PoE 2 Warrior - Overview, Skills, and Guide

Path of Exile 2 is releasing the Warrior, one of 6 new classes releasing alongside the original 6 classes. With all these classes, the game will open up a lot more in terms of build diversity and character fantasy.

The Warrior class is a new addition that splits from the Marauder. While the feel may be similar to some Marauder builds from PoE 1, the Warrior will have its own niche to carve out.

In this guide, I’ll be covering everything we know about the Warrior class and how it works. Let’s jump right in.

The Warrior class is a new class with the STR attribute. This makes them start at the same location as the Marauder class, with proximity in the Strength portion of the skill tree. (Bottom Left)

The Warrior’s signature weapon is the Mace, which is a weapon type that’s carrying over from PoE 1. In PoE 1, the Marauder starting area was close to many melee weapon nodes like Axes, Maces, Staves, etc.

With PoE 2, the Warrior class will now be your go to if you plan on playing Mace builds. These builds often focus on “Slam” attacks and Warcries. While Slam attacks are often slower than other skills, you deal a massive chunk of damage with each hit, compared to smaller faster attacks.

Stun Mechanic

If you haven’t checked out our Monk Overview yet, you should give that a quick read. In it, we talk about how Path of Exile 2 is changing how CC mechanics work on bosses.

In PoE 1, many bosses were stun/freeze immune as it would trivialize content. With PoE 2, this is going to change.

Overall, bosses can now reliably be CC’d, but not to the point where you can stun lock them. As you use stunning/freezing hits, the boss will have an internal gauge fill up. Once it’s filled, the boss will be CC’d. If they have recently been CC’d, they will require more hits to be CC’d again.

As time passes, the gauge will then lower back to default, where you can build up stun/freeze again.

The Stun mechanic is a core part of Mace attacks, as they often have built in mechanics that synergize with Stun. Since many attacks are also quite slow, you’ll want to Stun an enemy before charging up a large attack to burst them with damage.

Here’s a rundown on some of the skills we’ve seen so far for Warrior in the showcases. The most recent playtest also lists out the skills in the image above.

• Earthquake

  • Slams the ground dealing damage. After a delay, an aftershock will emerge, dealing damage in a larger radius.

• Boneshatter

  • Attack enemies while also hurting yourself. Successive uses will increase damage.

• Rolling Slam

• Shield Charge

• Armour Breaker

  • Strikes the enemy, reducing their Armour. Other skills will become empowered when hitting an Armour broken enemy.

• Shockwave Totem

• Infernal Cry

  • Covers enemies in ash and Exerts your next attacks, granting bonus fire damage. Enemies that die with ash with combust, exploding and dealing fire damage to nearby enemies.

• Earthshatter

• Perfect Strike

• Leap Slam

  • Leaps to a target area, dealing damage to enemies around you. Has increased stun chance against enemies with broken Armour.

• Resonating Shield

• Sunder

  • Strike the ground launches a shockwave that travels in a line. When enemies are hit, an aftershock triggers around them, dealing damage.

• Volcanic Fissure

• Spinning Inferno

• Shield Wall

• Seismic Cry

• Supercharged Slam

  • Charges rocks toward your weapon and unleashes multiple strikes in succession. Charging for longer increases the amount of strikes done.

• Stampeded

• Ancestral Warrior Totem

• Hammer of the Gods

These skill gems aren’t in the image above, but were showcased in videos.

• Ground Slam

  • Slam the ground in front of you, sending a wave forward that deals damage.

• Herald of Ash

  • Grants bonus fire damage to attacks. When an enemy dies, they deal fire damage to enemies around them,

• Magma Barrier

The Warrior has a large arsenal of different skills to utilize based on the situation.

If you want to clear a pack of weaker mobs, you can look to skills that have AoE like Earthquake, Ground Slam, or Sunder. You can further increase your AoE/clear by using skills like Infernal Cry or Herald of Ash. This will easily let you slam large packs of mobs, watching them explode.

If you need to take down a boss or a strong Rare monster, you’ll need to combine some skills to maximize your damage.

Boneshatter is a great skill for single target damage as you ramp up more and more damage. However, it can be risky as you will deal damage to yourself. You’ll need to invest in lots of defense to make sure you don’t kill yourself.

Supercharged Slam is also great for dealing a large amount of damage, but it has a long charge time and can be risky. In this situation, you can Armour Breaker + Leap Slam to Stun your target. Once stunned, you can charge up Supercharged Slam to get in a big burst of damage.

We don’t have information on the Ascendancy Classes for the Warrior, but we do know there will be 3 different ones. The Warrior is a Strength class, so the Ascendancies will be thematic toward this attribute.

If we take the Marauder from PoE 1 as a reference, there are a few ways Ascendancies can go.

There likely will be one that focuses on dealing Fire Damage. This synergizes with things like Infernal Cry, Herald of Ash, etc. This can help you deal more damage or make you more efficient when it comes to clear speed.

Another Ascendancy will likely focus around defense with things like Armour, Life, Fire Resistance, etc.

Lastly, I would expect an Ascendancy to also lean towards a glass cannon. Dealing big damage, but also taking big damage.

This wraps up everything we know about the Warrior class in Path of Exile 2.

Overall, the Warrior class isn’t particularly new for Path of Exile. A lot of the skills are returning from PoE 1, and Slam Skills have been in the game for a long time.

The Warrior class is simply separating builds that were Marauders in PoE 1, letting them specialize more towards Maces and Slams.

This class will be perfect for anyone that wants to be a big beefy character with a giant weapon, slamming enemies down with weighty attacks.