PoE 2 Warrior - Overview, Skills, and Ascendancies

Path of Exile 2 is releasing the Warrior, one of 6 playable classes for the release of Early Access on December 6th, 2024. PoE 2 plans to have 12 classes, but only 6 will be playable to start out.

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.

While these are technically "Mace" skills, these skills match thematically with the Warrior class. These Skill Gems were revealed in the most recent livestream. As such, there likely won't be major changes from this image on release.

• Earthquake

• Boneshatter

• Rolling Slam

• Shield Charge

• Armour Breaker

• Shockwave Totem

• Infernal Cry

• Perfect Strike

• Resonating Shield

• Leap Slam

• Earthshatter

• Shield Wall

• Sunder

• Volcanic Fissure

• Seismic Cry

• Supercharged Slam

• Stampede

• Ancestral Warrior Totem

• Hammer of the Gods

These Skill Gems aren’t in the image above, but were showcased in older videos. (May be available on EA release or added at a later date)

• 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.

In PoE 2, every Class will eventually have 3 Ascendancy Classes to further specialize their character. For the Early Access on December 6th, each playable Class will have 2 Ascendancies.

For the Warrior, you can choose to Warbringer to specialize in things like Totems or Warcrys. The Titan looks to specialize in Slam Skills and stunning enemies.

Warbringer

[See Warbringer Ascendancy Page]

The Warbringer has passive nodes that synergize with Totems and Warcrys. There are also passives that further empower your Shield as one of your main defensive layers.

Titan

[See Titan Ascendancy Page]

The Titan is all about big Slams and stunning enemies. If you want to do slow but powerful attacks, the Titan is for you. There are also a few utility passives such as a larger backpack, more maximum life, more Armour, and more.

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, Slams, and Totems.

It'll be interesting to see how the Marauder separates itself from the current Warrior class.

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