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Path of Exile 2’sEarly Access launch has six classes to choose from, ranging from the classic Ranger to the elemental Sorceress. There are a wide range of build options to explore with each class, but none feel quite as satisfying as the Monk.
This melee class blends fast attacks with elemental properties to create the ultimate spellblade. Create fissures in the earth with lightning, shatter your targets with unrelenting ice strikes, or reverberate each melee swing with aTempest Bell. Coming to terms with the Monk’s complexity can prove challenging if you’re new, but once you understand the fundamentals of this class, you’re able to start to make some truly excellent builds for leveling and the endgame.
Initial Skills
Quarterstaff Attacks (Physical, Cold, Lightning)
The Monk is amelee-centric class that uses multi-hit combos and elemental effects to control the battlefield.Out of every class in Early Access, the Monk is easily the most agile of the bunch, featuring some of the fastest attacks in the game and a wide range of crowd control tools, ranging from cold attacks that freeze targets to powerful knockdown effects.
Most of the Monk’s skills require aquarterstaffto use, a two-handed melee weapon that sacrifices raw damage output for speed. Some of Path of Exile’s most iconic skills are in the quarterstaff category, featuring the likes ofGlacial CascadeandFlicker Strike. Most of these skills can be broken up into three categories:
A handful of the Monk’s skills will generatePower Charges, a unique resource that can be spent on other quarterstaff abilities to enhance their effects. For example,Flicker Strikewill teleport you to an enemy and strike them with your weapon. If you have a Power Charge active when you cast the skill, your charge will be consumed and causeFlicker Striketo attack three times instead of once.
Power Charges offer no intrinsic benefit in Path of Exile 2; they don’t grant passive critical chance in this installment.
Your central gameplay loop is all aboutcomboing skill gems.Use fast-hitting attacks to apply debuffs or generate Power Charges, then use your other skills to take advantage.Freeze enemies to trigger shatters, create Power Charges tounleasha devastating lightning skill, or build combo with a fast-hitting skill to call down aTempest Bell. Weave multiple attacks during combat, and you’ll be handsomely rewarded with top-tier DPS andmobility.
Monk Ascendancies
Two Ascendancy classes are available to the Monk in Early Access: theInvokerand theAcolyte of Chayula.Your Ascendancy is effectively a prestige class that unlocks a second passive tree for you to allocate points in. These nodes are incredibly strong and help shape your build.you may’t change your Ascendancy, so choose wisely.
Notables
Lead Me Through Grace…
Gain 1 Spirit for every 6 energy shield on equipped body armor.
Gain 1 Spirit for every 15 evasion rating on equipped body armor.
Physical damage mitigation now combines your armor and evasion rating.
Grants Skill: Elemental Expression.
Trigger this skill on melee critical hits.
TheInvokeris an elemental-themed Ascendancy that greatly buffs your elemental damage and offers some strong survivability tools to counter the RNG nature of evasion.If you aren’t sure which Ascendancy to pick, choose Invoker.It isalwaysa good choice, regardless of what build you end up playing.
I am the Blizzard…andI am the Thunder…are strong starter nodes that give you an elemental damage buff and the ability to create chilled and shocked ground, respectively. The real meat here is…and I ShallRage, granting access to the Unbound Avatar skill. Inflicting status ailments will fill a meter that, once charged, allows you to activate Unbound Fury. For the next nine seconds, you deal 40% more elemental damage and inflict debuffs 80% faster. It’s a powerhouse of a skill if you can build charge quickly.
Critical hits are encouraged if you go this route, asSundermy Enemiesallows you to ignore elemental resistances entirely if your attacks are critical hits. The Monk is near quite a few critical chance nodes in the passive tree, so achieving consistent critical hits shouldn’t prove too difficult. If you manage that, you can also takeand Shatter Them to the Windsto trigger elemental attacks with each critical hit, similar to how Elemental Hitworked in Path of Exile.
As for defensive options, Invoker more or less fixes the main issues with evasion.Lead me through Grace…gives you so much Spiritthat you can afford to run multiple meta gems or buff skills in your build, which synergizes nicely withThe Soul Springs Eternal.That allows you to drop a damage node for…and Protect me from Harm,which adds your evasion as a source of armor for calculating physical damage reduction. In essence, evasion now mitigates physical damageandallows you to avoid damage outright.
Mana leech is instant
Chaos resistance is doubled.
Reality Rending
23% chance to gain 25% of damage with hits as extra chaos damage.
13% chance to gain 50% of damage with hits as extra chaos damage.
7% chance to gain 100% of damage with hits as extra chaos damage.
Grants Skill: Into the Breach
Lucid Dreaming
Effect and duration of Flames of Chayula on you is doubled.
Embrace The Darkness
Spirit is replaced with Darkness. It now redirects damage from HP and energy shield when possible.
Gain +5 Darkness per level.
Grasp The Void
Gain 1% of damage as extra chaos damage per 20 unreserved Darkness.
Inner Silence
50% reduced Darkness reservation duration.
Acolyte of Chayula turns your Monk into a worshiper of an ancient Breach demon, granting you access to dark powers. In practice,the Acolyte of Chayula is a chaos-themed Ascendancy that’s tailored for Chaos Inoculation builds—a notable that trades all of your HP for chaos damage immunity, forcing you to spec for energy shield to stay alive.
If that sounds niche, that’s because it is. Most of the nodes offered here aren’t useful for the majority of Monk builds currently, at least for Early Access.Ravenous Doubtsis only useful if you pair it withConsuming Questionsfor instant energy shield leech during combat, but this removes a crucial part of passive ES sustain.
Reality Rendinggives your attacks a chance to deal a significant amount of bonus chaos damage, albeit with small proc chances.Waking Dreamallows you to create a Breach around your character to spawn pickup shards. These can buff your HP leech, mana leech, or grant a stacking chaos damage buff. You can then runLucid Dreamingto double the effect of these shards.
If you aren’t a fan of pickups, then the only thing left to consider isEmbrace the Darkness, a node that replaces Spirit with a Darkness mechanic. Damage you take will be redirected to Darkness when possible, reserving it for ten seconds before it drops. Your Darkness scales with character level, so it’s meant as a late-game source of damage mitigation. You can scale your damage with Darkness throughGrasp the Void, but it otherwise acts as a miniature energy shield.
Monk Builds
It’s early into Path of Exile 2’s lifespan, so we don’t have any strong Monk builds to share today. Once we do, we’ll be adding them here to make your journey through Wraeclast and the endgame Atlas much easier.
