Inna Mystic Ally Monk Speed Farming Variation (2024)

The Inna Mystic Ally Monk is a very capable speed Greater Rift farming andregular Rift farming build,handling all those tasks and more (e.g. bounties) with ease and minoralterations for each particular task.

Within the limited scope of difficulty of Greater Rift farming tiers andnormal (Nephalem) rifts up to T16, the necessary damage and toughness totriumph over the enemy is significantly smaller. Thus, your best course ofaction is to improve utility and speed.

Active Skills
Way of the Hundred Fists Blazing FistsCyclone Strike Implosion1Mystic Ally Water Ally2Dashing Strike Quicksilver3Epiphany Desert Shroud4Mantra of Conviction Annihilation
Passive Skills
Near Death ExperienceSeize the InitiativeBeacon of YtarRelentless Assault

When you are speed farming normal rifts and low tier Greater Rifts, yourplaystyle should at least partially reflect the circ*mstances by focusing onmassive pulls, generic bonuses against enemies and chaining pylon effects.

With the cooldown reducing bonuses of In-geom at your disposal, youwill be able to spam Epiphany for protection and Dashing Strikefor incredibly rapid teleportation across the rift, further empowered with themovement bonuses of Mantra of Conviction Annihilation. Your generatorskill, Way of the Hundred Fists, will largely be used to maintain thedamage bonus of Focus and Restraint and the Flying Dragon buff. Your Mystic Ally usage will vary accordingto content; when you are clearing standard rifts, you can be trigger happy andpop it at will to replenish Spirit, but in speed Greater Rifts (especially asyou approach your upper limits), you should be a lot more judicious with itsuse and only activate it once the "waves" portion of the animation is over andthe Allies are back to humanoid form.

Parts of the skill and passive selection will overlap with the base Greater Rift progression build, butothers will have to change according to the task at hand. Ability to crossover great distances faster and more efficiently take precedence.

• Mystic Ally is still your main damage dealer, but the timed burstof Earth Ally is ill-suited in the speedier content, where theconsistent damage and reliable AoE of Water Ally performs a lot better.Staying on Earth Ally should only be considered in groups, since thePhysical rune has superior overall damage, and the Freezing effects of theWater Allies might be considered undesirable.
• Way of the Hundred Fists remains in the build, since the damagebuffing angle of the rune Assimilation retains usefulness in GRspeeds, while the alteration to the rune Blazing Fists will net youdecent extra movement speed in standard rifts and bounties.
• Cyclone Strike Implosion remains a vital skill in the build due toits unrivaled enemy grouping capabilities.
• While it is a decent damage increase for GR progression purposes, Blinding Flash Faith in the Light is overkill for any type of speed contentand should be replaced by the generic usefulness of Epiphany, whichdelivers a utility Swiss knife of damage reduction, Spirit Regeneration andadditional movement capabilities. Its massive cooldown will be reduced to aspammable state via the powers of In-geom. You can either use thedefensive Desert Shroud rune, or the extra Spirit generation from Insight.
• Serenity Ascension should stay during speed Greater Rift farmingfor an extra layer of spammable safety, but in any form of lower tier content— i.e. normal rifts or bounties — should be replaced by Mantra of Conviction Annihilation for the extra movement speed.
• You will maintain the majority of your progression passive lineup —with Near Death Experience still safeguarding you against accidentalburst, Seize the Initiative and Beacon of Ytar providing valuableattack speed and cooldown reduction bonuses respectively, and Relentless Assault bringing a smattering of extra damage.

Most of the gear from the Greater Rift progression build will still makesense for speed farming, but a few variations will be necessary in order tomaximize your productivity and momentum during regular Rift clears.

The Inna's Mantra set is stillworn almost in its entirety, and it is recommended that you use 2 pieces ofthe craftable Aughild's Authority set, in order to capitalize on your elitefighting prowess and snowball your performance throughout the rift; the lossof damage reduction items should be negligible during speed GR farming andstandard rift clearing. Of course, this necessitates the use of Ring of Royal Grandeur in your jewelry Cube slot to complete the 6-pieceInna bonus.

During Greater and standard rift speed farming, the timing andpositioning-reliant bonuses of the Endless Walk set are greatly diminished inusefulness. You can still use this jewelry split, but will be slower and onlysuitable when you explore the upper GR limits of your speed farming. In theirplace, we suggest wearing a combination of Squirt's Necklace and theBastions of Will set, Focus and Restraint, instead. Squirt's Necklace is a glass cannon staple which doubles your damagewith a separate multiplier, but has considerable drawbacks — requirementnot to get hit and a penalty of increased damage taken if you do. You willoffset these drawbacks with the shield of Molten Wildebeest's Gizzard lvl25 bonus, and the combination of control you apply to the enemies plus yourtremendous kill speed in GRs, or a combo of Boon of the Hoarder in oneof your ring sockets plus a cubed Goldwrap in standard rifts. TheBastions of Will set, Focus and Restraint, bring thehighest damage multiplier possible from jewelry at the mere cost of weavinggenerator and spender attacks — a trivial ask in an Inna Mystic Alliesbuild, where you naturally interplay between Way of the Hundred Fists and Cyclone Strike usage.

In order to ensure very high uptime of Serenity and Epiphany during speed farming, you should drop the usual suspects forsolo GR progression, the Shenlong set weapons, and use a combination of In-geom and Echoing Fury.

To help you with farming the gear you need for your builds, we have two veryuseful guides that you can access by clicking the links below: a Salvage Guide tohelp you quickly check whether or not you can safely salvage a piece of gear anda Legendary Farming Guide to help you efficiently farm legendaries and set items.

The former Season 28 theme, the Altar of Rites, has been revised andre-added to Diablo 3 as a permanent character progression mechanic. — Forvirtually all builds and players of all skill levels — from casual toadvanced — we recommend progressing through the Altar tree using the pathoutlined below. The suggested path is geared towards maximum quality of lifefirst, then amplifying damage, and then mopping up the tree with defensive andedge case utility nodes.

Note that while they require reaching them with a Seal, Legendary PotionPowers are not part of the Seal cost system; Potions unlock with a separateresource called Primordial Ashes, obtained from salvaging Legendary or Setitems of Primal (red bordered) quality. Upgrade them as soon as possible, andin 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 Powersin our dedicated Altar of Rites Mechanics guide.

Both Enforcer and Bane of the Trapped remain universallydesired damage amplification gems for the build.

When using Squirt's Necklace, you will have to introduce a shieldinglayer of protection in order to maximize its bonus. The most convenient wayfor most builds to do so, including this one, is to socket a Molten Wildebeest's Gizzard as a legendary gem. Its level 25 bonusprovides a Life Regeneration-scaling absorption shield after not taking damagefor 4 seconds, and is rather easy to keep up with the crowd controlcapabilities of this build. If you are playing normal rifts, you can achievethe same effect with even greater strength by using Boon of the Hoarder(and pairing it with a cubed Goldwrap).

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

In speed Greater Rifts, you should still use Flying Dragon from theprogression build, as it still provides a potent damage boon to this attackspeed-dependent build. When doing standard rift farming, you can drop thisproc for an additional source of cooldown reduction from a cubed Messerschmidt's Reaver — the trash enemy counterpart to In-geom's elite kill CDR bonuses.

In speed Greater Rifts, you will be using Bindings of the Lesser Godsin this slot for the valuable damage bonuses these bracers provide to yourMystic Allies. In T16, this damage will be overkill, so you could solidifyyour Squirt's Necklace uptime with a Goldwrap in this slotinstead. Its powers will be skyrocketed via the gemmed Boon of the Hoarder in one of your rings, and this combo will render youpractically invulnerable during regular Rift farming.

In order to maintain the 6-piece bonus of the Inna set and the 3-pieceAughild's Authority set bonuses, you will need to slot a Ring of Royal Grandeur in the jewelry Cube slot.

The Kanai's Cube can be used for much more than simply extracting Legendary powers from items. Pleaserefer to our Kanai's Cube guide for more information.

The recommended follower for this build during T16 and speed Greater Riftfarming is the Enchantress due to her utility-laden arsenal of skills,and especially her cooldown reduction bonus, which assists your significant CDRneeds during farming. Her balance of increasing survivability while alsoimproving damage makes her an excellent choice during speed farming of anykind.

For more information regarding followers, we advise you to read our FollowerGuide, which contains detailed advice for choosing the skills and the gear ofyour follower.

Your recommended potion during speed farming is Bottomless Potion of the Leech, which complements the high attack speedfocus of the build.