S-TIER | BUILD MOINE TRINITY MARTIAL ARTIST (@ronarray) | SAISON 5

Build Video

Build Overview

Patch 0.5 of Path of Exile 2 introduces the brand-new Martial Artist ascendancy for the Monk, and ronarray already rates it as one of the strongest in the game for a clean league start. This Trinity Martial Artist build relies on notable Whirling Assault (Whirling Assault) as its main skill and fully leverages all three elements at once — lightning, cold and fire — to stack Resonance and turn every hit into a genuine tri-elemental explosion.

The core idea is that notable Whirling Assault is a physical skill: unlike Ice Strike which converts all your damage to cold, Whirling Assault doesn’t « lock » you into any single element. You’re therefore free to stack fire, cold and lightning in parallel, which makes Trinity devastatingly effective: with only around a hundred Spirit invested, you gain at least 33% increased damage once Resonance is built up.

Another major asset of the Martial Artist in 0.5: free power charge generation through the ascendancy passives, Hollow Focus and the new gloves that grant charges on critical hit. As a result, you can simply drop Cast on Critical from the build and free up a Spirit slot. It’s a solid league starter capable of evolving into a wide variety of endgame Monk versions, while keeping the notable Whirling Assault + Falling Thunder combo all the way to deep endgame.

Strengths / Weaknesses

Skill Gem Setup by Step

This build offers 6 progression steps from leveling to the final build. Select a step to see the corresponding gem setup.

Early Endgame Lvl 1-23 23+ Unarmed Act 3-6 Waystones / Whirling Transition Uber Endgame

Early Endgame

9 skills • 45 gemmes

Bâton chargéCharged Staff

Assaut tourbillonnantWhirling Assault

Mantra de destructionMantra of Destruction

TrinitéTrinity

Héraut de la glaceHerald of Ice

Cloche tempétueuseTempest Bell

Grondement de tonnerreFalling Thunder

Héraut de la cendreHerald of Ash

Main de ChayulaHand of Chayula

Lvl 1-23

4 skills • 10 gemmes

TrombeTwister

Taillade tourbillonnanteWhirling Slash

Bombe de givreFrost Bomb

Étendard de guerreWar Banner

23+ Unarmed

6 skills • 17 gemmes

Vague orageuseStorm Wave

Étendard de guerreWar Banner

Bâton chargéCharged Staff

Sensibilité aux élémentsElemental Weakness

Paume meurtrièreKilling Palm

Grondement de tonnerreFalling Thunder

Acte 3-6

7 skills • 23 gemmes

Vague orageuseStorm Wave

Héraut du tonnerreHerald of Thunder

Bâton chargéCharged Staff

Héraut de la cendreHerald of Ash

Main de ChayulaHand of Chayula

Paume meurtrièreKilling Palm

Grondement de tonnerreFalling Thunder

Waystones / Whirling Transition

5 skills • 12 gemmes

Assaut tourbillonnantWhirling Assault

Danseur du ventWind Dancer

Héraut de la cendreHerald of Ash

Cloche tempétueuseTempest Bell

Héraut de la glaceHerald of Ice

Uber Endgame

9 skills • 42 gemmes

Main de ChayulaHand of Chayula

Bâton chargéCharged Staff

Assaut tourbillonnantWhirling Assault

Mantra de destructionMantra of Destruction

TrinitéTrinity

Héraut de la glaceHerald of Ice

Cloche tempétueuseTempest Bell

Héraut de la cendreHerald of Ash

Grondement de tonnerreFalling Thunder

Recommended Equipment

This Trinity Martial Artist’s gear revolves around three priorities: stacking the three elements, generating charges, and surviving incoming damage. Here are the key pieces highlighted by ronarray.

• Gloves (Martial Artist): prioritize gloves that grant power charges on critical strike — this is what allows you to drop Cast on Critical. Don’t rush Way of the Stone Fist if your gloves are still mediocre.
• Back-slot bow (Tempest Bow): a Tempest Bow carried in the offhand feeds Rage and Blind via Blindside, while staying permanently on your back.
• Oisín’s Oath: essential for easy mana leech from the bow, ensuring a smooth rotation with no resource issues.
• Jewelry & armor: aim for energy shield, evasion and deflection — the endgame version approaches 7000 ES, 60% evasion and 50% deflection.
• Premium endgame gems: Rakiatas Flow, Garukhans Resolve and Rigwalds Ferocity significantly boost notable Whirling Assault. In the meantime, the trio Pinpoint Critical + Blindside + Efficiency remains an excellent transition setup.
• Spirit: reserve space for Trinity, Herald of Ice and Herald of Ash. If clear becomes overkill, Herald of Ash can be swapped for a defensive Wind Dancer.

Gameplay Tips

• Keep Trinity active: your goal is to constantly deal all three elements. Aim for balanced lightning, cold, and fire damage to maximize Resonance — lightning tends to pull ahead, so rebalance through your passives.
• Take advantage of Harness Elements: this passive rewards dealing all three elements simultaneously (ignited, frozen, shocked), a massive free damage boost for this build.
• Manage your charges: the Martial Artist generates a lot of them. Falling Thunder (and Flicker Strike as an alternative) is used to « spend » them while dealing heavy damage — both are interchangeable depending on your comfort.
• notable Whirling Assault for clear: stay in hybrid notable Whirling Assault + Falling Thunder for mapping, it’s more comfortable than full Flicker in most situations.
• Spam Mantra of Destruction on bosses: once you reach 8 combos, trigger it for a damage bonus, then chain into Falling Thunder at Culmination.
• Low budget: play without Chaos Inoculation: until your setup is fully optimized, keeping your life is safer than switching to full ES.

The Martial Artist Ascendancy: Priority Order

The new Martial Artist ascendancy brings damage (Way of the Stone Fist), survivability (additional runes and Way of the Mountain), and utility (additional bells). But the order in which you take your nodes matters enormously at league start.

Contrary to intuition, don’t take Way of the Stone Fist first: as long as your base gloves are mediocre, the gain is small. Save it for your second or third choice instead. Prioritize Hollow Focus then Hollow Resonance, the best damage options for the campaign — Hollow Focus also provides a lot of free power charges as a bonus.

For the last node, two schools clash: Onyx Meridians (the popular « default » choice) or Way of the Mountain, which ronarray finds very solid for survivability. Hollow Form remains an interesting option to test against bosses, even if the charge generation via Falling Thunder makes this node less essential.

Trinity and Tri-Elemental Resonance

The core of this build’s damage rests on Trinity. notable Whirling Assault being a physical skill, it doesn’t convert your damage toward a single element — so you can stack lightning, cold, and fire simultaneously and reach similar values across all three types.

Once all three elements are present, you unlock a whole arsenal of synergies: Harness Elements in the tree (igniting, freezing, and shocking at the same time), and above all stacking Resonance via Trinity. No need to aim for massive Resonance: ronarray generally stays under 100, which is already enough to grant a minimum of 33% increased damage for around 100 Spirit. An excellent efficiency-to-cost ratio.

Whirling Assault vs Ice Strike: Why This Choice

In 0.5, GGG went from one to three bells by default, favoring skills capable of summoning many bells simultaneously. The two flagship Martial Artist skills were also slightly nerfed: Ice Strike and notable Whirling Assault both go from « more » attack speed to « increased » attack speed — a clear nerf.

This is where notable Whirling Assault takes the edge: it relies far less on attack speed than Ice Strike, which is entirely dependent on it. notable Whirling Assault therefore handles this change much better. And if that ever isn’t enough, we can always pivot to a pure cold version.

Survivability and Boss Management

On the defensive side, the endgame version is very solid: close to 7,000 Energy Shield, 60% evasion and 50% block — numbers that improve even further with the evasion and block changes in patch 0.5. Even half those values already provides comfortable survivability. On a lower budget, it’s better to play without Chaos Inoculation and keep your life.

Against bosses, single-target burst is not lacking: Vaal Lightning Assault already does the job at high budget, complemented by the back-mounted bow, the extra bells from Hollow Focus, Mantra of Destruction (spammable once 8 combos are reached) and Falling Thunder at Culmination. With Hand of Chayula and all these options, few bosses last long.

Skill Tree