The Ultimate Exploding Palm Monk



I find this to be the most versatile and balanced setup

Exploding Palm - Shocking Grasp
Seven Sided Strike - Sustained Assault
Cyclone Strike - Implosion
Epiphany - Insight
Dashing Strike - Way of the Falling Star
Wave of light - Pillar of the Ancients

Mad Stone Helm
Sunwuko Gloves / Shoulders / Amulet
Vigilante Belt
Strongarm Bracers
Royal Grandeur Ring
Stone of Jordan or other ring
Captains Pants / Boots
Born's Chest / Sword
The Fist of Azturrask

One With Everything
Beacon of Ytar
Momentum
Determination


Overview:

My goal was to make a monk that could match a bell build in it's effectiveness clearing T6 rifts but that was more interesting and fun to use. I think I have succeeded in this, in fact the character feels more effective when there are other people in the party. (Truly solo and stuff dies too quickly to make it worth setting up Exploding Palm)
You may be wondering what the advantages of this character are over a conventional bell character using Exploding Palm/Gungdo Gear or a Flow of Eternity set up. For a start exploding palm characters are most effective when they can get ahead of the group and set up the mobs to explode together before all the weak ones die. With this character you have the speed to stay ahead of even the fastest barbs and its speed in combat setting up pulls/kills is just as fast. You also have the slots for other essential skills like Cyclone Strike and Exploding Palm does more damage when using The Fist of Azturrask combined with the extra stats from 2x 1h weapons.
This is quite an advanced character requiring specific gear and a reasonable level of skill to use effectively.


Character Pros:
Some of the best damage in the game with Exploding Palm, instant kills elite packs with other enemies around
Top speed with very fast dashing strike and infinite teleports with epiphany almost always on
Great for solo or group play
Very fun to use

Character Cons:
Single target dps is low (like barbarian)
Will struggle to solo higher level gr if the boss doesn't have many summons
Relatively low survivability without serenity (the mobs tend to stay alive longer until they all die at once so you can end up taking more damage during this time)



Skills In Depth:


Exploding Palm - Shocking Grasp
For large packs we'll be applying exploding palm with seven sided strike but when its on cooldown/too few mobs to be worth it or just for teleporting to an enemy using epiphany we will use the normal skill. I like to put this on left click.

Rune Alternative - Impending Doom
I originally designed the build to use this rune as it does the best damage in the game. As shocking grasp does damage before the target explodes and applies itself to two targets i find it to be the more versatile skill but if you're in a group and need the extra damage (in a high gr for example) this is your best option.

Rune Alternative - The Flesh is Weak
This gives a great 20% damage boost if the enemies are taking too long to kill before they explode.


Seven Sided Strike - Sustained Assault
We use this attack to apply exploding palm, with shocking grasp you can mark upto 14 enemies with a single attack. Sustained Assault brings the cooldown right down allowing you to use it on consecutive packs, with the right gear the cooldown will be just over 3 seconds. This is a very fun skill to use and it also gives you a period of invincibility which is very helpful for tough situations.


Cyclone Strike - Implosion
This skill is wonderful when combined with exploding palm, it pulls in all enemies from a good distance and allows them to all to be marked in one go or you can use it to pull enemies towards already marked targets .


Epiphany - Insight
With the right gear our cdr will be at 72.7% giving epiphany a cooldown of 16.3s so just 1.3 seconds of downtime, this allows us to use it as our only source of spirit regeneration freeing up space for the other skills we need. The teleport feature is also incredibly useful allowing us to teleport constantly when there are enemies or attackable objects around.

Rune Alternative - Desert Shroud
If your having trouble surviving 50% reduction goes a long way.

Rune Alternative - Inner Fire
You can just about manage with the base spirit regain and this rune makes the character incredibly fun to use. Fire clones will teleport and appear/attack stuff across the screen, combining it with tempest rush creates a particularly nice effect.


Dashing Strike - Way of the Falling Star
Your main source of movement speed, with just over 2 seconds cooldown this allow for a lot of dashing around. Using this skill you can teleport to any point that you can walk on even if there's scenery/walls/unwalkable space in the way. The only exception is when the area can only be accessed through a door that needs breaking or opening, in which case the door must be opened before you can dash into the area. I find the extra movement speed after each dash from the rune is your best option for overall speed.

Rune Alternative - Blinding Speed
When you need the extra survivability 40% dodge chance is great and you don't have to sacrifice much for it.

Rune Alternative- Quicksilver
For extra speed between packs/over short distances but your speed over long distances will suffer


This leaves us with one skill which is needed to kill the first enemy assuming seven sided strike and cyclone strike didn't already to this (exploding palm will take care of the rest)
I find the best skill to be wave of light but it sort of defeats the point of not using a bell build, that said you wont be needing it much when there are other good people around and the build/playstyle are significantly different. Lashing tail kick or tempest rush are good alternatives


Wave of light - Pillar of the Ancients
This is the best option for damage but it uses a lot of spirit, it still had the best damage to spirit ratio and we have very good regain


Lashing Tail Kick - Scorpion Sting
This rune has a useful stun effect but it only hits enemies in front of you

Rune alternative - Sweeping Armada
The rune changed the skill to an all round aoe attack and more physical damage


You can swap a skill for serenity for perma invincibility by using seven sided strike when serenity is on cooldown. I would suggest swapping your main attack if you're in a good party or dashing strike if you don't need the extra speed.


Passive Skills


Beacon of Ytar
The 20% cooldown reduction is essential for this build (any most monks)

One with Everything
This passive adds a huge amount of mitigation through resistance and allows us to take secondary resistances on gear freeing up primary stats

Momentum
Great source of damage, you will be moving around a lot and will find that this is on most of the time

Determination
Another good source of damage using cyclone strike its very easy to get the required number of enemies in range

Momentum or Determination can be Swapped for Resolve for extra survivability, I find this better than Sixth Sense as you tend to deal damage to all enemies and it helps with physical damage and is useful to your party



Gear In Depth:


The gear for this character is rather specific, the most important thing is to acquire each item and max out your cooldown reduction, after that you can focus on the other stats. Madstone and The Fist of Azturrask can be rather hard to find but luckily a lot of the other gear is crafted or used on a standard monk. The best ring for this character is ridiculously hard to find, it's a soj that already has a socket/cdr, you would then roll the dex to socket/cdr, however any good ring with cooldown will be fine.

Most pieces of gear should have resistance as a secondary stat, control impairing effects aren't important as we have epiphany on. Some life after each kill on a weapon is very useful also.
The main choices are what element to use and what skill damage to put on the helm and boots, it's best if we can match the element of exploding palm and our main damage attack. For skill damage I find that Exploding Palm is strong enough and the character is more balanced having a stronger main attack so i would recommend at least one use this. Madstone can be rather hard to find so you might end up using whatever you can get on this, I would recommend boots->main attack, madstone->main or exploding.


Mad Stone Helm
-Socket (Diamond)
-Crit
-Dex
-Exploding Palm / Main Attack

Sunwuko Gloves
-Cooldown Reduction
-Crit
-Dex
-Crit Damage / Vit

Sunwuko Sholders
-Cooldown Reduction
-Dex
-Vit
-Life %

Sunwuko Amulet
-Socket
-Crit
-Crit Damage
-Dex / Skill Damage

Vigilance Belt
-Cooldown Reduction
-Dex
-Vit
-Life %

Strongarm Bracers
-Crit
-Skill Damage
-Dex
-Vit

Royal Grandeur Ring
-Socket
-Cooldown Reduction
-Crit > Crit Damage > IAS
-Dex

Stone of Jordan
-Socket
-Cooldown Reduction
-Elite Damage
-Skill Damage
or
Any Ring
-Socket
-Cooldown Reduction
-Crit > Crit Damage
-Dex

Captains Pants
-Sockets
-Dex
-Vit
-Armor / Life Regen

Captains Boots
-Skill Damage
-Dex
-Vit
-Life Regen / Armor / Movement Speed

Born's Chest
-Sockets
-Elite Damage Reduced
-Dex
-Vit

Born's Sword
-Socket
-Cooldown Reduction
-Dex
-Damage %

The Fist of Azturrask
-Socket
-Cooldown Reduction
-Dex
-Life per spirit spent / Damage %


Why Madstone+Strongarm Bracers over Leorics+Gungdo Gear? For a start this character works on non-ladder atm, also cyclone strike applies Strongarm so this is a big source of damage for you and your party. It’s a lot more effective to mark 10 enemies at once with a seven sided strike than a few using palm strikes for more spirit, as you're never quite sure which enemies will die first you risk loosing dps only having a few marked, seven sided strike allows you to mark a lot of enemies quickly over a wide area.
Cooldown reduction is only effective upto a point at which you're just getting faster dashing strikes. You could try Madstone+Gungdo Gear or even Eye of the Storm+Gungdo freeing up a skill slot from seven sided strike but it won't be as fun and the extra skill will just help to make up for the loss of strongarm.



Hope you like the Character
Thanks

Not a bad compromise for non-seasonal. Gungdo bracers definitely make this build useless on seasonal since madstone, shocking grasp, and gungdo is overkill. I think you're still better off with the tempest flurry build if you want to utilize madstone helm, especially for greater rifts, but your build should work fine for T6. Cheers.

Bell build: Bells+Palm

well i think youve solved it

This post was edited by Qwaze on Feb 18 2015 11:50am

lol well it's not exactly the same as the normal bell build and the bell part is easily interchangeable, i did mention this issue in the skills section


your right that is overkill, with this build you don't need gungdo's and free's up the slot for strongarm which is very powerful, 30% flat dmg boost for you and rest of party
gungdo's doesn't make this build redundant this build makes gungdo's redundant xD
tempest flurry is just a bit boring and clunky, this is a build for fun/t6/and gr in groups

anyway like i said at the end if you insist you can swap strongarm for gungdos and use a different helm
this free's up a skill slot for manta or serenity

would use eye of the storm or leoric+non cdr soj, tzo krins gaze works too

but i like it this way