Once again, I managed to get into the PTR for some testing. I did revisit the Marauders Demon Hunter build once again as well as put more emphasis on a Sunwuko-Innes combo monk. In addition, I’ve been playing around with Kanai’s Cube with regards to another power, the ability to convert rares into legendaries.
Earlier, I gave Marauders another go. It’s a very familiar build for me and something that I wanted to check out again. My build is the usual Cindercoat + Double Unity + Stone of Jordan type. Nothing too fancy along with an ancient Calamity (mostly because I wasn’t able to find a good Kridershot for the longest time). I consider this a middle tier build that was reasonable for Season 2. Right now, with Season 3 Natalya’s and Unhallowed Essence far exceeds the capabilities of this build. However, it still performs decently and I wanted to see if giving it a few more pieces would improve the basics.
Unfortunately, I really didn’t have the main pieces to really improve this build with Kanai’s Cube. I did give the new Hunter’s Wrath belt a shot along but I lacked a good weapon passive. I did go for using my Unity as my jewelry passive but I could feel the overall build still underperforming damage-wise. After completing all the bounties to unlock a few more passives, I decided to go with The Cloak of the Garwulf. To be honest, this isn’t the best choice but I wanted to try something different. I did want to shred my new Dead Man‘s Legacy but I did not want to give up my Calamity passive on my Unhallowed Essence Demon Hunter (not to mention deal with another queue). So for now, I’ll have to wait to give that build another try.
On the other hand, I took out my Sunwuko-Innes monk again to see if I could rearrange his gear a bit and give him a few key passives. The gear used for this build is 3 piece Sunwuko with shoulders, helmet and gloves and 5 piece Innes with boots, weapon, legs, belt and chest. I have Gungdo Gear for bracers and I’m using a Stone of Jordan and Ring of Royal Grandeur along with a really well rolled lightning Kymbo‘s Gold amulet. For my passives, I use The Crudest Boots for the double Mystic Ally effect, Incense of the Grand Template for the high cooldown reduction on Wave of Light and double Unity.
The main gist of this build is doing a ton of damage through Wave of Light and Exploding Palm where your Mystic Ally also cast both and Sunwuko’s triggers the cloning effect. You retain high spirit regeneration through double air allies and the 2 set bonus from Innes while gaining all base passives from your Mantras. You do a fair amount of area of effect damage through placing a large number of dots from Exploding Palm onto your foes, which gets tripled through your Mystic Ally as well as the bonus damage from your clones exploding through Sunwukos.
The build itself is very hard hitting and can switch between single target and AoE easily. You can put up tons of pillars all around the zone with your mystic allies casting them around you. Right now, I use Taeguk, Mirinae and Bane of the Trapped for my gems and no generators. The downside of this build is that it’s pretty slow and your stacks from Taeguk wear off quickly. Also, I use Sweeping Wind: Inner Storm to help with the spirit regeneration but that too falls off. So I’m considering re-examining the gems and swapping them out with others like perhaps Pain Enhancer and possible a different effect than Sweeping Wind to help keep my spirit up alongside my double Mystic Allies.
Gungdo Gear is pretty cool as a complimentary item to the build but I feel that you probably can swap it out for Reaper’s Wraps to gain more spirit regeneration. You really just need Wave of Light for this build. Alternatively, I’m thinking now with the jewelry slot passive, you could get rid of Gungdo Gear, take a spirit generator, use Ring of Royal Grandeur as your jewelry passive, and add back in Bastion of Will. Then your Wave of Light ought to be hitting even harder. Also, you could use Spirit Guards as your bracers for more defense.
The one big key piece I’m missing in my gearing strategy is a well rolled Sunwuko’s Shines. If I can obtain one of these (not just one but a well rolled one), then I can swap out my set helmet for a Tzo Krin‘s Gaze. The idea here is that Tzo Krin‘s Gaze allows your Wave of Light to become a ranged attack. Right now, part of the slowness of the build is dealing with melee range and getting trapped. I really don’t want to sacrifice the double mystic ally aspect so this helmet gives me a new way of playing the build. Already, you do gain some ranged capability through your mystic ally but their position can be annoying frequently, which is why the Tzo Krin’s Gaze is worth chasing after.
One thing I’ve been doing in order to find a Sunwuko’s Shines much faster is retaining all my rares and transmuting them into legendaries. This is an awesome feature of Kanai’s Cube that cannot be understated. I noticed that the overall droprate of rares has gone done in Torment 6. With this new power, you certainly will want to be picking up all the rares you can find. I have large amount of crafting materials which provide me the opportunity to convert all my rares easily. Most likely as you gear up, you should use this as a critical method for targeting what you want in addition to Kadala.
Thus far, I’ve managed to obtain a new Yang’s Recursive Bow, ancient Spirit Guards and a dexterity In-geom. It’s such a wicked aspect of the game and makes the call for trading moot. Right now, virtually everything has a purpose which is awesome. So if you’re not planning to do seasons, you might consider hoarding as much as possible in preparation for this patch.