Monk early lvling advice for new players and my current setup at the end, ice strike chayula monk

So many ppl in global chat looked for help, and I was told that I helped some new players so I'm gonna post here what I told them to maybe help anyone. I'm lvl 81 currently, doing pretty fine I'd say, got my 3rd ascendancy already.

Please choose the ascendancy you want and don't copy mine just because, I don't even think it's good until 4 ascendancy points personally, I just thought it looked cool so I chose it.

First of all, the skill tree - just the early points

I rushed the things in green in order of the numbers. Number 1 gives very high % increase attack dmg when on full/low life, which is very strong when don't have any since it's essencially 40% more dmg at time of taking. It's not always but I believe it's very strong. Number 2 gives 30% ele dmg if you chilled/shocked recently each. You'll chill very very often, shock not that often but sometimes, with ele dmg % on small nodes. Number 3 is attack speed, always feels nice. Grab the es nodes when you start to get energy shield or evasion/energy-shield gear, tho early prioritize whatever you can equip with life/resist or whatever you can get.

For attributes, take whatever you need for your gems/gear when you take it, if you have extra you can get some strength, but you'll need dex eventually for high base weapons. You'll need SOME int, but decide based on your gear and gem lvls, can always respecc with gold, although it's not 0 gold.

For skill gems:
I - Both frozen locus and glacial cascade are good early in my experience, pretty safe. You want killing palm (kill a low health enemy to get a power charge) very soon too in order to get power charges, and spend them with falling thunder (falling thunder is weak normally, but becomes stronger and bigger if it consumes power charges, so never use without having power charges).
For single target, actually use the default attack, it's very good, even in act 3-4. I stopped using it around act 5 (tho it's still not bad).
III - staggering palm's wind does not do much dmg at all with slow hitting skills, the bell is very strong tho, so take the bell and that's pretty much it. Strong for groups of enemies cause aoe, good for single target since you can hit both the boss and the bell at the same time so extra dmg for free.
V - tempest flurry has its space, but I think ice strike is very very strong. It hist slower, but it chills and freezes which is good defensively, and it's less committal for its purpose, since tempest flurry only has a decent chance to shock with the final part of it, so you have to commit. I only took ice strike and it's my main skill rn in act 6 for both single target and clear, but default attack will be for single target until you get the jeweler to use on it, and enough elemental dmg on the tree.

The rest, Wind blast can be useful to shove enemies away, but I mostly keep it in my inventory since I'm out of slots. . Wave of frost is ok-ish (you can use ice bite on that to add another dmg support to ice strike, but it doesn't freeze in one shot most of the times, and using it before every pack is awful, would not recommend), Siphoning Strike is not worth it imo since losing shock means losing enemies take increased dmg. Storm Wave is very strong, I still use it a lot now. I use hand of chayula to apply enfeeble and voltaic mark. Shattering palm at XI gems is really nice, if you're ok with using it at the start of every mob pack, it adds aoe explosions like herald of ice. and frees up a supp slot for ice strike

Early stage will be glacial carscade+frozen locus for ranged dmg (it's not a lot), default attack for single target, killing palm when you see blue on enemies, and falling thunder when you have power charges, it's good for both clear and single target tho gl getting power charges on bosses. I think it's mainly for packs.

Then add the bell whenever, it's good always. Enfeeble costs your entire mana bar if you cast it normally, so I'd say avoid it till hand of chayula, the duration is very short anyways. First spirit gem, I tried both lightning focused Herald of Lightning first, and then Herald of Ice more cold focused, herald of ice feels MILES better since chilling/freezing normal mobs is way easier than shocking, and you freeze with your main skill, but also, EXPLODEY. Need I say more?
I'd drop glacial cascade and frozen locus fairly early, I didn't think they did much once I got the higher tiered skills. Eventually I recommend transitioning into taking resonance on the skill tree (a keystone that makes it so that when you receive frenzy charges you receive power charges instead) and having combat frenzy(spirit skill) and charged staff for some extra dmg, elemental dmg still applies to it even if we're a cold main dmg skill.

Support gems -
Early, for Default Attack, Martial Tempo (25% more attack speed), concentrated effect (you only hit one enemy with it so no downside), any of the infusions if your weapon has only physical and at most one element (if your weapon is phys + fire, fire infusion so you won't lose any cold/lightning dmg from the downside of it) if you don't have the other support gems. Later you can use close comba too.

For Frozen Lotus I used freeze build up and any of the other freeze supports (I don't think they did much at all tho), and glacial cascade was cold infusion if you don't have fire/lightning weapon when you use it, otherwise whatever adds dmg.

Killing Palm is simple, Profusion (chance for another shard) then choose either Life Drain (leech life on cull), or Innervate (overall attack dmg when killing a shocked enemy).I don't bother, I use Life Drain. When you get III supports, Behead is good, I use killing palm on rares anyways, HH lesgoo.

Ice Strike will be the main skill. I link it to Ice Bite (overall 35% attacks get 35% extra dmg as cold for 3 secs when freezing an enemy with this skill), it freezes normal enemies like crazy when you get freeze buildup on the skill tree. Then I use primal armament and concentrated effect. You can move around with Default Attack the gems Close combat, Cold infusion if your weapon doesn't have much fire/lightning, or Cold Penetration. I have no clue how much resistance enemies have and if the penetration from the skill tree is enough. Eventually I started using ice bite on shattering palm.

Tempest Bell glaciation, rage, and rageforged. overabundance if you have a 5 link. Rage on melee hit from a jewel on the skill tree will help a lot.

Hand of Chayula Enfeeble (enemies deal less dmg) and Voltaic Mark (enemies are easier to shock, and shock is stronger). Ngl, I don't use it much since the duration isn't long, but it takes almost no mana so your choice. Eventually I stopped shocking really so I have it linked to Hypothermia, freezing mark, and Enfeeble since I take whispers of doom on the tree.

Falling Thunder very simple, Perpetual Charge (chance to not consume charges), Combo Finisher (need to melee hit enemies 8 times before using it but 40% more dmg) and if you used a jeweler on it like me early, I use Lightning Infusion. Eventually I started using it less and less frequently, so I changed the Perpetual Charge to just any dmg supp.

Storm Wave I use it purely for shock, not dmg, you can probably go dmg on it, but i focus on the cold portion. I use Conduction (100% more chance to shock), Coursing Current (shocks spread to nearby enemies, sometimes), and Martial Tempo (remove Martial tempo if you don't have the jeweler's orb on it, but it'll feel bad). I stopped using this skill eventually.

Shattering palm - Ice bite, execute, and blind. Use it at the start of packs, sort of a 2-button build with it, but execute will help gurantee Ice Bite which will free up a supp for ice strike. Blind is 100% to blind, good defense.

Next, i have my auras,(you can get 30 spirit from act 1 side boss, 30 from act 3 and 40 from act 6 side bosses, body armour rolls, or amulet rolls, sceptres, or uniques) Herald of Ice - Magnified Effect (aoe) and Innervate (dmg on killing shocked). Eventually i changed to elemental focus and cold mastery since I don't shock really. Ghost Dance - fast forward (less skill effect duration) works to make shrouds come more frequently. Vitality (regen while it's active), Herbalism (life recovery from flasks while it's active), Cannibalism (life on kill while active). I use those 3 supports on my ascendancy skill, but this is not about the ascendancy, you can use them wherever, any aura works while it's active, it's not much anyways, can give up any of them (they add spirit cost beware). My last aura early game was attrition which was nice for bosses (more dmg the longer the fight is near uniques/rares and cull if long enough). I was using cast on freeze, but it got nerfed very heavily, now my auras are combat frenzy, herald of ice, ghost dance, and wind dancer. I highly recommend wind dancer, especially with 20% quality, that's 93.8% MORE evasion at gem lvl 16. Can link culling strike to wind dancer.

Remember, try to upgrade your weapon by checking vendors often, picking up whites and using transmutes on them.

I'm not gonna show beyond that, since it's not a build guide, it's meant to be early and fairly flexible for your own build later on, but I was told there isn't much guidance and many players are looking for help so might as well.

Lastly, make sure you think about the weapon sets. you can use a quarterstaff with a lot of lightning damage for lightning skills, and phys and cold (most skills here have high cold conversion). You don't need to switch, you can decide which skills use which weapon by pressing g on keyboard, choosing the skill, pressing the arrow and choosing which weapon set. AURAS USE BOTH WEAPON SETS.
I chose weapon set 1 for lightning and 2 for Cold, so I used my weapon set passive skill points on the tree accordingly, set 1 on lightning/shock nodes, and 2 on cold nodes. (ppl ask why they can't use them often, they aren't EXTRA points, you need to actually have a lvl up point to use them, it just splits 1 point into 2, not giving you an extra point for each set). Pathing is using normal points and only the actual cold/lightning nodes are the weapon sets. You can't connect a normal passive point to a weapon set point, normal points have to be connected to an already normal point.

Also, don't forget to level your skills by using an uncut skill gem of a higher lvl and choosing the same skill gem, it'll drive it to the new lvl and up the scaling (different gems have different gains from lvls, but scaling on pretty much all of them).

I personally went Chayula, you go whatever you prefer, and I have no plans for endgame, but A lot of ppl asked for help with early stuff. My Ign is TIMTOMONK, feel free to whisper me in game if you have any question, suggestion, or if you wanna tell me you hate me :)

Gear:
For weapon, you're looking for ideally good physical weapon base with high %physical dmg and high flat physical dmg with attack speed. Flat cold on top would be amazing.

Gloves/body armour/helmet/rings: Life and resists above all else, flat evasion and energy shield and %inc evasion and energy shield are the good things to look for on top. Gloves can roll attack speed and flat dmg to attacks, which is nice but life and resists are more important, rings can roll flat attack dmg too or %cold dmg, nice added bonus if you get it.

Boots: Same as rest of gear, but with movespeed. movespeed is really important, everyone will agree on that.

Amulet: Spirit. Without my amulet I'd have to drop an aura, and I'm a chayula monk so I get the supp gems on aura for free, just look for ideally the solar amulet with high spirit, then life and resists.

To get the gear, obviously if you're lucky it'd drop like that, but realistically either use the trade site or the following: Check vendors for both blue and rares and normal items, and pick up even white items if they're good bases (evasion armour is ideal, pure evasion and pure energy shield is good-enough, armour hybrid if you're desperate for gear upgrades, and pure armour I wouldn't pick up).
When white, transmute orb, and augment orb. If it has at least one of the good stats with good enough numbers, use regal to commit and hope for a good thing. When you have exalts, use on those items you commmited for.


update: see comments for a bit of endgame update on what I do, if you wanna know more feel free to ask here in the comments, try to catch me in game (/w timtomonk if I'm online)

My setup when I was lvl 75 (really not good, but it's something. I changed the build a lot since and have gone crit just like scryah):
https://maxroll.gg/poe2/planner/1madq0h3

PSA: make sure you get 4 support gems on your skills by doing the vaal orb trick, using jeweller's orbs and vaal orbs on gems. it has roughly a 10% chance to work, so 3.2 exalts on avearge.

update: please just go follow scrya's build instead, he's so much better, that's on zizaran's latest video

Thank you for the tips my friend :)

Thank you for the tips, really enjoying the Monk class, I'm still undecided if I will go full shock/lightnig (rule of cool), or a mixture of freeze/cold and shock/lightning that seems more practical, also was thinking of choosing the Invoker ascendacy, lots see how it plays.

I found this post very usefull!

Very happy to hear :) If you type /ladder lots of invokers, I didn't check what they play, but probably something about it must be good. Im left with my pac-man collection schizophrenia (others can't see the things you collect with the breach stuff)

Something I found really helpful is to grab `Combat Frenzy` buff for 30 spirit along with `Resonance` in the tree. This converts the frenzy charge from the buff to a power charge on freeze. You freeze all the time so you can always have Charged Staff rolling and use some for the power charge supports easily.

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mazungu#7039 wrote:

Something I found really helpful is to grab `Combat Frenzy` buff for 30 spirit along with `Resonance` in the tree. This converts the frenzy charge from the buff to a power charge on freeze. You freeze all the time so you can always have Charged Staff rolling and use some for the power charge supports easily.

I didn't think about it, but I dislike it personally. 2 points on the tree (for me) is not too bad sure, but it adds up with 30 spirit just to use a skill im barely using anyways. I like to have killing palm anyways for culling strike, power charges have very long duration anyways.

I'm experimenting with cast on freeze and some stuff, adding forst wall with deep freeze seems to add even more perma freeze so that's nice

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mazungu#7039 wrote:

Something I found really helpful is to grab `Combat Frenzy` buff for 30 spirit along with `Resonance` in the tree. This converts the frenzy charge from the buff to a power charge on freeze. You freeze all the time so you can always have Charged Staff rolling and use some for the power charge supports easily.

now that the act 3 waypoints aren't bugged anymore and i can get my spirit, I'm adding this to my build (well, trying it out) cuz i have more room with more spirit and better gear and stuff, I actually do like it, tho almost every monk now does the same as far as it seems so copycat-ing off whoever does that... thx for letting me know

This seems pretty nifty. I am not doing too bad with a level 30. Just went invoker. Lightning. Want something along the lines of cast on shock ball lightning when I get there

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poopsLIVE#5756 wrote:

This seems pretty nifty. I am not doing too bad with a level 30. Just went invoker. Lightning. Want something along the lines of cast on shock ball lightning when I get there

that's nice! go experiment with different stuff, this post isn't to make ppl copy my build, but just to show what I'm doing, especially early cuz too many ppl sturggled. rn in endgame , I feel absolutely amazing stealing some things from scrya's build, but changing some stuff for myself i like better. for example, im using cast on freeze frostwall and a curse/mark and freeze buildup support to add even more freeze buildup, and auto curse. i didn't like the shattering palm, so im looking at any lightning shocking skill to apply shock with, probably lightning wave or w/e it's called with a 2nd weapon skill set specced into shock %. honestly feeling amazing, and it's non-ascendancy specific, im chayula but it's good on both.
I'm genuinely surprised ppl actually see this, i expected it to be totally empty :P