Uliana Seven-Sided Strike Monk Speed Farming Variation

The Uliana Seven-Sided Strike 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
Exploding Palm Impending Doom Cyclone Strike Implosion 1 Epiphany Insight 2 Dashing Strike Quicksilver 3 Seven-Sided Strike Sustained Attack 4 Mantra of Conviction Annihilation
Passive Skills
Momentum Beacon of Ytar Seize the Initiative Near Death Experience

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

When farming, the Uliana Monk beelines directly to the densest fight possible, using a combination of Dashing Strike Quicksilver and Mantra of Conviction Annihilation for mobility. Due to the powers of Madstone, your Seven-Sided Strike will apply Exploding Palm on its own, so you can simply focus on chaining elite kills to keep In-geom procced for infinite Dashing Strike mobility. If monsters are spread too far apart, pull them in with Cyclone Strike Implosion and resume the Seven-Sided Strike devastation. Reapply the powerful Spirit regeneration from of Epiphany Insight on cooldown.

During regular Rift farm, the timing and density-sensitive, additive damage increase of Assimilation is excessive; it can be replaced by the movement speed boost from Mantra of Conviction Annihilation (even more useful when grouped up, due to its party-wide nature).

Finalize the speed farming build with a swap of Blinding Speed to either Quicksilver for the extra charge (in T16 rift farming, since elite kills are easier to chain) or Way of the Falling Star for the sizable increase of post- Dashing Strike movement speed (in bounties, where greater distance crossed is more important).

In your passive selection, keep Beacon of Ytar for the Cooldown Reduction, and add some upfront damage with Momentum and Seize the Initiative. If you trust your survivability, you can consider dropping Near Death Experience for some extra movespeed via Fleet Footed.

You will still be taking advantage of the full 6-piece set bonuses of Uliana by wearing 5 pieces plus a Ring of Royal Grandeur in the Cube. However instead of the Cpt. Crimson set, you will be including a Madstone as your helm and Goldwrap as your belt. Madstone applies Exploding Palms so you do not have to do it manually, adding a lot of convenience to a speed farming spec. Goldwrap offers near-invulnerability through its interaction with a socketed Boon of the Hoarder and an Avarice Band (on your Follower or yourself).

A progression-oriented combo like Convention of Elements and the Endless Walk set will be too slow, defensive and timing-dependent for farming purposes. Convention of Elements is best replaced by a Cold damage Stone of Jordan which offers a smaller, but constant elemental damage bonus (instead of CoE's cyclical). It also adds a constant Elite damage increase on top. Note that SoJ is 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 SoJ's place. Your other ring should be Obsidian Ring of the Zodiac for the Cooldown Reduction, and your amulet should be either Squirt's Necklace (solo), or The Flavor of Time (groups).

Finally, you should swap one of the dedicated Seven-Sided Strike legendary weapons for In-geom during regular Rifts, as the cooldown reduction procs of the latter will ensure your near-limitless mobility and damage potential as long as you maintain elite killing streaks. Our general recommendation is to swap Lion's Claw and keep a The Fist of Az'Turrasq plus In-geom combo.

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. For this build, we recommend aiming for the Seven-Sided Strike Sanctification, which adds the following power to your build:

• Seven-Sided Strike Sanctification: The target of your Seven-Sided Strike is barraged with spiritual punches for 15 seconds. This can only affect one enemy at a time.

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). In the case of this build, good candidates for Sanctification are your weapons, The Fist of Az'Turrasq and Lion's Claw.

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 astill brings excellent damage multiplication value to the build in speed farming.

In regular Rift farming, Bane of the Stricken is best replaced by Boon of the Hoarder, whose interaction with Goldwrap and Avarice Band will keep you rich, safe and sped up throughout the rift.

Molten Wildebeest's Gizzard is suggested in the third slot simply for the upkeep of Squirt's Necklace bonuses; if you dislike playing with that amulet, you can viably alternate to Bane of the Powerful here.

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

The Flow of Eternity is still a necessary part of a Seven-Sided Strike setup, taking up the weapon slot in the Cube.

To make up the loss of the cooldown reduction from the Cpt. Crimson set from progression, you should be using Leoric's Crown in the armor slot of the Cube. This legendary power will double the effectiveness of the gem socketed in your helm ( Flawless Royal Diamond with its CDR, in this case).

Lastly, in order to maintain the valuable 6-piece bonus of Uliana while using utility legendaries, you will need to cube a Ring of Royal Grandeur in the jewelry slot.

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 numerous utility bonuses, allowing you to smooth out your speed runs even further.

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.