Summary
- The Sorceress class in Path of Exile 2 offers great synergies, damage, and crowd control but lacks survivability.
- Best Skill gems for Sorceresses include Frost Bolt, Hypothermia, and Spark for various damage and debuff options.
- Combining skills like Flame Wall, Orb of Storms, and Comet can enhance damage output and crowd control in unique ways.
Path of Exile 2‘s early access period has seen some incredible concurrent player numbers. While the game has plenty still to come, there’s already a great deal of content to experience and classes to play with. The Sorceress is arguably one of the better-faring classes in their early access form, with two useful Ascendancies and a lot of skills in their main (Elemental) skill tree that offer easy synergies, damage, and crowd control effects.
The trade-off for all that ability to kill enemies at range and keep them there is a relatively low health pool and lack of defensive stats, but this lack of survivability can be offset by keeping their energy shield high. Given the damage output of some Path of Exile 2 enemies, that’s essential if Sorceress players want to avoid instant one-shots later in the game. With it being an appealing class for new players, plenty might be wondering what the best Skill gems are for this class.
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That depends somewhat on what build the player is going for, but some options work across multiple builds. This topic focuses on the best Skill gems for the Sorceress and while it will touch on good Spirit gems to combine with these, they won’t be included in the list. These are the best Skill gems for Sorceresses.
1
Frost Bolt
Slow Ice Blast
- Skill Tier: Level 3
- Mana Cost: 8
- Requirement: 16 Intelligence, player level 6
Frost Bolt is available early on for the sorceress after the player has found their first level 3 uncut skill gem. It’s a slow-moving ice projectile that pierces enemies and leaves chilled ground as it moves. Apart from being able to deal lingering cold damage and freeze enemies, the skill has a couple of other notable effects.
First, the spell deals more damage after piercing an enemy, so firing it at a large group can spread some cold damage around. The spell can be used to good effect to freeze enemies and detonate with the Cold Snap skill for big damage.
2
Hypothermia
Catching Cold
- Skill Tier: Level 7
- Mana Cost: 74
- Requirement: 52 Intelligence, player level 22
Hypothermia is a useful curse skill for any sorceress who wants to focus on cold damage. The curse lowers an enemy’s cold resistance by at least 30%, so it’s a significant debuff. Players don’t get access to this skill until they find a level 7 uncut skill gem, but it’s worth picking up for cold-focused builds.
This curse can be used with the spirit gem Blasphemy later on in the game to turn it into a permanent aura, but this requires a high Spirit reservation, so most sorceresses won’t be able to achieve this combo until the end game.
3
Frost Wall
Icy Barrier
- Skill Tier: Level 9
- Mana Cost: 23
- Requirement: 72 Intelligence, player level 31
Frost Wall is a versatile ice ability that can be used for both offense and defense. The spell creates a wall of ice crystals that lasts for 8 seconds and explodes when destroyed. The Icy barrier it creates is treated as a physical object, so it can wall enemies and keep them away in tight confines.
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The barrier deals cold damage when destroyed, so it can also freeze enemies trying to pass through. This works well when combined with slow-moving projectiles that deal big damage but often miss faster enemies, like Frost Bolt or Frost Bomb.
4
Ball Lightning
Slow Moving Shock
- Skill Tier: Level 11
- Mana Cost: 36
- Requirement: 95 Intelligence, player level 41
Sorceress players will need to get a level 11 uncut skill gem before they can get access to Ball Lightning. This slow-moving lightning projectile shoots bolts of lightning at nearby enemies along its path, with a high chance to shock.
This lets the sorceress add the shock ailment into their kit with high reliability, which can be useful for builds that want to synergize damage from multiple elemental sources. Ball Lightning also has an interesting interaction with the Lightning Warp skill, which lets players teleport to its location, instantly detonating the ball.
5
Lightning Warp
Violent Teleportation
- Skill Tier: Level 9
- Mana Cost: 24
- Requirement: 72 Intelligence, player level 31
The explosive teleportation of Lightning Warp is a unique and deadly skill for the sorceress. This spell lets players teleport inside of any enemy that can be culled (low health), killing the enemy and causing them to explode with lightning damage and create shocking ground.
On its own, this would only be moderately useful, but the skill can also be used to teleport into Lightning Ball projectiles and detonate those instead. This gives the Sorceress high mobility at will, as well as the ability to inflict more shocking ailments on enemies in the area.
6
Flame Wall
Burning Projectile Buffs
- Skill Tier: Level 1
- Mana Cost: 13
- Requirement: 9 Intelligence, player level 3
Flame Wall has become a popular skill in Path of Exile 2, and not just for the sorceress. That’s not so much due to the wall of damaging fire that the skill creates, and more to do with its additional effects. The Flame Wall buffs the strength of projectiles that pass through it, giving them additional fire damage and the ability to ignite targets. This makes it great for any sorceress build that wants more damage from spell projectiles, or multiple elements.
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Flame Wall can also be used effectively in conjunction with the Raging Spirits spirit gem, which creates summoned minions from the flames, though this tends to be more effective for minion-based Witch builds than the sorceress.
7
Orb Of Storms
Chaining Projectile
- Skill Tier: Level 3
- Mana Cost: 17
- Requirement: 16 Intelligence, player level 6
Orb of Storms can be a great damage multiplier for Lightning-focused sorceress builds. The spell creates a persistent lightning orb that chains lightning bolts between nearby enemies. The bolts happen periodically but very slowly, but they also happen when other lightning skills are used near the orb.
That means it works well if players are using another lightning skill as their main damage output, as using it near the orb will cause repeated lightning chains that hit 3-5 enemies at once. It’s a good tool for spreading damage around large enemy mobs.
8
Spark
Basic But Effective
- Skill Tier: Level 1
- Mana Cost: 8
- Requirement: 9 Intelligence, player level 3
Spark might be a first-level skill for the sorceress, but in the right build, its damage can scale up to stay relevant in the end game. Spark creates multiple erratic lightning projectiles that travel along the ground until they hit an enemy or expire. The move is basic, and it’s not too strong on its own, but the sorceress has several ways to significantly boost the damage output.
Using the spirit gem Archmage is a good start, as this gives non-channeling skills extra lightning damage, and scales with maximum mana. Flame Wall’s projectile buff can help, as can curses like Conductivity, and spell buffs like Sigil of Power and Mana Tempest. Stacking all these buffs and additional passive powers can make Spark a very strong skill.
9
Conductivity
Transferring Current
- Skill Tier: Level 7
- Mana Cost: 74
- Requirement: 52 Intelligence, player level 22
Like Hypothermia for cold damage, Conductivity is a curse spell that reduces an enemy’s lightning resistance. This is essential for lightning-focused builds in the later game, where enemy resistances can start to hurt single-element focused builds. The default debuff of 30% is good, but it can be boosted further with support gems like Heightened Curse, Hex Bloom, and other curse supports.
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Lightning damage is highly effective due to its relatively high damage output combined with the shock debuff causing enemies to take more damage. That means Conductivity has a little more utility-damage usefulness across multiple builds than Hypothermia.
10
Eye Of Winter
Icy Eyes
- Skill Tier: Level 13
- Mana Cost: 54
- Requirement: 119 Intelligence, player level 52
Eye of Winter is a high-level Elemental skill and needs a level 13 uncut skill gem to unlock. The spell fires a projectile of ice that spits out multiple cold projectiles in a spiral as it flies, and a final burst of projectiles when the spell ends. Only the projectiles it fires can hit enemies, but they inflict critical weakness as well as cold damage when they hit.
That means any enemy hit by the spell is more likely to take a critical hit from any additional damage. If the spiral projectiles hit an enemy as it flies, then it hits again with the final projectiles, this second hit will likely crit for big damage. This can be especially useful against end-game bosses.
11
Comet
Frozen Meteor
- Skill Tier: Level 11
- Mana Cost: 65
- Requirement: 95 Intelligence, player level 41
Comet is a high-damage AoE move that deals cold damage. The spell takes a second to cast, then brings down an icy Comet from the sky, dealing high damage in a large target area. Due to the cast time, it can only be used in situations where the sorceress isn’t under immediate threat.
That isn’t much of an issue, though, as this move is usually built into cold-damaged focused builds with high CC potential from Ice Walls and the freeze status effect. Comet also has a relatively high inherent crit chance, so if it can be combined with the critical weakness hits from Eye of Winter, it can do enormous damage on hit.
12
Sigil Of Power
Runic Magic
- Skill Tier: Level 13
- Mana Cost: None (10-second cooldown)
- Requirement: 119 Intelligence, player level 52
Sigil of Power is a spell buff that can be useful for any sorceress build that can afford to stand still for a second. The spell creates a large sigil on the ground. Standing on the sigil grants a buff that boosts spell power by 10% (up to 14% with levels).
For every 50% of a player’s maximum mana spent in the sigil, the buff increases by another 10-14%, up to 40-56%. This does require players to stay within the sigil to maintain the buff, but it’s a significant boost to all spell damage in situations where it can be used safely.
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