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PoE 2 Build

Optimized Monk Leveling Guide for League Start

Monk

Invoker

Starter

Creator

Trending

0.2 DotH

By Asmodeus

Updated on Apr 3, 2025

Apr 3, 2025

Build Overview

This is an Optimized Monk Leveling Guide - tested and carefully prepared for a fast league start, with zero starting currency and items required. I've levelled a lot of Monk characters in preparation for the races and speedruns and decided to share the streamlined version of my leveling strategy, so that you can get your Monk through the campaign and into the maps, as quickly as possible, while having a good time and good power level at all times.

Edit: The guide has now been updated for the patch 0.2.

Build Variants

Level 1-13

Level 14-35

Level 36-65

This guide is divided in 3 progression steps, based on the levels required to achieve different setups. Click on the variants above to see the Gem Setup and Passive Tree progression in those level ranges.

Equipment

Level 1-13

Level 14-35

Level 36-65

Set 1

Set 2

Equipment Priority

+11

Above you will find an example gear set with the most desirable modifiers, as a point of reference.

Weapon

Weapon is by far the most important piece of gear. You should know which bases to craft on and what modifiers are most desirable for your character. Below you will find the list of the Staff bases that you should focus on. When it comes to modifiers, you want the following ones:

%Increased and flat Physical Damage
Flat Fire/Lightning/Cold Damage
Attack Speed
+to levels of Melee skills

Flat Physical combined with Increased Physical Damage is the best combination, but you also need to make sure to always have a source of Lightning and Fire damage, in order to Shock and Ignite your Tempest Bell, for much more damage. You can get that flat elemental damage from weapon/ring/glove prefixes or from elemental runes socketed in your weapon.

Attack speed is typically the most desirable Suffix. +to levels of Melee Skills is also good, but getting +2 or more extra levels on your skills will cause you to run into mana issues, so do NOT prioritize it.

lvl 4. Long Quarterstaff

You should swap to Long Quarterstaff asap and spend your first Transmutations/Alterations on it. You can find Refined Arms scattered around Red Vale, which drop a random lvl 4. weapon when clicked. It's an almost guaranteed way to get a white Long Quarterstaff early on.

lvl 11. Gothic Quarterstaff

Before fighting Count Geonor, at the end of Act 1, you should try to craft as good of a Gothic Quarterstaff, as you can. You can spend a Regal Orb, Alchemy Orb, Artificer's Orb etc., because this staff will have to last you for a long time.

(we're skipping the next base, which is Crackling Quarterstaff, because it doesn't let us freeze and shatter consistently, making it very bad for our build).

lvl 20. Crescent Quarterstaff

If you were able to craft a good Gothic Quarterstaff in Act 1. you might not be able to easily get a Crescent Quarterstaff that beats it. That's ok, you can skip it and focus on getting a good Steelpoint Quarterstaff instead.

(it is worth noting that L'im the Impaler - the Rare boss in Halani Gates Forward Command Tents, drops a guaranteed rare lvl 20. weapon which can be a Crescent Quarterstaff, so it is always worth killing this optional boss)

lvl 28. Steelpoint Quarterstaff

A good Steelpoint Quarterstaff will carry you through the entire act 3. It is worth spending your currency - including Exalts and Blacksmith Whetstones on it. Ideally you'd like to craft it right before the Jamanra fight at the end of Act 2.

lvl 33. Slicing Quarterstaff

If you weren't able to get a great Steelpoint Quarterstaff, you should prioritize the Slicing Quarterstaff instead. It's the last of the currently available bases, before we move on the the "Advanced" versions of Quarterstaves.

From act 4 to act 6, you can rely on "Advanced" versions of the same Quarterstaff bases as you did in acts 1-3. You'll most likely only need to craft a single decent staff in act 4, which will carry you until the end of the campaign.

Boots

Prioritize crafting boots, over other pieces of armor, until you have movement speed on them. Nothing else matters on boots during leveling. Of course life attributes and resistances are always good to have, but you should highly prioritize MS.

Here are the item level requirements for different movement speed modifiers on boots:

10% movement speed (ilvl 1)
15% movement speed (ilvl 15)
20% movement speed (ilvl 30)
25% movement speed (ilvl 50)
30% movement speed (ilvl 70)
35% movement speed (ilvl 82)

Armour

Wear Evasion and Evasion/Energy Shield armour primarily. You're going to be scaling Evasion and some Energy Shield as your primary defensive stat, so make sure to wear decent bases that are close to your level.

Life and Evasion modifiers, will give you the most defense. Resistances and Attributes (Strength/Dexterity/Intelligence) on suffixes are very desirable, but a good Life Regeneration modifier is definitely not something you should overlook. Getting a decent amount of Life Regeneration, will make you feel significantly more tanky.

Jewelry

Jewelry is the hardest to upgrade, as it drops in very limited amount and is not widely available at the vendor. Make sure to learn all of the guaranteed jewelry drop spots during the campaign, to increase your chances at getting a decent piece of gear.

Guaranteed Iron or Lazuli Ring at the Cemetery
Guaranteed Amulet in Keth ruins
Guaranteed Resistance Ring in Buried Shrines
Guaranteed Ring in Sandswept Marsh - Hanging Tree

Prioritize flat Added Damage, Life, Resistances and Attributes.

Mace + Shield

From the very beginning of act 1, you need to be looking for a 1-handed weapon with Strength and a Shield with Strength and/or Increased Chance to Block. Ideally you want a hybrid base shield, because a pure Armour shield slows you down by 3% while a hybrid shield slows you only by 1.5%.

We do this to start using Shield Charge and Leap Slam as soon as possible.

After level 15, when you get the extra strength on your Weapon Set 2 passives, you can prioritize Increased Chance to Block on a shield, over Strength.

Currency

Majority of your currency, should be always spent on your weapons. You should always think about what you're trying to get from your Transmutes and Augmentations. Don't just throw them on every item you have. Be purposeful.

For example - if you haven't found movement speed boots in the early game, and you already have a decent weapon, you can spend Augmentations on boots with an elemental Resistance suffix and an open prefix, to fish for a Movement Speed prefix. Blue weapons with Attack Speed or +to Levels of Melee Skills are the best target for your Augmentation Orbs. Always take stock of your gear and try to figure out what's your weakest piece. If you're level 28 and haven't upgraded your chest piece since level 4, it's a good idea to pick up white Studded Vests and throw some Transmutes at them. Even a mediocre evasion roll + life regeneration on a good base will be better than most random rares that you found 20 levels ago.

Be disciplined with your currency. For example, you should NEVER Exalt a piece of gear that isn't a Quarterstaff unless you have more than 6 Exalts - which is enough for your next 2 upgrades during the campaign. Same goes for Regal orbs if you have 2 or less, and Artificer's Orbs if you have 4 or less. Keep them for weapon upgrades, and only spend the surplus on other items.

If you get really lucky and drop a great weapon - save your currency and don't craft it any further if your damage is still very high. This will help you transition to the next weapon base much easier. You can afford to save your currency whenever your character feels very strong and you should spend more currency if your character feels weak.

Regex

While looking for gear at the vendor, you can press Ctrl+F and Ctrl+V to paste this string into the search bar:

"dds|o str|mov|ed bl"

This will highlight items with flat added damage, strength, movement speed and increased chance to block.

Skill Gems

Level 1-13

Level 14-35

Level 36-65

Support Gem Requirements:

Str 10

Dex 20

Int 20

Expand all

Quarterstaff Strike

Glacial Cascade

Frozen Locus

Frost Bomb

Tempest Bell

Shield Charge

Herald of Ice

Gem Priority

+10

Initial Setup [Level 1-13]

In the beginning, use the Glacial Cascade + Frost Bomb combo for single target damage. Make sure to hit the target with the tip of your Glacial Cascade.

Frozen Locus in combination with Glacial Cascade can be used to clear monsters while continuously moving in one direction, by using Frozen Locus behind you, and hitting it with Glacial Cascade while you're moving away from it. Make sure to carefully read descriptions of the skills you use. They have built-in interactions (such as the final spike of Glacial Cascade, automatically exploding the Frozen Locus crystals), and if you don't understand these details, you will end up losing out on speed and damage, by using the skills in a suboptimal way.

The Martial Tempo support, can be used either in Glacial Cascade or, if you're about to fight a boss and rely on Tempest Bell for your damage, you can use it in Quarterstaff Strike.

If you have 17+ strength in your shield weapon set at level 6, you can use your first level 3 gem to engrave Shield Charge. Otherwise, engrave the Tempest Bell and use the gem you get from Lachlann for Shield Charge.

Spare Skill Gems should be used to upgrade your main damage dealing abilities.

Ice Strike Swap [Level 14-35]

At level 14, engrave Ice Strike - this will now be your main ability. You can still keep Glacial Cascade and Frozen Locus for Act 2, but eventually you can focus on just the Ice Strike.

After getting the guaranteed Jeweller's Orb from the Sandswept Marsh camp, you can use either Cold Infusion in your Ice Strike, or if you have a lot of flat fire and lightning damage, use Ice Bite instead. As soon as you get a Tier 2 support gem, you can replace it with Primal Armament. Alternatively you can also put the Rage support in your Bell and use the other 3 support gems in your Ice Strike.

Final Setup [Level 36-65]

After clearing the Azak Bog and acquiring 60 spirit + a guaranteed lvl 10 spirit gem, engrave Combat Frenzy. In combination with the Resonance keystone, it will generate Power Charges, which can be used for the Charged Staff ability.

After clearing the Azak Bog for the second time, in act 6, you can engrave Wind Dancer and use it with your other buffs.

Engraving Priorities

Follow a general order listed below in Skill gem and Support gem priority lists. Any spare support gems will serve to accelerate your support gem acquisition, so simply move down the list and craft them in order as you get them. You can get Cold Infusion before Magnified Effect if you get a lot of supports before level 12 because we only need the Magnified Effect for Herald of Ice. Also make sure to check your attribute requirements to make sure you can actually use the intelligence and strength support gems whenever you want to craft them.

Skill gem priority:

1. Renly lvl 1 Glacial Cascade

2. Clearfell lvl 1 Frost Bomb

3. Devourer lvl 2 Frozen Locus

4. Rust King lvl 3 Tempest Bell

5. Lachlann lvl 3 Shield Charge

6. Leitis lvl 5 Ice Strike

7. Halani Gates lvl 7 Leap Slam

8. Chimera lvl 9 Charged Staff

Keep upgrading your main damage abilities and Tempest Bell as you find more gems in later acts.

Spirit gem priority:

1. Herald of Ice

2. First level 8+ spirit gem Combat Frenzy

3. Wind Dancer

Support gem priority [Tier 1]:

Devourer - Concentrated Effect
Areagnae - Martial Tempo
Druid - Ice Bite
Treants - Rage
Executioner - Magnified Effect
Gallows - Cold Infusion
Overabundance
Persistence
Innervate
Arcane Tempo
Unbreakable
Wind Wave

Support gem priority [Tier 2]:

Viper - Primal Armament
Ingenuity
Heavy Swing
Close Combat
Strip Away

Support gem priority [Tier 3]:

Heft

Passive Tree

Level 1-13

Level 14-35

Level 36-65

main:

123

set 1:

set 2:

For passives, you can generally follow this tree progression. Make sure to click on the different build variants to see the right tree for any given level range.

You should take advantage of weapon set passives and use Staff in weapon set 1, with a 1-handed Mace and Shield in weapon set 2. This will allow you to get extra strength and defense for your Shield setup, without sacrificing any damage.

Start with Flow State, to get to attribute nodes asap. In Hunting Grounds you can allocate 1 or 2 strength nodes to start using Shield Charge, if you haven't found any strength on gear (very unlikely to happen). Otherwise only put 1 point in str, then dex, then int and then dex again, pathing toward Echoing Frost. Pick up Crashing Wave as soon as your strength requirements are fixed. After the elemental damage nodes (Echoing Thunder, Echoing Flames), path toward Step Like Mist and after that get Shimmering. Depending on whether you need more strength or Lightning damage for shocking your bells, go toward Tenfold Attacks or Essence of the Storm.

Essence of the Storm can be skipped if you have a lot of Lightning damage coming from your gear, especially since we'll take I am the Thunder... as our first ascendancy node, guaranteeing that we're always doing enough Lightning damage to shock the bells.

After picking up Mindful Awareness, path down the tree and start taking all of the passives south of your starting location (you can skip the Cold Penetration nodes until the end of the Campaign). Just make sure to pick up Resonance by level 36.

How it Plays

Level 1-13

Single target

Stand at max range, debuff the enemy with Frost Bomb (remember that you can always pre-use the Frost Bomb before the boss becomes targetable), and dps with Glacial Cascade's final spike.

Once you acquire the Bell, stack the combo and rage with Quarterstaff Strike, drop your Tempest Bell and either continue to Quarterstaff Strike, or Frozen Locus away from the target and dps with Glacial Cascade, hitting the boss and Tempest Bell at the same time.

Clearing

Frozen Locus while in the middle of the pack, to propel yourself in the direction you want to travel. If the pack is dense or there is a wall nearby, or if you're surrounded, you can keep spamming Frozen Locus and it will keep instantly exploding. Keep moving and striking back with Glacial Cascade, ideally aiming the final spike at the ice crystal from Frozen Locus.

Level 14-35

Single target

Pre-use Frost Bomb, Ice Strike, drop Tempest Bell and hit the Bell as well as your target with Ice Strike.

Clearing

Use Ice Strike to dash toward nearby enemies, in the direction you want to move in, while stacking combo points and letting monsters chase you. Once you group a larger pack, drop Tempest Bell and finish them all together. Early on (levels 12-29), especially if you've had enough Skill Gems to keep up your Frozen Locus levels, you can use it to quickly explode a pack of monsters, by walking through it, and using the skill in the middle. This will often cause it to detonate immediately, killing everything with Herald of Ice.

Level 36-65

Single target

Same as before but try to keep up Charged Staff for boss fights, by waiting until your Power Charges almost expire, and using it at the last second, to extend the duration. Make sure to save your Unbound Avatar for the boss fight in areas where there is a boss present. Press it right after you drop your bell for a massive burst of damage.