Are you planning to go into the Path of Exile? On the surface, the Path of Exile is not difficult to get started, but it is still difficult for people who are not familiar with this type of game, and there is a lot of content to dig deeper. Of course, once you get started, it’s easy. Here, we put together a series of Path of Exile classes guides and helpful tips to help some beginners get into the game quickly.
The Benefits of Each Class
When you start the game, you have the choice of six classes. Here is the breakdown of which stat or stats each class excels at:
• Duelist (Dexterity and Strength)
The Duelist specializes in swords or axes. A dexterity/strength hybrid swashbuckler type to deal with and avoid damage. His early skills allow him to choose between attack speed or raw damage.
Effectively uses shields, two-handed weapons (including longbows), or dual wield. Armor preferences include scale and brigandine. Male.
• Marauder (Strength)
The Marauder is tough to kill and deals heavy damage with mace-like weapons. He has access to powerful two-handed melee skills and defensive skills near his staring location on the Passive Skill Tree.
A pure strength class, typically seen as tank and melee monger. Plate mail armor pieces and tower shields are preferred. Male.
• Ranger (Dexterity)
The Ranger does all her damage with bows and is all about attacking fast from a safe distance.
A pure dexterity class that focuses on critical damage and evasion using ranged weapons, notably the bow. Gear preference includes leather and tunics. Female.
• Shadow (Dexterity and Intelligence)
A dexterity/intelligence hybrid that prefers pairing fast weapons (like daggers) with evasion and/or setting magical traps and mines. He can invest in Chaos magic and attack speed early in the game.
Armor preferences include jackets, spiked shields, and other dex-based items. Male.
• Templar (Intelligence and Strength)
The Templar uses big sticks to either bludgeon his foes or attack them with spells.
An intelligence/strength hybrid comfortable using a shield (as protection or a weapon) as well as magical abilities. Tank-like enough to be on the front lines. Chainmail and kite shields are suited to this class. Male.
• Witch (Intelligence)
The Witch battles with wands or scepters. She deals high spell damage with critical attacks and can invest early in minion and spell skills.
A pure intelligence class focuses on casting spells, be it elemental, chaos, disease, or creating minions. Typically wears robes and uses wands and spirit shields. Female.
After you play through the campaign and rescue the Scion, you will gain access to the seventh class in Path of Exile:
*Scion (Dexterity, Intelligence, and Strength)
A blank slate with equal access to all skill lines and attributes. It has a closer skill route to explore and mix playstyles but can dilute specialization much faster. Preferred gear depends on which skill direction is taken. Female.
Ascended Classes
After Act 3, players can unlock access to The Labyrinth, a random dungeon that unlocks the ability to advance one’s class and move into a specialty. All classes have three Ascendancy classes to choose from — except for the Scion, who only has one:
• Duelist
Champion: A combination of support and defense, can tank using buffs and debuffs
Gladiator: A supped-up Duelist, focuses on bleeds, blocking, and frenzy
Slayer: Focuses on power and sustainability, using life leech and stuns
• Marauder
Berserker: Focused on the fast battle, gains its power when killing and being hit
Chieftain: Focuses on fire damage and totems
Juggernaut: Focuses on defense and physical damage reduction
• Ranger
Deadeye: Focuses on projectile damage and AoEs
Pathfinder: Focuses on flasks, with skills granting bonuses during use
Raider: Focuses on maintaining buffs
• Shadow
Assassin: Focuses on offense and critical strikes
Saboteur: Focuses on traps and mines
Trickster: Focuses on getting in and out fast and using DoTs like poison
• Templar
Guardian: A combination of tank and support with passives that enhance and protect
Hierophant: Focuses on damage and defenses using spells, totems, and brands
Inquisitor: Focuses on elemental damage
• Witch
Elementalist: All things elemental
Necromancer: Focuses on minions
Occultist: Focuses on DoTs from cold, chaos, or curses
*Scion
Ascendant: Player’s choice — picks ascendancy class passives from base classes
Each class has its own Ascendancy tree, which you can only invest a few points into, these trees offer major playstyle bonuses.
If you want to aim for a specific playstyle and gain access to the skill tree of a specific Ascendancy class, you will have to pick its corresponding base class.
What is the Best Class in Poe?
- There is no better champion than Duelist and his ascendancy class Slayer. Due to very nice buffs for Cyclone skill the class is unstoppable. With proper itemization, it makes Cyclone Slayer the Path of Exile’s best build.
- Not the best but also a very good class is Shadow. He is hard to play, but his builds are very interesting and deal insane damage. He is perfect for mapping and currency farming.
- Very powerful is Scion. In the Legion league, the population of Scions is much higher than in the former leagues. I recommend at least try to play such a character.
Below, I will show you my Tier list of best classes in Poe.
S tier – Slayer
S- tier – Trickster, Assassin, Ascendant
A tier – Elementalist and Hierophant
B tier – Champion and Deadeye
C tier – Chieftain, Raider
D tier – Berserker and the rest of the ascendancy classes.
Which Class is the Easiest to Play?
The Ranger and Witch are safe classes, and their starting stats help you deal a lot of damage from far away. But as a trade-off, you’ll die very quickly if an enemy gets close to you.
Classes that start with a lot of Strength — the Marauder, Templar, and Duelist — have to fight enemies in close quarters during the early game. But despite being closer to the danger, they’re more survivable than the ranged characters above.
For beginners, we recommend the Marauder for melee damage or the Templar for melee and magic, since they’re both hard classes to kill.
The above is a guide to the Path of Exile and helpful tips. Please check it carefully. Of course, in addition to helpful guides and tips, we have plenty of PoE items for sale that are cheap, secure, and trustworthy. For details, click here.
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