Fists of Thunder: A very fast attack for 110% weapon damage as Lightning damage. Every third attack hits all enemies in front of you and knocks them back a short distance. Generates 6 Spirit.
This, being a very fast attack (as labeled) is going to be your fastest possible way to generate Spirit as a Monk. While the damage isn’t terribly impressive by melee standards, and the knockback can be a bit debilitating to your flow of offense, the speed of the hits is very nice to have, and allows you to power a lot of Secondary and Action Bar skill use without too much difficulty. Lightning damage isn’t too frequently resisted either, so the damage typing isn’t any real sort of a hindrance. The ‘third hit’ effect is common among Monk Primary Skills- they generally have different effects depending on the sequence of hits, usually a set of three clicks or click-equivalent time periods. As with the other Monk Primaries, you can ‘reset’ the hit count to one by waiting briefly before clicking again, in case avoiding the third-hit or second-hit effect is more important to you than continual attacking.
Thunderclap: If the target is not in melee range, you teleport to melee range. You then make a very fast attack for 110% weapon damage as Lightning damage. Every third attack hits all enemies in front of you and knocks them back a short distance. Each attack hits all enemies within 6 yards of the primary target for 35% weapon damage as Lightning damage. Generates 6 Spirit.
The first rune for Fists of Thunder basically exists to make up for the potential disadvantage of the third hit’s side effect- a rather handy thing, considering it also lets you teleport around the battlefield if you use it right. Combined with the shock wave, you can use this effect to grab attention or ‘aggro’ from enemies all across the fight, coaxing them into following you... hopefully.
Lightning Flash: A very fast attack for 110% weapon damage as Lightning damage that increases your Dodge chance by 16% for 2 seconds. This increase does not stack. Every third attack hits all enemies in front of you and knocks them back a short distance. Generates 6 Spirit.
While Lightning Flash doesn’t do anything about the annoying knockback effect of Fists of Thunder, it does give you a considerable boost to your defenses. This makes it a much more solo-friendly option than Thunderclap in most cases, as you won’t have any party members to draw attention away from to begin with, and the defensive boost will keep you alive a lot better than inflicting minor damage on nearby foes.
Static Charge: Make a very fast attack for 110% weapon damage as Lightning damage. Every third attack hits all enemies in front of you and knocks them back a short distance. Each foe you target and hit is imbued with static electricity for 5 seconds, and takes 37% weapon damage as Lightning damage each time you attack a different enemy with Fists of Thunder. Generates 6 Spirit.
Static Charge is a fairly strange form of Fists of Thunder, apparently designed to reward you for fighting multiple enemies and changing targets on a frequent basis. This would probably come more in handy if you dealt more damage to them, but with the attack rate, 37% weapon damage isn’t all too bad. The truly difficult thing is managing to constantly attack different targets. If you can keep that up, go ahead- otherwise you’re wasting the rune’s effect and should probably use Thunderclap instead.
Quickening: Make a very fast attack for 110% weapon damage as Lightning damage. Every third attack hits all enemies in front of you and knocks them back a short distance. Generates 6 Spirit. When you score a critical hit with Quickening, you gain 15 Spirit.
The form of Fists of Thunder for critical-hit-fishers, Quickening rewards you for critical hits by enabling your hotbar Skills. While this is pretty nice, if you’re not really invested in critical hits in particular, it’s not likely to be worthwhile. Particularly given you’re going to be generating Spirit quite quickly with Fists of Thunder anyways.
Bounding Light: Make a very fast attack for 110% weapon damage as Lightning damage. Every third attack causes a burst of chain lightning, each strike dealing 73% weapon damage as Lightning damage. Generates 6 Spirit.
Possibly the most useful rune for Fists of Thunder, this is the only one that actually does away with the knockback effect, making you much more party-friendly. The lightning damage is fairly generous compared to the damage of the base form’s third attack, and the fact that it arcs only makes it more valuable when fighting large numbers of demons at once. Definitely a skill rune to consider using in most builds.
