Overview
This Martial Artist build is built entirely around the new Eventide Petals amulet and the Midnight Zenith skill it grants. Critical hits that kill or strike powerful targets generate Arctic Petals, which are consumed to spawn Ice Crystals near your latest target. Skills that consume freeze instantly shatter those crystals for greatly increased damage in a wider area — so instead of having to hit the crystals down, you detonate them by consuming freeze, which frees up space for fresh crystals and starts the whole loop again.
The result is a self-perpetuating chain: a single Shattering Palm into a pack crits, generates petals, spawns crystals, and Herald of Ice plus Biting Frost consumes the freeze to shatter them, which kills, chills, re-procs Herald of Ice, and cascades through the entire pack. It delivers some of the most satisfying clear in 0.5 alongside genuinely top-tier single-target damage, and the creator reports it runs on a fairly modest budget once the amulet is online.
Pros & Cons
Pros
- Explosive, rippling shatter-chain clear that wipes packs from one opener
- Excellent single-target damage via a dedicated Tempest Bell + Shattering Palm loop
- Freezes bosses permanently for a strong defensive layer (Biting Frost only consumes freeze on kills, so it won’t break boss freezes)
- Runic Meridians ascendancy gives extra rune sockets for easy resistance and curse-immunity solutions
Cons
- Endgame-focused — needs the Eventide Petals amulet and a crit-stacked kit to function, so it is not a fresh-start build
- Heavily crit-dependent; performance falls off without enough critical hit chance investment
- Trigger-chain gameplay is busy and takes time to understand
- No clean level-1 leveling path from the creator (recommends others’ monk leveling setups first)
Key Skills
- Midnight Zenith (Eventide Petals) — generates Arctic Petals on crit, which spawn the Ice Crystals the build revolves around
- Shattering Palm — main opener; dashes in, crits consistently, and coats enemies in ice shards that explode
- Herald of Ice / Herald of Thunder + Biting Frost — consume freeze to shatter crystals and continue the chain
- Tempest Bell — boss setup; ring out to shatter crystals and re-trigger the loop on single targets
- Whirling Assault — used only to build combo for the boss Tempest rotation (deliberately not allocated on the tree to avoid knockback)
Gear & Anointments
The core item is the Eventide Petals amulet at the highest Midnight Zenith level you can get. Weapon of choice is a Sinister quarterstaff for its 12% base crit, scaled hard by Way of the Stonefist converting critical damage bonus into base crit. Gloves use Way of the Stonefist with +2 melee skills (for quality and crit on Shattering Palm) and critical damage bonus suffixes. Armour slots favour evasion / energy shield hybrid with crit, life, resistances, and deflection; Runic Meridians’ extra rune sockets cover resistances (storm/glacial runes) or curse immunity via Crayian’s Rune of Warning plus the Hollow Keeper node. Specific item rolls should be confirmed against the source video.
Endgame Notes
Scaling splits in two: gear that makes your other skills crit (flat attack damage, crit chance/bonus on staff and rings) feeds crystal generation, while crystal damage itself only benefits from generic increased cold damage, generic crit, freeze consumption, and Midnight Zenith level — flat weapon damage does not apply to crystals. On bosses you keep them frozen (heavy frost passives let frozen-enemy hits ignore non-negative resistances) for both damage and lockdown.
Credits & Source
Build credited to Lolcohol. See the source video for the full build’s gameplay footage and voice commentary, plus the written guide linked in its description: PoE 2 0.5 - Move Over Whirling Assault… | Eventide Petals Martial Artist Build Guide.