Path of Exile 2 - Monje Build Guide
The Monk in Path of Exile 2 presents itself as a surprisingly adaptable class, offering diverse viable paths. Do you prefer piercing cold or electrifying lightning? Melee combat with bare fists or the arcane power of staves? Spectral summons or devotion to the Acolyte of Chayula? All of these options are valid!
However, reaching your Monk's maximum potential requires careful planning, especially considering the challenging difficulty. To successfully face the final chapters, you'll need to optimize every aspect of your character.
This guide will provide you with the keys to building an unstoppable Monk. We will explore the best combinations of active and passive skills, the ideal equipment to maximize your damage and survivability, and the essential strategies to master the most demanding content of Path of Exile 2.
Equipment
While playing a bare-fisted Monk is an option in Path of Exile 2, it's not optimal for the endgame. Prioritize the use of staves that enhance the Monk's key attributes: Strength, Dexterity, and Intelligence. Look for those that offer bonuses to elemental or physical damage, critical strike chance, and if possible, evasion or energy shield. A good staff will maximize your Monk's offensive and defensive potential, preparing you for the final challenges of the game.
Weapons
We recommend the Wyrm Staff of the Collapsing Horizon. This powerful weapon, available by farming bosses or through the Trade, is an excellent option for builds focused on elemental damage and summons.
Requiring level 65 to use, the Wyrm Staff offers an impressive 100% bonus to elemental damage, which significantly amplifies the power of your magical skills. In addition, it provides a small but useful increase to critical strike chance, increasing your chances of inflicting massive damage.
One of its most outstanding features is the automatic increase to all levels of your spells. This bonus directly scales the power of your abilities, improving both the damage and effects of your spells, including summons. This perfect synergy with elemental damage summoner builds makes the Wyrm Staff an ideal choice for those looking to maximize their Monk's magical potential in the endgame.
Armour
As you may know, Monks in Path of Exile 2 cannot equip heavy armor, with the use of pieces with keywords like "robes" or "attire" being preferable. This premise remains valid in the endgame. Just like with weapons, the search for ideal equipment focuses on maximizing attributes such as Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence, elemental or physical damage, and critical strike chance.
Beyond general stats, there are unique armor pieces that can significantly boost your build. A prime example is Atsak's Veiled Mask. This mask not only increases your Intelligence, Dexterity, and critical strike chance, but also adds a devastating additional effect: it poisons your enemies every time you land a critical hit. This poison effect provides additional constant damage, considerably increasing your DPS (damage per second) and making Atsak's Veiled Mask a valuable option for any Monk focused on critical combat.
Passive Skills
The passive skill tree in Path of Exile 2 offers a wealth of options to customize your character. As a Monk, you'll start in the upper right section, with a focus on Dexterity and Intelligence. However, exploring other areas of the tree can reveal powerful synergies. Below, we will analyze some crucial passives to optimize your Monk, especially focused on critical damage, mana sustain, and elemental penetration.
- Critical Exploit: This passive is a direct addition to your critical strike chance, granting an additional 25%. Simple but effective, Critical Exploit is an excellent choice for any build looking to maximize critical damage.
- Moment of Truth: For a more conditional approach, Moment of Truth offers an additional 25% critical strike chance if you haven't landed a critical hit recently. In addition, it provides a flat 20% critical strike chance, regardless of your previous hits. This passive rewards a strategic playstyle and can be particularly useful against bosses.
- Deadly Force: Deadly Force provides a 12% increased chance to hit and 30% more damage for a few seconds after landing a hit. This temporary damage boost can be devastating, especially in combination with other critical passives.
- Flow State: Mana is a crucial resource for Monks who use elemental spells. Flow State addresses this issue by increasing mana regeneration and skill speed. The increased regeneration allows you to cast spells more frequently, while the skill speed accelerates the animation of your attacks, increasing your overall DPS.
- Overload: Enemies with high elemental resistance can be a significant obstacle. Overload allows you to ignore 15% of the enemy's lightning resistance, ensuring that your damage remains consistent. This passive is essential for lightning damage-focused builds, especially in the endgame.
Skills Gems
The Monk in Path of Exile 2 offers an arsenal of unique gems that define its versatile playstyle. From agile movements to powerful elemental attacks, the Monk adapts to various strategies. Below, we will explore three outstanding gems that can transform your gameplay experience: Gathering Storm, Tempest Bell, and Shattering Palm.
- Gathering Storm: Gathering Storm is a high-level skill that unlocks the Monk's true potential. Requiring an uncut skill gem of level 13, 66 Dexterity, 66 Intelligence, and a Monk level of 52, this skill justifies the investment. Gathering Storm propels the Monk to perform a backflip, creating distance from enemies while imbuing their staff with energy. Then, they launch back into combat, inflicting lightning damage to all enemies within range.
What distinguishes Gathering Storm is its timing-based mechanic. Launching it at the precise moment maximizes its benefits. A perfect activation not only inflicts lightning damage, but also generates electrical shock waves around the area and electrifies the surrounding ground, inflicting continuous damage to enemies who step on it. This characteristic makes Gathering Storm a vital tool for crowd control, allowing the Monk to control the battlefield and decimate groups of enemies.
- Tempest Bell: Tempest Bell is a skill accessible from the Monk's early levels. With only a level 3 gem, a Monk level of 6, and 10 Dexterity and Intelligence, you can begin experimenting with its power. However, by properly enhancing it, Tempest Bell can become a devastating tool for the endgame, capable of melting bosses with ease.
This skill summons a giant bell onto the battlefield. When you strike the bell with attacks, it generates shock waves that inflict damage to nearby enemies. The key to maximizing Tempest Bell's damage lies in strategic placement. If placed directly next to an enemy and a constant rhythm of attacks is maintained, the bell can inflict a massive amount of damage in a short period of time, making it an excellent option for boss encounters.
- Shattering Palm: For those who prefer a build focused on Cold damage, Shattering Palm is the counterpart to Gathering Storm. Requiring a level 11 skill gem, a Monk level of 41, and 52 Dexterity and Intelligence, Shattering Palm offers a powerful area attack with an ice theme.
This skill propels the Monk to leap forward and attack an enemy, generating an area-of-effect Cold damage explosion. The crucial aspect of Shattering Palm is its secondary effect. If enough damage is inflicted to the enemies caught in the explosion before it disappears, they will explode into ice shards, inflicting massive damage to all surrounding enemies. This chain explosion mechanic makes Shattering Palm a devastating option against groups of enemies and a powerful tool for Cold builds.
Ascendancies
In Path of Exile 2, Monks have access to two Ascendancies (subclasses) that further define their playstyle: Acolyte of Chayula and Invoker. Each offers unique abilities, but their viability in the endgame varies considerably.
- Acolyte of Chayula: Acolyte of Chayula focuses on creating a dark-themed Monk, using Mana Leech to convert some of the damage dealt into recovered mana. However, Mana Leech is not an optimal mechanic for the endgame, where more efficient methods for mana regeneration exist. Furthermore, this subclass can even suppress Spirit and Energy Shield regeneration depending on the chosen skills, making it a less recommended option for endgame content.
- Invoker: Invoker, on the other hand, is a subclass completely focused on elemental damage. It specializes in boosting lightning and cold damage, allowing you to create frozen or electrified ground effects with "I Am The Blizzard" and "I Am The Thunder" every time you inflict these altered states. The "And Scatter Them To The Winds" skill creates powerful shockwaves with every critical hit. In essence, Invoker amplifies the Monk's inherent strengths, making it the ideal Ascendancy for the endgame.
