Best Monk Builds in Path of Exile 2

Ben Author

Created - 09.02.2025 Updated - 18.03.2025

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The Monk class stands as one of the frontrunners when it comes to the best builds in PoE 2. An agile fighter who is well-versed in melee combat, the Monk can easily demolish any monster that tries to get in his way.

If you are looking for the best Monk Builds in Path of Exile 2, then we've got you covered! We will provide you with our top recommendations, as well as the items necessary for these builds to work.

Unsurprisingly, being a popular class in the game, the vast majority of endgame items for the Monk are quite expensive. If you need help with getting the high-end quarterstaves, body armor, rings, and other pieces of gear, head to our PoE 2 Store for all your equipment needs!

Why Choose the Monk?

As of the time of writing this, there are only two viable melee classes in the game. These are the Warrior and the Monk, with the latter being the most popular of the two.

The reason why Monks are more famous than Warriors in the current state of Path of Exile 2 Early Access is that they attack swiftly and have insane damage potential, which means that they can finish maps quicker in far less time than their hulking counterparts.

What’s more, the Monk can utilize two defensive layers—evasion and energy shield—to help prevent him from dying. Armor, right now, is not in a good spot despite the minor buff it received in Patch 0.1.1. You can read more about this in our dedicated Patch 0.1.1 article.

Another enticing quality about this class is that most Monk Builds revolve around landing critical strikes on the enemy. With the right gear, the Monk can destroy pinnacle bosses even at their highest difficulty!

Best Monk Skills to Use

The Monk has three popular skills and some complementary buffs and abilities that can aid him in defeating monsters easily. Here is a brief list of the best Monk Skills to use in PoE 2:

Tempest Flurry

Tempest Flurry prompts the Monk to initiate a four-hit combo, with the last strike ending with a powerful lightning bolt that can shock enemies. This skill is one of the more reliable methods in the game for inflicting Shock—a negative elemental ailment that increases the damage taken by affected enemies for a limited period.

While it does pretty good damage, a lot of people gravitate more toward the next two skills that we will talk about shortly.

Flicker Strike

Flicker Strike is an awesome skill that allows you to teleport to monsters, hitting them multiple times with your quarterstaff depending on how many Power Charges you have. With the right investment, you can have a Monk that can whack enemies with Flicker Strike until they are dead. However, you need a ton of PoE 2 Divine Orbs to achieve this if that is what you’re aiming for.

The only thing that you have to think about with Flicker Strike is that the skill can be very nauseating, especially when you have plenty of Power Charges and nearby enemies to teleport to. If you don’t mind that, then Flicker Strike is a skill that you might want to consider using.

Ice Strike

The default skills available to the Monk are about hitting the enemies multiple times and that is also the same philosophy with this next skill, Ice Strike.

Ice Strike is the most popular skill in the Monk’s toolkit in the current meta for a couple of reasons. First, it has better damage scaling than Tempest Flurry (80% vs. 60%) per strike. Second, Ice Strike gives you the ability to freeze enemies in their tracks, leaving them unable to attack you, cast spells against you, etc.

In the endgame, what Ice Strike can do can greatly benefit you if you want to take on the pinnacle bosses in the game. Xesht at +4 Difficulty is no match against a Monk Build that specializes in Ice Strike.

Tempest Bell

No matter what Monk Build you are running, so long as you are using a quarterstaff, it is always a good idea to incorporate the Tempest Bell. This skill is not usable without comboing your enemies with your other abilities.

Once you hit enemies with combo skills enough times, you can drop the Tempest Bell on the ground. You can hit the bell with your abilities and it will create damaging shockwaves with each strike. The resulting shockwave deals extra damage if you hit it with an elemental damage skill like Tempest Flurry or Ice Strike.

The Tempest Bell is a good addition to any Monk Build specifically because it can take a huge chunk off the enemies’ HP even with a budget setup. Besides that, if you can find a way to hit monsters with all three elements (fire, cold, lightning), the damaging shockwave from Tempest Bell will become even more insane!

Charged Staff

Apart from the Tempest Bell, there is another skill that all Monk Builds that use a quarterstaff add to their kit. That skill is the Charged Staff.

The Charged Staff is a temporary buff that infuses your weapon with electricity, giving it added lightning damage. The cool part about Charged Staff, though, is that it enables you to create a lightning shockwave with every use of your primary ability. Yes, it works even with Ice Strike!

Combat Frenzy

Charged Staff can only be used when you have Power Charges. By default, you cannot generate Power Charges unless you are utilizing a certain tech. One of the most common ways to generate Power Charges for Monks is through Combat Frenzy.

Combat Frenzy lets you generate Frenzy Charges when you freeze or electrocute an enemy. That is just one part of the equation, though. To convert the Frenzy Charges to Power Charges, you must allocate the Resonance keystone passive as well.

Wind Dancer

Budding Monks who still do not have the PoE 2 Currency to invest in high-end gear can make great use of Wind Dancer.

Wind Dancer is a persistent buff that provides you with up to 19% more evasion per stack. To maximize this, improve its quality to 20% by using PoE 2 Gemcutter’s Prisms so that you can have a maximum of four charges (instead of three).

Grim Feast

Endgame Monk Builds in PoE 2 often take the Chaos Inoculation keystone to make themselves immune to chaos damage. However, before they transition, they must have enough energy shield since CI leaves only 1 HP to work with.

Now, energy shield recharges by itself whenever it is depleted by the enemy’s attacks. However, that is not the ideal way to survive, particularly because getting hit while ES is recharging halts the process for a couple of seconds.

Fortunately, you can enable Grim Feast. This is another persistent buff that creates Grim Remnants upon killing a monster. These remnants recover a portion of your energy shield based on the level of Grim Feast itself, as well as its gem quality.

If you are going to take Chaos Inoculation, be sure to activate Grim Feast too. You can learn more about Chaos Inoculation by reading our best PoE 2 keystone passives guide.

Herald of Thunder

Almost all Monk Builds in Path of Exile 2 activate two herald skills—one of which is Herald of Thunder. When this buff is active, you release lightning bolts to nearby enemies whenever you kill a monster that is affected by Shock.

Even if your build does not revolve around dealing lightning damage, you will have enough lightning damage just by using Herald of Thunder in conjunction with Charged Staff. If it still doesn’t proc frequently, you can go for a quarterstaff that has flat lightning damage as one of its modifiers.

Herald of Ice

Do you want to kill monsters in a series of icy explosions? Well, that is possible with Herald of Ice! This is a herald skill that, when activated, creates an explosion when you shatter an enemy with your attack.

Normally, you can only shatter enemies if your build heavily leans on dealing massive amounts of cold damage. However, you can make the icy explosions from Herald of Ice proc more consistently by wearing Polcirkeln.

What is the Best Monk Ascendancy Class?

So, what is the best ascendancy class for the Monk in Path of Exile 2 Early Access? Well, there is no competition, really, because the vast majority of players choose the Invoker over the Acolyte of Chayula. Why is that, you ask?

The Acolyte of Chayula definitely has a lot of utility. Waking Dream lets the Acolyte of Chayula gain temporary buffs by picking up the Flames of Chayula. Taking Lucid Dreaming amplifies the effects of these flames, granting double the effect and duration.

There are three different Flames of Chayula. The Red Flame grants life leech, the Blue Flame grants mana leech, and the Purple Flame grants added chaos damage that can stack up to 10 times. Couple that with the Reality Rending ascendancy node and you can create a chaos damage build that can kill monsters with a modest budget.

Despite the many cool ascendancy nodes, the Acolyte of Chayula falls hard in the endgame. That can be attributed to the lack of chaos damage scaling in Path of Exile 2 at the moment. If there's any consolation, this will likely change in the future, though when this time will come, it is still up in the air.

The best Monk ascendancy class is the Invoker. This class specializes in dealing cold and lightning damage, with the ability to gain enough Spirit to activate multiple buffs at the same time.

I am the Blizzard not only provides the Monk 10% extra cold damage, but it also enables him to create Chilled Ground when freezing his enemies. Chilled Ground, for the uninitiated, reduces the action speed of nearby enemies.

And I Shall Rage gives the Invoker a temporary damage buff called Unbound Avatar. While in the Unbound Avatar state, the Monk deals 40% more elemental damage and can more likely inflict elemental ailments on enemies as well.

Lead Me Through Grace allows the Monk to gain a substantial amount of Spirit. To make this work nicely, you have to wear body armor that has more than 1,000 evasion and 350+ energy shield. You can read our Path of Exile 2 Spirit Guide if you want to gain more knowledge about this new resource.

Because typical Monk Builds have high chances of landing a critical hit, the Sunder My Enemies is a pretty awesome ascendancy node to allocate. This ignores the enemy's elemental resistance with critical hits, allowing you to deal the maximum amount of damage even if the monster has 100% resistance to fire, cold, and lightning damage.

Unless GGG implements notable changes to Path of Exile 2, the Invoker ascendancy class will trump the Acolyte of Chayula all day.

Best Monk Builds

Are you excited to know the best Monk Builds in Path of Exile 2? Before we begin, it's important to note that there will be no builds that feature the Acolyte of Chayula ascendancy class. This is an article about the best of the best, so it wouldn't make sense to include a build that chooses the Acolyte of Chayula over the Invoker.

Additionally, the Monk Builds that we highlight here use very expensive items. If you need the currency to buy them without farming them manually, you can go to our PoE 2 Currency Store and get a good stock.

With that out of the way, here are the best Monk Builds in PoE 2:

Tempest Flurry Invoker

The Tempest Flurry Invoker is an incredibly fast character that is able to deal a ton of damage when built right. As you can tell by its name, this PoE 2 build utilizes the Tempest Flurry as its primary skill.

You want Tempest Flurry to provide you with a consistent amount of Power Charges at all times. Thus, you enhance it by putting the Electrocute support gem. Although you cannot inflict Shock with Tempest Flurry when you have said support gem inserted, you have a far easier time electrocuting enemies for improved Power Charge generation.

The Tempest Flurry Invoker is quite flexible when it comes to the secondary skill. We went with Falling Thunder because it enables you to delete multiple enemies when you have sufficient Power Charge stacks. Add Ricochet as a support gem for this skill so that the projectiles it creates have a chance to chain to additional nearby enemies.

As is customary for PoE 2 Monk Builds, the Tempest Flurry Invoker has Herald of Ice and Herald of Thunder. Since this is a predominantly lightning damage-based build, you have to introduce cold damage somewhere. One way to do that is to have added cold damage on your weapon, rings, and gloves. Allocating "Essence of the Mountain" is also good thanks to the extra cold damage it provides.

For items, you want an Expert Slicing Quarterstaff or an Expert Gothic Quarterstaff with high physical damage and "Elemental Damage with Attacks." If you have the budget for it, get one that has critical hit chance, critical damage bonus, and attack speed as well.

Your body armor must be a hybrid evasion/energy shield-based armor, preferably with 1,000+ evasion and 350+ energy shield. This is so that you'll have enough Spirit to activate the necessary buffs, such as Combat Frenzy, Wind Dancer, Herald of Ice, and Herald of Thunder.

Give special attention to your rings because they will be enhanced by the Ingenuity unique belt later on. These rings must consist of lightning damage, cold damage, and elemental resistances. We recommend Breach Rings because you can improve their quality to 50% using the right catalysts.

If you have plenty of PoE 2 currency, you can switch to a Tempest Flurry Invoker build that uses several unique items, including the Morior Invictus, Ingenuity, Hand of Wisdom and Action, and Pillar of the Caged God. This is the attribute-stacking version of the build, which is only possible if you are willing to invest a lot of Divines and Mirrors.

If you want to try the Tempest Flurry Invoker, here are the essential skills for the build:

• Tempest Flurry
• Electrocute
• Martial Tempo
• Rage
• Inspiration
• Neural Overload
• Falling Thunder
• Longshot
• Ambush
• Perpetual Charge
• Ricochet
• Acceleration
• Charged Staff
• Primal Armament
• Conduction
• Persistence
• Coursing Current
• Culling Strike
• Tempest Bell
• Concentrated Effect
• Heavy Swing
• Overabundance
• Rageforged
• Herald of Thunder
• Glaciation
• Ice Bite
• Cold Infusion
• Herald of Ice
• Magnified Effect
• Innervate
• Lightning Infusion
• Combat Frenzy
• Profusion
• Wind Dancer
• Lockdown
• Pin
• Blind
• Grim Feast
• Cannibalism
• Ascendancy Nodes
• I am the Blizzard
• And I Shall Rage
• Sunder My Enemies
• Lead Me Through Grace
• Note: You can replace "And I Shall Rage" with "I am the Thunder" if you want to gain a consistent 10% extra lightning damage

Flicker Strike Invoker

If you want to zoom around the map and teleport to each monster you see, then the Flicker Strike Invoker sounds like the PoE 2 build that's meant for you! This build requires plenty of Perfect Jeweler's Orbs because of the number of support gems you'll use.

Flicker Strike is an insane skill that teleports you instantly to a nearby enemy, causing you to hit them multiple times depending on the number of Power Charges you have. Since this skill does not generate Power Charges, you have to use the default Quarterstaff Strike to generate them.

When you have enough Spirit, you can automate the process of Power Charge generation by activating Cast on Critical and linking it with Profane Ritual. With this gem setup, you gain a Power Charge every time you critically hit an enemy with Flicker Strike. Now, this is only useful when you are mapping because of monster density, so what will you do when fighting bosses where enemies are sparse?

Well, here's a really cool tech that you can utilize. Equip a Sceptre on the second weapon set with "% Increased Spirit" and "+ to Level of All Minion Skills" so that you can summon Skeletal Warriors. With these minions, you can manually use Profane Ritual on them to gain Power Charges.

That tech is possible thanks to Sacrifice, which needs 60 Spirit to activate. Be sure to deactivate your other buffs that use Spirit on weapon set two, otherwise, they will eat up your Spirit resource, leaving you unable to summon the minions. To incorporate Sacrifice and Skeletal Warrior into the build, wear a couple of Unset Rings, which will give you two additional skill slots.

Once you have enough Power Charges, drop the Tempest Bell near the boss and use Flicker Strike on it. This will prompt the Invoker to teleport and hit the bell multiple times, which will make quick work of the boss for sure!

To boost the damage of the Flicker Strike Invoker, grab a Crackling Quarterstaff with increased physical damage, added lightning damage, and increased elemental damage with attacks. Critical damage bonus and "+ to Level of All Melee Skills" are great additions, so long as you have sufficient mana sustain.

You start this build out by building up your evasion as high as you can. When your budget permits it, you can take Chaos Inoculation to make you immune to chaos damage. If you're taking huge amounts of damage and your current energy shield level won't cut it, allocate Eternal Youth so that your Life Flask recovers energy shield instead.

Apart from that, you can wear the Hand of Wisdom and Action for more attack speed and added lightning damage. If you are planning to use these gloves, make sure that you get back whatever elemental resistance you've lost when replacing your old gloves with HoWA.

You need a ton of Spirit to be able to pull this off, which means that investing in a high evasion, high energy shield body armor is mandatory.

Are you interested in trying the Flicker Strike Invoker? You can find the necessary skills below:

• Flicker Strike
• Perpetual Charge
• Momentum
• Inevitable Critical
• Supercritical
• Concentrated Effect
• Tempest Bell
• Heavy Swing
• Font of Rage
• Overpower
• Inspiration
• Hourglass
• Quarterstaff Strike
• Martial Tempo
• Electrocute
• Practiced Combo
• Rage
• Close Combat
• Profane Ritual
• Profusion
• Arcane Tempo
• Unleash
• Mobility
• Charged Staff
• Conduction
• Overcharge
• Primal Armament
• Cold Exposure
• Persistence
• Herald of Ice
• Lightning Infusion
• Innervate
• Ambush
• Magnified Effect
• Herald of Thunder
• Glaciation
• Cold Infusion
• Longshot
• Culling Strike
• Wind Dancer
• Wind Wave
• Pin
• Lockdown
• Grim Feast
• Clarity
• Cast on Critical
• Profane Ritual
• Sacrifice
• None
• Skeletal Warrior
• None
• Note: Make sure to activate your Spirit buffs only on weapon set 1. This is to prevent the "No Spirit" issue. Furthermore, only have Sacrifice and Skeletal Warrior enabled on weapon set 2
• Ascendancy Nodes
• I am the Blizzard
• I am the Thunder
• Sunder My Enemies
• Lead Me Through Grace

Ice Strike Invoker

The Ice Strike Invoker is the most popular Monk Build in Path of Exile 2, at least, in Patch 0.1.1. This build is great whether you are still starting out or if you have enough budget to get endgame items.

Ice Strike is amazing because it allows you to freeze enemies reliably just by executing the skill's three-hit combo. When you go against bosses, drop a Tempest Bell to deal huge amounts of damage thanks to support gems, Heavy Swing, and Leverage.

Every time you freeze the enemy, you gain Power Charges that enable you to activate Charged Staff. This buff also provides you with added lightning damage, which causes enemies to be inflicted by Shock when you hit them enough times.

There are many variations of the Ice Strike Invoker, but this version utilizes Elemental Invocation and Meditate. Elemental Invocation is primarily utilized to cast Eye of Winter. This cold-based spell inflicts Critical Weakness on those who are hit, making them more susceptible to critical strikes.

If you are wondering why we use Elemental Invocation over Cast on Shock, that's because the former doesn't eat up way too much mana. The only downside is that you have to manually activate Elemental Invocation to trigger Eye of Winter. Fortunately, you only have to do it when fighting bosses.

As for Meditate, this has the power to "overflow" your energy shield, essentially doubling it after use. Cast this before a boss fight or during the encounter when you need a quick top-up. If you've already taken Meditate, make sure to remove Eternal Youth if you have allocated it. Failure to remove the keystone passive will prevent you from recharging your energy shield with Meditate, so keep that in mind!

Just like the other best Monk Builds in PoE 2, you must have a high physical damage quarterstaff, preferably with 100%+ increased elemental damage with attacks. Being able to critically hit enemies is a high priority on this build, which is why you grab a quarterstaff that has a 4% critical hit chance, or at least, close to that number for maximum benefit.

In the endgame, you want to invest in HoWA and Ingenuity. Purchase a Hand of Wisdom and Action with a corrupted attack speed or added lightning damage modifier. The Ingenuity belt must have at least 80% increased effect. Pair Ingenuity with a couple of Breach Rings with increased cold damage and added cold damage, and you will see your damage output skyrocket!

If you can stretch your budget even further, acquire a Controlled Metamorphosis unique jewel, specifically one that affects passives in a medium-large ring. Insert this jewel in the socket just above the "Smooth Buckler" notable passive. Doing so will let you allocate Escape Velocity, Falcon Technique, Proficiency, and Maiming Strike without spending a lot of passive skill points.

When you transition to the Chaos Inoculation version, take notable passive skills that have something to do with the improvement of energy shield, such as Pure Energy, Insightfulness, Melding, Dampening Shield, Inner Faith, and Shimmering.

Anyway, here are the skills that you need for the Ice Strike Invoker:

• Ice Strike
• Martial Tempo
• Ice Bite
• Primal Armament
• Concentrated Effect
• Heft
• Tempest Bell
• Heavy Swing
• Overabundance
• Glaciation
• Leverage
• Soul Thief
• Elemental Invocation
• Eye of Winter
• Impetus
• Energy Retention
• Scattershot
• Meditate
• Unbreakable
• Energy Barrier
• Ingenuity
• Wind Wave
• Herald of Thunder
• Cold Infusion
• Ambush
• Supercritical
• Lasting Shock
• Herald of Ice
• Lightning Infusion
• Innervate
• Longshot
• Magnified Effect
• Charged Staff
• Conduction
• Coursing Current
• Culling Strike
• Wind Dancer
• Blind
• Main
• Pin
• Combat Frenzy
• Profusion
• Grim Feast
• Clarity
• Ascendancy Nodes
• I am the Blizzard
• And I Shall Rage
• Sunder My Enemies
• Lead Me Through Grace
• Meditate
• Remove "And I Shall Rage" to take this ascendancy node. Only do so when you transition to the Chaos Inoculation Ice Strike Invoker

Tips

If you are going to try out any of the best Monk Builds in PoE 2 that are highlighted in this article, here are some handy tips to make your life a whole lot easier:

How to Sustain Mana

Sustaining mana is one of the most common issues people face when playing the Monk class in Path of Exile 2. His ability to swiftly attack enemies is good from an offensive standpoint, but that also means that he gets mana-starved way too often. The good news is that there are several things you can do to address this problem.

First, you can have the "Mana per Enemy Killed" modifier on your weapon and rings. Having this mod on your rings is better since you can focus on more offensive modifiers on your weapon instead.

Second, Sapphire jewels can roll with the "Recover 2% Mana on Kill." If you are going to buy Sapphires to improve your mana sustain, get some that have increased damage and increased maximum energy shield as well.

Third, a simple method to sustain mana without any currency investment is to take the "Mental Toughness" node on the passive tree. This reduces the mana cost of your skills by 15%. It might seem small but the payoff is noticeable!

Lastly, you can purchase the Melting Maelstrom unique mana flask on the trade website. This will recover all of your mana on use and give you extra chaos damage too! The cheapest you can find is eight Divine Orbs at the moment, though its price may dwindle down as the league progresses.

When to Transition to Chaos Inoculation

Ultimately, endgame Monk Builds will take Chaos Inoculation as part of their build. This keystone passive is just so incredible, especially in the endgame where you encounter more enemies that deal chaos damage.

Anyway, when should you transition to Chaos Inoculation? Well, only allocate CI when you have body armor that has at least 1,000 evasion and 350 energy shield. Additionally, you can invest in ES gear for your boots and helmet so that you have a much higher total energy shield. Remember, taking CI leaves you with only one HP, so getting your ES to insane amounts is crucial for improving survivability.

It should also go without saying that you allocate energy shield nodes on your passive tree. The percent increase of each ES node is massive as it lets you achieve more than 5,000+ energy shield with the right gear!

Invest in Good Breach Rings

Breach Rings are the preferred rings to wear for endgame Monk Builds in Path of Exile 2 due to the simple fact that their quality can be improved by up to 50% (as opposed to just 20% on the other types). Breach Rings come in handy when you try the attribute-stacking route since you can use Adaptive Catalysts until you achieve the full 50% on each ring!

Get a Time-Lost Emerald

Time-Lost Emeralds are a class of jewels in PoE 2 that provide additional bonuses to small and notable passive skills within their radius. For the Monk, obtain a Time-Lost Emerald that has increased damage with quarterstaves, increased critical hit chance for attacks, and increased attack speed.

Use Gemcutter's Prisms to Improve Skills

PoE 2 Gemcutter's Prisms increase the quality of a skill gem by up to 20%. We recommend that you use this currency item on the quarterstaff skills used by the Monk to improve their effects. For instance, the Charged Staff gains 20% increased skill effect duration at max quality, making it last longer.

In addition, maxing the gem quality of Flicker Strike gives it a 20% chance to not remove charges on use!

Raise Critical Strike Chance

Typical Monk Builds have access to passive nodes that improve critical hit chance. However, it shouldn't stop there! You can have increased critical hit chance on your gear as well, specifically on the helmet and the weapon.

Final Thoughts

The Monk is one of the most popular classes in Path of Exile 2 due to its utility, insane killing potential, and impressive scaling with the right gear. People love playing the Monk because of his swiftness in combat and huge defensive capabilities, especially in the endgame.

Due to the popularity of Monk Builds, most of the high-end items that they use to perform well are being sold for exorbitant amounts of PoE 2 currency. Fortunately, you don't have to farm for countless hours just to have enough to buy the expensive stuff! Visit our PoE 2 Store for all the rares and unique items that can help push your Monk Build to the top!

That said, which of the best Monk Builds in PoE 2 are you going to run and why? Please share your thoughts in the comments below.