S-TIER | BUILD MOINE TEMPEST FLURRY MARTIAL ARTIST (@RequipGaming) | SAISON 5

Build Video

Build Overview

This monk build, built around Tempest Flurry, pushes the Martial Artist ascendancy to its end-of-season limits. The skeleton is simple: Tempest Flurry hits fast and hard with a quarterstaff, Charged Staff converts those hits into lightning damage, and the two ascendancy bells Hollow Resonance and Hollow Focus trigger on every critical hit to add a layer of area damage you never have to cast yourself. Around that, Herald of Thunder, Tempest Bell and Wind Dancer round out the picture, while Whirling Assault and Staggering Palm act as armor breakers against tanky targets.

What really sets this character apart is its survivability. The unique quarterstaff Duality and the boots Decree of Flight generate a guard that recharges on its own every time enemies chip away at you. As long as you’re not stunned in the middle of a pack of monsters, that barrier comes back faster than it falls. It’s this mechanic that lets a monk, a historically fragile class, hold its ground on 200% delirium maps or expeditions saturated with monster mods.

One warning is in order: the source video is the ninth episode of a series dedicated to this character, and the author himself repeats it: don’t copy the PoB without understanding how the build actually works. This isn’t an affordable setup either: Headhunter, Mageblood and a large-radius jewel cost a fortune by the end of the season. Path of Building also miscalculates this character: the real damage and life pool are higher than what the tool shows.

Strengths / Weaknesses

Skill Gem Setup by Step

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

Endgame

Endgame

13 skills • 61 gemmes

Hollow ResonanceHollow Resonance

Hollow FocusHollow Focus

BerserkBerserk

Bâton chargéCharged Staff

Déluge céraunienTempest Flurry

Paume stupéfianteStaggering Palm

Héraut du tonnerreHerald of Thunder

Cloche tempétueuseTempest Bell

Régulation des chargesCharge Regulation

Danseur du ventWind Dancer

Assaut tourbillonnantWhirling Assault

Hollow FocusHollow Focus

Hollow ResonanceHollow Resonance

Recommended Equipment

The gear reads on two levels: the pieces that make the build run, and the ones you swap depending on the content you’re farming.

• Weapon (expedition profile): Duality, the quarterstaff that fuels the permanent guard. It absolutely needs its rune mastery, otherwise it’s useless, and you should aim for at least 900 DPS.
• Weapon (speed profile): a lunar quarterstaff with the highest possible base attack speed (1.90 in the video), fitted with three attack speed soul cores, for an extra 15% base speed on top. A Duality at 1.8 attacks per second remains a valid option.
• Boots: Decree of Flight for the automatic guard. In the speed setup, Legacy of Trampletoe gives very comfortable overkill without cluttering the display.
• Belt: Headhunter for pure mapping, Mageblood if you prefer resistance instead. That second option is the one the planner runs; the dedicated section further down covers the trade-off.
• Body armour: Morior Invictus, which opens up extra socketable slots. The planner fits five runes into it.
• Ring: Kalandra’s Touch, which copies the effects of the ring worn on the other hand.
• Gloves: an Onslaught mod is a clean speed gain.
• Jewel: a dual attack speed jewel with a very large radius, applying its bonus to every small node it covers.
• Heart of the Well: a skill speed or attack speed diamond, swapped depending on which profile you’re running.
• Charms: a dousing charm carrying a guard bonus (the author is aiming for +400), the freeze charm Nascent Hope, and a speed charm while mapping. Rite of Passage still holds up fine for maps.

Gameplay Tips

• In expedition, kill slowly and accept it: the monsters there are very tanky. The author cleared level 81-82 zones at 100-120% monster effectiveness without trouble, but by wearing packs down gradually rather than trying to vaporize them.
• Never let yourself get stunned in front of a pack: it’s the only scenario that actually kills you. As long as the guard keeps coming back, nothing gets through; a stun in the wrong spot ruins everything.
• Lower the gem level of Tempest Flurry while mapping: at low level, the skill no longer costs mana and you can chain it without interruption. The displayed damage drops, but you’re mostly using the skill to move around anyway.
• Add an armour break in expedition: you spend a lot of time on the same targets, so the extra 5% damage from broken armour ends up adding up.
• Ailment thresholds are not optional: in expedition, it’s freezes, electrocutions, and shocks that kill you, not direct hits.

Permanent Guard: The Mechanic That Holds This Monk Tempest Flurry Build Together

Everything starts with two pieces of gear working together. The quarterstaff Duality and the boots Decree of Flight generate a guard that rebuilds itself every time enemies chip away at you. The player has nothing to activate: the longer the fight goes on, the more the guard comes back. It’s the exact opposite of a flask, which runs dry as the pressure ramps up.

This loop explains why the build can tank content that should be out of reach for a monk. It does have one clear limit, though, and the author is adamant about it: if you get stunned right in front of three or four very tanky monsters, the guard no longer has time to recharge and you go down in one hit. The whole defensive layout of the tree is therefore built around pushing that scenario as far away as possible.

Duality isn’t a piece you just pick up and equip as-is, either. Without its rune mastery, it doesn’t do its job, and you need to be aiming for at least 900 DPS for the whole thing to hold together.

Expedition Setup: Defences First, Damage Second

In Expedition, the difficulty doesn’t come from monster power but from their sheer numbers. They don’t kill you in one hit; they wear you down. Priority shifts entirely to survival, and the author goes as far as suggesting you sacrifice even more damage if you feel like you’re not holding up.

In practice, attack speed is dropped in favour of the full defence wheel, plus the area-of-effect nodes. The ailment threshold nodes, on the other hand, are presented as mandatory: they convert your shield energy into resistance against freeze, shock, and chill. This is the point most players underestimate, because they think they’re dying from the hits they take when they’re actually dying from the ailments that come with them. If stuns are an issue, two extra points in stun threshold sort it out.

The rest comes down to the charms. The author swaps the anguish charm for a dousing charm with a protection bonus of around 400, keeps a freeze charm Nascent Hope, and adds an armour break to the setup since fights go on longer here. With this profile, he clears level 81 to 82 Expeditions pushed to 120% monster effectiveness without particular difficulty.

Speed Mapping Setup: It All Starts With Base Attack Speed

Speed profiles rest on a principle many players miss: all attack speed percentages multiply from the weapon’s base speed. A lunar quarterstaff at 1.90 attacks per second, topped up with three attack speed soul cores adding 15% base, starts out much higher than a standard Duality , and every bonus from the tree becomes more valuable from there.

The second idea is counter-intuitive: you need to lower the gem level of Tempest Flurry. At a low level, the skill costs no mana at all, letting you chain it endlessly just to move around. The damage shown in PoB collapses, but the goal has changed: you’re no longer trying to kill with it, you’re trying to never stop moving. If you’d rather keep a high gem level, three mana regeneration nodes and the Deep Trance node, which gives both attack speed and cost efficiency, solve the problem a different way.

On the tree side, the most expensive defences are then dropped to chain attack speed nodes instead, and the Heart of the Well diamond switches over to skill speed. The author is blunt about it: this profile keeps enough damage to kill bosses, it just loses a bit, and gains enormously in quality of life.

Headhunter or Mageblood: The Belt Choice Changes How You Play

On maps, Headhunter has no rival. Every rare monster killed lends you its modifiers, and stacking them turns clearing into a full-speed sprint. It’s the option the author recommends without hesitation for pure mapping.

In Expedition, the answer is more nuanced. Headhunter stays good there, but it turns dangerous the moment it steals the Shroud Walker mod: the random teleport can drop you right in the middle of an overloaded pack of monsters, exactly the situation the rest of the build is built to avoid. Mageblood, with defensive mods like extra evasion, armour, or resistances, offers a noticeably more predictable experience on this content.

The Large-Radius Jewel: 4% Attack Speed Per Node

This is the most expensive piece on the character, and the most rewarding. The jewel used carries two attack speed modifiers and, above all, a very large radius, letting it cover an entire cluster of small nodes. Each one is then granted 4% attack speed: multiplied across eight or nine nodes, the gain becomes substantial, and it stacks on top of the bonuses already present on the nodes themselves.

It’s also what unlocks part of the tree: with a large enough radius, it becomes worth reaching for nodes you’d otherwise skip. The author values his own copy at around a hundred divines and notes it could be rolled even better. This piece therefore comes right at the very end of optimisation, once the rest of the build is already working.

Skill Tree