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Since Path of Exile 2 entered its Early Access phase, the game has finally received its most massive update to date: Patch 0.5.0 Return of the Ancients. Based on current reveals, this update may very well be the final major patch before the full 1.0 release.

In terms of sheer scope, 0.5.0 certainly does not disappoint. It introduces not only brand-new Ascendancies and an Atlas Tree rework but also a completely new Runes system. This system allows you to customize your gear, construct new defensive fortifications, and even upgrade otherwise mediocre unique items, fundamentally revolutionizing the existing build meta.

Do you want to avoid pitfalls, quickly identify the best starter build for your playstyle, and get a head start as you dive into Runes of Aldur League? That is exactly where this guide comes in handy! Below, drawing upon current patch previews and hands-on experience, we will break down the absolute best choices for your initial league start and progression in PoE 2 0.5.0!

Way of the Stonefist Monk

First up is Way of the Stonefist Monk, an evolution of the wildly popular Hollow Palm Monk build from Patch 0.3.0. In Update 0.5.0, the new Martial Artist Ascendancy introduces Way of the Stonefist skill, elevating unarmed combat to unprecedented heights and truly transforming your bare fists into solid stone.

By fully investing in Stun Buildup nodes on Passive Skill Tree, stunning bosses becomes incredibly effortless while simultaneously unlocking massive damage output. More importantly, the brand-new Hollow Resonance Technique perfectly resolves a major pain point of previous builds, the need to frequently place Bells. Now, players can permanently carry a Bell on their back, granting them a constant bonus to their stun capabilities.

It is also worth noting that the reworked Hollow Form, which enables the use of Channeling Skills, can be effectively paired with Whirling Assault skill to deliver sustained, channeled damage. Additionally, we can fully leverage Way of the Mountain passive within Martial Artist Ascendancy to further bolster our defensive capabilities.

And our exploration does not end there. With the debut of a new array of Rune options in Patch 0.5.0, there is no doubt that we now possess a vast arsenal of tools to utterly crush our opponents. By utilizing Runic Meridians, we can embed brand-new Runes into our gear; simultaneously, we can tactically switch to a Charged Staff to unleash the Triskelion Cascade skill.

Natural Order Huntress

Next up, we present a build that is as entertaining as it is powerful: Pokémon Master, you've likely already guessed what we're getting at! This build takes full advantage of Huntress's brand-new Spirit Walkers Ascendancy. Within this talent tree, we can unlock The Natural Order node, granting us the ability to tame and capture unique Beast Bosses.

That's right: in PoE 2 Patch 0.5.0, you can recruit former enemies to your cause, turning them into your very own combat pets. When paired with The Catha's Balance node, which boosts your companions' damage by a massive 60%, you can effortlessly obliterate anything that stands in your way.

Depending on the specific boss captured and the chosen weapon path, this build branches into two incredibly potent variants:

• Bahlak, the Sky Seer: Visually reminiscent of the legendary Zapdos from the original Pokémon games, this variant synergizes with Huntress's Spear skills to trigger a frenzy of Twister and Hurricane effects, overwhelming enemies beneath a storm-filled sky.
• Land Shark: This pet-centric build focuses on physical damage over time. By leveraging the numerous Bleed-related nodes within Spear skill tree, combined with the Land Shark's unique visual effects and biting attacks, you can watch your enemies collapse as they bleed out endlessly.

Which boss are you most eager to capture and raise as your very own legendary Pokémon?

Twisted Empyrean Smith of Kitava

Now, let's turn our attention to Twisted Empyrean Smith of Kitava. This is a highly specialized build that relies heavily on specific unique items, yet offers an incredibly high damage ceiling right from the early game. If you have access to sufficient PoE 2 currency early on to optimize your gear, this build can even facilitate a seamless transition directly into the endgame.

Of course, the entire strategy hinges on Twisted Empyrean Two-Handed Mace. The true power of this weapon lies in its ability to completely convert Fire Trail damage from all your Mace skills into Cold damage, a transformation that is also visually reflected in the game world. 

Just imagine: your originally orange-red Volcanic Fissure suddenly transforms into a brilliant azure glacial rift, it's absolutely thrilling! This means we can focus entirely on Cold damage builds, crafting a brand-new aesthetic style and character build playstyle that is both visually stunning and incredibly innovative.

Furthermore, this piece of gear comes with an exclusive skill called Starborn Onslaught. However, casting this skill consumes Glory resources; this is precisely why we chose Smith of Kitava Ascendancy, as it provides us with increased Glory generation efficiency.

Of course, Titan is also an excellent choice. The additional stun buildup it provides, combined with Area of Effect (AoE) damage bonuses from slam skills, is sure to deliver a breathtaking combat experience that offers both powerful crowd control and a visual spectacle.

Builds Centered on New Unique Items

If the three mainstream league-start strategies mentioned above don't pique your interest, several brand-new Unique items introduced in Path of Exile 2 version 0.5.0 offer some highly promising alternative directions for your league start:

Periphery Spirit Walkers

Once Spirit Walkers unlock all Spirits, they grant Sacred Unity effect, allowing all Spirits to be active simultaneously. Additionally, Periphery unique item comes with an exclusive skill called Azmerian Swarms, which summons even more Azmerian Wisps. When combined with the extra idols provided by Idolatry gear, the resulting damage is absolutely cataclysmic, making it perfect for high-speed farming in the endgame.

Liminal Coil

This staff allows players to unleash a potent Chaos projectile; with just a flick of the wrist, you can use a torrent of green chaotic energy to clear an entire map.

The Ordained Grand Spear

The Ordained comes with high inherent Life Leech and Lightning Damage, and its attacks trigger wide-ranging Lightning Chains. When activating specific skills, your character will leap high into the air before smashing down onto the ground, effortlessly clearing every pack of trash mobs on your screen.

In summary, for players who prioritize stability and enjoy the visceral impact of melee combat combined with powerful crowd control, Way of the Stonefist Monk is an absolute Tier 0, top-tier choice for starting the league. For those seeking novel mechanics and eager to farm maps alongside their minions, Natural Order Huntress offers not only a fun and engaging playstyle but also powerful damage-amplification mechanics capable of easily carrying you all the way through T16 maps. 

We hope this Path of Exile 2 Patch 0.5.0 league starter build guide helps all Exiles successfully clear Return of the Ancients! Good luck!

According to the official confirmed timeline, Path of Exile 2 Patch 0.5.0 will be released in about two weeks. While this update doesn't bring a new class, Monk introduces a very cool ascendancy called Martial Artist. To help you have a smoother experience during your progression, let's explore Martial Artist's skills and mechanics together!

Martial Artist is Monk's third ascendancy. Players had long speculated that it would be some kind of hand-to-hand combat style, but the official announcement reveals that it's not purely hand-to-hand combat, but more like the attack-building, charging, and detonation combat loop style from Diablo 2.

Core Ascendancy Skills

Hollow Focus Technique

This skill periodically summons a ghostly bell near you. Your attacks instantly shatter the bell, releasing a shockwave that damages nearby enemies and powerfully stuns enemies already in a stun preparation state.

The bell itself remains in a stun preparation state and can be executed. This is essentially a significant upgrade to Monk's original bell skill, making it automatically triggered and requiring no manual placement.

Hollow Form Technique

After channeling Hollow Form, illusions will be summoned near your target location. These illusions will disappear after using one of the melee attack skills in your inventory once.

This means that skills with smaller ranges can now be used efficiently to clear mobs, especially when combined with the ghostly bell attack generated by Hollow Focus Technique for maximum map clearing efficiency.

Hollow Resonance Technique

A spectral bell is attached to the bell. When your other skills crit, the spectral bell emits a resonant wave that damages nearby enemies.

This is a huge boost to the critical strike Monk build, as the previous weakness of Monks was generating energy orbs; now, critical strikes can trigger resonance. Sustain and burst damage are significantly improved in boss fights.

Runic Meridians

By engraving runes on your body, you gain 5 additional rune sockets, distributed across your helmet (1), body armor (2), gloves (1), and boots (1).

Each piece of equipment can gain additional sockets through corruption. Martial Artist further pushes the limits, giving players more freedom in rune configuration to compensate for weaknesses.

Way of the Mountain

Gain Mountain's Teachings stacks when immobilizing enemies. Each stack increases attack damage and stun threshold.

Additionally, minor damage from enemy attacks (damage not exceeding 30% of your maximum health after armor and resistance reduction) is reduced by 70%. Stacks disappear after 8 seconds without gaining new stacks, and are also consumed when hit or used.

Way of the Stonefist

Way of the Stonefist is the most crucial and anticipated skill in the entire advanced skill tree, though many players may find it absurd.

It transforms your equipped gloves into a new base called Fists of Stone, and the original affixes are converted into more powerful related affixes.

Fists of Stone is a glove base that cannot be obtained through normal means; it can only be created by using Martial Artist's Way of the Stonefist skill. Unequipping the gloves will restore them to their original base.

Fists of Stone provides a base stat of +3 evasion rating per level and +1 maximum energy shield per level.

But what's even more astonishing is the affix conversion mechanism of this skill.

A pair of ordinary gloves that originally only provided physical damage, cold damage, lightning damage, and various resistances, transforms into an extremely powerful piece of gear after being converted into Fists of Stone, providing additional physical damage, additional cold damage, additional lightning damage, percentage-based maximum resistances, and a massive bonus to damage dealt.

This is by no means the expected unchanged state; this skill may be significantly nerfed before Patch 0.5.0 is officially released.

Skill Synergy

Martial Artist has great potential for synergy with Nightfall, a new item dropped in Patch 0.5.0. Nightfall is a Unique Fortress Tower Shield, dropped by Breach pinnacle boss in Patch 0.5.0, and its essence lies in granting players the active skill Soaring Midnight.

Throw your shield as a projectile, and it will return after its flight. During the shield's flight, this skill will be replaced by Embrace the Fall. You can teleport to the shield's location and unleash a powerful downward slam.

This skill has a 4-second cooldown, but the cooldown can be skipped in the following two situations: first, successfully catching the shield upon its return; second, destroying Ice Crystals on the field during Embrace the Fall impact.

While Martial Artist's damage potential with this shield is impressive, from a pure efficiency standpoint, Titan, with its AoE nodes, might be a better fit for this skill.

However, Martial Artist's almost unbalanced Way of Stonefist glove amplification makes it difficult for players to be unwilling to sacrifice some area-of-effect damage for maximum damage.

Leveling Strategy

Nightfall drops from Breach pinnacle boss, a high-difficulty endgame item, making it extremely difficult to obtain.

We can use other strong leveling classes to complete early leveling and map clearing, farm Nightfall while also accumulating PoE2 currency, and then level a new Monk character to build the final build.

Monk ascendancy class Martial Artist in Patch 0.5.0 possesses almost monstrous damage potential. However, the official release is still about two weeks away, and Nightfall isn't easily obtained, so the final playability will depend on the official values ​​released when the new patch goes live on May 29th.