Best Warrior Beginner build in Path of Exile 2

Discover everything you need to know about Best Warrior Beginner Build in Path of Exile 2 including skills, stats and gear.

Path of Exile 2 has received an initial release on December 6, 2024. There is a total of 12 distinct Classes, each granting its own uniqueness in the game. Unfortunately, the Classes in Path of Exile 2 are gender-locked, meaning you cannot choose the gender of a specific Class as it is predetermined. Selecting the best beginner Warrior build is crucial at the early stages because gameplay depends on it. Explore the Warrior Build in Path of Exile 2 and see how he redefines early-access gameplay! In this guide, we’ll discuss the Best Warrior Build in Path of Exile 2 including the best gear and passive skills to use.

Warrior build in Path of Exile 2 Explored

This Warrior 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. Warbringer is the best Ascendancy to choose from due to stronger passive skills and unique mechanics that allow you to customize the gameplay. Armour and Energy Shield are the best defensive skills along with offensive skills like Physical damage and Critical hit chance.

In this full overview of the setup, we will explain what skill gems and skill links should you focus on. Then as well, we’ll see what is the best gear and how to get it for both the leveling and midgame. And then finally we will go over the passive skill tree, stats, and your skill rotations, so we would be able to get the highest damage possible, and much more.

Warrior Build Pros	Warrior Build Cons
High Survivability	Slower Movement
Stun Capabilities	Lower Damage Output
Versatile Weapon Use

Best Warrior skills and support gems in Path of Exile 2

Here are the best beginner skills and support gems for Warrior build that you should use in the initial stages of Path of Exile 2.

• Mace Strike
  • Brutality (Support Gem)
  • Martial Tempo (Support Gem)
  • Splinter (Support Gem)
• Hammer of the Gods
  • Lacerate (Support Gem)
  • Exploit Weakness (Support Gem)
• Sunder
  • Concentrated Effect (Support Gem)
  • Fire Infusion (Support Gem)
  • Supercritical (Support Gem)
• Infernal Cry
  • Premeditation (Support Gem)
  • Enraged Warcry (Support Gem)
• Ancestral Warrior Totem
  • Font of Blood (Support Gem)
  • Armour Breaker (Support Gem)
  • Font of Rage (Support Gem)
• Herald of Ash
  • Precision (Support Gem)
  • Vitality (Support Gem)
• Time of Need
• Scavenged Plating
• Berserk

Mace Strike

Strike with your Mace

Brutality (Support Gem)

Supports any skill that deals damage, boosting its physical damage at the expense of all other damage types.

• Deal no elemental damage
• Deal no Chaos damage
• Supported skills deals 35% more physical damage

Martial Tempo (Support Gem)

Supports attacks, causing them to attack faster.

• Supported Skills have 25% more attack speed

Splinter (Support Gem)

Supports skills that hit enemies, causing those hits to break armour on a portion of physical damage dealt.

• Break armour equal to 15% of physical damage dealt

Hammer of the Gods

Entreats the ancestors to crush your enemies, manifesting a massive hammer that falls from the sky onto your target, slamming into the ground after a short duration, and dealing immense damage based on your weapon.

• Your hit can’t be evaded
• While Dual Wielding, both weapons hit with 30% less damage

Lacerate (Support Gem)

Supports any skill that hits enemies, giving it a chance to inflict bleeding.

• 30% chance to inflict bleeding on hit

Exploit Weakness (Support Gem)

Supports any skill that hits enemies, causing them to deal more damage against enemies with broken armour but preventing them from breaking armour themselves. Cannot support skills that consume broken armour.

• Cannot break armour
• Supported skills consume the enemy fully broken to deal 50% more damage

Sunder

Slams the ground, creating a roiling fissure that damages enemies in a sequence of areas in front of you. A number of enemies hit by the wave will release a shockwave, damaging other enemies.

• Consumes Fully Broken armour on enemies to guarantee a critical hit
• Cannot break armour
• +0.2 meters to wave length for each wave in the sequence
• Wave causes shockwaves from up to 5 enemies in each area
• +1.4 seconds to total attack time
• 100% increased critical damage bonus
• Wave length is 0.9 meters
• While Dual Wielding, both weapons hit with 30% less damage

Concentrated Effect (Support Gem)

Supports any skill with an area of effect, causing that area to be smaller but any area damage it deals to be higher.

• 50% less area of effect
• Supported skills deal 40% more area damage

Fire Infusion (Support Gem)

Supports attacks, causing them to gain fire damage but deal less cold and lightning damage.

• Attacks gain 25% of damage as extra fire damage
• Supported attacks deal 50% less cold and lightning damage

Supercritical (Support Gem)

Supports any skill that hits enemies, causing it to deal more damage with critical hits but have less critical hit chance.

• 100% increased critical damage bonus
• Supported Skills have a 20% less critical hit chance

Infernal Cry

Performs a warcry, empowering subsequent attacks. Consumes all endurance charges to empower additional attacks. Enemies in the warcry’s area are destablished and will combust on death.

• Empowered attacks gain 25% of damage as fire damage per 5 power of enemies in range, up to 100%
• Empowers the next melee attack you perform, plus an additional attack per endurance charge consumed
• (2-38)% increased warcry speed

Premeditation (Support Gem)

Supports skills that can empower skills other than themselves, causing skills they empower to deal more damage.

• Skills empowered by supported skills deal 15% more damage

Enraged Warcry (Support Gem)

Supports warcries, causing them to consume rage to further boost empowered attacks.

• Supported warcries consume up to 10 Rage, causing empowered by them to deal 30% more damage

Ancestral Warrior Totem

Raises a totem that uses socketed mace skills. Cannot use channeling skills or skills with cooldowns.

• Totem uses its own weapon, dealing 6 to 9 base physical damage
• Totem duration is 8 seconds
• Totem base attack time is 1 second
• +1 to Totem Limit
• Totem uses its own weapon, dealing (6-141) to (9-212) base physical damage

Font of Blood (Support Gem)

Supports skills which create stationary objects. Objects created by supported skills generate a Font of Blood, creating an Aura which grants Life regeneration.

• Fonts of Blood from supported skills grant 2% Life Regeneration per second to you and your allies
• Objects created by supported skills create a Font of Blood with a 3 meter radius

Armour Breaker (Support Gem)

Attack with a forceful blow, knocking enemies back and weakening their armour.

• Hit break 4 armour
• Knocks enemies back on hit
• +2 to Melee strike range
• While Dual Wielding, both weapons hit with 40% more attack speed
• Hits break (4-5123) armour

Font of Rage (Support Gem)

Supports skills which create stationary objects. Objects created by supported skills generate a Font of Rage, creating an Aura which grants Rage over time, as well as preventing Rage loss.

• Fonts of Rage from supported skills grant 2 Rage Regeneration per second to you and your allies
• Objects created by supported skills create a Font of Rage with a 3 meters radius

Herald of Ash

While active, enemies you sufficiently overkill with attacks will cause an explosion that ignites nearby enemies based on the Overkill damage dealt.

Precision (Support Gem)

Supports persistent buff skills, causing you to gain increased accuracy while the skill is active.

• 30% increased accuracy rating while a supported skill is active

Vitality (Support Gem)

Supports persistent buff skills, causing you to gain Life Regeneration while the skill is active.

• Regenerate 1% of Life per second while a supported skill is active

Time of Need

Invokes divine blessings, periodically healing you and removing Curses and Elemental Ailments from you.

Scavenged Plating

Uses fragments of armour scavenged from enemies to bolster your own. Fully breaking an enemy’s armour grants you a stack of scavenged plating for a duration, and you gain armour and thorns per stack.

Berserk

While active, strengthens your Rage and grants you Life Leech based on your Rage, but causes you to lose Life while Raging.

• Grants (30-49)% increased Rage effect
• Grants 30% increased Rage effect
• Lose 0.1% of Life per Rage per second while not losing Rage
• Grants 20% of physical attack Leeched as Life per Rage

Best Warrior Stat Priorities

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.

Regular stats

• Strength
• Intelligence
• Dexterity

Strength is a crucial stat for Warrior because you’re leveling up the quality of gear while leveling up in the game. You get higher armour and energy shield stats for better survivability in combat. Focus on Intelligence too because your playstyle revolves around spamming abilities to enhance the damage and you get more Mana from Intelligence.

Defensive stats

• Armour
• Energy shield
• Regenerate life per second
• Maximum life
• Movement speed
• Evasion

Evasion is not a priority of Warrior, so armour and Energy Shield are the best defensive stats. The armour reduces the physical and magic damage you take and the Energy shield grants a regenerating shield that can tank some initial hits. Improve your movement speed to get more flexibility to evade attacks. The movement speed boost depends on the gear you equip and also through passive skills. Focus on improving health regeneration and maximum life. These stats are crucial to staying alive and being confident to jump into battle.

Offensive stats

• Physical damage
• Critical hit chance
• Stun Threshold

Prioritize physical damage and critical hit chance for the massive damage output. These stats will improve automatically when you get better weapons and armour. Boost your stun threshold as this is the key to this build.

Best Warrior Passive Skills

Path of Exile 2 offers passive skill nodes that we recommend to grab when you got a chance because they’re highly effective. The Warrior has stronger early options for the passive skill, enhancing the initial survivability. However, if you want to min-max more, they are easily respec-ed. Consider picking notable passives in the star-shaped cluster from your starting point. Select the passive nodes that boost your melee combat effectiveness, durability, and specific playstyle preferences.

• Brutal- 10% increased stun buildup, 16% increased melee damage, +10 to Strength
• Relentless- 15% increased armour, regenerate 0.5% of life per second, +10 to Strength
• Sturdy Metal- 80% increased armour from equipped body armour
• Smash- 20% increased melee damage, 40% increased melee damage against Heavy Stunned enemies
• Titan’s Determination- 25% increased stun threshold, 20% increased life regeneration rate while moving
• Reverberating Impact- Break 25% increased armour, 16% increased area of effect for attacks
• Devastation- 15% increased attack area damage, 15% increased area of effect for attacks
• Carved Earth- 20% increased totem damage, 6% increased attack and cast speed if you’ve summoned a totem recently
• Prolonged Fury- Inherent loss of Rage is 25% slower

How Skill Tree is set in POE2

For most new players, the passive skill tree is extremely daunting but actually, it’s quite simple. A character is granted one passive skill point every time they level up and are sometimes even granted more from completing certain quests. In extremely simple we have the intelligence section which focuses on spell damage, summoning, and elemental damage.

Next, we have the Dexterity section which is more focused on ranged combat, evasion, and speed. At the bottom left, we have the Strength section which is more melee and defense-oriented. Next, we’ve passive nodes and they are split into two categories. The small passives that grant minor bonuses such as a small increase in attack speed, spell damage, melee damage, or attributes.

Second, we’ve notable passives. These are larger passive points that grant greater bonuses than the smaller ones but they have stats on them that are often closely related to the small passives leading up to them. Think of these as checkpoints to work towards. On top of this, we have a third passive point but is not entirely compared to the two others. For the third one, we have the keystones which are build changing character defining that often provide a massive amount of power with a downside. However, these downsides can be reduced or worked towards.

Following a specific setup is extremely useful and understanding the passive skill tree can make or break your character. Investing more time in this specific section will upgrade your knowledge of the game.

Best Warrior Gear

Warrior is a little fleshy and a mixture of Energy Shield and armour can solve your initial problems in the game. Damage and attack speed are your bread and butter in the path of Exile 2 while playing as a Warrior.

Gear Slot	Gear	Requirement	Effect
Main Hand Weapon	Greatmace	52 level, 119 str	Adds (29-44) to (50-75) physical damage (155-129)% increased physical damage (23-25)% increased attack speed
Helmet	Advanced Elite Greathelm	59 level, 108 str	+(150-174) to maximum Life (45-50)% increased armour +(36-40)% to Fire Resistance +(31-35) to Cold Resistance +(36-40)% to Lightning Resistance
Body Armour	Advanced Full Plate	59 level, 122 str	+(175-189) to maximum Life +(43-46) to Spirit (45-50)% increased armour +(26-30)% to Fire Resistance +(36-40)% to Cold Resistance +(36-40) to Lightning Resistance
Belt	Heavy Belt	50 level	(20-30)% increased Stun Threshold +(150-174) to maximum Life +(225-255) to armour +2 Charm Slots +(34-36) to Strength
Gloves	Advanced Bolstered Mitts	55 level, 88 str	+(150-174) to maximum Life (39-44)% increased armour +1 to the level of all Melee Skills (14-16)% increased attack speed +(36-40)% to Cold Resistance
Boots	Advanced Bronze Greaves	51 level, 88 str	35% increased movement speed +(150-174) to maximum Life (45-50)% increases armor +(26-30)% to Fire Resistance +(20-23)% to Chaos Resistance +(36-40)% to Lightning Resistance
Ring 1	Amethyst Ring	20 level	+(7-13)% to Chaos Resistance +(150-174) to maximum Life Adds (10-15) to (18-26) physical damage to attacks +(34-26) to Strength +(36-40)% to Lightning Resistance +(21-22) to all Attributes
Ring 2	Sapphire Ring	12 level	+(20-30) to cold resistance
Amulet	Lapis Amulet	8 level	+(10-15) to Intelligence

How to Play Warrior in Path of Exile 2

Understanding your role as a Warrior in Path of Exile is crucial for every aspect. The Warrior excels in dealing heavy damage while lasting foes deadly attacks. Focus on both offense and defense strategies. Use the Earthquake or Ground Slam for dealing high damage with light and heavy attacks. Mauls and Greatswords are the best weapons to equip for physical and AoE damage. Utilize one-handed weapons paired with shields for balanced damage.

Improve your blocking endurance charges and resistances by focusing on passives. Weapons swapping is crucial to maintain flexibility. Use two-handed weapons for clearing mobs and one-handed weapons for tough boss fights. Do not spam skills and try to manage stamina to neglect being left vulnerable in a fight. Get close to enemies to enhance the damage but don’t get surrounded while playing a defensive role.

Improve survivability and damage outcome by timing mobility skills accurately. Use life nodes and physical damage while leveling. You can also equip the effective gear to maximize damage and durability.  Choose the Ascendancy wisely to modify your playstyle. Utilize support gems to increase your core abilities.

Warbringer Ascendancy for Warrior Beginner Build

Choose the Warbringer Ascendancy for this build to dominate any enemy coming in your path. The Warbringer harnesses powers from ancestral spirits to boost the Warrior’s capabilities. Capabilities of putting down Totems skills like Answered Call and Greatwolf’s Howl and Warcaller’s Bellow enhance the potency.  It also boosts the ability to detonate fallen foes and high melee damage as well. The best skills for the opt for the Warbringer are:

• Warcaller’s Bellow- Corpses in your Presence Explode when you Warcry, dealing 25% of their Life as Physical Damage. It improves the speed of the farm significantly because it’s a free detonate death that will be used automatically whenever you Warcrying. This is currently one of the strongest Warriors nodes overall. 
• Greatwolf’s Howl- Ignore Warcry Cooldowns. It basically removes your Warcry cooldown and can make your Warcry bonuses more consistent.
• Jade Heritage- It provides Jade stock every second, so while you’re not using the skill it is building up. You can lose stacks when you use it and get hit. You can hold the button at any time to stay in Jade Statue and receive significantly less damage.

Best Path of Exile 2 Warrior Build Summary

FAQs about Best Warrior Beginner build in Path of Exile 2 (POE 2)?

1. How important is gear for my Warrior build?

Gear in Path of Exile 2 is crucial for any build, including your Warrior build. The Gears determine how strong and survivable your build will be in combat. Gear in the Warrior build allows you to handle the tougher battle in Path of Exile 2, so always focus on improving gear through crafting, buying, or farming.

2. Can I respec my Warrior build if I make a mistake?

Yes, you can respec your Warrior build by refunding passive skill points through The Hooded One, an NPC located in the Clearfell Encampment. Complete the “Sorrow Among Stones” quest in Act 1, to unlock this feature. However, it will take you 2 to 5 hours, depending on your pace.

3. How do I acquire Warrior’s new skills?

The Warrior class in Path of Exile 2 has a wide variety of skills, primarily centered around elemental damage. Getting new skills involves obtaining skill gems that you can socket into the equipment to grant corresponding abilities. You can obtain the skill gems while progressing through the campaign or you can purchase the skill gems from the vendors. Use the support gems to increase the strengthen the effects of your primary skills.

4. What’s the best way to level up the Warrior build quickly?

The best way to level up the Warrior build quickly is by selecting skills, ascendancies, and equipment, and employing synergistic combat techniques. Enhance your gear and equipment and optimize the skill gem selection.

Looking for More Path of Exile 2 (POE2)?

Thank you for reading the Best Warrior Beginner build in Path of Exile 2 Guide. We provide the latest news and create guides for Baldur’s Gate 3, Path of Exile 2, Stalker 2, and more. Also, watch Deltia play games on Twitch or visit his YouTube channel!

• Path of Exile 2 vs Diablo 4: Which One Is Better For You?
• All Classes and Ascensions in Path of Exile 2 Early Access
• How To Play Path of Exile 2 Early Access
• Do You Need to Play POE 1 before Path of Exile 2