When fighting monsters in Path of Exile 2, damage isn’t the only thing players need to worry about. Crowd Control effects are just as lethal as big damage numbers, and in many cases, they’re needed to make some of the game’s best combos work.
Understanding how Crowd Control works is just as important as understanding Ailments in Path of Exile 2. These often go hand-in-hand with each other, and if you want to make the best character possible, you’ll need to know how these effects can help (or hinder) you.
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All PoE 2 Crowd Control Effects
A Crowd Control effect (or CC) refers to anything that hinders or prevents entities from performing actions. These are generally useful in most builds, especially when it comes to dealing with enemies that are hard to kill, such as rare monsters with tough modifiers or Unique bosses like Mighty Silverfist in PoE 2.
Moreover, there are skills, passives, and other effects that synergize with different forms of CC. These often consume the CC effect in question in order to amplify damage one way or another. Here are brief overviews of the known Crowd Control effects in the game so far.
Stun/Heavy Stun
In Path of Exile 2, getting stunned will interrupt a target’s action, albeit for only a very short duration. A target can get stunned multiple times in quick succession, often resulting in death, and yes, this can happen to the player as well. Physical hits have a chance to stun targets based on the attacker’s accuracy rating.
A Heavy Stun completely prevents targets from performing an action for a longer duration. A target becomes Heavy Stunned after their Heavy Stun Meter (the bar below their HP bar) is filled — after a target recovers from this state, they take reduced Stun Buildup for a short duration. There are many skills that affect Heavy Stunned targets, such as the Seismic Cry Mace Skill and the Surprising Strength Titan passive.
Pin and Knockback
The Pinned status prevents targets from moving, but it doesn’t prevent them from attacking. This isn’t as strong as most other CC effects, but the ability to lock an enemy in place is valuable to builds that rely on skills with delayed damage, long cast times, or area damage over time.
Meanwhile, Knockback does the exact opposite: it moves targets around to create space for the caster. Not many mechanics revolve around this, but it’s worth taking note of in case you end up fighting enemies with area-based attacks.
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Freeze
Dealing damage with Cold damage Freezes targets, slowing their actions until they are fully Frozen, preventing them from taking actions completely. Once you hit a target with Cold damage or Freeze buildup, an icon will appear near their health bar, indicating their current Freeze level. If it reaches 100%, they are Frozen.
Frozen enemies become susceptible to many different skills, including Cold Snap from the Elemental tree and Fragmentation Rounds from the Crossbow tree for Mercenary builds, both of which consume the Frozen state to deal AoE damage.
Electrocute
Certain skills or those affected by Support Gems can cause Electrocute, which is almost the same as the Stun CC effect. It’s mostly meant for interrupting actions and locking enemies in place for five seconds, but since it is dealt mainly by Lightning damage, it is often triggered along with the Shock effect, which causes affected targets to take 20% more damage. Ailments play a big part in PoE 2’s combat, and a dual Lightning ailment build for Monks or Sorceresses can be extremely powerful against bosses.
It’s worth reiterating that, unlike Stun, Electrocute can only be triggered if a skill can apply it innately or with the help of a Support Gem in PoE 2. Try to assess if using Electrocute for your build is worth using some gem slots for.
Monster-Related Effects
Some monsters are capable of inflicting CC effects that players are otherwise unable to inflict themselves. One good example is the Drowning effect from the water globes cast by River Hags. These will distort your vision, slow you down by a massive amount, and automatically kill you if you have been drowning for about two seconds.
Monsters that deal elemental damage can also inflict either Freeze or Electrocute, and that includes any lingering fields that they may leave. Stun is also a constant issue that melee players need to be mindful of, as every enemy in the game can stunlock them until they die.
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Path of Exile II
- Franchise
- Path of Exile
- Multiplayer
- Online Multiplayer , Online Co-Op
- Engine
- Proprietary Engine
- ESRB
- M For Mature 17+ // Blood and Gore, Nudity, Violence
- Early Access Release
- December 6, 2024