PoE 2 Monk Build Guide: Best Hollow Petals Build for Budget Endgame

Summary

Hollow Palm Technique is secretly one of the strongest builds in Path of Exile 2 right now, regardless of your budget. Everyone who has played this build has had the same reaction: dashing in, punching once or twice, and watching everything disappear is incredibly satisfying. This guide covers everything from core mechanics to budget variations, ensuring you can enjoy this build whether you have five divines or five mirrors.

The build achieves 100% critical strike chance with over 1,400% critical damage multiplier, while zerging through maps with massive attack speed. It plays like Flicker Strike, but you remain in control instead of being taken where the skill decides. Even better, this build can carry six-player content without damage boons, even with monsters having 50% increased life. The right PoE2 build boosting can greatly help you master the BD.

Understanding Hollow Palm Technique

Hollow Palm Technique fundamentally changes how your character deals damage. When you unequip your main-hand weapon, you gain access to this keystone with three distinct effects.

First, any skill that normally scales damage from your weapon instead gains damage based on the skill gem's level. This is why we aggressively scale skill gem levels on this character, as they provide the base damage we need.

Second, you gain 1% more attack speed per 75 item evasion rating on equipped armor items. This is how we achieve attack speeds that no quarterstaff build can match.

Third, you gain 0.1% base critical strike chance per 10 item energy shield on equipped armor items. Base crit chance is different from increased crit chance. With Hollow Palm, you get a massive amount of extra base crit, which is then scaled further by percent increased critical strike chance nodes elsewhere. This is how we reach 100% critical strike chance consistently, something few builds can achieve.

The Core Damage Loop

Shattering Palm is one of the most satisfying skills in the game. When you hit an enemy, the initial damage is relatively low, but it releases a shockwave that coats nearby enemies in ice shards. When you deal enough damage to these enemies or when they die, they release a large explosion, dealing significant area damage.

The real power comes from combining this with the Eventide Pearls amulet. This unique gives you the Midnight Zenith skill, which generates Arctic Petals on critical hits. Upon reaching ten petals, you consume them to create five ice crystals. These crystals work identically to Frost Wall, and when you hit them with Shattering Palm, they also trigger Shattering Palm's damage. Since we aren't scaling the HP of these crystals, they instantly pop from any attack, triggering multiple Shattering Palm explosions simultaneously.

Single explosions deal roughly two million damage, and you can trigger Shattering Palm explosions ten or more times per second. This is how we instantly delete pinnacle bosses and clear 200% Delirium content.

The Herald Chain Mechanic

The screen-wide clearing you see in showcases comes from Herald of Ice and Herald of Thunder chaining. However, the lowest budget variations will not have this chaining effect. To enable it, you need the Spirit of the Wolf charm, which costs 60-70 divines.

Spirit of the Wolf makes 10% of all hit damage break armor. Combined with Armor Break support, your skills further break armor by 20% of the physical damage dealt. While Heralds normally convert all damage to elemental, any "gain as extra" physical damage still applies to Herald skills. This gives sufficient physical damage to trigger armor break.

When you fully break an enemy's armor with supported skills, Armor Explosion triggers. Since this explosion counts as a non-Herald attack hit, it can proc Heralds independently. So when Armor Explosion kills a shocked enemy, it procs Herald of Thunder. When it shatters a frozen enemy, it procs Herald of Ice. This self-sustaining chain is how Heralds clear entire packs.

Crucially, we use freeze buildup on Herald of Thunder and chance to shock on Herald of Ice. This is intentional. Herald of Thunder innately cannot shock, and Herald of Ice innately cannot freeze. By reversing these, we ensure both Heralds can trigger each other's conditions, making the chain more consistent.

The Two-Button Playstyle

Ice Strike is actually a supporting skill, not your main damage dealer. Shattering Palm provides the damage through explosions, but you need to either kill enemies or deal enough damage to trigger those explosions. This is where Ice Strike comes in.

After dashing with Shattering Palm, you use Ice Strike, which attacks extremely quickly thanks to Hollow Palm's attack speed bonuses. It quickly pops the explosion, allowing you to use Shattering Palm on the next pack and repeat. This creates a fluid two-button playstyle: dash in with Shattering Palm, strike with Ice Strike, everything dies, repeat.

Ice Strike also provides significant freeze buildup, which, combined with Ice Bite support, gives extra damage when you freeze enemies. Osin's Oath solves all mana issues by leeching elemental damage as mana.

Tempest Bell for Boss Damage

Tempest Bell is crucial for single-target damage. With a limit of three bells, you can link it with Ancestral Call to spawn multiple bells when enemies are nearby. However, for single-target fights, this isn't normally possible.

The key is that Midnight Zenith's ice crystals count as enemies. When you spawn these crystals and use Tempest Bell, it creates three bells instantly. These bells trigger Shattering Palm shards just like the crystals do, creating even more damage sources.

Each hit on a bell triggers a shockwave, regardless of the hit's damage. Since you're constantly spawning and popping petals, each pop triggers the shockwave, contributing massive damage. Combined with all the Shattering Palm explosions, this instantly deletes bosses.

Power Charge Generation and Low Life

Generating power charges for Charge Regulation is achieved through a clever interaction. Living Lightning support creates minions when the supported skill deals lightning damage. Since Midnight Zenith deals lightning damage from "gain as extra" sources on the tree, it spawns Living Lightning minions. These minions can be supported by Culmination, which consumes a combo from your general skills. This combo consumption generates power charges with Alira's Chimes.

Low life provides immense benefits through Executioner support, Dire Strike, Killer Instinct, and, on higher budgets, Legacy of Al-Dor Crown of Thorns for Pain Attunement. These combine to provide over 40% more damage and a significant critical damage bonus.

Animus Exchange makes going low-life trivial. This support sacrifices a large amount of your life to grant Runic Ward. Using it twice puts you at low life instantly. The downside is vulnerability to bleed and poison, which bypasses the energy shield. To mitigate this, you need bleed and poison charms with at least 53% increased charges, giving you two uses instead of one.

Gear Recommendations

Gloves are the most important piece. The Wave of the Stone Fist modifier requires Tier 1 flat defense because it directly scales Hollow Palm's evasion and energy shield. Suffixes should include +2 melee skills, attack speed, and attack damage leeched as mana.

Body armor needs as much evasion and energy shield as possible. On lower budgets, use body armor with a Spirit Vessel that gives you a companion taking damage for you.

Helmets prioritize energy shield for Hollow Palm scaling. Endgame uses a two-socket helmet with Raving Touch shards.

Boots need evasion, energy shield, movement speed, and deflection rolls to reach the 95% cap.

The Eventide Pearls amulet can be upgraded on the Verisium Anvil. Search for "runemastered" on trade and look for +2 level of cold skills.

Belts use Ingenuity until the highest budget variations swap to Mageblood.

Passive Tree and Budget Progression

The passive tree focuses on critical damage bonus, evasion, and energy shield scaling. The most important jewel is the Timeless Jewel in the optimal socket near multiple notables.

The Voices jewel is not needed. It's included only to push critical damage beyond 1,400% for the thumbnail. You can safely ignore it.

Low Budget: Use standard Heralds without Spirit of the Wolf. The build still clears effectively. Use Devour before bosses for extra damage.

Medium Budget: Add Spirit of the Wolf charm. Your Heralds will now chain through entire packs.

High Budget: Add Mageblood, Trinity support, and Legacy of Al-Dor Crown of Thorns for over 1,400% critical damage multiplier.

Map Rotation and Conclusion

In maps, dash with Shattering Palm, then use Ice Strike to pop explosions. Use Pounce to maintain Freezing Mark and Rend for skill duration bonuses. Remember to reapply Animus Exchange at checkpoints.

For bosses: apply Freezing Mark with Pounce, use Ice Strike twice, drop Tempest Bell to spawn multiple bells, then Shattering Palm repeatedly. Repeat until the boss dies.

The Hollow Palm Ice Strike Monk is one of the strongest and most enjoyable builds in Path of Exile 2. Its budget flexibility means anyone can experience the joy of dashing through maps and watching everything explode. With a proper understanding of the mechanics and careful gearing, this build will carry you through all content.