Monk Leveling Build Guide – Path Of Exile 2

The Monk is a fantastic class for all Path of Exile 2
players, both newcomers and veterans of the series. With a mix of elemental attacks and high mobility, the Monk can crush their foes with some of the best clear speed you’ll find for a PoE2 build.

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Leveling a character can prove difficult, but the Monk has a strong set of initial skills to get you through the first few Acts. And once you get your hands on Spirit Gems and some stronger supports, you’ll have little issues leveling through the campaign and breaking into Path of Exile 2’s endgame systems.

Build Overview

Blast your way through the campaign with this lightning-focused Monk build. We start the game with Glacial Cascade
to take advantage of its devastating shatters, but we quickly pivot to a gameplay loop with Tempest Flurry
, Siphoning Strike
, and Falling Thunder
to deal some immense damage. Tempest Bell
will then skyrocket your DPS against bosses and rares, covering all of your bases for the campaign.

Leveling Skills And Support Gems

For the first few Acts of the campaign, your main source of damage is going to be Glacial Cascade
and Falling Thunder
. Most packs will die to Glacial Cascade outright, either from the wave itself or the shatter explosion that occurs when you hit a frozen enemy.

Rares and tougher monsters can be deleted with Falling Thunder, but you’ll need to get some Power Charges first. Fortunately, we can use Killing Palm
to execute enemies at low HP. Use Glacial Cascade to make an enemy weak, use Killing Palm to execute them, then follow up with a Falling Thunder slam for some jaw-dropping damage.

Single-target DPS is handled through Tempest Bell
, a stationary target that echoes all damage dealt to it in a small area. You can throw your Glacial Cascades into it and have the bell echo each strike, dealing substantial damage to bosses. It also inflicts major stagger, perfect for stunning bosses for a safe DPS window.

Once you get further into the campaign, you can drop Glacial Cascade for Storm Wave and more lightning-focused supports for more consistent shocks. This leverages Herald of Thunder quite nicely, unleashing lightning blasts on your next two attacks after you kill a shocked target. Run Tempest Flurry for easy shock application, and you have a great ability kit for most of your playthrough.

If you want to make the build feel a little smoother, you can drop Killing Palm for Siphoning Strike
. This lets you sap shock debuffs from targets to gain Power Charges, allowing you to use Falling Thunder during 1v1 boss fights. Finally, once you get access to Level IX gems, we highly recommend you get Charged Staff
. This skill skyrockets your single-target DPS and makes up for lackluster gear until around Level 50.

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Passive Tree

We haven’t focused on optimizing our passive tree, but this should be a solid framework for most Monk builds you might want to transition into once you beat the campaign. We highly recommend you grab the Evasion/Energy Shield hybrid nodes near the start of the tree to scale your defenses. Monk relies heavily on evasion to stay alive, but the increased Energy Shield is a nice buffer for massive hits from bosses.

One of the first nodes you should get is Dreamer, a mana node that restores a hefty chunk of mana from kills. This should solve most resource issues early on. You can then path right out of that node to Blinding Strike, giving all of your attacks a 10% chance to inflict Blind on hit. This reduces enemy accuracy by 30%, greatly increasing your chance of dodging attacks via Evasion.

From there, path towards Power Charge nodes to scale Falling Thunder’s damage and any Evasion/ES nodes you find. It’s also a good idea to grab the Quarterstaff nodes near the eastern edge of the tree. It’s right next to some strong Evasion and Herald nodes as well, perfect for scaling your survivability and damage in the mid-game.

Ascendancy

Invoker is currently the best Ascendancy for Monk. Acolyte of Chayula is quite powerful if you have endgame investment, but for standard leveling and early endgame, the Invoker offers some useful utility without sacrificing endgame scalability.

I am the Thunder… is a fantastic node for leveling, granting you easy access to shocked ground. This grants easy shock application for Siphoning Strike
to convert into Power Charges. For your second notable, you can get either …And I am the Storm for a massive damage spike in boss fights or Lead me through Grace… for a sizable boost to your Spirit, especially once you get endgame gear.

Equipment

The only thing you need to worry about is your quarterstaff. Ideally, you want a weapon with percent physical damage and flat physical damage. This will skyrocket your damage and carry you through multiple Acts. If you can’t get one of these to drop, anything with flat damage rolls will work fine.

As for armor, you want items with Evasion and Energy Shield bases. If you spec for Subterfuge Mask on your passive tree, then you’ll want a dedicated Energy Shield helmet to maximize the Evasion bonus of that passive node. The only affixes you need are flat HP and resistances. Don’t worry about min-maxing stats until you complete the campaign; anything with HP will serve you well.

Build Tips

• Use
  Tempest Bell

  for boss fights and rare monsters. This is a substantial DPS boost. Do not forget to use it.

• Glacial Cascade

  and
  Storm Wave

  are great for damaging enemies that are too dangerous to melee

• Generate Power Charges when possible to melt tougher foes with
  Falling Thunder

  .

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