With the recent influx of new players I see this question asked multiple times in chat channels, including my guild chat. There’s a ton of different gems and understanding their value when you’re just beginning with the game can be confusing for newbies. This post will provide you with some basic rules about (non-quality) gems and their value in Standard league so the next time you’re offered a choice after finishing a quest you’ll know exactly what to take.

High(er) value gems

Most gems in Path of Exile can be obtained from quests but some only drop from monsters, therefore they usually have higher prices.

• Portal – drop-only gem, not particularly useful since Portal Scrolls drop in abundance but they can usually be sold for 1-3 Chaos Orbs.
• Cast When Damage Taken – only rewarded from one quest in the game, “A Fixture of Fate” in Act III Merciless difficulty. Basically means that unless it drops for you (still rare), you can only get one of these gems on each character, so they are constantly being traded. Having a level 31 requirement also means it will take quite awhile until you’re able to get it, so the price is usually around 4-6 Chaos.
• Chain – drop-only gem but only useful for very few builds in the game. The cost is typically 1 Chaos.
• Multistrike – rewarded from “A Fixture of Fate” quest, otherwise a drop-only gem and fairly rare. It’s being used by almost every melee build in the game, but fortunately that doesn’t reflect its price: it can be obtained for 3 Chaos only.
• Cast When Stunned – typically you’re able to sell it for 2 Chaos, although it’s much easier to obtain one yourself.
• Empower – 10-20 Chaos
• Enhance – 8 Chaos

What about other gems?

• Auras are generally sought after and can easily be sold for 1 Fusing or even 1 Chaos each, or 2 Chaos for Purity which is a bit less common. Grace, Hatred and Clarity are likely the most popular ones and easiest to sell.
• Most attack and similar skill gems (such as Dual Strike, Cleave, Heavy Strike, Raise Skeletons etc.) are extremely easy to come by from the first few quests in the game and you’ll have a tough time trying to find buyers for those.
• Curses generally can be sold for 1 Alchemy in case someone’s looking for a specific one, but stashing dozens of them and waiting for a seller is usually just a waste of time and space.
• Support gems are generally what’s being traded the most, even though a majority of them are easy to come by. Players often need multiple so the demand is always there. Support gems that I see sought after on a daily basis are:
  • Reduced Mana
  • Blood Magic
  • Faster Attacks
  • Melee Splash
• All of the above can fairly easily be sold for 1 Chaos Orb each fairly easily.
• Slightly less used support gems are Fork, Culling Strike, Mana Leech, Faster Casting, Lesser Multiple Projectiles and Greater Multiple Projectiles, Life Leech, Item Quantity, Item Rarity, Melee Physical Damage, Multiple Traps, Curse on Hit. Most of these sell for 1 Fusing each.

Note about prices

As with all things in Path of Exile gem prices are determined by the seller and the buyer, and you may be able to sell them for either lower or higher amount of currency. Trading values (based on Standard league) I provided are just to give you a basic understanding of their potential value in general, so hold your horses.

What does it all mean?

If you come across some of these gems or are presented with a choice from a quest, this is roughly your priority:

1. Gems you need or will use later on
2. Any higher value gems you can sell
3. Support gems
4. Auras

Hope that helps. If you have any questions, shoot them in the comments below!

It’s overly simple and frankly it’s surprising it wasn’t already well-known. All you have to do is trade a level 20 gem and one Gemcutter’s Prism to a vendor and you’ll get back a level 1 gem with 20% quality.

Getting any gem to level 20 takes an enormous amount of time still but this might actually help with the situation. If you start using a gem at (your character’s) level 1 it should be level 20 around the time you hit level 85! By using the recipe you’ll be able to obtain 20% quality gems much sooner and cheaper so having all of them improved and leveled will be less of a burden for alternate characters.

Some gems are often not even leveled all the way due to attribute requirements. Certain support gems with +20% quality also become more efficient at level 15 or so than their non-quality counterparts and getting them to that level will not take long.

In the long run this should reduce the prices of maxed quality gems but also make level 20 gems more valuable. If you intend to sell your level 20 gems right now just be sure you know the drawbacks and understand that your abilities may have lower damage until you get the gems to a certain level. Basically, it might not be worth it.

Remember that gems don’t suffer any experience penalties like your character, so speedfarming Docks in merciless is a pretty efficient way to level them up. Also this is one additional reason why you should always keep a few gems in your alternate weapons. Even if you don’t end up using the gems you can still sell them once they reach level 20.

Note that this build (which I named The Shredder) can easily be used on a Marauder as well with barely any adaptations. More on that below.

Important note: the build on this page is outdated. See this post for an updated version of the Shredder after the patch 1.0.0 nerfs to Cleave!

Contents:

• Why Dual Strike & Cleave
• Pros
• Cons
• Passive skill tree
• Recommended equipment
• Skill gems
• Bandits
• Flasks
• Gameplay videos
• Closing thoughts

Why Dual Strike & Cleave

Dual Strike deals massive single-target damage and doesn’t need a 6-link item to be effective. With fairly decent weapons my Dual Strike deals 12k DPS with only 3 support gems (no +quality). You can easily obtain 4-link items throughout leveling and you will quickly notice how fast and easy it is to speed through levels with this build.

My Cleave currently deals 8k DPS, also with only three support gems again without +quality. It’s a good AoE tool to dispense groups of monsters and you will be using it a lot.

I haven’t found any other abilities which would work even nearly as well as Dual Strike and Cleave.

Pros

• Not dependent on gear: you don’t need any specific expensive unique items to make this work. There are a couple that help greatly but they aren’t necessary to make the build work.
• No 5 or 6 link items required: that’s right, you can deal tons of damage without having to spend a single exalted on an expensive chest.
• High survivability: with Kaom’s Heart chest I currently have 5k health which is enough to survive in a majority of high-level maps. My resistances are maxed but with my build you can easily put just one or two points into specific elemental resistance if you’re lacking. I’m running Grace (evasion) and Determination (armor) auras and have 67% physical damage reduction at level 86, along with 38% block chance (dual wield).
• Defensive skill tree build: most points are put into defensive stats for increased armor, health and resists. If you end up hating the build for some reason you could easily change the build to something else entirely with 10-20 regrets.
• Great mobility: Leap Slam and +30% movement speed help you get wherever you want to faster, or even jump out of tough situations.
• Versatility: you can do any kind of maps; you are virtually unaffected by reflect which is the bane of many other builds. Even Blood Magic maps are easily done, you just need to be a bit more careful due to low armor (since you won’t be able to use Determination).
• Fun to play: obviously everyone enjoys different things, but dying constantly isn’t fun for me which is why I prefer this build. Also shredding everything in your path with 8 attacks per second is unbelievably entertaining to watch.

Cons

• Needs high health and resist gear: fortunately these are the only two stats you need to focus on. If you desperately need a specific resistance you can always put one or two points into the skill tree. Nearly all of your gear should have +health, until (or if) you get Kaom’s Heart at which point you can focus on anything else (chaos resist, damage, IIR/IIQ).
• Needs one mana leech item: you will need gloves, ring or amulet with 2% mana leech. It’s not hard to get but you may have to sacrifice more useful stats because of it.
• Half regen maps: you might have somewhat decreased DPS in half-regen maps due to the inability to leech mana at a normal rate (funnily enough no regen maps can be done without issues).
• Low IIQ/IIR: it’s hard to get Increased Item Rarity and Quantity on equipment for this build, but then again every build except dual spark totem has the same issue.

Of all the builds I’ve seen I have to say that this one may very well be the one with least downsides. You have plenty of damage, you’re incredibly durable, fast to level up, works great even with average equipment, and no particular monsters are a problem.

Passive Skill Tree

My current level 86 passive skill tree build (104 points). It’s for the Duelist class but as you can see it goes all the way to the Marauder starting points and can be used by either class.

Key points: take health, dual wield block chance, armor, and resistances. There’s only about 10 points into pure damage and regardless you will have more than enough of it. If you’re needing an extra few points you can always take away a couple from damage and put into a specific elemental resistance (next to Diamond Skin in Marauder section).

Skill tree progression

• Duelist: 11 points (Dervish), 28 points (Bravado), 35 points (Iron Reflexes), 48 points (Resolute Technique), 64 points, 70 points, 80 points, 90 points
• Marauder: 20 points (Resolute Technique), 30 points (Unwavering Stance), 51 points (Leather and Steel), 60 points, 70 points, 81 points, 90 points

There’s no clear benefits to playing either of these classes each one has its own advantages. Marauders can get to resistances and Resolute Technique earlier, Duelist can pick up Block Chance and more damage. I recommend you play whatever class you prefer, you can get to most important skill points early enough to enable the build to work well with either one.

Note that the skill point progression is more of a suggestion or a guideline rather than set in stone. If you’re needing extra armor while leveling don’t be afraid to go for it, it’s always just a couple of points away. If you need extra Intellect you can also pick up Ancestral Knowledge (Marauder) or Wisdom of the Glade (Duelist) earlier, and you can always remove the points if you don’t need them later on. A huge upside to this build is its flexibility, and you will get about 15 respec points throughout leveling from quests which will be more than enough to fiddle around with a few points as you see fit.

As a sidenote, if you want to maximize your experience gain read my leveling guide. With my build you won’t even need a group, they’ll just slow you down.

Keystones:

• Iron Reflexes: converts all your evasion rating into armour. It maximizes the benefits you get from both armor and evasion on gear, passive skill points that further increase it and Grace and Determination auras. Your physical damage reduction won’t be under 50% even with the worst of gear. I mainly prefer armor over evasion due to its consistency: it’s better to get hit for low damage than for high damage every other time. You can always react with flasks, Molten Shell or just run away if you’re taking too much damage, while with evasion you’re typically dead if you don’t dodge several times in a row.
• Unwavering Stance: with this point you can no longer be stunned, and if you have Alpha’s Howl (pictured below with equipment) you can’t get frozen either. You’re literally unstoppable.
• Resolute Technique: there’s no point in worrying about +accuracy and +critical on your equipment or worse in your passive skill tree. It’s a waste of stat, and potential damage you lose from not being able to critically strike is more than made up for by never missing attacks. Try to get to RT as fast as possible. It also makes sure your mana leech is consistent.

Other notes

• Expertise (+30 Dexterity above Marauder starting location): I needed extra +dex to equip a weapon: one of my weapons requires 212 Dexterity and this build doesn’t waste any points into it. If you don’t find the need for it feel free to put a point (or three) elsewhere.
• Just below expertise you can put a point into Ancestral Knowledge if you wish to level up your Hatred aura further, although it’s not necessary. There is already one +30 Int point, Wisdom of the Glade, which is necessary.
• Why no Blood Magic? Because we can’t run three auras with it. Plus it’s not necessary as Mana Leech covers all ability costs.
• Why Celerity (+8% movement speed)? It’s just one extra point and I like to move fast.
• Why 1 point into Lightning resistance? I’m at 68% lightning resistance currently so this point makes up for lack of it on my equipment.

Recommended Equipment

As mentioned very few specific items are required. Once you start farming maps focus on getting as much health as you possibly can and try to max out your resistances. If you need a mana leech item just buy a ring or an amulet for 1 chaos. Using a Mana Leech gem is a possibility, but it will drop your DPS significantly unless you have a 5/6-linked chest.

Two items which are amazing for this build are Alpha’s Howl head and Kaom’s Heart chest.

Alpha’s Howl

Once you get it you will be able to run Hatred Aura, but more important you can’t get Freezed any longer. Getting frozen by bunch of caster skeletons is the number one reason why I died before getting this headpiece so set your goals towards obtaining this: it costs 2 Exalted Orbs at most with a maxed roll, but you can purchase it for just over 1 Ex as well if you’re patient.

Another upside to this headpiece is that it enables you to use a third aura (Hatred) due to its 8% reduced reserved mana for auras, and it also adds 2 additional levels to auras you use in this item so your Grace and Determination are at level 22 and have increased effectiveness.

Kaom’s Heart

Pretty much the bread and butter of every melee build in this game, nothing beats a +1000 health chest. I got lucky and it dropped for me but otherwise you might need to spend even 25 Exalted Orbs or more for this item. It’s not a realistic goal if this is your first character so use a chest with high armor or evasion, high health, and resists. You could purchase one for far less than 1 Exalted, unless you want 5 or 6 linked sockets (which as mentioned isn’t necessary).

With several % health regen skill points and Kaom’s I have over 200 health regen/second in addition to life leech from items (and 2% from passive skill tree). 95% of the time I’m at max health, only in extreme cases you have to resort to using Flasks, Rejuvenation Totem, or escape the engagement.

Weapons

Any kind of weapons will do. Obviously you’ll focus on physical damage rather than elemental, but the upside is they are much cheaper if you want to buy them. Having lifesteal is helpful but not mandatory. I prefer swords (Rapier, Foil etc.) for their higher attack speed.

Priorities/summary

In general your equipment should prioritize resists, health, armor and evasion (in that order). Get one item with mana leech so you don’t need to use a gem, and try to save enough currency to buy Alpha’s Howl: the ability to use Hatred aura will increase your DPS quite a lot.

Skill Gems

* Multistrike is not a frequent skill gem drop and you may have to purchase it (typically around 3 Chaos Orbs). It can not be obtained from quests. As an alternative you can use Added Fire Damage until you can obtain Multistrike.

All the other gems are easily acquired from quests or drops, and if you happen to need one you can easily buy it for as little as 1 Orb of Alchemy.

Gem rewards from quests

Just now when compiling the list above I noticed how Marauders have easier access to most skill gems you need so you may want to try my build with Marauders rather than Duelists. I hope the table helps you plan your quest rewards and figure out which gems to take. However none of these skill gems are expensive and you could buy everything you need for just a few Chaos Orbs.

Alternatives

If you’re running a 5 or 6 linked chest you can use Added Fire Damage as an additional support gem, or even as an alternative to Multistrike if you for some reason prefer. AFD deals less damage than Multistrike but only slightly.

Also you may want to consider using Increased Item Rarity and Increased Item Quantity support gems on Dual Strike once your Cleave is strong enough for fast clears. My Dual Strike linked with Culling Strike + IIQ + IIR support gems still deals 5k damage, more than enough to finish bosses and rare monsters for noticeably increased drops.

At later stages when your Cleave reaches about 10k DPS or above and you get your Kaom’s, you can consider completely removing Dual Strike. Four added gem slots will enable you to switch Grace for Haste (or even Purity) aura in your head piece, and use Grace, Anger and Wrath with a Blood Magic support gem. That way you can run 6 auras for increased damage at the cost of only 600ish health.

As a bonus you can also run Clarity for increased mana regeneration if you have problems in half-regen maps.

Curses

Rejuvenation Totem and Molten Shell are definitely not mandatory in this build. It’s just the way I like to play but you could switch them with some curses if necessary.

• Enfeeble – affected monsters have reduced Accuracy, Critical and Damage. Even a rank 1 Enfeeble reduces monster damage by 25% so if you have trouble surviving in some situations or against particular bosses feel free to consider it.
• Vulnerability – increases your physical damage by 25%-34%. Be careful about leveling it fully as level 20 Vulnerability requires 151 Intelligence.
• Warlord’s Mark – you gain increased life and mana leech on affected monsters: 3%-7% life leech and 1-3% mana leech depending on gem level. You can easily level it to 20 as it only requires Strength. If you need extra life leech or can’t get mana leech any other way consider using Warlord’s Mark.

Bandits

• Normal: help Oak and get +40 health
• Cruel: help Oak for +18% physical damage
• Merciless: kill them all (+1 skill point)

Flasks

I prefer using a setup of 2 health flasks, 1 hybrid (for cases if I run out of mana), 1 Granite and 1 Amethyst. You can see the flasks that I currently use below:

They aren’t perfect rolls (except the Hybrid one) but they serve the purpose. I think it’s very important to have one “instant recovery when on low life” flask for situations when you suddenly drop near death, due to my low Chaos resist I like having an Amethyst one in case it’s needed, and the Hybrid one helps in case you happen to run out of mana and need to Leap Slam or use a Rejuvenation Totem.

I also like all my flasks to have either bonus Armour or Evasion on use which is further scaled with the passive skill tree. Doubling your armor for nearly 5 seconds with a Granite Flask is crucial to surviving things like Vaal’s smash and such.

With the high movement speed and overall mobility of my Shredder build I never felt the need to use Quicksilver Flasks, although I did notice that many players often use 3-4 of them for reasons unknown to me.

Gameplay Videos

I recorded several map runs so you can watch the build in action. My full gear at the time of recording it is here. As you can see besides the two unique items my gear isn’t anything special.

• Dunes (66) map solo run
• Crypt (66) map solo run
• Thicket (67) solo run (no-regen mod with physical reflect)
• Cells (73) group run

You can watch many more of my boring map runs in this playlist, also embedded below.

If you have any specific map run requests or something else let me know!

Closing Thoughts

From all the builds I’ve seen the Shredder is the most versatile in my opinion. There’s no monsters or skills you need to be afraid of and unlike many other builds it doesn’t require 50 Exalted Orbs to be viable, in fact it doesn’t require any specific gear. It’s very flexible while leveling and enables you to overcome shortcomings on your equipment with a few skill points into armor, resistances or health which are always conveniently placed. The build’s extremely high attack speed (I’m currently doing 8 attacks per second) is a thing to behold and you’ll probably spend the first few hours laughing your ass off at how ridiculous it looks.

In all my Wraeclast adventures I came across one or maybe two dual-wielding Duelists with (possibly) the same build so this isn’t extremely popular among players. If you’re looking for a fun, effective, fast leveling, low-cost melee build that isn’t used by every other player than this might be exactly what you’re looking for.

Questions? Feel free to ask me anything about the build and I’ll do my best to answer it.

1. Follow a skill tree build

The first thing you should do when you make your first character (or preferably just before) is to find a good skill tree build and follow it. I know we all want more damage but in Path of Exile building a glass-cannon character simply doesn’t work in endgame. A majority of your points usually need to be in defensive talents, because simply put a dead character isn’t dealing any damage.

If you’re confused with picking a class you can take this as a basis:

• If you want to play a ranged caster mage pick a Witch
• If you want a ranged archer pick a Marauder or Duelist
• If you want a tank pick a Marauder or Templar
• If you want melee DPS pick a Marauder, Templar or Duelist
• If you want a melee caster pick a Shadow
• If you want a dual-wielding melee beast pick a Duelist

Also worth noting is that having good weapons will increase your DPS more than having a majority of damaging skill points in your passive tree, so once again, focus on building defense via the skill tree. Additionally having 3 or more support gems linked to your main damaging ability will immensely increase your DPS.

2. Don’t throw away skill gems with +Quality

They are valuable and can be traded to other players, or even vendors in bulk for very valuable currency items called Gemcutter’s Prism. Most gems with less than +12% quality are best to simply sell to vendors (in bulk for Prism, not single!). The recipe works the same way as other +quality items: sell gems with a combined quality of 40% and you’ll get a Prism. Anything over 12% quality should be either used by you or traded to other players.

3. Don’t spend currency on low-level items

And by low-level I mean anything below 60. I know it’s tempting to turn those “useless” white items into rare (yellow) ones when you’re level 30 or 40 but you will out-level them very quickly. Orbs of Alchemy and Chaos Orbs are much better used for high-end items so save them, you will need every single one.

Blacksmith’s Whetstone and Armorer’s Scraps on the other hand are fairly easy to come by and if you find a decent piece of gear you will use for awhile feel free to improve its stats, but don’t go overboard. Just remember you’ll replace those items pretty quickly.

4. If you don’t know the value of an item, don’t trade it

I still don’t know the value of a lot of items and sometimes it’s hard to determine it, but if you think something is really good don’t just sell it for an Alchemy Orb. A good example is the aforementioned +Quality gems: high-level characters often prey on lowbies in Normal difficulty and try to buy out their gems for Alchemy Orbs. If a gem is 6% quality or less you can trade it away for an Alchemy Orb, but anything above that is more valuable (look above at tip #2).

Once you hit the endgame knowing the value of items becomes even more important. Check out some of the trading sites like poe.xyz.is or poexplorer.com and search for an item with similar stats to yours to get an idea of how much it could be worth.

5. Pick up all orbs

I must admit I haven’t made this mistake myself (I still pick up most Wisdom scrolls even though they are pretty much useless), but don’t skip picking up any orbs that drop for you. All of them can be traded for higher valued currency items and once you figure out what their value is you’ll start probably need as many as you can get your hands on. In fact even Wisdom Scrolls can be traded, but if you’re building a high MF character you might even need to buy them off of other players.

Even common currency items such as Orbs of Alteration and Chromatic Orbs are worth picking up. Once you get your hands on a 6-linked item you might end up spending hundreds of Chromatic Orbs to get the socket colors you want. Even lower-value orbs like Chance can be used much more efficiently at endgame so don’t skip picking them up.

Another thing I’d like to say is that you should never use Divine or Exalted orbs before endgame. They are extremely valuable and hard to come by and best used on the highest quality gear, or even traded for decent items.

6. Pick up items with linked 3-color sockets

If you see an item drop that has 3 LINKED gem sockets of different colors pick it up and sell it to a vendor for a Chromatic Orb. Even though Chromatics are fairly easy to come by chances are you will need a lot of them, and of course you can trade them for something more useful if you have extra. If you don’t pick them up, you won’t have any extra.

Once you approach level 50 or so and start grinding Merciless be sure to re-read this loot guide and remember all items you need to pick up. Never forget to pick up items with 6 sockets (even white ones), and you better click like a madman when you see one with 5 or 6 linked sockets. They are extremely valuable.

7. Grind experience in groups

You get more items, more experience and you’ll kill monsters quicker. Path of Exile was built for playing in groups so take advantage of it. If you need advice on where to grind experience read my leveling guide. If you’re having trouble picking up your own loot in groups and hate ninjas just find a group with Permanent loot allocation, or create your own.

Grinding in groups is also helpful when you’re undergeared or underleveled for a particular area so just hit up that Social panel if you’re having trouble.

8. Be prepared to spend money

Although it’s admittedly not a very helpful tip, I’d just like to point out that you will need to spend a few bucks on this game after awhile. You can’t buy items or anything like that, but you will need stash tabs. If you intend on leveling multiple characters you will run out of inventory space in your stash fairly quickly so be prepared to spend about $20. I know a couple of people who loathe spending money on online games and this is a deal breaker for them, which I honestly think is sad, but to each its own.

I currently have about 80 stash tabs — it’s way, way above what an average player will ever need but I’m a hoarder. 20 stash tabs should be more than enough for an average player, but fortunately it’s not overly expensive.

9. Not all areas have waypoints

Before you search the same area three times looking for a waypoint, you might want to take a look at my list of zones which have waypoints, it might just save you some unnecessary searching. In most cases you don’t even need to bother finding waypoints (in Normal and Cruel difficulties) as you’ll simply progress further quite fast and won’t really have a use or need for them later on. Just remember to always try and get to a waypoint before you finish playing as it’s the only way to save progress.

For the completionists out there who always want to fully clear an area before moving on, remember to use the /remaining command in chat. It will show you how many monsters are left in a particular area before you move on to the next. Also you can type /help for a full list of slash commands.

10. Trade low-value currencies with a vendor

Vendors are more than just bots where you dump your trash. They can actually exchange (some) currencies for you so you don’t have to bother spamming the trade channel if you’re missing a few Fusings. You can take a look at the table below for some of the trading ratios:

This is actually one of the basic ways how low and mid value orb prices are determined on the market. If a vendor exchanges 2 Orbs of Scouring for 1 Orb of Regret it’s a reasonable assumption players won’t exchange them for a different ratio, unless someone is trying to take advantage of your lack of knowledge about the pricing system.

As you may notice some trades are definitely not worth doing at vendors since you can trade with players with a better ratio, but if (or rather when) you find yourself with hundreds of Alterations rather than bothering with finding a player to trade with for something more valuable you can exchange them at vendors for Jeweller’s or Orb of Fusing: they are also more sought after and thus easier to find players to trade with, not to mention you might need them yourself as well.

You can take a look at my other post for the currency values to get a better understanding of them, but do note that the in-game prices among players vary often and can be either higher or lower, so it’s more of a guideline than a rule.

11. Check vendors for items

Vendors sometimes sell items that can be sold back for Chromatic Orbs (see tip #6) for a measly Orb of Augmentation which has a much lower value. Even though a Chromatic isn’t a very valuable orb, it’s still a good trade. Also pay attention to items with 6 sockets and as previously mentioned more importantly 5 and 6 linked sockets, as you can trade them to other players for a whole lot more than they cost. Do note that vendors sell these rarely, but if you check it every once in awhile you may come across one.

Other resources:

• http://www.reddit.com/r/pathofexile/wiki/faq – really helpful and organized general information about the game
• Item mods spreadsheet – probably better for more experienced players, you don’t need to pay attention to this until endgame
• Accuracy and Evasion table – how much hit percentage you have with a certain amount of Accuracy (quick tip: consider Resolute Technique passive node and you’ll never miss)
• Currency values – current trade ratios for various forms of currency in Path of Exile
• Official forums – you might want to take a look at it from time to time, there’s often useful information you can find or even ask other players
• PoExplorer – if you ever want to buy an item this is the place. Also useful for determining prices in case you want to sell something.
• ExaltingPoE – when adding additional stats to an item with Exalted Orb this helps you figure out what mods you can get

If you have any of your own tips or resources, by all means you’re welcome to share them in the comments below.

Most duelists however choose either bow builds, or melee builds with dual wield or one-handed weapon and shield. Of course as with all other classes there isn’t a best choice and it’s entirely up to you how to build your character. Fun fact is that Duelists make better archers than the Ranger class due to easier access to some defensive skill points, so it’s no surprise many players choose this class over Rangers. Below you can take a look at some of the most popular Duelist passive skill tree builds which should help guide you in the right direction.

Lightning Arrow Archer

This is a fairly standard ranged build based around Lightning Arrow, a must-have skill gem that most rangers use. Besides providing plenty of DPS it also has just enough defensive skill points to help you survive almost anything. The build can also be easily modified depending on your current equipment or wishes, so you can choose to take a few more defensive points and increase your Evasion if necessary.

• Forum topic
• Passive skill tree build: 10 points, 20 points, 30 points, 40 points, 50 points, 60 points, 70 points, 80 points, 90 points, 100 points

For ranged duelists focused on bows you can take a look at our build choices for other classes and simply adapt them for Duelists with a few points.

Lightning Strike Build (With 7 Auras!)

Very fun build focused on taking down monsters with Lightning Strike as your main damage tool. Since it has such a long range it’s often much safer to use than Sweep or Cleave, in addition to maintaining 3 shock stacks on all enemies continuously. It’s fairly easy to play and flexible on equipment, but the end-game gear can be costly: you will need a 6-linked item to make the most out of this build.

Considering you’ll be using seven different auras (Anger, Wrath, Grace, Hatred, Haste, Determination, Purity) this is probably the ultimate group supporting build.

• Forum topic
• Gameplay video: level 68 Reef map, level 69 Shore map
• Skill tree build progression: level 20, level 35, level 52, level 70, level 80

2-Handed Lightning Strike Build

This is a very tanky build with significant damage output (10k+) based around Lightning Strike and a two-handed weapon. With proper gear your resistances should be maxed and your health pool over 5000 (obviously the numbers depending on your equipment). Kaom’s Heart (1000 HP chest) is almost a must-have with this build, as is a 6-linked weapon, so take into account that it may cost you a significant amount of Exalted Orbs to build this properly.

This build also used 4 different auras (Determination, Hatred, Anger and Clarity), and uses Dual Strike as a single-target main attack. It’s also possible to adapt it to work with dual-wielding if you prefer.

• Forum topic
• Gameplay video (level 71 map run)
• Skill tree build

1H+Shield Lightning Cyclone Build Guide

This build uses a 1-handed weapon and shield along with Cyclone as its main AoE skill and Double Strike for single target DPS. It has a good mix of damage and survivability with maxed resistances and over 50% block, enabling you to spin your way through packs of monsters, apply shock stacks and easily take them all down.

The build isn’t cheap and will take quite an effort to obtain, but it’s not nearly as expensive as some other builds out there.

• Forum topic
• Skill tree build: level 30, level 54, level 70, level 90
• Gameplay footage (Temple map, also includes authors commentary on the build)

Tanky High DPS Cleave Duelist

Another build that uses 7 auras to support your damage output and survivability, but this one is based on using Cleave as your main damaging ability. Since it boasts up to 20k DPS and armor you’ll easily be able to clear maps by yourself. You can also (choose to) get Unwavering Stance, Inner Force, Iron Reflexes and Resolute Technique passive nodes which are all extremely useful.

Like all melee builds it requires decent equipment but nothing extremely expensive. Considering how easy it is to farm with this you shouldn’t have any problems getting good gear.

• Forum topic
• Skill tree (80 points)

Dual Wield Physical Cleave Build

Elemental damage my be superior, but that doesn’t mean physical can’t be good as well. This is a fairly simple build with a lower amount of damage nodes and mostly focused on survivability. You don’t need any specific gear to make this work well, and you just need to aim for defensive stats. The only great items you need are two high-DPS weapons; of course a 6-linked chest is always going to increase your DPS but it isn’t mandatory early on.

• Forum topic
• Skill tree: level 66, level 85

Glacial Hammer Build

Glacial Hammer isn’t a widely used skill gem on a Duelist, but this build can work well if you want to invest the time and currency into it. It uses Melee Splash and Multistrike support gems for Glacial Hammer making your attacks extremely fast and able to hit multiple enemies, as well as shatter them once they hit a third of their life.

• Forum topic
• Passive skill tree build: 20 points, 40 points, 60 points, 70 points, 80 points, 90 points

Dual Wield Dual Strike/Cleave Physical Build

This is the build I’m using myself after several unsuccessful attempts to have fun playing rangers, witches, tanks and whatnot. It features high damage with even higher durability and is extremely gear independent. Great for beginners or anyone else who want a dual-wielding powerhouse without spending any currency whatsoever to make it viable.

• Build details
• Passive skill tree build

The builds listed above are just some of the most popular ones that players are using, therefore if you need a basic guideline on how to build your Duelist it should give you a good idea on which skill gems and passive skill tree nodes to use. As always I recommend you to adapt everything to your own preferences, so if you don’t need insane DPS don’t be afraid to take a few +life nodes or some other skill points. Also Duelists and most of these builds can work well with multiple abilities such as Cleave or Lightning Strike so you should be able to adapt the build to your play style.

Be sure to comment on the builds and tell us your experiences below.

Below you can take a look at some of the more popular Templar skill tree builds in Path of Exile, so if you’re new to the game or class and need some advice on what works best this guide on popular builds should give you a good start.

Dual Wield Elemental Cleave Templar

This is a very simple but effective build based around Cleave gem and dual wielding weapons with elemental damage. You also get plenty of defenses by using Grace and Determination auras. For items this build doesn’t require any expensive unique items which is great if you’re low on currency or if this is your first character.

Additionally many things in this Dual Wield Elemental Cleave build are easily changed, such as gear or gems depending on your preferences. For example the author mentions you can easily replace Cleave with Rain of Arrows and still do amazing DPS, which is quite remarkable as you can switch from melee to ranged as necessary.

• Forum topic
• Skill tree builds: level 20, level 40, level 60, level 80

Righteous Fire/Low Life Freezing Pulse Build

First of all, this build isn’t for anyone. It has less survivability than most other builds and is very gear dependent, so if you decide to give it a shot be prepared to spend some orbs: you need two specific unique items to make this build work well. It also isn’t the easiest of builds to play so if it’s your first character I wouldn’t advise this.

The biggest upside to this build if of course the ridiculous damage output. I recommend you take a good look at the author’s forum topic (linked below) and decide if this build is something you want to go for. It looks incredibly fun, but as mentioned is has its drawbacks.

• Forum topic
• Skill tree build (level 78)

Explosive Arrow Templar Build

An unusual path for a templar class, but the author claims you can deal up to 350k DPS. Chances are this will get significantly nerfed, but until then you’re welcome to enjoy killing everything with ease.

I wouldn’t recommend trying this build in Hardcore though as it’s lacking a lot in the defensive department and you might die more often than you’d like.

• Forum topic
• Gameplay video (level 69 shore map)
• Skill tree build

Dual Totem/Curse Elemental Equilibrium Fire Trap Templar

Despite its long and perhaps a bit confusing title, this build actually does work well if you’re looking for something out of the ordinary. This build is focused on high AoE damage as well as significant single-target DPS, while having pretty high resistances and health pool for added survivability.

The build also uses summoned zombies with Minion Explode, along with Elemental Weakness and Critical Weakness curses. Not only do you have two totems to tank for you but also several zombies, making sure you can stay as far away from danger as possible. As main attack you’ll be using the Fire Trap, one of the highest damage skills in the game. Auras used are Clarity, Grace and Discipline.

• Forum topic
• Gameplay footage (Tropical Map, level 76)
• Passive skill tree: 9 points, 13 points, 32 points, 46 points, 56 points, level 67, level 74

Spellcaster/Summoner Templar

This is a great build if you prefer to solo the game. It’s based around having a bunch of zombies to tank for you while you dish out damage with Freezing Pulse. The build isn’t overly dependent on items, although as always it does help to have quality equipment. It can be played in Hardcore mode since it does have decent survivability as well.

• Forum topic
• Skill tree build: level 24, level 45, level 60, level 90

Lightning Strike Physical Damage Templar Build

Lightning Strike is one of the most commonly used gems I see on Templars, and for good reason: it has a pretty long range and scales well with Physical Damage nodes. This build has extremely high survivability with high elemental resistances and significantly increased health pool, along with decent life on hit to top off your HP when you take damage.

• Forum topic
• Passive skill tree: 30 points, 60 points, 80 points

These of course are just some of the most popular builds and by no means the only ones you can go for. They seem to work for a lot of players so instead of experimenting with everything yourself, you can build your character based around these passive skill tree builds and make sure you don’t waste any.

As usual I encourage you to pick a build that fits your play style, so for example if you prefer to get in monster’s faces and bash their heads one by one then I don’t recommend you go for the dual totem + zombies build. Some players find it extremely boring so make sure you read the comments on all builds before you spend hours leveling a character.

And of course if you have any other efficient builds you want to share simply post them in the comments below!

Main contents:

• Skill gems & sockets
• General gameplay tips
• Skills
• Classes
• Items
• Combat
• Parties
• Instances

Skill gems & sockets

Sooner or later you will get your hands on some skill gems.

• Gems must be socketed in your gear to grant access to the skill.
• A gem will only go into a socket of matching colour
• Gems can be socketed and removed from sockets as much as you like. Right click a gem to remove it from a socket
• Sockets appear randomly on items. The rarity of an item does not affect how many sockets it has.
• Sockets can be linked. The links are shown as gold bars between the sockets. Support gems affect any skill gems in sockets that they are linked to.
• Gems you have socketed in gear you are wearing will gain experience and level up, even if you are not using the skills they grant.

General gameplay tips

• Flasks recharge slightly every time you kill an enemy. So don’t be afraid to use flasks that are full to keep your life and mana topped up – your flasks are only replenishing their charges when they aren’t already full.
• Items with great stats might seem like the best choice at first, but don’t neglect sockets. As long as they are socketed, skill gems gain experience whether you are using the skills they grant or not, so keeping them socketed will mean they get more powerful sooner. A good socket arrangement on an item with mediocre stats is sometimes a better choice than a great item with bad sockets.
• Spend some time looking at the passive skill web, it can appear daunting at first, but it will soon become familiar. Skill points can be refunded, but refund points are hard to come by, so choose wisely.
• If you’re just starting out and are unsure how you wish to play your character, try to avoid specialising too heavily. For instance, stay away from skills that improve one handed weapon damage if you feel you might end up liking to swing a two-hander.

Skills

Skill Types

Skills currently come in two main varieties: spells, and attack skills. Any skill that uses your weapon damage counts as an attack skill, and everything else counts as a spell.

• Attack skills – Attack skills are dependent on your weapon, and so are affected by attack speed, accuracy, etc.. Bonus damage from rings and other gear is applied when using an attack skill.
• Spells – Spells do not draw their damage from your weapon in any way. They are affected by % cast speed, %fire/cold/lightning damage, %spell damage, and critical strikes. Integer damage bonuses on gear are not added to spells.
• Traps – Traps are very similar to spells, but are not affected by cast speed or spell damage mods. They are affected by % trap laying speed, and relevant damage mods. Integer damage bonuses on gear are not added to spells.

The only exception to this is Town Portal, which is not affected by attack speed, cast speed, or anything else.

Support Gems

Support gems only affects skills where it makes sense. For instance, skills that do not already do damage (such as Temporal Chains) will not benefit from Added Cold Damage. Skills that do not already have an area of effect will not benefit from Increased Area of Effect, etc.

Skill gem experience gain

• Gems get experience equal to 10% of the experience you earn.
• The number of gems you have equipped has no effect on the rate of XP gain. So having less gems equipped does not cause them to gain XP faster than if you had many gems equipped.
• Gems are not affected by the experience penalty when facing enemies below your level.

Classes

The main difference between the classes is their stating location on the passive skill tree. Classes also start with different amounts of attributes at level 1:

• Marauder: 30 STR, 14 DEX, 14 INT
• Ranger: 14 STR, 30 DEX, 14 INT
• Witch: 14 STR, 14 DEX, 30 INT
• Duelist: 22 STR, 22 DEX, 14 INT
• Templar: 22 STR, 14 DEX, 22 INT
• Shadow: Dex/Int: 14 STR, 22 DEX, 22 INT

Life/mana per level

All classes begin with the same base stats, and gain the same amount per level:

• 50 life, +6 per level
• 40 mana, +4 per level
• 50 evasion, +3 per level (including level 1)

Attributes

Attributes are required to equip gear and skills. The three attributes also grant some passive bonuses:

• Strength grants +0.5 life and +0.2% melee physical damage per point
• Dexterity grants +2 accuracy and +0.2% evasion per point
• Intelligence grants +0.5 mana and +0.2% energy shield per point

Therefore the +10 attribute passive skills effectively grant:

• +10 Strength: +5 life, +2% melee physical damage
• +10 Dexterity: +20 accuracy, +2% evasion
• +10 Intelligence: +5 mana, +2% energy shield

Life and mana regeneration

All classes have a base mana regeneration rate of 105% of their maximum mana per minute. For example, a character with 100 maximum mana will regenerate 105 mana per minute, or 1.75 mana per second. “Increased Mana regeneration rate” modifiers modify the base rate. For example, 20% Increased Mana regeneration rate would result in 105 * 1.2 = 126% per minute. Characters do not begin with any life regeneration, but it is available from gear and passive skills.

The regeneration rate of life gained from life leech is capped at 20% of maximum life per second. If you have 1000 maximum life, and leech 600 life with a single attack, it will take three seconds for that life to be applied to your current life. You always get the full amount of life leeched, it is only the rate at which it regenerates that is capped – if you leech a large amount of life during a battle, you may find that the regeneration continues long after the battle is over. Similar to flasks, the regeneration from leech will stop if you reach maximum life. The same is true for mana leech, although the cap is 12.5% of maximum mana per second.

Items

Attribute requirements

Most gear has attribute requirements that must be met in order to equip the gear. These requirements come from the base item type and are unaffected by magical modifiers, quality, or number of sockets. A complete list of gear and attribute requirements can be found here.

Level requirements

Some items have a level requirement that must be met in order to equip the item. There are two factors that affect level requirements:

• The level of the base item type. This is the level that the item starts appearing (and is separate from the itemlevel that affects which magical modifiers can spawn on it). See the item data link above for a list with all item levels. Some of the very low-level base items do not come with a level requirement.
• The level of the magical modifiers. The level requirement for magical modifiers is equal to 80% of the level of the highest-level magical modifier on the item.
• The highest level requirement of the two listed above is the one that appears on the item.

Drop rates

There is a penalty to the chance of currency items (scrolls, orbs, etc.) dropping in areas with a monster level more than two levels lower than your character level. For each additional level that you have compared to the area’s monster level+2, the chance of a currency item drop is reduced by 2.5%. So if you are level 30 in a level 20 area, you will see 20% less currency item drops on average:

2.5*(30-(20+2))=20

A level 30 character in a level 28 area will see no penalty. Currency item Drops are not increased or decreased in this way when fighting in areas above your level. For the purposes of this penalty, your level is never considered to be higher than 58. Therefore a level 70 character receives no penalty in a level 56 area.

There are two modifiers that affect drop rates in the game, increased item rarity, and increased item quantity. There are three potential sources of these modifiers:

1. the player (skills, passives, gear etc.)
2. monsters (such as bosses and champions)
3. party bonuses

Modifiers from the player stack additively with each other, and are subject to diminishing returns. Modifiers from the party bonus and monsters stack additively with each other, and are not subject to diminishing returns. The total player bonus stacks multiplicatively with the total party & monster bonus.

Increased Item Rarity

Increased Item Rarity % modifiers increase the chances of an item being magic, rare, or unique. For example with a total of +100% increased item rarity, you’d get twice as many magic items, twice as many rares and twice as many uniques from normal enemies. This modifier has no effect on the number or type of currency items, scrolls, or gems that drop. When in a party, only the modifier from the player who lands the killing blow on an enemy is counted. If one of your minions gets a kill, the minion’s IIR is added to yours and the total is used. Magic, rare, and unique monsters have an Increased item rarity modifier for drops.

Increased Item Quantity

This modifier increases the average number of items that drop from monsters and chests. It does not affect the type, quality, or rarity of item dropped, only the chance that something will drop. There is no cap on the usefulness of this modifier, as monsters can drop more than one item at a time. The base chance for an item to drop from a normal monster is 16%. This varies between monster types, and special monsters have higher drop chances. When in a party, each player in the party after the first gives the equivalent of +50% item quantity modifier on drops.

Quality

All weapons, armour, flasks and gems can randomly receive between +1% and +20% quality. This value can be increased by Whetstones, Armour Shards, Flask Quality Upgrades, and Gem Quality Upgrades, but is capped at 20%. The effect of quality depends on the item:

• On weapons, increased physical damage
• On armour, increased Armour rating, Evasion, Energy Shield, and Shield Block Chance
• On flasks, increased life and mana recovery
• On gems, the bonus is specific to each gem. For instance, Frenzy gets increased damage, while Cleave gets increased attack speed.
• On maps, increases the item quantity bonus from monsters in the map area.

Modifiers

Modifiers are split up in to two main groups, prefixes and suffixes. A magic item can have only one prefix and one suffix, never two prefixes or two suffixes. Rare items can have up to six modifiers, it is unknown if there is a limit on how many of these can be prefixes/suffixes. A randomly generated rare item (from a drop or Orb of Alchemy) receives between four and six modifiers randomly, with the following odds:

• 1/12 chance of 6 mods
• 4/12 chance of 5 mods
• 7/12 chance of 4 mods

All modifiers have a level associated with them, and will only appear on items whos item level is greater than or equal to the modifier’s level. Lists of available magical modifiers are available in the item data section. The “Culling Strike” modifier (found on some unique items) causes monsters to die if you strike them down to 10% or less life.

Modifier Stacking

In general, integer modifiers are applied before percentages. Percentage modifiers using the words “% increased” or “% reduced” stack additively with one another, while “% more” and “% less” modifiers stack multiplicatively. When dealing with weapons, some modifiers that are listed on the weapon itself are applied first, before mods from other pieces of equipment, skills, and so on. This includes anything affecting physical damage, such as increased physical damage, added physical damage, quality etc., and also attack speed, critical strike chance, critical strike multiplier, and accuracy. It does not include elemental damage mods.

Similarly, when dealing with armour, evasion, and energy shield on armour, any modifiers affecting those stats that are listed on the piece of armour are applied first. This includes quality and any other mods directly affecting armour, evasion, or energy shield amount. It does not include mods affecting the energy shield recharge delay or regeneration rate, only the amount of energy shield.

Imagine I have 100 life, and two passive skills that increase total life by 15%. The total bonus will be 30%, resulting in 130 life. Now imagine I am wearing boots that give +40 life, and have a passive skill that grants +20 life. The integer bonuses are applied first, giving me 160 life, then the percentage bonuses are applied to that subtotal, for a final total of 208 life.

Quality behaves differently on armour and flasks than on weapons. On armour and flasks, it stacks multiplicatively with other modifiers on that piece of equipment. Quality on weapons stacks additively with other % modifiers on the weapon.

Sockets

There are three types of sockets:

1. Strength (red)
2. Dexterity (green)
3. Intelligence (blue)

Sockets appear randomly on most equipable items. Higher level items can appear with more sockets than lower level items of the same type. The maximum amount of sockets that can appear on an item also varies by the type of item:

• Two handed weapons and body armour can have up to 6 sockets
• Wands, shields, and one handed weapons can have a maximum of 3 sockets
• Everything else can have a maximum of 4 sockets

One exception to this is the starting weapon that appears on the beach at the start of the game. Its item level is 1 but it always has one socket of each colour.

• Items are more likely to receive sockets that match their attribute requirements. So an item requiring only dexterity is more likely to have green sockets than red or blue sockets.
• You can only put a blue (intelligence) gem in a blue socket, red gem in a red socket, etc.
• Sockets can be linked. The links are shown as gold bars between the sockets. Support gems affect any skill gems in sockets that they are linked to.

Additionally, two skill gems of the same type can be used in separate socket groups, resulting in more than one usable version of that skill. Skill Gems are only affected by support gems in the same socket group. For example, imagine a piece of armour with 5 sockets. The first two sockets are linked in one group, and the remaining three sockets are linked in a separate group. If you put Cleave and Faster Attacks in the first group, and Cleave, Added Fire Damage, and Added Cold Damage in the second group, you would have two different versions of cleave available – one cleave skill that attacks faster, and another cleave that does bonus fire and cold damage. Small letters appear over the skill icons for each support gem you have attached to that skill. This allows you to differentiate between the different versions if you have more than one of the same skill gem equipped.

Item level

Each item has a level associated with it that is equal to the monster level of the area it dropped in. The monster level is shown on the map overlay. Rare and unique monsters have +2 to their level, and will yield items with an itemlevel two levels higher than other monsters in the same area. You can check an item’s level by picking it up on the cursor and typing /itemlevel in the chat box. This item level determines which modifiers it can receive, and how many sockets it can receive.

Vendor Item levels

Items obtained from vendors can have an item level up to character level + 1, but will not exceed the following maximums:

• Normal Act 1: 16
• Normal Act 2: 25
• Cruel Act 1: 31
• Cruel Act 2: 35
• Ruthless Act 1: 43
• Ruthless Act 2: 48
• Merciless Act 1: 50
• Merciless Act 2: 50

Item level needed for number of sockets (research ongoing)

• 1 socket : 1
• 2 sockets: 1
• 3 sockets: 15
• 4 sockets: 28
• 5 sockets: 35
• 6 sockets: 50 (lowest seen so far)

Combat

Level scaling

1. Effect of level on PvP Damage

Level itself does not affect any combat calculations outside of PvP. Damage in PvP is scaled based on level as follows:

damage multiplier = 1/(1+(attacker_level/8))

For example a level 30 character will have their PvP damage reduced by 79%, while a level 60 character will have their damage reduced by 88%.

2. Effect of level on experience

Level also affects the amount of XP you gain from killing enemies. There are two penalties that are applied, one when in a party, and another based on the relative level of the player and monsters. Both of these are applied at the same time if you are both in a party, and too far above or below the monster level.

The multiplier for XP while in a party is players share (Level+10)^2.71 divided by the total of all players shares. For example, if a level 10 player was partied with a level 30 player:

• Level 10 player’s share: (10+10)^2.71 = 3355
• Level 30 player’s share: (30+10)^2.71 = 21957
• Total Shares: 3356 + 21957 = 25313
• Level 10 player would receive: 3355/25313 = 0.132 = 13.2% of the XP
• Level 30 player would receive: 21957/25313 = 0.867 = 86.7% of the XP

The player also suffers a penalty to XP if they are too far above or below the monster’s level. There is a safe level range where no penalty is applied, which is equal to three, plus one for every sixteen complete player levels. Any additional level difference in excess of this safe range is called the Effective Difference.

The formula then applied is:

((PlayerLevel +5)^1.5) / ((PlayerLevel+5+(EffectiveDifference^2.5))^1.5)

So a level 24 character has a safe band of 3+1=4 levels. So from Monster level 20 to 28, there is an effective level difference of 0. At Monster Levels 19 and 29, the Effective level difference is 1. The Effective Difference matters in either direction. Here are graphs of the experience multiplier by monster level and by effective level.

3. Effect of level on currency item drops

See the drop rates section above for details on how level affects currency item drops.

Dual wielding

Dual wielding grants a +10% attack speed bonus, and a 15% chance to block. The attack speed bonus is applied multiplicatively with other attack speed modifiers. The default attack and certain other skills will alternate between each weapon, striking with each hand in turn. Some skills (such as Cleave and Dual Strike) attack with both weapons at once, while others only use the main-hand weapon.

Hit & damage calculation order of effects

There are a number of steps involved in deciding whether an attack hits or not and how much damage is done:

1. Avoiding the hit:

• At this stage there is a chance to evade attacks (accuracy vs evasion)
• Any chance to dodge from acrobatics or phase acrobatics is also checked here

2. Avoiding the damage:

• Blocking is checked

3. Mitigating the damage:

• Physical damage reduction and resitances are applied

4. Taking the damage:

• Non-chaos damage is removed from energy shield until it’s depleted.
• Any remaining damage (including all chaos) is removed from life.

Stuns

Whenever a player or monster takes damage, there is a chance they will be stunned. A stun interrupts whatever that creature was doing while a brief animation is played. The default length of stuns is 350ms. The duration of stuns can be altered by reduced block and stun recovery, increased stun duration, and similar modifiers.

The formula used for determining whether or not a stun occurs is:

stun_chance = 200 * damage / defender_effective_max_life

Where defender_effective_max_life is the maximum life of the creature being hit. Increases to monster life from a party of more than one player do not affect defender_effective_max_life. For a player with Chaos Inoculation, their defender_effective_max_life is whatever their max life would be if they did not have Chaos Inoculation. Reduced stun threshold modifiers reduce the value of defender_effective_max_life.

For example, 25% stun threshold reduction means you treat their maximum life as only 75% as much as it actually is, meaning you stun them easier. If the stun chance would be less than or equal to 25%, it’s ignored, so you need to deal more than 12.5% of effective maximum life to have a chance to stun.

Accuracy

Accuracy is compared to enemy evasion when determining if an attack hits or misses. The complete formula is below:

chance to hit = attacker_accuracy / ( attacker_accuracy + ((defender_evasion/4)^0.8))

Chance to hit can never be lower than 5%, nor higher than 95%.

Evasion

Evading an attack prevents all damage and other harmful effects from the attack. Only attacks and attack skills can be evaded. Spells cannot be evaded.

Blocking

Blocking an attack prevents all damage and other harmful effects from the attack. Usually, only attacks and attack skills can be blocked, but there are some passive skills that allow you to block spells. Chance to block is capped at 75%. When an attack is blocked, the game first calculates if the attack would have caused a stun were it not blocked. If it would have caused a stun, the blocking animation is played, stunning you briefly. If it would not have caused a stun, then you get a “free” block with no animation. Faster Block and Stun Recovery and Increased Block Recovery modifiers reduce the length of the blocking animation.

Armor / Damage Reduction

Damage Reduction reduces physical damage taken. Elemental damage and damage-over-time are not affected. The amount of damage reduction depends on the defender’s armour total, and the attacker’s attack damage:

reduction = armor / (armor + 12*damage)

The amount of reduction is capped, it cannot be more than 95%.

The fact that damage reduction scales with the amount of damage means it is difficult to know exactly how much damage is being reduced. An easy to remember rule of thumb is that to achieve 50% damage reduction, you will need an armour rating equal to twelve times that of the damage being dealt. For example, to achieve 50% damage reduction against a 100 damage hit, you’ll need 1200 armour.

Here are two graphical representations of the armor formula:

1. Effect of X Armour on Damage
2. Effect of Armour on X Damage

Energy Shield

As long as you have greater than 0 Energy Shield, you have a 50% chance to avoid stun. Energy Shield acts as an additional hit point pool on top of life. If you have any Energy Shield remaining when you take damage, the damage is subtracted from the Energy Shield first. Damage is only applied to life once all Energy Shield is depleted. The exception to this is Chaos Damage, which ignores Energy Shield.

Energy Shield will recharge if you do not take any damage for a certain period of time. The default delay is 6 seconds. This time can be reduced with reduced energy shield delay modifiers from passive skills and gear. The formula for the recharge delay is:

100 / ( 100 + reduction )

So 100% reduction is halving the delay, not removing it entirely.

Critical Strikes

Whenever you use a skill or attack, you have a chance to deal a Critical Strike. Critical Strikes are rolled on a per-action basis, not per-monster. So each time you use a skill, the Critical Strike roll is made once and only once. If you roll a Critical Strike, you will deal Critical damage to all enemies hit by the skill.

Critical Strikes do more damage than normal, based on your Critical Strike Damage Multiplier. All characters have a base Critical Strike multiplier of 150%, meaning a critical strike does 150% of normal damage. This multiplier can be increased with various skills and modifiers on items. For instance, with a multiplier of 250%, if you deal a Critical Strike with attack that normally does 100 damage, you will instead deal 250 damage.

The chance to deal a critical strike is taken from the weapon used to perform an attack or attack skill, and in the case of spells, each spell has it’s own critical strike chance, which is listed in the skill gem’s description.
This value can be increased by increased critical strike chance modifiers from spells and gear. For example, if you are using a weapon with 5% chance to crit, and you have 50% increased critical strike chance, you will have a 7.5% chance to score a critical strike.

Critical chance can not be less than 5% nor more than 95%. Critical Strike Chance and Critical Strike Damage Multiplier are calculated separately for each spell and weapon attack. All weapons and damage-dealing spells have a base Critical Strike chance listed on them. This only affects your chance to critical for attacks made with that weapon or spell. For instance the critical strike chance on a wand does not affect your chance to critical with a spell.

Damage Types

There are currently 5 main types of damage, they are Physical, Fire, Cold, Lightning, and Chaos. Fire, Cold, and Lightning are collectively known as Elemental Damage. Damage reduction from armour only affects physical damage. Each of the elemental damage types has it’s own resistance value (eg “Fire resistance”) which is viewable in the character sheet. Resistances reduce damage taken, and are capped at 75%.

Fire damage

If you land a critical strike with an attack or spell that deals fire damage, the enemy begins Burning. Burning causes damage over time. Humanoids, Monkeys and Sea Witches will flee while burning.
Burning lasts 4 seconds, and the amount of damage over time is 1/3 of the fire damage dealt per second. So a total of 4/3 of the original damage, over 4 seconds.

Cold damage

Hitting an enemy with cold damage can cause the enemy to be Chilled. Critical hits with cold damage can also cause the target to be Frozen. Chilled enemies move, attack, and cast 30% slower, while frozen enemies cannot do anything except drink flasks.

Lightning damage

If you land a critical strike with an attack or spell that deals lightning damage, the enemy becomes Shocked. This can be stacked up to three times on one target. In this state, monsters or players take 40% additional damage per instance of Shock. Shock stacks additively with itself, for a maximum of 120% with a stack of three. The damage multiplier itself applies multiplicatively with your final damage, since it it increasing the damage the enemy takes, rather than the damage you deal.

Chaos Damage

Chaos damage ignores energy shield, reducing life directly.

Burning, Chilled, Frozen, and Shocked are collectively known as Status Ailments. The duration of the chilled, frozen, and shocked statuses is related to the amount of cold/lightning damage dealt.
If the duration based on the damage would be less that 300ms, it’s ignored entirely.

Charges

Some skills grant Endurance (strength), Frenzy (dexterity), or Power (intelligence) charges. Each charge lasts a short duration before it disappears. Gaining a charge resets the duration of all accumulated charges.

• Endurance charges are related to the strength attribute and grant +5% physical damage reduction, and +5% to elemental resistances (fire, cold, and lightning) per charge. The physical damage reduction stacks with the damage reduction from armour, so that they are both applied at the same time. For example, if a monster deals 100 damage, and you have 10% DR from two endurance charges, and enough armour to prevent 30 of the 100 damage, the incoming damage would be reduced by 40.
• Frenzy charges are related to the dexterity attribute and grant +5% attack speed and +5% cast speed per charge.
• Power charges are related to the intelligence attribute and grant +50% critical strike chance per charge.

By default characters can have a maximum number of 3 active charges of each type at one time. This maximum can be increased by certain passive skills.

Parties

The maximum party size is 6 players. In order to play with your friends, you’ll first need to finish the first zone called Twilight Strand (takes about 5 minutes). To group up with random players use the message board in towns, or open the social window (“S” hotkey) and click the “Public Parties” tab.

Monsters in party

Monsters gain 50% extra life for each additional party member after the first. For example, against a party of 3 players, monsters have double life. The original life amount is used for the purposes of determining the length of stuns and status ailments from elemental damage – this means monsters will not be harder to stun/ignite/etc. when fighting in a party.

Loot in party

Each player in a party after the first gives the equivalent of +50% item quantity modifier on drops. So a party of three will see twice as many drops as a lone character. Increased Item Rarity & Quantity modifiers are only counted from the player who lands the killing blow.

Experience in groups

For a description on how experience is shared between players, see the level scaling section above. Only party members actually in the instance count toward getting XP. If one member is in town he gets no XP. Experience is only shared with other players who are near you (roughly two screens). Monsters are still made harder by players elsewhere on the level. Being in a dungeon with a party member grants you a 30% experience bonus. Monsters give +50% base XP for every party member after the first.

Flasks in groups

Only the character landing the killing blow on an enemy will gain flask charges. The same is true for all +life and +mana gained “when you deal a killing blow” modifiers. Flasks have a +75% charge recovery bonus for each party member after the first.

Instances

All areas in Path of Exile are instanced. When you enter an area, a new instance is created. Once you leave the area, the instance will remain in its current state for 15 minutes – if 15 minutes passes with no players entering the instance, it will be closed. Entering the same area again will create a new instance with a new randomly generated map. Areas without side areas attached (any area with two or less exits) has a shorter timer, and will only last 8 minutes while empty.

Instances you create are private, and cannot be entered by other players unless they join your party. However, once a player has entered an instance, that instance remains associated with the player even if they leave the party. So it is possible to share an instance with non-party members in some circumstances. The exception to this is towns, which are always public, and cut-throat leagues, where all instances are public – meaning anyone can enter your instances at any time.

Some areas have waypoints. Once activated (by clicking on the waypoint), waypoints allow you to travel instantly to any other waypoint you have activated. Ctrl-clicking on a waypoint destination in the waypoint menu, or an area transition will bring up the instance management screen. This screen lists all available instances of the area you ctrl-clicked on, and the time remaining until they are closed. It also allows you to create new instances, and enter existing ones.

Using the instance management screen you can have more than once instance of the same area open at one time, and choose which available instance you want to enter.

If you know any other good video guides for Path of Exile (or if you made one) be sure to let me know!