PoE Path of Exile Tier List

(SC Trade Week 1). This list is not exhaustive. PoE is a sandbox game with literally hundreds of viable league starters, but these are some of the most popular builds that will provide a really strong and enjoyable league start experience.

S-Tier

1. Winter Orb Elementalist - Fubgun Guide

This endgame zoomining build recieved significant buffs this patch, tripling its number of base projectiles at level 20 while also getting free Bonechill Support in effect from the new Bitter Frost keystone. Elementalist is still the best early game plug-and-play ascendancy for early game because of the insane benefits from golems with Liege of the Primordial. Scornful Herald Support provides incredible clear when linked onto Herald of Ice in the lategame. Beidat's Pact will be a great lategame boon to include to potentially double your single target damage (or more).

2. Righteous Fire / Scorching Ray of Immolation Chieftain

Pohx's favourite skill is getting a buff to its single target this patch which has recently been heavily innovated away from Fire Trap and into Scorching Ray of Immolation totems. Scorching Ray, when used with Spell Totem Support allows the fire dot buffs to stack independently. An average early game setups allows for 20+ simultaneous Scorching Ray instances when played with the spell totem setup. As a Chieftain, it still offers the great comfort of huge explodes with Hinekora, Death's Fury and Righteous Fire's walking simulator playstyle.

A Tier

1. Earthshatter Berserker - ImExile Guide

Slams are the bread-and-butter attack based starter. While it's often praised for its SSFHC viability, it's also a great Softcore Trade league start build. It's one of the highest damage early game builds and in softcore, rather than playing Echoes of Creation, you can opt for the infamous modifier for Base Critical Attack Chance per exert. Crit-capped slammers push hundreds of millions of DPS in the 2nd and 3rd days of the league and the speed is guaranteed with Berserker's inherent attack speed. Buffs to gem quality also disproportionately help Earthshatter.

2. Summon Holy Relic of Conviction Necromancer

This minion build is essentially completely map mod agnostic and has been the beneficiary of significant buffs several past patches. In 3.29, its early progression is being significantly improved with cast speed buffs to Absolution and quality-of-life/responsiveness changes to Summon Raging Spirit. In the endgame, Annihilation Support offers extreme chaining clear, since it allows for those explodes to further explode when kills are sourced to minions.

3. Physical DoT Elementalist (Probable S-Tier Candidate)

This setup features the Phys DoT suite of Exsanguinate, Reap, and Corrupting Fever to stack various instances of damage over time. Golem stacking with Primordial Bond, Liege of the Primordial and The Dark Monarch (Summoned Golems) gives not only great single target, but also helps out clear in a unique way. Explosions from any source can apply Corrupting Fever, creating another chaining clear interaction. The new Pact of Ghorr will give a ton of damage and an additional physical damage over time effect. Item availability may vary greatly depending on build popularity, but its baseline is already quite strong.

4. Storm Burst Totem Hierophant - aer0plane Guide

The best bosser on this list, Storm Burst totem setups on Hierophant are both easy to play in bosses with a passive playstyle and give extremely good pure single target damage. This setup has been proven over and over again, and stays strong this patch despite nerfs to spell totem support. Its clear is supplemented with a 1:1 swap with Storm Burst of Repulsion.

5. Cold DoT Elementalist - Jungroan Guide

Similar to Winter Orb, Cold DoT also benefits early game from the new Bitter Frost keystone and buffs to gem damage. Vaal Cold Snap in particular will be the highlight of the build, requiring less souls and being able to store 2 uses at a time. Early game, Spellslinger setups offer a 1-button playstyle triggering 4 damage over time skills simultaneously while still giving enough damage for t16s with no gear investment. New pact skills for damage over time and vaal skills are incredibly promising.

6. Static Strike Slayer - Alohaa Guide

Static Strike, while offering limited top end scaling through attack speed, it has some very powerful snapshot mechanics due to its persistent lingering damage. It's a fast build that has a semi-autombomber playstyle and synergizes really well with Shockwave Support.

B-Tier

1. Lightning Arrow Deadeye - Fubgun Guide

LA Deadeye is essentially unchanged from last league, other than shifts in borrowed power mechanics. While defenses are still inconsistent, it's a great clearing skill the entire time with solid damage. As a great Legion farmer, LA deadeye is a good candidate for blaster zoomers who want to enjoy fast gameplay who don't mind dying once or twice an hour (or map).

2. Penance Brand Ignite Elementalist - Goratha Guide

In reality, most generic ignite builds will perform at a similar level and call all transition into early Impending Doom Support using FoulbornDoedre's Scorn. Penance Brand gets to leverage a lot of early herald scaling and benefits a lot from Phys gained as. Buffs to Flame Surge and Replica Emberwake are great early game helpers. The new Communion support (Minion Pact Support 2.0) is going to scale great with golems.

3. Kinetic Fusillade Totem Hierophant - Palsteron Guide

While nerfed in the midgame, its early game playability is much more accessible due to the reduced based hover duration and its lategame is similarly strong. KF ballista is a great starter for those looking to have passive auto-targeting damage that has many solid budget unique options to cheese out early game damage like Doedre's Tenure, Prismweave, Eclipse Solaris, etc.

4. Cyclone Shockwave Support / General's Cry Lacerate of Butchering - Sanavixx Guide

Two builds are suggested here with essentially identical playstyles. Although pure Cyclone is easier to make it lacks any defensive options unlike banners with General's Cry.

5. Archmage Support Ball Lightning of Orbiting / Shock Nova of Procession

Archmage mana stacking Hierophant has a lot of options for skills to use. Shock Nova's transfigured version has emerged as a popular option and all Archmage Support. The new lightning keystone is anti-synergistic unfortunately, but many lightning skills have better damage numbers this patch anyways. Mana will be harder to sustain. Additionally, the new pacts make cascade-able skills more attractive.

C-Tier

1. Essence Drain / Contagion (Chaos DoT)

The biggest non-power buff this patch comes to Contagion, where it now gets .4 additional base radius at level 20. Essentially every single chaos damage over time skill has received numerical buffs. Spellslinger can also definitely carry through the early game, though lategame damage is worse than other dot damage archetypes.

2. Spell High-Impact Mine Support (Wave of Conviction of Trarthus / Reap / Frostblink of Wintry Blast / Glacial Cascade of the Fissure)

Spell mine builds were nerfed across the board mostly, though some skills received base critical strike buffs and a few got some small damage increases. There are a variety of guides you can look up across Youtube, but these builds tend to be squishier boss farmers as opposed to great all-rounders for early progression.

3. Flicker Strike + Rage Vortex Berserker - Devilcat Eater/Exarch Gameplay

One of the most misunderstood and poorly constructed skills in the game, Flicker Strike actually has great damage, clear, and solid defensive max hit due to its mechanics leveraging Flesh and Stone and Arctic Armour. The build does struggle to loot without backtracking.

F Tier

The absolute worst you can play in poe 1 right now is the new Luminary Ascendency to support mercs. You will do absolutely no damage in yellow maps. BE WARNED. DO NOT PLAY. PLAY SOMETHING ELSE.