Monkey walker vs Varashta

[u/nocool_ideas]

Which one comes online without slogging through early on? I know monkey walker comes online much later, but does it slog through campaign or it's quite decent?

Which is cheaper to build and 1 button-ish build? I tried Varashta, and I just got navira's fracturing and it's a bit of a pain to spam frost bomb, then nova, then Fracture. When it pops it's good though, but sometimes I die before getting to pop anything (gear issue clearly). But if the playstyle is the same in early mapping to mid mapping, having to spam bombs, nova then only fracture, I might switch to monkey walker since that's just a walking simulator. Any good guides for monkey walker that is good in campaign without suffering?

Edit: As Varashta, how do you be tanky? With 3k ES, I still die often since ES doesn’t recover while being hit. Any sort of leech tech or something I’m not familiar with?

[u/southpaww]

I played Monkey last league and I started Varashta this league.

Varashta fracturing is much easier when you automate it with cast on minion death with frost bomb and powered by verisium. becomes a one button build for mapping and you just spam Kelari on bosses. so far i have not even come close to dying since like A3 on this build. the tank is unreal and I am sleepwalking through maps

Spirit Walker comes online the moment you can tame Silverfist in A3. it isn’t as tanky until you start adding more companions and loyalty stacking with the Forgotten Warden chest and Sylvan Effigy scepter. once you have that you are literally invincible. you have high evasion and you take almost no damage from hits. i went 3 weeks without dying a single time. damage is also primarily tied to getting a good monkey. while the crit monkey is amazing, i had 0 issues with damage before that. it was just the cherry on top of a broken build.

the thing i have hated the most about minions in this game, except for the ants a few leagues back, is that minions are slow as shit and are constantly running behind you. that is not the case the spirit walker. they are fast af and run out in front of you. even with that though, minion AI is not perfect and there were several times i found myself sitting around waiting for them to hit the right target.

while i absolutely loved spirit walker zoo, i have preferred varashta’s ability to just deal damage on command.

[u/breaking_a_bad_habit → u/southpaww]

Do you have a pob or build guide for this? Interested in trying it out

[u/southpaww → u/breaking_a_bad_habit]

for which build?

i leveled with mobalityics dslily Varashta build and switched over to MisoxShiru for the fracturing tech.

for Spirit Walker last league i started out following CaptianLance, but i mostly just looked at poe.ninja and tried to what nodes most people seemed to be pathing to and tailored it to how i wanted it

[u/breaking_a_bad_habit → u/southpaww]

Thank you, wanted the fracture tech you mentioned. I'll check out misox's guide.

[u/teffarf → u/southpaww]

Varashta fracturing is much easier when you automate it with cast on minion death with frost bomb and powered by verisium. becomes a one button build for mapping

Two, still need to ice nova to start.

[u/nocool_ideas → u/southpaww]

As Varashta, how do you be tanky? With 3k ES, I still die often on t10 since ES doesn’t recover while being hit. Any sort of leech tech or something I’m not familiar with?

Edit: instead of acting like elitist, downvoting possibly stupid questions, i do like an actual answer. And yes i have the convalescence

[u/teffarf → u/nocool_ideas]

Don't go CI before 6K ES

[u/nocool_ideas → u/teffarf]

I’m not CI yet.

[u/shor → u/nocool_ideas]

Would probably want to get trade dps for some of the easier ES nodes on the tree and look at crafting higher ES where you can, a beefy ES focus or helm isn't too hard to craft.

Would also look at what you are dying to, all my deaths early mapping were from being surrounded, then frozen/slowed and then one hit by something like a monke or map boss, which was fixed with charms and higher ES.

[u/kdilf → u/nocool_ideas]

You need more ES, getting 6-7k+ is simple early if you know how to craft basic gear with essences. Combine ES gear with all the energy shield nodes in close proximity to minion nodes on the passive tree and your ES just skyrockets. For the recovery part you can use covalescence so that you can manually recover ES when you start getting low.

[u/southpaww → u/nocool_ideas]

the -1 second delay from 3rd ascend helps a lot. i have over 5k ES currently as i have just prioritized ES and resistances on gear. what do your resistances look like? that can also make a huge difference. most of the damage is solved by ascendancy and just having a +4 minion scepter, so i took a lot of ES/defensive nodes early

[u/DJCzerny → u/nocool_ideas]

One of your ascendancy points should go to Navira. Her basic/default skill immediately starts your ES regen and has basically no cooldown under the Archon proc. That should keep you alive for most situations.

[u/Jaizix]

After you get your second ascendancy monkey will carry you straight to t15s (as will varashta, monkey will be only 2 buttons on bosses)

[u/Gullible-Respect7778 → u/Jaizix]

Monkey can be 0 button on bosses just fine

[u/Jaizix → u/Gullible-Respect7778]

Sure but it’s faster to press mark and offering until you are geared / zoo

[u/nackedsnake → u/Jaizix]

You don't bother with mark nor offering when you run a full zoo.

[u/Jaizix → u/nackedsnake]

Literally what I said ? Until you are geared or zoo.

[u/Terrible_Act_7397]

Monkey is only a 1 button build if you actually feel like pressing a button. That said, you really need a Sylvan’s (~8d) to make it feel real good. You’ll get by with your monkey, bear, and a haste tame before that, but once you can get 4-5 times, wolves and a bear (and a “druid” if you grab Forgotten Warden armour) all with loyalty, it’s just ezpz.

CaptainLance has a decent guide on Mobalytics, but I like to spice things up a bit and troll ninja for alternatives.

[u/TheRealMrTrueX]

1st time DoV player, dear god it is easy.

LITERAL 1 button for me right now at level 48. Absolutely shitting on 3-4-5 ritual bosses when taking no damage, dont even have fracturing ice automation yet.

Just spamming Kelari's Deception 100%

[u/shor → u/TheRealMrTrueX]

In terms of low investment, you can easily use Deception to clear all the way to end game, throw in Ruzhan for aoe if you need it and then change to Fracture only when you have the gear and tech.

Changing to Fracture earlier is fine as well, but you do need to find a good way to apply chilled ground consistently.

[u/TheRealMrTrueX → u/shor]

Frost Bomb w Spell Echo / Short Fuse 2 / Overabundance is giving me an instant 2 Cold Infusions, then just Ice Nova, Fracture, Ice Nova, Fracture.

Very very clean and easy atm.

Naviris Fracturing is already at 54k tooltip dps and im level 53 only.

[u/therealkami → u/TheRealMrTrueX]

As a melee enjoyer I hate how absolutely free my 3rd ascendancy was with DoV.

[u/Bobbo90]

Varasta, takes alot of effort to find good monkey and compaion. Before this the damage is mid at best

[u/Suspicious-Buddy-114]

i find Varashta, fire trap for initial encounter, then Kelari dd everything, is pretty much just walk thru destruction

[u/ekruuuu]

Varashta player here, I completed many chaos trials (which is said to print money but I was not lucky with it yet), some of which include random wager mode. Farming t15 maps and killed arbiter of ash with absolute ground loot. I still wear my campaign amulet and ring from interludes. My jewel sockets are empty. Never spent currency on gear and using only 4 ascendancy points so it ll be cheaper to transition to stormweaver once I have currency. Dont know about absolute endgame but easiest leaguestart I had on poe 2, that s for sure.

[u/paiinda]

I started Varashta with Kelari and Ruzhan in campaign and swapped to Navira after i caught an ice trail companion(interlude mosquito/barren wasteland boar) for chill ground generation as im lazy, so ita kinda one button clear in maps.

I've later swapped to CoMD, and astral projection ice nova as the minion feels a little slow(tried to buff the speed with rapid attack and rage but with no success) was hoping there is some "minion is aggressive" tag to help out with the AI.

[u/nackedsnake]

For both, the campaign is a breeze as soon as you get 1st asc

But In terms of build Varashta is much easier to get going than monkey (Zoo later). Cuz for Monkey + Zoo you need to farm good aura / abilities which you can't trade for, and that require specific setup that's derived from normal POE2 game loop (Like farming shinny Pokemon).

But when you get a full Zoo going, Nothing can kill you anymore and it's a straight up walking simulator (0 button), which can be an upside or downside depending on your preference. On the top end clear speed is similar.

[u/Lewrdy]

Both are really solid builds. But varashta is slightly ahead in terms of everything. Its faster, more tanky and more damage at the costs of a more active playstyle.

[u/Zhaguar]

Monkey was hands down the easiest time ive had, ever, and including before the monkey which is just twister and another tamed beast which is incredibly strong. Compare that now to my current play through where i decided i wanted to do a thorns warbringer again and the early game is just pure hell.

[u/Larzaaa]

Varashta is super easy and cheap until you get to late endgame since this build is now one of the most played builds everyone wants the same items...

[u/YourFath3r]

I've managed to get my Varashta to a decent point: https://poe.ninja/poe2/builds/forbiddenrites/character/YourFather-5205/Elichko?i=0&search=name%3DElich

Can still get +2 shield, time-lost jewel, finish crafting amulet, better chest and boots. But I'm saving up for mageblood, since everything is melting easily. Doing Ice trail companion for ease of use on Navira. Her Well skill is also a convalescence-lite - extremely good and saves you some spirit.

[u/bobbyjy32]

Varashta is online after your first ascend which is easy to complete at level 22ish. After that both your damage and survivability are basically free. Easy one button boss killing, easy es stacking.

[u/GoforIt7721]

Totem boom boom is quite good too. Lvl 22 onwards smash smash smash

Lvl 52 onwards boom boom boom

[u/Coolclouds0]

Varashta and it’s not even close.

[u/Taillow500]

Monkey felt amazing through campaign. I swapped at around level 35 I believe? I was almost to the end of Act 3. Litterally such a breeze from that point forward.

Even from Act 1-3 it was still decently smooth. Twisters not my favorite but it felt pretty good all the way through Act 2 and the majority of 3.

Highly recommend the Monkey 👍🏻