Sunwuko/LoD WOL help

My best friend and I will be playing two Monks in S26. We’ll start with the freebie Sunwuko set and do WOL or Tempest Rush…I suppose whatever better items drop early on. But, one thing that confuses me is those bracers that give a Mystic Ally damage bonus after using Cyclone Strike. WOL is a ranged build. Why use dashing strike and Cyclone Strike to put yourself in harm’s way? And two Monks doing this in the same group would not fair well together because you be pulling mobs off of each other from the Cyclone Strikes.

What I would prefer to do is to go ahead of my friend as a tank Monk and have her stay behind me in safety as a pure ranged WOL Monk. I realize that her damage will not be the greatest since she would not wear the Cyclone Strike bracers in that set-up, but what about her using Blinding Flash instead of Cyclone Strike? At least she could get the 30% DPS bonus. Any other suggestions would be appreciated.

You use cyclone strike for the shoulders, to give toughness. I do agree, I miss ranged builds. Wd need to be in range to use an ability to give toughness etc.

If your issue is toughness, then another option is one dps monk with cyclone and the bracers, and the other monk goes zero dps and pure support (no cyclone) and keeps the dps monk alive.

If you just want to play ranged WoL without cyclone, then afaik you just have to take the damage loss and play at a lower GR. But “staying behind in safety” isn’t really a thing in D3, you can’t tank in this game, in the sense of aggroing all the monsters so that they don’t attack anyone else. Monsters are too mobile, ranged, come from all directions and elites shoot their non-dodgeable effects everywhere. If you want to help the other player stay alive, zmonk is the best option.

But, one thing that confuses me is those bracers that give a Mystic Ally damage bonus after using Cyclone Strike. WOL is a ranged build. Why use dashing strike and Cyclone Strike to put yourself in harm’s way?

if i am not mistaken , the bracer of lesser god increase monk mystic ally dmg which got hit by cyclone strike, in wol situation (i take it lod/lon wol which using rabbit strike) or lotk swk the clone which copy ur wol/lotk is counted as mystic ally, so it will incrs ur dmg

if my assumption is not correct pls just ignore me :grin:

Your confusion is understandable. In its beginning, WoL was intended to be a ranged build (sniper monk like) with tzo gaze and so on. BotlG did not exist at that point. They only came into play when rabid strike was added to the build. From that point the max dmg output went from swk to inna and later on to lod build. swk is way behind in terms of dmg even after its latest buff. In earlier versions, swk wol was played without cs (you simply had not enough space on your active skill bar). so you ran around, hoping to collect enough monsters on one point and shot on the point with your bell hoping the monsters stay away from you. You used zeis gem for additional dmg. With lod arising, things changed. WoL had never enough toughness for high lvls (thats why LoN does not work), so you need lod gem and unity and for additional dmg you add coe. old lon versions still used zeis in lon setup but its replaced by lod gem. so you only have left 2 of 3: striken, pet and the green gem i never learned the name.

In good old inna times wol was played like go somewhere, collect monsters, dash out, kill with zeis. with lod there is no need for being ranged for additional dmg, so the ranged thing is lost here. just by adding more and more items, one of its first intentions of the build is gone - being a ranged build.