Path of Exile 2 Best Monk build, how to play, best skills and best equipment

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How to play Monk in Path of Exile 2

The most important principle that you must understand when playing Monk is that this is a high-risk-high-reward class. Monk is a melee class that has as its signature weapon the quarterstaff and, while the class's kit comes with mid-range abilities, this is primarily a melee class. If you want to take advantage of its enormous power, you need to stay close to enemies. This condition makes winning a fight a matter of reflexes to dodge the attacks aimed at you while never stopping using your own skills.

Different from a traditional Monk, in Path of Exile 2, this class's power comes from intense sequences of elemental attacks. You have at your disposal Lightning, Ice, and Wind attacks. For this build, we will focus on Ice and Lightning since we have a bigger number of abilities based on these elements, which gives us more options when it comes to adaptation before specific encounters.

One of the Monk's strongest weapons is not the quarterstaff, but the bell invoked by the Tempest Bell skill. When you hit it with your attacks, the bell propagates and amplifies your damage. So the idea is to drop it near enemies and focus all your attacks on it. However, the Tempest Bell skill is a combo-based ability, so you need to have four combo points to invoke the bell. These points are earned by hitting enemies with regular attacks which use the same weapon the combo skill is related to. Combo points expire after some time if you haven't earned a new one, so you can't set the bell up before the fight.

With this build, the opener ability depends on the enemy's ability rotation. There are some major bosses who begin the fight with moves that you can easily dodge. In this scenario, begin using Killing Palm/Staggering Palm/Shattering Palm, which will place you in the right spot to start hitting the boss. Palm skills work as your gap closer ability and you should use one of them whenever the boss jumps away or you have to get some distance during a mechanic. Now, if the boss begins with annoying frontal cone attacks, like Count Geonor's second phase, or any other attack that you want to avoid, start the fight using Glacial Cascade, Wave of Frost, Storm Wave, and Charged Staff depending on your level. These abilities allow you to hit the boss from afar and start inflicting the related elemental effect.

During fights, your goal is to escape the enemy's abilities and keep hitting them with Tempest Flurry or Ice Strike. Monk can unleash fast sequences of elemental attacks, quickly inflicting detrimental effects such as Freeze and Shock. Use the tools you have to avoid spending long periods without using these skills so you don't lose the elemental buildup percentage you have applied.

Monk is a great fighter when dealing with a single enemy, but it is a terrible idea to jump in the middle of a stack of enemies, especially in early levels. Your best tool to fight multiple enemies is the bell, but before you can invoke it, you need to accumulate the combo points. At higher levels, the class gains stronger skills for these situations. Until then, you want to lure enemies and face only a couple at a time.

Best Monk skills in Path of Exile 2

To put this build together, Monk depends on only a few core skills, making others mostly situational. There are two skills at the top of the list: Ice Strike and Tempest Flurry. The former is a three-hit combo of ice attacks while the latter is a four-hit combo of lightning attacks. These will replace your basic attack and become your main damage source.

No Monk is good without Tempest Bell, so you should unlock it as soon as you can at Level 3. As explained in the previous section, the Bell is part of your main rotation since it is great when fighting single or multiple enemies since it amplifies your damage. When you drop the bell, the best option is to use Tempest Flurry, unless the enemy has Lightning resistance, because it has a longer and faster combo.

Among the Level 1, Level 3 and Level 5 abilities, you should consider unlocking Killing Palm, Staggering Palm and Glacial Cascade. The first two are pretty useful and you may need them later while the last is a good midrange skill that will make your life easier in the lower levels.

These are the core of this build, which only becomes stronger as you level up. Later, when Level 9 and Level 11 gems start to drop for you, it's time to unlock Charged Staff and Shattering Palm. You need Killing Palm to use Charged Staff and you want Shattering Palm to handle groups of enemies.

Best Monk passive skills in Path of Exile 2

When leveling up Monk and preparing this build, you should focus on using Passive Skill Points on certain types of nodes. Although you can try new ideas and see if they work better for your playstyle – if not you just need to spend some money and respect your character – some skills are too important to ignore.

One of your top priorities is to spend some early points on Attack Damage and Skill Speed. As a Monk, you expose yourself a lot and might die surrounded by enemies more times than you want. However, this class's greatest strength is not defense, but attack. If enemies are dead, they can't kill you.

Flow State and other couple of Mana management skills are worth it as well. By using Tempest Flurry and Ice Strike as your normal attacks while weaving other abilities, you can easily run out of Mana. Instead of increasing your Mana, you can opt to unlock Reduced Mana Cost nodes too.

Best Monk weapons in Path of Exile 2

We won't be using a specific weapon for this build, but, like other melee classes in Path of Exile 2, Monk demands attention and to have their weapon constantly updated to shine as a damage dealer. The first rule as you level up is to look for weapons of the highest level you can find, which ensures you have better stats regardless of the weapon.

The second step when choosing the weapon to use involves finding the best suffixes, which are the unique bonuses that come with pieces of equipment. Quarterstaves with Lightning Damage or Ice Damage increase the damage you cause with Tempest Flurry and Ice Strike. Look for weapons with Physical Damage as well.

Monk benefits greatly from suffixes like Life Per Enemy Killed since these help you to stay alive by giving you a secondary source of Health besides using flasks. Lastly, you want to have weapons which increase Attack Speed, an important status to perform more attacks and raise your damage output.

Best Monk armor in Path of Exile 2

While Monk has strengthened their body to become the perfect fighter, you still need to wear good armor to play this build. By staying in melee combat most of the time with this class, it's impossible to avoid every slash attack or spell cast. So you want to have solid Energy Shield and Evasion Rating numbers.

This is not a Strength-based build, so you can't wear heavy pieces of equipment and have high armor, but you won't be defenseless. Energy shield protects you from damage and recharges considerably fast, while Evasion Rating helps you become a difficult target for projectiles and strike attacks. We will rely on wearing boots, helmets, body armour, and gloves that increase both stats to keep you alive long enough to finish the battle.

As secondary suffixes, you can look for the ones that add Physical Damage to attacks and Gain Life per Enemy Hit with Attacks. These two aren't mandatory, but they boost the build's strengths in general. You can also find pieces that add specific elemental damage to your attacks, which also works greatly if they are Ice of Lightning-damage types.

A good practice is to keep other pieces of equipment that are as strong as the ones you already wear but have specific elemental resistances. The enemies change from area to area in Path of Exile 2, bringing new challenges for you to face. They might stall your progress if their strengths aren't taken into consideration and respected. So, find pieces that will be useful against certain enemies to make your life easier.

Best Monk accessories in Path of Exile 2

Usually, what makes an accessory good is actually the situations you find yourself in. You want to always have in the stash a Ruby Ring to fight enemies with Fire-based attacks, or a Sapphire Ring to handle the encounter against masters of Ice magic. There are, however, generic but yet useful accessories for any situation.

For this build, you may want to consider running accessories – rings or amulets, for example – which increases Mana recovery. Although you can work mana shortage using passive skills, having some accessories to cover you up gives more room to focus on damage. Some good amulets come with Life Regeneration as well, which is a great combo to have as a Monk.

Charms are situational and you should always equip the ones that better mitigate the kind of damage caused by enemies in the area you currently are. On the other hand, belts can come with great suffixes. There are two general good options for you. First, a belt that increases Flask charges gained. With this ability, when you kill an enemy, you recover more of your Flasks, which is great during long boss fights that eventually invoke minions. The second option is to run belts which recover more Life when you use flasks.

As a Monk, it is not uncommon to find yourself on the brink of death. If your flasks recover a greater percentage of life, it's easier to get back to a safer situation.

Good luck playing as a Monk in Path of Exile 2!