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Discover everything you need to know about the best Starter builds tier list in Path of Exile 2 and what makes them the best and worst one.
A starter build in Path of Exile 2 is a character build that is beginner-friendly and efficient to use at the start of a new league. You have limited gear and currency at the beginning, so creating the best build is essential that make you powerful. A good starter build must have low gear dependency, high survivability, fast clear speed, and simple mechanics. Choose builds that offer high durability if you’re new to ARPGs.
Most of the builds perform well without rare gear, while others may require specific items. You need to decide if you want ranged spellcasting, summoning minions, or melee combat. Choosing the best stats, ascendancy, gear, and passive skills is crucial for your start build. Ascendancy, gear, and passive skills are crucial for your build, as your gameplay mostly depends on them. In this guide, we’ll discuss the best starter builds tier list in Path of Exile 2 and how they can affect your gameplay.
Best Starter Builds Tier List
Here is the best starter build tier list in Path of Exile 2.
| Tier | Builds |
|---|---|
| S-Tier | Minions Infernalist, Spark Stormweaver, Amazon Huntress |
| A-Tier | Ice Strike Invoker, Lightning Arrow Deadeye, Lich Minion Witch |
| B-Tier | Poisonous Concoction Pathfinder, Warrior Warbringer |
| C-Tier | Witch Blood Mage, Ritualist Huntress |
| D-Tier | Sorceress Chronomancer |
S-Tier
Minions Infernalist
Minions Infernalist build is just OP all around. Particularly, if you are a less experienced player, it is genuinely hard to go wrong with Minions Infernalist. It is arguably one of the easiest builds in the game to understand how to scale your damage. It doesn’t rely on a bunch of different offensive stats, which makes getting resistances and luxury stats like increased Rarity of items. Finally, the Infernal ascendancy combined with the starting position on the passive tree allows you to achieve actual Overkill levels of tankiness without breaking the bank. There isn’t much that comes to mind for downsides of this build, other than if you just don’t enjoy the minion play style that allows you to go AFK during most content.
However, you can eventually work Blink even into this minion setup. At that point, there is a plethora of highly profitable content for you to participate in outside of just Waystones. These are the Trial of Sekhemas, the Trial of Chaos, Simulacrum, and all of the Pinnacle encounters. These arguably are all just as good or even better in some cases than farming Delirious plus breachway stones. For the campaign, I’d recommend running Arsonist Plus SRS. As you move into the end game, you can transition towards using Storm Mages just to apply your shock, plus Frost Mages for your damage and freeze. You can just go all out with your storm Mages, having some for just shocking and some for damage is also a fine choice.
Spark Stormweaver
There is an argument to be made that this build should be lower on the list compared to Ice Strike Invoker, Lightning Arrow, and Deadeye. This is due to its increased complexity and difficulty to gear, but 0.2 ends up hitting those other builds quite a bit harder than Sparks. If you happen to resonate more with a Caster build at heart and you’re not opposed to playing something a little more complex, then this would be perfect for you.
Spark Stormweaver, in my opinion, is one of the best all-around builds in the entire game. Outside of feeling a tiny bit weak right when you first get into maps and have no gear, it just doesn’t have many weaknesses to make note of. It has amazing clear speed and competes for the highest boss DPS in the game, not including any bugged interactions. This build has complicated but very potent defensive layers and even has decent mobility.
Throughout the campaign and early end game, you’ll be able to make quick work of most enemies by just utilizing Spark Flame Wall and Arc Mage. Eventually, you have the option to transition into also getting cast on shock with lightning conduit to kill bosses in under a second. This is highly effective when combined with high magnitude double shocks from your ascendency and very high lightning exposure. For defense, you’ll be starting out going pretty much all in on just maxing out your energy Shield. However, as you start to get a little bit more gear in the end game, you can move towards a Mind Over Matter, Eldritch Battery, and Chaos inoculation setup. Configure it effectively to make you feel nearly Immortal.
Amazon Huntress
The Amazon Huntress Starter build in POE 2 offers a dynamic and versatile playstyle that combines agility, ranged attacks, and elemental prowess. Skill selection is very crucial during the early stages as it determines your playstyle and combat strategies. Our build includes a Formed Spear and Leather Buckler to deal massive damage to enemies. Parrying the enemies’ attacks allows you to block any attack and counterattack with a powerful strike. Parry, Spear Stab, Disengage, Rake, Blood Hunt, Herald of Blood, Shield Charge, and Storm Lance are the best skills to add for this starter build. Investing in regular stats, defensive stats, and offensive stats is crucial as they complement your playstyle. However, this build requires proper aiming to attack the enemy with a spear. Mana Management is also crucial to maintain to frequently use the skills during combat.
A-Tier
Ice Strike Invoker
This build is an absolute Powerhouse and shines in a lot of the same ways that La deadeye does. It’s undoubtedly slower than the Dead Eye, but it ultimately pulls ahead due to just how easy it is to gear, how tanky it gets, and how incredibly strong it is throughout the campaign and early endgame. Most of this strength comes from the two ascendency nodes like … and Protect From Hard and Lead Me through Grace. Protect me from harm is less optimal as you start to get more gear, but I still believe in a league start position that it would be quite good. Lead Me Through Grace just makes getting your spirit up and persistent Buffs online so much easier.
It’s also worth noting that the monk has a slightly more optimal starting position on the passive tree than the ranger, in my opinion. This gives it an easier time picking up the most optimal combination of defensive, offensive, and crit-related nodes that this area of the tree has to offer. Finally, since you are making use of ice, which is an amazing skill, you’ll be freezing everything you come in contact with. This is a pretty underrated defensive layer and makes bossing much easier as well.
Lightning Arrow Deadeye
Even with the expected Nerfs to double Heralds that we all know are coming, this build would still land in the top tier choice. I’ve played both Lightning Arrow and Deadeye this league. Lightning Arrow has been a longtime staple POE skill for a reason. Mechanically, the way it clears and just automatically chains to all nearby enemies is quite satisfying to play with. Not only that, but the interaction between the orb of storms and the lightning rod creates massive boss DPS.
Similar to the Pathfinder, you’ll still have access to all of the good Evasion and Energy Shield nodes in the passive tree. This allows you to be incredibly tanky with a hybrid Ev setup. Eventually, in the end game, you can look to transition towards things like cast on shock with ball lightning for even more boss DPS. You can get breach Rings, plus an Ingenuity, and finally, even ramping up your crit chance and crit bonus to scale your damage to the next level.
Lich Minion Witch
The Lich minion build in POE 2 covers all the progression from the league starter starter setup to an endgame setup. This build focuses on chaos damage scaling and minion synergy. Opt for scepters with high Spirit modifiers and minion-related stats. Our build includes Withered Wand and Rattling Sceptre as the weapons to deal massive damage. The ich requires more strategic gearing and passive allocation than the Infernalist ascendancy.
You can unlock a powerful and rewarding summoner playstyle if you manage mana, leverage critical strikes, and make excellent gear choices. Skeletal Sniper, Skeletal Arsonist, Skeletal Cleric, Shield Charge, Pain Offering, Despair, Contagion, Essence Drain, Convalescence, and Dark Effigy are the best skills for the Lich minion build. Dexterity, Strength, and Intelligence are the best regular attributes to focus on as they can highly complement your build. However, this build is slower in the early game and depends on gear.
B-Tier
Poisonous Concoction Pathfinder
This build is just so incredibly League-friendly that I had to give it the poisonous concoction. It’s super simple to get this boat online, primarily just requiring some basic levels of projectile skills. It can come from your amulet, quiver, and bow. This can boost your damage with the eventual plan to transition into a nicely corrupted Widowhail and God quiver. This allows you to scale your damage for deep-endgame content.
Not to mention, you’ll also be getting your six-link concoction for free upon hitting level 90, which is super nice. You also have access to some of the best evasion and energy Shield nodes on the entire tree, so it would be very easy to get incredibly tanky with a hybrid EV setup. The build just naturally does high boss DPS, and their map clear is also decently solid. This is due to the ascendancy node that automatically spreads your poison. Finally, since this build does not rely on double Heralds and isn’t blatantly overpowered in the current meta, I find it very unlikely that it will receive any Nerfs in 0.2.
Warrior Warbringer
This Warrior Warbringer build in Path of Exile 2 focuses on the strength attribute that grants raw and massive damage. Shields, maces, and their two-handed counterparts that are strength-stunned are the primary weapons for this Class. Use Mace Strike, and Sunder for general clearing, and Herald of Ash will do loads of work. We include skills like Hammer of the Gods, Sunder, and Infernal Cry to make your character stronger and dominate anything coming in your path. Use Stampede for general clearing and Ancestral Warrior Totem to fully break enemies’ armour.
Warrior in Path of Exile 2 excels in melee combat, emphasizing strength and durability. Focus on stats that enhance your melee damage, boost Mana, and improve attack speed and accuracy. Your defensive stats must focus on reducing physical and magical damage taken and enhancing the health pool, along with the regenerating buffer. The offensive stats should increase your damage output, attack power, and control during combat.
C-Tier
Witch Blood Mage
The Blood Mage in Path of Exile 2 taps into Life energy to make sacrifices for incredible power. Blood Mages offer vast amounts of vitality and use spells with their own Life. They can deal massive damage and can withstand punishment as well. They focus on controlling Life energy to amplify spells and boost combat capabilities. However, it requires sacrificing portions of the character’s Life to cast powerful spells.
We include skills like Punch, Spark, and Flame Wall in this Witch Blood Mage build to make your character stronger. Lupine Sceptre is your primary weapon in this build as it increases the skill level of minions in combat. This Witch Blood Mage build depends on archetypes like spellcaster, summoner, and chaos damage dealer. As a Witch, you depend on Energy Shield for survivability along with other layers of defense. Fire, Cold, and Lightning Resistances are essential to survive elemental damage. Life adds extra survivability by stacking life rolls on gear.
Ritualist Huntress
The Ritualist Huntress starter build in Path of Exile 2 includes Explosive Spear and Lightning Spear with a bit of Spear Stab. This unique setup offers a hybrid playstyle where the Ritualist uses a Spear to eliminate enemies while starter up. The Skills you choose, along with the Support Gem, highly affect the efficiency of your character during combat or exploration. Investing in the right attributes like Dexterity, Strength, and Intelligence is important as they make your character much more powerful.
The Ritualist Huntress build in POE 2 provides unique playstyles and mechanics by combining ranged attacks, melee combat, and minion support. Our build includes weapons like the Swift Spear to deal massive damage to enemies. Pairing this weapon with skills like Explosive Spear allows you to deal additional damage and explode at the end of its Detonation Time. Explosive Spear, Lightning Spear, Spear Stab, Barrage, Thunderous Leap, Herald of Thunder, Wild Dancer, Tame Beast, and Disengage are the best skills that we added for this Ritualist Huntress starter build.
D-Tier
Sorceress Chronomancer
The Sorceress is one of two intelligence starting classes in Path of Exile 2. This class is heavily focused on elemental damage, elemental ailments, mana, and energy shields, making it somewhat akin to the Elementalist of Path of Exile 1. Chronomancer offers a devastating playstyle, enabling reset cooldowns, freezing enemies, and rewinding their own state in the game. Players can adapt to various combat scenarios by resetting skill cooldowns and immobilizing enemies. We include skills like Hammer of the Gods, Stampede, and Seismic Cry to deal with any threat in combat as they boost your attacks and damage. Expert Leaden Greathammer is your primary weapon that increases your attack speed and physical damage.
FAQs About Best Starter Builds in Path of Exile 2
Which is the best class to choose for your starter build in Path of Exile 2?
The Huntress is the best class for your starter build in Path of Exile 2 because it excels in both ranged and melee combat. This allows you to have a flexible and dynamic approach to battles.
Which is the best ascendancy for a starter build in Path of Exile 2?
The Blood Mage is the best ascendancy for a starter build because it taps into Life energy to make sacrifices for incredible power. Blood Mages offer vast amounts of vitality and use spells with their own Life.
Which is the best starter build in Path of Exile 2?
Minions Infernalist is the best starter build on POE 2 because it allows you to deal massive damage in combat. It doesn’t rely on a bunch of different offensive stats, which makes getting resistances and luxury stats like increased Rarity of items.
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