Diablo 3
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Inna Mystic Ally Monk Guide
Last Updated: April 13th 2024
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Introduction
With Season 24, Inna's Mantra Set received a rework which removed the generic damage bonus from the (6) Bonus and instead made it into an entirely Mystic Ally focused set.
As a result, all the old Inna builds ceased to exist. While Wave of Light, Tempest Rush and Exploding Palm builds can still be played using other Monk sets, the hybrid Inna/Uliana Seven-Sided Strike build is gone forever because other sets cannot be combined with Uliana's Stratagem (4) Bonus.
It's not all bad news though. Empowered by the reworked Inna's Mantra and buffed The Crudest boots and Bindings of the Lesser Gods, the Inna Mystic Ally build enters the scene.
The build comes in two flavors: Water Ally with large AoE and steady DPS, which is used for speed content, and slow but extremely powerful Earth Ally, which is ideal for Greater Rift pushing. After the nerf in Season 26 patch, Fire Ally briefly fell out of favor, but it was buffed again in Season 27 and it's now roughly equal to Water in speedfarming and to Earth in pushing!
Unlike most other skills, Mystic Ally doesn't have any dedicated Weapons so some of the pushing builds use Shenlong's Spirit Set for its 350% global damage multiplier. During Season 24, Ethereals allowed the build to play around with different Weapon options, enabling a unique Won Khim Lau setup.
While the build works with Area Damage (AD), Mystic Ally unfortunately procs it at a reduced rate which makes it meaningless. However as they are Pets, Mystic Allies do utilize Attack Speed as a separate damage multiplier among other interactions (see Mechanics). All in all this is a fun and versatile build that excels at any kind of T16 content, although it loses to LoD Wave of Light when it comes to Greater Rifts.
Quite Tanky ✔
Strong Season Starter ✔
Amazing for Speed Content ✔
Endless Tide of Water Allies ✔
❌ Flying Dragon RNG
❌ Dumb Mystic Ally AI
❌ Cooldown Dependent
❌ Area Damage Not Working
Core Setup
Items
- Inna's Mantra provides a massive 9,000% Mystic Ally damage, 50% damage reduction and a bunch of passive effects from Mantras and Mystic Allies, most importantly +80% Life, +40% All Resistance and +56% additive damage.
- The Crudest Boots double the number of your Mystic Allies and triple their damage on top of letting their active effects last longer.
- Bindings of the Lesser Gods provide another 200% increased Mystic Ally damage (or 600% for Fire Ally).
- Other than the set and two Mystic Ally items nothing is really core for the build. Echoing Fury and Flying Dragon are frequently used for extra Attack Speed. Lefebvre's Soliloquy is a popular defensive option. Either Bastions of Will or Endless Walk jewelry set is included for their damage buffs.
Season 31 Forbidden Archives
For the duration of Season 31, the slots in Kanai’s Cube that allow you to equip three additional Legendary Powers will not be restricted to their usual categories. While normally a player can equip one power each from the Weapon, Armor, and Jewelry categories, Season 31 players can mix and match between all three! This might allow you to run two Weapon powers with one Armor power. Or perhaps you might choose to run three Amulet powers instead.
Unfortunately, this build cannot really make a good use of this Season Theme because we simply don't have any useful Legendary Powers that aren't already included in the build. Certain speedfarming variants get to use In-Geom and Flying Dragon at the same time but that's about it.
Global Stat Priorities
In push builds only 33% Cooldown Reduction is necessary to cast Mystic Ally on every Convention of Elements cycle. You get that with just the Beacon of Ytar passive and a Flawless Royal Diamond in the helmet. Speed builds prefer to have more CDR (especially Fire Ally builds). Aim to get All Resistance on your Belt, Pants and Boots. Our offensive priorities are: Elemental Damage > Mystic Ally Damage > Critical Hit Chance > Critical Hit Damage ~ Damage Range > Attack Speed. We don't stack Area Damage because Mystic Ally procs it at a reduced rate.
Variants
Nephalem Rifts
Bounties
GR Speeds
GR Solo Push
Group RGK
Echoing Nightmare
Concept
This is one of the best Nephalem Rift builds in the game. We drop Bindings of the Lesser Gods because Bastions of Will and Squirt's Necklace will be more than enough to satisfy all our damage needs. Instead we focus on Cooldown Reduction, Attack Speed and Movement Speed to maximize our mobility. For that we use In-Geom, Messerschmidt's Reaver, Warzechian Armguards and Mantra of Conviction Annihilation. Finally, Goldwrap together with Boon of the Hoarder give us infinite toughness, which is not really needed for this build but it's always a nice thing to have.
Gameplay
In T16 you just have to fly forward using Dashing Strike and Epiphany teleports with Cyclone Strike and watch your tide of mystic allies destroy everything in your path. You can be less conservative with your Water Ally and use it whenever to get more Spirit since its cooldown is very short. Way of the Hundred Fists is only used to crack open elite Primordial Scavengers who can completely ignore Water Ally damage when their armor is up.
Setups
When playing in groups, you need to equip Nemesis Bracers and use Avarice Band and Ring of Royal Grandeur instead of Bastions of Will. This will free up your jewelry slot in Kanai's Cube letting you use both Squirt's Necklace and The Flavor of Time.
At higher paragon when your damage gets too high you can replace Bane of the Trapped and Enforcer with Wreath of Lightning and Gogok of Swiftness.
Concept
The bounty variant combines the Inna's Mantra with the Raiment of a Thousand Storms (4) Bonus, which lets us spam Dashing Strike without cooldown as long as we have enough Spirit. Since mobility is very important in bounties we put some more rolls into Resource Cost Reduction and use The Guardian's Path passive. We also pick up as much Attack Speed as possible to make the Dashing Strike animation shorter.
Gameplay
Spam Dashing Strike to get to the objective. Try to go through mobs to proc Messerschmidt's Reaver. Activate Mystic Ally when your Spirit goes low. Take care to never run out of Dashing Strike charges otherwise you'll have to wait the entire cooldown even if you have plenty of Spirit.
You only need Bindings of the Lesser Gods damage bonus to kill the bosses; outside of that it's sometimes helpful to use Cyclone Strike to group up mobs, but most of the time you should conserve Spirit.
Setups
If you don't have enough damage you have to go back to Nephalem Rift build, it will be a bit slower due to In-Geom dependency but it's still better than almost every other build in the game!
Select Build Version
Concept
In this version we use Inna's Reach with its 120% Mystic Ally damage bonus and put In-Geom into the cube to fly through the rift with Dashing Strike.
Gameplay
Spam Epiphany, Mystic Ally and Serenity, Dashing Strike forward, Cyclone Strike the enemies and watch your Mystic Allies destroy them. When you are not busy dashing or cycloning, use Way of the Hundred Fists to activate Bastions of Will buff.
With In-geom you want to focus mostly on elites, but since you have Cyclone Strike and excellent AoE damage it's also worth stopping for juicy packs of trash.
Setups
Depending on how you feel about your toughness you can swap some runes and passives around to get more damage or survivability. For offense, use Radiance, Relentless Assault or Unity. For defense - Blinding Speed, Harmony or Near Death Experience.
If you want to do very fast runs in low tiers just to get as much loot as possible, lose Flying Dragon to equip In-Geom and Echoing Fury and move The Crudest Boots into the cube. This setup deals less damage (especially against the boss) but with higher Attack Speed all your animations become a bit faster.
Concept
Compared to Water Ally, Fire is a bit stronger but a lot more difficult to play.
In this version we go for maximum DPS provided by Shenlong's Spirit set and use Messerschmidt's Reaver and In-Geom to reset our cooldowns. We stack as much CDR as possible (at least 65%) to minimize possible downtimes. Avoid Maximum Spirit stat, as it makes it harder to manage Shenlong's Spirit buff. The runs should be around 2.5-3.5 minutes long.
Gameplay
Here we want every activation of Mystic Ally to kill a lot of enemies, so we need to make sure that we always have all the buffs up. First find a target - an elite pack or a large group of trash. Pull them together with Cyclone Strike and then look at your Shenlong's Spirit buff and at your Spirit. If you have the buff active or you have 25% or more Spirit, activate Mystic Ally. If your Spirit is too low, use Way of the Hundred Fists for 1-2 seconds (depending on your maximum Spirit) and then activate.
Setups
Depending on how you feel about your toughness you can swap some runes and passives around to get more damage or survivability. For offense, use Radiance, Unity or Momentum. For defense - Blinding Speed, The Guardian's Path or Near Death Experience.
You can replace Mantra of Salvation or Serenity with Epiphany Desert Shroud to get more toughness and mobility. However, your Epiphany will eat a lot of Messerschmidt's Reaver procs so you need to be extra careful with Mystic Ally.
Select Build Version
Fire Ally
Concept
This is the basic version of the push build using Fire Ally together with Convention of Elements and Shenlong's Spirit to set up massive explosions.
Gameplay
This build follows a rotation tied to your Convention of Elements. At the start of Physical Cycle look at your Shenlong's Spirit buff. If it's active and your Spirit is low, stop using your generator and Cyclone Strike a few times to let your Spirit hit 0 and start generating it again. 3 seconds into Physical stop moving and use Inner Sanctuary. In the middle of Cold or when you start dying, activate Serenity. Use Cyclone Strike and Mystic Ally as soon as it switches to Fire. To further optimize your damage, open your inventory and look at DPS value to see if Flying Dragon is active. If it's not, delay the explosion by up to 2 seconds to try and proc it before that.
Setups
If you are lacking survivability, change Unity to a defensive passive such as Harmony, Sixth Sense or Near Death Experience. You can also add some more CDR rolls on your gear to let you cast defensive skills more often.
If you don't want to deal with Shenlong's Spirit minigame, you can drop Serenity or Inner Sanctuary for Crippling Wave Rising Tide which will allow you effortlessly proc the set at any moment and keep it up indefinitely.
At high Paragon (4,000+) levels you can drop Spirit Guards and Lefebvre's Soliloquy for Aughild's Authority set for more damage.
Concept
This version abuses Squirt's Necklace and Town Portals with Homing Pads to deal even more damage.
Gameplay
Your rotation starts at 3 seconds into Cold. At this moment you should be standing next to a bunch of mobs with almost fully stacked Squirt's Necklace. Activate Serenity, use Dashing Strike to get in the middle, pull the mobs together with Cyclone Strike. Punch the enemies 3 times with Way of the Hundred Fists and activate Mystic Ally. From this point you have two choices: go to town or stay in the rift. If there's a lot of enemies left and you want to do another rotation, drop Inner Sanctuary and start channeling Town Portal. In town spam left click on a nearby NPC (Tyrael in Act 1 for example) to keep up Flying Dragon and wait for your Squirt's Necklace to stack up. Go back into the rift 1 second into Cold and by the time you load in it will be 3 seconds already and you can begin your next rotation.
When you do this rotation, you only spend 7-8 seconds in the rift and you are invulnerable for the first half of this time and have all your toughness buffs plus Homing Pads for the second half. This makes it very easy to survive in almost every situation. Even if you "die" while teleporting out you still have Fate's Lapse and Near Death Experience to fall back on.
When you reenter the rift you are immune until you take an action, so it's very important that you always start by casting Serenity. This way you will never lose Squirt's Necklace stacks even if there's ground effects stacked under you when you get back in the rift.
If you kill most of enemies just stay in the rift and spend the next 16 seconds running around and building the next pull. You have to rely on movement and dodge chance to keep your Squirts up during this time.
Keep in mind that you lose most Pylon buffs when you enter town, so don't do the Town Portal trick when you have Power Pylon, Shield Pylon or Conduit Pylon active.
During the Rift Guardian fight you have to stay in the rift full time to stack Bane of the Stricken. Many bosses will oneshot you, but you have over 50% dodge, Serenity, double cheat death and extremely high single target damage, so the fight should be pretty short even if you die once or twice.
Setups
You don't really need more than 34-35% CDR so you can drop Beacon of Ytar to get either more damage from Unity or more toughness from Harmony or Sixth Sense. Playing with less CDR won't affect you in the rift but it will make the bossfight even more miserable.
Concept
In this version we use Earth Ally - the highest damage rune which has the most pushing potential. Unfortunately, the AI of Earth Allies is almost entirely based on the idiom "dumb as a rock", which makes this build quite awkward to play. You have to use the weird "TP to town on every rotation" playstyle to make it good.
Gameplay
Your rotation starts at 3 seconds into Lightning. At this moment you should be standing next to a bunch of mobs with almost fully stacked Squirt's Necklace. Activate Serenity, use Dashing Strike to get in the middle, pull the mobs together with Cyclone Strike and activate Mystic Ally. Punch the enemies 3 times with Way of the Hundred Fists and keep an eye out for Oculus Ring. Once it appears, use second charge of Dashing Strike to get into it, cast Cyclone Strike again, drop Inner Sanctuary and start channeling Town Portal. In town spam left click on a nearby NPC (Tyrael in Act 1 for example) to keep up Flying Dragon and wait for your Squirt's Necklace to stack up. Go back into the rift 1 second into Lightning and by the time you load in it will be 3 seconds already and you can begin your next rotation.
When you do this rotation, you only spend 7-8 seconds in the rift and you are invulnerable for the first half of this time and have all your toughness buffs plus Homing Pads for the second half. This makes it very easy to survive in almost every situation. Even if you "die" while teleporting out you still have Fate's Lapse and Near Death Experience to fall back on.
When you reenter the rift you are immune until you take an action, so it's very important that you always start by casting Serenity. This way you will never lose Squirt's Necklace stacks even if there's ground effects stacked under you when you get back in the rift.
If you kill most of enemies and need to move after a rotation, just go back into the rift immediately and you will have about 10 seconds to run around. You have to rely on movement and dodge chance to keep your Squirts up during this time.
When you need to click a Pylon, reenter the rift about 1 second earlier then usual and use that extra second to dash to the Pylon and click it before doing your rotation (if the pull is dangerous you need to cast Serenity first). Keep in mind that you lose Pylon buffs when you enter town so you need to modify your playstyle accordingly. Speed Pylon is the exception to above rule so you can just play normally. Channeling Pylon doesn't give any damage so you can either drop it immediately or completely skip one rotation and use unlimited dashes and Cyclone Strikes to create a big pull. With Shield Pylon and Power Pylon you just have to fight normally without going to town. If you have a door nearby, go to a different floor after your rotation to un-transform your allies.
During the Rift Guardian fight you have to stay in the rift full time to stack Bane of the Stricken. Many bosses will oneshot you, but you have over 50% dodge, Serenity, double cheat death and extremely high single target damage, so the fight should be pretty short even if you die once or twice.
Setups
You don't really need more than 34-35% CDR so you can drop Beacon of Ytar to get either more damage from Unity or more toughness from Harmony or Sixth Sense. Playing with less CDR won't affect you in the rift but it will make the bossfight even more miserable.
Concept
This build is an excellent Rift Guardian Killer (RGK). Similar to solo push build we use Endless Walk, Shenlong's Spirit and Convention of Elements. On top of that we get Aughild's Authority for even more damage. Since supports give us a lot of toughness, we drop Inner Sanctuary to get Breath of Heaven Infused with Light. Finally we use Alacrity passive to stack Bane of the Stricken faster.
Gameplay
The damage rotation on the boss is very simple: you hold down the generator, use Cyclone Strike every 5 seconds and use all the other skills on cooldown. When your Physical Convention of Elements comes up your zBarb should stun the boss to activate Relentless Assault.
In the rift you mostly do nothing because activating Mystic Ally will make all the mobs CC-immune. You can sometimes do some damage to elites when nothing else is left in the pull and you're about to move forward.
Setups
Serenity is not super important for this build so if you're not in danger you can replace it with a skill that's useful for your party such as Mantra of Salvation Agility, Inner Sanctuary or even Mantra of Retribution Transgression. You can also drop Beacon of Ytar for Unity or Resolve if you want more damage or toughness and are willing to deal with long cooldowns.
Concept
This build is for clearing Echoing Nightmares, it can't go very high but it will get you your 125 augments no problem. We use Water Ally build very similar to Speed GR version. We just drop Relentless Assault for Near Death Experience and change Cyclone Strike rune to Eye of the Storm.
Gameplay
Click Speed Pylon as soon as the challenge starts and all the other Pylons at around wave 90. At wave 122 you can stop attacking and run to the corner to let the timer run out.
Spam Serenity as much as possible and dodge Green Meteors after wave 100.
Video Guide
Mechanics
Summary
- Put together the core items and acquire the full Inna's Mantra set.
- Stack a bunch of Attack Speed and never stop attacking to proc Flying Dragon.
- With Water Ally only use the active to get rid of blue men.
- With Fire Ally don't pull too many mobs!
Credits
Written by Northwar.
Reviewed by wudijo.
