Path of Exile 2 player beats pinnacle boss with zero gear build

The Path of Exile 2 community never ceases to amaze me, and Fate of the Vaal League is no different. A player by the name of isfooPoE defeated two pinnacle bosses (possibly more) with a Monk rocking no equipment and only the power of the passive skill tree and skill gems. And by no equipment, I mean that there wasn’t even a flask active, and the elemental resistances were in the negatives.

If you feel like everything’s too expensive following the recent Holten Vaal Temple exploit, this build may be worth looking into. The creator of the build also shared the PoB, so let’s break down how this truly unarmed build works in Path of Exile 2.

Skill setup and explanation for the zero gear build in Path of Exile 2

Gathering Storm can deal some incredible damage (Image via GGG)

The pinnacle bosses the user fought barehanded are the Arbiter of Ash and the King in the Mists. It also turns out that isfooPoE has been perfecting the build since Path of Exile 2’s release. If you haven’t checked out the build yet, I recommend taking a look. In addition to no gear, this build also doesn’t use any jewels or Lineage support gems, to make it truly zero cost.

Here are all the skills used in the zero gear build:

• Into the Breach: Remnant Potency - Harmonic Remnants
• Hand of Chayula: Despair - Heightened Curse - Prolonged Duration - Rapid Attacks - Chaos Mastery
• Gathering Storm: Momentum - Window of Opportunity - Burgeon - Perfection - Withering Touch
• Storm Wave: Rage - Rapid Attacks - Branching Fissures - Magnified Area - Mobility
• Frost Wall: Fortress - Spell Cascade - Glacier - Concentrated Area - Cooldown Recovery

A quick look at the build reveals that it’s the standard Gathering Storm and Frostwall combo. Using the Fortress and Spell Cascade support, the Frostwall creates a large amount of ice crystals, which you can shatter using Gathering Storm for additional damage. They also keep the boss contained. Storm Wave is the ranged skill for when it’s not feasible to get close to the enemy.

Hollow Palm does make things a little easier (Image via GGG)

There’s also Into the Breach, which constantly creates remnants called Flames of Chayula. Depending on the color of the flame, you get additional bonuses. Hand of Chayula is a meta skill that applies Despair directly on the enemy to lower their Chaos resistance. Curses applied this way are stronger and last longer.

The standard rotation is applying the curse and dropping the Frost Wall around the boss. Then use either Gathering Storm or Storm Wave to deal damage depending on the situation. With Gathering Storm, if you time a perfect dash, it will deal even more damage. Do remember to pick up the remnants to improve DPS further.

Passive tree setup for zero gear build in Path of Exile 2

The weapon swap is for better curse effects (Image via PoB || GGG)

The passive tree for the zero gear build in Path of Exile 2 leans heavily into Chaos damage, as the build uses Acolyte of Chayula Ascendancy. And since there are no weapons in play, picking up the Hollow Palm Technique is needed to gain the effects of a Quartersaff.

However, there’s another important Keystone in the mix. Eternal Youth grants health recharge instead of energy shield, which is crucial for survival. The reason for that is ES recovers after it doesn’t take damage for a few seconds, and since the build doesn’t have any, you get permanent life regen based on your HP.

Ascendancy passives include:

• Waking Dream: It grants you the ‘Into the Breach’ skill, which creates flame remnants around you that grant various bonuses when picked up.
• Lucid Dreaming (Choice of Power): A good chunk of damage comes from this node as it converts all of the flame remnants to Purple, which grants additional Chaos damage.
• Embrace the Darkness: Removes Spirit and grants base 100 Darkness that scales based on character level. All damage you take is first removed from Darkness, which acts as another HP pool.
• Deepening Shadow: This node is a QoL that increases darkness based on your Chaos resistance.

That’s all there is in this zero gear Monk build in Path of Exile 2. You don’t need to spend any currency to make the build work, but I’d recommend getting Jeweller’s Orb for increasing skill sockets.

Check out other related guides and features:

• How long does it take to get to max level in PoE 2?
• Path of Exile 2: All Anomaly bosses and how to clear them
• Path of Exile 2: How to get Palm of the Dreamer

Edited by Mayank Singh Rathour