I have been stuck in a hard place between lightning and fire Monk builds. Fire seems to show higher numbers, but lightning adds more utility with stuns/knock-ups and IMO has irreplaceable lightning procs from weapons that scale with %lightning damage (Shard of Hate and Odyn's Son especially). I also felt that between both fire and lightning builds, there were quite a few pieces of gear without any very beneficial synergies to the build. For example, a fire monk has no belt to really benefit a fire build itself, whereas a lightning monk can use Thundergod’s Vigor to increase DPS fairly effectively.
With all this running through my mind, I started to think – how can I have the best of both worlds?
Without further ado, here is my idea behind the Fusion Monk:
Getting the above items with not perfect rolls will put you in a great spot. Of course, pushing T6 content is going to require some "great" rolls on items. The following rolls would theoretically allow you to push T6 with ease:
** Primary and secondary rolls separated by “||” **
Head: Dex / CC / Socket || Single Res OR Health Globe Bonus Shoulders: Dex / Vit / Armor / CDR || Single Res / Health Globe Bonus Gloves: 20% Fire / Dex / CC / CHD / IAS || Single Res Chest: 20% Fire / Dex / Vit / 3 Sockets || Single Res OR Health Globe Bonus Bracers: 20% lightning / Dex / Vit / CC || Single Res Belt: 15% lightning / Dex / Vit / All Res || (static rolls) Legs: Dex / Vit / Armor || Single Res OR Health Globe Bonus Feet: Dex / Vit / Armor / % LTK Damage || Single Res OR Health Globe Bonus Ring 1: 20% lightning / Dex / CC or CHD / % elite damage || Single Res / Health Globe Bonus Ring 2: Dex / CC / CHD / IAS || Single Res OR Health Globe Bonus Amulet: Dex / CC / CHD / IAS || Single Res OR Health Globe Bonus (not 100% sure if arcane damage can be rerolled?) Weapon 1: Dex / CDR OR Life on Hit / Socket || Life After Kill Weapon 2: Dex / CDR OR Life on Hit (or Life per Spirit Spent) / Socket || Life after Kill
** Single Res is stacking a single resistance type, such as all Cold Resistance **
Why This Gear?
Gyana Na Kashu:
This helm has an amazing proc that, when used with +% fire damage gear, scales better than Andariel’s Visage.
Magefists:
Because there is no +% lightning damage gloves, we will use Magefists to increase the damage of both the LTK proc from Gyana Na Kashu and the Inner Fire rune for Epiphany.
Cindercoat:
Because there is no +% lightning damage chest, we will use Cindercoat to increase the damage of both the LTK proc from Gyana Na Kashu and the Inner Fire rune for Epiphany.
Thundergod's Vigor:
This belt will give us +% lightning damage to scale with our lightning abilities as well as a proc that deals 100%-130% weapon damage as lightning when blocking, dodging or being hit – this proc does scale from +% lightning damage. Along with these two things, you can roll all resist + lightning resist on this belt – this would allow you to potentially make your single stacking resistance Lightning.
Pox Faulds:
These legs, when 3 or more enemies are within 12 yards, deal 240%-320% weapon damage as poison every second for 10 seconds to enemies within 15 yards. This is just a nice constant damage to enemies.
Fire Walkers / Ice Climbers:
Both of these boots have very nice utility. The Fire Walkersprovide you with a 100% weapon damage as fire per second on the ground you walk on, this provides a nice little damage boost to enemies (and it does scale with +% fire damage). Ice Climbers reduce damage from cold attacks by 7-10% as well as provide immunity to freeze and many immobility effects such as jailer, spider web slows, trap slows and the stunning portals in Act V.
Stone of Jordan:
A preferred ring by just about any class/build, the SoJ gives you up to 20% elemental damage as well as up to 30% elite damage. Pair those stats with some Dex and CC, this ring is pretty much irreplaceable.
Moonlight Ward:
This little beauty has the effect of Hitting an enemy within 15 yards has a chance to ward you with shards of Arcane energy that explode when enemies get close, dealing 240–320% weapon damage as Arcane to enemies within 15 yards. This can be very great sustained damage which I believe allows you to sacrifice +% elemental damage in this slot.
Shard of Hate:
SoH is an insane weapon. The lightning proc happens very often on Monk’s and deals a great amount of lightning damage because it scales with +% lightning damage. EDPS will increase very much with this weapon.
Odyn’s Son:
This weapon has a very nice Chain Lightning proc which unfortunately DOES NOT scale with +% lightning damage (fixed). The Chain Lightning will actually all hit 1 enemy if no others around making this my second favorite for this build. Aside from the proc, this weapon can also roll up to +20% lightning damage increasing damage of our abilities/procs.
Won Khim Lau:
WKL can have up to +25% lightning damage making this fall in to my 3rd favorite spot.
Thunderfury, Blessed Blade of the Windseeker:
Did someone say Thunderfury, Blessed Blade of the Windseeker? The proc from Thunderfury is very nice, but since it does not scale with +% lightning damage nor have +% lightning damage, I feel this falls behind the three above.
Preferred Gemming:
Head: Diamond (CDR for Epiphany) Chest: 3x Diamond if < 1200 All Res, 3x Emerald if >1200 All Res Legs: 2x Emerald Rings/Amulets: Emerald Weapons: Emerald
Preferred Paragon Points:
Core: 25% Run Speed > Dex Offense: This will vary depending on gear. See below goals. Defense: Resist All > Armor > Life % > Life Regen Utility: Life on Hit > Area Damage > Resource Cost Reduction > Gold Find %
Buffed Goals:
All Resist: 1,200 + Armor: 9,000 + Health Pool: 400,000 + Health Globe Bonus: 65,000 + Attack Speed Increase: 40% + Crit Chance: 40% + Crit Damage: 400,000+ (or 10,000 per 1% crit)
The Synergy:
I am going to break synergy down by abilities and how items affect these abilities. I will do this for both active and passive abilities.
Deadly Reach – Scattered Blows:
DR is your spirit generator which scales from your +% lightning damage. Other than the lightning damage scaling, we gain a 50% chance to knock enemies up every third hit, and the Scattered Blows rune adds a random chance to deal 156% weapon damage to all enemies within 25 yards which scales with +% lightning damage. DR can also proc the Shard of Hate, Odyn’s Son and Thunderfury weapon procs.
Lashing Tail Kick – Scorpion Sting:
LTK is the big beneficiary with this build. First of all, it is going to benefit from ALL +% lightning damage while using the Scorpion Sting rune. Secondly, it is going to proc a fireball from Gyana Na Kashu that is going to deal 300%-400% base weapon damage as fire, and this proc scales from +% fire damage. Lastly, Scorpion Sting has an 85% chance to stun all enemies hit for 1.5 seconds. LTK can also proc the Shard of Hate, Odyn’s Son and Thunderfury weapon procs.
Dashing Strike – Way of the Falling Star:
Dashing strike is purely used for mobility in this build. It helps with your efficiency in farming as well as get out of sticky situations.
Sweeping Wind - Cyclone:
SW should be up 100% of the time dealing 90% weapon damage per second to all enemies within 15 yards. With the Cyclone rune you have a chance on critical hits to spawn lightning tornadoes that do 23% weapon damage periodically to enemies hit – this scales from +% lightning damage.
Mantra of Conviction - Overawe:
Mantra of Conviction with the Overawe run will provide you with a buff that increases all damage you do by 16% to enemies within 30 yards. Activating this mantra increases this damage by an extra 20% for 3 seconds.
Epiphany – Inner Fire:
Epiphany increases spirit regen by 20 per second and allows you to dash to targets for 15 seconds. Without any CDR, the downtime on this ability is only 45 seconds – pretty impressive. When paired with the Inner Fire rune, all attacks deal an additional 353% weapon damage as fire – this fire damage scales with +% fire damage.
Seize the Initiative:
This passive greatly increases toughness by increasing your armor by 30% of your Dex.
One With Everything:
This passive allows you to bypass all resist rolls on gear – these rolls would take up a more beneficial primary stat roll. By stacking a single resistance, you can potentially get more resistances than you would by stacking all resistance due to single resistance ranges being higher.
Mythic Rhythm:
Every third hit from Deadly Reach will increase your Lashing Tail Kick damage by 40%.
Transcendence:
This passive will be our main source of healing. Every point of Spirit spend heals you for x amount of life – this healing amount is increased by .4% of your Health Globe Healing Bonus. This is why we want to stack as much Health Globe bonus as possible as a secondary stat.
Fin:
Hopefully you guys find this guide useful. I myself have been chasing after the above items in hope of completing this set completely for myself. While I am mostly there, I will need to find the items again with better secondary rolls to push Torment 6
If you have any questions, comments or concerns, please feel free to express them here.
Kind nice to try something new... I already tried it too a few weeks ago and still not doing so much dps as a pure fire build.
Since spirit generators sucks when no having primary I just added reaper wraps, air ally, cost reduction and a lot of cooldown reduction. I can still solo t6 without perfect rolls, can you with this build? I dont think so.
I went back to a pure lightning build last night and honestly the damage seems much lower. Now, like I had stated above, a pure fire build will most likely out damage a pure lightning build, even with lightning weapon procs. However, being able to synergize the fire proc from GNK on items that won't benefit lightning solely I feel this brings the fusion fairly close to fire. I am actually working on a pure fire build to do some testing myself since I am only missing a few pieces of gear to make it possible for me to test all 3 specs.
Using +fire dmg gear in spots where you can't get +lightning and GNK in a lightning damage build just makes sense damagewise. GNK is arguably the best head for any monk using LTK, and it just happens to be the main dmg dealer in most lightning builds. Since GNK damage scales with +fire, it's a no-brainer to use the Cindercoat and Magefists. Of course you could go for 4 -piece bonus of our lightning set for measly 15% more +lightning, but that really isn't worth it. This gear combination comes to being the best way of taking advantage of the most OP of our item procs, and those are the best way for us to get our damage to a decent level. IMO this is pure lightning gear at it's best (although that Moonlight Ward you can pretty much only dream of ever seeing). Being pure lightning shouldn't necessary mean taking only gear that has +lightning damage on it, but taking gear that works the best with the lightning damage build.
since when can WKL roll 30% lightning dmg skill buff ?
since when can bracers roll/reroll health globe bonus ?!!
since when can Moonlight ward DROP for non-wizards ? ( <- nobody in my guild plays wizard, NOBODY has yet to get a moonlight ward , thousands of legendary drops, no ward ... how to get one without boring myself to death by playing a wiz ? )
look, i get it, you made a real effort and made a nice thing for the monk community , i however, grit my teeth when something has the audacity to claim it is a "guide" ( ) and ... it ends up guiding us the wrong way
so, forgive me for pokeing some holes in it ,
actually tried this, gave up the 15% light from the set bonus to wear a magefist and a lousy cindercoat, and my GNK fireball ( 378% ) went from 5m crits to ....6m crits
LTK went DOWN from 42m ( max overawe refresh+ mythic rythm , ) to 34
imho, bad tradeoff
Good catches, I will go ahead and update those few things. Can moonlight ward only drop for wizards? I know it's a very rare item which could be the reason why no one in your clan has seen it, but I haven't seen anywhere that it's a wizard only drop. If that's true and someone can source it, I will update that as well.
Being that Moonlight Ward is already such a rare drop according to the leaks the other day, and given that the only way we could hope for it to drop is if smart loot didn't kick in, I will be updating this in the near future giving a wider variety of neck options. Thanks for all the feedback so far!
Moonlight Ward could be rare for monk if never, but my wiz has collected 4 already with one less promising being turned into soul.
Playing wiz is one way, maybe playing in a team with wizards could also be possible in picking up one as I could always found class items of other members in a team. How can Moonlight ward benefit a monk? Fire, light or mixed build? I have already collected enough items to start developing a monk build, including SoH, OS and TG, Magefist, etc.
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Build Outline:
I have been stuck in a hard place between lightning and fire Monk builds. Fire seems to show higher numbers, but lightning adds more utility with stuns/knock-ups and IMO has irreplaceable lightning procs from weapons that scale with %lightning damage (Shard of Hate and Odyn's Son especially). I also felt that between both fire and lightning builds, there were quite a few pieces of gear without any very beneficial synergies to the build. For example, a fire monk has no belt to really benefit a fire build itself, whereas a lightning monk can use Thundergod’s Vigor to increase DPS fairly effectively.With all this running through my mind, I started to think – how can I have the best of both worlds?
Without further ado, here is my idea behind the Fusion Monk:
The Fusion Monk Build:
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/monk#ZbdSkP!XUiY!YbacacThe Fusion Monk Gear:
The following gear is the preferred gear to make this build synergize as much as possible:Head: Gyana Na Kashu
Shoulders: Aughild’s Power (Crafted)
Gloves: Magefists
Chest: Cindercoat
Bracers: Aughild’s Search (Crafted)
Belt: Thundergod's Vigor
Legs: Pox Faulds
Feet: Fire Walkers / Ice Climbers
Ring 1: Stone of Jordan
Ring 2: Ring of Royal Grandeur
Amulet: Moonlight Ward
Weapon 1: Shard of Hate
Weapon 2: Odyn’s Son / Won Khim Lau / Thunderfury (from most desirable to least desirable)
Preferred Gear Rolls:
Getting the above items with not perfect rolls will put you in a great spot. Of course, pushing T6 content is going to require some "great" rolls on items. The following rolls would theoretically allow you to push T6 with ease:** Primary and secondary rolls separated by “||” **
Head: Dex / CC / Socket || Single Res OR Health Globe Bonus
Shoulders: Dex / Vit / Armor / CDR || Single Res / Health Globe Bonus
Gloves: 20% Fire / Dex / CC / CHD / IAS || Single Res
Chest: 20% Fire / Dex / Vit / 3 Sockets || Single Res OR Health Globe Bonus
Bracers: 20% lightning / Dex / Vit / CC || Single Res
Belt: 15% lightning / Dex / Vit / All Res || (static rolls)
Legs: Dex / Vit / Armor || Single Res OR Health Globe Bonus
Feet: Dex / Vit / Armor / % LTK Damage || Single Res OR Health Globe Bonus
Ring 1: 20% lightning / Dex / CC or CHD / % elite damage || Single Res / Health Globe Bonus
Ring 2: Dex / CC / CHD / IAS || Single Res OR Health Globe Bonus
Amulet: Dex / CC / CHD / IAS || Single Res OR Health Globe Bonus (not 100% sure if arcane damage can be rerolled?)
Weapon 1: Dex / CDR OR Life on Hit / Socket || Life After Kill
Weapon 2: Dex / CDR OR Life on Hit (or Life per Spirit Spent) / Socket || Life after Kill
** Single Res is stacking a single resistance type, such as all Cold Resistance **
Why This Gear?
Gyana Na Kashu:This helm has an amazing proc that, when used with +% fire damage gear, scales better than Andariel’s Visage.
Aughild’s Power, Aughild’s Search and Ring of Royal Grandeur:
The Aughild’s two set will provide you with 7% less damage taken from both melee and raged attacks. Paired with Ring of Royal Grandeur, you gain the 3 set which provides 15% damage reduction from elites and 15% damage increase to elites.
Magefists:
Because there is no +% lightning damage gloves, we will use Magefists to increase the damage of both the LTK proc from Gyana Na Kashu and the Inner Fire rune for Epiphany.
Cindercoat:
Because there is no +% lightning damage chest, we will use Cindercoat to increase the damage of both the LTK proc from Gyana Na Kashu and the Inner Fire rune for Epiphany.
Thundergod's Vigor:
This belt will give us +% lightning damage to scale with our lightning abilities as well as a proc that deals 100%-130% weapon damage as lightning when blocking, dodging or being hit – this proc does scale from +% lightning damage. Along with these two things, you can roll all resist + lightning resist on this belt – this would allow you to potentially make your single stacking resistance Lightning.
Pox Faulds:
These legs, when 3 or more enemies are within 12 yards, deal 240%-320% weapon damage as poison every second for 10 seconds to enemies within 15 yards. This is just a nice constant damage to enemies.
Fire Walkers / Ice Climbers:
Both of these boots have very nice utility. The Fire Walkersprovide you with a 100% weapon damage as fire per second on the ground you walk on, this provides a nice little damage boost to enemies (and it does scale with +% fire damage). Ice Climbers reduce damage from cold attacks by 7-10% as well as provide immunity to freeze and many immobility effects such as jailer, spider web slows, trap slows and the stunning portals in Act V.
Stone of Jordan:
A preferred ring by just about any class/build, the SoJ gives you up to 20% elemental damage as well as up to 30% elite damage. Pair those stats with some Dex and CC, this ring is pretty much irreplaceable.
Moonlight Ward:
This little beauty has the effect of Hitting an enemy within 15 yards has a chance to ward you with shards of Arcane energy that explode when enemies get close, dealing 240–320% weapon damage as Arcane to enemies within 15 yards. This can be very great sustained damage which I believe allows you to sacrifice +% elemental damage in this slot.
Shard of Hate:
SoH is an insane weapon. The lightning proc happens very often on Monk’s and deals a great amount of lightning damage because it scales with +% lightning damage. EDPS will increase very much with this weapon.
Odyn’s Son:
This weapon has a very nice Chain Lightning proc which unfortunately DOES NOT scale with +% lightning damage (fixed). The Chain Lightning will actually all hit 1 enemy if no others around making this my second favorite for this build. Aside from the proc, this weapon can also roll up to +20% lightning damage increasing damage of our abilities/procs.
Won Khim Lau:
WKL can have up to +25% lightning damage making this fall in to my 3rd favorite spot.
Thunderfury, Blessed Blade of the Windseeker:
Did someone say Thunderfury, Blessed Blade of the Windseeker? The proc from Thunderfury is very nice, but since it does not scale with +% lightning damage nor have +% lightning damage, I feel this falls behind the three above.
Preferred Gemming:
Head: Diamond (CDR for Epiphany)Chest: 3x Diamond if < 1200 All Res, 3x Emerald if >1200 All Res
Legs: 2x Emerald
Rings/Amulets: Emerald
Weapons: Emerald
Preferred Paragon Points:
Core: 25% Run Speed > DexOffense: This will vary depending on gear. See below goals.
Defense: Resist All > Armor > Life % > Life Regen
Utility: Life on Hit > Area Damage > Resource Cost Reduction > Gold Find %
Buffed Goals:
All Resist: 1,200 +Armor: 9,000 +
Health Pool: 400,000 +
Health Globe Bonus: 65,000 +
Attack Speed Increase: 40% +
Crit Chance: 40% +
Crit Damage: 400,000+ (or 10,000 per 1% crit)
The Synergy:
I am going to break synergy down by abilities and how items affect these abilities. I will do this for both active and passive abilities.Deadly Reach – Scattered Blows:
DR is your spirit generator which scales from your +% lightning damage. Other than the lightning damage scaling, we gain a 50% chance to knock enemies up every third hit, and the Scattered Blows rune adds a random chance to deal 156% weapon damage to all enemies within 25 yards which scales with +% lightning damage. DR can also proc the Shard of Hate, Odyn’s Son and Thunderfury weapon procs.
Lashing Tail Kick – Scorpion Sting:
LTK is the big beneficiary with this build. First of all, it is going to benefit from ALL +% lightning damage while using the Scorpion Sting rune. Secondly, it is going to proc a fireball from Gyana Na Kashu that is going to deal 300%-400% base weapon damage as fire, and this proc scales from +% fire damage. Lastly, Scorpion Sting has an 85% chance to stun all enemies hit for 1.5 seconds. LTK can also proc the Shard of Hate, Odyn’s Son and Thunderfury weapon procs.
Dashing Strike – Way of the Falling Star:
Dashing strike is purely used for mobility in this build. It helps with your efficiency in farming as well as get out of sticky situations.
Sweeping Wind - Cyclone:
SW should be up 100% of the time dealing 90% weapon damage per second to all enemies within 15 yards. With the Cyclone rune you have a chance on critical hits to spawn lightning tornadoes that do 23% weapon damage periodically to enemies hit – this scales from +% lightning damage.
Mantra of Conviction - Overawe:
Mantra of Conviction with the Overawe run will provide you with a buff that increases all damage you do by 16% to enemies within 30 yards. Activating this mantra increases this damage by an extra 20% for 3 seconds.
Epiphany – Inner Fire:
Epiphany increases spirit regen by 20 per second and allows you to dash to targets for 15 seconds. Without any CDR, the downtime on this ability is only 45 seconds – pretty impressive. When paired with the Inner Fire rune, all attacks deal an additional 353% weapon damage as fire – this fire damage scales with +% fire damage.
Seize the Initiative:
This passive greatly increases toughness by increasing your armor by 30% of your Dex.
One With Everything:
This passive allows you to bypass all resist rolls on gear – these rolls would take up a more beneficial primary stat roll. By stacking a single resistance, you can potentially get more resistances than you would by stacking all resistance due to single resistance ranges being higher.
Mythic Rhythm:
Every third hit from Deadly Reach will increase your Lashing Tail Kick damage by 40%.
Transcendence:
This passive will be our main source of healing. Every point of Spirit spend heals you for x amount of life – this healing amount is increased by .4% of your Health Globe Healing Bonus. This is why we want to stack as much Health Globe bonus as possible as a secondary stat.
Fin:
Hopefully you guys find this guide useful. I myself have been chasing after the above items in hope of completing this set completely for myself. While I am mostly there, I will need to find the items again with better secondary rolls to push Torment 6If you have any questions, comments or concerns, please feel free to express them here.
If interested in watching my monk’s progress on this build, here the is the link to my profile (please note my spec/gear may be different at times for testing/other reasons):
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/Ignorance-1889/hero/40246513
Thanks !
-Sinorance
Since spirit generators sucks when no having primary I just added reaper wraps, air ally, cost reduction and a lot of cooldown reduction. I can still solo t6 without perfect rolls, can you with this build? I dont think so.
Anyways good job.
Playing wiz is one way, maybe playing in a team with wizards could also be possible in picking up one as I could always found class items of other members in a team. How can Moonlight ward benefit a monk? Fire, light or mixed build? I have already collected enough items to start developing a monk build, including SoH, OS and TG, Magefist, etc.