If you’re playing Monk in Deskrawl: Idle ARPG and want a build that can handle the harder difficulties, the Hundred Hands / Critical Dodge setup is one of the builds worth looking into. The main idea is to stack Dodge Chance and turn it into damage while keeping your Monk attacking extremely quickly.
In this guide, I’ll go through the full Monk setup, including the combat talents, Life Skills, Paragon points, gear, legendary items, runes, companions, and active abilities. I’ll also explain why each part of the build works together so you can build it without wasting points.
This setup is designed around Inferno difficulty, where normal Health and Armor stacking can become less effective against powerful boss attacks. Instead, we’re using Dodge Chance, Critical Strike Damage, Furious Fist, and the Hundred Hands rune set to create a build that can deal huge damage while constantly avoiding incoming attacks.
Deskrawl Idle ARPG Monk Build Guide – Hundred Hands, Critical Dodge
The main strength of this Monk build comes from several mechanics working together rather than relying on one individual skill.
The build revolves around four important interactions:
- Dodge Chance → Critical Strike Damage
- Dodging → Mana regeneration
- Dodging → additional physical damage
- Hundred Hands → massive Basic Attack damage
The Formless capstone is especially important because it converts your total Dodge Chance into bonus Critical Strike Damage.
At the same time, Zephyr’s Flow gives you mana sustain whenever you successfully dodge, while Mirror Steps gives you additional physical damage after dodging.
The final piece is the Hundred Hands rune set. It greatly increases your Basic Attack damage, improves Furious Fist stacks, and can automatically trigger Golden Palms.
Together, these mechanics create a Monk that attacks quickly, dodges frequently, maintains its resources, and turns defensive stats into offensive power.
Combat Talents
At level 60, you have exactly 60 talent points, so you cannot simply max every talent in the tree.
The order in which you spend these points matters because different rows unlock after reaching certain investment milestones.
Important Talent Rules
There are a few things to keep in mind before spending your points.
You need cumulative investment to unlock later rows. The important milestones include 5, 10, 15, 20, 30, 40, 50, and 60 points.
The level 10, 30, and 60 capstones are also mutually exclusive. At level 60, you can only select one final capstone.
For this particular build, Formless is the final choice.
Level 1–14
Start by putting points into:
Agility — 8/8
Agility gives you direct Dodge Chance scaling, which is extremely important for the entire build.
Then take:
Flurry — 6/6
Flurry increases your Attack Speed and helps you attack faster and generate your stacks more quickly.
At this point, you’ve spent all 14 available points.
Level 15
At level 15, take:
Mirror Steps — 1/1
This is the first major capstone for the build.
Whenever you dodge an attack, Mirror Steps triggers an immediate free Phantom Strike.
Since you’re already stacking Dodge Chance, you’ll be triggering this effect frequently.
Level 16–20
Put your next five points into:
Zephyr’s Flow — 5/5
Zephyr’s Flow is another core part of the build because successful dodges restore mana.
This gives the Monk a reliable source of mana sustain while also making Dodge Chance even more valuable.
Level 21–30
Next, max:
Fundamentals — 10/10
This increases your base attack damage and gets you to the 30-point milestone required for the next capstone.
Level 31
Take:
Gathered Force — 1/1
Every fifth Basic Attack becomes an empowered strike and provides major scaling for your next Strong Attack.
Since the build attacks extremely quickly, you’ll be able to generate these empowered attacks regularly.
Level 32–40
Next, invest in:
Vigor — 8/8
Vigor increases your Physical Critical Strike Chance, which is another major offensive stat for this build.
You’ll then put one point into:
Heavy Hands — 1/5
This acts as the bridge needed to reach the next milestone.
Level 41–50
At this stage, take:
Enhance Spirit Twin: Duration — 6/6
This increases the duration of Spirit Twin, allowing you to maintain its benefits for longer.
Then return to Heavy Hands and finish it:
Heavy Hands — 5/5
This maximizes the Critical Strike Damage provided for your Strong Attacks and Golden Palms.
Level 51–59
Put eight points into:
Enhance Golden Palms: Damage & Mana Cost — 8/8
This increases Golden Palms damage while reducing its mana cost.
Then put one point into:
Exploit Weakness — 1/10
This gives you additional Critical Strike scaling.
Level 60
Finally, take:
Formless — 1/1
This is the most important final piece of the build.
Formless converts your total Dodge Chance percentage into Critical Strike Damage, meaning your defensive Dodge stat becomes another source of massive offensive scaling.
Complete 60-Point Setup
Your final talent investment is:
- Agility — 8/8
- Flurry — 6/6
- Mirror Steps — 1/1
- Zephyr’s Flow — 5/5
- Fundamentals — 10/10
- Gathered Force — 1/1
- Vigor — 8/8
- Heavy Hands — 5/5
- Spirit Twin Duration — 6/6
- Golden Palms Damage & Mana Cost — 8/8
- Exploit Weakness — 1/10
- Formless — 1/1
That adds up to exactly 60 points.
Life Skills
Life Skills provide permanent account-wide progression, so they are useful even when you’re not actively playing the Monk.
Item Find
Make Item Find / Magic Find one of your first priorities.
It helps improve your loot quality, which is particularly useful when you’re trying to collect the six pieces required for the Hundred Hands setup and farm items such as Deflecting Handwraps.
Gold Find
After that, Gold Find is useful for funding things such as:
- Carriage automation
- Crafting
- Talent respecs
XP Gain
XP Gain is another useful investment because it helps you reach level 60 faster and accelerates your Paragon progression afterward.
Revive Cooldown
The Auto Revive cooldown upgrades can also reduce downtime during difficult progression.
Carriage and Quality-of-Life Upgrades
For idle progression, upgrades such as:
- Carriage Capacity
- Auto-Sell filters
- Auto Fill Inventory
can make your farming much more convenient.
Paragon System
Once you reach level 60, Paragon becomes an important part of the build.
Core Stats
Dexterity is the primary attribute to focus on because it increases Monk martial skill damage.
For Movement Speed, stop around the +25% cap.
Max Health percentage is also useful as a buffer against attacks that you don’t dodge.
Offensive Stats
For offense, prioritize:
- Critical Strike Chance
- Critical Strike Damage
- Attack Speed
Critical Strike Chance is especially important because you want Furious Fist attacks to crit as consistently as possible.
Critical Strike Damage then takes advantage of the huge scaling created by Formless.
Attack Speed helps you build your Furious Fist stacks extremely quickly.
Defensive Stats
Dodge Chance is the most important defensive stat for this build.
Normally, Dodge is simply a defensive mechanic. Here, however, it also becomes offensive because Formless converts your Dodge Chance into Critical Strike Damage.
After Dodge, Magic Resist and Physical Damage Reduction help cover the damage that gets through your dodge checks.
Utility Stats
Life on Hit becomes particularly useful once you have very high attack speed.
Because you’re attacking so frequently while maintaining Furious Fist stacks, Life on Hit can restore a large amount of health over time.
Item Find and Gold Find are also useful for making your idle farming more efficient.
Rare and Epic Equipment
If you don’t have the complete legendary setup yet, you can still build around the correct affixes.
Weapon
Prioritize:
Flat Weapon Damage > Physical Damage % > Basic Attack Damage % > Critical Strike Damage % > Attack Speed %
Helmet
Prioritize:
Dodge Chance % > Cooldown Reduction > Max Health % > Armor
Chest
Prioritize:
Dodge Chance % > Physical Damage Reduction % > Max Health % > Magic Resist
Pants
Prioritize:
Dodge Chance % > Physical Damage Reduction % > Max Health % > Magic Resist
Gloves
Prioritize:
Critical Strike Chance % > Critical Strike Damage % > Attack Speed % > Dodge Chance %
Boots
Prioritize:
Movement Speed % > Dodge Chance % > Max Health % > Magic Resist
Rings
For both rings, look for:
Critical Strike Chance % > Critical Strike Damage % > Dodge Chance % > Life on Hit
Amulet
Prioritize:
Critical Strike Chance % > Critical Strike Damage % > Basic Attack Damage % > Dodge Chance %
Best Legendary Equipment
Once you start moving into the endgame, there are several legendary items that fit this build particularly well.
Deflecting Handwraps
These are the core gloves for the build.
Each stack of Furious Fist gives you additional Dodge Chance.
At 20 stacks, that’s another 20% Dodge Chance, which then gets converted into additional Critical Strike Damage through Formless.
This creates a very strong interaction between your gloves, Furious Fist, and your final capstone.
Evasive Cuirass
Evasive Cuirass gives additional Physical Damage Reduction based on your Dodge Chance.
With around 70–80% Dodge Chance, the effect can provide a substantial amount of permanent physical damage reduction.
Unyielding Cuirass can be used as an alternative.
Visage of the Undying
This helmet reduces all damage taken by 25%, giving the build another layer of protection.
An offensive alternative is Ring of Concentration, which can increase your next Golden Palms damage.
Soulrender
Soulrender has a chance to build Soul Harvest stacks.
At 25 stacks, Soul Strike is triggered, dealing a large amount of Physical Damage in an area and stunning enemies.
With the Monk’s high attack speed, you can generate these stacks quickly.
The Grandmother can be used as an alternative if you want more Critical Strike Chance and Critical Strike Damage.
Pendant of Vigor
Pendant of Vigor gives a large total damage increase while you’re Healthy.
Because this Monk has high Dodge Chance and Life on Hit, you can maintain high health and keep the bonus active.
Ring of Revelation
Standing still increases your Basic Attack Damage over time, stacking up to 20 times.
That can provide a significant damage increase to Furious Fist during stationary combat.
Charged Ring
Charged Ring provides additional damage based on your current Mana percentage.
Since Zephyr’s Flow gives you strong mana sustain, you can keep this bonus high.
For bosses, Dragonslayer Ring can be considered as an alternative for additional Attack Speed.
Also keep in mind that the game prevents you from equipping two identical rings with the same name.
Battle Draught Belt
Using a potion grants a temporary total damage increase, creating a useful burst window for bosses and difficult stages.
Boots of the Windcaller
These boots provide a large Movement Speed increase after killing an enemy.
They’re particularly useful for improving clear speed during farming.
Healing Tread Boots are an alternative if you prefer additional sustain.
Black Mist Gear
For your Pants, Shoulders, and Cloak, Black Mist Gear provides a legendary crafting base with multiple revealable affixes.
When crafting these pieces, look for useful stats such as:
- Dodge Chance
- Physical Damage
- Max Health
- Magic Resist
Hundred Hands Rune Set
The Hundred Hands rune set is the centerpiece of this Monk build.
You’ll want all six pieces.
The bonuses include:
2 pieces: +100% Basic Attack Damage.
4 pieces: Furious Fist stacks provide additional Physical Damage, up to +60%.
6 pieces: Furious Fist has a chance to automatically trigger Golden Palms for free.
This is what makes the build work so well.
You’re attacking rapidly with Furious Fist, building stacks, gaining additional Physical Damage, and automatically triggering Golden Palms without needing to manually spend the same resources every time.
Important Stat Caps
Understanding the game’s stat behavior is important before you start spending resources on gear.
Critical Strike Chance
Critical Strike Chance has a strict 100% functional cap.
Once you reach 100%, additional Critical Strike Chance provides no additional benefit.
Because combat buffs can increase your chance, aiming for around 75–85% from your equipment can be enough to reach the cap during combat.
Dodge Chance
Dodge Chance behaves differently.
For this build, it continues scaling Formless, so additional Dodge Chance remains valuable even after you’ve reached very high percentages.
This is one of the main reasons Dodge is so powerful for this Monk setup.
Critical Strike Damage
Critical Strike Damage has no known cap in this setup.
That makes it one of the most valuable offensive stats once your Critical Strike Chance and Dodge Chance are already strong.
Attack Speed
Attack Speed has diminishing practical returns once you’re generating Furious Fist stacks extremely quickly.
After reaching very high attack speeds, additional Critical Strike Damage, Physical Damage, or Dodge can provide more value.
Movement Speed
Movement Speed has a +25% Paragon cap.
You generally don’t need to stack huge amounts of Movement Speed beyond that point.
Best Companions
Your companion choice can change depending on where you are in progression.
Early Game: Bloodmoon Werewolf
The Bloodmoon Werewolf is a strong option during early progression.
Its Bloodmoon Howl ability gives you a temporary Attack Speed boost, helping you reach 20 Furious Fist stacks much faster.
Early Game Alternative: Big Treant
If you need more survivability, Big Treant is a useful alternative.
Healing Spirit restores a percentage of your Max Health and can be especially helpful before you obtain strong Life on Hit through Paragon.
Mid Game: Ice Hound
The Ice Hound provides crowd control and a shield through Capacitor Shell.
When the shield breaks, it can stun nearby enemies, which works well with Exploit Weakness.
Mid Game Alternative: Redrock Lord
Redrock Lord provides a temporary flat Physical Damage increase through its active ability.
It’s a useful offensive option while progressing through the middle stages.
Late Game: Cinder Lord
For pure boss damage, Cinder Lord is the main late-game choice for this build.
Wrath of Cinder provides a large Critical Strike Damage multiplier, which works extremely well with the Critical Damage scaling created by Formless.
Defensive Late-Game Options
Flame Dragon and Glacial Dragon are useful alternatives when you want more defensive consistency in Inferno.
Flame Armor provides a magic shield, while Glacial Shard provides additional crowd control.
Active Skills
For the Hundred Hands / Critical Dodge build, the following ability setup fits the build particularly well.
Basic Attack: Furious Fist
Furious Fist — MonkBasicAttack2
Furious Fist builds up to 20 momentum stacks while giving you extremely fast attacks without requiring a resource cost.
These stacks are important because they interact directly with the Hundred Hands rune set and Deflecting Handwraps.
Strong Attack: Golden Palms
Golden Palms — MonkHeavyAttack4
Golden Palms is the primary Strong Attack for this setup.
With the six-piece Hundred Hands bonus, it can trigger automatically and for free while you’re using Furious Fist.
Special 1: Wind Steps
Wind Steps — MonkSpecial5
Wind Steps provides a major temporary increase to Dodge Chance.
Because Dodge is both defensive and offensive for this build, Wind Steps fits perfectly into the setup.
Special 2: Spirit Twin
Spirit Twin — MonkSpecial4
Spirit Twin summons a spirit double that copies your Basic and Strong attacks.
Since the build is already focused on extremely fast attacks, Spirit Twin can dramatically increase the amount of damage you’re producing.
For this reason, Wind Steps + Spirit Twin are the preferred specials for this build.
Alternative Strong Attacks
There are several other Strong Attacks you can experiment with if you don’t have Golden Palms available.
Sacred Judgment
A heavy single-target holy lightning attack.
Piercing Lunge
A linear attack that pierces enemies in front of you.
Whirlwind Staff
Creates wandering tornadoes that deal area damage.
For the Hundred Hands build, however, Golden Palms remains the main choice because of its direct synergy with the rune set.
Alternative Special Abilities
Other Special abilities include:
Sacred Orbs
Creates orbiting holy lightning projectiles.
Spirit Stream
Provides a healing or lightning pulse depending on its use.
Charge
Rushes forward and stuns enemies in an area.
Divine Thunder
Creates a stationary lightning storm that inflicts Daze.
Even with these alternatives available, Wind Steps and Spirit Twin provide the most direct synergy with the Critical Dodge setup.
How the Full Build Works
The basic combat loop is fairly straightforward.
You want to build up your Furious Fist stacks while attacking rapidly.
At the same time, your high Dodge Chance allows you to avoid incoming attacks.
When you dodge, Mirror Steps provides additional offensive value and Zephyr’s Flow helps maintain your mana.
Your Dodge Chance also feeds directly into Formless, turning the defensive stat into additional Critical Strike Damage.
Then, with the six-piece Hundred Hands set, your Furious Fist attacks receive huge Basic Attack scaling while giving you additional Physical Damage and automatic Golden Palms activations.
Once you add Deflecting Handwraps, Wind Steps, Spirit Twin, and the other legendary items, the entire build starts working as one large damage engine.
Inferno Monk Achievement
There is an important detail to remember if you’re working toward the Monk-specific Inferno achievement.
The difficulty completion does not appear to stack between different classes.
In other words, completing Inferno as a Sorcerer or Warrior does not unlock the Monk achievement.
The achievement INFERNO_MONK specifically requires you to complete the maximum difficulty as the Monk.
So if you’re going for that achievement, make sure your Inferno completion is actually done on the Monk.
The overall setup can be summarized as:
Talents: Formless + Mirror Steps + Zephyr’s Flow + Gathered Force
Basic Attack: Furious Fist
Strong Attack: Golden Palms
Specials: Wind Steps + Spirit Twin
Rune Set: Six-piece Hundred Hands
Core Legendary: Deflecting Handwraps
Main Stats: Dodge Chance, Critical Strike Chance, Critical Strike Damage, Physical Damage, and Attack Speed
Late-Game Companion: Cinder Lord
The biggest thing to remember is that you aren’t building Dodge purely to survive. Dodge is part of your damage engine. Formless turns it into Critical Strike Damage, while several other parts of the build reward you for successfully dodging.
Once the talents, gear, runes, and abilities all come together, the Monk becomes a very fast melee build that can sustain itself while dealing heavy Critical Strike damage, making it particularly suited to pushing into Inferno difficulty.