[0.5] MrRonit's Ice Strike Levelling + Endgame (Hollow Palm - Budget Friendly)

This is a build in progress - favourite it to follow any changes live with 0.5!

Updated T16 Guide (4/6/26): https://youtu.be/L8Izdf0j6N0

Updated T15 Guide (31/5/26): https://youtu.be/e1R8AqWlC7E

Updated League Starter Guide (30/5/26): https://youtu.be/ZmitmkdyIPM

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Welcome to MrRonit's Ice Strike build that harnesses the power of both Ice & Lightning!

This build specialises in being a DPS monster thanks to Ice Strike Charged Staff and Tempest Bell so you can nuke bosses in seconds making the entire campaign from Act 1-6 super easy! It's also a very agile class capable of destroying packs of enemies with ease!

With Hollow Palm Technique we can quickly scale our damage from very early on and not be reliant on a good weapon!

Combat Frenzy with Resonance keystone in passive tree we can now generate power charges super easily! This means we can buff our weapons with lightning damage through Charged Staff allowing us to shock enemies on top and deal tonnes of damage!

This build will work with any Monk ascendancy Invoker, Acolyte of Chayula but in the latest patch we are using Martial Artist ascendancy which looks ABSOLUTELY INSANE thanks to nodes such as Way of the Stonefist, Hollow Focus and Hollow Resonance!

The endgame version takes our DPS to stratospheric levels and we have amazing defences in the form of Evasion/Energy Shield and Deflection so you to take on tier 15+ maps & pinnacle bosses with ease! Thanks to Way of the Stonefist we transform Thunderfist into a cold damage focused set of gloves that gives us the Gelid Palm skill which makes the build into an AoE monster!

I've split the guide into four sections (will be updated on release) which you need to click below in 'Build Variants'

1) Level 1-14 (Act 1 Pre Geonor)

2) Level 14 to Level 75 (Act 1 Count Geonor to Mapping)

3) Endgame (Lvl 75+) - push maps up to T15

4) Endgame (Rend) - push T16/Arbiter

For All Variants Apart From Endgame (Rend)

Mapping

1) Use Charged Staff pre-engagement (should have power charges from previous engagement)

2) Shattering Palm into enemies to close the gap and freeze them which will trigger Combat Frenzy through Resonance - prior to Shattering Palm use Pounce to close gap and then use Frozen Locus

3) Use Ice Strike to destroy enemies and/or Frozen Locus, triggering Herald of Ice and Herald of Thunder - you should have power charges again

Bossing

For earlier levels - apply Freezing Mark (via Pounce) to boss and drop Frozen Locus. Later on prime bosses with Hand of Chayula to apply Freezing Mark and Elemental Weakness!

1) Use Ice Strike repeatedly until you can drop Tempest Bell which will boost damage significantly - and keep repeating until boss if frozen!

2) You can get power charges when you freeze the boss so use Charged Staff when you can to boost damage even further! Keep spamming Ice Strike and Tempest Bell and boss will die!

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Endgame (Rend) Variant

Mapping

1) Use Killing Palm onto Hollow Focus to get power charges

2) Use Rend first then use Charged Staff

3) Use Shattering Palm to teleport from one pack of enemy to another than spam Ice Strike and use Tempest Bell if needed

4) Keep up buffs - N.B YOU NEED TO USE Rend ONLY WHEN Charged Staff BUFF IS GONE AS OTHERWISE Charged Staff WILL BUG OUT UNTIL TIMER RUNS OUT!

Bossing

1) Use Killing Palm onto Hollow Focus to get power charges (aim for 3-5)

2) Use Rend first then use Charged Staff

3) Use Hand of Chayula to apply Freezing Mark and Elemental Weakness

4) Spam Ice Strike and Tempest Bell until enemy frozen to trigger Heavy Frost at which point you will NUKE boss!

Endgame Build Explained

Our First 2 Ascendancies

Hollow Focus summons more bells which add more AoE - these ALWAYS crit so they trigger our 2nd ascendancy Hollow Resonance which is a bell on your back! Both of these will add so much AoE and single target damage to our basic Ice Strike build!

Way of The Stonefist and Thunderfist Gloves

So usually Thunderfist gloves provide the Crackling Palm skill and lightning modifiers but with Way of the Stonefist they change completely. They now provide flat cold damage, more critical hit chance when unarmed, cold resistance, global ES/Evasion and they also provide a completely new skill Gelid Palm! Gelid Palm is insane and adds these AoE explosions to ALL your attacks! We attack a LOT in this build - Ice Strike is fast, our bells from Tempest Bell and Hollow Focus and Hollow Resonance also do tonnes of attacks so you will be creating TONNES of these Gelid Palm explosions! This adds so much AoE and even single target DPS to the build!

If you get these gloves and you don't have your third ascendancy points - don't worry just ditch Hollow Resonance for Way of the Stonefist. That's how good Thunderfist is for build!

Charge Generation

Once we get Combat Frenzy and Resonance we rely on freeze to generate power charges to power our Charged Staff. We use Shattering Palm on enemies to freeze them and also Gelid Palm will freeze enemies.

On bosses we use Hand of Chayula to apply Freezing Mark which will allow us to freeze bosses easier and when you freeze bosses you will get the power charges to nuke them with Charged Staff!

Mana Sustain

This build is VERY mana heavy - we use leech mana from physical damage affix on our ring in combination with Oisín's Oath to fix this. As the build converts most physical damage into cold damage we NEED Oisín's Oath to get better mana leech. I recommend placing Oisín's Oath on Gelid Palm as this activates ALL the time and means we don't waste a support gem slot elsewhere

Endgame (Rend) Variant

This version stacks lots of additional sources of damage through Rend, Thrill of the Kill II and Blazing Critical! Rend is a massive 50% additional damage gained as lightning. We can convert all these additional sources of damage into cold via Embitter so we can freeze enemies easier to trigger Herald of Ice and Heavy Frost!

Here we drop Combat Frenzy and Resonance - our main way of gaining power charges is now through Killing Palm culling Hollow Focus bells + killing enemies here or there!

This set up is MUCH better for bossing as we can now get power charges before we engage them rather than waiting to freeze them through Combat Frenzy! Instead of Combat Frenzy we now use Charge Regulation which adds in more critical hit chance (as well as more skill speed, defences as we do generate the other charges as well through Charge Profusion II)!

4/6/26 - Endgame (Rend) Variant which is much better for endgame bossing

31/5/26 - Endgame Version updated with Thunderfist and Way of the Stonefist tech!

30/5/26 - Updated Build Video post league start

28/5/26 - updated gear section of 14-endgame, endgame variants. Added Jewels and changed Oisín's Oath to be on Charged Staff instead!

27/5/26 - added league start video guide

26/5/26 - Updated for 0.5 Rise of the Ancients League