Diablo III- Skills Article LXXXII: The Monk, Focus Skills- Mystic Ally

Mystic Ally (25 Spirit): Summon a computer-controlled ally that has statistics equal to yours (constantly updated) and attacks once per second for 40% of your weapon damage.  This ally is treated as a party member and takes a share of experience.  This ally lasts until killed.

A highly underrated skill, while Mystic Ally effectively costs you experience points for being around, it also grants you a huge increase in survivability.  Since it will draw aggro just like a teammate and fights independently, you can essentially operate as if you had a friend (or an extra) friend along with you who deals less damage and doesn’t have skills, but otherwise constantly mirrors you, right down to the equipment stat bonuses you have.  While it doesn’t copy your weapon damage types or other special effects, this makes it exactly as durable as you.  What’s more, skills that would buff, heal, or protect an ally protect it as well- thus giving you a way to use the Monk’s excellent team-support skills to make the Ally stronger as well.  This skill can easily get you through fights you’d otherwise fail to survive, so give it a thorough try out before deciding whether or not to use it.  Keep in mind that you can only have one Ally at a time.

Water Ally (25 Spirit): Summon a computer-controlled ally that has statistics equal to yours (constantly updated) and attacks once per second for 40% of your weapon damage.  This ally is treated as a party member and takes a share of experience.  This ally lasts until killed.  Every ten attacks, the Water Ally can make a wave attack that deals 120% weapon damage and slows affected targets by 30% for 2 seconds.

In addition to applying a neat water effect to change the appearance of your Ally and making them create splashes everywhere, this rune adds an interesting Slow effect to your Ally’s repertoire, one that you can probably use to your advantage when you need additional crowd control or have a skill that takes advantage of other peoples’ crowd control.  A nice addition.

Fire Ally (25 Spirit): Summon a computer-controlled ally that has statistics equal to yours (constantly updated) and attacks once per second for 40% of your weapon damage.  This ally is treated as a party member and takes a share of experience.  This ally lasts until killed.  Every ten attacks, the Fire Ally can make a flaming kick attack that deals 80% weapon damage as Fire damage and another 40% weapon damage as Fire damage per second to all enemies in a straight line for 2 seconds.

This Ally is a bit less useful- while the visual effect is equally fun to watch, the computer isn’t very good at aiming its line of damage, so the overall damage is less than the Water Ally, and the theoretically useful secondary damage area is usually wasted, sadly.  On the plus side, how often do you get to see a monk made of fire?

Wind Ally (25 Spirit): Summon a computer-controlled ally that has statistics equal to yours (constantly updated) and attacks once per second for 40% of your weapon damage with a 2% chance to give you 100 Spirit.  This ally is treated as a party member and takes a share of experience.  This ally lasts until killed.  Enemies in melee range of the Wind Ally take 10% weapon damage as Physical damage every second.

The Wind Ally is a very good friend for any Monk- not only does it deal out a constant stream of damage to enemies that approach it or that it approaches, every so often it will donate you a huge chunk of Spirit to spend on your own skills.  The effect doesn’t happen with a very good frequency, so it’s not reliable, but when it does land, it’s often an amazing boon and lets you splurge briefly on your Spirit skills.

Eternal Ally (25 Spirit): Summon a computer-controlled ally that has statistics equal to yours (constantly updated) and attacks once per second for 44% of your weapon damage.  This ally is treated as a party member and takes a share of experience.  This ally lasts until killed.  If killed, the Eternal Ally has a 50% chance of automatically returning to life 5 seconds later.

This Ally is especially neat because, although it lacks special effects, it’s slightly stronger on the offense and has a 50/50 chance of getting back up when its killed, saving you not only the expense of resummoning it, but the time as well.  A very cool guy/gal, and a blast to party with.

Earth Ally (25 Spirit): Summon a computer-controlled ally that has statistics equal to yours (constantly updated) and attacks once per second for 40% of your weapon damage.  This ally is treated as a party member and takes a share of experience.  This ally lasts until killed.  While the Earth Ally is active, your maximum Life (and its maximum Life by proxy).  Every ten attacks, the Earth Ally can attack with a wave of earth that deals 60% weapon damage and forces the target to attack the Earth Ally for 3 seconds.

In a fight with a boss, the Earth Ally is invaluable- because it is buffed and healed by your skills and can draw attention off from you, you can essentially use the Ally to tank for you and persuade the boss to spend at least part of the time ignoring you- a very nice way to ensure you get a chance to lay into them at full offensive might.  The Earth Ally is a very reliable friend indeed.