S-TIER | BUILD MOINE HOLLOW FORM PAINTER’S SERVANT (@Spud The King) | SAISON 5

Build Video

Build Overview

This Monk build leverages the Martial Artist ascendancy to turn cheap gloves — the Painters Servant — into a true damage engine. Thanks to the ascendancy passive Way of the Stone Fist, any gloves become stone fists whose seemingly mediocre modifiers undergo a transformation: your physical damage begins contributing to ignite, freeze, shock and chill chances. A single physical attack thus applies all four elemental ailments simultaneously.

The result is spectacular. Each ailment stacks damage multipliers — the notable Harness of Elements, the anointment Stormbreaker, the bonus against frozen enemies, the ignoring of elemental resistances — pushing damage beyond 20 million DPS while remaining accessible. The rotation revolves around three pillars: Whirling Assault for clear and combo generation, Tempest Bell whose bells shatter armour, and Hollow Form whose clones multiply by consuming power charges.

Beyond raw power, the build is extremely resilient and easy to pick up. Wind Dancer converts evasion into deflection (up to a 95% chance to deflect hits), ailments continuously freeze and neutralise packs, and the ascendancy adds defensive layers through the mountain’s teachings. An excellent choice for beginners as well as veterans looking for an economical boss melter.

Strengths / Weaknesses

Skill Gem Setup by Step

This build offers 1 progression step from leveling through to the final build. Select a step to view the corresponding skill gem setup.

Imported

Imported

8 skills • 41 gemmes

Assaut tourbillonnantWhirling Assault

Cloche tempétueuseTempest Bell

Hollow FormHollow Form

Main de ChayulaHand of Chayula

Héraut de la glaceHerald of Ice

Danseur du ventWind Dancer

Danse fantomatiqueGhost Dance

Régulation des chargesCharge Regulation

Recommended Equipment

• Gloves (centerpiece) : Painters Servant (Fist of Stone). This is the heart of the build. Aim for the highest fire damage percentage on the conversion line — but in practice, any copy works very well.
• Amulet : Yoke of Suffering, to increase damage taken by enemies for each elemental ailment. Look for good rolls (20% per ailment and double elemental resistance).
• Weapon : a crafted physical Quarterstaff. Prioritize level of all skills, increased physical damage, and freeze buildup. A decent weapon costs 3 to 7 Divine Orbs.
• Belt : Mageblood as a premium option (purely defensive), otherwise a simple utility belt with instant recovery and resistances is more than sufficient.
• Key Jewel : From Nothing, which unlocks node allocation in the radius of Chaos Inoculation (ignores resistances on frozen enemies, physical damage converted to elemental).
• Armour, helmet and boots : evasion + Energy Shield, with deflection and capped resistances. Movement speed on boots and area of effect on the helmet are welcome bonuses.

Gameplay Tips

• Clear rotation : cast Whirling Assault once to generate the combo, place Tempest Bell, move forward then repeat. Packs melt effortlessly.
• Boss rotation : Hand of Chayula (to apply marks) → Whirling Assault → Tempest Bell ×3 → Hollow Form. The boss is frozen then obliterated in a matter of seconds.
• Manage life and mana with a utility belt fitted with instant recovery flasks: one press and you recover immediately.
• Maintain power charges via Ailiths Chimes : they multiply Hollow Form by creating several simultaneous clones.
• Damage optimization : replace Heightened Charges with Gurukan’s Resolve once available to go from ~15 M to ~25 M DPS.

The Core of the Build: Painter’s Servant and Ailments

The entire mechanic revolves around the Painters Servant gloves. Originally, these gloves are considered useless: they add a percentage of your elemental damage as elemental damage of another type, and halve all types of elemental damage. But once placed under the effect of the Way of the Stone Fist passive (exclusive to the Martial Artist), they transform into stone fists and every line changes meaning.

The decisive line states that your physical damage on hit contributes to the chances of ignite, freeze and shock. You therefore only need a small amount of cold damage on your weapon to trigger chill, then freeze. And as soon as an enemy is frozen, the Harness of Elements notable increases your damage by 20% per active elemental ailment. With all four ailments stacked, that already represents 80% more damage — to which the Stormbreaker anointment adds an identical effect, for a total of 160% increased damage. On top of that come a 50% bonus against frozen enemies and the ignoring of their elemental resistances. It is this layering of multipliers that creates the build’s overwhelming damage.

Whirling Assault, the Bells and Hollow Form

The main skill is Whirling Assault: a single press sends your character spinning through a flurry of strikes. Its tooltip DPS looks intentionally low, but that barely matters — the tooltip is not what scales your damage. Its main job is to build combo (it is a melee attack) and clear weak monster packs. The Atalui’s Bloodletting support converts the mana cost into a life cost, completely removing any mana concern, while Magnified Area, Heft, Life Leech and Ice Bite round out your clear and freeze potential.

Tempest Bell takes over against tougher targets. The bell deals physical damage on its own, but once you apply elemental ailments to it, it adds massive elemental damage on top. With Ancestral Call you hit up to three targets at once; with Armour Break, Heavy Swing and Uruks Smelting, you shatter enemy armour (further increasing the damage they take) while generating charges in the process. Finally, Hollow Form — the Martial Artist’s signature skill — becomes devastating once you have stacked power charges: each charge consumed spawns two additional copies. Instead of a single strike, you unleash three (or even five with Heightened Charges) in an instant.

The Boss-Melting Combo

Against bosses, you add one more tool to the mix: Hand of Chayula, which lets you socket curses and marks. You first apply Freezing Mark to accelerate freeze build-up (and gain 30% cold damage), then Temporal Chains to slow the boss and keep it centered within the bells. Charged Mark guarantees a shocked ground proc, and Eternal Mark reactivates the mark a second time, opening another window of amplified damage.

The full sequence goes as follows: Hand of Chayula, then Whirling Assault → Tempest Bell repeated three times, followed by Hollow Form. In practice, once the boss is frozen, just a few Hollow Form casts are enough to deal millions of damage — even with a basic weapon that has no mods at all. That is the true strength of this build: the power does not come from the weapon, it comes from stacking multipliers.

Survival: Wind Dancer, Deflection and Mountain Teachings

Defense relies largely on buffs. Wind Dancer generates stages that each grant 10% additional evasion, up to 80% evasion, all of which is converted into deflection: the character reaches over 90% chance to deflect hits, which reduces damage taken by up to 40%. The supports Maim and Blind slow and blind enemies, lowering their accuracy — which mechanically increases your evasion and deflection. Herald of Ice, meanwhile, shatters frozen enemies to clear entire screens.

The ascendancy provides the final defensive layer with Way of the Mountain: each time you immobilize an enemy (freeze or stun), you gain mountain teachings charges. While you hold them, your attacks deal 15% more damage, and hits that would not exceed 30% of your maximum life after mitigation deal 40% less damage. Since you are permanently freezing entire screens, these charges are virtually inexhaustible: they serve as both a shield and an offensive bonus.

Passive Tree Scaling

The end-game passive tree focuses on critical strike scaling: critical strike damage bonus, critical chance, and damage against blinded or frozen enemies. We also pick up chance to stun on hit, area of effect for Whirling Assault, and some damage converted to cold to feed the freeze buildup. Several clusters offer damage against enemies affected by an ailment, perfectly suited to our strategy.

The jewel From Nothing is the most important investment: it unlocks the radius around Chaos Inoculation, where we gain freeze buildup, ignoring resistances on frozen enemies, damage against frozen targets, and most importantly a percentage of physical damage converted to cold or lightning against electrocuted or chilled enemies. On the defensive side, we take all evasion and energy shield nodes, the invaluable Hollow Keeper (which reduces the effect of curses), and the « damage taken from mana before life » option for a premium survival layer.

Skill Tree