The Warrior of the Elements Monk in the 2024 Player's Handbook lets you channel the power of water, earth, fire, and air (and lightning, acid, and thunder) to enhance your martial arts mastery. This subclass builds upon the legacy of the Way of the Four Elements Monk from the 2014 Player's Handbook, but offers a more streamlined approach to unleash your inner elemental warrior.
Let's take a look at the new Warrior of the Elements Monk subclass in the 2024 Player's Handbook!
- Elemental Attunement — Level 3
- Manipulate Elements — Level 3
- Elemental Burst — Level 6
- Stride of the Elements — Level 11
- Elemental Epitome — Level 17
Explore the New Monk
The 2024 Monk class has seen more prominent changes compared to most classes in the 2024 Player's Handbook. Their features more efficiently use Focus Points (previously Ki Points), they are able to regain their resources more easily, and they're offered more options that aren't tied to this expendable resource.
This revamping is extended to the new Warrior of the Elements subclass, as well as the other three Monk subclasses included in the 2024 Player's Handbook, Warrior of Mercy, Warrior of Shadow, and Warrior of the Open Hand.
Warrior of the Elements Monk Features

Elemental Attunement — Level 3
This feature is the core power of the Warrior of the Elements Monk. It infuses your Unarmed Strikes with elemental energy, extends your reach to 10 feet, allows you to output Acid, Cold, Fire, Lightning, or Thunder damage, and provides the potential to toss your enemies around the battlefield.
Monks who want to throw elemental hands as soon as they can and for as long as they can will be happy to hear that this is an extremely efficient feature. You can enter Elemental Attunement for 1 Focus Point at the start of your turn, so you're not wasting an action or Bonus Action, and this state lasts 10 minutes or until you have the Incapacitated condition.
A Disciple No Longer
This is a complete redesign from the previous Way of the Four Elements Monk in the 2014 Player's Handbook, which was built around learning various Elemental Disciplines, most of which came in the form of spells.
This change was meant to simplify the elemental Monk and make their Focus Point expenditure more effective. Instead of having to spend a handful of points every turn to use your elemental powers, you only have to activate it once, leaving more points to do more fun Monk stuff.
Unarmed Striker
Seeing as Elemental Attunement only works with Unarmed Strikes, this feature means your Warrior of the Elements Monk will be more likely to be an unarmed fighter rather than a Monk weapon wielder.
Striking out with with elemental-infused punches and kicks will be even more fun for the 2024 Monk, as their Martial Arts dice have been upgraded at each level. Now, level 1 monks dish out 1d6 with each Unarmed Strike. Their Martial Arts dice max out at 1d12 at level 17.
Reach Out and Grab 'Em
If you're looking to spice things up, the new Grappler feat combines exceptionally well with the Warrior of the Elements' extended reach and the 2024 Monk's ability to grapple using Dexterity. With the Grappler feat, you can attempt to grapple a creature you hit as part of the same Attack action you use to make an Unarmed Strike.
Seeing as being Grappled reduces a creature's Speed to 0, you can easily hold them out of reach and wail on them with your elemental strikes, which you'll now get Advantage on thanks to Grappler.
On top of being a mechanically powerful ability, this adds to the power fantasy of wielding the elements against your foes. You can flavor your grapples to be temporary ice chunks that hold your foes in place or swirls of air that catch your enemies and prevent them from moving.
Manipulate Elements — Level 3
This feature gives you access to Elementalism, a new cantrip in the 2024 Player's Handbook. This is kind of the utility knife of your elemental monk and will allow you to channel water, earth, fire, and air into minor effects. You can create a breeze, light candles, and conjure water when you need access to a certain element. Good for setting the mood, but you might need a bit more firepower if you're thinking of burning down a fortified stronghold made of stone.
Elemental Burst — Level 6
At the cost of only 2 Focus Points and a Magic action, you'll be happy you've got Elemental Burst when you need to break out the flashy, kaboom-y side of elemental combat.
This feature allows you to detonate a 20-foot radius sphere explosion of Acid, Cold, Fire, Lightning, or Thunder damage. Targets in the sphere that fail their Dexterity saving throw take damage equal to three rolls of your Martial Arts dice, which is a d8 at level 6.
Elemental Sustainability
While it might not be as damaging as a Fireball yet, this is just the beginning of your bursting career. As your Martial Arts dice increases, so too will the damage you output with this ability, maxing out at 3d12 at level 17. At that point, you'll have enough Focus Points to chuck more elemental blasts than a major-league pitcher.
Expanding Your Toolbox
Monks don't always have much to do when they're far away from their enemies or have ways to capitalize when their enemies have bunched up. Elemental Burst solves both these issues by giving you an AoE option with a 120-foot range, so feel free to sit in the backline and blast away if you're low on Hit Points.
You also have the solid upside of being able to choose from five different damage options each time you use this feature, which can help you avoid resistances and capitalize on weaknesses.
Stride of the Elements — Level 11
This upgrades your Elemental Attunement, providing a Fly speed and Swim speed equal to your Speed while it's active.
While this feature may mechanically give you a Fly speed and Swim speed, in my head, it's so much more. Part of the power fantasy of this subclass is allowing you to imagine your character incorporating elemental powers into everything they do. And, of course, this includes making an ice slide or using jets of fire to propel themselves across the battlefield.
Also, thanks to Unarmored Movement, this means you'll likely have a baseline Fly and Swim speed of 50 feet when you receive this feature.
Nice Moves, Twinkletoes
Having a reach of 10 feet on your Unarmed Strikes plus a consistent Fly speed will make you almost impossible to pin down in combat. Plus, you have Elemental Burst that you can rain down on your opponents from on high.
If your enemies ever get too close, you can use Step of the Wind and Dash away. You can even bring your friends along by level 10—no flying bison required.
Elemental Epitome — Level 17
This well-named feature is the epitome of your Elemental Attunement. It provides a defensive, movement-based, and offensive boost to your kit and really makes you feel like a master of the elements.
First, you gain resistance to Acid, Cold, Fire, Lightning, or Thunder damage and you can change which damage type your resistance applies to at the start of each of your turns.
Next, your Step of the Wind gets a buff, allowing you to travel 20 feet further (while flying or swimming, I may remind you) and dish out elemental damage equal to one of your Martial Arts dice to any creature you get within 5 feet of.
Last, when you hit with an Unarmed Strike, you can deal extra damage equal to one of your Martial Arts dice once per turn. Seeing as your Elemental Attunement comes with elemental damage baked in, this extra damage is the same type of element you've chosen.
Master All the Elements!
If you've ever wanted to ferociously attack with blasts of fire, weather damage like a rock, dance around the battlefield like a breeze, or hamper your enemies with water, the new Warrior of the Elements Monk in the 2024 Player's Handbook is for you. Its streamlined approach, combined with the buffs from the base Monk class, means you'll never run out of cool, elementally-fueled things to do. Plus, you'll get to channel all the elements, not just one, even if you don't have blue tattoos or glowing white eyes!
We're excited to share more of what you can expect from the 2024 core rulebooks, so stay tuned for additional guides previewing the 2024 Player's Handbook, which is releasing September 17!
Ready to see what's next for D&D? The 2024 Player’s Handbook, 2024 Dungeon Master’s Guide, and 2024 Monster Manual are all available for preorder on the D&D Beyond marketplace. Plus, you can save $60 and get exclusive digital bonuses when you preorder the Digital & Physical Core Rulebook Bundle!

Mike Bernier (@arcane_eye) is the founder of Arcane Eye, a site focused on providing useful tips and tricks to all those involved in the world of D&D. Outside of writing for Arcane Eye, Mike spends most of his time playing games, hiking with his girlfriend, and tending the veritable jungle of houseplants that have invaded his house.
Out of all the monk sub-classes this is hands down my least favorite among them. The theme is fine, and I can see people liking it, however here's some of my complaints:
Overall I really want to love this subclass. It's just a bit too static and sub-optimal pre level 11 for my taste. The way it clicks feels a bit undercooked compared to the other subclasses on a surface level.This opinion might change depending on external factors.
If the elemental adapt doesn't require a spell to take and got further improvements you could really double down on a single chosen element.If a background or feat got you a reliable way to figure out creature resistances you could really use your elemental flexibility to your advantage.
If there were character options you could take to augment the elemental gameplay and make it do more that could change the dynamic a lot. For example if you could cover something in oil as a bonus action and then ignite that with the ranged punch or burst feature. Or a feature that would interact with acid damage specifically. Some form of incentive to choose a specific element.
----------
Some of these complaints could be overcome by a good DM that factors in the class fantasy and creative players that augment the class in other ways. As is the pre 11 Warrior of the elements is just... not for me.
you’re forgetting that wizards can’t do much after casting a spell. Monks still have an unarmed strike bonus action and flurry of blows.
Elemental monks are attacking with elements not their arms thus, enemies are being grappled by elemental powers, not being grabbed by hands or arms.
It’s 1 focus point. It lasts for 10 min and you get all focus points back on a short rest or with the 2nd level feature. The point cost never increases either unlike Astral self monk. I think it’s just fine for all the benefits you get. Remember, you only get one subclass so complaining that two different subclasses get different parts of a feature is irrelevant.
Monks don’t get weapon masteries. You can grapple and shove with unarmed strikes using dexterity which you cannot do with weapons. Monks cannot use force damage with the extended range of elemental strikes. Extended strikes also allow you to push or pull a creature 10 feet in any direction or grapple at a distance while the monk is out of harm’s way with every single strike the monk lands.
I mean, this new subclass get some things from Sun Soul and Draconic, there's new things, but if they rerelease one of these subs in a new book they'll need to change a lot of things because of the overlap is too huge
Fair enough. The point was that you're loosing the versitility of weapons because you'd need to use unarmed for the subclass features. The traits on weapons would have just been bonus points. I stand corrected.
Any subclass of monk can do that, that's not a feature specifically for this subclass.
What makes you say that?
Elemental Attunement: "... It infuses your Unarmed Strikes with elemental energy, extends your reach to 10 feet... "
Empowered Strike: "...you can change the damage type of your Unarmed Strikes to Force damage. ..."
Both just augment your unarmed strike, it applies to your unarmed strike and doesn't really have any text preventing you from using both at the same time. I'm not seeing anything stating that you wouldn't be able to this. If you could direct me to a quote from either this or the general monk article from earlier that would be swell.
Yes, very good in a 1 v 1(or 2). Not a feature that blows me away though. Also not a feature that fufills the mystical elemental punch boi tm fantasy all that much. Still a decent mechancic.
-----------
None of my critiques is an attack on anyone by the way. If you feel like the level 3 and 6 feature tickles your itch that's all good. I personally just don't feel like I'd want to pick this subclass if the campaign doesnt extend past level 10.
Disagree, it doesn't seem unique at all and looks to be just a composite copy of Way of the Astral Self and Way of the Dragon. They are really hurting for design after removing Mike Mearls.
I was already excited for the monk based on the play test. This just makes me even happier.
Okay, I NEED to make a four elements monk once the 2024 PHB comes out. Monk is my favorite class, and I'm so excited that they took the crappiest subclass from 5e and made it into something absolutely busted.
You’d think making a Sorcerer article would be more important.
You do realize that this is not just fireball? It can be Acid, Cold, Lighting, or Thunder as well?
Well, my DM has a rule where every level you get extra movement so thats around 155 - 160 ft of movement. I don't know if anybody else does it like this, but that's what we do.
Ah cool “Warrior of the Astral Sol Dragon” my new favorite subclass
Maybe I'm missing something, but I don't see why they didn't just make the existing subclass better with stronger Disciplines/ making the spell ones available at lower levels, then add on the level three feature and make the other things Disciplines.
I'm probably wrong about this, but it seems like the problem with the subclass wasn't having too many options, but that the existing options were bad.
I hope you don't mind me commenting on your post, but I think what all the articles regarding the 2024 Classes have shown is that 100% of the people have not been 100% behind all of the changes (we are not, after all, clones of Mr. Crawford).
In addition, when people have been "negative" about stuff - perhaps, if we took the time to ask them, we'd discover that they had - as you suggested - given their constructive criticism in the UA questionnaires and they now feel hurt because they feel like they've been ignored (this seems especially true when reading some of the Ranger comments!) - surely we should be celebrating and encouraging the way that other members of our community have taken the time to respond with their suggestions and ideas.
Maybe, someone's comment will turn a "It's all ruined now! I'll never play a _____ every again, " into Heroic Inspiration and into a "Yes! If I make that one homebrew change, I totally get how I can play this class/subclass and make it awesome."
I wish you every success in your next amazing adventure!
Sláinte
One thing to note is that while this costs you an action, you can still attack 1 to 3 times as a bonus action since martial arts and flurry no longer require the attack action to trigger. It starts off as a 20 foot radius shatter for 2 focus and gets a little better on damage as you level up. Alongside flurry getting a third punch and the ability to regain all of your focus at the start of a fight once per day, it ends up being a solid addition to the subclass, especially alongside such a cheap flight.
"Monks cannot use force damage with the extended range of elemental strikes"
“When you make an unarmed strike, your attack is 10 feet greater than normal, as elemental energy extends from you”. This implies and was directly stated in the video that this reach is being caused by elemental energy. Elemental energies include acid, cold, fire, lightning, and thunder (as stated in the UA and the article). Bludgeoning and force damage are not elemental in nature therefore do not benefit from the additional reach.
That might be the issue exactly, because it's not in the article but in the video. I wonder how it's penned down in the actual book.
If it is as you say it's still bad, because then this subclass gets 0 compensation for loosing a level 5 base feature.
I disagree. Elemental attunement is superior in every way to empowered strikes. At level 3 you get 5 different elemental damage types, a 10 ft reach, and the ability to push or pull enemies with every strike. Only costs 1 focus point, it lasts for 10 min, and the ability improves as you level up yet doesn’t get more expensive. You also get to shove and grapple at a distance of 10 ft. What more do you need? You still get empowered strikes if you need to deal force or bludgeoning damage, you just don’t get the other benefits but it’s still something you can use in emergency situations and it’s free. What compensation are you looking for? Elemental attunement is just that good. If I am wrong and you can use bludgeoning and force damage with elemental attunement, that’s just extra icing on the delicious elements monk cake.