Path of Exile 2: Acolyte of Chayula Monk Ascendancy Explained

This guide focuses on the Acolyte of Chayula Ascendancy for the Monk, covering their Unique Skills and Skill Interactions.

Acolyte of Chayula Overview

The Acolyte of Chayula is geared toward dealing a ton of Chaos Damage, both with and without dipping into the Darkness section of the Ascendancy.

The options Acolytes of Chayula have for Ascendancy points lend themselves well to builds using Evasion or the Mind Over Matter Keystone.

Acolytes of Chayula have access to the unique Darkness Mechanic, which removes their Spirit, instead replacing it with a protective buffer for their Life and Energy Shield. This is a huge downside for most aspects of building, but it has the potential to be powerful when built around.

Acolytes of Chayula will live and die by how effectively they use the Into the Breach Skill which can be gained through the Ascendancy. This offers potent recovery and the potential for a massive damage boost.

Inner Turmoil

Inner Turmoil applies 1 stack of Volatility when applying an Elemental Ailment. Additionally, Volatility deals no damage to us when detonating.

With the Volatile Power Support Gem removed, unless its effect was merged into a higher tier of the basic Volatility support or another support, it will be hard to reach high stacks of volatility. Even with the added stacking this can provide, it may not be enough to actually lean into this mechanic unless this bypasses the cooldown for gaining Volatility stacks.

If it becomes possible to consistently stack up to 200 Volatility again, this will be a very valuable passive for bossing, as we can set it up before the encounter and then get a massive amount of Chaos Damage to burst with.

As a basic effect, it will still add some Chaos Damage, but with the only reliable detonation being to let the effect time out, it can be tricky to use. Catharsis Support can be an option, but since it costs 20 Volatility to cast the skill and the amount detonated is random, it’s unlikely to be consistent enough to be useful.

Unravelling

Unravelling allows our Chaos Damage to contribute to and apply Freeze, Shock, or Ignite, cycling between each status every 2 seconds.

This passive pairs very well with Inner Turmoil, giving easier access to multiple Elemental Ailments for stacking Volatility. Playing as an Acolyte of Chayula means a good amount of our damage will be Chaos Damage.

It’s important to note that the Elemental Ailment cycles every 2 seconds, and it’s not all three active at once. Playing around this timing will give some control over which Ailements we apply.

Chayula’s Gift

Chayula’s gift grants +10% Maximum Chaos Resistance and doubles Chaos Resistance from all sources.

Since Chaos Damage is fairly common through the campaign (particularly Acts 3 and 4) and endgame, this extra Chaos Resistance is incredibly helpful. Between Mitigating Poison as well as any hevy Chaos hits, it’s worth the Ascendnacy Point if we want a more defensive option.

Our Chaos Resistance is doubled is an interesting effect. For such simple wording, this has a lot more potential, especially if more synergies exist in unique items. On the surface, it will be much easier to cap out Chaos Resistance, taking only 43% resistance to cap out, not accounting for any penalties or curses.

Now, the interesting part of this is that it would also double our Negative Resistance. This means if the Unique Items from POE1 that enabled Self-Poison to exist, particularly Tainted Pact, there is potential for Negative Chaos Resistance to be a benefit.

Combined with anything that helps mitigate Chaos Hits, it’s likely this could contribute to an interesting build concept.

Sap of Nightmares

Sap of Nightmares allows us to Leech Life and Mana from Chaos Damage as well as Physical.

With the bulk of our damage being Chaos Damage, this will make Leech much more consistent. This is great, as most Monk builds lean heavily into Attack Speed, which means Mana Leech is exceptionally important to continuous skill use.

While this does still require

Waking Dream

Waking Dream grants the Skill Into the Breach, which, while active, will spawn Flames that provide different effects based on color. Red Flames leeches 7% Maximum Life, Blue Leech 7% Maximum Mana, and Purple Flames grants 7% Damage as Chaos Damage and stacks up to 10 times. This Skill gains up to 50% Remnant Effect as it levels.

Waking Dream is one of the defining skills of the Acolyte of Chayula, offering a ton of power and sustain. While the flames are a bit random and can be annoying to pick up, we can make them quite strong with Support gems that modify Remnants. In particular, we can make them easier to grab with Magnetism.

The Purple Flames are the most important, as they give a consistent, stacking damage buff that grants us up to 70% Damage as Extra Chaos. Eventually, through Levels, Quality, and supports, these can reach up to 12% each, increasing this bonus up to 120% instead.

Lucid Dreaming

Lucid Dreaming allows us to spawn a single type of flame of our choosing while using Into the Breach.

This effect should every only be used for the Purple Flames. While the Red and Blue Flames cna be useful early game, the damage offered by the purple flames is quite hard to pass up, especially when this allows them to be stacked very consistently.

Illusory Void

Illusory Void grants the Void Illusion Skill, which leaves behind a one-health illusion when dodge rolling, dealing high chaos damage when it expires or dies.

This skill is a bit of a question mark yet. It’s high base damage points to a couple of possible use cases, but its initial showcase felt underwhelming.

One of these is Ailments, specifically Bleed, Poison, and Ignite. DoT ailments scale their damage based on the hit that inflicts the Ailment. This gives it a small advantage, at least in the early game, where it can potentially outdamage many other skills.

This early scaling also seems like it will be a key use for it, being a standalone node that offers extra early-game damage and nothing more. Compared to many common starter skills, it does seem to offer pretty high damage, but this may be hindered by any cooldown that keep it from being used often. Still worht keeping in mind though.

Embrace the Darkness

Embrace the Darkness removes all Spirit and instead grants 100 Darkness. Darkness is reserved before taking life or Energy Shield Damage. This reservation lasts 5 seconds before being restored to full. Maximum Darkness is increased by 8 per level.

Embrace the Darkness removes all Spirit, which prevents the use of most Buffs, Auras, Minions, and Trigger Gems. This effect alone makes this a non-starter, that is to say it’s going to take gear and a build setup around it to make it good.

In place of Spirit, we get Darkness. Darkness acts as a damage buffer against damage to Life or Energy Shield. This starts with a base of 100 Darkness, and grants 5 per level, up to its maximum of 600. Taking damage to this Darkness reserves it for 10 seconds.

Now, Embrace the Darkness is very clear in what it does. It protects Life and Energy Shield… but not Mana. This means taking Mind over Matter and having no Energy Shield will be required for this to be worth taking at all. The other option is high Evasion, but Evasion is said to have

Now the downside to Darkness is that it doesn’t offer any benefit at all by itself. However, with Grasp of the Void, it can be a huge damage increase. If we do opt for taking it at all, it will have the most benefit when we can pick up both Embrace the Darkness and Grasp of the Void together.

Deepening Shadows

Deepening Shadows increases Maximum Darkness by 1% per 1% Chaos Resistance

This pairs exceptionally well with Chayula’s Gift, allowing our maximum Chaos Resistance to reach 85%. By level 90, this would result in a Total Darkness of roughly 1,500, which is pretty good, outside of giving up Spirit for it.

Now, if this includes uncapped Chaos Resistance, then this has the potential to go way higher and allow Darkness to provide a ton of extra defenses, especially with Chayula’s Gift. With a base of 820 Darkness at Level 90, getting a total of 100% Chaos Resistance would jump us up to 1,640 Darkness. With Chayula’s Gift, that same value becomes 2,460 Darkness.