What are the best Path of Exile 2 builds? While the game is still in early access, we’ve put together the strongest builds we’ve found so far to get you going in Grinding Gear’s massive, often complicated ARPG.
There’s a lot to learn about Path of Exile 2, so be sure to check out our more specific guides on each of the Path of Exile 2 classes like the Mercenary and the Sorceress, where we’ve also listed all the available skills. Using our PoE2 builds, you don’t have to worry about potentially picking the wrong skills, ascendancies, and passives as we’ve got you covered from all angles.
Best Path of Exile 2 builds
Here are some of the best PoE2 builds:
- Stormweaver Sorceress
- Summoner Witch
- Infernalist Witch
- Invoker Monk
- Gemling Legionnaire Mercenary
Stormweaver Sorceress
Hardcore players may remember the Comet Sorceress that dominated the meta at launch, before being promptly nerfed into the ground. If you want to experience a taste of that power, Ky’s Cast on Minion Comet Stormweaver build manages to recreate this classic setup to destroy anything in your path by raining down a barrage of deadly comets.
The game plan is simple: hit minions with Fireball to trigger Raging Spirits, and once the spirits either expire or die, they automatically cast Comets and Frost Walls onto the battlefield. Once you cast multiple Fireballs, the screen quickly fills up with damaging spells searching for targets to eliminate.
It’s worth noting that this is an endgame build, so you’re going to have to wait until you’re close to the end of the campaign before you take a look at this setup. This build requires you to acquire specific pieces of equipment to trigger key effects, so be sure to double-check your loadout if you’re struggling to get the most out of this setup.
The best Stormweaver Sorceress build is:
- Key skills: Fireball, Raging Spirits, Frost Wall, Comet.
- Key support gems: Comet, Spell Echo, Magnified Effect, Frost Wall, Fortress, Glacier, Scattershot, Unleash, Ricochet, Infernal Legion, Feeding Frenzy, Minion Instability.
- Key passives: Energy Shield, Calibration, Desensitization, For the Jugular, Deadly Force.
Stormweaver Sorceress key skills and support gems
For the first Cast on Minion Death section, make sure you’re using Comet, Spell Echo, and Magnified Effect. This will cast Comet multiple times thanks to Spell Echo, and Magnified Effect increases Comet’s AoE range to deal more damage. As for the second Cast on Minion section, go for Frost Wall to summon protective walls, then follow this up with Fortress and Glacier to strengthen them.
With Fireball, we need Scattershot to split the projectile into multiple pieces, as well as Unleash to trigger Fireball’s effect again, and Ricochet to increase the chances of Fireball hitting a target. Finally, equip Infernal Legion to Raging Spirits to help your minions deal burn damage, Feeding Frenzy to deal more damage overall, and Minion Instability to make them explode when they’re close to dying.
Stormweaver Sorceress key passives
As with most Sorceress builds, you need to grab many Energy Shield buffs like Calibration to keep your character alive. We’re mainly looking for key passives that increase the amount of damage dealt by our main spells, so target paths that grant increased critical damage and pick up Desensitization, For the Jugular, and Deadly Force.
Summoner Witch
The Summoner Witch is a necromantic build that raises an endless army of minions between you and your foes, letting you dish out some serious damage from a vantage of relative safety.
The Summoner Witch is the ideal build for the early game, especially for a beginner. The key skills and skill tree passives required to get started are available at a low level, and the minions themselves are a source of consistent protection against heavy hitters.
Your main priority is to ensure those minions revive at a consistent rate to avoid sole reliance on the Witch’s own projectiles. If you’d rather become less reliant on your minions as you refine your build, we recommend respeccing to the Infernalist Witch below.
The best Summoner Witch build is:
- Key skills: Raging Spirits, Flame Wall, Unearth, Enfeeble, Essence Drain, Minion Instability, Fire Infusion, Lacerate, Impending Doom, Decaying Hex, Minion Pact
- Key persistent Spirit buffs: Skeletal Warrior, Skeletal Frost Mages, Skeletal Arsonist
- Key passives: Spell and Minion Damage, Raw Destruction, Power of the Dead, Minion Life, Minion Revive Speed, Gravedigger, Minion Revive Speed, Minion Attack and Cast Speed, Restless Dead
Summoner Witch key skills
The backbone of the Summoner Witch’s attack rotation is a two-hander of Raging Spirits and Flame Wall. This lets you summon ten flying skulls instantaneously, while Minion Instability and Fire Infusion bolster their fire damage output and cause them to explode at low life, resulting in persistent AoE bursts across the battlefield.
Raging Spirits cannot be targeted, but they also don’t provide a solid line of defense since enemies can walk right through. For that, we’ve opted for Unearth. This ability’s initial AoE is a great emergency button for crowd control when you’re overwhelmed, and summons up to ten bone constructs immediately afterwards. Bolster Unearth with Brutality and Lacerate to boost the physical damage of your bone constructs and increase their chance to inflict bleed damage over time.
Offensive buffs are all well and good, but ensuring the survivability of your minions is a necessary component of this build. Enfeeble is an excellent curse debuff that saps enemy damage in a particular area for over six seconds. Decaying Doom causes each foe afflicted to explode once the curse expires, while Decaying Hex inflicts damage over time to those cursed enemies.
Finally, our Summoner Witch needs the strength to deal with any threats that come her way. We’ve opted for Essence Drain for long-range projectiles paired with Minion Pact, which drains the life force of minions to bolster your damage and accelerates all the detonation effects outlined above.
Summoner Witch persistent Spirit buffs
We recommend Skeletal Warriors as your main persistent Spirit buff for a small platoon that can defend you at a close range. You can trade these out for Skeletal Frost Mages or Skeletal Arsonist if you need crowd control or blast AoEs in specific encounters at higher levels.
Summoner Witch key passives
The Summoner Witch’s key passives all feed into the power and survivability of her minions. Thankfully, most of these nodes are adjacent to one another on the skill tree, and lead into higher utility nodes like mana regeneration and cast speed, which you’ll feel the benefit from unlocking at higher levels.
Infernalist Witch
The Witch differs from its Path of Exile predecessor as it separates elemental damage skills into an entirely different class called the Sorceress. Luckily, the Witch and the Sorceress can swap skills freely, as they simply need the right amount of Intelligence to use them.
The Infernalist Witch is also the easiest build to make and to use. You don’t have to do too much preparation for this build, as you’re mainly looking to pick fire skills. In the early game, the Witch’s minions will help keep you alive as you learn the ropes. As you approach the endgame content, you can pivot into fire-related skills to make this a glass cannon capable of taking on any challenge.
Once you obtain your Infernalist Path of Exile 2 Ascendancy, you’re able to transform into a demon and even summon a Hell Hound to fight alongside you.
The best Infernalist Witch build is:
- Key skills: Skeletal Sniper, Flame Wall (Sorceress), Incinerate (Sorceress), Flammability (Sorceress), Detonate Dead, Firestorm (Sorceress), Demon Form, Summon Infernal Hound
- Key persistent Spirit buffs: Grim Harvest, Raging Spirits (Sorceress), Cast on Ignite (Sorceress)
- Key passives: Intense Flames, Echoing Flames, Burnout
Infernalist Witch key skills
For the early game with this build, you’re going to want to take a few skills from the Sorceress/Elemental group as you’re primarily focused on dealing fire damage. Still, you want a few summoning skills to keep on hand as they help tank hits, so we’d recommend grabbing Skeletal Sniper and Flame Wall. Skeletal Sniper’s arrows gain extra fire damage if they shoot through the flame wall, keeping things on point.
When you hit the mid-game, Incinerate and Flammability will comprise the bulk of your damage output, as the latter lowers fire resistance of enemies. Finally, when you gain your Infernalist Ascendancy, you’ll rely on Demon Form, which greatly increases your spell damage output, and your Infernal Hound to keep you alive.
While we found these fire skills the most potent, feel free to experiment with Ember Fusilade, Fireball, and the like, as Grinding Gear Games is constantly updating skills.
Infernalist Witch key persistent Spirit buffs
Grim Harvest and Raging Spirits are both great choices for this build. The former greatly strengthens your Energy Shield by powering up based on the number of dead enemies are around you. The latter spawns fiery skulls that attack foes when you use a fire skill, making skills like Flame Wall all the more potent.
However, later in the game you’re going to want to slot a skill into the Cast on Ignite persistent trigger like Firestorm. Doing so will automatically cast a Firestorm when after you Ignite foes enough times, turning you into a chaotic fireball of death.
Infernalist Witch key passives
Remember, the sprawling passive tree has a search feature in the top-right corner. Grinding Gear Games calls the larger nodes on the passive tree ‘notables’ and this guide details a few you want to build toward as you level up.
With the Infernalist Witch, aim for skills that improve your fire-focus. Build toward Intense Flames which increases your damage against enemies you’ve lit on fire. Echoing Flames is located to the right down a different path and also increases your damage if you’ve Ignited an enemy recently – see a pattern?
Finally, you’ll want to build up to the Burnout notable and the Cremation and Volcanic Skin notables along with it, taking whatever buffs you can to your Energy Shield along the way, such as Refocus.
Invoker Monk
If you like to stay up close and personal while having speed and style in equal measure, the Monk is for you. Monks rely on both Cold and Lightning damage to take down foes, making them rather versatile, along with combo systems that make them more dynamic than the other melee class in early access, the Warrior.
With the Invoker Ascendancy, this critical-hit focused build excels in melee combat and elemental damage. You will want to focus on either Cold or Lightning damage, but until the endgame, it’s not a bad idea to focus primarily on one while dipping your toes into the other. The jury is still out as to which element is better, but we personally found Lightning more potent.
The best Invoker Monk build is:
- Key skills: Falling Thunder, Tempest Bell, Siphoning Strike, Gathering Storm, Unbound Avatar, Elemental Expression
- Key persistent Spirit buffs: Herald of Thunder, Elemental Invocation
- Key passives: Alternating Current, Deadly Force, Echoing Thunder, Harmonic Generator, Exposed to the Storm
Invoker Monk key skills
For the early game through to the Cruel difficulty, focus on using Falling Thunder to whack Tempest Bell, sending out Lightning shockwaves to decimate mobs. As you’re applying Shock to enemies, be sure to have Siphoning Strike on hand to spike damage on them, consuming the Shock and dealing AoE damage when Tempest Bell isn’t up quite yet.
For the mid to late-game, you shift to managing Gathering Storm along with these skills for more damage and to generate Shocked Ground, which will further help you build Shock on foes to consume.
With your Ascendancy unlocked, Unbound Avatar grants Unbound Fury every so often to vastly improve your Lightning strikes; furthermore, with Dexterity as your highest stat, Elemental Expression will trigger an arcing bolt of lightning more often than the other damage types it can deal.
Invoker Monk key persistent Spirit buffs
You’re going to want Herald of Thunder to buff up your attacks with spreading lightning bolts when you kill Shocked enemies. This skill overlaps somewhat with Siphoning Strike, so consider retiring Siphoning Strike later on in favor of this to save mana.
Next, pick up Elemental Invocation. When you build Energy by applying Shock to enemies, you can use this buff to trigger the socketed skill. We haven’t found a clear-cut answer as to what to slot here, but as Path of Exile 2 is so open, feel free to experiment with your Lightning skills.
Invoker Monk key passives
The first passive you should aim for is Alternating Current to keep your mana topped up and buff the Shock you apply. Then you’ll want to snake up toward Echoing Thunder and Deadly Force, taking the surrounding nodes to greatly improve your damage output and critical hit chance.
From there, you’re going to want to take Harmonic Generator. We recommend coming up to it from beneath, passing by the likes of Lust for Power and Subterfuge Mask to grab it. Finally, take Exposed to the Storm, heading there from the Deadly Force area of nodes.
Gemling Legionnaire Mercenary
By far the most complicated Ascendancy and class. We’re not going to pretend we’ve perfected the Gemling Legionnaire Mercenary, but we certainly have tried. If you want to experiment with plenty of different options rather than hyper-focus on a specific damage type – in other words, play a Jack of All Trades – then consider giving this build a shot.
The Gemling Legionnaire Mercenary is for Path of Exile 2 experts who want to experiment. As you can take any skill from any class in Path of Exile 2, the bonuses gained from the Gemling Legionnaire Ascendancy make mixing and matching class skills much easier. Combine this with the ability to automatically weapon swap to the applicable weapon when using said skill, and the possibilities are endless.
The best Gemling Legionnaire Mercenary build is:
- Key skills: Permafrost Bolts, Glacial Bolt, Cluster Grenade, Earthquake (Warrior), Shockwave Totem (Warrior) Leap Slam (Warrior), Stampede (Warrior)
- Key persistent Spirit buffs: Herald of Ice (Monk), Overwhelming Presence
- Key passives: + Strength, Ricochet, Overwhelm, Instant Reload Initiative, Jack of All Trades
Gemling Legionnaire Mercenary key skills
This build focuses on freezing foes to keep them in place while using powerful Warrior skills to both move around the map and deal massive AoE damage. For much of the early game, you’re going to use two skills: Earthquake from the Warrior/Mace group and Permafrost Bolts from the Mercenary. Due to the Gemling Legionnaire passives, it’s better to go with the Mercenary class and take Warrior skills like this. These include allowing you to use your highest attribute to satisfy Support Gem requirements, giving you an additional three skill slots, and lowering the cost of skills overall.
In the mid-to-late game, add in Glacial Bolt to spawn Ice Crystals that explode when destroyed and will allow you to control the battlefield. This gives you the chance to slam down Earthquakes and step away while you wait for them to explode more easily. Leap Slam allows you to move around and hit other enemies, dropping an Earthquake and Shockwave Totem, before Leap Slamming to safety.
When you’re heading into the endgame, Stampede is a great skill to pick up as it has you charging through enemies to safety, allowing you to reload your Crossbow and continue slowing them down with Permafrost Bolts. Throw in Cluster Grenade, and you’ve gotten potent crowd-clearing abilities galore.
The sky is truly the limit with this Ascendancy, so feel free to experiment with Cold Monk skills, or pick up Intelligence and grab some Sorceress’ ice skills to freeze foes in their tracks.
Gemling Legionnaire Mercenary key persistent Spirit buffs
Take the Herald of Ice buff to cause some icy explosions, spreading Frozen buildup whenever you kill an enemy. Next up, grab Overwhelming Presence to make it easier to Stun using Warrior skills and apply Frozen with Mercenary skills. For this build, the persistent buffs aren’t rocket science.
Gemling Legionnaire Mercenary key passives
For this build to work with Warrior skills, you’re going to want to pick up as many nodes that give you extra Strength. Take Ricochet to power up your projectile attacks before heading over to the Overwhelm tree to greatly increase your damage with two-handed Maces, which you’ll be borrowing from the Warrior.
Instant Reload Initiative is a great skill to take before working your way up to the Jack of All Trades notable and all the powerful attribute-granting nodes around it. This will open up many options as you head into the endgame to pull from every other class in the game.
And that’s all we have for you for the best builds in Path of Exile 2 as of the early access release. If you’re still not sure which build to pick, give our best Path of Exile 2 classes guide a read to see the other options. Don’t forget to check out our Path of Exile 2 Twitch drops guide to earn some cosmetics just for watching streams.
