The Best Classes To Play Alone In Path Of Exile 2

Posted by By our-little-miss-is-home January 6, 2025 17 Views 8 Min Read
Grenade Mercenary Leveling Guide - Path Of Exile 2



Path of Exile II is the long-awaited sequel to the incredibly detailed action RPG Path of Exile. With the release of the early access version, we get to choose from six different classes: Sorceress, Warrior, Monk, Witch, Ranger, and Mercenary, with more to come in the full release.

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Path Of Exile 2 4 Best Classes For Beginners

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Path Of Exile 2: 4 Best Classes For Beginners

With a game as complex as this one can be, let’s take a look at a few places to start if you’re intimidated to jump in!

While the sequel is much more beginner-friendly than its predecessor, PoE 2 can still be tough for solo players starting out — both for those new to the genre and the ones returning to the series. The classes where you should put your attention are the ranged classes, as they allow you to keep enemies far away from damaging you or getting easily overwhelmed and surrounded in close quarters.

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Sorceress

Cast on Freeze Sorceress showcase in Path of Exile 2.

Pros

Cons
  • Varied elemental damage options.
  • High burst potential.
  • Crowd control.
  • Squishy.
  • Weaker at close range.

The Sorceress is a pure elemental magic user, allowing us to sling spells of fire, ice, and lightning in equal measure. You can create fire walls, surround yourself with a frost nova, or chain lightning between foes. Heck, you can even use spells to manipulate time and space, so you have no end of options to suit your fancy and whatever type of mage you wish to play.

The benefit of the Sorceress is that you’ll get a lot of crowd control spells, as well as a wide variety of damage types to burst down enemies with powerful abilities. However, if an enemy does get close to you, you will have limited time to get them off or kill them, as you are quite squishy. This is the downfall of most ranged characters, but their range is also what makes them good for solo, and there are ways to mitigate their downsides.

For example, the Sorceress has great crowd control; you can stop enemies from getting close to you by making them take damage on the way, or creating barriers in front of you, as well as surrounding yourself with shields that will damage anyone who gets too close.

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Ranger

The ranger fighting enemies in Path of Exile 2.

Pros

Cons
  • Great roleplay feel.
  • Lots of build potential.
  • Great range with crowd control options.

The Ranger is the classic archer archetype for the game, letting you become a master of the wild to snipe enemies from afar. You’ll be able to poison enemies, snipe them, electrify them, and more, harnessing the power of nature to disorientate with debuffs or crowd-control enemies. This class shares many of the pros and cons of the Sorceress, as they both excel at range with crowd control options, but suffer if enemies manage to get in close.

Original banner image for best classes ranked in path of exile 2 with images split side by side in a collage.

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Sometimes you want to throw fireballs, while other times, a nice arrow is your taste. Which classes are the best though?

However, you have so many options for keeping enemies at range with traps and vine growths; applying poison to trapped creatures is just one sweet possibility.

This isn’t the only way to play the Ranger, of course, as one feature of Path of Exile II is the ability to use any weapons on any class and combine abilities from multiple classes. However, it is the best way to play for a solo player struggling with the game’s difficulty, as the melee classes are the ones struggling the most due to how tough enemies can be.

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Witch

The witch using detonate dead in Path of Exile 2.

Pros

Cons
  • Minions take the damage.
  • Easy ways to make minions.
  • Ways to use corpses and build momentum.
  • Without minions, you’re quite weak.

The Witch is another spell-slinger, like the Sorceress; however, rather than elemental variety, the focus here is on minions and death-like spells. You don’t need to worry about enemies getting close if they are focused on your skeletal army keeping them a mile away. Then, the more corpses you make, the more minions you’ll have access to. This allows you to keep up the momentum of the battle, and makes combat feel really fluid and like you are in control of the battlefield.

If you don’t have any minions, you may find the class lacking in the ability to keep themselves alive. But this is unlikely to happen, as you have so many options to summon minions, from skeletal archers, to bomb throwers, to raising corpses from freshly-slain enemies, and it is extremely easy to keep your army up, no matter how squishy they are. You can also use classic necromancer-type spells like corpse bombs that will let you use corpses to attack enemies, and then blow them up right before they die for massive damage.

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Mercenary

The Mercenary firing Galvanic Shards from his crossbow at approaching enemies.

Pros

Cons
  • Great movement.
  • New class.
  • Good range.
  • Build variety.
  • Slow with movement and animations.
  • Focuses on pulling in enemies, so easy to get outnumbered if not prepared.
  • More focused on group damage than single target (bosses).

The Mercenary is a newcomer to the Path of Exile series, and has already made quite a name for itself. With the Mercenary, you’ll have access to crossbow-based abilities that basically function like guns. Alongside the improved movement in this entry, with this class you’ll feel like you’re playing a top-down shooter.

And unlike the other ranged classes, the Mercenary is not very squishy. In fact, some builds may even encourage the ability to pull in enemies for close-range damage. However, you still have lots of ranged damage options, such as access to different types of grenades and upgraded rounds like incendiary bolts or explosive shots. This lets you do huge amounts of burst damage to groups of enemies while having a really solid base for movement and weaving around the battlefield.

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