Ice Strike Invoker Leveling Build

Build Introduction

The Ice Strike Monk is a fast, easy, reliable way to start your Path of Exile 2 journey! This leveling guide is viable for league starters and new characters requiring minimal to no gear and no budget whatsoever.

This guide was written and is maintained by Lollash. If you have any questions or feedback, you can find him here.

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Strengths and Weaknesses

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Ascendancy

Select your first Ascendancy after completing the Trial of the Sekhemas in Act 2. The trial is not difficult, so complete it within the level range of 20-30. During the early access of Path of Exile 2, the Monk can ascend as an Invoker or Acolyte of Chayula. You will be choosing Invoker and allocating the following Ascendancy Passives.

1. I am the Blizzard… – This adds additional cold damage to all your attacks, boosting damage and improving your freeze rate.
2. … and I Shall Rage – Provides a new cooldown skill that dramatically increases your damage for bosses and other dangerous encounters.
3. Lead me through Grace… – Grants additional Spirit based on your Evasion and Energy Shield from your equipped Body Armour.
4. …and Protect me from Harm – Lowers your evasion by 35%, reducing avoidance, but provides you with a very significant increase in physical damage reduction based on your total Evasion Rating.

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General Leveling Advice

Path of Exile II’s campaign can be quite difficult starting out, but with this build it will be a breeze. The most important thing by far in the early campaign is to CHECK VENDORS FOR GOOD EARLY GEAR. 

Look for the following gear from vendors:

1. Quarterstaffs with higher DPS than you currently have/with sockets for runes
2. + Added flat damage on Gloves and Rings
3. + Level of All Melee Skills on Amulet and Gloves
4. Boots with #% increased movement speed
5. Any gear with Maximum Life, Resistances, or good energy Shield.

Regal Orbs or Orbs of Augmentation can be used on these items that you find as magic. If you can’t find pieces from bullets 1 or 2 and find yourself struggling, consider buying them off the trade site using Exalted Orbs or gambling for them from the vendors.

Vendor bad magic or rare items you don’t need for gold, do NOT disenchant anything besides white items with sockets or quality. It is always worth Identifying rare items, even if you have to buy a Scroll of Wisdom during Act 1, as Rare items will always gain more value from being identified than a Scroll of Wisdom costs.

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Leveling Passive Tree

The Passive Tree below can be followed all the way through the campaign and into the endgame. Remember: You will need to choose which attributes to assign to each travel node based on the requirements of your gear and skill gems.

NOTE:

Skill Gems

Listed below are all Skill Gems that should be used during the leveling process. There may be a slight variation depending on which Act you’re currently progressing. Notes for each Act will be listed below the Skill Gem tool.

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Act I Notes

Until you get access to Ice Strike later in Act 1 you will be using your Quarterstaff default attack in combination with Tempest Bell for single target damage. For clearing you will use Killing Palm to generate Power Charges and then consume them with Falling Thunder for massive high damage AOE nukes.

Getting used to darting into combat with Killing Palm and rolling away to use Falling Thunder to hit large packs may take some time, but is very effective and will only be required until Ice Strike is online.

Once Ice Strike is online you use it exclusively while moving through the map, casting Frost Bomb and Tempest Bell on tougher enemies. This will be your bread and butter playstyle throughout the campaign.

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Act 2 Notes

In Act 2 you will continue adding supports to your existing skills when possible, progressing through the passive tree and searching for gear upgrades. If you find a Level 8 Uncut Spirit Gem towards the end of the Act then cut a Combat Frenzy to automate the generation of your power charges by freezing enemies with Ice Strike. This will be important once you get access to Charged Staff with a
Level 9 Uncut Skill Gem.

You will also be cutting an Elemental Weakness Curse. Eventually the build will ignore elemental resistances on frozen enemies (which should be everything almost all the time) but until then this gives you a powerful tool alongside Frost Bomb for the most difficulty enemies you encounter.

Upon completing the Trial of the Sekhemas, you will ascend as an Invoker and allocate I Am The Blizzard… for a significant damage boost.

With the new skills you have acquired, your approach to bosses changes slightly. First, just before they become targetable, cast your Elemental Weakness, followed by Frost Bomb when they do spawn. Then continue using the combo you have been using up until this point. If the enemy isnt dead by the time the curse expires, repeat the Curse and Frost bomb to reapply their debuffs and shred enemy resistances.

One final note about Act 2; Towards the end of the Act in the Dreadnought zones, and the first zone of Act 3, this build will tend to struggle a little. You may have to spend a little time farming around this point unless you have found good gear. Dont be disheartened! If you can get through the Act you will quickly become a powerhouse and clear the rest of the campaign with relative ease

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Act 3 Notes

In Act 3 you will find your first guaranteed Lesser Jeweller’s Orb in the Sandswept Marsh. Use this on Ice Strike and add a third support to improve your clearing speed. You will also be adding Charged Staff, a buffing skill that consumes Power Charges to provide you with an on-hit lightning wave to all attacks. This will dramatically improve your damage and area of clear, as well as adding some lightning damage that may lead to more frequent shocks on the enemy.

You will also be cutting a Shattering Palm Skill Gem, which will also help speed up your clear significantly. This changes your clear pattern slightly. You will dash into the enemy packs with Shattering Palm before Ice Strike to apply a powerful Area of Effect damage debuff to all monsters in the pack.

To generate charges, you will use a combination of the Combat Frenzy Spirit Gem and the Keystone Passive Resonance to automatically generate charges whenever you freeze enemies. After defeating Ignagduk in the Azak Bog you will get an additional 30 Spirit and if you havent already, cut and add Combat Frenzy to your skills.

Continue the main questline until you reach the Temple of Chaos, and upon completing it allocate … and I Shall Rage for a long cooldown, high impact damage buff skill: Unbound Avatar. Use this when fighting bosses and other tough enemies.

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Act 4 and the Interludes

In Act 4 you will have complete freedom to complete each zone in whatever order you choose. For this build there is no important priority, so feel free to explore! You can visit Ngakanu to find an extra weapon Vendor to check for new Quarterstaffs, and Arastas has a vendor with jewelry. Otherwise continue to fill out and level up your support gems, and follow the Passive Tree Planner.

Late in Act 4, or early in the interludes, you will allocate the Heavy Frost notable on your passive tree. After doing this you can stop using Frost Bomb and Elemental Weakness if you’d like to press less buttons, as any frozen target is counted as having no elemental resistances and you will so consistently and quickly freeze and kill things that the resistance shredding is no longer necessary most of the time.

When reaching the Interludes you can choose to complete them in any order you wish. Once again, some classes have a preferential order but this one does not, so pick whichever one appeals to you the most.

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Rotation

For Bosses or tanky Rares, try to enter the fight with full Power Charges ready to cast Charged Staff as the fight begins

1. Cast Frost Bomb and Elemental Weakness
2. Ice Strike to build combo for your Tempest Bell, then use it
3. Ice Strike until Tempest Bell is available again.
4. Maintain your Charged Staff buff as much as possible.
5. Reapply debuffs from Frost Bomb and Elemental Weakness

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Gearing Progression

This build equips item upgrades during the campaign according to a stat priority list. You will want to regularly upgrade your Quarterstaff, identifying every one that drops looking for affixes from the list below. Then use your crafting currencies to try to improve any that already have good affixes. Remember, you can always equip a new weapon and check the tooltip DPS value in your skill gem screen to see if its a better

For defenses, focus mostly on improving your resistances and maximum life values, but pay attention to pieces with particularly high evasion and energy shield.

Offensive Gear

Prioritize the following stats to improve your offensive power. Remember that added damage to attacks can also be found on your rings and gloves for even more damage!

1. Attack Speed
2. Adds # to # Damage (all types are useful, physical being the most valuable especially when combined with…
3. % increased Physical Damage
4. % increased Elemental Damage with Attacks

Defensive Gear

Prioritize the following stats on armor and jewelry pieces to improve your defensive power.

1. Maximum Life
2. Resistances
3. Evasion/Energy Shield

Augments

Socket Runes into your gear to help bring your missing resistances to the base cap of 75%, or to help with meeting attribute requirements. For your Quarterstaff, runes that add flat damage are best in the early campaign, and later on runes that grant % increased physical damage are better. Exactly when this happens is highly dependent on your weapon.

You can Salvage gear you would otherwise vendor that has sockets at the Salvage Bench to obtain Artificer’s Orbs to put extra sockets on your gear. This will allow you to frequently use these orbs to add sockets to your best gear pieces, and socket more resistances to make the campaign even easier!

Leveling Uniques

This build is entirely League-Start / no-budget viable. But if you do have extra currency, pick up these uniques for a twink leveling character.

Weapons and Offhands

• Pillar of the Caged God – Very powerful when combined with other Attribute granting uniques, such as the unique belt Meginord’s Girdle.

Boots

• Wanderlust – Excellent boots with Move speed and immunity to slows, usable from Level 11.

Helm

• Goldrim – Tons of resistances, usable from Level 10.

Chest

• Foxshade – Grants Movement speed and Evasion, usable from Level 4.

Amulet

• Surefooted Sigil – Increases dodge roll distance, and Evasion after dodge rolling. Usable from Level 8.

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Campaign Buffs

Throughout the campaign, you will encounter several opportunities to gain permanent buffs for your character by completing side-quests. You should choose the following buffs for the Invoker:

• Valley of the Titans Altar (Act 2)
  1. 30% increased charm charges gained.
• Venom Draught (Act 3)
  1. 25% increased Mana Regeneration Rate.
• Eye of Hinekora (Act 4)
  • Resistances from all three Tattoos.
• Solitary Confinement (Act 4)
  • % increased recovery from Life Flasks.
• Qimah Pillars
  • These can be changed at will, so you can choose Resistances to help early and later swap to global defenses, movement speed, etc.

For more details, check the guide on Campaign Difficulties and Permanent Stat Bonuses.

Flasks and Charms

While leveling, you will find several flasks and Charms. Upgrade your flasks as you go along and if you fail to find flask upgrades, check vendors to buy them with gold.

Modifiers to look for on your flasks and charms:

• Health and Mana Flasks
  • Prefix: Increased Amount Recovered
  • Suffix: # Charges gained per second
• Charm: Stone Charm, Thawing Charm, Staunching Charm

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Changelog

December 25th, 2025: Updated for 0.4
November 28th, 2025: Guide created for Path of Exile II, Early Access