SWK LTK Monk Speed Farming Variation

The Sunwuko LTK Monk deals with regular Rift farming decently all the way through the highest Torments, making it a viable build for the task. We have solo speed GR rankings and solo speed T16 rankings if you want to know more about which builds are best for speed farming.

Within the limited scope of regular difficulties, the necessary damage and toughness to triumph over the enemy is significantly smaller. Thus, your best course of action is to improve utility and speed.

Active Skills
Lashing Tail Kick Sweeping Armada Dashing Strike Quicksilver 1 Epiphany Insight 2 Sweeping Wind Inner Storm 3 Mystic Ally Air Ally 4 Mantra of Healing Circular Breathing
Passive Skills
Seize the Initiative Beacon of Ytar Near Death Experience Chant of Resonance

When you are speed farming regular rifts, parts of your playstyle will adapt to the lowered challenge and focus more on speed and utility.

Similarly to all Sunwuko builds, this LTK variant begins runs by activating Sweeping Wind, which should be kept up throughout the rift. Use your superior mobility from the Dashing Strike reset by In-geom to seek out enemies, destroying them in one fell swoop with the convenient AoE of Lashing Tail Kick Sweeping Armada . Your Spirit needs will be taken care of by the combined passive regeneration of Epiphany Insight, Mantra of Healing Circular Breathing and Chant of Resonance, plus the active pop of Air Ally; you will make up the loss of toughness from losing Desert Shroud via Goldwrap.

The recommended skill alterations from the GR progression build are:

• Epiphany is an omnipresent self-buff in all versions of the build. You can consider Insight over Desert Shroud if you trust your upkeep of Goldwrap mitigation.
• You can shift away from survivability into more utility on Dashing Strike depending on your confidence in handling the build. This is usually done by replacing Blinding Speed with either Quicksilver for the additional charge during T16 rifts (where elites are more abundant for In-geom procs), or Way of the Falling Star (for the greater distance covered during bounties).
• Since you will be dropping the excessive clone damage from Rabid Strike plus Bindings of the Lesser Gods combo in T16 farming, you should also swap Cyclone Strike for a passive Spirit regeneration source from Mantra of Healing Circular Breathing.
• Since toughness will be mostly taken care of by Goldwrap, you can consider dropping the Monk progression staplel Harmony for Chant of Resonance; coupled with Circular Breathing, it will provide a solid source of Spirit regeneration for your farming convenience.

You will still be taking advantage of the full 6-piece set bonuses of Sunwuko set while wearing 5 of the available pieces, and using a Ring of Royal Grandeur to complete the full bonus, since reliance on the Rabid Strike clone and Cpt. Crimson damage scaling is absolute overkill for T16 rift farming however, you will be shifting several pieces around:

• Get Gyana Na Kashu for the head slot, which will add a solid single target damage proc and brings a massive skill damage bonus to boot;
• Wear Goldwrap, which brings near-invulnerability with its interaction with Boon of the Hoarder and Avarice Band;
• Take In-geom over Rabid Strike for its unparalleled Cooldown Reduction utility.

Lastly, it is advisable to wear Ring of Royal Grandeur as an equipped item, since this allows you to have the damage multiplier of Squirt's Necklace in the Cube despite the neck slot occupation of Sunwuko's Shines. Pair this ring either with Obsidian Ring of the Zodiac to ensure your cooldown availability (in Rifts or Bounties where In-geom procs prove unreliable), or a Physical damage Stone of Jordan for a constant Elemental and Elite damage boost.

Note that both Zodiac and SoJ are recommended for solo farming, since your Follower can wear Avarice Band and "Emanate" its valuable pickup radius effect to you as if you wore it yourself. When group farming, equip the Avarice yourself in their place.

Since you will be dropping the whole Rabid Strike — Bindings of the Lesser Gods interaction in T16s, consider wearing Warzechian Armguards instead; they will bring an environment destruction-based speed buff that is easily provided by the AoE of this build. The former favorites, the elite spawning Nemesis Bracers, are still very valuable, but they can now be equipped on the follower while still getting their bonus via the Emanate mechanics. You should still equip them in groups, where you cannot have a follower with you. The Nemesis Bracers value comes from the additional loot — not to mention progression — coming from the extra elite spawns. They let you finish standard rifts that much faster, and acquire the coveted GR keys in greater amounts.

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.

This Season comes with the theme of Angelic Crucibles — consumable items that empower Legendary items with perfected Ancient-level stats, as well as infuse them with one of three unique, powerful, class-specific abilities at random.

Unfortunately, Lashing Tail Kick-based builds do not have a great way of utilizing the three Sanctification powers. Thus, you should simply use Angelic Crucibles on an item that crosses over most (if not all) variants of a build, and is also an item that is relatively harder to perfect than other slots (since sanctifying an item maximizes its stats). The Sanctification power outcome does not matter. In the case of this build, a good candidate for Sanctification are your two weapons, Vengeful Wind and Scarbringer.

You can read more on Angelic Crucibles and the sanctification process in our dedicated Angelic Crucible Mechanics guide.

The former Season 28 theme, the Altar of Rites, has been revised and re-added to Diablo 3 as a permanent character progression mechanic. — 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 shown below (courtesy of Caleko's Altar of Rites planner).

You can read more on the Altar of Rites, Seals and Legendary Potion Powers in our dedicated Altar of Rites Mechanics guide.

Bane of the Trapped and Bane of the Powerful will bring excellent damage multiplication value to the build in speed farming.

In normal rifts, the third gem slot should be taken by Boon of the Hoarder. This high utility gem feeds you practically infinite gold and gives you a massive short-term speed boost while picking it up, automated by Avarice Band. It will also render you practically invulnerable through a worn Goldwrap.

For more information about gems, please refer to our guide on gems.

During speedruns, In-geom shines over your other options by cutting 10 seconds off all your cooldowns after killing an elite, essentially nullifying resource and mobility concerns for a generous 15-second period — usually enough to keep the procs going.

You should wear your stronger rolled item between Rivera Dancers and The Crudest Boots, and extract the weaker one in this slot.

Tucked away in the jewelry slot of the Cube, Squirt's Necklace will add another huge damage multiplier to the build. You will counteract its "increased damage taken" downside with the Goldwrap toughness boost.

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.

The recommended follower for this build during standard rift farming for keys is the Enchantress due to her cooldown reduction buff from Prophetic Harmony, as well as the Focused Mind attack speed buff.

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.

Your recommended potion is Bottomless Potion of the Tower, whose Armor-increasing properties complement the naturally high All Resistances stat of Monks (due to Harmony) for optimal survivability.