Diablo 3: Season 24 Monk Inna’s Mantra Fire Mystic Ally Build for Patch 2.7.1

I decided to revise my original post about the Inna’s Mantra build based on my own testing on PTR. Originally, I made a statement that Ethereals would not make a difference but I have changed my mind based on what I’ve seen on PTR. On top of that there had been a post-PTR update to a few things so I wanted to include those here. Also, I’ve seen a slightly more powerful variant that will end up becoming the end game build for Inna’s for Season 24 and will make up for some deficiencies that I identified. With that in mind, I’m posting a much better formatted version that lines up with more consistency in terms of what I’ve been doing lately.

Legendary Items

• Inna’s Mantra (Chest, Spirit Stone/Head, Gloves, Pants, Belt)
  • (2) Increase the passive effect of your Mystic Ally and the base passive effect of your Mantra by 100%. – This aspect of Inna’s has not changed.
    
  • (4) Gain the base effect of all four Mantras at all times. You gain 5% damage reduction for each Mystic Ally you have out. Your Mystic Allies no longer take damage. – This is a huge change here. The key is the massive damage reduction. You should strive to keep up 10 Mystic Allies at all time but you only will have 2 up initially. So you will need to use Dashing Strike with a Crystal Fist when you first enter a new area.
  • (6) Gain the passive abilities of the five runed Mystic Allies at all times. Attacking enemies creates your chosen Mystic Ally that lasts 15 seconds, up to 10 Mystic Allies. The damage of your Mystic Allies is increased by 3000% for each Mystic Ally you have out. – The main aspect is how attacking creates your Mystic Allies rather than having all 10 out in the current manner. This is a pretty big change. So while you’ll have more damage overall, you lose a lot of the benefits from having the other 4 types of allies, especially as I found the Air Ally which normally would have helped keeping your Spirit up.

• Lefebvre’s Solioquy (Shoulders) – Cyclone Strike reduces your damage taken by 45% for 5 seconds. (Monk Only) [40 – 50]% – You will be using Cyclone Strike right after Dashing Strike to keep up your damage reduction as well as pulling in enemies to quickly nuke down with your Fire Allies.
• The Crudest Boots (Boots) – Mystic Ally summons two Mystic Allies that fight by your side. They deal 150% to 200% increased damage and are able to attack with their active forms longer. – Massive change here. Because you only can start with two Mystic Allies with the changes to Innas, this item is absolutely imperative.
• Bindings of the Lesser Gods (Bracers) – Enemies hit by your Cyclone Strike take 150% to 200% increased damage from your Mystic Ally for 5 seconds. Split Fire Allies gain 5 times this bonus. – Again, you will be using Cyclone Strike to pull in your enemies, increasing your defense as well as increasing the damage for your Mystic Allies. Because of the Fire Allies advantage here, you will only want to use them for your rune on Mystic Ally.
• Endless Walk (ring/amulet) – Since you are channeling your damage by standing still periodically, the Endless Walk set makes for a good way to reduce damage as you are rushing through foes.
  • • While moving, damage taken is reduced by up to 50%.
    • While standing still, damage dealt is increased by up to 100%.
  • The Compass Rose (ring)
  • The Traveler’s Pledge (amulet)
• Echoing Fury (1-handed weapon) – Slaying enemies engulfs the wielder into a Frenzy. – You want to get as much attack speed as possible so this makes one of the best weapons you can use for this build.
• Crystal Fist (1-handed weapon) – Dashing Strike reduces your damage taken by 40% for 6 seconds. (Monk Only) [40 – 50]% – Since you will only be starting with 2 Mystic Allies (if you have The Crudest Boots equipped), you will need as much damage reduction as possible. So this will be your best weapon in some form as you want to use Dashing Strike as frequently as possible to keep up that damage reduction, especially when your Mystic Ally numbers go down or you enter a new zone.
• Flying Dragon (Cube, weapon slot) – Chance to double your attack speed when attacking. – You will mostly be attacking with your generator so you want as much attack speed as possible to keep creating Fire Allies.
• Spirit Guards (Cube, armor slot) – Your Spirit Generators reduce your damage taken by 49% for 3 seconds. (Monk Only) [45 – 60]% – Again, you will mostly be attacking with your generator so this is a good armor item to cube for more damage reduction.
• Ring of Royal Grandeur (Cube, jewelry slot) – You will want this to be able to wear The Crudest Boots.
• Convention of Elements or Unity (ring) – Either is fine depending on your needs.

So originally, I wrote to include the Daibo Inna’s Reach in this build. After trying out PTR, I realized that the Inna’s Reach wasn’t critical to this build outside of initially getting a basic set working. The Ethereal items are just too good to pass up because they are all one handed weapons for the Monk, which means you can put the Flying Dragon power on them and effectively gaining back a weapon Kanai’s Cube slot. In turn, you will have a few options to use in there unless you prefer keeping the Flying Dragon as your weapon cube slot.

Right now, I see the Jade Talon, Wrist Sword becoming the BiS Ethereal for Inna’s because of how it can improve your attack speed up to 30%, which is pretty huge. With that in mind, I would prefer having the Flying Dragon passive on it to allow a different weapon Cube slot choice such as The Furnace, which will greatly improve your damage output. And since Jade Talon has that attack speed bonus, you really won’t need the Echoing Fury’s Frenzy ability.

Legendary Gems

• Bane of the Trapped – Pretty much you will be in melee range to trigger this gem’s slow and thus gaining the bonus damage.
• Enforcer – Your Fire Allies will be doing the bulk of your damage. So you want to scale their damage up in this manner, especially after the update to Mystic Ally where Enforce applies to all their active forms’ damage.
• Gogok of Swiftness – I chose this gem because of the ability to gain more attack speed and dodge. Also, it helps with your cooldown which should improve your frequency of Dashing Strike to keep it up.
• Bane of the Stricken – Maybe in higher level Greater Rifts, this will replace Gogok of Swiftness. But I didn’t have a chance to try this and compare it to Gogok.

Active Skills

• Way of the Hundred Fists: Assimilation – More damage. Pretty using this upon encountering foes.
• Cyclone Strike: Implosion – Try to grab as much as possible from far away as well as generating some defense and increasing your Fire Allies’ damage. This is the ability I found eating up my Spirit most of the time on PTR which is why I preferred using the area version to pull as much in as possible.
• Dashing Strike: Blinding Speed – Increases your dodge by 40%. Along with Crystal Fist, you will want to use this frequently and at the start of a new area to build up some damage reduction. Also, you can use this to jump into a pack of monsters then pull everything in with Cyclone Strike without getting hammered to death.
• Mystic Ally: Fire Ally – The main damaging ability. You will start with only 2 of these with The Crudest Boots but these will split fast. So as long as you can get off your attacks quickly in a high powered new area, you shouldn’t have to worry about dying.
• Epiphany: Desert Shroud – Damage reduction and spirit regeneration. You will want to keep this up as much as you can because Cyclone Strike will eat up your Spirit fast. And without the traditional double Air Allies, you will have to find alternate ways of keeping up your spirit.
• Blinding Flash: Replenishing Light – Can help with damage reduction but more importantly used for Spirit Regeneration. This is optional and another replacement is Breath of Heaven: Infused with Light. Again, you will periodically be resource starved so this and Epiphany will be your main sources of fast regeneration.

Passive Skills

• The Guardian’s Path – Increased dodge since you will be dual wielding.
• Near Death Experience – Cheat death. You will want this in case you mess up with timing in a new area during your Fire Allies’ downtime.
• Alacrity – Improves you attack speed with your generators.
• Beacon of Ytar – To keep Dashing Strike and your optional ability like Breath of Heaven up as much as possible.
• Harmony – Increases your elemental resistance.
• Seize the Initiative – Increases attack speed against opponents with 75% or up health. So this helps with the setup of your allies.

Followers

Mostly, I would lean on a Templar here and go with Inspire just for more Spirit Regeneration as well as using his healing abilities. Enchantress would be a second choice for the Cooldown Reduction, armor and cheat death but I think the Templar is the best all around choice.

Final Thoughts

For me at least, this build on PTR played a lot like Uliana’s with Exploding Palm. The chief difference is that you really on quickly building up your Fire Allies, who explode for their major damage, rather than depending upon Seven-Sided Strike to detonate your Exploding Palm. However, I found that this build can overtake things quicker and has a slightly better tankiness once you manage to start generating your Fire Allies. Although that aspect sounds wonky, you begin creating them relatively quickly.

The real problem on PTR, which I believe they corrected, was that the AI often time would cause the Fire Allies to wonder off screen and kill opponents. So sometimes, I would zip around and find monsters already dead like elites. In those cases, in a large area, I might miss an item drop.

The other two problems with this build compared to say Patterns of Justice with Tempest Rush were general slowness and spirit starvation. You only will have two charges of Dashing Strike and be moving around on foot a lot so the build doesn’t have the same quickness. But the the positive effect is that you don’t feel as problematic when you bend a corner and suddenly lose stacks of Tempest Rush or drop in health from taking a bit of damage with Squirt’s Necklace.

The spirit starvation issue is mostly a timing problem because I had my Cyclone Strike bound to my right click, which is my natural trigger finger on the mouse. But you do want to keep using it for the bonus damage and defense as well as having your generated allies decimate foes. That’s why I included a burst spirit regeneration ability. You’ll have to manage that along with Epiphany.

Overall, I still prefer Patterns of Justice and I miss the current version of Inna’s with Mystic Ally. I think cutting down the number of allies and only using your active rune made this build feel more like an Exploding Palm build rather than the intention of providing it with a sense of identity. So while the overall build will move up the rankings, it still lacks a special flavor to me and I wish they revert some of those changes, especially losing the other 4 types of Mystic Allies.

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