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In Path of Exile 2 Monk looks like a great combination of Mage/Rogue and Warrior Archetypes.
So In this guide I wanted to break down the Monk class together with the most promising Monk skills and both Ascendancies we have for it: Acolyte of Chayula and Invoker.
If you are still not sure which class to play - check out the dedicated guide - Which Class/Ascendancy to Play
First off let’s start with the skills, and lets focus on the skills that could be considered promising and combos that should work especially early on.
The most obvious pick for Power Charge related builds, so most charge stacking options would go with it, it could be combined with Siphoning Strike which can generate charges from shocking enemies.
This combo would be pretty nice early on if we can maintain shocks on bosses consistently.
This is another Combo that works very well early on so it is recommended for most new monks to start with something similar, CC from freeze can help with surviving, while Cascade itself is doing nice AOE damage.
Great for finishing off rares and bosses and to combine with Behead to receive some modifiers from monsters.
Is interesting because stuns seem strong in Poe2 and it also has 213% of Attack Damage effectiveness, yet due to 1 second cast and a jump it feels more like a combo finisher or opener, rather than a spammable skill.
Great way to utilize the charges if you are not going to play Falling thunder but still will do some elementals.
One of a kind skill that can apply socketed Curses when you hit enemies and have a pretty decent single target damage / scale effectiveness. Most of the time it would be used as a Curse supplier but some dedicated builds are possible if you will use it as a single target primer, in such case it should be combined with some AOE skill for clear.
Looks absolutely great providing high damage effectiveness, a way to close the gaps between you and enemies and flashy gameplay as well. The biggest issue is the necessity to generate Power Charges which can make Flicker viable only in the endgame when you will be able to generate more through uniques and other interactions. So I would not go for it early on.
Let’s start with Acolyte because we have more Passives revealed for this Ascendancy.
Effectiveness of this passive will be based on 2 things:
Based on those +10% maximum chaos resistance could be VERY strong or just an average bonus.
There is also a chance that it can double your negative resistance as well because it worked this way in POE1, if it will be this way in POE2 we will need to get Chaos Resistance to at least +1 out of -60%.
Also keep in mind that this passive is not stacking with Chaos Inoculation which makes you chaos immune - so more chaos resistance will give you nothing.
Should we take this passive or not will be up to the 2 points mentioned above, but it looks like a nice way to boost defenses for 2 points.
Is the passive which makes all mana leech instant and this is one of the reasons why Acolyte looks good.
Considering Monk had mana issues in almost all showcased versions this passive should help tremendously with mana sustain and could be naturally combined with Mind over Matter keystone which gives us All Damage Taken from mana Before Life providing an additional defensive layer.
In PoE 1, Eldritch Battery was a Keystone that converted your Energy Shield into Mana. It has been confirmed that Eldritch Battery will NOT be the same. Even still, there likely will be some synergy with Mana/ES, so keep an eye out for that.
Combined with Ravenous Doubts it "should" make Energy shield recovery from mana leech instant as well which is going to help with ES sustain giving us 3 layers of defense: ES, Mana and Life.
For most Hybrid builds with Energy Shield that passive looks like a must because it will be easier to boost only Mana Leech instead of trying to get sources for both + making it Instant is a strong bonus.
This removes ALL the spirit, so you can't use reservation skills anymore which is a big downside and provides up to 600 Darkness (at level 100) which could protect your life and ES against damage becoming an additional layer of defense.
This passive works very well with Mind Over Matter again since it protects your Life and ES and would combine greatly with Ravenous Doubts.
It does not sound that good initially since the downside is pretty big, but it stacks well with next passives in line.
Provides Into the Breach skill, which gives the chance to drop flames of Chayula which grants life, mana and damage.
Unfortunately we don't have enough info about amounts those flames can provide and it needs to be confirmed if we can spawn those on bosses but the skill itself looks decent enough to consider since it can help with recovery and damage at the same time.
It also leads to an unidentified passive which is yet to be revealed.
Gives 1% of damage as extra chaos for 20 unreserved darkness.
So when nothing is hitting you it will give up to 30% of additional damage as Chaos at the maximum. (At level 100)
It can add Chaos damage to ANY other type of damage including chaos itself, so conversion there is pretty simple.
There is also 1 more Passive connected to Embrace the Darkness and for now it is unknown, but I would expect it to interact with darkness mechanics in some fashion too.
Generally both Embrace the Darkness and Grasp the Void look pretty average, 30% bonus damage and some defensive layer is better in POE2 than in POE1 but losing spirit completely and spending 4 Ascendency points for it looks like a heavy gamble.
We will need to see other passives to decide if those 2 are worth it or we will have better options, but I hope we will have better ones and will try to avoid these myself.
Now let’s focus on Invoker Ascendancy and look at passives that GGG already revealed.
Provides Monk with Meditate skill, which we can channel to double Energy Shield.
Initially it looks pretty strong, but the channeling part needs to be clarified and tested to say for sure.
It can stack with cast while channeling skill gem which can trigger any particular skill, for example defensive one while you are channeling Meditate to tank some bigger hits that you can't avoid.
10% of damage as Cold or as Lightning respectfully, which is nice, but nothing special.
I’m The thunder Also gives you 25% chance to create shocking ground on Shocking Enemies and I’m The Blizzard always creates Chilling Ground on Freezing Enemies.
Both those passives are used as a path so I would take only 1 of them and I’m The Thunder looks better overall because shocking ground provides more benefits and can be triggered more often.
This gives the Unbound Avatar ability.
Each time you apply a status ailment to an enemy like Chill or Shock, you gain Unbound Fury.
When you have enough of it (expected number to be 100 based on POE1), you can use the skill to Transform into the Avatar to deal way more damage and inflict even more ailments.
This passive is strong but not consistent and should work the best with Hybrid builds that will utilize a few different elements to shock, chill and ignite at the same time - otherwise it will take too long to stack it.
Provides Elemental Expression skill which triggers every time when you do melee critical strike. Elemental Expression will create waves of elemental power to damage enemies around and could be a build in Cast on Critical which is VERY strong.
For now this passive looks like the strongest option in all Invoker kit because it has no cooldown and triggers on EACH crit which is better than Cast on Critical itself.
However we will need to see damage numbers to confirm how viable it is going to be.
Keep in mind that to reach ...and Scatter Them to the Winds we will need to pass through unrevealed passive so it will require 4 points and not 2 to reach it.
Invoker looks like a strong choice for Cast on Critical builds but lacks some defensive capabilities and quality of life nodes so it is more damage oriented Ascendancy choice.
Acolyte on the other hand has less damage bonuses but a lot of quality of life passives that could be used to boost defenses which can be important for Monk since this class can feel squishy without investment in defense.
Both Monk options will work pretty good with Poison, Cast on Critical, Archmage and mana stacking in general and would also work as good as hybrid builds with ES / Mana / Life layers of defense.
