Shield Charge Poison - Chayula Monk | Leveling and End Game Build

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Hey Guys!

https://maxroll.gg/poe2/planner/322og050

I was working on a different build when I noticed that Shield Charge was both triggering my heralds and starting to hit quite hard. This got me very interested in making a shield charge build. I was torn between an ignite spread invoker or a poison chayula. Monk is one of the few classes I hadn't leveled yet, so thats why I was forcing monk for this build. I went with a poison spread chayula monk, and it went very well! I was able to level smoothly from levels 26 to 85 with only shield charge and poison spread.

Shield Charge has two attack interactions, the important one being the collision. The collision hits a lot harder than the explosion, so by scaling this with chaos and physical damage, you are able to use that collision to start our poison. You can start leveling with this build at 26, as thats when you get herald of plague. By using two mings hearts paired with ghostwrithe, you are able to greatly scale the early game damage of shield charge, while making up for that loss in defenses. I used two mings hearts and ghostwrithe all the way until maps. The only gear you need to update throughout the campaign is your shield, make sure you get one with a juicy amount of armour every 5-10 levels. Outside of that melee skill levels does help, but is minor during the campaign.

Once I got to end game I needed to take off one of my mings, as the loss in defenses was too much for early maps. After cleaning up my gear and collecting more passives, I was able to amp my damage with ingenuity belt and ming heart. Mapping is very easy and I've had no trouble with wasytone level 15 bosses. Didn't end up trying any citadels or pinnacle bosses with this build, but it sure was a lot of fun leveling to end game this way. With refinement you could maybe push this build a little further, but I'm over chayula monk haha.

Hope you enjoy the build! My next video will be for my Reflect God Gemling :)

Not using Plague Bearer seems crazy considering that the skill feels like an auto include on any poison build for both clear and single target.

You're also not supporting Into the Breach, it has no spirit cost so it can be linked to all the buff specific support gems for free.

A weapon swap Vine Arrow setup might be a good idea as well, since its basically just free damage + rage generation. But at that point you might just be better off using Gas Arrow and being a pure bow build.

Nifty take on a poison monk. I had high hopes for Chayula monk when I first heard of it, but on seeing what they got in the end they do seem to have gotten the short end of the stick.

I'm planning to try a poison chaos wander monk; Scale crit and chaos damage for the initial hit, and some investment into some poison nodes. For spreading the poison I was thinking of using contagion since it can now spread our poisons. This would let me double dip a little on %chaos damage, increasing both my initial hit, and contagion's damage. My Chayula monk's stuck at 23 right now until I get the inspiration to try leveling it again; but I was considering once he got high enough of using cast on crit to automate contagion application.

Interesting, I've been playing a very similar character lately. Same class/skill, but a slightly different take. Links are different on shield charge, no bursting plague, just maxing the initial hit with heft and heavy swing, with deadly poison that I think is mandatory for scaling poison damage. Not sure how useful bursting plague is when you're already spreading the poison. Cooldown has never felt relevant enough to justify the huge travel cost you've paid to get to the merc area, but on the other hand, I'm traveling about the same to get ES nodes

I also don't know why you're not using other skills... No shield wall? How do you deal with giants mosquitoes? No plague bearer? It's a huge help for clear, pretty much free. No warcry? More damage for the initial hit is really important. No curse, no totem? I'm double cursing with hand of chayula, temporal chain + the chaos curse, and also using the chaos totem with wither support for more poison damage vs bosses.

I can only put a single stack of poison on mobs, but I can still clear through 4-5 packs with a single hit if the spread is alright.

Also, I've went CI and use the instant energy shield leech. It was my main draw to the class, and yeah, it works great, I can pretty much refill my whole ES (7k without grim) with a single hit. No problem with citadel or arbiter, it's quite tanky, I'd say HC viable.

This is a fun idea and I love the weirdness of it.

Really unique build, I got temporalis so may save some points on the cooldown recovery.