PoE 2 Passive Skill Tree

The Passive Tree in Path of Exile 2 is extremely daunting at a first glance, but today’s guide will help to simplify it and make it less scary by helping you to understand it on a foundational level and know which Passive Points to take. 

To start off, one important concept to understand is that of Attributes. In Path of Exile 2, we have Strength (Red), Dexterity (Green), and Intelligence (Blue). These attributes generally align with certain types of skills - Strength for more heavy hitting, melee attacks, Dexterity for faster forms of ranged combat, and Intelligence for more spell-based, or summoning style skills. 

Let’s have a look at the Passive Skill Tree. Bear in mind that this is an extremely simplified, beginner-focused guide to introduce the concept of the Passive Tree to new players.

Passive Tree

Looks absolutely crazy right? Both PoE and PoE 2 feature well over 1000 different passive points to choose from, which allows players to expertly craft creative builds quite freely. A character is granted 1 Passive Skill Point every time they level up, and are sometimes granted more from completing certain quests - and don’t worry, you can change points around by spending Gold at The Hooded One but respeccing isn’t as cheap as it is in other ARPGs. With that out of the way, let’s break this down:

Attribute Areas

The above image is a rough overview of how the Passive Tree is segmented by Passive and Attribute type. In extremely simple terms:

Intelligence Section (Top)

Most of these points will relate to the Class type you’re playing: Spell Damage, Summoning, Elemental Damage. 

If you’re playing a Witch, you will be considered a pure Intelligence Class, meaning you will start at top of the centre circle.

Dexterity Section (Bottom Right)

More focused on Ranged combat, evasion, and speed. 

If you’re a Ranger, you will be more to the centre-right, and your passive points will lead outward to the top right and bottom right.

Strength Section (Bottom Left)

More melee and defence focused 

As a Warrior, you’d start in the centre-left and your points would lead out to the left top and left bottom.

There are also hybrid classes that have more than two primary Attributes, and those classes start between the pure Attribute classes, and the points that appear in those sections will be relevant to the themes of those classes.

There are no limits or barriers to the Passive tree - just because you’re a Witch doesn’t mean you can’t allocate points toward the Strength section if there are points you need there! 

BUT WHICH POINTS DO I TAKE?! THERE ARE SO MANY!

Let’s break it down even more!

Let's look at this cluster of passive points from the top of the tree.

Small Passives

(Blue Square in image)

These are the small points that grant minor bonuses, such as small increases to Attack Speed, Spell Damage, Melee Damage, or Attributes.

Notables

(Red Square in image)

These are the slightly larger Passive Points that grant greater bonuses than Small Passives, but they have stats on them that are often closely related to the Small Passives leading up to them. Think of these as “Checkpoints” to work toward

For example: at the start of the tree, on one of the paths, each of the small passives might grant something like “+10% increased Spell Damage”, and the Notable Passive at the end of the string of Small Passives will grant “20% increased Spell Damage, 5% increased Cast Speed, +20 to Intelligence” 

Use Notables to Simplify Tree

As a new player, instead of looking at what every single tiny Small Passive Point does, start looking at the Notable Passives and see what they do – if you’re playing a Summoner and see a Notable with something like “+20 to Spirit, +20% increased Minion Damage”, you might want to take it.

From there, you just need to determine the best “pathing” to get there (essentially, which Small Passive Points you take leading up to that Notable). This way you won’t be overwhelmed by looking at 80 different Passives, and instead might look at 5 or 10 Notables to start to decide your direction. 

The Passive Tree also has a search function, so if you’re playing a Lightning Sorceress, you can press Ctrl-F and type “lightning” to see which passive points are highlighted. 

Travel Nodes/Attribute Nodes

The Passive Tree will also have what people refer to as "travel nodes." These are nodes that give +5 to any Attribute (of your choice) and are used to "travel" to farther parts of the tree.

These points are important for increasing your character's attributes to satisfy things like skill gem or equipment requirements.

Keep in mind that you can change the attribute of these nodes at any time by "respeccing" them. Speak to The Hooded One or Doryani in town to spend gold to do so.

Keystones

But there’s one more type of Passive Point: The Keystone

Keystones are build-changing, character-defining points that often provide a massive amount of power, with a downside. These downsides can be reduced, or worked around, but Keystones are the core of character-building in Path of Exile 2.

There are dozens of Keystones littered around the Passive Tree, each being build-changing and powerful. 

Let’s have a look at a couple examples:

Chaos Inoculation

Maximum Life becomes 1, Immune to Chaos Damage

Chaos Inoculation, or CI for short, is one of the most iconic Keystones in PoE. This allows your character to forgo a life pool and instead build around Energy Shield as your "life."

While this can be difficult to do early in the game, the benefit of being immune to Chaos Damage is massive, and often a worthwhile trade for INT characters. (Armour items with high Energy Shield also require high INT)

Giant's Blood

You can wield a two-handed melee weapon in one hand. Weapon requirements are doubled.

In this first example, you can see that this Keystone could allow a character to wield a two-handed weapon with one hand, leaving their off-hand slot open for either another weapon or shield.

This is incredibly powerful as it frees up an entire equipment slot. However, the downside is that you will now need to invest much more into the Attribute requirements needed to use that weapon. Giant’s Blood should be a good example of how build-defining Keystones are in Path of Exile 2. 

Necromantic Talisman

All bonuses from equipped Amulets are applied to Minions instead of you.

The obvious downside of this is that your Amulet now no longer grants you bonuses, but if you’re a Witch with a swarm of minions, you may far prefer to give them all the life, damage and resistances you have on your Amulet instead of using it yourself. 

So now that you know what a Keystone is, what’s the next step? 

Let’s say you’re level 20, you’ve taken a few good Notable Passive Points – your next step should be to look at any nearby Keystones to see if any might be good for you.

If you’re feeling confident enough, you might even want to look at the Keystones near your starting area at Level 1 to see if anything inspires you before leveling up for the first time. Your process might be something like this:

• Is there a Keystone I want to get as soon as possible? 
• What’s the best path to reach that Keystone and which good Notable Passives are along the way?
• Where should I go after getting those points?
• How do I mitigate the downside of a Keystone?

Bear in mind, you don’t HAVE to take any Keystones if none fit your build, and most builds don’t often take more than a couple, but using Keystones and Notable points as “checkpoints” or guiding lights will make the otherwise overwhelming Passive Tree a bit more digestible. 

Good luck! And don’t forget to experiment – once you’re more knowledgeable and understand the foundations, you’ll know how to get away with breaking all the rules – there’s nothing stopping you from playing a Two-Handed-Axe-dual-wielding Witch if you can make it work. Start simple, learn the basics, follow the rules, and then break them: that’s what Path of Exile is all about.