Path of Exile 2 Warrior class overview: Skills, Ascendancies, and playstyle
Warrior is one of the newer classes in Path of Exile 2, focusing on the martial aspects of combat and being a frontline unit. Warrior starts as a mace and shield-wielding class that can quickly switch into any melee-focused playstyle, thanks to its position on the Passive Skill tree and its access to various devastating melee-oriented Active Skills.
This article explains all the tools available to Warrior, what Skills the class gets access to, what Ascendancies players can opt for, and an eventual path towards the endgame.
Path of Exile 2 Warrior playstyle overview
Path of Exile 2's Warrior class is centered around relatively slow but highly damaging melee attacks, thanks to its starter weapon choice being a One-handed Mace.
Accompanying this, Warriors can access an Off-hand Shield that gives the class multiple Shield-based Skills, which are a combination of offense and defense, providing great utility all around.
Warriors start in the left-bottom quadrant of the Passive Skill tree, where the Marauder from Path of Exile starts their journey. Consequently, they have immediate access to both damage-amplifying and defense-boosting passives, which can help immensely during Path of Exile 2's early campaign progression.
A significant part of Warrior's kit relies on inflicting high stun ratings, which can be leveraged by attacks such as Boneshatter. In fact, the early game heavily relies on using the primer-detonator gameplay style of Rolling Slam + Boneshatter, or Shockwave Totem + Boneshatter to clear packs and stun bosses on the regular.
What weapons does Warrior use in Path of Exile 2?
Path of Exile 2's weapon system doesn't restrict weapon usage to specific classes. Classes only have a starting weapon for the tutorial. After that, they are free to choose any weapon and associated Skill should they wish to.
Therefore, Warriors can take advantage of any build as they please. However, the location of the Skill tree passives and notables make it a good choice for One and Two-handed Maces, Axes, Swords, and any other melee-oriented weapon type, for that matter.
One of the major Keystones in Path of Exile 2, Giant's Blood, is tailor-made for Warriors to dual-wield two-handed weapons and wreak havoc upon enemies.
Path of Exile 2 Warrior Skills
Path of Exile 2's Warrior is a relatively versatile class for any melee enjoyers, thanks to all the benefits mentioned earlier. However, the class is additionally bolstered by strong Active Skills, like Rolling Slam, Boneshatter, and Shockwave Totem, just to name a few.
Some of these Skills are older Active Gems from Path of Exile, while the others, like Rolling Slam, are newer additions. Listed below are short descriptions of a few Skills that will be readily available for players when Early Access launches. Note that the information has been gleaned from the latest GGG live events and is subject to change during Early Access and full release.
- Rolling Slam: A Skill made available quite early on, this attack is a two-fold strike, with each strike inflicting greater damage than before. These slams also generate a lot of stun ratings on enemies.
- Boneshatter: A returning Skill from Path of Exile with a changed functionality. Boneshatter relies on enemies already having a high stun rating. Striking such an enemy will deal a heavy stun attack on them and send a shockwave from that enemy. Boneshatter cannot inflict a stun rating by itself, however.
- Shield Charge: Another returning classic, this time utilizing a shield provided early on. Shield Charge, as the name suggests, uses the player's shield to rush ahead and slam into enemies, dealing damage based on the defensive stats of the shield. New to Path of Exile 2, however, is that the shield now blocks everything during the charge.
- Resonating Shield: A new addition to the game, Resonating Shield uses the previously mentioned shield and the melee weapon in tandem. The Warrior uses the weapon to repeatedly strike the shield, creating shockwaves that damage enemies around the player. Really effective in high-density situations and as a bonus, this Skill breaks small amounts of enemy armor.
- Armour Breaker: Playing off the armor strip mechanic, this Skill is meant to quickly strip away the protective layers of a single enemy. Armour Breaker is also effective at knocking back enemies with each strike, providing small but effective crowd control.
- Shockwave Totem: Summons a totem that generates a periodic shockwave, dealing damage and a large amount of stun rating. Has the added benefit of drawing the attention of nearby enemies, but a small health pool makes it rather squishy in later levels.
- Sunder: A returning Skill that also has reworked mechanics. Sunder is now based on an enemy's broken armor, rather than being a simple ground-based slam attack. Enemies with fully broken armor caught in Sunder's shockwave take a guaranteed critical hit. Furthermore, five enemies hit inside the waves release secondary damaging shockwaves, and each subsequent wave after the first extends the length of said wave.
- Volcanic Fissure: The Warrior slams the ground. This deals damage and causes a fissure to appear on the ground. Further attacks near this fissure cause it to erupt, dealing aftershock damage. There can be multiple fissures active and all can release aftershocks simultaneously.
- Seismic Cry: This supporting Active Skill turns the next two slam attacks into exerted attacks that have amplified characteristics such as increased damage, radius, and aftershocks.
- Stampede: The Warrior charges ahead, leaving a cragged landscape and dealing damage. At the end of the charge, the Warrior leaps into the air and lands with a massive slam, dealing a significant amount of damage and exploding all of the crags, releasing aftershocks. Warcries turn this skill into an instant-cast one, as opposed to its normal channeling state.
- Ancestral Warrior Totem: This is a form of a pinnacle skill, which takes significant progression and character investment to unlock. Ancestral Warrior Totem is a meta Skill, which can be equipped with other Active Skills for it to trigger. During the GGG Live event, the Warrior Totem was equipped with the Sunder Gem, which caused the totem to fire off Sunder waves in regular intervals.
According to the aforementioned live event:
"There's 20 Active Skills for Maces, so there's a lot to try out.
"But by endgame, you're gonna be dropping hammers from the sky, leaping fearlessly into combat, and separating the very Earth you stand on."
What Ascendancies does Warrior get in Path of Exile 2?
Ascendancies or Ascension Classes are a Path of Exile staple towards further customizing one's character and a feature that is thankfully making its return in the sequel.
These classes are based on specific playstyles or gameplay mechanics. For example, the Ranger can either specialize in enhancing their arrows via the Deadeye Ascendancy or make their flasks incredibly potent as a Pathfinder instead.
Each character receives a choice between three unique Ascension Classes after completing a grueling trial. In Path of Exile 2, this can be the Trial of the Sekhemas or the Trials of Chaos. Either way, a successful completion will grant players the option to choose between becoming a Warbringer, a Titan, or a yet unknown Ascension class.
Warbringer relies on using Warcries and Ancestral Totems to bolster their attacks. Furthermore, they can use their Warcries to detonate nearby corpses to deal damage based on the corpse health pool, all the while ignoring all Warcry cooldowns.
Defensively, Warbringers can become Encased in Jade, where they are immobilized inside layers of Jade Armour, which is stripped off based on incoming damage.
Titans, on the other hand, are all about the ground-and-pound gameplay. Their slam attacks can become aftershock machines and ignore enemy physical resistance via Crushing Blows. Titans also deal increased damage against heavy stunned enemies, which is good news for Boneshatter mains.
Each Ascension Class has access to eight total Ascension points, which can be earned in various Ascension Trials. During the Early Access, players will only be able to play as the Warbringer and the Titan, as the third class is being reserved for the full release.