Diablo III- Skills Article LXXXIV: The Monk, Mantras- Mantra of Retribution

Mantra of Retribution (50 Spirit): For the next 3 minutes you and all allies within 40 yards deal retributive Holy damage to enemies that damage you in melee, equal to 40% of the damage dealt to you by the enemies.  You and allies within 40 yards when you activate this Mantra deal 80% of the damage back instead of 40% for the next 3 seconds.  You can only have one Mantra active at a time.

For anyone who doesn’t mind getting hit so much as not killing the enemy, Mantra of Retribution gives kind of a ‘superior thorns’ effect, striking back at enemies with the rarely-resisted Holy damage type.  This can enhance your entire party’s killing rate fairly impressively in mass battles, and remains useful even in boss fights for cutting into enemy Life.  The only real drawback is that it only strikes back at melee attackers.

Retaliation (50 Spirit): For the next 3 minutes you and all allies within 40 yards deal retributive Holy damage to enemies that damage you, equal to 60% of the damage dealt to you by the enemies.  You and allies within 40 yards when you activate this Mantra deal 80% of the damage back instead of 60% for the next 3 seconds.  You can only have one Mantra active at a time.

Retaliation not only improves the damage dealt back by the Mantra, it removes the melee limitation- this makes it an incredibly useful damage effect, since it doesn’t matter what’s hitting a party member or how anymore- Retaliation is invaluable to anyone relying on their Mantra to dish out extra damage.

Transgression (50 Spirit): For the next 3 minutes you and all allies within 40 yards deal retributive Holy damage to enemies that damage you in melee, equal to 40% of the damage dealt to you by the enemies and have an 8% increase to attack speed.  You and allies within 40 yards when you activate this Mantra deal 80% of the damage back instead of 40% for the next 3 seconds.  You can only have one Mantra active at a time.

If, for whatever reason, you don’t feel that increasing the counter-attack damage and versatility is as important as attacking more, Transgression turns Mantra of Retribution into a useful offensive buff.  Keep in mind that when you improve your attack speed, you increase the speed of your skill use- and while you increase the damage too, it’s essentially a burst effect- you run out of resource even faster than you deal more damage.  Not always a big deal, mind.

Indignation (50 Spirit): For the next 3 minutes you and all allies within 40 yards deal retributive Holy damage to enemies that damage you in melee, equal to 40% of the damage dealt to you by the enemies, with a 10% chance of stunning any enemy hit for 2 seconds.  You and allies within 40 yards when you activate this Mantra deal 80% of the damage back instead of 40% for the next 3 seconds.  You can only have one Mantra active at a time.

Indignation reduces the outgoing damage of Mantra of Retribution by reducing the incoming damage- while it’s not a constant, reliable reduction, the stunning effect is useful for more than just stopping damage coming in, as a stunned enemy won’t be evading any attacks incoming from you or your allies.  This can be very useful if you have a lot of area-of-effect attacks available, but don’t count on it happening all the time.  This is more for playing around with and getting an occasional benefit than regularly having an effect.

Against All Odds (50 Spirit): For the next 3 minutes you and all allies within 40 yards deal retributive Holy damage to enemies that damage you in melee, equal to 40% of the damage dealt to you by the enemies.  When damage dealt to you is counterstruck, there is a chance of you gaining 3 Spirit.  You and allies within 40 yards when you activate this Mantra deal 80% of the damage back instead of 40% for the next 3 seconds.  You can only have one Mantra active at a time.

While the Spirit return is nice, unless you’re the only melee combatant around, Against All Odds isn’t as nice as it could be.  Since damage done to other party members can’t trigger the Spirit generating effect, this rune is best when you are alone or accompanied only by ranged attackers.  Other options are probably better.

Collateral Damage (50 Spirit): For the next 3 minutes you and all allies within 40 yards deal retributive Holy damage to enemies that damage you in melee, equal to 40% of the damage dealt to you by the enemies.  Each time this counterattack damage hits an enemy, that enemy has a 30% chance to become the center of a feedback blast, dealing 45% of your weapon damage as Holy damage to itself and other enemies near it.  You and allies within 40 yards when you activate this Mantra deal 80% of the damage back instead of 40% for the next 3 seconds.  You can only have one Mantra active at a time.

This is pretty much the way to go with Mantra of Retribution if you’re worried about being swarmed.  The damage can do incredible things to masses of small enemies, but is vastly less useful against smaller numbers of larger enemies- for those, you likely want Retaliation or Transgression.  It can be fun to wade into a large group of enemies and just watch them kill themselves (and each other) by hitting you.