Path of Exile 2 Early Access opens on December 6th, featuring six classes to choose from, including the agile Monk and the Witch with her Army of Undead. This guide will help you pick the best class for your play style.
Before we get into the specific class, it’s good to note that the Path of Exile 2 skill system is extremely versatile. In theory, any character can use any skill and reach any part of the game's massive passive skill tree. Your choice of class determines your starting point. If you're torn between two classes, you can create a hybrid with some creative thinking. Early Access features six classes with two specialized Ascension classes each. The final release will have 12 fully developed classes and three ascensions for each.
Monk
Let's dive into the first class in Early Access: Monk. These agile melee fighters use a Quarter Staff as their main weapon and most of their skills focus on lightning, ice, and wind elements. Monks use a mechanic called Power Charges, where killing enemies with certain skills empowers another skill. For example, the Killing Palm skill is a melee attack with a short dash that instantly kills low-health targets, generating a power charge. Using the Falling Thunder skill consumes the charge to expand its area of effect.
Another example of skill synergy is the Tempest Bell, which drops a massive bell on the field. Hitting it with attacks causes powerful shockwaves. If you hit the bell with an elemental attack, the shockwaves become imbued with that element, synergizing with shock or ice attacks. The Monk is highly mobile, with attacks that include movement, like Whirling Assault, allowing you to perform swiping attacks while moving forward. You can redirect your movement mid-attack, making it a powerful offensive tool and a way to reposition yourself.
Pick the Monk if you want a maneuverable melee character who can deal significant elemental damage. Each class also has two Ascendancy classes during Early Access, earned by completing Ascension trials found throughout your adventure. For the Monk, you can choose between the Invoker, focused on elemental damage, and the Acolyte, who uses a special resource called Darkness to increase damage or improve defenses.
Witch
If you want to delve into the dark arts, the Witch is the class for you. She can shoot bone shards, curse enemies to weaken them, and spread negative status effects with the Contagion spell. Her main feature is summoning minions to assist in combat, making her perfect for those who enjoy Summoner classes. Some spells, like Unearth, summon temporary minions from enemy corpses, which are quick to summon but strong in numbers. If an enemy was affected by a status effect, their corpse will spawn a minion that also applies that debuff.
The core of your army consists of permanent minions that automatically resummon after dying, allowing you to focus on casting other spells. These minions cost a special resource called Spirit, which functions like a budget for powerful buffs or permanent minions. You can summon various skeletal warriors and use the Bind Spectre spell to capture the soul of an enemy and use it as a minion. Permanent minions also have command skills, such as detonating other minions at low health, doubling as extra skills.
The Witch has access to one of the coolest Ascendancy classes in the game: The Infernal. This allows you to summon a hellhound that burns nearby enemies and transform into a demon, increasing damage taken but massively improving damage and cast speed. Alternatively, you can become a Blood Mage, spending health as well as mana for spells, with each enemy killed dropping life fragments to heal yourself.
Mercenary
The next class is the Mercenary. This crossbow-wielding class overwhelms enemies with a variety of gadgets, firing modes, and ammunition types. You can find crossbows that fire heavy single-target bolts like a sniper, rapid-fire like a machine gun, or even shoot a close-ranged blast like a shotgun. These firing modes can be enhanced with elemental ammunition, such as frost or incendiary, adding cool effects. For example, rapid-fire frost bolts leave ice crystals on the ground that slow enemies, while incendiary shots can ignite gas clouds from grenades. You can also set up an ice wall with a frost sniper bolt and then switch to piercing ammo to blow up the ice and deal massive damage.
The Mercenary rewards tactical play and good positioning. Crossbows can be modified with attachments like launchers that shoot explosive grenades or flashbangs. The Mercenary also has two interesting Ascendancy classes: the Witch Hunter and the Gemling Legionnaire. The Witch Hunter increases your defense against magic attacks and gives every enemy a 10% chance to blow up on death, doubled if they're a demon or undead. The Gemling Legionnaire allows you to equip more active skills and support gems, modifying those skills and giving you buffs for each gem slotted.
Warrior
If you're looking for a more traditional class, the Warrior is perfect. These bulky melee fighters have numerous AOE slam attacks to deal with groups of enemies and can play defensively by equipping a shield in their off-hand. Shields are not just cosmetic; you can raise your shield to block all frontal damage, and this applies to shield skills like a forward charge.
Warrior skills have great synergy. For example, you can create a magma fissure and then erupt it with a shockwave from another attack. You also have various war cries, such as one that buffs the next slam attack with an extra aftershock or one that marks nearby enemies to blow up on death. The passive skill tree offers the Giant's Blood passive, allowing you to wield two-handed weapons in one hand, enabling you to use a two-handed weapon and a shield or dual-wield two-handed weapons. This doubles the stat requirements of every weapon, so there's a tradeoff.
The Warrior is ideal if you want to be up front, slam down hordes of enemies, and be really tanky. The two Ascendancy classes are the Warbringer and the Titan. Warbringers can summon ancestral spirits to help in battle or encase your body in jade to tank incoming damage. The Titan is a full-on bruiser, giving every slam attack a chance to trigger an aftershock, increasing the stun damage of your attacks and your damage against stunned enemies.
Ranger
The Ranger is a class with finesse, using a regular bow and trading raw firepower for maneuverability. Rangers can fire basic arrow attacks while moving and have a wide array of elemental attacks. Shock arrows can bounce between enemies or be stuck into the ground like mines, exploding when another shock arrow hits them. Ice attacks are useful for slowing enemies and escaping danger, such as the Frost Escape skill, which includes a large leap backward.
Rangers can also invest in poison damage and get help from Mother Nature by placing special plants that latch onto nearby enemies, slowing them down and spreading poison stacks. Some attacks require skill, like Snipe, which needs to be drawn and released at the perfect time for a guaranteed critical hit.
For those who want to focus on sharpshooting, the Deadeye Ascension is ideal. It adds an extra projectile to your skills, increases movement speed while hitting enemies, and ensures your arrows never miss, eliminating the need for accuracy stats. Alternatively, the Pathfinder Ascension allows you to spread poison between enemies and use dangerous concoctions. However, these concoctions consume charges from your healing and mana flasks, so resource management is crucial.
Sorceress
Finally, the sixth available class in Early Access is the Sorceress, an elemental mage with access to a wide variety of frost, shock, and fire spells. These elements can enhance each other, such as a firewall boosting the damage of lightning bolts that pass through it. The Sorceress can also use Mana Tempest, creating an area that drains mana but empowers all spells cast within it.
The Sorceress has powerful trigger gems that allow certain spells to be cast for free after specific triggers. For example, the shock trigger gem can drop the powerful Comet spell for free after shocking a certain number of enemies. While not the strongest defensive class, spells like Ice Nova can help you escape danger. Equipping Arctic Armor, a buff that uses Spirit, forms icy shards around the Sorceress when she stands still, freezing attacking enemies.
Sorceress weapons, like staves, come with a free spell, allowing continuous casting even when mana is depleted. These spells can range from simple fireball projectiles to supportive abilities like Unleash, which triples the next spell cast. For those who want to focus on elemental mastery, the Storm Weaver Ascendancy class offers abilities like summoning elemental storms on a critical hit and converting other damage types to shock damage. For better survivability, the Chronomancer Ascendancy allows you to stop time, jump back in time to reset health and mana, and reset all current cooldowns with Time Snap.
