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In Path of Exile 2 Warrior is a straight up melee fighter archetype, coming close and personal to all enemies.
So In this guide I wanted to break down the Warrior class together with the most promising Warrior skills and both Ascendancies we have for it: Titan and Warbringer.
If you are still not sure which class to play - check out the dedicated guide - Which Class/Ascendancy to Play
I think that many Warrior skills will be useful for other classes too, so let’s start with the general overview.
Basic but pretty promising. It is a basic Slam that creates a Jagged Ground Effect which slows enemies and erupts after 3 seconds, dealing damage. The best course of action to make it strong is stacking multiple Jagged Ground Effects together while you are spamming the skill.
To do so you can combine it with Stampede which can be used to start the fight and use Jagged Ground Support together with any other skill such as totems or any supportive damaging skill.
It will allow Warrior to erupt multiple Jagged Grounds dealing more damage and should be viable even in the endgame.
Compared to PoE 1, Boneshatter doesn't look as good anymore (as a main damage Skill) and should mostly be used to heavy stun enemies that are primed to stun.
Together with Enduring Stuns Support it can also provide Endurance charges pretty consistently.
Impact Shockwave Support can also help to use it for AOE clear as well.
Looks like a very strong Slam, which has great damage effectiveness of 237% and 100% increased critical damage bonus which makes it just amazing for endgame.
I’m sure that Sunder will be one of the most viable skills for Slam gameplay due to the pure numbers.
A nice supporting skill which could be used on bosses and rares just to break armor and improve the damage of your other skills.
However Boneshatter with Devastate support can break all armour too so there is some competition between skills, but since we have a lot of slots it can be a nice idea to utilize both.
Both are totem options and we again need to choose only one of them, because there is a totem limit. It could be bypassed with Ancestral bond keystone but even with that it still will be 2-3 totems maximum it seems.
Shockwave Totem can stack well with Earthquake interacting with Jagged Ground.
Ancestral Warrior Totem is mostly there to carry dedicated totem builds and looks pretty strong since it can use socketed Mace Skills. Some builds around it are possible for sure if you prefer the Totem playstyle.
Allows you to block all incoming hits while dealing some damage. Looks like it is the best defensive ability that still can be played offensively, stacking some damage through Armour on the shield.
Both are Warcrys and since they both consume endurance charges it seems like it would be better to choose only one to use consistently.
Infernal Cry provides Fire damage so should stack well with Hybrid or Ignite related builds.
Seismic Cry on the other hand is mostly physical oriented.
Both Warcrys should work better with slower skills and stack especially well with Hammer of the Gods for a huge DPS increase.
This is probably the strongest skill that was showcased in POE2 so far.
It deals a crazy 1307% of Attack Damage but has a HUGE cooldown of 24 Seconds.
Right now that skill looks like one of the best options to do boss damage, especially paired with Ignite if it will apply it without downsides. Solving cooldown issues is an important part too so Hammer potentially works well with Chronomancer.
But generally Hammer looks good enough to find space for ONE big hit in most of the melee builds.
Let’s start with Titan, the Ascendancy that smashes things. Most of his Ascendancy nodes are simple but effective and we already have Titan fully revealed.
Gives 20% chance for skills that you use yourself to cause aftershocks.
It is simple but pretty strong passive, that can improve slam damage and combine well with Sunder, Earthquake or even Hammer of the Gods.
So if you use non-totems slams this is an obvious pick.
Just make all your hits Crushing Blows, so again if you are playing self used slams or other physical attacks it is a very straightforward choice.
(Crush reduces Enemy Physical Reduction)
Gives you 40% more damage against heavy stunned enemies and it looks amazingly strong right now.
It combines greatly with Boneshatter which inflicts Heavy Stuns and could buff your damage tremendously. Obvious combo would be using Hammer of the Gods right after the enemy is heavily stunned for devastating damage.
This passive node alone creates an opportunity for Stun oriented builds and looks like a must have for most slams.
Doubles your Armour from body armour, this one should help with defenses but it is harder to say how big the effect of the Armour will be without knowing the exact formula in game.
Every second, slams you use yourself are Ancestrally boosted - it can be very good, especially if slam skill will have a huge attack time, so more of your slams will be empowered. We don’t know what Ancestral Boost does for now so a lot will depend on the actual buff and the numbers. The ability looks very strong though and will work great with self casted slams.
Adds 20 additional inventory slots - which looks fun, but probably are not worth points. But if inventory management annoys you - it could be a viable choice.
Simply provides 20% More Maximum Life which is nice but nothing special. It still could be an improvement for general tankiness together with Stone Skin.
Generally Titan looks very straightforward but has a few great defensive passives together with huge dps boost against stunned enemies and a lot of slam bonuses.
It seems like the best Ascendency for self cast longer slams as well with a variety of possible picks.
Now let’s talk about the Warbringer Ascendancy and how you can yell at enemies to death.
Will trigger Ancestral Spirits when you summon a Totem, so if you will go with Ancestral Bond and will use at least 2 totems and will resummon them pretty often the uptime should be good enough.
The spirits will attack enemies but how much damage they will do is currently unknown but the concept itself looks promising because it can improve totems damage and clear at the same time.
Will provide a Jade stack every second, so while you're not using the skill it's building up and you will lose stacks when you use it and get hit.
You can use the button at any time to turn into a Jade Statue and receive significantly less damage.
The developers have mentioned that the idea behind the skill is a counterpart to a dodge roll but instead of dodging you will stay as the statue and tank heavy hits.
It is somewhat similar to Vaal Arctic Armour in PoE 1 that provided near immunity, but Jade Statue is way more consistent and accessible.
Overall it’s a very interesting passive that is forcing you to think when to use it providing a temporary defense boost.
Explodes Corpses of your enemies when you Warcry, dealing 25% of their life as Physical damage.
This passive should be just amazing for clear and improve the speed of farm significantly, because it is basically a free detonate dead when you Warcry so every 8 Seconds approximately and can perfectly combine with Greatwolf’s Howl which will remove your Warcry cooldowns completely.
This is currently one of the strongest Warrior nodes overall and looks like one of the main reason to play Warbringer.
Greatwolf’s Howl
Removes your Warcry cooldowns which stacks pretty well with Warcaller’s Bellow.
It can also make your Warcrys bonuses more consistent but the downside will be more buttons to push and piano like gameplay.
So if you are not afraid of it, this combo will be a great pick.
Warbringer now looks like mostly Warcries oriented Ascendency with a little part of totems on top. But Jade Heritage and Warcaller's Bellow make it very strong and viable if you are alright with Warcry spam.
Titan looks pretty tanky but heavy hitting and opens possibilities for stun oriented builds.
It is also a great pick for Slam oriented builds and will be a very decent choice for almost all physical attacks in Path of Exile 2.
Warbringer on the other hand is a more Warcry/Totem oriented Ascendency that should be more sophisticated and harder to play but could have better clear and more build variety compared to Titan.
