Path of Exile has seven different classes to choose from. With so much playstyle variety, choosing one class over the others can be surprisingly difficult. To make your choice easier, we’ve compiled two of the best builds for every class in Path of Exile, with a good mix for new and experienced players alike.
Best Duelist builds in Path of Exile
The Duelist is the Strength-Dexterity hybrid class in Path of Exile. This class can wear heavy Strength armor, has a high attack speed, and gets evasion from Dexterity.
Explosive Arrow Ballista Champion build
The Champion Ascendancy class offers a great combination of offense and defense, maintaining a nearly unkillable status towards the endgame with consistent damage output. For this class, stick to the Explosive Arrow build with the Quill Rain bow to stack as many Explosive Arrows on your enemies as possible for maximum damage.
To maximize the output of Explosive Arrows, also invest in Ballista Totems to fire arrows alongside you, helping you spread out your damage to hurt enemies screen-wide.
Cyclone Slayer build
The Slayer Ascendancy class is a close-range fighter that excels with two-handed weapons. This class foregoes the defense of the Gladiator and goes all out with damage. Our Slayer build of choice is a Cyclone build that utilizes the two-handed weapon playstyle of the Slayer to its fullest by channeling the Cyclone skill.
This skill pulls in all enemies, dealing damage over time as long as you channel the skill. It is one of the best mappers in the game and very fun to play should you choose to run it.
Best Marauder builds in Path of Exile
The Marauder is the pure Strength class in Path of Exile. This class excels at using heavy Strength armor and is quite tanky.
Righteous Fire Chieftain build
The Chieftain Ascendancy class excels at Strength builds, and is one of the best classes in the game to utilize fire damage. As such, it only seems natural to focus on a fire build for this class, which is why we opted for the Righteous Fire build for our Chieftain.
This build focuses on one of the oldest Path of Exile skills, Righteous Fire. This skill burns everything around you, including yourself (albeit slower). With the Chieftain’s buffs to Strength and fire, we feel like this is the best class to wield holy fire. Just make sure you stack up on elemental defense.
Boneshatter Juggernaut build
The Juggernaut Ascendancy class is a master of defense and can tank his way up to the endgame. To support this playstyle, we have chosen the Boneshatter build, and while not the fastest, it is sturdy and provides infinite scaling over time.
Boneshatter damages both enemies and yourself, with its damage numbers ramping up the more you use it. Additionally, if you stun an enemy, you release a pulse that damages all enemies in the area. Stack up defense to minimize the damage dealt to you, and you should be good to go.
Best Ranger builds in Path of Exile
The Ranger is the pure Dexterity class in Path of Exile. This class uses Bows as their primary weapon to kill enemies from a distance.
Tornado Shot Deadeye build
The Deadeye Ascendancy class focuses on movement speed and maneuverability around the map, dodging attacks and firing screen-wide bursts of arrows to kill your enemies. To bolster that playstyle, we opted for a Tornado Shot build for our Deadeye.
Tornado Shot is a powerful skill that launches a projectile that splinters upon impact and hits multiple targets beyond the first. With enough investment into projectile speed, these Tornado Shots can clear enemies further away from your screen, making it one of the best mapper builds in the game.
Ice Crash Raider build
The Raider Ascendancy class offers even more maneuverability than the Deadeye, with a similar but faster playstyle. For your Raider to get even faster, slowing down her enemies is a substantial help, which is why we chose the Ice Crash build for our Raider.
Ice Crash is a skill that unleashes a blast of frost in front of you, dealing damage, slowing, and freezing enemies caught in its radius. Combining this skill with the Hollow Palm Technique and One With Nothing lets you control and destroy groups of enemies effortlessly.
Best Shadow builds in Path of Exile
The Shadow is the Dexterity-Intelligence hybrid class in Path of Exile. This class can fight with swift Dexterity weapons, lob traps, and set mines to deal spell damage.
Poison Blade Vortex Assassin build
The Assassin Ascendancy class focuses on close combat with critical strikes and poison damage to quickly take out enemies. To maximize the poison-damage playstyle, we chose the Poison Blade Vortex build for our Assassin. The build revolves around its namesake skill: Blade Vortex.
Blade Vortex launches a storm of blades that damage all enemies caught within. With your poison damage, you can quickly poison large groups of enemies, taking them down before they even reach you.
Hexblast Miner Saboteur build
The Saboteur Ascendancy class focuses on explosives and mines to deal damage, but you need to skillfully place those traps in appropriate locations for maximum effectiveness against groups of enemies. To make the most of them, we chose the Hexblast Miner build for our Saboteur. As long as you have a source of Hex available, this build will shred through enemies.
Hexblast deals Chaos damage to the target that increases if they were Hexed. Additionally, Hexed enemies spread their curse and damage to other targets, causing chain reactions of immense Chaos damage with your mine spam.
Best Templar builds in Path of Exile
The Templar is the Intelligence-Strength hybrid class in Path of Exile. This class fights with powerful spells from a distance and imbues their staves and scepters with magic damage.
Shockwave Totem Hierophant build
The Hierophant Ascendancy class in Path of Exile is the king of totem builds with several passive choices allocated to them. With their proficiency in totem-based combat, our chosen Hierophant uses a Shockwave Totem build to bring out the best of their skills.
Shockwave Totem is one of the best control skills in the game, dealing damage and knocking back all enemies with an emanating outward pulse. Not only does this skill grant you immense control, but once you acquire Astral Projector, its damage scales substantially for the endgame.
Storm Brand Inquisitor build
The Inquisitor Ascendancy class is pure offense. The class deals high critical strike elemental damage that largely ignores enemy resistances. To make the most of the class’s high damage, use Storm Brand build to spread out its damage among all enemies.
Storm Brand places a magical brand on the ground that can attach itself to enemies. When the brand activates, it continuously pulses lightning damage to enemies in the area. Constantly spamming Storm Brand while running will ensure every enemy around you meets a quick end.
Best Witch builds in Path of Exile
The Witch is the pure Intelligence class in Path of Exile. It’s great at high-damage spells and uses energy shields as its defensive option.
Poison Summon Raging Spirits Necromancer build
The Necromancer Ascendancy class focuses on summons and dealing damage from a safe distance while your minions shred everything around them. If a chill summoner playstyle is your thing, then this build is perfect, made even better with the Poison Summon Raging Spirits build.
This build focuses on one spell: Summon Raging Spirits. It’s a beginner-friendly build that can be active from as early as level eight and allows you to spam Raging Spirits to attack enemies all around you. Add some poison damage into the mix and you have a Path of Exile Summoner build that can carry you all the way to the endgame.
Arakaali’s Fang Occultist build
The Occultist Ascendancy class focuses on defense by using her energy shield to tank damage instead of her life. The playstyle of this class is slower than the other Ascendancies, but one build stands out over the others for its faster playstyle: The Arakaali’s Fang build.
This build revolves around a unique weapon called Arakaali’s Fang that scales up to deal intense amounts of poison damage while Aegis Aurora works as a defensive option. The build is strong enough for any new player to get into, so we recommend starting with this one.
Best Scion build in Path of Exile
The Scion is a hybrid class of all three attributes. This special class is the most flexible of the seven and has only one Ascendancy class.
Explosive Concoction Ascendant build
The Ascendant Ascendancy class is special because you can build it any way you want. The potential of this build relies on your imagination, and the Explosive Concoction build will point you in the right direction. The Scion loves their flasks and tossing them in an explosive cacophony will make short work of your enemies.
Explosive Concoction lets you toss a container of volatile fluid that explodes upon impact. The damage of this skill is increased even further by consuming charges from your Ruby, Sapphire, and Topaz flasks to add more elemental damage of different types to the Explosive Concoction.
All these builds get stronger over time and shine once you reach that coveted level 100. But before you get started on any of them, we recommend warming up with our beginner guide to Path of Exile. Enjoy your journey tearing through Wraeclast.
