Shattering Palm Requiem Martial Artist Endgame Guide

Introduction

The Shattering Palm Requiem Martial Artist is a highly synergistic Monk build focused around high crit cold damage to freeze with a weapon-swap burst to deliver some of the safest clearing and highest single-target damage in Path of Exile 2. This setup pushes the limits of hit-based cold scaling, easily freezing and shattering entire screens with Shattering Palm and Ice Strike while melting Pinnacle and the strongest map bosses using the The Last Lament unique crossbow.

Unlike standard melee-only builds, this one relies on explosive AoE chains for mapping and a tactical weapon swap for bossing; combining Tempest Bell, Hand of Chayula, and War Banner to push Requiem over 3.1 million tooltip DPS. It’s fast, cinematic, and absolutely lethal. This build is also super budget friendly and can achieve big damage with minimal sub-optimal gear.

If you have any questions or want to see the build in action, please feel free to check out the video below or drop by the stream!

If you’re looking for a way to league start or start a new character, we’ve prepared a complete leveling guide which can be found by following the link below.

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Strengths and Weaknesses

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Build Mechanics

At its core, the Shattering Palm Requiem Martial Artist combines:

• Shattering Palm into Ice Strike for explosive cold damage while mapping — instantly building up freeze to lock down and shatter entire packs.
• Midnight Zenith (via Eventide Petals) and Herald of Ice to trigger massive AoE chains, dropping ice crystals and popping the entire screen on critical hits.
• War Banner, Tempest Bell, Hollow Focus, and Hollow Resonance for enormous scaling and single-target burst multipliers. (Hollow Resonance does not seem to proc off of Requiem, but that’s ok because it is not needed for big damage.)
• The Last Lament weapon swap for the bossing phase, utilizing Requiem for a raw, focused single-target DPS output.

The core synergy comes from aggressively stacking pure cold damage and instant freeze build-up, combined with the Hollow Focus and Hollow Resonance ascendancy nodes to break enemy armor and trigger extra damage pops from the back bell on crits. Combined with the Hand of Chayula (applying Freezing Mark and Elemental Weakness to instantly freeze targets), this version reaches over 3.1 million instantaneous burst potential on the Compose Requiem tooltip.

Your Spirit Gems provide crucial layers of offense and defense. Elemental Conflux is the lynchpin for our burst damage, granting a massive global damage spike when the random rotation lands on cold. Wind Dancer provides a substantial layer of extra evasion to keep you alive in the thick of melee combat. Paired with the foundations of the Way of the Stone Fist and Way of the Mountain nodes, the build multiplies both your offensive screen-clearing power and your survivability.

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Skill Rotation

Map Clearing

• Use Shattering Palm into packs, then immediately follow up with Ice Strike if any survive — this triggers Midnight Zenith and Herald of Ice, shattering and wiping the entire screen.
• For tanky rare enemies, drop some Tempest Bells or Switch to Requiem.
• Keep moving to maintain momentum and let your massive AoE chains do the heavy lifting.

Bossing

• Drop your War Banner. (War Banners glory generation will slowly recede if you are not hitting or killing enemies. The banner lasts 12.69 seconds so throwing it down right when you enter the bosses room is fine. If it runs out before the boss spawns, hitting the boss with your preload skills will max it out and then place it down before you fire Requiem.)
• Start with your Hand of Chayula to apply Freezing Mark and Elemental Weakness, then Shattering Palm.
• (Optional for more damage) Hit 4 times with Ice Strike to build rage and 4 combo points. Drop your Tempest Bell.
• Unload Requiem to completely delete the boss with your burst DPS.
• Keep in mind, you will only hit the 3.1 million tooltip DPS with all of your buffs active. If there is a pack of monsters right outside of the boss room and the boss doesn’t have a long intro then you will get your full damage from Ice Bite II, Bhatair’s Vengeance, and Elemental Conflux, but it is not needed for big damage.

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Gameplay Tips

• 50 Spirit needed. To run your full suite of Spirit Gems (Herald of Ice, Elemental Conflux, Wind Dancer, and War Banner) and execute this rotation smoothly, you must have a minimum of 50 Spirit rolled on your chest piece.
• Use shrines wisely. Freezing Shrine can massively boost damage.
• Low budget build. This build is super cheap and can clear everything with a very low budget quarterstaff.
• You will need a minimum of 75 Strength to wield the crossbow.
• Weapon Sets: Weapon Set 2 is only used for Requiem. Everything else should then be set to Weapon Set 1.
• Mana sustain will be subpar until you get Leech % of Physical Attack Damage as Mana on a ring. You then will need the lineage support gem Oisín’s Oath to leech mana based off of elemental damage instead of physical. Oisín’s Oath can be placed on Ice Strike or Hollow Resonance to sustain your mana.
• Don’t forget to use a Perfect Jeweler’s Orb on your unique items to gain 5 support sockets. Hollow Focus and Hollow Resonance will unlock their 5th support when you hit level 90.

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Video Guide

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Gem Info

Below you will find a planner with a full breakdown of your skill setup.

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Ascendancy

The Martial Artist ascendancy is the engine that drives this build’s insane clear speed and armor-shattering mechanics. Here is the breakdown of the nodes we take and why:

1. Way of the Stone Fist: The foundational node for the setup, providing the baseline scaling for damage and boosts our evasion/energy shield to higher levels.
2. Hollow Focus: This creates three bells that will spawn around you every 2 seconds that actively breaks the armor of enemies caught inside it. This is mandatory for effortlessly chewing through heavily armored map rares and keeping your clear speed high.
3. Hollow Resonance: An absolutely massive damage multiplier for our map clearing. This node triggers extra damage pops directly off your back whenever you land a critical hit, cascading perfectly with your Midnight Zenith crystals and Herald of Ice shatters.
4. Way of the Mountain: Rounds out the toolkit by amplifying all of your attack damage by 15% and providing a 40% damage reduction and 50% stun threshold increase to keep you alive in the thick of melee combat.

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Passive Tree

This interactive skill tree will provide you with an overview of the final state of the build. When assigning your attributes, you will need to account for the necessary requirements of your particular character.

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Gearing

Gear Affixes

In the table below, you will see a breakdown of the most important affixes for each gear slot, as well as what unique items the build uses. These are listed in order of priority, so consider your gearing options carefully. I will also add variants for a high budget version to really push an insane amount of damage. Mainly Headhunter, Heart of the Well jewel, and Rite of Passage Golden Charm with Spirit of the Owl.

Make sure that you are capped at 75% all Elemental Resistances and Chaos Resistance.

Slot	Base	Prefix	Suffix
Main Hand	10% Crit Base Quarterstaff	1. % Physical Damage 2. Adds Flat Cold Damage 3. Adds Flat Physical Damage	1. +4-5 to Melee Skills 2. Attack Speed
Off Hand	The Last Lament	1. Level 19 or 20 Compose Requiem Skill 2. Corrupt for 15% reduced attribute requirements for easier strength stat.
Helm	Miracle Cowl	1. +% Evasion & Energy Shield 2. Maximum Life	1. Gain % Deflection Rating 2. Resistances 3. Stat if needed (30 Dex)
Body	Rift Coat	1. +% Evasion & Energy Shield 2. +X Maximum Life 3. Minimum 50 Spirit	1. Resistances/Attributes
Gloves	Wrath Knuckle	1. Evasion & Max Energy Shield Hybrid Affix 2. Adds Cold Damage to Attacks 3. + Melee Skills	1. Attack Speed 2. Resistances
Boots	Dragon Track	1. % Movement Speed 2. +% Evasion & Energy Shield 3. +X Maximum Life	1. Resistances 2. % Gain Deflection Rating
Belt	Forking Belt (HeadHunter is BIS)	1. +X Maximum Life 2. +X Maximum Mana	1. Resistances/Attributes (Strength)
Ring 1	Amethyst Ring	1.+X Physical Damage 2. +X Cold Damage 3. +X Maximum Life	1. Leech % of Physical Attack Damage as Mana 2. +20 Mana Per Enemy Killed or Recover 2% of Maximum Mana on Kill 3. Resistances/Attributes
Ring 2	Amethyst Ring	1.+X Physical Damage 2. +X Cold Damage 3. +X Maximum Life	1. Stats 2. Resistances
Amulet	Eventide Petals INSTILL: Bestial Rage (Ire, Disgust, Fear)

Unique Items

The unique item listed below is considered mandatory in order to get the build to perform as expected.

• The Last Lament – Gives us Requiem for our single target DPS.
• Eventide Petals – Gives us Midnight Zenith for big AoE/single target clear.

Socketables

This table will show you what socketables are used for each gear slot. While many slots will likely be used for resistance runes, pay particular attention to the Helm, Belt, and Main Hand slot.

Slot	Socketable
Main Hand	Greater Iron Rune X2
Off Hand	Greater Iron Rune X2
Helm	Resistance
Body Armour	Greater Iron Rune X2/Resistance Runes
Gloves
Boots	Resistance
Belt

Jewels

There are many useful affixes on jewels, and this build only uses two sockets for them to be inserted in. You can easily drop a point somewhere and grab the third socket at the north end of the tree if you want. You will need to run an Emerald and a Sapphire.

You are looking for increased damage with Quarterstaves, attack speed with Quarterstaves, and increased freeze buildup with Quarterstaves on the Emerald.

On the Sapphire you are looking for increased critical hit chance, increased critical damage bonus, and recover 2% of maximum mana on kill.

If you have some extra divines, you can run a Heart of the Well. As long as you grab a gain % of damage as extra cold damage, everything else is just bonus damage.

Flasks and Charms

The recommended setup for your flasks and charms is:

• Life Flask – Gains X charges per second | % increased amount recovered
• Mana Flask – Gains X charges per second | % increased amount recovered
• Charms – Thawing Charm (Grants immunity to freeze) | Rite of Passage Golden Charm with Spirit of the Owl (High budget version VERY expensive.) | Arakaali’s Gift

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Changelog

• June 13th, 2026
  • Guide added for Patch 0.5