117 articlesRoughly two weeks since the league started, and the Return of the Ancients alongside the Runes of Aldur league has been going strong in Path of Exile 2. At this point, the majority of players have already made it into the endgame.
However, the experience varies, as some of them are using very powerful builds while others went with the tried and tested. Meanwhile, a tiny fraction opted for their own off-meta builds.
If you want to maximize your gameplay in the endgame, then playing the best endgame build is your best option. But which endgame builds are exactly the best in the current league?
Let’s take a look!
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Before we begin, do keep in mind that this tier list might change in the future as the league goes on. As their current state, however, the builds in the list are no doubt among the strongest in the current meta.
Without further ado, let’s get started with the S tier.
S Tier Builds
Suffice it to say, the S-tier builds are capable of clearing all content in the game, starting from the maps all the way to the Pinnacle bosses.
Not only are they easy to play, but they also have a very high investment ceiling, meaning the more you invest in them, the stronger they get. That said, you can start with a weaker version and farm Divine Orbs until you can upgrade yours.
The builds that belong to this tier are as follows:
Whirling Assault Martial Artist
It’s not surprising for one of the newest Ascendancies to make it to the top of the list. Besides, the Martial Artist is currently the most played class in the league, with roughly 25% of all players according to poe.ninja.
It’s easy to see why.
For starters, the Whirling Assault Martial Artist is quite possibly the strongest build in the game right now. This is all thanks to its Hollow Form ascendancy node, which creates clones that perform the Whirling Assault skill.
This is further complemented by the unique gloves, Lochtonial Caress.
Hollow Form can use a Power charge to create additional clones, which allows you to deal even more damage. With Lochtonial Caress, you can consistently generate Power charges every time you cast Hollow Form.
To do so, you have to allocate the Way of the Stonefist ascendancy node. This will change the stats on the gloves so that it now grants charges on allies when hitting enemies.
In this case, you are considered the ally, so whenever your clones hit an enemy, you get a chance to generate Endurance, Frenzy, and Power charges. This is then paired with the Charge Regulation buff for even more damage.
Overall, the Whirling Assault Martial Artist has insane boss DPS, tankiness, and clearing speed.
Twister Spirit Walker
The next build on the S tier is from the other new Ascendancy class, the Spirit Walker. This time, it uses the tried and tested Twister build but ported to a new ascendancy.
The main reason why the Spirit Walker is so strong for this build is due to the Primal Bounty ascendancy node which allows you to further empower your projectiles.
Twisters are considered projectiles, and Primal Bounty empowers them by adding 2 extra projectiles and increasing overall projectile speed. This results in absolute mayhem that covers the entire screen with twisters.
This is further improved by using the Olroth’s Conviction support gem to further empower your skills at the cost of using your Runic Ward as a resource.
Moreover, the recent discovery of the new The Taming prismatic ring further enhances the build’s overall damage and effectiveness.
Just like the Whirling Assault Martial Artist, the Twister Spirit Walker excels in boss DPS and clearing speed. However, it fell short of tankiness.
Ice Shot Deadeye
The Ice Shot Deadeye is one of those tried and tested builds that existed even in Path of Exile 1. It excels in farming bosses due to its one-shot capability, thanks to the reworked Snipe skill.
As soon as you freeze your target, it’s basically over.
To complement this, the build uses Ice Shot to spray projectiles that can quickly freeze targets. This makes it really good for clearing packs of enemies with ease. However, it’s also used as a tool for freezing bosses.
As far as survivability goes, this build actually became a lot tankier this league due to buffs in evasion rating across the board. It was notably squishy in the previous leagues, but that buff has made it easier and smoother to use even in highly juiced maps.
A Tier
It’s time to move on to the A tier, which consists of builds that are still powerful in their own right but fall short in other areas. They’re still fun to play and are also capable of clearing all content in the game.
The only problem is that they’re either not as powerful, fast, or tanky as the ones in the S tier. These are the builds that belong to this tier:
Vivid Stampede Spirit Walker
This is another version of the Spirit Walker that uses the new Vivid Stampede ascendancy node. With this node, you can summon stag spirits that will create shockwaves where they land, not to mention they also leave Shocked Ground after.
As far as clear speed goes, this build is no doubt one of the fastest out there.
It’s also a pretty chill build since Vivid Stampede is a trigger skill, and to trigger it, you only have to dodge a certain distance. In other words, the majority of your gameplay is just you dodging throughout the battlefield, all while creating stag spirits.
To enhance the trigger rate, you’ll need modifiers that improve your dodge roll distance. This is achieved by items such as the Surefooted Sigil amulet and the Farrul’s Rune of the Chase augment on your boots.
Overall, this build excels in clearing packs of enemies quickly and easily. Unfortunately, it’s not all that tanky, and while it has decent boss DPS, it’s not good enough to make it to the S tier.
Djinn Disciple of Varashta
Next on A tier is the Djinn Disciple of Varashta, which has always been one of the strongest builds in the game.
While the Disciple of Varashta can be quite versatile in her choice of a Djinn, this one uses Kelari, the Tainted Sands as its main damaging minion. Not only does it have the best DPS out of all the Djinns, but it also applies Critical Weakness on enemies it hits.
This build was already a strong one in the previous league, but with the addition of the new Archon of Undeath node, this build has become even stronger.
You then pair it with the Dominion anoint on your amulet to make your archon buff essentially permanent at the cost of a slightly reduced effectiveness.
Overall, the build is fairly tanky and deals massive boss DPS. The only caveat is that it has a fairly slow clear speed.
Monkey Spirit Walker
The last build in A tier is the Monkey Spirit Walker. The fact that there have been three Spirit Walker builds on the list already clearly shows how versatile the new Ascendancy class is.
That said, this one takes advantage of the new Ascendancy node called The Natural Order, which essentially lets you tame a unique Beast-type monster.
And for this build, it uses the unique Beast named Zekoa, the Headcrusher which you can find in the Riverside and Rupture maps. It’s basically the stronger version of the Mighty Silverfist. However, what makes it even better is that it can have up to 4 rare monster modifiers.
This allows you to maximize the damage of your beast depending on which rare modifiers it has.
You then enhance the damage of your Beast companion by taking the Catha’s Balance ascendancy node. This grants 60% of your main hand weapon’s damage to your companion. Doing so allows you to scale its damage all the way to the endgame.
As far as damage goes, the build has insane boss DPS. However, it’s not that tanky, and since the build relies on your companion’s AI, its overall clear speed isn’t that great either.
B Tier
The B tier is where builds can still make it all the way to the endgame but struggle a bit to do so. They still have decent boss DPS, tankiness, and clear speed, but they’re not as best as the ones in the upper tiers.
Let’s look at which builds are in this tier:
Grim Pillars Oracle
The Oracle belongs to the top 5 most-played Ascendancies in this league, and the Grim Pillars build is partly the reason why.
This build takes advantage of one of the new Kalguuran gems, the Grim Pillars. Typically, this skill uses Runic Ward as a resource to cast. However, the build circumvents this cost by slotting the gem into Spell Totems.
As a result, you can continuously cast it without having to spend Runic Ward at all! You then pair it with Entangle to destroy the Ice Crystals created by Grim Pillars, causing them to explode and deal a ton of area damage.
This makes it particularly good for taking down bosses as you can create lots of explosions on the screen.
Unfortunately, it’s not as tanky as the rest of the builds, and its clear speed isn’t all that great. Still, if you’re looking for a fun build that can take on the endgame, this is still worth considering.
Also, another caveat is that it might be too taxing on your PC due to the explosion effects it creates. You’ve been warned.
Grenades Gemling Legionnaire
Last but not least is the Grenade Gemling Legionnaire. The Grenade playstyle has always been a solid build, even in the previous league. What made it even better is the new Ascendancy node for the Gemling Legionnaire called Advanced Thaumaturgy.
What it does is it grants additional quality effects on your skill gems. As for the Grenade skills, they basically get a bunch of extra modifiers.
For example, Explosive Grenade gets 2 more projectiles at gem quality 20, Oil Grenade enhances Exposure by an additional 7%, and Flash Grenade gets 12% damage as extra lightning damage.
Since the build uses a lot of Grenade skills which is perfect if you prefer screen-wide explosions while mapping. The problem is that it suffers from a lack of AOE which can affect its overall clear speed.
It does have decent boss DPS and tankiness, but those are not enough to push it to the higher tiers.
Conclusion
With the way things are going, this current tier list of the best endgame builds might not change until the end of the league. Both the Whirling Assault Martial Artist and Twister Spirit Walker are so strong that replacing them might be really hard.
Unless Grinding Gear Games decides to nerf their core skills or buff the skills from other builds, the ranking would remain as is.
That wraps up our tier list for the current league for Path of Exile 2: Return of the Ancients. If you haven’t made it to the endgame yet, you might want to check out one of them now.
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