In Path of Exile 2, the Monk is a versatile class with a wide range of potential builds, blending martial prowess with elemental mastery. Whether you’re looking to deal high single-target damage, control the battlefield with crowd control, or become an immovable tank, the Monk can do it all. This guide will help you choose the best Monk build for endgame content, taking into account the Monk’s strengths and potential synergies.
Why Choose Monk in Path of Exile 2?
Monks in Path of Exile 2 excel in high mobility, unmatched single-target damage, and defensive capabilities. The class boasts various passive skills that enhance fist-based combat and martial arts abilities, as well as synergies with energy shield, life leech, and resistances. Here’s a breakdown of the Monk’s strengths:
- High burst damage: Through critical strikes and elemental combos, Monks can deliver immense damage.
- Tanky: With the right build, Monks can easily absorb massive damage while dishing it out.
- Mobility and control: Many Monk skills offer fast movement and crowd control, allowing you to stay in the fight while evading threats.
- Elemental synergy: The Monk can fuse physical, fire, and lightning damage into devastating attacks, providing flexibility.
Now, let’s dive into the best Monk build for endgame.
The Best Monk Build: “Elemental Ascendancy Monk”
This Monk build focuses on elemental damage and fist-based combat, leveraging synergies between fire, lightning, and physical damage to deal with a variety of enemies in the endgame. It also utilizes high mobility and defensive layers, making it ideal for players who want to be up-close in combat without dying too quickly.
Key Skills and Abilities
- Fist of the Elemental Storm:
- This is your main damage dealer, a fast, hard-hitting attack that releases an elemental storm (fire, cold, or lightning) upon hitting enemies. This allows you to deal multi-elemental damage and is great for clearing mobs and hitting bosses.
- Blazing Strike:
- A fire-based skill that unleashes a powerful fist strike, dealing heavy single-target fire damage. With the right passive tree and gear, this skill can melt even the toughest bosses.
- Lightning Dash:
- Provides superior mobility, letting you quickly move around the battlefield and avoid incoming damage while delivering lightning-infused strikes. It’s excellent for dodging and closing the gap between you and ranged enemies.
- Earthquake Fist:
- A physical damage skill that not only delivers a devastating blow but also causes an earthquake around the target, dealing area-of-effect (AoE) damage. Useful for both single-target and mob clear.
- Monk’s Wrath:
- This skill grants increased critical strike chance and elemental damage for a short time, making it excellent for dealing with tough bosses or when you need to burst down enemies.
- Defensive Skills:
- Energy Shield and Life Leech: You will need to focus on life leech or energy shield regeneration to sustain yourself in tougher fights. Combining these with your defensive passives can turn you into an unkillable force.
- Evade and Block: You’ll also want to stack evasion and block chance to dodge hits from dangerous bosses. Skills like Stoneform will increase your block chance significantly.
Passive Skill Tree Setup
The Monk’s passive tree offers several offensive and defensive routes, but for this build, you’ll want to prioritize:
- Elemental Damage and Crit Chance:
- Focus on nodes that boost fire, lightning, and cold damage. Critical strike nodes will also increase your burst potential.
- Prioritize nodes that grant increased elemental damage, critical strike multiplier, and crit chance.
- Defensive Layers:
- Stack life, energy shield, and resistances to ensure you can survive in endgame content.
- Evasion and armor nodes will help you dodge and mitigate physical damage. Additionally, focus on block chance and dodge to further reduce incoming damage.
- Energy Shield:
- Energy Shield can act as a secondary defense mechanism, helping you avoid taking damage while still maintaining offensive potential.
- Elemental Synergy:
- Look for nodes that enhance elemental ailments (burning, shock, freeze) to apply more damage over time, particularly when hitting bosses.
- AoE Damage:
- Get nodes that increase AoE damage for when you’re clearing mobs quickly.
Recommended Notable Nodes:
- Shocking Impact: Increases your lightning damage and critical strike chance.
- Elemental Overload: Boosts elemental damage after a critical hit.
- Blazing Aura: Provides more fire damage and enhances area of effect.
- Unflinching Defiance: Increases evasion and armor, improving your survivability.
Gear Recommendations
When gearing your Monk, focus on:
- Weapons:
- Look for high physical damage or elemental weapon mods to synergize with your fist-based attacks.
- A High Crit Chance weapon or staff with elemental damage bonuses is ideal.
- Armor:
- Prioritize life, energy shield, and resistances on your gear.
- Focus on evasion and armor for defenses, and consider flasks that increase your defensive layers.
- Amulet:
- Aim for elemental resistances and increased critical strike chance.
- Rings:
- Look for rings that increase life, elemental damage, and attack speed.
- Flasks:
- Stibnite Flask for blind and evasion.
- Quartz Flask for dodge chance and block.
- Divine Life Flask for healing.
Playstyle Tips
- Positioning is key. With your high mobility, you should always be staying on the move to avoid damage while applying elemental debuffs to enemies.
- Use Lightning Dash to dodge incoming attacks and close gaps quickly. This allows you to stay in range and dish out powerful elemental combo strikes.
- Make use of your critical strike modifiers to burst down bosses quickly. When you need to sustain or recover health, use Energy Shield Leech and life regeneration flasks.
Conclusion: Why the Elemental Ascendancy Monk is the Best Build
The Elemental Ascendancy Monk in Path of Exile 2 is one of the most versatile builds for endgame content, thanks to its ability to deal huge damage while maintaining excellent mobility and solid defenses. Whether you’re clearing maps, taking down bosses, or surviving the hardest encounters, this build can handle it all. By balancing elemental damage with defensive layers like life leech, evasion, and block, you’ll be able to dominate even the most challenging situations.
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Happy adventuring, Exile!