CoE rotation at all times, and then time ability usage according
to the following factors.
- Do your repositioning from fight to fight in between your relevant CoE
cycles. When you have come across a favorable engagement, plant yourself
stationary halfway through your Holy rotation of CoE, which allows you to
stack
Way of the Hundred Fists on the monsters you pull with a
Cyclone Strike cast. This is also where you put down
Inner Sanctuary, if you are using it.
- Since you should be using the Shenlong's set
(
Shenlong's Fist of Legend and
Shenlong's Relentless Assault), you will have an additional buff to track. During the Holy rotation of CoE, you will have to check if your Shenlong's buff is active, and if it is, you will need to dump Spirit with
Cyclone Strike in order to get to the buildup phase of the Shenlong mechanic, which will line up your Shenlong damage bonus phase with the Physical CoE cycle.
Serenity is used either when threatened with death due to high burst of damage, or — ideally — halfway into your Cold CoE cycle, in order to ensure uninterrupted damage output during your Fire CoE cycle.
- As the Fire CoE rotation comes around, but ideally not after the buff is
halfway through, all your buffs should be up and active (you can make a quick
check of your sheet DPS by popping the inventory open for a second to check
the
Flying Dragon proc — see the gear page of the build for more information). Assuming they are all aligned, pop
Blinding Flash (if you are using it) and then
Mystic Ally for a massive burst of damage.
- At this point, the Fire CoE rotation should be over, and you are free to move in between the irrelevant cycles as you prepare to rinse and repeat the process outlined above.
Skills and Runes
The Mystic Ally will be the main damage dealers of the build. You
will be amplifying their damage with the Inna 6-piece set bonus and a slew of
synergistic legendary items, such as the doubled effectiveness from
The Crudest Boots, the DPS boost from
Bindings of the Lesser Gods,
and others. For Greater Rift solo progression, you should be using the Fire
rune
Fire Ally due to its highest burst potential, but for general GR
farming you can alternate to the more consistent damage from
Water Ally.
The best generator for the build is Way of the Hundred Fists, whose
rapid triple attack adds a damage buffing angle to the build with the rune
Assimilation. Adding 5% damage for each enemy hit during a brief
5-second window, it synergizes perfectly with the timing, bursty nature of the
build. If you draw a big fight and build up your
Assimilation stacks
directly before hitting the
Mystic Ally cooldown, you will enjoy a
significant increase to your overall damage. You can ease the rotation a bit
by altering the generator to
Crippling Wave
Rising Tide; the vastly
improved Spirit generation will proc the set bonus at will, but will cost you
the optimal
Assimilation damage increase.
To clump up enemies for the convenience of your Mystic Allies and to
maximize Assimilation stacks, you will be using
Cyclone Strike
with one of the longest range pulls in the game — the 34-yard
Implosion rune. This skill is vital to the build due to the
Bindings of the Lesser Gods and
Lefebvre's Soliloquy legendary
bonuses (see this build's gear page for more
information).
To protect yourself from crowd control, we generally advise you to dedicate
at least one slot to a CC immunity skill. An excellent option for a low-CDR
build is Inner Sanctuary; while its protective effect confines you to a
single spot when you pop the CD, it synergizes well with the Endless Walk set
playstyle, reduces incoming damage by the massive 55%, and makes you immune to
control impairing effects with the rune
Temple of Protection. Another
option for this slot is
Blinding Flash; it brings a 20-yard Blind for 3
seconds, along with an additional damage multiplier from the
Faith in the Light rune. Playstyle-wise, make sure to pop
Blinding Flash directly prior to your
Mystic Ally burst.
Serenity is one of the most potent defensive skills in the Monk
arsenal, allowing you a brief window of invulnerability on a reasonable 16
second base cooldown. Note that the downtime begins after the active effect
expires, preventing permanent uptime exploitation. Thus, take the longer
lasting
Ascension rune and use this skill to protect your burst cycle,
or in key situations where you expect a lot of burst coming your way, i.e.
Molten explosions, Grotesque deaths, etc.
Dashing Strike is an irreplaceable mobility tool in the Monk
arsenal, allowing swift and fluid transition between areas, in and out of
danger as the rift dictates. With two charges stored by default you can cover
decent ground, or open a fight of your choice at an advantage with the
defensive bonuses of the
Blinding Speed rune.
Passives
Beacon of Ytar is a solid foundation for high skill uptime, providing
a 20% chunk to your Cooldown Reduction. With a bare minimum of 33% CDR (see
the Gearing page) to align
Mystic Ally to CoE cycles, this passive
eases the CDR strain on your item rolls quite a bit.
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 pet attack
speed for the
Mystic Ally build. 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 somewhat unreliable due to the proc-based nature of Dodge mechanics,
The Guardian's Path passive still provides a tremendous survivability
boost to dual-wielding builds such as this one. Always keep in mind that
ground effects ignore Dodge chance, and be extra careful against Elite affixes
that spread their deadly pools around.
To counteract some of the damage spikes the build is exposed to, we will be
taking Near Death Experience — 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.
Alternatively, you can use
Unity for a decent additive damage
boost.
Changelog
- 19 Jan. 2025: Skills and passives reviewed for Season 34.
- 22 Oct. 2024: Skills and passives reviewed for Season 33.
- 10 Jul. 2024: Skills and passives reviewed for Season 32.
- 10 Apr. 2024: Skills and passives reviewed for Season 31.
- 08 Jan. 2024: Skills and passives reviewed for Season 30.
- 13 Sep. 2023: Skills and passives reviewed for Season 29.
- 22 Feb. 2023: Skills and passives reviewed for Season 28.
- 26 Aug. 2022: Recommendation reversed to Fire Ally for Season 27.
- 14 Apr. 2022: Guide revised to Earth Ally for Season 26.
- 08 Dec. 2021: Guide revised for Season 25.
- 21 Jul. 2021: Guide thoroughly reworked for the Inna set revamp.
- 01 Apr. 2021: No changes required for Season 23.
- 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.
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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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