Hollow Palm Martial Artist Build Guide

Overview

Hollow Palm Technique lets a Martial Artist fight with empty weapon slots: while both weapon sets are unarmed, your unarmed attacks gain a large amount of added damage and benefit from attack speed scaling. You start the campaign with a normal quarterstaff or wand and swap to unarmed once the technique and a basic defense layer are ready.

This is a verification-first guide. Exact APS, support links and unique thresholds are described from current creator guides; the swap timing, the unarmed rules and the Evasion-versus-Energy-Shield tradeoff are the actionable core.

Is This Build Right For You?

Pick Hollow Palm if you want a fast unarmed Martial Artist and you are comfortable managing weapon-set swaps and a defensive layer before pushing attack speed. It is not a 'do-nothing' build: the speed only pays off once the foundation exists.

League starter and Hyper Speed are different budget tiers. Do not expect the creator's 18 APS showcase on a fresh character; build the starter first.

Hollow Palm Transition Checklist

Unarmed is active only when every weapon slot in both sets is empty. Keep that rule in mind before removing a weapon 'for more damage'.

Transition only when: Hollow Palm Technique is available, a basic defense layer exists, and mana sustain is stable. Until then, keep leveling with a weapon.

Unarmed and Defense Mechanics

Hollow Palm Technique reads your (empty) weapon slots and converts that into unarmed added damage. Facebreaker and the technique stack because both reward unarmed attacks; a normal gloved hand without the technique is just a hand.

Evasion and Energy Shield serve different jobs: Evasion reduces melee/bow hit chance, Energy Shield gives a recoverable pool that pairs with CI or hybrid. A high-APS character takes more hits per second, so defense must keep up - speed is not a substitute for it.

Budget Variants

Starter uses a rare glove and a basic Evasion/ES layer. Functional Endgame adds Facebreaker and a Bell setup. Hyper Speed and Luxury are high-investment showcases - do not treat the creator's top APS as your default target.

Defensive Layers

Evasion plus Wind Dancer/Ghost Dance is the baseline. Energy Shield (often with CI or a hybrid) adds a recoverable pool. Do not rely on attack speed alone - at high APS you take more hits per second, so the pool must be real.

Rare Rotation

For rares: prepare charges and drop Tempest Bell before committing. Use a short defensive skill if the rare is dangerous; do not over-extend into a deadly modifier.

Bad Matchups

Bosses that punish sustained melee uptime or apply heavy degens are bad matchups. Rotate, use your defensive layer, and avoid face-tanking. Hollow Palm is not a 'all bosses are free' build.