Overview
The Chayula Monk minion build, affectionately dubbed the ‘Chonk’, leans on the freshly fixed Selfless Remnant support gem to feed Chayula remnants directly to summoned minions. Stacked together with the Lucid Dreaming notable and the Choice of Power keystone (the purple 7% extra chaos damage remnant), the build can push past 180% damage taken as extra chaos on minion hits once ascendancy, tree, and support-gem effect modifiers are layered up. It is positioned as one of the strongest minion ascendancies for the 0.5 cycle, with the caveat that one of the four Chayula ascendancy nodes still has no defined effect at the time the guide was filmed.
Leveling deliberately avoids minions until the second ascendancy. Instead the build runs a pseudo-flicker melee phase using Staggering Palm, Killing Palm for power charges, and the standard quarterstaff strike for boss damage, all eventually pivoting into Hollow Palm. Once Trial of Chaos is cleared, the character swaps to spectres (Vulgars from Utzaal in Act 3) and never looks back.
In maps the goal is a full minion army backed by remnants. Vulgars are the recommended primary spectre, with Cultist Archers and Skeletal Snipers offered as alternative endgame options depending on access to Catal’s Rejuvenation and the From Nothing jewel sitting next to Whispers of Doom.
Pros & Cons
Pros
- Huge multiplicative chaos scaling on minions via Selfless Remnant + Lucid Dreaming + Choice of Power stack.
- Flexible spectre roster: swap between Vulgars, Cultist Archers, or Skeletal Snipers without retraining the tree.
- Hands-off mapping playstyle once the minion army is online, leaving the player to handle positioning and defense.
- Hollow Palm leveling skips weapon scaling, so gear early on can prioritize added flat damage on gloves, rings, and amulet.
- From Nothing jewel near Whispers of Doom solves minion resistance cheaply once acquired.
Cons
- Melee leveling phase will feel rough for players who dislike Staggering Palm dashing.
- Only three of the four Chayula ascendancy nodes are confirmed useful; the fourth is unknown and may shift the build mid-league.
- Defenses lean entirely on gear — there is no built-in damage mitigation from the ascendancy itself, unlike the Spirit Walker minion alternative.
- Subterfuge Mask was nerfed to 1:1 evasion-to-ES, so the hybrid plan is now pure evasion with an energy shield buffer.
Key Skills
- Selfless Remnant (Support) — the keystone of the build; pushes Chayula remnants onto minions for the stacked chaos scaling.
- Vulgars (Spectre) — primary endgame minion, scales beautifully with the Growing Swarm cooldown recovery node.
- Cultist Archers / Skeletal Snipers — alternative spectres for ranged or pure chaos-tagged scaling via Dark Entries.
- Staggering Palm — pseudo-flicker leveling skill that dashes between stunned targets through Acts 1-3.
- Killing Palm + Falling Thunder — early Act 1 power-charge generator and AoE finisher before Staggering Palm comes online.
- Hollow Palm Technique — unequips the weapon to scale flat damage from rings, gloves, and amulet for the leveling stretch.
- Tempest Bell + War Banner — boss-fight stack for armour break and projectile relay once Staggering Palm primes a stun.
- Mark for Death — applied via Freezing Mark socket for armour-break support during boss openers.
Gear & Anointments
The leveling phase runs Hollow Palm with a quarterstaff swap for boss damage, so early gearing prioritizes added flat physical/elemental damage on gloves and rings plus +level of melee skill gems on gloves and amulet. Once the build pivots to minions, swap to a sceptre and shield: the sceptre carries minion damage and spirit, the shield carries evasion and attribute fix-ups. Energy shield comes mostly from the focus slot, while the body armour is pushed for the highest evasion roll possible to feed both Ghost Dance recovery and Spectral Ward’s plus-one max energy shield per 12 evasion conversion.
- From Nothing (jewel) — placed beside Whispers of Doom so minions inherit double-curse-style resistance coverage from radius passives.
- Catal’s Rejuvenation — enables the Cultist Archer variant by stacking 5% cooldown recovery per remnant up to 40%.
- Subterfuge Mask — considered but nerfed; the build now runs a pure evasion helmet instead.
- Anointment — Bestial Skin (increased evasion from equipped body armour) is the preferred defensive oil. Patient Barrier, Holy Protector, and Bringer of Order are listed as situational alternatives.
Endgame Notes
Defensive scaling is pure evasion with an energy shield buffer. Ghost Dance, reworked in 0.5 to regenerate energy shield based on evasion, makes the evasion-heavy direction efficient. Spectral Ward on the body armour pushes max energy shield from high evasion rolls, and Warding Fetish is only picked up once the energy-shield-providing focus is online. The build expects most defensive mitigation to come from gear rather than the tree, so map juicing and pinnacle attempts hinge on stacking evasion above all else. The creator notes the endgame guide and build files will land on Icy Veins shortly after league launch, possibly a day or two into 0.5.
Credits & Source
Build credited to GhazzyTV. See the source video for the full build’s gameplay footage + voice commentary: THE STRONGEST Minion Summoner Class in 0.5! - Chayula Monk Build Guide PoE 2.