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PoE 2 Build

Optimized Huntress Leveling Guide by Asmodeus

Huntress

0.2 DotH

Amazon

Starter

Creator

By Asmodeus

Updated on May 13, 2025

May 13, 2025

Build Overview

Welcome to my Optimized Leveling guide for the Huntress - featuring Spears. This guide is for anyone leveling a Huntress on a fresh start who wishes to reach the maps fast and efficiently.

This guide comes alongside a video which explains the entire leveling process from 1-65. And to see it in action, you can also watch a 56:30 Deathless 100% Act 1 speedrun here: SPEEDRUN VIDEO

Early Huntress leveling has the most skill expression of any class, which means that you can get better at it with practice, but it will be harder if you don't know what you're doing.

DISCLAIMER: There is currently an unintended interaction between Rake and Parry, allowing you to cancel the Rake animation by tapping the Parry, which moves your character forward much faster than running. In combination with Stomping Ground and stacking strength on your tree and gear, it also deals exceptionally high damage. Since one of the developers confirmed this movement pattern to be unintended, I fully expect this to be patched in one of the future updates. For that reason, this guide does not tell you to use them, because it would require drastically changing your passive tree, and forcing you to completely respec in act 2. I just felt like letting you know that this option exists if you're interested in pursuing it, before it gets fixed.

Build Variants

Level 1-13

Level 14-21

Level 22-65

This guide is divided in 3 progression steps, based on the levels required to achieve different setups. Click on the variants above to see the Gem Setup and Passive Tree progression in those level ranges.

Level 1-13 Variant

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Equipment

Set 1

Set 2

Above you will find an example gear set with desirable modifiers, as a point of reference.

Regex

While looking for gear at the vendor, you can press Ctrl+F and Ctrl+V to paste this string into the search bar:

This will highlight items with flat added damage, increased physical damage, movement speed, maximum life, level of all projectile skills and increased attack speed.

Weapon

Weapon is by far the most important piece of gear. You need to keep looking for upgrades all the time, and spend majority of your currency to keep your weapon up to date. Most spear bases are good, so simply craft on the highest weapon base available at your level. When it comes to modifiers, you want the following ones:

%Increased and flat Physical Damage
Flat Fire/Lightning/Cold Damage
Attack Speed

Flat Physical combined with Increased Physical Damage is the best combination. Flat Lightning is also great, as it allows you to use Lightning Infusion without a downside.

Attack speed is typically the most desirable Suffix. After you finish your first trial and pick up Critical Strike, then Critical Damage and Critical Chance become better as well.

Buckler

Use buckler until you pick up the Dance with Death keystone. This should be between level 20 and 30. Until then wear whatever Buckler you can get with some Life and Resistances.

Boots

Prioritize crafting boots, over other pieces of armor, until you have movement speed on them. Nothing else matters on boots during leveling. Of course life attributes and resistances are always good to have, but you should highly prioritize MS.

Here are the item level requirements for different movement speed modifiers on boots:

10% movement speed (ilvl 1)
15% movement speed (ilvl 15)
20% movement speed (ilvl 30)
25% movement speed (ilvl 50)
30% movement speed (ilvl 70)
35% movement speed (ilvl 82)

Armour

Wear Evasion gear primarily. You're going to be scaling Evasion as your primary defensive stat, so make sure to wear decent bases that are close to your level.

Life and Evasion modifiers, will give you the most defense. Resistances and Attributes (Strength/Dexterity/Intelligence) on suffixes are very desirable, but a good Life Regeneration modifier is definitely not something you should overlook. Getting a decent amount of Life Regeneration, will make you feel significantly more tanky.

Jewelry

Jewelry is the hardest to upgrade, as it drops in very limited amount and is not widely available at the vendor. Make sure to learn all of the guaranteed jewelry drop spots during the campaign, to increase your chances at getting a decent piece of gear.

Guaranteed Iron or Lazuli Ring at the Cemetery
Guaranteed Amulet in Keth ruins
Guaranteed Resistance Ring in Buried Shrines
Guaranteed Ring in Sandswept Marsh - Hanging Tree

Prioritize flat Added Damage, Life, Resistances and Attributes.

Currency

Majority of your currency, should be always spent on your weapons. You should always think about what you're trying to get from your Transmutes and Augmentations. Don't just throw them on every item you have. Be purposeful.

For example - if you haven't found movement speed boots in the early game, and you already have a decent weapon, you can spend Augmentations on boots with an elemental Resistance suffix and an open prefix, to fish for a Movement Speed prefix. Blue weapons with Attack Speed or +to Levels of Melee Skills are the best target for your Augmentation Orbs. Always take stock of your gear and try to figure out what's your weakest piece. If you're level 28 and haven't upgraded your chest piece since level 4, it's a good idea to pick up white Studded Vests and throw some Transmutes at them. Even a mediocre evasion roll + life regeneration on a good base will be better than most random rares that you found 20 levels ago.

Be disciplined with your currency. For example, you should NEVER Exalt a piece of gear that isn't a Spear unless you have more than 6 Exalts - which is enough for your next 2 upgrades during the campaign. Same goes for Regal orbs if you have 2 or less, and Artificer's Orbs if you have 2 or less. Keep them for weapon upgrades, and only spend the surplus on other items.

If you get really lucky and drop a great weapon - save your currency and don't craft it any further if your damage is still very high. This will help you transition to the next weapon base much easier. You can afford to save your currency whenever your character feels very strong and you should spend more currency if your character feels weak.

Level 1-13 Variant

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Skill Gems

Support Gem Requirements:

Str 10

Dex 25

Int 5

Explosive Spear

Disengage

Cull The Weak

Lightning Spear

Herald of Thunder

Initial Setup [Level 1-13]

Engrave Explosive Spear and Disengage first. Overabundance will allow you to have two Explosive Spears out at the same time, and Expedite will increase your dps by more than a damage boosting support such as Fire Infusion, because you'll be able to use Explosive Spear 40% more often, and it will make the skill easier to aim and actually hit monsters while clearing.

Engrave Cull The Weak with your first lvl 3 gem. It is great for mobility and empowering your Explosive Spear with Frenzy Charges. Profusion and Concentrated Effect are good supports for this skill, but I would only engrave both of them right away if I had an extra support gem from a random drop or found the Uncut Support gem reward in the Tomb of the Consort. Otherwise pick one and delay the other until you drop an extra support or reach act 2.

I recommend using the second lvl 3 gem (Lechlann guarantees it) to upgrade your Explosive Spear and either do the ritual in Hunting Grounds or Crop Circle in Ogham Farmfields for a level 4 skill gem, which should be used to engrave the Lightning Spear.

Engrave Martial Tempo with the Uncut Support gem from Hunting Grounds and support Lightning Spear with it.

If you have a lot of flat Fire and/or Cold damage coming from your gear, then use Retreat as the second support in your Lightning Spear / Storm Lance. If you have almost exclusively Physical and Lightning damage coming from your gear, then you can use Lightning Infusion, which doesn't have the extra condition.

After getting Herald of Thunder, if your Lightning Spear has both supports alrady, you can engrave Innervate and Persistence, which will extend the duration of the Innervate buff.

Temporary Swap [Level 14-21]

At level 14, use your first lvl 5 gem to engrave Storm Lance and simply put it in place of Lightning Spear, taking over its support gems. Storm Lance and Explosive Spear as a combo, are a little bit better than Lightning Spear in this level range, but we will come back to Lightning Spear at level 22.

Lightning + Primal Swap [Level 22-65]

You should use a level 6 skill gem to upgrade your Lightning Spear, in preparation for the swap back to it.

At level 22, use your first level 7 skill gem to engrave Primal Strikes. Support it with Concentrated Effect and Pursuit. Remove Storm Lance and put Lightning Spear back in its place, taking over the support gems it had before.

Since you need the Lightning Spear to shock the target whenever you're fighting bosses, you can swap in Conduction for boss fights, and use Retreat or Lightning Infusion for clear. This will make you stronger overall, and is generally worth doing, unless you have a fantastic weapon that allows you to shock consistently without the use of Conduction.

Your First Jeweller orb should go to Lightning Spear, then Primal Strikes, Herald of Thunder adn Companion: {0}. Your first T2 support gem should either be Volt for clear with Lightning Spear or Primal Armament for single target damage with Primal Strikes

Your first level 9 gem should be Tame Beast. Go to Jungle Ruins in act 3 and repeatedly respawn at checkpoint, next to the Troubled Camp vendor. If you haven't killed the big ape unique, you will have a rare monster spawn very close to you. You can reset until you find a beast with good modifiers that buff your character, for example a Haste Aura.

Tip: You can Disenchant the Companion: {0} gem at the vendor, to get back a clean Tame Beast gem that can be re-used to capture another beast. You can also level the Companion: {0} gem on the Occult gems page.

Automatic Frenzy Charges

After getting more spirit from act 6 or from gear, you can start using Combat Frenzy, combined with Electrocute and Neural Overload in your Herald of Thunder, which by electrocuting weak monsters while clearing, will grant you Frenzy Charges automatically. You could also use Sniper's Mark manually to get frenzy charges, but I find that to be not worth the time.

If you happen to find a lot of spirit on your gear, there is also the option of using a Cast on Shock setup with Sniper's Mark + Impetus + Lifetap to cast Sniper's Mark automatically, but this setup costs a lot of spirit and is generally less effective while clearing than Combat Frenzy. It does however work for single target.

Close to the end of the campaign, you will get access to Spear of Solaris. You can use it for extra burst damage against stationary bosses.

Engraving Priorities

Follow a general order listed below in Skill gem and Support gem priority lists. Any spare support gems will serve to accelerate your support gem acquisition, so simply move down the list and craft them in order as you get them.

Skill gem priority:

Renly lvl 1 Explosive Spear
Clearfell lvl 1 Disengage
Rust King lvl 3 Cull The Weak
Crop Circle lvl 4 Lightning Spear
Leitis lvl 5 Storm Lance
Halani Gates lvl 7 Primal Strikes
Chimera lvl 9 Tame Beast
Thunderous Leap
lvl 13 Spear of Solaris

Keep upgrading your main damage abilities as you find more gems.

Spirit gem priority:

Herald of Thunder
Combat Frenzy

Support gem priority [Tier 1]:

Devourer - Overabundance
Areagnae - Expedite
Druid - Concentrated Effect
Treants - Martial Tempo
Executioner - Lightning Infusion or Retreat
Gallows - Innervate
Profusion
Pursuit
Conduction
Meat Shield
Elemental Army
Rage
Blind
Execute
Precision
Magnified Effect
Fist of War
Close Combat
Ingenuity

Support gem priority [Tier 2]:

Volt
Primal Armament
Electrocute
Loyalty
Bullseye
Hit and Run

Support gem priority [Tier 3]:

Neural Overload
Fire Mastery
Cold Mastery
Lightning Mastery
Elemental Focus

Level 1-13 Variant

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Passive Tree

main:

123

set 1:

set 2:

Passive Tree

Path through attack speed and Stalk and Leap to Primal Sundering. You should pick it up at level 14 - just in time for Count Geonor fight.
Skip Shedding Skin until the second half of the campaign, or whenever you notice yourself getting frozen, ignited and shocked a lot.
Skip all crit nodes at first and take Escape Velocity followed by Harness the Elements - the small passives on the way to it, will increase your chance to shock.
Rush Dance with Death and Acceleration - this will make the character much smoother to play and boost your dps.
Pick up the spear damage cluster, by taking Precise Point and Roll and Strike, but skip Javelin for now.
You can pick up the remaining passives in any order, depending on whether you need more Attributes, Damage or Evasion.

If at any point, you're having trouble with reserving all your buffs, you can pick up spirit reservation passives behind Inspiring Ally, or herald reservation passives next to Coming Calamity

Ascendancy Points

Pick Critical Strike first, then either Elemental Infusion for more clear or Stalking Panther for more survivability. Only take Penetrate if you have a decent amount of Accuracy rating on your weapon.

How it Plays

Level 1-13

Single Target

Before getting Overabundance, your single target rotation is Explosive Spear into 3x Spear Stab. The Explosive Spear detonation timer is just short enough to allow it to explode during your next Explosive Spear attack, even with constant target uptime.

If given an opening to Parry, you should definitely do it, and immediately Disengage + Explosive Spear. The 50% increased damage taken debuff from Parry + the empowered burning ground from Explosive Spear deal a lot of damage. Remember that Frenzy Empowered Explosive Spear detonates immediately, so you can follow it up with the next Explosive Spear right away.

If you want to see examples of bosses and attacks you can Parry - check out my Act 1 speedrun linked at the top of this guide.

After getting Overabundance and Expedite, your single target rotation is 2x Explosive Spear into 1x Spear Stab. Use Parry same as before.

You can also use Lightning Spear to apply Shock during the Executioner fight.

Clearing

Throw Explosive Spear ahead, in the direction of your movement, so that after you walk through it, the monsters chasing you will enter it's radius while it explodes. Expedite makes this much easier, as the detonations happens much quicker.

Use Cull The Weak to jump towards enemies in the direction of your movement - it has a pretty big range. Use it to also finish off enemies for Frenzy Charges to empower your Explosive Spear

After getting Herald of Thunder and a level 4 skill gem, you can use Lightning Spear for clear. It works especially well if you keep generating Frenzy Charges with Cull The Weak, but try to do it efficiently and don't go too much out of your way to force it.

Level 14-21

Single Target

Throw 1-2 Storm Lances followed by 1-2 Explosive Spears. If the target is moving a lot, you can just throw one at a time, alternating between them. If the target is more stationary, you can throw 2 Storm Lances into 1 Explosive Spear and repeat.

Tag any enemy once per 8 seconds with Disengage, Cull The Weak or Spear Stab in order to keep up your Stalk and Leap damage.

Clearing

Throw your Explosive Spear first, allowing for the fuse to start ticking, then throw Storm Lance within the Explosive Spear radius - it should land right before the Explosive Spear detonates them both. Keep setting them up along the path you're walking, while letting the monsters walk through them.

Remember to use Cull The Weak for mobility and occasional Frenzy Charges.

Level 21-65

Single Target

Throw Lightning Spear at the target, uil you apply Shock to it. If you're using a support gem like Retreat, it might be a good idea to Cull The Weak to the target first, in order to satisfy the Melee Hit condition of Retreat and Stalk and Leap.

Once the target is Shocked, attack three times with Primal Strikes, consuming the shock and applying Lightning Exposure. Re-apply the Shock with Lightning Spear and repeat.

Clearing

At this point, simply clear with Lightning Spear. If a rare monster survives it, you can finish it off with Primal Strikes.

Once you get the Volt support, you should run until you get 10, 20 or 30 stacks before you throw Lightning Spear, so that you get more chains and damage per attack.

You can use Disengage and Thunderous Leap as well as Cull The Weak for extra mobility. They also enable the Melee Hit conditions for 8 seconds.

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I wish you the best of luck while leveling and hope you have a great time.

- Asmodeus