Best class ranking in Path of Exile 2

The greatest class to play in Path of Exile 2 have modified little since April 2025’s “Daybreak of the Hunt” replace, even with the arrival of the brand new Huntress class.

The ascendancy choices it launched for a handful of lessons provide new methods to play, however they don’t transform how every class features. Developer Grinding Gears additionally tweaked each present ascendancy, although these alterations are extra like minor stability adjustments. Lengthy-requested revamps for struggling ascendancies such because the blood mage are nonetheless a methods over the horizon.

Our replace checklist of the greatest Path of Exiles 2 lessons takes into consideration what number of viable ability choices a category provides you, together with ease of use and the way effectively they will maintain their very own in fight in opposition to mobs and executives.

Replace (April 10): Up to date our greatest class rating to consider new class Huntress, and the opposite varied class adjustments and additions as a part of the “Daybreak of the Hunt” replace.

Path of Exile 2 greatest class rating

Path of Exile 2 has seven lessons as of the early entry model’s “Daybreak of the Hunt” replace.

These vary from conventional sorts with a twist — such because the Warrior, a melee brawler, and the spellslinging Sorceress — to extra experimental lessons. The Witch, for instance, summons minions and has entry to highly effective debuff expertise, whereas the Mercenary controls the battlefield with a wide range of fast-firing, hard-hitting crossbow photographs. Path of Exile 2’s tackle the Monk is exclusive amongst that class model’s iterations all through video video games, and even the Ranger is rather more attention-grabbing than you would possibly anticipate from somebody who simply shoots arrows.

In brief, each Path of Exile 2 class has one thing going for it, although some are simpler to study and use successfully than others.

One of the best lessons in Path of Exile 2 as of the “Daybreak of the Hunt” replace are:

Path of Exile 2’s Mercenary is an distinctive class with excessive injury potential, early entry to highly effective combos, and a versatile playstyle that, regardless of some complexities, makes it comparatively straightforward to study for newcomers and people conversant in Path of Exile. The Mercenary fires high-powered crossbow bolts and rapidly will get entry to a variety of rather more attention-grabbing and helpful expertise, significantly in the event you select the brand new Tactician ascendancy.

They’ll launch fireplace grenades, freeze foes and shatter them, cut back enemy resistances, and even fireplace a steady stream of arrows to whittle down the hardest bosses (like Jamanra, the Abomination). Better of all, the Mercenary doesn’t need to concentrate on only one aspect. You may combine charged photographs with fireplace grenades and freeze arrows and nonetheless find yourself with a viable construct to hold you thru the sport.

The Tactician ascendancy provides a number of crowd management expertise to your roster, together with Proper The place We Need Them, which prevents enemies with the pinned standing from taking any motion. Strategic use of that with the Suppressive Hearth ability, which builds the pin impact whenever you use projectiles, means you may usually hold complete crowds of enemies from attacking. That’s along with self-buff expertise and a brand new help capability that raises social gathering member or minion assault energy. The Mercenary was already sturdy, and this new ascendancy simply made it even higher.

The Mercenary might need a robust set of expertise at their disposal, however getting used to them takes a good bit of apply. They burn by means of mana rapidly and want a cautious stability of particular photographs and primary assaults, and, greater than with different lessons, you additionally need to develop a sample of attacking and retreating to keep away from getting overwhelmed. The vast shot unfold for a few of the Mercenary’s particular expertise means it’s a must to be at shut vary for them to reliably hit, which places you prone to getting overwhelmed by mobs.

Nonetheless, for the number of talents the Mercenary can study, it’s price placing up with the training curve.

The Witch is an in depth second for Path of Exile 2’s greatest class, held again solely by some lackluster class ascendancy bonuses and some stability oddities that make a few of their expertise much less helpful than others. The Witch is, ostensibly, a minion summoner, however they will specialize right into a debuffer and a strong spellcaster as effectively. The witch can increase minions from useless enemies, explode corpses, unfold illness, forged fireplace and frost spells (and lightning, although it’s a bit weak in Path of Exile 2’s early entry stage) pin enemies in place, buff minions and ship them right into a frenzy — their equipment is phenomenal, even earlier than ascendancy buffs.

The Witch’s Lich ascendancy bundles in some extra, helpful buffs, together with enhancements to the vitality protect, the choice to curse hexproof enemies, and an choice to ignore mana in favor of life to get higher regeneration. Nonetheless, one of the best addition is the extra chaos injury the Lich Witch can deal, a injury kind that’s among the many strongest in Path of Exile 2’s present type.

The Witch can also be one of many best lessons to study, since you may let minions distract foes when you direct them from afar, which suggests the chance of getting overwhelmed is far decrease for the Witch. Infernalist Witches profit from a broad vary of stability adjustments as effectively, most of which enhance their fight efficiency with further vital injury or longer-lasting Hellhounds.

The Witch’s massive points — except for the Blood Mage ascendancy being severely underpowered at launch — are how lengthy it takes for his or her equipment to get attention-grabbing, and the way weak their minions are at first. It takes a number of ranges and a good bit of ability level funding for normal and summoned minions to do something approaching respectable ranges of injury and survivability. The Witch can complement the injury shortfall, however the extra significant issue is how rapidly minions die at decrease ranges. They respawn after a brief interval, however the Witch is weak in that point, particularly if there aren’t any corpses to govern. These points fade as you stage up and get entry to expertise resembling Bone Cage and supplementary summons, nevertheless it takes longer for the Witch to really feel good than it does with different lessons.

Professional tip: Don’t use your early uncut gems on skeletons and minions. The Witch wants spirit to summon them, and you may solely purchase spirit in sure methods, none of which can be found to you on the recreation’s begin.

Huntress makes their debut simply barely above Ranger thanks to at least one vital distinction: They really have viable melee assaults. That’s vital, because it means the Huntress — a squishy class that depends on overwhelming opponents or evading them — has the next probability of surviving in the event that they get surrounded by enemies.

Additionally they have probably the most diversified units of expertise within the recreation, and that’s earlier than even contemplating their ascendancies. The Huntress can concentrate on a blocking and parrying fight model utilizing bucklers to go away foes open to stronger assaults, or they will use elemental infusions, launch their spears, set off melee assault chains, after which use a ability to rapidly retreat to security the place they will begin throwing elemental spears once more.

The Huntress’ ascendancies are the unorthodox Ritualist and the extra conventional, DPS-focused Amazon. Ritualist Huntress has a novel model that buffs gem and attraction powers and grants random results whenever you slay or take up enemies, which makes for a distinct and unpredictable class, although the concentrate on equipment provides you freedom to decide on the way you wish to specialize.

The Amazon is a greater choice in order for you one thing that’s simply “Huntress, however extra highly effective.” Its nodes increase elemental assaults, allow you to create wounds that make enemies take extra injury, and enhance ability and motion pace, although the standout ability is Infuse Weapon. Infuse Weapon grants you totally different fees beneath sure circumstances that explode whenever you throw your spears.

The issue with the Huntress is that, even with evasion expertise and excessive survivability, they haven’t any technique to shield themselves.

Ranger would possibly initially seem to be a much less spectacular model of Mercenary, because it’s a ranged class that fires elemental arrows. Nonetheless, it’s one of the best class for crowd management and might make fast work of huge mobs and difficult bosses alike. Rangers have all kinds of expertise, from a poison shot that step by step saps an enemy’s well being — even higher is the obvious lack of poison resistance for many Path of Exile 2 enemies — to extra advanced combos, resembling one the place they stake a lightning arrow within the floor and might fireplace extra chain lightning photographs that ricochet off the stake and deal further injury.

Rangers may equip particular quivers that increase particular parts and add particular results, resembling including a pierce impact or igniting projectiles, and so they’re among the many greatest within the recreation at inflicting standing illnesses.

The Ranger’s solely downside is a scarcity of defensive expertise, and it’s an enormous one. They equip weaker armor and depend on evasive expertise to remain secure, however when enemies break by means of, they’ve few methods to remain secure. Cautious cooldown administration and investing in expertise resembling Vine Arrow, which slows enemy motion can mitigate a few of these points. Nonetheless, in the event you overcorrect and have multiple retreat capability, it takes away from how a lot injury you dish out.

Lastly, it’s price noting the category’s stability adjustments in Path of Exile 2’s “Daybreak of the Hunt” replace in April 2025 had been minimal, and have little severe affect over how both ascendancy performs.

Path of Exile 2’s Warrior launched in an odd place, although its most up-to-date ascendancy, Smith of Kitava, makes it a extra viable class, shifting it up forward of Monk following the “Daybreak of the Hunt” replace.

It excels as a defensive class and is the one character who can block enemy assaults. They stun. Their warcries provide potent self-buffs and, relying in your ability alternative, can injury foes. And so they hit arduous with two-handed weapons.

The issue is how comparatively weak and sluggish the Warrior is. It’s such a gradual class. Fundamental expertise take longer to execute and do much less injury than different primary expertise from different lessons — it takes a number of hits to down a easy Drowned within the prologue, for instance, the place the Witch can defeat a foe with two hits. Lots of the Warrior’s basic assaults have lengthy animations as effectively. Most of Path of Exile 2’s enemies are fairly cellular, so it’s straightforward to wind up after which utterly miss your goal, leaving your self weak as mobs make the most of your restoration time and swarm.

The place these annoyances are much less of an issue is with boss fights. The Warrior’s self-buffs, enemy debuffs,and bone-shattering assaults work significantly effectively in fights in opposition to massive, single targets, and the category is rapidly establishing a well-earned fame as Path of Exile 2’s boss killer. Even that perform has a caveat, although, as your construct choices are restricted, and most Warrior expertise are designed to work higher with The Titan ascendancy.

No less than, they had been till Smith of Kitava debuted. This ascendancy lets the Warrior bolster their elemental resistances by a considerable quantity, which is useful, however much more helpful are two talents that mitigate a few of the Warrior’s slowness. Towards the Anvil sees the Warrior hone their weapon for 3 seconds, after which the weapon will deal area-of-effect injury when it connects with an enemy. The opposite is Residing Weapon, which creates a clone of your present weapon that may combat alongside you.

It’s not fairly pretty much as good as enjoying in a celebration, however having a weapon-ally lets the Warrior deal with non-boss encounters rather more rapidly and effectively.

If “it will get good after 10 hours” had an image definition, it’d be Path of Exile 2’s Monk. It’s a enjoyable class to play with a extremely distinctive model and a few glorious talents — however you wouldn’t comprehend it initially. The Monk’s capability set is gradual and unwieldy till about stage 5, when Path of Exile 2 lastly begins leaning into distinctive ability results that increase how the Monk performs. Some expertise get extra highly effective when used a number of occasions in fast succession. Others grant the Monk’s primary assault or different assault extra results, resembling launching projectiles or, by consuming all of the Monk’s mana, turning their customary assault into one which units off electrical shockwaves.

Attending to that time is tough, although. Path of Exile 2 favors ranged playstyles and fast casting, and never solely does the Monk nearly all the time need to be up shut till stage 5, however their assault animations are gradual. They’re weak to taking injury earlier than they will even dish any out — an issue, given the sunshine armor they concentrate on — and might simply get overwhelmed.

Just like the Ranger, the Monk’s stability adjustments following the “Daybreak of the Hunt” replace are comparatively minor, and easily easy over a few of its ascendancies’ tough spots relatively than altering how they play in dramatic trend.

Sorceress is ok in Path of Exile 2. It’s high-quality! However not rather more than that. That is your customary set of magic expertise, with entry to the three main parts, some crowd management talents, and, ultimately, highly effective buffs that increase your spellcasting energy. It’s a robust class, however oddly balanced.

The Sorceress’ self-buffs and combo alternatives come a lot later of their class development, whereas different lessons – even the Warrior – get them nearly instantly. For instance, Sorceress solely has entry to a shatter combo at stage 5. Mercenary can do the identical factor at stage one.

The Sorceress’ greatest ache level, nonetheless, is their lack of defensive expertise. They merely can’t save themselves from something, and an evasive playstyle solely will get you thus far when the category’ stronger expertise take some time to ramp up.

A ultimate word is that Path of Exile 2’s “Daybreak of the Hunt” replace tweaks a couple of modifiers for each of the Sorceress’ ascendancies, however not in a means that considerably adjustments how they play.

For extra Path of Exile 2 guides, right here’s methods to ascend, methods to respec, methods to get spirit, and methods to commerce. Plus, right here’s a listing of all Trial of Sehkemas challenges and rewards, and guides on methods to full “Historical Vows” and beat Jamanra.