Path of Exile 2 Lightning Monk Guide, Essential Skill & Gear

In Path of Exile, creating an effective character build can be a daunting task. The right combination of skills, gear, and strategy is essential to thrive, especially in the game’s later stages like mapping and bosses. This guide walks you through the process of building a Lightning Monk, focusing on skill choices, gear optimization, and strategies for both the campaign and endgame content. Let’s dive in.

1. Path of Exile 2 Lightning Monk Skill

The Lightning Monk build heavily relies on a few key skills to generate power charges, deal damage, and provide sustain throughout the campaign and mapping. Here’s a breakdown of some of the essential skills to consider for this build:

Calling Strike

Calling Strike is a core skill for this build, allowing you to call upon lightning damage as you strike enemies. It also works well in tandem with Life Leech to sustain your health, especially when clearing large packs of mobs. When using Calling Strike, you can experiment with adding Power Charge Generation support gems like Profusion to generate additional charges during combat, improving your damage output and overall efficiency.

Siphoning Strike

For boss fights, consider swapping Calling Strike for Siphoning Strike, especially if you need faster power charge generation. Siphoning Strike can help you build charges more quickly, which is crucial when facing tougher enemies or when you’re looking to execute your build’s full potential.

Herald of Thunder

The Herald of Thunder aura is a great way to increase your damage. Adding Concentrated Effect to this aura will make it more effective in clearing packs, as it delivers powerful lightning bolts. You can also combine it with Lingering Illusion, which generates power charges and allows you to dodge attacks by leaving an illusion behind.

Voltaic Mark

Voltaic Mark is a newer addition to the Lightning Monk build. It’s excellent for clearing enemies quickly, as it marks targets, causing them to explode upon death, dealing lightning damage to other nearby enemies. Consider using Coursing Current to enhance the chance to shock and Inspiration to reduce mana cost. While still under experimentation, Voltaic Mark provides additional utility, especially when dealing with larger packs or multiple enemies.

2. Gear Choices and Optimization

As you progress through the campaign and into maps, gear becomes increasingly important. Here’s how to optimize your gear for a Lightning Monk build.

Weapons: Staff and Quarterstaffs

For the early game, you can start with any staff you find, but as you progress, it’s essential to focus on weapons that scale lightning damage or physical damage that can later be converted into lightning damage. The player in this example used a Physical Based Weapon, which works well with the Falling Thunder ascendancy to convert physical damage into lightning.

As you move into the late game, Quarterstaffs become a more viable option. They benefit from Power Charge mechanics and give you significant bonuses to attack damage and crit chance. Consider looking for a staff or Quarterstaff that increases your lightning damage, attack speed, or crit chance for maximum efficiency.

Armor and Resistances

When gearing up, you want to prioritize life, resistances, and energy shield as you start transitioning from the early campaign into mapping. This ensures survivability against harder enemies and bosses. The Life-Energy Shield-Evasion hybrid setup is ideal for this build, as it maximizes both offense and defense, allowing you to take hits while dealing substantial damage.

Jewels and Mods

Jewels can provide crucial bonuses like increased shock chance, attack speed, and lightning damage. Focus on acquiring jewels that offer these stats, as they’ll help scale your build’s power. Look out for modifiers like Increased Attack Speed, Increased Crit Chance, and More Lightning Damage.

3. Ascendancy and Skill Tree

The Ascendancy choices for this Lightning Monk build are critical, especially as you get further into the game. The primary ascendancy is Unbound Avatar, which grants significant bonuses to elemental damage and elemental ailment buildup. When you inflict an elemental ailment, you gain Unbound Fury, which boosts your damage by 40% while Unbound and increases elemental ailment buildup. This makes it an excellent choice for dealing with bosses or harder encounters.

The Skill Tree should focus on maximizing attack speed, lightning damage, crit chance, and shock chance. The player in this guide emphasizes the importance of selecting nodes for attack speed early on, as this helps in building combos and scaling your lightning damage quickly. As you progress, consider respec’ing into more defensive nodes, such as evasion and maximum energy shield, to improve survivability.

4. Crafting and Currency Management

Early in the game, it’s essential to maximize your currency and gear upgrades. You can easily improve your gear by augmenting and regaling items. Use Exalted Orbs to slam better mods on rare gear, especially for weapons and armor with lightning or elemental damage bonuses.

Additionally, the Salvage Bench is an essential tool that allows you to dismantle gear and turn it into valuable shards, which can then be used to craft better items. The more you pick up gear and salvage it, the better your chances of improving your setup as you progress through the game.

5. Strategy for Bosses and Maps

For boss encounters, the key to success lies in managing your combos and power charges. The basic rotation goes as follows:

1. Enter the boss room and use Flurry to build up combo stacks.
2. Use Siphoning Strike to steal the shock and increase your power charge generation.
3. Once you have 3 power charges, use Charge Staff to add lightning damage to your attacks.
4. Unleash everything in a single, powerful attack sequence to wipe out the boss.

When it comes to mapping, this build is designed for efficiency and speed. With the right setup, you can clear packs quickly and efficiently, thanks to the synergy between Herald of Thunder, Lingering Illusion, and Voltaic Mark. Focus on upgrading your power charges and crit chance as you move into higher-level maps to ensure consistent damage output.

Building a Lightning Monk in Path of Exile can be incredibly rewarding. By experimenting with different skills, optimizing your gear, and fine-tuning your ascendancy and skill tree, you can create a powerhouse that dominates both the campaign and maps. While the build is still being tested, it’s clear that it has the potential to be one of the most fun and effective playstyles in the game. With the right preparation and strategies, your Lightning Monk will be ready to tackle anything Path of Exile throws at you.